Peter Heine Nielsen’s protest

To the European Chess Union:

As a participant of the 2011 European Individual Championship, I, Peter Heine Nielsen,
hereby protest against the final standing.

Claim:

Primary: The Performance Rating for players with the same number of points in the 2011 European Individual Championship must be recalculated in such a way, that the highest and lowest opponent’s Elo-rating is excluded when calculating the opponents’ average rating, but points achieved against these two players are included when calculating the percentage score. The final standing must be corrected in accordance to the recalculated tie-break.

Secondary: Proper compensation given to me and other participants of this ECU tournament, who have been harmed by the implementation of the Performance Rating.

The tie-breaking was not calculated from the actual score in the tournament but from only a selected number of games. As a consequence the crucial numbers defining the finishing position for players with equal score in points was in no way the Performance Ratings for the results in the tournament as stated in the regulations.

The scoring and tie-breaking system applied in the European Championship that took place March 21st – April 2nd in Aix-les-Bains is published in ECU regulations and described as follows:

6.1 The score in each game is 1 for a win, ½ for a draw and 0 for a lost game.
6.2 Tie-breaking in individual competitions.
The order of players that finish with the same number of points shall be determined
by application of the following tie-breaking procedures in sequence, proceeding
from (a) to (b) to (c) to (d) the extent required:
(a) Performance Rating
(b) Median-Buchholz 1, the highest number wins;
(c) Buchholz, the highest number wins;
(d) Number of wins, the highest number wins.

In case of (a) the highest and the lowest rated opponent will be deleted and the maximum rating difference of two players shall be 400 points.

In the case of unplayed games for the calculation of (a), (b) and (c) the current FIDE Tournament Rules shall be applied

I argue that “In case of (a) the highest and the lowest rated opponent will be deleted” should be interpreted such as the rating of these opponents shall not be included when calculating the average rating of the opponents, but such as the points scored against them shall be included when calculating the procentual score.

Full protest letter here.