Things will never be the same as they were before because we’ve permanently changed the world by releasing this virus. If you mean until we’ve reduced it to a controllable level via vaccine, good fortune is probably 2-3 years. That would be about 18 months to develop and test a vaccine and then time to inoculate a good portion of Earth’s population.
And that’s if we are lucky and the initial vaccines work.
If you mean, until we can go out, social distance, wear a mask, and do contract tracing, that should be sometime this summer.
The only thing I can envision would be tables with plexiglas shields running through the center of the table with maybe 10 inch cutouts above the middle of the board with smaller cut outs to the sides for the clock. The players wouldn’t physically touch the pieces or the clocks but would use tong like devices to move the pieces and press the clock buttons. The plexiglas and the tongs would all require wiping down between rounds. Players would still have to wear masks etc. There would probably be only one game per table. But I don’t see even this happening anytime soon.
The only other possibility is a quick on site test that can verify that the person isn’t infected. But that hasn’t happened yet.
There are many clocks out there (such as the later generation of Chronos models) on which the buttons are activated not by pressure, but by the touch of human skin. I’m not sure these would work if the players wore gloves. I’m sure they would not work by pressing the buttons with tongs. So such a procedure would rule out the use of all clocks of this type. Maybe that’s unavoidable, but it’s at least something to be aware of.
Microwaving a single weighted chess piece for two minutes doesn’t do very much to the piece. It slightly warms. Does not give off “vapors.” Whether that is enough time to kill viruses is a question for microbiologists. When I was a teenager working in a restaurant, we put all sorts of things into the industrial strength microwaves to see what would happen. Eggs blew up spectacularly. Water boiled just fine. Potato chips just sat there. We did have one heavy dinner plate split in half after a 12 minute zapping. Just as a joke, I brought in a chess piece to see if would melt or do anything weird. Nothing, just a little warming even when put in for 5 minutes. The manager told us to knock it off when he caught us putting thick glass sundae dishes into the machine. When a waitress brought back a steak a customer said was not well done enough, we zapped it for 5 minutes. The curled up piece of meat was scary looking and definitely not edible. We ended up throwing another steak on the grill.
I certainly would not like to have to lug a microwave to a tournament to clean pieces. As a TD, I would not want to spend time zapping plastic or wooden pieces. If it were my own pieces, a Clorox wipe will have to do. A container of these added to the chess bag is not a big deal, just a minor annoyance. The tournament kit for TDs might require having hand sanitizer in large bottles and wipes for the players to use if they ask for them. I would not go out of the way to mandate it, but just suggest we have some cleaning stuff available.
If people practiced social distancing quasi-religiously for a month or so, R0 would drop from the current 0.9-ish (the flattened curve–each case infects just under one other person) to a much lower number. Realistically, not going to happen.
So we restart events and give a case a chance to infect 100 people? Probably not a good or socially responsible idea. But if we ran events at a time when COVID-19 cases are relatively rare, AND each case was unlikely to spread to more than the case’s opponents, AND we were playing in a state with a robust testing and tracing program…
Clorox wipes (1 per game?) are something like 4 cents apiece when buying a Costco 5-pack (probably less in normal times). This will remove most of the viral load from the previous game. Of course, the players will swap germs during the game: masks are fairly useless when players are sitting across the board for hours.
Disposable gloves (average 1 pair per game?) are maybe 0.10 per game, again in bulk. Mostly for those who don’t want the Clorox wipes to touch their skin…but players who wanted to wear gloves during play would be free to do so. Maybe we could capture pieces at their base to minimize transfer of virus between players.
When I use the wipes in kitchen or bathroom, I usually don’t bother with gloves. I am also unlikely to sue myself. (RV Nuccio does offer medical coverage in addition to liability insurance.)
Default: White does the cleaning. Probably don’t want preteens handling Clorox wipes! So when two minors are playing each other, an adult (ideally Black on neighboring board, or a TD in extremis) does the cleaning for them.
