Paranoia over the board

This post at the Boylston Chess Club blog revels in a rules changes that mandates a player must move and then write down his move, not vice-versa. Apparently it is "note-taking" if you write down a move before its made. Honestly this doesn't send my blood pressure sky-rocketing to dangerous levels.. but I think its a pretty weak rule.

First let me decribe my typical move process.

1. Write down opponents recently made move
2. Analyze position
3. Select a move
4. Write down selected move
5. Perform "blunder check"
6. Make move
7. Press clock

The action of writing the selected move, then performing the blunder check breaks your train of thought enough to sometime catch overlooked and often obvious mistakes. I find it a useful tool. Its also a tool that may come into play once every 2 or 3 games. I do on occassion change my mind after writing down the move and performing the blunder check, but not frequently enough that it should bother any one.

And that brings me to the real issue I have here. Why does any one care what I've written down. Look at the board and the position instead of what I am doing. That is what chess is all about. It was brought up that people could potentially come to the board and write down reams of notes that they had crammed just prior to a game. To this I call hogwash. In all the tournaments I've ever been a part of I've never seen anything even close to this.

I'm unsure where I actually stand on note-taking .. I mean actual note taking .. not just writing down your move before the move is played. It some respects I don't see the problem with someone writing down a line as they work it out at the board. Its their time on the time control. Why should someone who works better on paper be penalized over someone who works best in their head. Come to think of it, I don't like when someone looks up and to the left during a game. That indicates the brain is accessing long term memory and gives me a distinct disadvantage. Can we outlaw that too?

Anyway even IF note-taking should be illegal I think tournament directors should decide what is and isn't note-taking on a case-by-case basis. This rule is a bit far reaching and misguided in my opinion. At least if it was a TD decision and I didn't like a particular decision I could just boycott tournaments directed by that particular TD in the future.

Anyway let the debate rage on. At least I've tried to formulate a counter argument and I feel a bit better about the whole issue now that I've said my peice.

Edit: For the record while I pre-write my moves, I never have attempted to "cover them up". Either way I direct you to my previous comment, "who cares what I'm doing, study the board bloke".