Ontario Chess Challenge 2016 - Grade 11

[Cathy Yin]

I would like to take this opportunity to thank CMA team for organizing the Ontario Chess Challenge (OCC) year by year. I understand that lots of work were done from the beginning to the end, making the tournaments successfully. All the teams' work are much appreciated.

I just want to talk about Grade 11 group this year, which has a total of 11 players and includes one IM and one FM. The Grade 11 Champion was resulted without any game between IM and FM as they did not have chance to meet at the playoff. That was so regretful for the Top 1 and Top 2 rating players as they had three chances to play each other during the 3rd round, the 4th round and the 5th round. They were originally paired in the 3rd round, however, they did not play due to the protection rule for the Top 1 rating and Top 2 rating players. For the 4th round, only both of them had 3 points, but both of them played with the players who had 2 points separately. For the 5th round, only both of the two top rating players had 4 points. If they played in the 5th round, the Champion and the 2nd place would belong to them for sure without any hurt and sacrifice for other players as the other highest point is only 2 before the 5th round. To people's surprise, both of the 4 points players were paired with the players who had only 2 points. Nobody can believe the fact that the Top 1 player drew with the opponent, resulting no chance to have the playoff.

What I would like to say is that the top two rating players avoided three times to play each other during only 5 games, making the current result with sacrificing the other players, which may create part of Canadian chess history. Do you think it is reasonable or fair for all the Grade 11 players?

I hope the organizer and your team will be aware of this issue for the specific situation and solve it in the future, making the results relatively fair for the chess players.

[Robert Song]

Re: Ontario Chess Challenge 2016 - Grade 11

I completed agree with Cathy. The rule #6 below should be removed or adjusted in the future events.
"6. The two players with the highest ratings in each grade at the start of the event will only meet in the playoffs, provided they both maintain perfect scores throughout the regular competition."

for e.g. if the third highest score is more than 1 point behind the top two rated players' score (and at the time top two got perfect score so far), no reason top two still be avoided to play each other...

The champions should be decided as most as possible in the regular rounds. However by my watching of last few years of OCC, lots of were decided in the playoffs since of the rule, like this year's grade 11 and grade 10(I didn't pay attention to other lower grades). It obviously brought unfairness to players, including two top players, some number 3 or 4 rated players. The only reason comes out of the rule is to try to make sure the top two to make the final.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank CMA team for organizing the Ontario Chess Challenge (OCC) year by year. I understand that lots of work were done from the beginning to the end, making the tournaments successfully. All the teams' work are much appreciated.

I just want to talk about Grade 11 group this year, which has a total of 11 players and includes one IM and one FM. The Grade 11 Champion was resulted without any game between IM and FM as they did not have chance to meet at the playoff. That was so regretful for the Top 1 and Top 2 rating players as they had three chances to play each other during the 3rd round, the 4th round and the 5th round. They were originally paired in the 3rd round, however, they did not play due to the protection rule for the Top 1 rating and Top 2 rating players. For the 4th round, only both of them had 3 points, but both of them played with the players who had 2 points separately. For the 5th round, only both of the two top rating players had 4 points. If they played in the 5th round, the Champion and the 2nd place would belong to them for sure without any hurt and sacrifice for other players as the other highest point is only 2 before the 5th round. To people's surprise, both of the 4 points players were paired with the players who had only 2 points. Nobody can believe the fact that the Top 1 player drew with the opponent, resulting no chance to have the playoff.

What I would like to say is that the top two rating players avoided three times to play each other during only 5 games, making the current result with sacrificing the other players, which may create part of Canadian chess history. Do you think it is reasonable or fair for all the Grade 11 players?

I hope the organizer and your team will be aware of this issue for the specific situation and solve it in the future, making the results relatively fair for the chess players.

[Victor Plotkin]

Re: Ontario Chess Challenge 2016 - Grade 11

First, we have to understand why CMA uses this restrictions. I believe, it's only one possible explanation to this rule.

Just a simple example. 50 players, 5 rounds event. After 4 rounds 3 players leading with 4/4. Regular swiss pairings make 2 highest-rated players play one another. The 3-rd player plays down. If he wins (likely), he plays for 1-2 places in play-off with the winner of top game, or simply wins the tournament in case of draw (possible) between top-2 players. Is it fair? Probably, not and that's why CMA uses this rule.

In my opinion, this rule (avoid 2 top players play one another) is logical only in big tournament, with more than 32 players. With less than 32 players, this adjustment is absolutely unnecessary, because it's impossible to have 3 players with 4 points.

From my experience, swiss is usually logical and fair system. At least, I do not know any better one. Swiss just "doesn't like" 5 rounds with 50-60 participants.

I would recommend CMA to limit this rule for tournaments with more than 32 players and for the last round only.

[Vadim Tsypin]

Re: Ontario Chess Challenge 2016 - Grade 11

In my opinion, this rule (avoid 2 top players play one another) is logical only in big tournament, with more than 32 players. With less than 32 players, this adjustment is absolutely unnecessary, because it's impossible to have 3 players with 4 points.

I would recommend CMA to limit this rule for tournaments with more than 32 players and for the last round only.

Victor, I agree with you. Moreover, here's yet another datapoint: in Quebec, the CMA/AEM uses the rule exactly as you suggested.

"6. The two players with the highest ratings in each grade at the start of
the event will only meet in the playoffs, provided they both maintain
perfect scores throughout the regular competition. This rule does not
apply when a section has 16 players or less."
( This wording has been in force since at least 2011. )

Let's encourage Ontario to adopt the same rule.

P.S. Cathy, Robert: The rule in this edition really works and doesn't skew the results. Please take a look at the Secondaire 2 (==Grade 8) section in the just-held Defi Echiqueen 2016. Since there were only seven participants, two top-seeded players, rated 2206 and 2066, had to play each other in Rd 3 already, while the rest of the group, rated in 1000-1400 range, played between themselves. With two more rounds to recuperate, the top seeds still finished 1-2 as expected.

[Victor Plotkin]

Re: Ontario Chess Challenge 2016 - Grade 11

Very interesting, why CMA has different rules for Ontario and Quebec? Sure, rules for Quebec look better. However, I can not understand why the "magic" number is 16 and not 32. I don't see any problem about the tournament with 17-32 players and normal swiss pairings.

I have to say, CMA is not alone in trying to "improve" swiss system. Few years ago, on CYCC organizers decided to avoid players from the same area face one another in earlier rounds. It led to some strange pairings.

Swiss is good. Don't destroy it by "improving" or "adjusting".

[Leslie Armstrong]

Re: Ontario Chess Challenge 2016 - Grade 11

Thank you everyone for your constructive suggestions. We are looking at making the change for next year's Chess Challenge. I agree with the "fewer than 16 players" that Quebec uses.
I think the original intent of the rule still worked in this section because if both top players had won in round 5 they would have met in the playoffs.

[Cathy Yin]

Re: Ontario Chess Challenge 2016 - Grade 11

Thank you so much everyone for all your suggestions and comments! Victor and Vadim's suggestions are what I would like to provide to organisers, which is the restriction rule for the top two players was not applicable for this section with only 11 players. It is very professional calculation and experience either the 16 players or 32 players. Anyway, CMA should use the same rule with the one that Quebec uses.

If the top one player had won the round 5 and the top two players had met in the playoffs as what the people should have expected, did anyone provide such constructive suggestions and care for sacrificing the other players???

I really want to take this opportunity to thank all your suggestions and comments and all the readers' support and I am looking forward to the changes in the future...