04.5 General Handling Rules

A.  Absent players

Late entries
According to FIDE Tournament Rules, any prospective participant who has not arrived at the venue of a FIDE competition before the scheduled time for the drawing of lots shall be excluded from the tournament. An exception may be made in the case of a registered participant who has given written notice in advance that he will be unavoidably late. Where the Chief Arbiter decides to admit a Late Entrant,

1. if the player's notified time of arrival is in time for the start of the first round, the player is given a pairing number and paired in the usual way.
2. if the player's notified time of arrival is in time only for the start of the second (or third) round, then the player is not paired for the rounds which he cannot play. Instead, he receives no points for unplayed rounds, and is given an appropriate pairing number and paired only when he actually arrives. In these circumstances, the Pairing Numbers that were given at the start of the tournament are considered provisional. The definitive Pairing Numbers are given only when the List of Participants is closed, and corrections made accordingly in the results charts. A player who is not present cannot receive the Bye.

Handling of unplayed games for calculation of Buchholz (Congress 2009)
There are two points of view:

1. for the player himself who gets a result by default or is absent
   A virtual opponent of the player is used to calculate the Buchholz of the player. A virtual  opponent has the same points at the beginning of the round and the result by default of a player is treated as a normal result, so a loss by default (or absence) is a win for the virtual opponent and vice versa. For each next round the virtual opponent gains half a point. 
2. for the opponents in other rounds of the player who gets a result by default
   For reducing the consequence for the opponents when calculating Buchholz, each resultBy default of a player is counted as a half point (draw) for the Buchholz of the player’s opponents

B.  General rules for Swiss Systems for individual tournaments

1. The number of rounds to be played is declared beforehand

2. Two players shall not play each other more than once

3. Should the total number of players be (or become) odd, one player is unpaired. He receives a bye: no colour and as many points as are rewarded for a win, unless the rules of the tournament state otherwise

4. A player who, for whatever reason, has received any number of points without playing, shall not receive a bye.

5. In general, players are paired to others with the same score

6. The difference of the number of black and the number of white games shall not be greater than 2 or less than –2.

   Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a tournament.

7. No player will receive the same colour three times in a row.

   Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a tournament.

8. 1. In general, a player is given the white pieces as many times as he is given the black pieces.
   2. In general, a player is given the colour other than that he was given the previous round.   
9. The pairing rules must be such transparent that the person who is in charge for the pairing can explain them

C.  Maximising player’s opportunities
The FIDE Swiss Rules pair the players in an objective and impartial way, and different arbiters following the pairing rules should arrive at identical pairings. A proposal for varying the normal pairing so as to maximise players' opportunities to fulfil title requirements was not approved in the Graz Congress.

Where it can be shown that modifications of the original pairings were made in favour of a player to achieve a norm, a report may be submitted to the Qualification Commission to initiate disciplinary measures through the Ethics Commission (GA 1997)

While reporting a tournament to FIDE the Arbiter shall declare which of the official FIDE Swiss systems was used. If another system was used, the Arbiter has to submit the rules of  this system for checking by the Swiss Pairing Committee.

D. Computer Programs in Swiss Tournaments
To perform big Swiss tournaments the use of Computer programs for handling the players’ data, the pairings and the results is necessary.
To avoid misunderstandings and to support the organisers and arbiters FIDE recommends the use of computer programs which are endorsed by FIDE after a successful endorsement procedure.
The endorsement will last as long as it is not withdrawn because the program does no longer meet the requirements.

Below is the list of endorsed programmes (supported by Microsoft Windows) and their respective capabilities:

1. SWISS MASTER (Koninklijke Nederlandse Schaakbond  NED) Dutch System
2. SWISS MANAGER (Heinz Herzog AUT) Dutch System
3. WINSWISS (Franz-Josef Weber GER) Dutch System
4. VEGA (Luigi Forlano ITA) Dubov System
5. TURNERING SERVICE (Harald Heggelund NOR) Dutch System
6. Tournament Director (Neil Hayward ENG) Dutch System