Should we do a tournament?

[Umlaut]

/in

Double round-robin is probably fairest, but that's a

lot

of games depending on how many players we're looking at (though in this format we could have each player be in several games at once, to speed things along).

With elimination or double-elimination I'm not so much worried about first-move advantage unless we have some very strong players here, but how would draws be handled? Just replay until a decisive result?

Swiss system is kind of a middle ground between these but is quite complicated (I don't entirely understand how it works, to be honest, though I'm sure I could figure it out).

To keep things moving we probably need a timer. 24-48 hours per move seems reasonable.

[Umlaut]

i bet plenty of other people would be interested that don't check the chess subforums here, lol

idk where advertising would be appropriate here tho

Since this is part of Mish-Mash I think making a post in the Mish-Mash games list would probably be okay, but IANAmoderator

[Umlaut]

In deciding on format, an important question is, what's the most games people are willing to play at once? I'd personally put a limit at four and I'd really rather not have more than three going. So we'll probably have to have at a couple of "rounds" in a round-robin tournament, even if those rounds include a number of games played simultaneously.

If everyone else wants to play seven games at once I'll grumble about it but probably still participate, just registering my own preference here.

[Umlaut]

Single round-robin with only one or two games at once could easily take over a year to finish, if we're going with a time limit like 1 day or longer per move. If we're limited to that then we should choose some other format unless we actually want it to run that long.

[Umlaut]

We could use standard delay-based time controls, but with the numbers scaled up, something like 10day+3hr. That is:

• Players start with 10 days (240 hours) on the clock.
  
• An additional 3 hours are added to the clock after each move.
  
• If you run out of time you lose, unless the board position is such that it would be completely impossible for your opponent to checkmate you, in which case you draw.
  
• It's up to each player to track their opponent's clock and point out if they exceed it, and they must make that claim while the game is still otherwise in progress.

With these rules, an average length game (40 moves) would definitely conclude with 30 days, and a long one within 45 or so, and that would be if players used literally all their available time, which they probably won't.

Then, since 10+ days is a long time to sit around waiting to claim victory if your opponent has flaked, we can additionally say players must make at least one move per 3 days (or whatever) or else they are considered to have forfeited the game, and that if a player forfeits two games in this manner then they are removed from the tournament and none of their games are counted in anyone's score. This ensures players aren't punished for having lost earlier on to someone who later flakes.

If we limit to two games at once, then with 8-9 players we can expect a single round-robin to conclude within something like 4-5 months, which seems reasonable. With 10-13 players I'd say we should play three games at once, and with more than that I'd say we should reconsider the format.

[Umlaut]

Doesn’t this end up punishing players who beat someone who flaked though?

Yeah, you're right. A simpler solution would be to just declare all their games in future rounds forfeit as well, but I wouldn't want someone to rack up a bunch of "wins" just by having the most absent opponents remaining. I don't think this is likely to be decisive to the outcome though, so it's probably not a big deal.

(We could also just

not

kick people out and leave open the possibility that they might return later, but then we need to have a bunch of game topics for games that will probably not really be played, which is ugly)

Incidentally, if a game is abandoned by both players, i.e. one runs out of time and the other just never claims the victory, then we'd probably score it as a mutual loss, 0-0.

[Umlaut]

So are we still interested in this? Does anyone love/hate my time control suggestion? Should we just get this going or what?

[Umlaut]

I have no idea why people trust my decision-making, but if that's the case, I maaaay have already made a round-robin schedule in advance. It can't be perfectly fair (we have 7 games each, so some of us will take white 3 times and some will take black 4 times), so to make it at least statistically fair we can consider it as a schedule for "Player 1" through "Player 8" and then roll dice tags (something huge like 1d1000 to be sure of no ties) to see who takes which slot.

Menalque, since this was your idea do you want to be in charge of it (tallying scores and whatever else needs done)?

[Umlaut]

Well, here it is, feel free to use it:

Spoiler: A possible round-robin tournament schedule

Round 1

• Player 1 vs. Player 5
  
• Player 2 vs. Player 6
  
• Player 3 vs. Player 7
  
• Player 4 vs. Player 8

Round 2

• Player 1 vs. Player 2
  
• Player 5 vs. Player 3
  
• Player 6 vs. Player 4
  
• Player 7 vs. Player 8

Round 3

• Player 3 vs. Player 1
  
• Player 2 vs. Player 4
  
• Player 8 vs. Player 5
  
• Player 6 vs. Player 7

Round 4

• Player 4 vs. Player 1
  
• Player 8 vs. Player 3
  
• Player 2 vs. Player 7
  
• Player 5 vs. Player 6

Round 5

• Player 1 vs. Player 8
  
• Player 7 vs. Player 4
  
• Player 3 vs. Player 6
  
• Player 5 vs. Player 2

Round 6

• Player 7 vs. Player 1
  
• Player 6 vs. Player 8
  
• Player 4 vs. Player 5
  
• Player 2 vs. Player 3

Round 7

• Player 1 vs. Player 6
  
• Player 5 vs. Player 7
  
• Player 8 vs. Player 2
  
• Player 3 vs. Player 4

Players roll 1d1000 and are assigned slots in ascending order (lowest is Player 1, second-lowest is Player 2, etc.)

The division into "rounds" is not all that important here, nor, really, is the order. We can just say that once two players are waiting for their next game and haven't played yet, they start a game with one another, and we can keep track in a separate thread of who is queued up and which games are complete / in progress / not-yet-started (so we do have to have a "moderator" to handle that bookkeeping). The only thing that's really important is that each player gets white or black as nearly an equal number of times as possible, which is what I've worked out here.

In fact, we could even allow players to set their own pace for how many games they're willing to play simultaneously (but set a lower bound of two, to ensure the tournament doesn't take all year). This would mean that some people would finish early and then wait a long time for the final results but that's probably okay.

[Umlaut]

in if allowed

Fine with me, 9 is actually a better number than 8 for this.

[Umlaut]

I am willing and able! I'll get this going ASAP.

[Umlaut]

Menalque, are you willing to be backup arbiter for games that I'm playing? (This would mean you would resolve any disputes about the rules, clock time, etc. for those games. Probably none will come up but I think it's important to have a resolution procedure in case they do)

Will someone else volunteer to be arbiter for the game between me and Menalque?