Tournament Announcement: 2021 KWCC Teams Quick Challenge

[Brian Clarke]

Host: Kitchener-Waterloo Chess Club

Contact: Brian Clarke at bclarke1661@rogers.com or (519) 594-2430

Date: Saturday December 11, 2021

Place: *New* St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church, 23 Water St. N., Kitchener, ON

Intro & History: This annual event (except in 2020) has been popular with clubs and groups from Toronto to Windsor, Hamilton, Sudbury, etc. Teams have been made up of players with a wide range of chess experience.

Rounds: 5

Team Format:

• Each team will consist of 4 players.
• Each team has the option to register a 5th player. Prior to pairing each round, one player must be selected by the team to sit out that round.
• Board order must be announced by the team at registration. Players will be paired according to their established board order.

Sections: There will be two sections

• Top six teams (determined by average CFC rating) will play a round robin tournament
• All other teams will play a Swiss tournament

Rating: The tournament will be Active (Quick) rated by CFC.

Approx. Start Times: 10:00 a.m., 11:20 p.m., lunch, 1:40 p.m., 3:00 p.m., 4:20 p.m.

Time Control: Game in 25 minutes plus 10 seconds delay per move (Bronstein)

CFC membership: Full one-year membership adults $48, juniors $32 and one-time tournament membership adult $12, juniors $6. See www.chess.ca for details.

Team names: Pick a suitable name for your team. We encourage humourous/witty names.

Registration:

• Full teams: Team captain to send $100 payment by email (Interac e-Transfer) to bclarke1661@rogers.com by December 7. Include team name, list of players and board order in message box. You can change the team name any time before tournament start.

• Individuals and partial teams – Send $25/person payment by email(Interac e-Transfer) to bclarke1661@rogers.com by December 7. We will try to put each player onto a team, but we cannot guarantee placement. Players who do not get placed will be refunded in full.

• Late registration – A $10 late fee will be charged per person for any entries submitted after December 7.

The registration lists can be seen here: Registered Players

COVID-19 Protocol: *New* Some details may change before the tournament starts.

• All persons over age 12 must show proof of full vaccination.
• Masks must be worn at all times while indoors.
• Food is not allowed in the building.
• You must provide your own drinks.

Prizes: Trophies and cash prizes will be awarded for team placements.

The team with the best original name will win back its entry fee. No names from previous years will be considered for this prize.

Miscellaneous:

• Clocks and sets will be supplied.
• Several restaurants are near the site.
• Parking is available street side and in aboveground parking lots at the site. Parking fees apply.

[Brian Clarke]

In case you need some inspiration to create your team name, here are some lists from some previous KWCC Teams Challenge tournaments:


2019
1 KW KINGPINS
2 CONCORDIA
3 BRANTFORD A
4 KAWHI ARE YOU NOT RE-SIGNING??
5 KW1
6 STRATFORD
7 KILLERS
8 TORONTO RAPTOR ROARS
9 BRANTFORD B
10 DO YOU WANT TO RESIGN?

2018
1 TEEN TITANS
2 WE THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
3 THERE IS NO EYE IN TEAM BLUNDER
4 NEANDER TALS
5 SHENANIGANS
6 OFFENSIVE THOUGHTS
7 BRANTFORD CHESS CLUB
8 THE PLANNERS
9 THE FLYING PIECES
10 SOMETHING TO PAWNDER
11 STRATFORD KNIGHTS
12 LAST MINUTERS
13 THE NEW GENERATION
14 WE WON'T WE WON'T FLAG YOU
15 MILTON ROOKIES

Winners of the best names were: in 2019 'KAWHI ARE YOU NOT RE-SIGNING??', clearly influenced by the Toronto Raptor's recent success; and in 2018 'NEANDER TALS'.

[Brian Clarke]

I have discovered that I made a mistake when I posted the registration information. The hyperlink to my email address was slightly incorrect. Consequently, some people have not been able to send their registration requests and payments to me.

I have since corrected the hyperlink, which is bclarke1661@rogers.com in the initial posting. If you previously sent a request, it did not go through. Please do so again. I have no way of knowing who has done this already, so I cannot make a direct request to you.

I will be posting the listings of players and their teams within a few days, after this has been sorted out.

[Brian Clarke]

Registrations are coming in now, after a slow start. This is typical for team events since it takes time for people to coordinate teams.

So far the highest rated team consists of: David Cummings; Michael Dougherty; Eilia Zomorrodian and Egidijus Zeromskis.

Note that the deadline is this Thursday, December 9. Please make sure to submit by then.

[Gordon Gooding]

How many teams so far?

[Bob Gillanders]

Just sent my team registration in. Is the deadline today?

Tuesday, Dec 11? That's not a Tuesday.

[Brian Clarke]

I have corrected the deadline date in my previous post. Thanks for pointing that out Bob.

The deadline has been extended to Thursday, December 9 at midnight.

[Brian Clarke]

Here are the registered players and teams that I have received so far. I show them in the two sections, set up as advertised.

