[McBruce]

In a three-board ACBL club game with a visible-to-all clock at the front counting out 21.5 minute rounds, a table takes the entire first round (with a few minutes added to round one on the clock for name entry) to complete two boards. They claim that there was considerable difficulty entering names into the wireless scoring units, but even if it took five extra minutes that still leaves them at over eight minutes a board. This being a short club game with an early finish and no desire on the part of anyone to wait for late plays, the third board is scored 50-50 and both pairs are warned. Three rounds later, the N-S pair from round one is late again, about to start board three as the clock expires. Their opponents are prone to excessive chatter between boards and the clock is fifteen feet away, so this one is also scored as 'both sides partly at fault' (50-50), even though it seems that the fault is not equal.

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?

[blackshoe]

McBruce, on 2013-May-30, 15:25, said:

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?

IMO, yes, yes, and yes.

[mycroft]

I have told several players (usually after hovering over their table enough to know that they always PM, and they never claim - sometimes telling me "I was ruled against once, so I never claim" - and other time-wasting manoeuvres), that if I have to pull a board at their table, unless their opponents volunteer that it was their fault this time, they are going to be considered at fault.

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).

[Siegmund]

I am surprised you gave 50/50 the second time. I can't remember a situation in which I didn't immediately award A- to a pair earning a second late play in the same session; it would require some very interesting circumstances to convince me their opponents were at fault. (On your facts I might well have given 50/40 the second time.)

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.

[Trinidad]

I am very happy with the policy at our club:

- 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

[Vampyr]

Siegmund, on 2013-June-01, 15:49, said:

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.

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.

[blackshoe]

Late plays have a sort of advantage for the director - if the board is played and a result obtained, he doesn't have to deal with artificial adjusted scores. As Vampyr says though, frequently there are good reasons for not allowing - or participating in - a late play. For example we had a late board last week. At the end of the session, my partner had to leave - she had an appointment she couldn't miss. We wouldn't have got the late play anyway, because our opponents weren't interested - one walked out the door as soon as he finished his "last" board, the other said "even if he were still here, I would not choose to play it". That last really pisses me off - it essentially says "screw you, director, I'm not following your instructions". That same player has also said he would decline to play a board late if "it didn't matter to the end result" - i.e. wouldn't affect whether either pair involved might get masterpoints. That's also not on, as far as I'm concerned. If the director orders a late play, anyone who willfully refuses should get at best average minus, plus a penalty.

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.

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2013-June-01, 18:11, said:

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.

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

[blackshoe]

The problem with this is that you will have at least one pair waiting to move into the slow table, and at least one other pair waiting for a pair from the slow table. What happens if one or more of these waiting pairs are unable to finish the round they're waiting on? It's easy enough to say everyone should make every effort to catch up, but sometimes that doesn't happen.

[barmar]

Siegmund, on 2013-June-01, 15:49, said:

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.

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.

[blackshoe]

You know, a lot of this talk about "punishment" sounds to me like people are suggesting players are saying "if I don't get what I want, I'm being punished, wah, wah, wah." If that's the case, somebody ought to tell those players to grow up.

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".

[Siegmund]

My experience is quite similar to blackshoe's. A late play is given to help the other N-5 people in the room leave early. The 4 players involved and the director already signed up to play the board and are expected, within reason, to stay for it.

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.

[blackshoe]

Siegmund, on 2013-June-03, 09:52, said:

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.

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.

[McBruce]

blackshoe, on 2013-June-01, 22:12, said:

You know, a lot of this talk about "punishment" sounds to me like people are suggesting players are saying "if I don't get what I want, I'm being punished, wah, wah, wah." If that's the case, somebody ought to tell those players to grow up.

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.

[blackshoe]

McBruce, on 2013-June-06, 10:44, said:

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.

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.