English Chess Forum

Perhaps Neil won't take it amiss if I suggest to him there's a fundamental difference between a team withdrawing from a round or rounds in good time, and inconveniencing no-one, and defaulting - which essentially means failing to meet one's commitments - through turning up with an incomplete team or, worse still, none at all which not only inconveniences opponents but wastes their time and money.

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:56 am

Perhaps Neil won't take it amiss if I suggest to him there's a fundamental difference between a team withdrawing from a round or rounds in good time, and inconveniencing no-one, and defaulting - which essentially means failing to meet one's commitments - through turning up with an incomplete team or, worse still, none at all which not only inconveniences opponents but wastes their time and money.

I accept in general what Roger has said. In the opening round this year we were presented with an unnotified default that would have been awarded to a player who had booked an overnight at the hotel. Luckily we were able to change the board order so someone else took the point. Similarly later this year we were again awarded a point when an opponent cried off on the morning of the match after our player had traveled all the way to the venue.
Most inconvenient.

However my view of teams that simply withdraw or can't meet their commitments isn't satisfactory. In Division Three (North) a withdrawal from the last three rounds has caused complete chaos with the pairings. A couple of seasons ago a short-lived side "Hounds & Bears" didn't turn up for the final three rounds as they deemed their promotion chances had disappeared. The all-play-all divisions set great store for teams completing their fixtures in proper order and defaults are rightly and properly penalized. The lower divisions IMHO should be no different and not treated like some amateur event where teams enter and don't turn up etc "This is a serious competition not a hobbit walking-party." to misquote Tolkien

"A couple of seasons ago a short-lived side "Hounds & Bears" didn't turn up for the final three rounds as they deemed their promotion chances had disappeared."

Quite right - I was somewhat annoyed in the Surrey League where there were at least 4 clubs with Surrey CCA committee members, who defaulted entire matches and "justified" it by saying, "we were going to lose, so why bother turning up?"

If you enter, you do your best to play. This is entirely different from transport difficulties or illness causing problems.

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Fri May 03, 2019 7:50 am

Quite right - I was somewhat annoyed in the Surrey League where there were at least 4 clubs with Surrey CCA committee members, who defaulted entire matches and "justified" it by saying, "we were going to lose, so why bother turning up?"

Aside from being generally an unsporting thing to do, this plays havoc with the game point tiebreaks for those who are taking the league seriously,

Neil Graham wrote: ↑

Thu May 02, 2019 10:01 pm

The all-play-all divisions set great store for teams completing their fixtures in proper order and defaults are rightly and properly penalized. The lower divisions IMHO should be no different and not treated like some amateur event where teams enter and don't turn up etc

Even in Division 4, there's a £50 penalty for defaulting a match at short notice. I assume that's "per round" so £100 for defaulting a 2-round weekend or £150 for 3 rounds which should be some form of deterrent, albeit perhaps not enough.

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Fri May 03, 2019 9:29 am

Even in Division 4, there's a £50 penalty for defaulting a match at short notice.

I'm not sure that "even in Division 4" is the proper way of looking at it. The inconvenience and disappointment caused to those players is just as great as it is to anyone else. In fact, at the other end, players who are paid to play may be content to be paid not to play.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Fri May 03, 2019 9:48 am

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Fri May 03, 2019 9:29 am

Even in Division 4, there's a £50 penalty for defaulting a match at short notice.

I'm not sure that "even in Division 4" is the proper way of looking at it. The inconvenience and disappointment caused to those players is just as great as it is to anyone else. In fact, at the other end, players who are paid to play may be content to be paid not to play.

Nick, I wasn't attempting to imply otherwise. It's simply that the 4NCL rules stipulate a descending scale of default fees.

I remember Hounds and Bears being discussed at the time, and I think Alex Holowczak made the point that they were trying to run teams with too small a squad, and they were just about squeezing through for the first eight matches, but raising a team for the final weekend was beyond them.

I'm not commenting on Crowthorne 2, not least because I don't know anything. I just turn up and play.

But generally I have been worrying about this a lot in recent years. I've never defaulted because I expected to lose. But expecting to lose and especially losing regularly does make some, probably most, players less likely to play.

I don't know what to do about it. I had a situation a couple of years ago where a B team got promoted to the top division, and was looking likely to lose most matches heavily. We agreed to split into parallel squads, to avoid this becoming demoralising and because of some other factors. The B team narrowly avoided relegation. But it got harder and harder to get people to play people 30 or 40 points higher graded on the bottom boards throughout the season. Fortunately, from the captaincy, if not the club point of view, the A team did get relegated.

I agree that clubs should seek to fulfil all fixtures including the last weekend though to be honest its not great value playing for a team in the bottom half of Division 4 over a long weekend. My team are good company but the chess wasn't great.

Local league wise not all teams give the same priority to putting out the strongest team. Single team clubs might rotate players. Aylesbury don't have many strong players but fielded a side out-graded by an average of seventy points in one fixture. One local team fielded in the space of a few weeks their full strength team against Wycombe the second seeds, and Aylesbury the back-markers, but half that team were missing against Bourne End the defending champions. Not always easy to interpret the reasons for these discrepancies, another club has a first team squad of busy people and their diaries rarely coincided, so the first team always looked liked a rather haphazard assortment of club members. Are people deterred from playing by the ultra strong teams - I fear it is now the case, but as the captain of the team that regularly finishes second, we don't experience players skipping matches against us.

it is great to be back to 3 teams for the final w/e.
we have possibility of promotion, demotion, and in my case to play against opponents of the same strength or lower or higher.
anyway those that have played opponents 300 or 400 plus points higher the previous two weekends are ok.

there are lots of reasons and costs and differences between those with very busy schedules away from chess and those that chess is the main part of their lives. I will probably have played less chess in a season than when my last son was born - he is 25 next month.

4ncl have got the penalties right, not sure others have. there seem to be bigger personal losses from defaults than in the past but then again it was only 2 pence on the bus when I started playing chess....

looking forward to chess tomorrow and seems we will need to wrap up warm in the morning.

Div 4s repairings

Rook & Roll are unable to raise a team for round 9 so there has been a re-pairing. Because of their score, there has been a fairly extensive reshuffle to minimize incorrect floats - Dave Thomas, Chief Arbiter.

The revised pairings are:

Warwickshire Select 2 v Check Innmates 2

Throw in the Tal v Banbury Bulldogs

Iceni 3 v Oxford 4

The Pitstop v All Anands on Deck

There will no longer be a triangular match. As there are other teams unable to raise a side for each of the following days there should be no triangular matches necessary.

If the maths are correct. It seems that Wessex B drawing, and Oxford 3 winning 4.5-1.5, means they are equal on both match points and games points. Next tie break is their individual match score which was 3-3. Next is board count, which is in Oxford 3's favour!

It also seems that Manchester Manticores will be relegated from Div 2, freeing an extra promotion spot from Div 4, which Wessex B will take as a consolation.

Does that mean 3 down from Div 3 South?

Nick Grey wrote: ↑

Mon May 06, 2019 6:01 pm

Does that mean 3 down from Div 3 South?

As far as I can see the rules don't mention relegations from Division 3 South!

The answer to your question is no, because it affects the number of teams promoted from Division 4, not the number of teams relegated from Division 3.