Very good point-I get calls ALL THE TIME from folks wondering how come Johnny did not get the third place
trophy as he is in third on MSA. The fact that very clearly,
in bold RED letters it is stated NOT LISTED IN TIEBREAK
ORDER, apparently, for some, is insufficient. And, for them,
what is the answer??
Rob Jones
Reading Recovery?
Many parents do not understand the term “tiebreak”. At our local/regional tournaments, when I post the final cross-table before the awards ceremony I instead write “NOT in trophy order”.
The current disclaimer says, in part:
Whether alternate wording, a larger type font or a different color would improve comprehension is debatable.
If there was a ‘Chess Devil’s Dictionary’, it would probably define ‘tiebreak’ as “A mathematical system designed to annoy the maximum number of players, coaches and parents.”
I always state (generally during the opening announcements and again in the skittles area during round two) that every tiebreak system is unfair, but the ones chosen are designed to be unfair in a blindly unbiased manner.
Upon further review, the red comment already is immediately followed by the bolded phrase “and does not reflect any distribution of trophies or prize monies”.
If the USCF wants to show the full list of prize money, trophies and other prizes or honors that were earned at events (eg, club/city/state championship titles, entries into other events, etc.), or the actual tie breaks as computed by the TD, that would be a significant increase in the amount of information that must be provided by TDs.
Given that the #1 reason given by some to switch to alternate
rating services is the supposed “extra” time it takes to submit
a USCF tournament, anyhow, this is probably not the way to go.
Rob Jones
Tie breaks are probably something that WinTD and SwisSys could provide, if there was a place for them in a new upload format. But there still could be reasons why the tie breaks from the results as shown on MSA could be different than what was used for prize purposes. (For example, if one or more games are treated differently for prize purposes than for ratings purposes to resolve unusual situations.)
Moderators, you might want to split this thread up.
Agreed. Aliteracy may not yet be the norm, but it’s shockingly common. Many people simply are not in the habit of noticing printed words and reading them to see what they say.
Nevertheless, I think no one would argue with the fact that crosstable data ARE NOT shown in tiebreak order, would they?
Steve, you might be surprised how many inquiries the USCF gets from parents saying something along the lines of: “Your website shows my son Johny as placing third in this tournament. He placed second, the trophy is sitting right here in front of me. Please correct your site.”
I have had parents and event a few club/local TDs(!) call me with that question after scholastic touraments telling me I screwed up with the trophy presentation after they see the MSA crosstable. Sometimes they are polite when they call.
I try to post a score/rating cross-table at the end of the event, so often I get those questions before leaving the venue. Even when a parent or coach is determined, they are generally reasonable as long as I appear to be calm and reasonable.
As I’ve told many parents over the years, I’d rather have parents ask questions than leave quietly in confusion. The latter course is easier to handle because the parents are virtually invisible to TDs, but that is also when they are more likely to give up in disgust and pull their kids out of chess. I don’t have a problem spending a little time explaining something, particularly if it helps keep kids interested in the game.
For that matter, I’ve found that some of the parents most determined to get answers end up (at other tournaments) answering questions from other parents that are hesitant to bother the obviously busy TDs. At my son’s first state chess event that I was not directing at my wife was amused when we were exiting the venue following the event and I was interrupted seven times by people with questions (after all, since I wasn’t working the event I was not an obviously busy TD - this was following a few dozen questions people had asked during the event).
Maybe a column could be added to the data input screen. It could be “manual tiebreak points” or “rank within scoregroup” or something. Entering data into these columns would be optional. The values could be restricted to integers 00 through 99, with 50 being the default.
MSA would use these numbers, rather than ratings, to decide the listing order within each scoregroup. If two players in the same scoregroup have the same number entered into this column, THEN the ratings would be used to break that tie.
This idea would make extra work only for those TDs who choose to use it. Others would still have their crosstables listed in rating order within scoregroup.
Some TDs might want to enter data into this column only for the top scoregroup or two, where the prizes are. Or use it only for players in contention for a class trophy. Or simply wherever the TD decides there may be a listing problem.
Bill Smythe
Bill, that may not solve the problem and could possibly even make things worse if we claim to be showing players in prize/tiebreak order.
Several issues to consider (there may be others):
A player whose score for prize purposes is different than his score for rating purposes.
Class prizes for a player whose rating for prize purposes in that event is different than his pre-tournament rating (and the latter would put him in a different prize category.)
When there are corrections made to an event, those don’t necessarily result in a recomputation of prizes.
Perhaps this thread should be broken out into the original topic and then the tangent that it took…
Splitting up the thread was suggested up-thread as well, Sevan.
The above appears on MSA cross tables. Anyone questioning trophies after seeing the cross table on MSA browsed right past it. Many affiliates post the standings in tie break order on their own websites.
I would vehemently oppose being required to list ALL players in tie break order into a rating report.
I could live with entering in anyone who received a prize, since I had to calculate that anyways.
As an example, if I have a scholastic section with 150 players, and prizes go out to the top 25, then it wouldn’t be that much additional work to enter how 1-25 finished. I wouldn’t want any expectation that I was supposed to see which of the players with 0.5 out of 7 were 146th versus 147th.
How much of a problem is this really? So occasionally a TD has to explain to someone that the MSA isn’t listed in tiebreak order. It would seem to only be a problem if the people didn’t believe that for some reason. I think any fix here would cause worse issues than the problem that it is suspose to be fixing.