Announcing the 2022 (Fourth) Online World 4 Player Chess FFA/Solo Championship (DISCUSSION)

For me to retain 1 winner per arena doesn't make sense, especially with such a low threshold.

I predict that again some strong players won't be able to qualify as quite often the winner wins simply by lack (incompetent players as sides, good players in front, several victories in a row, fast victories that allow to pass to the next game quickly, etc. whereas other players are stuck in long extenuating endgames where eventually an idiot throws the game to someone else, etc.).

I believe that let's say give 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 pts to the 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st in every Arena would make much more sense. With thus 4 arenas per schedule, it is very easy for a very strong player to finish 2nd 4 times and to not qualify with your intended formula, Luke. 

Also it is critical to forbid the previous Arenas winners from playing again. I could see quite some cases where players had them and lost and it was not fair.

I'm sailing in July. Final must be done by the 26th of June for me to play.

Edited schedule. Lars might return in the Prelims as the Defending World Champ. TBD which time and date.

EDIT: June 19th is no longer going to be used for the W4PCC after considering 0 and 12 UTC qualifying times. See edits to proposed schedule.

@indipendenza obviously the winners of arenas cannot play subsequent arenas - I’ll be sure to mention that in the final format. Lars of course if he accepts the deal of playing in the Preliminaries (and finals, if he advances) wouldn’t be touching the Arenas, either.

2200+? What an absolute joke...

Way less of a joke than the schedule - literally every weekend at the same times? 16 utc and 20 utc? Four hours apart? What about the rest of the world?

after discussion in the discord, we've edited the schedule. It appears we must have an all-June championship

So, democracy in action! Luke, no offense but I thought this was going to be a serious Championship! We'll get a joke instead!

Have you read my suggestions at all? Have you ever thought that behind these proposals is a very long thinking of someone who has been playing this game for 4 years and who has been there since the first Championship?

There are many reasons why Arena alone is not good for choosing the top 16! Most have already been mentioned by Indi. 

I will give you just one example from last year's Arenas that some may remember: the player who lost in my game after a few moves immediately started the second with the beginners and easily won them while I played with 2 very strong opponents ... and whats happened - he was the winner of the Arena and placed in the top 16 ... a player who lost in a serious game after a few moves!?! And that's fair and ok to you?

Last year we at least had a chance through the leaderboard or best performence ( which is the fairest way ) to get into the top 16 - now : lucky winner of Arenas! Great!

So, dear friends, if you beat Hest, Cha cha and Empty in 3 games in a row you will be worse than someone who wins 4 games with players of 2200 rating !!!

Then...anyone can win 2 games in a group and advance to the finals without any preparation, studying the opponent, tactics ... without anything. If you want a serious competition you have to play for a minimum of 3 wins because that includes the above. Even (my) Nikola Jokić could have won 2 games alone (without half of the Denver team) - and does that mean that they are better than Golden State? No.

GL with Championship!

Another possibility is to run it the way the Teams Championship was run. Selecting the Top Four from 1h and 20min of arenas instead and having a Playoff between them each time. And sorry for the delays, but I am not gonna officially announce the final format until Friday 7pm US Central, exactly 4 weeks in advance!

In my opinion, the best way is the best performance. It best reflects the strength of the player - it includes everything: commitment to play through frequent games, the best coefficient with the strongest players, best current form, etc.

I understand that, due to popularity, there must be Arenas, but all 16 participants should not be chosen through them, in whatever format they were held. Also, team arenas cannot be compared to SOLO because knowledge and skills are crucial in team play, and there are many other factors in SOLO.

a) to let LL players access makes the outcome incertain and often irrelevant. 2400 or 2500 should be the minimal level. I wrote 2200 earlier, but I've just had a 2259 in front who ate my Q in the 1st stage FFA (making me 4th and him 2nd in a Solo...). So there's been some additional inflation since.

b) in Arenas it's all about time and about lottery, who is with whom. As Neo mentioned earlier, we could see difficult and long games (with participants who lost too much time like that, with no result) and very fast and short games where people earned easy points + bonuses for victories in a row. To take just one winner per arena doesn't make sense, sincerely.

IMVVHO we should either allow several participations, attributing points for the first 5 places and thus taking really the best players ; or like 2 years ago, before the arena format was created, have 2-3 steps selection.

What I would suggest, that's: 

- to qualify directly the current champion (if he wants),

- to qualify directly the 7 or 8 highest ratings (or those lower when they refuse),

- to attribute the 8 remaining places as follows:

SATURDAY 1

During 1 hour, the organiser launches games of Level 1 for all those who want and who are present (no registration needed!), the winners pass to Level 2 games.

Once the hour finishes, no more games launched. We wait for all the games to finish. X winners pass to the Level 2 (let's say 37 players).

Then again during 1 hour, the organiser launches games of Level 2 for all those who want and who are still present, the winners pass to Level 3 games.

Once the hour finishes, no more games launched. We wait for all the games to finish. Y winners pass to the Level 2 (let's say 11 players).

Etc. until we get just 4 players who play the final in their group, and we retain 2 players with most points after 5 games. 

Same then with SUNDAY 1, SATURDAY 2, SUNDAY 2.

AND you have like that 16 players for the final stage, period. Plus a waiting list of let's say 4 players who replace lacking players if any.

With such a scheme, no need to install a high threshold, it may well be 2000 for instance if the organisers want the event to be accessible for many players.

I guarantee that with such a formula there won't be any "qualification by lack", and only serious players will be among the 16 qualified.

What do you guys think about a compromise for the 2020 W4PCC Solo? Arenas unrated, Prelims and Finals Rated.

2020 is in the past, but 2022 is right now. I think unrated arenas is a good idea given the current situation of the server and its connection issues.

Again, I think due to the server issues which are still highly prevalent that it should just be unrated the whole way through but if the servers were fine I think that would be a good decision

Couldn't we do it the right way, i.e. fix FIRST the server issues, and THEN organise such a planetary event?!

I think the issue is they do not know how long the server issues will take to fix so in theory it could be a year in which case we would have skipped a championship.

Has rojitto said whether he's playing or not? For him, is this decision affected by whether the event is rated?

Yes, rated = no rojitto and no radon ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I don't understand the push for rated. If someone's in the arena they should be motivated to win whether it's rated or not and take it seriously. Making it rated won't change that except make sweaty people irrational.

Also, what is this 2200+ nonsense? Don't we understand by now that even 2400s are jokes thanks to inflation? Let's please consider a more reasonable cap (at least 2600 imo) for the integrity of this arena and the championship.  It is obvious that if a 2200 would win an arena they are the luckiest - not most talented - player in the arena. 

There are less than 60 2600+ players, according to my leaderboard position as a 2520 and by adding some players to make up for inactives.

@Grathieben: Solo rating, not FFA rating is the right cutoff (if such a thing should exist) after merge. 2200+ is too high.