daal wrote:I am however still unsure what's in it for the strongest player in a division, besides the opportunity to give as many free teaching games as he has time for... Well, I guess he can still win prizes, and who am I to criticize the altruism of others on my behalf.
You mentioned your games against karnesun as also being useful to him, and as of right now, karnesun leads your division having played and won all 16 games. However you, who have played 18 games, could still edge him out just by losing one more. Seems a little silly. But then again, maybe not. Everyone knows and understands the criteria for promotion, and karnesun could put up a fight to stay ahead...but I don't really see why he would want to do so.
The supergroup will give a great incentive for the strong players. For my part, I'm just wanting to win Alpha if I can, and that's enough for me as a stronger player to aim for. To do that, I have to play a lot of games, and the process of simply playing this many serious games is helping my own strength. A stronger player can use games against weaker players as a chance to experiment with new ideas as well, there's plenty of scope for doing things along the way of getting your points for that month
Certainly my record is largely positive, but I enjoyed each and every one of the games (apart from my embarrassingly awful performance against xenofhonto) even against those over 6 stones weaker.