If Lichess used to run them then it should not be a great difficulty to reinstate them into the tournament roster. I think they should give it another go, just for the diversity. Just set a minimum number of players, if the minimum is not meant, abort the tournament. I think FICS does/did something along these lines.
If I can say something bad about lichess, it is the fact that there are no Swiss tournaments here. In my not so humble opinion this is something that any respectable chess site must have. Unlike Arena, Swiss system is the dominant format for chess tournaments for many years. This is what strong chess players know and love.
Arena is ok and maybe even better for bullet/hyperbullet/ultrabullet stuff, where you show off your speed. You will be almost certainly paired with the leaders if you win lots of games. But when it comes to Classical tournaments, the main problem becomes that you spend lots of time to beat some weak opponents and can possibly not have to face very strong opponents at all, just cause they were busy playing with other low rated players. You can win all the games and still not be the first cause you're not the only one, and you wasn't fast enough. The result highly depends not on how well you performed but on how good pairings you accidentally (or even intentionally, pausing the tournament at the right moment) have got.
> Lichess used to have swiss about 2 years ago, it was not very popular.
Lichess itself was 5 times less popular 2 years ago (Proof: compare the number of games database.lichess.org/). That's the first point: lichess is new and grows fast. The second point: how exactly it was not popular? There is nothing wrong if there will be only one Weekly Swiss tournament for each variant, but it will be great fun to play with many strong opponents. I believe anyone can find time to play Arena much more often than for Swiss but that doesn't mean that Swiss is less popular or useless. There is a Swiss format on every decent chess site, only lichess decided that it has a better format, which is in fact no better, but just other.
Arena is ok and maybe even better for bullet/hyperbullet/ultrabullet stuff, where you show off your speed. You will be almost certainly paired with the leaders if you win lots of games. But when it comes to Classical tournaments, the main problem becomes that you spend lots of time to beat some weak opponents and can possibly not have to face very strong opponents at all, just cause they were busy playing with other low rated players. You can win all the games and still not be the first cause you're not the only one, and you wasn't fast enough. The result highly depends not on how well you performed but on how good pairings you accidentally (or even intentionally, pausing the tournament at the right moment) have got.
> Lichess used to have swiss about 2 years ago, it was not very popular.
Lichess itself was 5 times less popular 2 years ago (Proof: compare the number of games database.lichess.org/). That's the first point: lichess is new and grows fast. The second point: how exactly it was not popular? There is nothing wrong if there will be only one Weekly Swiss tournament for each variant, but it will be great fun to play with many strong opponents. I believe anyone can find time to play Arena much more often than for Swiss but that doesn't mean that Swiss is less popular or useless. There is a Swiss format on every decent chess site, only lichess decided that it has a better format, which is in fact no better, but just other.
To me, it's completely irrelevant how "popular" swiss tournaments would be. You simply can't call yourself a chess server without swiss system tournaments. This is a real blackeye for lichess imo.
Probably way less than 5% of the players want Swiss tournaments ...
Try to prove me wrong :p
Try to prove me wrong :p
A quick search for "Swiss tournament" in older forum posts would at least indicate that you are wrong.
A discussion from several months ago:
lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/swiss-tournaments-4?page=1
And another suggestion for round-based tournaments:
lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/suggestions-for-other-tournament-styles#1
A discussion from several months ago:
lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/swiss-tournaments-4?page=1
And another suggestion for round-based tournaments:
lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/suggestions-for-other-tournament-styles#1
> Probably way less than 5% of the players want Swiss tournaments
> Try to prove me wrong :p
Making up the number from the air and asking to disprove it doesn't make your argument very compelling, to say the least. Maybe lichess developers should take poll on that, if the number is important? The sole existence of lichess4545.com shows that there are enough interested people to create a website, implement long Swiss tournaments, scheduling and a lot of other stuff.
> Try to prove me wrong :p
Making up the number from the air and asking to disprove it doesn't make your argument very compelling, to say the least. Maybe lichess developers should take poll on that, if the number is important? The sole existence of lichess4545.com shows that there are enough interested people to create a website, implement long Swiss tournaments, scheduling and a lot of other stuff.
Swiss tournaments, please!
