We have 21 teams at the deadline. A simple 3x7 split looks bad from a ratings point of view, so I suspect we'll have to get a bit creative.

As usual, feel free to make suggestions on how sections should be split below. I'll make a final decision some time after Thursday 22:00.

21 teams, is this it? If yes, I suggest 4-5-4-4-4, as that would keep our five RW teams all in different sections, and right now I don't see other club/player clashes in that scheme. Or are there? It's easy to miss something.

However, if the consensus is to go for bigger sections that would put two RW teams in one section and/or require a couple RWs to be swapped in order to resolve player clashes, we'll likely manage.

It would help me to know the section layout quickly, though.

Have fun in T84, everyone!

P.S. Thanks to PreZandy, kurumim, LightKnight for organizing the Warm-up tourney.

@pchesso Seems you beat me to it this time! I don't imagine we're looking at large sections, mostly because of the rating splits.

As someone who has usually been in pchesso's position I would support 4-5-4-4-4 as when running multiple teams having two teams in one section is very difficult.

If there were more teams then you can try to optimise more in terms of ratings but with our current numbers I think the priority is avoiding clashes and fortunately the 4-5-4-4-4 works in that respect so I don't think we need to look that much further.

Pchesso beat me to it as well: given the distribution of averages and the absence of clashes, I couldn't find anything better than 4-5-4-4-4. Very similar to T77, when we also had 21 teams and a 4-4-5-4-4 scheme; also in last season (T83) we had sections of 4 and 5 teams. Rating-wise, 4-6-7-4 would be possible, but I don't see any reason to produce clashes when we can easily avoid them and have good balanced sections.

For section caps I think adding 20 points to the top teams' averages (where possible) will once again be useful to keep the original balance while providing some room for changes.

Sections are up. As there was basically clear consensus in our discussions there wasn't much of a decision to make. Spassky will follow the same schedule as other recent 5-team sections; all others will be double round-robins, and all playoffs will take place in round 7. Thanks for your contributions as always.

Team pairings are now set. As always I encourage people to have a look at their team's schedule just in case a mistake has been made.

Thank you once again for your top-notch work, sbc!