first, i have to say, this is a really amazing site. i visit it obsessively hoping that i have a few moves to make. thank you for a lot of fun.
is it possible (or could it be possible) to have private tournaments on LittleGolem? i am starting a go club in my area and want to have an internet component to it for rating tournaments (and maybe even regular tourneys). this site would be great for a club. it avoids the hassle of meeting at the other go servers at a particular time and sitting at the computer for hours. could someone who wants to set up a private tournament request a rating tournament with a particular set of people?
One of the nice things about this site is that someone would have to go to a fair bit of work to manipulate the rating system. Rated private tournaments would make that much easier. Private unrated tournaments might be nice, however.
proper safeguards against counterfeiting an entire private tournament to boost ones rating would not be difficult to establish. besides playing a few games against players with "real" ratings should let the air out of a falsely inflated rating fairly quickly.
rather than worrying about how a few lame people might falsely inflate their ratings, could we discuss the ways this might work? this site is so well done that it might even be a source of revenue to host tournaments for clubs.
Why would you want pivate rated tournaments? I see no need for that. I understand the need for holding private tournaments. Club tournament should either be unrated or they shouldhave their own rating system.
Look at how the Go Guild work. What you need is an organizer to set up the tournament and keep track of the scores. The rest is here already.
i was only thinking about rated tournaments because i am not familiar with the particulars of how the rating math works, so having it automatically calculated by the site would be cool. plus, having your performance and progress in the private tournaments reflected in your rating here for non-private tournaments and games would be nice. but calculating and tracking the rating by hand wouldn't be a big deal.
this site works so elegantly and is such a great alternative to playing on the "live" go servers. working out a way for go clubs around the world to have on-going tournaments for their members, or between different go clubs would be a lot of fun. go clubs in europe or asia could compete against go clubs in north or south america who would normally not have a chance to meet without expensive travelling or staying up to the wee hours to play on a live go server at the same time. i have been so amazed at the international diversity of the players on this site. this is a really unique way to play go (and other games) with such enormous potential.
It think it would be fun. On the other hand, some of us might have second thoughts about playing to give our particular countires gloating rights vis a vis another country. For instance, I don't much want to represent the USA vs. France, Germany, or Czech Republic at the moment.
yeah, i am not much interested in representing the US right now either. maybe we'll have a president and a foreign policy to be proud of again some day...
i was thinking more in terms of go club from city X versus go club from city Y. to play in the real world means travelling, or sitting on a go server for hours. the turn-based method of playing is so much more flexible of your time, and geography becomes irrelevant. so a club in california could play a tournament against a club in romania. the intercountry competition idea is a great idea too.
Little Golem