If a tournament was advertized as a one-section event, are there no ramifications if an organizer decides to have an under section on the day of the event?
Are you going to FORCE some players into the under section?
You’re certainly free to hold events other than the one you advertised, as long as the one you advertise meets the advertised conditions.
No forcing.
The tournament was advertized as a one-section event.
The organizer decided to add a Under 1300 section.
Players who are rated in the low 1300s are complaining.
As long as they are allowed to play in the advertised section they don’t seem to have a legitimate complaint if the organizer wants to add additional sections/events. Though, if prizes are based-on, then it does seem that the organizer should pay out the full prize fund for the advertised section. I’m assuming that entries are good (or they presumably wouldn’t be adding a section), so that likely isn’t relevant.
But what are they complaining about?
Probably not having fish to feed upon. 
- Enirque
There could be a problem, though, depending on how advance entries were handled.
If a player rated under 1300 advance-registered, before the decision was made to add a section, was that player then asked at the tournament which section he wished to enter, or was he automatically entered into the under-1300 section unless he specifically requested otherwise?
Because of this problem, among others, I think it is a bad idea to add a section after the fact.
Bill Smythe
The Queen City Open this year had a Sunday Swiss option, 3SS with prizes based on 8. When 16 people entered, the TD/organizer decided to put the bottom 8 into a separate section with the same prize distribution. The only complaint was from an FM who was trying to decide if it was worth it to enter. He wanted the TD/organizer to double the prize fund and run it as a one section event.
Alex Relyea
For a 3-round tournament, the best format is 8-player sections (and announce it that way to begin with). The top-rated 8 go in the top section, etc. Perhaps have the prize fund slightly larger in the top section than in the other sections.
If the total number is not a multiple of 8, put the extra players in the bottom section. Better yet, announce in advance that the event will be divided into sections of “6 to 10 players”, allowing the TD some discretion as how to deal with the extra players.
Bill Smythe
If you are going to do this, I think Quads are better. Fewer “walk-over” games, no complaints about incorrect pairings, etc.
Have a house player to handle odd number of players.
Make the bottom section a Hex (play 3,4, or all 5 rounds of the Hex - whatever you have time for).
The disadvantage to both schemes is that the bottom rated player in all of the sections except the bottom section will complain that they are being screwed by the dividing lines. That’s if you divide the sections strictly by rating. It’s worse if you make all the sections the same strength - you end up with too many “walk-over” games.
Is a walk over game where a higher rated player crushes a much lower rated player?
It’s funny in many cases at quads I’ve seen the highest rated player in a quad complain that he has to play all these lower rated players, and would rather be in the higher quad. I find this complaint comes up a lot when running quads for scholastic players. If the players aren’t whining then the parents are whining. Some players want to “play up” for experience and better chances at gaining rating points, other wants to “play down” to win money.
One organizer that I’ve worked with uses a little flexibility in terms of where the extra players go. The bottom section isn’t always the 6 player section. Sometimes depending on the rating distribution the 6 player section might be the top 6, or the middle 6. We’ve had situations where the rating distribution has been 1800, 1750, 1700, 1680, 1650, 1625, 1520, 1490, 1430, 1400, etc. We’ve put the top 6 in the top section as a 3 round swiss, and put the next 4 in a quad.
Yes, it depends on the prize structure. The events that started this thread were prize money events where players were complaining about how the $$ was being distributed.
I agee that flexibility is useful - but (for me) the advantages of running a RR far outweigh the advantages of running a small section as a Swiss. If you run the top section as a Swiss, you will need to be especially careful about pairings. I’d much rather run a LOW-rated 6-player section than a HIGH-rated 6-player section. If for no other reason that with low-rated players you can simply play “as many rounds from the RR table as you can squeeze in”. I use pre-printed sheets with the pairings already made (just fill in the names at the top). At the top end, you are probably going to play ONLY 3 rounds (at least one game every round will go to the max); at the bottom end, it’s easy to play 5 rounds in the same time (even with the same time control!) as the top section playing 3 rounds. For really low-level events, you can even deputize a parent/teacher with minimal training to make sure results are recorded and rounds start ASAP.
