From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 7 nov 1996 Subject: Re: Tournaments engelhardt <101536.1704 COMPUSERVE COM> writes: > I would like the opinion of the Shogi community about a problem we had at the > recent German Open tournament. > There were two players unhappy with the pairings sorted out by the computer > program They had to play against each other. They voiced there discontentment, > declared one of the two as the winner and left the tournament without moving one > piece on the board. They returned the next day for the next rounds. > My questions are: > How do you deal with such a problem at your tournaments in your countries ? > What solution do you have for such a problem ? > What consequences do you suggest for such a behaviour ? This problem has occured more than once. The limited number of players makes the risk of pairing players who have played each other a lot very high. Personally I would prefer to exclude these players from competion alltogether. Because of the strength of the Nijmegen Shogi club I have played them in tournaments many times and not once did I consider not playing, so the reaction of the two players you mention is completely alien to me. However, as a tournament leader I have never taken such drastic steps. I also never bend to the pressure of making another draw. If you start doing that, this means the end to objective pairing, thus making the tournament unfair. In short, I took the same actions as you did, but always making it clear that I strongly disapprove of such behaviour. Of course you can never be sure if that has any effect, but scorning by stronger is the strongest measure there is, I am afraid. We don't have the luxury position of scaring players off by taking strong action against unsportmanship behaviour... > My personal opinion is, that it is the privilege of each player to resign at > any moment of the game, even at the beginning . In this case the opponent is > winner. I do not agree. My personal opinion is that resigning without playing is a violation of proper tournament conduct and should be punished accordingly. > If the two player refuse to play each other and just go, both have lost the > game. As far as proper conduct is concerned, I do not see the difference between these two situations. > If a player just does not show up, he lost the game. Clearly. > Of course, such a behaviour is at the least bad manners and causes trouble for > the other players > and the tournament organisers. Indeed. Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Electrotechnical Laboratory Palcious Tsukuba 302 1-1-4 Umezono 1-24-8 Ninomiya Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken 305 JAPAN 305 JAPAN E-mail: grimberg etl go jp Tel: 0298-59-1606 WWW: http://www.etl.go.jp:8080/etl/suiron/~grimberg Tel: +81-(0)298-54-5080 extension: 67431 Fax: +81-(0)298-58-5918