British Chess Championships 2010

[Alex Holowczak]

But if you don't enter a chess tournament because an ATM might swallow your debit card, then you'd never do anything, let alone enter a chess tournament.

I'm not sure I'd enter a tournament with a half-hour forfeit time if I was using a once an hour public transport service. The options would be to arrive say 1 hr 15 mins early, 15 mins early or 45 mins late. This may yet be a practical issue for me in playing in the London Classic. Arriving at Kent University at 1pm would perhaps have been no great hardship, targeting 8.15 am with at least an hour's journey beforehand rather more so.

There were two trains an hour from London St. Pancras to Canterbury West, but you might have had to change at Ashford International, which I had to do on the way there. I then had to wait for a train to split into two, and make sure I was getting on the right half of it to get to Canterbury.

[benedgell]

I remember a few years ago at the 4ncl, my team- mate at the time Gawain Jones was due to play Sam Collins. Sam was going to arrive probably after the default time and called ahead, informing the arbiter as such. The arbiter informed Gawain that if Sam didn't arrive by the default time he had the choice between claiming the game by default, or playing it once Sam arrived.

Gawain needed a win to help his chances of getting a gm norm, and so elected to play and won.

This is how I feel arbiters should treat the default time rule, with no exceptions. It might be a little unfair on people who have an emergency or some form of crisis, but I don't think there should be any sort of grey area, or room for interpretation in the rules.

[Nick Thomas]

Here are a list of excuses/reasons which might be usefull in similar circumstances:

1) The £1 I had in my pocket for the bus fare got picked and I have no other means of payment
2) I fell asleep due to a medical condition
3) I have a bad memory due to a bump on the headl I had when I was 2yo and went to the wrong venue
4) The door handle on my toilet door has fallen off locking me in. I am waiting for assistance
5) My elderly mother called and has locked herself out of her house...iI'll be along as soon as I've sorted it out
6) My car has stopped working 1 mile short of the venue (it's usually fine)...
7) The police stopped me to search me for explosives (I tend to look a bit suspicious)
etc etc etc

Are some of these as valid?

[IM Jack Rudd]

Various people have suffered from transport problems on the way to the Yeovil Congress and arrived after the default time. I've usually given them half-point byes as a result. (The player who failed to make a round because he fell asleep, however, got given zero.)

[Eoin Devane]

4) The door handle on my toilet door has fallen off locking me in. I am waiting for assistance

This happened to me once. It was very distressing.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I remember a few years ago at the 4ncl, my team- mate at the time Gawain Jones was due to play Sam Collins. Sam was going to arrive probably after the default time and called ahead, informing the arbiter as such. The arbiter informed Gawain that if Sam didn't arrive by the default time he had the choice between claiming the game by default, or playing it once Sam arrived.

Gawain needed a win to help his chances of getting a gm norm, and so elected to play and won.

This is how I feel arbiters should treat the default time rule, with no exceptions. It might be a little unfair on people who have an emergency or some form of crisis, but I don't think there should be any sort of grey area, or room for interpretation in the rules.

The situation there with the GM norm makes it a bit more difficult (a default win would have scuppered the GM norm chance, presumably), but in a team situation, as at the 4NCL, the needs of the team would usually be put before the needs of the individual.

Out of interest, when an arbiter is dealing with such a situation in a team event, what role do the team captains play, if any, as opposed to the role played by the individual players concerned? I ask this because I've just been reading about various disputes that occurred in the counties championships this year, and it seems that in team events appeals can be lodged by the captains, or even that individuals have to lodge appeals through their captain. Or is it that both individuals and captains can lodge appeals?

[Jonathan Rogers]

Actually, Gawain did ask his captain for advice. Ben P knows best of all what then happened, but presumably Ben thought (rightly) that Gawain should be allowed to play. It was actually possible for Gawain to make the norm despite the default win, but he did still need to beat somebody and it made no sense for him to waste an opportunity to play White, an hour up against an opponent who was clearly rather stressed after his journey. Gawain actually won very quickly (and the Sharks won 4.5-3.5, if you must know; so it is true that the Sharks took some risk, match-wise, by opting to play the Jones v Collins game. But then again, the match itself was not as important as all that, as far as I could see).

[Ian Thompson]

Here are a list of excuses/reasons which might be usefull in similar circumstances:
.
.
.
4) The door handle on my toilet door has fallen off locking me in. I am waiting for assistance

Something similar to this happened to me a few years ago. The match was being played in one building at a school and the nearest toilets were in a nearby building. Whilst I was in the Gents someone locked the outside door to this building. I had to wait for a passer-by to start with, and then wait again while he found someone with a key. I lost about 20 minutes on my clock. As it was a home match for me, I thought I just had to accept this loss. If it has been an away match I may well have insisted on having the time back.

The worst excuse I've ever had for being late was "Your venue is difficult to find and I always get lost coming here, so I want the 30 minutes I've lost on the clock back." This was before sat navs had been invented.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The worst excuse I've ever had for being late was "Your venue is difficult to find and I always get lost coming here, so I want the 30 minutes I've lost on the clock back." This was before sat navs had been invented.

That is a rather pathetic excuse!

