WSVL Rules

FSVL Rules: (last updated 8/4)

1. The FSVL is open to 20 teams per season.
2. These teams will be divided into four “conferences” of 5 teams each.
3. Each season lasts 17 weeks. 
   1. The First Season will run from Monday, June 22 thru Sunday, October 18. 
   2. The Second Season will run from Monday, October 19 thru Sunday, February 14.
4. Each fortnight begins and ends at midnight (Universal Time) and runs from Monday thru Sunday.
5. At some point during each fortnight (14 days total), each team will complete one game of Vote Chess against the team on their schedule for that fortnight.
6. It is the responsibility of the Team Administrators to coordinate start times with their opposing teams each fortnight.
7. There is a maximum of 5 days for admins to issue a challenge to their opposing team stating their desired start time, and a maximum of 3 days for the other team to respond.  If no start time can be agreed upon, then the FSVL will have to step in and set a time for them.
8. Once the start time has been agreed upon, a team will forfeit the match if they do not accept the challenge within 1 hour of the scheduled start time.
9. Every team will play every other team in their conference once.
10. Each team will have one “bye” week with no scheduled game.
11. Every Vote Chess game will be played at 10-minutes per turn.
12. Every Vote Chess game will be played with random color settings.
13. The first 10 weeks will be the “Regular Season” with the next 6 weeks being the “Post Season” or “Playoffs.”
14. Teams will be ranked according to this point system:
    1. Win = 3 points
    2. Draw = 1 point
15. Ties are broken via the “First Blood” system (if two teams have the same number of points, the team that scored their points first is ranked higher)
16. The leaders in each conference will automatically be seeded #s 1-4 in the playoffs.
17. There will be 4 “Wild Card” spots available to the 4 non-division-leaders with the best records.
18. Week 11/12 will be the Quarter Finals with only the Top 8 teams competing.
    1. The #1 team will play the #8 team
    2. The #2 team will play the #7 team
    3. The #3 team will play the #6 team
    4. The #4 team will play the #5 team
19. Week 13/14 will be the Semi-Finals between the four Quarter-Final winners.
    1. The #1 team will play the #4 team
    2. The #2 team will play the #3 team 
20. Week 15/16 will be the FSVL Finals between the winners of each Semi-Final game.  The winner of this game will be the Champion for that Season.
21. Week 17 is the “Off Season.”  Everybody gets to take a break.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.  These rules are subject to change (based on group discussions and votes), so please check this thread (and more specifically this post) regularly.

And this is not a rule, but a request: Let's try to come up with creative names when making the challenge.  I think it's going to be fun to post the most interesting games and most creative titles each week.  It will be more fun if they're not all called, "Let's Play." 

At 10-mins per turn, that means each team will make 3 moves per hour.  How long each game lasts will depend on how many moves it takes to complete:

Here is a sample time grid to help you coordinate start times:

You can simply rotate this grid until your desired start time/time zone lines up.  For example: If you wanted the game to start at 10am in New York (currently -4), 3pm in London (currently +1), and Midnight in Sydney (currently +10) then your grid would look like this:

Keep in mind that it is always the same time, but different days in time zones +14 (Christmas Islands) and -10 (Hawaiian Islands).

Here is a link to the World Clock for more specific info:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

Why do we play each other only once? playing White is an advantage, If we play random colour, that means that one team could play all there games as black, which is hardly fair. Surely we should play each other twice, one black one white.

Technically, that is possible, but I hope that no one's luck is so bad that the randomizer would come up black 9 times in a row.

To play 2 games each, we would need to either double the length of the season or cut the conference sizes in half.  Either of which can be done for the next season if that's what most people would prefer.  I am certainly open to everyone else's ideas and suggestions.  Thanks for offering your opinion.  How does everyone else feel about it?

My thinking with the 1-game format was to try to avoid ties.  I'm still not sure exactly what kind of tie-breaking proceedures we're going to need to implement (the 1st season is always a learning season), but I like the American Football concept of "One game: win or lose - it's all on the line."  Most sports seem to prefer a "Best of 7" or "Best of 5" system, and it's only in the final game of the series that you get the feeling that it's "All or Nothing."

