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In a slow rated tournament, can the TD insist on not having a 5 second delay, if the tourney wasn’t advertised that way in advance?
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Stupidly silly question, but are forfeited games supposed to be rated?
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Edit: I say yes, but that’s on a literal reading of the rulebook (i.e. “delay is preferable” type of wording).
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No – it’s good for a tournament point and prize money, but isn’t rated.
???
Really?
Not really…but I’m glad I was called on it. It’s how I learn. I misread the 5F1 section on increment. Since there aren’t any edits to 5F in Rulebookchanges.pdf I assume that “A delay clock is the standard timer for sudden death time controls.” From what I can tell, it’s not ironclad that the delay has to be set on that standard timer.
I’ll edit my previous post.
A delay clock IS the standard for Sudden Death. Why would any TD tell the players that delay is not allowed? Scheduling problems? The TD needs to schedule better or adjust the time control accordingly. Not allowing delay is asking for more problems, particularly for an inexperienced TD. Of course, we are talking about regular time controls here, not Blitz.
The change, adding Section 5F1 to the rules, does not mean that increment is now the standard. What that means is that IF your tournament has been advertised as having a time control with increment, e.g., G/90 + 30 second increment, THEN an increment clock is the standard timer. However, if you have not advertised that the time control has increment, then increment is not allowed. Please do not confuse an increment time control, where a player can gain time if he or she moves faster than the defined increment, with the “Bronstein” mode where there is an add-back up to the allowed delay. In the “Bronstein” mode, you do not get more time, after the move, than what you originally had, before the move. That mode is equivalent to Delay.
In this case, the tournament was G/90 with 4 hours between round start times. The TD said no delay, without advertising that in advance.
My reading of the rule is 1) If either player wants to use time delay and has (and knows how to set) a time-delay clock, he gets to use it. 2) It’s not mandatory (the law cannot compel an impossibility), unless the tournament is supplying equipment on all boards. 3) Not allowing time delay is a “major variant which may affect a player’s decision to enter,” and therefore must be announced in advance.
A delay-capable clock may be the preferred clock, but as far as I know there is no USCF default or standard for how many seconds of delay to set it to, though five seconds is probably the one most events use. (Update: I stand corrected, 5F says that 5 seconds is the default delay setting in a sudden-death time control if the time control is at least Game/30.)
This is another facet of the issue that the Delegates wrestled with a few weeks ago.
Absent of pre-event publicity there is NO default, which is why (IMHO) there should either be a default specified in the rules (which they do not do, nor will they do that if the Delegates do not modify the rule currently scheduled to take effect in 2012), or the pre-event publicity and announcements should specify that information. That’s the ‘truth in advertising’ that many of us feel should be required.
Let me just add to what I said “A delay clock IS the standard for Sudden Death.” In accordance with Section 5F “A delay clock (a clock with time delay or add-back capabilities) is the standard timer for sudden death time controls. This clock allows games to be decided entirely by the players (14H5) with no need for directors to consider insufficient losing chances (14H) or count for the 50-move rule (14F4).” That, of course, is not to say that players must use a delay clock – we know that. If the player does not have a delay clock, then he or she cannot use one. The first sentence on 5F says: “If a delay clock or a similar clock is not available, 5E applies.”
Of course, if both are available, e.g, one player has a delay clock and the other has an analog clock, the delay clock is prefered and, therefore, “more standard.” This is nothing new…
And, if an organizer wants to advertise “no delay” then, by all means, he or she can go for it! It time permits, to me it is silly to put such restriction and, of course, without pre-tournament publicity, the organizer should not do that.
That’s flat-out illegal. A 5-second delay is the default, unless announced otherwise in pre-tournament publicity. (“Otherwise” would include no delay, a delay of other than 5 seconds, or an increment (cumulative addback).)
Bill Smythe
How did the players react to this?
This may seem like a silly answer, but it depends on what you mean by “forfeited.”
If it was a forfeit because a player did not show up then the answer is it is not rated. If you are calling it a fofeit becuase the player’s cell phone went off in the middle of the game, then that game IS rated.
To say it another way, if there was no play on the board then the game is not rated. If the game began then it is rated.
Technically, in order to be a ratable game, both players must make at least one move.
Are there circumstances under which both players could make one or more moves but the game still be non-ratable? Possibly, but none come to mind.
At the 1994 US Open the players at the board next to me agreed to a last round draw without any moves having been played. They also submitted score sheets showing no moves and marked their results as a draw. I complained to the chief floor TD and then the chief TD that this “game” should not be rated but they did nothing.
I next filed a complaint with a $25 deposit to the rules committee that this was in violation of the rules. At the time the rules committee was chaired by the chief floor TD of the 1994 US Open. They ruled that my complaint was frivolous because I had no standing to complain and warned me that they could keep my $25, but they didn’t. The players and directors received no warnings.
At the 1995 rules committee workshop I asked if 2 players and a TD can agree to rate a game of zero moves and it’s no one else’s business, then how can this abuse of the rating system be stopped. I’m still waiting for an answer.
Two days later at the 1995 delegates’ meeting I made several ADMs to bring the rule book into agreement with the rules committee’s ruling against me and the rules committee successfully opposed those too. To me it seemed they wanted to allow the practice without putting it in writing.
A few years later both the chief floor TD and chief TD of the 1994 US Open agreed that I was right in 1994.
From a practical point of view, how is the TD supposed to know that no moves were played?
TDs must trust players to accurately report results to them, just as the USCF must trust TDs to accurately report tournaments to us.
I can tell you that I personally go through the entire playing room and verify that the vacant boards had games on them. At the Philadelphia Open last April, on 2 separate occasions, I discovered that 2 games were posted as draws where the players on either side of the vacant board said nobody ever sat down there. In both cases, I found the players later and spoke to them explaining that what they did was a violation of the rules. We also changed the results to “unplayed draws” in SwissSys before the event was submitted for rating. It was difficult to determine if the USCF rating system handled it properly. If you have any questions, PM me and I’ll give you the specifics of both games.
While I agree that unplayed games can slip by a TD, especially at a large event, in the case I cited, that was not the case. That is what still bothers me about the 1994 case. I was trying to correct what I thought was a problem but was perceived by some as the villain and told to mind my own business.
I wasn’t there for the first round, so I might have missed some grumbling. I know I wasn’t the only player who didn’t like it, though.
Good information, but in this case, the games really weren’t played. I dropped out of the tournament after the 3rd round, and the TD claims he didn’t get the message, so I was paired to play in rounds 4 and 5 anyway. Both of those “losses” counted against my rating.
In that case, they should have been coded as unplayed games, forfeits (where one or both players do not show up) are not ratable games.
Normally, TDs withdraw players who are recorded as a no-show forfeit loss so they aren’t paired in subsequent rounds.
Corrections to rated events must come from the TD, not from players or spectators, as the TD is responsible for providing the USCF with an accurate report of the event. I understand the USCF office is trying to contact the TD for that event.
FWIW, if you dropped out WITHOUT NOTIFYING THE TD, there are sanctions in the rulebook that he can impose on you. (That’s why I always insist that all players sign a withdrawal form for events that I organize or direct.)
I actually woke up the final day of the tourney feeling extremely sick, so I emailed him to let him know I was dropping out of the tourney. That was more than 2 hours before round 4 started. I didn’t think I had his phone number at the time, but if I’d been healthy and thinking more clearly, I would have checked the tourney flyer, which does have a phone number. I would think that emailing 2 hours in advance would be enough, though.