What about 4 sections? Open, U1900, U1600, & U1300. You could then have prizes still totaling $1000 with the following: Open $225-125, U1900 $200-100, U1600 $125-75, U1300 $90-60. Please note that it is just a personal thing for me to have 90-60 rather than 100-50, but you could go with the 100-50 if you prefer.
Larry S. Cohen
I am confused about the intentions here. Consider the U1900 section and a 1233 rated player. He is U1900 so eligible to play in that section. How can you restrict him from “playing up”? Same confusion about half-class. If the goal is to get different players then normal in class events, do something like 1700-1900 or 1750- 1450, not under based sections.
Regards, Ernie
Some players get annoyed by playing somebody that entered in a much higher section than was necessary for their ratings.
I’ve seen tournaments with strict classes of: Premier=2000+; 1800-2199; 1600-1999; 1400-1799; 1200-1599; 1000-1399; U1200. That is essentially a class tournament where people can play up one class with a top section that is not specified as open (available to all) but rather as premier (available to experts and higher). Unrateds could play anywhere with prize limits below the premier section.
For 2-day tournaments with 3 rounds on the first day and 2 on the second, one of the main ideas behind allowing two half point byes is to accommodate players who can’t attend on the second day. They can still come and play the 3 rounds on the first day and take 2 half point byes for the second day. Also, out of town players who don’t want to have to stay overnight and pay for a hotel can also still come and play the 3 rounds on the first day and take 2 half point byes for the second day.
Thanks for the feedback everyone (in particular to Alex for the Rose City name suggestion). Info about the tournament is now on our website, pdxchess.org/rsvpmaker/1st-annua … -2015-5-2/
You can just as easily accommodate someone who doesn’t want to play the final two rounds of the tournament (i.e. the most important rounds for determining prizes) by giving one 1/2 point bye and one zero.
But if they are forced to take a zero point bye for the last round, they might be less likely to attend the tournament at all.
Again, those are the rounds when the prizes are really determined. They’re choosing not to play in them. Someone getting 1/2’s for both last rounds could very easily be getting an advantage relative to players who actually are playing. You need to think about what’s fair to the people who play all five, who may very well decide to pass in the future (or even this time) if they see someone getting prize money without playing Sunday. Goichberg changed the bye policy for the Chi Open after Joel Benjamin won major $$$$ without playing Monday because the other players were PO’ed. Multiple people have given you the same advice (or even stronger advice of not allowing 1/2’s at all) and no one (no one!) has agreed with you on this.
The question has to be who are you trying to accommodate? Players who in a tournament for the money, or players who are in a tournament in order to play OTB rated chess. What you are likely shooting for is a happy medium. So, maybe allow for up to 2 half point byes without allowing them both to be on Sunday. The whole point of the 0 point bye is that the player has not withdrawn from the tournament. So a 0 point bye in the final round means the player would still be eligible for prize money. USCF rules do state that players that withdraw are not eligible for prizes.
I once made the same mistake of allowing a player 2 half point byes for the final day of a tournament. I have never allowed that to happen since. I usually state that byes need to be requested with registration. Then as part of the announcements I tell players to check the wall chart to make certain that they any byes that they wanted. I make sure that a wall chart gets put up for the players to inspect. And then yes if someone claims a bye is missing, then I allow that bye to be added. I do this even though it amounts to allowing bye requests up until the second round.
Larry S. Cohen
Very bad idea, Micah, on the 1/2-pt byes, as stated correctly by Tom. I’d just point out that those are the rounds where the opposition is getting stronger. To me, it almost sounds like a way to manipulate the tournament, and get an almost guaranteed prize. I don’t like it.
We’ve been here before. Hikaru Nakamura won the World Open a few years ago by taking byes for the last two rounds, as I recall. He had to fly off to a tournament overseas, I think. Of course, he agreed to the byes in advance—before round one; at time of entry, I think—and they were irrevocable. Still some people did not like it.
Also, at the 2002 US Open, byes were allowed for the last three (!) of the nine rounds, if requested with entry, or at least before round x, and at least last-round byes were irrevocable. Signs were posted in big letters near the playing hall, noting that the EB had approved this policy. That led me to believe there had been debate over it, but of that I have no knowledge.
I would say allowing half-point byes in the last two rounds of a 5-round Swiss might be worth trying, depending on circumstances. (Beware potential pairing problems if you get a small turnout to begin with, then have several fewer players on Sunday due to requested byes, plus dropouts.)
But only do it if you make clear that such byes must be requested at time of entry, that byes are capped at two for the event, and that second-half byes (for rounds 4 and 5) are irrevocable. Also, consider stipulating that a player must score at least half a point OTB to win a prize.
Or maybe have a drawing for a small cash prize chosen by lottery among everyone who plays all five rounds. Make it fun.
