I. Purpose

The last major discussion of the topic of Advance Byes was held in December of 1998. Club member Larry Eldridge put forward a position statement and the board soon there-after changed the club’s policy. This position statement attempts to assess the effectiveness of the policy that was put in place and offer suggestions for refinement of the current policy.

II. Existing Policy statements under consideration – from P&P dated 2001-05-04

D. Byes, Re-Entries, and Late Entries

a) In Swiss-system play of four or more rounds, a maximum of two half-point byes is allowed.

b) All requested byes must be committed to before the start of the 2nd round and are irrevocable after the start of the 2nd round.

c) Players entering an event late will have the half point byes applied to any missed rounds.

III. Previous motivations for changes

A review of the position paper by Larry Eldridge dated December 1998 will provide a solid background to this issue. It will also discuss some options that were not put into effect that we may now wish to consider.

In addition to the reasons stated in Larry’s document, I would add an additional motivation: The rules were not easily understood and were different based on the number of rounds. It was desirable to make the rules simple and consistent under all scenarios.

IV. Motivations for changes put forward by this document

The following list is ordered from approximately the highest to lowest importance.

A. The club continues to have, as it always has, a significant number of people calling for byes after round 2. I maintain that this is part of the nature of weeknight chess. Things happen, a player can’t make it; they call for a bye after round 2 but receive zero points.

1. Players have continued to question as well as be confused by the fact that they don’t get the ½ points. This generally leads to the display of disappointment or worse by the player.

2. The more rounds there are in an event, the probability of mis-matches in ratings for the pairings and the greater likely hood that those who have had to call in for byes after round 2 and thereby getting zero points will be for being paired. A partial example would be the case of the projected pairings for the 2001 Stan Crowe event, Under 1750 section, round 5. Bob Oresick, 17^th seed out of 23 has a loss and draw and called in for rounds 3 and 4 thus giving him only .5 points since he gets no points for rounds 3 and 4. He is the only player in the lowest score group and thus the prime candidate for a full point bye. Imagine if Bob happened to be one of the top seeds. If he was paired, he would probably be paired against a low rated or someone who has had poor performance against those in the section. Consider the satisfaction level of yourself if you were in Bob’s position. If we didn’t force zero point byes then a player such as Bob in our scenario would be thrown into the mix of a slightly higher score group giving probably better pairings. Prior to the last change of rules, only rounds 5 & 6 for the Stan Crowe event would have required commitment to the byes. From an overall satisfaction level, the current rule moved us in the wrong direction.

B. The current rule affords better protection against manipulation than the old rules. With the exception of the two traditionally large money events held each year, there is possible motivation for such attempts to manipulate the pairings in only two out of our ten regular events. Our rule change has effect on us for 80% of our events where we have never deemed we needed it. Currently, for our two big events, the prize money in the Open section has been reduced; thereby prompting less GM’s to attend while in the lower sections the prizes have gone up. I would maintain that the ability of someone in the lower sections to even come close to predicting the pairings two rounds away for the top boards is pretty low. In addition, someone would have to predict that they were also likely to win and then get paired against someone they felt that they just had to avoid. If we were to swing to the other extreme, which was our old rules for a four round event, which most of our events are, and say that we do not restrict when you can ask for a bye, the only time someone is going to be able to avoid someone else is to show up, try and see who’s called for a bye, figure out the likely pairings and then ask for a bye at the club prior to the pairings being done. With the exception of that infamous occurrence in the Open section in 1998, I never observed it the four years preceding the rule change. Given that we are really concerned with only two of our events, I contend that the current rule is really only useful for the Open section. Since the current rules have been in place, hovering at the TD table waiting to see who is going to take a bye is no longer possible. It has occurred on a number of occasions prior to the current rules.

C. Since we are trying to avoid manipulation of the top boards, then, only those in contention need to have anti-manipulation rules applied. If you agree with the position that this only applies to the Open section in the big two events, then our rule would impact even fewer players. It is possible then to create a rule that applies only to those in direct contention. This could get complicated so I recommend against it as it would be subject to calculation by the TDs and could be done incorrectly. It would also probably be confusing for the masses. The simplest rule I can think that would come close to the intent but not require any deep calculations would be, if the player has a perfect score or perhaps also only ½ point off a perfect score, then they do not get a half point bye unless committed to in advance (or needs two weeks notice) if they are in the open section and it is after round 2. I have little doubt that arguments could be made that this has flaws. The central point is that the pool of players that we want to impact is really quite small and thus our rules should not adversely impact the many.

V. Outline of Possible Solutions

The following list is ordered from what I consider, approximately best to worse solutions.

