[NickRW]

This evening we had a 10 table skip mitchell (9.5 full tables). After round 3 one lady had to go home due to illness. Nobody could quickly think of a good way to repair the movement so we had to carry on with two sit out tables.

I have scored this event (in Scorebridge), and entered the "results" at the unexpected additional sitout table as "not played" - this seems to be right thing to do as it was "not played" due to the movement - the white book seems to say that this is what I should be doing.

However, the pair that only played 3 rounds played only 9 boards and Scorebridge is not showing any masterpoints - which also seems to be technically correct as the masterpoint handbook says

"3.1.2 No Masterpoints will be awarded for an event unless all competitors play at least 12 boards."

However, this seems ludicrous. The pair that had to quit early ended up with about 33% (perhaps unsurprisingly under the circumstances) and so would not have got any masterpoints anyway. The rest of us all played at least 24 boards.

What should I do about this:
1) Enter the "not played" boards as A+ for the pairs that couldn't play? What about the score for the pair that left early - A-?
2) Or do we just get no masterpoints - tough luck!

Nick

[RMB1]

I suspect there was no way to recover the movement, I'm sure we've all ended up running movements with two sitouts. (I suppose it doesn't happen in well organised NBOs.)

"Not Played" should really only be used for boards that were not scheduled to be played from the outset.

If you want to keep the early results of the pair that had to retire then their later scores should be AVE+ to their opponents and AVE or AVE- to the retiring pair. There is some dispute whether all absences not due to other players or the tournament organisation should be "wholely at fault" (AVE-) or whether illness and other unforseen circumstances count as "partially at fault" (AVE).

If their score on the boards they did play was 33% then AVE- would seem OK. Does scorebridge give them their session score instead of AVE- if their score is <40% ?

Otherwise, you could mark not played on all the boards for the retiring pair and remove them from the event; but this does not seem necessary.

[NickRW]

Thanks. I've given Average+ to the pairs that should have been able to play, but couldn't. Unless you manually override it to 50%, Scorebridge appears to give a flat 40% to the other side in this case regardless of their actual score at the end of the session.

Nick

[blackshoe]

I've tried to think of a way to recover the movement, and so far, I've come up empty.

When giving averages, does Scorebridge reinstate the masterpoint awards? I suppose it would, since it would have no way of knowing that the pair that left wasn't actually there to earn their average minuses.

[aguahombre]

Matchpoint the game with the 18 pairs who played, and two sitouts. The nine boards played against the pair that disappeared would be part of the sitouts.

Unfortunate for the pairs who got good results on those boards, but they played against a pair which didn't exist, and no one else got their turn for top against them either. Every real pair played a sufficient number of boards.

If the program won't take a two-sitout movement, make a burner sheet and score it by hand. Certainly there is a way to turn in a result of a session without Scorebridge.

[NickRW]

blackshoe, on Sep 21 2010, 03:51 AM, said:

I've tried to think of a way to recover the movement, and so far, I've come up empty.

When giving averages, does Scorebridge reinstate the masterpoint awards? I suppose it would, since it would have no way of knowing that the pair that left wasn't actually there to earn their average minuses.

Yes, the masterpoints are reinstated.

It just seems weird doing this Av+ business. We had a phantom EW10 going round and they (or their opps really) automatically get "not played" (the program knows there is no such pair and doesn't even ask you to enter "not played"). Then there is this other pair - NS5 - that was there - but was phantom for most of the evening and it just seems 100% natural to enter them as "not played" - yet I have to give some Av pluses just to get the masterpoints back in operation. I've read the supposed "illegality" of this in one or two places - but I really don't see the logic. If the board wasn't played, it wasn't played.

Nick

[NickRW]

aguahombre, on Sep 21 2010, 04:15 AM, said:

Matchpoint the game with the 18 pairs who played, and two sitouts. The nine boards played against the pair that disappeared would be part of the sitouts.

Unfortunate for the pairs who got good results on those boards, but they played against a pair which didn't exist, and no one else got their turn for top against them either. Every real pair played a sufficient number of boards.

