league rapid simuls again

Whats simul? could someone please tell me

Playing multiple games at the same time. "Simultaneous"

Naturally I enter the toughest league for elite....

I can't keep up with the people in 1-2-3. If the situation gets dire I will just go for broke and simul. If I get banned I will have screenshots and maybe even the law on my side to bite back.

Perhaps the easiest Elite league? https://www.chess.com/leagues/elite/21oDubHZg 

well going by trophies its this one: https://www.chess.com/leagues/elite/32wSbZvmC 

Although that one started a few days late (the division didn't fill up to 50) 🤣

I see. I thought a lot of the grindy indivuduals would be online as soon as elite started. I delayed a bit but apparently that was the exact wrong thing to do. That is an incredibly lucky division to be in.

The problem in my league is the guy currently in first gets like 2 hours tops of sleep everyday, then one master grinds bullet faster than me and the other grinds blitz faster than me. I'll probably start simuling tomorrow. I have screeenshots of a partner streamer simuling, an IM simuling, and a few other normal people simuling. If I go down, they better go down too. I have nothing to lose. And even then, chesscom may have to deal with a lawsuit (even if its not from me in particular). 

this whole controversy is exactly why this shouldnt have been monetary

and maybe all the grindy players came late on purpose trying to catch the "ill join late and thus get easy" people and you just happened to be one of the unfortunate individuals

i now side with the side which says "gm's can get away with arenas but we cant with simuls aah", which seems to be the most reasonable side now

Yes, I said it a while ago on a different thread. There were two issues. GM/IM's winning game unopposed, and simuling. If you fix only one, ESPECIALLY for a bad reason, the other one only becomes more apparent. They should have left it alone, fixed both, or fix one, in that order. They chose the wrong option.

If I made the rules, then everything would be legal, other than variants, which was stupid, because that's not even chess.

If they wanted to do something different than that, I think that's fine... but they should have figured it out before the last few weeks which is just... enormously amateurish.

To be honest, if enough people start simuling, it might start an exponential landslide. All it takes is 3 people in each division to simul and its a real problem. Do you ban all of them? Do the non-simulers cave into the pressure and simul?

They could try to control that by subtracting trophies. They could even lie about not being able to tell, so they'll just subtract all the trophies made in the last ____ hours (in reality just subtract whatever amount they think would really p*ss off a user without making them give up).

Then they could make some big announcement that they're subtracting trophies.

And when people who aren't simuling notice their ranking has improved, they wont want to simul. Also the people who had trophies taken away wont want to simul either.

Ah well, I have nothing to lose anyway. I can't win my division if I don't simul, I'm convinced. Llama, does chess.com act fast enough to subtract those trophies before the chain reaction starts?

This is what Nikki was talking about earlier- http://www.mardenkane.com/articles/can-the-official-rules-be-changed-after-the-promotion-has-started.html

There are two potential loopholes chess.com could use (I'm not a law exper so if I say something stupid I apologize)

1) This promotion is international so laws in NY and FL don't matter.

2) We weren't asked to accept the rules, we were automatically entered. (In my opinion, moving up the ranks in consecutive weeks is a demonstration of understanding and accepting the rules)

They sometimes come off as bumbling idiots, but it's still a business that employs some non-zero number of intelligent people XD -- They'll do what they think is necessary to enforce the rules.

They're unlikely to bend to pressure unless the pressure is enormous. You'd need to have a large percentage of people in upper leagues being vocally upset about the simul rule.

As for simuling, I assume if you only did it now and then you'd get away with it... don't know if that would be enough to help your ranking, and they might catch you anyway, but that's my feeling.

yes, it was opt-out

*understanding the previous rules, which allowed variants and simuls

also the rule about lower rated players is extremely vague in what exactly is/isnt allowed

Playing bullet arena at a hyperbullet pace is semi-legal and will boost your trophies per hour.

In other words make a rule for youself that if your clock gets as low as 30 seconds you lose... of course you shouldn't resign right away, but the point is make a very large effort to never go below 30 seconds. Your rating will drop, but you'll get in a lot more games.

Then with your new low rating play arena normally.

And repeat.

Your peak bullet is over 2400, so I assume you could get around 150 trophies per hour like that vs simuls which might go as high as 200 per hour.

So this would be a slightly less risky strategy. 

Any attempt to “game the system” may result in your trophy count being reset or your account being closed.

These include: lowering your rating(and also sandbagging even though that is the same thing)

Any non-attempt to game the system is incredibly stupid.

Almost (but not quite) as stupid as every person who was involved with creating the rules who didn't realize these things would happen.

What any rational person does, is make an assessment of how far they can bend the rules, and then do that.

This is how all competitions with a large cash prize operate.

As far as legality goes, I think chess.com is safe, although my knowledge of law is a number pretty close to 0. Nevertheless, here it goes... 😂

User Agreement - Chess.com

2nd paragraph: "By using our service you agree to the terms in this User Agreement. If you do not agree, then you should not use our Service" 

I think the "Termination" and "Prizes" sections are important in this case.

Firstly, for the "Termination" section: "You agree that Chess.com may, with or without cause, and without prior notice, immediately terminate your Chess.com account, any associated email address, and access to the Service." notably the the "with or without cause" part. Additionally, in Termination - paragraph 2: "Termination of your Chess.com account includes: (a) removal of access to all offerings within the Service". I would assume this includes prizes, which would not matter anyway if one's account was terminated prior to winning a prize of any form.

Secondly, for the "Prizes" section, the entire section sounds to be an important read for the leagues event, but some of the highlights are: 

Paragraph 1, sentence 2-3: " Chess.com may, at its sole discretion, withhold any and all Prizes won in any Competition on our Site for any period of time pending investigation into your Games. Any decision by Chess.com regarding forfeiture, reduction or cancellation of Prizes in accordance with Chess.com’s Terms of Service shall be final and binding upon you and shall not be subject to review or appeal by you or any third party."

Paragraph 5: "In case of disputes or disagreements concerning any aspect of a Competition including but not limited to all matters relating to the awarding of the Prizes, an Entrant’s eligibility to participate in the Competition, the conduct of any Entrant, these Rules, the Chess.com Terms of Service, the Tournament Rules or the Special Terms, the final decision shall lie with our team and any decision by Chess.com shall be final and binding upon you and shall not be subject to review or appeal by you or any third party."

The 5 paragraphs of the "Prizes" section all seem a little repetitive (although I'm sure the slight variations/nuances in wording are important for legal reasons), but seem to amount to chess.com not being culpable (for lack of better word) in withholding, reducing, or otherwise altering prizes given to users.

Then again, I have essentially no knowledge of law, so I'm just piecing together what I can. 🤣

*my own disclaimer* I am posting this only to be informative. I have no intention of posting anything out of malice or spreading controversy or discontentment to the chess.com community. If I shouldn't have posted any portion of this, please let me know, and I apologize now and later. I am only trying to help 😊