Qualify for SVCL! 5+ hrs is all that is needed?

First i like to say welcome to any new teams reading this subject! Good luck!

To enter the league all a team needs to do is play a SVC game at 10 minutes a move(Standard, no Chess 960 or Thematic or etc). The game must go beyond 5+ hrs.

Here is the issue to many teams have qualified and later left after playing 1-2 games for several reasons. We have had several top teams leave as of lately. So now it turns to focus on the new teams entering the league.

On my experience the average game between 2 good teams is 12+ hrs easy. During that period teams have to have develped good communication skills playing with each other. Not having this may result in some serious frustration. This same communication is needed when picking a day to start and a starting time. Preperation is required but not needed to win. but doubt that a team may go far without it.

The SA or Admin can simply qualify his team by them alone playing for 5+hrs. For just one game. To easy! That is not SVC is about trust me. The me, myself and I method is will result in that group leaves the league or T.O. or forfeits.

With that said....  Improving the method to qualify may be the way to go to keep the new teams that enter and qualify. As it takes a player a while to make adjustments to playing a SVC game while some adjust faster than others.

The fun starts when players/teams have a clear view of what it takes to play a SVC game! Then comes............... "The Labor of Love". The 2 sides are on a level playing field with the fundamentals of SVC. Where the team that is most like to win can win or the underdog can take out the so called might team. Let the better team at the time win!

 Not at the 11th hour with the game tied up and the SA or Admin having  his members leave due not having realized that his players have to leave at a certain time. That is where they have to have experiece in preparation and communication. How will they adjust? Invite new members. This happens to all teams! Experience with your players is the only way to prepare as many players may say they will be in the game for a while ....things happen! They have to leave. Maybe they are truthful(most likely)!

What is your next move?

@Corvidae_Corvus

Welcome to the league!

Lets try to start this off correctly. A true soldier stands before us here! I salute you for your sacrafice. No greater honor can be given to a person who will lay down his life for others.

Now your in the SVC league while fun it can be brutal. Ask an Admin of this league what i went thru last season. Name it and it happened to me in a SVC game! Time outs, forfeits, players not showing up, players leaving early, players not experienced enough in chess or SVC(comment on that later), players(Admin) needed to start the game with players waiting to play and etc. Ahhhh yeah the one that hurts players sabatoge!

By players not having experience that most likely goes into the category of not posting your comment before you vote which leads to random vote move being made and losing the game off one bad move!

Yeah i have to agree that some of us sound cocky! I will speak for myself i most likely do sound cocky! Guilty! excuse me if it comes off that way.

We have had several competitive teams here leave. We play this game to compete against the best at their highest level of play. Sure new teams have some great players on their team but SVC is not an individual game and that is where most new SA or Admin may go wrong. If your opponent knows you have only 1-2 players they can quickly adjust to your "Strategy" with 2 vs 10 players. They both may have strong players but the team with 10 players will win everytime.

SVC is one of the highes levels of playing chess on this site! Once you spend 10 hrs players you have invested something and you want your interest on your investment by means of a win. Have only 5 games to make the playoffs. Want make the top 2 for easy road to finals. Bla bla bla.

I mentioned Communication! That is minimum what is need! Have to have the will to want the game at the moment like it was your life as many teams play that way here! Lose 2-3 games and your season may be over and wait next season to try again!  A year! Ouch! Nasty taste in your mouth not making the playoffs. It will tougher in the playoffs as 1 bad move and your out....good by try next year. Other team moves on!

 If your getting fired up ......great!  Hopefully you will help us replace the some of the great teams we lost lately. Sure you know what team wok is about from your experience. Standards are high to win several games. Winning 5-0 in the regular season is not to be taken lightly while 5 is a small number but undefeated is undefeated! Taking that into the playoffs is a big plus as a team will want to continue that here. We had a couple undereated teams here. So the players on that team will  look for any strategy and or tactic that will win them the game even if it be cheesy!

Dedication! Players here want tropies! They will glady reming you of that when you look at their profile! They have a bottomless pit for winning 1st place tropies. Given the chance they will glady reming you of who is number 1. I can respect that. That is what makes given the chance to take it from them so so sweet! When it taken .....let the party begin. And why stop their, come back and do it agains to prove it was not luck of a fluke! Players/Captains spend time learning new openings to play against their rival just for that SVC game. This is online playing and some players are ruthless!

Yeah chess is game and fun. That is when your first learning to be honest! Name anything you try the first time they are all lots of fun. Then when your learning what to do and not to do for some reason some of the fun is gone. Then it requires some effort to be fun..... as losing is not fun at all. If you lose too many games at some point you quit.

The fun at the next level is trying to take down some opponent who wants to crush you on the board. They like you but want to win just the same. Nothing directed directly at your opponent. Good game afterwards! Some friendly chit chat about the game later may happen. Hey some cases your enemy in last game may become an ally in next game against an opponent! The Nature of SVC ...........!

