Rated Forfeits

[Steve Karpik]

Re: Rated Forfeits

I think the fear of sandbaggers is overrated. At a club like the SCC, there is absolutely no benefit to sandbagging as there are no cash prizes (over the past year or two we've been giving out some books as prizes that were donated to the club from a fellow who no longer had room for his extensive collection of chess books but that is hardly worth sandbagging for). I would be very curious to know the number of rated game that happen in Canada in a year where there is a possibility of winning something valuable (like cash) against games where players are playing for fun (and rating points). Playing poorly (like I have recently) simply means I am relegated to a section dominated by 7 and 8 year-olds. Not my idea of something worth sandbagging for. From my experience, players in the SCC are motivated to play well so that they can play in higher sections and get to play against better players. I would say that for the vast majority of players, the chance of winning money playing chess is fairly remote. The SCC with over 120 members and I believe the Annex Chess Club (also with a fairly substantial membership) probably represent a significant portion of the rated chess games played in a year where sandbagging makes little sense.

[Brad Thomson]

Re: Rated Forfeits

Absolutely. If you want to penalize someone then fine them $20 and give that money to the offended party (the opponent). Rating points are neither reward nor punishment.

Agreed. To rate an unplayed game is completely absurd. It runs the risk of deflating the ratings of sandbaggers, offering them incentive to no-show once they are out of the money. It also risks artificially causing the player who showed up to be over-rated, possibly bumping him or her to a higher section in a future tournament and costing him or her, unfairly, the chance to play for money in their proper section. A chess rating is to measure chess strength, nothing more.

[Alex Ferreira]

Re: Rated Forfeits

This reminds me of the debate about whether students can lose marks for lack of participation, late or missing assignments, etc.

Regardless of your position on that, it does seem strange that CFC Handbook seems to suggest forfeits are to be rated, but as a matter of fact usually doesn't rate them.

To be consistent, CFC should side with FIDE and say that forfeits are not to be rated and then (continue to) not rate them, or (continue to) say that forfeits are to be rated and then update the reporting and rating mechanism so this actually happens.

Hi,

Yes. CFC should make clear what the policy is. I remember very well submitting crosstables with forfeited results (with SwissSys), and they would be rated with CFC, and not with FIDE. It seems though in the past year or so, specific notes must be made one way or another in submitting reports, or the games have not been rated at CFC level (either). People sometimes ask me which is it, and I tell them... "it should be rated at CFC level, not at FIDE level".
So which is it? Whatever the decision, tournaments across Canada should deal with results uniformly.

Alex F.

[Steve Karpik]

Re: Rated Forfeits

A hockey league I played in had a forfeit penalty. At the start of the year, every team put up a $100 deposit. If a team showed up at a game with an insufficient number of players (less than 6 skaters if I recall correctly), the team that showed up and found they had no opponent got the $100 which was good for a few pitchers of beer and some wings. The policy worked reasonably well and benefited the bar which was owned by the same company that owned the league.

The idea of trying to enforce a fine system for forfeits in our chess club doesn't fill me with too much happiness. It's hard enough getting money off of some people for their CFC and club fees.

I can see what Tom is saying about rating points but I disagree somewhat. For quite a few players, playing competitive chess is about rating points. Right or wrong that's just the way it is. So penalizing a forfeiting player is a penalty. It does sting so it has the right effect.

[Marcus Wilker]

Re: Rated Forfeits

I will see about amending Article 433 to make this more clear but I have to agree that this is a pitfall for inexperienced TDs.

"Inexperienced TDs" is a bit one-sided, in my opinion. If CFC policy is to rate forfeited games, but the current tournament reporting or rating software doesn't rate games marked as forfeits, perhaps a quick reply from CFC to the TD, pointing out that forfeits should be reported as played games, in case a report includes any games marked as forfeits, wouldn't be too much to ask.

As things stand, I suspect that, while some TDs are marking games forfeit unaware that they're not being rated, other TDs, who don't really support having forfeits rated, are marking the games forfeit on purpose. The lack of response on the CFC side to games marked forfeit confirms that this is a valid option.

