What do you think about a team format tournament?

[aibretty]

So I've been playing with tsh a lot in the past week trying to figure out how to do pairing formats, etc for CUSS WORDS.  One of the conclusions that I have come to is that I might just scrap class prizes altogether.  The reason being that I might just have everything be team-play.

The idea is, you show up having been preassigned to a team.

Comments

[jigsawn]

Having people sign up individually for a tournament and then telling them that they are competing in randomly assigned teams rubs me the wrong way. If you advertise it as a team tourney to begin with and people sign up to play together (perhaps with some cap on the average rating) then it is a cool idea. One of the most popular chess tournaments of every year, the U.S. Amateur Team tournament runs on exactly this concept.

[aibretty]

Yeah, that is my only misgiving. I wouldn't dare spring it on people the day they showed up.

Aside from that, I don't know of a way to make the teams at all fair without assigning them before hand. Plus that eliminates the time of doing it on sight and having to alter the pairing system on the fly.

[aibretty]

before someone corrects me, I of course means site, not sight. :o)

[aibretty]

and meant = means...

I suck.

[quinquennia]

Nothing wrong with team play events. Some of my favorite events are the Montreal vs Toronto (Kingston Cup) where I have been an alternate for Montreal for the past few years. I like that my opponents have the option to concede a game at any point, and it can still be rated. Then there is the Ottawa vs Montreal, also a heap of fun. It'd be cool to have a 4 player team represent each state or province to have a sort of Inter-North America Scrabble Olympics.

[jigsawn]

When Chuck Norris shows up to the board, all his opponents concede immediately.

Why not both?

[jigsawn]

Hi Brett -

This is Eric Z. Why not have teams be a different way that people could win, with a separate smaller payment. It could be fun to have this be an element, but maybe not a replacement for the one-on-one prize. That takes some of the pressure off figuring the most even pairings.

Word to Katie and Quinn,

EZ