Hi fellow GrayMatter members.  I’ve been fairly quiet in the GrayMatter group forums but active on both ladders.  About 2 weeks ago I formed a new group called Fast Tournaments.  I formed it for a couple of reasons, one of which was to bring friendly, fast players together so we could meet and play each other and also have fun tournys to play in.  Other GrayMatter members are also members of Fast Tournaments, including Graybeard and tas58. 

I really like the Spirit of GrayMatter Chess.  I also desire to have that same friendly atmosphere in my own group.  So I have started a forum topic in Fast Tournaments to point the members to various pages of both GrayMatter Groups which includes The Spirit of GrayMatter Chess and the one which explains how the Ladders work.  In effect this will link our groups together so all three will be “sister groups.”    All members in Fast Tournaments are in my friends list and I try to keep in touch with them by messages, thus trying to keep the atmosphere of the group friendly.  Most of the present members of Fast Tournaments are very reserved and I am the main poster.

I feel both groups will benefit from this as it could bring the members of each group closer together.  Fast Tournaments does not or will ever have Team Matches or Vote Chess so there will be no conflict for members who are in other groups in choosing which group they want to play for in a match.  I plan on having a ladder or two when chess.com gives us that feature.

I create many invitation-only tournaments, in which the members of Fast Tournaments are the only players invited.  One series I have introduced is called Slow and Relaxed Play for the slower playing members of the group.  Everything is voluntary in Fast Tournaments members are not obligated to participate in tournys, the forums, or anything at all.

If you are interested, check out the links below to my some of my blogs and to the public page of Fast Tournaments where you can find more info.  The GrayMatter groups are the only ones in which I will create a topic like this.  I want slow but steady growth for Fast Tournaments and if I did this in some of the large groups I would be bombarded with applications. Since I carefully screen all potential members, this would take up most of my time.

My Plan

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/my-plan

Current and Upcoming Tournys

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/current-and-upcoming-tourneys

Tournament Guidelines

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/tourny-guidelines

Fast Tournaments Public Page

http://www.chess.com/groups/view/fast-tournaments