Australian format weekend chess

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Roger de Coverly
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Australian format weekend chess

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:56 pm

Shaun Press of Canberra has details of an event he is running.

http://chessexpress.blogspot.com/2018/1 ... -18th.html

What's unusual to British eyes is the format. Four rounds on Saturday and three on Sunday. Needless to say, the time limit is fast to match, namely 60 minutes with 10 second increments. I didn't see the round starting times, but having them at three hourly intervals might make sense, so 10:00 am, 1:00 pm, 4:00 pm, 7:00 pm giving a 9:30 pm finish on the Saturday and a 6:30 pm finish on the Sunday.

We see two day rapid play tournaments in the UK, the British rapidplay being the obvious example. Never though to my knowledge has a UK organiser experimented with this hybrid. With seven rounds, pairings are going to work better if entrants are greater than 64 for each section.

Ian Thompson
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Ian Thompson » Mon Oct 15, 2018 10:47 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:56 pm
I didn't see the round starting times, but having them at three hourly intervals might make sense, so 10:00 am, 1:00 pm, 4:00 pm, 7:00 pm giving a 9:30 pm finish on the Saturday and a 6:30 pm finish on the Sunday.
There's no way they'll keep to the advertised round times. One round is only 2 hours 15 minutes after the previous one (so only time for 45 moves if both players use all their time) and another one is only 2 hours 30 minutes after the previous one (so only time for 90 moves if both players use all their time). The morning rounds do have 3 hours before the first afternoon round, so the games should be finished, but perhaps not much time for lunch after a long game.

This time limit is nothing new - it was used in this tournament when I played in it in 2006, although that year there were only 6 rounds, 3 on each day.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Oct 15, 2018 11:03 pm

Ian Thompson wrote:
Mon Oct 15, 2018 10:47 pm
There's no way they'll keep to the advertised round times.
http://vesus.org/files/fliers/2018-viki ... 1-2018.pdf

It seems they will start at 10:30 am.

Unlike normal practice for a British tournament, they aren't insisting that players pay when they first declare their entry.
Payment
From 10am 17th November at the venue
Whilst the move rate and adjusted schedule may be worth considering, I doubt British organisers would want to risk trying to collect entry fees for the entire tournament on the day.

shaunpress
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by shaunpress » Tue Oct 23, 2018 4:05 am

This format used to be much more common in Australia, but is gradually being phased out. The story behind it is ...
Australia does not have a tradition of Friday evening rounds for weekend events. This is due to the lower population density, meaning that lots of players use Friday night to travel to tournaments (and Sunday night for the trip back). So the format for a lot of weekend events was 5 rounds (3 Saturday, 2 Sunday) with a 40/90m type time control. However this lead to problems once events became larger, so the faster time control was trialled as a way of squeezing in more rounds. Before digital clocks it was G/60m, but with digital clocks the 10s increment was introduced to at least allow the game to be decided at the board.
In more recent years, organisers have moved to holding multi-section events, and looking at different time controls. This tournament is one of the few 60m+10s events left. I have suggested 60m+30s as the way forward (and FIDE rating it), but finding a suitable schedule over 2 days is still tricky. This event is also pretty causal/low key, so collecting payment on the day isn't an issue. As for sticking to the schedule, 'the round shall start at xx:xx ' is a common announcement.

Alex Longson
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Alex Longson » Thu Oct 25, 2018 9:48 pm

This is the time control we use for the UKCC Terafinal. 3 rounds on a saturday and 3 on a sunday beginning at 10am (930 on sunday) with 3 hour intervals between round start times.

It seems a decent compromise of using increments (so avoiding 10.2 disputes) but not having the danger of games drifting over the planned start time of the next round. It also allows for the games to be ECF standard graded.

I've not played the time control myself - I think I would find it quite tough!

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Adam Raoof
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Adam Raoof » Thu Oct 25, 2018 9:51 pm

shaunpress wrote:
Tue Oct 23, 2018 4:05 am
This format used to be much more common in Australia, but is gradually being phased out. The story behind it is ...
Australia does not have a tradition of Friday evening rounds for weekend events. This is due to the lower population density, meaning that lots of players use Friday night to travel to tournaments (and Sunday night for the trip back). So the format for a lot of weekend events was 5 rounds (3 Saturday, 2 Sunday) with a 40/90m type time control. However this lead to problems once events became larger, so the faster time control was trialled as a way of squeezing in more rounds. Before digital clocks it was G/60m, but with digital clocks the 10s increment was introduced to at least allow the game to be decided at the board.
In more recent years, organisers have moved to holding multi-section events, and looking at different time controls. This tournament is one of the few 60m+10s events left. I have suggested 60m+30s as the way forward (and FIDE rating it), but finding a suitable schedule over 2 days is still tricky. This event is also pretty causal/low key, so collecting payment on the day isn't an issue. As for sticking to the schedule, 'the round shall start at xx:xx ' is a common announcement.
Have a look at www.hampsteadchess.blogspot.com

the only downside is that you have to make the events Under 2200 to FIDE rate them

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shaunpress
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by shaunpress » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:14 pm

Not any more. A change to the FIDE Rating regulations means that *games* that have at least one player rated 2200 or above will not be rated with 60m+30s as the time control. Previously it was *tournaments*. http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html? ... ew=article has the new regulations, under section 1.1
I have run a few small events at 60m+30s but no one rated above 2200 has actually entered them.

