Announcing the 2021 (Third) Online World 4 Player Chess SOLO Championship! (DISCUSSION)

The main issue i have is the bracketing system.  The defending champion and the three leaderboard players are arguably the four strongest players of the 16 in the preliminaries, yet only one is able to make it to the final?

How many players qualify from the 4 weeks evaluation ?

4 x 1600 UTC, and 4 x 2000 UTC, that's it for the arena's ? Would be nice to have a wider time range for players that are not located in Europe...

The bracketing seems really poor. Defending champ and top 3 rating are the favourites and they all eliminate each other. So you get rid of all the best players from the get go.

Absolutely true Daniel, but if I understood correctly they are not prevented from being selected via Performance, and it's likely they would be.

Hi all! 

For a long time, I did not get seriously involved in the discussions on the forum, but I am interested in this topic, so I will present a few of my observations about this.

First, thanks Luke for organized for the third time this Championship. Beside Teams Champ, this is a major event in the entire 4pc community and should be treated in the same way in the media. Ideal for promoting 4pc worldwide. I hope that we will all succeed in that together.

And now, a few comments about the format and rules of the Championship:

1.  As I always said : less time - less brain! For me, this time control is ok, but I would rather vote for 2|7. One extra minute a 2 ad. sec would mean a lot in complicated endings and would contribute to the quality of the games. Especially in the final. Imagine that in the fight for the world throne in ordinary chess, grandmasters are given 2 minutes plus 10 seconds per move! There would be a revolution!

2.  I'm very much against playing on two wins in groups. That is, in my opinion, not serious and not good. Why? Because such a format favors more luck than quality, you have no right to make a mistake! What if you disconnect during game ( like me last year )? 

If you win 3 games of the same opponents, you deserve to be in the finals - you can win 2 with a combination of happy circumstances.

Better format is : 3 wins in groups and in Final - 4 wins! ( or 2.25  and 3, 25 points as Luke likes to say )

3.  My biggest complaint is that 5 games are expected to be played in one day !!! 

Good games, as expected at the Championship, last for an hour, an hour and a half.  That means it will be played 4,5 or even more hours per day! I don't know about you, but my brain wants to burst after 3, 4 hours of full concentration! I don't even know my name, and then it is expected of us to pulling the best possible moves!?!

Beside, it would be more attractive for the spectators, they would not have to watch all the games for 5 hours at once, but for 2.5 or 3 hours for two days.

4.  As some have already mentioned, the composition of the group with champion and first 3 from leaderboard is too strong - you expect them to be in final not in group! On the other side, two bracket with players from tournaments may be too weak! ( I'll explain why in next point ).

5.  Mini Tournaments will give 8 players to bracket!!! This is too much. Why? I do not know where to start from.  

First, I am against players who play solo only once a year, when there is a tournament. In my opinion, they don't deserve a place in the tournament, for the simple reason that they don't take this game seriously (simply because they play it once or twice a year). The players who were the best throughout the past year and played constantly well should play at the Championship, everyone else is undeserved. ( After this Championship, I will present my proposal of qualifications for the next Championship, so we can discuss which is fairer and better. )

Second, This format will favor quantity instead of quality: as I already mentioned, a good game means at least 40-90 minutes; which means only 2, max 3 games with good opponents for the whole tournament. Instead, players can, as soon as they lose the queen or do not like the current position, give up and start a new game, thus destroying the current game and making the whole tournament meaningless. We come to the conclusion that it is better to play 10 games with beginners and win 3 than to win 2 games with 2300+ rating!!! The biggest nonsense!

Sorry for too long text but I needed to make these remarks. Please write if you agree or not with this. Does this just bother me or is there someone else?

Thanks

...................................

is it only solo?

I agree with most of what Neo (the main exception being timing, I'm Ok with that) and some other participants wrote above. Add to this the issue with the time zones that I mentioned in the beginning of the discussion.

I wonder though if it is still possible to modify some conditions... Probably Luke won't want to. But definitely the "2 wins" rule looks inadequate.

Bueno ahí estaremos!

I'm not going to qualify I have only played 5 games

Is there a way to still play in the Arenas if you don't have 20 games, but are over 1600?

I'll try to play 20 games by the weekend, but there aren't that many Solo games going. 

Me: Yay I got +65 in the Warmup Arena

Also Me: Just 6 damn games left to get to 20 but there are literally no solo queues

Just start a 1|15 Solo queue, only takes 5 minutes max for game to fill up. Plus, you can use rating restrictions to make the game end quicker depending on your rating.

Thanks, I'll try that.  16 games to go

I'm above 1600 but I only have 7 games

⅒|5D Solo

I made it to 20 games

how we attend the turney?

Toninght twice (16 and 20 UTC), and tomorrow, and again 4 times next WE, you can take part into the relevant ARENA.

These games will be seen automatically in the thread, otherwise you may go to leaderboards/arenas/and choose the Solo arena... EASY.

It's becoming a challenge to even win ONE game.

I'll just wait for bullet championship