If we only play one game each, when two teams have identical scores at the end, the team that won the match between those 2 would be the winner.  If they each won 1 game, and lost 1 game, they would still be tied.  And that would make the playoffs much more difficult.

How does this sound tho:  In the first 2 rounds of the playoffs, you'll be facing an opponent that you played in the regular season (same conference).  We can make it so that whoever was white in the regular season gets black in the post season game between those 2, and vice versa.  So any game you play as black in the regular season increases your odds of playing white in the playoffs.  The final game between the two conference champions would still have to be random of course.

What does everyone else think?

Imagine this tournament as a regular chess.com tournament. In the fast tournaments players often have two concurrent games. You can have a tie break system the same as they have in regular chess.com tournaments. If it's still a draw then you will have to share 1st place or, if that's not acceptable, have some kind of play-off.

I can say from personal experience, it's not a good idea to be running 2 concurrent games of Speed Vote Chess.  We tried one game at 1-hour, and 1 game at 30-mins once, and it was crazy.  2 games at 10-mins would be impossible to keep up with.  I can see that working in the Team Match Tournaments, but Vote Chess is a little different, especially at Blitz Speed.

Regardless, I understand your point, and it's a valid one.  We'll see how things play out this time around and make whatever modifications we need to before starting up the next season.

Thanks again for your input.

jesus I'm supposed to read ALL of this? 0_0

Not really unless you want to.  Whenever we discuss something, I update the 1st post.  I'm not changing anything that's already there, but adding things that weren't addressed before (as we become aware of the things we need to address ).

I didnt get that.

What didn't you get?

Probably you have posted it somewhere else, but what would be the Tie Break system you will use to determine the classification?

with only 4 games is probable to have teams with the same score everywhere... :)

As I said, everything is subject to change.  I just posted in the Playoffs thread to see if we can get some more votes on the matter.  I actually had 3 different groups contact me this week about starting their next game early (of course none of them are playing marathon games like you every week ).  So it should be ok for just a few weeks, but we still have time to decide.  I would just rather see 8 teams make the playoffs than only 4.

This is actually a good argument in favor of A (a season that's twice as long).  With only 4 games, I am also afraid that this is not enuf time to create some separation between the various teams.  I went with the "first blood" system of tie-breakers cuz I couldn't think of anything else that was really impartial, but definitive.

This whole league is a work in progress.  The main goal is for everyone to have fun (and I see a lot of you have gotten your first taste of just how fun these games can be).  As long as we don't lose sight of that, we should be alright.

Always open to suggestions.

"

This is actually a good argument in favor of A (a season that's twice as long).  With only 4 games, I am also afraid that this is not enuf time to create some separation between the various teams.  I went with the "first blood" system of tie-breakers cuz I couldn't think of anything else that was really impartial, but definitive.

This whole league is a work in progress.  The main goal is for everyone to have fun (and I see a lot of you have gotten your first taste of just how fun these games can be).  As long as we don't lose sight of that, we should be alright.

Always open to suggestions."

You can choose from these:

Tie-break systems classified by their basic principle

• Sum of Opposition's Scores
• Player's Progressive Score
• Opposition's Weighted Scores
• Number of Wins
• Opposition's Ratings
• Other

The first one is used here in chess.com and might be quite easy to implement... (you don't have to keep updates on the official standings... only when you really need it)

Sorry, the one used here in chess.com is this:

Opposition's Weighted Scores

(Sonneborn)

I like the opposition's weighted scores system that Chess.com uses, but I've been in enuf tournaments to know that it doesn't eliminate ties.  It may reduce them, but there are still plenty of ties with this system.  And as we said earlier, if each team has only played 4 games, it will be very easy to tie, even under this tie-breaking system. 

However, if you like, I can add these values to the Current Standings to see how they would affect things.