The player with white arrives and sets up. After the round is started, he starts his own clock, moves, then starts black’s side. A few minutes later a player sits down with no words exchanged on the black side, moves and the game continues for over 30 minutes.
At that point a third player goes to the same board and sees two players in the midst of a game. After verifying that he was at the correct board, he seeks the assistance of a floor TD. The TD determines that first player on the black side was at the wrong board and instructs him on where to be. The partial game is nullified, and the board is reset to the starting position.
What should happen to the game clock? Should black lose all the time because he was late? Should the elapsed time since the start of the round be split because white did not have the correct starting position? Should some mid point be set on the clock because while the third player was late, he lost time due to a different player sitting in his seat with the tacit approval of his opponent?
16M states in part: “A late opponent’s clock my not be started until the board and pieces are in place”. What does “in place” mean? What responsibility, if any, is there for players to ascertain that they are facing the correct opponent? Would white be allowed to play a different first move against the second opponent?
annul the game that was never in the pairings and had at least one player never realizing that a game against the random opponent might get rated.
charge the new player with the time elapsed up to the initial arrival at the board (not charging for time spent double-checking the pairing and finding the TD to handle somebody erroneously sitting in the chair).
charge the player in the wrong seat with all of the time until the player gets to the correct seat. If it results in a forfeit loss then that non-rated loss stands but the player can remain in the tournament.
Allowing the erroneous game to continue could result in a game between players with extremely different scores or in the wrong section.
Two obvious ways such an allowance could be abused are:
A) a player in contention for first will “accidentally” sit at a board with bottom-scorers in the section, whip of a dozen moves, and then say that the game has to continue and the player has an easy opponent to allow staying among the contenders
B) at a trophy tournament, a low-scoring teammate of a player in contention will “accidentally” sit at wrong board and play the competitor that was going to win anyway, thus providing a significantly smaller number of Median or Solkoff points when tie-breaking the trophies.
Note that in multi-section tournaments I have already seen people erroneously sitting in the wrong section, so I can see one possible abuse being to have a low-scoring friend in the U2000 section playing the U1400 friend’s top competitor in the U1400 section.
Another possibility is, if the forfeit time has passed, to allow the game on board to continue but make it an extra rated game especially if the ratings/pairing is way off. I don’t like that very much for adults - much more for very young players who may be more easily confused about where they are supposed to be.
But in the case as presented I would do what Jeff has suggested.
In the past, I’ve handled it as Jeff suggests. My reasoning is the person who was at the correct board shouldn’t be penalized for his opponent’s mistake.
Restoring all of the player’s time for the one in the correct seat even though he was playing a game would appear not to be in compliance with Rule 16M? That means there is no obligation for a player to assure he’s facing the correct opponent. I can envision a protest based on the pieces not being on their correct squares made by a late arriving player at the correct board with a game in progress. As Mr. Wiewel suggested, it may allow an unscrupulous player to take advantage of a loophole.
16M: “A late opponent’s clock my not be started until the board and pieces are in place”
Almost any rule can be ‘creatively interpreted’ and quite a few can be very intentionally abused.
Some years ago at a state scholastic tournament where we provided the boards and pieces, I saw a kid several rows away from where I was standing going around the playing hall just before a round was ready to be posted switching the king and queen positions on some, but not all boards, so that one king was on the wrong color. So I started making an announcement for all players to check that their kings were ‘on the right color’ before they started their games and to raise their hands if their board was set up incorrectly. The problem went away quickly.
Isn’t he at least partially fulfilling his “obligation” by showing up at the correct board? I know it’s probably a rare case, but even asking the player’s name may not be enough. Look at ISHAAN JHA in the lower primary section of this event (http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?201602069462.0-15937020).
Short of intentionally delaying their opponent (removing the pairing sheet, etc.) how could someone gain an unfair advantage by the late player being penalized the full amount?
I don’t understand why you think Rule 16M is relevant.
Let’s put some numbers on this. Imagine that the round officially starts at 10:30am and that the time control is G/40;d5.
10:30: Player A starts the clock
10:32: Player X sits down and starts playing
10:40: Player B arrives, looks at the seating chart, finds his seat, but sees that there is already a game in progress there
10:42: Player B rechecks the chart and verifies that player X is in B’s seat
10:45: Player B finds a TD and explains the situation
10:48: The TD nullifies the game between A and X, and they begin resetting the pieces
10:50: The game between A and B begins
When player A started the clock, the pieces were in place, so A was correct to start the clock. Between 10:32 and 10:48, a spectator, X, and player A accidentally displaced the pieces. Spectator X also illegally pressed B’s clock button a number of times.
Now, the question can be raised as to whether A should (or even could) have verified that X was the correct player. But that is largely irrelevant. Player A correctly started the clock at 10:30, and if spectator X had not illegally pressed B’s clock button, the clock would have shown, when player B arrived, that he had 30 minutes remaining. So the only question is whether A’s clock should be started at 10:48 (when the displaced pieces began being reset) or 10:50. In either case, A’s clock should ideally be set to 40 minutes and B’s to 30 minutes. But if the tournament schedule will not allow the game to run late, then the clocks should be set to 35 minutes for A and 25 minutes for B (if A’s clock is being started at 10:50), or 36 minutes for A and 26 minutes for B (if it is being started at 10:48).
Presumably the board and pieces were in place before the late opponent’s clock was started. Just because a third party subsequently displaced them by playing at the wrong board doesn’t mean 16M hasn’t been complied with.
The late arriving opponent and the incorrectly placed opponent both have the full time charged against them, and I feel quite comfortable defending that ruling on appeal.