🪓 2023 Self-Partner Teams World 4 Player Chess Championships 🏆 ⚔️ (DISCUSSION)

Hey Everyone,
Thank you all once again for participating and watching the World 4 Player Chess Championships (W4PCC)!

Chess.com will be hosting the first New Standard Self-Partner Teams W4PCC commencing Friday, September 1, 2023.

Schedule of the 2023 Self-Partner W4PCC:

September 1 00:00 UTC: The Highest Rated 8 from Self-Partner Blitz Leaderboard with a glicko RD of less than 70 are selected as the first 8 candidates. Those candidates will qualify for Round 1 and play in any of the September 16 and 17 time slots (0:00, 12:00, 16:00, or 20:00 UTC) on a first come first serve basis. Only the top 1 will be guaranteed their first choice. Players on the leaderboard will be messaged and expected to reply prior to September 8 00:00 UTC with their preferences of times they would like to compete on the weekend of September 16-17, in order. Replacements will be in order of the next players on the September 1 00:00 UTC Self-Partner Blitz leaderboard without regards to Rating Deviation, the highest rated on the September 1 00:00 UTC 4 Player Teams Rapid leaderboard without regards to Rating Deviation, and then the highest rated 4 Player Teams Rapid player following* the Tournament Director (TD) or referee in charge.

September 9-10 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: 8x 1.5-hour 2+10 qualifier Self-Partner arenas followed by a single game between the top 2. Top 2 of each arena challenge each other in a single game and the winner of that game qualifies. Games will be rated. Players that fall below 1600 Self-Partner Blitz during the Arena can still complete the arena. Arena scoring will be 2W-1D-0L. Streak bonuses will be removed. Winners of those arenas will play the leaderboard players in Round 1 on the same day of the week and time as the arena which they qualified from (the Saturday September 9 00:00 UTC arena winner plays on Saturday September 16 00:00 UTC and so forth, their arena starting time plus seven (7) days). Winners of those arenas are not to continue playing in further qualifier arenas.

Round 1 (Bracket of 16) is a Best-of-5 single elimination. Round 1 will be played on September 16 and 17 at 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC depending on the choices of the Leaderboard players as well as what is lined up with which qualifier arena the player qualified from. Round 1 will be eight matches of one leaderboard player versus one arena winner. Winners (8) of Round 1 play Round 2 Best-of-5 on September 23, 2023 at their respective time slots**, and those winners (4) play against each other in Semi-Finals on the weekend of October 7-October 8** in a best-of 7 but can schedule against each other. #1 rating vs #4 and #2 vs #3 as of September 24, 2023 0 UTC. Finals are a Best-of-12, October 28-29** (and November 4 if necessary) 18:00 UTC. Only ONE player will win the prize.
**Players will each two total opportunities to reschedule. For more information, please see post #48.

For all games, pawns promote on the 11th rank to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight, and the en passant mode will be enabled.

*"following" is defined as in the same spectator/game chat as the TD/referee on duty at the 15th minute after the hour of the match time. To find the spectator/game chat that the TD (fourplayerchess) or referee is in, please click their profile in the Variants Server and then click "Observing".

Note: While the Self-Partner Championship serves as the Teams Championship to be played and completed in 2023, the following championships will not necessarily include only 2-Versus-2 Teams or only Self-Partner Teams. Discussion is ongoing on whether to continue future W4PCCs with both types of teams championships each year. The TD will be ineligible to compete, but the any staff/admin/referee will be eligible. Additionally, chess.com accounts created on or after August 1, 2023, will be ineligible.

Prize Money Disclaimer: It's a pleasure to announce our first Self-Partner championship was already approved for funding with $1000 from chess.com for the 2023 Self-Partner World Champion. Please understand this may take days, weeks, or a month or two to process. The tournament director may refer questions regarding prize money to staff/support. Only one player will be awarded prize money, and that player must agree to use the email directly linked to his/her chess.com account to find the link to the Prize Money when Awarded. Please note that the link may appear in your junk/trash/spam folder, so be sure to check those soon after you win the Championship!

