P&B Chess League - Season 8 coming soon….

[the tungston weasel]

Div c/b playoff.

N5 spur defeats the kid1433 by checkmate.  A tight game when i could see the higer division players noticing my plans a move earlier and acting on it. Felt the game was very even if not going my way untill I threw a rook away and after that it was an easy conversion.

[N5 Spur]

10 minutes ago, the tungston weasel said:

Div c/b playoff.

N5 spur defeats the kid1433 by checkmate.  A tight game when i could see the higer division players noticing my plans a move earlier and acting on it. Felt the game was very even if not going my way untill I threw a rook away and after that it was an easy conversion.

Exactly that. After a face-off of all four rooks around my king, the loss of the your first rook was the difference - could have gone either way until then.

Good luck next season (assumptions being made there).

[Aim Here]

With just one playoff result pending and the final of the madwullie cup in motion, season 5 is at an end, and I reckon It's about time we take a headcount for Season 6 of the Chess League.

The Madwullie Cup headcount will take place a few weeks into the start of the season.

Would everyone interested, whether continuing players, new players, or returning dropouts, please respond saying whether they want in? New players please provide me with a chess.com username.

In other news, I took at stab at revising the rules. These are very nearly the same and in the same spirit as the rules that @Frank Grimes set up, but I've brought them into line with what we actually ended up practising, rather than what was originally written down. Feel free to offer any comments, or point out problems with these:

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Rules

Promotion/Relegation

League structure TBC, but it will involve a double round-robin league system. Exact league structure will be defined once final headcount is confirmed.

One promotion/relegation spot per league

Playoff between second bottom from higher league against the second top from lower league.

Lower league plays white and must win to be promoted. Black will not be relegated with a draw.

In the event of someone dropping out mid-season (don't do that!), league will continue and all results against that person will be voided.

Deadlines

Games will be posted in this thread Sunday morning

As Chess.com allows invitations to be sent as white or black, both players are equally responsible for sending the invitation.

If no invitation is accepted by black within 5 days, game is forfeited and the person sending the invitation can claim a win.

Results to be submitted within 14 days of fixture beings published.

If no agreement on result by end of play deadline day, post screenshot for forum to decide result.

If no result is posted by deadline day, the match will be scored as No Result which is 0 points for each player.

It makes my life much easier if I know which league to update so please post results in the usual format below.

In keeping with the theme of Pie and Bovril, the scoring system is three points for a win and one point for a draw.

Game Setup

Home player plays as white.

Unless otherwise agreed by both players, invitations should be sent with 1 days/move.

Misc

Simply, don’t act the c**t.

Don't drop out mid-season. It does screw things up. Two weeks should be ample time to finish a game.

When important league positions are tied (promotion/relegation and playoff spots), the decider will be on head-to-head results, followed by the Sonneborn-Berger score (using the league scores, rather than traditional chess scoring). If players are still tied, a playoff with the highest finisher from previous season playing as white, and if that's not possible, random lots will be drawn.

Try to move regularly. Slow play will surely be frowned upon.

Madwullie Cup

The Madwullie Cup is a single-elimination knockout tournament with Chess960, which randomizes the start positions and alters the castling rule appropriately, but is otherwise the same game. For more details, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess.

Each round, including the choice of white or black is drawn by lot. To balance the league numbers, the first round may involve a significant number of byes (also drawn by lot). There's no seeding - everyone has an equal chance.

If a game is drawn, a replay should be started and played promptly, with the home/away colours reversed.

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Aim Here

[N5 Spur]

11 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

Would everyone interested, whether continuing players, new players, or returning dropouts, please respond saying whether they want in?

First of all, thanks so much for organising and managing the tournaments - it's genuinely appreciated.

Second, please count me in for the league.

Thanks again.

[Ziggy]

I’m in!! 
 

Thanks for organising it. 

[Trogdor]

Thanks @Aim Here for your top notch administration. It is much appreciated.

I am currently on the fence about season six for various reasons. I'm playing slower and slower at times which isn't great for my opponents. I also have a lot of commitments coming up and with the promise of over the board chess returning it may be difficult for me.

I'll take stock in a week or so if that's okay. I will definitely play the Cup (as mad as 960 is).

[pleslie99]

I'm in 

[Ziggy]

10 hours ago, Trogdor said:

Thanks @Aim Here for your top notch administration. It is much appreciated.

