Hnefatafl Internet Championship

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Hagbard
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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Hagbard » Fri Jun 15, 2018 9:05 am

Modified:
- Or more like the Football World Cup running right now:
Round 1 is roughly half of the players, with the lower ratings.
Two winners from each group go to Round 2.

Round 2 is rest of the players plus winners from Round 1.
One winner from each group goes to the Final.

This scheme in work last year 2017 would look like this:

Registered players:
Steiger, jrton80, AreVidar, OdinHimself, edmond-dantes, animals, xerxes, altti, epm180, Kratzer, Tuireann, casshern, sqAree, Waegn, MrTopom, Hagbard, Patterson, Thanir, Fraech, DoktorKarlsrud, JKRS, emabear35, bigwurm91, tomsavini, Lbalassone, Marcin, Rasmusruge, Brench, gokstad, Ozgen97, Kihtan, Plantagenet, Agmundr, evando1189


Round 1.

1. xerxes, Fraech, DoktorKarlsrud, JKRS, evando1189
2. Brench, Kihtan, MrTopom, emabear35, Ozgen97
3. Marcin, jrton80, Waegn, tomsavini, gokstad
4. Tuireann, AreVidar, Patterson, Lbalassone, Rasmusruge

Perhaps xerxes, Brench, Marcin, Tuireann, AreVidar, jrton80, Kihtan and Fraech would've won and gone to Round 2.


Round 2.

1. casshern, Agmundr, xerxes, Brench
2. Plantagenet, Bigwurm91, Kratzer, Marcin
3. OdinHimself, altti, epm180, Tuireann
4. edmond-dantes, Hagbard, Steiger, AreVidar, Fraech
5. animals, sqaree, Thanir, jrton80, Kihtan

Perhaps casshern, Plantagenet, OdinHimself, edmond-dantes and animals would've won and gone to the Final.


Round 3, the Final.
casshern, Plantagenet, OdinHimself, edmond-dantes, animals

And as we know, Plantagenet won.

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Hagbard
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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Hagbard » Fri Aug 24, 2018 2:01 pm

- Or also two from Round 2:
Round 1 is roughly half of the players, with the lower ratings.
Two winners from each group go to Round 2.

Round 2 is rest of the players plus winners from Round 1.
Two winners from each group go to the Final.
Right now 26 players registered for the 2018 tournament.
About 26/2=13 would start Round 1, split in 3 groups of each 4-5 players. 6 winners would proceed to Round 2.
Round 2 would have 13+6=19 players, split in 4 groups of 4-5 players. 8 winners would proceed to the Final.

Time controls:
Round 1: 0.5 day per move. Time buffer 5 days. Long-game-threshold 7 days.
Round 2: 0.75 day per move. Time buffer 7 days. Long-game-threshold 10 days.

The Final would be very demanding with many high level, hard games. So the time controls should be doubled:
Final: 1 day per move. Time buffer 10 days. Long-game-threshold 14 days.
(But rematches, if any, again 0.5 day per move, time buffer 5 days and long-game-threshold 7 days.)

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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Hagbard » Thu Dec 06, 2018 10:07 am

Quadrathlon 2019.

I propose a quadrathlon like the one we had a year ago.

1. Copenhagen Hnefatafl 11x11, using the results from the World Championship.

2. Berserk Hnefatafl 11x11, starting January 1st 2019. The winner is Berserk Tafl Master 2019.

3. Historical Hnefatafl 11x11 (Welsh Tawlbwrdd), starting January 15th 2019. The winner is Historical Tafl Master 2019.

4. Sea battle tafl 13x13, starting February 1st 2019. The winner is Sea Tafl Master 2019.

The quadrathlon score is calculated for players who participated in at least two of the four tournaments. The winner is Quadrathlon Tafl Master 2019.

Timing: 1 day per move. Time buffer 10 days. Long-game-threshold 14 days.

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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Hagbard » Sun Dec 30, 2018 11:49 am

This is my bid for an evaluation of the Championship Tournament 2018:

The tournament setup this year was much different from earlier years, and in my opinion the best setup which has been tried on this site.

What worked well.
- Three rounds.
- Aiming for six players per subgroup (hat tip: Casshern).
- Always two players from each subgroup to move on to the next round.
- The players were given three days notice between rounds.
- That Dmitry Pashkov kindly offered three attractive prizes for the three top winners. This increased the tournament suspense!

