I will be running the following tournament on July 8-9, pdxchess.org/rose-city-sectionals. The information about the tournament states that “If there are multiple players with a full point bye, these players will be paired together for a rated game which counts for tournament score purposes for the player in the higher section.” Let’s say three of the sections have a player that receives a full point bye. How would you decide between these three players the two that would get to play the extra rated game?
What if all three players are happy with their “bye” and prefer not to play a rated game?
I suppose you could go top-down, leaving the lowest-rated with the bye. Of course, if one of the others prefers to keep his bye instead of playing (assuming you allow them to do that), then that would solve the problem anyway.
Actually, a more flexible approach than “If there are multiple players with a full point bye, these players will be paired together for a rated game which counts for tournament score purposes for the player in the higher section” might be “Full-point byes will be avoided whenever possible through the use of cross-section pairings, cross-round pairings, house players, and other devices the TD might think up on the spot.”
Bill Smythe
Top down may work fine if the three byes are in Open, U1900 and U1300. It can cause a huge mis-match if the three byes are in Open, U1500, U1300. For that matter if there are only two byes and they are in Open and U1300 then the players may strongly resist being paired (I can just see the parent of a 300-rated 6-year-old objecting to a pairing with a 50-year-old 1925).
The wording, “…will be paired together…” is likely to be the source of unresolvable problems. “…may be paired together…” is what I would have chosen. As it is you are telling players due for a bye that they have no option not to play a cross section paired game, and that such a game will be played no matter how much of a mismatch it will be in terms of ages and/or ratings. This is not likely to make the players involved very happy.
In my experience, it is more likely to be the other way around, that the parent of a 1925 rated eight-year-old objecting to playing a 50-year-old 800.
Alex Relyea
Different objections.
Parents of 1925-rated kids often see risk without gain when their kids play somebody more than 400 points lower-rated, and some want their kids to play only higher-rated players (there are stories of parents saying that a tournament has so many players available that everybody should play somebody higher-rated every round)
Parents of a 300-rated kid often see the lowest section as being primarily scholastic and get perturbed when a kid plays an adult of any rating, let alone one that would so overwhelmingly out-class their kid (thinking it may be an ego-crusher).
A 1925-rated adult in the first round may well object to playing a 300-rated kid that may have taken tons of lessons after getting that 300 rating and thus they may consider the kid to be the equivalent of a sandbagger (a term that wouldn’t really apply but one I’ve heard a lot of players use when referring to improving players with ratings rising to their strength as opposed to more properly using it to refer to players really trying to keep their ratings below their actual strength).
If you must do this, determine the player due the bye, then give that player the bye alternative.
That said, this practice looks a lot better in the rulebook than it is either implemented or received in practice. I know CCA does it. They also do d10. Both are abominations.
Building on Mr. Price’s point, I used to do this. One time it backfired so badly that it impacted prizes. I learned the hard way that this is, at least under a lot of circumstances, a very bad idea.
Alex Relyea
My preferred practice when there are byes in sections adjacent in ratings only awards a bye in the upper section and gets normal pairings in the lower section. The plan is that if the player in the higher section is eligible by rating for the lower rated section, then treat the higher rated player as a house player for that round in the lower-rated section and give them a bye for standings in their original section. The process looks like this:
Under 2000 section Player A would get a bye with a 1750 rating.
Under 1800 section Player B would get a bye with a 1500 rating.
- Give Player A a bye in the under 2000 section.
- Add player A to the under 1800 section, for this round only, giving them a score about what would be expected for a 1750 in the under 1800 section.
This is better than pairing the two players with byes because that will usually be a ratings mismatch and players on both ends of this can and will complain. The parings in the U1800 section are normal with about the same ratings difference for each board in each score group.
The only problem is that some people feel that player A “deserves a bye” and should have the option of playing or not. This is a strange idea to me that people who are playing in a chess tournament have the right to not play a game in a round. To deal with this, I have posted a house rule that this will be happening to players with byes.
Communication explaining the process is still something I’m working on but almost everyone likes it better than the option of pairing the two Bye players only if they both agree.
Mike Regan
Except both have worked very well for CCA.
Evidence please.
Alex Relyea
You must be fortunate enough for your byes to not have helicopter parents that only want the player to play higher-rated opponents. They would rather have their kid forfeit the game in the lower section than risk playing somebody lower rated.
