I was watching a video of the current U.S. Championships the other day going on in Tulsa. I noticed almost all the players were using some kind of electronic device to record their moves.

It looked really cool. Does anyone know what these are? I have looked over all the online chess stores and haven't seen anything that looked like them?

If you know what they are and where to get let could you let me know the details.....P-L-E-A-S-E....

Thanks,

ABBMAN

Personal Chess Manager
This was mentioned in an earlier thread... Here...
Question about keeping game log
Even though they are cool, they are quite expensive

I found them and thanks for the info. They are not just "expensive", they are $400 !! Ouch......

Sounds like a great tool but not for us hacks....

ABBMAN...

The price is $360 if you buy it from Monroi.

The problem with getting the price lower is that they are selling to a very limited market. I have used them and find them to be a bit better than keeping a paper score but they still have the occasional glitch which would rule them out for people who are easily thrown off their game. They do have the potential to be a lot better than keeping a paper score and that is why I have no problem consenting to using one to record my moves when asked by the TD.

A lot of people refuse to use them but I reason that eventually when the price does come down this will be the future of chess. The advantage for the TD is that he can monitor lots of games at once from a computer screen which is set up in the TD room.

The ones that I have used were either owned by the TD or furnished by Monroi (I'm not sure which).

If they can sell the monroi like they sell digital clocks, then there probably is sufficient market for the price to come down significantly. Of course, clocks get used casually; the monroi essentially just for competitions.

A monroi will always be at least a bit more expensive. A digital clock is much simpler to make.

So I assumed. I was just speculating about the possibility of a monroi getting significantly cheaper than it is.

If chess lasts long enough I suppose a monroi or its equivalent will be working off cheap and mass-produced components, maybe, and be as easy to produce as a calculator.

It might be possible for the company to sell or license its software to makers of smartphones or pda's. It seems to me that it shouldn't be that difficult to come up with chess software which records moves. There are all kinds of toolkits out there for chess playing software and this is actually somewhat simpler. You don't want the program to have any smarts beyond being able to record moves or else you would be violating the rules and obtaining outside assistance during a game.

The monroi is a network device. Take the network out of the equation and that would drop the price a bit.

Thanks for the info. Along the same vein, what is your recommendation for a pocket chess game. In a perfect world, I would like one that:

Plays a strong game and can analyze

Has tactics problems that you can work on

Is reasonably priced, say around $50-$75

Is there such an animal and what do you recommend.

Thanks again,

ABBMAN

I find the site humorous. There is a proud papa saying how his 9 year old went from 700 to 1400 rated using a monroi. Cmon, who's going to spend $400 so a 9 year old kid doesn't have to use a pencil?

It's a cute gadget but way too much money.