I am still confused as to what to do with SwissSys in entering results when a player withdraws from a round robin. In the pairing results what do you plug in? And what do you input into the pairings results (especially for the opponents of the player who withdraws) when a player withdraws before 1/2 of the games are played? Also what is the procedure for entering results when a player withdraws after 1/2 the games are played. I think I understand rule 30B but honestly I don’t know how to apply the rule and record the situation into SwissSys. The light has not come on for me. The program seems limited in fulfilling this rule. Any swisssys specifics would be GREATLY appreciated. Perhaps I cannot describe the situation adequately by inputting into the pairing results? Perhaps I need to make modifications to the wall chart directly by going into edit mode and turning off automatic updates. But the question remains…what do I plug into the wallchart now? Thank You
Well I just out of curiosity set up a 4 person round robin in SwissSys version 8 and scored everyone in round 1. Then for round 2 I gave myself a 0F which automatically scored my opponent with 1F which should be all the USCF needs to know not to rate it. Then in round 3 I did the same 0F score for me. I though I was going to have to convert the file to the swiss format vs the roundrobin format but it seemed to take it ok. I think I had to do that once when we did a rated double round robin. You do have the option in SwissSys to convert to a Swiss Format at anytime.
I don’t quite see the problem. If you are entering the results from the pairing sheet (as you probably should), you simply score the game as an “F” (forfeit loss) or “X” (forfeit win). Any games actual played must be entered and rated. The business about “playing less than half” is relevant only to tournament scoring, not ratings. If your concern is printing a crosstable with the withdrawn player’s games annulled for standings purposes, the simplest way is probably to use Edit mode on the wallchart, keeping in mind that you will have to put back those games before you generate the rating report.
John, you partially answered my question thank you. But lets say the round-robin was an 8 player (7 rounds). A player drops out after round 2 leaving 5 games unplayed. You score EVERY single unplayed game as Forfeit Loss & Forfeit Win ??? The games that were played get rated(yes)…but… they don’t count towards prizes and all these forfeit wins don’t count toward anything either so what is the point of scoring these games as forfeit wins? This would really confuse the players when trying to figure out “true” standings and who wins the prizes. This method just seems to clutter things up. Do you just manually (on paper perhaps or mental note) subtract off all these forfeit wins at the end to determine prizes and then you submit the ratings report with all those forfeit wins and losses? I guess my question is … is there a “cleaner” way of submitting a rating report while at the same time showing “true” standings?
Thanks again.
David, why wouldn’t a forfeit win count towards the standings? Why should a player be penalized simply because his opponent dropped out? True in your example two players had actual results but basically that is just the luck of the draw.
Keep in mind, too, that one reason an opponent might have for dropping out is that he expects to lose if he plays. I’ve directed more than 50 round robin sections (quads) and have only twice had a player drop out before playing all of his games. And in one of those two cases, expectation of loss was definitely a major factor in the player’s decision to leave without playing his final game. So why shouldn’t his opponent have been credited with a win? As it was, his opponent was still penalized by being deprived of playing a game that could have benefited his rating.
Bob
If someone drops out before the last round, they have played more than half their games. The WF the opponent got would certainly count in the standings and the games the dropout played before then would not be thrown out.
Well, let’s consider a couple of scenarios:
First, let’s take the case I described. Player 1 won all 3 of his games. Player 2 lost to player 1, but beat players 3 and 4. Players 3 and 4, however, never played each other because player 4 (who, btw, was 9 years old) got discouraged and left without playing his final game, giving player 3 a win on forfeit.
It’s evident that player 4 didn’t act wisely in leaving, since player 3, like him, had lost to players 1 and 2, so that the two of them were fairly evenly matched and their game could have gone either way. But, in any case, the forfeit didn’t affect the outcome of the quad, since neither of them could have won it regardless of the outcome of their game.
