Team England have set up a new subgroup http://www.chess.com/groups/view/the-team-england-under-1500-vote-group with the sole purpose of recruiting members of the main Team England team who want to play a more active role in votechess games for their country but feel swamped by the higher rated players ideas and putdowns. May i please make a plea to other national groups to follow suite and do the same, any national groups that do create a under 1500 vote group, please post a link here and i will be in touch with a challenge for our members! :-) please ensure that you only allow playing members to join if they are rated UNDER 1500, obviously non-playing admins can be any rating. Thanks!

I sometimes play the English Opening, is that good enough?


Oh wait, haven't I done that before?

Btw, Live Rating or Online rating?

online votechess mate

Team Australia has a group made to suit. Team Australia Under 1500 VC is created and I am trying to support the idea.  Hopefully we'll have enough members to get a game going soon :)

Excellent initiative Team England! :D

Cheers,

BQ.

That sounds great BQ thank you ... we are actively encouraging lots of other teams to follow suit as this is going to be a fantastic opportunity for all players under 1500 to get a voice in vote chess :)

I too believe in the idea and I can see many might value the same.  Time will tell :)

Meanwhile i think it could be a great idea to possibly ask chess.com to set rating ranges for those playing these matches in that only players under 1500 can enter otherwise its not fair on the teams that have to play against a higher rated player 

How diligent should I be in maintaining the members in the group -- ratings change so much here... What policies are you thinking about there?  What is the threshold, do we kick them at >=1500 regardless?  It's already an issue for us.

Do you mean a vote chess game cannot have ratings restrictions applied?  If not, then I totally agree, chess.com should make that a priority.  If they did, there would be absolutely no need for these extra groups... the games themselves could be made "under 1500" and that game would kick/reject players whose rating is too high.

---

good point im not too sure actually but i guess its a play it by ear kind of thing as its still quite new 

Agreed, for now, but I think there should be a "ruling" to ensure fairness. 

...

It would be so much easier if vote chess games could have a settable rating range that auto-deals with this situation....   /dream :p

---

yes well lets see how many teams r up for this on the whole and if we get enough interest i reckon its something we can all go to chess.com about saying in one clear voice wot we want 

Sounds like a plan :)

---

sure does and im looking forward to playing in the matches already :D

Let's hope there's enough interest :)

im sure there will be ;)

I think the simplest way to run these matches, is that players must be UNDER 1500 the daythe game starts, any players that go over 1500 may finish the game they are in, but may NOT join any more votegames until their rating falls back below 1500, this seems a clear cut and easy to police rule for all groups that take part in this....

the reason we have a seperate group for this, is mainly because that way, we can only invite those players who want to play, and whos rating is acceptable (ie under 1500). If we ran a under 1500 vote game in the main group, then all members would get a notification and would be joining in error. and possibly be getting mad that they were deleted afterwards. Having a seperate group seems the 'cleanest' way to run under 1500 votechess, until we have the option to run rating limited votechess in the main groups :-)

---

Sounds good, but policing that is still a problem isn't it?   Forgive me being a noob admin, but I'm not seeing how easy this might be to do.

Members who are in these groups must stay in them to complete the match, which sounds fair enough... although, I am far from convinced that it is.

Each game might take months to complete.  Meanwhile, the player's rating shoots up to, say, 2000 (for possibly several members).  This defeats the purpose of this whole thing doesn't it?

There is also nothing stopping such members from getting involved in more vote chess games.  You can look at each game before it starts to see who is playing in it, and weed out higher ups, but then how can you be sure more players aren't [re]joining in once the game starts?

I personally see no issue with kicking out players who started in a VC game with under 1500, but once their rating goes above, say 1550, they are out -- even mid-game.  Otherwise we're defeating the purpose for the group's existence.

---

100% agreed. 

But this whole system really only works if we maintain the under 1500 groups to be having members who are not over 1500.  If they go over, they should be kicked out.  If their rating drops below 1500 again, they can join back in.  I see no other way to do it and maintain fairness.

But this whole system really only works if we maintain the under 1500 groups to be having members who are not over 1500.  If they go over, they should be kicked out.  If their rating drops below 1500 again, they can join back in.  I see no other way to do it and maintain fairness.

 

the problem with kicking them out and letting them rejoin is that if say a true 1400-1500 player goes up over 1500 coz of say time forfeits then we remove them and wen their rating falls back under 1500 we let them rejoin, that said player may think it off putting to keep leaving and rejoining again they may just decide its not worth the hassle. especially seeing as once u leave a vote chess match u cant join it again!!

once u leave a vote chess match u cant join it again!!

Didn't know that.  That sure makes it a problem.