I would like to see tournaments at every 200 elo points (eg u2000, u1800, u1600, etc.) instead of the current u1500/1700/2000.
At the time of this writing the 3 "official" tournaments at these levels have 130/225/303 players signed up each, suggesting plenty of room for more tournaments that people would find much more competitive (and therefore more fun). I think this would be especially true at the lower levels (eg, u1000), where the standard tournament experience at present must be most unpleasant, i.e. getting quickly dominated in 90+% of tournament games).
I think that most tournaments could run fairly well with as few as 30 players signed up, even with a good chunk of players going absent for much or all of the tournament, which might even allow for tournaments at every 100 elo, at least around the middle of the elo bell curve.
This might also cut down on sandbagging (and accusations of sandbagging), as the 1705 rated player could get a decent win rate via an u1800 tournament, but not a u2000 tournament, and would have less incentive to cheat by sandbagging down to below a 1700 level with a u1700 tournament in either scenario.
Related, psychology suggests that most people lose interest in competing when they cant win 1/3rd or more of the time, which seems quite likely in many cases in the current setup. I think this change would be quite good for the attraction and retention of a wide range of online players everywhere if adopted.
At the time of this writing the 3 "official" tournaments at these levels have 130/225/303 players signed up each, suggesting plenty of room for more tournaments that people would find much more competitive (and therefore more fun). I think this would be especially true at the lower levels (eg, u1000), where the standard tournament experience at present must be most unpleasant, i.e. getting quickly dominated in 90+% of tournament games).
I think that most tournaments could run fairly well with as few as 30 players signed up, even with a good chunk of players going absent for much or all of the tournament, which might even allow for tournaments at every 100 elo, at least around the middle of the elo bell curve.
This might also cut down on sandbagging (and accusations of sandbagging), as the 1705 rated player could get a decent win rate via an u1800 tournament, but not a u2000 tournament, and would have less incentive to cheat by sandbagging down to below a 1700 level with a u1700 tournament in either scenario.
Related, psychology suggests that most people lose interest in competing when they cant win 1/3rd or more of the time, which seems quite likely in many cases in the current setup. I think this change would be quite good for the attraction and retention of a wide range of online players everywhere if adopted.