Armstrong Cup 2018-19

undisputed

sodacat11 wrote: »

I now learn that Trinity did NOT ask for their match v Dublin to be rearranged, apparently their captain "forgot".
I was looking back at last season, Trinity defaulted eight games, 4 v Dun Laoghaire and 2 each v Rathmines and Kilkenny. Every season they can't play their first match at the same time as everyone else and now they seem unable to field a decent team for their final fixture. I have to wonder just what the point is in having them in the league at all especially since most of their players are just poached from other clubs once they start going to university.

Agree. Something has to be done about Trinity. The club should be dismantled and the players should return to their old clubs. That would be better for the league and for the chess in general. Other clubs would become stronger giving more competition to Gonzaga.

pawntof4

undisputed wrote: »

Agree. Something has to be done about Trinity. The club should be dismantled and the players should return to their old clubs. That would be better for the league and for the chess in general. Other clubs would become stronger giving more competition to Gonzaga.

Completely disagree, the club is in the division on merit.

cdeb

Confirmed now that Trinity only have four players for tomorrow's match.

pdemp

cdeb wrote: »

Confirmed now that Trinity only have four players for tomorrow's match.

It's quite possible now that Dublin could finish 9th and the 11th place team could challenge them by that rule 5.5 but they couldn't be challenged by the 10th placed team.

5.5 is a badly designed rule that can lead to more unfairness than the walkovers themselves.

Maybe separate the treatment of defaults (generally individual player issue) and walkovers (club issue) and penalise the club giving walkovers via a points deduction of 2x number of walkovers in a season if more than 2. If more than 2 defaults then an additional deduction of 1 point per default (given there's already -1 for default in match) in case a club decides to name players just for the sake of it.

cdeb

That wouldn't fix the unfairness of Dublin getting four bonus points in a big relegation match though. And similar happened last year when Trinity only had half a team for a match against Dún Laoghaire. For a while, it looked like this could have an impact on the relegation battle as well, but the bottom two ultimately fell off quite badly.

I think it's hard to come up with something fair in this instance to be honest. Arguably it's a matter of discussion with Trinity to see where the issues are. Yes, the final round this year is very late and that doesn't help at all (though not sure if UCD have the same problems?) This isn't purely a May thing though as the last couple of years have shown

pdemp

Agree complete fairness is impossible in any league, but in this case such a rule would put trinity into the relegation mix.

cdeb

True, although the danger then is you're designing a rule for this instance only, and it may be that in the next instance, it may be too harsh or something.

There's certainly logic to it - it's basically a points deduction - but would just need to be careful the idea is fair overall, not just in this instance.

I might have a look at how many walkovers were conceded in the past few seasons in all divisions. Could then look at the impact of -1 for all scratches after the second one in the season

Rathminor

Cdeb,
Does the fact that DUBLIN also benefited from a 1 point default on board 7 when they played KK earlier this year come into play tomorrow, or would there have needed to be three walkovers/defaults in that game for it to impact.?
It would be helpful if the league could clarify before tomorrow afternoon!

cdeb

I would certainly suggest talking to the Armstrong controller pre-match to ensure ye're aware of what the exact circumstances are.

However, rule 5.5 says that team B - the challenging team - can not challenge if it "has itself [...] benefitted from defaults or walkovers in 3 or more games in the season"

So one default can be discounted - which is only fair, as things can happen which make one default entirely reasonable, if unfortunate.

Rathminor

cdeb wrote: »

I would certainly suggest talking to the Armstrong controller pre-match to ensure ye're aware of what the exact circumstances are.

However, rule 5.5 says that team B - the challenging team - can not challenge if it "has itself [...] benefitted from defaults or walkovers in 3 or more games in the season"

So one default can be discounted - which is only fair, as things can happen which make one default entirely reasonable, if unfortunate.

Cdeb,
Rathmines haven’t benefited in any matches this season, but Dublin had a further benefit of a default win on board 7 when they played KK in round 2 - we will look to clarify tomorrow with the controller to see if this potentially also comes into play, over and above the other 4 walkovers they pick up v Trinity.

pdemp

cdeb wrote: »

True, although the danger then is you're designing a rule for this instance only, and it may be that in the next instance, it may be too harsh or something.

There's certainly logic to it - it's basically a points deduction - but would just need to be careful the idea is fair overall, not just in this instance.

I might have a look at how many walkovers were conceded in the past few seasons in all divisions. Could then look at the impact of -1 for all scratches after the second one in the season

I don't think -1 is a sufficient deterrent, whereas -2 would nearly always result in a drop down the table. If teams forsee an issue then maybe allow them declare to play less one board in every match at the beginning of the season.
My original thought has that the team giving more than 2 in a match would lose those boards in every match, but that would be unreasonably harsh.

cdeb

Rathminor wrote: »

Cdeb,
Rathmines haven’t benefited in any matches this season, but Dublin had a further benefit of a default win on board 7 when they played KK in round 2 - we will look to clarify tomorrow with the controller to see if this potentially also comes into play, over and above the other 4 walkovers they pick up v Trinity.

Ah, sorry - I missed that bit.

