I paired the second round of my tournament, and people started settling in. One player approached me and asked to be repaired because he has played his opponent from his club many times.
I know you can avoid pairing, but just wanted opinions on if I should have re-paired to accommodate them after players were already seating…
I chose not to because they didn’t let me know before pairing, and people had already started seating themselves.
Did I do the right thing?
You can switch one of the pair of players with another player only a few boards away. Of course the colors (80 point swap rating difference, etc.) has got to work out. That-a-way only 2 games are impacted. What you did also works.
Tim
You don’t indicate how many rounds your tournament had, but assuming it’s a five rounder you are still early in the event. The first thing I would do is ask the other player involved if he also wishes a repairing. If Player A doesn’t want to play Player B, but Player B has no problem playing Player A, then I am not going to change the pairing. Assuming they both wish a repairing, and you can meet the conditions given by Mr. Just concerning color and rating I would make a switch with a near-by board. I would also tell the two players involved that next time they need to inform me before round 1 of any special pairing requests.
Thanks for the feedback. My take away is let people know during the player meeting. I also now know I can just swap 2 boards within reason.
First: If it is a FIDE-rated tournament then you cannot have a club restriction. The remainder of the post is for a non-FIDE event.
If the odds are low that the (re-paired) players will be due to meet later then you re-pair two boards (as Tim said), but you don’t have to do anything.
If the odds are good that the (re-paired) players will meet later (two players near the top or two players near the bottom) then you would rather have that pairing happen early before other (overly suspicious?) players can think that a result was rigged for prize purposes.
Yes, I think so. It was just too late to make that kind of request, IMO. I mean you’d have at least a ten minute delay, as well as the putative opponent feeling pressure to make the same request because everyone would be watching him. Some TDs would be more accommodating, but, IMO, this is a very weak Do Not Pair request coming very late before the round, similar to a bye request. Siblings or spouses I might see differently, but I’m very much opposed to letting people change pairings after they see their opponent.
Messrs. Just and Wiewel have offered options to accommodate the player, but you’re under no obligation to, and I wouldn’t under these circumstances.
Alex Relyea
At moderate sized club tournaments there have been families with multiple players that I’ve somewhat tried to avoid pairing with each one. One example is a six-player family with three of them being relatively strong. I made the family a team and avoided team pairings (avoiding the risk of a first round pairing between family members). Then in either the second or third round I’ve removed the team code from the higher-rated members of the family to avoid skewing the pairings too much while avoiding intrafamily pairings.
Exactly. Entertain these requests as much as you reasonably can, but don’t let them disrupt the tournament integrity. And that includes dealing with late requests. Also, remember some requests are much easier to honor if you have an odd number.
Alex Relyea
I have no problem with requests not to pair two or more players because they play each other all the time, particularly players who have traveled some distance to my tournament. My usual policy is to tell them that for the first 3 rounds of a 5 round tournament I will not pair them with each other no matter what. For the last 2 rounds I won’t pair them together if there is a switch within the score group that is within 80 rating points and that doesn’t mess up the colors. In the situation described by the OP in a club type tournament I’m willing to be a bit lenient and repair by making a switch with a near-by board even though they didn’t inform me of this before we started the event. This won’t take more than a minute or two and won’t unduly delay the start of the round. Round 2 of 5 is about as late as I would do it, though.
Aren’t FIDE pairing rules only required if it’s a norm event?
Would FIDE rule C.04.2.D10 apply in this specific situation regarding a request for repairing after pairings are announced: