GWJ Chess Club/Tourno?

Live....LIVE.....LIIIIIIIIVE!!!!

Hey gang, I've created a new tourney! We only had 11 people participate in the first one, but had about 20 people sign up for the group after the tournament had started, so I hope to get a much higher number of people participating this time. Timings are a bit tighter (2 days per move, both games at once), and two people advance from each bracket, so I think this one will flow a little more smoothly and quickly. The tourney is invite-only. Everyone who's already in the GWJ group should have received an invite. If you want to play, join the group between now and 5 PM PST November 15th, which is when the tourney will begin. You will need to be:

registered at chess.com (it's free)
a member of the GWJ group on chess.com
invited (send me a PM or just post a message on the group board)

Have fun everyone!

Yay, it'd be fun to play a few games again.

At least we know il dottore won't win with a 2 day per turn limit

I got the email regarding this tournament and, even though I've been registered for 6 months, it motivated to actually start my first game at chess.com. I am finding the web site to be well designed and there are no shortage of games to play. I prefer the online chess to the live chess as you can make your move whenever you have a free moment. I've also discovered the chess.com andriod app, which is likewise well designed and allows me to keep up with my games from anywhere.

My only complaint so far is that it seems there are a lot of people who will start games with you and just not play. Why start a game if you aren't even going to take your first move? Still, you can play in as many games as you want so that is a minor inconvenience.

I haven't played chess for probably 15 years. I realized as I started to play that my entire approach to the game has been altered by online RTS games. I have this overwhelming need to apply pressure to my opponent, try to keep them on the defensive. I never used to approach chess in that fashion.

Prozac wrote:

At least we know il dottore won't win with a 2 day per turn limit ;)

Heh.

You play both games per opponent simultaneously, as well, so that combined with the 2-day turn limit should more than double the speed of each round compared to the last. Theoretically.

Prozac wrote:

At least we know il dottore won't win with a 2 day per turn limit ;)

Yeah, you keep telling yourself that
But indeed, at 1 day/move I guess I'm not the fastest pawn-pusher around... I'm working on it, OK?! My therapist thinks I'll be fine, someday...

I hopped in as well. Perhaps something to occupy my mind besides ASL these days!

Just a reminder, one more week to register for the tournament. It starts next Monday. If one of the overlords ever reads my e-mail on the conference call, we should have a good draw...

Let's hope they read it then, so far we are actually fewer than last time around!
I even sent a PM to Elysium, trying to lure him in with the promise of revenge

Couple of questions.

1) Other than being awesome and honorable goodjers, what keeps people from cheating?

2) how are player ratings handled? some might be noobs, others low-ranking (say, 800 to 1000), and others might be strong 1600+ players who would demolish a 1000.

As far as I know:

1) Absolutely nothing. I don't think there are any ways to protect yourself against cheating, really.

2) Anyone can be paired with anybody. When groups are formed players are distributed evenly based on rating, so you don't get all the experts in one group and all the beginners in another one. So noobs WILL play against stronger players, but that's how you learn, right?

Jeff-66 wrote:

Couple of questions.

1) Other than being awesome and honorable goodjers, what keeps people from cheating?

2) how are player ratings handled? some might be noobs, others low-ranking (say, 800 to 1000), and others might be strong 1600+ players who would demolish a 1000.

We roll on the honor system, but judging by the myriad number of mistakes every single one of us made in the last tournament, I feel fairly certain saying nobody cheats

Ratings are a little tricky. Since most GWJers don't play outside of tournaments and a few one-offs, you have some fairly talented people still sitting at or near 1200, where you start when you register. So I wouldn't take anyone in the tournament for granted. Unless jakeleg registers; that's pretty much a guaranteed loss. As far as matchups, the highest rated person will head the first group, the next-highest the second group, etc. when it rolls back around to the top, the highest person left will be second in the first group, until all are filled. In this tournament's case, two people from each bracket advance, so if you're stuck in the same bracket as an incredibly strong player, you still have a chance to advance.

EDIT: tannhauser'd!

Thanks for the replies! I just checked out Chess.com (no pun intended) for the first time, and I signed up. Now I'm very tempted to get one of the premium accounts for the instructional videos and tactics trainer, etc.