None of the solutions suggested make use of the players’ current score for determination of byes. This is for the following reasons:

1. In longer events, it seems to me that we have to go deeper than just perfect scores. This raises the question of how we can safely determine how deep. Plus, if someone doesn’t have a perfect score already, then we could be essentially knocking them out of the running anyway. The purpose of half point byes is to keep people reasonably in the running and not encouraging them to drop out. Do we come up with a formula to make the point value change based on rounds? I feel this all adds complexity and we have to do an analysis on the optimal formula.

2. It seems unduly unfair. Lets say it is round 3 of one of our 4 round events and one of our regular masters with two points has something come up and has to call in for a bye. No big bucks are at stake but their chances for placing are greatly diminished by a zero point bye. We did not stop manipulation of pairings because there really aren’t any that we care about. We did make it less enticing for the Master to continue participating in the month’s event and should they drop, skewing the pairings for the last round. In addition, this leads to discouragement of participation, not encouragement.

A. Masters (>=2200) in any Event with a “large” prize fund and 5 or more rounds require that byes be committed for rounds 5 and higher by round 2, non-revocable

1. The determination of “large” prize fund is made at the time of publicity production and appears in all announcements for the event. If we forget to advertise this rule, we leave ourselves open to the problems by whatever our general rules are.

2. This allows us to tailor the rule to when we think we have enough prize money at stake and the event is longer than 4 rounds.

3. It tailors things to the people who have the “reliable ratings” and have a possible interest in manipulation. Granted we are discriminating against Masters here but hey, we also give them free entry. The minimizes the number of people adversely effected.

4. Any rising star players only get by us probably once. Not likely to be a problem.

B. An Open section with a “large” prize fund and 5 or more rounds require that byes be committed for rounds 5 and higher by round 2, non-revocable

1. The determination of “large” prize fund is made at the time of publicity production and appears in all announcements for the event. If we forget to advertise this rule, we leave ourselves open to the problems by whatever our general rules are.

2. This allows us to tailor the rule to when we think we have enough prize money at stake and the event is longer than 4 rounds.

3. It affects only the Open section players leaving the rest of the club alone.

C. Place no restrictions on when you can call for a bye.

1. This leaves things open to manipulation even more than the former rules.

2. We can hope that over time, peer pressure will prevent rampant maneuvers by the players.

3. This does expose us to the prospect of people standing or hovering around the TD table waiting to see what other people standing there are going to do with nobody wanting to state first. The TD doing the pairing then has to say that in a moment he’s going to close pairings for round speak up now or hold your peace. This has happened before on even regular events. . I’ve seen players negotiate if they enter will you enter. It is desirable to avoid this type of situation.

D. Any Sections with “large” prize funds and 5 or more rounds require that byes be committed for rounds 5 and higher by round 2, non-revocable.

1. The determination of “large” prize fund is made at the time of publicity production and appears in all announcements for the event.

2. This allows us to tailor the rule to when we think we have enough prize money at stake and the event is longer than 4 rounds.

3. It tailors things to a per section basis, which could be confusing to people in the announcements.

E. An Open section with 5 rounds or more requires that byes be committed for rounds 5 or higher, must commit by round 2, non-revocable.

1. This targets the Open section only but penalizes all the other players in the section who aren’t likely to be in the running.

2. It also does not take into account the prize money at stake.

3. This shuts the door for manipulation the way we had determined previously that would be most effective, committing by round 2

F. An Open section with 5 rounds or more requires that byes be committed for rounds 5 or higher, two weeks in advance, non-revocable.

1. This targets the Open section only but penalizes all the other players in the section who aren’t likely to be in the running.

2. It also does not take into account the prize money at stake and is almost the previous set of rules.

3. This opens the door that we’ve shut by saying that you need to commit by round 2.

4. If we adopt this then we’re gambling that our prize money isn’t generally going to be big enough to tempt the Open players to do this.

G. Any event with 5 rounds or more requires that byes be committed for rounds 5 or higher, two weeks in advance, non-revocable.

1. This is a generic solution and does not take into account the prize money at stake and is almost the previous set of rules.

2. This opens the door that we’ve shut by saying that you need to commit by round 2.

3. If we adopt this then we’re gambling that our prize money isn’t generally going to be big enough to tempt the Open players to do this.

VI. Wrap up

Of the solutions offered, only A and B seem reasonably good enough. They both limit the effect to only the Open section and one of them further limits the effect to Masters.

Solution E is similar to solution B. It applies to the Open section but with no prize size involved. A variation on solution A could be made in the same manner so that it is just Masters but no prize money involved.

Solution C, no restrictions at all will occasionally produce an undesirable situation at the computer. If some rule to mitigate people hovering about to decide whether to play or not could be found, then we hopefully have the most flexible solution of all. Phone byes end at 7:00 PM. Walk in byes are currently allowed up to the moment of pairing. We often have people who couldn’t call in time to take a bye show up to tell us in person. We also have players who show up and then decide that they are too sick to play just before the round starts. We also let people cancel phone byes in person.