Suggestions and questions

1. With four teams of four in each division, I have 12 individual opponents.  I would therefore play 12 games.  Under the current rules, those 12 games start simultaneously - that's a lot of games to start simultaneously.
   It wouldn't make the tournament last all that much longer to spread it out a bit.  Games against one team start in the first month.  Games against the second team start in the second month.  Games against the third team start in the third month.  That way, some of the first set of games will finish before the second set starts, and most of the first set will finish before the third set starts, thus ensuring I never have a huge load of games hitting all at once.  Given the faster 2-day time control, this is important.
   Can consideration please be given to doing something like this?  Please remember that most of us have other team match commitments too and are reluctant to join something that will see us overloaded with too many simultaneous games.
   
   This also makes it more feasible to expand the league in future.  Four groups of five teams means 16 individual opponents.  16 games is a lot if they hit all at once, but if they're spread out across four months I probably won't have more than 8-10 max active at any one time, which is much more reasonable.
   
   
2. It's not clear how I know whether I'm playing white or black in any one game.  I'm assuming I'll play half each way; will individual pairings be published somewhere?
   
   
3. Playoffs: have you considered consolation playoffs for the lower-ranked teams?  For example, have all 2nd place teams in a group to determine 5th through 8th, all 3rd place teams in a group to determine 9th through 12th, all 4th place teams in a group to determine 13th through 16th... I'm not sure whether I like the idea, but it should be considered.
   
   
4. What happens if an account is closed (for any reason) or goes offline for an extended period of time?  Can a team recruit a substitute to replace them for future matches?  If not, a team that reaches the playoffs but had someone close their own account is going to have a very difficult time in the playoffs.
   
   
5. To avoid problems with sandbagging, it might be useful to use a one-month-old rating for purposes of calculating average ratings.

1. We realize that 12 games is kinda a lot, but it's not THAT much.......and with active players 2 day games would end quickly. I guess we may consider staggering them by at least a week. Also consider that players will be individually sending/accepting challenges, so it's not a complete immediate thing. 

2. They will be published yes. 

3. Interesting. Definitely possible. 

4. Um, we hadn't considered this. In games ongoing I don't think we'd allow a sub but for a playoff round a sub seems reasonable. We'll talk about it. 

5. OK

12 games is already more than I like to have going at any one time.  Add in my other team match commitments and I could easily be pushing 20-25 simultaneous games.  That really is a lot, and I'm reluctant to join a tournament that will force me to play that many simultaneous games.

Staggering them by a week doesn't really help; it has to be enough that some of the first batch are getting close to finished by the time the next batch start, and that really does mean it has to be a full month or it doesn't really help a lot.

If you're thinking the tournament should be done in a few months like NSPCL, don't.  This is correspondence chess.  You should expect it to take about a year, possibly a bit more if some games run long.  Under those circumstances, staggering the starts by about a month per round isn't really all that big of a deal.

And this is particularly important if the league grows.  Right now it's 12 games.  Later it might be 16 or 20.  On top of other team match commitments, that could push me to 30-35 games, depending on what else I have going on.  I simply can't join a tournament that will do that to me.

Also, one other issue: if there are a few remaining games from the group stages but they can't have any impact on final standings, will you wait to start the playoffs until all games or complete, or go ahead as soon as final standings are mathematically certain?

I think we'd like to go ahead with the playoffs as soon as possible, yet it's likely that most divisions will go 2-1 2-1 1-2 1-2, which will leave games won as the tiebreakers, which could delay it a little. 

We do understand that this is a reasonable commitment in daily chess; I think the plan is (we haven't discussed this in detail) but I think the priority would be to add more divisions (of 4) or.........idk. lol. 

But we realize it's a lot of games. We will consider slowing it down. (Would it help if we changed to 3 day games?) (Because that's likely more realistic than staggering the games.) The thing is, daily games -- especially long ones -- have a tendency to take a loooong time. The original plan was, I think, to be about half a year for a season, maybe 9 months, with preparations for theoretical subsequent seasons going on during playoffs and stuff. 

We will consider it, but in all honesty, I think it's unlikely that we stagger the games out. Really, most people can (well, 'can' might be the wrong word) but try to handle  20-30 games, and if the players are active, they should end in a reasonable amount of time. 

Changing it to 3-day games would help a little, but nowhere near as much as staggering the games.  I still get 12 games hitting all at once.

Half a year for a season, including the playoffs, is really not reasonable for correspondence chess.  Individual games can go on longer than that.  It's rare, but I've had games last a year or more.

