Currently, the only algorithm for selecting teams is STRONGEST.

A setting "EARLIEST" within Team Matches to form the teams from the first N players from each side who sign up (where N = the team size) would be fairer. This would represent the most enthusiastic players - rather than necessarily the strongest team a group could field.

Best Match (see post #6) may be even better.

well, this could be discriminant to those in different time zones or those who are not able to gain access to chess.com many times a day.

However, it is definitely a good idea and could be a 2nd option for team matches.

I always make sure everyone gets a game. Either Under 1500 and overs, or I dont start it until everyone has a partner

I don't follow this. If you have a single match, and the team size is fixed (at 3 say), and you have 6 volunteers, how can the lowest rated 3 people get a game?

Is using AutoStart a good idea or a bad idea?

In the absence of such a mechanism, matches between a LARGE group and a small group become severly imbalanced, with the larger group generally able to field a much stronger team.

A helpful guide statistic to show for each group would be the average rating of their teams (or the average rating of the whole group if they haven't played any Team Matches yet).

Another algorithm for balancing teams (from groups of different strengths) would be Best Match. It could work like this (assuming Autostart is enabled).

For the team from the weaker-group, EITHER take the first N volunteers (where N is the team size) - if AutoStart is set - OR form the team from a squad of volunteers using the Strongest policy.

From the stronger-group, maintain the whole squad of volunteers. Then choose the N players who provide the best match on ratings with the weaker-group's  team.

Perhaps it could be done manually already.

Say you want a team size of 5. Set the team size maximum to 20. Don't use Autostart. When both squads are full (say between 10 and 20), the Match Director matches pairs of players and each Group Admin 'stands down' the remainder of his squad. (Is there a way to kick people out of a team?)

Tsk! Tsk! This is chess.com you're talking about - not some gun-totin', pot-smokin', long-haired bunch of hippies!

Since both teams can see the members (including ratings) of the opposing team, I shouldn't be at all surprised if players from BOTH teams started leaving and rejoining (can you rejoin?) independently - without any centrallised choreography - in an almost sublime, mystical chaos of juggling until the delicate balance is achieved.

uh....aren't gun-totin' and pot-smokin' largely mutually exclusive sets

 Masterful_Forfeit wrote: momijigari, I'm afraid that if we don't split the US up, it will have a horrendously unbalanced advantage over the competition.

momijigari wrote: USA team doesn't need to be splitted in parts.

And if it does, I'm affraid, Ukraine won't join the league. Such a league won't be «legitimate» in my point of view. All we want is teams representing counties, that's it. We already have a thousands of groups representing whatever they want to.

(http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/new-group-team-canada-teams-for-each-country-discuss)

I bow to your superior knowledge. What I do know is this: neither of these demographies is yet well-represented by chess.com groups.

This reflects the new economic and political reality: many corporations and groups (including some chess.com groups?) have more clout than some nation states.

One approach for achieving this FAIR MATCH (First And Individually Restricted    Manually Adjusted To Challenge H'opponents):

1. (Small?) Group A assembles its team - using a Forum discussion as a sign-up mechanism.
   
2. Sends this list of names + ratings to (large?) Group B.
   
3. Group B posts this list on one its forums.
   
4. Assembles a 'Best Match' squad of volunteers. Group B admin adjusts the list, partly on a first come, first served (Earliest) basis, to achieve a Best Match.
   
5. The challenge is issued, on the basis of a closed list of participants.

 Artfizz, your algorithm is flawed. That way,weaker players might get pitted against stronger players, which is not fair to the weaker players at all!

However, I do not like the concept of players eliminated from the bottom (even though they joined earlier) for lack of opponent. You have a point there.

EARLIEST does what it says on the can! In my (limited) experience, weaker players usually join up first. In practice, therefore, EARLIEST policy will almost always lead to a weaker team than STRONGEST. The teams will ALWAYS be ordered so that strongest player plays strongest and weakest player plays weakest.

BEST MATCH policy leads to a fairer match. One difficulty with it is the complexity of implementation. For small teams, it is manageable. Even a simple example may serve to illustrate the effort involved:

1. Determine the BEST MATCH team in Group B for the team in Group A (for 2 points).
   
2. Specify the algorithm (for a bonus point!)
   

Algorithm #1 (Centre on mean, then nudge).

1. Take the arithmetic mean of the smaller group (group A). (1338.4 in this example)
   
2. Identify the element of the larger group (group B) closest to this mean (1330).
   
3. Assuming an odd number of elements in the smaller group, centre the smaller group on the mean element of the larger group.
   
4. Starting from the lowest element in the smaller group: if there's a space below and this element is closer in value to the corresponding value below, move this element down. Repeat this for values below the centre one until none move.
   
5. Starting from the highest element in the smaller group: if there's a space above and this element is closer in value to the corresponding value above, move this element up. Repeat this for values above the centre one until none move.
   

This achieves the following result:

Grp B 1804, 1492, 1330, 1204, 1020

Grp A 1780, 1500, 1241, 1170, 1001

An easier method of achieving a Best Match would be for the Admin of the weaker team to be able to create Dummy Players. Consider this match in the process of filling up ...

Tally Team Users				Tally Team Non-Users
	Gonnosuke (2647)		vs.		isaac_jay (2177)
	Sharukin (2449)		vs.		ed_dy (1709)
	MM78 (2373) h		vs.		MainStreet (1623)
	PerfectGent (2205)		vs.		gramos9956 (1601)
	streetfighter (2095)		vs.		Upabushtrack (1531)
	Dmytro (1943)		vs.		thegab03 (1387)
	subtext (1689)
	artfizz (1521)
	justice_avocado (1405)
	Baseballfan (1213)
	Duffer1965 (1082)

If this was the final state of the teams, then using the Dummy Player method, we would end up with ...

So you're saying half the non user team are dummies?  I think you should apologise, half the non user team are not dummies.

um...no.

Great idea.