Indeed, 433 read by itself, or read as an update to 418, seems to imply TD discretion on the point. If CFC policy is indeed that forfeits, where prior notification has not been given, are "treated as a game actually played," as in 418, and the TD is accordingly instructed to report forfeited games as games actually played, I agree, on a legislative level, that 433 should be much clearer on that point, since it currently seems to suggest something else. But tournaments submitted with games marked forfeit should be treated differently on an executive or administrative level as well.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Rated Forfeits

I remember Ron Rodgers running a tournament in Ottawa a long time ago. The entry fee included a $5 deposit which was returned to every player who played all their games. At the end of the tournament, he had a big stack of $5 bills - ready to be handed out to the eager players. :-)

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Rated Forfeits

Good luck collecting that $20. And the next time you see the offender, it could be in a different tournament, different organizer so you need to put resources into maintaining an up to date and public blacklist. Rating points on the other hand are a penalty the CFC can enforce cheaply.

CFC used to have a blacklist. It didn't seem to be a problem keeping it up-to-date. Most players are creatures of habit so for example if someone forfeits at an RA tournament and they don't want to pay the 20 bucks they are going to find it pretty hard to play in tournaments locally.

Rating point losses are not a penalty. Rating point gains are not a reward. They distort the rating system for no good reason, imo.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Rated Forfeits

Good luck collecting that $20. And the next time you see the offender, it could be in a different tournament, different organizer so you need to put resources into maintaining an up to date and public blacklist. Rating points on the other hand are a penalty the CFC can enforce cheaply.

On the other hand, for certain players at certain times, a rated forfeit is a sandbagging tool. Someone mentioned that the USCF doesn't rate forfeits, and I'm wondering if this might be part of the reason.

Incidentally, some of you may recall that I am looking into an alternative form of chess called Option Chess (that I invented and that I am crediting Louis Morin as being co-inventor because of his many suggestions over the past few months). I mention this because Louis and I have both realized that many practices that are normal in standard chess could be refactored in any future Option Chess federation, were there ever to be such a thing.

And one of those practices is the game scoring system. The standard chess game scoring system can be improved, and one of the ways of improving it is to account for forfeits or results that are due to things like misconduct, cheating, or any kind of unsportsmanlike conduct detrimental to the event or to the image of the game. Louis brought up the sandbagging point, that any penalty of rating points can be used by someone intent on sandbagging. And so one of the things it seems we could do to discourage forfeits at least early in an event is to distinguish in game scoring between a loss by normal means and a loss by what could be placed under the umbrella of 'misconduct'. At the same time, we could totally remove the horrible 1/2 point system that standard chess uses for draws.

And so I came up with the following game scoring system:

10 points - Win
5 points - Draw
1 point - normal loss
0 point - misconduct loss

My main motivation for this scoring was actually to reward players who play aggressive fighting chess: a win and a normal loss gives 1 more point than 2 draws. This removes the need for tiebreaks based on wins versus draws. But the side effect is to offer something for a normal loss as opposed to a misconduct loss.

This would still not prevent someone who is 0-5 in an 6-round event from forfeiting their last round game. You can try preventing that by imposing a financial penalty, which risks seeing that player leaving chess altogether. But penalizing rating points is first of all a possible sandbagging tool, and second of all a corruption of the rating system.

Perhaps for the late-round forfeit situation, what is needed is to replace the stick with a carrot. Make it a federation policy that anyone with a losing record in an event going into the last day or last round and who does not withdraw or forfeit but plays all scheduled rounds receives a discount coupon to any rated event within the next year's time. The amount of the discount can vary, but should be at least 10% or maybe a set dollar amount. Or alternatively, give a discount coupon on a book purchase. Such coupons could be given also to players with even or winning records going into the last round but who are eliminated from winning prize money. It's a way of saying "Thanks for playing and for playing right to the end."

[Roger Patterson]

Re: Rated Forfeits

Absolutely. If you want to penalize someone then fine them $20 and give that money to the offended party (the opponent). Rating points are neither reward nor punishment.

Good luck collecting that $20. And the next time you see the offender, it could be in a different tournament, different organizer so you need to put resources into maintaining an up to date and public blacklist. Rating points on the other hand are a penalty the CFC can enforce cheaply.

[Marcus Wilker]

Re: Rated Forfeits

Absolutely. If you want to penalize someone then fine them $20 and give that money to the offended party (the opponent). Rating points are neither reward nor punishment.

