Life In 19x19

Is using paper and pencil prohibited during play? I personally feel that it could come in handy refining my counting and positional judgement.

according to the AGA rules, it is permitted, but you have to show anything you write to your opponent.

speedchase wrote:according to the AGA rules, it is permitted, but you have to show anything you write to your opponent.

Do you have to show them while you are playing? That seems kind of weird.

SmoothOper wrote:Do you have to show them while you are playing? That seems kind of weird.

Well, they would hardly be useful to your opponent after the game ended!
Personally I think it's a foolish rule, go is a mental game, writing isn't part of it.

Keeping notes with pencil and paper seem like a bad crutch to start using. It's best to just keep things in your head. Paper and pencil is generally allowed in order for people to record games.

SmoothOper wrote:

speedchase wrote:according to the AGA rules, it is permitted, but you have to show anything you write to your opponent.

Do you have to show them while you are playing? That seems kind of weird.

It's to avoid giving an advantage to the person writing. If one is counting mentally, and the other is writing it, the one writing doesn't need as much mental power devoted to counting.

I think that if you are recording the game, it also has to be visible to the opponent.

I thought that taking notes was forbidden in european tournament rules, but am not sure right now.

I think It could be handy if you were keeping a record of the moves as you played (and that's is, as you play) And then later write down notes as a stronger player helped you review.
That would you could say "Move 106 should have been here and not there" But as said above, Having that knowledge in your head and the ability to call upon it is more important. But hey, Everyone learns differently.

I would just say keep the notes on game play for a post-game review and only records the moves during the game.

people do that all the time, and I have never heard of anyone analyze during the game.

speedchase wrote:people do that all the time, and I have never heard of anyone analyze during the game.

By "that", I assume you mean recording moves? It's not clear.

Phelan wrote:By "that", I assume you mean recording moves? It's not clear.

yeah, you are correct what I meant. Sorry!

I am interested in it to facilitate counting. Not recording. IE group X has 10 points group Y has 20 group z has 5 ... etc.

That way I could free up space for reading and strategic planning.

SmoothOper wrote:I am interested in it to facilitate counting. Not recording. IE group X has 10 points group Y has 20 group z has 5 ... etc.

That way I could free up space for reading and strategic planning.

Unless you are talking about counting after the end of the game, it's as we've been saying, you can do it, but you have to show your opponent. Otherwise, you effectively have an artificial memory advantage over your opponent.

SmoothOper wrote:I am interested in it to facilitate counting. Not recording. IE group X has 10 points group Y has 20 group z has 5 ... etc.

And this might be fine, but I agree with others that it has to become public information.

Also anything we tell you is a guess here. The final decision of whether it's allowed would be from the tournament director.

Do I have to show them while playing or just afterward?

Seems like it would be tempting to write something like "Black loses by y=45, black sucks by x=30, black's hair = frizzy, white is awesome = 25..." just to obfuscate the text.

Which is why if I'm tournament director, I would say paper and pencil can only be used to record your games.

It helps to avoid this issue entirely.