agreed
Illegal League Strategy?
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Leagues are a marketing tool. Stats are artificially manipulated. The Advertisement Department has scored another brilliant coup. All members of CC were entered by default into a League. Zillions of new clicks and games are being played. Was permission ever asked- to place your name in a State run tournament where the rules are vaguely written, haphazardly enforced and pairing pools greatly altered for all members (whether they opted out or not) ? The two word answer need not be written. It’s all about Site growth, more games , more clicks that endlessly ensure growth and profits. Toss any notions of a healthy Chess Spirit out the door. The $ reigns.
Enforce violations whereby members scam the system to gain an advantage? Laughable. Never happens. In fact …. it’s encouraged.
Jan 18, 2022
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#24
llama47 wrote:
I don't care about them making money....
I also have doubts in their ability to prevent certain types of rule breaking / bending, but I guess this kind of competition is never perfect.
I don't have a problem with them making money. I have a problem with them making money using manipulative tactics bred in the free-to-play gaming industry that are based on psychological research on gambling addiction. An online contest where the champion is determined by an endurance contest **will** be won by a person (or persons) who most successfully manipulate the rules. If two roommates work as a team who plan on sharing the prize work in tandem, there is NO way that they can be stopped. While it's physically impossible to play 24/7, there are no rules against it and there's no way to prove anything. This is just the most simple way to subvert the system and there are zillions more, I'm sure. Chesscom can pretend to care, but in reality, they don't. They don't care that people are grinding away mindlessly in an unhealthy manner hoping to win a prize. It's distasteful.
Jan 18, 2022
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#25
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:
I don't have a problem with them making money. I have a problem with them making money using manipulative tactics
Ok but... what business isn't doing this? It's just part of doing business.
Since the introduction of Leagues I've observed:
- More player in the arenas, so chess.com har accomplished something?
- More losses against players with 20% lower rating peaks. I think it's called sandbagging? They build up arena AND rating points against weak players. They have to loose these points somehow too? It's suspicious, 2000 rating in Blitz and 1400 in bullet.
It's ok for me to loose, no problem. Maybe it's an idea for chess.com to create NON-League arenas for common players like me who play some bullet games now and then.
This will have some consequences I think, I hope chess.com has done a risk analysis before they startet up Leagues of ......... :-)
Jan 18, 2022
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#27
the_jur wrote:
Since the introduction of Leagues I've observed:
- More player in the arenas, so chess.com har accomplished something?
- More losses against players with 20% lower rating peaks. I think it's called sandbagging? They build up arena AND rating points against weak players. They have to loose these points somehow too? It's suspicious, 2000 rating in Blitz and 1400 in bullet.
It's ok for me to loose, no problem. Maybe it's an idea for chess.com to create NON-League arenas for common players like me who play some bullet games now and then.
This will have some consequences I think, I hope chess.com has done a risk analysis before they startet up Leagues of ......... :-)
One of the best ways to earn more trophies is to play at an accelerated pace (even if it's not simuls).
For example you could set a goal for yourself that you will finish all your 3|0 games with no less than 2 minutes on your clock. This way you play more games per hour, and get more trophies per hour. Since your rating will fall until you're winning 50% this is an effective strategy and isn't sandbagging (at least not in the usual sense).
The whole business is not healthy. Any notion of a community atmosphere, creating a Spirit in line with traditional values is lost.
Now it’s play chess to win trophies /tournaments. Win, win…win click, click,click click - satisfy advertising demands. Scam the pairing system (cheating in several regards) but not so because zero terms of conduct, no regulations have been put forth regarding pairings. Members , when ask “What are the regulations” get ignored- because none exist. I wonder if the professional players were entered by default into the nonsense? Meanwhile, the mad house marches on to the finals “CC’s Best Scammer of the Pairing System ”.
I opted out day 1 of the Leagues and soon afterwards cancelled premium. Just noticed I was re-entered into a league! Too funny. Persistent 🐛 buggers.
Personally I am going to stop caring about this stuff and just focus on trying to improve in the long-term. Spamming games takes the fun out of the game completely.
The question is, why would people want to treat online chess like a job, when it doesn't pay as much as a real job.
Jan 18, 2022
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#31
@jenium - in the US a few thousand dollars isn't much, but in some countries it's what the average person makes in a year. It's almost guaranteed that the winner is going to be the person who games the system the most and evades disqualification the best. It just has too many holes that are impossible to deal with. If they don't put an absolute time limit on how long people can play (which would be healthier for everyone), it'll likely be won by a couple of people working in shifts. It's stupid.
@Nikki: Good point. But statistically it will be really hard to become 1st-10th where it pays off. There are probably hundreds who have the same idea...
