I used to work with homeless people and sometimes the stench was such that your eyes would water. This can be a serious issue for hygenic as well as distractions. It is definitely a greater problem than reading THE WALL STREET JOURNAL during the game.
That’s why I’m seriously considering knitting. My focus is better and I fidgit less when my hands are engaged.
I got through a very boring sixth grade year by making a 24-foot-long gum wrapper chain during class – and the teacher, wise woman she was, knew exactly what I was doing.
Just make sure your needles don’t “click click click.” 
There used to be a question on the Senior TD exam (it may still be there) dealing with a request from a player whose opponent reeks so bad it’s making the player ill.
I’ve been told that question is based on a real player. (I don’t have trouble believing that, either.)
When I played in the National Open the year that Tal was invited to play, I thought he might become the first person to die of terminal dandruff.
That question must have been written by a NYC tournament director. I can think of a few players who would fall in that category.
That comment is in about the worst taste of any I’ve read here. Mikhail Tal is indeed dead, as you well know; and his memory certainly doesn’t need that kind of inappropriate and disrespectful comment. Moreover, it’s gratuitous: this thread is about distractions; and the last time I checked, dandruff really didn’t fall into that category, whether it’s Tal’s, Fischer’s or the milkman’s.
I am sure that you thought it was funny, and that you meant no disrespect by it. It’s certainly not like Senator Bunning telling folks back in Kentucky that Justice Ginsberg will be dead within the year.
But it’s not funny, and it makes light of a man who, I would dare to ventrure, has given more pleasure to more people than anyone else in the entire history of the game.
Nope.
Tim Just
TDCC Chair
You saw Tal whent he was aged and infirmed. It should have been a great honor to be in the same room with him. He is still the standard that all attacking players are measured by.
seriously?
They’re bamboo needles, they look like very thin barbecue skewers. They don’t click.
Eating and drinking during a tournament game usually will be common only during the 4 round Saturday Swiss tourneys when meal time between the rounds is almost nonexistent. If you have a large bowl of potato chips or French fries, offer some to your opponent.
People snack all the time at Swiss events. If your snack is crunchy or unwrapping it makes noise, do it away from the board.
Reading is disrespectful, but remember Morphy resorted to it at times during his match with Paulsen. The late Charles Powell was known to read newspapers at the board in his younger years. If the readers need punishment, deliver it on the board!
Reading at the board, esp if it irritates your opponent, is considered good psychological strategy,
by some. Screwing the pieces in the board, endlessly adjusting, etc., whatever to keep an opponent’s
mind off his game. I have had even had complaints about the twirling of mustaches, and playing with
hair. All this kind of thing is silly to me, but I know it bothers some.
I think that the best way to deal with the opponent who reads at the board is to simply play very well. This happened to me once, but he certainly put the book down in short time, and proceeded to find himself in a lost game. As long as the page-turning is not loud (such as in a newspaper), then it is something that does not distract me.
In the case of eating/drinking at the board, that is something quite different. This is often a scholastic player that is used to doing it during club play I presume, but adult players do it as well. I guess as long as it is done quietly, there is little room to cry foul. Oftentimes players have water or soda at their board while playing, but bringing a hamburger or pizza to the board is probably too much for me. I’m sure the smell itself would enough of a distraction for me! 
This too can be somewhat situational, as there are times between rounds, when a player simply did not have time to eat, usually if the previous round carried very close to the next round. I guess we just have to be as tolerant as we need to be. RG
During Foxwoods Open, I had a great position and my opponent was taking way too long (40+minutes) so I took a newspaper and sat on a adjacent table and was reading the comics.
Quite a number of years ago I had a tournament or two where I was hand sewing chess bags during my games. Needle and thread are very quiet, as long as I don’t yell when I stick myself with a needle [no I have never yelled]. I generally was able to do this without taking attention away from the game for long stretches of time. No, I can’t remember any of the results of those games.
Larry S. Cohen
Illinois
PS: the cost at the time was $0.10 each for the two pieces of 5x8" felt, plus the thread, plus the cost [about $0.50] of the cord for the drawstrings on the bag. It is maybe about double that currently.
Now that’s a wickedly overbroad rule. Taken literally, it means you can’t even get up and look over the pairings during the middle of a game. Heck, it means you can’t even use your own scoresheet.
Sure, common sense will tell you, as earlier posters have said, that this refers to reference matter . . . but rules shouldn’t be written in a way that requires common sense to apply them appropriately. If everyone had his full complement of common sense, that kind of rule wouldn’t be necessary.
Sigh! No it doesn’t mean that.
I said “taken literally.” Obviously that isn’t the intent of the rule, but it is the most (absurdly) literal interpretation of it.