I think it still doesn't impact things though. The start of rule 5.5 says "Where a team defaults or concedes walkovers in three or more games in a match, and as a result there is a distortion in placing such that another team suffers..." - so my reading of that is that only the distortion caused by Trinity v Dublin affects things.

sodacat11

pdemp wrote: »

Agree complete fairness is impossible in any league, but in this case such a rule would put trinity into the relegation mix.

That would be no bad thing, Trinity are just a blight on the Armstrong. As was suggested the Trinity players should go back to their home clubs and withdraw the Trinity team from the league.

zeitnot

cdeb wrote: »

Ah, sorry - I missed that bit.

I think it still doesn't impact things though. The start of rule 5.5 says "Where a team defaults or concedes walkovers in three or more games in a match, and as a result there is a distortion in placing such that another team suffers..." - so my reading of that is that only the distortion caused by Trinity v Dublin affects things.

I thought so too. But the trouble is how to interpret the last sentence of rule 5.5 ("Where multiple defaults occur, the scores of all defaulting teams will be eliminated to determine "special match" rights."). Does it mean all three-or-more-in-a-match defaults only, or all defaults (once there is any match with three of more defaults, to trigger rule 5.5 in the first place). The wording is not too clear. (And the sentence is misplaced, since it's in 5c, which deals with the special match itself.)

Rule 5.6 seems to deal with defaults over the entire season, with a threshold of six. But that doesn't resolve the issue of what to do about the last sentence of 5.5.

These two rules could do with some editing.

cdeb

Hm. I think that would be in the case of, say, Dublin getting 4 walkovers against two separate teams. But yeah, it could be clearer alright. I know there was a meeting of the new rules committee last month to review the rules for this purpose, and maybe it's something they picked up on.

prey

this situation totally unsatisfactory and undermines the entire league
effectively a team otherwise safe is throwing a crucial match in the final round
IMO regardless of the technicalities and how things pan out in Rd11 for fairness the team failing to field a side should be relegated

sodacat11

prey wrote: »

this situation totally unsatisfactory and undermines the entire league
effectively a team otherwise safe is throwing a crucial match in the final round
IMO regardless of the technicalities and how things pan out in Rd11 for fairness the team failing to field a side should be relegated

I second that.

Kilmokey

There is a misconception of the time taken to play a round of chess. The problem is that there is only about 16 week free between the start of the league and the end of March. Part of the problem is that the League round has to accommodate all game for an individual club. If all clubs could play all their games at the same time no problem. It also has nothing to do with playing on Saturday. For example purposes only and I am not singling out the clubs in question so here goes.

Dublin have four teams but can only play one home match at a time. Bray play on different night for different divisions but do not want say the Armstrong team to play the same day as the Heidenfeld or the Heidenfeld team to play the same as the Ennis and the Ennis to play as the O'Hanlon. This will give them flexibility for Subs. Now extend this over all the divisions and across all clubs and the permutations multiply.
You also have other events out side of Leinster who get on to the league controller looking to keep a weekend free for their event.

You also have to keep a few weekends free to play catch up games for players away at international events etc


So the LCU has to look after the needs of all the clubs, not just the needs of one or two so good luck to who ever has the task of putting the leagues together.

Its not as if you do not know when the games are to be played it just that a lot of players never look at the fixture list and seem to be surprised when they are asked to play a game.

sodacat11

While it is commendable that the league controller tries to facilitate everyone it is obviously just not practical to do so and what we have ended up with is a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. Rather than the controller having to bend over backwards to please the clubs it would be better if the fixtures were just laid down as practically as possible and then let the clubs themselves deal with any inconvenience that may arise. Imagine Barcelona asking to have a game rearranged just because Messi was injured or the club president was away on holiday.

Tim Harding

sodacat11 wrote: »

While it is commendable that the league controller tries to facilitate everyone it is obviously just not practical to do so and what we have ended up with is a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. Rather than the controller having to bend over backwards to please the clubs it would be better if the fixtures were just laid down as practically as possible and then let the clubs themselves deal with any inconvenience that may arise. Imagine Barcelona asking to have a game rearranged just because Messi was injured or the club president was away on holiday.

I agree. I think that:

a) All games in every match so far as possible should be played on the designated date indicated when the fixture list is published. Clubs should have large enough squads to facilitate this. Very few players turn out in every single match for their club.

b) Any issues with the list (e.g. Valentine's Day clash as occurred this year) should be identified within 10 days of publication and the list amended rapidly, not raising problems at the last minute.

c) There should be an underlying principle that clubs play their matches in full on the designated day with whoever they have available (sodacat's last point).
It is desirable that all games in a match be played simultaneously for various reasons, but we may recognise that some players can only play week-nights and others can only play Saturdays.

So I would suggest:

c1) playing not more than (say) two games in any match in advance may be agreed between captains.

c2) No games should be postponed to a later date without prior agreement of the division controller, and permission should only be granted for very good reason (e.g. a serious illness, accident or bereavement within 48 hours of the match).
As there is no olympiad falling in the 2019/2020 season, there are very few if any representative events abroad to constitute reason for postponement. Maybe something like a Junior World Championship and the European Club Cup, but such games should if possible be played in advance, and if that can't be arranged, then within two weeks of the player returning to Ireland.