[Cyberyeti]

I had a situation a year ago where I had to appeal to the national authority. I had to think very hard about that one as I am a full time student, my partner is on benefits and losing the appeal would have had consequences for both of us. I think the appeal was £75.

As it happened, a pair who'd qualified for the event I'd originally qualified for, and the appeals committee turfed me out of, weren't prepared to wait for the outcome of the appeal to the L&E and pulled out, so we qualified as subs anyway and the appeal was withdrawn.

There is an issue where the appeal fee is inconsequential to some players and serious money to others.

[FrancesHinden]

I also don't think there's an easy answer.

I like the concept of only being allowed X unsuccessful, or X frivolous appeals per year, but who's doing the counting? Is that per person (might be unfair on his partner) or per team? Does it count all events, including at your local club? What about county events?

In my impecunious student days it was generally fairly well known that if you pleaded serious poverty you would usually get your deposit, or most of it at any rate, back as long as your appeal wasn't of the "but we always appeal" type. The difficulty with that is that I remember someone once claiming he couldn't afford an appeal to the national authority.... who had been playing in a recent congress with a paid professional.

[bluejak]

nigel_k, on May 28 2010, 10:03 AM, said:

I agree with loss of deposit for truly frivolous appeals but I think committees take the money much too often.

How often do you think they keep the money?

Completely frivolous appeals often have the deposit refunded.

[dburn]

gordontd, on May 28 2010, 10:34 AM, said:

nigel_k, on May 28 2010, 10:03 AM, said:

I agree with loss of deposit for truly frivolous appeals but I think committees take the money much too often.

Really? How often have you known them do it?

I've not actually experienced, either as a player, a director, or an AC member, an appeal where the appellants lost their deposit. I know they do exist, but I have no first-hand experience of it.

On the other hand, every year I read the round-up of EBU appeals which have many instances where the commentators think the deposit should have been kept but it wasn't.

The number of retained deposits is of the order of a dozen a year. Every case in which a deposit was retained is reviewed by the L&E (and on a handful of occasions, that deposit has been returned).

With the introduction of the scheme of appeals consultants, and with the introduction of split and weighted scores under Law 12, the number of appeals has shown a marked decline over the past decade or so. Other major contributing factors have been the continued improvement in standard among Directors, and the much increased awareness by players of their rights and duties under Law. Prime movers in these educational efforts have been Max Bavin, Jeremy Dhondy and David Stevenson, to whom tribute is due.

In the bad old days, the number of appeals reviewed by the L&E was so great that the backlog was never cleared from one meeting to the next. Nowadays, we finish them all and still get to the pub by five thirty at the latest, an obvious improvement for a number of reasons.

It is true that some appeals are still greeted by some reviewers with a cry of "keep the money!" But the write-up of an appeal does not necessarily reflect every issue involved in the discussion of it - English bards and Scotch reviewers tend to be considerably more perfunctory than their counterparts in other countries. Moreover, we also tend to be more tolerant of players who, although they do not actually have a leg to stand on, are genuinely knowledgeless with respect to their leglessness. The decision to return a deposit is often based on the perception by the AC that the appellants genuinely believed they had a case, regardless of the extent to which they "should" so have believed.

It appalled me when monetary deposits were introduced, and it continues to appal me, that anyone might be discouraged from bringing a case simply because he could not afford to do so if he lost. My experience (and the raw data) do not convince me at all that the introduction of monetary deposits was in any way a contributing factor in the decline in the number of fatuous appeals (or appeals generally), but I am fully prepared to concede that this may be due to bias on my part.

In international competitions these days, the Conditions of Contest contain a warning along these lines: "our Directors are highly trained; and the procedure they follow when giving an initial ruling (consulting players, consulting colleagues, and so on) is well enough structured that any appeal is most unlikely to succeed; so don't appeal, because you will almost certainly lose."

What you will lose may be intangible - even though the annual budget of your NBO or even your country may not exceed the amount of money Janet de Botton has at her disposal, you can probably afford the deposit. But you will lose credibility, you will lose face, you will lose time and effort. If you also lost some part of your right to bring further fatuous cases... well, that could scarcely be a bad thing.

[wank]

there are of course other deserving minorities in society and you can't help them all, but the EBU gives discounted entry to young players, so it would seem in keeping to similarly discount appeals fees.

[mrdct]

bluejak, on May 27 2010, 07:32 AM, said:

In Australia they have the right to give a PP for a meritless appeal.  Just consider how effective that is at stopping appeals in the last segment of a knockout match, for example!

