Age Divisions and "Playing Up"

[Otaku]

So as is often the case, something I thought I "knew" from years ago comes up and hey, if could find it in the actual tournament rules before I can't anymore or else I was mistaken the whole time. >_<

This time, the question is can players legally "play up", participating in an older player's age bracket? I recall it being legal at the time when I was more involved with Organized Play, but that would be about 10 years ago. To be clear, I am talking about when a Junior being allowed to participate in the Seniors' or Masters' Division or a Senior being allowed to play in the Masters' Division, barring situations such as abnormally low turnout and all age groups being combined or someone falsifying their age. Citations would be greatly appreciated; I asked this question in general and was reminded I'm old (everyone is like "I go all the way back to 2011, and it was never like that") and that many are going to just cite vague occurrences, like someone being DQed for lying about their age... which is technically a different issue.

Thanks!

 

[PokePop]

There is no mechanism available for doing that.
The tournament software TOM does not support placing a player in a different age division short of manipulating/lying about their age.

 

[Otaku]

There is no mechanism available for doing that.
The tournament software TOM does not support placing a player in a different age division short of manipulating/lying about their age.

Thank you.

Just verifying: this has been the case since Nintendo took over? I don't remember when TOM first went into use.

 

[PokePop]

I'm not going to depend on my memory to give you a definitive answer especially since I wasn't running tournaments from the beginning.

I don't think it was allowed, though.
I know it was discussed when they were going to start charging for Masters, so younger players could play for the bigger prizes, but no mechanism was ever put in place.

 

[Otaku]

Thanks. At this point I'll just have to chalk it up to my own faulty memory, and early bad call at an event or an early loophole that no longer exists. Which may not sound like much of a shift but before this all came up I assumed that younger players were able to play in an older age bracket if they were so inclined so it is still progress. ^^'

Thanks.