A few years ago this happened at Street Chess ("Stolen laptop halts play"). Sadly a new criminal has struck, stealing a bag of DGT clocks. Once again it was a crime of opportunity, and occurred while other equipment was being transported to the playing area. Fortunately we had a backup system (old analog clocks), so the show did go on, albeit with the tick tick tick of past millenia.
What anyone would do with stolen digital chess clocks (apart from play chess) is a good question. Not the easiest gear in the world to fence, so the belief for now is that they have ended up in a convenient garbage hopper.
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 April 2019
Friday, 26 August 2011
Stop, thief!
An interesting titbit in the Chessvibes report on the French Championship. The tournament schedule had to be re-arranged after 230 chess clocks were stolen from the venue. The scheduled rest day (for the B,C, and D events) was moved to the day after the theft to allow the organisers to find (or recover) clocks (The report does not say if the clocks were indeed recovered).
Very annoying, although not unprecedented. While clocks are probably the most valuable pieces of equipment at a chess tournament, fencing them may turn out to be difficult, in that they have a very specialised use. Previous large scale thefts have usually been pranks or political statements. The Australian Junior in Adelaide a few years back had all the kings stolen between rounds, and while the culprits were never caught, the pieces eventually were. A few years before that, the ANU Open had a different kind of theft, with the large score tables disappearing the night before the first round. After about 45 minutes of examining security tapes, we finally worked out that the thief had cunningly left them in the tournament hall, but had hid them behind some curtains.
Overall I'm surprised (but at the same time pleased) that theft of chess equipment isn't that common. When digital clocks first came on the scene, the odd one or two seemed to go missing at the end of a tournament, but even this seems to have stopped. And I've never really seen boards or sets go missing in large numbers either.
Very annoying, although not unprecedented. While clocks are probably the most valuable pieces of equipment at a chess tournament, fencing them may turn out to be difficult, in that they have a very specialised use. Previous large scale thefts have usually been pranks or political statements. The Australian Junior in Adelaide a few years back had all the kings stolen between rounds, and while the culprits were never caught, the pieces eventually were. A few years before that, the ANU Open had a different kind of theft, with the large score tables disappearing the night before the first round. After about 45 minutes of examining security tapes, we finally worked out that the thief had cunningly left them in the tournament hall, but had hid them behind some curtains.
Overall I'm surprised (but at the same time pleased) that theft of chess equipment isn't that common. When digital clocks first came on the scene, the odd one or two seemed to go missing at the end of a tournament, but even this seems to have stopped. And I've never really seen boards or sets go missing in large numbers either.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)