[tournament-org] Using groups vs changing clubs

[Christopher Kirkham]

It appears that we are not very interested in discussing the problem Geoff raised about using groups.  So here is a real situation in a related area.
Player A lives in a city with a very small club, SC, but is sufficiently keen to regularly visit an adjacent club, LC, which is full of suitably strong opponents who he regularly plays, both at the club and on-line.  So when LC holds a tournament, A enters but asks to play as a member of LC, instead of SC. Should the tournament director allow this - ideally remembering to reset A's club to SC for the results? Or should he use groups to achieve the desired effect?
To use groups, the first way which springs to mind is to put all relevant LC players together with A into a group, with the attribute "prefer not". (Clearly "must not" would be too extreme.) The question here is whether this has the same effect? If "prefer not" is taken just as seriously as "member of the same club" this presumably would not affect the draw - but is it? And if there is an effect, is it desirable or undesirable?
Behind this whole situation is the question of what clubs mean?  There wouldn't be a problem if a player's club were really flexible - A could be a member of SC at one tournament and of LC at the next, or if A could be a member of both. However, the ranking system associates a single club with each member - and Geoff invests effort in noticing changes in players' clubs in tournament results. But with a high density of clubs in some areas and the ability to play opponents online wherever they are, the association of a player with a single club for tournament purposes seems sub-optimal.  
Chris
P.S. In the real situation, A played as LC and did end up playing 1 of the 3 rounds against LC. He was quite content, however, not to play all 3 - which could easily have happened! 
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