Paris Grand Chess Tour

[Jesper Norgaard]

In this page http://grandchesstour.org/2016-tiebreaks there is the following last clause 6.5:
"In all cases the Event Chief Arbiter and the Event Organizer shall be empowered to substitute Blitz games for Rapidplay games where this is necessary to complete the tournament on schedule."

I don't understand that, shouldn't this be substituting Rapidplay games for Blitz games? Otherwise how can the schedule be improved?
Or should I read "substitute" as "put in place" and "for" as "instead of"? It does seem to contradict the normal logic of the English language.

Will the Brussels tournament be played with the same defunct rules?

[Roger de Coverly]

Will the Brussels tournament be played with the same defunct rules?

In the context of the whole document, it seems obvious enough that ties will be settled by rapid play games unless there is insufficient scheduling time remaining, in which case Blitz games are played. It would have been a useful option at London 2015 to have been able to play Blitz instead of Rapid.

[Jesper Norgaard]

Will the Brussels tournament be played with the same defunct rules?

In the context of the whole document, it seems obvious enough that ties will be settled by rapid play games unless there is insufficient scheduling time remaining, in which case Blitz games are played. It would have been a useful option at London 2015 to have been able to play Blitz instead of Rapid.

So you are saying that when you substitute Bananas for Pears, you will put Bananas instead of the Pears?
And when substituting Bananas with Pears, then you will put Pears instead of Bananas?

Mind-boggling stuff! But wasn't it "My kingdom for a horse"? Did Richard the Third mean that he would substitute the horse with his kingdom?

When you say "In the context of the document", aren't you just putting in your own bias and concluding that it will have to be Blitz no matter what the document actually says?

[NickFaulks]

But wasn't it "My kingdom for a horse"? Did Richard the Third mean that he would substitute the horse with his kingdom?

No, he meant that he would give his kingdom for a horse.

[Jesper Norgaard]

But wasn't it "My kingdom for a horse"? Did Richard the Third mean that he would substitute the horse with his kingdom?

No, he meant that he would give his kingdom for a horse.

My conclusion is that the original document, clause 6.5 should have been

"In all cases the Event Chief Arbiter and the Event Organizer shall be empowered to substitute Rapidplay games with Blitz games where this is necessary to complete the tournament on schedule."

In other words, the opposite of what it currently says.

[Roger de Coverly]

In other words, the opposite of what it currently says.

#

Substitute X with Y and Substitute X by Y have identical meanings.

[IM Jack Rudd]

So you are saying that when you substitute Bananas for Pears, you will put Bananas instead of the Pears?
And when substituting Bananas with Pears, then you will put Pears instead of Bananas?

We'd normally use "replacing" rather than "substituting" in the second case, but yes, substitute... for... and substitute... with... work differently from each other.

[David Sedgwick]

In this page http://grandchesstour.org/2016-tiebreaks there is the following last clause 6.5:
"In all cases the Event Chief Arbiter and the Event Organizer shall be empowered to substitute Blitz games for Rapidplay games where this is necessary to complete the tournament on schedule."

I don't understand that, shouldn't this be substituting Rapidplay games for Blitz games? Otherwise how can the schedule be improved?
Or should I read "substitute" as "put in place" and "for" as "instead of"? It does seem to contradict the normal logic of the English language.

My conclusion is that the original document, clause 6.5 should have been
"In all cases the Event Chief Arbiter and the Event Organizer shall be empowered to substitute Rapidplay games with Blitz games where this is necessary to complete the tournament on schedule."

In other words, the opposite of what it currently says.

As I wrote the original sentence, perhaps I should comment.

My wording was approved by the GCT lawyers in St. Louis, USA.

However, this is the second occasion on which I have discovered that it has confused someone for whom English is not his first language. That wasn't my intention and I'm sorry that it has happened.

"In all cases the Event Chief Arbiter and the Event Organizer shall be empowered to substitute Blitz games for Rapidplay games ..."

"In all cases the Event Chief Arbiter and the Event Organizer shall be empowered to substitute Rapidplay games with Blitz games ..."

