With 25 teams, 5-5-5-5-5 is a scheme that quickly comes to mind, but I don't fancy it at all for two basic reasons:

- 5-team sections are the least attractive as they generate fewer games and no playoffs;
- there would actually be bigger gaps in Spassky and Alekhine. Furthermore, Lcalcino told me last week that Inca_Arequepay would be glad to play in Fischer this time. They won back-to-back titles in Spassky (T79-80), have a 2099 average and their board 1 is over 2300, so the challenge makes sense for them.

Therefore, I'd suggest 6-6-7-6:

- Fischer: almost a 2100+ section;
- Spassky: all teams in the 1900s;
- Kasparov: ranging from high 1800s to high 1700s;
- Alekhine: from mid 1700s to mid 1600s.

Only inconvenience is that the 7-team section lasts two weeks more, but, in case sbc wants to make all playoffs happen in round 8, there could be byes for Fischer, Spassky and Alekhine in rounds 4 and 7 (just a suggestion).

Wishing everybody a healthy and happy 2021 packed with good chess!
Best,
Beto.

Yes, the double bye would be the solution in this case.

As usual, I'll make a final decision at around 0:00 on Friday. Meanwhile, please everyone use this thread to suggest/lobby about sections.

I got to know that Wolves do not play this season. It's a pity.

But can we anyway expect some late entries? Maybe this info can help.

Considering the present teams list, I would favor 6-6-6-7 arrangement (lowest section consisting of 7 teams seems to be reasonable rating-wise).

6-6-6-7 would result in a clash between TheRangers_Mavericks and TheRangers_Rebels, with OldFlyer being on both teams. Also, given that the difference between them is higher than 100 points, I assume they were intended to be separate.

As PreZandy said, it's a pity the Wolves are not playing as they've been in every season since T61, plus they would make it 7 in Spassky.

A 6-team Fischer Section sounds fantastic. I have not checked player clashes, but if there are none I would go for 6-6-7-6 most likely.

Best regards and good chess to all
schachbjm

no problems with a two week pause after the last section in some cases. usually that has not been a problem and would allow to compensate for negotiation problems due to time in every round.

with 7 teams the lower section would stretch too much rating wise especially if you look at how much rating difference would be on the first two boards. maybe for future TL seasons we could come up with an idea that balances or regulates rating allowed in a section. having a section with a rating average around 1700 and a board one player with 2100+ rating seems not like a good idea to me.

I disagree with rating caps for certain boards. If a team with a 1700 average rating has a 2100+ on board 1, the other boards must be 100-150 points lower rated than corresponding boards of rival teams. So, in fact having an unbalanced team is a disadvantage (just look which teams make it for the playoffs usually). Furthermore, it is a great chance for lower rated players to face more exoerienced/stronger players (best way of learning). Personally, I enjoy games against 2600 GMs most, even though I am having a very hard time even fighting for a draw.

while I agree with the challenging aspect of playing against a higher rated player, I have to say: the lower the rating the more the gap seems to be an inconquerable obstacle and the more frustrating is the outcome.

a 1400 player is usually not even a trainings partner for a 1800+ player, same goes for 1300 and 1700+. if you call that still learning then in my eyes something's wrong with your conception of learning.

Well as far as sections go I think most people can agree that Fischer and Spassky Section would both have 6 teams so real issue is whether 6-6-7-6 or 6-6-6-7 is better.

Looking at bottom 13 teams if it's in terms of rating I get:

1892.5
1892
1881.5
1872.75
1813.5
1811.25
1774.25 - TheRangers_Mavericks (Middle Team)
1743.75
1723
1676.5
1666.75 - TheRangers_Rebels
1666.75
1643.25

The 7-6 variant gives gaps of 118.25 and 101 (Total 219.25).
The 6-7 variant gives gaps of 81.25 and 131.50 (Total 212.75).

However the most important aspect is the OldFlyer is in the TheRangers_Rebels and TheRangers_Mavericks so to avoid a clash I think 6-6-7-6 is only way to go.

As far as rating limits on an individual board goes this would add a lot of constraints to teams and thus would inevitably lower team entries. For example in this TL season it looks like lowest rated player will be 1021 and in a section with a max average limit of 1743.75 minimum. Assuming a 1750 average section it means total rating of the team would be 7000 points so if you want to max rating caps then boards 1 to 3 needs to be ~2000 each. Other problem is that when recruiting new players we'll end up in a situation where if you have a team then the players you can recruit are limited as high rated players are not permitted and low rated players get you too far below section cap. I think captains already struggle to find players and having a 200 point range to recruit in will make it even harder. I'll also add that having a high rated player on board 1 is often used to avoid clashes between teams.

EDIT: Having seen Turamon's reply that wasn't there when I wrote my post I would actually say that a 1400 player can learn a lot from playing a 1800 opponent. Key is to analyse the game afterwards and see where you went wrong. If opponent is kind enough to give their opinions then it's possible to learn even more. Also results are never 100% certain as I remember I drew with a GM when I was rated 1400 in a blitz tournament when I offered a draw when a piece up in mutual time trouble

Just letting people know that there's a whisper about getting a late-joining team that would probably push us into a 6-7-7-6 section structure. I'll delay setting up sections until around Friday 20:00 to try to accommodate this.

Happy New Chess Year, everyone! Looking forward to T81. Thanks for the message, kurumim. Good handling of the sections underway here, I have nothing to add. Would love to see sections and all rounds team pairings soon, to see all BYE rounds.

So we got our late-joiner, pushing us into a 6-7-7-6 structure.

I also made a slight tweak to how section caps are done, after a suggestion from kurumim. They are now set at 20 points above the highest team in the section, or whatever is just lower than the lowest team in the above section. I had a look back at an old discussion about this topic, and it seemed that in general there was support for something along these lines: http://teamleague.org/board.php?page=board&action=topicshow&forumid=2&forum=Proposals&topic=Non-Fischer+section+rating+caps&topicid=1549

Pairings will be coming soon. Thanks all for their contributions to the discussion.

I think the section cap change does make sense and Spassky Section looks a lot better because of it. Considering top team is 1999.75 having a section cap of 2098.75 would have meant a team could hypothetically add a late entry and out rate every other team by 100 points on every board.

I'll also add that section splits look good to me!

Hi all,

thank you smallblackcat for the format, all seems good. The only disadvantage seems to occur in the Fischer section where the average ELO difference between the first and the last seeded team is slightly above 150 ratings points.

Lets have an interesting TL season!

@marjohn: Historically the gap within Fischer section has been 200-300 points, so the current difference is actually a gain. Even in last season (T80) the bottom team was at 2021 (yet agreeing to play there), now it's almost a 2100+ section (as in only a few occasions). From T77 to T79 we sticked to 4 teams in Fischer exactly because it's so difficult to gather 6-7 teams in that range.

By the way, last time we had any 7-team section was in T76. And all sections look as balanced as they could be, which is awesome!

Hi kurumim,

wow ! I havent noticed that.