Hi all - thanks to everyone who responded to the survey I sent out a few weeks ago. There was literally no-one opposed to having some form of online events, so based on the responses received here's what I'm proposing:
- 5 round events every two weeks, alternating Mon/Tues on chess.com
- Time controls 5|2 and 10|2, alternating between Mon/Tues
- The 5|2 affects USCF Online Blitz rating only, 10|2 affects USCF Online Rapid rating only
- There will be NO CHARGE for these events, but for now I'm limiting them to people we know IRL at WCC. (There is a USCF rating fee, but a generous benefactor :) will help defray those costs)
So - unless I get overwhelmingly negative response here's what I'll do:
- I will commit to one cycle of these (4/13, 4/28, 5/11, 5/26) and then we can assess how it went.
- You can register on chess.com before the event, but I need to know you as a member of WCC by name and uscf id - we might open to other SE WI or Madison players if there's interest.
- I will print flyers and send a note to the club email list (and maybe the WCA list) as well.
- I will add an "Online WCC Schedule" area to the blog and website
Couple of questions:
- How to prevent cheating?
- We can't. But chess.com does devote serious resources to preventing cheating. The real defense is that we know who we're playing in real life. It's amazing how that prevents most people from cheating.
- Why chess.com? Why Mondays and Tuesdays? Why 5 and 10 min?
- These were overwhelmingly the most popular answers to the survey. We might change these over time.
We're discussing or doing these things (RR, online play, match play) because YOU said you wanted new / more options to play, either to the board or via online survey. If you don't think this is a good idea, let us know. If nobody shows up, they'll stop :)
- John