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Game result (chess) B. Ozen, 2269 N. Wilson, 2121 1/2-1/2 See game 152323 |
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Paul-Iosif Guralivu (2006-04-13 15:19:03)
New Titles!
To make FICGS more atractive and original I propose to make new titles for every category of players: Candidate for Master(FCM) - 2000-2200 First category (FI) - 1800-2000 Secound category (FII) - 1200-1800 Third category (FIII) - 800-1200 Every of this category could be obtain if a player plays more than 12 games in tournaments with tha same ELO. What do you think about it ? P.S.:Don't be mad on me...It's just a proposition.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-05-01 19:01:58)
Class tournaments
Salut David !
About standard & rapid "class" tournaments, they are open to players with ELO rating included into a range, specified just below the tournament name. (ie. CLASS M : 2200 to 2600 , CLASS A : 2000 to 2400 , CLASS B : 1800 to 2200 etc...)
J'espère que tu nous feras profiter de ton gambit favori ;) Bonnes parties !
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2006-06-14 14:40:34)
FICGS 1st chess world championship
Hello Thibault!
Thank you for your answer.
Two points:
It isn't sure at all that a player with a rating > 2400 will win his group if he had to play a 1st stage group. The CFC-Ch 2003 has shown, that less than 50 percent of the best rating players (even players with rating > 2600) have won their qualification groups.
In the moment we have about 100 players with a rating < 2300 who have registered themselves for the wch. Their rating avarage is about 1720 (!). Is that right? This means (if I understand your rules) the wch groups of the 1st stage will have this rating (+ or - some points). In these groups for a 2200 player it is nearly impossible (even as winner of a group) to get a tournament performance > 2050 (I suspect that this is the reason that players with rating > 2300 not have to play this stage). After the first stage the distance to 2300 will be greater than before.
I have registered myself and I will play. But I'm not really satisfied with that situation.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-06-14 15:02:11)
Statistics, ELO and performances
For sure, there could be a great work to do with statistics to improve little by little the rules, then we have to find the balance between easy-to-run (and understanding) rules and best ones, but I'm not sure we could improve significantly more, I'll explain why just below. Anyway that's good discussion ! :)
About performance, that's not quite true a 2200 player couldn't perform more than 2050 in stage 1. The rating system do not take account of wins when the ELO difference is superior to 350 points ! So if a 2200 player win all his games with only 2 games (ie. against 2 players rated 1900) calculated, his performance is more than 2400. Now if a 2500 player play stage 1, probably all his games won't be rated at all... Not very interesting :/
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2006-06-16 13:55:54)
Statistics, ELO and performances
Hello Thibault!
"About performance, that's not quite true a 2200 player couldn't perform more than 2050 in stage"
Maybe you are right, if most of the players have an established rating. But you can see at the rating list that more than 50 percent of our ratings are provisional - most of them with 1700. The question is how many of these players are good or very good (like Daniel)?
Wayne Lowrance (2006-06-17 07:36:58)
rating calc
Welp, I am another innocent victim of starting off at 1400. When I signed on I wanted to start at the beginning, much like daniel. what I really did not pay attention to is the difficulty in climbing the ladder. My chess rating on other sites including CC cite is well over 2200. I started there at the bottom and figured I would do the same here. Not so fast. I have won one tourney here weith 6/6 score tourney allready and am have a perfect scored in a second one with 3 games to go. and yet my expected rating is listed at 1805, cleary I am not a 1800 player. It is not my fault that I was forced to play in a tourney dominated by 1400 players. What you think. Not trying to cause trouble, just venting I guess. and the cite is nice, will continue playing, my best toya Wayne p.s. do you think my playing in a 1400 tourney is fair to those players, hummm?
Marc Lacrosse (2006-07-08 11:08:51)
Modifying "rapid" tournament rules ?
Hello all,
Hello Thibault
As I already said in an earlyer thread, one of the reasons why I joined FICGS was the possibility to play fewer games simultaneously at a faster pace than in other corr. chess associations.
So I enrolled in a first rapid tournament where I find two things unpleasant for a so-called "rapid" category:
1. some of my opponents (and myself also) accumulated reflection time "reserves" of 40 or even 50 days in some cases, which is not appropriate for a "rapid" tournament IMHO.
2. my last unfinished game is completely won for more than ten moves now (it's K+pawns against K+pawns with an unstoppable passed pawn for me where computers announce forced mate in ... max 40 moves). My 2200+ opponent continues to play at a very slow pace. It's pretty annoying : I bet I could win my game at blitz tempo against Kasparov analysing for three days per move but I suppose I will have to play for weeks until his king is mated!
So I propose :
1. To have an absolute limitation of the time reserve a player can accumulate in rapid tournaments (30 ?)
2. To have a procedure allowing to call for external adjudication when a player refuses to resign a forcefully lost game.