I also highly recommend Quads (+ bottom Hex) as a way to train brand new TDs - there’s no need for a computer, or pairing cards, or any particular knowledge about pairings - you can concentrate on floor-TD skills. If you are not worried about USCF sanctioned events, you can train a parent/teacher with ZERO TD skills how to run such an event in 10 minutes. All they need is two pre-printed forms and a copy machine.
For a school/club holding many of these events, you can run a promotion/relegation ladder - the “prize” for winning a quad and the “penalty” for finishing last is that you swap those two players on the club ladder. This might be “a bridge too far”, though - ties complicate things.
What about running a clustering algorithm to decide the natural breaks on section divisions?
If you want approximate 8 player sections for a 3 round swiss, you can use a parameter of a cluster size of 6, 8, or 10.
As a tournament organizer, especially for smaller tournaments, one of my concerns
is competitiveness. Sometimes it is difficult for smaller tournaments or clubs, to
really have a “handle” on just who will show up. in this case, having an Open,
and then lower sections to better fit a specific tournament roster is quite often a
very good idea. Generally speaking, there is little joy for either the 1900 or 1200
player (or lower) to face each other.
Rob Jones
Denton, Texas
Waiting until the day of the tournament to decide the tournament format will discourage many players from showing up in the first place.
I once went to a tournament which I thought was going to be in two sections, open and under-1800. But then the organizer decided to combine the two into a single section. I left without playing, because it appeared that I would now be paired up in only two, instead of three, of the five rounds.
Each player has his own reasons for attending tournaments, and his own preferences for tournament format. Decide on a format and run the tournament in the manner announced, period.
Bill Smythe
Of course if you only get one player in a section, there isn’t a lot you can do.
Alex Relyea
True, there are extreme situations where you can’t run the tournament in the manner announced.
But if you make a reasonable effort to plan the tournament, you should be able to avoid, most of the time, these extreme situations where you are backed into a corner.
For example, if you’ve been running one-section events and have been attracting about 20 players each time, it would be foolish to plan a five-section event (MX, A, B, C, D-below), with an entry fee and total prize fund similar to your one-section events, at the same venue.
Bill Smythe
I agree with you. I signed up for a tournament that was supposed to have two sections. Open, and Under 1700. It was a 4 round Swiss. They had 8 players in each section, yet they opted to combine the players into one section. They didn’t want to deal with the odd pairings that would be outside of score groups because of 4 rounds and only 8 players. It would have made for difficult pairings in the later rounds, but it almost becomes like a round robin so it shouldn’t be all that strange to possibly have a 3-0 playing a 1-2 because he’s the only perfect score and he’s already played and beaten the other plus scores.
I actually once played in a 10 round swiss where in the last round I got paired against a 8.5 even though I only had 2.5. He had played everyone else in between and I was the highest rated player he had not played yet. No he did not give me a draw because he had clinched the tournament. 
I was disappointed that the organizer chose to merge the two sections, because I was actually looking forward to the opportunity of playing 4 games against higher rated competition. Instead in the first round I played an unrated who ended out with a 607 provisional rating after losing 3 games and then dropping out. I played a master in round 2 (lost) and then got paired against a provisionally rated 1702 and a provisionally rated 1400. This wasn’t exactly what I had signed up for. A few month later I played in the same tournament. They only had 10 players so it made sense to merge the two sections. I got much better games that time, because it was a stronger field.
The turnout of 10 the second time says something about the wisdom of altering the format the first time, I’d say.
Bill Smythe
One of the nice things about doing quads is that it avoids this kind of problem. Quads are essentially 4-player sections whose boundaries are defined on the day of the tournament based on who comes.
The worst situation I’ve ever had doing quads was a tournament where there were 5 kids with ratings from about 850 to about 950, 15 kids with ratings under 400, and two kids in between, one in the 600s, and one around 440. The top 4 kids went in the first quad, but then I had to put the 850 together with the kid in the 600s, the kid with the 440, and a kid with a rating in the high 300s. I thought the outcome was pretty much a foregone conclusion, except perhaps between the 2 kids on the bottom. But I was wrong! The kid with the 440 (which was provisional based on 6 games) won all 3 of his games, and the quad!
Bob