We were discussing the fall schedule last night and the tournament director mentioned one of the events he was putting on the schedule.
The format would be a 4 round individual rated matches. 2 games at a faster time limit such as game/35 and two games at slower time limit such as game/90 against the same opponent. Each player getting one white and one black at each different time control.
I believe the match ups are assigned by rating. 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6, etc. All the results would be submitted together.
My question is how would this be treated for rating purposes? Would it be subjected to the limitations of individual rated matches in terms of rating point gains and losses? And would the floor drop request go into affect is it does on a straight rated match?
We started our 4 game match tournament by the TD pairing 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6. I just came across a big oops. One of the player’s rating is provisional. When I looked at the rulebook it made no mention of provisional ratings, just that the rating had to be published. Then I saw with the new match rules on the website, that the rating must be published and established.
What should the TD do with this match? There’s one game left to play.
Cancel the match?
Not play the last game until the player in question has played 25 games, and then submit the results? (He’s played 11 games so far, and has a 1694 rating. He plays pretty constantly at that level. It will probably take another 3-4 months to get him established since he only plays at this one club.)
Complete the match, send it in with the others, and have the office rate it once the the player receives an established rating?
I have never used this format at my regular club, so this is all new for me, and I want to make sure the TD sends the results in correctly as you specified when this came up earlier.
Since it is part of a larger event and not just an attempt to bypass the match rules, I think this would probably be an approved exception to the match limits, though I don’t make those decisions.
(Each match should still be a separate section, though.)
If you’re submitting it online, you will need to contact the office to have them override the match rules before you can submit it for rating. You should be able to use an ‘office action’ exception request to do this, explaining the circumstances. (I’ll probaby have to show/remind someone how to do this, I don’t know that we’ve seen more than one or two of these since the match rules were changed and the exception mechanism implemented.)
If you’re sending it to the office by mail, make sure you include a note explaining about the one match.
I’ll probably have the TD send it in by mail with a copy of this discussion along with his note.
I’ve been submitting some of his reports online for him, but I’m not sure I want my name linked with this mess since I’m the one matched up against the provisional. However I did say I’d look into it for him before the last round.
Mike is this truely a match event since the players don’t choose their opponent? What if they played a second round of 4 games? Or what if you simply ran a one round rated swiss with regular swiss pairing rules.
Would that then beconsidered match play?
From the announcement about the revised rules for match play:
There are three aspects to the match rules:
The cap on total points.
Restrictions on who can play in a match.
Treating a match by a player at his or her floor as a request to have that floor lowered by 100 points.
The Board originally wanted to consider even a single game between two players as a match, regardless of why the two players were paired against each other. My analysis of several years worth of tournament history suggested that virtually all single-game sections were ‘extra games’ from a larger event.
Since it is nearly impossible for someone to earn more than 50 points from a single game, the primary impact of applying match rules to a single game would be to cause more extra games sections to have to be treated as exceptions and to cause more floored players to be reviewed. This seemed like a reasonable compromise to me.
So if I understand correctly a one round swiss or tournament even paired 1 vs 2 etc would not be match play, but if you had the players play 2 games, one as white and one as black then it would become match play and have to be divided into match sections for proper submission?
It’s tough to tell exactly where to draw the lines in small situations, one or two games between two players.
I think it’s clear that match rules should apply to a 4 game match, even if part of a group of 4 game matches.
However, consider a two game playoff to decide a championship.
Should that be a match or not? My interpretation of the policy would be that it should, because it is a separate ‘event’ involving just 2 players.
But what about a one game playoff? That’s harder.
I would go on intent. If it was the intent for these two players to play each other (either by their choice or the TDs) other than as the result of a pairing situation (like a house player or a repair/late arrival, as in another thread), then even a one-game event should be coded as a match. Thus a one-game playoff should be coded as a match.
In any event, the match rules regarding the ratings of the players for a playoff match or an event that is composed of a series of multi-game matches may need to be relaxed, requiring an exception request.
Though maybe it would motivate to prep for whoever I end out playing. 
Either that or get off my floor before this gets rated. 