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Tournament Operations » Post: About pairing players that arrive late.

About pairing players that arrive late.

May 1, 2017 05:16:14 PM

Joaquín Ossandón
Judge (Level 2 (International Judge Program))

Hispanic America - South

About pairing players that arrive late.

Hello
I would like to have confirmation regarding pairing players that sign up late for a tournament. This is an issue that have been discussed in the past (here), and the conclusion from Andy Heckt (2014) was that it was an illegal practice. Since I saw that, I have been trying to be consistent with it. But I also have seen this kind of practice in many tournaments, both at local stores and at GPs side events. I had a discussion with some judges at one of my last GPs about this and they had pretty good arguments to allow this kind of management. I will try to summarize the discussion (I'll also be quoting opinions from the old discussion):

Pros

  • Provides a better customer service, because players want to play the event.
  • Is not a big deal at Regular REL, where players are there to play and have fun.
  • Sometimes (specially at big events) there is a time lapse between the end of signs ups and the beginning of the tournament. This method allows players that arrive in this lapse to play without penalties.
  • Andrew's statement is pretty old, and tournaments have done this for years without being an issue.

Cons

  • Provides questionable customer service.
  • Gives poor player training.
  • Allows savvy players and unscrupulous TOs to take advantage of the loophole.
  • Creates weird situations if, after a couple arrives late, another player does.

Although on a personal level, I believe the pros are stronger than the cons (at least at Regular REL), I believe that providing inconsistent rules to the players is pretty complicated. Therefore, I would like to know:

1- Is Andrew's statement still an official policiy?
2- If the answer is yes, is this something we, as judges, need to enforce?

Thanks beforehand for your responses!

Edited Joaquín Ossandón (May 1, 2017 05:18:27 PM)

May 1, 2017 06:12:41 PM

Scott Marshall
Forum Moderator
Judge (Level 4 (Judge Foundry)), Hall of Fame

USA - Southwest

About pairing players that arrive late.

Andy was an ‘O’fficial source, and his original post still stands.

d:^D