Two young players didn’t post the result of their game at our club’s tournament last night.
As a result, our club hasn’t filed the tournament to the USCF. There is no money at stake, but the result could determine whether there is a tie for first place in one section.
What do veteran TDs suggest doing?
We have posted on the club’s Facebook page that we want parents of young players to contact us because we are missing a result (we are not saying the players’ names, but there were not many young players last night).
I contacted a player sitting nearby but he didn’t know the result. This incident is accelerating our effort to get contact information for all players at the club.
I have heard TDs at weekend tournaments say (threaten?) they will guess the result if it isn’t reported. However, in the case of weekend tournaments, the players would likely tell the TD the correct result before the weekend is over, allowing the tournament results and ratings to be determined.
My understanding is that incorrect results posted to the USCF have to be changed by contacting the staff–there is no automated way to update results online.
We would rather wait to determine the correct result. Alas, our club won’t meet again until Sept. 14.
Thoughts?
Apologies if this topic has been discussed before. However, I was unable to find any posts with guidance.
Addendum: We heard from a parent and can post the correct result. But I am still curious what TDs suggest in cases where we can’t reach somebody.
I suggest double forfeit, by analogy to Rule 29H3:
In a Swiss tournament, if it is time to pair the next round and a result is still unreported, the director has several options and should choose the one that offers the greatest equity:
…
29H3. Double forfeit of unreported game.
Both players may be scored and paired as losses. The real result, when learned, may be recorded as an extra rated game (28M4).
One of my standard announcements includes some permutation of the following: “If I am ready to pair the next round and I am missing a result, the game will be marked as a double forfeit, and both players will be withdrawn by the pairing program. If you tell me the result after I’ve paired the next round, I’ll record the actual result and put both players back in for future rounds, but you will miss that next round.”
The announcement is intended as a deterrent, but I am prepared to enforce the advertised consequences. The most common outcome is that one or both players report the missing result either just before I pair, or after they discover they are not paired for, the next round.
If this occurs in the last round of a tournament, or (as it appears may be the case here) a multi-week club event where you report results after each round/day…I’d submit the results as a double forfeit. Once the players contact you with the proper result, you can follow the instructions at this link to report the correction for re-rate purposes. (It is true that rating report corrections must be manually processed. This is by design.)
The section about reporting it as a double-forfeit and the correction as an extra game is probably out of date, what the office would probably do under MUIR is just do an event correction once the result is properly reported to the TD and sent on to the office.