This is also very nice idea, @samostically. And it needs a precise ranking system like mine. As for the question @stayoutoftherz has posed:
which timepoint counts for the rating? At season start, at the end, or an average?
I think starting rating should be used as a reference, so the people could see their progress (or anything else 😉) during the tournament.
I agree. Rating after first round is most straightforward. Rating before result of first round is tricky to obtain however.
Either way, Am glad it's something worth considering.
Yeah, maybe it could work. We didn't find a simple solution since this is a prize for the whole league, not for a single tournament and also bc the rating points change constantly, etc. We thought about that :)
Frankly, we have considered all these ideas even just before posting the final rules. Prizes for U-1800, U-2000, U-1500, etc., as well as a prize for the best female player, the best player with an old Hive account, the best player who is also a newcomer to Hive, and so on. We found problems across the board, such as some of the ones you guys brought up. For example, sandbagging, the fact that the ratings are constantly changing throughout the tournament and league, that using the initial rating was not convincing either, that we would need to check the gender of the users, some of whom would prefer to be anonymous, so it might be a bit invasive in terms of privacy, etc. So we decided to pass it up until we could think about it later or even until a situation like this arose where community members were interested in discussing it openly.