If the program won't take a two-sitout movement, make a burner sheet and score it by hand. Certainly there is a way to turn in a result of a session without Scorebridge.

Never tried to make it accept a two sit out movement - I expect I could make it work - or if not do it by hand - but in these days of electronic uploads (both to the website and to the EBU for the masterpoints) really makes computer scoring mandatory.

Just seems wrong to burn some real results. Of the 3 rounds this pair played, 2 pairs got better than Av+ against them and the other one, who finished quite low, actually did better than their overall average for the session. So it worked out pretty fair in the end.

Nick

[axman]

NickRW, on Sep 20 2010, 11:38 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Sep 21 2010, 03:51 AM, said:

I've tried to think of a way to recover the movement, and so far, I've come up empty.

When giving averages, does Scorebridge reinstate the masterpoint awards? I suppose it would, since it would have no way of knowing that the pair that left wasn't actually there to earn their average minuses.

Yes, the masterpoints are reinstated.

It just seems weird doing this Av+ business. We had a phantom EW10 going round and they (or their opps really) automatically get "not played" (the program knows there is no such pair and doesn't even ask you to enter "not played"). Then there is this other pair - NS5 - that was there - but was phantom for most of the evening and it just seems 100% natural to enter them as "not played" - yet I have to give some Av pluses just to get the masterpoints back in operation. I've read the supposed "illegality" of this in one or two places - but I really don't see the logic. If the board wasn't played, it wasn't played.

Nick

What happens by assigning NP to the affected pairs while assigning AV- to the corresponding sick pair ['split score']? as in will you get the mp awards while retaining the first three rounds?

[blackshoe]

Oy. That's going a bit too far, I think.

[bluejak]

NickRW, on Sep 21 2010, 05:38 AM, said:

It just seems weird doing this Av+ business.  We had a phantom EW10 going round and they (or their opps really) automatically get "not played" (the program knows there is no such pair and doesn't even ask you to enter "not played").  Then there is this other pair - NS5 - that was there - but was phantom for most of the evening and it just seems 100% natural to enter them as "not played" - yet I have to give some Av pluses just to get the masterpoints back in operation.  I've read the supposed "illegality" of this in one or two places - but I really don't see the logic.  If the board wasn't played, it wasn't played.

As you planned the tournament, you had no EW 10 so naturally they do not get a score, average or otherwise. You had a real pair NS 5 so obviously they get scores.

I find it natural to do this, and unnatural to do otherwise.

[NickRW]

axman, on Sep 21 2010, 05:32 AM, said:

What happens by assigning NP to the affected pairs while assigning AV- to the corresponding sick pair ['split score']? as in will you get the mp awards while retaining the first three rounds?

In Scorebridge, as far as I know, the only way to assign "not played" is actually to delete the score line - which puts both pairs down as not played. I don't recall being able to enter something like "NP" mentioned in the help text.

Nick

[NickRW]

bluejak, on Sep 21 2010, 03:15 PM, said:

As you planned the tournament, you had no EW 10 so naturally they do not get a score, average or otherwise.  You had a real pair NS 5 so obviously they get scores.

I find it natural to do this, and unnatural to do otherwise.

Yes - well. I've just had to explain (at some considerable length) what you're saying - which I don't entirely agree with myself - to a slightly irate and certainly persistent lady who says what I've eventually done is "unfair".

Meh - TDs at least get some thanks for their efforts - scorers only ever get complaints.

Nick

[FrancesHinden]

NickRW, on Sep 21 2010, 05:44 AM, said:

aguahombre, on Sep 21 2010, 04:15 AM, said:

Matchpoint the game with the 18 pairs who played, and two sitouts.  The nine boards played against the pair that disappeared would be part of the sitouts. 

Unfortunate for the pairs who got good results on those boards, but they played against a pair which didn't exist, and no one else got their turn for top against them either.  Every real pair played a sufficient number of boards.

