I recently directed a quick tournament where a 2400 player was playing a 1500 player. After the round, there was a break for lunch, and the 1500 player had reported a win. When the 2400 player came back from lunch, he said that I had the result wrong, and he really had won the last game on time. The players agreed that the game had been decided on time, but both thought that they had won. The 1500 player let me change the result, especially as neither was any threat of being in contention for a prize, but later told me that it really was her opponent’s flag that was down.
Any ideas as to what I should have done if she hadn’t been so conciliatory? I really didn’t want to hold up the round any more than necessary, especially as they were both way out of contention at this point. I reported the game as a win for the 2400 player.
This is a mess. If both players claimed they had won on time, you would have had to round up players on adjacent boards to see if any of them had seen anything useful. If, as is more likely, they didn’t, you would have to determine a result, first for pairing (since the first priority is to start the round for the other players), then for rating. If, as you say, both players were out of contention, I would probably have given both players a forfeit win. (You really shouldn’t award rating points on the basis of one player’s word against another’s.) If one or both of them had a chance at a prize … well, I’m not sure what I’d do. Both players really deserve to be penalized for allowing this to happen, but the 2400 player is more at fault – if he won, he ought not to have trusted his opponent to post the result, and an experienced player should know better.