swiss tournament

The obvious barrier to Swiss is that someone might leave mid tourney; but as #21 pointed out, if this happens that person could simply be registered as losing their outstanding games.

By only allowing users with a minimum number of games in, it would also reduce the number of casual tourney ruiners. I say let's go for it!

Your rank increase is compensated for lost time (there is always the risk that someone will run away)

There is 22 answers:

Do you want to play in swiss-pairing tournaments by lichess?

22 - yes
0 - no

goo.gl/forms/eF7lVaRQDcFiwDuh2

Lichess developers - please help us :)

26 vs 0!

There is 39 answers:

Do you want to play in swiss-pairing tournaments by lichess?

37 - yes
2 - no

goo.gl/forms/eF7lVaRQDcFiwDuh2

one more YES from me!

Also, I tend to agree so much with the opinions of these lichess fellows:

@Greengo -
The game is the same, but the arena does not give rest. You need to hurry to score points, often playing with halved time

@Wolfram_EP -
Arena is ok and maybe even better for bullet/hyperbullet/ultrabullet stuff, where you show off your speed [...] Lichess used to have swiss about 2 years ago, it was not very popular. Lichess itself was 5 times less popular 2 years ago

@DunnoItAll -
To me, it's completely irrelevant how "popular" swiss tournaments would be. You simply can't call yourself a chess server without swiss system tournaments. This is a real blackeye for lichess imo.

@PhillipTheTank -
The problem (well one of many) with arena tournaments is it fundamentally changes the way you play the game of chess. Winning fast trumps everything else […] Berserking maginifies this problem - it also destroys the integrity of the rating system entirely.

@MaartenT I agree with your suggestion about dividing this two sets "1) Easy join, easy leave, fast-paced, i.e. exactly what Arena tournaments now offer; but also 2) Round based tournaments, where players commit in advance to play for a longer period. ". Also the "problems and solutions" dot list makes a lot of sense. I wrote something similar to this a week ago on another thread which I report here (my apologies if I couldn't find this forum thread earlier). For reference - lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/tournaments-formats#1

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I think what is lacking at the moment is:
a) different tournament systems
b) tournament time format

a) : It would be cool to have "some" tournaments based on the number of participants at the beginning and fixing a number of rounds, rather than a time, after which the tournament ends. Something like a 7 rounds Swiss system tournament. We could introduce a different tournament system in one of the two spots taken by the Blitz and Classical Arena, instead of having both of them going every hour, given there are U1500/U1700/U2000 tournaments running at the same time

b) : This is just a more simple consideration on the time format. I often find myself creating my own rapid games as 15+10 or 25+10, because these rapid options don't exist in the tournaments. We could introduce longer Classical arenas (15 minutes) or Classical Inc Arenas (e.g. 13+2).

I agree with so much that's written here.

A couple of years ago there was a vote on lichess about what were the things that users wanted most. The resounding winner was "different kinds of tournaments".

At the time I had been campaigning for a competition that would work on a league system, with different divisions (a bit like in football). I also wanted to see a huge knockout tournament. Imagine something like the FA Cup for chess!

In the end I ran my own year-long tournament which proved very popular. The brilliant rondep won it, and I even bought him a trophy and sent it to Europe for him. We had a website and a write-up of each tournament afterwards, with updated scores etc.

A lot of people liked this and other ideas, but instead we are given the things that the DEVELOPERS want to do. We have to remember that this is privately owned and coded for free... and we neither have any say nor really any influence.

For me, zillions of variants of chess is not the answer. The answer is to have the best possible chess server with options for the users, with different kinds of tournaments and a system of regulation of the users that stops multiple accounts and other silly things that go on.

It takes a long time for things to be listened to. They were hugely opposed to email verification at first, for instance!

Let's hope this is listened to - it really is a great idea to have at LEAST Swiss Tourneys here :)

Unfortunately, the "cutting edge" anarchic side of lichess has become a bit mainstream and un-revolutionary. Perhaps they all grew old from too much programming :D It's still the best server (perhaps) and very popular (allegedly) but listening to what people want is always a great way to increase popularity.

@Toutatis The "FA cup for chess" sounds a lot of fun. But even more would be the "Champions league for chess" with group stage and knockout stage :)

I would definitely play in swiss events.
Have no interest in arena events.
I can understand their attraction, but just not for me. Arena chess is much like bullet chess, fast and furious.
Give me 10/0. I'll schedule my two hours, have a short break between games. Win a game quickly... I don't feel the urgency to immediately start another game. [from the older, traditional set]
What I most prefer to see are correspondence tournaments.

@marcolom

That also sounds like fun... but you're Italian, and so the lure of the FA Cup must be a bit alien to you. My local team, in the 8th tier of English football, just made it through all the qualification rounds to the 1st round proper. They're now 8 matches from the Final - and although they won't get there, it's this romance that appeals to the English psyche :)

Spero di capire il mio pensiero!