What could be improved next year.
Running tournaments on the internet opens for a wide range of opportunities for cheating.
Just to mention a few:
- Multiple profiles with fake IP addresses.
- Copying moves from one game to another (Ex.: C is weaker than both A and B, but B is weaker than A. C copies all A's moves to his games against B and thus beats the stronger player B).

It is a problem how to reveal cheating on the internet.


The winner was found after 89 days (last year 83 days), and the whole tournament was finished after 101 days (last year 87 days).
26 players joined the tournament, and 22 players saw it through.
In total 184 games, 7655 moves and 1175 killed pieces. 100 white wins and 84 black wins (game balance +1.19).
Longest game was 149 moves.
Shortest game was 14 moves.

Congratulations to World Tafl Federation Champion 2018, Mario Aluizo ("casshern"), Los Angeles, USA!
Many thanks to Adam Bartley and Mario Aluizo for being umpires, and to the 26 players who played in the tournament!

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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Hagbard » Fri Jan 03, 2020 9:59 am

This is my bid for an evaluation of the Championship Tournament 2019:

The tournament setup this year was similar to last year.

Changes from last year:
The criterion for distributing the players into Round 1 and Round 2 was simply aiming for 7 players per Round 1 group and 6 players per Round 2 group.
The game chat function was disabled for the tournament.

Like last year, the timing was graduated with a short timing for Round 1, longer timing for Round 2 and longer yet for Round 3.
The changes worked well, and for the rest the whole evaluation from last year is the same for this year.

The winner was found after 85 days (last year 89 days), and the whole tournament was finished after 87 days (last year 101 days).
25 players joined the tournament and 24 saw it through.
In total 174 games, 7620 moves and 1111 killed pieces. 97 white wins and 77 black wins (game balance +1.26).
Longest game was 151 moves.
Shortest game was 14 moves.

Congratulations to World Tafl Federation Champion 2019, Mario Aluizo ("casshern"), Los Angeles, USA!
Many thanks to Adam Bartley for being the umpire, and to the 24 players who played in the tournament!
And many thanks to Dmitry Pashkov, Russia, for kindly offering an attractive prize for the top winner!!!

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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Hagbard » Thu Jun 25, 2020 10:28 am

Casshern wrote in the small forum Jun 25, 2020:
casshern: I have an idea for another tournament. Can we have a “Masters Tournament”, to start at the same time as the Nationals? I propose any player that either has a rating of 1600+ or has made it to any final of the WTC since 2014, which I believe is the first year that there were 2 stages/rounds. Rules would be Copenhagen. Same timing as Gàrðaríki group. Can you create a tab for “Masters Tournament” or players can register for National tournament and indicate here if there would like to join the Masters.

Players like Sqaree, Steiger, Animals, etc, who would qualify for the Masters tournament, are invited, of course, if they are willing to play in two tournaments simultaneously.

Adam, Odinhimself, and Bogd Khan are also invited of course!!! I very much enjoy playing with these fine gentlemen. And I think this would be a fine opportunity for Adam to get some extra practice before this big match!
Splendid idea.

Having a look at the ratings, 28 players through the times are rated >= 1600.
To that come 8 players, who made it to the finals since 2014.
In all 36 players.
Out of these, 21 players are active now.

I suggest, that Casshern's idea is integrated into the World Championship tourn. of this year, and thus that the format of the champ. tourn. is changed this time.

I suggest, that the World Final this year is called Ragnarok (Old Norse Ragnarök) and is played by these 36 players, and that the winner is the Hnefatafl World Champion 2020.

I also suggest, that all other players have a Round 1, and that the two winners of Round 1 also join the Ragnarok battle.
Last edited by Hagbard on Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:57 am, edited 2 times in total.

sqAree
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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by sqAree » Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:39 am

Hagbard wrote:
Thu Jun 25, 2020 10:28 am
Casshern wrote in the small forum:
06-25/02:05 casshern: I have an idea for another tournament. Can we have a “Masters Tournament”, to start at the same time as the Nationals? I propose any player that either has a rating of 1600+ or has made it to any final of the WTC since 2014, which I believe is the first year that there were 2 stages/rounds. Rules would be Copenhagen. Same timing as Gàrðaríki group. Can you create a tab for “Masters Tournament” or players can register for National tournament and indicate here if there would like to join the Masters.

