Clock Setting vs Forfeit in Scholastic

[kevin_bachler]

@wintdoan

@brennanprice

Thesis: ASAP round starts are poor practice for the reasons illustrated in this thread. Discuss.

G/75 with a very small field isn’t going to be easy. You could have 3 games finish in 30 minutes and the last go the whole mile. Two hours is a long time to kill, particularly if you don’t know whether you can leave. You could also have 3 games finish in 30 minutes, have some of the players take off for lunch and the last game end unexpectedly a few minutes later. A fixed schedule has the strong possibility of ending up taking (many) hours more than an ASAP schedule. However, the only way you can make “ASAP” work with this is to set a “clocks start” time when the final game finishes and text it to the players. Starting the next round on a game by game basis just seems like a really bad idea.

It’s much less of an issue with a shorter time control and more games. I’ve done it and done it successfully. I’ve been to dozens of tournaments that have done it and done it successfully. At G/30, someone who gets scholar’s mated has at most an hour before the longest game could finish, and you can probably guess that there will be at least some game go at least half that. So the range of how much time there is might be to wait is much, much narrower.

After the first round (or two) one can also use tournament experience to post “no sooner than” announcements, letting people know if they want to leave for a set amount of time, they can.

[DENTONCHESS]

I have a few thoughts for the chief td in this event, who does seem to have been directing tournaments at least since 1992. The first of these thoughts is THANK YOU for bring US Chess to so many youngsters in the New Mexico area for over 26 years !! There is a major reason why our federation is filled with holes of inactivity, with few US Chess opportunities for untold thousands of youngsters - a lack of adults willing to organize,and become US Chess certified tournament directors in these near void areas.

Further, I do agree with at least several who have so stated, that truly the best approach is this. Input from the organizer is needed before further adequate discussion, should he care to comment, which I am in no way suggesting he should.

Rob Jones