Hi,

I'd like to suggest a change concerning awarding forfeit wins.

I would like forfeit wins to be awarded to the party having right for the forfeit win, only if:
- the party having right for the forfeit win (the player, his captain or his deputy captain) explicitly claims the forfeit win,
- or the opposing party explicitly concedes the forfeit loss.

Otherwise I suggest that an unplayed draw is declared at some deadline clearly indicated by the TD.

Cheers,
MichaÃ…‚

Well at present this is more or less how things are done, with the exception that in cases where both players are silent, the TD will generally grant the forfeit rather than set an unplayed draw as you suggest. This doesn't happen very often though, and when it does it is when inexperienced players don't realise that they need to claim the forfeit, and for some reason ignore the directions of the TD to make their intentions clear.

I don't disagree with your opinion that in such cases the game should be set as a draw rather than a forfeit. The player who is entitled to the forfeit has no-one to blame for failing to claim, since they are always instructed to do so by the TD. However, in general I don't like having rules for rare situations like this one. In my opinion, very obscure rules can encourage players to become 'rules lawyers' and 'angle-shooters' as they attempt to argue their way to points, rather than earn them at the board. I think it's better to have the rules as simple as possible, and to have TDs resolve any issues that arise when these grey areas come up.

Let me be more specific. Similar situations happened recently in two games of my team members:

1. My player failed to be on time, the opponent kindly agreed to wait for explanation. On the 8th day of the round the TD declared the game would be set in the favour of the opponent on Wednesday (that is 6 days before the end of the extension week), if my player did not reply. Luckily my player was released from the hospital on exactly that day and managed to post explanation and agree the time.

In this case a forfeit win for the opponent would be logical, but why to force things 6 days before the deadline?

2. My player posted a message 3.5 hours before the agreed time that he cannot play because of unexpected work schedule change and asked whether rescheduling was possible. There was no answer from his opponent, or the opponent's captains. Soon after the planned game time, the TD instructed the opponent that he may claim win or try to reschedule. On Tuesday the TD posted, that if the opponent did nothing, a forfeit win would be awarded to him. On Wednesday the forfeit win was awarded without any message from the opposing party.

Yes, the player was relatively inexperienced (10 completed TL games), but there are still his captains for such situations.

And this is the scenario that I would like to be changed in the future. I don't really care if this is a written or unwritten rule.

By analogy, when my opponent does not show up at an OTB tournament, I still need to go to the arbiter to make a claim. If I just leave silently the room, anything can happen (but 0-0 seems most likely to me).

MichaÃ…‚

In this case, the TD explicitly stated that if he did not hear from the opponent, he would set a forfeit win. That was a little different from the standard procedure, which is to ask the opponent to clarify whether he or she wants a forfeit.

So it is understandable that your opponents did not ask for the forfeit, because they were told it wasn't necessary. I don't agree that there needs to be any change in the rules, but I will suggest that in the future all TDs ask players to make the decision.

My last post was about your case #2. Regarding case #1:

The rules at http://teamleague.org/postponements.php say that in order to postpone a game beyond the first week,

The following conditions must be met.
...
iii. The time and day that the game is to be played is set, and this time and day shall not be past the Game Completion Deadline for the following round.
iv. The Tournament Director shall be informed by the Game Completion Deadline by both players (or their Team Captains) of the postponed status, and the time and day the game will be played.


I suspect some people aren't aware of this rule, and think they can use the second week to continue negotiations. But according to the current rules the time has to be set by the end of the first week.

You may have a point that the current rule is too strict, but the TD was clearly doing her job, according to the current rules, by insisting on setting a time.