email enough to tell opponent is sick?

I am in a tournament which is 50 km from my home.

And my opponent could not make it.

The tournament starts at 19:00. and I arrive at the tournament and they inform me that they have sent an email to two in my club because they for some reason did not have my email.

I was driving to the tournament with the 2 from the club and neither of them are looking at emails on hours basis. the email came at 16:00.

The man who sent the email has the phone numbers for the 2 of them.

My question can an email be used as a way to postpone a game. Nobody noticed the email. And the sender could not be sure that the message arrived.

it could have been stuck in a spamfilter.

A cable could have been broken.

some general network issue.

As a result of this I spent 3 hours waiting to get home. as it would have been to complicated to take the bus home. And a cap would have been to expensive.

 I think an email can only be used if it happens 2 days from a tournament and you have a change to sent a message that you have seen the email.

Yes, an email is completely valid.

I think the fact that they had phone numbers and didn't try to use them was very poor. I think you got a raw deal Bobby.

I really hate the use of email for any important communication.  If you have anything that needs to be communicated via email, you must, at the very least, have a "please reply" comment in the e-mail to verify that the message has been received.

I have literally missed funerals because people assumed I would read my email and attend.

E-mail should not be used for urgent messages. It is mail, after all, even if it is faster than the post. Sending an e-mail to another club member and expecting the message to get through to you within 3 hours is not reasonable. Though his thinking may have been affected by the sickness or the medicine.

it wasn't the sick opponent it was the arbiter that sent the email. 

 It depends.  Was it communicated beforehand that e-mail would be used?  Then, perhaps it is ok.  Was there another means of communication available?  If not, email was the only option.  However, you cannot assume that people will read their email every day, much less every few hours.

I agree with ivandh. There is nothing in the email specifications that guarantee timely delivery of email, or that it will be delivered at all. Email systems all run completely on a general agreement of "best effort". Everyone, especially businesses, rely on it far more than they should.

Much the same could be said about other forms of communication... what if the phones had been down?

I don't think it's so bad that email was used.  I do think there is something wrong with cancelling only a few hours before the scheduled time and thinking "An email will do it".   If they had sent the email a day before, instead of hours before, then I think I'd feel different.

It's not reasonable to expect people to check email every hour.  In this case, he had an hour drive to get to the event.  I think it sucks.  Especially since they didn't bother making a phone call.

When they reschedule, he should wait until the last minute, then send an email saying the he's sick and needs to reschedule.  When they see it from the other side, I'm sure they won't like it.  THey'll also forfeit his match, but at this point, I wouldn't play with them anyway.  It's not worth it to plan a tournament where you drive for an hour, only to find out that they aren't going to let you play and didn't bother telling  you.

The difference is that we have a contract with the phone companies: We pay them and they guarantee phone service. We don't pay the owners of all the servers our mail may go through out in the internet. I don't disagree that we've all come to expect email to always work. I was just pointing out that nobody guarantees it will work.

Normally in Danish club tournaments, the arbiter gets the phone numbers of all the players at the beginning of the tournament. In my club, it says that if you cannot make it, then you have to inform the arbiter and your opponent.

Cancelling a few hours before a game, is bad style. The only reason I see, is if there happens something very unexpected - eg hospitalized, something with your children etc. But then again, I would be amazed that he even managed to call the arbiter...

I think it is a bit strange, that no one in the tourney have contact information on you. They should always try to contact you directly, not through other players. Secondly, I think an e-mail is not the correct way of information on such short notice.

If I were you, I would try to complain, but I don't know how much you can get out of it. If your opponent has acted correctly according to the inviation or tournament rules, then he's not to blame...

The fact that you cannot guarantee the person you are trying to contact will receive the information, especially in such a short time span, makes email an inappropriate way of communicating this kind of thing, or to communicate important news at short notice in general.

In my club the opponent has to make contact atleast 24 hours before, if he sends an email 3 hour before the start of the game, you have a right to claim the game as won.