Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

[Aris Marghetis]

Hi chess fans, I am pleased to announce that registrations are opening for the 2011 Ottawa Winter Open, scheduled for January 14th-16th. The event details can be found at the weblink at the end of this post. The most important point to note as soon as feasible, is that players who pay in December will take advantage of a $30 triple-early discount! Since December can be a very busy month, I am not sure at this time just how many Thursday evenings I can make it out to the RA club to take payments in person. I expect to be there tonight, from about 7pm to 9pm, but for the rest of the month, if you want to be sure of getting the $30 discount, please feel free to mail in your registration and payment, as per the instructions at the end of the event details webpage.

N.B. for my next 3 tournaments :
THE FORFEIT TIME IS BEING REDUCED :
... for the Ottawa Winter Open, it will be only 30 minutes
... for the Ottawa Spring Open, it will be only 15 minutes [after feedback, unlikely reduction]
... for the Eastern Ontario Open, it will be only 5 minutes [after feedback, unlikely reduction]

Yours in chess,

Aris Marghetis, FIDE Arbiter
Organizer/TD, EOCA President
arismarghetis at rogers dot com
http://www.eoca.org/htm/tournaments_2010-11.html

Please note that we are looking for up to 5 floater players :
- floater players help the TD guarantee no “forced byes”
- floater players are paired and rated like all the players
- floater players play for free, but under some conditions :
----- they play in 0 to 5 rounds, depending on byes by all the players
----- they can be phoned/texted in the hour before every single round
----- they have a current CFC membership by the time of first pairings
If you are interested in being a floater player for this event, please apply by email

--------- ongoing registration list ---------

CFC# rating name: title last, first

[to be included within a few days]

P.S. All applicable ratings will be rechecked before first pairings at 7pm.

--------- original event announcement ---------

The Eastern Ontario Chess Association (EOCA) organizes the EOCA Grand Prix, a series of weekend tournaments over the 2010-2011 chess season.

The next EOCA event in Ottawa is the Ottawa Winter Open, set for January 14th-16th. It will consist of 5 rounds, with flexible bye and discount options.

We are planning 5 sections (rated CFC, upper sections also rated FIDE), and prizes for every 200 rating points (last 3 Ottawa events averaged >$2700!)

For more details on this event, and a great webpage for all of the events in the 2010-2011 EOCA Grand Prix, please consider bookmarking this weblink :
http://www.eoca.org/htm/tournaments_2010-11.html

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

...
N.B. for my next 3 tournaments :
THE FORFEIT TIME IS BEING REDUCED :
... for the Ottawa Winter Open, it will be only 30 minutes
... for the Ottawa Spring Open, it will be only 15 minutes
... for the Eastern Ontario Open, it will be only 5 minutes

...

This seems rather harsh, especially for those of us who rely on the not-always-punctual OCTranspo to get to the event. What is the rationale behind this idea?

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

This seems rather harsh, especially for those of us who rely on the not-always-punctual OCTranspo to get to the event. What is the rationale behind this idea?

Hi Tom, thanks for your reply, as I would really like to figure what would work out best for us. First of all, I am not married to getting down to 5 minutes, so I really appreciate your feedback. Having said that, I find the old 60 minutes too long. In my experience, extremely few players arrive between 30 and 60 minutes late. In addition, reducing to 30 minutes opens up the possibility, especially in lower rated sections, of re-pairing stood-up players with one of the floater players, and still finishing the round on time. As other jurisdictions are trying 30 minutes, I believe it is reasonable to try for at least this event.

Before proceeding, does anyone, especially Tom, disagree with trying 30 minutes?! ;)

Stepping back a bit, I remember when I first heard of the new FIDE zero-tolerance forfeit rule. I could not imagine how it would work out. Then I went to the WYCC, and was just blown away by the positive professional attitude engendered by virtually everyone being ready on time. Even then, it just felt like a nice experience to me, but then a couple of weeks after I returned to Canada, I ran my next weekender, with the legacy 1 hour forfeit time. Like every tournament, things very rarely run completely seamlessly, and this event had a couple of non-trivial incidents. In one of them, one of the players was literally brought to tears, and in the other one, both players and even a spectator, were still trying to rehash my decisions with me a good 45 minutes after the end of the tournament, while I was trying to clean up, to finally just get myself home.

Due to my work background in telecommunications application support, I often try to RCA (root cause analysis) out of some kind of habit, and it dawned on me that neither of the two incidents I alluded to above could possibly have happened at the the WYCC. You see, at the WYCC, no one missed pre-round instructions. No one was confused over not having seen the original clock settings, and so on. Note that the forfeit time at the WYCC was not even 0 minutes, but rather 30, but out of new zero-tolerance habits, just having a 30 minute forfeit time was enough to get almost everyone there on time!

