Tulsa Chess Series - 2010, Recap and Ideas for Next Year

Yogi asked,
"Regarding OCF events, is there a plan to do the Tulsa Chess Series again next year?"

The answer is yes. The Series this year (the final event of which is coming up November 7) will have given us 30 rounds of rated play, among a total of 75 different players (about 23 players per event), and over $4000 in prizes. The idea of the "Series" prize fund has proved successful, and we will be giving out five Series prizes of over $250 each. All with only $20 entry fees, and no hotel costs. It's a great way to get in lots of good cheap chess practice.

Bran Whitcomb has gained about 200 rating points this year, and attributes much of that to playing in the series. He is going to write an article for the OCQ about his experiences.

We will be planning 2010 in the next month and committing to it by December. We are open to ideas for improvement you have and want to suggest here. One thing I want to do is explore having two sections (perhaps with a cutoff rating of 1600 or 1800). This will lower the number of highly unbalanced pairings or eliminate the need for accelerated pairings to determine a winner in three rounds.

Judson Temple has expressed interest in holding some of the TCS events in Oklahoma City. It's even possible we could have coordinated separate events in both metro areas and double the fun? However, for this to happen someone in OKC has to step forward and organize it -- which involves (1) finding a good free meeting place, (2) finding a core group of 2-3 local tournament directors, and (3) coordinating dates and other factors with Tulsa. Somebody has to make these things happen; they don't happen by themselves. Any takers?

:-)TOM

I am happy to hear that the Series will be back. And speaking of THE SERIES, "How about them Yankees"!

Oh yeah, Tulsa Chess Series, sorry. I hope that Tulsa keeps their format in town, perhaps allowing OKC to have one similar, staggering the dates of course. I know that many Arkansas players have appreciated the event being in Tulsa, and will continue to make the trek. For myself, I plan to make the 2010 events, as my schedule will change. Actually, if I can manage the time, I would like to start something similar here in NW Arkansas, and it seems like the demand will support it. This could even set the stage for some league play, or even another interstate rivalry. And how about OKC vs. Tulsa series? If OKC also starts their own series, the stage could be more easily set.
These tournaments are great for first-timers, breaking into competitive play in a less-formal atmosphere. I'd say this first year has been a tremendous success, and has kept OK very active in chess.

Looking forward to next year, Raymond

Tom,

I'm not sure that I like the idea of sections. Not enough players to justify it.

I would suggest that next year we go to a four-round format. This would have two beneficial effects...

1. Even out the color allocations within a given event.
2. With four rounds, the need to accelerate pairings would be reduced or eliminated.

The color allocation issue is a big sore point with me. Playing Mark Anderson three blacks and never getting white was rather annoying. I would suggest that on even number events (TCS#2, 4, 6, 8, 10) the highest rated player starts round 1 with White and on odd number events (TCS#1, 3, 5, 7, 9), they start with black.

I understand the need to keep the format to a single day but I'd like to see a little slower time control. G/60 +15 is my suggestion.

I was disappointed that we didn't draw many experts and above. You were the only one that played consistently, and you lost rating points despite winning the TCS series - correct ? I'm not sure how adding sections would help you though. A one-man section isn't supportable, so you would still be "playing down" and against a consistently harder group of opponents to boot.

I think we need to ask the higher rated players (expert & above) what could be changed to attract them. Perhaps free entry fees to master & above?

I also question if the top-out-of-town (TOOT) prize was of any real benefit to drawing players from outside the Tulsa area. I'd like to hear from those of you who were eligible out-of-town candidates. Was the TOOT series prize incentive for you to drive to Tulsa, or would you have played anyway? Would you have preferred an event oriented TOOT prize as opposed to a series based prize?

