Tournaments - Opportunities

"Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

#6

"Why should the "weak" player wins anything ?"

I agree that in serious tournaments, the best player should win - and everyone that wants to join the tournament should get the opportunity. This could apply to the dailies, weeklies, bitchess tourneys etc.

But it would be nice if we could create custom tournaments with a strength barrier. And why? Because facing people of roughly equal strength is more fun than losing game after game without the slightest chance.

And lets face it: I and many other people will never be as good as most of the good players here. It's not necessarily a lack of ambition. It's lack of time, lack of talent, lack of opportunities, lack of youth and so on :D

But excluding a group of people from tournaments may not be compatible with the sites philosophy

# 12

I agree with you at 100%. My point was only that being able to contest for a 1st place / price is not something that is due.

That doesn't mean it is not a bad idea ! Tournaments for rating categories, to let everyone have a chance, fits indeed perfectly with the site policy.

#9 lol. It was not intended. User name BitChess LOL.

I think just as when you start a game you can choose the rating pool of players you should be able to do this in a created tournament.

It's always nice to see the complete range of skill in chess. From the complete beginner who barely can figure out how the pieces move, to the complete beginner who has managed to install Stockfish level 8. Just kidding, guys.

How about trying a four player pairing system.
Each group of four players are in a round robin system.
Like four players on one table. Win you move up to the next category table, lose you move down a category. Label the tables using an alphanumeric system. This might even be interesting for players that wish to have a private tournament. If the last table is missing a player a level one engine sits into play.

I thank everyone for the answers and the participation.

I used to play on chess.com where the tournaments were rating-based, ie 1200-1500, 1500-1800 etc. I found it far more frustrating playing against all the sandbaggers rated 1480 or so who'd just nipped down from being 1800+ in order to win a tournament or two than I do here, where I know that I have no chance of winning the tournament but (very) occasionally get great satisfaction from managing to beat a 2000+ player gone berserk who's overreached himself. And my rating doesn't suffer; losing 1 or 2 points to a strong player is compensated for by the occasional wins against one.

i like the open tournament format. it means i get to play people who are better than i am and improve my game.