Will Round 1 ever start on time?

[Fred Harvey]

Re: Will Round 1 ever start on time?

Some years ago, our community had problems with late-comers at musical and theatrical shows....always the same people of course, with no apparent concern about their behaviour. Then overnight, someone decided enough was enough, started the shows spot on time, and left the late-comers stewing in the hall-way until a "suitable break" in the action! I think it cured the problem within a show or two.

I'm not sure how relevant this is, as I suspect our problem people were of a different "ilk" to the chess problem people, or how strongly organizers really want to address the problem, but it's an easy place to start. Just make sure the cut-off is clearly stated in the rules.

[Fred McKim]

Re: Will Round 1 ever start on time?

The time that registration has to close should vary depending on the size of a tournament AND should be well publicized.

If you have 50 players, probably 45 minutes is sufficient.

I like allowing players to pre-register even without paying and simply remove them at the close of registration, if they haven't paid.

Allow discounts to players who pre-register and an even bigger one to those who pre-register with payment.

Not everybody has paypal, but e-transfer is really easy, too and provides for a "receipt" of sorts.

[Bob Gillanders]

Re: Will Round 1 ever start on time?

Hi Brian,

Starting round 1 on time, hard to do!
A new idea I am considering implementing at my next tournament,
pay your entry fee after round 1 starts!!!!

I'll give everyone a chance to absorb and criticize, then I'll explain how it works.

[John Brown]

Re: Will Round 1 ever start on time?

Will these people be allowed into future events? Could publish a blacklist of no-shows. Could try a fine, but then they may never enter again. I do not like to turn away players, wanting to maximize numbers and prize fund. I didn't like the Canadian Open in Toronto not accepting out-of-town late comers. I like the idea of giving them a zero bye in round 1.

Hi Erik;
You'll have to wait till we post the flyer on the CFC website. But we will not be taking email pre registrations for Rd 1 pairings next year that is about all I can tell you.
Our tournament will be "you pay ahead of time you play Round 1" .

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: Will Round 1 ever start on time?

Victoria Chess runs the Grand Pacific Open, the BC Open and several smaller events. We do not accept pre-registration without payment; it leads to confusion. We do not require pre-registered players to "check in". The pre-registered list is posted near the registration desk to reassure people that we have received their entry.
90% of our early entries come in by PayPal and the rest by cash or cheque. We accept entries on site but I must say this is where the most problems occur due to the compressed time frame.
As Roger posted earlier, our events always start on time and the reason is that we register people and get them to update their memberships before they show up for Round One.
Another thing I'd like to add: organizers, as opposed to TD's like to play in their tournaments; having to chase people around to collect membership fees etc. is a huge distraction when trying to focus on chess.

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: Will Round 1 ever start on time?

I personally do not like emailed entries for a pre-registered list where you do not pay up front. This happened in the last Niagara falls Open we had 48 pre-registered but only 32 finally played.
We will be changing that format in 2017.

Will these people be allowed into future events? Could publish a blacklist of no-shows. Could try a fine, but then they may never enter again. I do not like to turn away players, wanting to maximize numbers and prize fund. I didn't like the Canadian Open in Toronto not accepting out-of-town late comers. I like the idea of giving them a zero bye in round 1.

[John Brown]

Re: Will Round 1 ever start on time?

Another problem is players who pre-register without paying, and then don't show up for the first round - giving out unnecessary full points.

And then there are memberships - it seems at Montreal events there are always people who haven't paid their memberships - even with stern warnings (e.g. they won't be paired the next round, but I've never seen that happen). All membership problems should be settled before the first round with the player not getting paired unless his membership is up to date (e.g.) 30 or 60 minutes before round 1 (allow the option of a full/partial refund). Such players should be notified as far in advance as possible that their entry is "incomplete".

I personally do not like emailed entries for a pre-registered list where you do not pay up front. This happened in the last Niagara falls Open we had 48 pre-registered but only 32 finally played.
We will be changing that format in 2017.

[Brian Clarke]

Re: Good organization helps!

