A question for you scholastic TDs: If a player is waiting for their opponent to show up (clocks have already been started for the round), must he or she be forced to do absolutely nothing but sit idly during the half-hour or hour until the TD declares a default? (Assume no re-pairing is possible.) Is it permissible for the waiting player to read or quietly do homework, as long as it’s not chess-related and not disturbing to others?
Would your answer be any different if it were an open event?
Having a group of players, you would need to have some activity between rounds. That would be skittles games, since the opponent has not come to the board – that would be unethical. The adults would find something to kill the hour before the flag falls, or the opponent comes to the board.
Having any scholastic event, is much harder on the directors to take care of the players. As they will walk around the boards, if they do not understand the rules of being a spectator. Then you can find being the director as harder work.
Just to be safe, have the scholastic player start the game. Then be outside the room waiting for the opponent. Homework is fine, but who brings homework to a tournament. Have the scholastic player be with the parents till the opponent shows up. I would place a note on the board, see the director. As you would not know if the opponent did show up and made a move. Even with that, walk around the board as much as you can. As now your duties would be the same as the opponent waiting for his/her opponent. If the opponent does show up, make sure you can find both players.
Of course, scholastic players have the same rights as adult players in being able to show up late and begin their games, if they have paid their EF. The late player has the length of time of the time control or 60 minutes, whichever comes first. So, yes, the player with the absent opponent would need to be in the tournament room where he/she can watch the board for the opponent’s arrival.
Any non-chess related activity, away from the board, such as homework, reading, talking to parents, coaches, friends, should be allowed, as long as the player understands that he/she can’t discuss ongoing games with players involved in those games.
In general, what’s good for the adults is good for the youth, IMO.
There are differences, however, in some areas as to TD discretion. Some TDs may give a late opponent 15 minutes to appear, no matter the time control (most scholastic tcs are 30-45 minutes). Others will, after 5 or 10 minutes, pair the player with absent opponent with a player with a Bye, if one exists. You may also make cross-section pairing for players with Byes and no opponents, after a reasonable time. That’s why some pairing sheets tell the player with a Bye to “Please Wait” or, “Please See TD” instead of “BYE”. This has happened at Nationals I’ve attended.
Note, that the above variations a sufficient enough to warrant a statement to such effect in all advance publicity.
Stand by, I’m sure you will get more ideas from others.
Terry Winchesters idea is right. Only would perform re-pairing during the round, if the event is large with a staff. Working on a scholastic event, is much harder on any director then working with the same number of entries of adults. Late players is just one of the many factors that make the directors job much harder.
In the Chicago suburban K-8 scholastics (200-500 players) and Illinois State K-8 (650-850 players), our standard way of handling late players for the past couple of decades has been to wait until about 15 minutes into the first round and then re-pair all of the games with missing players, inserting any players who were missed during entry of the pre-registrants. This is done because there are a number of players who are registered and then are no-shows due to a last minute conflict and the parent or coach not realizing that the tournament should be informed of the no-show. Since trophies are the awards in scholastic tournaments, since trophies must be tie-broken to be awarded, and since forfeit round one wins generally do not help tie-breaks as much as playing and defeating an actual opponent, it is considered better to have a player play a game rather than sit through the first round getting a forfeit win. A number of times the missing player is on a board facing an unrated or provisionally rated player that needs more games played to get an established rating, which a forfeit win does not give the player. Those are some of the same reasons for national scholastic round one re-pairing of players that do not have opponents. Doing the re-pairings can take a little while, and if there are a lot then making the corrections in the back room can take a while, so round one is a bit hectic with the finding of games with missing players, re-pairing those games, correcting the board-by-board pairing sheets and correcting the computer. You often need 25-75% more staff for round one to cover for the distraction of the re-pairings.
Once the first round in a scholastic tournament is played there is a good idea of who is actually in the tournament, so my experience has been that trying to re-pair a later round can cause more problems (when a player arrives late and finds the game re-paired) than it solves. After round one the players simply wait at the board for their opponent to show (making their first move if they are white, and starting the clock if they have one), usually within a few minutes, occasionally with only a few minutes left on the clock, and rarely with the game actually being a forfeit win. The players can watch the games next to them while they stay at their board. It is helpful to explain to the kids why they are waiting, how long they have to wait before they can get a forfeit win, what a forfeit win is, that they can start the clock if they have one and haven’t started it yet, and how a clock will be set if they don’t have a clock now and one has to be placed on the game later.
Since adult tournaments generally have splittable prize funds and players with established ratings, and are more likely to have players that arrive late for the first round, the need for re-pairings even in round one is minimal to non-existent. Norm qualifications are the first potential reason to come to mind, but I haven’t had to worry about that myself. When multiple adults have already received forfeit wins in the same round I have offered them the option of also playing a rated game at a faster time control in the extra games section (no prizes in that section). Some opt to play and some opt to rest for the next round (especially if it is the last round of the day).