Record Keeping

 I was glad to read that some organizations are cracking down on electronic score-sheets.  My stance has always been writing your notation is an important part of the game in tournament chess.  Players should play on totally equal grounds without the expensive unnecessary gadget. There are a few exceptions if someone has a disability and isn't physically able to do so.  I used to even record some of my blitz games against stronger players like Asa Hoffmann for fun which would take less than 60 seconds to jot down 30+ moves.  He would always call me professor and say I was a serious dedicated student of chess which was spot on.  All the top grand-masters record their own games and there is a rule you are not allowed to take notes during the game.  The electronic devices cheapen the game at the expense of giving a student accurate records which otherwise might not be.  The big threat is these devices can be tampered with which ruins the whole point of playing.  They can also give an opponent a time advantage not to mention looking at diagrams of the position of the board isn't supposed to happen.  There are also no take backs allowed, don’t get me started on those.  Chess is a pure battle of the minds, there should be no interference.   I have a zero tolerance rule on cheating.  If someone is caught cheating during a tournament game, they should be permanently banned from organized chess.  I worked for an organization that had one master who loved to use his handheld device to record his moves which is extremely rare but it was looked upon poorly as an act of being lazy and unprofessional.

Key takeaways, writing your notation and becoming more fluent with chess language can help your game in many ways.  If you are not good at taking notation, it wouldn't hurt to practice.  The better you understand the board and pieces the stronger you will become.  When you master them you can try playing blindfold chess.  The organized mind and player is more dangerous than the scatter brain.  Kramnik sounds a little like sour grapes as chess is still very exciting with the top players trying to catch Carlsen who is a stone throw away from a rating of 2900!  The majority of players can improve tremendously, strive to play exciting chess and take good notes along the way.  Keeping a chess journal is an awesome idea.