Standardizing ACF Tournament Rules

[George Hay]

JohnAcker, how do they do ratings and divisions in Scrabble?

[George Hay]

This Armagedon method not for us indeed and checkers don't have any indications of "draw death".

I'm glad to here that! --George Hay

[George Hay]

Thanx John, I'd like to see an invitation only tournament for Masters in Checkers!
Round Robin for sure! --George Hay

[Chexhero]

Alex, thanks for your understanding and support on my position in this. I will send my proposals and we will see how it goes. Like you said, we will adapt to this system and not make any exceptions. I have faith that this will work and will make division placement of players more accurate an fair. We can at least give it a shot!

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Alex, thanks for your understanding and support on my position in this. I will send my proposals and we will see how it goes. Like you said, we will adapt to this system and not make any exceptions. I have faith that this will work and will make division placement of players more accurate an fair. We can at least give it a shot!

Deal ! Remember - no exceptions and do placement only strictly base on rating. If rating is about right - this would work ... hopefully.

[Chexhero]

So this is what I am thinking regarding the divisions with no gray areas....

Master- 1950 and above
Major-1650-1949
Minor- 1649 and below

No exceptions provided we have enough players to group into divisions. My personal opinion is there needs to be at least 6 players per division.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Master- 1950 and above
Major-1650-1949
Minor- 1649 and below

Sounds nice as-of today. But the most current list not stabilize yet ... isn't ? We still have players with low activity and 2300-2500 ratings. I would feel comfortable if we start to use new rating with full strength when everything will be cleanup.

We also have some strangers in 1950-2250 zone who had low activitiy and their rating should drop below.

Alex

[Chexhero]

I agree with John. A great example of this is Carl Reno. He had a very high rating well over 2200 before last year's nationals, but had not played in years. He came back and was weak. As a result, after playing in masters at the nationals, his rating dropped more than a 100 points I think. As a matter of fact, I think it may be about the biggest drop of any player I rated before. If he would of played down in majors, much easier than masters, his rating still may have dropped due to weaker competition, but certainly not a 100 points. It will without a doubt take some time before ratings do adjust completely, but for the most part, they have made great progress and I think a good portion of the players are around where they should be.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Personally, I would like to see the right rating numbers before we start using them for any serious things. We don't use tournaments for ratings, we use ratings for tournaments.

Alex

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Well Alex, if we did things your way, then the Nationals would consist of you playing Richard Hallett eight times while everyone else watched and occasionally kowtowed.

John, I am curious - how you comeup with this ? For the time now I propose do no do anything crazy and keep existing system in place until ratings stabilize.

Please, don't make speculations and try to get a cheap apllauds on this forum.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

I'm just trying to figure out why that is.

We have limited number of players and events in Anglo-American checkers and at this point ratings will never work properly - no fault of anyone, just math. We used ratings before for many years and are going start using again soon ... still old way.

I also don't like an idea - if someone gets into Master Division, after winning Major or getting a good rating - this player can continue to stay here to the rest of his/her life. This make me really sick.

Players in Master Division must be rotated, maybe up to 50% every year.

Ideal system for Master Division - 12-16 players Robin Round. If someone is #17 - he should try next cycle.

6-10 top players from current year can continue to stay, other should be qualified again.

Anything rather than this - kindergarten and not porofessional.

Salute to all forum members !

BTW. If you propose to discuss things - be ready that not everyone agree with you And even more worse - with all these differencies, perhaps there is no universal solution which satisfy everyone.

Alex

[neilwenberg]

Some really interesting discussions here. Conjecture on points of our wonderful and quite complex game are very interesting. However, I will always remain devoted to playing in the lowest class that I can possibly talk the tournament director into letting me play in. Your Class "C" or "D" player!!!!!! Neil H. Wenberg (Old people usually have strange ideas on just about everything, I find this extremely true as I advance in age)

[Alex_Moiseyev]

John,

yes, you absolutely right - Master Division is Division #1 and elite Division - very true statement. Everyone who is there and get there must be honor and proud of this. Playing in Master Division is high privelege, not rights and obligation. Noone should have patent to stay here to the rest of life !

And what does it mean "slightly weaker" ? 1 rating point below 1950, 2 points, 22 points, 222 points ... this is exceptions which I propose to avoid. Or every time we have to looki "personally" - player "A" is close here, lets move bareer 5 points below !!!

Everyone must be given chance and we should have a good rotation. Checkers is sport with fighting, restrictions and knock-out structure.

It is absolutely normal competition/rotation process in other sports: going up-down base on performance. If you did well this year - play in Masters, if not - improve and wait for another year.

Noone gets younger and I know that some day it will affect me as well ... hope this happened later

If we think Master Division is not elite - then I rest my case and completely don't understand - what we are talking about.

am

[Dennis Cayton]

Greetings To All:

Please correct me if I am wrong about the following:

I am relying solely upon memory, or whatever little memory I have left.

In the year 1986, a young gentleman from overseas traveled to the United States to play in his first ever ACF National Tournament, held in Tupelo, Mississippi.

He was unknown to American players.

Therefore, to the best of my memory, he had not yet earned a ranking.

Yet, he was permitted to enter and play in the Masters Division.

As it turned out, he made a very strong showing.

That player was Mr. Ron King.

In my opinion, it would have been a shame to deny Ron King the opportunity to play in the Masters Division of that tournament, on the sole basis of the fact that he was, to the best of my memory, an unranked player.

Please accept my apologies if I am wrong about any of the historical details I have cited above.

Best Wishes,

Dennis Cayton

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Dennis,

exceptions are exceptions. Also let me remind you that Marion Tinsley had exhibition on Barados before 1986 (am I mistaking with dates ?) and played with Barbdos players including Ron. Tinsley gave him references.

I don't have any problem with such case and we can include this in rules.

Each case must be observe personally to make decision.

I also played 10 years later in Master Division of my 1st National 1996 and Don Lafferty referee allowed me to do this.

So ... rule is rule, exception is exception. We can even make "ACF Reserve" (or wild card) in Master Division, where 1-2 players can be nominated.

Or maybe you think that everyone is "potential Ron King" ?That would be a little bit over-ambitious assumption

Alex