Improper Recording, Improper Pairings??

Running Chess Tournaments
1

The following came close to occurring in a scholarship scholastic tournament I recently directed, but
fortunately, actually did not.

However, I have been considering the implications if it did.

Here is the scenario: Rounds 1 and 2 in a 50 player HS pool have gone very smoothly. However,
after round 3 is complete, one of the players states that the wall chart results for R2 are incorrect.
That Aryan K. playing white, against Jack P. was recorded as losing. Upon inspection, it is clear that
Aryan and Jack filled out the result slip incorrectly, with Aryan filling out the black side, and Jack
the white, and both also signing on the incorrect side of the form.

The very experienced results volunteer misses this error, and records Jack as the winner. As a result,
Aryan gets into the 1 instead of the 2 score group, resulting in a FAR easier pairing. He plays
a 500 rated player instead of a 1300 rated player. After recording an easy win in R3, Aryan notices
the R2 error, and, upon confirmation, it is corrected. But the “damage” for R3 and tiebreaks has been
done.

At the End of the Day, Harold another strong player and Aryan are tied 5.0, with Horold winning
on tiebreaks primarily due to the not as strong opponent Aryan played in R3. Aryan protests and
states that really, the only reason he is aced out of the scholarship is because the tournament staff
did not do due diligence in catching the error he and Jack made in filling out the results slip.

Some have suggested a good way to “solve” such problems is to have a 10 minute blitz playoff if
there are two perfect scores.

What are the thoughts of those experienced with such issues??

Thank you for your thoughts,

Rob Jones

2

My feeling is that unless you have announced in advance that a playoff could be possible, you should not hold one, regardless of the justification for it, for the same reason that you should not change what tiebreaks you are using: You’re changing the conditions of the event, conditions that people might have used to decide whether or not to enter. Are there exigent circumstances where you might have to change those conditions? Yes, but a mis-reported result isn’t one of them.

Being mis-paired (paired down) due to a mis-reported score doesn’t always result in a more winnable game, especially in scholastic events where ratings are often inaccurate, for a variety of reasons. Moreover, the player who is paired down may get lower tiebreaks from his paired-down opponent, so things tend to cancel out.

3

I saw this happen at a state scholastic event a few years ago that I TDed at. It was a large event (250+ players), five sections, two floor TDs per section. Several times, I was able to correct this exact problem before results were turned in (players were required to raise their hands to turn in the sheet with the result). Unfortunately, in another section, one slipped through, and the wrong player received credit for the win.

A fail-safe method we employed was to post the results of the standings in the hallway for at least fifteen minutes before we started to calculate pairings. We told the parents and kids OVER and OVER again before each round to check the results to make sure they were right. Alas, to no avail in this case. Since the player messed up twice (once when he filled out the sheet, and once again when he didn’t check the results sheet), I had little sympathy.

The consquences were much less severe than in your case, a kid got stuck with a full point bye that he shouldn’t have gotten in the last round of the tournament. We were able to switch the result so that at least rating-wise the player would get credit for the win, but it was too late to change the pairings for the last round.

Having two or more perfect scores is another problem, I don’t like using tie-breaks to determine a winner in this situation. If I score 4.0/5, tie for 1st, but lose on tie-breaks, there is something I could have done to win the event, I could have scored 4.5 or 5.0. But if I score 5.0/5, tie for 1st, but lose on tie-breaks, I can’t improve upon that. There was nothing I could have done to win the event. Perhaps an under section can be implemented in the future, to decrease the number of entrants in the championship section (say a Championship and an U1400). Even though players rated under 1400 are still eligible to play in the Championship (and some will!) many will elect to play in the lower section instead, hopefully enough to get the # of players in the championship section to 32 or lower. Another option is to increase th # of rounds to 6, but taht isn’t always possible When 1st place has such a desirable indivisible prize, it is very undesirable to have multiple perfect scores.

4

For local scholastic events (the ones with trophies) I generally use a blitz play-off for perfect scores and tie-breaks for anything else, regardless of why the pairings ended up being what they were.

I also generally announce that that players, parents and coaches should check the cross-tables to see that everything was posted correctly. When a player and coach waited until after round seven (final round) to report a round five correction I opted (per 15I) to correct it for the rating report but retain that round five result for the trophy determination and tie-breaks (I think in the rating report I converted the result in the section to a forfeit win/loss and put the actual rateable result in the extra games section).

There used to be a player in scholastic events who would often end up having a mis-reported round one result, get paired with a round one loss throughout the event, and then have the result corrected after finishing the final game but before prizes were calculated (cumulative was the first tie-break back then), suddenly jumping up to a significantly better trophy gained against weaker opposition than others played. That was before 15I was added to the rulebook.

