From The Archives - move, write or punch the clock first?

Since this blog being online a few years ago, many articles have been publish . There are many articles that i found still interesting and worth to be republish .

The article below was publish on 30th may 2007.

Every chess players have their own habits. One of it is writing the move first before actually move the piece/pawn and then punch the clock. The benefit of doing that is you can recheck the move before you launch it.

GM Nigel Short in one of his book said that writing the move first is just wasting time! I still remember one of my friend Nuruddin happen to write behind the score sheet not just the move but the whole variation!! Mohd Saprin Sabri , National player will write his move first and then hide it with the pawn – avoiding it to be seen by his/her opponent! After that he will recheck it before playing the move. But do you know what the rules say about it?

There is a questioned about writing move in advance being asked in Chesscafe.com to Geurt Gijssen, a respected a experienced arbiter .

"Question Dear Geurt, at a recent tournament in India one of the arbiters
issued a warning to a player for writing his move first and then making it. He
said that according to Article 8.1 it is forbidden to write the move in advance.
However, the player could not overcome his habit and was repeatedly
distracted by the arbiter. For what reasons was Article 8.1 instituted in the
first place? Thanks in advance for your reply, Raghunandan Gokhale
(India)..."

the answer can be found at http://www.chesscafe.com/text/geurt95.pdf