SO WHO'S GOING TO SHEFFIELD? I AM!

[Simon Ansell]

I don't think norms should be used as an argument here anyway, whether or not acceleration helps them to be achieved (I am skeptical that acceleration helps, too). It's the British Championship and the emphasis should be on finding the right British Champion, not norms.

[Alan Walton]

The players in the 2nd Quarter will likely to play somebody around 2150 and below in round 2 with acceleration, so why do it

I can see the only reason for acceleration is when there is a very large entry without enough rounds available to come up with a sensible winner, not really applicable with 80 players over 11 rounds

Another reason could be they don't want massive mismatches in round 1, but this has only come about due to the large volume of qualifying places available

If anything acceleration will affect everybody more in the bottom half, I will play a 2070ish in acceleration (a 2400 in rd2), but a 2500 if normal (a 2050 in rd2), therefore for norms standard swiss seems more beneficial

[Mick Norris]

I don't think norms should be used as an argument here anyway, whether or not acceleration helps them to be achieved (I am skeptical that acceleration helps, too). It's the British Championship and the emphasis should be on finding the right British Champion, not norms.

Fair comment

Does it make any difference that the same event is also finding the British Woman Champion, age 18-21 Champion, U18 Champion, English Champion etc?

[Simon Ansell]

I don't think norms should be used as an argument here anyway, whether or not acceleration helps them to be achieved (I am skeptical that acceleration helps, too). It's the British Championship and the emphasis should be on finding the right British Champion, not norms.

Fair comment

Does it make any difference that the same event is also finding the British Woman Champion, age 18-21 Champion, U18 Champion, English Champion etc?

No, that only reinforces my point. I should have written "British Champions".

[Stewart Reuben]

Has this point about Acceleration v Seeded not been discussed several times.
The advantage of Seeded for the British Championship is ...
The disadvantage is, that the top of the bottom half is disadvantaged, every year in the same way. This is important for the 'lesser' titles.
That there is a bouncing or yoyo effect that is unpleasant.
That there are many mismatches in the first round. If you count that as per ECF definition of 320 points, there would be about 14.
The disadvantage of Acceleration is that there will be a few mismatches in later rounds caused by the system.
That it may bring the contenders for the title together too early in the opinion of some.
Nobody has ever suggested to me any others, apart from being more heavily reliant on accurate ratings than the Seeded System.

As Jack pointed out it is only relatively recently that Acceleration was introduced. That was probably been done because, if you play very low rated opponents, it is less likely you will be able to get a title norm in 9 rounds. It requires a higher performance to get one in 10 or 11 rounds.

If you want a safe bet: David Howell to win the British U-21. Yang Fan Zhou to win the British Under 18. He is not eligible for the U21 by the way. Go figure.
Stewart Reuben

[LozCooper]

That there are many mismatches in the first round. If you count that as per ECF definition of 320 points, there would be about 14.

Alternatively you could view it as lower rated players getting possibly a once in a lifetime chance to play against Adams, Short etc There's still ten more rounds for all the big clashes to take place.

[Richard Bates]

As Jack pointed out it is only relatively recently that Acceleration was introduced. That was probably been done because, if you play very low rated opponents, it is less likely you will be able to get a title norm in 9 rounds. It requires a higher performance to get one in 10 or 11 rounds.
Stewart Reuben

I'm probably missing something obvious here but... why?

[Alex Holowczak]

The disadvantage is, that the top of the bottom half is disadvantaged, every year in the same way. This is important for the 'lesser' titles.

It isn't at all this year, because such a high proportion of the field has titled players in it. Playing enough players of the requisite standard will not be a problem. There are 14 titled players over 2450, and 18 below. So you need to be in and around the titled players for the vast majority of the tournament to secure an IM-norm. Similarly, there are far more players above 2600 than there would be at a "normal" British.

That there are many mismatches in the first round. If you count that as per ECF definition of 320 points, there would be about 14.

