I ran a quad today. The tournament leader was going to be paired with the tournament last-placer for the last round but before the last round the last-placer withdrew (honorably).
What’s the best practice here? Should I find a comparably rated player and substitute? Should I give the tournament leader a full point bye and offer a house game?
What if the tournament leader was very happy not to have to play his last round?
When I run quads, I collect an extra forfeit deposit fee ($5 extra for an entry of $10). I return the forfeit deposit to each player when he completes the tournament (or, at least, begins his last game). If any player drops out, the opponent (who was deprived of a game as a result of the withdrawal) gets back both his own and the drop-out’s forfeit deposit.
Of course, if you can find a suitable replacement, you may still be able to give the opponent a game, as well.
Bill Smythe
I understand I may be able to give him a game.
What if I have a replacement and he refuses because it’s not the original quad participant?
Do I have to give him a full point bye? Should I force him to play someone for tournament standing?
I don’t know how you force someone to play.
Seriously? Are you trolling?
Obv. no one can be forced to play. All I could do is say that you must play a replacement or forfeit if you refuse.
Is that in pre-tournament publicity? What does the USCF rules say about this type of situation? I don’t think you can forfeit them for refusing to play a house player or someone you substituted at the last minute.
Perhaps one of the walking rule books can opine here…
There was no pre-tnmt. publicity regarding withdrawals.
What makes sense to me is that a person with a bye (for whatever reason) should not have to play a non-tnmt. participant for tnmt. standing.
I let him have the full point bye. I’m just not sure it’s kosher.
Taking the worst case scenario of how somebody could be the tournament leader, you could have had 1 draw 3 and beat 4 while 2 drew 3 and lost to 4. At that point 1, 3 and 4 all had chances to have the final round put them in sole possession of first place, and 2 still had a chance for a four-way tie for first.
Options when 4 withdrew:
treat it the same as an early withdrawal and move 2’s games to another section. Thus you would have 1 with 1.5/2, 3 with 0.5/1 and 4 with 0/1 while 4 and 3 play in the final round. The big problem with that is that 2 did complete at least half of the games and thus it shouldn’t be done.
defer the 1 vs 2 game and play it later.
substitute another opponent for 1. The big problem with that is that the whole idea of a quad is to have everybody play everybody else in the quad and now you are giving different players different fields of opponents. Instead of a quad it becomes a very small Swiss, and in a Swiss 1 wouldn’t have the option of not wanting to play the final round.
award a forfeit win to 1.
My personal preference would be option 2.
Often quads are played in one day making this inconvenient. A third player may also leave not knowing if he won anything.
It is my personal experience that some players who are having a bad tournament are making less than honest excuses for missing the last game and would never make themselves available to play later. I have had quad players withdraw despite pre-tournament publicity forbidding withdrawals.
I have thought about charging extra and refunding when the player completes the schedule but it means a lot of extra work because of the <5% who withdraw. If they ever play again, I’ll collect the fine then. If they don’t return, it’s not as if I was losing a player I wanted to keep.
No but I don’t know if you have what I would call a TD attitude.
In a quad or any RR, a player may be offered a game with a house-man but should never be forfeited for refusing to play the house-man.
Subtle point: you are confusing a round robin with a Swiss. Note that rule 28M1 (The house player) appears within section 28 (Swiss system pairings, procedures). It does not apply to round robins. (For that matter, nor do the rules for full point byes [28L] or late entrants [28K], for instance.)
By the very nature of a round robin tournament (“all play all”, so that the field of competition is the same for every player), it is inherently unfair to substitute a house player once a round robin is under way. (Before people start jumping up and down, yes, it can be unfair to other players to have an unplayed game in a round robin.) I strongly recommend reviewing rules 30A through 30E.
Since this thread is about quads, it is also important to review rule 30G. And anyone who does this will find that:
The “simplest” procedure, if there is an odd number of players for the quads, is “to seek another player.” Such a player would certainly bear a strong resemblance to the house player described in rule 28M1, regardless of whether it is technically correct to call them that. The resemblance, though, would be to a permanent house player (i.e., one who plays in all rounds rather than just one).
The alternative to finding another player, and an alternative that should be employed whenever the total number of players is even but not evenly divisible by 4, is to group the lowest players into “a 3-round Swiss” - which brings in all of the Swiss rules, including rule 28M1.
