FFA=SOLO/ Simplify the game

Some of us said this more than a year ago with the changes that were done but after coming back after a while i see that nothing has improved a lot and the pool of players hasnt increased as i think it could have. 

Problem

Since SOLO should be played more or less as teams until there are 3 left (like FFA) because its the best strategy to win, i dont get whats the point on having 2 different games. As i see it, it only confuses people that think that the name ("solo") implies something and get mad when you "team"/cooperate.

For me it only makes the game even harder to understand for newbies (since some of the "experimented" players dont even get it yet), so its gonna make it harder for the game to grow. 

Two years ago there was a popular spanish chess youtuber called Reydama uploading some 4pc games (some of them with +1M views). Now you have Hikaru streaming some games.

If there are so many options for players and therefore streamers to choose to play, its gonna be harder for them to get invested in just one mode and therefore streaming it more and helping the viewers understand the strategy and making them wanting to play and try the game.

Solution=simplify the options

a) Current FFA for low rated players and SOLO for high rated players, as it was before with WTA.

b) Current FFA for all

c) SOLO for all

Some more thoughts:  differences between current FFA and SOLO 

The difference between current FFA ad SOLO now are the incentives to not finish 4th that can make the players not go 100% for the win sometimes. 

Also, if you have the bad luck of getting the worst player in the table as your opposite, you are gonna get 4th more times. The good thing of SOLO is that the rating system doesnt penalize that as much, so there is less variance with that (you are gonna get 4th the same amount of times on both modes but will lose more ELO in ffa). 

+1

-1

"Since SOLO should be played more or less as teams until there are 3 left (like FFA) because its the best strategy to win, i dont get whats the point on having 2 different games."

This is not true. They are played completely differently 90% of the time

It's true. I'm not saying "it's played", I'm saying "should be played". And yes, 90% of the time it's not played like that, because people haven't figured out yet the best strategy.

+1 nice post, hope that it will implemented like this (if will): https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/rapid-ffa-solo-and-blitz-ffa

it seems that now players have begun to play more actively in 4|0 solo, but I think it does not reach the level of 4|0 ffa, I do not think that the statistics in solo have somehow improved over the last month: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/rest-in-peace-solo

It's true that the state of Solo is sad today. I don't like the thought of removing Solo. Maybe make a rating range and/or quantity of games for players to have in order for the mode Solo to be available for them. 

I agree

+1

@Arseny_Vasily thanks for sharing those posts, good work!

Very accurate post, the two leaderboards for two very similar formats are seriously hindering the competitiveness and development of individual 4pc.

We need to simplify the options, the question is how. Seeing how the rating morphing in FFA is doing, the solution I'm leaning towards right now is a version of alternative a): to delete the Solo leaderboards and make FFA morph from 3 1 -1 -3 to 4 -4/3 -4/3 -4/3 by using, for example, the formula  3+x, 1-7x/3, -1-x/3, -3+5x/3 where x goes from 0 for the lowest rated players to 1 for the highest rated players. This way new players can mess around with the original FFA rating system and top players have to play for 1st.

you don't play antichess solo... Please do NOT talk about antichess solo because it is balanced.

-1 million 

Also, Solo means being 4th is as bad as being 2nd, so if you lose as 4th, that is the same as losing as 2nd so no effect.

Excellent master hest, the truth I do not find much difference between ffa and only now

I am for merging the FFA and Solo formats Rating wise and game wise and with Hest’s proposed formula in everything except Antichess. Antichess should still offer two 1v1v1v1 options, FFA and Solo. Furthermore, Antichess should be listed under variants leaderboard with three separate ratings: Solo Antichess, FFA Antichess, and Teams Antichess.

My current suggestion the following:

If lowest opponent is 1500 or less, make X range from 0 to 3/7 based on rating average, asymptotically so that a 1500 never experiences second as negative, 1800 lowest player from 0 to 5/7 based on rating average, and 2100 lowest player from 0 to 1 based on rating average.

I hope that’s not too complicated

I hate solo

Really nice, this seems like a great solution for me.

Of course, I'm talking about STANDARD

see? so many variants

Yeah, you guys know better about Antichess, just talking about Standard. 

And yep, as i see it i think that suggestion would work!