I like the idea of playing 4 rounds on a Saturday, with each game being about 60 minutes/side. I think that, along with the normal delay (5 seconds), can produce pretty decent games. I also think that having the 4 games would reduce the apparent need for sectional split, as the last two rounds should produce more equitable pairings.
I don't know if the "TOOT" prize has helped add to the "distance dimension", but it can't hurt to have a nominal incentive, for those with the additional drive.
With having sectional splits, lower-rated players will not have the opportunities to play up either. Class prizes should take care of the issue of fairness, as well as having the extra round. You will also more likely have a clear winner each Saturday, given the extra round. Is the playing site available for approximately 10 hours needed to have the tournament, and give a lunch break? Hope to see you there next year, Raymond

My concern about 4 rounds and/or longer time controls is the impact his has on the length of each event. This year rounds began at 10am and we were done by 5:30pm. I had feedback from several players that they liked this ... local players didn't have their saturday evening taken up by chess and could play chess in the day and still take the wife to dinner in the evening, etc. Also, out of town players had enough time to drive a couple hours to Tulsa in the morning, and time to drive home in the evening without arriving very late.

Four rounds at G/60+15 would not finish until about 8:30, which loses those time advantages. I think if we had four rounds we might need a quicker time control to compensate; maybe G/40+15

The Top Out of Town (TOOT) prize is a question I'd like more feedback on. I think it did encourage some such players to come regularly, like Judson Temple, but not many, so perhaps we should improve it or drop it. I do want the tournament to be viewed as a regional event, and not just a Tulsa affair. Is there a better way to encourage out-of-towners than the TOOT prize? Of course, if we have a sister tournament series in OKC then this aspect would be less important. But so far no one has stepped up for that.

Encouraging expert players is another tough matter. An event like this is a minefield for players rated 2100+... the short time control playing against a lot of Class A players has a considerable chances for an upset that make it risky. If I won all 3 games I would get 5-6 points. Otherwise I might lose 10 or 20 points. I probably lost about 40-50 points at the TCS this year because I lost several games to A players. I was willing to do this, because I wanted the practice, but others were not (except that Movses played in a couple of events). The only way to counter this is monetary incentives ... Mike's idea of a free entry fee for experts/above is good. Possibly separate prize opportunities for them too? Of course, there are only about 5-6 players over 2000 in the region to attract, and that is including Bill Orton in Fayetteville and the rookie Devin Hughes. :-)

This assumes a 9 to 9:45 registration period but we can change that. Open the site up for earlier registration - say 8:30 to 9:00 and you could shave an hour off the end time and finish by 6:30 pm. Most of the people who played in the series arrived late for registration anyway.

This might make it a little harder for the out-of-towners but if they're willing to travel it won't make any difference in the commute time. We could set up a simple pre-registration process for them, say a simple email notification. Payment of advanced entry fees not required. That would save them the worry of making it on time.

Indeed! :-)

Having a consistent series of events to attend has truly helped me in various ways, which I intend to describe in my OCQ article. Stay tuned! ;-)

Yours truly,

Bran.

Firstly,

I would just like to say that it's refreshing to see a forum section other than "chess" or "politics" get some real use for a change. ;-)

As for my take on the TCS ...

I think the series has been a great success, in terms of being a consistent string of monthly tournaments which provided a "cheap day of rated play" for several up and coming juniors and out-of-practice adults. As a comparison, let's look back to John Acken's "Budget Bonus" tournaments.

The BB's were held on a fairly month to month basis, and had an inexpensive entry fee. The major differences between the TCS and the BB's are the prizes and time controls. The BB's had only a couple 1st and 2nd place awards, no cash prizes, and no series prizes, as the BB's were not a series in the same manner as the TCS. The BB's time controls were G/35, with 3,4, or 5 rounds, and were sometimes dual rated. The only constant factor about the BB's was the monthly basis, location, and entry fee, as it seems John was experimenting with the number of rounds per event to see what might attract more players.

In the end there were nearly 40 BB's, most of which had less than 10 players per event. The TCS has regularly had 20 or more players in attendance at each tournament, so as far as turnout is concerned, we're on the right track! Now what we need is to provide the players with more of what they want and we can probably be closer to an average of 30 players per event! :-)

It seems that the lower rated players (those below 1600) had no problem showing up despite knowing that the series prize in the C & Below category would be a tough prize to obtain, since this category had the largest number of participants. My suspicion from the beginning was that these players would come more for the chance to play for rating points than for prizes, but of course prizes can't hurt! ;-) So, I think to keep attracting these players, and more of them, all we need to do is attract more higher rated players and resolve two issues at once. Class-A attendance seems to be okay, so the idea of improving X-Class and above seems like a good goal, and the idea of reduced or free entries for this class may be just what the doctor ordered.

