Is any of this going on? I know about the US Chess League sponsored by Pokerstars. Team matches 50-60 years ago were very popular in Washington State. Matches with players from British Columbia were played lots of years often held outdoors near the border of USA and Canada. I remember reading about one year that matches were setup in several places along the border including two in the State of Washington. I guess with the Internet there could be lots of team matches with groups all over the world. Is any of this happening?
If anyone has experience doing this I’d appreciate hearing about it. We’ve got members who used to do some team league play by travel, I’ve got experience doing online chess, but we don’t have anyone whose done this combined.
The U.S. Chess League was part of the inspiration for us - I don’t know if the idea would have come up in this form otherwise. But we’ve only just floated the idea.
I’ve helped run online collegiate team tournaments each spring for the last few years. UTD also has an online team match with Belgrade each year. The US Amateur Team playoffs are also done on ICC each year.
No. Almost no team play occurs over the web, at least no USCF regular-rated play.
The consensus belief of the TDs on the UsChess.org forums is that — only a small percentage of chess players would enjoy team play, and that the percentage would be even smaller among current USCF members.
I presume their thinking is that either (a) the enhanced social elements of chess are of no interest to chess players, or (b) team play adds no social elements.
Therefore it is very hard for them to believe that team matches were “very popular”.
Three reasons. The first is the inevitable: “Who pays for it?” Not that I can’t kick $3.00 or $10.00 of my own money to rate a single tournament, but we have no dedicated budget for this. (And I am loathe to establish a precedent that any future coordinator would have to shell out of their own pocket to make it happen. My experience has been that this happens all too frequently on the club level.) Some clubs that I hope might participate may operate on even more of a shoestring than ours…
Secondly, as far as discussion in central Illinois clubs goes I don’t want anything (rated or unrated) taken off the table yet. I could have just as easily written that it could be run unrated, and perhaps I should have simply said rated vs. unrated is up for discussion.
A corollary of the above: Do players want to risk their rating points in team play pairings? I’m not saying some wouldn’t (in fact, I’d love to hear from people who play team who insist on the team event being rated…) And yep, I do believe the Olympiad and USATEs are rated - those cases aren’t parallel to me.
Finally, unless I’m mistaken (and I could be!) the USCL runs unrated. So I’ve got history subconsciously acting.
The overarching concern, though, is that if rated play is what will stop a club from participating (and unrated play would stop nobody,) there we are.
If the USCF certified TD in Chicago vouches that none of the players he oversaw cheated, and the Philadelphia TD vouches the same for his Philly players, then the TDs can agree to submit the games for normal rating.
99.8% of the USCF members in Denver CO refuse to fly to Portland OR for the Portland tournaments, regardless of whether the games are rated.
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One aspect of team play with match points is that sometimes a player has to choose between trying to win a game that is winnable or offering a draw to clinch winning the match, or play in a risky fashion to try for a win in a drawish position because a draw would lose the match anyway. That would also be an issue at the various USATx events. It can also be an issue in the scholastic individual/team events where there are prizes for the highest scoring teams even though match play is not involved.
For team play I would suggest having the four or more players from each side meet at their repective local schools, colleges, or sponsoring business sites. These places have the networks and numbers of computers to play in a timely way. Also easier for the certified TD at each site to monitor. This should be cheap to almost zero cost to run. Pretty compact for publicity/pictures for the sponsors.
I once monitored and TDed the phone matches for the finals of the US Amateur Team in 1986. We heard a crash, barking, and yelling on the other end of the line for the South team. Found out a dog had crashed through a screen door and “joined” the games. They also had some libations during the games. The New York team “accidentally” hung up and would not answer until prompted by the USCF office. The games by phone lasted from 5 to 10 hours to complete; we could have really used the internet then.
As far as ratings, the higher the level of player, the less they really care about ratings. A few points more or less are meaningless. Players under 2000 and scholastic players fret over rating more because of the desire or need to break through to another level. In team play you have to sacrifice your ego for the good of the team.
I disagree with this. I know one GM who picks his tournaments with an idea of getting enough points to get into the U.S. Championship. I also know an FM who, I’m told, is avoiding rated play right now so that he can make it into the U2400 section of the world open next year.
As I said, higher rated players are less likely to worry about a few points more or less. True, there are a few bunny bashers who pick and choose tournaments to fatten their ratings on tasty rabbit meat. They usually find they need even more points to qualify as others know how to do this, too. Plus, when you are only playing bunnies, your competitive edge suffers. Oh, what do you do when a rabbit fights back? Run away! Run away!
