21-06-2015, 09:12 AM
Keith Rose Wrote:To the advocates of publishing team lists 24 hours ahead of a match - why? What would be the purpose? The answer will provoke the questions - publish where? CS forum? CS website (CS events page perhaps?). Somewhere else? Would they need to be published as such or just exchanged between team captains and the Tournament Controller?
In the European Team Championship teams are posted at 10 am for games starting at 3 pm same day (that is in a case of 1 game per day on 7 consecutive days).
In interest of equanimity, most events try to provide both sides the same notice of who they will play. With a relatively small margin for error the Richardson can sometimes allow some players advance notice of who they will most likely play while not affording that same information to the opponent. 20 years ago it did not matter but nowadays with widely available game databases and strong computer engines this is important.
To illustrate the point, let's take my personal situation going into this years final. Assuming both teams have all players available then Edinburgh knew with certainty that I would be playing on board 4. By contrast there were 4 possible opponents for me. I acknowledge not everyone prepares in depth for every game but it is reasonable both sides do have the same opportunity open to them for this. Without advance publication, assuming both sides have equal time available to prepare, then I had just 25% of that available for my opponent to prepare for the same game. Published teams removes this difference to extent that both teams have identical information available to them from the time of publication up to the game. This makes it fairer.