From the start there was a problem with banded tourneys in that users who had temporarily deflated ratings, either intentionally or due to mass timeout, could enter tourneys banded far below their true ability. Let's face it, there only has to be one player whos true ability is vastly above the band of the tourney to make it a forgone conclusion for the people who's ability is truely within the band.
An attempt to improve this was made, in that no user who had been above (or below?) the tourney band limits in the last 30 days could enter, but this appears to be ineffective in stopping users entering tourneys who's rating has deflated for the reasons given. I would therefore suggest expanding the entry controls to account for this. For example: that no player who has ever been more than X points (50? 100?) higher than a tourney band should be able to enter it.
I cannot see how this would be unfair, as no ones game will have degenerated so much without major brain injury that they need to play in a tourney banded so far below their previous rating. I suppose individual requests to have their 'highest ever' rating lowered could be heard, but who'd want that?
Regards
BF
Originally posted by belgianfreakThere are a load of threads about this, so people are working on the same problem in different ways without seeing other people's good ideas.
From the start there was a problem with banded tourneys in that users who had temporarily deflated ratings, either intentionally or due to mass timeout, could enter tourneys banded far below their true ability. Let's face it, there only has to be one player whos true ability is vastly above the band of the tourney to make it a forgone conclusion for th ...[text shortened]... have their 'highest ever' rating lowered could be heard, but who'd want that?
Regards
BF
Anyway, I posted this here...
http://www.timeforchess.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=31221&page=3
"It seems to me that there are 2 seperate, though similar, problems here.
1) New players joining banded tournies before they rise to their true rating
2) Old players who's ratings have dropped due to T/Os entering lower banded tournies.
So, IMO, you need 2 seperate solutions.
To solve number 2, I'm sure the best solution is to use a rating spike minus a certain number of rating points as their floor. Instead of taking a one game spike as their spike, this rating spike should be gotten by getting the highest average of 10 (maybe some other number: 20/30?? ) continuous games. This minus say 100 or 150 could be set as the rating floor, purely for banded tournaments. Their rating could still drop below this floor.
When they come back, they can still enter banded tournies at their floor rating.
For new players, who haven't reached their correct rating, then they should only be allowed in banded tournies above the rating of their highest opponent in a game in which they won. If they have beaten 1600s, then they are in the 1600+ band until they beat a 1700. If they then get beaten by a 1600 while still rated below 1600, their band could be reduced by 1 band."
The "New Players" solution needs to be modified, but I think the rating floor based on a sustained (maybe 10-20 games) spike would work well.
D