What is a "bye?"

Sometimes children have other activities that prevent them from playing in one or more of the rounds. Chess tournaments use byes to get around this problem. A bye is a scheduled absence from a round. If a child registers for a tournament with a bye, the child will not be paired for that round. The child receives half a point for the skipped game, and will be paired as usual for the other rounds. Children can take a maximum of two half-point byes in a four or five round tournament. Additional byes will be zero-point byes. Byes may only be scheduled before a tournament begins.