Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Okay, I prefer the uncheckered marble board for my game against you. If
Sean Humby has no preferences, I'll also use it for your game against
him.
I will use the maple/walnut CSS for your Chess games against Jeremy Good
and Gary Gifford if they do not object.

I'm all set! This is great! I haven't been in a tourney for some time...


GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Just a quick note to let you know why I am not making any moves right now.
I'm currently away from home doing sciency stuff at a Synchrotron.

I'm also having to brush up on my understanding of Shogi and Xianqi,
whenever I can. The main problem I think I will have is recognizing the
pieces from the Japanese/Chinese symbols. Can someone tell me if there are
piece sets I can use, which look more like Western Chess pieces?

I hope my time does not run out for any of the games. I'll be back home
on wednesday. I hope I will give my Shogi/Xianqi opponents a decent
challenge.

lol, well at least you picked a good name :)

when viewing your game, if you click on 'piece set' you can change to
'alfaerie' and that shows western style pieces.
you don't have to open your email to play, go to game logs here 
http://play.chessvariants.org/pbmlogs/index.php
type your userid and password, and you will see your games, just click on
your name and away you go.
good luck :)
give 'em trouble he he :)

Greetings,

Question: You have a list of who's playing who, but is there a list with
links to the games themselves, to make it easier for observers?

I am really enjoying the tournament; the mental flexibility that it
requires is energizing.  I work with young kids who love chess, and I have
shown them the positions in my games.  Some had not before heard of XiangQi
or Shogi, and those who had were really excited to talk about their parents
(some of whom grew up playing one of the Eastern standards) and the parents
were pleased to hear they were also learning about these games as well--it
was validating to hear praises of the game sung by someone else.

Thanks for offering the tourney.  I hope after this one, we have another.

Since I am presently unable to access the control panel, I'll write the
results hereafter.


The last game of Chess between Nicola Caridi and Thomas McElmurry ended in
a draw.

FD	4 points, SB=10, qualified at Xiangqi
JG	1 point, SB=0
TT	3 points, SB=5, qualified at Chess
SH	4 points, SB=8, qualified at Xiangqi
PP	0 point, SB=0
NC	4.5 points, SB=10.75, qualified at Chess and Shogi
TM	2.5 points, SB=3.75
NF	1.5 points, SB=1.25
AF	5 points, SB=15.5, qualified at Chess and Xiangqi
DP	2.5 points, SB=4.25, qualified at Shogi
GG	5 points, SB=12, qualified at Chess and Shogi

The overall ranking is    AF GG NC FD SH TT DP TM NF JG PP.

Hence the second-round games will be:
Chess  AF vs. GG, AF vs. NC, AF vs. TT, GG vs. NC, GG vs. TT, NC vs. TT
Xiangqi  AF vs. FD, AF vs. SH, FD vs. SH
Shogi,  GG vs. NC, GG vs. DP, NC vs. DP,
with the player named first moving first.

To qualify for the second-round play-offs, a player will have to tie for
first or to be just half a point behind (excepted for Nicola Caridi who
qualified at Chess with a win and a draw). So, if a player wins all his
games in a variant, he will be declared Champion for that variant.

I am also directly qualified for the third round with the Chess Champion,
the Xiangqi Champion and the Shogi Champion, with Gary Gifford, Nicola
Caridi and Fergus Duniho as possible substitutes in case of overlap.

I would suggest to hold a second Chess-Xiangqi-Shogi Tournament at the
beginning of next year, but not before the bulk of GCT#3 is over.
However, it might be worth discussing the Chess-Xiangqi-Shogi formula
right now. Should it still be a three-phase Tournament or should it be
completely revamped?
In my opinion, a two-phase Tournament would be simpler, with nine games in
the first phase (each player moving first twice at Chess and once at
Xiangqi or vice versa, since moving first as Shogi doesn't matter a lot),
and the players with two wins and a draw, or either two wins or a win and
two draws and enough points, advancing to the individual tournaments, with
the higher-ranked player always moving first, or enjoying a bye in some
situations. (This way, a single loss in the first phase wouldn't
completely bar a player from entering the Tournament for that variant.)
Of course, a one-phase Tournament would be even simpler, but then there
would be no Chess Champion, Xiangqi Champion or Shogi Champion, which
might turn off competitors who are mostly interested into one game, but
would be willing to enter a CXS Tournament because they might do well at
their favourite game in the second phase.
The formula should mostly depend of how many games the future participants
are willing to play.

I think a two phase event such as described below, might work well:

Phase A: Consists of Chess Event, Xianqi Event, and Shogi Event.
A player could play in any one, any 2, or all 3.*
Each game event gets a single winner who holds that title.

Phase B: is a three player round Robin from the winners of Phase A.

Note 1: If Player #x won all 3 events in phase A, phase B is not played.
Note 2: If Player #x won 2 of the 3 events in Phase A, then he or she is
the overall champ and Phase B is not played.
Note 3: If players x, y, and z are independent champs, then Phase B is
played for the overall title.

*Playing in one event gives you a chance to win that game title, but is
risky due to note 2; because another player might have won 2 events;
thereby not giving you a chance of the overal title.

I would prefer more than three players for the Chess-Xiangqi-Shogi phase.
 
How about a Shogi event starting in January, then a Chess event starting
in March, then a Xiangqi event starting in May (because Shogi tends to
take more time than Chess, which tends to take more time than Xiangqi)?.
Each event would have the players moving twice as White and twice as
Black.  If say three players tie for first, the BS/SB method ranks them
for tie-breaks, with player 2 moving first against player 3, and the
winner moving second against player 1, so that there are seldom more than
six games for an individual event (and only four if you don't tie for
first).

Then you give 1 point to the winner, 0.5 point to the runner up, 0.333 to
the third ranked player, and so on... in each game, and you qualify the
seven better players for the second round (thus, the winners for a single
event always get qualified). These seven players move each once as White
and once as Black at each game, with a higher BS/SB ranking in a tie-break
situation giving the higher-ranked player the right either to move first
(and the lower-ranked player choosing at which game) or to choose between
Chess, Xiangqi or Shogi (and the lower-ranked player moving first).