I had an interesting situation at a tournament I was directing last Saturday. There was a storm outdoors, and late in the tournament, the power went out. Luckily, the outage lasted for less than a minute, but it started me thinking about how the situation should have been handled had the power remained out.
The most obvious thing was that, while there was some emergency lighting in the building, it was designed to allow people to get out of the building - not to allow them to continue their activities. There wasn’t enough light in the room to allow people to continue playing their games, let alone keep score, and it wasn’t even trivial for people to pause their clocks. Had the situation continued, there would ultimately have been no choice but to end the tournament without completing it.
There would be no problem with games that had already been completed, and rounds that hadn’t been started yet could simply have been logged as double forfeits. But what should have been done about games that were in progress? Keep in mind that, in the dark, it would have been very difficult for a TD to even examine the board positions in the various games, let alone look at scoresheets. Rule 14J could provide a basis for a TD to declare each of the games a draw, but this doesn’t seem fair to me, since the draws would affect players’ ratings. It seems to me that it would be fairer to declare the games double forfeits, but I see nothing in the rulebook that would permit this.
The same thing happened to us at a Massachusetts scholastic tournament yesterday, one of four qualifier tournaments for the state championship. The power was out for almost half an hour. Fortunately the round had just started a few minutes earlier, so for the most part we didn’t have a problem with games that had progressed so far that one player was clearly winning. We told everyone to stop their clocks when the lights went out but a few players continued playing in the semi-darkness and one game finished.
The power went out at 3:20 p.m. It was a four round tournament, and three of the five sections had completed. The Age 14 & Under section had just started round three and the Age 11 & Under section had just started round four. There was considerable debate among the parents and coaches about how the situation should be handled. Our decision was that if the power didn’t come back on by 4:00 we’d cancel all the games in progress and reschedule the remaining rounds for a future date, to be determined later. Strictly speaking the games in progress (some of which were on move three) should have been adjourned, but it didn’t seem reasonable to ask players to seal their moves in the dark. Fortunately the power came back on at about 3:45 so we didn’t have to cancel and reschedule any games.
This happened recently at a tournament of mine at my chess center. It was around 11am and a storm knocked out power with a round to start at 1pm. We started the round at 1pm because we opened up the shades and moved the tables by the windows and played by sunlight! Of course if the power would not come back up by the evening round we would have just cancelled that round and continued on the next day (it was an all weekend tournament).
Of course this will now give birth to the idea of Lantern Light Chess which will be a new tournament series (USCF Quick Rated and FIDE Rapid Rated) starting in January where we’ll start the rounds at around 9pm and have lanterns on peoples playing stations to play by (we’ll keep a light on in the bathroom though!). I have the lanterns and loads of batteries on order…
Unfortunately, we were in a room where there were only relatively small windows, and the boards were already as close to those windows as they could be. And there wasn’t much sunlight because of the storm.
Ours was only a one day tournament, so that would not have been an option.
I’m thinking of bringing a flashlight to future tournaments, just in case. (Having a flashlight with me would also have come in handy when I got home after the tournament, but that’s another story!) But I’m still trying to figure out what should be done at the tournament, even if I had a flashlight.
I don’t see any reason to enter the later/unplayed rounds as double forfeits. Easy enough to simply not submit anything for the unplayed rounds.
I assume you’re implying an unrated double forfeit. Again…it’s easiest to simply declare all of the interrupted games as null and void unless it’s feasible for opponents to schedule a game continuation.
How long we would have waited for the power to come back was another question I considered, particularly since road conditions were getting worse. I would probably have taken a vote.
We could have rescheduled the rest of the tournament for November 12th, when we already had the facility reserved for one of our regular club meetings. The question is whether this would have been fair to players who had had to travel significant distances to attend the tournament, or who already had other commitments on that date at that time.
These were quads (4-player round robins), so when you enter the results online, it automatically creates 3 rounds, and as far as I know, something has to be entered in each slot.
My understanding was that all forfeits are, by definition, unrated. Am I mistaken on this?
I think the appropriate code for double forfeits would be Z (forfeit draw) for both players.
I agree that this option sounds fairest. My question was where in the rulebook a TD is given the discretion to “simply declare” games null and void. Maybe rule 14J extends to declaring a game a forfeit draw?
The problem is that the word “forfeit” is overloaded. Some people use “forfeit” to mean “losing a game by running out of time” (as in the phrase “time forfeit”). This, of course, would be a rated loss. Some people also refer to the situation where someone refuses to obey the rules of chess and loses the game as a result as a “forfeit.” Again, as long as each player has made at least one move, this would be a rated result.
When applied in the sense of a player arriving at the chess board more than one hour after the start of the round, that forfeit is an unrated result.
Unfortunately, the USCF Official Rules of Chess is not consistent in its use of the word forfeit. See, for example, the text of rule 20B.