I am currently on the fence about season six for various reasons. I'm playing slower and slower at times which isn't great for my opponents. I also have a lot of commitments coming up and with the promise of over the board chess returning it may be difficult for me.

I'll take stock in a week or so if that's okay. I will definitely play the Cup (as mad as 960 is).

Why don’t you play your games with a shorter time control?

I’ll play any of my games at rapid or blitz time controls if my opponents prefer.

[arab_joe]

I'm in.

Happy for @Leicesterlichtie to move up to Division A - pretty sure I only won the league because he was unable to fulfil his fixtures!

[EvilScotsman]

Yeah I'm in. Hoping to improve on last season's East Stirling circa 2002-2007 esque performance.

[true_rover]

I'm back in.

[cal234ey]

Thanks for all the organisation and smooth running! I'm (paakman01) going to sit out this next season as I'll be moving house in the coming weeks and there is a lot to sort there which will leave limited time for chess.

Hopefully I'll rejoin in a future season and begin life from the bottom tier again.

[Curmudgeon]

Agree with all the suggested rules.

The only possible exception might be reverting back to two automatic promotion relegation spots if we restructure to two larger divisions due to fewer players. Hopefully we get a few new or returning players to make that unnecessary.

@Trogdor don't sweat it if you can only play one or two moves a day. Better that than you dropping out.

Alternatively you could put less time and thought into your moves which might give the rest of us half a chance against you.

[Leicesterlichtie]

I'm back in to notch up another season.

Thanks @arab_joe . Not quite sure I'd have done enough in final two games, would've had to beat you for one.

@craigkillie Didn't realise we had a play off?! Have sent a invite.

Edited August 15, 2022 by Leicesterlichtie

[Frank Grimes]

Good work @Aim Here
 

Mods, can someone give Aim Here admin rights to the thread?

[mathematics]

Happy to be involved next season.

[the tungston weasel]

Yup thanks very much for all the hard work organising this and I'd  be delighted to be in for next season.

[craigkillie]

2 hours ago, Leicesterlichtie said:

 

@craigkillie Didn't realise we had a play off?! Have sent a invite

 

I assumed I was safe - I finished 6th in the division, and I assumed 7th would have still been the play-off place given that someone dropped out mid-season. Maybe@Aim Here can confirm.

[Aim Here]

13 hours ago, craigkillie said:

I assumed I was safe - I finished 6th in the division, and I assumed 7th would have still been the play-off place given that someone dropped out mid-season. Maybe@Aim Here can confirm.

The rules were that the games were voided - we're treating it as though GCarlos9 was never in the competition to begin with and it was a seven person league.

Plus, more pertinently, we have a high rate of new players coming in and leaving compared to normal leagues and the league structure is a bit ad-hoc. We don't know how many players are in the leagues from one season to the next so the playoffs are to decide who gets priority at whatever next season's cutoff point happens to be, rather than a definite 'Player A goes up/Player B goes down' thing. If we definitely knew there were going to be 8 players in Division A next season, there wouldn't be a need for a playoff (AH13STU would get a bye), but we don't know that, alas.

For instance, if fewer players show up and we only have a seven-person Division A next time, is it fair to deny AH13STU his chance of promotion because @Loki dropped out? (Obviously if GCarlos9 resolves the chess.com issues and comes back, he'd be a better candidate to drop down)

 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Aim Here

[craigkillie]

20 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

The rules were that the games were voided - we're treating it as though GCarlos9 was never in the competition to begin with and it was a seven person league.

Plus, more pertinently, we have a high rate of new players coming in and leaving compared to normal leagues and the league structure is a bit ad-hoc. We don't know how many players are in the leagues from one season to the next so the playoffs are to decide who gets priority at whatever next season's cutoff point happens to be, rather than a definite 'Player A goes up/Player B goes down' thing. If we definitely knew there were going to be 8 players in Division A next season, there wouldn't be a need for a playoff (AH13STU would get a bye), but we don't know that, alas.

For instance, if fewer players show up and we only have a seven-person Division A next time, is it fair to deny AH13STU his chance of promotion because @Loki dropped out? (Obviously if GCarlos9 resolves the chess.com issues and comes back, he'd be a better candidate to drop down)

That's fine, I'm happy to play the game, I just wanted to clarify first.