[morganwilk]

In a Pairs Tournament with timed rounds, can sitouts positions be left 'as is'? Will players move at the end of the round? We have had bad experiences with using subs and members would prefer to sit out a round rather than play with ever-changing subs, and for the the TD to adjust scores at the end.

[Gerardo]

Yes, you can do that. It is quite unusual, but doable.
IIRC, there was/is an issue with survivor type tournaments and not filled sitouts, so avoid those, just in case.

[morganwilk]

Thank you. These are unusual times.

[j_with_a_B]

 morganwilk, on 2020-April-01, 12:41, said:

In a Pairs Tournament with timed rounds, can sitouts positions be left 'as is'? Will players move at the end of the round? We have had bad experiences with using subs and members would prefer to sit out a round rather than play with ever-changing subs, and for the the TD to adjust scores at the end.

To not replace the sitouts at all would mean that there will be a table in every round that will not be able to play that round. Far better to replace them than not. Substitute players should be welcomed, not avoided. If not for them to fill out a table then when there is an odd number of pairs registered, one pair would have to be excluded at random. To avoid subs completely would mean many tourneys could never end without TD's having to adjust each remaining board to Ave== to reach the end.

This is just my opinion, and if exclusivity is paramount, then I think what you propose is workable. I would suggest you make your adjustment at the start of each round so it is clear to the pair that is there that the round is over as soon as it started.

[0 carbon]

I suspect that an Unclocked tourney with a sitout would never finish.

[pescetom]

 morganwilk, on 2020-April-01, 12:41, said:

In a Pairs Tournament with timed rounds, can sitouts positions be left 'as is'? Will players move at the end of the round? We have had bad experiences with using subs and members would prefer to sit out a round rather than play with ever-changing subs, and for the the TD to adjust scores at the end.

 Gerardo, on 2020-April-03, 18:16, said:

Yes, you can do that. It is quite unusual, but doable.
IIRC, there was/is an issue with survivor type tournaments and not filled sitouts, so avoid those, just in case.

 0 carbon, on 2020-April-26, 02:31, said:

I suspect that an Unclocked tourney with a sitout would never finish.

I was told previously that this was NOT doable and that the tournament would abort if I failed to replace sitouts within a certain time.
My current bypass is to register two phones as sitout1 and sitout2 but I've still not had the courage to try that unclocked, only clocked.
Not doubting what Gerardo says, but maybe OP can confirm that he did leave the sitouts 'as is' and it created no problems?

[jfriedel]

I do not use subs for sitouts, I just leave my sitouts alone. Half the time I am forced to adjust the sitout first board and NP is not an option. BBO winds up making the first sitout board of every round AVE== instead of NP.

[morganwilk]

We now routinely leave in the sitouts -obviously the tournament has to be 'timed' otherwise the sitout table never move. Replacing with named subs sometimes works, sometimes doesn't -error message is that it didn't work. Replacing with random subs has been a real headache, with subs often dropping out after a couple of boards and being repeatedly replaced. If less than seven tables, I change the movement to 15/18 boards, three board rounds at the last moment. This means pairs only sitout once, albeit for 24 mins, max. With two board rounds, pairs can sitout several times if you aren't careful. Maybe not standard practice, but it works for us -members are more willing to have a sitout than to play against random players who may, or may not, be friendly.

[pescetom]

 morganwilk, on 2020-April-30, 04:48, said:

We now routinely leave in the sitouts -obviously the tournament has to be 'timed' otherwise the sitout table never move. Replacing with named subs sometimes works, sometimes doesn't -error message is that it didn't work. Replacing with random subs has been a real headache, with subs often dropping out after a couple of boards and being repeatedly replaced. If less than seven tables, I change the movement to 15/18 boards, three board rounds at the last moment. This means pairs only sitout once, albeit for 24 mins, max. With two board rounds, pairs can sitout several times if you aren't careful. Maybe not standard practice, but it works for us -members are more willing to have a sitout than to play against random players who may, or may not, be friendly.

Thanks, so I can give my cell phones a rest

At this point I guess the best strategy is to create the tournament as clocked and just leave it as it is (except for number of rounds if necessary) if the number of pairs is odd.
If it is even then edit quickly to set the current number as max and switch to unclocked.

[criptik]

 morganwilk, on 2020-April-30, 04:48, said:

We now routinely leave in the sitouts -obviously the tournament has to be 'timed' otherwise the sitout table never move. Replacing with named subs sometimes works, sometimes doesn't -error message is that it didn't work. Replacing with random subs has been a real headache, with subs often dropping out after a couple of boards and being repeatedly replaced. If less than seven tables, I change the movement to 15/18 boards, three board rounds at the last moment. This means pairs only sitout once, albeit for 24 mins, max. With two board rounds, pairs can sitout several times if you aren't careful. Maybe not standard practice, but it works for us -members are more willing to have a sitout than to play against random players who may, or may not, be friendly.

Why does the tournament have to be clocked if using sitouts? I thought with an unlocked format that any boards not started when the clock gets to 3 minutes remaining would be skipped and given average for both sides.

