Somebody leaves after round two, somebody falls ill, somebody simply stops turning up. Several questions arrive at once: do their games get annulled, what happens to the people who already played them, what to do with an odd field, and why half the crosstable suddenly has worse tie-breaks. Here is the order of actions and the lines worth writing into your regulations beforehand.
The first question every organizer asks: should all the leaver's games be struck out? As a general rule, no. Games finished at the board stand along with their points: the opponents earned them honestly, and the rating calculation is already built on those results.
Exceptions exist but they are exceptions: some major events annul the results of a player who completed fewer than half the rounds. Such a rule must be in the regulations in advance - introducing it after the fact is not an option, because it changes placings that have already formed.
The second basic rule: a withdrawn player is no longer paired. That is why withdrawals are processed before the pairing of the next round - at that moment the decision is technical rather than contentious.
A withdrawal is processed before the next pairing is built: that is the moment the arbiter decides whether the player is in it. A vague «I probably won't come tomorrow» is not a fact - it needs a note in the protocol or a message to the organizer.
Games finished at the board stand. They are not annulled retroactively: the opponents earned those points honestly, and the rating calculation already rests on them.
The withdrawn player no longer appears in the pairings. That is a direct requirement of the Swiss rules, and exactly why the withdrawal has to be processed before the pairing rather than after it.
Losing a player can leave an odd number, so somebody will be without a game each round. Whoever sits out receives a point or a zero according to the regulations.
The withdrawn player receives no points for the rounds they missed unless the regulations say otherwise. Their line in the table freezes at the score they left with.
The player whose opponent has withdrawn should hear it from the organizer, not from an empty chair. Simple courtesy that saves people a journey - and it matters most at evening club events.
The least obvious consequence. One player leaves, and the person who ends up aggrieved is the one who dutifully played to the end.
Buchholz is computed from the final scores of your opponents. A player who withdraws after round two freezes on a low score and drags down the tie-break of everyone who managed to face them. It can cost somebody a place, and they did nothing wrong.
For the withdrawn player the remaining rounds count as unplayed, and they enter the tie-break arithmetic under their own article rather than as plain zeros. That softens the distortion without removing it.
This is precisely why regulations use a cut Buchholz: the weakest opponent's contribution is dropped, so a chance meeting with someone who withdrew stops being fatal. It is the strongest practical argument for Cut-1.
Games played are rated as normal, regardless of whether the opponent finished the event. A withdrawal changes the standings, not anyone's rating.
If withdrawals are likely - and in amateur opens and club evenings they nearly always are - put Buchholz with the worst result cut first in your tie-break list. Then a chance meeting with someone who left will not decide a prize. The details are on the Buchholz page and in the tie-break reference.
A Swiss absorbs a departure easily: pairings are rebuilt every round, and removing one person is technically trivial. A round-robin is different - the schedule assumes the full field from the first round to the last, and every unplayed meeting leaves a hole in the crosstable.
The usual practice is to award wins without play to the leaver's remaining scheduled opponents while keeping the results of the games already played. But if the player left very early, annulling everything is fairer - otherwise two or three opponents got a free point and the rest did not. This is exactly why a threshold, such as «completed fewer than half their games», belongs in the regulations in advance.
How a round-robin schedule is built, and why you cannot simply delete a row from it, is covered in the Berger tables.
Sample wording
«A player is considered withdrawn from the moment they notify the organizer in writing, or after two consecutive no-shows without notice. A withdrawn player is not included in subsequent pairings and receives no points for unplayed rounds. The results of their played games stand. Places are decided by points and, on equal points, by Buchholz with the lowest opponent score cut».
What counts as a no-show and how long a latecomer is waited for is covered in late arrival and forfeit. The full preparation walkthrough is in how to organize a chess tournament.
In the Vibe Chess app the field can be edited mid-event: take the player out of the following rounds and the pairing is built without them. The games already played stay in the table, points and tie-breaks are recalculated automatically, and with an odd field the app issues the bye itself. No rewriting the crosstable and no adding up other people's scores by hand.
As a general rule, no: games played at the board stand along with their points. Some major events do provide for annulment if the player completed fewer than half the rounds, but that is a special clause rather than a default. Check the regulations of the specific event.
They simply do not meet them: the player is out of the pairing. If that leaves an odd field, somebody sits out each round and receives a point or a zero according to the regulations.
No, unless the regulations say otherwise. No points are awarded for unplayed rounds, and their result stays at whatever it was when they left.
Only with the arbiter's agreement, and normally only while the withdrawal has not been formalised. Once a player has been removed from the pairing, bringing them back breaks pairings that already exist, so most regulations do not allow it.
Because the tie-break is computed from your opponents' final scores. Someone who left after a couple of rounds finishes on a small score, and that small score is what enters your sum. Hence the practice of putting a cut Buchholz first in the regulations, which drops the single worst contribution.
A no-show is a one-off: the opponent gets a win without play and the player carries on and is paired again. A withdrawal means leaving the event: no further pairings are built for them. Many regulations turn a second consecutive no-show into an automatic withdrawal.
By telling the organizer or arbiter before the next pairing is made, with a note in the protocol. The timing matters more than the form: once the pairings exist, leaving becomes a no-show and an opponent travels to the venue for nothing.
The consequences are heavier there: the schedule assumes a full field, and every unplayed cycle leaves holes in the crosstable. Common practice is to award wins without play to the remaining scheduled opponents, and to state in the regulations in advance what happens if the leaver completed fewer than half their games.
Not directly, but indirectly through the tie-breaks. Anyone who faced the leaver loses ground in the coefficient, and on equal points that can move them down a line. Which is another reason to publish the tie-break order before round one rather than after.
Yes, in a line or two: when a player counts as withdrawn, what happens to their played games, and how many consecutive no-shows trigger an automatic withdrawal. A dull clause that saves the evening when the situation actually arises.