I was uncertain if this issue belongs here, since National Scholastics are USCF events, or if it belongs in the Tournament Organization section.
The issue is this.
National Scholastics typically allow 1/2 point byes if elected in advance (of the tournament) except for round 7. It’s never been clear to me why there is a round 7 exception, since the election is made without information on tournament standings since it is made in advance of the event. Logically, we should be indifferent to such an election. (It’s the old rule that “what you don’t know doesn’t change the odds.”)
At any rate, here is why this matters - an example from this year’s high school championship in Kansas City.
The last flight that many of our players can get out on Sunday to get back to Chicago, is at 6:30. The last round starts at 2:00 with a G/120 time control. Staying an extra day increases the airfare by $60 and the hotel cost by about $65, not to mention the difficulty with getting to school the next morning, after having taken 2 days off the prior week.
Starting the 6th round at 8:30 Sunday morning and the 7th round at 1:00 Sunday would help in most cases (lunch would be harder, but would encourage hotel box lunch sales.) Alternatively, the ability to schedule a half point bye in round 7 in advance of the tournament would solve the issue.
This thread should probably be in the Tournament Direction Forum, since the issue of whether or not to permit last round byes is not specific just to the National Scholastics. (Tough call on whether it is an ‘organization’ or a ‘direction’ issue, though.)
I believe the usual logic for disallowing last round byes is that it could affect who wins the tournament by giving someone a guaranteed 1/2 point in the last round that they would not necessarily get if they had to play against someone else in the top point bracket(s).
Kevin I think the main argument against the last round 1/2 point bye is that a player can win the tournament without having to play the hardest opponent. If they are strong players the first couple of rounds are pretty much cakewalks, then they have a little harder game or so then they take their bye and go home.
In practice I’ve seem this fall out both ways. The player finishes completely out of the money and the player takes clear first or a tie for first.
But that logic is (logically) invalid since the election is made in advance, right? It’s just as likely that a contender who made such an election would lose first place since they wouldn’t have an opportunity to score a full point or knock out a contender.
The advantage actually falls to the players who are playing out the round, since they know what they need to play for. (They have more knowledge that helps them.)
I have long felt that bye restrictions in many major events are too tight. Sometimes the result is that a sympathetic TD will listen to a sob story and grant a bye when the published tournament rules would not have allowed it. Then a big argument develops when another player finds out and objects.
If the bye restrictions are reasonable, and are enforced uniformly and without exception, a lot of trouble can be avoided. For a 7-rounder, how about something like this:
Byes permitted in any round.
No limit on the number of byes (except for players competing for a prize likely to be won with a break-even score).
Deadline for requesting:
3a. Round 1: With registration.
3b. Rounds 2-4: An hour before the start of the round.
3c. Rounds 5-6: Before the start of round 4.
3d. Round 7: Before the start of round 5.
Deadline for un-requesting a previously requested bye: Same as above.
Even if I agreed with the premise (and I don’t) is this really an issue in a 7 round event? If it is, then isn’t there a fundamental flaw with the tournament anyway? (How can someone be winning a national championship playing only hard game in 7 rounds?)
See my comments and statistics on the number of events with perfect scores over in the related thread on nationals in the Tournament Organization forum. A third of the time there were NO players with perfect scores, which seems to refute the suggestion that they played ‘only one hard game’.
BTW, most of the people at the FIDE Technical Commission meeting in Torino last June would have agreed with you that the USA practice of allowing ANY half-point byes is faulty.
To encourage participation in tournaments for those who have schedule or economic conflicts. For example, the extra $100 cost may matter to someone wishing to play in the NHS tournament. A half point bye may attract more players because the bye is worth $100 to them.
In the end, not all tournaments can be played in a 100% professional fashion because there isn’t sufficient economics to support chess. Therefore, we need to be flexible to encourage participation to enhance the economics.
In general I can see allowing half-point byes in the final round of a tournament, but I have always followed 22c4 which says that they must be requested prior to the first round and they are irrevocable (zero-point byes for the final round can be requested at any time prior to pairing that round).
There is an option that allows them if they are requested prior to the second round, but personally I would only allow that if the player did not play in the first round (in which case the question of allowing multiple half-point byes arises, to be answered separately).
One time somebody asked how many byes they could take in the tournament, and I responded by saying he could take a bye for every round of the tournament if he wanted since there was no maximum restriction on the number of zero-point byes allowed.
This can be an interesting discussion for future tournaments.
As far as the 2007 K-12 National goes, I’d suggest contacting the organizer to see if there would be any consideration of announcing a revision, but I would not put much (if any) hope in that happening.
I can attest that the timing of Sunday flights from Kansas City to Chicago is inconvenient. I had had hopes of flying back Sunday night before I checked those schedules, but now I will be taking a vacation day on Monday and flying back that morning.