Some of the posts in this thread are rather a long way off-topic now. It's difficult with an active thread like this, but would it be better to split some bits off into separate threads? All the general stories about defaults and excuses for being late and whatnot?

[David Pardoe]

Late arrivals.....I`m tempted to say that the player arriving late, for whatever reason, has already penalised themselves. They are probably feeling stressed already at some unexpected delay.
In general, Im inclined to say, lets play the game...thats what we`re there for.
Also, I suppose you can always get unforseen circumstances..like a pile-up on the motorway causing a 1 hour delay. I can remember a county match, where a motorway holdup caused over half the team not to arrive til 2 hours after the start. In fact I think that several players just didnt arrive at all...and the match was redesignated as a 10-board match. It was a pretigious occasion I think, with a local dignitory openning the building, or something. What an extremely frustrating day that was...
Then you get the case where a player does arrive on time, realises he`s forgotton to lock his car..and arrives back 5 mins after the start...
And look at Professional Football...players paid huge wages....and you hear cases where a league match was delayed due to bad weather, a coach breakdown, or traffic delays.
So, hay...lets live in the real world....

[Roger de Coverly]

And look at Professional Football...players paid huge wages....and you hear cases where a league match was delayed due to bad weather, a coach breakdown, or traffic delays.

A point well worth making - that "mainstream" sports also have tolerances for late arrivals. Unlike football, chess has a method of allowing a game to take place with a penalty for the latecomer - they lose time on the clock.

[David Sedgwick]

Some of the posts in this thread are rather a long way off-topic now. It's difficult with an active thread like this, but would it be better to split some bits off into separate threads? All the general stories about defaults and excuses for being late and whatnot?

It is possible for threads to be split and that has on occasions been done. However, Carl Hibbard has explained that it's an extremely demanding task when a thread has become as long as this one.

Please bear in mind that Carl spends a great many hours supporting and maintaining this Forum virtually single handed. Moreover, as explained in the thread you started about the history of the Forum, he has at times - two years ago in particular - had to do so in the teeth of considerable ECF disapproval and hostility.

Please be tolerant if one or two things are not quite as well ordered as we might ideally wish.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Some of the posts in this thread are rather a long way off-topic now. It's difficult with an active thread like this, but would it be better to split some bits off into separate threads? All the general stories about defaults and excuses for being late and whatnot?

It is possible for threads to be split and that has on occasions been done. However, Carl Hibbard has explained that it's an extremely demanding task when a thread has become as long as this one.

Please bear in mind that Carl spends a great many hours supporting and maintaining this Forum virtually single handed. Moreover, as explained in the thread you started about the history of the Forum, he has at times - two years ago in particular - had to do so in the teeth of considerable ECF disapproval and hostility.

Please be tolerant if one or two things are not quite as well ordered as we might ideally wish.

Oh, sure, I'm not saying that something should be done if it is difficult. Just pointing out that discussions about the British Chess Championships 2010 seems to have died out now (though maybe that is because those who ran the event and played in the event are mostly still recovering from it).

In the other forums I have sporadically frequented (not on chess topics) the usual thing to do is encourage people to start new threads about specific stuff that can be discussed separately, and activity tends to drift over to those new threads. Well, in theory. In practice, people always tend to post in the thread they are in before thinking "hang on, could this be a new thread instead", and some threads have natural drift that is good. Overall, things here are better organised than many forums I've been in!

About the history of the Forum, it would be great if more people posted in that thread. I wrote a paragraph here and then realised it would be better over there.

[Carl Hibbard]

It is possible for threads to be split and that has on occasions been done. However, Carl Hibbard has explained that it's an extremely demanding task when a thread has become as long as this one.

It is a bit of a weakness in this software, if a thread does need to be split it needs to be caught and done early otherwise it's a pain to do

[Lee Bullock]

For what its worth this discussion has been going on about French and Rayner on another site.

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/

I was the filler player for most of the 2nd week and any games that popped up or didnt go ahead the spare player could potentially play me. As far as I know it would have just been a friendly and no points involved although I was told it would be rated.

I was there when it all happened and some people got a few things wrong with what happened.

Firstly its no question that French should have been notified. I cant understand for a second how he was not passed that message that Rayner would be late. Would of ended this all instantly.

Secondly when Rayner arrived he did not apologise. This is relevant as French told me if he had apologised he would of played. Then before he was told that Rayner phoned ahead he decided to claim the game as Rayner had still not apologised 5 minutes into the whole incident.

I think the decision to award 1 and a half for 1 game opens up a future precedent. So something needs to be put in place so this cant happen again. Like in the rules it currently states at the arbiters discretion. It should also say if the arbiter decides the game should go ahead you must play or risk losing the game. Being able to appeal like French was allowed to do I think was wrong as we ended up getting in a situation where the game was not playable.

The players should of been told to play and if they wanted to appeal any decision they could have done so after the game. But to kind of award both players for this seems wrong. Almost a kop out. If in the future players need half or a point could they not make this whole exact situation again and get those 1 and a half points they need from the one game?

And I kinda feel for Rayner a bit although I think he showed no class by how he acted when he showed up as he now has missed out on next years champs by half a point. I feel both should qualify for next year as really Rayner could have got that point instead of French as going by the rules Rayner seemed more in the right.