Solution? Well, personally I think the current rules are fine (good membership incentive), just my two cents, but if anything ever is changed, it could be made so that free members who have stuck around the site for X amount of time and have played at least Y games can join 3 tournaments, free members with Z time and W games can join 5, and so on...
I like that
I just finished looking at the tournaments list and couldn't find a single upcoming tournament that has enough people signed up for it. Allowing free members to join more than one tournament at a time might actually make tournaments more enjoyable for all those interested in being participants.
They are called 'Upcoming Tournaments' because the don't have enough people to start yet, and hence are 'upcoming'.
There are probably over a thousand 'current' tournaments.
Allowing free members to join more than one could allow lots of timeouts, and therefore less enjoyment, but I guess this is already filtered to some degree..
This is a very good possibility to distinguish between free and premium offers, and one of the many nice incentives to many members to get themselves a premium account.
I have thought about getting a premium account for the sole purpose of playing in more tournaments. But if those tournaments don't fill up I wouldn't be getting a lot of premium benefits as far as tournaments are concerned.
They are called 'Upcoming Tournaments' because the don't have enough people to start yet, and hence are 'upcoming'.
There are probably over a thousand 'current' tournaments.
Allowing free members to join more than one could allow lots of timeouts, and therefore less enjoyment, but I guess this is already filtered to some degree..
Here's an example of a 100 person tournament that only has only 2 people signed up for it:
http://www.chess.com/tournament/last-man-standing3
It was posted 2 weeks ago.
"View all 2 registrants", lol.
Free tournaments all round! Free milk and honey for non-payers!
Nothing helpful.....
I think what might be a better idea:
No tournament limits for free members, subject to the following conditions:
1. Premium members can sign up for a tourney the minute it is created, free members can only sign up for tourneys that are 5 or more days old.
2. Free members are only allowed to play one tournament that has a fixed start date (rather than start upon reaching a fixed size) at a time.
Condition 1 ensures premium members have the first chance to get into limited size tournaments while still allowing free members to fill up fields to ensure tournaments actually start in a somewhat timely fashion.
Condition 2 ensures that free members can't simultaneously play a whole series of something like the monthly start chess.com tourneys (all of which take far more than a month to finish), which basically become something you can get a taste of as a free member, but are really a benefit of premium.
I'm assuming chess.com does actually make money off of non-paying members, with the ads and all, or at least defray the costs somewhat.
I initially paid so I could play unlimited tourneys. It turned out to be the best money I've spent on the net. I want others to join too so chess.com can make TONS of money and continue to make the site better.
It's worth it, so pay up.
Membership is what keeps the site running, therefore I am against increasing benefits for non-paying members. At $2.50 a month, it is hardly an expensive hobby to have a gold membership.
Or else, what?
Ummmm...It's worth it, so pay up, or else you can only play in one tourney at a time?
Cool!
And there I thought I was adding to the discussion.
Thx, Artfizz!
When you were, in fact, "taking away", and coming up with the wrong answer!