Is a tournament with no clocks and no time-control USCF-ratable? I am not talking about one game within a tournament where the players happen not to have clocks. I am talking about a tournament where no time control is stated and none of the players have clocks.
If such a tournament is ratable, is it regular-ratable, or Quick ratable? You could argue that it is regular-ratable because without clocks, the players essentially have a indeterminate amount of time to play the game, G/Infinite being considerably longer than G/60 (unless it is little kids playing, in which case G/Infinite could be equivalent to G/20 or less.)
If a time control and clocks are required for a tournament to be USCF-ratable, what percentage of the games have to have clocks? For example, if you stated the time control as G/30, but none of the players actually had clocks, would that be a ratable tournament?
If a time control is stated then it should be rateable based on that time control even if none of the games have clocks. In that case the organizer should have at least one clock available to be placed on long-running games even though that clock might not actually be used for any game. A TD would be obligated to give the full time to a long running game and not cut it short just for convenience. An ASAP schedule may work for it.
on first glance I thought that this covered the issue. but it doesn’t address the useage of an infinate amount of time. I seem to remember something in the rule book about the clock being required, especially in the sense that exceptions could be made at times.
42D implies to me that the Clock is part of the standard equipment and therefor necessary. What if you played a game without the pieces? Would that be rateable?
Remember that there are specific rules about placing a clock on an ongoing game that did not start with a clock. There are no such rules about placing pieces on an ongoing game that did not start with pieces.
Many games are rated without clocks ever being on them.
Well, you could have people playing with the board and pieces depicted on a computer-like display. Or suppose you tell your move to the TD, and he prints out a diagram for you to look at? I am not suggesting that these would be good “user interfaces” to a chess game, but if that was the interface to the “game”, would that make it a non-ratable game?
I think that since the rule book lists standard equipment that implies that they are necessary. The rule book even lists some exceptions etc. This is probably one of those items that wasn’t felt necessary to completely spell out in the rule book.
But maybe if it was advertized as an exception and played that way it would be rateable. I would actually contact the USCF ahead of time to verify that it would be etc.
Maybe someone from the Rules / Rating committee will weigh in here.
In order of questions…yes*, depends, 0%, possibly.
Frankly I’ve never seen a strictly G/∞ tournament. I doubt it would get much of a draw. A no-clock, G/∞ is permissable doesn’t sound all that bright. I played a 3-game match of no-clock games for $20 apiece a few months ago in Austin TX…thankfully the guy was more hustler than chessplayer and moved pretty quickly (and forked over $60 by the end of the night).
One of the realistic scenarios you describe is usually seen in scholastic tournaments where the youth don’t have clocks, but among the parents/organizers/TDs there are some clocks available. In that scenario someone is watching the clock and the TDs put clocks on the late-running games as the full time control approaches (example: announced G/30…and TD puts clocks on games when 40 minutes have elapsed with clocks set at 10 minutes apiece). I imagine you’ve done the same for scholastic tournaments with which you’ve been involved. In my view it’s up to the players to provide equipment unless otherwise announced, so if the players don’t have a clock then they are “at the mercy” of the TD’s discretion.
Edit: *There isn’t a systematic prevention of this possibility, even if chess-culture mores and “general principles” of tournament play suggest otherwise.
Hold one and see? While fully informing the players it may or may not be rated, and being fully prepared to adourn as many times as necessary plus being ready to judge when somebody is no longer engaging in his/her game.
(If I truly wanted to do something like that, I would set some ridiculous time control like 1/4h. But I don’t know that I would want to do that.)
Yes. Which is why the competent director brings at least one clock, and usually as many as one can scrounge - so that the rounds come off on time.
We’ve been running unrated tournaments where there is no fixed number of rounds. They are scheduled to run from 4:30 PM to 7:00 PM on a Saturday or holiday. For example, we did one this year on New Year’s Day. At 7:00 PM any games in progress are adjudicated (or simply abandoned). We pair a round as soon as “enough” players have finished their games (typically, 10 or more); so not every player plays every round. We use 1 versus 2 pairings and a player might play the same opponent twice; so clearly it is not a Swiss. It is basically Australian Draw going into “King of the Hill” mode after three rounds, with the additional feature of rolling pairings and a varying number of rounds. You could think of it as a Ladder tournament. In this amount of time with this format, the kids will generally play between 3 and 5 games, with a few playing one or two more.