Discussion feedback may be taken into consideration but is not guaranteed. Staff and Administrators will be in communication with the TD on any rulings in the current W4PCC and decisions on future W4PCCs.

Preliminaries and Finals will be broadcasted on https://www.twitch.tv/fourplayerchess . We look forward to seeing you play in the championship! Best of luck to all players trying out!

Luke Romanko
W4PCC Tournament Director

Happy to see this! Will be fun to watch

We got a Speed Champs starting in October/November/December too after this

Great news.

Are we going to have normal 2 person teams too? I enjoy teaming up with someone for one.

Is the schedule strict? I am currently occupied 23-24. sept for instance so would not be able to play round 2.

Who would be opposed to moving Round 2 to September 30-October 1 and Round 3 during either of the following 2 weekends and Final during the second-to-last or last weekends? Championship hasn't started.

Seems like something that should've been decided in private and not made obvious that the choice is based on one person's comment, just putting it simply from my perspective; perhaps there could be a flexible schedule where players only get one or two reschedules before being subbed out? It would probably benefit everybody that way

Good point. Agree with the one-person bias issue. Valid objection. GS, definitely keep me in check. Lars, do please understand Sep 23-24 for Round 2 may still be in effect. Schedule flexibility, probably going to have to keep the qualifications dates and round 1 strict. Can't really mess around with the Top 16 as much as Top 8.

Flexible scheduling is what I wanted to propose. Once it comes down to being matches and deeper than round 1, maybe even round 1. Who is to say that everyone can play on a given weekend? Main point should be that it is agreed and published so that everyone can follow the matches and it being set a week in advance for instance. For progression of the tournament, let's say every round is given 2 weeks and the match must be played in this 2 week window and that makes it open for people to schedule too.

Can I join this championship?

2+10 is considered blitz in self partnering, no? I am 1600+ in blitz but <1600 in rapid. Will I be able to participate in this Championship?

The 1600+ requirement is for Blitz SP as said in the post, not 4P Rapid Teams, nor Rapid SP; so yes, you can participate

What are the requirment to join?

If you read the post then you would know…

When you’re thinking and moving for two sides 2|10 is of course faster and considered a blitz time control. Because nobody (including top players) play rapid, blitz SP is used for this championship.

What time control is blitz and which one is rapid does not stand as the same in Self-partner and Teams (mode). SP blitz extends a bit more. The border between blitz and rapid is different. If you would put the fastest time controls from Teams, like a blitz time control 1 | 4D or 6s 15D rapid yes, those are blitz and rapid in Teams, but in SP, minimum requirement for blitz is 1 | 5D or 1 | 4 and 6s 25D for rapid, so in SP 1 | 4D is bullet and 6s 20D is blitz, also 6s 7D is blitz as well. So 2 | 10 is blitz in SP. Speaking of 4 | 0 and 4 | 1 are both blitz in SSP, but those type controls are not suitable for the World Championship since we only had 1 | 7, (1 | 5 in both preliminaries and qualifiers), in FFA 2 | 15D in both Teams and FFA and maybe we had 2 | 10 blitz in Teams qualifiers, first since the Omatamix setup was introduced if I remember correctly.

Hey, can I join this self partnering championship?

What doe this mean? September 1 00:00 UTC: The Highest Rated 8 from Self-Partner Blitz Leaderboard with a glicko RD of less than 70 are selected as the first 8 candidates

I’m sorry, I literally can’t dumb down the post anymore than showing you this:

These 8 (assuming nobody overtakes them before the start of the championship or their Glicko RD don’t go over 70) are only the first candidates, there are 8 more that qualify from arenas

1. Only the top 8 Blitz SP rated players need to have a RD of 70 or below
2. Everybody else, including the substitutes mentioned in the post, can have a RD of 140 and it wouldn't matter