OFB-9

So, dear friends, our wonderful tournament has come to an end. I congratulate everyone who managed to qualify for the final stage of the competition, which is scheduled to start next week. I would also like to express my great gratitude to Evil Romantic for his help in organizing the tournament, as he was the main assistant when it was necessary to "motivate" a participant ;) . rebellious, who, despite withdrawing, always provided timely, or rather, immediate updates and maintained the castle table. Regarding this innovation, that you can play with a castle no more than 2 times, I would like to hear whether you liked it or not. Dirty, I also thank you for evaluating the saves. Thanks to these people, the tournament went very smoothly, and there were no delays, although the circumstances were different. Further, there will be no more formalities, but I really want to express my opinion on this tournament. It is pointless to calculate reduced coefficients or anything else when your opponent has withdrawn; you will still lose in comparisons (as a rule). I mean that in our tournament, there were more than 25 withdrawals, and it is understandable that I will not participate, and the players have lost motivation, but these decisions affected the outcome of the tournament as a whole, the coefficients, and the pairs of participants. Imposing sanctions on people is probably stupid, but it would be nice to reconsider this situation. A tournament using the Swiss system is certainly interesting, but there is always room for luck, and stronger players may be left out. In my opinion, in the future, it would be optimal to reconsider the selection process for the Final Battle and allow the winners or prize-winners to participate, or introduce some kind of special tournament rating (like in tennis), and people would qualify based on points at the end of the season. Maybe then the list of finalists will be more formidable. And make the Final Battle a regular tournament using the Swiss system. But this is already a discussion about our future. For now, we have what we have. I wish all participants of the Final Battle victories and excellent matches!