Pre-match defaults

[Peter Ackley]

In a league in which I play, for one of our matches our opponents arrived short one player. Although not eligible to play bottom board for our team (which they were defaulting for theirs) the captains agreed that I would take the default as I had a 4-hour drive ahead of me and no-one believed that we were breaching the league rules. The league ruled that their rules were the bottom board player (subject to a 150-point tolerance) should have taken the default.

Does anyone else play in a league where a captain has no discretion as to who receives a default notified prior to the exchange of team lists? I couldn't find one. All other leagues I have spoken with/about allow captains discretion.

Also is it just me who finds this concerning? What if bottom board was a junior? What if bottom board was a driver? What if the default was notified the day before the match and bottom board was the only driver?

What - really - is the harm in a stronger player taking a default win over a weaker one? Why should a player who wants to play have to take a default win over a player who would prefer not to?

Is this bureaucracy gone mad?

[David Gilbert]

This doesn’t sound right. Maybe a local consuetude? I suppose there’s a rule about exchanging team sheets before the start, but if your captain had removed your name from that and entered “Not Named” on the LMS (sometimes shown in defaulted situations in other Leagues) would the League officials have been any the wiser? I suspect that presented sensibility to sensible people, you’ll win a sensible claim.

[Joey Stewart]

The only instance I could see it raising objections would be in a grade handicap competition where removing the highest rated player drastically altered the average rating but even in that circumstance I would say that the defaulting team were more at fault for bringing an incomplete side and don't deserve any special treatment.

[Roger de Coverly]

Does anyone else play in a league where a captain has no discretion as to who receives a default notified prior to the exchange of team lists? I couldn't find one. All other leagues I have spoken with/about allow captains discretion.

Custom and practice in many leagues would allow any player to accept a known default even if not specific in the rules.

The 4NCL has a formal rule which perhaps you could try to get your league to adopt or adapt.

11.2
If a team receives a win(s) from a notified default, they may choose which player(s) receive(s) the default win(s), even if this would break the 100-point rule within a team as in rule 8.4. The 100-point rule still applies between teams in a combined squad and to the board order of players with an opponent, unless otherwise agreed under rule 8.8.

[J T Melsom]

Club captains at my club routinely opt out of fixtures where a board is defaulted, even where the player is not the weakest in the side. I wonder how many of those making the bizarre ruling in Peter's league ensure that the notification of defaults is timely when it arises in their clubs. In Bucks clubs have a tendency to tell you when they turn up at your venue (perhaps they don't think home players are inconvenienced), or not at all. I've turned up at other clubs to find myself with no opponent. Sometimes it may only be a fifteen minute trip down the road but it is still a wasted journey. One evening I was double booked for fixtures and choose to attend the wrong one.

[Jon Tait]

For clarification, this situation arose in the Nottinghamshire Chess League where Rule C6 states:

A player may not be rated more than 150 points above anyone on a higher board at the agreed start of the match (i.e. excluding substitutes). If a substitute is used they may not be rated more than 150 points higher than anyone on a higher board.

Neither captain gave thought to Rule C6 at the start of the match, just assuming it would be 1-0. At the end of the match C6 did suddenly occur to me, I suggested that the bottom board should therefore be a double default, and duly entered it as 0-0 on the LMS website. (We'd won the match 4-0 on the boards played in any case.)

Subsequently I changed my mind and queried whether C6 should apply in such cases. After appeal the Notts League Management Committee have ruled that they do not have the power to overrule existing rules and that the result stands as entered, but they will look to amend Rule C6 at the next Rules Revision Meeting of the Association.

Very sensibly because, as everyone here (and there too) appreciates, the rule as it stands when applied to defaults is clearly ridiculous.

[John Swain]

I have seen this debate develop on British Chess News (Facebook) and here on the EC Forum and, now that Nottinghamshire has recently been identified as the source of the issue, thought it was time to make a comment, especially given that few Nottinghamshire officials are on either platform.

I agree with Peter that the rule needs changing. If a captain wishes to give someone a game, for whatever reason, they should be able to do so and claim the win by default on bottom board as well, without having to worry about the 150 points board order rule. They are also weakening their team against opponents who have arrived a player short, hence making the match more competitive.

As Jon has mentioned, we have an annual Rules Revision Meeting in May where rule changes are debated and put to the vote. That requires folk to turn up, since this is an in-person meeting, not via a platform such as Zoom. Frequently, these meetings are not well-attended, despite the Secretary sending out proposed rule changes at least three weeks beforehand, as is the requirement. So the remedy is clear. In the meantime, the Records Secretary was correct to apply the rule. It's up to the League Management Committee (I used to be a member, last serving in 2002) to decide how the rules are applied in the meantime.

The Rules Revision Meeting doesn't inevitably agree to rule changes but has changed some rules for the better, IMHO. For example, in 2024 I proposed a change resulting in all matches having to be played with increments, rather the home team having a choice of increments or all moves in 75 minutes:

https://www.nottinghamshirechess.org/wp ... s-2024.pdf

This was passed and remains league practice.