P.S. Here is the bye policy for this year’s World Open, copied from the event TLA:
Half point byes OK all, limit 4 (limit 2 in last 4 rds.), Open must commit before rd. 2, others before rd. 5
So if you have great faith that your genius will take you to 6.5 or 7 points in your first 7 games, but don’t trust your nerves or ability to deal with sleep-deprivation at the end, you can request and receive half-point byes for the last two rounds.
Not something I would recommend but you can do it. So I am not sure it’s absurd to allow it in a small-to-medium local weekend Swiss. It might draw more entries from players who can/will only play Saturday. Whether that’s worth the flip side is debatable.
I take a tolerant view of last-round byes—especially if requested at entry and if irrevocable—since a chess friend once got in a huge beef with a TD at a large holiday weekend Swiss, who refused to give him a last-round bye, even though my friend requested it in advance and had what he considered a good reason. (nothing to do with maximizing prize chances)
To bring him in off the ledge, I tried to explain the TD’s reasoning for not giving him a bye…and in the course of the discussion that ensued he brought me at least halfway round to his POV.
With that said, I understand why players did not like the Benjamin and Nakamura examples cited. There is no perfect way to run a chess tournament.
My club (Portland Chess Club) runs several tournaments that are 2-days, has 5 rounds (with 3 rounds on the first day and 2 on the second), and has two two sections (Open and U1800), and each section gets around 20 players. For example, see the ad for the Spring Open on our website, pdxchess.org/rsvpmaker/spring-open-2015-3-14/, which I will be the TD for!. In the past, we have allowed 2 half point byes for rounds 1-4. Some players have been wanting half point byes to be available for round 5. Which of the following would be the best option:
Continue to allow 2 half-point byes for rounds 1-4 only
Allow 2 half point byes for rounds 1-5
Allow 1 half point bye for rounds 1-5
These rules are certainly above my pay grade! 
I can’t imagine anyone needing more than one 1/2-pt BYE in ANY tournament. If you didn’t come to play, stay home and play online!!
I suppose another option might be to award “variable-value” byes in the later rounds. For example, a requested bye in either round 4 or 5 could be worth 1/2 point if the player has at least a break-even score after 3 rounds, zero points otherwise.
Or, if you want to be still more intricate, you could declare that, in the case of requested byes in both rounds 4 and 5, the two byes would be worth a total of 1 point if the player’s score is at least 1.5 in rounds 1-3, or 1/2 point if 1.0, or zero otherwise.
Bill Smythe
Out of the three options I gave, which do you think is best Bill?
Micah, any of the three options are defensible, and what your players would prefer is probably a bigger factor to consider than any of our preferred practices.
I would add a deadline by which a player must commit to any half point byes, such as the start of round 2. Sorry if you’ve already proposed this and I missed it, but it’s important to prevent the shenanigans others have mentioned upthread. Determine a deadline and enforce it (barring a weather or facility event that makes a liberalization justifiable).
The best advice for this is to tie a cement block around it and pitch it in the Columbia River. It’s complicated and pointless. (If you list that as your bye policy, you will probably lose more players than you will gain, simply because some players will think the organizer has gone batty).
There is a huge difference between this tournament and the other one—this one has “Under” money (way “Under” money with a U1200 prize). Simple advice: do not allow for 1/2 point last round byes in sections with under prizes. The only point to last round 1/2 point byes is to allow someone who is not playing to have a better chance at winning $$$. As the tournament is structured, a player with an 18xx rating in the top section or a 11xx rating in the bottom section can figure on being paired up in the last round, whether they’ve been playing well or poorly. Thus 1/2 point is going to be greater than their expected last round score (and they would know that even before they registered). and will likely be greater than the typical score of a player who is actually playing round 5 who is competing with them for under money.
Even the current policy of two 1/2’s for rounds 1-4 seems a bit on the generous side, but if people are used to that, there’s no strong reason to change it.
The problem with variable byes is that the players do not know what to expect. As I recall there was a US Open here in Chicago where something like this did occur. A player had requested byes in Rd 3 & 7. He had just taken up a new defense 3 days before the event. All he had time to learn was the exchange variation, but all 4 of his games with black were exchange variations. As a result he scored 3 out of 4 against higher opposition, giving him a score well above that expected of someone of his rating. His request 1/2 point bye for Rd7 was made into a 0 point bye. He had no knowledge that this would happen, and was rather unhappy when he found out at the rd8 pairings.
The point is make sure that all your players know what your policy will be for a specific event. Add to the announcements before both the first & second round. Rd2 announcements should always take into account that there are players who took a rd1 bye, and have not heard the announcements before. An uniformed chess player is a potential unhappy customer for any organizer.
Larry S. Cohen
Oh, I don’t know. At the old Lunt Avenue club we were a bit more liberal – but then, those were Plus Score events, no class prizes. As I recall, for a 4-round event it was something like this:
In your case, with class prizes, I’d suggest something like this:
That oughta fix the wagons of anybody planning strategic byes.
Bill Smythe
Very helpful Bill