One Change to Save Thousands of Members Months of Time

The Problem: Literally thousands of participants in Chess.com tournaments are needlessly delayed from proceeding to the next round due to unfinished games that have absolutely no impact on that next round’s bracket.

For Example: The 14th Chess.com Tournament (1401-1600) has 222 players waiting for the completion of nine remaining round one games so that the second round can begin. This tournament started over five months ago! One player hasn’t made a move in either of his two remaining games in 27 days! None of the 13 different players in these nine games has any chance of advancing to round two - or of influencing who does advance - regardless of the outcome of the games. Why not let the 222 players that won their brackets begin round two while these 13 players finish their round one games?

Is it right to have a system where so few can affect so many so drastically? The situation invites the possibility of abuse. One sore loser can delay hundreds of participants for as long as his vacation time holds out - at a minimum! (Dragging out a hopeless game for a mere ten additional moves can add another thirty days.)

The Solution: Begin the next round of a tournament once all pertinent games have been played.

Some might say, “So what if you have to wait. You can play other games in the meantime.” I would ask these people to consider that the idea behind the Chess.com official (and most other) tournaments is to allow people of similar playing strength to face off against one another. The longer a tournament runs, the more “drift” there will be in the ratings of the contestants and the less the tournament resembles the original rating range. Even if the length of the tournament is only one reason that ratings change over the course of a tournament, isn’t it worthwhile to minimize this effect and run the tournaments as efficiently as possible?

Consider this: The 9th Chess.com Tournament (1201-1400) has been in progress for over 620 days! I’d guess that most people who join a tournament think of the possibility of winning it. How many think that they may have to be available for the next twenty months to see it through?

What do you think? Please respond with a “Yea” or “Nay”.

You are right

While I really wouldn't say this problem causes loss of time (unless you are literally sitting there waiting for the tournament to advanced to the next round), I would say I doubt the time for games is what either chess.com or the players signing up expected them to be.

Would be funny though if that 1200-1400 tournament I joined forever ago had been one I would have advanced in...lol I dare say at least some of those 1200-1400 should be better then their bracket a year later. Something again I don't think was thought of.

YEA

YEA

Blackburne, you're right for what concerns the diagnosis... but you don't have the correct solution.

Your solution is phoney as if some groups are stuck in the first round, whatever you will do, other people (ok only the winners of each round are concerned) will soon or late have to wait for the winners to complete other rounds.

My solution : for tournament play, chess.com should allow a more complexe time control. We should still have 3 day/move but each side should also complete let say 30 moves for every period of 1 month. That is he must in average play 1 move every 24h.

This has been proposed many times here, but the official line has always been that it wouldn't be of benefit enough of the time to warrant doing.

As tournaments go, I think that the development effort would be far better spent on some new time controls that would actually give people more certainty around the maximum time a tournament round can last.  X moves in Y days would be a move in the right direction, time per game would be ideal and hourglass clocks would be a nice to have.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/tournaments/how-to-speed-up-tournaments---help

in fact, winners of the first round will have chance to finish faster the tournament (by loosing in round 2, or 3 or...) but, i insist, winners of the 1st, then 2nd round, then... will anyway have to wait for the slowest group to complete round #1, then #2, then ..., in order to play the remaining rounds.

As a conclusion, lots of people (the loosers) will benefit of this time gaining but the tournament will last exactly the same time (it's slow people who determine the length of the tournament).

To finish with this, i will only add that i checked what options are available when one is creating a tournament and it appeared that you can only accept people playing fast (in average). besides, fast playing official tournaments exist. You can choose playing these instead of the slow ones.

I don't disagree that it's a good idea -- I've even suggested myself in the past, I'm just trying to shed some light on chess.com's view of the request.

No kidding.  It's often the noobs who are the most impatient.  They sign up for their first tournament and then are shocked at how it actually works.

Just a couple days ago a noob in his first tournament laid into me for taking too long to make my moves (I haven't taken any vacation).  He's a sandbagger who is leading my group and seems to think if he finishes off my two games he moves on to the next round right away.  Of course, there is the little problem of those other 1035 games still underway in this round . . . 

agreed.  all thegrobe is saying is that chess.com has seen this feature (or at least something akin to it) suggested in the past and has chosen not to implement. 

like i always say to the new people, getting to know the community a little can get you pretty far around here.  this place didn't pop up on your first day.  you did. 

1. LOL @ "just a few lines of code".
2. I think it's a good idea
3. Let's face it, the reason people suggest this is because they want the next round to start NOW NOW NOW. Anything else, including but not limited to "ratings drift", is a back-explanation.
4. (Edit) Also lauged at "This tournament started over 5 months ago!". Actually, 5 months for a round in an official tournament would be pretty quick. One has to get one's bearings readjusted.

By the way, back when Erik started a thread about this, he wanted an actual example of a tournament (with link) such that the next round of the tournament could start before all games were ended. Can anyone oblige here?

those who are "waiting" for a tournament to continue--i feel your pain.  i've been there, most of us have, BUT...  it's really not that big of a deal.  if waiting for a tournament to progress is your biiggest problem in life, dudes, you're doing pretty well.  although it would be nice to speed things up from time to time, you knew what you were getting into when you signed up.  if you don't want to wait 5 days per move then don't join a tournment with 5 days per move, or 3 or 7 or 14 or whatever.  and if you don't want to wait while your opponent is on vacation, then join a no-vacation tournament.  seems pretty simple.  i agree with thegrobe (as usual) it would be great to add a moves per X number of days feature.  but you'll still have wait time.  so whatev.  if you want to play really fast then play live bullet.

As for saving "months of time", I do hope your not sitting at your computer for months on end hitting the refresh button in the hopes that the tournament will advance on your next refresh.

Go outside.

Except where the players leading the group either withdraw - or have their accounts closed for cheating - in which case some of the 'eliminated' players move back into contention.

Plus, until a round is completely finished: how can you organise the groupings fairly for the next round?

Good point, so there's no such thing as an unfinished game that has absolutely no impact on that next round's bracket....