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Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2019 8:45 am
by Hagbard
Elaborating on the grandmaster route 2.

Comparing with chess, the chess grandmaster title can be awarded based on rating and results (percentage of points won) in international tournaments, each time with at least two grandmasters participating and qualifying three times within a rolling period of three years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_(chess)


As for the rating limit, the tafl ratings are broadly distributed from 1000 to 2000, 1500 being the average. The upper half of the upper half would be a natural limit, i.e. rating 1750.
That includes these players:
2114 casshern (GM)
2034 Plantagenet (GM)
1924 OdinHimself (IM)
1876 herjan (GM)
1849 crust (GM)
1846 mmagari
1838 Ded Fomich
1831 Sigurd
1812 Adam (GM)
1809 fjorlag
1795 nath (GM)
1793 siegfried
1758 Bogd Khan


To take a look at our latest World Championship tournaments (which have at least two rounds):
2018
(max. 12) Casshern: 12 pt., Odinhimself: 10 pt., Sqaree: 7 pt., Khan asparukh: 6 pt., Adam: 4 pt., Steiger: 3 pt., Epm180: 0 pt.,
2017
(max 10) Casshern: 8 pt., Plantagenet: 8 pt., Odinhimself: 5 pt., Edmond-dantes: 4 pt., Animals: 3 pt., Sqaree: 2 pt.,
2016
(max 14) Herjan: 12.5 pt., Crust: 12.5 pt., Adam: 11 pt., Sigurd: 7.5 pt., Bigwurm91: 5 pt., Hagbard: 3 pt., Xerxes: 2.5 pt., Tuireann: 2 pt.,

With a limit set at 50% percent points won, and requiring in the tournament at least two players rated above 1750, players qualifying for GM are:
(max. 12) Casshern: 12 pt., Odinhimself: 10 pt., Sqaree: 7 pt., Khan asparukh: 6 pt.
(max 10) Casshern: 8 pt., Plantagenet: 8 pt., Odinhimself: 5 pt.,
(max 14) Herjan: 12.5 pt., Crust: 12.5 pt., Adam: 11 pt., Sigurd: 7.5 pt.,


Tournaments with at least two rounds have only experienced players in the final round.
Tournaments with only one round have beginners included, and to take this into account the limit of points won is raised to 75%.

Latest important tournaments with one round:
2018
Berserk Master Tournament Jan.:
(max 14) Casshern: 14 pt., Adam: 11 pt., Edmond-dantes: 9 pt., Hagbard: 8 pt., Xerxes: 6 pt., Jrton80: 4 pt., Kaagee: 2 pt., Fraech: 2 pt.,
Sea Master Tournament Feb.: only one player above rating 1750.
Hist. Master Tournament March:
(max 20) Casshern: 18 pt., Hagbard: 17 pt., Ded fomich: 16 pt., Agmundr: 14 pt., Docbullen: 12 pt., Xerxes: 7 pt., Vonraider: 7 pt., Fraech: 5 pt., Trygve: 5 pt., Jrton80: 5 pt., Harry64: 4 pt.,
Quadrathlon: only one player above rating 1750.
American Championship Tournament April: only one player above rating 1750.
2017
American Championship Tournament Feb.: only one player above rating 1750.
European Championship Tournament: only one player above rating 1750.
2016
Berserk Nov.: only one player above rating 1750.

With a limit set at 75% percent points won, and requiring in the tournament at least two players rated above 1750, players qualifying for GM are:
(max 14) Casshern: 14 pt., Adam: 11 pt.,
(max 20) Casshern: 18 pt., Hagbard: 17 pt., Ded fomich: 16 pt.,


Number of qualifications by tournament latest three years of players rated above 1750:
Casshern: 4 (764 games)
Odinhimself: 2 (347 games)
Adam: 2 (689 games)
Crust: 1 (3037 games)
Plantagenet: 1 (493 games)
Herjan: 1 (246 games)
Ded fomich: 1 (374 games)
Sigurd: 1 (103 games)


Number of games was not used above, but with a limit of 500 games and 3 tournaments, only one player qualifies by route 2:
Casshern: 4 (764 games)

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 8:17 pm
by unhandyandy
Why the rush to award GM titles? Why not start with the Master title?

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:35 am
by Hagbard
unhandyandy wrote: Why the rush to award GM titles? Why not start with the Master title?
Good idea.

The idea of titles in the first place was introduced by the Fetlar Hnefatafl Panel (Peter Kelly) already in the first World Championship tournament on the island Fetlar 2008, where the winner was promised to be Hnefatafl Grandmaster.

Taking a look at chess, the FIDE has about
- 500.000 players
- 1624 Grandmasters (GM)
- 3036 International Masters (IM)
- 5731 FIDE Masters (FM)
- Candidate Masters (CM)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles


Comparing with WTF, if there are fx. 500 tafl players on the internet and in the clubs, that would give 1.6 GM's, 3 IM's and 6 FM's.

The FIDE IM and FM are based on rating and international tournament activity.

The above "route 2 for GM" can be downscaled to instead be a route to FM:
- using fx. rating 1600 as a limit instead of 1750
- correspondingly 400 games as a limit instead of 500.
- and correspondingly 20% point win in tournaments with more rounds (instead of 50%) and 60% points win in tournaments with one round (instead of 75%)

The calculation from above moderated would be:


Route to Tafl Master (FM).
The Tafl Master title can be awarded based on rating and results (percentage of points won) in important tournaments, each time with at least two Masters participating and qualifying three times within a rolling period of four years.

With the new limits, these players would qualify for FM:
Hagbard: 7 (2669 games)
Casshern: 6 (764 games)
Animals: 6 (462 games)
Adam: 5 (689 games)
Crust: 5 (3037 games)
Altti: 5 (1202 games)

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:02 pm
by Hagbard
The fourth level could be used also: Candidate Master.

