Chess has tournaments and tournaments have ladders . In case of Open , this is more akin to sitting down in a park with a set chessboard and just waiting for some random player to sit down and play . Your opponents are random , and anything goes within the rules . That ' s Open . An example of a strong community I ' m not commenting on how toxic it is because communities can get that way in games with no PvP whatsoever is EvE online , where anything goes as well . That ' s part of the charm . No invisible walls , as close to reality as you can get . In real life we also have rules . But those rules are expressed through consequences , not impossibility of breaking them . Translated to a game , that ' s the difference between player killers having to suffer penalties and not being to target a nonflagged player at all .