Numbered boards and scoresheets

[JBlankenship]

As a player of chess, it has always been helpful for me to have the notation printed on the tournament boards, though the longer you play the easier it is to visualize the positions on the board. That being said as a newcomer to the checkers scene I think that the numbered board would be helpful in my learning and study of the game. I have a question on where to find an official score sheet for recording ones games.

Thanks
John Blankenship
Bakersfield,CA

[tommyc]

HI J.................Welcome to checkers or draughts ........you will generally be given official score sheets at any Ty yu attend.........otherwise you can attain them from Pres.Al Millhone or Rich Beckwith(players rep)....Tommy

[Ingo_Zachos]

Dear John ,

there is a "shop" link on the homepage of the ACF.
Under "equipment" you can buy even a demo board if you like and also boards and pieces.
The pieces in red and white r also availabe as backgammon pieces in regular toy shops, at least here in Germany.
If you can't spent that much money, use litte stickers that you can buy to make marks in books and cut them to your chess board and write the numbers on it.
That way your chess board transforms into a checker board, but without regular colors, I guess.
The group checker sets and a few backgammon pieces would also be a cheap solution.
Also, for learning purposes, buy a small magnetic board that fits on a page of book, and then use a pen to write the numbers on it.
You can also use your old magnetic chess set and the pieces of a magnetic backgammon set of about the same size.

I hope my remarks were at least a little helpful.

Greetinx from another woodpusher,

Ingo Zachos

[JBlankenship]

Thank you for all the wonderful advice Ingo. I've already ordered a tournament board and pieces from the ACF equipment shop. I was in the process of looking for checkers to use with my chess board when I found the ACF web site. I'll surly be modifying a lot of chess stuff to study for checkers. I'm still trying to find out what an official checkers score sheet looks like though. Again thanks Tom and Ingo, it is nice to find such friendly helpful people!

[Palomino]

Hi John,

Here is a scan of our Indiana Score Sheet, maybe you can print and make copies of it.
A lot of players just write their move down in a spiral bound notebook.



I hope this helps.

Regards..."Pal"

[JBlankenship]

Thanks Pal
Not much unlike the chess sheets. I will be able to make a version on my computer. Again I would like to thank all the people on these forums, I have found nothing but helpful people in the checkers circle. Now to generate some interest in my community and get some games going. Thanks again!

[jimloy]

Below is a scoresheet that Alan Millhone sent me. Notice that it has a couple of numbered boards on it, which is almost as handy as playing on a numbered board. I plan to:

1. Print up some notebooks with this kind of sheet on each page with a spiral (coil) binding at the top.
2. Print up carbonless copy pairs of sheets as the ACF does, for sale on the ACF online store, mainly for tournament directors. These carbonless copies allow you to hand in a copy to your tournament director.
3. Display this image on the ACF site so people can just print it out.
4. Maybe print up notebooks like item #1 above, but with every other sheet being a yellow copy of the previous sheet, and with extra cardboard on the back cover that can be inserted between sheets so you don't accidentally copy your game on other sheets of your notebook. Then you can hand in a copy from your notebook.

[Ingo_Zachos]

Dear Jim, I would recommend to ban the score sheet that you posted above at once!

Why?

Here is why:

1. Where is the space to fill in the result?
Where is the space for the signatures?
-> it is incomplete!

2. Do we play on white squares like the pictures on it indicate?
No, we use the green ones, as we all know.
Do you think a player that is deeply concentrated in his/her game can "translate" those images and produce proper notation with it?
We used a similar sheet in Beijing, and it only confused the players!
-> it is confusing

3. Does it have enough space to write down a full move? The space allocated to a move is ridiculously small, and if you have to note a draw offer with a "=" after a move, if you use a "X" or if you make a king and you notate 11-4(K) to make it easier to check the 40-move count, you run out of space!
-> there is not enough space on it for a full move.

4. Is it logical structured?
No, a red move is above a white move, not in the same row!
It is very easy to write down two red moves and no white moves and not see it in this unstructured and artificial arrangement.
-> it is too artificial and not well structured (too complicated)

Summary:
Keep your hands off!

The score sheet by palomino is much better, as it is complete, offers more space for a move and is well and easy structured.
It has no image of a board on it, but at least no wrong image of a board that confuses.

I would recommend to use that sheets and a numbered board.
Numbers on a tournament board should be required to assist the players to produce proper notation, as the notation is a document that helps the arbiter to decide in case of troubles.
If we still insist that the numbers confuse, why do we study books? Aren't these numbers confusing, too?

Greetinx from cold and rainy Europe,

Ingo Zachos

P.S: In chess we use score sheets with a carbon copy. Try these!

[jimloy]

Wow, I didn't mean to give offense!

I agree that the diagrams should look better and I didn't notice that there was no place for results (I thought there was). I'm not used to Red and White being in separate columns, but that seems to be the way we are headed. I would try to design a better scoresheet, but I don't want to anger you further.

