WOC rules

[Tom_BOA]

Hi all,

since many years, we have WOC rules. unfortunately they are not as official as everybody would like them to be.

In an attempt to make them official, I would kindly invite you to start a discussion about the things that should be changed/added/deleted in the WOC rules.

You can find the (un)official WOC rules via following link http://www.worldothellochampionships.com/wocrules_rightpanel.html

Tom Schotte
Member of the WOC Rules Committee

[Tom_BOA]

Of course the women WOC should be added to the rules. I'm still trying to find it somewhere online.

I have found a typo: in section II 5.2 'tacitly' should become 'tacticly'

Next to that: In 2006 we had a meeting and vote about the game between Roman and Chen. In this vote and discussion all countries participated. The rules are telling me only members of federation can participate.

per consequence: 1) should we adapt the rules or 2) should follow them when a similar issue occurs again?

Cheers,
Tom

[Tom_BOA]

Each country may send a team of three players and one additional woman player to play on the Women’s Team.
 
 
*
 The team championship will be decided based on the result from the team of three players (i.e. excluding the Women’s Team member).
The fourth extra player can not join the national team. It is not permitted to change the team members during the Tournament.
In any event, all changes must be made before the pairings. No changes are allowed after the pairings.
 
 
*
 All players (including the additional women players) are eligible to win the WOC.
 
 
*
 All women (additional and on the Regular team) are eligible to compete for the WWOC title.
The best two women will play a one game final match on the third day
*If a woman goes to WOC Final games, she is automatically the winner of the Women’s Trophy and their will be no need to play a Final game between her and the second woman player.
 
 
*
 All other WOC rules will apply to the Women’s Tournament.

[Roel]

What happens if two women reach the WOC final games? This is not completely clear regarding the above rules.

[Tom_BOA]

What happens if two women reach the WOC final games? This is not completely clear regarding the above rules.

I think this should be pointed out in the rules.

"When 2 woman reach the WOC final then"
a) the highest qualified woman automatically becomes women world champion
b) the highest qualified woman after the semis/finals becomes women world champion
c) if both woman play against each other the winner of that games becomes women world champion, if both women don't play against each other, the highest ranked after the semis/finals becomes women world champion
d) if both woman play against each other the winner of that games becomes women world champion, if both women don't play against each other, the highest ranked after the qualification becomes women world champion
e) there must be played a game between them to find out the women world champion
f) other option

In case c) for example, the women will need to play a best of 3 to declare the women champion instead of 1 game.

Something to think about!

[Henry Aspenryd]

Hello, a proposal for a small change in the following section

The team championship will be decided based on the result from the team of three players (i.e. excluding the Women’s Team member).
The fourth extra player can not join the national team. It is not permitted to change the team members during the Tournament.
In any event, all changes must be made before the first rounds pairing. No changes are allowed after the first rounds pairing.


Regarding the possibility of one or more women getting to the semifinals, why no just keep it simple:

If one or more women reach the semifinals there is no need for a separate Womens Final. If only one woman reach the semis she will be appointed the WWOC title. If more than one reach the semis the woman with the best outcome of the semi/finals are appointed the WWOC title.

[Henry Aspenryd]

If the Womens extra rules are to be merged with the official rules here are some places that needs to be changed

From the rules we also need to add in §1:
The World Othello Championship shall be held annually to determine the World Othello Champion, Womens World Othello Champion and the World Othello Team Champions. Every nation may present up to three contestants and one additional female player, with the exception of the hosting country (see II.2). Before the tournament, the tournament organisers may, in case of serious doubt, request a player to present his credentials as a representative of his country.


Acctually this whole section might need a total workthrough regarding the changes that contries without federation might not be allowed to send 3 players (those are the rumors i have heard).

In section 2 it reads:
There shall be sufficient officials to provide a scorer for each tournament game.
During the last WOC's there have not been at tablereferee/scorer for each table, so this text might need a change.

Section II.1 should be added with
b) To select two female players who might compete on the third day for the WWOC.

[marct]

I have found a typo: in section II 5.2 'tacitly' should become 'tacticly'

There is indeed a typo in section II 5.2.
'hallenge' should become 'challenge'.
However, 'tacitly' is exactly the right word here.

See for example : http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tacitly

I don't think there are many typos in the rules (maybe some were introduced when the text was scanned) but if you think you find some,
please let us know before correcting them!  

Thanks,
Marc Tastet.

[Uladzimir Khlebnikau]

3. Individual Final Ranking List (IFRL): At the end of the first two days of competition, the officials will draft the Individual Final List Ranking (IFLR) following the procedure set out below:

[graham]

The whole of Section V should be deleted, in my opinion.  At the time it was written, it served the purpose of establishing - at least notionally - an international "governing body" for the game, as there was no such body, and there needed to be, if only so that the rules for the WOC could have some legitimacy.  Now the WOF exists, and is the governing body, so there is no need for this passage within the WOC rules.

Another institution we can do without, surely, is the need to delay the WOC to hold a mass meeting every time there is a dispute about a decision made by the tournament referee.  A perfectly good position is (a) the Council of the WOF appoints (or at least ratifies the appointment of) the Chief Referee at the WOC, (b) regarding the conduct of the WOC, and in particular the application of penalties, the Chief Referee's decision is final. It is possible to design more elaborate systems, with a deputy referee, or an appeals committee, but I think we ought to - and do - appoint referees who are sufficiently experienced and trustworthy to deal with the small number of disputes that arise.

