Or mailed the entry form the day before the event.
Or mailed the entry form the Monday AFTER the event.
I recall one parent who mailed an entry in a recycled envelope with a bar code. It arrived about a month later.
I once received a team entry for the Nebraska Scholastics Championship a year after it was mailed, in with the entries for the next year’s event. It was quite confusing to have TWO entries from the same team, until I looked at the postmark and check date.
What I see emerging in the thread… The reasons that people play chess in tournaments is different, thus what would affect any singular offender from offending again is different as well.
In a nutshell, threatening the ratings of a player only trying to get in the money doesn’t seem like it would work. Threatening a player with a fine or offering a rebate who only cares about their rating won’t work. Those playing because their parents told them to… neither option would work. Those playing because the Flying Spaghetti Monster told them to win: OK, sorry!
A mixed approach, if it were possible, may be better. (Though I’m sure technically unfeasible, morally questionable, and politically impossible… how about a membership/ratings suspension on unchecked-out drops? Though that would be too harsh even in my own judgment. Emergencies do happen, after all.)
Still, one thing is true. Those playing for nothing but love of the game… don’t drop. 
Please, everyone, forget about using the rating system to punish forfeiters. It would destroy the whole purpose of the rating system, which is to measure results and establish predictors of performance.
Furthermore, in at least half the cases, the forfeiter would probably welcome a loss of rating points. Sandbagging made easy.
Invoke the rule that, for players with less than a break-even score, if they don’t show up within 30 minutes (instead of 60), their opponents may be re-paired.
For chronic forfeiters, warn them early on that, if they are not present at the start of the round, their opponents may be re-paired immediately, and they will be left out in the cold. (They could receive a half-point bye only if such byes are available at that point, otherwise zero.)
Bill Smythe
Secondarily, I think figuring that at least 50% of the current forfeiters would welcome an easy rated loss is a bit overstated. It might become correct if forfeits ever do get treated as rated losses, as then the players worried about their ratings would actually withdraw rather than simply not show up and the players wanting to sandbag would choose that option.
Primarily, I agree that rating forfeits losses would be a mis-use of the rating system, and I doubt there would be enough of a gain (if any) to justify such a mis-use.
I got a forfeit win against a strong expert a couple of months ago. I won prize money, but I would have preferred to play as well. USCF should change the rules to officially rate forfeit wins as regular wins. This would provide more motivation to inform the TD.
Two points:It would make it far too easy to sandbag and deny rapidly improving players of chances to win motivating prizes.
Do you want to be paired against someone rated as 1600 when, when he actually sits down to play, actually plays at 1900 strength? Wouldn’t you want your opponent’s rating to be as accurate as possible to know your real chances against him?
I agree completely.
The percentage would be much less than half, but still, there would be numerous cases in which a player would deliberately not notify the TD of withdrawal so that he would lose points. (And it would be such a convenient way to lose points- why wait around for hours to lose the last round when you can just simply leave and not tell anyone.)
Using the rating system to punish forfeits without notice would distort some ratings and not be as effective as a fine (nobody likes being fined). Also, there would be cases in which the player and TD disagree regarding whether notice was given- a new occasion for an appeal to some committee, which USCF can surely do without.
CCA has been using that rule for many years. Sometimes the late player shows up before the hour and no suitable opponent can be found so he gets the forfeit win, but that’s not the worst thing and it doesn’t happen very often. In the last round especially, players who are 30 minutes late hardly ever show up.
This I would never do, but I think chronic forfeiters should have to put up a deposit of at least $20, to be returned when they give notice of withdrawal (or by some miracle actually complete the tournament).
Bill Goichberg
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30 minutes is waaayyy too long to make a player in attendance wait for his thus-far-no-show opponent. 60 minutes was the product of a warped values system.
You think any self-respecting tennis tournament would tolerate such tardiness?
The mis-applied notion that – “The late player is hurting nobody but himself because it is his clock that is ticking down, heck it is his time to waste” – should never have been used to justify tolerance of a player being late for the start.
Was such lateness tolerated in the days before the chess clock? Excessive time taken per-move was often tolerated, but per-move time is different arriving at the pre-agreed start time.
In amateur tournaments, forfeit should be declared for any player whose clock has elapsed 10 minutes without the player completing his first move of the game.
This is more objective than the gray areas of whether a late-arriving player was “present” soon enough.
And a brief 10 minutes makes it more practical to re-pair together two players who have been stood up.
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This amounts to adding an extra first time control of 1 move/10 minutes. It’s not inherently absurd, but I’m almost certain that it would drive away more players than it attracted.
If ‘intolerance of lateness’ is your primary goal, FIDE’s new rule is that if a player is not present at the designated time for the start of the round, that player forfeits.