We should discuss, either now or later, what should have been done
differently to prevent this from happening.

I believe that because of this incident the provision that the winner
of the US Championship gets a spot on the Olympic team will be
dropped. That is a new rule anyway. A few years ago, an even lower
rated player, Elina Groberman, won the US Woman's Championship. She
has never even achieved a master rating, to this day. Yet, the
tournament was a round robin and the field fairly strong.

http://www.64.com/uscf/ratings/12659481

Elina was not offered a spot on the Olympic team.

Regarding a change on the pairing rules, class pairings are generally
used when the player in that class with the top score has no chance to
win a higher prize. Here, this would not have worked. Jennifer Shahade
was playing on board five and had a chance for a higher prize. If
class pairings had been used, Jennifer Shahade whould have been paired
against Irina Krush, Elena Donaldson Akhmylovshaia would have been
paired against Tsagaan Battsetseg and Camilla Baginskaite would have
been paired against Anna Hahn. In that case, Anna Hahn would have had
no mathematical chance for first prize, but the men would have
complained that they women were getting higher prizes than the men
were getting.

http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain....19210-12659481

Now, take a look at the standings after the eighth round. See
http://www.af4c.org/oldsite/uschamps_results08.asp

From this, it is easy to see what happened. There were 14 players tied
in a group with 3 1/2 points. Anna Hahn was the lowest rated player in
that group. Because of being the lowest rated player she was dropped
to the next lower group. She should have played the highest rated
player in the next group down, which was Pixton, a 2400 player.
However, she had already played Pixton. She had also already played IM
Stanislav Kriventsov, who also had 3 points. Therefore, she was paired
against Groberman, rated 2164, who was the lowest rated player with 3
points. As a result, the five women who had the same score as Anna
Hahn or higher all had to play a player rated over 2400, but Anna Hahn
only had to play an expert. Because of this, Anna Hahn was the only
woman player to win her last round game. This leap-frogged her over
all the others, which is how she became US Woman's Champion while
playing the weakest field of anybody in the tournament.

A pairing expert should be consulted to see if there was any way to
avoid this situation. However, ultimately having women rated an
average of 2200 play in the same section with men rated an average of
2500 will produce some strange results. The only choices I see are
either to go back to seperate tournaments or to coinsider the title of
US Woman's Champion not to be the result of equal competition and not
entitled to a place on the Olympic team.

Sam Sloan

This whole mess could have been avoided by having clear rules on who gets
picked for the team.


"Sam Sloan" wrote in message
...
We should discuss, either now or later, what should have been done
differently to prevent this from happening.

I believe that because of this incident the provision that the winner
of the US Championship gets a spot on the Olympic team will be
dropped. That is a new rule anyway. A few years ago, an even lower
rated player, Elina Groberman, won the US Woman's Championship. She
has never even achieved a master rating, to this day. Yet, the
tournament was a round robin and the field fairly strong.

http://www.64.com/uscf/ratings/12659481

Elina was not offered a spot on the Olympic team.

Regarding a change on the pairing rules, class pairings are generally
used when the player in that class with the top score has no chance to
win a higher prize. Here, this would not have worked. Jennifer Shahade
was playing on board five and had a chance for a higher prize. If
class pairings had been used, Jennifer Shahade whould have been paired
against Irina Krush, Elena Donaldson Akhmylovshaia would have been
paired against Tsagaan Battsetseg and Camilla Baginskaite would have
been paired against Anna Hahn. In that case, Anna Hahn would have had
no mathematical chance for first prize, but the men would have
complained that they women were getting higher prizes than the men
were getting.

http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain....19210-12659481

Now, take a look at the standings after the eighth round. See
http://www.af4c.org/oldsite/uschamps_results08.asp

From this, it is easy to see what happened. There were 14 players tied
in a group with 3 1/2 points. Anna Hahn was the lowest rated player in
that group. Because of being the lowest rated player she was dropped
to the next lower group. She should have played the highest rated
player in the next group down, which was Pixton, a 2400 player.
However, she had already played Pixton. She had also already played IM
Stanislav Kriventsov, who also had 3 points. Therefore, she was paired
against Groberman, rated 2164, who was the lowest rated player with 3
points. As a result, the five women who had the same score as Anna
Hahn or higher all had to play a player rated over 2400, but Anna Hahn
only had to play an expert. Because of this, Anna Hahn was the only
woman player to win her last round game. This leap-frogged her over
all the others, which is how she became US Woman's Champion while
playing the weakest field of anybody in the tournament.

A pairing expert should be consulted to see if there was any way to
avoid this situation. However, ultimately having women rated an
average of 2200 play in the same section with men rated an average of
2500 will produce some strange results. The only choices I see are
either to go back to seperate tournaments or to coinsider the title of
US Woman's Champion not to be the result of equal competition and not
entitled to a place on the Olympic team.

Sam Sloan