22-01-2013, 05:28 AM
JRedpath Wrote:I can only remember one inncident from SNCL a few years back when Edinburgh West insisted that we play in strict order of FIDE grades. This was the year when Myself, Steven and Pat were all rated within 1 point of each other I think.
As far as I can remember the arbiter upheld their complaint and we were forced to change board orders right before the round was about to start, completely wrong in my opinion, but we accepted the decision.
Clearly you have a completely different view on the issue to us Andy, which is fair enough. I do however wonder what would have happened if we had stuck to our chosen order before last Saturdays match ;P
Who knows what might happen in the future, maybe in a few years Dragons will have 4-5 players who can change boards, I will not be complaining then. There is also no guarantee that Hamilton players ratings will remain so close either, it's the luck of the draw.
Hi Joe,
Having had an 'official' ruling, I imagine we would have played the match and then put in a wee complaint that you hadn't followed the ruling. As I said earlier, I had decided just to sit down and play whoever was on my board - getting involved in a dispute immediately before the game (rather than a day before) is a surefire way to cloud your chess judgement.
I'm not arguing this simply because of a specific Dragons/Hamilton match or issue - I think the rule needs to be tighter and should ensure as much fairness between teams as possible - other issues (flexibility etc.) should be secondary issues.