This would look odd, since it would give both players an unearned one-half point. Now, obviously, if every player was given an unplayed/unearned half point for the unplayed round, it doesn’t affect the overall scores. However, if it is just a case of an unplayed round, wouldn’t one simply use the code “U” for an unplayed round?
Sigh … rule 1A.
While I am the first in line to rail against “directors” who make up rules when the Official Rules of Chess clearly cover the situation, I also believe that being a tournament director involves much more than just pressing the button on the computer pairing program and searching for precise instructions in the book for every possible scenario. As tournament directors, we are not asked to leave our common sense at the door of the playing room.
Almost certainly, there will be individuals arguing that the rules should cover power outages. I would ask these individuals to consider the factors that have already been raised in this thread. Should the rule depend on the time of day when power is lost? (The availability of natural light is a factor.) Should the prevailing weather conditions be considered? (The right decision might depend on whether the road conditions are worsening.) Should the rule depend on when the round started? (What if there are multiple sections with different time controls and different start times?) Should the rule depend on the duration of the outage? Should the rule depend on whether the tournament is a one-day event or spans multiple days? (It may be possible to resume adjourned games the next day.)
No, if the power outage in the original case had continued, then clearly the conditions needed for a fair game of chess no longer existed through no fault of the players, the director, or the organizer. Nor would it be possible to adjourn games in the dark; furthermore, it would be unfair to require players who had traveled significant distance to have to return in the future to finish an adjourned game on penalty of having the game declared a loss if the player did not return. I’m sure those players who had superior positions in the unfinished games would not be happy about not being able to finish the game and gain their rating points. However, reason must prevail.
You are correct, all unplayed games, including forfeit wins, forfeit losses and forfeit draws, are not rated.
Coding those games as forfeit draws (or double forfeit losses) would keep them from being rated, so that is one option the TD could use, possibly after meeting with the players to explain the available options and ask them for their input.
Are there any conditions under which an unrated forfeit draw or unrated double-forfeit loss could, nevertheless, affect some players’ ratings, because it would affect the total number of games played? I’m thinking especially of conditions under which bonus points might or might not be awarded.
Interruptions happen. I’ve been at chess events with fire alarms (a couple of times during play and once during the awards ceremony), an actual fire (small kitchen fire that caused a one hour interruption) and power outages (one league match continued under emergency lighting). I haven’t yet been unlucky enough to be at an event that was cut short (came close when the tornado hit Nashville during the blitz night of the 2009 Supernationals, with the warning requiring people to go to the shelter, delaying the start of the event, and really pushing the deadline for starting the final round almost resulting in making it a five-double-round event instead of a six-double-round event).
If an event needs to be cut short you do what you can to make it reasonable.
For a totally unfinished round, that would make the most sense. I’d use the forfeit draw for the situation where one game for a round had been finished but the other game for that same round in that same quad had not. The first game, since it was finished, has to be listed for rating purposes as a win for one player and a loss for the other, or as a draw for both, but the other game needs to be counted as something in order to be as fair as possible in determining a quad winner (for awarding prizes). I tried to think of a case where the outcome of the unfinished game would have a high probability of going a certain way, and came up with the following:
Imagine that in the first 2 rounds, players 1 and 2 both lost to player 3, but both beat player 4. In the third round, player 1 beat player 2, but the game between 3 and 4 was not finished because of the power outage. Obviously, the most probable outcome, before the game even began, was that 3 would beat 4, since 3 had already beaten two players who had both already beaten 4. But it would be unfair to 4 to presume this outcome. If both 3 and 4 were given a forfeit draw (counts as a draw for prizes but won’t be rated), player 3 would end up with 2 1/2 points, while player 4 would end up with 1/2 a point. Even though it’s more likely that player 3 would have gotten 3 points and that player 4 would have gotten none, player 3 would win the quad either way.
I certainly didn’t think that the rulebook should specifically cover power outages, though there are a number of emergency situations that could arise that might prevent completion of a tournament, and I had thought that they might be covered generically. But you are correct that each such situation is different, and that it wouldn’t be practical for the rulebook to try to anticipate all of them.
In any case, rule 1A seems to cover it. I guess the important thing is to make sure the rulebook doesn’t explicitly cover the situation before invoking rule 1A!
No, unplayed games are thrown out and are not counted in any fashion.
Someone who has enough played games to qualify for the ‘standard’ formula, and has three or more played games, but no more than two games against any single opponent, is eligible for bonus points. (The ‘quad’ rule applies to players with only three ratable games, bonus points are possible, but the bonus formula treats it as if there were four games, so it is harder to earn bonus points. See page 9 of the ratings formula white paper on Mark Glickman’s web page.)
Of course, turning what would otherwise be a ratable game into an unratable one (such as by declaring games forfeit draws if the power goes out and play is not resumed) could affect who is eligible for bonus points in that section.