Maybe that answers my question for today. What do players think of trying 30 minutes as the forfeit time for the Ottawa Winter Open, and if that works, we can freeze it there. But if it does not work as well as it should in the quest to improve the tournament experience for the many (vs. the few), we could then debate 15 minutes. After further thought, I no longer see 5 minutes as a reasonable policy this year. Of course, I would love to see a new national standard forfeit time, as I believe France did (30 minutes).

If you disagree with 30 minutes, please also feel free to comment privately by email.

Thanks and regards, Aris.

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

Is there someone in your life who keeps asking what they can get you for Christmas? How about registration to the Ottawa Winter Open?! And if it would help, send me their email address, and I can help them register you! (of course, other holiday names are also available! ;)

arismarghetis at rogers dot.com

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

Hi Aris,

I personally dislike the 30-minute policy. Consider Sunday mornings. I take the 118 bus from my home to the RA Centre. I am lucky; I need make no connections and therefore need be sure that only this one bus runs on time. The problem is that the bus often does not run on time. I have arrived more than five minutes early at stops, stand there with the other prospective passengers, only to discover that either no bus was coming or that it was so early that we all missed it.

This wouldn't be a problem if the bus ran every ten minutes, but it doesn't. It runs once every 30. As anyone who rides the bus knows, if one bus is early then the next one is guaranteed to be late. That's because that second bus is normally picking up almost twice its usually ridership. So if I miss bus X, I will be more than 30 minutes later for my destination than I intended. This is a risk I take as a bus traveler (are you reading this Paul Beckwith? ;-) ) but now you are making the risk even greater. And in the winter, it is greater still since weather and road conditions impact on bus service.

I ask people this question: what would you do if your work had a 30-minute policy? That is, if you show up to work more than 30 minutes late you were sent home without pay for the day. I ask this seriously as I have rarely worked for others and have no idea what the policy would be for this or if this is a normal, accepted policy.

I can certainly see how something like the WYCC would have a policy. After all, they send buses to pick people up at certain prescribed times. The same was true for the Olympiads I attended. But for random Swiss events? I'm opposed. Nevertheless, you do run fantastic tournaments anyway. ;-)

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

I ask people this question: what would you do if your work had a 30-minute policy?

That's why many people drive cars (and here we could go to another thread about reliability of Canadian public transit vs pollutions vs green/carbon gas and all other political crap)

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

Hi Aris,

I personally dislike the 30-minute policy. Consider Sunday mornings. I take the 118 bus from my home to the RA Centre. I am lucky; I need make no connections and therefore need be sure that only this one bus runs on time. The problem is that the bus often does not run on time. I have arrived more than five minutes early at stops, stand there with the other prospective passengers, only to discover that either no bus was coming or that it was so early that we all missed it.

This wouldn't be a problem if the bus ran every ten minutes, but it doesn't. It runs once every 30. As anyone who rides the bus knows, if one bus is early then the next one is guaranteed to be late. That's because that second bus is normally picking up almost twice its usually ridership. So if I miss bus X, I will be more than 30 minutes later for my destination than I intended. This is a risk I take as a bus traveler (are you reading this Paul Beckwith? ;-) ) but now you are making the risk even greater. And in the winter, it is greater still since weather and road conditions impact on bus service.

I ask people this question: what would you do if your work had a 30-minute policy? That is, if you show up to work more than 30 minutes late you were sent home without pay for the day. I ask this seriously as I have rarely worked for others and have no idea what the policy would be for this or if this is a normal, accepted policy.

I can certainly see how something like the WYCC would have a policy. After all, they send buses to pick people up at certain prescribed times. The same was true for the Olympiads I attended. But for random Swiss events? I'm opposed. Nevertheless, you do run fantastic tournaments anyway. ;-)

Hi Tom, I understand your points, but after having to sort out two ugly incidents at my last event, both of which could be traced back to players arriving late, I guess I just have to balance the pros against the cons. At this point, barring a wave of protest, I would like to give 30 minutes a try, to see if that results in just a few more key players making it in by round time. The cutoff will be strictly 30 minutes after the round time, as I will offer to immediately re-pair the waiting player with one of my floater players, if one is still available. I reckon most players who are often late will compensate for the earlier 30 minutes by heading out 10-15 minutes (or 1 bus) earlier, and that should do the trick.

