Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Chess Do Over: Re-entry Revisited

Chess Do Over: Re-entry
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In the summers of childhood we spent every day we could playing pickup baseball in the ball fields (or in the street) and tag football in the street. Ground rules were fluid: occasionally a situation would occur that would completely upset the game mid play: like a car plowing down the street interfering with your pass routs. Kids would shout "Do Over!","Do Over!" Stating that the play was busted and should be replayed.
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We are coming to the second anniversary of the infamous BCF Reentry Incident where Alexander Paphitis reentered in the third round of a Thursday Night Swiss in order to avoid a bye, thus pushing the bye onto another player: Jason Rihel. Alexander could have warned the director a week earlier of his intent, or the day before, and the director was nice enough to call Alexander to warn him that he probably wouldn't be playing. Thus the player receiving the bye would be warned not to show up.
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Subsequently the BCF Board made a bylaw stating that people could only enter one time per section of a BCF tournament. So you can only enter a BCF tournament once, unless there were multiple routes of entry into the tournament (something the BCF never does). Reentry is the brainchild of Bill Goichberg and was first invented when Continental Chess swiss tournaments were created, where you have multiple routes of entry of players in different sections having varying time controls that eventually merge into single event.
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But people soon caught on that for a fee they could "re-enter" via another section after losing their first round in order to avoid the first round goose egg. This mechanism is simply a money maker for Bill Goichberg and using reentry isn't true sportsmanship in my opinion.
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Could the Red Sox ask for a "Do over" in 2003 when Boston when manager Grady Little kept Pedro Martinez pitching? Some how it would cheapen the game. As I think the re-entry cheapens chess.
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There was a huge response to the original blog article (below). And I was wondering if anyone has any additional stories or comments about people using reentry to better or change their outcome of a tournament?
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Thank You.
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Mike Griffin
01/13/2009
http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com/2006/01/thursday-night-controversy.html

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