Season 3 — Info and Registration

Ah, so you just finished another wonderful season of IHSA Chess. Now you can relax and finally enjoy the last few months of your school y-

*coronavirus exists*

Raburners!

We hope you are all safe and sound in this time of quarantine and confusion. And no, I do not want our Raburners "burning" under loads and loads of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Please, I mean that. Stay safe and make sure you take social distancing seriously. 

This Sunday 3/22 at 11am CDT, the Fremd Vikings and RAR Attackers compete in what's setting up to be a tantalizing rap battle finale between the two captains. However, due to social distancing efforts emphasized by chess.com staff, the rap battle has, since then, been replaced with a bland match of chess.

Fremd made Raburn Series history a few months back, overtaking Hinsdale Central (6 wins) in most wins in an undefeated season with 7 wins and 1 draw. On the other hand, the RAR Attackers are newcomers to the League and go into the final with a formidable 6-2 record. Join us on crowning the champion this Sunday! 

With Season 2 coming to a close, there have been talks about the closing of the Raburn Series completely with its lack-luster of active play in recent months. And I will admit myself, the hype leading up to this season was never met accordingly. It was heartbreaking to observe poor sportsmanship, unhappy players, and inactive teams. 

Raburn is still quite a fresh league on chess.com. The league actually holds its one year anniversary in four days, March 24th! (Psst. Tell us in the comments what you think we should do to celebrate!) When I created the league, my intention was to link with likewise high school chess players and that successfully happened.

I can't say it enough really, can I?

There's something special about me being able to know this many people from chess— it warms me up. @Ballernate22 coming over to greet me every time we saw each other, laughing with @koolperry during our IHSA State match, joining the Meadows team next to a vending machine with @jzebra19 and @beecca121220 in witnessing @ElShami-Al-Watafaq go on a wild tangent about [?], conversing with @Johnmichigan about high school chess banners, witnessing @AlcoholicApe926's team's new uniforms, going over to the Barrington team to greet @Reddythechessplayer in the middle of a blitz game, having a piano battle with Diego Morales, exploring the fundamentals of the Sicilian Kan with @GMAaaankush, meeting the Hersey squad in @amazonriver17 and @TheGalaxyInvader...

I could go on and on and it's made me real happy to look back and realize that these things happened my senior year. Quite fitting I gotta say.

A picture of fellow Raburners taking part in the 2020 IHSA State Chess Finals held at the Peoria Civic Center.

This has been one of the most fulfilling and rewarding things I have ever done in my life. So, why would I easily give it up?

The team here at Raburn wants to keep looking forward and making improvements to what we believe can be the grand standard of an amazing chess community. If our goal is to have fun, then there's no wrong we can truly do. After talks with IHSA players, on behalf of all the admins at Raburn Series, I am overwhelmingly pleased to announce that Season 3 is coming to the Raburn Series!

Let's take a look at what's in store in Season 3, shall we‽

Basic Info

• Registration begins today, March 20th. Registration closes on April 17th
• To take place from Early May to Late September
• No rating cap. Teams field 8 players based on strength order
• All-Play-All replaced by board vs. board play with format inspired by the IHSA
• Premier League-style standings: 3 points, win. 1 point, draw. 0 points, loss. 
• The team with the most points to be crowned Champions [of Chess.com]
• A newly renovated spreadsheet made from scratch

Schedule

• Registration: March 20th to April 17th
• Play: May to September
• More details to come.

Play Format

• Time Control: Players will play in a 15|10 time control, 15 minutes with a 10 second increment.
• Boards: Each team fields 8 players on respective boards. A team's 1st Board will play the opposing team's 1st Board. 2nd against 2nd. So on up to 8.
• Strength Order: At registration, each team will enter a list ranking their players from strongest (#1) to weakest (#12). The number that player is assigned means that that player can never play in a board lower than players assigned a lower number. For example, a team's #1 player can never play Board 2 but a team's #2 player can play Board 1. 
• Stacking: As stated by the IHSA Handbook in Section D, "'Stacking' is the practice of arranging the Strength Order in a manner that results in an advantage over opponents by placing a person of low playing strength at a high strength order to enable the remaining team  members to play against opponents of a lower playing strength than they would have otherwise. Stacking is unsportsmanlike conduct and is penalized by team disqualification. All team and individual wins and draws are scored as forfeits. All team and individual losses stand as recorded."
• Boards: Teams will select a board order to field each week by having a representative post their lineup in a matchweek forum. If the lineup submitted is not in strength order, the team faces subject to team disqualification if multiple reminders must be issued.

