Round Cancellation
Author: Mark Kaprielian
December 1997
1.
(USCF) The USCF allows the cancellation of tournaments only
under very limited conditions, one of which is "extremely inclement
weather"
2.
(USCF) Under penalty of having the club's affiliation with the
USCF revoked, the club is obligated to pay out guaranteed prizes unless it
petitions the USCF for exception due to above mentioned above.
3.
(USCF) Due to publishing lead-time requirements of Chess
Life magazine, tournaments that are three months away must be committed to and
submitted. Commentary: The Club has a responsibility to both local
and visiting USCF members to hold events as advertised. We do, from time to time get people visiting
from out of state participate in our events, sometimes the whole event,
sometimes only partial. This
contributes to the reasoning of not changing the January event. It should be noted also that our events are
indeed drafted unofficially for planning purposes, for an entire year in
advance at all times with adjustments made as we progress through the schedule
and until we need to commit to the advertising for the event.
4.
(USCF) Tournament
reports must be submitted within seven days after the "end date" of
the tournament. Commentary: Ratings are
calculated in order of tournament end dates.
If we were to complete this tournament beyond the next tournaments end
date, everybody's rating would be calculated out of order. The USCF does not go back and recalculate
forward. The ripples in ratings could
be very significant and their effects on entry into major tournaments a
mess. I don't believe we have the
latitude to change the announced dates of the tournament without prior
notice. This I believe eliminates the
option of completing the tournament at a later date.
5.
Without a TD present, disputes, should they arise, might
not be amicably resolved. Commentary:
While of late it has been quite rare for any personal disputes to arise,
it certainly has happened. Also, there
may be very legitiment questions, problems or situations that may occur. While I can't pin down the USCF rules
stating that games must be played with a TD in attendance, I would have to say
it would, at the least, be very unwise to hope that 18 pairings, played on
their own would occur without incident and within the proscribed time
frame. This eliminates the idea of
completing the games with time and place arranged between the players.
6.
(Club) There is no established policy on
cancellation. Commentary: In the past,
research was done and other club Presidents and TDs were consulted but no clear
policy seemed possible. On only one
previous occasion in the last three years did we have to cancel a round. Commentary:
This was the first round of the Club Championships in April of this year
and was due to snow. As it was a six
round event, the round was not much missed especially since no games had yet
been played. It did cause much
confusion from start to finish.
1.
We have 80 active players attending our events. We average about half this number playing
each month. Each month the makeup of
which 40 or so are playing varies a great deal. Granted there is a hard-core group of about 20 people who attend
almost every month. The point I'm
making here is that even on a monthly basis, the collection of players is very
unique. I do not believe it at all
feasible that we could get agreement from the 36 players this month on a common
alternate date or that it would be fair to expect that people would be required
to attend another unscheduled round.
2.
Let's take a hard look at what is really at stake. There are, I believe, three primary items:
a)
Ratings - Ratings
are not adversely affected by the loss of a round. Only played games count towards ratings.
b)
Prize Money - The
loss of a round certainly effects the ability of players to place.
c)
Glory - The loss of
a round may deprive someone the opportunity to say they placed.
3.
Lets now consider the idea of changing the time control to fit
two rounds into the space of one. This
change would be addressing the issue of being able to place, hence Prize Money
considerations and Glory. Relative to
the existing time control, we would be in effect saying, "lets play speed
chess to determine the winner".
This will work to some peoples advantage and to others
disadvantage. From my experience, I
firmly believe that the results will NOT be the same as if we had played our
four regular rounds. Many of our
players do not like time controls faster than what we now play and in fact, we
have essentially given up fast events because of repeated poor turnouts. Granted, the story may be different now but
deciding to go this route on short notice does not seem fair to me and I don't
think it fair to let a vote decide it on game night (unless it were
unanimous). Also, remember that ratings
are at stake. So, just how important is
the prize money to how many people and who has a better or worse shot at it due
to changing the clock speed?
1.
Clearly, the determination of prizes and glory will be
impacted no matter what choice is made.
1.
Given all of the above facts and considerations, I believe it
is in the greatest good and of least adverse impact to the participants to
simply drop out a round canceled due to weather.