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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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It's not a question about the relative merits between the FIDE time controls and one time control with increments, which I concede are only subtly different. I simply think that if we want to promote the Canadian Open as THE premier tournament in Canada, then we should use the time controls set by FIDE as the one to use for major events.
Following a heated discussion with a friend about what terms are acceptable or unacceptable, I thought it might be interesting to provoke an open discussion on the appropriate rules for major tournaments (e.g. national or provincial opens, etc.) in Canada. As you know, these issues are left wide open by the CFC handbook which provides no real guidance to organizers and thus no standard baseline over the years.
Specifically:
1) How many sections should there be? a) One (as in the recent CO in Ottawa or in Edmonton 2009); b) Two (as in, for example, Kitchener 2006); or c) Three or more (as in Montreal's CO in 2010).
2) Should the Sofia rules be applied, under which draws may not be agreed before move 30 without permission of the arbiter?
3) What should be the time controls? a) 90 + 30s increments (as in Ottawa 2013); b) 40 in 90 plus SD in 60 with 30s increments (often applied in the past); c) some other control with 30s increments; or d) any time control without increments.
4) Should there be a dress code?
Perhaps someone more familiar with the technicalities of this site can construct this as a poll but at this point I am more interested in comments.
Hi,
In my opinion, it's not such a bad thing that a lot of freedom is left to the organizers. Would guidelines limit the type of tournaments we've been having? Would guidelines steer us into certain directions? Does the organizer depend on CFC or the other way around?
I quite like what we have now. Different types of tournaments everywhere across Canada. It's simply impossible to please everyone, and by having a variety of options / types of tournaments can cater to different individuals.
As a chess player, I have to agree with J. Williamson above. I quite like the Hal Bond Guelph weekend tournaments (minus the 3 rounds on Saturday with shorter time control in Round 1). Prizes for the top 4 players (crown section only), slightly cheaper entry fees for other sections, a symbolic trophy, coffee and granola bars for everyone, enriching the experience while in the tournament area. Class prizes promote mediocrity and it's shameful how several players actually gun for this type of thing. If a player is not at least an IM in Canada, it makes little sense to play for money in my view.
1 - At the Canadian Opens, personally I liked the Montreal 2008 format very much. People played in their own sections and games were competitive. The two types of players who played up (a - legitimately underrated juniors who want to bypass the system and refuse to beat their class-section peers before graduating to the next class, and b - delusional individuals who think they're better than they are) had heavy fees to play up in the higher section, which increased per 100 points they were away from the floor. I thought that was great. Many people like the one section event and have a chance to play a GM in round 1. I don't get the appeal. So... an 1900 player checks the pre-registered list on a daily basis to check if he should play a game or not before the CO in order to play a range of 5 GMs? Or stalls his tournament participation for 2 months to preserve this 'chance'? And then if all goes right, gets crushed in 20 moves. To each their own. The great thing about a one-section, from an organizer's point of view, you can shut out all the mediocrity prizes but just awarding the top 20 players. In a Montreal 2008 type event, which I like due to its competitiveness, where you might have a 80-player class section... well... tougher to just give coffee and granolas I suppose.
2 - The guys above covered it well.
3 - Having recently played at the Toronto Labour Day Open, I am starting to feel like SD time controls should become obsolete. At certain clubs (ie Scarborough, Willowdale, both in Greater Toronto) that provide all equipment yet have a limited 3 hours of play, makes it perfectly acceptable that analog clocks are still very much in use, and the replacement of clocks is less urgent and process lengthier. However, most people now have a digital clock. For most competitive tournaments, increments should be in place, and the whole SD (and therefore analog clocks) is a thing of the past.
Back at the Labour Day... I noticed the demographic was slightly different than most other tournaments. The average age was much higher and it can be argued that some people out there still enjoy the 40/120, SD/60 time control.
Should this time control be unacceptable? Impossible when organizers cannot provide equipment for everyone, and in a city where a well-advertised event has the potential to reach 200 players, it's put Toronto back on stone age of chess.
At the same time... just a few months ago, GM Vassily Ivanchuk forfeited a handful of games at the candidates precisely because there was no increment before move 40. So this kind of thing *is* at the top of the modern world in some capacity as well.
