Through the Years: Long Correspondence

g-g-g-g-g-g-Go · August 17, 2021, 9:58am

Which reminds me! I have now closed the poll on what “most” means and the results are in!

“most” means an overwhelming majority - 63%
“most” means more than half - 54%

Which means that:
Most people (more than half of people but not an overwhelming majority of people) felt that “most people” means more than half of people.

Most people (more than half of people but not an overwhelming majority of people) felt that “most people” means an overwhelming majority of people.

Whilst neither meaning of “most people” was favoured by most people (an overwhelming majority of people rather than merely more than half of people), most people (more people selected that meaning of “most people” than selected the other meaning of “most people”) felt that “most people” means an overwhelming majority of people (though most people (more than half of people but not an overwhelming majority of people) still feel that “most people” can mean more than half of people).

If you accept the winning definition, that “most people” means an overwhelming majority of people, then you cannot say that most people think that “most people” means an overwhelming majority of people.
If you don’t, you can.

Which means I think most people agree with my opponents, but my opponents disagree.

I hope that clarifies things.

KAOSkonfused · August 17, 2021, 4:32pm

I’m a bit like you, so you have my full sympathy.
And, I mean, the whole tournament was intended to proceed very, very slowly. So I don’t think there’s a problem with players who stay within the timeframe (including vacation and even pausing), but only with players who pause and then never return, so that their games never end.

Lys · August 20, 2021, 2:01pm

13 days later…

431 games left, 477 players involved
37 games completed
3 players disqualified
36 players completed all their games, two of them with 9 wins
5 groups completed all their games

Lys · August 30, 2021, 8:51am

Ten days later…

414 games left, 461 players involved
17 games completed
5 players disqualified, one resigned
16 players completed all their games, two of them with 9 wins
one group completed all its games

Lys · September 6, 2021, 8:02am

401games left, 446 players involved
13 games completed
one player resigned
15 players completed all their games, one of them with 9 wins
4 groups completed all their games

Fun facts:

there are still just two players that didn’t complete any game
they’re both supporters and not using vacation at this moment
those players are in same group
the match between them is on move 37

Did we just find the last game to end in this round?

I wonder if there are other games with less moves than that.

Editing this post, since it’s third in a row and I can’t post more than that.

About pace…

There are 297 players with just one game left.
I’d assume with a grain of salt that they are waiting for their opponents to make their move.

But we can’t simply say that all other players are dragging, because we have some group with more than one slow player, which implies that their opponents have more than one game left. So someone’s waiting for more than one slow opponent to move…

For instance, this case is clear: just one slow player in the group. All other games are finished. Six players with just one game left, one with 6.

Here we have two slow players. Most of their opponents have 2 games left.

Here is a group with three slow players. Their opponents may have up to three games left.

I didn’t notice groups with more than three slow players, so I decided to count players with 4 or more games left: there are 50 of them. We might call them slow with a reason.

12 players among those 50 are disqualified, but they just have up to 6 games left.
All players with 7, 8 or 9 games left aren’t disqualified nor did resign from tournament. There are 13 of them.
We could call it the round table of slow players.

Do you wonder what their names are?

KAOSkonfused · September 6, 2021, 11:26am

It would be interesting to know and to see how they are doing from time to time.
I just hope nobody would harass them for playing slowly.

Btw, I already know one of these 13 players.

mrand · September 9, 2021, 1:21pm

You’re in good company And I’ve been a big fan of King Arthur since I was little, so I have no problem at all with the round table!

KAOSkonfused · September 9, 2021, 1:28pm

Oh, I didn’t refer to myself.

(I’m so glad not to be one of the slowest players for a change, but pssst.)

peteg · September 11, 2021, 2:36pm

Thinking about this tournament, perhaps we can discuss a new tournament style time control, similar to Fischer time, but instead of having fixed time increments, you earn additional time based on how many remaining games there are left. So say you start with 30 days , and you earn 10 minutes * number of games left (plus some minimum say 1 day) for turn based tournaments. Easy to do on web based tournaments, but would require clocks for in person tournaments to be networked together.

Groin · September 11, 2021, 2:57pm

Interesting idea. I just guess still have to produce the tools which are not yet included in OGS.

But to reduce the time left according to how many games are left could benefit everyone (with a clear rule defined from the start)

omote · September 11, 2021, 9:42pm

Did we just find the last game to end in this round?

Was not the length of the games supposed to let room for more social interaction, knowing better each other etc? Looking at the “conversation” box along this game, seems that we have also found maybe the most silent one.

Lys · September 13, 2021, 7:57am

389 games left, 434 players involved
12 games completed
3 players disqualified, 3 players resigned
12 players completed all their games, two of them with 9 wins
1 group completed all its games

Lys · September 20, 2021, 1:11pm

380 games left, 428 players involved
9 games completed
2 players disqualified
6 players completed all their games, one of them with 9 wins

trohde · September 21, 2021, 1:52am

I’m fine with that always knew I was one of very few

Pi_Delport · September 25, 2021, 9:33am

Slow player checking in.

As someone with a life makes it difficult for me to keep up with even “normal” correspondence games, I really appreciate the idea of this tournament. (Even with this tournament, I’ve almost timed out: I saved one game with just 4 hours to spare!)

Lys · September 27, 2021, 9:03am

371 games left, 420 players involved
9 games completed
1 player disqualified
8 players completed all their games, one of them with 9 wins
3 groups completed all their games

Lys · October 4, 2021, 5:28pm

360 games left, 409 players involved
11 games completed
11 players completed all their games
2 groups completed all their games

peteg · October 5, 2021, 9:13pm

and only one player with no games completed

peteg · October 5, 2021, 9:42pm

121 still not certain to have a winning or loosing record
with 57 currently equal wins and losses, 45 with a current winning record, and 19 with a loosing record. So getting harder to find underdogs to cheer for

yebellz · October 6, 2021, 7:53pm

A discussion in another thread reminded me of this quote, but I felt that it fit the passage of time theme in this thread better

A billion hours ago, human life appeared on earth. A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged. A billion seconds ago, the Beatles changed music. A billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning.

—Robert Goizueta, chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company, April 1997

Note: nowadays a billion Cokes are made/sold/consumed in a fraction of day, so one might just say “this morning” instead. Also, the Beatles reference would need to be updated.