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Avatar of Secuaz

Our daily match results have fallen down somewhat. We still win more matches than we lose, but barely so. Why this is the case?

There is one obvious reason: Our teams are often clearly outrated by the opponent teams. This is partly my fault. Whenever I sent match challenges to other clubs, I tried to put the top limit of ELO so that all our members could participate (if they wanted). Recently, the best two players on our leaderboard have ELO over 1800 but below 1900, and for this reason, I set 1900 as the ELO limit to most of the challenges I sent out. I didn't want our best players to think they can't join these matches.

However, most of those of our players who actively join club matches are below 1500. This means that very often, when a club match has 1900 as the limit, our team's best player is 1500 while the other club has several players in their 1600s or 1700s. We play against stronger players, and that's why we lose more matches lately.

If we want to win more club matches, either our higher-ranking players must join more often, or we need to create lower-ranked club matches targeted to the ELO range where we have most active match-players.

Another reason is that every now and then, players forget their games and lose them on time. This happens also to our opponent teams, but nevertheless, the fewer games are lost on time, the better. Not only because of club matches but because of yourself: I know it's very frustrating to lose games on time, especially if they were games you were winning.

Two members recently asked me how to get stronger opponents in matches.

When people join matches, the opponents are automatically selected in order of the ELO of the players. So, the strongest player in our team gets the strongest player in the opponent team, and so on. When you join a match, you see the rosters, and you also see your future opponent - unless someone else joins in the meantime and goes between, or someone's ELO changes so that their place in the roster also changes.

The higher your own ELO, the higher-ranked opponents you also get, because you'll be higher in the roster.

If you want higher-ranked opponents in general and not just in club matches, that's easy. Open chess.com on computer, and go to where it says "social" (earlier, this button was called "connect"). There, select "members". There, you get a little search engine, which you can use to find opponents. Select "advanced search" and there you can set criteria: you can search players from a particular country, or you can set ELO limits. If you have, for example, 1400, but you would like to play against people who have 1700, you just put ELO limits 1650-1750, and you get a list of players. You can see their profiles and send them challenges. Usually, those players who were most recently online are on the top of the list.

Other questions:

Q: How to join club matches?
A: You can join them here.

Q: How can I see those matches that have already ended?

A: You can see them here.

Q: How can I see the ongoing tournaments?

A: You can find the tournaments here. You then select "current" and "my tournaments", and you find those tournaments where you are playing.

Q: How can I see my ranking in the club?

A: You see your daily match ranking here.

For tournaments, there doesn't seem to be a combined ranking for a club, so you have to choose either the total ranking for tournaments here, or you go to the particular tournament and see its ranking, like here for Club Coronación's first tournament.

I hope these explanations and links prove useful!

Avatar of Secuaz

Thanks for the reply, Stefano. My post was not meant to blame anyone or put guilt on any of our players. Every match and every tournament is totally voluntary. Every member participates as much or as little as suits them. We all have lives beyond chess too. happy.png

As an admin, I try to cater to the wishes of the club's members. If someone, for example, wants us to set up lower-rated matches, we'll be happy to do so. But these days two members wanted the opposite - they wanted higher-rated opponents than they're having at the time.

Occasionally, people are also asking live tournaments. We tried to set up some in the past but nobody joined. The obvious challenge is timing: there would need to be a time when lots of us are simultaneously online, and that's hard when members are dispersed around the world. We can anyway set up such events if members wish so.

Avatar of DrMartinezGomez

I think we need to set 1600 as the ELO limit for now. Once we improve (I know we will), we can set it higher. It is rather demoralizing to lose more games than you win, I know it from experience sad.png.

When it comes to stronger players, those above 1700, I reckon we should create matches they can play, but fewer. Not only because we don't have many players above 1700, but because they aren't the most active members as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, this is just my opinion and perhaps the majority wants to set it lower, or higher for that matter. Everyone has a say in this club. Looking forward to reading more opinions.

Avatar of Secuaz

After your comment, I noticed that Stefano's comment disappeared from the thread. When I looked at his account, I saw it has been closed. Apparently for "fair game" reasons.

I have it hard to believe that he'd have been cheating. Didn't really seem likely with his adult character and ordinary, calm messages. Occasionally the banning decisions are unjust, resulting from a malignant loser reporting them for cheating though they didn't actually cheat. If this was the case with him, that's regrettable, and I hope he manages to create a new account and rejoin.

At the same time, I noticed a number of other members have also had their accounts closed (some for "fair game", others for "abuse") or have closed themselves. That's a pity.

Needless to say, cheating is not accepted in the club. It's cowardly and unfair. Don't cheat!

[What is cheating? You should know. The most common way of cheating is probably the use of chess engines to check one's moves before making them. That's not allowed! Other ways of cheating could be: using a friend or a parent to help you. And of course, any kind of hacking.]

But that said, also reporting other players for cheating just because you lost is cowardly and unfair and I hope that won't happen here. Report other players for cheating or for abuse only when you truly believe they did something unacceptable.

If you're just annoyed that you lost, forget it and move on. If you're annoyed by something the other player said to you in chat, think twice before you report it as an "abuse". Not every cheeky remark or emoji is an abuse. If you don't like the other person, you can just ignore them or block them.

Real abuse includes hateful or indecent messages, threats, harassment, etc. and those of course are not tolerated and can be reported, usually leading to the closure of the player's account.

So, in general, be kind. Be polite. Be respectful. Don't use curse words (for your own sake, because the robot can punish you for them even if your opponent doesn't mind). Think twice before commenting on your opponent's gender, age, nationality, religion, race or whatever.

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