I agree with C_C, why are we repeating the same conversation here?

I sure don't have time to do it all again. I didn't even read your 2nd long post royalbiship. I started reading the 1st and stopped when had read enough. 

 Also you are not an admin royalbishop and  by starting this forum and by what you have said in your opening comment you have made it appear that you are making the rules here. 

 @C_C, you did nothing wrong as you were given a guideline and you met it. You know  my thoughts on that guideline and another admin (Daveshack) agrees with me, 5 hours is too short. But we will discuss it in the admins group and I forsee that a new guideline will most likely evolve. If a team has a  problem to meet a guideline of playing for 10 hours minimum, unless they checkmate earlier or the other team resigns due to it being 'obvious' their chances of winning are very small, then I would see any team who complained about playing 1 game in pre-season for that period of time would struggle to play many games under these conditions when the season started. We need more teams who can hack the distance than not, or else the tournament ends up being hardly a tournament. Why did you get 14  hours of constant alerts on this? We had that conversation yesterday and then it pretty much ended. And sure it is only a game, and doesn't compare or even come close to real life hard battles, and most of us have had real life hard battles, whether it's coping with losing a child or loved one or being very ill or going through a nasty divorce, or losing someone else very close to them or whatever serious diversity or tragedy. 99% of people would not be able to hack what you went through in war, I know I couldn't and I can't even  begin to imagine how horrible and treacherous the conditions you and your comrades faced. Well I can try to, but I know it would not  be the same or come close to actually enduring what you endured. And not what you endured in war but what you have to endure when you return from war. The images you saw, losing mates. Believe me I don't take that for granted. For many it was hell in war and it's hell after war. My heart always goes out to returned soldiers who suffer in war, who suffer  mental torture after war, and to their families, especially those who lost their son or brother or husband or father. Like now with the 5 Australians killed in Afghanistan a few days ago. :(

we posted at the same time Tony. :)

@Babs

I am online for hours and may been tired as usual when i typed those comments. Been down this road before anyway. I know most likely that to qualify a team must play 5+hrs will remain the same.

Rules!  My suggestion to play longer than 5+ hrs can be done off the SVC league book. They should play as many different teams as possible to get used to playing SVC games. This league does not have all the SVC teams on this site. Actually their are for teams playing Speed Vote Chess than teams in this league! Most of them strong! And playing at varios speed levels.

The only way to Improve is by Practice and Playing a full game!

Only one person around here makes the rules. :)

  Why would he or should he consider changing things if only 1 person brings up the topic only. But it has to start with one person bring it up!

How do you know it will stay 5+ hours royalbishop, you have a crystal ball? :p

I agree they  need to practice a full game, we already discussed all that yesterday. 

Not only one person around here makes all the rules. We have an admins group and rules are jointly made. You are making assumptions and incorrect statements one after the other, please stop.

I actually didn't realise that the guideline had been set to 5 hours, maybe I missed Cooper telling new teams that condition in the notes because was on leave, I have been super busy and have taken leave here and there from the site for a few days at a time. I was surprised by the conversation yesterday in the group notes which I think is pretty obvious. It will be discussed in the admins, a joint decision will be made. No need for us to go on about it here, nor continue to make wild statements/guesses. 

You didn't bring it up by the way. The issue was brought up after I saw Tony's note yesterday about the win and the duration of the time the game went for. You may have time to discuss the same thing over and over but sorry I don't. 

This forum was created as Corvidae_Corvus wanted to keep it out of the notes. Also i said i spend so much time online playing i might overlap my thoughts as i said in a previos statement. That i should not have to repeat.

The subject is 5+hrs is all that is needed?

It is directed toward the new teams! Hopefully this will be will start a method of keeping our new teams since we are losing more top teams than top teams coming into the league lately! 

With an outrageous amount of Time Out and Forfeits last season! Have to start some where to eliminate that issue?

Seems a non issue to me to be honest, can lose on time in any form of chess.

With a record number of timeouts this season John, it is a major issue

Not just timeouts but teams pulling out of the tournament and no shows.

No shows have been a nightmare especially when there are teams wanting to play

exactly right Donna, there are limited places so we just want to be sure the 'right' teams get in.

Based on the number of timouts/forfeits/withdrawls, I agree that a single player playing a single game for 5 hours is no longer a good enuf entrance requirement.  Rather than increasing the length of time for a single game tho, a better indication would be to increase the number of games.  I use Daws' rating system to make the schedule, and he has a 5 game minimum for his program to know how good you are.  I figure if you've played 5 games and Daws has given you a rating, you're qualified.

The exception at the moment will be The Ultimate Vote Chess group who believed they were qualified and looking forward to the new season, but was not told about the new 5 game minimum requirement (which I just realized is not posted anywhere (until now)).  So they will be grandfathered in and allowed to play, unless there are any objections.  Their eagerness leads me to believe that they're a good risk (they'll actually show up for their games).

Good idea Billium