4 - My first two or three Canadian Opens had this thing called the "Charles Graves Tie Day". I get the idea, but the result was atrocious. Guys with mismatched suits and ties, and running shoes (!), or outright a tie with a shirt (or t-shirt, or whatever) and then beach shorts. Some dudes looked like Mayor Quimby (Simpsons reference) giving a press conference at the beach, with a poster behind him to make it look like he was in his office, where the camera only covered the top half and the bottom showed sandals and bathing suit. --- Okay... so what does that all mean? Not a whole lot of progress. Some awesome-looking chess ties were brought out though.
On another note... I have collected some 6 or 7 chess themed t-shirts and 2 polos (PwC Toronto Open 2009 and CO 2010) and I would like to wear them at tournaments. Would they be acceptable? A couple of them definitely don't make me look 'dressed up'.
In any case... different tournaments, different organizers, different time controls and rules: not a bad thing. So long as people can be given a good idea of what they are about to walk into, fair game.
1. I am very much in favour of having fixed sections with fixed rating floors. Getting a norm is hard. Getting a norm in north america is harder. Heck... even NM norms under the new (ridiculous) system are tough to get. It's no fun being 3.5/4 and going into the last round of a tournament knowing you need to win instead of just draw because you just happen to be stuck playing a 1700 when everyone else in the U2200 section is rated over 2000... trust me I know :P.
2. I still believe that the whole sofia rules and draw restricting ideas were built for patzers and casual chess players who automatically assume a draw is boring. Some of the best games (and most educational) come from draws...
3.Time control makes no real difference to me so I won't comment on it. I probably would favour shorter time controls, as I tend to move a little too quickly by nature :P.
4. Dress code is why I replied to this thread... it seems to me like a disproportionately large number of chess players do not know how to dress, and it some cases basic personal hygiene is suffering a little bit... I'm not sure if making rules would entice people to wash their hair before coming to a tournament, but it definitely wouldn't hurt. So contrary to popular opinion (it seems) I'm all for a modest dress code.
I think 600 rating points points differences are to be avoided, a waste of time for both players. I want to play players close to me. So if the top players are 2400, then the next sections should be under 2000 and under 1600. If the top players are 2200 then under 1800 and under 1400. If there are over 200 players than 5 or 6 sections.
Another way of looking at it is 40 players is a good size for a section to determiner a winner, 12 too few and 80 too many.
Increments produce better games.
Eating food and Dress code should be written in the posted rules, some players need to change clothes over the event and take a shower.
I have never met anyone with BO at
any tournament.I play in the U1600.
In this section you meet the new
players who do not know the rules.
They are not aware that you are
not allowed to eat food while you
are playing.If you want to go over
your game,leave the playing area.
In the higher sections,this is not a
problem except I have noticed they
sometimes forget to turn off their
cell phones.:)
I like competitive sections, so 2 or 3 sounds good to me. I won money and lost rating points once at a yoyo Canadian Open. Very silly.
Sophia rules come from Bulgaria, where sponsors were becoming disappointed with short draws. I don't feel strongly either way. In the premier section it is nice to see real battles but if the players want a draw they will just repeat the position. This happened to me in Beijing where no draw offers were allowed at all!
Time Control - with 1 game per day, something longer than G/90 makes sense. The Major FIDE TCs start at the Zonal level. The NAYCC is considered a regional Continental so G/90 was fine.
A modest dress code is fine by me. Hygiene is more important but trickier to impose.
If you are a very strong chess player (Master and up?) then playing to win money makes sense. For us lower level players I see nothing wrong with being an amateur - just like in tennis, golf, 10k races etc...
Naturally at the GM level draws are a much more likely outcome. That wasn't my point. And there are lots of excellent chess games that end in draws.
The Sofia rules were created specifically to reduce the number of short draws, and thus encourage more "fighting chess", so spectactors get to see more entertaining games. In the first 2 rounds of this Grand Prix event, Ivanchuck has played 2 short draws, both by repetition. Sofia rules are being applied in this tournament. So Sofia rules do not eliminate short draws as intended, so I don't think we should implement them here in our major tournaments. This was the point of my post.
But then again, is there any other competition where you have such a mismatch that one of the participants has virtually no chance of winning?
In tennis, for example, the U.S. open is not open to everybody. You have to qualify.
To me, 'open' in that context means that any qualified player can register, regardless of his nationality.
A 1200 chess player is simply not qualified to win the Canadian open. So what do you do with these players? Ask for their money but give them absolutely nothing to fight for? Seems unfair to me.
For 1200 players (and several hundred points above) - they're amateurs, so give them nothing but bragging rights, BUT ask for less money, i.e. only enough to cover the costs of running the tournament.
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