Players like Sqaree, Steiger, Animals, etc, who would qualify for the Masters tournament, are invited, of course, if they are willing to play in two tournaments simultaneously.

Adam, Odinhimself, and Bogd Khan are also invited of course!!! I very much enjoy playing with these fine gentlemen. And I think this would be a fine opportunity for Adam to get some extra practice before this big match!
Splendid idea.

Having a look at the ratings, 28 players through the times are rated >= 1600.
To that come 8 players, who made it to the finals since 2014.
In all 36 players.
Out of these, 21 players are active now.

I suggest, that Casshern's idea is integrated into the World Championship tourn. of this year, and thus that the format of the champ. tourn. is changed this time.

I suggest, that the World Final this year is called Ragnarok (Old Norse Ragnarök) and is played by these 36 players, and that the winner is the Hnefatafl World Champion 2020.

I also suggest, that all other players have a Round 1, and that the two winners of Round 1 also join the Ragnarok battle.
I don't quite agree with this. 36 players who don't have to do anything to qualify for the final vs only 2 other players that even have a chance to reach the final is a severe imbalance.
That is, for a tournament like the World Championship.
It's not like Hnefatafl is popular like chess and we can allow ourselves to act elitist already. There are millions of chess players across the world but less than 50 active tafl players.
To make it more fair, I propose to use a similar format as has been used in previous editions of the World Championship.
I think it can be a nice feature to let the World Champion of the previous year be qualified for the final automatically though. It's not necessary but it's kinda a neat award. Anything more than that just doesn't feel right to me.

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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Casshern » Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:46 pm

Just to clarify, are we talking about changing the structure of the WTC, again? The 2019 structure was a good one, in my opinion. And it is essentially what we are talking about now. If I recall correctly. Last year there were 3 rounds. Round one were players with ratings below 1600. Players with rankings above 1600 automatically move one to the second round. I think this was an improvement from previous years, as many players often skip the second round if they do not advance to the final group. The only other question is weather to advance a player or players to the final group, skipping previous rounds? Ie, previous champions. This could perhaps make the second round more competitive, similar to the improvement of the first round last year.

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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Xerxes » Mon Jun 29, 2020 12:55 pm

I'm with Squaree on this. I've no objection to a separate Masters Tournament for those who wish to play one. However, the World Championship should be open to all, and while there may be some seeding of higher-ranked players into the second round there should be reasonable opportunity for lower ranked players to progress, as there was last year. That is how we develop the game and allow lower-ranked players to develop.

There are already players on this site who are reluctant to play against the less-good players - I accept that is their choice where 'casual' games are concerned, but that is not appropriate for the World Championship.

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Re: Hnefatafl Internet Championship

Post by Hagbard » Tue Jul 07, 2020 10:56 am

Suggestion for the format of World Championship tournament 2020.

Unchanged from last year:
Start Sep. 15th.
3 rounds same system as last year (when as many participants).

New this year:
The champion winner of last year, if he joins, goes directly to the Final round 3 (Hat tip: sqAree).
- This would open a space for a player more to the Final, which would get 5 players instead of last year 4 players.

World Championship not only in the Copenhagen strong king variant, but simultaneously also in the Saami Tablut historical king variant.
A player can participate in one or both of the tournaments.
The winners are (for Copenhagen) Hnefatafl World Champion = Grandmaster, and (for Tablut) Historical Hnefatafl World Champion.
- There are players who specialize so much in one tafl type (strong king versus weak, historical king), that they play only historical tafl and draw back from the strong king tournament. These players have been missed in the World Championship tournaments.
- It's been tradition ever since the first Fetlar tournament 2008, that the strong king winner will be Grandmaster.
- Since Casshern won the big Tablut Master tournament with 16 participants Oct. 2019, he could be said to be the reigning Hist. Champion and go directly to the Final here also.

Timing:
Round 1, time buffer 4 days.
Round 2, time buffer 7 days.
Round 3, time buffer 10 days.
- The 10 days time buffer was tried out in the National Tournaments (Hat tip: Ded Fomich).

In case of a tie:
1. direct comparison of the games of the tied players (for this round).
2. Sonneborn-Berger score calculated for this round.
3. The player who wins with the shortest game length, is the winner. (If a game was not played to the end, the number of moves it would take to finish the game, is added.)
in case of still a tie:
4. preliminary rounds: both players proceed. Final: new rounds between the tied winners until one player wins.

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