Actually, I welcome all comments, whether from other organizers and arbiters or just regular players who have never done either. While Doug may be happy to hang around for an hour or so before the start, I can't imagine everybody feels the same way. That's especially true for parents of players who do nothing but hang around for the whole weekend.

I do think that it is important to minimize wait times, pairing errors, people who get paired to no-shows, etc., and that's what I'm trying to do.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Will Round 1 ever start on time?

Another problem is players who pre-register without paying, and then don't show up for the first round - giving out unnecessary full points.

And then there are memberships - it seems at Montreal events there are always people who haven't paid their memberships - even with stern warnings (e.g. they won't be paired the next round, but I've never seen that happen). All membership problems should be settled before the first round with the player not getting paired unless his membership is up to date (e.g.) 30 or 60 minutes before round 1 (allow the option of a full/partial refund). Such players should be notified as far in advance as possible that their entry is "incomplete".

[Mathieu Cloutier]

Re: Good organization helps!

A few years ago, we had a huge opportunity to have a world class tournament in downtown Montréal, with the Québec Open being played at the Queen Elizabeth hotel. And yet, the organizers completely missed the boat with late registrations and a first round that started more than 1 hour late.

It's a cultural thing it seems. As Brian says, some players just assume they can come in late and still get paired for first round. As long as we let that go, chess will never be considered a serious competitive activity.

For locals events, there should be a freeze on registrations at least 1h before the start of first round. For bigger events, the freeze could be 24h before the first round. And I mean a hard freeze. Anyone coming after that gets a bye.

It always baffles me that chess players can't register 1h in advance for an activity that last several days, if not a week.

[John Brown]

Re: Good organization helps!

As a regular tournament player I do not see what all the fuss is about. For years my practise has been to 1. register by email at least no later than the day before the tournament, (more often than not several days before the tournament), 2. arrive an hour prior to the start of the first round, and 3. pay cash at the site. I do not see how this practise is the cause of the first round to start late. A player who has pre-registered still has to present oneself to the organizer and how does handing over the cash entry fee slow things down? With the computers normally in use, it seems to be just a matter of checking in the box whether a player has pre-paid or is paying on site. The notion of having to pre-register and pre-pay for a weekend Swiss weeks in advance or be considered late strikes me as ridiculous, (not to mention a "money grab").

I am old school so paying by electronic wire transfer etc is not an option. That leaves sending the entry fee by mailing a cheque (at the moment there is a postal strike looming) or paying cash at the site.

I am regularly at the site an hour before the start and have often arrived before the organizer.

I feel that the simple solution is just to announce that if a player does not arrive physically by no later than 15 minutes before the start of the first round then the player is not guaranteed to play in the first round.

Hi Doug;
We could have a monkey collect the money and as long as the donkey can make change there is no problem.
As you have not been involved in the registration of tournaments it makes sense that you know little of what is involved with checking data bases , registering the player in the computer after the money has been taken.
That is what takes time. Paying ahead of time allows organizers get those players into the computer right away.
My advice is run a tournament and see our nightmares. Or be a player and stay silent.

[Doug Gillis]

Re: Good organization helps!

As a regular tournament player I do not see what all the fuss is about. For years my practise has been to 1. register by email at least no later than the day before the tournament, (more often than not several days before the tournament), 2. arrive an hour prior to the start of the first round, and 3. pay cash at the site. I do not see how this practise is the cause of the first round to start late. A player who has pre-registered still has to present oneself to the organizer and how does handing over the cash entry fee slow things down? With the computers normally in use, it seems to be just a matter of checking in the box whether a player has pre-paid or is paying on site. The notion of having to pre-register and pre-pay for a weekend Swiss weeks in advance or be considered late strikes me as ridiculous, (not to mention a "money grab").

I am old school so paying by electronic wire transfer etc is not an option. That leaves sending the entry fee by mailing a cheque (at the moment there is a postal strike looming) or paying cash at the site.

I am regularly at the site an hour before the start and have often arrived before the organizer.