Jan 18, 2022
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#33
Alena_str wrote:
I don’t understand why some people have already in crystal league. I thought the league began at the same time for all. I’m in a stone league.
Leagues started December 22nd. Initial division placement is based when you play your first game after league start, or weekly division reset if you don't promote. If you promote, it's when you first log in after reset.
So, it did start at the same time for everyone, just not everyone started playing at the same time.
Jan 18, 2022
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#34
llama47 wrote:
I don't care about them making money. My two main complaints are:
1) The rules are inconsistent. They adjusted trophies by time control but they failed to do the same for arena (bullet arena earns more trophies than other arenas).
2) My 2nd hand information is that simuls are not allowed, yet this is not in the rules and people are doing it....
Arenas were specifically given bonus points, so my guess it was the intent to promote playing in arenas.
Regarding the other, the site is working on a technical fix for getting trophies from playing simuls.
Jan 18, 2022
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#35
Jenium wrote:
@Nikki: Good point. But statistically it will be really hard to become 1st-10th where it pays off. There are probably hundreds who have the same idea...
I know that's true and you know that's true, but there's always going to be some dummy who thinks if they grind all weekend they have a chance for a prize. There's also always going to be dozens of people trying to skirt the rules when money is involved. Remember, every state of chesscom report, Danny lists the number of fool titled players who risk their reputations by using engines and get banned. There's not even any risk here. As we speak there are probably hundreds, maybe thousands of people hatching plans on how to best collect trophies in shady ways that avoid detection. I know it. You know it. Chesscom knows it. Heck, even my dog knows it.
As long as I am in the top 10 on my Duolingo league, everything is fine. 
Jan 18, 2022
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#37
Martin_Stahl wrote:
llama47 wrote:
I don't care about them making money. My two main complaints are:
1) The rules are inconsistent. They adjusted trophies by time control but they failed to do the same for arena (bullet arena earns more trophies than other arenas).
2) My 2nd hand information is that simuls are not allowed, yet this is not in the rules and people are doing it....
Arenas were specifically given bonus points, so my guess it was the intent to promote playing in arenas.
Regarding the other, the site is working on a technical fix for getting trophies from playing simuls.
I agree that it's to encourage arenas... maybe bullet arenas were the least popular, so they wanted to give more incentive for them vs bullet and rapid arenas? That would make sense.
I'm a little disappointed... but at least they're trying to fix the simul thing.
Jan 18, 2022
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#38
Oh, and @Jenium, that's also the "genius" of splitting it up into groups. If everyone saw the list of where everyone else was ranked in this chase, people would quit immediately because it would become obvious that they have zero chance. But if you see that you're third in your group, that doesn't sound so bad! Heck, if you grind all weekend you might even win your group! Yay! Just never mind the fact that you're actually ranked 347,912th on the list that we aren't allowed to see. If you saw that, you'd quit.
Jan 18, 2022
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#39
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:
Oh, and @Jenium, that's also the "genius" of splitting it up into groups. If everyone saw the list of where everyone else was ranked in this chase, people would quit immediately because it would become obvious that they have zero chance. But if you see that you're third in your group, that doesn't sound so bad! Heck, if you grind all weekend you might even win your group! Yay! Just never mind the fact that you're actually ranked 347,912th on the list. If you saw that, you'd quit.
Why would they quit?
It's unnecessary to be on the leaderboard until the final week.
Those grinding for the leaderboard are wasting their energy. If they're enjoying it (or streaming it) then that's fine, but it's more likely to hurt their chances for champion league.
Jan 18, 2022
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#40
They would quit because they would see the number of trophies people are racking up compared to themselves. If you've played 17 hours this week thinking you were doing well, and see that you have 1/9th the trophies of the person at the top, you'd do some quick math and realize that there was no way you should bother and put in that kind of time. The groups create the illusion that you're doing well and should continue to play.
Llama - the system has been called "manufactured discontent." They create a system that when you play it, you become unhappy and annoyed about certain aspects of it, and the only way to fix it is to spend money. I'm playing! It's great! But jeez I'm annoyed that I can't check my accuracy that game. Jeez I'm annoyed by all of these ads. Jeez I'm annoyed that I keep losing to the London System. Aww man! That girl has a palm tree next to her name and I don't! That little cartoon guys says he can fix my game. Jeez I'm annoyed that I can't fix my game. Well crap, I'll spend some money. Phew.
I'm just waiting for the day when they start selling emotes that you can flash before and after the game. Chess is a bit lucky because such things would be more frowned upon because of a tradition of seriousness, but don't think that there aren't people in the marketing department trying to figure out more things that you can buy. But the minute they sell an emote of some dude flexing his muscles after the game, I'm outta here.
Very well said
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