While in practice many TDs also have to wear the ‘organizer’ hat, changing the format of the event (including prizes) should be an organizer’s decision, not a TD’s.
That’s why I believe that it is not archaic for the USCF to have the duties and privileges for organizers (affiliates) separate from those for certified TDs. (And that’s why a TD cannot submit memberships unless authorized by an affiliate.)
None, except ease and quickness of pairing. In fact, depending on the # of players 2 or more Swiss sections might well be a more satisfactory solution.
Any TD who can’t pair a 3 round six player Swiss on the back of an envelope shouldn’t be directing tournaments.
The TD might think advertising quads and then running two Swisses is a “more satisfactory solution”, but that’s not what people who show up are expecting.
Then advertise the event as a three round event @G/xx and do not specify Quads or round robins. We do round robins at Blitz or Quick time controls at our Tuesday night meetings and find they give each player more playing time in the 3 hours we have to play. Our first goal is to give each player a variety of competition; finding a winner is secondary to that. One TD here did Sunday afternoon Quads or Hexes @G/45 which were very well attended.
I’m mindful of a tournament that I played in that was marketed as Octos, but when ten players showed up the organizer put the top four in a quad and the other six in a three round swiss.
Alex Relyea
I surmise that the vast majority of quads are local events, where the TD is either the organizer or a senior officer of the organizing affiliate. In the cases where the TD is neither (and I recently ran a set of quads at the Pittsburgh Chess Club where that was true), the organizer would normally be contacted if anything out of the ordinary occurred.
As a player, I don’t see how you can get unanimity of agreement among the players to change an announced format. If the top 6 players are put into a 3 round Swiss while the rest of the players are in quads, players 5 and 6 are severely disadvantaged in a competitive sense. In that situation, each of these players would likely howl at the unannounced change. It is so much easier to run quads with the lowest section as a Swiss. In the Swiss you can offer a prize to first and a prize for the players who are in the bottom half of the section to start out with.
Some might think that players are citizens of a Utopia, where everyone believes in fairness, justice, and equality. Surely they must welcome even pairings and play for honor and a few rating points. In reality, tournament play brings out players with many motivations. Some play for ratings. Some play for money. Some play to win at any cost. Some play to train for future tournaments. In my experience, many players play for money, no matter how small the prize. Mess with the announced format and hurt their chances for a prize, and they will not be happy. If I am the number 1 ranked player and playing for only rating points, I do not want to play #5 or #6. If I am playing only for money, then please let me play #5 and #6.
The winner of each quad gets free entry into a future quad. How would you do this for a group of 6? Give the prize just to first place? First and second place? First in the top half and first in the bottom half?
Those are all reasonable options, and it is the organizer’s responsibility to make those decisions, preferably up front. Enjoy!
I keep hearing this, but I just tried again to submit a dummy membership via TD/A after logging in as a TD, not an affiliate. The membership batch passed validation and would have gone through had I continued to the final step of payment—without any mention of an affiliate.
Not saying this is good or bad. Just how it is.
We don’t check for having an affiliate until the point at which you do the submission, and then it will default to the first affiliate you are authorized for.
What would you do if you have a tie for first place is a 4 player quad? Half an entry? If so, then in a six player section, give a full entry for clear 1st and a half entry for clear 2nd. (Of course, you’re likely to have a tie for 2nd in the six player section).
Now that you’ve run this, could you explain by what method you decided to put the six player Swiss in the middle. You never answered the question above about how “most equal” would be defined in practice.
The tournament had players with ratings as follows (unofficial ratings were used in this tournament):
2381, 2076, 1884, 1812
1621, 1536, 1391, 1360, 1343, 1242,
1148, 784, 614, unrated
The 1343 and 1242 are closer in rating to everyone in the middle group except the 1148 in the lower group so putting them in the middle group gives closer matchups in terms of rating.
Also, if you have more than 4 unrated players, what is the best way to decide which of them plays in a higher quad?
That’s not a description of a rule. That’s “this looks better so I’ll do it”.
Note also that you would almost always expect that the bottom ratings would be much more spread out (ratings being effectively unlimited below) so in practice following your logic, you would rarely end up making the Swiss the bottom group even though that’s the rule and the expected way of handling this.
I have to agree with Mr. Doan, with the added benefit that it is much more likely to be possible to play a fourth round with his (the standard) method and thus get the unrated a publishable rating. Note that using unpublished ratings is also non-standard. Did you announce both of these major deviations in advance?
Alex Relyea
We wouldn’t do an extra round even if there was time for it. It is advertized as being a 3 round tournament and people expect they are going to play 3 games.
Yes
In reference to the title of the thread - this was NOT the best way to run a quad tournament.
In my experience, people seldom complain if they pay for 3 games of chess and get 4.
So you think it would have been better to put the 1343 and 1242 in the section with the 1148, 784, 614, and unrated and thus have them play people farther away from their rating? The point of a quad tournament is to group people with similar ratings and putting the 1343 and 1242 in with the middle group does this better.
Also, I don’t see why it would be better to use the older “official” ratings (ratings as of Feb. 19) rather than the most current ratings for a tournament on March 15.