Monroi Competition Needed

[menniepals]

Because Monroi is too expensive for chess players, I would suggest that Chess Tiger, maybe Hiarcs or Chess Genius be used to compete with it. The engines for these programs should be disabled and the Palm unit that it runs might be disabled of any purpose except for recording of chess games. No other programs should be able to run in them. I think there are other chess freeware interface for the palm that can potentially be converted for this purpose. I hope this idea would be read by people who can do this stuff. Thanks,Alfred

[Cubeman]

I think Mon Roi is aimed at tournament organisers that perhaps want live feed to a server, or quick PGN files of games.To be used solely for entering moves for personal use is not what the market they are aiming for.
When I play in OTB tournaments I either write down moves on a scoresheet in long time control games.
But in rapid games I don't have time to write moves down so instead rely on my memory to recreate the game.I think that any other electrical PDA type device will cause too much suspicion by your opponents that you could possibly be cheating which is not fair to them, even though you know yourself you are not.

[shiv]

I believe Mon Roi does intend to compete as an electronic scorebook. Note that the live feed of games would not work if the players do not use the monroi device to input their moves.

In US tournaments, I have seen that players on the top boards and often any player playing in the master section gets a complimentary Mon Roi to enter their moves (well he/she has to return the device after the game is over). The hope for them is these players buy the Mon Roi device eventually, and to persuade other players to use it.

The Mon Roi is supported by FIDE as well. Having a cheaper alternative makes sense, though I wonder if others would invest energy for such a niche market.

In the US, you need to write down moves for rapid games as well or risk losing 5 minutes off your clock at the beginning of the game. At least for me, entering the move on a Monroi device is faster than writing it by hand unless I have only a few minutes left on the clock.

[menniepals]

Monroi is definitely competing for a special niche in chess. That important phase of recording moves. I think this is very important for trainers,coaches and players themselves to be highly accurate with their notations. A cheaper alternative, I believe will be a big hit. For ordinary run off the mill chess players, such features like wi-fi is garbage. They don't need game broadcasting capabilities. A simple chess notation scoreboard is all that is needed. By addressing this simple need, and not focusing on features a typical chess player wouldn't need, an enterprising company can compete with Monroi who is over charging its customers with features not needed by most players.

[michiguel]

I believe Mon Roi does intend to compete as an electronic scorebook. Note that the live feed of games would not work if the players do not use the monroi device to input their moves.

In US tournaments, I have seen that players on the top boards and often any player playing in the master section gets a complimentary Mon Roi to enter their moves (well he/she has to return the device after the game is over). The hope for them is these players buy the Mon Roi device eventually, and to persuade other players to use it.

The Mon Roi is supported by FIDE as well. Having a cheaper alternative makes sense, though I wonder if others would invest energy for such a niche market.

I cannot believe FIDE is accepting it... when this should be banned.

Miguel

In the US, you need to write down moves for rapid games as well or risk losing 5 minutes off your clock at the beginning of the game. At least for me, entering the move on a Monroi device is faster than writing it by hand unless I have only a few minutes left on the clock.

[Cubeman]

Well I own a few pocket pc's and have chess software on them which allow for entering and recording of games with the engine turned off.
But can you imagine that I turn up to a competition game and explain to my opponent that he should not worry while I do this.Even the Mon-Roi would cause some suspicion from me.Some one could with a bit of work use the outer housing of the Mon-Roi device to conceal a real PDA chess engine.
So the reason no-one has created a device like this is that it would not get accepted in real tournaments.I am surprised that even the legitimate Mon-Roi has been used with out much controversy.

[menniepals]

This means to me that chess players are open minded. They will accept something new as long as it is legitimately endorsed. I am surprised why we have programmers that are killing themselves day and night to come up with the strongest engines when an alternative where you don't even need an engine to make some good money exists. All you need is a reliable program along with some hardware modification that would disable the entire handheld unit except for the purpose of recording chess games. It may just be a simple circuit board housed in a plastic case just like a dollar calculator from a dollar store. This would make the unit physically unable to run any other programs except for the one it was meant to do. As I wrote before, typical chess players do not need wi fi in those systems. Unless you are one of the top 1-2%. Much of what Monroi offers is actually garbage for ordinary players. If I am a programmer right now or an electronic buff, I would already be tinkering of the idea. Imagine how many chess players would be buying such unit if they are reasonably priced let's say around $50. This would be too cheap for an ordinary chess player to ignore buying. Monroi is making good business but their approach is much to the high end users like professionals or moneyed chess players. Therefore not everybody can buy it. Whereas a cheaper unit would encourage everybody to buy it.