According to Mig Greengard of Chess Ninja, the organizer of the US Championship is planning to introduce a new format:
1. The 64 players will be divided into 2 groups. Each group will play a 9 round Swiss system with normal time control.
2. The top finishers (top male and top female) of each group will then play 2 rapid games against each other to determine the US Championship and US Women’s Championship Title.
It seems that there have been a lot of objections from the fans. The #1 objection is the discrepancy in the time control (normal for the 9 round Swiss system then rapid for the championship). Many people feel that the rapid time control would cheapen the title.
Other concerns include how evenly matched will the two groups be and what if there are multiple ties after 9 rounds? How fair is it to choose the finalists by tie-breaks? There is also the issue of what if one group winner scores 8/9 and the other scores 6.5/9. How fair would it be for the player who scores 8/9 to lose the final because of a different time control and a different format?
What do you think? Do you like the rapid time control to determine the US Champions?
I think it’s a horrible idea. The 2 time control should not mix for something as prestigious as the US Championship. Bad idea! Very bad idea!
Maca
Rapid???
AS soon as I saw the word “rapid” in the beginning of the post my heartbeat got VERY rapid.
It just boggles my mind that football players have much more intelligent organizations than chess players.
It’s bad enough that we have rapid playoff. It’s worst when rapid chess is being used in normal play.
No way!
Jorge
Good luck to all.I have a better idea why not first rapid…. and the final with blitz time control.
lets get serious, this is crazy.
What a character that Mig guy. And than he dare to criticize Fide. And if someone tries to argue with him, he lashes out, call him a troll, a liar with no explaination. I think the only dailydirt is coming from him.
Sounds like a horrible idea… all of your points about mixing rapid, what if 6.5/9 vs 8/9, etc. are all very valid.
If the US champ does this it will cheapen them so much…
But I just can’t believe this is true… they couldn’t possibly be this messed up could they??
BTW – I don’t understand the previous post about Mig. How does him reporting this news make him a “character” and stuff. I don’t understand that comment at all.
Susan, I have recently joined ICC and have been observing rapid games between GM’s as one benefit of membership. I have witnessed blunders and missed continuations that even I saw (USCF 1652) so I cannot support the idea of rapid games deciding a national championship. Moreover, what exactly is the point in dividing the field into two groups? To set up some kind of artifically-created showdown in the rapid games?
Outrageous! The dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. Make it one format or the other. Can’t mix it.
Vin
Seattle
The only positive that can come out of this format is if the rapid playoff is televised live on ESPN. At least that would promote chess in a big way. Other than that, it’s just not acceptable.
I learned that there were people rated below 2200 uscf is the last U. S. Closed Championship. The problem leading to the division of the field into two groups seems to be that people with no legitimate shot at the title are included simply because of their age, gender, or because they won a ” qualifying event” which may not have included any 2600’s. The U.S. Closed should have only top rated players; perhaps 10 by rating and 4 by winning a Major qualifying event. This would be a higher quality tournament leading to better chess, rather than making them play with 50 people who have no legitimate shot at the title.
The Women’s Champion should not be determined by who is paired against Nakamura and who gets some 2350. That too should be a round robin.
The pandemonium of a swiss event is an improper place to determine a national champion.
Horrible idea. Between the vast existing experience in how to run a tournament and statistics which might indicate how many games should be played to fairly rank players, why would anyone replace what works with the 2-group idea (stupid) and non-standard time controls? If someone wants a media event, let the champ and runner-up replay their game for the media, maybe with commentary. But don’t mess with time controls for real games.