Question. When you have a house man available for the tournament. How is it best to show on the pairing sheet. Example RD 1 Not needed. Showed the house man in the tournament and have a U by the House Man? Or a bye in RD 1? As we all know the next RD pairings will be effected if the house man has a U or a bye.
Generally, I prefer to use the "club? space to enter House, and then on the wall chart
options to so list, so that all of the players can know.
Rob Jones
I would recommend giving a house player zero-point byes for any rounds in which said player is not paired. You could reflect this with a “U” on the wallchart for each unpaired round, if you’re not using a pairing program.
If you are using a written wallchart, it might also help to write “HOUSE” after the player’s name. If you’re using a pairing program, type the name so that “HOUSE” appears at the end. This will help players recognize that the player in question is not in contention for prizes. This will not adversely affect tournament processing, as long as you have the USCF ID right.
Hope this answers your question.
Well you need to ask yourself how you’re going to record the house games as well. Are you going to record it in the main section of the event where the odd numbered player was going to be?
Or are you going to create an Extra section and place the house man there (with zero point byes for unplayed rounds) along with the the odd man out for their house game.
I tend to go down the second route - create the Extra section, put the house player and house game there, and keep the main section(s) clean from house players / house games. Obviously the full point bye for the odd man out remains in the main section(s).
This is how Yoda taught me…
In the case of a house player who is available throughout a tournament, I think it is easier to not have an extra-games section. I would just pair the house player with his/her proper score in the round(s) when said player is needed. This avoids a number of potential reporting issues with an extra section, and helps keep down the number of full-point byes awarded. As always, YMMV.
The central issue may be this:
Suppose you have two players tied for some prize at the end. One of them played a house player in round 2, the other one played someone who was not a house player. Assume both players had the same result in that round (eg, both won.)
What’s the fairest tie-break procedure?
This is a reason why I don’t like having a houseman in the main event and instead keep them in an Extra section.
I make my House men walk with a cane, play the piano and guitar, play practical jokes, but I try to keep them away from the Vicodin.
Pistols at dawn.
I once specified the final tie-break (after coin toss) as: Snowball fight.
This was at a tournament in July, the outside temperatures were in the high 90’s that weekend.
If you just make the house player part of the section, I don’t see the issue with this. Just run whatever tiebreaks you said you would run (or default tiebreak procedure, if none was specified).
I find that players don’t beef about ties in these situations nearly as much as they do when one or more of the tied players has a full point bye as part of the score. The advantage of keeping the house player in the section is that whatever happens, you have kept byes out of potential prize issues as much as possible. Letting the issue be decided OTB is always best, IMHO.
(I note that players who receive full point byes are at a pretty significant disadvantage when indivisible prizes are involved, whereas they are at some advantage when divisible prizes are involved. If you make the house player part of the section, you remove both inequities.)
When I first started running chess tournaments at age 14 - I worked at the local Park District. In mid-summer we used to get garbage bags and fill them with shaved ice from the snow cone machines – and you can probably imagine the rest.
To me I’d put a houseman in the actual section, and put an extra game (generally between two players receiving byes in different sections) in the extra games section.
If multiple players in different sections are given houseman opponents and the games are put in an extra games section then it could flag as a problem for having multiple non-member houseman players in a section in the same round. Having the houseman players in the applicable sections avoids that problem.
A tennis ball in a gym sock is the same effect with less bruising.
This is really only a problem if the houseman is not a current USCF member and a membership exception has to be requested.
But it does go to show that creating a comprehensive set of rules for the ‘best way’ to handle house players and other ‘extra games’ situations would be challenging, at best.
Remember that the original question asked about a “houseman” for throughout the tournament. Lets look at just 1 possible case:
U2100 section with a poor turnout in a 5 round event. After Rd1 scores are at 1 point players rated 2070, 2060, 2050, & 2020; scores at 1/2 point are players rated 2035, 1940 (who took a first rd bye), & 1860; scores at 0 points are players rated 1970, 1880, 1865, & 1800. You have a “houseman” rated 2000. As an added note lets say that none of the other sections ever have the need of a “houseman”. So then how do you treat the “houseman”?
Do you always pair the “houseman” against the lowest rated in the lowest point group, & treat it as a side game? And does that game count in the section or does the lowman get a full point bye?
Do you put the “houseman” into the section? If you do that, then do you give the “houseman” a 1/2 or a 0 point bye for the first round?
Or is there some other option not yet suggested?
Clearly the size of the section and/or tournament is a factor. I think that maybe the strength of the “houseman” can also be a factor. Would you treat a 2000 and a 1800 “houseman” the same way? Finally, I think how often the “houseman” may/will be required to play should be a factor. How often does a “houseman” play 1/2 or more of a tournament for a single section? Some things to think about for how to handle different situations. Remember that in some of the Goichberg tournaments cross section pairings are used rather than a “houseman”, and the players are given the option of not playing that game. For the side game idea do you give the odd player at the bottom the option of not playing a game?
Please note that I have not given my opinion here, but just a set scenario with possible options and questions.
Larry S. Cohen
I do hope this comment will tend to discourage our mutual friend over at the Fix-Quick-Ratings and Order-the-Sections topics from proposing yet another set of long, detailed rules that will surely overlook yet another set of unanticipated possibilities. 
When I ran tournaments at the Lunt Avenue club (1994-2000), I would often use myself as the house player. I wanted to play, but would take myself in and out of the tournament as necessary to make an even number.
I would not, however, pair myself against the player who would otherwise have received the full-point bye. I followed eastside’s approach, and paired myself normally into the tournament. I think this is the best way to do it, because the players paired against me ended up with an opponent similar in rating to the opponent they “should” have been paired with.
The only problem was, what score to give myself, for pairing purposes, in the rounds when I was not paired. Half-point bye? Unplayed game? Full-point bye? To be fair to the other players, I tried to give myself whatever score would put me about in the middle of the score group I would be in. Fortunately, these were fairly strong tournaments (plus-scores), so I never had to give myself a full-point bye, which would have looked fishy.
This approach works well unless the TD is near the top of the wall chart rating-wise. But if the TD is about 1/3 of the way down or lower, it works fine.
Bill Smythe
The purpose of the house player is to give the otherwise unpaired player an opponent, end of story. Therefore, the house player’s score shouldn’t even be considered in making pairings; he should always be paired manually against the player with the bye, and you don’t know for certain who’ll have the bye until you’ve made the rest of your pairings. You also have to make sure that he doesn’t get paired when there’s an even number of non-house players, since pairing him will then cause another player to receive a bye. Moreover, the house player shouldn’t be eligible for prizes, and his score shouldn’t influence the prizes other players are eligible for, especially if you’re offering indivisible prizes and using tiebreaks. Putting the house player into the regular section introduces the potential for problems with all these issues. The extra games section is best.
If you insist on putting the house player in the regular section, at the very least flag him as ineligible for prizes.
If there is a permanent house player then, per 28M, that player is paired normally if needed to avoid any player having a bye, and not paired when such a pairing would result in another player having a bye.
28M explicitly states “It is not required that a house player be paired against the player who would otherwise receive the bye. Sometimes it is more appropriate to insert a relatively strong house player into a higher score group. In this case, neither the player paired against the house player nor the one who otherwise would have received the bye has the right to refuse to play.”
The purpose of the permanent house player is NOT to play the person that would get the bye, but rather to avoid any bye from being given in the first place. Such a house player may even receive half-point byes if they are available.
I stand corrected.