Unless you have N95 masks, face masks are pretty much useless as a defense. They’re a bit more likely to keep an undiagnosed and non-symptomatic COVID patient from spreading aerosol droplets, but the data on aerosol transmission is inconsistent.
Face masks may be a good reminder to follow social distancing, though that doesn’t help chess tournaments.
Our governor has mandated masks starting May 11 and encouraging them now. But he has been clear the purpose is to protect others - not to protect the wearer.
First of all let me say that there are a lot of good thoughts here, and as the president of a small chess club that has ran local tounamanets, I appreciate all of you giving some time and though to this.
One thing I’d like to note with regard to sanitizing pieces: bleach is not a good idea. I know of a chess products vendor who has contacted many of the manufacturers of plastic chess pieces and asked about that, and they all almost universally recommend against it, as it will break down those plastics over time. A far better choice is isopropyl or ethyl alchohol, which is effective if used in solutions greater than 70%, and does not damage to the pieces, other than affect the glue that holds there felt on. I should also note that I don’t think that there is any bleach in Clorox wipes. Don’t confuse the brand name with the chemical compound.
We’ve run our tournaments in a variety of locations, I think finding a venue is one of the hardest things for a small chess club. Many of the social distancing suggestions here are good, to the point and follow the science. That being said, I don’t see any of them being feasible in the sorts of venues that are available to our club at the price points we can afford. I also wonder about liability issues as this moves forward.
As an older person with underlying conditions, I suspect my days of playing OTB chess may be over for the foreseeable future.
I’m not sure that the >70% is correct. The sweet spot seems to be right at 70%—higher than that it evaporates too quickly to do the job. And yes, most of the household wipes are ammonia-based not bleach.
Just to be a pessimistic devil’s advocate, I will note that the common cold is also caused by a coronavirus, and we have never been able to develop a vaccine for that. There is no guarantee that we will be able to develop one for this new bug either. It might be 18 months or it might be never.
I find the idea of playing chess in an environment with an ammonia or bleachy smell not very appealing. It is slightly better than dealing with people who douse themselves with cologne. Compared to venues where many fail to bathe properly, I would choose the ammonia smell over them. A friend has suggested we spray lavender about at tournaments. She says it would have a calming effect as well as covering for antiseptic smells. I think she was just teasing, but she may be on to something.
Use 6 foot tables with board and set and clock at one end. Players at both ends so they are 6 feet apart. Possibly masks etc.
The player that provides the board,set and clock is responsible for making all the moves, including pressing the clock.
The player without the board and set would simply announce his or her move.
Option two. Both players have their own board and set, both players announce their moves. One player is responsible for the clock.
Interesting thoughts. Sound kinda noisy if you have very many games in a room. Option 2 is a lot fairer than option 1. Player doing more work should get a few extra minutes. I don’t want to imagine time scrambles.
Yeah I thought about that after posting. White boards. Write your move and hold it up. Press the clock with a three foot extender of some type. Now both players are equal and not touching anything that isn’t theirs etc.
Not sure that I would want to do it. Sure wouldn’t want to direct it either. Just thinking out loud.
It might be doable for small size tournaments. (Maybe 20 players or so)
Maybe with each player having their own board the moves would simply be visible to each other. It just requires both players to move both side’s pieces.
(Unless you want to get fancy and only one color is on each board. )
While I personally believe that at some future date we will be ready as a society for events similar to what we’ve known in the past, that is my no means either imminent or a certainty. So we’ll need to kick ideas around, and even if some of them have obvious issues they may trigger other, better ideas. Such is the nature of brainstorming. Accordingly, I welcome such ideas.
Option three. Both players have their own board and set, and there is a referee in the middle. Sort of like Kriegspiel, except the referee doesn’t need his own set, and the players face toward each other instead of away from each other. There is one clock in the middle. When a player makes his move, the referee pauses the clock, then makes the move on the opponent’s board, then starts the opponent’s clock.
