I have tested all engines we have now to my satisfaction, so I wanted to start the official Spartan Chess tournament (Thermopylae 2011) soon. A suitable tournament form seems the following:
Participants:
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1. Nebiyu
2. Spartacus
3. Oberon
4. ChessV
5. Fairy-Max
6. Sjaak
7. Catalyst
Start with a round-robin with 4 games per pairing, (played in 2 cycles), where Nebiyu and Spartacus (which are a bit stronger than the rest) play with a time-odds handicap of 8 or 10. This will keep their games more interesting, as most other participants will then actually stand some chance against them. This also has the advantage that it is not only their mutual games that decide who is going to win the tourney, but also who does better against the other opponents.
After that, the first 4 will go into a play-offs round-robin with 2 games per pairing, no handicaps, where the score from the qualification group keeps counting.
@Daniel: which version of Nebiyu should I take? The Nebiyu_Chess 1.0 from thepackage that I downloaded to test the alien stuff?
@Gregory: No hope for a Spartan Quadrox, I suppose?