The site looks really good. Send me an invite for the tourney. It will be very evident that I'm not cheating too I'll be wasted in short order I imagine, but it can't hurt to learn from better players.

If I had to guess, based on my CM11 play, i'd rate around 1100 on a good day.

I'm Jeff-66 on chess.com too.

Jeff, you should have just received an invite.

Minarchist wrote:

Jeff, you should have just received an invite.

Got it, and joined. Thanks.

I'm also now a diamond member there. I couldn't resist those awesome looking training tools. I canceled Hulu Plus to offset the cost

Jeff-66 wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

Jeff, you should have just received an invite.

Got it, and joined. Thanks.

I'm also now a diamond member there. I couldn't resist those awesome looking training tools. I canceled Hulu Plus to offset the cost :)

Diamond is awesome. They gave me a free diamond membership for three months, and the "Chess Mentor" may be the coolest thing out there. You know how most chess books will only comment on about one of every 5-10 moves? Chess Mentor will comment on every possible move you can make at each step. Very helpful. I've actually asked my wife to cancel the Wine Spectator membership she usually gives me for my birthday and upgrade me from Platinum to Diamond membership at chess.com instead.

I was actually sold on a diamond membership based on the videos and tactics trainer, then I saw the Chess Mentor thing, and watched that video. Wow. I was expecting it to be an additional cost above the diamond membership. When I saw that it was included ... I thought 'no brainer'. I look forward to diving in.

Well, we've managed to get both Elysium and Rabbit to sign up, so this will likely be the closest we ever get to an officially-sanctioned GWJ chess tourney. Still waiting for a few old stand-bys to join...only five days left!

Alright I signed up. I was going to sit it out because I got rather irrationally pissed at the last one since I threw a game about three moves in due to Chess.com's crappy notification system. Hopefully now they have an Android app out it will be easier. Plus it sounds like we won't have months between rounds to fall out of the habit of checking in.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Alright I signed up.

Yay!

I was going to sit it out because I got rather irrationally pissed at the last one since I threw a game about three moves in due to Chess.com's crappy notification system.

Yeah, that's a good point. For people who haven't done this before, chess.com's e-mail notification system is t3h suxx0rs (although it's much better than it was in February when we last did this). I highly recommend either using an iPhone/Android app (they always push correctly, to my knowledge), or to just check in on the site once a day. Or more, if you have a fast opponent.

Also, if it looks like your opponent is running out of time the polite thing to do would be send him a GWJ PM or post on here calling them out

Just a heads up to everyone that the tournament is starting tomorrow. Good Luck!

Just a reminder, everyone: The tournament starts in less than three hours! If you haven't registered yet, it would be a really good time to do so.

...and we're live! I got a tough draw: DonDGT, Baron, and Datin. Should be fun.

Four people in each bracket, two advance. Three rounds in total. Have fun!

You want to talk about tough groups? Il Dottore and Liquid Mantis are in mine. Fogrob and I will have a hard time... unless of course Il dottore can't keep up with the pace

So we're playing 6 games at a time? I didn't expect that.

DonD wrote:

So we're playing 6 games at a time? I didn't expect that.

Yes, but if your worried about having to play too many games, it really doesn't seem like it with a two day window between required moves.

DonD wrote:

So we're playing 6 games at a time? I didn't expect that.

Part of the reason I expect this tourney to take less than half as long as the last one.

So Jeff-66 tried to withdraw but chess.com apparently glitched on him, so those of you in his bracket will get two free games. Elysium, Michael_H, and Psych will be duking it out in a three-way for two available spots. Lucky you. (And why am I turned on now...)

Prozac wrote:

You want to talk about tough groups? Il Dottore and Liquid Mantis are in mine. Fogrob and I will have a hard time... unless of course Il dottore can't keep up with the pace ;)

I just pretend it's a chess lesson I don't have to pay for. It makes the pain of being such a dullard a bit easier to deal with.

Prozac wrote:

You want to talk about tough groups? Il Dottore and Liquid Mantis are in mine. Fogrob and I will have a hard time... unless of course Il dottore can't keep up with the pace ;)

You can always hope
I don't expect an easy time at all though, we've played before and none of you are pushovers... well, except for Mantis of course!