On Mon, 22 May 2000, Albert Hahn wrote:

 I don't know if there is an official rule for scrabble,
 about wearing headphones.
 
 In chess there was no such sanction in place in the
 eighties.  At the New York Open in the Penta hotel
 an interesting situation developed.
 
 In chess anyone could play in the top section (the
 rating system was a little more intelligent than ours).
 Playing in the top section was John von Neumann (sound
 familiar?), a player no one knew.
 He was doing quite well, having tied an
 Icelandic grandmaster.  He had a standing offer to play
 anyone for $500.  It was unheard of for a strong player
 to be unknown, especially an American.
 He wore headphones during his games.  While spectating
 at the tournament I heard the buzz of conversation.
 One suspicious feature of his play was that on a simple
 recapture (obviously no sane alternative) he took
 thirty minutes.  He always took about 2 or 3 minutes
 a move after the standard opening moves were over.
 Even though that should be the average time for a move,
 there is usually a range of a split second to 30 minutes
 to complete a move.  He was playing at the rate a
 computer would play.  John von Neumann was an
 Americanized mathematician who helped with the atom
 bomb and was a key figure in the mathematical development
 of the computer.  However he died in the fifties.
 The chess officials finally decided to give him a
 competency test to see if he could keep the prize
 money for the top unrated player.  He did badly.
 As far as I know he hasn't been heard from since.
 
 Of course he could have had a smaller concealed receiver.
 He didn't need headphones.  But what do you expect from
 someone using the clever pseudonym of John von Neumann
 when committing computer skullduggery.  Even his $500
 offer was rash considering that at the time computers
 weren't that dominant compared to the top humans (a few of
 which were in that tournament).
 
 In poker only the inexperienced card room managers
 outlaw headphones, fearing illicit information being
 passed on to the player.  The Hilton's huge card room
 didn't allow headphones, but they eventually lost all
 the action to other Vegas hotels.  I suspect that
 silly rule could have been a factor, since many of
 the poker players do wear headphones.
 
 Albert
 
 ----- Original Message -----
 From: Chris Lindstrand
 To: cgp
 Sent: Monday, May 22, 2000 8:43 AM
 Subject: [cgp] Hears a thought!
 
 > Greetings CGP'ers
 >
 > I was just curious to see if it is acceptable to wear ear plugs and or ear
 > phones (walkmans, etc) during tournament play....They could be used to drown
 > out the noise and or to hear a local sporting event (baseball, etc)...
 >
 > > Anyone know anything about this kind of thing?
 >
 > Thanks in advance!

At the World Series of Poker, you can wear whatever you want. At one of the final tables, I happened to stumble on to a great sightline where I was able to see Johnny Chan's cards every hand. I was faking my friend out by predicting what he was going to do just about everytime before I fessed up. Now if his opponent, Josh Arieh, had been wearing headphones, conceivably I _could_ have been transmitting some info, tho it would have been difficult to do much given how many people I was surrounded by. It didn't matter much anyway as they had chopped most of the $ and were playing for no more than $10-20k.

At the Tournament of Champions in July, headphones will be banned at the final day's play, tho allowed the previous two days. The organizers are attempting to eventually obtain corporate sponsorship for their endeavor and are trying to put forth the best image possible. They also want to do some kind of broadcasting in realtime of the players play ala the WSC and WCC[1], tho the players would probably only accede to this once the overlay is on the table.

JG

[1] See www.jimgeary.com/poker/letters/PWRGP042.HTM under nerd report for a brief visit to the latter.

*quiz for antiunitists: find the # word

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