Official Rules:

This tournament will be swiss system, 5 rounds, with each round lasting exactly ONE WEEK, except for the first round (see below). The deadline to complete your games will be midnight, Sunday, Pacific time (GMT-8). New pairings for the next round will be posted by Noon, Monday, at the latest.

The deadline will be strictly enforced. If you are unable to complete your games within the timeframe, you MUST PM ME WITH AN EXPLANATION, or else you are assumed to forfeit. If both players fail to PM me, it will be scored 0-0. If one player PMs me and the other doesn't, it will be scored 1-0. If both players PM me, it will be scored either 1-0 or 1/2-1/2, depending on whether one player is clearly at fault or not, in the game not being played. When you PM me, please let me know if you think the round ought to be scored as a draw or a 1-0 forfeit, so I can take your opinion into account in my ruling. Any player who forfeits (and fails to PM me) twice will be removed from the tournament.

Each round will be a single game, played at a time control of 15 minutes, with a 5 second increment. Games are to be played on FICS, unless both players agree to play elsewhere. If the game is played elsewhere, PGN results MUST be posted for it to count. Please double check all pairings to make sure color assignments are followed.

Registration was intended to close last night, but it took me longer to get the rules posted than I planned, so registration will now run until 9 PM, Wednesday November 17th. Pairings will be posted Wednesday night for round 1, which will run for 12 days (instead of just the one week), until Sunday the 29th, to get us back on schedule.

Please post results in this thread. PGN records (or links to FICSgames.com) are always encouraged, as is analysis of your games. Please, take advantage of this opportunity to not just play chess, but to discuss it afterward. Discussion of other players' games is also welcome. Just remember to please keep things civil, pointing out a blunder is fine but be respectful about it, and if your blunders are discussed please be gracious about it, and rest assured that whoever noticed it has certainly made blunders of their own before. We all have

Please do NOT use this thread to discuss difficulties you may have in scheduling your match, or to report abusive chat, or if you suspect your opponent used computer assistance or otherwise cheated, or for anything else that could be construed as an accusation. If you have any such issues, please contact me via PRIVATE message, and we can resolve them appropriately. This thread is for discussion of chess, the games that have been played, tournament standings, and FRIENDLY trash talking. Thank you, and good luck to everyone!

Player list (FICS screenname):
Cadaz (Cadaz)
smilingbill (limozeen)
Jolle (jollelont)
HipHopRTR (HipHopBandit)
hoyasaxa (hoyasaxa)
Hackdeath (Hackdeath)
ganstaman (ganstaman)
Nezh (Spielmacher)
confirmedtroll (cnfrmdtroll)
Tomukas (Tomukas)
Sholar (Sholar)
palinca (palinca)
RoundTower (RoundTower)
jewbinson (celeryforty)
mc4chess (KingDestroyer)
HorridSludgyBits (Sludgy)
Noir_Desir (NeroDesiderio)

Duke0424 (sankd)
M07 (Vizzier)
Vassil (Vassil)

SHOTGUN

Swiss.

I like this. I don't know if 15+2 is standard in any sort of way, but 15+ some increment would be best imo.

where can I play that kind of chees tourneys?!?!? I'd love to

How does knockout work, lose and you're out? What happens in case of a draw, replay the match?

Howbout a double knockout format?

Or ... just have a 12 game between YKW and Hackdeath and we all watch.

The games will be played on FICS (freechess.org). Pairings will be posted weekly in this thread, and arrangements to play your game will be made via PM between you and your opponent. If you want to play, you are absolutely welcome to

How to handle draws is another reason I prefer Swiss personally. I plan to run it as a Swiss unless I get strong support for knockout, but wanted to at least give the option. I know some people at least would prefer that.

As for the match, that's what the 2+2 Champions Cycle is for These tourneys are open to anyone, but early next year there will be a by-invitation-only Candidates Tournament (to which YKW and Smilingbill have already earned invites, and which I'm sure Hackdeath will be a part of as well). The winner of that tourney will then play the current 2+2 champion, Nezh, in a match (maybe not 12 games, but maybe?) for us all to watch, to determine the 2011 2+2 Champion (complete with custom undertitle for all 2+2ers to see and covet).

If you want to earn an invitation and get a shot at that title, all you have to do is win one of these open tourneys! (Or earn a wild card invite with a high 2+2 rating, based on your results in these open tourneys).

When I used to run some video game tournaments I sometimes used this system, I have never seen it used in chess, but maybe it is plausible.

So let's say we cap at 16 players (can be more, this is just for explanation purposes).

In the first round, 8 players win and 8 players lose. Whoever wins, is staying in the Winners Bracket, whoever loses goes to the Losers bracket.

In the second round of the Losers bracket, 4 guys win, other 4 guys lose and are out of the tournament.

In the second round of the winners bracket, 4 guys win, other 4 guys lose and join the losers bracket which now has 8 players again.

in the Second Round part2 in the losers bracket, 8 players play, 4 win, other 4 lose and are out of the tournament. So now 4 players remaining in both brackets.

In the Third round in the losers bracket 4 guys play, 2 guys win, 2 guys lose and are out of the tournament.

In the Third round in the winners bracket, 4 guys play, 2 guys win, 2 guys lose and join the losers bracket, which now has 4 players again.

In the Third Round part2 in the losers bracket, 4 guys play, 2guys win, 2 guys lose and are out of the tournament. So now 2 players remaining in each bracket.

In the Fourth round in losers bracket, 2 guys play, one guy wins, other guy loses and is out.

In the Fourth round in winners bracket, 2 guys play, one guy wins, one guy loses and goes to losers bracket. Winners bracket now has one player, losers bracket has two.


In the Fourth round part2 in the losers bracket, two guys play, one guy wins, other one loses and is out (3rd place).

