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Thread: " Playing Up " - Should It Be Allowed??

  1. #1

    Default " Playing Up " - Should It Be Allowed??

    Favouring the " Playing Up " Option
    ( from a thread on CMA ChessTalk )

    It is my experience that there is acceptance of " playing up " amongst many upper section players, where the lower section player does pay a " playing up premium " into the upper section prize fund. This is in my view, a somewhat altruistic viewpoint, allowing the lower section players to get experience at their expense in a sense.

    There is some compensation in addition to the $$ however, in that they expect an " easier point " when they play one of us interlopers. However, I have been often told by upper section players that they do not take the lower section players for granted. They often have to work just as hard to win against a lower-rated player, though their odds of winning in the end are high. But again this may not be true in one case - I have noticed that a lot of the players playing up are juniors with fast-rising ratings. They have been consistently beating their peers throughout their rise, and their actual potential is uncertain. They may be a handful for many of the upper section players.

    But I think the lower section player should pay a premium for the privilege, which is what I consider it. And I would be willing to pay more than the current $ 10. So I do not favour the 2011 Canadian Open policy: " There is no charge for playing up to a higher section in the Canadian Open Championship. " However, I think I understand why they have done this. The CO organizers believe they will get more " class " players out, because they are allowed to play up, than they lose upper section players, because they refuse to play down. The lower section players all want to play stronger players ( within reason ), often feel they work harder, and feel they do have chances to knock an upper section player off. So they are attracted by the playing up option. But I think we will see many players from the U 1600 section playing up in the U 2000 section in particular, and it will dilute the upper section somewhat, where there is no $$ disincentive to playing up.

    Personally, I like to play up when given the chance, though only one section. I like to stay in striking range, where I think I have some chance I might win in a good game. So for example, I am not playing up in the Open section at the CO. I am in the mid 1700's at the moment ( have been somewhat higher in the last five years ), and playing players in the 1900's in my own section will satisfy me - usually I only play up to the U 2200 section, depending on the break lines in the lower sections, and so I do not really think I would give a satisfactory game to players over 2199 ( and I'm sure there are some U 2200's who say I didn't give them much of a game either ).

    I am also, not averse to the practice that is becoming more common, of limiting playing up to those within 100 points of the upper section floor. This is a compromise position, and I think it is a legitimate restriction, to maintain a relatively high level in the upper section. We have that in our Scarborough CC 2-section swiss club tournaments during the year. And it seems well accepted by both the upper and lower players.

    But we " playing uppers " often do so because we have got some decent track record. Of the last four years, where I have played up, I have won rating points in 2/4 years. So some of us ( most ? ) feel we can give the higher rated players a good game, and sometimes win or draw.

    Most of all it's just fun to play up - winning is not the standard which determines the satisfaction of playing up. I work harder playing up, and if it is generally acceptable to the upper tier players, in my case, I will opt for the more challenging tournament ( the prize money and the rating points loss do not enter much into the equation - I'm willing to give up the former, and accept the latter as the likely outcome, to have a more enjoyable tournament ).

    Lastly, where an upper tier player is playing well, s/he will only likely have to " play down " at most twice in a six-round weekender. It is not the case they will play many lower rated players, unless they themselves are playing badly.

    So bottom line is that I support the playing up option, so long as there is a " premium ", and so long as many of the upper section players find the system acceptable.

    Do you think this practice should continue? And if so, on what conditions?

    Bob

  2. #2

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    I think Aris' system in Ottawa is by far the best used in Ontario. The 200 point sections, and ban on "playing up" ensure that all your games are close.

    The Hart House System with premium on playing up is definately my least favourite. It doesn't bother me so much that I have to play weaker players, but it bothers me a lot when I don't have the opportunity to play players my own level because they are all playing up.

    I don't asking players to get their rating to the section floor before playing in it is at all unreasonable... if they can play at that level (consistently) it won't take long, and they can pick up a few section prizes along the way.

  3. #3
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    I think that playing up, unless you are within 100 points of the floor, should not be allowed. One hundred points can be within the error of our rating system or can represent one or two bad results in tournaments.

    The Ottawa system is good. It guarantees that in the worst case you are playing someone 199 points lower unless you are in the top rating group of the top section. I just wish they would perfect wormhole travel so that I could travel that far for a tournament.

    My goal when choosing tournaments is to get as many games with players rated 2000 and above as is possible. Playing someone 2500 or above is like getting a chess lesson that cost me $60 (one fifth of the typical cost of a five round tournament when you consider gas, entry fees and hotel costs) and in general I feel that it is a positive from my point of view. Its nice to quickly find out what your deficiencies are. Most of the strong players are kind enough to tell you where you went wrong or to offer some useful advice about the way you played the game. Playing someone much lower rated seems to me like I wasted $60 of what I spent on the tournament. I can play poorly and still win so it is a waste of time if I want to get better (which may be slightly unrealistic at my age).

  4. #4
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    Stuart and Vladimir, thank you for the kind words. A lot of the players, parents, etc. involved with the Ottawa events get a rush out of all their games being really close.

    In addition, as numbers have grown, and class prizes have grown, many players prefer how a smaller section leaves the prize results within their control. To explain, what some players dislike is, for example, a 600-point section, with a lower class prize for the lower 200 points. What happens sometime, is that in the last round, when two players have a chance at the lower class prize, they get paired against players with vastly different ratings, resulting in one of the players virtually being gifted the lower class prize. With smaller rating ranges for sections though, and no lower class prizes, this cannot happen.

    All is not perfect though, as I am perceiving two main issues with this format, especially if it is never changed. First of all, as Ottawa events are of a decent size, but not that big, there is a certain limiting effect on variety of opponents. In addition, we recently added another section to be FIDE-rated last tournament, but as there were very few such players already with a FIDE rating, I figure if the rating ranges never change, then it would be quite challenging to spread FIDE ratings downward. I need to mix things up.

    On top of that, our next Ottawa event will be 6 rounds (vs. the regular 5 rounds), so especially for pairing reasons, I was going to consolidate 5 sections into 4 sections. That would provide more variety of opponents, it would consolidate the prize fund into larger sectional prizes, and it would inject more FIDE-rated opponents for players rated 1900-2000. Specifically, I was thinking of the cutoffs being 2200, 1900, and 1600. How would people feel about a 300-point rating range, rather than a 200-point rating range? Note that it is very rare to have games like a 1999 vs. a 1900. In fact, with a 200-point rating range, most games are within 100-125 points, so a 300-point rating range would have most games within 175-225 points. I think this would be great. What do you think?

    Thanks and regards, Aris.

  5. #5
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    I think that a 300 point range is still quite acceptable from the point of view of providing competitive games. I am not sure that I will be that fond of it once the results bonus is eliminated as seems inevitable from all indications.

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