[jandrew]

 criptik, on 2020-May-01, 04:52, said:

Why does the tournament have to be clocked if using sitouts? I thought with an unlocked format that any boards not started when the clock gets to 3 minutes remaining would be skipped and given average for both sides.

The last board would be skipped
But the first board will have been dealt and deemed to be playable. It is that board which will never finish

[morganwilk]

 pescetom, on 2020-April-30, 14:25, said:

Thanks, so I can give my cell phones a rest

At this point I guess the best strategy is to create the tournament as clocked and just leave it as it is (except for number of rounds if necessary) if the number of pairs is odd.
If it is even then edit quickly to set the current number as max and switch to unclocked.

I would be very careful about switching to unclocked. Even if you remove all pairs not on line with two minutes to go to find out what the number is likely to be, there is always the chance -and if it can go wrong, it will- that at the last minute one pair don't get in. You will then have to fill the sitouts tables otherwise that table will never move, and the tournament will grind to a halt. If the option to put in named subs works then have two people on standby just in case. But that option doesn't always work, particularly if there is heavy use at the time.

[pescetom]

 morganwilk, on 2020-May-01, 07:59, said:

I would be very careful about switching to unclocked. Even if you remove all pairs not on line with two minutes to go to find out what the number is likely to be, there is always the chance -and if it can go wrong, it will- that at the last minute one pair don't get in. You will then have to fill the sitouts tables otherwise that table will never move, and the tournament will grind to a halt. If the option to put in named subs works then have two people on standby just in case. But that option doesn't always work, particularly if there is heavy use at the time.

Thanks. On the whole I think that seeing even pairs I will still risk unclocked and if I do lose a pair then just resort to subs. I rarely have people willing to be named subs and I've given up on inserting myself as playing director, too much stress. But then of course it's also a stress to sort out all the unfinished boards of a clocked movement instead. So if Murphy insists then maybe it's better to transfer a bit of stress to the players and expose them to random subs

It would all be so much simpler if one could just select 'replace sitouts and dropouts with robots'.

[criptik]

 jandrew, on 2020-May-01, 07:35, said:

The last board would be skipped
But the first board will have been dealt and deemed to be playable. It is that board which will never finish

Ah yes, that makes sense. So it must be clocked. One thing I have never really gotten an answer on, can a clocked tournament for a small number of tables still be single winner? For example, with 4 tables, can I still set up clocked with 7 rounds and expect every pair to play every other pair (including the sitout of course)?

[Crawley107]

Reading the above thread, if I choose not to replace a sit out pair, I would expect the tournament results to show a pair ‘sit out and sit out’ with a score of 50%. Is that the case? This might be more acceptable to club members than consistently seeing ‘robot and robot’ placing 1st, 2nd or 3rd, thereby earning points that would otherwise have gone to real players.

[pescetom]

 Crawley107, on 2020-November-07, 09:57, said:

Reading the above thread, if I choose not to replace a sit out pair, I would expect the tournament results to show a pair ‘sit out and sit out’ with a score of 50%. Is that the case? This might be more acceptable to club members than consistently seeing ‘robot and robot’ placing 1st, 2nd or 3rd, thereby earning points that would otherwise have gone to real players.

I imagine you are right but I don't remember, I always use robots now. Unless your club is really mediocre I think you will find that the robots gradually drop down the classification as members get more used to them. At first they were taking the top places in my club but now they rarely get above 50%.

[barmar]

The robots don't earn masterpoints.

[Crawley107]

 barmar, on 2020-November-08, 20:12, said:

The robots don't earn masterpoints.

In England, robots used as sit out substitutes in EBU BBO Virtual Club Tournaments earn EBU Masterpoints and receive EBU National Grading Scheme grades based on their performance. The BBO robots used as substitutes have an EBU NGS grade of 55 - 57%, this being the result they achieve when playing in a nationally average field. Attendees at my local club have an average NGS of between 45 and 47%, so BBO robots are expected to, and do, regularly achieve more than 60%, putting them in the top 3 places and earning Masterpoints that would otherwise be awarded to human players.

[Crawley107]

If I’ve understood this post correctly, I can leave sit outs in place for a BBO clocked pairs tournament, with an odd number of pairs, using either a Mitchell or Howell movement. I am unclear about what the TD will need to do, playing two board rounds. Presumably, cards for the the first board will be dealt at the sit out table at the beginning of each round. When the round clock times out, the first board will be terminated as incomplete, and the second board won’t be started. Will the TD be asked to provide a score for both boards, or just the first, or neither? Assuming the TD assigns average scores to incomplete and unplayed boards, will the tournament results show the pair Sit Out and Sit Out as scoring 50% on all boards, and hence 50% as a final result?

[Keene_JP]

when we run a '299 tourn, we do NOT use human subs for a sitout since they do not get screened for MP limit. (it took a while for us to realize that the subs in a '299 could be super life masters). so, what we do:
1) sub robots at beginning for the sitouts
2) each round, ask opps if they would rather play against robots or have a sitout
2a) if robot = no problem, then play on
2b) if do not want to play against robot, then do nothing. When board(s) times out, score will become A==

AND, as others have noted, robots might finish 1st (2nd etc.) but are discarded from score before masterpoint awards are given.