When it comes to the out of town players, the chance to win a special attendance/performance prize may have been attractive, but not enough to spend too many 1st Saturdays away from home. Perhaps this prize might be better focused at a different demographic, such as juniors. We could change the out of town prize to be for players who are age 18 and below at the start of the series. This could very well draw young players who are from out of town anyway, and since a good number of our younger attendees this year were rated below 1600 this would also allow for more of the lower rated adult players to have a better chance to play for the C & Below series prize.

When it comes to the issue of how many rounds to have, this is a toss up for me. We have to weigh the idea that for as many players who will come to play for 4 rounds, we might have just as many who decide not to show up. So for what we gain in the "more bang for your buck" category, we might suffer equally in the attendance department. However, 4 rounds would allow for players to miss the first round, or withdraw after three rounds, and still get the same great deal they got with the 2009 TCS, with the option for an extra round if they so desire. I think when presented this way (that it's not only okay to miss the first round, but we even expect and allow for players to do so!) we may actually improve attendance across all categories. One possible way to do this could be to have the end of series prize be not only based upon your best 7 out of 10 events, but also be based on your best 3 out of 4 games per event.


Well, that's what I think, anyway. ;-)


Yours truly,

Bran.

Interesting ideas Bran.
One negative I see about having an under-18 prize is that there is a lot of variation among the scholastic players, so only the top few of them would find it attractive. Is there another way to structure it to achieve the same result? Perhaps instead we could give an EF discount to juniors ... $5 off perhaps. Or maybe they get $10 off after they've played in at least 3 events. I think when the other kids see how well Stephen Gehly did at the TCS this year they will be clamoring to come! !?

You're right that the possibility of byes would help people deal with a longer 4-round event. However, they would have to commit to these byes before the event to get a half-point for it. My first reaction to the idea of counting only your best three rounds of the four for the series standings is that a lot of people would score the maximum most of the time. and it wouldn't provide enough scoring variety. Instead, to not penalize people for taking a bye, perhaps a bye counts for 1/2 point for purposes of the tournament, but for the Series Standings a 1/2-point bye is worth a full point. That way a player who needs to get a bye for the last round for some reason will not feel penalized (i.e., missing the chance to score a full point), and thus not discouraged to come. !?

:-)TOM

Thanks Tom!

Actually, my idea didn't involve granting byes. The thought was simply to allow for players to show up later, or leave early, and still be able to play 3 solid rounds of chess, with the option to of course play all four rounds. The best 3 out of 4 idea was meant to allow players (mostly out of town/state players) who opted to miss a round to still compete for the series prizes, without there being an advantage to those players who routinely played all 4 rounds.

As for the "one negative" concerning the junior prize, I actually consider that to be a positive! Think about it, if the top juniors find that prize worth their time, then lower rated players (junior and otherwise) will find playing in the events all the more worth their time, since they are primarily going for experience and a shot at higher rated players! Throw in the chance for younger players to play for the series prize via good attendance and best 3 out of 4 results, and the kids will indeed be clamoring to see if they have what it takes to be the next Steven Gehly! :-)



See ya next weekend! :-)


Bran.

So the suggestion is - for a specific event, all four rounds count towards prize money and for the cumulative series prize only the best three out of four rounds for each tournament?

Does this include or exclude byes ?

I think the series prize should be performance based and should exclude byes unless they were involuntary.

But what if the top players play all 4 rounds. Wouldn't there be multiple players likely to get the max of 3 points/tournament? In fact, likely several players 1800+ could be maxed out, or close to it. Wouldn't this compromise the cumulative score? Maybe I'm not understanding it correctly. 4 Rounds sounds great, and if you are only counting the best 7 of 10 again, maybe most players could play all 4 Rounds in at least 7 of the tournaments. Or maybe there could be some sort of split in the prize fund, for those playing all rounds. It just seems like there would be players that would get the max of 3 points at just about all ten events, if allowed 4 rounds to get them.

RG

As Bran says - "That's exactly what we want! That's a good thing!"

What better way is there to encourage regular attendence? If you're in the running, you know if you miss a single event, your opponents might catch up with you. You gotta keep playing! You gotta keep winning! Consistently!