I take your point about KO matches where monetary deposits do make more sense in the last segment, but I have to say that in Australia I think the scoreboard penalty for appeals without merit is far more effective and equitable.

I copped a 1VP fine at our last nationals for an appeal without merit (totally unjustified of course as my appeal had substantial merit) which was a huge penalty as I was playing on a team knocking on the door of a qualifying position for the KO stage and we needed every VP we could get.

Not that I'm made of money, but when it's already costing me a pretty penny to play in the nationals once I take account of travel, accommodation, entry fees, time off work, etc, I couldn't care less about losing a US$40 deposit, but losing a VP that might cost me making it through to the KO stage is a major disincentive to making a frivilous appeal.

Under the Australian system, appeals become a little bit like poker pot odds where you need to weight-up the risk of a 1VP fine against a potential gain of, say, 5VPs.

Like other jurisdictions, Australia has "appeals advisors" available at the major events who can add some certainty to the process as if you appeal when advised not to you will be fined and, conversely, if you lose an appeal after an appeals advisors told you that your appeal had a reasonable chance of success you cannot be fined. So in my jurisdiction at least the wise thing to do is consult with an appeals advisor and try to convince him to tick the box on the form saying that he believes that there is a reasonable chance of success and if you can't get him to do that, accept the TD's ruling as you are destined to lose your appeal and lose a VP.

[jallerton]

bluejak, on May 27 2010, 01:32 PM, said:

Talk earlier of the quarter-green has made me think of applying a master point sanction.  Many average players in England lover the quarter-green, and enter Swiss events with no thought of winning, but just to see how many quarter-greens they can get.  Suppose a frivolous appeal meant a quarter-green was taken away?  Would that be effective?  Would it be fair? I think the answer is the same as for monetary deposits.  It would be unfair, and would be effective against some players and not others.  Consider my case.  I cannot reach the next rank because there is no higher rank.  I do not play enough or in the correct events to win an annual master point prize.  I am always the leading master point winner in my County.  So to lose a quarter-green means very little to me, far less than losing ten or twenty pounds. and less to me than to my wife, who picks up very few greens a year but needs them for the next rank.

Congratulations on accumulating so many green points each year.

I think the way to treat you and your wife fairly in this regard would be to make the fine a certain percentage of your lifetime tally rather than a fixed amount.

If David has 2,000 green points then he would receive a deduction of say 10% of 2,000 = 200 green points. If his wife has 90 green points then the deduction for her would be 10% of 90 = 9 green points.

For repeated frivolous appeals there could be an automatic relegation down to the previous master point rank.

Quote

If an AC decides an appeal is meritless, it then decides to sanction the people who brought the appeal, applying all of retaining a small deposit, issuing a PP and an AWMW, and deducting an eighth-green [or whatever is decided].

I quite like this idea (apart from the AWMW which seems unnecessary if you are applying the other sanctions).

[Pict]

Interesting that being part of the appeals process is so onerous and tedious as to generate these revenge phantasies in relation to the unfortunate serfs who disagree with TDs.

[Bbradley62]

Repeatedly making awm should be considered unacceptable behavior and should be treated as such. Some threshhold (involving both absolute number and percentage of awm) should be set, and anyone who crosses the threshhold should be barred from playing any sanctioned event for a specified period of time. It should be communicated clearly to anyone who is approaching the threshhold that another awm could get them barred. No player should ever be told "you do not have the right to appeal", but it is entirely reasonable to tell a player "if your next appeal is deemed to be wihout merit you will be barred from all events for the following six months".

[nige1]

Bbradley62, on Jun 24 2010, 02:52 PM, said:

No player should ever be told "you do not have the right to appeal", but it is entirely reasonable to tell a player "if your next appeal is deemed to be without merit you will be barred from all events for the following six months".

You cannot be serious (CR John McEnroe).

[Bbradley62]

nige1, on Jun 24 2010, 07:19 PM, said:

Bbradley62, on Jun 24 2010, 02:52 PM, said:

No player should ever be told "you do not have the right to appeal", but it is entirely reasonable to tell a player "if your next appeal is deemed to be without merit you will be barred from all events for the following six months".

:) :) :) You cannot be serious (CR John McEnroe).

It's the same as unacceptable behavior. At some point, you tell the offender "if it happens again, you're suspended". You are not welcome here if you're going to be a great big pain in the butt.