A Teaching Moment

[ESchlich]

@ericmark

@SysAdmin

The section as entered had 3 players and 4 rounds. It was sort of a quad, except that players 2 and 3 played each other twice. Player 3 is the one for whom the match rules error was reported.

The match rules call for use of the most recent published rating, rather than pre-tournament rating, right?

Perhaps match rules are too stringent. I had to tap-dance around a “match” that took place at our club when we had a night of “rated games for whoever shows up on time; format to be determined based on entries and who plays.”

Three guys showed up, including me. The other two guys wanted to play the faster end of Quick Chess, so I sat out. They played three games at G/10, which I knew would be coded as a match, but never thought twice about it. (They were rated 200-some points apart.)

Turns out Player A had a provisional Quick rating—though both had long-established Regular ratings and Player B also had an established Quick rating…so the event failed validation, as Player A was not match-worthy, per USCF regs, since his Quick rating was provisional.

I figured a way around that, but it took awhile for the light to dawn…

Hi Eric:
About 2x a year, I hold a match tournament [4 games over 2 weeks] at the HRCC. Take all the entries, sort by rating and pair 1-2, 3-4 and so on. Normally don’t pair 2 unrateds together. So far, have had no problem getting it rated. Hopefully the new system will still allow me to submit without office intervention for the March tournament. http://chesshouse.zxq.net/hrcc12.html. I argue that this should not have to meet match conditions mainly because it is paired by the director, not arranged by the players. Also it is held in public view at a chess club. This should eliminate most chances for collusion.

[SysAdmin]

I argue that this should not have to meet match conditions mainly because it is paired by the director, not arranged by the players

Is that obvious from the crosstable?

Matches (ie, multiple games with the same opponent) involving provisionally rated players (or unrated players) can affect the reliability of the ratings. Matches involving players rated more than 400 points apart have been used to manipulate ratings (of both the higher and lower rated player.)

That’s why any event that LOOKS like it is in violation of the match rules requires approval from the office, which mean the TD must provide a sufficient explanation of why the event should be USCF rated. And that explanation should be better than “Because we wanted to run it.”

[ericmark]

@SysAdmin

I argue that this should not have to meet match conditions mainly because it is paired by the director, not arranged by the players

Is that obvious from the crosstable?

Matches (ie, multiple games with the same opponent) involving provisionally rated players (or unrated players) can affect the reliability of the ratings. Matches involving players rated more than 400 points apart have been used to manipulate ratings (of both the higher and lower rated player.)

That’s why any event that LOOKS like it is in violation of the match rules requires approval from the office, which mean the TD must provide a sufficient explanation of why the event should be USCF rated. And that explanation should be better than “Because we wanted to run it.”

Bill Hall is not a fan of “private” matches, clearly.

I noticed that in the nearly endless discussion of match rules at the last EB meeting, (by phone), my example of two players with long-established Regular ratings, but one of them with a provisional Quick rating, getting flagged for a few fun-rated Quick games on a club night…did not come up.

[SysAdmin]

QR matches between players with established regular ratings was not an issue that was addressed in the original document sent to the Board last November. Getting that document approved at all was something of a struggle, adding more side issues might have delayed that approval.

[seki]

Matches involving players rated more than 400 points apart have been used to manipulate ratings (of both the higher and lower rated player.)

Including He-Whose-Name-Must-Not Be-Mentioned but who was once World Champion (of a sort.) And on a slightly different note, some prison issues from a-way-back.