Your opinion ?
Marc
Glen D. Shields (2006-07-22 19:50:51)
Interesting Discussion Topic
Thibault - this is a interesting discussion topic. Of course, no one knows the future with certainty, but we can all offer an opinion :)
I'm nearing my 40th year of correspondence play. Sometime later this year I will complete my 1000th tournament game. All my games were played by postcard until the mid 90's. E-mail dominated my CC schedule from about 1998 until 2002. Now I only play server chess. I've played on the FICGS, IECG, GameKnot, ChessFriend, Schemingmind and ICCF servers.
Contrary to many people who've played as long as I have, I do NOT see chess engines as a threat to the game. I think they've changed the game, but not hurt the game. I believe they've increasd CC's popularity and game quality. The same is true for opening and ending databases.
Some of the changes that will occur in CC the next ten years:
- Servers will improve functionality and ease of use.
- Due to engine use we will grow to accept 2200 as an "average" rating rather than "Master."
- Tournaments will be re-structured to include fewer players per section and shorter tournament durations. This particularly applies to ICCF where 15 player sections and slow time rules to simulate postal chess are used.
- New server functionality will be added to allow players the option to SLOW down the game. It's too easy to get caught in a mindless "server flurry."
- New chess software will be developed to analyze games. This analysis tool will give proability estimates on what engine one's opponent is using. That information will allow one to counter and plan against one's opponent.
- There will be more anti-computer books written and theories developed. We will use these techniques to beat our opponent and and improve our chess planning skills.
Bottomline ... I am excited by the new technology. I see continued advances in the way we manage our gameload, the way we send moves, the way we play, plan and analyze our moves. The way we play in the future will be different and will still be fun for those who embrace new technology. My disappointment is I am an old man and unlikely to enjoy all the advantages the future brings. I hope those who follow me enjoy what I will miss :)
Wayne Lowrance (2006-07-26 00:32:35)
I'm feeling guilty
I just read The touching story of Glen and frankly I feel guilty. I complained here of basically, having to play a 1400 player. Reason obvious he has a 2800 rated program, but so do I. Glen earned his stature. the old fashon way, brain power, intuition, chess knowledge and a strong memory, putting all these tools to work for many, many years. My CC rating elsewhere is 2200+, sorry to admit my programs got me there. In the fairness vain, I didnt earn such a rating. I sorta like to kid my self that all the players I play use comps too. So I tell my self I earned this rating. I earned it playing on servers against people, just like me doing the same as I, getting help/advise from a program. I do not believe this is right, it is not fair for a player such as Glen. I do not have an answer. I am all in favour of Artificial intelligence and hardware advances applied to chess. I am a EE so it is natural for me to be deeply involved.
Thomas Gilbreath (2006-09-14 05:19:28)
Greetings from GameKnot :)
Hello friends, my name is Thomas, and I am the representative from GameKnot. We look forward to playing a match against you! GameKnot has played two matches vs. other sites in the past, and we have enjoyed the competition very much. It is my sincere hope that we can pull this thing off! As FICGS is a newer site with a smaller community than ours, we hope that you guys can field a team of approximately 12-20 players of ALL ratings ranges. We intend to put up at least 2 players in each of 7 ratings classes (U2400, U2200, U2000, U1800, U1600, U1400, and U1200). The rules of the match are currently being negotiated between Thibault and myself, and we would like to commence as soon as possible. I highly encourage the members of FICGS to participate, as these matches are a lot of fun! You guys will get a chance to visit our site, and we yours. Please contact Thibault and sign on! We look forward to seeing you OTB :)
Thomas Gilbreath (2006-09-16 23:46:58)
Udate from GameKnot:
I just wanted to give you guys a heads up as to the players from my site that are being CONSIDERED for playing in the match. As ratings fluctuate, I have simply rounded and given approximate strength: mateintwo - 2400+ cyrano - 2400+ cairo - 2300+ fmgaigin - 2300+ drdesoto - 2300+ papani - 2300+ harlekin - 2300+ nestorix - 2300+ drunken_rabbit - 2200+ kumpan - 2200+ grandpatzer - 2200+ os5213 - 2200+ carlosmart - 2200+ chrisp - 2100+ nottop - 2100+ gloomy_den - 1900+ thumper - 1700+ gwalchmai - 1600+ tugger - 1600+ yanm - 1500+ mattw - 1500+ patagusto - 1500+ tag1153 - 1400+ cjjpeterson - 1400+ simian9 - 1400+ eqj2 - 1400+ hollcanna - 1300+ dewillget8 - 1200+ mozz - 1200+ These GameKnot players have expressed an interest in playing. More will sign on I'm sure, as I have set Oct 1, 2006 as the sign up deadline. I will put together our team during the first week of October, and will be ready to commence play by the second week of October. During the interim, Thibault and I will finalize the details of the match. I realize that this short list is very master and expert heavy, but have no worries - I will be contacting more of our A, B, C, and D class players and asking them to participate. We look forward to the match:) Thomas
Thibault de Vassal (2006-10-26 18:33:58)
Reveal your software
Actually I wouldn't say that any engine vs. engine games are played here.