Maybe the people in the third quarter want to play GMs? They've paid £200 to enter the competition too, so by using acceleration, they're the ones being deprived of the chance of a tie against a GM. Why are they more worthy of missing out on their big chance than the alleged norm seekers? Besides, Nigel Short has expressed his displeasure at acceleration. If anyone was going to be wary of 1st round mismatches, and the potential for an egg-on-face loss in round 1, Nigel - as #2 seed - would presumably be one of them.

The disadvantage of Acceleration is that there will be a few mismatches in later rounds caused by the system. That it may bring the contenders for the title together too early in the opinion of some.

You'll have the situation where the leader will have to play something like 5th-10th place just to find someone he hasn't played yet. This can hardly be ideal.

As Jack pointed out it is only relatively recently that Acceleration was introduced. That was probably been done because, if you play very low rated opponents, it is less likely you will be able to get a title norm in 9 rounds. It requires a higher performance to get one in 10 or 11 rounds.

Again, that isn't a problem this year because there are so many titled players in the field.

The advantages of using the normal pairings are:
(1) Virtually every player in the event who seems to care about the matter seems in favour of using the "normal" seeded Swiss system.
(2) You can have software such as Swiss Master do the pairings instantly, rather than do it manually.
(3) Accelerated pairings were, I understand, only ever designed to solve a problem; a problem that doesn't exist because you don't have more than 2^7 players, let alone 2^12 or 2^13 that you'd need to have a realistic problem of getting ties on 11/11.

[Richard Bates]

The disadvantage is, that the top of the bottom half is disadvantaged, every year in the same way. This is important for the 'lesser' titles.

It isn't at all this year, because such a high proportion of the field has titled players in it. Playing enough players of the requisite standard will not be a problem.

I think Stewart meant "lesser titles" as in "lesser Championship titles" - U21/U18/Womens etc.

[Richard Bates]

That there are many mismatches in the first round. If you count that as per ECF definition of 320 points, there would be about 14.

Maybe the people in the third quarter want to play GMs? They've paid £200 to enter the competition too, so by using acceleration, they're the ones being deprived of the chance of a tie against a GM. Why are they more worthy of missing out on their big chance than the alleged norm seekers? Besides, Nigel Short has expressed his displeasure at acceleration. If anyone was going to be wary of 1st round mismatches, and the potential for an egg-on-face loss in round 1, Nigel - as #2 seed - would presumably be one of them.

To be fair, I don't think it's exactly puffing up my own strength to suggest that Nigel might prefer a "mismatch" against a player 500 odd points below him than a very near "mismatch" (314pts) against, er, yours truly

[Alex Holowczak]

The disadvantage is, that the top of the bottom half is disadvantaged, every year in the same way. This is important for the 'lesser' titles.

It isn't at all this year, because such a high proportion of the field has titled players in it. Playing enough players of the requisite standard will not be a problem.

I think Stewart meant "lesser titles" as in "lesser Championship titles" - U21/U18/Womens etc.

In which case, the likely winners of those titles are GM Howell, IM Zhou and IM Houska, all of which are clearly in the first quarter.

[Alex Holowczak]

To be fair, I don't think it's exactly puffing up my own strength to suggest that Nigel might prefer a "mismatch" against a player 500 odd points below him than a very near "mismatch" (314pts) against, er, yours truly

In that case, he probably doesn't want to be sat there for seven hours playing out an endgame where you're pressing for a win, but it's blatantly drawn.

[Richard Bates]

I think Stewart meant "lesser titles" as in "lesser Championship titles" - U21/U18/Womens etc.

In which case, the likely winners of those titles are GM Howell, IM Zhou and IM Houska, all of which are clearly in the first quarter.

Well of course if we're just going to award the titles to the "likely" winners without the need for a 'fair' competition...

[LozCooper]

I feel very fortunate that my first ever game in the British Championship at the age of 18 was black against Viswanathan Anand and the year after I started with white against Michael Adams. Had accelerated pairings been used I wouldn't have had the chance to play either of them.

[Roger de Coverly]

The advantages of using the normal pairings are:

(2) You can have software such as Swiss Master do the pairings instantly, rather than do it manually.

From the viewpoint of more traditionally minded arbiters, that's a disadvantage.

The Major Open probably won't be accelerated, there's an even wider range there (919), than in the British (846).