Tournament Idea

Can I suggest a format for a tournament? The idea is to get as many people to play as possible with the absolute minimum of rules and administration.

It would be a rolling tournament with a fixed end date - say 31/12/10.

There is no commitment: people join and play as they wish.

People just challenge each other and score points - 1 point for playing, plus 1 point for a draw or 3 points for a win. There is also a handicap - so you double the points if you draw or beat somebody in a higher category than you.

Players agree times and colours and simply report the points gained.

We keep a spreadsheet of the points and the person who gets the most in the time is the champ.

The idea is that is gives people a reason to challenge each other. If there were a small core of dedicated people they could ensure everyone got involved by issuing challenges to new people or people who were a bit quiet.

It wouldn't affect more competitive tournaments in the group - except you could claim points for playing in those.

The only rule would be that both players had to be members of the group to qualify.

We could publish the points each month so people can see how they are doing.

Just a thought. Please bin it if it's a silly one or change it if it can be improved.

Well done to Max and Thell last night - and congrats to our new champ!

Tony

The idea is somewhat interesting, it could certainly rise some interest within our group and attract more members, but the form of it just doesn't convince me, the winner would probably be someone who has a lot of time and can play a couple of games a week. My suggestion would be to maybe think of some kind of an award for most active player, but the idea of the tournament... I don't know, I have very mixed feelings about it, it could do our group a lot of good, but on the other hand it's not a tournament as such. Let's have the other members opinion about it and see what they say.

I saw it as some sort of pot boiler - just ticking along in the background. These longer games take some organising - you can't just turn up and play if there is a time commitment of 3 or 4 hours. So I thought people might appreciate a reason to arrange games. I heard that previous live tournaments struggled because of the admin involved - so I thought a play as you go format might suit. Yes it will favour the more active player (provided he wins! You only get 1 point for turning out and upto 6 points for winning) but that's the purpose of it - to make people active. It wouldn't replace proper competitive tournaments. 

The RL chess club I used to belong to ran a similar tournament one summer, during the quiet off-season months. While it was true that one of the more active players won (not me I might add), it did provide a focus to play some competitive, friendly, games.

I don't see any harm in having such a tournament run in the background. It could have a long timescale of around 3-4 months. I think a definite finish date should be given from the start, so everyone knows where they stand.

I would make the following suggestions though:

a) I think it should be 1 point for turning out, 1 point for a draw, but only 2 points for a win - I don't see why achieving a draw should be penalised - at our level draws are less frequent anyway.

b) I think people should have to register for the tournament, and be put into different bands/divisions straight away. Otherwise I have visions of lower ranked players avoiding playing higher ranked players - and I can't say I would particularly blame them.

c) having thought about this idea a little, maybe instead of the tournament, what we need is a chess ladder? I think a ladder might in fact be better, because people would settle at their own level, and I can imagine a situation where players have favourite opponents, and have ongoing scraps. The only problem I can foresee with a ladder is that once someone challenges someone, it might prove difficult to arrange a convenient time - and this could then be abused in some cases.

I think whatever ideas we come up with, it will be impossible to please everyone, every time. Therefore, what we need is a range of different events/tournament options, so everyone can get involved in the way most convenient to them.

I like the idea of a ladder, which the standard live rating system would rank for us.

I like the scoring format as well, as I think that would ENCOURAGE games between everyone, even ones w/ a somewhat predictable outcome (but you never know!) 

It'd be nice to have that rating be primary for this group too, as Puroi is now above me in standard, but my corr. rank is higher than his; just a thought. 

Bottom line, more members in this group would get everyone more games.  I'm going to bump an ongoing thread I have trying to recruit for this group.

All very good suggestions.

There is a way of solving the "most active player wins the cup" problem. How about limiting the number of games that can qualify for the cup in a week? Lets say 1 game per week (for keeping it simple). Most contenders can achieve it, and if they can't they wont get any points for that week. Fair and square. If everybody agree's it can be two games per week, but I am sure everybody will have a difficult time to fill that quota one time or another. The cup can last 3 months. We can divide it to seasons like Summer Cup, Autumn cup etc.. 

