FICGS world championship

  

FICGS world championship


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Thibault de Vassal    (2006-05-05)
FICGS world championship

Hello to all.

Please post here all your questions / suggestions about the FICGS world championship rules.

There are many answers to bring yet : about the building of groups, who exactly will play which stage, etc...

It seems that many players like this scheme : knockout / round-robin tournament, that is more fair and much more interesting than a pure round-robin cycle. The final match rules are particularly hard (24 games, 30 days + 1 day / move), but I think it's a good way to make it different and give value to the title. Rules are not far from the old classical world championship, the champion will only play the next final match against the challenger...

FICGS WCH Rules :
http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html#tournament


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-05-05 16:35:18)
Question...

... from a player :

Who (how many players from each tournament) will play the next stages of the wch ?

Indeed, rules are not clear enough yet, I'll bring changes soon. About "how many players", from ie. a 11 players round-robin tournament : It's stated only one, the player with the highest rating in case of equality. Maybe that's not fair enough, I have to simulate other possibilities.

As June is very near already (too short delay), if there are no players enough at this time, we could pass the first stage but I think it would be better to wait, postponing (one month or two) could be considered...


Jose Carrillo    (2006-05-05 18:51:43)
Tournament reccomendation

Try a round robin + Page system playoffs.

Round 1:
Round Robin (as many players as you want)

Final Round:
Page System Playoffs:

Top 4 players in the Round Robin qualify for the quaterfinals:

1st place vs 2nd place
3rd place vs 4th place

Winner of 1st-2nd gets bye in semi-finals, and moves on to the finals.

Loser of 1st-2nd plays in semi-final round

Winner of 3rd-4th playes in semi-final

Loser of 3rd-4th gets eliminated.

Winner of semi-final plays in the final.



Thibault de Vassal    (2006-05-09 16:46:25)
Qualifying

I didn't know this system !? Is it really efficient ? How to designate the (4) winners of the round-robin cycle ? Then the semi-final (players bye :/) seems to be a stage more... Means at least 6 months more to end the cycle.

I think the combined round-robin / knockout cycle is fast and fair enough... The 2 first players (designated by the highest ratings in case of equality) of each round-robin tournament will be qualified for the next stage.

The rules for world championship have been updated.


Jose Carrillo    (2006-05-11 00:09:47)
Re: Qualifying

The top 4 players in the round robin qualify for the quarterfinals.

The beauty of this system is that the #1 and #2 players in the round robin have a 50% chance of going to the final (they deserve it too! as they finished top 2 in the round robin).

The loser of the 1st-2nd match still has a chance to go to the finals if he wins the semi-finals.

This system prevents lower ranked 3rd and 4th players in the round robin to knock out in one round the top players of the round robin.

If you play the round robin to win (and finish 1st or 2nd) you are rewarded for the finals.

There is still the possibility of the 1st and 2nd place in the round robin to play in the final match.

If you just play to finish 3rd or 4th, you have to fight your way to the final.

There will never be a 3rd vs 4th final match, something very well possible in a knock out tournament.


Trent Parker    (2006-05-12 00:31:30)
Banned players

Hi Thibault! I noticed that there is a banned/deleted player who has entered the world championship. You might want to fix this before the closing date :D.


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-05-12 07:39:04)
Re: Qualifying + Banned players

Hello Jose. You said : "There is still the possibility of the 1st and 2nd place in the round robin to play in the final match."

Actually this is the case, 1st and 2nd qualify for the next stage. How your system works for a 3 stages round-robin tournament cycle ? We can't add 2 extra-stages to designate who qualify from each round-robin tournament...


Hello Trent. There are 3 players who unregistered (not banned), they still appear in the WCH waiting list but they will be automatically removed when building groups.


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-05-12 07:49:43)
Building groups

I suppose the following method is quite reasonable... (if you have a better idea...)

So, building WCH round-robin tournaments groups : Grading all players by elo. Starting from the middle of the list. The first 2 players, one above the middle, one below, play in the first group, the next 2 players in the second group, the next 2 in the third group etc.. Finally, elo average for each group shouldn't be far from each other. What do you think ?


Jose Carrillo    (2006-05-13 00:28:45)
Re: Qualifying

In a Knock out you can have 3rd vs 4th in the final. In the Page system you can't.

It's just a matter of whether you want to acknowledge the top players in the round robin.

In the page system ONLY the top four players in the round robin qualify for the playoffs.

Look at the Page system in practice in the Gligoric Cup tournament that we are running in FRCEC at:

http://frcec.chess960.info/GligoricCup.htm


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-05-13 11:14:02)
Problem is...

... when you have a round-robin cycle ! Anyway, I updated the WCH rules page. This is certainly more fair now, and I think the knock out system will be appreciated.

Thanks for suggestions !


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-05-15 13:48:57)
Building groups / Qualifying

Update for the method building round-robin tournaments groups :

1) Grading players by rating

2) Filling the groups. If there are 4 groups, #1 -> group 1, #2 -> group 2, #3 -> group 3, #4 -> group 4, #5 -> group 4, #6 -> group 3, #7 -> group 2, #8 -> group 1, #9 -> group 2 and so on... A clearest way.

Finally, I came back to my first idea, in round-robin tournaments only one player should qualify for next stage (in case of equality, the highest rated). Not sure it's less fair, it's more logical and it rewards the rating obtained before... After all, even ICCF WCH final tournament designate a unique winner. Wch page has been updated.


Daniel De Noose    (2006-05-20 17:55:10)
:-(

I'm not sure in case of equality we have to give the first place to the best rated. Because if a 1800 player and a 2300 player have the same score we can think the 1800 player makes a performance over his rating (good tournament) and the 2300 player a performance under his own rating (bad tournament). I think it's not correct to give the first position to the player making a bad tournament result and not to the player making a good tournament result. ;-)


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-05-20 18:39:06)
Equality rule

Hello Daniel.

If the 2300 player scores 5.5 at this tournament, and the 1800 player scores 5, we can imagine the 2300 player makes a bad performance as well (possibly lower than the 1800 player), so the 1800 player should win ?

There's no perfect system, only conditions, but this rule prevents from 'accidents' and grants the rating that is the best players strength indicator. I think this is a way to ensure that the best players will reach the final stages. Because this is a world championship...