Beware sprint tournaments

I am relatively new to the site so I'm not sure if 'sprint tournament' is the right phrase (it's the tournaments where you play everyone at once rather than group stages), the specific one that I am referring to is the grand sprint II. I am coming to the end of playing it now and it's really killed off my enthuisiasm for chess to the point where if I had to renew my subscription right now there is no way I would do it. The problem is you get 40 games all at once (on top of your other games --- DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE WORKLOAD THAT THIS REPRESENTS-- I am not the only one (is complaining the right word? others might with some justification say whingin, but I (and others in the same tourny thought it had group stages so I think it wasn't clear (but who knows perhaps we were all wrong). Anyway the point is, to me (and others, some have resigned half way through out of frusrtration even when they had equal positions!) that with a 3 day timebank and one day timeout its very difficult (for me anyway) to cope with, so anyone comtemplaiting entering one of these think twice about it as I can definately say it's been a pressure not a pleasure.

I have never agreed with a post more than this! lol I almost doubled my gameload (I had over 100 games after this Grand Sprint started!) and it was an absolutely tiring effort. It has helped my rating very much though, that IS a plus, and I played some very good chess in a lot of the games, but sheesh, I have a newfound respect for players like IronMan who can play so many games and keep up his quality of play! It's like mental labor! 🙁


-Kev

Originally posted by stevetodd
I am relatively new to the site so I'm not sure if 'sprint tournament' is the right phrase (it's the tournaments where you play everyone at once rather than group stages), the specific one that I am referring to is the grand sprint II. I am coming to the end of playing it now and it's really killed off my enthuisiasm for chess to the point where if I ...[text shortened]... one of these think twice about it as I can definately say it's been a pressure not a pleasure.

Well,when entering the tournament you can see a warning which says ''entering this tournament will significantly increase your gameload'' or something like that.
The warning exist only before the tournament fills completely and starts but I'm sure that I've read this many times before.

When you see ''21 entrants'' and ''group size 21'' a bell should ring in your head..........

It's a shame you missed the Big Summer Face Off, you'd have loved that one 😉

haha,it was 80 games at once!

Is it still going or is it over? If we had a page that contained all the tourney winners I wouldn't have to ask, but......

Actually, the word to beware of is 'Grand'. That goes on any tournament that pits each player against all.
I was in the Grand Sprint II as well. Rather invigorating, 40 games, all done in a month. Not bad. I even came out with a plus record...

Originally posted by gumbie
It's a shame you missed the Big Summer Face Off, you'd have loved that one 😉

lol I think my girlfriend would kill me if I entered another one the same size as the grand sprint II (she felt a bit ignored at times), so a fate worse than death would await me for entering one such as that. Much respect for players that can cope with that amount of work, especially to those that done well in it, I think I've learned one of my limits by playing in this tournament, that one I know is far too much for me, from now on I'm going to try and play quality rather than quantity chess as well as get back into live rapid chess.

Originally posted by seraphimvulture
Is it still going or is it over? If we had a page that contained all the tourney winners I wouldn't have to ask, but......

i just finished my last game in that tourney two days ago, as far as i know its still going but trackhead is going to win it.

Originally posted by stevetodd
lol I think my girlfriend would kill me if I entered another one the same size as the grand sprint II (she felt a bit ignored at times), so a fate worse than death would await me for entering one such as that. Much respect for players that can cope with that amount of work, especially to those that done well in it, I think I've learned one of my limits by ...[text shortened]... ng to try and play quality rather than quantity chess as well as get back into live rapid chess.

Believe it or not I am now thinking the exact same way. I've going to reduce my games and begin to focus on the quality of my play, while at the same time try to keep up a decent rating at uchess! 😉

Originally posted by seraphimvulture
Believe it or not I am now thinking the exact same way. I've going to reduce my games and begin to focus on the quality of my play, while at the same time try to keep up a decent rating at uchess! 😉

Any interst in having a few live games followed by analysis so we can both learn from it? I'm very intersted in improving my game rather than boosting my ego (with rating points - afterall I learn more when defeated). I have really neglected analysis as I've been playing too many games, and it would be good to work with someone (obviously I respect your game after our tournament games), but for the record my live game rating (on yahoo) varies between 1400 and 1500 so I neeed to improve. What sort of time do you play to? I usually play 15 mins + 15 secs per move which usually equates to about 50 mins (each)

Originally posted by stevetodd
Any interst in having a few live games followed by analysis so we can both learn from it? I'm very intersted in improving my game rather than boosting my ego (with rating points - afterall I learn more when defeated). I have really neglected analysis as I've been playing too many games, and it would be good to work with someone (obviously I respect your ...[text shortened]... play to? I usually play 15 mins + 15 secs per move which usually equates to about 50 mins (each)

I only play blitz chess at Yahoo and uchess. 2/0 or 2/1 mostly. At uchess I'm rated in the top 20 at 1700 something, and at Yahoo I'm rated about 1800 but I used to be 2000. I just can't sit through a 15/15 game, sorry dude. They just bore me to tears, which is why I haven't entered a real chess tourney that wasn't blitz yet. I can't focus for that long of a time, it's like an ADD thing I think. But I'd be happy to play you at uchess whenever you'd like. PM me whenever you're up for one.

To be fair

a) The group size is clearly indicated for each Tournament game, so you know when you sign up how many games it will create.

and

b) There are warnings on each Tournament entry page saying

"Playing in tournaments will significantly increase your number of active games.

Please do not enter if you believe you are unable to complete your games because of a vacation or for any other reason."

I really think that that is enough nannying.

Originally posted by mrmist
To be fair

a) The group size is clearly indicated for each Tournament game, so you know when you sign up how many games it will create.

and

b) There are warnings on each Tournament entry page saying

"Playing in tournaments will significantly increase your number of active games.

Please do not enter if you believe you are unable to complete you ...[text shortened]... because of a vacation or for any other reason."

I really think that that is enough nannying.

I wan't complaining (or requesting more 'nannying'😉, I was genuinely warning players, I do believe that the group size wasn't actually shown at the begining of the tournament and I wasn't aware what a 'grand' tournament was (yes but obviously there were other clues so I should have realized, so I was at fault). However when I pointed out how stupid I had been to quite a few fellow tournament players they all said they had also made the same error. So my warning was merely to say " Don't be as momentarily stupid as I was by entering" I did not mean any criticism of the site, which I think is excellent and always improving as Russel does make the effort to read and act upon forum postings when he feels improvements can be made.

Originally posted by stevetodd
...I did not mean any criticism of the site, which I think is excellent and always improving as Russel does make the effort to read and act upon forum postings when he feels improvements can be made.

Who's Russel?

; D