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Re: Rated Forfeits
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."
Originally posted by Roger Patterson
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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."
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