Wait, the playoff here was all messed up. The first game is a curtains game, which is fine, but the final is an actual 45 5 draw-odds game where the winner of game 1 gets black (presumably)? How.. lame. My gut is that Robson should have chosen to play game 1 at a near-flip to get game 2 at like 75%. Is he really even close to winning more than that as white with no time edge and an opp who is happy to draw?

For norm calculation, yes.

And we have come full circle, as I said this in my first post on the matter.

I agree with this completely. It is definitely correct to try to win the "2 road games" instead of the "1 home game" under these conditions. I get that they are trying to balance it out for the guy that need only win 1 game, but cmon, the conditions of the 2nd game are utterly ridiculous. Well were. Shankland won. Pretty sick comeback after starting 0-2 against two bottom players.

You do realize that in normal competitive chess at the higher levels, white wins about 36% of games. You do realize that this number will almost certainly go up when the players are a bit lower rated, and when the time control is faster. It'll also go up a little bit when white has to win and a draw no longer becomes a legitimate result for white. Also note the opponent for the second game may be slightly tired from having just finished a game.

Basically all white needs is to be able to win 33.5% of the time and he should accept the bye. I find it absurd to think that white shouldn't expect to win this often against a player around the same level as himself, except at maybe the most elite levels of chess. Anyone who is saying that one shouldn't accept the bye and that it's obvious is basically ignoring all mathematical evidence to the contrary.

Btw amazing performance from Shankland, maybe the biggest comeback I've ever seen in a Round Robin tournament. Of course do note that he's quit chess (or threatened to) many times before, just no one cared then because he was like 2200-2300.

How many times has Hikaru Nakamura retired from ICC for life?

In any case I won't be shocked if Sam stops playing, because a lot of people do around his age. He certainly wouldn't be the first. However I certainly wouldn't take so much stock into the fact that he's claiming he will quit chess, given how many times he has said this in the past, and given how good he is.

If he just works out a few things in his game, he will be much much stronger, the final GM norm will come in his sleep (he was like one draw away in the Chicago Open right?), and he will do much better in these top tournaments. His main problem now is he just needs to get about 50 points stronger, certainly not an impossible goal, and of course 100 points + is not out of the question, which would make him a tremendous force.

is this true? The only thing I could be confident of saying there is the number of BLACK wins should go up when the players are lower rated. In the actual tournament, there were 40% wins for White, but that is skewed by some players being up to 383 points higher rated than their opponents and a correspondingly lower draw percentage than for a matchup between the top players.

I don't think it's obvious either way, I think the decision to take the bye depends on who your first-round opponent would be. Who would it have been?

btw the stats I gave were for a varied level of strengths, but I find it hard to believe that Ray Robson and Sam Shankland are so solid that they cannot beat themselves 1/3 games with the white pieces in pretty quick time control of 45+5.

33% isn't necessarily good enough, though, if he was going to face Zhao (300 points lower rated, even if he was on form) in the first round otherwise.

I agree that it's not obvious which was the point of the system. I think it's extremely close. His first round opponent probably would have been Sam Shankland, because it would have fallen to Parker Zhao who would have probably taken the bye?

Also if you play the first round game, you are guaranteed to have to face Shankland at some point (and he is clearly the better player), however if you take the bye, there is a reasonable chance you will just have to win one game against Parker Zhao.

I'm pretty sure that in Robson's shoes I'd take the bye and I don't think it's that close. By that I mean I can't imagine it's ever going to be under 33.3% and that the advantage of maybe getting to play only the weakest player of the two, getting to play someone who just got finished a possibly tiring game, and getting to face someone who is playing a game that starts 4-5 hours than the normal round time and thus might be tired, could ever not be worth it. I mean basically everything falls in favor of taking the bye. It's just that once you play that one game, you are usually a decided underdog, which is only fair.

He was probably going to face Shankland, assuming Zhao accepted the free pass to the final game, and does it matter if he faces Zhao in Rd 1 or Rd 2?

yeah if Zhao was second on tiebreak I think Robson has to take the bye. If not it's much more interesting (and obviously at some rating difference between Robson and Zhao it becomes better to play him).

I dunno, I mean if you take the bye there is a really significant chance that you won't have to face Shankland at all. Zhao may not be world champion, but he can certainly win/draw one 45 minute game against Shankland.

well yeah, and likewise you might lose to Zhao if you decide to play him first. How strong do you think Zhao has to be for Robson to want the bye?

I dunno, I mean I'm pretty sure I'd always take the bye. The extra hour or two of sleep and rest, playing a tired opponent etc. Also playing for a draw can be psychologically very difficult. I think Robson made a poor choice today playing this Fantasy opening and kind of ...I dunno, trying to do too much too soon. Robson is good enough where he doesn't need to play some surprise/relatively offbeat opening to win a chess game.

Of course take the weird starting time of the round off the table, and maybe give a significant break in between game 1 and 2 and things can certainly change, although I suspect that in the large majority of cases I'd take the bye.

You really take the bye if Zhao was some 1800 instead? What if he was a 1400? A beginner who had never played chess before? The right to choose colours has to be worth something.

Also, didn't you have a better proposal last year for settling 3-way ties? I forget what it was, but it was something similar to this I thought.

Curtains, musn't we account for the fact that White HAS to win the final game. And Black KNOWS this! These facts MUST decrease white's winning %. Black has the luxary of playing to draw to absurd extent and white must counter with lines in an attempt to win even if they are sub-optimal.

And even if you are right that taking the bye is correct there HAS to be a better way to settle this. Frankly I don't understand why everything has to be broken in 3 hrs. They can't devote an extra day for a championship?

Ok well 1800/1400 etc is a bit unrealistic Of course there is some level where I'd gladly not take the bye.

Imagine having a tournament and then a scheduled very large closing ceremony with media special appearances and etc. Then imagine that there is not always or often a tiebreaker. Should the organizers have an extra day before the closing ceremony just in case, costing them a bunch of money in hotel costs, annoying all of the players who'd rather go home, etc etc.

Also don't forget that in regular chess white doesn't play as if he has to win, if they did, they would certainly win more than the % listed above. I'm not sure these two sides cancel out...most people are pretty happy with a draw with the black pieces anyway, so it's not like black's play is likely to be so radically different than normal, and it's not so clear that it would be more effective if it was.

Imagine a poster on the forum, who doesn't answer all questions in a condescending and sarcastic tone.

This is the chess forum.