I just ran into an odd situation. I had players fail to appear for the start of the round, and during the first hour, the fire alarm went off in the building. We had all players pause their clocks and leave.
The missing players never did show, and we forfeited them when an hour had passed on their opponents’ clock. However, for the sake of argument let’s say that the round started at 10:00, a player showed up at 11:10, but had only lost 50 minutes on his clock because of a 20-minute delay for the fire alarm.
I read rules 13D and 28P to mean that they should be forfeited at 11:00 sharp, not 11:20 as they might if using Variation 13D1.
There would be a temptation to just let it go until the clock had one hour of elapsed time, and if the player showed up more than an hour late for the start, but before the clock had run for an hour, let the game be played. Then if late player won and the losing player’s coach complained, I could put the forfeit win into the tournament record and let the game stand as an extra rated game.
Rule 13D also says, “A director who learns that a player is unavoidably delayed may waive the one-hour forfeit rule.”
How this applies to Mr. Scheible’s hypothetical: if a player isn’t allowed in the playing hall because there’s an active fire alarm and the director or local authorities are prohibiting access to the playing area, that would seem to me to be an unavoidable delay. Therefore, I would allow the game to continue with 50 minutes elapsed from the late player’s clock.
The unavoidable delay did not begin until the player showed up, at which point more than an hour had expired since the round started. Accordingly this non-TD is not convinced the waiver is warranted.
If the late player arrived before the forfeit time while the players were outside the building because of the fire alarm then I agree that the player shouldn’t be forfeited. The way I read the hypothetical situation posed in the OP, though, the late player arrives after the players have resumed play. In that case I think the player should forfeit under the standard rule (one hour from the start of play) but would not forfeit under the variation, which is used by CCA (one hour on the clock).
The round started at 10:00.
Fire alarm at 10:20. Clocks paused.
Play resumes at 10:40.
Late player arrives at 11:10, and his clock has only run off 50 minutes.
So as far as the late player is concerned, the only effect of the fire alarm was to give him an extra twenty minutes to show up.
This could create difficulties in venues where the total time allotment to play is strict. I have hosted
many tournaments at public libraries that started at 1:30 PM, with library shutting doors at 5:00 pm.
In such cases, there really is not much choice but to keep the rounds moving along.
The language of rule 13D is, in my opinion, clear and unambiguous:
Regardless of the time showing on the clock (and regardless of CCA variants), the player has arrived 70 minutes after the start of the round. The player loses according to rule 13D.
On the other hand, rule 13D does not anticipate that the round will be interrupted for extraordinary circumstances. The rule does state that “[t]he absence countdown begins at the actual starting time of the round, which is not always the scheduled starting time.” One might interpret rule 13D as meaning that “the player who arrives at the chessboard after more than one hour of playing time has passed … loses the game.” Personally, I do not favor that interpretation.
If there’s a fire alarm or other interruption in the tournament, the TD will have to make on-the-spot decisions. The best advice I can offer is that the TD be as lenient as possible, even in situations that may not be directly related to the interruption.
I’ve had tournaments interrupted for tornado alerts and power failures. For one event, I showed up at the site on Sunday morning of a two-day event to find out there would be no power, hence no lights in the playing hall, until noon, due to a transformer failure. After consulting with the players, I adjusted the time controls for the two remaining rounds, since we had to vacate the premises by 5PM.
Given Mr. Scheible’s clarification, I feel the argument tilts in favor of issuing the forfeit at 11:00 (assuming, of course, that the late player does not have a reason for his lateness that would make him unavoidably delayed).
However, I’d probably leave the choice up to the player who is eligible for the forfeit win. Generally speaking, players want to play. My experience, even in major events, is that many have been willing to forego a forfeit win if an opponent shows up more than an hour late. So long as all the elapsed actual reflection time to that point is reflected on the two players’ clocks when they start, there is no harm to the event, and I’d let them play if the prospective forfeit winner wants to do so.
Of course, when I’ve had this come up, I’ve been very careful to tell both players that the prospective forfeit winner is under no obligation to play, and that if he chooses to play, all elapsed reflection time up to that point will come off his opponent’s clock.
Moreover, there’s a good chance that the player present, left to his own devices, won’t even claim the win at 11:00, but would wait until 11:20 anyway - because that’s when his opponent’s clock would show an hour had expired. I believe that is the commonly held (mis)understanding of Rule 13D. In a smaller event, it is fairly easy to see who is present and who is not after one hour. In a larger event, it’s much easier to miss these things (not to mention, there’s an increased risk of someone sitting at the wrong board, or even a spectator sitting at what appears to be an empty chair to watch a game, thoroughly confusing the poor floor TD who’s trying to track forfeits).