I have run a total of 28 quads, and out of those quads have had exactly 5 players withdraw without playing their last game. In each of those cases, I gave the withdrawing player a forfeit and their scheduled opponent a win on forfeit (outcomes which count toward tournament prizes but not for rating purposes). In no case has this ever affected the awarding of prizes, since the withdrawing players could not have won their respective quads even if they had played their last game and won it, and since the players who were awarded a win on forfeit did not win the quad or tie for a win.
Bob
I am not sure if this you are implying this, but the advice to “seek another player” applies before the quad has started. Once a round robin of any size has started, it is inherently unfair to change the composition of the tournament. It is completely correct to give all opponents of a withdrawn player in a round robin a full point for an unplayed game provided the withdrawn player completed at least half the schedule. In the case of a quad, if a player withdraws after playing two rounds, his third round opponent would receive the full point. However, if a player withdraws after one round, that game should be reported in a “side games” section for rating purposes, but the game would not count for prize purposes. (You would then effectively have a three-player round robin, bletch.)
I do not agree with your analogy between seeking another player for a quad and having a permanent house player. The additional player in the quad will play all rounds. How is that any different from a normal entry? (The permanent house player may or may not be paired in any given round, depending on whether there is an odd number of players in that section for the round.)
Yes, I had intended to imply that. Having a player fill in for only one round (as a non-permanent house player does) is, as you say, at odds with the whole concept of a round robin.
Happily, I’ve never had a player withdraw after only one round. But I did once have a player withdraw after zero rounds! I had seated everyone, and gave the word to proceed, and a boy at the next-to-the-bottom table immediately announced that he had decided not to play, and got up and left without making any moves! My options were limited at that point because players at the other tables had already begun playing, and it would have been unfair to interrupt their games. I made a quick effort to recruit a spectator, but was unsuccessful. I would have even been willing to play myself, except that I should properly have been seated at the highest table, and the games for that table were already in progress. In the absence of an extra player, rule 30G called for grouping the bottom two tables into a 7-player Swiss, but the games at the bottom table had also already begun, so doing this would not have been fair to those players. So I had to opt for making the table a 3-player round robin. And, yes, “bletch” is a good word for it! 
It is different in that the player is normally either a spectator who had not intended to participate but was recruited to even out the seating, or a “friend of the tournament” who agreed to show up and participate if, and only if, this was needed to even out the seating. Such a player normally plays for free and isn’t eligible to receive prizes. It can be argued that, like the house player, they are only paired when there is an odd number of players in the section, except that in a quad, if there is an odd number of players in the first round, there will normally be an odd number of players in all rounds.
Bob
Actually, you could have gone ahead with the 7-player Swiss idea. For first-round pairings you could just use the “pairings” already in effect, i.e. let the already-begun games continue.
Three players would each get a bye at some point during the tournament. But in the lowest quads, cross-round pairings are highly feasible. This would eliminate two of the three byes. (Better one bye for seven players than three byes for three players!) Even that last bye could be eliminated by asking one of the players to play an extra game, if any player is willing to do so.
Bill Smythe
Well, wouldn’t this have violated rule 27A3 (pairing upper half against lower half)? Since players are grouped into quads by rating, all of the lower half players were in the bottom quad.
I don’t think “three byes for three players” is a fair argument. There were really three byes for the bottom seven players, so it was only a matter of which players got the byes.
Cross-round pairings is an interesting possibility, but at the time I ruled out grouping them into a Swiss, since the rules of the Swiss, as I understand them, would have required pairing the players from the next-to-the-bottom quad with players from the bottom quad for the first round (rule 27A3), and this would have meant interrupting games that the bottom quad players had already begun.
Bob
Sure, but so what? This wasn’t supposed to have been a Swiss to begin with. It would be simply a last-minute device to reduce the harm caused by the withdrawal. You can begin the Swiss approach (pairings by score, top half vs bottom half) in round 2.
Actually, it would still be a Swiss, just not a “ratings-controlled” Swiss.
Not if you let the first-round pairings stand, as above.
It is if you combine sections and use cross-round pairings, because then you can eliminate at least two of the three byes.
One shouldn’t be too much of a slave to a rigid literal interpretation of every rule, especially in unusual situations. With a little imagination, ad hoc problems (like early withdrawals) can often be solved, at least partially.
Bill Smythe
Amen! This quote needs to be in all future rulebooks.
Cool! I’ll keep this in mind if the situation ever arises again. Thanks!
Bob
Think of it as a Swiss with more or less accelerated pairings.