Some of you may remember that I ran a series of tournaments under the title 'Tour de Little Golem' a couple of (or rather several) years ago. There was one tournament per month, every month a new game and points were collected across all of them. I want to repeat something similar now.

Here are the rules as I envision them atm. Details may change, but the big picture will remain the same:

1. A new stage starts every 2 weeks as a User Tournament
2. Each stage will be run in a game (variant) that hasn't been used so far
3. All players participating in any of the stages will automatically take part in the Tour. (No extra sign-up required.)
4. Players can participate in as many or as few stages as they want.
5. For each point won in a tournament the players get one point for the Tour. (If there are multiple rounds, all count. Scaled fractional points will be used for games like StreetSoccer.)
6. Additionally each player gets 5 points for participation in a stage.
7. The standings will be published somewhere, probably on a google sheet

The participation points mean you have a chance to compete just by participating in many rounds, even if you are not one of those highly gifted people with 2000+ ranking in multiple games. It also encourages trying out games you haven't played before.

About picking the games: Any game based on language is out. I'll try to come up with a good mixture across all the others. If this Tour should turn out to be a success, all games will be covered at some point. I'm not yet sure about how to deal with variants. Obviously not all variants will be used. But maybe we'll use more than one variant if a game is popular and has a history of using those variants (like go 19x19 and go 9x9) or when variants are popular and are really different (maybe Einstein Backwards capture?). I'm happy to listen to everyones opinion about this. But there is no rush, plenty of games to pick from even without using different variants.

For the start I am thinking to be at least partly guided by championship popularity. Currently my plan is this:

Stage 1: Go 19x19
Stage 2: Street Soccer
Stage 3: Connect6

Advertising: I'm considering to send invitation messages to people active in the ladder for games in upcoming stages. Also, feel free to talk you favourite opponents into this.

First stage is open for registration: https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1256

Hey, cool idea! I'll consider it… but I think I'm already in too many tournaments! (I also play WeiQi on OGS)
…
In any event, good luck and have fun!

Note that you don't have to commit to all stages. You can participate in as many or as few as you wish.

I remember the last one. Thanks for starting up the Tour again :)

I have opened the sign-up for stage 2 (StreetSoccer): https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1257

Sign-up for stage 1 (Go 19x19) is also still open (will start in 2 weeks): https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1256 We have 13 players there so far.

Here' a first draft for the order of stages. If Richard adds any new games, they'd be added at the end. The method I used was a mixture of intuition, trying to avoid too similar games very close to each others and trying to strat with more popular games. If anyone has suggestion about changing the order, adding or removing games, post them here.

Go 19x19
StreetSoccer
Connect6
Amazons
Chess
Hex 13
Reversi
EinStein würfelt nicht!
Breakthrough
Havannah
Lines of Action
XiangQi - Chinese Chess
Gomoku
DVONN
International Draughts
WYPS numeric
Polyomino
Go torodial
Twixt PP
Catchup
Shogi - Japanese chess
Oceans 11
TZAAR
Dots and Boxes (6x6)
Slither
LYNGK
Chess 960
Four in row
Tumbleweed
Dameo
ConHex
Morelli
Go9
QYPS

If I didn't miscount, that's 34 stages.

If I sign up fot Streetsoccer, how many games will I play appeoximatly? And how long would the tournament take?

I don't know the exact algorithm for setting up user tournament groups. But it seems likely that it will be 2 rounds. So you'll most likely get between 5 and 9 games in the first round all simultaneously. If you qualify for the next round (1st and 2nd place ???) you will get additional games in the same order of magnitude. I don't know at which threshold it will become a three round thing, but I doubt we'll get that many players. Duration is hard to estimate, depends on your playing speed and that of the slowest opponent.

OK, thx, lets try one then!

I think I found out: A user tournament will have 3 rounds if more than 50 people sign up. We are at 21 and 24 so far for the first two stages, so if nothing surprising happens they should have 2 rounds. And indeed it seem that always the first two players in each group proceed to the next round.

Three days until stage 1 (Go 19x19) will start. So far we have 21 players.

Don't miss your chance and sign up now if you haven't already: https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1256

Stage 1 will start tomorrow. 22 players so far. Registration still open: https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1256

Meanwhile I have created the tournament for stage 3 (Connect6): https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1258

Stage 1 has started. Have fun everyone!

I prepared the standings page already, though it is pretty boring atm: https://tinyurl.com/tourdelittlegolem

The first game has finished, so we have a leader. Have a look here:

https://tinyurl.com/tourdelittlegolem

It was myself who 'delivered' those points! :-)

Crelo is good, really good!

