Sunday 4 September 2011

In Game Commentary

The Botvinnik Memorial, which is currently being held in Moscow, is trialling a new feature. At various stages of the game, the clocks are stopped and one player takes to the microphone to explain what is going on. While this is happening, the opponent enters the 'cone of silence' (actually a set of ear muffs), so they cannot hear their opponents plan.
While this is interesting, to me it seems a trifle clumsy. If the organisers are interested in broadcasting the players thoughts, then an alternative would be to have them permanently wired for sound. Then the players could chat away to their hearts content, explaining ideas as they go. The trade off would be that the players would have to play in separate areas, using computers to transmit their moves to their opponents. The other requirement might be a '3 second' delay on the commentary, to allow the producer to bleep out any "WTF?" reactions from the players!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Cone of silence anyone?