I don’t know if there’s a reasonable (ie, programmable and affordable) way to tie the user structure that phpbb uses to the one that CIVI-CRM uses.
Let me put it this way: Is it worth $100,000? $50,000?
A second issue is that there are phpbb3 security holes that upgrading would help fix.
Has this functionality been added? If not, how is a TD suppose to generate a non-member ID for a house player?
How can the game be rated if one player is not (and never will be) a USCF member? And if it’s not rated, why does it need to be an “official” game at all? Why not just play a non-rated game “off the books” and give the player his/her full-point bye? I see no reason to have a non-member house player at all. I’ve never used one, and never felt the need or desire to do so.
There isn’t an option for a TD to create a non-member ID when submitting a membership batch. One way to do it is to send email to membership@uschess.org. Another way which I think will work (I haven’t tested it) is to submit a membership and use the “Pay later” option. I think this will create an ID number with an expired expiration date (“Not a US Chess member”).
To answer your first question, the game can be rated because the rules allow a non-member house player to play rated games.
The player can still be given a full point bye for the round. Some players who receive a full point bye would rather play a rated game against the house player than a non-rated game against the house player.
I’ve used a non-member house player many times.
Do you know if this functionality is in the works?
Sure, but this will delay the rating report which I (and all the players) hate.
If need be, I will try that.
“The rules allow …” is not a very informative or helpful answer to my question. Let me rephrase it: what sense does it make to rate such a game? It’s not the same as a regular game against a non-rated player (of which I have played many). Those non-rated players will presumably play other games and get a rating, which can be used retroactively to adjust the rating of the rated person who played them. This will not be the case for an “unrated house player”. A game against such a player provides no information at all which would be helpful in adjusting his opponent’s rating. I, too, would rather play a rated game than sit out the round – but unless it’s a meaningful rated game, why bother?
I imagine there’s a distinction to be made here between a non-member house player who is rated previously (e.g., a parent who used to play and is at the tournament with a child who is playing now) and a completely unrated non-member. The former is easy, but obviously not what you have in mind.
In the latter case, perhaps the non-member player will serve as a house player multiple times and thus get rated eventually, or perhaps the non-member will enjoy the experience and the inclusion and will later have a change of heart and join. Those are both uncertain, but little seems to be lost in allowing for the possibilities.
No, I don’t.
There are some obvious situations in which a rated game against a house player is better than a non-rated game just to avoid having a player sitting idle for that round.
The most obvious one is when the player who would otherwise have a bye needs a 4th game to get a published rating, though it is rare that an unrated player would get a bye, that’s usually a last-resort option. It can also impact whether or not the player qualifies for bonus points from the event, although this can work both ways. (A 5th game loss might drop a player out of bonus point territory.)
But I’ve found players would rather play a rated game than an unrated game just to avoid sitting idle, because having rating points at stake may change the player’s approach to the game. (If they really want to play unrated games, they can go to the skittles room.)
Ok I’m going to look stupid here. I can’t find this in the rule book to back it up, but I have always been under the impression that one can not pick and choose which games will be rated in a section. They all have to be rated. You can have unrated sections but not a section with some games rated and some not. This would seem to require that the house man be nominally an US Chess member.
As of a few months ago, this does not work. At that time, the database that the “TD/Affiliate” used did not have the ID. I could not even pay the $10 ‘mistake’ fee as it could not find the ID.
I had to wait until US Chess manually added the ID later that week. (I think the mailed membership fees finally arrived, but US Chess did offer to update it so I could submit if the membership fee did not arrive by midweek.)
I am not sure this is still the case as they keep working on the system.
I don’t have a copy of the 7th edition, but in the 6th edition it was on the second page of chapter 8: USCF Ratings System
I think a link to the house player rules was given upthread, but here it is again:
secure2.uschess.org/TD_Affil/houseplayer.php
The short version is this: In 1990 the Delegates passed an exception to the ‘all players must be current members’ requirement for house players.
As far as whether a game with a spectator is ‘part of the event’, if I tried to arrange a rated game with a house player for someone who received a bye or whose opponent didn’t show up and that player asked to play a non-rated game instead, I’d simply tell him where the skittles room was.
Turns out I am dealing with a same issue as reported in this thread earlier (and why is it still an issue months after it was first reported?). There were two brothers. One already had ID 30125809. The other joined US Chess but instead of creating a unique ID for them, it created the same ID as his brother and added on another year to his membership.
The unique email address requirement needs to be eliminated NOW or this issue is going to keep on popping up!
