In the system there a few dummy IDs. What are the valid use cases for these? I can think of a couple possibilities. Are these really valid options to use or is it just something that is done, but really shouldn’t be?
I find the usage for this one odd. In a quick spot check in every case I saw, this ID was used to represent an unplayed forfeit. Why not simply remove the player from the list? Then you won’t need the phony ID. The forfeited win can still be listed.
I can think of perhaps one good reason to use an ID for this. But, I’m not sure it’s really still appropriate. If you have a player come to the tournament who is brand new with no previous membership and leaves before you can collect dues or any information whatsoever (perhaps after just the first round or two), then it’s a struggle to get the tournament rated. Using one of these two dummy IDs is one way to accomplish this. But, is this an acceptable practice? If so, is one ID better than the other to use? Technically one of them lists as expired while the other doesn’t.
In rare cases like this is the proper procedure to submit a membership exception report? Use the expired dummy ID and pay the TD correction fee? Or something else?
Thankfully I’ve never had this problem, but the unexpected can happen one day.
There are two use cases, one for TDs and one for the US Chess office.
Sometimes there is a no-show at a tournament that is not removed from the crosstable. The ID can be changed to 25000000 so that it does not reflect on any member’s tournament record. However, the 25000000 ID cannot be used for any ratable games.
In addition, every now and then a member contacts the office to say that he or she did not play in a tournament that is on that member’s record. Usually this involves contacting the TD or organizer to try to find the right ID to use in that event. If we cannot find a different ID to put it under, the office will create an ID in the range of 25000000 to 25009999 and move those games to that ID. That way the member who did not play in the event is not credited with those games, but the opponents of that unknown player at least get some ratings credit for them.
I think Nolan was saying, sure, the organizer could remove the player from the crosstable, and that would be good, but if organizer doesn’t do that, then the office can use the 25000000 trick to achieve the same effect and produce a clean crosstable for the viewers.
Exactly. There may be valid reasons why the TD might choose to keep no-shows in the crosstable during the event, and I’m not sure if either of the major pairing programs will remove them after the fact. (I know I’ve seen events where the TD didn’t figure out someone was a no-show until after the 2nd or even 3rd round, because it was just reported as a win by the player.)
In WinTD, to remove a never showing player after the event is over and before creating the tournament report:
Create a non-rated section for withdrawals
make sure any paired but unplayed results are listed as a forfeit (win, draw or loss) for all players involved in such results
highlight all players in the section(s)
Go into the “Players” drop-down and select clean up forfeits (this changes the results to non-paired forfeit wins/losses/draws, depending on what the paired forfeit result was)
Do a drag and drop of all players (everyone is still selected) to the withdrawal section (this only moves the players that have never been paired, including those who had only byes and never actually played a game)
With all no-shows removed you can prepare a clean rating report.
You can also do this while the tournament is still going on, but you have to make sure you don’t inadvertently remove the players that will be coming later and only have byes so far (probably half points or zero points, though there was one time I hadn’t been informed that somebody was coming late in round one and that lowest-rated player happened to receive the round one full point bye).
In SwissSys, select “Withdrawals” under the “Players” menu (or press F10, or click the “w/d” toolbar button). If the TD withdraws a player who has no pairings in the section or only no-show games, SwissSys will offer the choice of removing the player from the section.
It is truly difficult for me to fathom how it is really possible for someone to play without any idea of who they are. I mean how do you pair them without a name?? Seems strange to me, and I have directed more
than a few tournaments.
Perhaps it was unclear, but these dummy IDs were created weeks if not months after the event, when the player whose ID was originally used complained that he or she had not played in that event. The office will try to see if the organizer/TD still has enough information about the event to figure out who the player really was, but if that fails, then the office will create the new dummy ID and update the events to use it.
This happens very infrequently, I think over the years perhaps about a dozen dummy IDs have been generated.
i ran into that problem. never really bothered checking personal results but then happened to notice i “lost” to a 1200 rated player at a NY high school event. i was long out of HS and wasn’t even in NY during the supposed date of event. still shows up on my record though.
There are probably hundreds of unreported ID errors in our tournament database, which goes back to late 1991. While they can be corrected at any time, only events that were in events intially rated after January 1, 2004, can be rerated. (We had to draw a line somewhere.)
The real challenge, of course, is usually trying to figure out what the right ID is when trying to correct it. It often helps if the tournament organizer or TD kept detailed records of the event, but that’s not something they are required or expected to do forever.
The most interesting case I had was with a youth who moved down from the Mass area. His name was identical to another player, also in the Mass area. Both of their ages
and ratings were very close. When the boy’s dad had his son play for the first time, I showed him the playing histories, and he “confirmed” the id of the one I used, then, and for
about a dozen more tournaments in the next three months.
Got a call after this period though from a Mass TD inquiring why oh why did I keep using one of his local kid’s ID’s for my tournaments. After talking with him, and then the dad
of the kids who had moved down, it was clear we in Texas had made an error on the ID used. Not sure what else I could have done to verify, and the dad did confirm.
the USCF office was very gracious and efficient in helping to switch the data to the correct ID.
