What is the rule regarding pairing of “holes” in state championship scholastic events??
Say, to be simple we have the following
(assuming all players are in same score group, except perhaps 10, who is the
highest rated player in the next score group)
And, if you are the organizer of the event, how would your published rules cover
the following?
Round 1
Player #1 v Player 6
Player 7 v player 2 PLAYER 2 NOSHOWS
Player 3 v player 8
player 9 v player 4 Player 4 NOSHOWS
player 5 v player 10
Round has started, should we pair 7 with 9, both bottom half players
or is it better to give them both full point forfeit wins
(a white hot issue for many coaches who are more interested in “team” wins than
individual players to play)
And would your answer change to this question according to what round was being played ?
How would you handle this in your Regional, or Major scholastics in the events you
organize and direct ? How are these situations handled in your various state champonship events?
I ask because looking at the forums, and knowing the controversy whatever the answer is to the above questions have caused at nearly ALL levels of scholastic tournament play, from local club events, to major club events, regional, state and national events.
In closing, I am not stating that there are necessarily right or wrong answers here
except as they apply to specific rules for specific events. The question is more of what
do those of you in this forum audience believe the correct approach to be.
In the Cleveland, OH area, one of the regulations that we have for the scholastic league is that ten minutes into the round, no-shows will be re-paired if possible. Choosing one side of your question posed then advertising it and sticking to just that interpretation is probably the best option.
My rule of thumb is to re-pair the first round no-shows with each other and to only re-pair no-shows in other rounds if I have definite information that they will not show and if the pairings can be deemed reasonable (if I have definite information but the pairings cannot be deemed reasonable then I may still offer a pairing in an extra games section).
The use of tie-breaks for trophies means that most coaches prefer a game rather than a forfeit win (if the player is likely to lose in the first round then the player would also be likely to lose in the second round after receiving a round one forfeit win, so it is better for tie-breaks to get a real loss and a real win). And yes, I do know of at least one national championship trophy awarded to a player who had a round one forfeit win because that forfeit win gave him a 0.5 point tie-break edge in the first tie-break.
The scholastic nationals do not re-pair for no-shows in any round any more.
This is what I generally prefer as well. I do try to arrange extra rated games when I can, but that’s a challenge at our state elem where my hair is generally on fire.
Jeff, do you have a rule of thumb for what is deemed reasonable for pairings? I would assume this means something like no more than x points out of their score group, and largely ignoring color allocation problems? Does x=1 in your rule of thumb? I.e. a player with 1.5 points can be “reasonably” paired with someone who has 0.5 to 2.5 points but not outside that range?
One option would be to give players 7 and 9 both forfeit wins in the main event, and to pair them against each other (for rating purposes) in an “extra games” section.
If tiebreak points are an issue for one of the players, I suppose you could give the winner of the extra-games contest the tiebreaks he would have earned had it counted as an actual win in the main section, and give the loser a forfeit win in the main section but no tiebreak points. Of course, you’d want to tell both players you were doing this before they start their extra game.
A disadvantage of this idea is that you’d have to calculate tiebreak points by hand instead of letting the pairing program do it. I doubt whether either of the major pairing programs has a feature to override the calculated tiebreaks for one or two players.
Rob and I are in full agreement here. Smoke if you got 'em.
I prefer to repair on the fly if possible, with the understanding that such pairings will deviate from standards, and the magnitude of the deviation varies as a function of exactly who no-shows.
In a FIDE rated event, the posted pairings stand, and the person who shows wins. Period.
There are some advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. Both are anomalous and lead to less than desireable results. Neither of them solve all the nuances of team and individual scholastic competition, particularly tiebreaks, which inherently suck, even those conducted over the board.
At the end of the day, all involved need to focus less on this and more on chess.
When I have a scholastic event, with low rated players, and low stakes - I just want kids to play. I have had kids who had no shows or byes, had them wait, and then asked a kid who won quickly if he/she wanted to play again - only as an extra rated game. I’ve had some kids play 8 games in a 5 round event as a result - 5 in the event and 3 extra rated games. All voluntary of course.
I agree with you two, 100%, and your thoughts herein. The objective I had in posting this thread was to get some of the experts, those in the field, who as I are actually organizing and directing events, perspectives, for there are some who will rant and rave regardless of decisions made on this subject, and, like you, I would prefer a concentration to chess without dealing with some of this kind of headache.
I have had to deal with this issue many many times. As Rob said, you will have coaches / parents complain no matter what you do.
I will ask an additional question. Say after 10 minutes you pair players 7 and 9 and they start playing. Shortly after this, player 4 arrives. What do you do with player 4?
Player 4 is repaired if there is someone to pair him/her with that is within acceptable limits. If not the late arriving player is given a half point bye for the round unless it is the final round, in which case it is a zero point bye. All this should be clearly stated in your pre-tournament publicity.
look, my thought at least for club events is that most players come to play, not sit doing nothing. Players who do not demonstrate respect
for their opponents and the tournament really do not have much right to complain. Is this not a fair thoutht?
Of course it’s a fair thought, but the problem is to be fair to the players who were victimized. There are two groups of victims: those who received full-point forfeit wins but no tiebreaks, and those (others in the tournament) who had to work for their full points while their neighbors sat around and collected free points.
I dare anybody to come up with a solution that is fair to both groups.
If you limit it to just those two groups then there is an easy solution. Re-pair the entire round, delaying the entire tournament. Now if you also want fairness to the parents, coaches, players, TDs, volunteers that have later commitments, and to the site which may need the space later for another event, then it gets difficult.
Even if you overlook fairness to the parents, coaches, etc, you still have the problem of cancelling gazillions of games already in progress (presumably for at least ten minutes, since the attendance check probably was not carried out before then) and starting over. Who knows, some of those started games may even have finished already.
This is also what I do for low stakes low rated players events, I go to some lengths to get everyone a game. The OP posited a state scholastic championship, and I am much more hesitant to make up pairings on the fly in that case.
But if you plan on re-pairing from scratch anyway you wait until everybody is there before starting. Granted, that does force a delay even in those cases where the players really are coming but are running slightly late, but you can trade convenience for accuracy.
That said, when I took over as chief TD of a lot of local scholastics I stopped trying for a check-in system and perfect pairings (which still ended up wrong when some players missed checking in and others were checked in by coaches even though they weren’t there) and simply accepted on-the-fly re-pairings. I have long since learned that when you have one pairing problem you have a pairing problem but when you have multiple pairing problems you often have solutions.
Which takes us back to the proper definition of the word “fair” – an event in the Fall with Ferris wheels, clowns, etc. A word which really does not belong in the discussion, as really,
more often than not, it is something based on perception.
Rob makes a very good point. If the player who shows up somewhat late does not get a pairing it has negative effect on his tiebreak. I am surprised that there has been no mention of teams and repairing. Personally, I am in favor of repairing for local events and not for state or national championships in most cases.
Regards, Ernie
Now if you also want fairness to the parents, coaches, players, TDs, volunteers that have later commitments, and to the site which may need the space later for another event, then it gets difficult.