There are details to work on before launching such an event, and this thread is a good start. Let me ask you this though (seeking the opinion of everybody who reads this thread) : Do you suggest this as a separate activity than the monthly tournaments we are planing to schedule (we just completed the first/beta version of it, and were planing to open it all members), or do you think this seasonal cups should be our main activity? Playing many G/60 or G/90 games obviously won't be practical, but perhaps different members may prefer different tournament formats. 

We can change our tournament format to seasonal cups, or can have two separate activities. Both is great, but please share your opinion on this too, so we can decide how to proceed together. 

I think this seems like a very interesting idea to add on as an activity to go along with the knock out tournaments. I really like the idea of adding a handicap that might encourage players in the group at my level including myself to challange higher rated players.I prefer to try and play stronger players anyway. Ether way though with or without the handicap this format sounds fun and seems like it can be done easily enough without effecting other events. Maybe it will even add a number of games available to be posted on the game analysis thread. Witch Im surprised didnt have more games posted from the test tournament. Hopefully everyone involved went over there games on there own at least. Anyways great job guys keep it up.

I think the seasonal tournaments could run alongside the other tournaments. This would mean people who got knocked out of the monthly tournaments early could still participate in an event.

I like the idea of a one game a week limit - maybe that should be done as an average - or rather as a maximum of being able to play only 12 games each seasonal tournament?

Also, maybe we could find a way of weighting the results, so if a higher ranked player chose to play only 12 much lower ranked players to give a high chance of 12 wins, that would be factored in. It doesn't have to be particularly complicated, just some simple modifier or scaling factor based on each players live grades at the start of each tournament.

e.g. simple modifier

200 point difference modifier 0.25. (lower ranked player wins score 2.25, higher ranked win scores 1.75)

300 point difference modifier 0.5. (lower ranked player wins score 2.5, higher ranked win scores 1.5)

400+ points difference modifier 0.75 (lower ranked player wins score 2.75, higher ranked scores win 1.25)

Obviously a loss to still 0, and I guess a draw should still be 1.

Just some ideas!

I also think it should be separate from the other tournaments and one game a week is a great idea. Only thing I'm afraid of is high ranked players playing low ranked players. The system that fysh99 suggested is ok, but not perfect imho, I don't think there's any chance in heaven that player who is ranked 400 points below his opponent would stand a chance against him. What if we set up a limit where you can only play opponent who is 200 points above or below you? Wouldn't this make sense?

And if you guys would rather stick to the idea that anyone can play anyone, the modifiers should be significantly higher then that.

Oh, And I would rather go with 1 point for winning and 1/2 point for draw :P 

I agree that you are likely to win against someone rated 400 points lower, but under a system like mine you would only get 1.25 points for the win - thats only slightly better than a draw! (remember 2 for a normal win)

a) In most tournaments a few players score a majority of wins. 1.25 per game is unlikely to get you a top spot.

b) It's unlikely you will find 12 players 400 points lower than you - remember the live rankings are much closer packed.

c) A lot of us don't play to win at all costs. I doubt many people will study the tournament rules and try to figure a way to maximise winning chances. If a few people do that, does it really matter that much?

If it's going to work it's got to be simple and rely on members love of chess and fair play.

[Edit But I'm also not against a rating limit being set as long as it doesn't mean the top and bottom few people struggle to find 12 people to play]

Lastly, I would add, that for these seasonal tournaments, there should be no element of compulsion.

The way I see it as is that both players have to agree to play each other, after which they will try to arrange a time. No one is going to force a lower rank to play someone much higher, but the option is there.

There doesn't need to be compulsion, because you can only have a total of 12 opponents. Because of differing time zones and other commitments, some opponents will be easier to arrange games with than others.

I see this format as something that could really work. A casual tournament, that pretty nearly runs itself!

Alright guys, I see everyone likes this idea, so why we haven't proceed with it? Anyone's interested in becoming this tournament's TD? Let me know so we can start it eventually!

Unless somebody else steps forward, I will act as TD. It would be good to get something up and running.

Sure if you'd like you could start organizing it straight away or wait a couple of days to see if someone else will, it's totally up to you.