It occurred to me that if - when you registered for a tournament - you could not see who else had registered, you might end up with some interesting bed-fellows. When the identities were revealed - at the start of the tournament - you might find yourself paired against your mortal (chess) enemy to whom you would not, under normal circumstances, even give the time of day.

Further, if anonymity was preserved until the END of the tournament (chatting disabled, for good measure) - it might turn out that you had played someone with all the wrong attitudes and opinions.

Just a thought.

     mortal chess enemy?

         Lighten up, Francis. ...

A tournament with ratings masked might be very interesting, it would change the way you think about who you're playing. Forcing you to always play your best...

interesting

Thats a good idea, although you cannot just mask ratings as you can still check the profiles of players.

I like the idea of only seeing a number (12/100 sofar) by a tourney, I think it could be a good idea to not announce participants until the full number has been reached, then the list appears, It would also mean that certain open tournaments arent always above X number due to a few high rated players being first to join and maybe discouraging lower rated players.

Maybe site admin could have one tourney a month "mystery tournament" as a trial run to see if others like the idea.

I do.

I dont like the idea of chatting being disabled, or (I am not sure if this is what you meant) anonymity all the way through the tournament.

If anonymity was guaranteed, perhaps you would join tournaments - and no-one would ever know.