Most of the experience I have with this has been 4 round tournaments and smaller fields, so maybe the 7 rounds changes things a bit.
The only flak I’ve gotten is when the person that has taken the bye wins.
Players complain that they won without playing the harder 4th round.
But the reasoning for having the last round bye is also very valid. It tends to be a trade off.
After much debate a few years back our one day tournaments retained the last round bye option and our one two day 5 round event bans the last round bye.
But the last round isn’t late at night either.
I’ve seen situations in 4 round tournaments where a lower rated master requests a 2nd or 3rd round bye to avoid the GM they would play in that particular round. Then they sit a 1/2 point behind the leaders and if they win the remaining 2 games they play they’re sitting pretty at 3.5, and may even slip into a tie for first.
In my chess club we have one tournament game a week for 4 weeks. I allow players to take a 1/2 point bye in the last round if they give notice prior to the start of the 3rd round games. With a week between games, it could be very difficult for all players to know their exact schedules far enough in advance to always be able to request 4th round byes prior to the 2nd round.
Registration is a hectic time for TDs and players alike. Many won’t have their act together yet. Bye requests during registration may be overlooked, or get lost in the shuffle.
If requesting a round 7 bye before the start of round 5 is too lenient for you, how about at least allowing it before the start of round 2, or maybe round 3?
If you mean irrevocable once the original request deadline has passed, then of course I agree. It would be silly to have a revocation deadline different from (either earlier or later than) the request deadline.
That’s a huge IF. Strategies like that backfire 90% of the time. Kevin Bachler has already pointed out why. A player who plays, at least has some control over whether to try for a win or a draw. A player who sits, is at the mercy of the tournament.
For example, what if your “lower rated master”, after his round 2 bye, loses in round 4 to another low master or expert? If he had played (and lost to) the GM in round 2, he probably would have faced an A or B player in round 4, and won.
Let the players request strategic byes all they want. I love it when the punishment is inherent in the crime. The trick for the organizer is to set the request deadline early enough so that the player’s strategy backfires more often than not.
Let us get specific here. Last year’s K-12 champion, Landon Brownell (2239), faced three experts, none rated over 2010. The first four rounds were, at least on paper, easy for him. In the final round, he defeated a 2009 player. In fact, there were five masters in the tournament and none of them played each other.
Based on Landon’s performance, he had three challenging pairings. While it is a seven round swiss, for the top players it really is 4-5 rounds of taking care of business and then 2-3 tougher games. Certainly there would be an outcry if one of the top players took a last round bye and then won his first six games against much lower rated opposition (or perhaps just one tough game in rd 6).
I do agree with one sentence by Mr. Bachler: there is indeed a fundamental flaw in the tournament. A section with 368 players should not be a 7-round swiss. Either the USCF needs to add more sections or add more rounds.
More rounds? What a furor that would cause, not to mention scheduling issues if they actually got the idea approved by the various scholastic bodies. There haven’t been a lot of multiple 7-0 finishers (as shown by the table I posted a few days ago), more rounds doesn’t seem entirely necessary.
As a follow-up: I had 8 players who were considering going.
1 player, an expert, decided to go. The remaining 7 decided not to attend.
Of those 7, 1 said he would go if we had a team of 4.
Of the remaining 6, 2 decided that they were not going under any circumstances.
Of the remaining 4, all 4 decided they weren’t going because of the extra day of travel.
Therefore, the extra day of travel cost the tournament 5 entries for this team - which was the IL state champion this year.
For the 4, the decision not to do the extra day of travel was divided fairly equally between the cost, and the extra time in being away from a (fairly competitive) high school.
I don’t know how this compares with other schools. But I thought the information would be of interest.
Regarding extra rounds - acceleration probably addresses most issues. There might be a way to get a third round on Friday – it might be possible for the high school tournament with careful planning or some concessions of the first day time control. But I don’t think it’s currently necessary.
My high school team from California (7-8 players, top 5 rated over 1800) always travels on Wednesday after school and Sunday night after round 7. We always miss the awards ceremony, but that’s the cost to fly home for school on Monday. We finished in 3rd place for K-12 last year and team members will attend top colleges such as Stanford, Berkeley, MIT and Harvard.
The point is that other teams face the same transportation dilemma and find some way to deal with it. The problem has existed every year I’ve been involved with this group of kids (4 years now).
What are you talking about? There is a 7:35 pm and a 9:40 pm from KC to Chicago Sunday night on Southwest. Airfares are still less than $150 RT. That is how I am getting back for work on Monday.
Advocating annoying anyone from the West Coast with a round time that starts at 6:30 am their time makes no sense. Can’t Cavemen read flight schedules?
