The mobile phone rule

As Jack Rudd mentioned on the last posting, there's been a lot of discussion of late about how the rule about mobile phones should be used at local level (click the title to this post if you've got a spare hour or 2). For whatever it's worth, here's my opinion: I don't take an evening/ day out playing chess to win by a technicality, I want to play chess. If my opponent's phone went off during a match, I would allow him to turn it off, and continue with the match. I honestly don't believe anyone would use a phone at local level chess to cheat.

In the Somerset- Cornwall match yesterday this happened on seperate occasions to both a Somerset player and a Cornwall player, and I'm pleased to say that in both cases their opponents allowed them to switch the phone off and continue with match. I won't mention specific names here, but credit to you both.