That adds an element of excitement for the race to the finish. :-)

If we do go to a four round format where best 3 out of 4 counts, perhaps we can reduce or eliminate the best 7 of 10.

I'm wondering if 10 tournaments is too much. I get the feeling attendence dropped at the tail end because people realized they were out of the running and there was "too much chess". Perhaps a slower pace - a series of 7 or 8 tournaments - 4 rounds each and best 3 out of 4 counts toward the series. I don't know that this would hurt the size of the series prize much because every event would count and would tend to encourage regular attendance.

I do like the 7 out of 10 rule. It allows the TD's to rotate and take turns playing / directing without being penalized. So I could go either way on this.

I like the Junior prize suggestion but I think we should keep the TOOT prize. I think the TOOT prize should be changed to event oriented prize - not a series prize.

It doesn't need to be large. Say a refund of the entry fee for the top out of town player that didn't place for any other prize. Sort of a "Thanks for comming! here's a refund to help offset your expenses".

Whatever it is, it should be simple. Best 7/10 of best 3/4 is confusing and not elegant. I'd have to see some examples of how it is scored to be convinced it would work as you are thinking. And I don't think it would be good if we ended up with a 9-way tie for first in the series. What we want is a scoring system that:
1) creates an interesting overall race
2) enables players to miss a few tournaments and still compete
3) has "catch-up factor" -- you can make up for a couple bad events early on
4) is simple and easy to conceptualize, and to keep track of standings.

The best 7/10 results rule is good in this sense, as it meets goals 1-3 here, and although it is weak in 4 it is not too complex.

I'm a former game designer, and one of the ideas they use in situations like this is to give greater weight to the final rounds. It is artificial, but tends to make the final rounds more exciting and to avoid the possibility of an anti-climax such as we have this year when all but one of the races is already over. For example, we could give greater weight to the scores in the final two events in the series -- say double points. This would need to be balanced carefully, however, if we did it, in order not to make these events far more important than the other events. The extra weight would need to be just right, and double might be too much. Worth considering, but we would need to analyze that carefully if we did it.

I like Mike's idea of doing the TOOT prizes some other way. Having one of the monthly prizes for Out of Town players might work well. A typical event this year saw 6-12 out of town players, about the same as the number of B players for example. So giving them a monthly prize makes sense, although it might create some headaches for the T.D. with regard to tiebreaking them.

:-)

I guess we could simulate what would happen to the results using the current series. Count the best 2 out of 3 rounds but include all tournaments - not just the best seven.

This is what I was getting at, and I can't imagine an organization wanting an 11-way tie for 1st place.

How about just the 4th Round being a "Bonus round", awarding double points for decisive results? The players should have to have played all previous three rounds though. As we know, the last rounds are the most meaningful, and should be the "fighting rounds".

Personally, I think the changes should be few, perhaps simply adding the extra round, so that the end-of-year would produce a more decisive result. Too many changes could really cause a lot of problems.

Not a bad idea but goes somewhat counter to Bran's suggestion of using the 4th round as a floater to allow people to arrive late or leave early. Perhaps as Tom suggested, we could use the 4th round in the final three events as the series bonus "tie breaker" rounds.

Ties are going to happen. You can't avoid them. I would suggest though that the number of those who did manage to end up in the running at the end of the series will be relatively few. After 30 or 40 games you simply have to be a very very consistent winner. The law of large numbers will dictate that the cream rises to the top.

Tom calls it an "anti-climax" - I call it just rewards for hard-work.

Bill Triplett and I were talking about these issues the other day, and I believe we found a way to combine these ideas, and achieve all the positive things we have been discussing here.

Instead of having the best 7 out of 10 events, along with having the best 3 out of 4 games per event, why not just let the series prizes be based on a players best 30 out of 40 games, period. This is the best of both worlds, which allows for the benefits from both ideas while streamlining the system without being confusing. You can miss games, or even whole events, and still be in the running for the series prizes. This would also allow for the field to stay competitive, which is important for an exciting finish, as Tom mentioned, and for the "cream to rise to the top," as Mike pointed out.


Problem solved, right? :-)

"Best 30 of 40 games" is a little confusing to me. Isn't that the same as saying that the maximum possible score you can have is limited to 30 points out of the 40 possible games?