The games are played without clocks, and we provide the boards and sets. (Also, pizza.) It works quite well for a scholastic audience because it reduces the waiting around for the next round to start. We typically have around 50 kids at these tournaments. We are thinking about how to adapt this format for a rated tournament.
I don’t think that much has to change to make it ratable. If I were you, I’d choose an arbitrary time control (GAME/30 is nice) and if any of the games start to get close to an hour, put a clock on them.
This is probably a good way to handle it. The last time we did it, which was at the beginning of this month (the day before the Hurvitz Cup), we had 39 players in the main section, and there were 10 “rounds”, with the players actually playing between 3 and 7 games. Since there is two and half hours for the tournament, this works out to one “round” every 15 minutes, or so.
Most of the players played 4 or 5 games. I’ve gotten a bit more conservative in launching new rounds, now waiting usually until there are a dozen or more players who have finished their games.
We’ve done it before with as many as 13 rounds. But this doesn’t really increase the number of games actually played by much and results in less good pairings, though it means a bit more waiting sometimes for the really quick-finishing players.
I see absolutely no problem with this being ratable as long as there is a nominal time control to keep one game from going on forever, and that players who don’t participate in one of the rounds be given an unplayed game for that round.
I don’t think his games were ratable. I kind of doubt if the concept of ratable was ever considered for the games back then. I thought you just had a rough ranking of the players.
When I did something vaguely similar in a casual non-rated tournament (18 players in one 6th-8th grade section and 8 in a second 5th-grade section) we ended up with 10 rounds in 5 hours for the upper section and 9 rounds in 4 hours for the other (that included spending a half hour for a pizza lunch). I used Swiss pairings (not accelerated), waited until a section was completely done, and had an unstated de facto time control of G/15 the one time I actually had to put a clock on a game. There were a couple of Uno games available while the players were waiting for the last game(s) to finish each round.
If they are playing as fast as you say they are then a G/15 time control might work better than a G/30 control, depending on whether or not you think a regular rating is desirable (which would require it to be no faster than G/30)or on whether or not you feel G/15 is too fast for a significant number of players (you get to define what is significant, so that could be as low as one).
If they are all from one school then JTP could be used even past 3rd grade as long the school has an affiliate membership (that $40 would be cheaper than 6 $7 tournament memberships).
If they are from different schools then JTP is still available for the K-3 section(s) and tournament memberships may be required for some of the players in the other sections.
The problem with rating the event as described below is that the resultant ratings are not accurate due to adjudications and abandoned games. This is of course the main problem with games with no clocks. What do you do to end a game without distorting the ratings?
So far all the tournaments have been unrated; so this was not an issue. The question is really how to adapt the format to work within the requirements (and spirit) of the rating system.
Rating an event with no clocks or time control? Presume no writing of moves or paying much attention if the kids are following rules. Are you really rating tournament games or just gathering random casual games and sending them in for rating? I guess as long as the USCF gets a rating fee, following a format or the Rulebook seems largely irrelevant. This may be a slippery slope problem if there is such little formal organization to an event.
What would the USCF do if a TD was just sending in for rating casual games from his scholastic classes as if they had played the games in a tournament? Some kids play 2 games, some 6 or more in a two hour session; an ideal way to get bonus points if you beat enough bunnies! Wasn’t a TD chastised last year for sending in strangely paired events, tournaments that were rigged?
The events are tournaments held twice per year – one around New Years Eve/New Years Day (called “First Knight”) and the other in April (called “Chesstival”). There is quite a bit of “formal” organization to the event, just not the organization you are used to in Swiss events. The games are not played with clocks, and we provide the chess sets and pizza. The tournaments are not submitted for rating; and we have no intention of making these rated events. The purpose of these tournaments is for the kids to have fun playing a chess tournament. So your view as to whether the games are a random collection of casual games or “formal” is completely irrelevant and of no interest to me at all.
But the format is popular with the kids and the parents because there is a lot less waiting for rounds to start by kids who play fast (which is most of them). We are thinking of organizing a rated tournament in the summer using the same popular Australian Draw rolling pairings system that we use at First Knight and Chesstival, with the appropriate changes to reflect the fact that the games will be submitted for rating. The notion is to introduce some of the players to USCF-rated play.
The tournament will probably be smaller than Chesstival or First Knight. I am trying to understand what those “appropriate” changes need to be, including whether it is a problem that most of the kids who might come to the tournament do not otherwise play in USCF tournaments and do not own clocks.