Mélusine: No problem. The discussion is always a good way to get a consensus and, who knows, better ideas. :)

However, in your explanation, i cannot find an only point of disagreement. You said that when you're the highest player, you prefer to play with an opponent with a similar BKR...i agree 100% with you...me too. And if you're the highest player of your team, with 1900 points, for example, and your opponent has 2300 points, where is the interest and balance? :)

In past, i remember i was the player with best BKR of my team and the weakest opponent player had a BKR more high than me. In these cases, the weakest team cannot do anything, but with "my idea", the possibility to order players is the only strategy to surprise opponent teams.

This format is specially directed for strategy games, where the luck factor doesn't exist and usually there aren't surprises about who will be the winner.

About your idea, it's necessary there be similar bkr's between all players to become true and possible. :)

Undertaker.: As a side note, joshi tm talk about "Extra games" was because he through out another idea - a "Round Robin" type of team tournament - So Player 1 will play all players on the other team.... and so on. (so for a 5 player team, 2 games per - you will get 10 games instead of 2) - for each fellowship (so up against 4 other fellowships, 40 games instead of 8 - so yea, lots of extra games under the round robin idea.)

Trying to think of other ideas - is to possible weight each team tournament game - so for example, if you play and win against someone who is within 100 ratings of you - games worth 1 point. If you beat someone that is below 100, you only get .8 points. If you beat someone who is 100 or more, you get 1.2 points. (or something like that... I just pulled those number out of my head. Not sure if I like this idea, but just throwing it out there.)

coan.net and joshi tm: Ah, thanks for the explanation. Still about joshi tm post, yes, the pairing would be based more on luck, but in my perspective that would be better than you knew you don't have chances to win a team tournament, right? So, what's the problem?

I'm going give you some examples:
Goldfinger
The Chess Club had a very strong team and they only won 8-6 on final, because Grim Reaper and King Reza lost by time-out. Do you like to play these tournaments where everybody knows who will be the winner?

Another example:
Nov 2008 Taphephobia (Amazons)


Now, see that:
July 2009 Freddy Krueger Massacre Chess
My team won, because when this team tournament started, the game (Massacre Chess) was new on BK and the players position wasn't clear...many players didn't still have rating, so his position was random and that particularity allowed a "surprise".

So, with my idea would be possible create more surprises and interest for team tournaments.

But ok, we can keep the old format and go on with 2 or 3 strong teams and who know, in soon, you'll only see team tournaments with 4 or 5 teams (or worst, tournament doesn't start because there only be 2 or 3 teams). Many people prefer don't play, because they know they don't have chances to win, so why play? There's no funny, no competition...nothing.

Undertaker.: Still a team with 5 2100+ players is tough to beat, random or not random :)

The fairest idea would be round robin, but then there's that annoying amount of games, maybe work them away in time-specified rounds, like a soccer competition? So players get one opponent per team, and after a while (say 1 week) the next round kicks in so they get another opponent from the other teams. A quick player can finish the eight games they get within the one week period.

For short games like Hyper Backgammon the time period can be even shorter. But for longer games like Go they time period should be even a month, and then still will be games running.

joshi tm: I must agree with you..."a team with 5 2100+ players is tough to beat, random or not random". However, for me it's the best option, keeping the same type of tournament and with same number of games. :)

But you give me a new idea...until now, we have always the same type of team tournament, so why not allow some types of tournaments? The old format, "my format" and round robin format? The creator of team tournaments could choose what type of tournament people would play.

I don't know if this possibility is difficult to implement, but would be fun to change the type of tournament. Single elimination tournament is a bad option for team tournaments, so we would have others types of team tournaments...

Coan.net, what do you think about a public opinion poll about these ideas? :)