Forum

We had a good discussion about setting up a Long Tournament - see thread Tournament Idea - started 30 May with 14 posts. Several formats were proposed. A number of common points emerged namely: 1. The tournament's purpose is to encourage long live games. 2. It is a background event - it does not compete with formal tournaments. 3. People should register to participate but there is no minimum commitment or compulsion to play. 4. Maximum of 1 game per week. 5. Flexible as possible - people arrange the games - agree times - time controls etc and the winner advises the outcome to the TD. 6. 1 point is awarded for playing: 1 point for a draw and 2 for a win. 7. There was no clear agreement on a handicap - so I suggest we defer for the time being. We can always introduce one later if the tournament proves popular and there is demand. 8. One point I'm adding - and tell me to remove if not acceptable - games played as part of another tournament are not eligible. So, for instance, those people playing in Maxamillon's current tournament cannot count those games towards their total in this tournament. No doubling up. 9. The first tournament to run until 31/12/10. 10. If u are happy with this - please register your interest by sending me a private message. I will inform everyone when there are sufficient people to make this viable. 11. Remember you can register without commitment. I will issue reminders periodically to encourage people to play. 12. Those who register will be asked to include other participants as friends and to challenge them periodically. You can also advertise your availability by posting here. We can start a Long Tournament challenge post and you just add a thread. 13. I will TD the first tournament. 14. I hope this proves popular because I believe we need to encourage live play if our group is going to flourish. Best wished to all. Tony

Dear Friends, Thank you for accepting my invitation and joining. I know most of you, but to our surprise there are other people searching for slow time control games and joining this group. It's a great thing, and hopefully we will get a chance to meet them all. We are created this group for playing slow time control (G/60, G/90) LIVE games. We were able to enjoy such games together even before creating this group, but now we will have a chance to do it more frequently. We will also be able to have group activities such as live chess tournaments. New ideas, and all contributions are welcomed.

Round 1: Group1: musiclife vs TonyMooney game 1: zyga65 vs StrategyKing420 game 1: tibre vs TonyMooney game 1: musiclife vs Zyga65 game 1: tibre vs StrategyKing420 game 1: TonyMooney vs zyga65 game 1: tibre vs zyga65 game 1: StartegyKing420 vs musiclife game 1: Group 2: castingshadows vs naughtybishop game 1: Naughtybishop quit the tournament chry3841 vs Kotomitsuki game 1: game 2: aj415 vs naughtybishop game 1: Naughtybishop quit the tournament game 2: Naughtybishop quit the tournament CabassoG vs Kotomituski game 1: CabassoG quit the tournament aj415 vs kotomitsuki game 1: game 2: aj415 vs chry3841 game 1: aj415 vs castinshadows game 1: Other games were not played due to different reasons (trouble arranging games between some players, players quiting tournament etc.) Stage 2 Musiclife vs Chry3841 Game 1 not arranged yet Game 2 not arranged yet Kotomitsuki vs Zyga65 Game 1 not arranged yet Game 2 not arranged yet

Group1: Games Played Points Musiclife 3 3 Zyga65 4 2 TonyMooney 3 1 Strategyking420 3 1 Tibre 3 1 Bardu Quit Quit Group2: Games Played Points Kotomitsuki 6 6 Chry3841 5 3 CastingShadows 4 2 Aj415 6 0 Naughtybishop Quit Quit CabassoG Quit Quit Players who advanced to the next stage of the tournament are marked red.

Dear Friends, One of the reasons of forming this group is creating an enjoyable environment for the players that enjoys live chess with slower time controls. Please only remain in this group if you are agreed the following: 1. No computer assistance during live games: Slower games give easier access to the cheating through computer assistance. This is one of the reasons why many people do not prefer playing with such time controls. It is important for group members to be able to trust each other, and have a fair play. 2. No leaving the game without resignation: Another reason why people avoid slower time controls is they do not want to run into people who abandon games when losing, and keeps his opponent waiting. Please respect your opponent, and resign if you need to leave the game.

If you'd like to update your numbers, please edit your original post, rather than make a new one. I'm currently rated in the low 1500s in Live Standard. Looking for: Opponents rated 1425ish-1725ish Time Control: preferably 45/30 [Would consider longer games on a case by case basis]

Fellow Slow Players... I'm really excited that my chess teacher and friend, Dan Heisman, has joined the Chess.com family. For those who don't know, he is a highly respected chess author of 10 books, and winner of numerous awards. Anyway, I've organized a little tournament to introduce people to Dan. First prize will be a FREE chess lesson with him - an $85 value. http://www.chess.com/tournament/win-a-free-lesson-with-dan-heisman-open Hope you can join!

I am on the ET time zone in the U.S. long games I am available the week nights after 4. And basically anytime on the weekends. PM me for a game. G/45-/g90

For those among us who enjoy annotated games (this will be of little interest to our top players, except perhaps as comic relief) I've started a blog annotating in painful detail (excruciating, actually ) some of my recent misadventures. These are all games played online, either here on on ICC, at slow time controls. My hope is that others can learn from my mistakes and not have to repeat them. Of course, the main thing is to learn from them myself, but I can't seem to get the hang of that. Here are links to the first two blogs. For those who really have nothing else to do, there are plenty of side variations with their own notes that only appear if you click on the variations and play through them. http://blog.chess.com/Eternal_Patzer/trying-to-learn-from-each-painful-loss http://blog.chess.com/Eternal_Patzer/this-one-goes-in-the-patzer-hall-of-shame If any of this is of interest, please let me know. Thanks! E.P.

Anyone interested in a few 30 minute games over the Xmas period? Perhaps discuss them on Skype afterwards?

