The approach we’ve been taking for the past few years of working both sides of rules (USCF and FIDE) to find common ground and working at amending one side or the other has slowly been working. Right now is the time to put together what we think are better USCF rules and have them adopted in FIDE because with FIDE the rules only change once per 4 years and that cycle is coming up in Baku next year.
We also do have a project that will shortly kick off to communicate with all national federations to see who is using their own laws of chess vs the FIDE ones and why / what those differences are.
A clean sweep of ‘adopt fide rules, drop uscf rules’ isn’t likely to pass the delegates. [Original statement withdrawn]
One place where how FIDE does it better is dividing out what are rules (laws), regulations, etc. We put them all in the same pot, stir and say here’s your Thursday surprise dinner. We should be working at separating out what is in there…
Of course it would be nice to also have a cycle as well similar to what FIDE has - every X number of years the rules can be changed… not every year…
I believe Mr. Mulford was referring to the chance of Mr. Phelps’ proposed ADM being referred from the Delegates to the Rules Committee, instead of receiving an up/down vote in the Delegates Meeting.
I’m much less sanguine than you about regarding the effect of the pairing preferences. The FIDE rules pretty much assume that in a very large score group, the only major obstacle to “correct” pairings is color—after all, if you’re early enough in the tournament that you have even 50 players in a score group, how many would one player have played? Maybe one or two?
Try this on for size. (You can ask Boyd about this one). This is round 3 of this year’s U.S. Open, the 1.5 score group. As you read across, it’s the sequence number, rating, color due and state for the top half and then the same for the bottom half. (For color, w and b are on alternation, W and B on equalization, blank is someone who has no game yet). Theoretically, you can fix all colors (8 white and 6 black in the top half, 8 black, 5 white + 1 none in the bottom). The biggest problem is finding an opponent for B13 since he’s played A14 and there’s that almost unending block of AZ players in the top half. A human recognizing the problem would probably start by pairing B13 with A5 and go from there. A computer program probably isn’t going to be that prescient.
That being said, WinTD with the swap limits cleared comes up with FIDE pairings at effort level 50. I’m just not sure that I count on that getting the mathematically correct pairings in a gnarlier score group than this.
[code]US Open, Round 3, 1.5 score group
A1 2284 w WI B1 1998 w AZ
A2 2220 w PA B2 1949 b MN
A3 2201 b AZ B3 1907 w CA
A4 2200 W CA B4 1900 b AZ
A5 2200 w IL B5 1863 w CA
A6 2177 B CA B6 1814 b VA
A7 2144 B AZ B7 1809 w CO
A8 2121 b AZ B8 1808 b GA
A9 2119 w AZ B9 1776 B AZ
A10 2118 b AZ B10 1773 B NM
A11 2071 w AZ B11 1756 b NC
A12 2053 w AZ B12 1739 w AL
A13 2026 b AZ B13 1467 B AZ
A14 2017 w NJ B14 1112 LA
I believe the correct pairings under the Dutch system are (listing the pairings but not the color assigned) A1-B4, A2-B2, A3-B5, A4-B6, A5-B13, A6-B1, A7-B3, A8-B7, A9-B8, A10-B12, A11-B10, A12-B11, A13-B14, A14-B9
Is an Arizonan playing an Arizonan in a tournament held in Arizona really a problem that warrants moving B13 well up the ladder? There may be another reason to do so, under either FIDE or USCF standards, but I don’t see it right away.
State restrictions were still in effect at that point in the tournament. With those in play, B13 was virtually forced to play A4 (I think - working from memory here). I investigated the pairings after A4 complained, and didn’t immediately understand why that pairing had occurred. I emailed Mr. Doan about the “problem”…and realized the state restriction caused the strange pairing about 2 minutes before his email response, saying the same thing, appeared in my inbox.
I think when one state has a significant percentage of the entrants state pairings are an awful idea at any stage in the tournament. It not only leads to weirdness, it deprives people of the opportunity to play people from other states. I played all Arizonans this year, something that hasn’t happened in any of my other four US Opens.
I believe he can play either A4 or A5 (who have identical ratings), but it’s possible that one of the two causes additional color problems. Under USCF rules, you can’t fix all the colors since many of the color issues are merely alternation.
I did say “virtually”. IIRC, pairing B13 with A5 caused issues elsewhere in the score group that made a pairing with A4 necessary. But I’d have to review my notes to be sure…and that would involve first finding my notes.
Yes. The game was played as paired, and eventually drawn. I remember making notes on my pairing analysis, in case the complainant wanted to appeal further.
With the number of Arizonans being more than 1/2 the total entrants in the traditional schedule, you can’t even avoid AZ-AZ pairings entirely even if everyone else plays just AZ. The way WinTD handles this is that the state pairing preference (or club pairing preference) is below score group, but above color and above top/bottom half in priority. (Teammate preference is generally above even score group unless you override that for certain score groups). What one really probably needs is a “slider” as to where one of those preferences fits in the priority list. If the state vs state pairing is treated like it’s effectively an alternation error, then you wouldn’t do a 172 point swap (as is done here) to avoid it.
However, you still would have played someone from Arizona.
For eight or more players, the Crenshaw tables (US Chess rules) and Berger tables (FIDE rules) have the same pairings, but the rounds are in reverse order. (For instance, in a ten player round robin, round one of the Crenshaw table is the same as round nine of the Berger tables). The tables for a six player event are just … different.
One distinction is that the Crenshaw tables specify how to reverse colors in pairings in later rounds to correct for color imbalance if a player withdraws. (In a round robin with an even number of players, each player will have one more round with one color or the other. If the withdrawn player would have been a “minority color opponent”, then the affected player would have a color imbalance of two rounds if the switches were not applied.) I haven’t spent time working it out, but I would guess it is possible to come up with similar swaps for the Berger tables.
Is either one of those a “rule”? FIDE gives a second set that “could” be used if there is a potential problem with players from the same federation playing each other down the stretch.
There are (in effect) two ways to do quads and the US rulebook uses one and FIDE the other. The US table for six is just plain weird—it doesn’t fit into any pattern. The Berger tables have a consistent algorithm for generation.
I believe you are referring to the Varma tables in Annex 2 of section C.05 of the FIDE handbook. Those are not alternate round robin tables; rather, the Varma tables describe how to do a restricted drawing of lots.
Basically, the Varma tables divide the pairing numbers into four subsets such that the games between players in the same subset occur in the early rounds. Once the restricted drawing of lots is done, pairings are determined by the Berger tables.
Are either of these “rules”? Well, I would say that FIDE makes no provision for round robin pairing tables other than the Berger table, and FIDE tends to be rigorous about following the handbook regulations. US Chess rules only document the Crenshaw tables, but under US Chess rules the organizer/director can do just about whatever he pleases as long as suitable advance notice is given. (The Official Rules of Chess suffer no shortage of variations.)