Comments on: Norm Factories Or: The Problem(s) With Round-Robin Norm Events

By: Wendy

Wendy — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 05:05:20 +0000

Just bumped into your article – great analysis and very thoughtful! I’d like to comment that Andy W. had several quick draws in the round robin tournaments in Serbia and in Hungary because he was very sick both times (covid in Serbia and a bad cold after soaked in the rain on the way to the hotel in Hungary). Since withdrawing from a round robin tournament was not an option. He had to keep the tournaments going by offering draws when he felt the worst. Both times he couldn’t even get out of the beds to go to the tournament hall for a couple of days. Andy was more disappointed than anyone else to have those quick draws 🙂

By: Gerhard Lorscheid

Gerhard Lorscheid — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 18:48:15 +0000

A very long article based on nearly zero facts. You can buy a point in any kind of tournament. Roundrobins were the base to achieve norms for a very long time when it was not possible to achieve them in opens.
I played in Budapest a GM round robin where the best participating six players today have a rating average of 2650 (Le, Ragger, Meyer, Braun, Rodstein,, Leon-Hoyos) Only one of them made a norm.

By: Tomasz Sielicki

Tomasz Sielicki — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 12:24:22 +0000

Good article about the real issue. Thanks.
I should be mentioned though that open Swiss tournaments also have „conditions” for titled players to attract other players, and enable norms. So this problem is not unique to norm RR tournaments.

Best regards,
Tomek

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 21:05:19 +0000

Did you mean “not a must” or “now a must” 🙂