How to read these Chess tournament results

The Game Room
1

Below is a snippet of results from a USCF Chess Tournament with names ans ID numbers removed - can someone please clarify/correct my understanding below -

Columns 1 and 2 are the players’ “Before” and “After” USCF ratings?

The players’ results for each of the 5 rounds follows, Win, Loss, Draw…B=Bye? What does “H” mean? What do the numbers following each of the results mean?

The last column is total Wins, with a Draw counting for .5?

1531* 1635* B—0 W–18 L—1 W–22 W–17 4.0
1709* 1761* W–23 W–27 D—8 W–17 U—0 3.5
1722* 1717* L–28 W–39 W–27 W–24 D–10 3.5
1635* 1663* D–29 W–35 L–17 W–33 W–21 3.5
1700* 1737* W–30 W—2 D—5 L—1 W–18 3.5
1501* 1622* W–32 L—1 W–25 D–18 W–16 3.5
1704* 1731* W–12 W–22 W–19 L—3 D—6 3.5
1767* 1759* L–13 W–40 D–26 H—0 W–28 3.0

Thanks.

2

KEY TO SYMBOLS:

W= player won. L=player lost. D=player drew. In all cases, opponent’s number follows.

X= win by forfeit (opponent failed to appear). F= loss by forfeit (player failed to appear).

U= unplayed game (usually player withdrew). H= half point bye (requested by player who did not wish to play that round).

B= full point bye (player had no opponent due to odd number in section that round).

From here: Crosstables of Continental Chess tournaments

3

And to answer the remaining questions, clearly U, B, H (and presumably F) do not result in a rating change for either player, since a game was not actually played. And yes, the final column will be total points, with one point for a win, half a point for a draw (or an H, according to the above), and 0 for a loss. Presumably you would only be allowed to take an “H” if the result of that game would definitely not affect the result of the competition.

Looks like the player at the top was rather lucky to win (if those are the final standings) given that he had the lucky full-point bye in the first round!

4

Half point byes can only be requested before the tournament or within the first few rounds. So if you have 4 pts. and 4.5 guarantees a share of 1st but a loss drops you down, you can’t request the H for the final round.

5

I didn’t see anyone answering about the numbers after the letters, so: as I read it, that’s the table number at which the player played. If you win, you go to a higher table in the next round, and if you lose, you’re dropped to a lower table. It’s their way of having the best players bubble to the top over the course of the tournament so that they can’t squeak by playing people beneath their talent level.

edit: ah, Jas09 did say it was the opponent’s number, missed that. Well, maybe my addition helps clarify a bit.

6

Thanks all for the replies.

How is a “U” for 0 points (an unplayed game, which the site linked to above says is usually due to the player withdrawing) different in any real way from an “F” (forfeit)?

7

Cool! Back when I was playing (it’s been just shy of 40 years since I last played in rated competetion), you’d have to be at the tournament, where you could see the matchup sheets for each round, to get all that info.

8

Close. F counts as a full win for the player unless the director agrees that it’s a special case (“My mom just had a heart attack! I have to go!”). Otherwise, a forfeit is treated as if the player were standing next to the board, arms crossed, refusing to play against that player. If this weren’t the rule, you’d routinely have a bunch of first-round forfeits as the bottom half would rather sleep in or study up than play a player rated so much higher. This rule removes the incentive to just give up.

Secondly, byes aren’t really that lucky. They kill your tie-breaking chances, not to mention making you stand around for three hours when you could’ve been sleeping in on a Saturday morning, despite having paid the same entry fee as everyone else.

Close. It’s not the board number, but the roster number of your opponent, which are assigned in order of rating. So as you can see, when a player wins, they end up playing a lower number, i.e. stronger opponent, who presumably also won. It’s possible to win and then play a weaker opponent who’s either underrated or just having a strong day, however, as player 2 did in rounds one and two.

A “U” means the player withdrew, which was announced ahead of time. That’s a withdrawal from the tournament, however, so that player won’t be coming back. He loses no points for doing so. This is usually done when the player has been having a bad day and would like to salvage what’s left of his weekend or he’s got tickets to the ball game and needs to leave by 1:00 pm, or something like that.

An “F” is a forfeiture of just that game, so the player loses rating points just like a regular loss and he can still play in later games in the tournament. An early forfeit usually means the guy got caught in traffic. The ‘winning’ player must sit at the board for the designated time (usually one hour) waiting for the forfeiting guy to change his mind. Now that’s a challenge of boredom, right there.