Whatever  modus or format, these tournaments would be far from ideal, but I hope to see a little bit of fairness and sportmanship on the part of group admins/superadmins, instead of winning at all costs by fair or foul means. 

Some admins claims that like a soccer team, only the very best players should be allowed to play, kicking all weak players out of the team.  However we are not being paid for playing unlike the players in the football league instead we are here for our own enjoyment (many of us paying C.c for it) whatever our rating level are.

I know I am not being accused here but my team is 132 members and we do not discriminate against any ratings at all

It's undeniable that having 4 tournaments would be more ideal than having 2... even more than 4 would be better/fairer... but we have to be realistic as to what can be managed... easy for us to sit here and judge/complain/criticise... we have to keep an open mind also to the fact that volunteers run all the tournaments, sacrifice a lot of time for them... sure we make suggestions to try to improve the system, but let's not lose sight of the great work dave, kokino and others do here on the site to provide the extra privileges for us all around here. I am always making suggestions, saying how I think things can  be improved, but it is never to be reflected as criticising the directors/organisers... I fully appreciate and am grateful for the time they always give...

Please note that my comment is not directed towards the organisers/volunteers of these tournaments ( I appreciate too the difficult work they are doing Babs !) but at those group admins/s.admins who are so selfish and taking advantage of every loophole in the rules leading to bitter discussions!

Here is a link to show what sort of discussions that can lead to.

http://www.chess.com/groups/team_match.html?id=23519

Aww, with 25 new comments since last time I looked you got me thinking there were a bunch of signups.

It's a good discussion but it's also 3AM.  Got hung up playing a game (Dwarf Fortress) and didn't knotice how late it is. 

Yes, the list needs to be updated, and I need to check and see if the final matches kicked off properly -- but that's for tomorrow too.

Donna, Babs... I really appreciate your suggestions and it is possible it would work but once again I have to remind everyone (I did several times last year) that these kind of tournaments take a long time to finish (normally over a year) therefore, setting many size limits it will simply prove it more useless.

I could provide a good number of examples we already had last year. (D'chessbombs, even Chess Nuts! is one of them.. they started the tournament with less than 100 members and in a couple of months they were above 300)

On the other hand, we've got what Regis is mentioning here. It is more important the active size and there are a good number of teams which really need to be sorted of inactive players, closed accounts...etc. Team size is not always that relevant. (Besides, in the TML we play with rating divisions...therefore, there are other factors already involved)

I believe there are other ways for Chess.com to create automatically tournaments for teams (as we have for individual players) which shouldn't be really difficult to implement. (there are other sites with it already)

Finally, I am really sorry but I am currently struggling even to prepare a new TM LEAGUE edition and the only way I see that possible is implementing minimum changes to the existing 2009 edition so I can use most of the templates and work I had already created for it. Don't have the time to create more tournaments, neither to find any capable and responsible administrators. (I was really lucky when I found Daveshack last year, he proved helpful and active as to continue with this tournament by himself, but unfortunately this is not happening everyday... and it is really complicated to find members who are really willing to continue the job)

At any rate, I appreciate your proposals and from my side there are not problems if you want to go ahead and start the admins recruiting process.

I might put create a forum later tonight Manny, to try to find admins who would be willing and capable to run a new tournament or two... are you able to message to me a list of requirements needed so I can include it in the forum please Manny as I don't know what is involved... do they need to know any specific programs?

We've been using an Excel (or OpenOffice) spreadsheet to handle the charts.  It's seeded and scheduled a lot like a regular 4(2)->2 tournament, except that there's a definite end date to each round instead of waiting for every match to be decided.  My experience has been that the hardest parts are getting teams signed up (marketing is not a strong area for me), and having a thick skin when people try to make up new rules on the fly (and complain about them).

I am strong in marketing Dave, it's what I do... I can possibly help you guys there. For example, if we have the list of groups that would fall into each rating tournament category I could help write a letter to send out to the group's leaders.

But for now, more urgently, you need the extra admins to run the extra tournaments.  I have dropped Manny a note asking what skills exactly are needed... if you think of anything else, besides using excel spread sheets and being thick skinned and obviously dedicated and willing to give up time and be available for 1 year to run the tourney then please list. Once I have your list and Manny's list I can write up an application spiel and post it in chess.com forums area... I understand that the person has to be sure they will stick with it and not leave the tournament unchecked and for the whole year...

The Thunder Knights

Primary contact : proKnight98

Secondary: blackfirestorm666

198 members

1532

2770, 2733, 2678.

http://www.chess.com/groups/matches/the-thunder-knights

No the team didn't play last year :)

well if there's a few people over that shouldn't be a big deal, don't you think? Like I think that 260 would be max before they enter your league

I would say the #members limits should be kinda fuzzy, perhaps +/- 25.  A lot of players join a group and then never play online or stop playing, which distorts the group size.  A slightly smaller but highly active group should play up to give themselves a good challenge, while a slightly larger but less active group could play down.

The rating balance also matters -- a group of 100 players who are all 2000+ should play in the league for bigger groups, and a group of 500 players who are all <2000 should play in the league for smaller groups.

I have created a forum after discussing with kokino to try to find a couple more tournament directors to help you guys run another tournament or 2. You two can sort out the finer details if and when the right person does offer to help.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/tournament-directors-needed-to-help-kokino-and-daveshack

☆☆☆ Team Francophone ☆☆☆

International

Date Formed: 2009-06-11 06:51:54
# of Members: 311

Super Admin(s): JulesCesar, NEWGAME, misslulluby
Admin(s): kloech, SittingBull

Avg. Rating: 1599
Top Rated Players: loper10 (2776), neverless (2729), Naningue (2542)

Matches in Progress: 16
Vote Chess in Progress: 2

no, we did not play in 2009

England

Blackfirestorm666 and Elroch

178 members,

2831, 2764, 2739

Average: 1620

http://www.chess.com/groups/matches/england

And no we didn't

Where are we up to with this because at the moment what seems to have happened is these are not being updated so we have no idea who is registering for what in here?

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/tmc-2010---team-registration?page=1

That list is definitely old. I messaged Dave and asked him to remove us from the list because we are more than 250 members now.. and I am sure we are not the only team that is that has listed their name within this whole forum.

Also teams are in here registering with teams over 300 members ...