Blitzing

Here is a query that was emailed to me recently. It is an issue that comes up quite often in sudden death/small increment time control tournaments.

Player A's clock was down to 30 secs. Player B still had 1 hr on the clock. Player A was writing the moves down as they were played. Player B was continually negating to write the moves down and would move very quickly and press the clock so that all the time would be used on Player A's clock while he wrote the moves down. I reminded Player B on numerous occasions that it is mandatory to write the moves down yet he continued to do it. I'm wondering what course of action is suppose to be taken under these circumstances.

For me the answer is fairly straightforward, assuming that it is certain that player B is making no effort to keep score. I would simply stop the clock, add 2 minutes to player A's time, and let the game continue. I would also make it clear to player B that he is (a) breaking the laws of chess and (b) as a result, is only helping his opponent.