[Ingo_Zachos]

Wow, I didn't mean to give offense!

I apologize Jim, for my remarks offended you.
That was not the purpose at all as I knew and never doudted that your intentions were not provocative.

Your posting is indeed very helpful, as it shows what can be wrong with a simple score sheet.
I wanted to point out the setbacks of this score sheet as clear as possible.
I played with them at Prague and at once felt uncomfortable with them.
When you posted an image of it here, I thought for a while why i don't like it and came to the conclusions outlined above.

Maybe I should have left out sentences as "ban the score sheet at once" or "Keep your hands off", as now they seem offending to me. I am sorry for that, but obviously I was too provocative and not you.


My point was: I prefer the simplier score sheet by palomino as it has more space, an easy-to-grasp structure and space for the result and signatures, which the one you posted does not have.

'm not used to Red and White being in separate columns, but that seems to be the way we are headed

Well, it does not need to be like this exactly, but that way it has a simple and clear structure, remember the KISS-rule!

Probably a player's eyes when using that sheet will flicker around the sheet all the times to look at the notation "help"( having to translate the white squre numbers to green/black square numbers!), and then to find the space where you have to fill in the next move, and back and a great deal of confusion is created.
In the other sheet, you write the basic data (names, venue, date) on top and then you just concentrate on the next free cell in the chart, as there the next move will be filled in. After the game you just use the space for result and signature and that's all you have to do and it is quite easy for the referee to see if the required moves have been made and which is the result of course, provided the result has been filled in correctly )

I doubt whether a notation help is advisable at all, as it makes the sheet more complicated and takes space that wil result in less space for the filling of the moves made.

Instead, the boards should have the numbers on it. Decently , of course, and not with fat letters or colored letters or artful letters. Just small and simple, but recognizeable.

The youth boards the ACF sells r good examples for that, as is the example posted above.

Greetinx from Dortmund, Germany

Ingo Zachos

[tommyc]

AAHHHHHHHH Good man Ingo,it takes a good man to know and admit it when he is wrong and gone over the proverbial TOP.!!...................................NOW WHAT ABT THOSE ANGER-MANAGEMENT COURSES??

[jimloy]

Thank you, Ingo. You are a gentleman. I realize that it is sometimes too easy (it is even traditional) to insult on an Internet forum. Your sin was very minor compared to what I have experienced elsewhere. And obviously we are on the same side here, trying to popularize our wonderful game.

If the players have never recorded a game and are not playing on a numbered board, then they need a numbered board somewhere to have any hope of recording the game. I suspect that players will not always be playing on numbered boards. If numbered boards are shown on the scoresheet, then they should have white numbers on dark squares.

If I had designed that scoresheet, it would have just had the one column, but that probably makes it way too easy to skip a move. I vote for the two column idea.

"Circle correct result" is better than a "Result: _______" but either of those is much better than nothing.

I never thought of signatures. There ought to be a place for signatures. It implies that the two players agree that the game is finished and the results are as shown on the scoresheet.

The scoresheet that I showed has those four blank lines ("vs." etc.) at the top, which are unnecessary, except that (years later) I would like to know which tournament this was. At ACF Nationals, the tournament name is preprinted there.

Spaces for round number, game number, and date are very handy. "Start time" and "end time" are almost never used, but may be interesting info in some games. "Team:" is of course unnecessary.

[tommyc]

Ouch ......isnt it so interesting to find 2 men who are willing to re-evaluate their positions....... its such a breath of fresh air,pity we dont have more of whose unlike the usual "its my way or no way" guys that rear their ugly heads at times acting like the are "politicians" of some major party or something to that effect and boring to boot.Fair play to Ingo and Jim 2 guys who are not afraid to wear the heart on their sleeves and be transparent unlike alot of the rheteric we ve heard from so-called leaders of the pack lately................"god save checkers" with guys like that around who seem to form an "exclusive" club where its back slapping all round..............My vote goes to men like INGO AND JIM,!!

[william]

Interesting scoresheets!!

Ingo , do you remember the " innocent incident " in bejeing ?

I had blacks ( first player ) and Igor had whites (second player ) . I won the game and Igor ( quite innocently I must insist ) wrote down 0 : 1 . This would mean black 0 , white 1 . In Igor's thinking ( russian rules , where white is first player, and black is second player) this was white 0 and black 1.

A scoresheet with pre-determined results as posted seems to me to be the best idea , especially as we are getting more and more players from 64 russian game . All that has to be done is cirlce the result ie.black win and sign in the signature box !!

lucky for me I spotted Igor 's error and corrected before signing but this could have been embarrasing situation for checkers in Bejeing if I hadn't!

Greetings to all , oh , i almost forgot , ...Music lovers , do not go to my page on youtube LOL to hear recent postings , anyone else is welcome

[tommyc]

Would someone tell Al Millhone his in box is full...........i only have the "wirefire" addy.