That is only because it started with the go tournament. The order will change soon. But thanks for your good thoughts ypercube :-D

3 days left for stage 2 (StreetSoccer) registration: https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1257

You can also register for stage 3 (Connect 6) here: https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1258

As usual current standings are here: https://tinyurl.com/tourdelittlegolem

Stage 2 - StreetSoccer has started. Enjoy!

Registration for stage 4 (Amazons) is open now: https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1259

You can still register for stage 3 (Connect6) here: https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1258

The standings page is a tad more interesting by now, though not super-exciting yet, I admit: https://tinyurl.com/tourdelittlegolem

Crelo is still in the lead, but we now have single players in positions 2 and 3 as well, see: https://tinyurl.com/tourdelittlegolem

We have a new player in the lead, check it out on https://tinyurl.com/tourdelittlegolem

Also just a few days left for Stage 3 registration: https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=125

I think there is a digit missing in the url above.

Is it possible to open up registration for later stages as well? I am afraid i will forget them later…

Thanks for pointing that out, here is the correct stage 3 link (I hope): https://www.littlegolem.net/ng/a/Ctrn.action?view=&dto.id=1258

Sure, I can set up more tournaments on the weekend. Should I really do them for all known games already? It has the obvious advantage that you can register now for all and forget about it. OTOH we might get more timeouts later, because people sign up now but leave the site before the later rounds start. Any opinions?

what about 2 months ahead (thus 4 or 5 games) i agree that putting them on all will create time outs more.

I'd be inclined to add them all. I'm not too worried about no-show players, as their games nare over in 15-30 days and won't hold anything up. And they don't affect the relative standing since they'll lose all their games – except against each other.

The only downside I see is that it gives free points to everyone who plays in each tournament – further increasing the punishment for skipping a round….

Thanks for your input, both.

The time-outers might affect the relative standings, if they are distrubuted unevenly in the first of multiple rounds. In an extreme case one pretty weak player (say myself in Shogi) could win all games in round 1 via timeout while players of medium strength in other groups only make 1 or 2 points. But that's not very likely of course.

Also timeouts are a bit sad regardless of any impact. We are here for playing after all.

Will still wait for more opinions and probably open at least a few more stages on Sunday.

I personally support Hjalti's proposal (2 months ahead thus 4 or 5 games), but am fine with adding all at once as well.

Timeouts/no-shows might prolong the tournament, especially when we observe them in the last stages

Ah, didn't think of multi-round. Good point that. However, I'd still favor it, but not as strongly….

OK, I opened a few more stages for registration, as discussed. Stage 3 - Connect6 - has just started, these are the ones open for registration now:

Stage 4 - Amazons

Stage 5 - Chess

Stage 6 - Hex 13

Stage 7 - Reversi

Stage 8 - EinStein

Hope I got all URLs right this time.

The standings have been updated too.

(I'm updating the standings sort of regularly anyway, without announcing here every time.)

Connect6 is a quick game, so there is a lot of movement in the standings. Check it out!

Thanks richyfourtytwo for organising it ;)

Would it be possible to add to the standings information when was it last updated ?

Thanks

Makes sense and shouldn't bee too hard to add to my semi-automated procedure.

OK, done. Not very elegant, but there is a timestamp in the last row now. It's from my local time zone, so CET.

Thanks.

If you like, you can add to the timestamp timezone (like 'Last update: 2022-12-16 16:23:15 CET') - just suggestion, I am very fine with the current solution as well ;)

Two day until amazons starts. Register now!

Next game to open user tournament would be breakthrough and Havannah. In which size will the Havannah tournament be?

Default size for Havannah seems to be 10 - also the variant with most infinity users, so I lean towards that.

I'll open up these 2 tomorrow (or on the weekend in case I'm more busy than expected tomorrow).

Stage 5 - Chess has started.

Standings are updated.

Also I have opened two more stages for registration: Breakthrough and Havannah.

Stage 6, Hex, has started. Standings have been updated again. (Link see above, I'm lazy today.

Stage 7 - Reversi has started.

Standings are updated.

Also I have opened two more stages for registration: Lines of Action and XiangQi.

How do I register for the new stages?

Ah, I missed a lot of stages. I was thinking I will be automatically registered.

Sorry, you'll have to follow this thread, I post new registration links about once a month. No way to automate this I fear.

Standings are updated.

Also I have opened two more stages for registration: Gomoku and Dvonn.

Rather than looking here or at the standings page to see what was open, I skimmed every open user tournament. I'm a big fan of doing things the hard way, apparently.

Standings are updated.

Also I have opened three more stages for registration: International Draughts, WYPS numeric and Polyomino.

BTW: In those stages that have more than one round, it would be helpful if someone could alert me here when the 2nd round starts. I need to add that round to the URL list my standings script works on and if I'm not qualified for round 2 myself I might miss it. (I saw now that streetsoccer has enetered round 2, so that's taken care of.)