To be concrete, I suggest:
(a) deleting Section V,
(b) putting in (say right at the beginning): "The body responsible for these rules is the World Othello Federation".
(c) amending section I.2 to say who appoints the Chief Referee.  [Also in this section, the requirement that table judges be found for all tables is too strongly put.]  
(d) adding to VI.1 the phrase "The decision of the Chief Referee shall be final."

P.S. Marc is of course quite correct about "tacitly".

[Robin]

Did anybody else read this page written by Vladimir Khlebnikov?

http://othello.at.tut.by/erules.html

I agree with all his points.

[Uladzimir Khlebnikau]

Did anybody else read this page written by Vladimir Khlebnikov?

http://othello.at.tut.by/erules.html

I agree with all his points.

The time limit must be one.
It is possible in Othello and difficult in the other play because of vague length of the play.

"Any soldier dreams to be a general".
If Othello is a sport, that Othello must  be sport and correspond to, one olympic principle at least,  
but it is  the first! Citius!
The Football: a period is 45 minutes, in the Championship of the world or match of the regular championship of the Alaska:)
Why in Othello  time limits are: 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 minutes. These are different games!
Preliminary starts on 100 metres, final start - 200 metres.
Have defined  the most strong runner? and at what distance?

Possible World Othello champion with time limit 40 minutes remained in Mito on 5 swiss places!
Congratulate! Joel Fransson Johnsson!
Possible - Wu Shuk Man Katie - She had 9 points too! and She could be a most beautiful champion!

About time limits and timeses in russian http://othello.at.tut.by/time.html

What is a ideal time limit?
The mankind was defined a periodicity of the human activity already long ago!
45 minutes. In Othelo it is 20+20+2+2. And we must love our History!http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=890885&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=18801316766&aid=-1&id=630266015&oid=18801316766

This time limit allows to forbid to abandon the chair during play and
player will have a possibility to check an opponent.
This will allow to avoid  scandals like in chess in accordance with computers.

Short.
C will be set equal to 10 always (7-9-11-13 rounds).
The first swiss must choose opponent from rest three semifinalists.
and many others...
If you want long that I can:)

[Henry Aspenryd]

Interesting thoughts about the time Vladimir, especially the relation to the 45 min of activity that most modern teaching schedules are built up around. But, the 2 extra minutes are not supposed to be played at all and in most live games atleast one of the players have a few minutes left on the timer so I think 25+25 would be closer to the magical 45 minutes. I guess that is also the reason that we have 25 minutes in most of our serious Othello competitions around the world. Personally I have never understood why the finals should have an extra 5 minutes per player, in most tournaments today there are games during the swiss part that is equally important to a semifinal game or in some cases even a final game (i.e. in the last round of the swiss the highest ranked othello player has the possibility to enter the semi's with a win but not a loss).

There are however administrative points to different lengths of a game 5 minutes per player doesn't sound much but going from 20 to 25 per player changes the total time played with 2 * 5 * 7 or 8 (depending of number of rounds that day) = 70 - 80 minutes more per day. If the sole purpose is to give the players as much thinking time as possible within reasonable limits I can understand the point of giving more time to the semi/final games. I myself am a very fast player so I could probably do with just 15 minutes

C will be set equal to 10 always (7-9-11-13 rounds).

Please explain this, I read your thoughts about the constant on your homepage.
http://othello.at.tut.by/ec.html
I am no mathematician, but I know that Brightwell is a very good one so I would like to hear the thoughts from both of you on this point.
Even though I am no mathematician I am very curious and I have played alot with this constant to see how it affects the outcome of tournaments. Changing it from 5 (13 rounds) to 9 (7rounds) doesnt give that much effect, but the thought that in tournaments with lesser number of rounds it is more important with how though the opposition is compared to tournaments with a larger number of rounds sounds fair to me.

[Uladzimir Khlebnikau]

C will be set equal to 10 always (7-9-11-13 rounds).

"A butter will not spoil a porridge" /Russian proverb/

The constant C must be a constant, otherwise system MBQ is intrinsically inconsistent.
Look the site there simple arithmetic.
So.
The constant C=10 corresponds to the traditional requirements to tournament 5-7 rounds.
For long tournament 9-11-13 rounds - "A butter will not spoil a porridge"!
Agree that Strength-of-Opposition is more important forming MBQ, than disc-count.
The swiss tournament is one, but each has own tournament!
If player has played in weak tournament though he has won much parties with count 64-0, it is difficult to give him advantage. He was amongst weak players so he is weak.
The disc-count is leveling the Strength-of-Oppositions  of players, who played in approximately equal tournaments.
In this case the difference between  Strength-of-Oppositions  of players is result  random processes, rather then a weaknesses of someone.
In mathematician in such events they speak about a standard deviation.
For disk-count: ~10*R
For Strength-of-Opposition : ~1*R
Divide 10*R/1*R =10. So C=10.
(here somebody do not take the characteristic of swisssystem to justify  failures and success. In total result is C=64/R) .

Find MBQ with C=6 and C=10: SOS=96; TD=486.
Easier with S=10! 960+486=1446.

[Uladzimir Khlebnikau]

P.S.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/British_Othello/message/2431
Papp BQ Calculation discrepancy.
So,
No problems with C=10
We live in a decimal world!