English Chess Forum

I have noticed that some tournaments publish pairings immediately after a round, while other refrain until an hour before the next round.

Are there any reasons behind these differences? Is it historical? Driven by player requests? Based on different visions of chess? Are there regional trends? Or is it just random?

A whole hour beforehand? You were lucky if you got ten minutes in certain past congresses I could mention

Wadih Khoury wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 24, 2021 8:44 pm

Are there any reasons behind these differences?

In some cases when doing pairings by card shuffling, arbiters have argued about what the pairings should be. There was a British Championship not so long ago when it was suspected card shuffling was the method employed when the pairings for the next day didn't appear until well after midnight instead of being available to discuss no later than a late evening drink. An unproven conjecture was that the row and delay was about whether or not to pair the Pert twins.

But assuming they are leaving the decision making to the pairing engine and they aren't trying to second guess it, a reason for delay is to allow for people who decide they aren't playing the next round. The point being that it's far easier to change pairings that haven't yet been published than those that have. Strict application of FIDE rules would ban changes to pairings once published. A default win might be awarded instead if someone dropped out.