Tiebreaker proposal (for next season)

I'd like to propose a modification for next season's tiebreaker system.

1. Add another column, number of times opponent forfeited or timed out.
2. Score timeouts in lost positions as normal, for the purpose of this tiebreaker.  (*) Yes, I know that lost positions are not very well defined.  This issue deferred till after we see if the proposal makes sense.
3. Put this tiebreaker after "head to head" in the order, before "first blood".  Teams with fewer timeout/forfeit wins seeded higher.

Motivation:  wins by timeout/forfeit are less indicative of a team's "strength" than decisive wins.

The problem that I see with this, is that it gives no indication to the strength of that team. 

But shouldn't real wins be worth more, at least for tiebreak situations?

In theory yes they should. But say the opponents were unprepared and timed out early in the opening or didn't even show up at all and forfeited. So the timing out team is penalised but the winning team is also penalised despite the fact they have absolutely no control over the situation. 

Timeouts and Forfeits are part of the tie breaking equation already.  If a team has equal points, etc., then it's the fewest forfeits first, then the fewest timeouts.

Timeouts are not all equal.

Score timeouts in lost positions as normal, for the purpose of this tiebreaker.  (*) Yes, I know that lost positions are not very well defined.  This issue deferred till after we see if the proposal makes sense.

Ahhh.  I get what you're saying now.  You're right, of course.  A timeout in the first few moves before the game even gets started is very different from a game that is simply abondoned because there's no hope left.  Still, as you said, it's too subjective a call to make.  The only empirical way to compare the two timeouts is "Number of Moves" or "In Game Score."  I proposed a "Number of Moves" column and got shot down (cuz it would reward those who drag out losing positions).  The "In Game Score" is not really a good indication either, cuz I've seen plenty of mates performed by a team that was down in material (the winner of the game won't always have the higher score).

So for tie-breaking purposes, I'm afraid that all timeouts WILL have to be considered equal.  There's simply no objective way around it.  In both cases tho, it shows that the team was either unable or unwilling to finish what they started, which puts them 1 step ahead of all the teams who didn't even start their game (forfeits), but 1 step behind the teams who had the grace to resign or the tenacity to be mated.

I suppose the only other possibility that I can think of would be that timeouts after a certain number of moves aren't considered timeouts, but simply as losses.  This would show that they were at least in the game long enuf for it to be interesting (regardless of position).  Teams are required to play a game lasting at least 16 moves to qualify for the league.  I suppose if we want to amend the timeout tie-breaker column to not include timeouts that happen after move 16, I could go for that.  That would certainly help teams like the Turk Chess Players who timed out on move 99 in a drawn position (that SOOOO sucked!!!).

Let's put that proposal to the floor and see what everyone thinks:

Should the timeout tie-breaking column only include timeouts that happen in less than 16 moves?

That covers half of what I was saying, I think.

Once timeouts have been differentiated in this way, I was also proposing that wins by timeout (according to new definition) count for less than actual wins.  IE for the purpose of tiebreakers a team which is 5-0 with no timeout wins (all "actual" wins) scores higher than a team which is 5-0 with some timeout wins.  And in fact, a 4-1 with no timeout wins deserves a better seed than a 5-0 with 3 timeout wins.  Simply showing up should not be enough to get the #1 seed.

Is that the purpose of the column you mentioned?  Or is that column used for downgrading teams that lost because of timeouts?

Interesting point.

At the moment, the column only downgrades teams that lose by timeout.  I don't know if we want to downgrade teams that win by timeout as well because they have no control over whether or not the other team timed out.  However, you make a real good argument that a team who plays all their games to a definite end should rank higher than a team who only played a handful of moves before their opponent timed out.  Again, I don't think we want to get into any subjective "losing position" arguments, but I can see the logic of a timeout win in less than 16 moves counting as only a partial win compared to games that run over 16 moves (an actual checkmate or resignation in less than 16 moves should still count as a full win tho).  The losing team wouldn't actually be encouraged to tank before the 16 move mark, cuz it will hurt them as well, but I'm still not completely sold on the idea.  Would the partial win be worth 2 points instead of 3?  So it would still go in the win column, but the victory points would be less?  That is certainly a possiblity that I'm open to.  It might even encourage the winning team to agree to a re-match if the losing team's computer crashed a few moves in or whatever (cuz then they would have a shot at 3 points rather than settling for 2).  Forfeit wins would also have to count for only 2 victory points rather than 3.

That's a real good idea.  Definitely a possibility.  Let's see what the masses have to say.  If enuf people support it, we can make the change for next season.

That's exactly the objective.  I very much prefer to see games played, vs taking the points and laughing over the early timeout/forfeit.  I also see the other side of the issue -- being organized should count for something.  It's a difficult challenge to balance the two.

As we are starting discussions on the new season, this is certainly one that we'd like to address.  There are actually 2 proposed changes on the table (both of which I agree to).  What are your votes on each?

1) Any game that times out in 15 moves or less shall only be worth 2 points to the victor rather than 3.  Resignations and Checkmates in less than 16 moves will still be worth 3.

2) Any game that times out in 16 moves or more shall not be held against the losing team as a timeout, but rather just as a normal loss.

We could also make forefits worth -1 points to even further discourage no shows (just a thought).  What do you think?

I think they all sound good William. :) 

I've posted the new rules for Season 5, incorporating the things we've discussed here.

What I didn't include was the losing a point for forfeiting because I didn't hear anyone else address whether they liked that specific idea or not.