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    Originally posted by Levin View Post
    The site says I'm playing Wouter but it's the tenth turn and all his pieces are still in his half of the board. Have you been hacked?
    Situation taken care of.

    I hate playing with the black pieces. Robs me of my momentum.

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      So, hypothetically, if two players finish with three wins and one defeat in this second round, what's the tie breaker?

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        This is of course not hypothetical at all, as a ridiculous blunder has put me out of my misery against Levin in a game he's been in total control throughout. So, the best I can hope to do without relying on Wouter to do me a favour is a 3-1-0 tie.

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          That said, it's still saying the tournament is only 81% complete, so who knows what will happen. Maybe there's another round.

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            Mysteriouser and mysteriouser! I can't make sense of that at all. I mean, it could make sense in a way to have a final round between the top two (assuming the current round doesn't end in a 3 way tie), but then the total number of matches in the tournament would then still only be 50 (42+6+2) unless that final round ended 1-1 and so required yet more matches. And there are 44 games completed, which is 88% of 50.

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              My hopes of beating Etienne took a bit of a beating when the website gave my second move the name Reti Opening: Santasiere's Folly.
              Well, leaving aside the fact that you won that match, I suspect that the times when one really needs to worry based on the site's opening name function is when it doesn't give your move a name at all. One of my opponents just opened 1. e3 ("Van't Kruijs Opening"), and the programme deemed my response 1......d5 to be unworthy of any label, just calling it "....d5", as if in disgust. After the match I might look up what the possible "correct" responses are to 1. e3.

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                I think it's probably just that 1. e3 in itself is rather meh, to be honest. I'd say 1... c5, 1... d5 or 1... e5 are all perfectly valid responses. Maybe mix it up by preparing a fianchetto, though I doubt it makes much sense to go hypermodern when your opponent isn't even trying to stake a claim to the centre themselves.

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                  So, folloqing another gubbing from Levin (and blundering my bishop away against Wouter) I'm taking refuge in trying to work out the tournament format, in the hope that even third place might be enough to progress. And you know what, I think it might. We're now up to 83% complete from 45 games, which suggests 54 matches total. 42 were in the first round, six in this. So there are six more left. Which could be 6 games between the top 2, but that seems unlikely. So, I think it's more likely to be another 6 games between the top 3. Rendering this round essentially pointless. Which must be why on a sub conscious level I've been losing all my games. Maybe.

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                    This makes the UEFA Nations League look like the FA Cup.

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                      Yeah, it's an unorthodox format. Actually it reminds me of some Cricket World Cup formats where there are lots of games which are designed to get lots of India matches on TV but without the possibility of India being eliminated.

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                        Originally posted by Etienne View Post
                        without relying on Wouter to do me a favour
                        Alrighty then.

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                          Wasn't intended as a diss, more that you never want to be reliant on other people's results. Good win anyway.

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                            Originally posted by Etienne View Post
                            Wasn't intended as a diss, more that you never want to be reliant on other people's results. Good win anyway.
                            Oh, it wasn't taken as such. No worries.

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                              18...Nxa3?!? was the tipping-point to show me that it's time to quit the chess habit right now. It was consuming my thoughts inordinately, causing me to play on whilst tired and so miss obvious continuations.

                              Thank you to all for making the OTF tournaments a great experience; even though my membership has been only a token presence lately, I hope you'll accept my reasons for wishing to step down.

                              Comment


                                Sorry to hear it had become a more negative thing for you, IT, and your participation in the OTF tournaments will be much missed I'm sure, even if few of us could even occasionally trouble your progress on the board.

                                On another topic, I'm starting to think that, excellent as chess.com undoubtedly is, it could really do with a more sophisticated approach to time controls in the Daily mode. For example, either (a) a "chess clock" style thing (so like an ultra-slow "Live" in effect, say each player has 30 days total time or whatever, perhaps with extra blocks of time being credited as the number of moves made crosses thresholds) or (b) the ability to have a tight time limit generally but with a handful of "jokers" per player where you can, on a few occasions only per match, claim 3 days, 5 days or whatever to cover absences (to be fair, the "holiday" thing may provide that, I've never explored it).

