One idea, directed at our typical build-up of arms after sections have been created: How about limiting the section rating caps to that of the highest (upon creation of sections) ranking team + max. 10 points?

Example:

Lowest Fischer team: av. 2080
Highest Spassky team: av. 1995
Here I suggest a rating cap for the Spassky section of 2005, instead of 2079,75 as per the current rule. That will still allow all teams to make necessary changes, without starting the typical armament of one captain pushing the average to e. g. 2070 and other captains trying to keep up.

I'm not blaming anyone, of course. I took part in this as well.

Note: This is basically about the non-Fischer sections. The Fischer section rating cap is a difficult topic and is being discussed here.

And sorry for posting just a few hours after the team submission deadline; not the best timing, I know.

Personally I don't really see there being much of a problem of using top team's rating in a section as limit or even using average of top team in section and bottom team of section above.

It would also help prevent anomaly where bottom team in a section has to replace a player due to a clash and ends up below the rating limit for section below

To me most important thing is to have it so that teams are quite well balanced and all at a similar rating range so no one is completely outgunned. Bigger teams with access to more players can in theory rejuggle entire team to hit rating cap while smaller teams have to rely more on luck that they'll be top one in group as opposed to bottom one.

Nice idea! I do support this approach: a section cap (threshold value) to be calculated as average of top team in the section and bottom team of the section above. This will help to quell an arms race while still providing enough flexibility to captains for teams' tuning :)

This would mostly apply in Spassky, and to be honest I was debating with myself whether to just go ahead and do this for the current tourney. I decided that this was a bit too arbitrary, but assuming people don't raise objections I'm going to make it policy for forthcoming tourneys.

Also, since for some reason I can't reply to KRMCHESS's post, I'll just note that I followed his suggestion re: 6-team sections this time, though partly that was to avoid player clashes and the situation with two equally rated teams.

I'll note that this isn't intended to say whether proposal is good or bad but just explaining my reasoning when I make changes that spark an arms race :P

First of all here are teams I have that are affected

Mysterious Rook Moves - 1759.75 in a 1939 Section (1903.25 is top team)
Mysterious Pawn Moves - 1593.25 in a 1759.5 Section (1731.25 is top team)

In Mysterious Rook Moves my top board LNO is also in Singularity so needs to be taken out
In Mysterious Pawn Moves my 2nd board Hathkhola is also in TrickyMove so needs to be taken out

Logical thing is to swap them and I get

Mysterious Rook Moves - 1704.25 in a 1939 Section (1903.25 is top team)
Mysterious Pawn Moves - 1647 in a 1759.5 Section (1731.25 is top team)

So at this point I think Mysterious Rook Moves is now so low rated it would be the 4th highest rated team in section below while Mysterious Pawn Moves is still 100 points off the pace so as both teams will struggle I might as well make a few more changes and make Mysterious Pawn Moves competitive so at least one team does well so now I swap top two boards round and add board 3 as a sub to get following

Mysterious Rook Moves - 1657.50 in a 1939 Section (1903.25 is top team)
Mysterious Pawn Moves - 1738.75 in a 1759.5 Section (1731.25 is top team)

At this point I think Mysterious Pawn Moves is great but Mysterious Rook Moves will struggle. Fortunately in my Fischer and Spassky teams I have a few players that offered to play as a sub that considering in a 6 round format in Fischer and Spassky will mean 2 byes means I can give them a game every round. I check figures and notice team is so underrated I can fit in a player rated up to 2784 on top board or 1210 extra rating points so I add board 1 in Fischer and then have 400 points left over so can add a player from Spassky. They're not likely to play more than a few games but terrorise rest of captains and just like nukes that no one will use means others will want them but leads to following

Mysterious Rook Moves - 1904 in a 1939 Section (1903.25 is top team)
Mysterious Pawn Moves - 1738.75 in a 1759.5 Section (1731.25 is top team)

Overall I would say I welcome change since it should give more evenly matched teams

I think pchesso's suggestion is a good one.

Kudos to pchesso for bringing up this topic, and I like KRM's idea (average of top team in section and bottom team of section above) best.

Thanks all for your input.

average of top team in section and bottom team of section above

KRMCHESS, Prezandy, and kurumim, could you please elaborate? The top team is already at an advantage for being made the top team, and now you want to give it yet another advantage making it closest to the newly assigned rating cap, easing addition of a player? Btw. this won't end the arms race, just tune it down a little bit.

I favour the rating cap be set to the top team's average. That should stop the arms race most efficiently.

To me it's not about an arms race at all, it's about having options and a minimum of flexibility. There's always something unexpected happening over two months (we may have someone back, or someone suddenly needs a break and a new player is needed etc.) and I wouldn't like to be unable to give a spot to a player simply because I have zero rating margin to add him/her. I think KRM's proposal tones the so-called arms race down considerably while providing some flexibility.

I also think averages are being overrated here. Numbers don't win games and it's not like the top seed wins every time and in every section. Besides, if you set the cap to the top team's average, you pretty much fix the section, whereas with some rating margin another team can become the top seed during the competition, but not by a big difference if we follow KRM's proposal.

In short, pchesso, it was a great insight of yours to question the current method to set caps and propose a new one, but, given the desirable flexibility for a long tourney, I consider KRM's idea an improvement.

As an aside I think making section limit higher than top team is actually a disadvantage to top team as it makes it theoretically easier to overtake them.

As far as I'm concerned I like groups to have quite tight rating limits. My personal preference for Spassky is to make it an U2000 section with anything higher in Fischer that eliminates biggest gap.

Nowadays it almost feels like I'm entering teams twice. First time round when I get teams assigned and then second time round when I have to adjust for section limits to make them competitive and remove clashes.

Personally I'm closer to pchesso's top team is limit than my own suggestion of average bottom of section above and top of section since it doesn't work well with very large gaps like between Fischer and Spassky. I'll note other ideas can be top of section + 5/10/20 etc

I'll also note that in current system that in Fischer Section bottom 2 teams in terms of rating could theoretically qualify for Spassky by merely dropping their 4th highest rated player from lineup that would mean they could be playing against a team that had a 1939 rating. You then get question that if that team was entered before TL sections are up it would end up in Fischer but if on the other hand a placeholder team is entered in Spassky section and captain gambles that adding his/her players will get right up to Spassky max limit it could give a competitive edge to those thus inclined. This means that in current system optimal way to enter teams is to deliberately weaken them before sections are put up and then once in groups if a team is top of the section it's OK and if it isn't then you parachute spare players in reserve to get them to top of section.