There are a few sandbaggers who think they can dampen their rating, not play in tournament competiton, and then suddenly play 200 points above their rating to win a big prize. Yes, there are a few of each category, and each plays with equal lack of success. Most higher rated players do not act this way. They continue to play to keep their form; they play because their team needs them; they play because they enjoy the competition. The GM’s and IM’s that I know have a disdain for the bunny bashers and the squirrels who sit on a rating and then think they can win at will.
In chess team matches, you forget about rating points. You play for your team’s success and subordinate ego. If you are really playing well, the rating points will come back to you anyway.
This is probably best in its own thread, but I think the USCF should stay out of internet chess and focus on OTB play. They used to have some quick rated events on one of the internet chess servers (forget which one, but its owned by the Internet Chess Server). The USCF might still have that, I’ve never used it.
As a organizational goal, I think that should be the extent of online USCF rated games, with a greater focus on OTB play.
For those unaware, starting in the 90’s, and going for several years, the USCF got fairly screwed over in a debaucle of trying to get rated USCF games online.
(Please use the search function for those posts, there are a multitude of them from the past.)
Basically, between the ICC and FICS, it would be difficult to break into the chess server market. The ICC has a fairly decent business plan, and the FICS does an excellent job for people that want to play online without a subscription fee. Then there is a plethora of other online chess servers, some free, some with a subscription fees: way too many to list.
I don’t think we’re in any danger of building our own server.
On topic, the real issue is (1) an organizer/director’s willingness to deal with the logistics of online “OTB” play and (2) player willingness to participate in online USCF rated play.
Team play in general isn’t a question. I did a MSA search for “amateur team” and there are over 7,000 players in the last 4.75 years out of 32 events. A potential example of “team over rating” is IM Vigorito drawing a 2100 (not sure whether he took it for the team or what), dropping a few points.
Issue #2 will always be personal and I don’t think there are stereotypes. My initial impression is that high school thru late 20s would be more willing to play rated games online, but only because they don’t know life without the internet (or ever used a rotary telephone, or ever seen gas less than $1 a gallon). Obviously that’s overstating it, so it’s case by case.
Issue #1 has potential pitfalls and makes the effort just as much work as running a regular tournament. Computer hardware, dedicated internet connections, a central meeting place for the team (preferable so the TD can address any issues right away), which server to play on (not everyone has ICC, not everyone likes FICS, etc). The organizer would definitely have to recruit/assign team managers in addition to making sure there’s a TD on either side of the ethernet line. With the right waivers/agreements (unfortunately needed to protect a remote TD), this would be a good option for state vs state team matches in the western states b/c of the sheer mileage distances.
I dunno, we’re looking at a potential pool thats mostly limited to players in the United States, all the other chess servers, (for example: FICS/ICC/Playchess/Chess.com/instantchess.com), have worldwide audiance with a potential pool of players at leat several times larger than what the USCF server would have.
This is non-evidence until there is some documentation we can all see.
The details of the early attempts may have been poorly planned, which would be no reason to taint the entire concept.
If the USCF posted web league results and standings each week, the public nature of the team competition would replace the motivation that is normally supplied by official rating points; thus protecting the rating system from “web contamination”.
It would be more constructive for you to perform the search once for all your readers and supply the HTTP URL in your post; than for all your readers to perform the same time consuming search without them having any way to know when they find the thread you have in mind.
Nobody is suggesting that the USCF should establish its own chess competition server.
Any American home that has internet service through its cable TV provider likely also has a $120 router that provides wireless internet to the whole home. Windows 7 is showing me that most of my neighbors have routers on right now.
Any player who owns a laptop computer or a $250 netbook computer can play in that home. (My wife loves her netbook, small and light, battery truly lasts 9 hours per charge. Costs the same as a MonRoi, or as two Chronos clocks; and less than one trip to a Reno NV tournament.)
Or, I can even browse the web on my modest cell phone. I could play on chess.com anywhere I can get a cell phone service signal. The technology gets better every few months.
In practice I would track and study my moves on a corresponding real board where I was sitting.
The problem is the lack of “economy of scale” for the TD at your team’s local site.
The cost to pay the disinterested TD can be spread among only the 4 players on the team. This probably would not be fully counter-balanced by there being no need to pay rent for a playing venue.
The key is to somehow allow the TD to play, so he can enjoy himself and need only enough payment for game rating fees to the USCF. The standard security technique is to require two certified TDs at each location. One TD could be a “club level” TD, essentially a bonded participant.
Two TDs and the other teammates would all have to collude for cheating to occur. That is a lot of collusion to accomplish. And yet some jerks will likely cheat.
No USCF player should be allowed to play twice as many games over the web as he plays face to face over the board.
This provides another security check, in that a much higher rating among his web games than among his OTB games would raise a yellow flag.
