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RE: Hivechess Tournament Season 13 Round 4:@maestroask was the winner and some questionable draws

Thanks for your feedback. Indeed the arena format is flawed, but we don´t have too much choices, Swiss tournaments are hardly possible with a reasonable thinking time in 1 to 1,5 hours and I think 7 rounds are less than optimal in our group of 30 players. They are better for a large player pool.
Nevertheless we should find ways of how to improve what we have.
Also in many high-level tournaments early draws are forbidden, as you know.

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Yes, every tournament system has its pros and cons in different circumstances. Players have to keep all this in mind in order to achieve good results. Therefore, it is rare to see many short draws in the first rounds of the big Swiss, but this is a common thing in a round-robin GM or IM tournament.
Restrictions on draws in top-level tournaments are a commercial decision of the organizers, not the choice of the players. In some cases, this may have something to do with the sale of entrance tickets or advertising time. In other cases, when the organizers do not expect any profit from the tournament, there are no reasonable reasons for restrictions at all. When I was actively playing offline tournaments, I always just ignored tournaments with restrictions on draws, no matter what the conditions or prizes were. Of course, this was largely facilitated by the fact that I never claimed to get into the ranks of top-GMs. :)