When performing a Cross Section Pairing, does MUIR require withdrawing the lower rated player from the higher section after his cross section game? Or does MUIR require giving byes to the lower rated player for future rounds in the higher section after his cross section game? Which method does MUIR validate for tournament submission? I would like to withdraw the player.
MUIR requires the games played to be in the rating report. I rather doubt it even has an indicator for whether or not a player was withdrawn.
To avoid incorrectly pairing a player, your pairing program will require the out-of-section player to be either withdrawn from that other section or to be given subsequent zero point byes in that other section. MUIR wouldn’t care.
Note that tie-breaks (for trophies) are affected by using a cross-section game versus an extra games section. For cross-sectional games a winning player originally in the game’s section will get tie-break credit for playing somebody who scored a half-point in each of the remaining games. For an extra game section both players get tie-break credit for playing somebody scoring zero points.
That may seem like a moot point since players with a bye are usually not in the running for trophies, but there are still three times where it is significant. The first is for class awards where players in the bottom class or classes may be in the running even with final round byes. The second is for team awards in individual/team (or medley) events where the top three or four individual scores on the team count for the team score and even a low scoring player can make a difference. The third is in a strict class section where the bottom rated player getting the first round bye may still be legitimately competitive enough to be in the running for the top awards. An unrated player might be strong enough to be legitimately competitive for the top prizes but unrated players are not supposed to get byes unless there are no other candidates in the bottom score group (by which time the unrated player is no longer competitive for those top prizes).
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