We're going to hold a manually-run championship tournament for members of this group. In this thread I want to agree the rules, so don't enter yet. When we are agreed how to run the tournament, we'll start a new thread for entries.

We're not using the chess.com tournament system because, frankly, it is pretty rubbish, and most of us are limited to one tournament.

OK so here's what I suggest:

1. 6 rounds, one game each per round. Swiss-style-ish

2. So we're not waiting for everyone to finish, rounds 2 and 3 will start before round 1 is complete. Round 4 will start when round 1 is complete, round 5 when round 2 is complete, etc.

3. Some sort of accelerated pairings logic will be used. Because it's cool.

4. Players may withdraw between rounds - before a draw is made, but please finish any ongoing games.

5. Once a draw is published, black will be responsible for challenging white in each game. Games should be standard chess, and rated.

I'm open to suggestions for the time controls. Comments/suggestions below please.

Yeah, I said Swiss-ish.

So we have draws for the first 3 rounds, using scores of 0, but - I'm suggesting - different 'accelerated pairings' logic. For round 4 there will be real scores of 0,.5,1 to use. For round 5 there will be real scores of 0 to 2, etc, for round 6, scores of 0 to 3.

The other rules of Swiss would apply as usual:

-nobody plays anybody else twice

-nobody has the same colour 3 times or one colour 3 times more than another

-players play others as close as possible to their own score

-if possible alternate colours and give each player the same number of black and white

-if poss don't float players again in the same direction as the last round, etc.

This seems to be a good compromise between a proper Swiss tournament that would be very slow, and a round-robin which could be done more quickly if we all played each other, but would take a huge number of games.

Sounds like a pain to administer. Someone is going to send a message to each player telling him to start a match with so-and-so?

If you need someone to make a tournament and do a group invite, make me an admin and I will do it. Then after it's all set up, you can demote me. (Never mind. I see that ExtraBold is a premium member, so he could do it.)

Admin is no biggy. There is software for Swiss, but with these special requirements it is probably easier to do manually. The draws will be post to a forum thread, which entrants will be expected to track.

OK. You set a start date then. I'm away for 2 weeks.

any updates on this tournament? maybe I would consider joining.

OK I will go with my plan at the top and start a new thread for entries.