At the Greater Chicago K-12 scholastic tournament we had an interesting result slip. Those who have been to Nationals or other large scholastics will know what I’m talking about here. Briefly for those who aren’t familiar with result slips: These are just simple form sheets that we place at each board before each round. The players fill them out putting their names (for white and black), round, board number, circle the correct result and then sign the form. Ideally these forms are filled out with no scratchouts, eraser marks, or anything that doesn’t clearly show the result. When the game is done, the players fill out the form, raise their hands and a TD comes over to the board to verify the result slip. If everything matches and the slip is clean, the TD signs the slip, collects it and gives it to the scorers table. At larger scholastics they are a necessity as it really helps when parents inevitably come up to complain about the result.
I’ve only been a TD for a few years now, but I’ve seen plenty of craziness. Mostly it is just incorrectly filled out slips or players leaving before it is verified. Sometimes the TD forgets to sign the form or signs a bad one. But this weekend was a new one for me. At this particular board we had a good result slip. The names were filled out correctly and in the correct color spot. The result (black wins) was circled properly. The sheets were signed. White signed in the white signature. Black signed in the black signature. The TD verified it and signed the form. Everything looked good.
There was just one problem. We had another result slip that was also correctly and properly filled out with a different TD verifying it. However, this one had White winning the game. I compared the two slips. The handwriting for each of the players matched. They were the correct players for the board in the correct round and playing the correct colors just with the different results.
Naturally this was the last round, so the players were long gone and we couldn’t verify anything. Fortunately neither player was in prize contention. With over 600 players, it is no surprise that neither TD remembered anything specific about this board. My best guess is that the players were just having too much fun and decided to play another one and submitted both results to the TDs. There was no way to figure out which result was handed in first.
Anyway I thought I’d share for those who have dealt with the craziness of scholastic tournaments…
We have had similar things happen at the national scholastics. I also remember instances where players started their game over when the TD asked them to fill out a new slip to correct for errors. And one instance where a player sat at the wrong board, the game was completed, and then the real opponent showed up later but within the forfeit time.
I think we also had an instance of two players with the same first and last name playing each other. Luckily, they drew.
You have to love scholastic tournaments. If the original players are still there, I guess you could make that a side game, send the player at the wrong board to his proper spot and let both players play a second game - the one that really counts. If not, I guess you give the kid who showed up late a full point bye and let the other game stand as is. Fun.
Oh, that’s funny. Of course, I think we would just have to take the assumption that they played the correct colors if the game was decisive. The National results slip do have a line for the school name, so that might help as well. I have seen players with the same name in the same section get confused about which board they should be at (understandable), but I haven’t seen them paired against each other.
Those two players must have been reading the thread about unmatched results (win vs draw N vs R, or win vs win N vs N), and decided to try to wangle themselves a double win.
What may have happened is that the players finished their game, filled out and signed the sheet, but then decided to hang around and play another skittles game. They finished and were preparing to leave when another TD, who didn’t realize it was just a skittles game, said “Wait a minute! Did you fill out a results sheet?” and when they said “no” he had them fill one out. And the kids assumed they needed to do whatever the TD told them.
The way I’ve done it, the guy at the table would have already recorded the first result, and when he saw a second in the in-box, he would have noticed and looked for the original result slip in his out-box.
the first result slip was deposited in the in box before the second one was (some TDs range the room and may not get to the scorer’s table right away and the first one may not actually arrive first).
The scorer (if one exists) has not fallen behind so that the first one was recorded before the second one reached the box. Otherwise you have half the boards done, the first one sitting near the bottom of the in box while the second one is near the top, and the results slips getting processed top down. In that situation the first one arrived first but the second one is processed first and by the time the first one is processed it may be hard to tell whether the other one was in an early processed group or was in the current group.
