Game Courier Tournament #3

The Second Game Courier Tournament has finished, and it is time to begin the next one. As was done for the previous tournaments, the first step was to take an approval poll on all the games there are Game Courier presets for. After this was finished. The next step was to conduct a ranked ballot preference poll to select which games shall be played in the tournament. Voting in this poll was how you would register for the tournament. There was no registration fee. After a long delay on my part, the pairings are now assigned, and the tournament can shortly begin.

Participants

The following people are registered for this tournament.

• Todor Tchervenkov
• Greg Strong
• Joe Joyce
• Antoine Fourrière
• Fergus Duniho
• carlos carlos
• Abdul-Rahman Sibahi
• John Lewis
• Adrian Alvarez de la Campa
• Gary Gifford
• je ju
• Sam Trenholme
• Uri Bruck
• Calvin Pomerantz
• Michael Schmahl
• Nasmichael Farris
• David Paulowich
• juan rodriguez
• Bogot Bogot
• Jeremy Good

Pairings

The following table is based on one generated by OpenOffice Calc, which I used to make the pairings. All pairings are consistent with the preferences expressed by the participants. No one has been stuck with a game he said he would prefer not to play. Participants' initials represent them in the table. Look down your column to see who you are paired with for each game. In the case of two participants with the initials JJ, JJ was used for Joe Joyce, and Je was used for Je Ju. Place your cursor at the top of a column to see the name of the person whose opponent's are listed below.

Yellow squares indicate games that have begun.

Who Goes First?

This table shows one intersection between each pair of opponents. A light square in a player's column means that player will move first in their game.

Rules

• 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.)