Diffculty and Stress with notation writing.

How many of you who have been to a tournament and have had to write down your moves get frustrated and worked up enough to lose concentration? Do you think that people should be made to or not?

You mean... writing down your moves on your scoresheet?

That really makes you freak out??

Whenever I encounter difficulty, I quit.

I have found that descriptive notation is easier to write while playing but in playing back a game algebraic is best.

Yeah, this one's a little hard for me to fully sympathize with.

I mean that if you are in a tournament and you need to concentrate on the game, it makes it hard because you need to also focus on writing down your opponents moves and your own moves as well. The tournament directors don't really look at your notations, they record your results. Now in the major tournaments I can understand but in minor ones, I think we should be able to play without writing down our moves.

Well, it's in the rules, and it's for your own good.

If you want to claim a draw by 50 move rule or 3 fold repetition, your scoresheet is your proof.

Also, for time controls you have to know how many moves you've made.

I think it's more a case of nerves. How many tournaments have you played in?

Not many but the ones I have played in, everyone had gotten frusterated.

It is simple and easy, and not in the least distracting. But, notation requires practice to become second nature. Try writing down casual games, and notating your thoughts before moving the pieces during home preparation. Soon, notation becomes easier.

One very tangible benefit I have found with youth. When they notate, they play slower and usually better. In my state, youth events are rated through a regional system, rather than USCF, and notation is optional. The top players usually notate. That is no coincidence.

The top players usually like to read over their games to see any mistakes so that they can further increase their skill levels.

As a TD I see this all the time.  New players are terrible at it, and it causes a lot of frustration.

At a recent tournament, I had a player who scored two 1000 point upsets in the same tournament.  How does that happen?  It's easy to explain.  He was a good player, playing in his second tournament.  At his first tournament, he got so flustered by having to worry about clocks and notation that he played very badly, and ended up with a rating of approximately 300.  By the second tournament, he had practice with notation and played at a more realistic level, around 1200 performance rating.

One thing that it is very important to remember is that you do not have to use notation after either player's clock drops below five minutes.

Ah, I didn't know that.  I don't get into time trouble usually but I have often seen opponents with only a minute or two left tick off moves on their scoresheet w/o taking the time to write the move.  I have assumed that I was being generous in not taking any point on this but now I see that my opponents just knew the rules better than did I.

Don't most digital clocks automatically switch time controls after the necessary number of moves anyway?

Just practice; you will become adept.  I wrote a program to help kids identify the squares quickly.  It is in my chessClubKit: 

http://www.chess.com/download/view/software-for-chess-clubs

That's in there? Could you offer a more detailed description of what else is there? I don't have a use for your rating and ladder system. Most of my active players are rated through http://www.ratingsnw.com/.

But, I'm always willing to look at teaching tools for common lessons, such as learning notation. 

All of this reminds me of my first-ever USCF game.  I remember blitzing off a bunch of moves early on just because I was terrified that I was going to run out of time at any moment (and the time control was 40/90!). 

I thank you players for your opinions. Now tell me this? Why is notation writing so important for your game apart from being able to go back and look at your game and correct it. What other purpose does it give? How many of you just wish that you could play as if you are playing for fun in a tournament but still play competitvely?

I had the same problem with notating my moves. But it's  something you get used to quickly enough. Especially after reading chess-literature, the squares didn't need looking up or counting like they used to. Which saved my attention for playing the game, instead of being busy writing down moves.

To me, on lower level tournaments notating isn't that important. Besides this I don't see why someone should -have to- write down everything. But since it becomes more natural the up-sides come cheap.
Not only practical use like looking over a game again, which is mostly not a bad idea, but especially the idea of keeping all seriously played games appeals to me.