MATCH POINTS

Points about matches, that is; information about match play at Seniors Chess:

1. On the right side of our home page is a directory.  Click on "Matches."  The page you then see has three categories of info:

a. Open Matches -- Matches with room for more players (although one team's roster may be filled. If it's ours, sorry!) Other information includes the time-per-move (our "group preference" is 2-day, but we are flexible), number of concurrent games (1 or 2), etc.  Always check here if you want to enter a match.

There is a red button with a white 'x' next to your name if you enter a match. Click on it if you need to withdraw from a match.  BETTER THAT THAN LOSSES DUE TO TIMEOUTS!

b. Matches in Progress -- a chronological listing (more or less; the order is chaotic sometimes) of matches currently being played.  You can click on the name of any match to find out how things stand.  Once on that match's page, you can click on any game in progress, add comments, etc. You normally have to click "show more" to see the complete list of ongoing matches.

c. Completed Matches --  lists the last 10 completed contests (Again, "show more" gets you a complete list).  The list shows we are 5W 5L in the last ten.  Not bad, given our overall percentage - 42%.  

d. Match scoring --  If we win a match we get 5 points times the number of players.  Eg, a five- player team wins its match (totalling 10 games) 6-4. They earn 5 points x 5 players = 25 match points. The actual score is not important: in this example it is 6-4, but if 10-0, we'd get the same 25 match points. 

A drawn match earns 2 points x the number of players.  In the example above, a 5-5 drawn would earn 2 x 5 players = 10 points.

A lost match earns no points - natch!  But loses nothing either.

In this system, relatively small groups like ours cannot really compete for match points with behemoths who can field squads of 50, 100, or more for a contest.  (A 100-player team that wins garners 500 match points!).  I guess the point is -don't worry about that:  relax, and have fun!

Pay no attention to the percentile rankings.  It's nice to know that your team ranks in, say, the 95th percentile with a 42% winning percentage!  But they seem to count all groups ever formed on chess.com, including groups that are defunct or that don't play matches!

Respectfully submitted,

APD,  Dir. of Public Information (aka "Media Czar")