Unless it has changed recently, there is no way in WinTD post-merge to determine which pre-merge schedule someone was in. I think Swis-Sys does have that capability.
Don’t merge. Re-enter the bottom four players in the U1200 into the U600 and adjust the pairings for colors if necessary (may have to adjust exactly who is re-entered).
Not necessarily. There would be far fewer A players in the combined section, so not all B players might end up having to play an A player. If a certain B player does end up facing A player, the chances of he/she facing another A player would be quite low. In contrast, if A is combined with Expert, every A player would likely have to compete against an Expert every single round, which the A players might not want to do.
The Master sections in the CCA class tournaments seem to do better with every passing year. I can’t identify a reason for the contrast between the turnouts there and the subject tournament of this thread.
For casual tournaments, I’ve even heard of just canceling the last round, but I think that does the players a greater disservice than any method of running the fourth round. I think if the same players were to play again, just reverse the color from the previous encounter and make no other considerations. Instead of thinking of the tournament like a Swiss, consider it a round robin with the second “round” truncated. This would work if the number of rounds is equal to or less than the number of rounds required for a double round robin. But if the number of rounds is more than that, I think there are better options than a truncated triple (or more) round robin.
Possible, but as someone else mentioned, the point totals for the two separate sections might be a little weird when merged.
Has the tournament that is the subject of the lead post in this thread been specifically identified, or even its location indicated?
A tournament in NYC is likely to do far better at drawing masters than one in Peoria.
That’s not what I asked, nor would that capability be important for the purposes of this thread.
That capability might be important (or at least convenient) for some FIDE-rated U.S. Chess tournaments, especially when merging two schedules with different time controls, such as G/120 d/5 and G/30 d/5. The latter may not be regular-ratable in FIDE.
Bill Smythe
So far, everybody posting in this thread has been coy, but it took no great sleuthing powers for me (and others, I assume) to identify not only the tournament under discussion, but also the identities of player A and player C. And that was just from the initial post, before there were any replies.
Bill Smythe
I suspect the day will come when FIDE declares that in order to be eligible for FIDE rating, all of the rounds either have to be at the same time control or all have to fall under the same eligibility/ratability (?) rules. When I was at the Turin Olympiad, several FIDE officials expressed a combination of amazement and disgust over events where not all rounds had the same time control, including merged schedules.
I just wanted to respect the privacy of the parties involved as much as I could. Obviously some of the details give away the identities, but only to those who are already familiar with the tournament and the players in the area.
If FIDE goes that far, the likely result will be a huge reduction in the number of large USA open events that will be submitted for FIDE rating.
This might be a bit more palatable, but what is the fastest allowable time control for FIDE regular rating? If it’s G/90 or slower, there will still likely be a considerable drop in the number of rated FIDE events in the USA.
FIDE may have to choose between having several amazed and disgusted officials, or having less USA rating revenue and a less robust annual rating list.
Bill Smythe
Getting back to the two-section Rated Beginners Open:
Suppose now we have only 3, instead of 4, players registered for the Under 600 section.
One should still respect the philosophy of running the tournament in the manner announced, or close to it.
Since the under-600 players entered expecting to play other under-600 players, these three players – let’s call them X, Y, Z – should still all get paired against each other at some point.
Simplest would be to combine the sections, but make one of the pairings, such as X vs Y, by hand (within the pairing software – you TDs all know how to do that, don’t you?) and then let the pairing program pair the rest of the players, including Z.
In round 2, pair Z vs X by hand, giving X the opposite color to what he had in round 1, and let the pairing program pair the rest, including Y.
In round 3, pair Y vs Z, assigning colors so that X-Y-Z will all end up with one white and one black against each other. Then let the program do the rest, including X.
In round 4, just run the program, which will now assign opponents to all, including X,Y,Z.
It’s even easier if there are only two players under 600. Just pair them against each other manually in the first round, and let the program take over from there, for the rest of round 1 and the rest of the tournament. Easy peezy sneezy breezy.
Again, in all these cases we’ve done the best possible to pair the players under 600 against each other, which was the whole idea, right? That’s why an under-600 section was set up to begin with.
Bill Smythe
WinTD keeps track of FIDE ratability at the game level.
US Chess has the same capability, though that information is not in any of the current upload formats, so it has to be entered by the office. I’m not sure if that information is being used to prepare events for submission to FIDE, I think other procedures are used.
