Although a member near the top of Power of Chess, I agree that our Votechess system do not work at all - we don't cooperate enough nor give any deep analysis lines. Too many big names probably, or we wouldn't fail so miserably in games we should just win.

Congratulations indeed for the first place, well done.

This gives even more value to the game we won, as Team Italia, against such a strong team: http://www.chess.com/votechess/game.html?id=10171147

Without taking anything away from your (well deserved) first place, it must be said that, unfortunately, the Vote Chess mechanics, today, value quantity over quality: winning a large number of games against low rated opponents is paying more than winning a small number of games against high rated opponents. I wish the mechanism was revisited, but such is life so far!

All the best,

Andrea (responsible Vote Chess for Team Italia Team)

Would it be an idea to organize a VC mini-league or maybe a knockout tourney for teams that value quality (teamwork, discussion, fun) over quantity?

Links - that sounds like an excellent idea, and my team (Team Italia) would be certainly happy to participate. Should we open a separate thread and discuss the options?

AndreaCoda, if you could open a separate topic, great!

BTW, going through your archive is a pleasure.
Il sacrificio di pedone... con cambio del cavallo, spinta in e5, cambio delle donne...
What a beautiful language!

Done - here is the link to the new topic! 

And thanks for the comment on the language - on behalf of my Country 

Congradulations to team Italia!  :)  I went through the archives of that game and found that The Power of Chess archives were very short with little to no analysis for each move.  Here is an archive with some good points made out:  http://www.chess.com/votechess/game.html?id=10171147&mv=47&san=Ke7

A good vote chess team needs to have good discussion/analysis.  :)

Thanks for the kind words, Einsten, appreciated! But kudos again to the Power of Chess for a well deserved first place - with my post, I didn't mean to diminish the value of their achievements, but simply to propose some alternatives!

Looks like your team had some good discussion even though I don't know how to read italian.  lol  :)

No you don't need to repeat yourself constantly Stefan. You are the one who is still missing the point. If you didn't play so many vote games, you could focus on high-quality vote games with lots of analysis and great team work. Instead, you chose to go for quantity. So you reached #1 (congratulations), but at the expense of the vote chess experience of your team members. And each time you meet a team that is actually playing quality team vote chess, you lose.

Now this stuff about "Will participate even if half of the players are sure that we will beat any team that comes our way". I am not sure how to read this (we are both non-native speakers of English), but this is my interpretation: once the Cheers! Vote Chess Cafe beat you (it's checkmate in a few moves now), we expect a challenge where you will bring out your best players to try to beat us.

you only think your the best because you haven't played the provo pawns yet.

I must say that Vote chess ranking must also give negative points for losses.. Rest only time will tell as many teams are new and many games are in progress..

I like the idea of a rating system in vote chess.

Hi everyone,  the reply posts here are a bit perplexing.  We all play chess because we like the complexity.  We form groups because we are human and are herd animals, we like associating with other people.  This group, 'The Power of Chess' is a good one.  They (we) are in fact ranked #1 in 'Vote Chess'.  Lots of members worked hard to achieve that.  We play everyone, .... everyone, not just weaker teams.  So, perhaps we shouldn't brag about it.  But, I don't think our braging was overdone.  Everyone can certainly understand why we are happy with our achievement.  So, I guess I am just trying to say, ... relax,  no one is in your face, we aren't trying to disrespect any other groups, we are just saying, wow, we feel good about this.  So to the nay-sayers in this post/topic, you should just let us feel good about it and/or perhaps say .... 'good for you'!

Watch your backrank.