I thought I'd post some thoughts on today's Spell Chess Championship qualifier tournaments.

Despite thinking just a week ago that I was about 90% likely to qualify, I did not qualify. But my failure to qualify was not for the reason I expected.

I had assumed that if I did not qualify it would be because I would be in bad form. But in actuality, I was very satisfied with my level of play today in the qualifiers in which I put in my full effort. Specifically, in the two qualifiers in which I gave my all throughout the full 75 minutes I had the highest Tournament Performance Rating (TPR) of any player.

1st Qualifier

My 2453 Tournament Performance Rating (16 wins, 2 losses) from the 1st Qualifier was the highest TPR of any player from any of the 8 qualifiers: https://www.chess.com/variants/spell-chess/arena/39291

I achieved the 2453 result by winning 16 games against strong players and only losing 2 games.

Those who did not follow the tournament might wonder how first place managed to beat me with a TPR of only 1792. The answer is that for the first three qualifiers the pairing rule used was a rule that matched up players of a similar rating rather than a similar rank in the tournament. The IM that won was only rated 1618 to start the tournament, which allowed him to be paired up with beginners for all of his games and win quickly, giving him a massive advantage.

To understand just how huge of an advantage it was, even if I had gone 18-0 and therefore gotten 69 tournament points instead of the 55 that I actually got, I still would have gotten 2nd place. The IM that finished 1st got 74 points simply due to getting more games in than me (21 wins, 7 losses) thanks to beginners being more likely to lose quickly, so he won despite his weak overall performance (1792 TPR). That's how massive of an advantage the pairing system was for low-rated players.

So my failure to qualify in the first qualifier was not due to poor play (on the contrary, I arguably played better than anyone else in that qualifier), but rather the pairing rule that denied me the opportunity to take down the leader and the format that rewards number of games played over all else.

4th Qualifier

By the time they fixed the pairing system (for the 4th Qualifier), I was exhausted from the first three qualifiers, but I still managed to get the highest TPR of any player in that tournament with my (20 win, 2 loss) 8th place finish.

I did my best to play quickly, but the seven players who finished above me all managed to fit in at least 5 games more than me, with the winner somehow fitting in 15 more games than me, so my hope was basically extinguished at that point.

Broken Format

The worst part about all of this is that it was a known issue that the qualifiers were going to be broken like this. DragonB70 told me that this what the qualifiers were going to be like and I didn't believe him.

I didn't believe him because I didn't have an issue qualifying in the 2024 Fog of War Championship qualifiers last October. After learning I needed to play quickly in the first qualifier, I finished 2nd place in the 2nd qualifier and 1st place in the 3rd qualifier with that simple adjustment.

Unfortunately, the "play quickly" advice didn't work this time. One difference is that Fog of War games tend to be much faster since players have less information. In Spell Chess on the contrary, players can see when they are in trouble, and you can't stop your opponent from slowing down and taking their time when that is the case. Even when you see a forced mate sequence, your opponent often doesn't see it and instead just takes their time to look at the position or eventually let you play the mate out.

Disappointment

The fact that Chess.com published this event over half a year ago and still blundered this badly is very disappointing.

It's nice that Chess.com offers prize money tournaments that anyone can compete in, but when there's a tournament you're looking forward to for months and then you're hit with this experience, it can be quite disappointing.

The format of the 4th-8th qualifiers isn't ideal, but it's acceptable. But Chess.com's main blunder was having the ridiculous pairing rule in the first three qualifiers that prevented me from ever being able to catch the leader since I never got paired against him. And looking at the quality of his games (e.g. his first game of the 1st Qualifier), he would have been my easiest opponent to defeat by a solid margin.

Strong Players Missing Out Due to the Unfair Pairing Rule and Format

The good news is that several strong players did manage to win so the format did not completely turn qualifying into a speed lottery. But I also feel bad for the many other strong players who I saw competing who didn't qualify despite being much better than some of those I did. I'm thinking of players like @DragonB70, @zacker99, @mickthedutchman, @rojitto, and @johannfan. If Chess.com hadn't used the pairing algorithm that massively favored low-rated players, maybe a couple of them would be in the Finals tomorrow instead.

Note on Temporary Bans

I witnessed players in the qualifiers have their accounts temporarily banned for sandbagging / intentionally losing games to lower their rating. Given that Chess.com massively incentivized sandbagging with the pairing rule they used for the first three qualifiers, this seemed kind of harsh, but I guess was necessary to prevent the qualifiers from turning into a joke. This was more a symptom than the root of the problem. The main problem, again, was the pairing algorithm used to pair players.

Ending on a Positive Note

It was cool to see many strong spell chess players all playing today. Many times in the last few months when I created a Spell Chess seek on the Variants Server nobody would be online to join my -600 rating seek for many minutes, and so I'd give up and logout. But that was not at all the case today! I lost more spell chess games today than on any other day, which was fantastic.

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