US Chess’s internal tournament database does not currently have the ability to track individual games by time control. That’s one reason why all games in a quick-rated-only section must be at quick-rated-only time controls and all games in a dual-rated section must be at dual-ratable time controls. If there are both dual-ratable games and regular-only-ratable games in a section, then all games in that section are considered regular-only-ratable. (Blitz events require that all games be at the same time control.)
While adding the ability to track individual games by time control (possibly by adding a field indicating which schedule the player was in) is possible, unless a change is made to the rules for rating events with time controls that change from round to round or schedule to schedule, collecting this information would serve no purpose.
I don’t think the ratings committee is currently considering such a change.
Is a change in the rules really necessary? The rules already state which rating system a game is rated under based on the time control. It stands to reason that even if the tournament varies the time control among games, then the individual games can still be reflected in the appropriate rating system(s).
The time control per game information is already currently collected in TD/A even if it isn’t actually saved in the database or anywhere. Why not actually start using it?
The problem, Bill, is that the way tournament results are currently submitted and stored, we do not know with 100% certainty which games were played with which time control. This applies mainly to multiple schedule events, because we don’t have which schedule a player was in. As I understand it WinTD does not even keep this information after a merge.
The way we handled this in 2005 (when the ratings system was rewritten) was to say that the slowest time control in effect for any round determined whether the event was dual-rated or regular-only rated and that all rounds had to be regular-ratable.
If the policy makers decide to require that individual games be rated based on the time control in effect for that game, not only will we have to change the ratings programming, we’ll have to change the way TDs submit their events, and we’ll have to change MSA so that it is clear which games were rated under which ratings system. Is that worth doing?
It would be far simpler just to eliminate dual rating, because all dual rated games are regular-ratable. If the ratings committee comes up with a better way to deal with inaccurate ratings due to issues like staleness (mostly affecting quick and now blitz ratings), then maybe eliminating dual rating is a possibility.
But as long as Game/30 has been ratable (now including events like G/25;d5), it has been regular-ratable, so it’s not like that would take anything away from the regular ratings system.
That would be a good idea anyway.
Dual rating isn’t doing anything to combat staleness, anyway. In fact, dual ratings perpetuate staleness. If a brand-new player enters a dual-rated tournament and has a break-even score against 5 established players, all with regular ratings of 1800 and quick ratings of 1700, then this brand-new player will start his tournament career at 1800 regular, 1700 quick.
It’s a possibility anyway. Just do it. As I said – (etc etc etc)
Bill Smythe
With all due respect, Bill, just doing away with dual rating doesn’t solve the issue that dual rating was intended to address, nor does it correct the divergences between regular ratings and other ratings (now 4 such systems.)
While there may be some people who have stopped playing regular rated games and only play faster events, thus having an inaccurate/stale regular rating, that’s probably not a major problem.
In general, it’s bad policy to discontinue something without knowing what you’re replacing it with.
It is always a question of numbers about merging sections, or keeping sections separate. I know of a 5 round class tournament held in the 90s where there were only 3 players in the Master section. The Master section was kept separate and the first 3 rounds on Saturday were played 1 vs 3, 3 vs 2, 2 vs 1. All the players, the TD, and the organizer agreed that the results at that point would be the final result and the players would not have to return to play on Sunday. With 7 rounds and 3 players even a double round robin would not work.
Larry Cohen
True, but having dual rating hasn’t solved the problem dual rating was intended to address, either.
Unless, of course, the process to be discontinued isn’t serving its intended purpose anyway, in which case it might as well be discontinued even as alternatives are being proposed and tested.
Bill Smythe
Yes, the question is always difficult, especially when Masters are involved. The guiding principle ought to be to try to run the tournament in a manner as close as possible to the way it was advertised.
In retrospect (and hindsight is always 20-20), perhaps one TD could handle on-site registration while another circulates among the inevitable crowd of registration-kibitzers and pairing-kibitzers, recruiting already-registered Experts to play up due to the existence of four prizes in a three-player section.
Of course, if the recruiting effort is excessively successful and the section now expands to 10 players, some may want to back out, so the TDs might end up halfway back to where they started. Oh well.
Not to mention, what if the TD staff consists of just one person to begin with? Oh well (again).
Bill Smythe