- using rating 1500 as a limit
- correspondingly 300 games as a limit
- and correspondingly any point wins in tournaments with more rounds and 50% points win in tournaments with one round.

The calculation would be:


Route to Candidate Master (CM).
The Candidate Master title can be awarded based on rating and results (percentage of points won) in important tournaments, each time with at least two Candidates participating and qualifying three times within a rolling period of four years.

With these limits, these players would qualify for CM:
Hagbard: 10 (2669 games)
Altti: 8 (1202 games)
Casshern: 7 (764 games)
Animals: 7 (462 games)
Xerxes: 6 (996 games)
Docbullen: 6 (1136 games)
Crust: 6 (3037 games)
Adam: 5 (689 games)
Duhawk93: 4 (897 games)
Steiger: 4 (523 games)
Odinhimself: 3 (347 games)
Thanir: 3 (685 games)

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 1:14 am
by sqAree
I might be a bit biased because I only play Copenhagen Tafl, but it would make sense to not let different variants of tafl interfere with each other. Same as for chess, where (as far as I know) your blitz performance doesn't have an impact on your classic chess rating and can't help you getting a GM norm.

So as Copenhagen rules are already our flagship, I propose using only the tournaments featuring those rules.

A bit off-topic, but along these lines I also propose to remove the mixed variants rating table and only use separate rating for every variant.

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 3:50 pm
by Hagbard
It is easier to search the other way round: find the candidates by rating and number of games and then check if they also qualified in three tournaments.

Good performance in big, ordinary tournaments in normal variants with at least 8 players, of which at least 2 strong, could be counted as qualifying as well.

Number of games limit 300 is used.


There are six GM on the rating list: casshern, Plantagenet, herjan, crust, Adam, nath (all won the World Championship tournament).
There is one IM on the rating list: OdinHimself (won big tournament in the European hemisphere)



These players would qualify for Federation Masters (FM):
animals, Steiger, altti, sqAree, Hagbard, Agmundr, docbullen, xerxes
and these players for Candidate Masters (CM):
duhawk93, tonythebook, Thanir.

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:40 am
by sqAree
Another suggestion regarding this topic is that a lot of different titles are just confusing. There are very few tafl players so I would - if at all - only introduce one type of Master and make it fairly difficult to reach that.

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:54 am
by Hagbard
sqAree wrote:
Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:40 am
Another suggestion regarding this topic is that a lot of different titles are just confusing. There are very few tafl players so I would - if at all - only introduce one type of Master and make it fairly difficult to reach that.

That would be something like this:
All the grandmasters are rated from 1800 and upwards, so 1800 is the limit.

Equivalent to three years' experience with a game every second day = 500 games.

And correspondingly 80% point win in tournaments with one round (normal variants with at least 8 players, of which at least two more are rated min. 1800),
and 60% point win in tournaments with more rounds (that is, with no opponents rated below 1500).
Qualifying in at least three tournaments within a rolling period of three years.

Candidates and near-candidates:
1846 mmagari (830 games): No qualifying tournaments.
1842 Ded Fomich (375 games): No qualifying tournaments.
1758 Bogd Khan (386 games): No qualifying tournaments.


Federation Master (FM) would be a proper title to a player qualifying from these rules, because he will have to beat the whole federation to get there...

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:24 am
by Casshern
I also do not think we should have too many titles. We often look to chess as an example for our community, but I don’t think that example applies here. Because We are a very small community with roughly 20-50 players active at any given time on this site, sometimes less. I like how we have it now with GM, IM, NM, HH, SEA, BERS, QUAD. These titles are achieved by winning various tournaments. Is there any objection to the way we do it now? I think of these titles as trophies or medals that can be passed out to different players. The question I have is, should these titles only be given to the most recent winner (meaning they get passed/transferred) or each winner forever keeps their title(s) (meaning there could be multiples of each and players could have multiple titles)? At least for now, GM is the only title attached to multiple people. The issue is that some tournaments have more stronger players and some less or none. But that is not the fault of the players who play the tournaments. Especially for IRL tournaments, as most strong players cannot play against each other IRL. I think the real issue is the idea of “Master”. This implies an overwhelming knowledge and mastery of the game. In order to identify this, we have tournaments, yes. But more importantly, strong players must play against other strong players. This is essential. To be more specific, because of our small numbers there are only a few very strong players. And there are big disparities between the skill level of players, even at the upper end of the ratings, 1750+. I think the 6 GMs (7 if you include Schachus, I do, he/she may have been the strongest) could the considered as the very strongest. And it shouldn’t be a surprise for a player 1750+ to win against a GM. So we should really be comparing these players overall record against each other. Maybe a winning percentage above 75? And tournaments should only be considered if there are at least 4 of the 7 GMs or at least 8 players 1750+. This would be more ideal, if we are looking to identify who the true “Masters” are. Another issue is that the ratings do not always accurately reflect the true skill level of a player. There are many variables that can affect a players rating for the positive or negative. Such as a players competitiveness or seriousness, time-outs, opponents’ skill level, and if a player only/mostly plays a dominant side and/or unbalanced variant(s). In the end, there are very few of us. Who knows if anyone has truly mastered this game and is worthy to be called GM. I think we need a lot more players and a few geniuses.

Re: World Tafl Federation

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:17 pm
by Hagbard
unhandyandy wrote:
Sat Jan 05, 2019 8:17 pm
Why the rush to award GM titles? Why not start with the Master title?
I probably misunderstood you at first. By a roundabout route it landed where it began with tough limits, only not calling it GM.