I have only 9 players in the Open section and 10 players in the Under 1300 section of an upcoming tournament. I have set the Open section to start with Board 1 and the Under 1300 section to start with Board 6.
Is it alright if I leave the Board Numbering this way throughout the completion of the tournament? Or do I need to set the Under 1300 section starting at Board 5 since the Open section will not need Board 5 for its byed player? It may be that someone will join the tournament in the Open section after the 1st Round has started. If I have already closed up the Board Number hole, I will have to open it back up perhaps while also redoing the Under 1300 pairings with the new Board 6 start instead of Board 5. Can anyone advise me on how to handle this situation?
That’s perfectly fine. You can number the boards 1-4 and 11-15 if you want! It’s also fine if the boards assigned to sections change from one round to the next. Do whatever is easiest for you, as long as it won’t confuse the players (too much).
I generally use this method and I usually have something like a 999 which is set for in case I have to play & TD where the physical board is optimum to watch things & least amount of disturbing the rest of the players. I once played in a very tight space in a YMCA (better than no tournament space) and of course the TD played their first game in the on inside/back board – he was not getting up without quite a bit of cooperation.
If I know I have more space than players, I consider spreading folks out with the elbow room going to the top boards – I also try to put the top boards away from the kitchen door.
One time everyone was seated except two players who said there was no board x – of course there was a board right in between x-1 & x+1 with no one sitting there – the board number was covered by the clock.
Mike, you said to use boards 1-4 and 11-15 for the Open section and Under 1300 section respectively. Don’t board numbers need to be consecutive with no gaps? Why isn’t it required to have no gaps between the sections’ board numbering such as 1-4 and 5 - 11?
Why would it be required? Different sections of a tournament are basically separate tournaments; the board numbers don’t have to be next to each other (and as noted above, multiple people have systems where the section number is the first digit of the board number).
There’s no reason that the board numbers for one section need to be consecutive with the board numbers for another section.
A lot of TDs will use 101-100 for section 1, 201-299 for section 2, etc. Most of the pairing programs support this kind of board numbering.
What you’re trying to avoid is having players sit down at the wrong board because you’ve got two board 3’s, one in each section.
I used to make board number tents that also specified which section it was, along with things like the time control and scheduled round times. (I was tempted to add where the bathrooms were, because that’s the question that gets asked the most. When using a new site or at an event with a lot of first-time players, I’d sometimes include that in my opening remarks before the first round.)
Yup, that was me. Not sure how we’re going to replicate that on the new servers yet, and our goal is to get the old servers shut down by the end of the year.
Ulmont, the software I use to run the tournament asks for board numbers. I guess I assumed that they had to be consecutive for the sake of the software. So, I can use start board 1, start board 6, and start board 12 for the Open section, Under 1300 section, and Extra Rated Games section respectively right? But I could also use start board 1, start board 11, and start board 20 right?
I am unfamiliar with the software you are using, but I would expect that, consistent with WinTD and SwissSys, each section can be assigned start board numbers completely independently of one another. If you were truly deranged, they could all start at 1, for example, although I wouldn’t recommend it.