I feel that the simple solution is just to announce that if a player does not arrive physically by no later than 15 minutes before the start of the first round then the player is not guaranteed to play in the first round.

[Pierre Denommee]

Re: Good organization helps!

Hi,


I have been spoiled in some Ottawa tournaments myself, a few years ago. Registrations closed one full hour before Round 1, and Round 1 started on the dot. But as mentioned above, this has been the exception.
Why?
Lenient organizers and an undisciplined chess community. Is it fair to 80 players that 20 arrive late? Of course not! Yet as you mentioned, you have some people who will casually arrive late to avoid the rush. Others arrive late because they arrive late everywhere they go. Others have this "understanding" that Round 1 will start late anyway.


Organizers in North America seem to be willing to do anything to accommodate all players, making all kinds of exceptions, and people take advantage!
Different organizers also have their own challenges.
For example for us at Hart House the challenge is... we cannot issue cheques as prizes the day the tournament finishes, because they would have to be signed by our Finance Department, which is obviously shut down on a Sunday evening. This means we need entry-fees cash flow to be able to pay prizes in cash. Cash entry fees means paying the day of, line-ups, the works.
One tool I have found useful is... steepen the late fees. When we had it at $10 late fee, we would have 10 people at the door sometimes. Now we charge $20 and have 1 or 2. If we still had 10 people I would continue to raise it until it stopped. Or we could not allow late entries at all. We used to accept "early entries" by e-mail up to the night before, now we give ourselves 36-48 hours advance notification to be better prepared, since a good turn-out at Hart House can be quite a large number of people. I absolutely refuse to believe that 90%+ of the participants don't know whether they will be available or not to play chess all weekend at least 72 hours in advance, yet given the opportunity, 25-30% will *always* register as late as they can.

We can still close early registrations X amount of time before Round 1, or deem it invalid, remove players, etc... It's frantic, it's crazy, but we are usually able to start Round 1 about 15 minutes after the scheduled / advertised time (was not always the case, our first couple tournaments a few years ago was about 1 hour late).
Is this acceptable? If it remains as is without several complaints, it may very well be the way it continues to be!
Can we change it? Definitely! Should we? Probably.

It would be very simple... do it two or three times with strict deadlines during which there will be several displeased people who will miss a Round 1 pairing, and then a new norm and set of standards takes over.
I wouldn't dare arriving late at an Ottawa tournament, and if it were to happen I would expect not to be paired in Round 1.


Alex Ferreira

Late registrations are a big problem. Some European tournaments have no problem with a "no registration on site policy". I know one case in Montreal in which there was 65 preregistrations and 100 registrations at the door. The 65 preregistrations covered the rental cost of the tournament venue only, leaving 0$ in price. Money did rule and the tournament has begun late and paid all its advertised prices. After this tournament, a mandatory first round bye for registration after the deadline has been introduced unless the arbiter decide otherwise (if there are one on two late registrations, the arbiter can handle them).

North America is the Realm of Capitalism. Most Organizers maximize the short term profit and don't care about the players waiting even if this can be bad for long term profit and for the promotion of the game.

In Quebec, we have another problem : the triple rating system : FIDE, CFC and FQE. Pairing software accept only two ratings: FIDE and national. We can put the FQE rating as national rating, but that will not solve the problem. The rating check for the rating list not used by the software is manual. This significantly slow down the data entry process.

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: Good organization helps!

These days it takes 3 minutes to print and post pairings. With assistants handling the late entrants, finding the ratings until 30 minutes before. Can't pairings be posted 15 minutes before and td announcements at the start.

Pair latecomers 30 minutes after the round has started and give both of them a time penalty.

This doesn't apply to blitz where most entrants are last minute.

[John Brown]

Re: Good organization helps!

Hi Brian;
Two simple solutions
1. Eliminate Email registration if you do not pay before the deadline then you get pot luck on being paired Round 1.
2. Make late fees 0ver the top say $30-50. If that does not get people to pay early or show up early then you'll never stop the late starts.
I do support the idea (if you give enough notice) that you cannot play, then you get back your entry.