If the program won't take a two-sitout movement, make a burner sheet and score it by hand.  Certainly there is a way to turn in a result of a session without Scorebridge.

Never tried to make it accept a two sit out movement - I expect I could make it work - or if not do it by hand - but in these days of electronic uploads (both to the website and to the EBU for the masterpoints) really makes computer scoring mandatory.

Just seems wrong to burn some real results. Of the 3 rounds this pair played, 2 pairs got better than Av+ against them and the other one, who finished quite low, actually did better than their overall average for the session. So it worked out pretty fair in the end.

Nick

The problem is that there's really no way to solve this in a way that doesn't seem unfair.

As you say, it seems wrong to "burn" some real results... but then that's going to seem unfair to someone. Suppose the pair that had to leave had started with 3 hugely good rounds, now the pairs who had to play them will think it's not fair that they have to live with their poor results, but everyone else is getting an average. But if they had 3 dreadful rounds, all the other pairs think it's not fair that they didn't get to play against that pair and getting av+ isn't good enough.

To my intrinsic feeling of what's "fair" there's some cut-off point.
If a pair play one board, go for a 2800 penalty and then decide they don't fancy playing any more and go home, it seems somehow wrong for their beneficiaries to keep their 2800.

If a pair play 23/24s of the boards then have to dash off because the movement has been slower than usual and they are going to miss the last train otherwise, it seems somehow wrong to remove all of their scores from the results for that evening.

Somewhere in the middle there's a crossover point.

[NickRW]

FrancesHinden, on Sep 22 2010, 06:05 PM, said:

NickRW, on Sep 21 2010, 05:44 AM, said:

aguahombre, on Sep 21 2010, 04:15 AM, said:

Matchpoint the game with the 18 pairs who played, and two sitouts.  The nine boards played against the pair that disappeared would be part of the sitouts. 

Unfortunate for the pairs who got good results on those boards, but they played against a pair which didn't exist, and no one else got their turn for top against them either.  Every real pair played a sufficient number of boards.

If the program won't take a two-sitout movement, make a burner sheet and score it by hand.  Certainly there is a way to turn in a result of a session without Scorebridge.

Never tried to make it accept a two sit out movement - I expect I could make it work - or if not do it by hand - but in these days of electronic uploads (both to the website and to the EBU for the masterpoints) really makes computer scoring mandatory.

Just seems wrong to burn some real results. Of the 3 rounds this pair played, 2 pairs got better than Av+ against them and the other one, who finished quite low, actually did better than their overall average for the session. So it worked out pretty fair in the end.

Nick

The problem is that there's really no way to solve this in a way that doesn't seem unfair.

As you say, it seems wrong to "burn" some real results... but then that's going to seem unfair to someone. Suppose the pair that had to leave had started with 3 hugely good rounds, now the pairs who had to play them will think it's not fair that they have to live with their poor results, but everyone else is getting an average. But if they had 3 dreadful rounds, all the other pairs think it's not fair that they didn't get to play against that pair and getting av+ isn't good enough.

To my intrinsic feeling of what's "fair" there's some cut-off point.
If a pair play one board, go for a 2800 penalty and then decide they don't fancy playing any more and go home, it seems somehow wrong for their beneficiaries to keep their 2800.

If a pair play 23/24s of the boards then have to dash off because the movement has been slower than usual and they are going to miss the last train otherwise, it seems somehow wrong to remove all of their scores from the results for that evening.

Somewhere in the middle there's a crossover point.

Yes, well, that is why entering the results as "not played" for those that couldn't play seems to me to be likely to be fairest - their percentage is calculated simply on the boards they actually played. Of course it still leaves potential argument over the rounds that did get played - but at least those were real results that certainly would have counted had someone not had to go home.

Unfortunately we can't do that due to the masterpoint rules - which makes some sense in that it wouldn't be right to allow the pair that went home to have masterpoints based on only 9 boards. But the rule could be to require at least 12 boards for any pair in the top third (the positions that qualify for masterpoints).

Nick