Next issue: the BYE.
It could happen that Match can't start or be completed. 3 cases:
1) There's an odd number of competitors in the Tournament. In this case the last Board (the one with the higher letter) is "maimed" all Tournament long, being in it a player (usually different from Round to Round) that obviousely won't play any Match, not having an opponent.
2) A Match didn't start at all because one of the 2 players didn't show up for ANY reason, whether it was expected (he said before he withdraws/gives up...) or not.
3) A Match can't be completed because a player disappeared before joining the 5th game of the Match.
All this cases need an arbitrary score.
When the match didn't start at all (cases #1 & #2), I propose that the BYE should be 60% of full score that is to say 6 Victory Points. So the player who hasn't got an opponent gets 6 VPs.
If there's a missing player (case #2), he gets 0.
The case #3 looks thougher, because if I'm winning a Match 8-0, I don't want to get only 6 because my opponent disappeared before joining the last game. On the other hand, if I'm losing 0-8, it would look unfair giving me 6
only because I was lucky having an opponent with some RL issue. So I propose this partial-bye for case #3:
The score of started games stays put (if a player disappear during a game, the other player will win it) as it is.
The score of unstarted games is:
- For the player who showed up, the first missing game gives 2, the remaining games give 1 VP each.
- For the player who disappeared, all missing games give 0.
Examples:
Say A & B are players in a Match and after 2 games, ended 2-0 and 0-2, B disappears
A gets: 2+0+2+1+1=6
B gets: 0+2+0+0+0=2
C & D. First 4 games ended 2-0, 2-0, 1-1, 2-0 then D disappeared.
C gets: 2+2+1+2+2=9
D gets: 0+0+1+0+0=1
E & F. 3 games: 0-2, 1-1, 1-1 then F disappeared
E gets: 0+1+1+2+1=5
F gets: 2+1+1+0+0=4
An alternative solution for players who didn't show up or disappeared could be this:
- if he didn't play any game he gets -1
- If he played at least a game, then the first missing game gives -1, the remaining games give 0 VP each.
E & F. 3 games: 0-2, 1-1, 1-1 then F disappeared
E gets: 0+1+1+2+1=5
F gets: 2+1+1-1+0=3
This little penalty would speed up those definitively disappeared players in reaching the bottom of the standings, without penalyzing too much those players that had a RL issue, skipped some games or a whole Round, and came back and want to play on.
Thoughts?