I know some people do 20-30 games or more, but if you don't want to blitz out your moves, that's a major time commitment, and a lot of people are really busy.  There are a lot of people who prefer to keep their active game count closer to 10 or 15 max, and many of us have other team match commitments.

Anything you can do to cut down or spread out the game load will make the tournament more accessible for those of us who prefer to keep their game count down.  As it stands right now, I'm pretty doubtful that I want to join.

BTW, it should be noted that most team match leagues start one team match per month.  This means people start two games per month.  TMCL has several rounds followed by playoffs, and finish their tournament in about a year; if I understand correctly, they start a new season every year even if the old season hasn't quite finished.

I actually agree with this

*sougata who's not playing either*

*doesn't mean I can't say my opinion*

it looks like you guys are wanting 16 teams 4 groups of 4... maybe if we change that to 4 groups of 2 or 3 we are only playing 4 or 8 games at once  because i dont think you will be getting 16 teams this season

and having a 3 days time control sounds nice... 

or 2 and allow vacation time (admins will forfeit players who abuse the vacation time

are we allowed to vacation? because sometimes people may get busy for 3-4 days and flagging all the games would suck :/ 

Perhaps....

Vacation is a yes I think

Some more thoughts:

1. I think you should wait to start your first season until 2020.  That gives you a month and a half to recruit and to set up teams.
2. I would plan to start a new season every January, even if the previous season's playoffs haven't quite finished yet.  If I remember correctly, this is what TMCL and TMCL960 do.
3. If you follow my suggestion on staggering starts by a month, that would mean the final batch of games (assuming four teams per group) would get started in early March of each year.  Most games, then, will be completed by May or June, with a decent chance of being able to start the playoffs by early August or even in July.  By the end of the year, there may be a few playoff games remaining, but most and possibly all will be complete, and it will very probably be already determined who the winner is.
4. I agree on allowing vacation.  Disallowing it would cause timeouts, and also keep some people from playing if they anticipate occasionally being offline for a few days.
5. You should be able to adjudicate games (for league purposes) after 75 moves if the position is extremely clear.
   That way, if a game drags on for a long time, if someone is simply delaying and playing to mate, you can still proceed with the tournament.
   However, you should not adjudicate simply because someone has a winning engine evaluation.  If their opponent has any meaningful chance of counterplay or potential stalemate traps, or if the path to checkmate (or a simple won endgame) is not straightforward.
   A decision on adjudication should only be made after discussion with both players; this discussion needs carried out cautiously to avoid giving either player any possibly-useful information.
   Also, a decision on adjudication should not be made unless it will enable the tournament to proceed; if one game reaches 75 moves but there are several other important games outstanding that do not meet the requirements for adjudication, there's no reason to adjudicate.
6. @GoPikachu's suggestion of groups of 2 or 3 (thus 4 or 8 games) would help with the game load, but only temporarily, as if the league is successful it will eventually grow, and might eventually grow to the point where you want to put more than four teams in a group.  I still strongly recommend staggering the starts by a month, and don't really see how I can play without that.

I actually agree with the idea of staggering the games, but maybe 3 weeks instead of a month. After all, games will probably take a few days to start.

Game adjudication I had already thought of but hadn't brought up. 

Three weeks is enough to help, but is there any reason to not do the full month?  That's a little more straightforward, anyway.

Imagine the following schedule:

December 25th: deadline for registration of teams and players

January 1st: first pairings are published and players begin sending challenges

January 8th: deadline for sending challenges for first round of games

February 1st: second pairings are published and players begin sending challenges

February 8th: deadline for sending challenges for second round of games

March 1st: third pairings are published and players begin sending challenges

March 8th: deadline for sending challenges for third round of games

Then lets assume enough games are completed to determine who qualifies for the playoffs on July 15th.  It's close enough to the end of the month that, after the necessary admin work to prepare pairings, playoffs might as well start on August 1st:

August 1st: first playoff pairings are published and players begin sending challenges

August 8th: deadline for sending first set of playoff challenges

September 1st: second playoff pairings are published and players begin sending challenges

September 8th: deadline for sending second set of playoff challenges

October 1st: third set of playoff pairings are published and players begin sending challenges

October 8th: deadline for third set of playoff challenges

October 15th: registration opens for the following season

December 25th: deadline for registration for the following season

December 31st: most playoff games are completed by this point, but there may still be a few outstanding; it may or may not be possible at this point to determine the final standings.

Sometime in January/February of following year: final playoff games are completed and the final results of the previous season are published.

"the necessary admin work to prepare pairings," = ~5 minutes CUZ I MADE THE SHEETS 😁