I read with some amusement the statement "the game is the same, it's just the scoring" (etc.) that's different.
No.
The problem (well one of many) with arena tournaments is it fundamentally changes the way you play the game of chess. Winning fast trumps everything else. In fact, if your opponent blunders in the opening and resigns a few seconds into the game, it is worth probably 2x what a normal win is worth to the tournament standings due to the increased opportunity to score again by immediately being in another game.
Berserking maginifies this problem - it also destroys the integrity of the rating system entirely.
These two problems are absolutely inexcusable in my book.
No.
The problem (well one of many) with arena tournaments is it fundamentally changes the way you play the game of chess. Winning fast trumps everything else. In fact, if your opponent blunders in the opening and resigns a few seconds into the game, it is worth probably 2x what a normal win is worth to the tournament standings due to the increased opportunity to score again by immediately being in another game.
Berserking maginifies this problem - it also destroys the integrity of the rating system entirely.
These two problems are absolutely inexcusable in my book.
In stead of an Arena or Swiss system, try something using a standings list like a Ladder or Pyramid system, where there is no eliminations.
Random rated ladder system.
The pairings start from the bottom up. The results of the white player is the only one that moves the standings list.
1. The lowest rated player is white and picks their opponent within 200 rating points or within 10% of their standings.
2. If the white player wins, they move above the opponent's name, so that the black player drops by one standing.
3. When their is a draw, white moves up one and black goes down one standing position. If they were next to each other, then they simply change standing position.
4. Like a round robin of 4 players, the white player must play three different opponents before being re-matched with a player they have already played. If they have played a player, their colours must alternate.
Conclusion: When the lower rated player wins, they are the ones that moves up the ladder.
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To reduce waiting time, every one should fall into a waiting pool. As two players finish a game, two players from the pool can be paired to play. During the tournament, everyone ends up in the pool with the same amount of waiting time to be re-matched. When a tournament starts, not everyone should starts at the same time. Pair two players wait 5 seconds, pair two more, wait 5 seconds, and continue on. At the end you should have made some sort of waiting pool of players that will have already finished their games and the cycle continues until the end of the tournament. The tournament ends in a similar manner as the way it started. No more need for everyone to start at the same time. It removes the accordion effect of some players waiting longer than others to be paired. The waiting time is distributed out equally.
========================
Random rated ladder system.
The pairings start from the bottom up. The results of the white player is the only one that moves the standings list.
1. The lowest rated player is white and picks their opponent within 200 rating points or within 10% of their standings.
2. If the white player wins, they move above the opponent's name, so that the black player drops by one standing.
3. When their is a draw, white moves up one and black goes down one standing position. If they were next to each other, then they simply change standing position.
4. Like a round robin of 4 players, the white player must play three different opponents before being re-matched with a player they have already played. If they have played a player, their colours must alternate.
Conclusion: When the lower rated player wins, they are the ones that moves up the ladder.
========================
To reduce waiting time, every one should fall into a waiting pool. As two players finish a game, two players from the pool can be paired to play. During the tournament, everyone ends up in the pool with the same amount of waiting time to be re-matched. When a tournament starts, not everyone should starts at the same time. Pair two players wait 5 seconds, pair two more, wait 5 seconds, and continue on. At the end you should have made some sort of waiting pool of players that will have already finished their games and the cycle continues until the end of the tournament. The tournament ends in a similar manner as the way it started. No more need for everyone to start at the same time. It removes the accordion effect of some players waiting longer than others to be paired. The waiting time is distributed out equally.
========================
I also thought what @Wolfram_EP said, and it seems to me that it would be a fantastic solution for the problem if the external site www.lichess4545.com functionality becomes an internal part of Lichess. Lichess4545 League is a Swiss system tournament where teams plays against each other, and team members play one game per week with a 45+45 time control in a mutually scheduled time.
I think that would greatly promote longer games popularity, and would makes good use of the existing teams.
But the implementation of the simpler LoneWolf League where not teams but individual players encounters, also would be excellent.
I think that would greatly promote longer games popularity, and would makes good use of the existing teams.
But the implementation of the simpler LoneWolf League where not teams but individual players encounters, also would be excellent.
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