[Roger de Coverly]

In the meantime, the Records Secretary was correct to apply the rule.

Had the rule been ignored would anyone have noticed or complained?

[Jon Tait]

In the meantime, the Records Secretary was correct to apply the rule.

Had the rule been ignored would anyone have noticed or complained?

Quite possibly not, but I invoked the rule myself, so...

[Dragoljub Sudar]

Before 2017 the Notts League did not have a board order rule so teams could list their players in any order.

This is another example of when a rule is changed not all the possible consequenses have been thought of.

To be able to claim a win by default on a board a team must name an eligible player.

As to Roger's question, the records secretary cannot ignore the rules. He has to apply them and then a club has 28 days to appeal.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I agree with Peter that the rule needs changing. If a captain wishes to give someone a game, for whatever reason, they should be able to do so and claim the win by default on bottom board as well, without having to worry about the 150 points board order rule. They are also weakening their team against opponents who have arrived a player short, hence making the match more competitive."

Yes - even Surrey (which has board order rules) accepted that. In Somerset, my team was one short in a match against Millfield, so their board 1 (Matthew Turner) announced he would stand down. I was due to play him, so I was a bit sad that I missed that chance, but everyone thought he was very sporting. I think bottom board ended up as a double-default, as he thought it daft that he should be on bottom board. We felt that he was wrongly denying his team a free point!

[Dragoljub Sudar]

They are also weakening their team against opponents who have arrived a player short, hence making the match more competitive.

Er... 'more competitive' is stretching it a tiny bit.

Mansfield had three 2100 players, one 2000 player and an 1850. All tough, battle hardened, who take no prisoners, as our 1st team found out on Thursday.

West Bridgford were marginally weaker with two players about 1700, one 1450 and a 1350. I think that is probably the weakest team that has ever played a match in division 1.

Had WB turned up with their normal team (on paper they have access to more than a handful of players ranging from 2400 to 1800) then Peter might not have been so quick to volunteer.

If anyone is wondering why Mansfield is bothered to have won by 4 - 0 rather than 5 - 0, it's probably because last season they won the league on game points, after my club defeated Uni 1 with the match result decided by the final game when both players had only a few seconds left on their clock.

[Peter Ackley]

Had WB turned up with their normal team (on paper they have access to more than a handful of players ranging from 2400 to 1800) then Peter might not have been so quick to volunteer.

I made it clear in my appeal that I had a 4 hour drive ahead of me after the match. My decision to take the default was based solely on this.

If anyone is wondering why Mansfield is bothered to have won by 4 - 0 rather than 5 - 0, it's probably because last season they won the league on game points, after my club defeated Uni 1 with the match result decided by the final game when both players had only a few seconds left on their clock.

Whilst this is part of the reason it's more about the principal that a team should not be penalised when they have done nothing wrong, or where the league rules are so ambiguous that a reasonable person could form a perfectly reasonable, unintended, interpretation of them.

Let's look at the evidence...
As a cited in my appeal (not covered in the LMC response) Schedule C of the rules refers to "Players".

Rule 2: "A player may only play one game in any one evening, including wins by default"
So this rule has the potential to affect players winning by default and I know that it does because the rule states that it does.

Rule 4: "Once a player has been listed on a team sheet three times in total on higher boards for any team(s), that player may not appear for a lower team. Higher boards are defined as boards one or two that are played or won by default "
So this rule also has the potential to affect players winning by default and I know that it does because the rule states that it does.

And now Rule 6: "A player may not be rated more than 150 points above anyone on a higher board at the agreed start of the match (i.e. excluding substitutes)."
This rule also has the potential to affect players winning by default, but contrary to rules 2 and 4 it does not state that it does, consequently I know it does not affect players winning by default.

When I joined the league I read the rules. How, exactly, am I supposed to know what was intended when a rule was written if the rule itself is ambiguous? Why should our team suffer when the rules have two meanings.

I have shown the wording to other, non-involved players and organisers, and the feedback was unanimous. Whilst rule 6 is clear read on it's own a person reading the rules in their entirety could reasonably reach the same conclusion as me.

[Stephen Westmoreland]

Captain's discretion all the way on this one. If it was the Huddersfield League I would be siding with you. I suspect all the Leagues I am involved in would do so as well.

[Andrew Zigmond]

In all the years I've been involved with league chess it has always been the case that if a team arrives to find that the opposition have insufficient players there is generally a consultation as to who might be willing to take the default. Once a volunteer has been found the resulting default win is placed on the lowest board (the alternative, if the player taking the default is not bottom board anyway, is for the default to be placed on the board that player was playing which would likely necessitate rewriting the score cards) and that this board is ignored for the purposes of checking for any violation of the board order. I can hardly believe that this has never happened before in the Notts league, even if board order rules were never specified before 2017.

Whatever happened to "the law would be an ass..."?