Last tournament I ran I had a couple of players in different sections put me through the same scenario. Before the last round they tell me they’re not sure they want to play.
How does everyone else handle it? I schedule rounds on a pretty tight time frame, so I can’t be holding things up while they dither. At this point, I’m inclined to tell them that if they can’t say positively they’re going to play, I’ll withdraw them myself and forget about it.
What about people who want to withdraw after I’ve started working on the pairings? Just giving a forfeit loss doesn’t seem to mean much. And what about their opponent? Should I try to find a house player rather than giving a forfeit win?
Your request for clarity is the correct action. If the person (or persons) decide not to play after seeing their pairing I would award the opponent a forfeit win. Perhaps announcing a policy such as fines for forfeits in advance would deter this behavior in future events.
I don’t think that any player wants to get a forfeit win, especially in the last round as they could have gone home earlier. You should set a time limit for withdrawals, some given time before each round but realize that some people only think of themselves and not the full effects of their last second decision. At the Eastern Open one year we had a father pull his son AFTER the final round was posted because the son got paired down again! Since I understood the final round pairings and any issues, and someone withdrawing like this is more apt to affect someone else’s prize than any they probably won’t win themselves, and with the quickness of computer pairings it was easy to pull the list, repair and repost within 2-3 minutes so no one got a forfeit.
Then you have to decide how to deal with the father (or player) for future events. We had several local players who would withdraw without telling anyone and after a pattern developed they paid an additional $25 EF, getting that back if they played all their games or notified us of withdrawing. You want to try and avoid forfeit wins if possible, especially if it has an effect on prizes but you also don’t want to inconvenience every person in the tournament or section with multiple re-pairs or repairs after the round starts. Finding that balance is important, IMO
If you are using a pairing program and haven’t printed them yet then it is fairly simple to undo pairings, withdraw a player and redo pairings. You should still limit how often you’ll do that (doing one redo is quick but doing a dozen will quite noticeably delay things).
If you are doing pairings manually with cards then a lot depends on your speed and whether or not you’ll have to restart transcribing the paired cards to a pairing sheet.
Eventually you reach the point where you just let the forfeit occur (in an ASAP schedule that point should probably be no later than once the pairings are posted and may be earlier - while you may have more flexibility in a fixed schedule).
If you have a known forfeit you can create an extra games section for such players to still get a rated game in.
Last time I did that I got a complaint from one of the players who didn’t know that his game was going to be rated. Please note that the game was at the same time control as the rest of the tournament and was played in the tournament hall.
In ten years or so of working with the ratings programming, I think I’ve seen two complaints from players about their post-event rating going up, and I think both of those were from players trying to keep their published ratings below the cutoff of a section in some upcoming big money tournament.
Sometimes I get that even after explicitly telling both players that it will be a USCF-rated game (and getting their confirmation of that) even though it is in an extra games section. Since I had both players confirm it, it remains rated. The only times a game wouldn’t be rated is if: at least one of the players truly didn’t understand that it was a rated game (one example is a case of erroneously putting a player in a rated section for the first round even though the player signed up for a non-rated section); or if the rated game was never supposed to be played between those two players in the first place and the game was nullified in mid-game so that the correct opponents could play each other (such as a player accidentally sitting down at a board in the wrong section and the other player not verifying that the correct opponent was sitting down).
Alex,
Who cares?? Dwelling on the irrelevant. If one goes to a USCF tournament the natural assumption is
that all gets rated. Seems to me the fella has a personal problem.
Mr. Serrano,
My thought is this-in scenario A, Most of the time, what they are really saying is "If I like my pairing
or in the case of a youth-- If my little darling gets a desirable pairing (whatever that is) we will
play. This attitude is insulting to the tournament, the club, and USCF, and should be dealt with
accordingly. What I tell them is simple-- LEAVE, GO, and don’t let the door spank your tail on the
way out. But, I must tell you the following will occur—you or your precious darling will not be
eligible for any prizes. If we pair and whomever does not like the pairings and does not show up,
then before you or darling is alowed to play in next tournament, a fine shall have to be paid. The
point is, we cannot accept this kind of rude outlandish behavior.
Now the Group B people really get under my collar. I have run nearly a hundred events in which
we had very tight time controls in regard to our rent of the venue. If this is the case, then probably
the best thing to do is to (esp for smaller scale local events), is to fill in the gaps with either house
players, or other players whose opponents deserted as well.)
Mr. Relyea’s post is most relevant. It illustrates the importance of communicating details to players. I am always very explicit with players when doing anything that involves an ad hoc pairing that will be USCF rated, be it an extra game, a cross-section pairing, or a floor re-pairing.
As Mr. Wiewel notes, occasionally even the most unambiguous approach will still fall on deaf ears. However, a player’s “personal problem” becomes a director’s major headache if the director fails to be as clear as possible at all times. Taking a few moments to explain exactly what’s happening to affected players can avoid a lot of problems later.
And, Boyd, by the way, dirt birds will always be dirt birds. If the whiner had won,
there would have not been a problem. People have tried this sort
of thing with me before, I simply put a finger to my mouth and say “hush now”.
Read the post the dude was in the tournament hall, seated with the tournament players.
Very clear, crystal clear.
My diet was low on irony, prior to reading this. That deficiency has now been corrected.
Incidentally, players do sometimes play unrated extra games, in the tournament hall, under the same conditions as the rest of the event. This has happened to me once, while running a CCA event. The bye player wanted a game, but the only available house player did not wish to risk rating points. However, the house player was willing to play an unrated game, and the bye player agreed, so he could have a good practice game at least.
I’ll stick with clear advance communication to players, and avoid condescending remarks during dispute resolution. You’re free to do as you wish as well.
TDCC wouldn’t be involved (unless a director was especially rude, perhaps by saying things like “hush now”). The problems would come from the player who claims he didn’t know the game would be rated.
From reading Mr. Relyea’s post, it seems clear that he made the (admittedly natural) assumption that the players knew their extra game would be rated. My point was, and is, to encourage directors reading this to avoid that assumption. It takes all of about 3 seconds to tell the players that their game will be rated before they start. Why is this bad?
Boyd,
It is a different world from the one we grew up in. People expect sign posts to the obvious, and complain when they are not there. So, you may have a point, simply tell
the players it shall be rated. But as Jeff also noted, their memories of this acceptance of
this quite often depends on whether they win or not. As far as "hush, now’ being rude, don’t think so. The point is, TDs should not have to put up with such nonsense. At some
ridiculous complaints, I have simply pointed to the door and told the complainer to leave.
This is proper, just and correct, for command and control of tournaments is absolutely
critical in the maintenance of quality.