This reminds me of the debate about whether students can lose marks for lack of participation, late or missing assignments, etc.

Regardless of your position on that, it does seem strange that CFC Handbook seems to suggest forfeits are to be rated, but as a matter of fact usually doesn't rate them.

To be consistent, CFC should side with FIDE and say that forfeits are not to be rated and then (continue to) not rate them, or (continue to) say that forfeits are to be rated and then update the reporting and rating mechanism so this actually happens.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Rated Forfeits

Rating is supposed to be a measure of playing strength, not a measure of how often you show up for your games. There are other (rarely/never used) methods to punish players for not showing up for their game.

Absolutely. If you want to penalize someone then fine them $20 and give that money to the offended party (the opponent). Rating points are neither reward nor punishment.

[Steve Karpik]

Re: Rated Forfeits

It would be nice if the CFC could ask Thad Suits to allow forfeit losses as showing up as losses if, for instance, a option in the program is selected. Recording forfeits by players helps me keep track of habitual re-offenders. Also when a result is entered as a forfeit, the software asks you if you want to withdraw the player. In a better world (where I wasn't pressed by the need to make a living), I would keep accurate notes on who is forfeiting and when. Marking down a forfeit as a forfeit keeps things simply and minimizes the chances that I'll neglect to deal with the offending player. When you're dealing with over 100 players every week, anything that makes the life of the TD easier is a good thing in my books.

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: Rated Forfeits

Thank you to Michael Von Keitz, Mark Dutton and Stephen Wright for their advice on this matter.

Allow me to quote Stephen Wright:

I believe that might be an oversight by Thad Suits - SwissSys is a U.S. program and its defaults reflect U.S. rules. As far as I can tell they don't rate forfeits in the U.S. (see http://www.chess.com/forum/view/gene...-rule-for-uscf), and this default appears to have been included for the CFC rating reports. Given that the crosstables on the CFC website don't have the capacity to indicate whether a game was won by forfeit or not, it appears the only way to currently have such a game rated is to not indicate the forfeit inidication, just the normal result.

I will see about amending Article 433 to make this more clear but I have to agree that this is a pitfall for inexperienced TDs.

[Steve Karpik]

Re: Rated Forfeits

John, I agree totally. It doesn't really make up for a wasted evening but it is something.

[Steve Karpik]

Re: Rated Forfeits

Maybe I'm misreading things. Let me take an example at random. In the 2014 SCC Winter Swiss in round 2, Richard Feng forfeited against Yasir Alganabi. In the results printed out from Swiss Sys, you see that Yasir got 1 point and Richard 0:

http://www.scarboroughchessclub.ca/Portals/0/pdf/results2013-14/WinterSwiss_2014_U1600.pdf

However, when I check Yasir's info on the CFC website, he does get 1 point but nowhere is it indicated that he defeated Richard.

14 Alganabi, Yasir 1172 1047 1167 1361 0 0 -8 -0 -0 -0 2.0

His first round was a TD's bye so the 0 makes sense. But the 0 for round 2 is perplexing. The similar info for Richard is:

11 Feng, Richard 1501 1341 1474 1534 5 -0 -0 -7 -10 15 2.0

So he lost but to no one and now I am totally perplexed. To my mind, Feng should have lost rating points and Alganabi should have gained points.

I have been telling players that they will lose rating points and that has helped to ensure that players let us know if they need a bye. For young, improving players, losing rating points for something so stupid as not calling or emailing to tell us they won't be playing seems to get their attention and they tend to be pretty good especially after losing (or perhaps thinking they are losing) rating points. If they are not going to be penalized, they may not be so diligent.

Incidentally, some players don't care about rating points, so this year at the Scarborough Chess Club we have a new rule: forfeit a game and you get a one game suspension.

The combination of losing rating points and being blocked from playing has motivated players who otherwise were tending to be forgetful about calling us to be diligent. I should emphasize that only a small number of players at the SCC were causing problems with forfeits (Richard wasn't one of the habitual ones) but now the situation is quite improved.

I definitely would not like to see a situation where players can forfeit with impunity.

When someone withdraws from a tournament, that is entirely another matter. They simply show up as unpaired for the rounds that they do not play and there is no impact on their rating. And sometimes something happens (like a car accident) and can't call us. Obviously in those situations we don't impose a forfeit loss.