Illegal League Strategy?

Well it finally happened. Someone is making good use of this strategy.

I was told that "technically" playing simuls is against the rules (even though chess.com fails to mention it in the rules).

One reason to make a rule against simuls is that only premium members can play multiple games at once... one reason to not put it in their rules is they have no idea how to stop people from doing it.

This guy is currently #1 on the crystal leaderboard
@marks1420

I checked his last 20 games. He played 20 games of rapid in a little over 1 hour... so it's roughly at the pace of 2|0 games, except rapid gives 5x as many trophies.

There is a lot to be desired about the rules for leagues. One that bothers me is that it actively discourages improvement (if you play your 10|0 games like bullet games, then I don't think clock management could be considered sandbagging, and now instead of winning ~50% of your games in 20 mins, you are winning ~50% of your games in say 5 mins as your rating stabilizes at a lower rating). Even ignoring things like that, there is no benefit at all to improving seeing as the only goal is to play often, and playing often is easier when you are expending little energy on your games.

To your point-- is playing simuls actually against the rules of the leagues or is it just frowned upon? 

I asked a mod.

The mod told me they asked a staff member who said it's not allowed.

But it's not in the rules and people have been doing it for a few weeks so...

I agree.

I mean... I don't really care about that.

Maybe I'm too old to know what "leagues" implies. Maybe most people see it as a ranking system (like in most games) so it annoys them that leagues on chess.com is not a representation of skill.

How do you quote two at the same time…..

Copy and paste.

i think it usually is just a system to keep us playing for long 

Leagues are absolutely not a representation of skill, it's a representation of how much of a mindless automaton you can be. And yes, it's just a system to get people to play a lot. Marketing studies in games like Fortnite have shown that the more people play, the more they are likely to buy extras. If you play a lot, you're more likely to wonder what your accuracy was for all of those games or you're more likely to get sick of ads or something. The prize fund is $50,000. A diamond membership is $100. That means if they get 500 extra people to buy diamond, it's paid for (it's actually much fewer since prizes are a business expense for tax purposes).

They don't want it to be about skill. If it were about skill, not everyone would be incentivized to play a lot. They want  you grinding like a robot so that you'll eventually break down and buy something. The league rating is just a false rating designed to keep you hooked and spending. That's all.

Yeah, that seems to be a common complaint, but I don't really mind. I had fun playing for a few weeks. Now I'm not playing again. No harm and a little fun as far as my experience went.

His rating dropped 500 also... These trophy things are pure grind. Sadly kinda lame.

Llama - the system has been called "manufactured discontent." They create a system that when you play it, you become unhappy and annoyed about certain aspects of it, and the only way to fix it is to spend money. I'm playing! It's great! But jeez I'm annoyed that I can't check my accuracy that game. Jeez I'm annoyed by all of these ads. Jeez I'm annoyed that I keep losing to the London System. Aww man! That girl has a palm tree next to her name and I don't! That little cartoon guys says he can fix my game. Jeez I'm annoyed that I can't fix my game. Well crap, I'll spend some money. Phew.

I'm just waiting for the day when they start selling emotes that you can flash before and after the game. Chess is a bit lucky because such things would be more frowned upon because of a tradition of seriousness, but don't think that there aren't people in the marketing department trying to figure out more things that you can buy. But the minute they sell an emote of some dude flexing his muscles after the game, I'm outta here.

Maybe you were playing in "live" instead of "play"? Or maybe you're unsure of how they work?

https://www.chess.com/news/view/chesscom-releases-leagues

When I last tried a few weeks ago, it didn't work anymore. I'll have to try again later and see if it does  

You absolutely do not have to win most of them. Winning is pretty much a myth. The rating system ensures that unless you're at the very very top or the very very bottom, your rating will always hover around 50%. If you win games, your rating goes up, you play harder opponents, you lose. Look up the win percentages of all of your friends and you'll see that unless they are a super GM or a complete novice, it'll be right around 50%.

Maybe you were playing in "live" instead of "play"? I read your link Thank you for it. Is there any difference between playing in arena tournaments or just playing games? I always take part in arena tournaments, but I'm in a stone league. I think maybe it's because my league began in January. I saw some people began playing in December. It means that who is in a stone league now won't get anything in any case?

You don't. You can actually resign or lose a ton so you can win the other games easier and quicker. Lots of scummy type things that can be done.

i have problems with this, also. i wonder if you have to quote, then copy/paste, and if there is a different post you need to do the same thing. that would require two open windows of cc.

I'm on windows 10 chrome.

I click the quote button.

I click anywhere in the message box.

While holding in the control button I press a, x, then v.

I delete the parts of the quote I don't want and then type a response.

I press control + v

I delete the parts of the quote I don't want and then type a response.

I press control + v

etc.

Opening a quote multiple times in multiple tabs and copy - pasting from there would also work.

I don't care about them making money. My two main complaints are:

1) The rules are inconsistent. They adjusted trophies by time control but they failed to do the same for arena (bullet arena earns more trophies than other arenas).

2) My 2nd hand information is that simuls are not allowed, yet this is not in the rules and people are doing it.

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I also have doubts in their ability to prevent certain types of rule breaking / bending, but I guess this kind of competition is never perfect.