Last evening,When submitting the Albuquerque/Rio Rancho (New Mexico) Open Chess tournament for rating, I found a change in procedures. I had to override warnings by checking a box near a player’s name. Previously, only errors had to be corrected and warnings were mentioned but did not have to be overridden.
Three warnings concerned out of state players - - since almost all of the players at the ABQ/RR open were/are from NM - I got a warning on each , Also I had an additional warning code letter on one USCF rated master because he was more than 200 rating points higher than anyone in the Open section.
On this relatively small local tournament- we had 74 players including one, who was kind enough to be a house player when needed, - this was not much bother. However, I imagine this could be a major annoyance for large tournaments if every out of state player will receive a warning - for example: I remember one event that drew 600 players, when I lived in New Jersey. A great many entrants were from nearby states like CT. PA. NY. & DE plus a sprinkling from dozens more states across the country – although the vast majority were from New Jersey.
Will this be the case? does anyone know?
Art Byers, Tournament organizer for the New Mexico Chess Organization and certified Local TDF.
There have not been any changes in the validation checks for some months, I suspect you just hadn’t run any events that tripped them.
Remember the old Sesame Street routine “One of these things is not like the others”?
That’s basically what we do when validating events. A few out of state players or a few players who are much higher or lower rated than the rest of the players, or who are much older/younger than the rest of the players will be flagged as possible ID errors, requiring you to override the warning.
Sometimes there will be notices, players who are a little different from the other players in the event, but not enough different to require an override. We strongly suggest you check any players so flagged. (Remember, the TD remains completely responsible for submitting an accurate event, and when submitting online there is no manual review by the office at all, just the automated one in the validation code.)
And sometimes there will be false alarms.
Now, if there are LOTS of players from other states, or if the players are a wide range of ages or ratings, then generally none of them will be flagged.
The classic error (one that actually occurred back in around 2001) was a master from New Jersey whose ID was mistakenly used in a scholastic event in Southern California. His state, age and rating all stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, but the error wasn’t caught using the manual procedures in place at that time, and he took a major ratings hit, until the event was corrected.