Sometimes a pair enters late, or leaves early, for whatever reason. Examples : an extra pair enters the tournament, perhaps even during the second or third round, and fills out a previous "bye". Or a doctor has to leave because he has been called on an emergency. Or a player becomes ill. Or worse : a pair decides not to play on after a severe argument. And worse still : a pair is suspended by the Tournament Director and thrown out of the tournament.
It is not within the responsibility of the calculation department to criticise the directors for allowing late arrivals or early dropouts, these things happen and should be solved. There are three categories of problems when this occurs :
The third problem is equal to that of the fouled boards, or that of the artificial adjusted scores, which are mentioned later. It is my general opinion that results should not depend on what happens on any table that does not produce a comparable score. There will be fewer scores to compare with, but the reason why this has happened should not influence the results.
The first problem has two sides : what score do they get, and do they, yes or no, feature in the final rankings. The second question has to be resolved by the tournament director, and the reason for the late arrival or early departure, as well as the number of boards missed, shall determine his decision. The first part is comparable to the problem for their opponents, with some extra problems : if you award too many 60%-scores to the same pair, the result will be heavily influenced by this.
The second problem is worth a closer look. There are indeed two ways of scoring : The pair can get an artificial score (usually 60%), or they can get no score at all, their total being compared to that of the other pairs by ways discussed in the previous chapter (fewer boards played).
Consider the problem of a late arrival. The opponents in a round that has finished were bye. They knew they would not get a score, yet now they can claim that they have, through no fault of their own, failed to meet the newcomers, failed to play the boards, and should get a 60%-score according to Law 12C1.
It is my opinion however that this should not be so, although no guidelines have been put forward.
The same goes for the early departure, in any case for reasons of health, not bad play.
I propose the following guideline :
"Whenever a pair misses any prolonged series of boards, the result on these boards shall be considered 'unplayed', with no result being awarded and the final total of the pairs corrected according to the actual number of boards played."
The guideline should state how many boards constitute a 'prolonged series'. I think this should start at 3 consecutive boards, so no more than two consecutive 60%-scores should be given.
Last Modified : 1996-07-03