Game Courier Tournament 2017

Game Courier Tournament 2017 was organized by Greg Strong. It officially began in June of 2017 and the last game finished in April of 2018. There were 12 participants who played each of 9 different chess variants. The tournament was won by Vitya Makov who finished with a perfect score of 9-0.

Participants

The following people played in the tournament:

• Greg Strong
• Carlos Cetina
• Aurelian Florea
• Fergus Duniho
• Nick Wolff
• Jarid Carlson
• John Davis
• Erik
• Zachary Wade
• Vitya Makov
• Daniel MacDuff
• SxG

Games

The tournament consisted of three rounds of three games each. Each participant played each of the following games:

• Fischer Random Chess
• Berolina Chess
• Xiangqi (Chinese Chess)
• Victorian Chess
• Eurasian Chess
• Glinski's Hexagonal Chess
• Courier Chess
• Chess with Different Armies
• Wildebeest Chess

For historical interest, the games in the tournament were selected from the following games and categories. The categories and games within them were selected by Greg Strong and participants were asked to rank the games within each category. Greg then scored them each with points accordingly.

1. Chess with a small modification:
   • Extinction Chess (17 points)
   • Swtiching Chess (23 points)
   • Berolina Chess (30 points)
   • Fischer Random Chess (31 points)
   • Marseillais Chess (18 points)


2. Regional variant:
   • Xiangqi (32 points)
   • Shogi (28 points)
   • Makruk (24 points)
   • Jangii (26 points)


3. Capablanca variant:
   • Capablanca Chess (23 points)
   • Embassy Chess (29 points)
   • Grotesque Chess (20 points)
   • Victorian Chess (30 points)
   • Janus Chess (24 points)


4. Decimal variant:
   • Grand Chess (21 points)
   • Omega Chess (20 points)
   • Eurasian Chess (32 points)
   • Opulent Chess (24 points)
   • Unicorn Great Chess (23 points)


5. Alternate geometry:
   • Glinski's Hexagonal Chess (29 points)
   • McCooey's Hexagonal Chess (27 points)
   • Circular Chess (19 points)
   • Cylindrical Chess (28 points)
   • Diamond Chess (14 points)


6. Historical game:
   • Shatranj (29 points)
   • Chu Shogi (19 points)
   • Courier Chess (37 points)
   • Grande Acedrex (25 points)
   • Los Alamos Chess (16 points)


7. Recognized variant grab-bag:
   • Chess with Different Armies (29 points)
   • Ultima (15 points)
   • Alice Chess (22 points)
   • Wildebeest Chess (28 points)
   • Pocket Mutation Chess (25 points)

Results

The following table shows the results. The black squares indicated players who did not play against each other.

Rules

The official rules of the tournament were as follows:

• Entry is free, and there will be no prizes except the honor and prestige of winning.
• All games played in the tournament will be officially rated.
• No one may take back a legal move except to take back a previous illegal move. Anyone who otherwise takes back a legal move must take back the new move and repeat the original legal move. Otherwise, the new move counts as illegal.
• Any illegal move must be taken back. Unless the time runs out, no game should be considered finished while any illegal move has not been taken back. In particular, checkmate and stalemate do not count for anything when there is an illegal move that has not been taken back.
• All games will be timed. Anyone who runs out of time will lose. When someone runs out of time, it does not matter whether anyone has made illegal moves. The person who runs out of time simply loses.
• A win counts for 1 point, a loss for 0 points, and a draw normally counts for a 1/2 point. In games where stalemate is a win, as it is in Chinese Chess, the stalemating player gets 1 point, and the stalemated player gets none. In games that have specific rules concerning how points are given, the rules of that game are followed, so long as the rules never award fewer than 0 or more than 1 point. In particular, the rules of Glinski's Hexagonal Chess are followed for that game, in which 3/4 points are given for giving stalemate and 1/4 is given for being stalemated. Unless specifically given, the rules for stalemate are assumed to be the same as in Chess, and 1/2 a point is given for stalemate to both sides. When a game is drawn for any reason besides stalemate, each side gets 1/2 a point.
• Every game played in the tournament shall be directly assigned to the players. The usual method of inviting and accepting an invitation shall not be used. All logs shall include a tag indicating that the log is for a game in the tournament. This will be used for showing all tournament logs by themselves on the logs page, and and it will be used to prevent deletion by the players. All tournament games will be publicly viewable and immune to deletion by normal means. The countdown for timing a game will begin when it is assigned.
• Games will not be assigned until everyone has had advance notice of when and what games they will be assigned. Before assignments are made, players will be asked for their preferences on specific presets.

Time Controls

Game Courier has very versatile and sophisticated time controls, and these will be used to time all games in the tournament. Details on how time controls work can be found in the User's Guide. The same time controls will be used for each game. Here's what I propose to use:

Tie-Breaking

If two players attain the same score, ties will be broken by the following methods in a topdown order:

• Buchholz / Solkoff method (Compares scores of all opponents defeated by tied players.)
• Sonneborn-Berger (Compares scores of all opponents defeated or tied with tied players.)
• Number of Wins (Wins count as 1, ties as nothing.)
• Most Blacks (Whoever has won more games as the second player wins the tie.)