I’m very confused. There is, of course, no obligation for all games to be played to be part of a tournament, even if they are played in the tournament hall. If I have a bye and decide to play a game in the skittles room with my father, it needn’t be rated just because a tournament is going on.
Of course if the bye is rescinded and the house player is inserted in the main tournament, then I can understand the argument. Still, see Mr. Nolan’s post above.
Alex Relyea
Alex, there is a big difference between you deciding to play a game with your father (or anyone else in the skittles room) and one of the tournament directors arranging an opponent for you. The latter should be (IMHO) considered part of the event.
As to the skittles room, what happens there isn’t official. I once had a player agree to a draw, but then in the post-mortem in the skittles room, decide he had a won game, and he asked to have the official result changed. Nope.
As to the unique email requirement, as I understand it this has to do with how CIVI-CRM and/or Drupal handle logins to the website (and possibly other things related to authentication issues), and that may not be something that can be changed. (One of the disadvantage of using a pre-existing package is you’re likely to be faced with design decisions the developers of that package made that might make sense for them, but may not be convenient for you.)
I pointed out to the developers of the new site while briefing them that at the time we had some 10,000 members with an email address that was shared with one or more other members.
True, but it could be part of an Extra Games section submitted with the main tournament.
And in that case, the player could still be awarded a full-point bye in the main event as well as whatever score he earns in the extra game. (The player’s score in the extra game would not be credited in the “regular” portion of the main event, however.)
One issue brought up by a couple of people here, and ignored by almost everybody else, is, what happens if the house player has never played a rated game? (Usually, house players do have a tournament history, even if their memberships have lapsed by now.)
In order for a game with a newbie house player to be rated, first a rating for the newbie must be computed from the house game (the only game the house player has ever played). Since this provisional rating would be based on just one game, it would come out 400 points higher than the regular player’s rating if the house player wins, 400 points lower if the house player loses, or equal if the game is a draw. Then, when using this new one-game rating to calculate the effect on the regular player’s rating, the regular player’s performance rating (for this game) would be 400 below the house player’s new rating if the regular player loses, 400 above if the regular player wins, or the same if the game is drawn. In other words, in all three cases, the regular player’s performance rating for that game would come out exactly the same as his pre-tournament rating. Thus, the regular player’s rating would not change at all! The game might as well never have been played.
The above point is apparently what a couple of posters are getting at, and what most people here have apparently not understood.
Bill Smythe
I may have been unclear, or just misinterpreted Mr. Zimmerle. I was under the impression that he thought any game played by someone in the tournament must be rated.
I think that some players may not wish to play an extra rated game against an opponent whose rating is too high or too low. I think players should always be able to refuse to play an extra game under rated conditions. On the other hand, if the house player is considered a “permanent house player” that is not automatically playing the player with the bye but is paired normally with byes for the rounds with an even number of players, that player has no right to refuse to play (a rated game).
Alex Relyea
Yes, this is more or less what I was getting at. If the house player is not (and never has been, and never will be) a member, there is no reason to compute a rating for him (and how would USCF keep track of such a rating, with no ID number to associate it with?), and with no rating for him, you can’t do any meaningful adjustment to his opponent’s rating. So what exactly is the point of “rating” the game? I can see Mr. Nolan’s point about a new player needing a minimum number of games, but you usually don’t give a new player the bye for exactly that reason. In cases where a new player is the only one in the lowest score group, maybe you make an exception (and even then, how does a game against a “never-rated” player help establish a new unrated player’s rating?). But this doesn’t justify making a regular practice of using non-member house players. In general, it seems like a lot of unnecessary rigmarole for no useful purpose.
Not true. There are many cases where that formula is not used to initialize a rating /1, most obviously when the “regular player” is rated below 500 and wins.
In any event, Mr. Nolan already explained why it could matter very much to play someone whose rating would be expected not to cause yours to change. Most obviously, again, if the “regular player” has played exactly three games. This result, regardless what it is, would cause the “regular player” to get a published rating. A similar, but vastly less important, barrier comes when earning an established rating, though come to think of it that could be very important to a parent/coach who rarely plays and is attempting to progress beyond Club TD.
There is also the other case that Mr. Nolan mentions, regarding bonus points and, I suppose, title norms. This matters much more if the TD is putting the extra game in the main tournament as opposed to an Extra Rated Games section. Finally, this could increase a very low player’s rating floor and even their rating.
None of this even considers the possibility that a spectator who is willing to fill in in round one might also be willing to fill in in round five, completely dynamiting Mr. Smythe’s hypotheis.
Alex Relyea