Improver's sunday tournament : Dwindling interest?

Have you tried the improver's tournament? With premium membership prizes and great learning opportunities, there are no good reasons to skip this. From the inaugural tournament to this sunday's tournament (including a beginner's section), let's take a look at what happened during the week compared to the previous one, and the numbers surrounding the tournaments!

THE TOURNAMENT

The tournament is structured as a 4 round Swiss rapid 10+2 tournament, divided in 2 sections: under 1200, and above 1200, rewarding the top 3 players in each section with 1 month premium membership. Players can only join the tournament corresponding to their rapid rating. The sections were added after the inaugural tournament, as it was one important feedback from the first tournament. Chess.com heard the community and changed the sections for the tournament. One of the reasons for the change were both the feedback and the amount of players joining the tournament. For those being scared of any fair play issues, Chess.com Fair Play team is looking at the tournaments, ensuring fair play is always the priority when handing prizes in tournaments, even for amateur players.

THE PLAYERS

I am a numbers guy, so let's take a look at the numbers! I have crunched the data for this tournament, and cumulated both tournaments of the 16th to compare them to the inaugural tournament. Congratulations to the top 3 players of both sections, and I am personally happy players in the under 1200 category had an opportunity to win all 4 rounds.

My first observation is the number of players and games actually went down from the prior week. It went from a total of 443 players joining to 360 players joining. On both dates and in both sections, about 50% of players actually played all 4 rounds, with most of them leaving during the tournament, and a portion of them arriving late to the party. My expectation going in was to see an increase of players, as adding sections increases the chances for beginner to win the tournaments, and even intermediate players have better chance at an upset. I was surprised to see the results, where clearly the interests has dwindled since the inaugural tournament. Let's see on the 23rd how many players will fight for the top spots!

A second thing to note is the number of players not losing a single game is about the same in both, as expected mathematically with the total number of players staying between 256 and 512 (Swiss tournaments and binary maths go along well). The players are evenly split between the two sections, however, making a distinction between the two weeks.

Another interesting fact is the average rating is slightly increasing from a week to the next, when we combine both tournaments together. I think we can consider the club member's are all improving, right ?

Finally, the players' pairings are now more fair for all on average. During the first week, on average, it could feel more one sided during all rounds, as the average pairing rating difference was above 400 during the whole event. However on the 16th, notwithstanding the first round which was also above 400, the pairings were closer on average, making for better pairings overall. Obviously, because it is an average, there are still pairings made with higher variances, but we do see a trend for fairer matchups.

This 400 rating difference is important, as it is the limit in calculation for ELO changes. Above 400, we are almost statistically certain the higher rated player will win the game. However, between 0 and 400, there is still enough chances for any results to happen, meaning a fairer game pairing.

THE DISCUSSION

Club members were happy with sections instead of an open tournament. However, some felt that other sections could be added for even more fairness. With the number seen above, the closer match-ups in rating as well as decreasing number of players, I am not sure it is the way to go... yet. If we see an increase in the number of players, it will most definitely be a benefit to add more sections. 

One thing that popped-up in the feedback was the time of the tournament. The tournament is played at noon ET time, which is good for American players, it's not so bad for western European and African players, but it's a bad timing for western European and Asian players. As told in the forums, even Titled Tuesday started as a late event only, but an early event was added later, once more players came in, to accommodate everyone. Therefore, we can believe something similar could happen, but again, it requires more player to join in the fun on Sunday!

Lastly, tiebreaks and additional rounds kept being talked about in the tournament's chat and the forums. In my opinion, no amount of rounds can avoid tiebreaks. We see it during the World Championships, Titled Tuesday, and everyday amateur tournaments: because of draws, tiebreaks are bound to happen no matter the amount of rounds a tournaments has. By adding rounds, we can say that at some point, only one player COULD get a clear win, but it is never guaranteed. As for the number of rounds, I think that like the other notes above, if we keep the same number of players, if we keep interest in the tournament, or even if both are trending up, we will eventually see the tournament get more rounds.

Again, congratulations to players in the top 3 and all 18 players that did not lose a single game. I hope to see you all, and even more, to February 23rd improver's tournament! Were you there last time?