English Chess Forum

Just an idea – but should fining teams unable to field a complete team be considered?

I travelled a fair distance to play at the weekend, so booked a room for Saturday night.
I thoroughly enjoyed Saturday, not only because I played pretty well (for my level) and had a really friendly opponent, but also because I found the buzz of a big chess event extremely interesting.

However I was left without a game on the Sunday because our opponents only bothered to field 50% of a team!

I tried to recover something from the day by contacting the arbiters in the hope that I could, at least, find someone in the same boat as me and play a rated game.
No such luck.

So I spend the 3 hours driving home thinking of good excuses as to why I am £40+ out of pocket when I could have just travelled home Saturday evening.

So why not fine teams £15 per defaulted board as compensation to the player inconvenienced!

I would still have driven home mildly cheesed off, but at least I could have purchased some flowers/chocolates for my long suffering wife (or a chess book for myself )

Trefor

Trefor, my sympathies! I noticed that match on Sunday with surprise. There are always odd defaults in any big league, and I have already advised one player elsewhere on this Forum that he might get a game if he lets the arbiters know that he's available rather than simply spectate.

However your suggestion of a fine for teams who default boards is an interesting idea. Why not suggest it to the Board of the 4NCL?

Is the default situation covered in these 4NCL rules?

10.4 Appeals against game point penalties will be considered only in exceptional circumstances, for example the hospitalisation of a player or the death of a close family member on the morning of the match. Appeals against defaults caused by car breakdowns, traffic delays, public transport delays or cancellations, bad weather etc will not be considered. Appeals must be made before the start of the match in question to the Chief Arbiter, whose decision, in the interests of providing certainty to the teams involved, will be final and not subject to referral to the Management Board.

10.7 A team defaulting a game for whatever reason will incur a penalty of £20 per defaulted game unless a successful appeal has been made under rule 10.4 above. This penalty will not apply to the first game defaulted by a team during the season. If a Division 1 or 2 team defaults an entire match for whatever reason a fine of £200 will be incurred. If a Division 3 team defaults an entire match for whatever reason it will (a) not incur a fine so long as the intention to default the match is notified to the Chief Arbiter no later than one week before the team list submission deadline under rule 8.1 above (b) incur a fine of £50 in all other circumstances. In all instances where a Division 3 team defaults a match other teams will be re-paired making use of triangular matches as necessary

Peter - default penalties under 10.2 and 10.3 were specifically waived for the weekend given the potential weather conditions under the guidelines that were issued beforehand. In general though they are applied.

Trefor - I'll send you a PM shortly if I may.