Round Robin

Rank	Team	Player	Rating
1	MB	David Cummings	2390
1	MB	Eilia Zomorrodian	2260
1	MB	Egidijus Zeromskis	2242
1	MB	Michael Dougherty	2160
2	HH	John Upper	2088
2	HH	Mikhail Egorov	2081
2	HH	Gordon Gooding	2001
2	HH	Robert Gillanders	1602
3	LCH	Roman Sapozhnikov	2313
3	LCH	Erik Malmsten	1924
3	LCH	Brian Hanratty	1604
3	LCH	Sergio Rodriguez	1280
4	B1	John Vlasov	1769
4	B1	Rob Gashgarian	1629
4	B1	Lee Hendon	1446
4	B1	Joey Sexton	962
5	TK	Kyle Van Der Welle	1738
5	TK	Anastasia Miroshnikova	1058
5	TK	Aiden Li	1392
5	TK	Samuel Chen	593
6	KC	Yasith Vidanaarachchi	1350
6	KC	Emil Kerimov	941
6	KC	Seyon Vasantharajan	913
6	KC	Nisitha Jayatilleka	unr.
6	KC	Abhinav Ramakrishnan	unr.

Swiss

Team	Player	Rating
T2	Kevin Fernandes	1684
T2	Szilard Balla	1351
TL	Caleb Langridge	1035
TL	Craig Langridge	unr.
B2	Phi Doung	unr.
B2	Matej Vidovic	unr.
B2	Alex Droogendyk	unr.
T1	Charlie Trudeau	unr.
T3	Slobodan Markovic	unr.
TK	Shamak Dutta	unr.

Looking at the above, a couple of issues are clear:

• In the RR section, there is a large disparity of ratings between the teams, leading to equally large pairing mismatches.
• There are not enough players in the Swiss section to create sufficient teams.

Consequently I have decided to modify the format of the tournament to improve the pairings for the players. Check my next post for this information.

[Brian Clarke]

In order to make things work I have decided to register the teams with two players each instead of four. This allows me to focus on higher rated players in the RR section by cutting the number of players in this section in half. This also increases the number of players in the Swiss section to a satisfactory number. The new sections are therefore:

Round Robin

Rank	Team	Player	Rating
1	MB1	David Cummings	2390
1	MB1	Michael Dougherty	2160
2	MB2	Eilia Zomorrodian	2260
2	MB2	Egidijus Zeromskis	2242
3	LCH1	Roman Sapozhnikov	2313
3	LCH1	Erik Malmsten	1924
4	HH1	Mikhail Egorov	2081
4	HH1	Gordon Gooding	2001
5	HH2	John Upper	2088
5	HH2	Robert Gillanders	1602
6	B1	John Vlasov	1769
6	B1	Rob Gashgarian	1629

Note that I placed the top rated and the fourth rated players from the original teams onto one team and the second and third rated players onto another team. This is to better balance out the teams. I will however, switch players between these teams if the team captains request me to do so.

Some players from the original RR section have been moved to the Swiss Section.

Swiss

TK	Kyle Van Der Welle	1738
TK	Anastasia Miroshnikova	1058
TK	Aiden Li	1392
TK	Samuel Chen	593
KC	Yasith Vidanaarachchi	1350
KC	Emil Kerimov	941
KC	Seyon Vasantharajan	913
KC	Nisitha Jayatilleka	unr.
KC	Abhinav Ramakrishnan	unr.
LCH	Brian Hanratty	1604
LCH	Sergio Rodriguez	1280
T2	Kevin Fernandes	1684
T2	Szilard Balla	1351
TL	Caleb Langridge	1035
TL	Craig Langridge	unr.
B2	Phi Doung	unr.
B2	Matej Vidovic	unr.
B2	Alex Droogendyk	unr.
T1	Charlie Trudeau	unr.
T3	Slobodan Markovic	unr.
TK	Shamak Dutta	unr.

I have not yet separated the Swiss section into teams of 2, since there are still a number of uncertain registrations that might add to or subtract from this list. I will make adjustments and post two person teams tomorrow.

Further details to follow.

[Bob Gillanders]

Brian, that's a terrible solution. We want to play as a team, not be broken into pieces. That's the whole idea of the event, makes it special.
A better solution is to simply combine into 1 section.

Please reconsider.

[Lee Hendon]

I must agree with Bobby that is not a good idea, please put it back to teams of 4 players Brantford comes for the fun and to take a good a*$ whipping :) lol
The event is more enjoyable as a team :)

[Brian Clarke]

Thanks for your feedback, Bob and Lee. You will still be on teams (with someone from your original team), but each team will be two players, not four.

I didn't want to redo the format, but the smaller than anticipated registrations forced me to do this. Take a closer look at the original setup in posting #8. If we were to use this, the mismatches would be grossly unacceptable. Take Michael Dougherty, for example. He is on Board 4, rated 2160. He would end up playing against players rated 1602, 1218, 962, 593, and unrated. That would be a complete waste of his time. There are other similar mismatches. The new setup evens the rating disparity of matchups to a much more acceptable amount.

[Bob Gillanders]

Take Michael Dougherty, for example. He is on Board 4, rated 2160. He would end up playing against players rated 1602,.....

What! That doesn't make any sense. I am going end up playing Michael either way.
So now I kick his ass on board 2 instead of board 4.

No offence Michael. :) You are a most worthy opponent.

[Brian Clarke]

I am going end up playing Michael either way.

True, but now you will be his lowest rated opponent, not his highest.

[Erik Malmsten]

All the players in the top section have beaten me before. I'm playing around 1700 these days and don't mind playing lower rated players. Although those rated under 1000 pre-covid kids could now be 1600.

So Robert Gillanders 1602 sneaks into the top section. I think these guys should, too:

Kyle Van Der Welle 1738
Kevin Fernandes 1684
Brian Hanratty 1604
Lee Hendon 1446

even
Aiden Li 1392
Szilard Balla 1351
Yasith Vidanaarachchi 1350

How about making it 3-player teams? And an under 1200 swiss section..

Or, as there really are only two strong 4-player teams, give them a 5-round match against each other or make the whole thing a swiss.