“Why am I playing my Teammate?”

Situation:  The Round 4 (of 5) pairings have just been posted.  Johnny sees that he is playing Chris, one of his Teammates.  Johnny tells his coach, who finds a TD and asks, "Why are Johnny and Chris playing each other?  They are on the same Team!"

How is this case handled? 

·         The TD will quickly check with the Pairings TD just to be sure that there is not an error in the pairings.  If something appears out of order, the Pairings TD will consult with the Chief TD, who can instruct the Pairings TD to regenerate the pairings so that Teammates do not play in this particular round.

·         If everything is in order, then the pairings for Round 4 stand as posted.

Lessons Learned:

1. It is not unusual for teammates to be paired against each other in the latter rounds of a tournament. 

2. In general, the larger the number of players in a section, the less likely it is that teammates will end up playing.  When pairings are generated by the Pairings TD, he instructs the pairings software to not pair teammates against one another for Rounds 1 and 2, and sometimes for Round 3.  If a school has a particularly large team (say, 8 or more kids) in a relatively small section (say, 25 players), then the likelihood of Teammates facing each other increases significantly compared to the same team playing in a section of 50 players.

3. It is also important to understand that VSCA tournaments are, first and foremost, played as individual events, not "Team Tournaments" in the strictest sense.  Teams earn points for their players' individual play only, teams do not play head-to-head against other teams as happens in a true Team Tournament.

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