                                The problem with the current system is that you set a time limit for a tournament that enables people to stay in a game in situations where they're suddenly away or ultra-busy for a day or two, say a 3 day limit, and 95 per cent of the players respect the spirit of that by playing with an average move time of just a few hours, making occasional use only of the max, but there are always one or two who completely take the piss by pushing things to the limit on almost every single fucking move, with the result that their matches take literally several times as long (perhaps 5 or 6 times as many days/weeks) as matches amongst most of the players, delaying the end of a round by weeks or even months. In a 960 tournament I'm running there are two players in my group called Jussie4 and rbpompeu who are doing just that in all their matches, especially Jussie4. I think the problem is that some players play a ludicrous number of simultaneous matches (in Jussie4's case around 100 matches at a time), so, without deliberately trying to be arseholes, they end up having that effect by managing their huge portfolio by playing games in priority of how soon their time expires. So if they're in a tourney with a 1 day limit, they'll play to that limit, and correspondingly take 3 fucking days per move for a tourney like ours. It's really detrimental to the tournament experience for many other players.

                                Comment


                                  Yeah, my round 2 group in this tournament feels like it finished a couple of months ago, but there's one match in group 3 still ongoing, and look at the arsehole in group 2 slowing everyone down - who's only finished one of their first matches so far! This tournament started in February. Similarly the one Levin mentioned a few pages ago which I'd completely forgotten we were involved in still has a couple of matches ongoing which both involve the same player (as each other, not as the other tournament). This tournament began in August last year and round 2 isn't yet complete.

                                  Sorry to lose you, irony towers.

                                  Comment


                                    Originally posted by Evariste Euler Gauss View Post
                                    excellent as chess.com undoubtedly is
                                    Well, I have my own thoughts about that. For no apparent reason, Chess.com suddenly decided that I needed a break, so it declared Round 2 of OTF #11 the final round. So, uh, Yay!, I guess.

                                    Shall we start OTF #12 as an ordinary round robin as soon as possible? I'll send out some invites.

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                                      Yes, I think so. This has been too confusing.

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                                        For no apparent reason,
                                        Other than that, in the advanced settings options menu, you selected the "play repeat rounds until the tournament director wins" option. ;-)

                                        More seriously, congrats on your gold medal and commiserations to Etienne on discovering that he was, after all, only winning at half-time.

                                        I'll do an updated OTF club member ratings summary later today, now that another OTF tourney has just finished.

                                        Comment


                                          I feel like Castleford Rugby League.

                                          Congratulations Wouter.

                                          Comment


                                            Yes please to OTF 12 beginning asap with a less confusing set-up. And congratulations, Wouter.

                                            Comment


                                              OK, here's the ratings snapshot, with changes in brackets from the last one, which was on 7 August. Most of the unchanged ratings are due to people not having played, but obviously in Etienne's case is just a net zero rise and fall. I've added TPC in for the first time.

                                              ad hoc 1659 (-53)
                                              Alex 1653 (-)
                                              Etienne 1576 (-)
                                              EEG 1433 (+1)
                                              Levin 1428 (+43)
                                              Wouter 1416 (+93)
                                              VT 1373 (-)
                                              Matt 1300 (-)
                                              Sam 1201 (-13)
                                              TPC 1141 (n/a)
                                              Rogin 854 (-)
                                              Bored 558 (-19)

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                                                I am ridiculously excited about a match I'm playing in a 960 tournament right now. I never thought this would happen, but for the first time in my life I think I am about to get to the stage where I can claim a draw under the 50 move rule, assuming (which is far from a given) that I don't do something really stupid in the next 8 moves. I'm KR vs KRN, which I gather is usually (but not always, depending on the starting position) a draw on correct play. The last capture was by my opponent on his move 52, which removed the last pawn on the board, and we've now played 94 moves each, so it's 42 down, and 8 to go before I can claim. As it's a 960 match, I dare say some purists will say it doesn't count, but sod that. It will also be my first ever match in which each side will play over 100 moves.

                                                Edit: well, it would have been if my opponent hadn't yielded to the inevitable and offered a draw on move 96.
                                                Last edited by Evariste Euler Gauss; 27-10-2017, 12:27.

                                                Comment


                                                  You should've pretended not to see the draw offer.

                                                  Do we have an expected launch date for OTF12, Wouter?

                                                  Comment


                                                    I still have three pending invitations, which I will allow to expire at midnight. Let's pull the trigger on November 1.

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