I am sure that many or at least quite a few Tournament Directors experienced situation like this:
The first round of the tournament (let’s say it is a small tournament with all the games played in one day) is about to start with all players already at the boards or it is already started a few minutes ago. At that same moment a new player arrives and indicates his desire to enter the tournament.
What is your reaction?
Would you enter the player in the tournament with 1/2 point buy or 0 point buy?
Would you simply tell her/him that it is too late and avoid all the trouble that late entry may cause.
What are actually the risks of the late entry?
I generally allow the late player to either take a first round bye or play a player (even if not in the desired section) who was previously assigned a bye. I won’t repair the first round for the late player, except under extraordinary conditions. I’m sure there are situations when you would tell the player that it was simply too late (like a round robin, for example) but I’ve never encountered any.
It really depends on the size of the tournament, how close it is to the start of the event, and if the other players mind. In West Texas, with great distances, we are a little more accepting of a late arriving player, and unless the event has already started, or if we are even in the number of players, and a player that arrived on time would be foreced to have a bye, we would allow them a 1/2 point bye and pair them for the second round.
If it’s just ONE additional player, and assuming you had an even number of players ahead of then, someone’s gotta get a bye, so why not give it to the latecomer, assuming you’re going to let that person in at all?
I’d give a half point bye. If there’s already a player receiving a full point bye, I’d pair these 2 against each other if it didn’t distort the pairings too much. I’d also assign color based on the higher rated of the 2 getting the opposite color of the higher rated player on last board in the section.
If you are willing to go to a little extra trouble, you can let a late player into a round robin, click here to see how. It’s easy if you have an odd number of players (it happened to me in 1966) and almost as easy with two late players. Allowing one extra player in when you have an even number of players is tricky.
Well, this actually happened to me as player past Sunday. Classical example of Murphy law. The only tournament that made sense was 70 miles away and 10 miles prior to destination the traffic just came to standstill due to as appeared 30 minutes later an accident.
As I entered the tournament room first round was about to start. While I understood that I am at mercy of the TD, in my mind I was hopying that he will take the entry and pairs me for a second round. Considering my lateness was clearly my fault, I set my expectations very low, would gladly take 0 point bye, pay penalty, whatever, I was in the car for almost 2 hours at this point.
TD looked me and just said it is too late without getting into any details. The way I understood it that was in reference to first round pairings which clearly made sense. Then he left, leaving the assistant. I breifly spoke to an assistant who I felt was ( at least initially) willing to accomodate. However when TD came back, he just repeated his “too late” verdict, even his assistant offered to play to make number of player even with my entry.
After that I simply left and has pleasent two hour drive home (irionically there was another accident in the opposite direction). Now, the whole situation was my fault to begin with, so TD is not to blame.
However I am trying to understand the rational of his decision. One extra entry would add to the tournament bottom line and he would have a happy “customer” going forward.
What was the risk of entering me? Is it possible that it could crash the tournament software? Any other reasons?
Because you could be giving a free point to a player who doesn’t deserve it. I suppose you could argue that if he’s near the top he would have won anyway, though I really don’t like that logic. But what if he’s just below the cut? Give him a half-point bye (assuming you allow half-point byes). I’ll usually make at least some effort to get the late player a game (e.g. look for a house man), but not at the risk of starting the other games late.
I can’t imagine any reason for not accepting the entry; he’s paying an entry fee, after all. However, if the TD wants to have a hard cutoff, maybe because of space – well, that’s tough. The player should have entered in advance or shown up on time.
Standard policy ay my tournaments is that if there’s an odd player in the late player’s section; they get paired if the odd player agrees to the game. If not, half-point bye for round 1.
That's true. Most of my tournaments are one-day events with lower prize funds though and I've chosen giving the player with the full-point bye the option of playing (Usually if it's a reasonably competetive match up it's usually accepted.) I also cross pair multiple odd players into an extra game. Those crosspairings get priorities. If I felt that was being abused I would reconsider, but since most of the players in my area lob me a call if they are running behind.
If I had the time to organize a 3-day event or something, now that you mention it, it would seemed better to only allow the half-pointer for the late player and just let the two play an extra game on the side if they wish.
Yeah, but if it was a multi-day big dollar event, the latecomer would probably still have two or three ways to enter the event, late or not. :sigh:
As an organizer, I’m hesitant to turn away another entry, but as a player if I wind up with a full point bye in a subsequent round because of the late entry, I’m not going to be thrilled about it.
One possibility would be to give the latecomer a full point bye for pairing purposes but only a half point bye for prize purposes, or a full point bye for pairing purposes for the next two rounds or so, then reducing it to a half point bye assuming the player hasn’t won every game, providing it’s at least a five round event. Either way, that’s going to have to be handled manually in the pairing program at an appropriate point.
For small events (at least in the lower sections), cross round pairings seem to work well to avoid byes. In fact there are several things that can be done to avoid byes – cross section parings, house players, etc. It seems to me that most byes can be avoided except for the big-money tournaments where you have to worry about giving people an unearned advantage or making the TD’s job just too darn difficult.
I think I’d do anything I could to let players PLAY. I sure wouldn’t want to turn somebody away!
I don’t know how anyone would be able to be upset about getting a bye because he was the lowest player in the lowest score group because of a late entry generating an odd number in a section. I know as a player that there is a 50/50 chance of there being an odd number when I register for any event. If a player shows up and wants to play directors/organizers should do everything within reason to make sure that happens.
Rule 28K says the director may accept a late entrant and assign a half-point bye for the first round. He isn’t required to. Still, given that you came all that way, he was a jerk not to.
Now here’s a follow-up question on a different but related topic:
Reading rules 28K and 22C2 together, it sounds as though the rulebook recommends giving half-point byes only to players who notify the TD one hour in advance of the first round that they intend to enter but will be late, and assigning a “forfeit” (in other words, zero-point bye) to a late entrant who does not give such notice. Is that how others would interpret these two rules?
To be honest, I am of opinion that it will be very unfair to put this TD on the spot, so I am not going to mention his name or the club. If he is reading this, there is absolutely no need to respond, he did nothing wrong…
The whole situation was created by a player (me) who came late. TD acted within his authority, however cruel it felt to me.
Now, I am glad that my question produced a good discussion with some prominent TDs provided thier insight.
No. 28K says that the late arriving player may receive a half point bye if the tournament allows them for that round. The reasoning behind 22C2 (I believe) is that in the last hour before a round it may be too late to change the pairings to take the requesting player out. Of course that is much less a factor with computer pairings, and the practical limit may be much less, but if the TD allows players to start early (which would be very rare for the first round) then it makes sense not to allow players to take half point byes after the pairings are posted.
I get that last part, but 28K says, “late entrants shall forfeit any round missed if it is inconvenient or too late to pair the players for play, ormay take a half-point bye if the tournament offers them for that round.” And 22C2 seems to define “inconvenient or too late” as one hour. That’s where my question comes from.