Need More Banded Tournaments

Originally posted by Kewpie
Sent my last post to Feedback, and bingo! lots of banded tourneys ... thanks Russ!

Good work, Kewpie, I prefer bandeds as well. All the non-banded tournaments tend to get overloaded at the last minute by higher ratings who think "ooooh, look, I could win this easily against all these scrubs". I mean while it's true that you learn more playing a more highly rated player, the fact is that they usually just crush you and the only thing you "learn" is to not play people rated hundreds of points higher than you.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Good work, Kewpie, I prefer bandeds as well. All the non-banded tournaments tend to get overloaded at the last minute by higher ratings who think "ooooh, look, I could win this easily against all these scrubs". I mean while it's true that you learn more playing a more highly rated player, the fact is that they usually just crush you and the only thing you "learn" is to not play people rated hundreds of points higher than you.

Totally agree. I've had to play against 2200s and it's totally demoralising being pulped in 6 moves.

The problem with very narrow bands is that 0-1150 fills relatively quickly but the others sit there sometimes for months. I don't believe there are enough paying subscribers nowadays to make 50-point bands practical, and if they take weeks to fill there won't be anything for 0-1150s to do once they've lost their first couple of games.

I'd like to see a more regular pattern too, not just a batch produced by Russ now and then in response to some frustrated player sending feedback. I'd also like quartets (6 games) rather than duels (2 games). Perhaps we should collectively work out a schedule of what would work best on, say, a regular monthly basis, and then present it to Russ as a request.

Originally posted by Kewpie
Totally agree. I've had to play against 2200s and it's totally demoralising being pulped in 6 moves.

The problem with very narrow bands is that 0-1150 fills relatively quickly but the others sit there sometimes for months. I don't believe there are enough paying subscribers nowadays to make 50-point bands practical, and if they take weeks to fill there w ...[text shortened]... uld work best on, say, a regular monthly basis, and then present it to Russ as a request.

Obviously another limiting factor is the timebands.
Perhaps when the admins initiate a banded tournament they should offer a number of timeband options for each range.
For example I won't enter any tournaments less than 3:7 and there are others who prefer the faster ones.

They tell us to go to the clubs, but they only run tiny tournaments, otherwise they take forever to fill. We need more in the public arena.

Originally posted by venda
Suggest you look for a club that runs lots of banded tournaments.
M.U.T.I might be a good place to start.
Leur sets up dozens.
Club 108

Too many thematics, though, in my opinion.

I see you have joined M.U.T.I.
Send a message to Leur and ask him to set up a tournament to your preference.
He's usually very obliging.

Russ responded quickly when I sent feedback, and created a whole stack of banded tournaments in tiny 50-point bands. The bottom lot 0-1150 filled up immediately, but the others just don't fill. It's just too difficult to find a reasonable number of players in a 50-point band, particularly as you need to know your TER and who does? So then there aren't any more banded tourneys for ages, and we bottom-feeders don't get any more chances. Maybe next time I'll ask specifically for 200-point bandings and a 0-1000 bottom group.

P.S. I joined LEUR's group but didn't find a lot of suitable ones there either. No club playing pool is large enough to provide proper bandings, in my opinion.

Originally posted by Kewpie
Russ responded quickly when I sent feedback, and created a whole stack of banded tournaments in tiny 50-point bands. The bottom lot 0-1150 filled up immediately, but the others just don't fill. It's just too difficult to find a reasonable number of players in a 50-point band, particularly as you need to know your TER and who does? So then there aren't any ...[text shortened]... either. No club playing pool is large enough to provide proper bandings, in my opinion.

Well, my band in the recent Quartets that went up was filled faster than immediately, and it was a 150 point band. I was waiting for a Quartet tourney, too. But I was away for a couple days and I missed this tourney big time.

How about a second 1150-1300 banded Quartet tourney, Russ? Especially since the 24 spots were grabbed in record time and no other bands have even started yet... clearly there's a demand for this band.