Rules

• Match Format: A single or double round-robin depending on the amount of teams that register.
• Game: All games must be rated. Games played out that are not rated will be counted, but the players will be given a warning. Multiple warnings will result in potential suspension from the league.
• Color Assignments: One team will be assigned White and the other team will be assigned Black. As stated by the IHSA Handbook in Section E, the assigned White shall be White on boards 1, 3, 6 and 8. Failure to play the correct color will result in a voided result but may require further discussion and discretion with Raburn administrators.
• Teams: A team can hold up to 12 players, with 8 being fielded on boards for each match. There are no restrictions as to who is on your team, including school. Players cannot be added or removed mid-season. The list submitted at registration is final.
• Players: *important* Each player will be expected to negotiate in a pre-made negotiation forum with their opposing board to schedule a match time during the week. This negotiation forum will be created by an admin once both teams' lineups are confirmed. Using the forum is mandatory as it gives evidence to negotiation and scheduling efforts. If a time is not agreed or an individual match is not played, discussion will be made as to the result of the match, using the forums to gauge the effort to have the match. If both players do not negotiate, that board will be void. After a match is played, Black is expected to report the result to the negotiation forum.
• Matches: Matchweeks will begin on Mondays and end on Saturdays. No matches will be held on Sunday in order to give adequate time to enter stats. However, lineups for the following week are expected to be submitted on Sunday or ASAP. 
• Matchweeks: Teams will be given a predetermined schedule of their opponents for the entire season, with each week being a new opponent to play. All teams will be given one week to play their designated opponent. These schedules will be released to every team once registration ends.
• Breaks: With a predetermined schedule, this allows for the season to momentarily pause at any time and then resume as if nothing had occurred. The flexibility with this system is what facilitated our decision to continue this from last season in anticipation of upcoming holidays and special events.
• Rating Cap: Nonexistent. Play chess to your heart's content!
• IHSA Chess Scoring: Below is the scoring system used to weight all matches along with key notes.

• Cheating: See Chess.com's FAQ and Discussion on Cheating
• Rule Book: An official Raburn Series Season 3 rulebook is to be released, TBD.

Standings

• Three points for a win format: Three points are awarded to the team winning a match, with no points awarded to the losing team. If the game is drawn, each team receives one point. This system places additional value on wins compared to draws such that teams with a higher number of wins may rank higher in tables than teams with a lower number of wins but more draws.
• Point difference: The difference in the sum of total individual points scored and the sum of total individual points conceded will be the value of point difference. This will be used as tiebreaks in case standing points are tied between a number of teams. The higher the point difference, the greater in standing a team will become.
• One league, one division: All teams will play in one singular division.

Awards

• Uh....chess.com trophies?: Unfortunately, we do not have enticing monetary awards. However, the winners of the Raburn Series will all receive a Congratulations! chess.com trophy courtesy of @RaburnChessSeries. How nice!
• Raburn Series World Champions: Champions of Chess.com, The Invincibles, the... yeah, we don't really have much. But you know what, take the whole season experience as an award.
• Team of the Week: The top performing player from each board from each week will be selected into the Team of the Week for that week. Performance will be based off points won first and then quality of play as a tiebreaker.
• If anyone has potential ideas for awards, I'd love to hear them! We need some decent ideas for the grand winners!

Spreadsheet v3.0.1

• Made from Scratch: Season 3's spreadsheet was not made on MIT's block-coding site, but it was created after one bored @Sengdao decided to create some aesthetic spreadsheets. This features individual team stats pages, a match history page, a rules page, and a whole cast of beautiful fonts to gloss over as you visit the spreadsheet occasionally. 
• Usage: Standings and Statistics

Individual stats for an upcoming IHSA-hybrid team, the Rolling Croissant Rockets.

Team stats for Raburn Series Season 2 finalists, the RAR Attackers.

An example iteration on the newly-reworked standings sheet. Featuring Fremd, RAR, Rolling Croissant Rockets, and Stillman Valley.

Behind the Scenes

• Discord: The IHSA community in the Raburn Series Discord group have been hard at work at creating the ideal environment to formulate ideas for the next big thing at Raburn. Some say a new parody is soon to follow. 

Season 2 — Members Summary

• Members: 314
• Players Registered: 104
• Players that Played in At Least One Match: 68
• Player to Play Percentage: 65.4%
• Live Tournaments: 1

Registration

• Teams can register at https://forms.gle/sZhyXC1MBB4DSwyy8
• Players without a team and are looking to register as a free agent can do so at https://forms.gle/W29Pja3qMUE4R4PP6

Closing Remarks

• 3 is a magic number. And this will be Season 3. Let's make this the most magical season yet! 🎩