Hi, i would like someone to play a slow game against this weekend. My online ranking is 1602 and my blitz is 1413 to give you an idea of my 'strength'. Looking for someone around that rating. If you are interested, please react.

I seek opponents for improving my otb chess. Time control from 15+ min to 2+ hours. Best is 4 - 12 PST ( 12 - 20 UTC ) in weekends and 10-12 PST mon-fri. My otb rating is about 1550.

Hello like-minded slow pokes. I am new to this group and looking to find players who like to give full analysis to each position. I find I am finding I am much better slow player because I make less blunders. I get more out of a game if I have time to play the game than make silly mistakes. I think about 45 minutes per game is perfect for me although I haven't tried any longer games. I also like to have a little post-game analysis which is beneficial to both players. Anyone interested let me know. Right now my rating is about 1250, but I will play up or down. I am just looking to improve like everyone else

I can see this new group having alot of potential in imporving alot of peoples chess with team work and cooperation, while having a lot of fun. One of the ideas I think we should look into is group analysis of live games we play against each other. My friend and I have been rivals for over 8 years now. We live long distance from each other but we play many games on live chess here, more importantly though is win lose or draw we use skype to comunicate and we review our games and try to help each other identify problems with each others plans and even just look for more concrete variations then what actually happened to win the game. I really think this has been instructive and helpful to our game. More instructive then when we refused to work together, in fear of improving each others games in a way that one of us ends up a distinctly stronger player. My idea is analysing each others games as a group should bring a whole new level of quality to the analysis with everyone working on the same games and positions together, and equally everyone should be able to benefit from this. I know its trivial but I think it would be cool to watch the average rating of this group progresivly get higher and higher becuase we made an active attempt at improvement as a group. I know time zones will very and not eveyone will be able to work together at the same time, but diffrent things could be done to work around that. Like making reusable notes made threw a group analysis that can be posted on the forum to be looked at when other groups or individuals do there own analysis of the game then any notes they have can be posted and shared. Theres proabably a million and one ways to make this a useful idea. I play slow time controls becuase in the words of the Wu-tang clan. "Chess is like a sword fight. You must think before you move." Lucky for us not many people die from playing chess. So we should use that opportunity to take another look at our games and have all the time in the world to think before we move, after we move, then take it all back and think before we move again. So hopefull atleast a few people will want to get the ball rolling and be apart of this and I think the best way to do it is by showing intrest here and posting or derecting us to there most interesting game that they might want to share and go over with a few people. Wether its a game you won or lost or took a draw no matter what the rating I think every game has its instructional value. So lets see what you got!

You can check my live games, they are all long time controls. I personally don't feel comfortable unless I have at least a 60 60. I play my best when I take time to think. Hey, so am I on the mailing list automatically? Thanks, Reyth

I think that all members here have to suggest to the site to launch very soon those time controls for matches and for tournaments and allow the chess players to play real proffessioal chess like the elite of the chess . I wonder if we suggest to the site to have the option of playing 45 0 minutes or 1 hr or 2 hrs like in real tournaments in proffessional chess so those type of games can help much to improve our chess skills in competetive tourneys in real world . The match between 2 groups can end quickly like in chamionship of the teams . You now can't wait for your opponent when he/she likes to move and stays ready in fear of being time out and in last minutes the opponent get vacation . Is more instructive and useful that online chess . I'm not saying that in chess.com players never must play online but who want those types of games , they can have the option of playing such exiting games . Is to bring real proffessional chess in this site full of groups.

Ok, a couple of organizational things I'd like to have your opinion on (or interesting idea) 1. Tournament format. This of course depends mainly on the amount of players we will have, but what do you think? Kick out, round robin, some kind of swiss-system variation, or something entirely different? let me know what you think 2. What to do with people going on vacation/having something else planned/not able to play for some other reason during the tournament. I think the best thing to do is to just wait till they're available (of course in some cases it's 3 weeks but there's no hurry I think), but someone might have some better idea. that would be it for now, everyone's welcome to join the discussion, even people that won't participate.

As you guys probably noticed 2nd live tournament started today and I just got this idea of getting someone to analyze and comment on the games played (maybe even not on all of them but the most interesting ones). If there's anyone interested in taking that role for the benefit of whole group, please let me know.

While we are talking potential future tournaments, would this be of interest? Why not arrange a type of Ryder Cup match once a year - say America v the Rest of the World? It could be played over a month. Two captains pick two teams and rank them by live rating. Top rated Amercian plays top rated ROW one game which is replicated all the way down the list. The "home" team have white on the odd numbers. Each "white" player arranges the match which must fall in the month to score. The team with most points wins the cup. Only group members can play - but the captains can drum up support across C.c to build the best team they can. It might boost membership. Should get us lots of publicity if we make it a big event in C.c.

Can I suggest a format for a tournament? The idea is to get as many people to play as possible with the absolute minimum of rules and administration. It would be a rolling tournament with a fixed end date - say 31/12/10. There is no commitment: people join and play as they wish. People just challenge each other and score points - 1 point for playing, plus 1 point for a draw or 3 points for a win. There is also a handicap - so you double the points if you draw or beat somebody in a higher category than you. Players agree times and colours and simply report the points gained. We keep a spreadsheet of the points and the person who gets the most in the time is the champ. The idea is that is gives people a reason to challenge each other. If there were a small core of dedicated people they could ensure everyone got involved by issuing challenges to new people or people who were a bit quiet. It wouldn't affect more competitive tournaments in the group - except you could claim points for playing in those. The only rule would be that both players had to be members of the group to qualify. We could publish the points each month so people can see how they are doing. Just a thought. Please bin it if it's a silly one or change it if it can be improved. Well done to Max and Thell last night - and congrats to our new champ! Tony