Tournament ideas and suggestions

There is one further issue that might be worth discussing first. As I understand it one would need to have completed at least 15 games before one can join a tournament. I understand why this seems necessary but at at 15 days per move it is going to take me a looong time to complete 15 games. Is there another criteria that can be used to ensure players will "stick" with a tournament?

Yes,,I agree with you on that point,it will take a long time to qualify.I have know idea how many members play the 15 day per move, if there is a fair number, enough to have a strong group, then maybe looking at the "last seen" column in the league, take those with a
"0" to "3" record, and that will entitle the member to enter after playing for 50 days.
The "last seen" is a clear indicator of the more reliable player. most of which are in the green zone.
So any member wishing to enter a tournament must play for 50days with 0-3 in the "last seen". Members with a "P" will be grouped together. What do you thing to that idea??!!
Will this sovle the problem?
I'm begining to lose the will to live!

Will there be a prize for 1st 2nd and 3rd ?

This is doing my head in as well woody.

I'm keen on the swiss tournament idea. I can't see a 15 day timer working though. It might take years to finish.

What do other chess sites do? I might have to do a bit of undercover investigation.

Prizes, yes I thought of that already. I'm thinking of adding a trophy case on every players profile. Prizes won will be displayed on there.

Well you can rest assures that I wont be entering for the 15 day option, because I'll be in a pine box before it's finished, and I wouldn't want to go down as a timeouter.!!
As for prizes, I think we have bigger fish to fry. The biggest prize right now, is to get these
issues sorted.
As for this 15day problem, well I'm sorry to say that we have been "hoist by our own petard"
I wound not have included the 15day limit in the first instant, it seem far too long, and I've played members who have been on the 15 dayer and finished the games within a month.
So whats going on here, they should have only played a possible 4/5 moves.
I apologise to all members to whom I may have offended.
I would like to see members at a "get together", Andy has said 10+, nice to know Andy can stand the cost of such a round, what with this credit crunch!!
Now joking aside,members really should seriously make an effort to organize a "meetup"
maybe within thier 25-50 mile radius, mainly to discuss forum issues, and maybe vote! and
report back to Andy, it could, and should, be very helpful.

In general I would say that the 15 dayers accept that they are in it for the long haul. An all play all tournament would probably be better than a swiss tournament for such long time controls though.

Prizes? Just to bask in the glory of success is more than enough for me.

Woody, read your second to last post two or three times and now I have headache!

Best wishes,
Steve

So let the 15 dayers have an "all play all" on thier own, and let the rest of members go for the Swiss!!
Now we'll wait and and see who says "What about us 10 dayers". . . and so on.
Andy's doing his head in.
Steve's got a headache, and I've lost the will to live.

Or how about using the "Player reliability" percentage on the player profiles? It's below the Game's Timeout counter. Don't know if anyones noticed that little extra I added on a few weeks ago.

I still think the formula to calculate it needs tweaking though.

Simple.

Offer all-play-all tournaments (say 6-player touraments for example) at all the longer time controls and one big Swiss for those who like to play superficial chess () at the faster time controls. The all-play-alls shouldn't be too onerous to administer - just set them away and have a procedure for logging the results.

The more you can automate the all-play-all process the less work will be involved in admin.

Have (say) category three tournaments open to everyone who wishes to participate, category two tournaments open to everyone who has competed a category three tournament, and a category one tournament open for everyone who has finished first or second in a category two tournament.

Of course, I don't have to administer this plan. As I said - simple.

Best wishes,
Steve

Wow,
So many ideas and problems!
Perhaps the first question is what would we like to achieve? An annual competition or a more regular one and should the competition be split into categories for players of different standards or frequency of play? If its an annual competition then players could be allowed more time to complete their games.
Personally, I don't mind (I'm not going to win anyway) as I log on every day even though I get nagged for it!
Why not just try whatever seems to be the best option and then improve it as we go?
Meeting up is a good idea but might also be a knight-mare to arrange (what a comic!).
I work shifts but would turn up if at all possible.

Best regards to all,
Kevin

Better yet, say 7-player tournaments so that each player has 6 opponents - 3 with white and 3 with black. Sorry about that.

Best wishes,
Steve

Kevin,

You get nagged for it? Seriously?

Best wishes,
Steve

I think a correspondence tournament is always veeery slow. Imagine it the postal way! And yet they exist. So i think, maybe a 7-day move-limit should be enough for everyone, without holidays. After all, it's not obligatory to enter a tourney. You can allways play on normal games on the site. For me some kind of league is best, but format is not that important. A swiss is faster, but again, are we in a hurry? I think that tourneys would be a very good addition to the site

alezflute

i don't know much about these things so i have not thought too deeply about it but what about a simple chess ladder. you could challenge anyone 5 places above you. if you quit or your time runs out drop a rung. you get to move up one place on the ladder for a win. you don't move at all on a draw.

if you decline two games in a row you would drop down one rung.

you could set all games with a 5 day move maximum.

you would need to have a certain reliability rating to enter or stay on the ladder ( may i suggest 75 percent or better ).

you could put the ladders all on one page from left to right. and the you could put maybe 8 ladders on one page so at a glance you could see maybe the top 100 on the ladder on one first page.

you would just put in the name of the player a small box.

i would suggest that for the ladder system that the elo rating not change for these games. the win, loss, draw or decline would be the
only criteria for moving up and down the ladder.

this could be a simple system to set up i think and it is not in lieu of a regular tournament system but until you work out what you really want for tournaments this simple system would be a nice feature as
a substitute and as a seperate place for those who want to compete in a system but would like to play recreationally since the elo rating would not change on a ladder game. timeout for vacation or a busy
life schedule would not be an issue on the ladder as the elo would not change in these games. you would just compete for the fun of being highest on the ladder.

one tournament with groups of 10 players in each group...qualified 5 from each group ...