In the Fifth round, winner of winners bracket and winner of losers bracket play in the grand final.

Throughout the tournament, whoever joins losers bracket from the winners bracket has draw odds, that is if he draws he goes through in the losers bracket.

The only need for extra games would be in the 2nd round in the losers bracket as they all just came from winners bracket and no one has draw odds, so all matches should be decisive in that part.

Plausible?

Am I reading correctly that you're proposing a double-elimination tournament, or is there some twist?

In terms of time control, I think an increment is still a good idea. 20 2 gets my vote.

I was not sure about an english term for this type of tournament, if this is double elimination then yeah

Hehehe, yes. Here's a brief description: Winners and Losers brackets, with the W bracket feeding the L bracket (so there are two stages to each round besides the 1st), and the winner of the L bracket playing the winner of the W bracket for the title.

Determining what to do with draws (in both brackets) is still something that would have to be resolved.

Not necessarily a real suggestion, but does FICS support Armageddon games?

I believe that FICS can do (unrated) time-odds games; that is all that would be required. (The result on the server may still read "drawn", but that's not really important as the tournament is being paired offline.)

What YKW described is exactly what I meant by double knockout, still don't know how to resolve draws though.

I'd be interested in a format where the players are divided into sections by rating, say 6 or so per section and then play a roundrobin. The last tournament I won 2 and lost 2 rounds and the scores were all 4-0. Would be nice to play opponents that were closer to my playing strength.

Count me in whatever the format

Draws could possibly be decided by a best of three blitz game with rand for who plays white first?

The double knockout is an interesting idea. I'm a little uncomfortable with a knockout format for single games. I think it makes white a little bit too valuable. Maybe in tourney VII I'll do double-knockout, but go back to blitz matches to eliminate the color advantage, but for this tourney stick with Swiss System and the longer time controls?

I like the idea of sections. It's tricky though because each new tournament usually brings in several players of unknown strength who haven't played one of these tourneys before. Sometimes you could use FICS ratings, but sometimes people haven't played on FICS before. Also, one of the things I like about these tournaments is that it gives weaker players a chance to get a game against someone much stronger than they would usually face, and usually that stronger player is willing to analyze the game afterward as well. How often does a 1200 get a chance to play a master? I'm not sure I want to completely remove these opportunities...

In

In a knockout format, I think you have to play at least 2 games per round as having White is a huge advantage. Since this is a longer time control than usual, Swiss seems ideal, though I'd play in either.

Since we are going to longer time controls (thank you) can we increase the increment to 3 or 5 seconds? With 1 second left on my clock, I can finish a game with a 3 second increment, anything less is likely a loss on time for me. I really need a better mouse or to become young again.

My vote is Swiss 15 minute game 5 second increment, 5 rounds.

I'm in no matter the format. I've never played on FICS, looking forward to it.

in
and swiss for me

Okay, I see there is some support for a knockout format, but the majority prefer Swiss, at least for the longer time controls. I will do some form of knockout (probably double elimination) in Tourney VII, but this one will be Swiss System. As for time controls, 15 seems marginally preferred to 20, but as a nod to those who wanted longer, we'll follow cld343's suggestion and up the increment a little. 15 minutes, with a 5 second increment. Number of rounds will depend on the number of entrants, but five is most likely. I'll post full rules sometime in the next day. In the meantime, to register, please post in this thread that you want to play, AND LIST YOUR FICS SCREENNAME!!!

Registration is open until Sunday, November 14th. Pairings will be posted that evening. Good luck everyone

just in case you missed it:

In

FICS = cadaz

Of course, I'm again late But for the future, discussions, like for 2+2 Chess Open VII:

1) Double Elimination is just not for chess. Reasons can be different, 2 games are minimum, but since it's elimination tourney, 4 would be preferable. With blitz that would be too much luck, and with slower time controls - 2 games are just too much, and if it stays 1:1, luck blitz will be needed to play. Though, this makes too much luck for chess tournament. I didn't mentioned also very important fact about the luck in pairings. Having really strong player in "Losers" bracket (let's say, he wasn't able to play Rnd 1, or received a really strong opponent in Rnd1, who is debuting in 2+2, so will have a provisional ranking) will make one player to be busted of tournament just because of pairings - not fair Or let's say, 2 players are far ahead of rest of the field. That usually means, that 3rd place will be not the strongest guy of the rest of the field, but just one of them, who didn't met both of these for longer time than others.

Plus, draw is very important part of a chess game. Excluding it would be just unfair IMHO.

Double Elimination Works perfectly for Starcraft, or Heroes III tourneys, but not for chess It's usually perfect format to find the best one - but not for middle strength/worse players.

2) About the time controls... For me only two things are important - the longer it is, the better I play My favorite time control always was 120+60+30 (mins). O.K., now I don't have such a time for friendly tournament, but 30 min games are just perfect. And I just very bad about the increment thing - in my times there was no such a thing, and it's very hard to get used to it.

So, I'd prefer 30+0, 20+0, or even 15+0. But I will play in 15+2 as well

Should I send registration letter by private message, or it is enough to say it there - I'm in

in, limozeen on fics

In as well

jollelont on fics.

In
HipHopBandit on FICS

Looks like its a Swiss again, which is fine.
Haven't seen double elimination used for chess, but know it gets used in live heads-up poker events.
I also don't mind the idea of group round-robins, although new/unknown players can create problems.
Most pairing systems are designed to best determine the winner, and do a pretty poor job of determining the other places.

As for time control, if we're going for something longer, 15 5 would get my vote. If you're playing 15 2, the increment really doesn't add anything, but at least a 5 second increment allows you (or *should* allow you) to overcome basic tactical blunders when short of time.