Here is something else to ponder. I learned that a tournament played last weekend has been deliberately withheld—rating report not sent in—for a day or three to ensure the event would not be rated for the April list.
The reason I heard: Some players in the tournament plan to play in the National High School next month, and it was felt that these players and their coaches should be able to prepare in advance for which sections and prizes they will compete in and for.
I thought that’s why some national events use a rating list that’s a month “behind.” Since the National High School uses the April supplement, I would say players who want to set sections, prizes, team average, etc. on their March ratings should take a month off and study/train hard.
Or they could play as much as they want and can, then go to Nationals determined to give 100% and have fun and not worry about trophies and bragging rights.
The option of holding off on sending in a rating report…I am sure it happens. A further reason I heard was that sending in the report after April ratings come out still gets it rated within the suggested seven-day window…so there is no rule against it.
May well be, but here’s the rub. In this case, holding off on sending in the report also affects the ratings of some adult players, as well as scholastic players who do not plan to go to Nationals.
What if one of those players plans to play the Philadelphia Open, and his rating would have changed to another rating class, in either direction, had the tournament been rated as soon as it was ready?
It might have missed the cut-off anyway, thanks to procedural/red-tape matters—but as I understand it the decision was made to deliberately ‘not’ submit the rating report until after the cut-off for the April list, for reasons mentioned in my OP.
Somebody goofed, if holding the tournament was the plan. The tournament was processed and rated. The new ratings made the cutoff and are posted on the MSA records as the April rating.
Maybe the plan did work. I misread one of the tiny numbers in the MSA; it was too close to one of my student’s previous ratings. Happy sandbagging to the prospective NHS players and those going to the Philadelphia Open! I will have to watch closely for rating changes the next few days so that someone I know can play in a lower section in Philly.
My policy is to submit the event for rating before leaving the tournament site, presuming adequate Internet access at the site.
USCF allows a grace period for submission for a lot of reasons, many good, some bad. This is a bad reason. I gain more goodwill by timely submitting rating reports than I could gain by stalling to accommodate a few. Folks who have an issue with that are invited not to play in my events.
The US Amateur Team tournaments, as well as our state’s scholastic championship, uses the rating supplement from one month before the competition, in order to allow players and coaches ample time to organize their teams. Out of curiosity, why don’t the scholastic nationals do the same?
From what I have heard, the Chief TD of the PA Scholastics knew of parents’ and coaches’ wishes (to have their kids play in both the PA State and National championships, without having results from the former affect eligibility for the latter) well in advance. My understanding is he made the choice to delay submitting until Thursday (four days after the event) after weighing input from several experienced TDs, a group which included among others, the organizers from previous years.
I guess one possible solution to avoid affecting the adults would have been to submit the non-scholastic sections (the Friday evening Quick Chess and the weekend Open) as separate events. However, it seems that nothing was submitted until Friday, likely because it wasn’t ready until then anyway.
He could have kept silent about his intentions to wait until (at least) Thursday to submit the tournament, and nobody would have known the difference.
Around here, the emails, phone messages and cat calls begin within 48 hours, perhaps sooner. Directors with a history of late submissions won’t get much participation at future events. People talk with their feet.
The dynamics might be very different in a rural area with only one or two directors within driving distance.
I think this problem would have been better solved at the source – i.e. with the organizers of the upcoming scholastic events. If they had announced, in pre-event publicity, that an earlier supplement would be used, there would have been no problem.