This is simple, and would have the advantage of allowing people to take some byes knowing that they can be discounted at the end as part of the uncounted games. It might have some unusual effects at the end ... a handful of players who play every month might reach 30 points one or two events before the series ends, meaning they can't improve their score and have to sit around to see how many people tie them. !?

It's interesting. Worth considering. From a theoretical standpoint it is inelegant because it provides "catch-up factor" by putting brakes on the leaders, rather than speeding up the tailenders, which in theory is not the best way to do it (i.e., is psychologically negative). But that might be alright in this case.

How about this as a variation of the idea:
1) 4 rounds per event (4 possible points) in the first 9 events of the 10.
2) In the final event, positive points are doubled (8 possible points in 4 rounds). Total possible score = 44.
3) But for the final tally, players must discount 10 games. Usually the will discount all of these as negative points against them (whether those negative points came from losses, draws, byes, or missing a tournament altogether, etc.) But if someone has scored consistently well, he might have to discount some positive points.

A player who consistently averages 3 points out of every 4 and plays in every event would have 27 points after the 9th event and will probably be close to first place. But the maximum possible score is 34 now, and so this person needs to play in the last event (with double points) to have a chance to reach the max score.

In other words, this way of doing it provides some extra drama at the end, and i think it would have less chance of the "sitting around" criticisms I mentioned earlier.

!?

Geez - Whatever happened to the KISS principle ???

Maybe we should have a meeting to hash these ideas out before TCS # 10 so we can get some user feedback from the participants.


One side thought...
Keep in mind - even though the 4th round is offered as a floater to the out of towners - most likely they will stay to play. Especially if they have an event prize hanging in the balance.

How about counting the best 7 of 8 in the series, with the last two events being the TCS Playoffs? If there would be so many "knotted" up with the same scores, that could settle that problem, and could involve a "traveling trophy", to the Champion of each year. Just seemed like something to play for, other than the monetary prize fund.

Hey Tom,

Yes, this is exactly what I'm saying! This keeps it simple, and makes the race more interesting. With this format, it means that a player only needs to have 30 points to guarantee a share of the series prize in their division. How and when they obtain those points is up to them.

Perhaps, but let's consider what that would take. A player would need to win all 4 games in the first 7 events, and have a score of at least 2 out of 4 in the 8th event, to reach the minimum 30 points required to win a series prize before the series is complete. That's a pretty impressive score for someone like Movses or yourself, not to mention lesser mortals! :-) It word take 100% attendance, and a 100% win ratio for over 7 events, for anyone to be waiting around for others to catch up. My magic 8-ball says... "Not Likely." ;-)

I think the "catch-up factor" will provide for better attendance and more competition since a player can't be counted out of the running unless another player has already reached 30 points, and the first player has missed too many opportunities to acquire enough points to reach the "magic mark."

For instance, most players would consider it an achievement to have an average score of 75% over 10 events. And yet if a player's average score was 3 out of 4 for 10 events, that would be 30 points exactly, which means that such a player would still have needed to play in all 10 events to guarantee himself a share of a series prize, and therefore could not count out other players who are close to the leader in a given division.

I can't say that I agree with the double points idea, since that involves it's own "catch-up factor" which I'm not sure would be any more or less preferable than the "leader brakes" method. My thought on the matter is that the more simple the process the better as it will be easier to understand for the players, and allow the players to know exactly where they are in the race.


Of course, that's just my opinion. ;-)

I think Mike is right, we need to try to iron this out before the next event if at all possible so as to be able to announce our intentions for next years series. If nothing else, at least let everyone there know that next year's series in already in the works, and that there will be even more rounds per event, with a longer time control. More chess = more fun! :-)

Yours truly,

Bran.

IMHO, I'm not sure I like the suggestion that we should introduce a "catch-up factor" as that tends to undermine the hard work & personal performance of the high achievers. It would have the effect of turning the series into a lottery. Not good.

As to the suggestion 30 out of 40 - maybe too much leeway... maybe 32 or 36 keeping it evenly divisible by 4.

Maybe I missing something, but what's wrong with the current system (7 outta 10)? I suggest we keep the same format.