Not to pick on you, but so far (and I have received a few emails on this), you are the only player who does not like the 30 minutes (the emails just didn't like the 15 minutes, and I agree that the 5 minutes would never happen). Therefore, in the spirit of the season (LOL, actually because you are my friend, LOL) I offer to pick you up on the Sunday morning. We might have to get an ice-cap on the way, but I digress. Just let me know after the 3rd round if you need me to pick you up on Sunday morning, around 9am.

More feedback about the 30 minutes still welcome from others. I am deferring anything to do with the 15 minutes, and completely retracting any ideas about the 5 minutes! ;)

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

That's why many people drive cars (and here we could go to another thread about reliability of Canadian public transit vs pollutions vs green/carbon gas and all other political crap)

NO NO NO - I am begging you - PLEASE do not hijack this thread for the environment! :(

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

Hi Aris,

I personally dislike the 30-minute policy. Consider Sunday mornings. I take the 118 bus from my home to the RA Centre. I am lucky; I need make no connections and therefore need be sure that only this one bus runs on time. The problem is that the bus often does not run on time. I have arrived more than five minutes early at stops, stand there with the other prospective passengers, only to discover that either no bus was coming or that it was so early that we all missed it.

This wouldn't be a problem if the bus ran every ten minutes, but it doesn't. It runs once every 30. As anyone who rides the bus knows, if one bus is early then the next one is guaranteed to be late. That's because that second bus is normally picking up almost twice its usually ridership. So if I miss bus X, I will be more than 30 minutes later for my destination than I intended. This is a risk I take as a bus traveler (are you reading this Paul Beckwith? ;-) ) but now you are making the risk even greater. And in the winter, it is greater still since weather and road conditions impact on bus service.

I ask people this question: what would you do if your work had a 30-minute policy? That is, if you show up to work more than 30 minutes late you were sent home without pay for the day. I ask this seriously as I have rarely worked for others and have no idea what the policy would be for this or if this is a normal, accepted policy.

I can certainly see how something like the WYCC would have a policy. After all, they send buses to pick people up at certain prescribed times. The same was true for the Olympiads I attended. But for random Swiss events? I'm opposed. Nevertheless, you do run fantastic tournaments anyway. ;-)

By the way Tom, as many of you know, I don't have a real job since being laid off, but I do some sports reffing. In response to your question about what would happen if I was 30 minutes late, well that would be a personal mini-disaster. Depending on the league and so on, I am expected to be there 10-60 minutes before the time of the game. Not achieving that time would result in verbal reprimand, and less assignments, which is hard to put a number on, but very bad for a ref trying to get as many games as he can! ;)

So what would happen if I were late, like even a minute? Well, in most cases, that would be loss of game fee for that game, a fine garnished from other game fees, and if I were 30 minutes late, I am sure that I would be suspended for a while. That's the reality! ;)

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

NO NO NO - I am begging you - PLEASE do not hijack this thread for the environment! :(

As we live in an environment of whatever, this probably would not be considered as a hijack :D

As Tom O'Donnell wrote, the main problem of a short lateness time is for those who rely on others (public transit), especially on Sundays or public holidays, when a transit starts at ~9 am (at least in Toronto) and a round at 10 am, or Friday evenings during rush hours. I've experienced that myself. I have been on the other side of the barricades waiting for opponents too. Not the best chess experience :/ Thus, the compromise 30 min is quite good :)

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

Is there someone in your life who keeps asking what they can get you for Christmas? How about registration to the Ottawa Winter Open?! And if it would help, send me their email address, and I can help them register you! (of course, other holiday names are also available! ;)

arismarghetis at rogers dot.com

Hi there, our youngest son is sick, so I will not be playing at the RA club this week. However, I expect to drop in from 630pm/7pm to 730pm/8pm, to take any in-person registrations. Note that I am not sure yet whether I will be able to attend the RA club on the remaining December Thursdays (with regards to the $30 December discount).

All the best!

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Ottawa Winter Open: $30 December discount (RA club tonight)

Hi there, our youngest son is sick, so I will not be playing at the RA club this week. However, I expect to drop in from 630pm/7pm to 730pm/8pm, to take any in-person registrations. Note that I am not sure yet whether I will be able to attend the RA club on the remaining December Thursdays (with regards to the $30 December discount).

All the best!

Hi again, our youngest son is still sick, so I'm just going to take care if him past dinner, and into an early bedtime. Therefore, I do not expect to make it there until after 730pm.

Sorry if you are already playing your game, but I'll circulate around the room, checking out the games, and please catch me at your convenience to pay. Thanks and regards.