In a couple of tournaments that I’ve been at lately, the organizer has tried to impose a 30 move draw rule. In the FKB US Championship players could agree to a draw in the first thirty moves with director approval, although I was never asked, and as far as I know approval was never sought. I think a few games came in under the limit, but the shortest was 27 moves, which is certainly in the spirit of the rule if not the letter.
It was a very different case at the Reno-Western States Open. The TD announced that the rule would be in effect for the open section with no mention of TD relief, as it were. I’m not sure how seriously this rule was followed, but in at least one game there was a draw agreed after about 7 moves. The game was played on a demo board, and although I don’t remember which GMs were playing there, it would be easy enough to figure out by looking at the crosstable if the information becomes pertinent. The reason I think that the problem was pervasive is that the TD implored the players before the last round to follow the rule for one round, at least.
What recourse does the TD or organizer have in that case? I understand that the TD would be reluctant to double forfeit two GMs in an early round of a tournament, but does the organizer even have that possibility? I can imagine the nightmare of an organizer telling me (as a hired TD) how to make a ruling. Any ideas?
If you are a hired TD, it’s a good idea to get all your guidance from the organizer (i.e., how to deal with “house rules”) BEFORE the event starts.
In my opinion, if the organizer has advertised a “30-move rule”, then the TD must enforce it. No ifs, ands, or "in the spirit of"s. The hired TD had better determine if he can enforce the rule (and how) before the event starts.
Allowing players to escape unpunished affects every other player in the event.
If I am the hired TD and the organizer tells me how to make a ruling in the middle of the tournament - then the organizer INSTANTLY becomes the TD, because I’m out the door.
Yes, this year’s Western States Open was pretty bad with short draws, despite all of the announcements. You could say there’s a big difference between a tournament like the FKB US Championship where all players received a share of the prize fund to cover most expenses and a run-of-the-mill swiss where professional players pay their own hotel and transportation. Nonetheless, I agree with your premise that the organizer should enforce whatever he or she announces.
That said, consider the following scenario from a previous Reno tournament. A 2300 faces a 2650 rated GM and, around move 22, most of the pieces were traded into a boring rook endgame position. The GM offered a draw. What was I, the 2300 player, supposed to do when my opponent violated the announced draw rule? I’ll make no secret that I was playing to draw against an opponent 350 points higher! Of course, I took the draw! I dare any TD to forfeit me for spending 3 hours of hard work to get a draw with a GM.
I’ll forfeit you in a New York minute IF the pre-event announcement was clear and unambiguous.
It may be a stupid rule (I think it is) - but if it’s an announced rule the time to bring up this situation is when it’s hypothetical (BEFORE the event begins). Waiting until it happens to you (or, if you are the TD, to a player you don’t want to offend) and then saying, “well, of course this violates the letter of the rule, but Now I see that perhaps sometimes we should not actually enforce it - that rule is for cheating Commies”, is simply a bad way to run an event.
What I see happening a lot these days is an announcement that something is bad, very bad, and will be penalized - but then leaving the decision about enforcment for later. Then, someone violates the rule and suddenly there’s a big crisis, meetings are held, diagrams are drawn with circle and arrows showing who did what…and so on.
so, yes - if the Organizer says “if you agree to a draw before 30 moves are played, the game will be ruled a double forfeit” and you agree to that rule and I’m the TD and you grasp at the draw offer by the GM on move 27…then it’s a double forfeit. Full stop.
But…for all the reasons raised here so far…it might be better to talk the Organizer out of his lunacy before the event begins and not announce such a silly rule.
As Baba Looey once said to Quickdraw McGraw, “I thin’ you should forget the whole thin’.” Ken Sloan and Michael Aigner have pointed out several reasons.
If an organizer, particularly an inexperienced one, wished to adopt a platform of being for some new proposal or opposed to some other thing which may have drawn complaints in the past, he could adopt some special "new-good-thing" or "anit-bad-thing" rule in his advertisements, so as to convince potential entrants that their support for new good things is shared, or that their concern about possible bad things is unwarranted. Then they might enter the tournament. Later, when it becomes obvious that the new rule is worse than the disease it is supposed to cure, the organizer and the TD could play "good cop/bad cop" and blame the rule and/or its enformcement on the other guy (the good cop and the bad cop could trade places sometimes, too). This plan would tend to work best when the organizer is not also the TD.
That is an unfair aspersion.
Bill Goichberg's experiences in running tournaments since the 1960's led to the development of rules and policies which make it possible for tournaments to be run [i]in the real world,[/i] where the competitors exhibit human nature-- or worse! Some organizers, particularly inexperienced ones, may not understand the history behind why a certain rule or policy came to be, or why something is worded in a specific manner. They just assume, "Well it worked that time, so it must work the same way all the time." Not understanding the reasons for having a certain rule or policy can easily lead to having the rule or policy misapplied in situations which are not the same. This puts pressure on the TD to try and enforce a bad rule, with the inexperienced organizer not understanding why the rule or policy is bad in this case or even bad in general. This usually comes to a head when the playes are locked in a dispute, where one of them angrily insists that the TD is trampling on his rights by enforcing the policy, and the opponent insists, equally angrily, that the TD is trampling on his rights by [i]not[/i] enforcing the policy. Then the appeal goes to the organizer who gets to decide whether to side with or against one of them, two of them or all three.
I’ve seen special “new-good-thing” rules in a few tournament ads. Usually all it convinces me of is that the organizer is, indeed, inexperienced. In extreme cases, it may also convince me not to play in the tournament.
I’ve run dozens of those, enough to make plus-score an “old-good-thing”. Attendance was generally better than for other prize formats with similar entry fees, time controls, etc. It seems ideal for one-day tournaments at clubs with a capacity of 40 players or so. Probably wouldn’t work as well for larger events with big prizes and high entry fees.
The only reason I can see why the plus score format (which I was using 20 years ago, and it wasn’t particularly ‘new’ then) might not work as well for large entry/fee prize fund events is that people expect the entry fee-to-top prize ratio to be quite a bit higher in those events, even in ‘under’ sections.
It’s also possible that there might be more of a temptation for ‘arranged’ results if in a 5 round plus score tournament the prize for a 5-0 score was $2500, the prize for a 4.5 score was $1250 and the prize for a 4.0 score was $500. (I think the entry fee would have to be in the $350 range to support that kind of payout matrix, but I haven’t done the math.)