So let’s try to envision a situation in which it could make a difference. Imagine that player 1 draws against player 4, loses to player 3, and beats player 2. Player 2 loses all three of his games. Player 3 beats player 2 and beats player 1, but leaves without playing his final game against player 4. Player 4 draws against player 1, beats player 2, and is credited with a win on forfeit against player 3. So their final standings are:
4 - 2 1/2
3 - 2
1 - 1 1/2
2 - 0
Player 4 is therefore counted as winning the quad even though, like player 1, he actually won only one game and drew one game.
But what if the final game had been played? If player 4 had won it, the standings would have been the same. If player 3 had won it (as seems more likely), the standings would have been:
3 - 3
4&1 - 1 1/2
2 - 0
And if players 3 and 4 had drawn, the standings would have been:
3 - 2 1/2
4 - 2
1 - 1 1/2
2 - 0
Note that in none of these scenarios would player 1 or player 2 have won the quad. So player 4’s win on forfeit did not keep either of them from winning the quad, since there is no way they could have won it even if the game had been played. The person who was prevented from being the quad winner was player 3, who deserved to lose because he left without playing his last game. Player 4 may have won the quad through luck, but there is always a certain element of luck in how any player does, since his opponent may make a blunder that he didn’t make when playing his other opponents.
Bob
The basic rule is that, if someone drops out before completing half the schedule, his games do not count for score/prize purposes (though they still must be rated). You can score them all as forfeit losses or double forfeits, it really makes no difference. If he completes half the schedule, his games count and everyone who didn’t play him gets a forfeit win. I don’t want to be dogmatic about this, since there are other options used by some organizers. For example, I recall one tournament in which a relacement player was added to complete the scofflaw’s schedule.
You are correct that SwissSys does not really support having separate “score” and “rating” displays. You just have to change the scores manually and then change them back for the rating report. You can ask Thad Suits about adding such a feature, but it’s so specialized that I doubt he’ll want to do it.
Have you tried putting in “0” point byes for the remaining games for the player that has withdrawn? This should result in that players opponents receiving an unrated 1 point for that due game. I remember an older version of either WinTD or Swisssys where I had the problem of players not always getting removed from a tournament. So I now have the habit of both marking a player as unpaid [i.e. not in] and also giving them “0” point byes for the remainder of the tournament.
Larry S. Cohen
That would work, but for a small RR it seems unnecessary. The point of those settings is to keep track of byes when you have a hundred players. The problem is, if a player drops out after, say, making two draws, how do you set his score for the first two rounds to zero for standings purposes and still rate the two games correctly. I think the answer is that you have to do it manually.
If the result of the played games are the same (such as draws) then you can use the same non-played result for all of the unplayed games (5 more unplayed draws in your example). Usually you’ll have some different results and you’ll have to set them to zero for standings and then add them back manually. Personally, I’d leave them in and then handle the standings manually.
The simplest seems to be to add a separate section of extra games and keep the games that have to be rated but which don’t count for standings there.
One downside to the ‘extra games’ approach is that since it results in a separate section it may reduce the possibility of awarding bonus points, since someone has to play at least three games in a section (and no more than two against any one opponent) in order to be eligible for bonus points.
Thus the extra games section is almost never eligible for bonus points, and taking those games out of the RR section might affect someone’s ability to earn bonus points from the RR.
That’s true, but it effectively changes the tournament into an “n-1” game round robin, and puts all players on a level playing field when it comes to bonus points.
Alex Relyea
You say that as if there is a competition to earn bonus points, with winners and losers.
If Joe plays five ratable games and Bob plays only four ratable games because someone withdrew, why should that affect the computation of bonus points for Joe?
It is possible, I suppose, that splitting off Joe’s fifth game from the other games in that section could result in improving Joe’s performance enough to earn bonus points, but the only cases I specifically recall being brought to the office’s attention were cases where someone thought (correctly or not) that splitting off an extra games section cost him bonus points.
If a player never played the withdrawer then where the non-played game goes is irrelevant. If the player won against the withdrawer (or drew against a higher-rated one) then that is not going to be counted for bonus points if it is in an extra games section.
I guess that a player that lost to the withdrawer would have better bonus point possibilities if that loss was moved to an extra games section (especially if the extra games section was rated first).