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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:30 pm

shaunpress wrote:
Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:14 pm
Not any more. A change to the FIDE Rating regulations means that *games* that have at least one player rated 2200 or above will not be rated with 60m+30s as the time control. Previously it was *tournaments*. http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html? ... ew=article has the new regulations, under section 1.1
I have run a few small events at 60m+30s but no one rated above 2200 has actually entered them.
The mental leaps that mean no one has ever run a FIDE-rated Open with a 3-hour session in England are:
1. We grade tournaments, not games; indeed, our entire membership structure is based on needing certain levels of membership depending on the type of tournament. We don't selectively grade parts of tournaments.
2. We are used to all of our games being graded in a tournament. Players new to Elo ratings don't always comprehend that they've played a game, but it isn't rated because they played an unrated player. That doesn't happen in the ECF system.

Conceptually, people won't be able to understand that their win against a 2201 in a 3-hour session can't be rated, but their loss against the 2199 did; so organisers haven't been willing to organise them.
Last edited by Alex Holowczak on Fri Oct 26, 2018 11:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Adam Raoof
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Adam Raoof » Fri Oct 26, 2018 12:26 am

shaunpress wrote:
Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:14 pm
Not any more. A change to the FIDE Rating regulations means that *games* that have at least one player rated 2200 or above will not be rated with 60m+30s as the time control. Previously it was *tournaments*. http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html? ... ew=article has the new regulations, under section 1.1
I have run a few small events at 60m+30s but no one rated above 2200 has actually entered them.
It makes little difference to the outcome; events are Under 2200, we play 60+30s and very few games overrun. We get 5 games in over a weekend, and most people are content with the format.
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Oct 26, 2018 1:26 am

Adam Raoof wrote:
Fri Oct 26, 2018 12:26 am
most people are content with the format.
London based players with ratings in excess of 2200 have lots of other opportunities to play. In areas where players with ratings above that are relatively rare, you might wonder what the reaction would be to being excluded from their local tournaments.

Tournaments that have adopted increments but with notional session lengths of less than four hours have gone for 90 15 for 105 minutes and the increasingly popular league rate of 80 10 for those of three hours.

Scarborough this coming weekend isn't FIDE rated and will use 110 10 with nominal four hour sessions.

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Michael Farthing
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Michael Farthing » Fri Oct 26, 2018 9:19 am

But as I understand it, they need not be excluded - just that their games will not be rated. From their point of view that is actually advantageous as they have little to gain and more to lose. The weaker players in the tournament might be disgruntled at having an unrated game, but then again they might welcome the opportunity to play a highly rated opponent.

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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:17 am

Michael Farthing wrote:
Fri Oct 26, 2018 9:19 am
The weaker players in the tournament might be disgruntled at having an unrated game, but then again they might welcome the opportunity to play a highly rated opponent.
The current position is that tournaments with session lengths of under four hours are commonplace and give plenty of opportunities to face higher graded players. Is it an acceptable trade off to FIDE rate them but exclude players over 2200 from the calculations? So far no organiser in the UK has been willing to risk it, not even those who think it acceptable to exclude players below a certain rating from rating prizes.

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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by NickFaulks » Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:41 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:17 am
The current position is that tournaments with session lengths of under four hours are commonplace and give plenty of opportunities to face higher graded players.
My guess is that the main reasons for not rating these tournaments are

1. Players who take their FIDE ratings seriously, even those below 2200, are reluctant to put them at risk in quickish games, and

2. Gold membership.
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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by David Sedgwick » Fri Oct 26, 2018 11:24 am

NickFaulks wrote:
Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:41 am
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:17 am
The current position is that tournaments with session lengths of under four hours are commonplace and give plenty of opportunities to face higher graded players.
My guess is that the main reasons for not rating these tournaments are

1. Players who take their FIDE ratings seriously, even those below 2200, are reluctant to put them at risk in quickish games, and

2. Gold membership.
Your Point 1 is surely refuted by the large entry which Adam gets for his tournaments.

The reasons set out by Alex upthread seem to me to be far more to the point.

As I have said several times previously on here, the FIDE Qualification Commission needs to get its own house in order if it wants more English events to be FIDE rated. I concede that the attitude of two English arbiters in Baku didn't help in this respect.

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Re: Australian format weekend chess

Post by NickFaulks » Fri Oct 26, 2018 11:40 am

David Sedgwick wrote:
Fri Oct 26, 2018 11:24 am
As I have said several times previously on here, the FIDE Qualification Commission needs to get its own house in order if it wants more English events to be FIDE rated.
Frankly, I no longer care. I am tired of being reminded that there are 187 other federations, including my own, nearly all of whom oppose the changes demanded in England, which appear to include allowing performances in three ( two? ) hour games to affect qualification for Candidates tournaments.

In any case, I have little doubt that even if England's demands were satisfied, some other barrier to FIDE rating would rear its head. That is the Gold Membership mentality.
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