Slow Play Conviction upon later evidence; reasonable?
#1
Posted 2013-May-30, 15:25
Because there were only seven rounds, this was sufficient to get through to the end without further incidents. But suppose the same pair is involved in a third slow-play incident. They will surely get A- for this one and their opponents might well get A+ if they can convice the TD that they were not at all to blame. But...
1) Is it within the Laws for the TD to now review the earlier decisions that both sides were partially to blame, and change the earlier 50-50s to 50-40 or even 60-40?
2) Can the previous opponents of the slow pair appeal the decision and use later evidence to back up their claim that the slow pair was completely at fault to get their adjusted score upgraded to 60?
3) If the slow pair is part of a table that is a full board behind in a future game, is their 'record' in play if there is a dispute as to who is at fault?
Please come back to the live game; I directed enough online during COVID for several lifetimes.
Bruce McIntyre,
#2
Posted 2013-May-30, 20:01
McBruce, on 2013-May-30, 15:25, said:
2) Can the previous opponents of the slow pair appeal the decision and use later evidence to back up their claim that the slow pair was completely at fault to get their adjusted score upgraded to 60?
3) If the slow pair is part of a table that is a full board behind in a future game, is their 'record' in play if there is a dispute as to who is at fault?
IMO, yes, yes, and yes.
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#3
Posted 2013-May-31, 10:34
I almost never have to apply that - odd, how the threat of a penalty clears the mind wonderfully where repeated requests are ignorable :-).
I *think* I'm able to tell the difference between "habitual slow players who really don't care" and "players who aren't yet used to the pace of this game" (who get a different treatment and a different lecture).
#4
Posted 2013-June-01, 15:49
I don't care for the no-late-plays approach, either. Among other things, it takes away an option from you -- in effect, requiring the people who were slow the first round to stay late when they don't want to is their 'punishment', and if they refuse to stay late they will getting somewhere short of 30 for the board.
#5
Posted 2013-June-01, 16:36
- Barring special circumstances, all boards are played in the round that they are supposed to be played in.
- At the end of the time reserved for the round, the round is called. You have one minute to get to you new table.
- Every pair that has not scored up all the boards after this one minute will get an automatic slow play penalty, unless their opponents take the blame (or the TD already knows who is at fault).
- A slow play penalty is: A warning for the first offense, 0.3% off your total score (at 26 boards, this corresponds to 7.8% of a board) for the second offense, 0.7% off for the third offense (+ the 0.3% for the second offense).
These rules are strictly followed. As a result, pretty much everybody finishes on time, slow play penalties beyond the level of warnings are rare (perhaps one deduction per 10-15 evenings), no one mutters when they get a warning and the play is over when it is supposed to be over.
Rik
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!), but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov
The only reason God did not put "Thou shalt mind thine own business" in the Ten Commandments was that He thought that it was too obvious to need stating. - Kenberg
#6
Posted 2013-June-01, 17:27
Siegmund, on 2013-June-01, 15:49, said:
Well, this is fine for clubs that own their own venues, but many clubs have to vacate the premises by a certain time. There is also the matter of trains etc; sometimes a player simply cannot stay late because he will miss the last convenient transport.
#7
Posted 2013-June-01, 18:11
All that said, I know that David Stevenson, among others, doesn't like late plays. I'm not sure exactly why, but "we have to vacate the venue" and "we have to catch the last train" are certainly part of it. IAC, I'm not all that opposed to a "no late plays" rule, so long as the appropriate artificial adjusted scores are awarded. I cannot abide "not played" in these cases.
Rik: When there is to be a late play, the pertinent round does not end for the players concerned until the board has been played and the score agreed and recorded, or the director cancels the board (Law 8B2). Also Law 82B2 gives the director the power to "require, postpone, or cancel the play of a board". I submit that a regulation that there shall be no late plays contravenes these laws and is thus illegal. Not that I expect any club to care what I think - see "screw you, director" above.
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#8
Posted 2013-June-01, 20:26
blackshoe, on 2013-June-01, 18:11, said:
I think that you misunderstood what I wrote:
All the boards that a pair is supposed to play will be played. There are no adjusted scores. But they have to finish round 3 before those two pairs can start on round 4. We typically have two board rounds, so players get 14 minutes + 1 minute for changing. It would be strange if they wouldn't have started on the last board by the end of the round.
But say that we play 4 board rounds giving the players 28+1 minutes. And after 28 minutes they are still working on the third board. We will let them play number 4 before they get to start the next round and they will get a nice penalty, they will be seen by everybody as being late (and they will get to hear that from the other club members) and will have a lot of catching up to do in the next round, because everybody else has been playing already. If players know that they will get in trouble if they are slow, they won't be slow.
So, there are no late plays since the boards (all the boards) will have been played in their normal order.
Rik
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!), but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov
The only reason God did not put "Thou shalt mind thine own business" in the Ten Commandments was that He thought that it was too obvious to need stating. - Kenberg
#9
Posted 2013-June-01, 21:04
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#10
Posted 2013-June-01, 21:13
Siegmund, on 2013-June-01, 15:49, said:
Allowing late players is not the same as forcing late plays. If the slow pair leaves without playing the late play, they'll get an A- on the board -- that's their punishment.
And if they do stick around, it doesn't just punish them. It also punishes their opponents, and everyone else who has to wait for the results to be completed, and the director who can't close up and go home.
