7 monts so far, time flies!

Another 12 moves to go in the last agme on.. unless somebody gives up.. Darius must wait till then..

Congrats darius, you're the man, looks like Billium, Kawazaki & myself shall be here for another 3 months if we are lucky!

lol, hey who's an old horse :-)

but you're right. I don't ever want to do that again. I need a break--the amount of time was inordinate. And I think if not for the time loss Quibit was stronger; I barely eeked out a draw. Indeed, several players on the team including you would likely beat me over the board. My friend who is an old time player and stronger than me agreed that playing correspondence gives you a lot stronger game. Many years ago I was able to draw Edmar Mednis and he was able to draw Bent Larsen in simultaneous exhibitions. The extra time we had made a big difference. Neither of us would have stood a chance  against those two players without the handicap of them playing so many games and us having so much extra time.

Sorry for Qubit.. but well done darius.. old horses can still run.. it is really tough to keep one going at that rate..

wow 5 games lost on time!..yeah sorry I had a fever for 3-4 days and wasn't really in the mood of hitting the net for chess.. not to mention I lost like 300 points.. oh well. good luck to the rest

lol three people tied for the 2nd spot ! Didn't I say that we will be fighting for the second spot..but I had no idea it would be this fierce! hehe

I am first to finish.. thanks everybody for some great comraderie..

yeah so in essence a 7 round swiss is much better and quicker than a 22 round tournament !... if I had bought a puppy at the start of this tournament he would've  died of old age by now!

Basic Principles of Swiss System Tournaments

The basic principles of a Swiss System tournament are:

1. The number of rounds to be played is declared beforehand.

2. Two players may play each other only once.

3. Players are paired with others of the same score, or nearest score.

4. When possible, a player is given the white pieces as many times as he is given the black pieces.

5. When possible, a player is given the colour other than that he was given the previous round.

6. The final ranking order is determined by the aggregate of points won: 1 point for a win, 0.5 point for a draw and 0 point for a loss. A player whose opponent fails to appear for a scheduled game receives one point.

Source: Fide.com

The Buchholz system is a ranking system in  chess developed by Bruno Buchholz in 1932 in order to determinate ranks in a Swiss systeem tournament where players have the same score. It sums up the score of the players' opponents and thus favors those who have confronted better opponents.

The major criticism of this system is that tie-break scores can be distorted by the set of opponents that each player plays (especially in early rounds). To avoid this problem a version of Buchholz, the Median-Buchholz System is sometimes used. In the Median-Buchholz System the best and worst scores of a players opponents are discarded, and the remaining scores summed.

Source: Wikipedia 

The pairing procedure

The principle of a Swiss tournament is that each player will be pitted against another player who has done as well (or as poorly) as him or herself.

The first round is either drawn at random or seeded according to rating. Players who win receive a point, those who draw receive half a point and losers receive no points. Win, lose, or draw, all players proceed to the next round where winners are pitted against winners, losers are pitted against losers, and so on. In subsequent rounds, players face opponents with the same (or almost the same) score. No player is paired up against the same opponent twice however. In chess it is also attempted to ensure that each player plays an equal number of games with white and black, alternate colors in each round being the most preferable, and a concerted effort is made not to assign the same color three times in a row.

The basic rule is that players with the same score are ranked according to rating. Then the top half is paired with the bottom half. For instance, if there are eight players in a score group, number 1 is paired with number 5, number 2 is paired with number 6 and so on. Modifications are then made to balance colors and prevent players from meeting each other twice.

The detailed rules of how to do the pairing are usually quite complicated and often the tournament organizer has access to a computer to do the pairing for him. If the rules are strictly adhered to, the organizer has no discretion in pairing the round. See below for detailed pairing rules from FIDE.

The tournament lasts for a number of rounds announced before the tournament. After the last round players are ranked by their score, if this is tied a tie break score (such as the sum of all their opponents' scores) or the Buchholz chess rating can be used.

Source: Wikipedia 

Sound like a good idea, maybe we should have that for next year.

In Swiss system no of rounds is fixed say five in our case.. highest rated players play each other and push other down like a ladder.. At the end lowest player rarely has a chance to play top rated player unless he keeps winning his rounds .. sort of combination of knock out and round robin league

How does the Swiss System work ?

No problem Qubit.. I managed to complete all my games.. one with Billium is about to complete as I have put all conditional moves possible .. It is a group activity and lets enjoy... Since it did not matter end result and I was bored with the approach of my opponent, I even resigned one of the games before starting.. You are winning and deserve it along with darius ... so have patience.. Round robin gave an opportunity to all of us to know each other.. Chess.com is all about developing friendship while enjoying chess..

I think round-robin is not a good idea..way too many games and it's positively draining me.....I think the game(s) will never end Swiss system is so much better...

Darius-Qubit is a big fight between two generations.. Carry on guys..

Darius has a current rating of 2128 and Qubit is at 2119 so this tournament is tougher than it looked.

Qubit has already said .. he is fighting for second spot.. May be he considers number one is reserved for somebody like kawazaki.. hmmm...