You must also be fortunate enough to have your higher-section byes eligible for the next lower section. At my tournament this past Sunday that was only true for one of the two byes in the top section and two of the three byes in the third section (60% total - sections one and two were on one schedule while three and four were on another). At the National Open, excluding the top section, it looks like 9 of the 13 byes would have been eligible for the next lower section (70%).
Quite frankly if you’ve agreed to TD this based on what is posted then I suggest you do as the organizer asks. You could always ask the organizer what their intentions were and give them the pros/cons (some listed in this thread) of doing so.
Personally if I had to do it I would not list the byes as “byes”, they would be “please wait at TD desk for pairings” or something. Then, to pair the byes I would start at the Open and work my way down the sections, pairing the Open player with the first available player, etc. If there is an odd number of sections with byes then the lowest section bye player would not get a game.
If you have only byes in the Open and Under 1300 sections, the two sections furthest apart, then I would still pair them and let them play as all players are coming into the event knowing the format as advertised by the organizer. Your excuse if they complain is that you are just following the tournament’s regulations.
Seems more likely to be “when they complain” but following the advertised rules makes the pairings very defensible.
So did deducting the delay time in seconds from the base time in minutes. So did multiple schedules in events advertised for FIDE norms. So did pairing adjustments in Swisses to provide a norm opportunities that would not have existed but for such pairing adjustments.
What CCA does very well at is obtaining good facilities for events with substantial prize funds on favorable dates. They also hire very skilled directors who can handle nearly anything thrown at them, such as d10 or a cross-section pairing that gets objected to. That generates (justifiably) a good deal of credibility that overcomes some quirky house rules that are confusing at best and odd at worst.
Those are plenty of things about CCA that organizers should consider emulating. But a lot of the quirky deviations are deviations for a reason, and the ones listed above stopped being allowed deviations for a reason.
Um, I’m pretty sure Micah is both the organizer and the TD.
In the advance publicity, however, a little more flexibility (and less detail) would be highly desirable. That would give the TD more leeway in making judgment calls, case by case. A rigid “algorithm” can never fully anticipate all the possible scenarios that can spring up when the number of players is odd.
Here are some guidelines you might want to use:
- Have the pairing program print “please see TD” rather than “bye” on the pairing sheet.
- Allow each unpaired player to take his full-point bye, without any kind of replacement game, if that’s what he prefers.
- In the event of a cross-section pairing, take whatever steps are necessary to give each player a full point in his section.
The last point above can be implemented as follows:
- Once the result of the cross-section game is known, list the game as a regular paired game in the winner’s section, adding the loser’s name to the wall chart in the winner’s section.
- In the loser’s section, list the losing player as a full-point bye.
- If the above is not practical, add both player’s names to an “extra games” section, listing the actual result of the game, and list each player with a full-point bye in his respective section.
- Post a wall chart for the extra games section, alongside the wall charts for the other sections. That assures the players that the extra game will, indeed, be rated.
“Not practical” in the third bullet point might happen if the game is a draw, or if one of the players would be listed in a section for which he is not eligible, etc.
Finally, it could happen that the player(s) listed with a full-point bye (whether or not they are also playing an extra game) might prefer a half-point bye instead, to generate less lopsided pairings in future rounds. Respect such wishes, as long as the request is made promptly.
A policy along these lines should help with public relations, and give the TD more flexibility in unanticipated situations.
Bill Smythe
In most tournaments I’ve been to, players, except the very newest, see that, exclaim “Oh, I have the bye.”, and disappear. Is Mr. Bird’s experience different?
Alex Relyea
In all of the tournaments I have been to or directed, the note “Please see TD”, means that the player is going to get a bye. If there are other players available, the individual is given the option of being paired for rating purposes only. It does not affect his score for prize purposes. This usually has to be explained to the players in order to encourage them to play a game. The games go into a separate section in the rating report. Some players actually enjoy the fact that they are going to get a bye. It improves their chances for a prize and/or allows them to play up in a following round. They might prefer to get a long lunch break or a nap. For some that may be their only score in a tournament. 1 - 3 looks a little better than 0 - 4. It is preferable to give players options than force something they do not want.
BTW, I have seen a number of players turn down cross section pairings and opt for the bye. Low rated players don’t appreciate getting pounded by a higher rated player, even if that player is the lowest rated one from an upper section.
Anything and everything could happen, and more likely will, if there’s no prize fund. 