#11
Posted 2013-June-01, 22:12
Until I saw players refusing to play a late play here in Rochester, it never occurred to me that anyone would do that. I certainly wouldn't, unless I had some overriding reason, like an appointment with a doctor.
Funny thing, the question of late plays never came up when I played in England, because there was no slow play delay on a board significant enough to delay the end of the round. I suppose that could be chalked up to luck, but I rather think the director was pretty damn good at his job.
I would never try to force a late play, but if I instruct players they have a late play, and they decline without a good reason, they'll get a penalty from me.
Generally speaking here, the results are posted on the internet before the director closes down his computer after the session. I usually find that if I don't wait around for results, but just drive straight home, the results are already posted when I get there twenty minutes after I finish the last board. So people aren't being "punished" by being "forced" to wait around for results, that's nonsense.
Directors take on the job. If it means staying a little longer because of late plays, that's the job. If you can't deal with that, don't direct.
BTW, most of the games here are in the afternoon, and over by no later than 3:30. Of the three night games that were around when I got here twenty years ago, one has closed down and the other two are shrinking fast. Plus everybody drives. So there's no question of "I have to catch the last train".
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#12
Posted 2013-June-03, 09:52
I have seen (and directed at) venues where we had to be out by a certain time - though I can't imagine anywhere routinely promising to be out less than 4 hours after starting time for a 3 1/2-hour game, given the need to clean up, etc.
I gaped in stunned silence the first time a table informed me they "will take an average" rather than playing their late board. Where on earth did they get the idea that they could choose to skip boards they didn't want to play and choose what score they'd be assigned on them?
If people have reasons to need to leave - and this is very rare, in my experience - I am fine with just giving the A-. The ones who decline for no reason will be fined. (No experience with people catching last trains. I did have one club where occasionally someone caught the last bus of the day -- to get to the game starting at 7.)
Admittedly I gaped in stunned silence the first time a pair walked out of the game after 2 hours without saying a word to me, because they 'felt tired', too. Yet somehow this has happened to me three times so far, and only one of the pairs were novices.
#13
Posted 2013-June-03, 11:48
Siegmund, on 2013-June-03, 09:52, said:
That's one I haven't seen. If I did see it, they would get A- and their opponents A+ on every board they didn't play, and the next time I saw them they would be informed that either they commit to the entire session, or they don't play - they don't have a right to leave in the middle just because they're tired. If they ever do it again, they get a full board DP in addition to the score adjustments. The next time, I will ban them for 30 days. If there's a next time after that, I will recommend to club management a permanent ban. If it's my club, I'll take the recommendation.
I suspect the novices did it because they saw the others do it, and so figured it must be okay.
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#14
Posted 2013-June-06, 10:44
blackshoe, on 2013-June-01, 22:12, said:
Until I saw players refusing to play a late play here in Rochester, it never occurred to me that anyone would do that. I certainly wouldn't, unless I had some overriding reason, like an appointment with a doctor.
Funny thing, the question of late plays never came up when I played in England, because there was no slow play delay on a board significant enough to delay the end of the round. I suppose that could be chalked up to luck, but I rather think the director was pretty damn good at his job.
I would never try to force a late play, but if I instruct players they have a late play, and they decline without a good reason, they'll get a penalty from me.
Generally speaking here, the results are posted on the internet before the director closes down his computer after the session. I usually find that if I don't wait around for results, but just drive straight home, the results are already posted when I get there twenty minutes after I finish the last board. So people aren't being "punished" by being "forced" to wait around for results, that's nonsense.
Directors take on the job. If it means staying a little longer because of late plays, that's the job. If you can't deal with that, don't direct.
BTW, most of the games here are in the afternoon, and over by no later than 3:30. Of the three night games that were around when I got here twenty years ago, one has closed down and the other two are shrinking fast. Plus everybody drives. So there's no question of "I have to catch the last train".
Same thing here, evening games are dwindling--except this one, a weeknight game that goes from 7-9:30, 20-21 boards only, $1 less than a full length game. When part of your appeal is a guaranteed finish by 9:30, and it works to the extent that you outdraw the other evening games, you don't screw things up by adding late plays and forcing people to wait for the slow pair to finish the last round so they can watch them agonize for another ten minutes over a claimer. It's not always the TD being lazy: sometimes you need to think about what effect forcing people to stay will have on your game's attendance. If this were an afternoon game everything would be different, of course.
Please come back to the live game; I directed enough online during COVID for several lifetimes.
Bruce McIntyre,
#15
Posted 2013-June-06, 12:45
McBruce, on 2013-June-06, 10:44, said:
You apparently missed this sentence in my post, although it was included in your quote: "So people aren't being "punished" by being "forced" to wait around for results, that's nonsense."
I would agree that ordering a late play may be "forcing" the players involved to stay past the advertised end time. However, the law doesn't say "the last round ends at 9:30" or whatever, although it may give the TO authority to make a regulation that says that, under Law 80B2(i) regarding "suitable conditions of play". If that's the case, then "no late plays" or at least "no late plays that might go past 9:30" should be part of the CoC as well.
Perhaps "The last round shall end no later than 9:30. Boards not completed by this time shall be cancelled, and the TD shall award an artificial adjusted score. There shall be no late play unless the board can definitely be completed before 9:30; boards cancelled by the director for slow play prior to the last round shall be awarded an artificial adjusted score." I did consider "not played," but it seems to me that is not appropriate in either of these cases. Note: if you want administrative time before the 9:30 deadline (for posting results, for example) then adjust the time stated in the regulation as appropriate.
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean