In the U.S. Open Friday quads, there weren’t enough players for four full quads, as is frequently the case. Therefore, the third quad was turned into a seven player swiss. No complaints there. That’s standard. My question is how player #5 in section L managed to get the bye in round 2.
http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?201008067851
Any ideas?
Alex Relyea
You’d have to ask the TD.
If they were using the higher of the regular and quick ratings then the rating difference between the two 0-1 players could easily support a swap for colors within the 80-point limit (and the regular rating alone could be used if the 200-point limit was used for a color swap for equalization).
Obviously no swap for color was made as they paired Luong-Lodge, which would be the exact same color problem as pairing Luong-Patel.
Sorry Alex, I’ve no idea why player #5 received the bye and not player #3. Makes no sense to me either.
Considering there are four TDs listed on the rating report, it is difficult to know which one to ask. Also, it is unlikely at this late date that they would know why they did one particular pairing.
I don’t know of anyone who considers quick ratings for GAME/30. That would be very unusual.
What rule allows you to change which player gets the bye to improve colors?
Alex Relyea
Here’s another question. Why was the top section only 3 players? Why not 4, 4 and 6? Then we would not be asking why the lowest rated 0 didn’t get the bye in round 2.
I can answer that question. A player signed up for the top section, played the entry fee, but did not show up. There was originally 4 players in that section.
I figured that might have been the case, but rather surprising since events like that usually don’t have an early fee.
29D1a (just before the 29E note) and 29D1b (first sentence) could be read that way.
An interesting question is why a 1-1 player received the round 3 bye and not the sole and trailing 0.5-1.5 player (Patel/Lodge and Cimm/Gupta was a possible pairing of the four 1-1 players). I was reaching a bit to give a possible explanation for the round 2 bye assignment and I can’t think of any explanation for round 3.
I’ve been on the losing side of this argument before, but I’m not willing to go down without another fight.
My problem with changing the selection of player to receive the bye in order to improve colors is that 28L2 is crystal clear in its wording:
(Italics mine.)
There are no “weasel words” in the italicized portion. It does not read “it is usually given” or “it is ordinarily given”. Now, one could reason that selecting a player to receive a bye is similar to selecting an odd man in the lowest score group to receive a “down float” into a nonexistent lower score group. However, I simply do not see “wiggle room” in rule 28L2.
In explaining complicated things like pairings, often the general rule is stated first, and the specifics (and the exceptions) later. It looks to me as though 28L2 was intended as a general explanation of how to award byes, with the details and variations left for subsequent paragraphs. (Note that the subject of transpositions doesn’t even come up until rule 29.)
The apparent rigidity in 28L2 was probably unintentional.
Logically, it makes just as much sense to adjust the bye to improve colors, as it does to make other adjustments for this same purpose.
Bill Smythe
Tom,
What about the byes? Since you ran the Quads for me, do you remember what happened?
Yeah, but … a bye is different. You’re denying a player a game for that round. (Yes, yes, 28M. Sometimes you just can’t make it happen.) To me, it just feels as though fairness dictates there should be a firm, predictable rule for selecting the player who is denied a game, and that should take precedence over color allocation.
Then again, I have a screwball theory that the bye should go to the middle player in the bottom score group (at least in early rounds). Giving a bye in an early round likely puts a low rated player in a higher score group than he would be in had he played that round, and that affects the pairings in the higher score groups for subsequent rounds. Also, depending on how much lower rated that player is, it can make the rest of the tournament a grim experience for him. (I admit, this probably comes from my memory when I started playing in tournaments of being the lowest player by far, getting the first round bye, and then being crushed in the remaining rounds because I was always above the lowest score group.)
(My logic for suggesting giving the bye to the middle player? If I add an imaginary player to the lowest score group who is so weak that he can not possibly win a game under any circumstances (and therefore would be at the bottom of the wall chart, ignoring unrateds), the player in the middle of the bottom score group would be paired against this imaginary player.)
It kinda makes sense to me. I hated running tournaments with an odd number of people since there would be several tail-enders who would not score anything over the board instead of just one.
That you would have to ask Phil about. He did the pairings in WinTD and produced the pairing sheets.
I have tried to replicate the pairings using my version of WinTD (4.11) and the August 2010 Supplement ratings for the players and haven’t been able to reproduce the pairings for round 2 as listed in MSA. If you pair the section as a Standard Swiss, as expected, Matthew Lodge gets the bye in round 2. If you pair the section as an RR-Hybrid Swiss, Jesse Loung gets the bye in round 2. This is the behavior I get regardless of rating limits for colors. I haven’t been able to come up with any WinTD settings that results in Nita Patel getting the bye in round 2.
However, if you put in the pairings/results from MSA listed for round 2 into WinTD and pair round #3 as a RR-Hybrid Swiss (instead of a Standard Swiss), you DO get the same pairings for round 3 as listed in MSA (with Gregory Cimmarrusti getting the bye).
Again, you would have to check with Phil as to what were the actual settings he used for WinTD.
It doesn’t seem to be the only irregularity, to me…
Would one not expect Round 1 pairings to be 1-2, 3-5, 6-4, instead of the 1-3, 2-6, 4-5 as paired? Playing around with WinTD demo*, I couldn’t make the pairings as shown come forth by playing with tournament type. And it does pair as I described in the first sentence normally. So I’m wondering if there was some sort of no-pairing request that affected both round 1 and who was given the round 2 bye.
Just messing around trying to play Forensic TD. 
[size=75]*Suppress desire to purchase WinTD until I can afford it… suppress desire to purchase WinTD until I can afford it… suppress desire to purchase WinTD until I can afford it…[/size]
The pairings for rnd 1 were correct if you use ratings from the August supplement, which no doubt they did, e.g. 1-4, 2-5, 3-6, 7-bye.
If there was a “no pairing” request, I would imagine it would have been for the two people with the same last name, but since they played each other in rnd 2, as the correct pairings would have them do, and the rnd 1 pairings were correct, that is not the issue.
About the only explanation I can guess at is that Mr. Lodge, the new Vice-Chairman of the Denker Committee, managed to pull a few strings to avoid the bye. Of course I’m not saying he did, but that seems to be about as plausable as anything else right now.
The logic behind your “screwball theory” is actually quite sound. Trouble is, I would hate to give byes to players in the middle of the pack. By the time their playing skills have advanced to the point where they’re in the middle of the pack, it “feels” as though they have earned the right not to get byes.
Bill Smythe
The round 3 bye makes no sense even for color alternation. It’s a 3 round tournament so it doesn’t matter if someone is getting a 2nd color in a row. As long as everyone has had one white and one black the last round colors aren’t important.
There certainly seems to be missing information. 
I realized my error. What I was using (and didn’t elaborate on) is the player number in MSA and the Regular pre-tournament rating shown on the MSA page, which doesn’t have to be the August supplement numbers. Silly Vulcan!
Apologies for the distraction.
Improving colors is using transpositions and interchanges to meet rules 27A4 and 27A5, which are part of a list of prioritized rules that start with “no rematches” (27A1). Rule 28L2 is not prioritized, so I think that it should not come before the prioritized list (nor be placed somewhere in the middle of it). I agree with the reasoning that 28L2 should be treated like 29D (odd player), and be subject to transpositions and interchanges that are used to meet rules in the prioritized list.
SwissSys disagrees with me, placing the importance of assigning a bye per 28L2 above even rule 27A1 (no rematches). Round 1: 1 and 3 draw; 2 beats 4 and then withdraws. Round two as paired by my version of SwissSys assigns the bye to 4 and pairs 1 and 3 for a rematch.