Those two sentences mean the same thing. However, perhaps

"In all cases the Event Chief Arbiter and the Event Organizer shall be empowered to replace Rapidplay games with Blitz games..."

would have been clearer.

I'll bear that in mind for 2017.

To answer another question, this provision applies to all four GCT events.

[David Sedgwick]

.I saw Malcolm Pein on the stage in Paris (it looked very like the Olympia stage in London!). I couldn't see who the arbiters were, as the camera didn't show them or at least I wasn't watching when they did. David, were you there? Same set-up in Brussels, with Malcolm et al. there as well?

Malcolm will be pleased to learn that the camera didn't show the arbiters. That was his intention.

I was present in Paris, and I shall be in Brussels-Leuven, in my capacity as Chief Arbiter of the Grand Chess Tour. That is a more backstage role than my usual one at Olympia and you are unlikely to see me on stage.

In Paris we had the services of two excellent French arbiters, Stéphane Escafre and Stephen Boyd.

In Brussels-Leuven we shall the services of two equally excellent Belgian arbiters, Luc Cornet and Sylvin De Vet.

[NickFaulks]

My wording was approved by the GCT lawyers in St. Louis, USA.

Funnily enough, when reading Jesper's first post my immediate thought was that while the wording was clearly fine in English, I had no idea what an American would make of it.

[Jesper Norgaard]

However, perhaps

"In all cases the Event Chief Arbiter and the Event Organizer shall be empowered to replace Rapidplay games with Blitz games..."

would have been clearer.

I'll bear that in mind for 2017.

To answer another question, this provision applies to all four GCT events.

Thanks. I do think the last version you gave is clearer. I had no idea "substitute for" could be the opposite of "replace with", in other words the operands must be reversed to mean the same thing.

That's why I like 2016-06-11 better than 11-06-2016 because the former invariably means YYYY-MM-DD while the latter may mean MM-DD-YYYY or DD-MM-YYYY depending on the context. Especially Americans use 11/6 2016 meaning sixth of November 2016. Instead 2016-06-11 should always mean eleventh of June 2016 anywhere on Earth.

My wording was approved by the GCT lawyers in St. Louis, USA.

Funnily enough, when reading Jesper's first post my immediate thought was that while the wording was clearly fine in English, I had no idea what an American would make of it.

Which I'm not of course (American)! I realize you didn't imply that either, you are referring to that it was approved by genuine American GCT lawyers.
Come to think of it, I never understood why the whole world has agreed on the biased and prejudicial idea that Americans are only the citizens of USA, and that "American" would be inappropriate about a South American. By saying American usually is excluded Canadians, even though the Canadians may consider themselves North Americans just like the Mexicans.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"That's why I like 2016-06-11 better than 11-06-2016 because the former invariably means YYYY-MM-DD while the latter may mean MM-DD-YYYY or DD-MM-YYYY depending on the context. Especially Americans use 11/6 2016 meaning sixth of November 2016. Instead 2016-06-11 should always mean eleventh of June 2016 anywhere on Earth."

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will be pleased with 2016-6-11 - that's how they insist dates should be shown.

[Alex Holowczak]

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will be pleased with 2016-6-11 - that's how they insist dates should be shown.

Of course, it should be the International Organisation for Standardisation.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Of course, it should be the International Organisation for Standardisation. "

They spell it with "Z"s, as does the Oxford dictionary, which is good enough for me!

[Jesper Norgaard]

"That's why I like 2016-06-11 better than 11-06-2016 because the former invariably means YYYY-MM-DD while the latter may mean MM-DD-YYYY or DD-MM-YYYY depending on the context. Especially Americans use 11/6 2016 meaning sixth of November 2016. Instead 2016-06-11 should always mean eleventh of June 2016 anywhere on Earth."

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will be pleased with 2016-6-11 - that's how they insist dates should be shown.

Actually I would insist that "2016-06-11" is better than "2016-6-11" because that way it is sortable. Or else October, November and December are out of order. If you use Paris_Grand_Chess_Tour as a file name, and supply the date in the end, you may have Paris_Grand_Chess_Tour_2015-11-22.docx to sort before Paris_Grand_Chess_Tour_2016-06-14.docx automatically when looking at a list of files. Very practical!