English Chess Forum

Hi.
Can the first round of a tournament be paired again after it has once been played?
Can the arbiter decide those who played each other the first time need not play again?

The entire first round? No. And why on earth would you do that?

Pairing people whose opponents didn't turn up against each other is another matter; it's commonplace in British tournaments.

I suppose that is just, barely, conceivable that you'd made such a mess of the first round pairings - or some other formal aspect of the round - that you preferred to forget the round ever happened in terms of the tournament and run with a slightly shorter tournament instead.

Can there be any other reason?

Maybe in a rapid event where a fire alarm went off 5 minutes into the first round, and by the time the players were back in the hall those who had taken a bye had now arrived for round 2.....

A situation like that would probably call for a repairing of round 1.

Don't make it comic

But the basic proposition already is quite firmly comic

Maybe you mean something different to what you actually wrote or something.

MartinCarpenter wrote:But the basic proposition already is quite firmly comic

Maybe you mean something different to what you actually wrote or something.

It actually happened. They played 1 round, and the arbiter repaired it, exempting the players whose opponents didn't change in the two pairing list from playing.

Autres pays, autres moeurs.

Andere Laender, andere Sitten.

Not sure what they say in Farsi...... Perhaps you can help us, Soheil?

soheil_hooshdaran wrote:

MartinCarpenter wrote:But the basic proposition already is quite firmly comic

Maybe you mean something different to what you actually wrote or something.

It actually happened. They played 1 round, and the arbiter repaired it, exempting the players whose opponents didn't change in the two pairing list from playing.

Why?

Mike Truran wrote:Autres pays, autres moeurs.

Andere Laender, andere Sitten.

Not sure what they say in Farsi ...

Me neither, but for what it's worth Google Translate gives the Persian as کشورهای دیگر، دیگر آداب و رسوم

(Sohail, the English is "other countries, other customs".)

Sometime in the 1980’s the scenario described by Joey happened to me. I played in a Greater Manchester Congress at Wigan and achieved the amazing feat of losing my first-round game in the Open then went on to win the tournament with a 100% score.

The event was a standard weekend tournament starting on Friday night. There was a problem with the fire alarm which kept giving a false alarm about once an hour. Each time the fire brigade turned up evacuated the building and checked the place out. Then gave the OK and let us resume play. Sometime around the second time the fire alarm went off my position was hopeless and I resigned.

When the alarm went off for the third time the organisers had had enough. They cancelled the round and started from scratch the following morning. Because as usual about half of the Friday night entries were half point byes the draw for the Saturday morning version of round 1 was totally different from that on Friday night.

We played four rounds starting Saturday morning and I won every one. Thus I came joint 1st with a score of played 4, won 4, and lost the first round.

Yes, I recall that being reported in CHESS magazine.

Andrew Bak wrote:

soheil_hooshdaran wrote:

MartinCarpenter wrote:But the basic proposition already is quite firmly comic

Maybe you mean something different to what you actually wrote or something.

It actually happened. They played 1 round, and the arbiter repaired it, exempting the players whose opponents didn't change in the two pairing list from playing.

Why?

Today I played at the venue. I asked the arbitress and she told me what was wrong with the pairing:
One player's name had been entered twice and one unrated player was entered as rated.

soheil_hooshdaran wrote: One player's name had been entered twice and one unrated player was entered as rated.

FIDE have a principle that pairings once published shouldn't be altered. An extension of that would be that pairings once made and games played using those pairings, they shouldn't be altered.

Any UK arbiter who tried to repeat a round with such flimsy excuses would no doubt be treated with considerable derision. The example given by Harry Lamb of a tournament disrupted by a fire alarm or similar is about the only case where a first round might be scrapped. As he explains, the existence of first round byes meant that pairings were unlikely to be repeated. If any had been, what would have been the ruling if the game had been completed before the disruption.