Friday 4 October 2013

Ah, the joy of swiss pairings

If there is one commission meeting that can be guaranteed to drill right down to the smallest of issues in chess, then Swiss Pairings Program's is it. But it probably says something about me that I quite enjoy being on the commission, and sitting through the meetings.
Today was no different as at various times we discussed (at some length) whether the rules should allow player A to play player B or player 15. As I get strange looks from people when I say that I on a committee that deals with the laws of chess, I won't even try to explain why this is important (either you get it or you don't).
However we did do some important work, in the area of making the rules simpler They will now be laid out better on the FIDE website (shortly), as well as formalising some practices that have been ad-hoc in the past. Half point byes are now explicitly allowed, which I know some Federations have been uneasy about The issue of Accelerated Pairing Systems was addressed, although for now it is simply to set up a sub-committee to make future recommendations. We also voted to approve the JavaPairing program for use in FIDE competitions, but on the other hand Tornelo was rejected.
Tomorrow the big ticket item is Anti-Cheating, and I hope to report on that when it is finished.

3 comments:

OzChess.com said...

Swiss pairing is very standard for most torunaments

Garvin said...

Shaun, With the addition of half point byes to the official rules, will the granting of a half point bye be considered a downfloat?

Shaun Press said...

Yes. All byes are considered downfloats (Defined in B.1 of the Dutch Rules)