5

Aryan filled out the form incorrectly. Not the TD staff. At that point HE failed on his responsibility. Do you think if he had filled out the form correctly that the result would have been recorded incorrectly? not likely. The TD staff is there to assist the players as much as possible, but ultimately it was the player’s error that started all this. Changing the rules of the tournament because of the player’s error would not be the right thing to do.

6

Aryan had an opportunity to recognize and report the erroneous pairing. Presumably, the pairing sheet and/or wall chart had the scores of the players posted, so he could see that the pairing was based on erroneous information.

There’s no need to correct the situation. The player had enough information to make the correction himself, and failed to do so.

And it is tempting to note that the player himself was responsible for the erroneous report, by filling out the scoresheet incorrectly, but that is actually a secondary issue. The same thing could have happened due to an error by the staff, and the situation would have been the same. Either way, the player should take some responsibility to check the status of the tournament and verify that the results for his games have been recorded correctly.

Blitz Chess playoffs are, in my opinion, better than tiebreakers, but you can’t add them in after the tournament has started.

7

Er, that is not the only reason. One other reason, and one might argue a more important one, is that he made the error in the first place.

Given that the whole issue wouldn’t have come up without his error, I have no problem not giving him the benefit of a tiebreak.

8

Perhaps I was unclear. There never was the thought of adding a playoff for perfect score ties at the end of THIS
event. The thought has been the use of such for future events. For a perfect score situation, I agree with you.
there is merit to say a G/10 playoff, (which by the way, is NOT blitz, and why there are those who insist on this
incorrect definition, I have no idea). For less than perfect score ties, not so much, for then there is a strong
argument that the player missed out due to his own play in not attaining the score necessary to avoid a tiebreak.

I hate soccer penalty kickes, hockey shoot-outs, NCAA over-time periods, and chess blitz formats where games
and championships are decided by really games and procedures that have very little to do with the event just played. While I understand they WHY (ie, media), it does can and does quite often distort the contest itself.

Rob Jones

9

You could go to accelerating by quartiles or sextiles (reducing the number of perfect score from 1 in 32 to 1 in 64 or 1 in 96) and then hope for enough draws to reduce the number of perfect scores to one (or maybe two if you are fine with a perfect score play-off).

If you go with multiple sections you could give team trophies for the results that span the sections. That would be an incentive for the U1400 kids to play in the U1400 section and gain those points, thus further reducing the number in the championship section. Calculating the team standings each round could be done by making a copy of the event, merging the sections, generating the team standings, and then going back to the original to continue.

10

Agree with others: The proximate cause of the problem was actually several errors on the result of the player. Filling out the slip was only the first. Not checking the wall chart before taking the pairing was second (assuming they’re posted before or simultaneous with pairings.) Not noticing his score total on the pairing sheet is the third (assuming you post total score on the sheet.) Finally, while we don’t know Aryan’s rating, there is no guarantee that had he received best pairing that he would have won that game.

So, the first way to solve such a problem would be to hold players responsible for what they report.

If that isn’t satisfactory, my first choice would be to see if the scholarship provider is willing to allow it to be split in the event of ties.

We did try playoffs when we did our club championship cycle, and one problem we had two cycles ago is multiple perfect scores, especially if it’s an odd break like 3 tied scores. We solved it by three more weeks on the six week schedule to play three games {1-2, 1-3, 2-3.} Everybody hated it when we were done even though it solved the perceived problem. Further, what do you do if it’s four players (at least two games then), and/or if your tied players draw?

Aside from all that, I’m in the camp that blitz is chess but it is different. Would one consider saying, “Well, we’ll have the two of you play a correspondence postal game to find out who the better chessplayer and winner of the tournament is.” And I dunno, maybe there are those who would say exactly that, but I’m not one of them. (It was this unfairness that caused us to play those three tiebreaks above at the same control as the tournament.) I think what I’m saying is that while all tiebreaks are unfair, blitz playoffs are more unfair than allowing tiebreaks to decide in anything other than a blitz tournament.

11

I have gone so far as to say that blitz Chess is actually a variant. Not the same game at all.

But if you have time for a full length tiebreaker, why not just have another round for everyone?

12

Having another round would reduce the number of perfect scores in events where that is an issue, it might increase the number of ties (eg for first place) in events where nobody has a perfect score.

13

If you have a perfect-score tie, and you don’t want a playoff game as long as the regular games, but you also don’t want blitz, how about a compromise? If the regular tournament is game/60, the playoff could be, say, game/20.

Bill Smythe

14

Bill, I think G/10, 5 sec delay is fine, and this is not blitz. It really bothers me that USCF
considers G/10 blitz in its new ratings format.

Yes, i know words and phrases are ever changing, and " I am down with that", “My bad”,
etc, does not mean the same as they did in the days of my youth.

Rob Jones