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 (Ernie Schlich)
Ernie, there are different types of scholastic groups. First there are those groups who are brought/strongly referred by a coach who in
fact is bringing multiple school teams, simply based on where by coincidence his students go to school. For example a coach may very
well have at least two students from Martin, Durango, Philbin schools. Secondly, there are those scholastic groups from singular schools,
brought/strongly referred by their school chess coordinators/coaches. The first group generally has FAR less emphasis on which of his various
school groups earn trophies, or issues involved with compiling team points, including pairings. Their focus is really where I think proper coaching should be- primarily on the student’s growth as a chess player. And if they are not playing, then they miss a chance to learn.
The second group from the MANY tournaments I have been involved with is FAR, FAR, FAR more interested in team points, team standings,
and the beautiful trophy at the end of the event than they are the individual improvement of their players. And while this is unfortunate,
it is also a reality. And the utter chaos and tournament disruption they can cause (and too often do cause), has altered my thinking on the
larger tournaments which sometimes are dominated by such groups, such as, but not confined to, state and nationals events, to not have
repairings and noshow holes resolved by forfeitures to the detriment of the individual players. Simply, from an economic standpoint, the weight that such singular school groups have can be, and often is, tremendous. Thus, for many events, what is clearly best for the individual student simply must go out the window.
Rob Jones