(or at ICCF, IECG ...)
This kind of statistics may be relevant on Playchess server or FICS [Free Internet Chess Server] at fast time controls where human can't help much, not in correspondence chess. That's obvious anyway that most players above 2000-2200 elo use chess engines, but games are not 100% engines, or any particular engine for sure...
I'm convinced Fritz or Shredder 'alone' wouldn't reach 2200.
Wayne Lowrance (2006-11-17 17:51:23)
Need one more player
Class A 000009. We have 6 strong players. Need one more. rating 2000-2200 welcome Wayne
Marius Zubac (2006-11-19 19:21:59)
A penalty system is needed
Hello Thibault. I think that time has come for you to add new rules to FICGS and a penalty system (using penalty points) to discourage players from retire-comeback behavior. Loosing some games on time unless provoked by some unforeseen event should be also penalized although less severe. Upon reaching a certain number of penalty points the player should be prevented to register for new FICGS tournaments (let's say a half a year) and on resuming the penalized player should be only allowed to play a limited number of games until the lesson is learned. If you would compare FICGS list with the server-based IECG list you should notice that FICGS is less populated in the strong players section (2200+) than IECG and this has an impact on the quality of high-end tournaments, norms and titles and of course ratings. If we want to improve FICGS some action in this regard must be taken. I sympathize with Mr. Oltean and wish he reconsiders his decision. Marius
Thibault de Vassal (2006-12-02 13:40:46)
Chess engines CC ratings
It is my estimation. 3 out of 4 represents about 200 elo points. I doubt Chessbase will organize a Man(+Machine) vs. Machine correspondence chess match... However there are a few examples : Arno Nickel - Hydra (2,5-0,5), Hydra which beat Adams over the board 5,5-0,5 ... And I suppose Arno Nickel did not have access to the program, but knowing better his opponent I'm sure it's possible to reach such a score against any program.
About your test, it's been discussed here already :) .. In my opinion such a player's rating would travel between 2200 and 2400 (at most) mark !
Waiting for a match against Rykba :)
Wayne Lowrance (2006-12-31 22:59:37)
Strong players needed
Class A 000012 Tournament needs two more strong player near 2200 to complete the field. Will be nice strong tournament to start 07 Thank you Wayne
Thibault de Vassal (2007-01-21 14:31:00)
Chess ratings
Hello to all.
I have been submitted this case :
"Rating system: Look at this situation: Current rating ot the player: 2200, 10 games, all players with TER 2200, result 9=, 1+ Case 1: Finished games: 01.01-28.02: 9= --> New rating 01.03: 2200 01.03., no other finished games in this period: --> New rating 01.05: 2228 Case 2: Finished games 01.01-28.02: 9=, 1+ --> New rating 01.03: 2200 --> New rating 01.03. 2214 In case 1 the value of the won game was 28, in case two it was 14. IMO the value of a result should not depend from the number of games you finish in a period. The value of a result only should depend on the rating of both players that they have at the start (preferable) or at the finish date of the game and the result. And the rating formula should be like NewRating = LastRating + SumOfAllValuesOfFinishedGamesInThisPeriod. That's the way (idea) IECG is computing the ratings."
This result looks quite normal to me as a player's level may increase as time passes. Rating calculations are done after periods long enough to avoid big differences... I don't know if you're right about IECG rating calculation, FICGS ratings seem to evolve quicker and I think it's best. By the way this system is used by several chess federations.
Best wishes.
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2007-01-21 15:16:26)
Chess ratings
I have formatted my message (and partly corrected) to be able to read the text better.
Rating system:
Look at this situation: Current rating ot the player: 2200,
10 games, all players with TER 2200, result 9=, 1+
Case 1: Finished games:
01.01-28.02: 9= New rating 01.03: 2200
01.03. 1+, no other finished games in this period: --> New rating 01.05: 2228
Case 2:
Finished games 01.01-28.02: 9=, 1+ --> New rating 01.03: 2214
In case 1 the value of the won game was 28, in case two it was 14.
IMO the value of a result should not depend from the number of games you have finished in a period. The value of a result only should depend on the rating of both players that they have at the start (preferable) or at the finish date of the game and the result. And the rating formula should be like
NewRating = LastRating + SumOfAllValuesOfFinishedGamesInThisPeriod.
That's the way (idea) IECG is computing the ratings.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-01-23 12:27:06)
Famous chess games
Hello to all.
I am testing a new database which will contain famous chess games / games from famous chess players... World championships, Man vs. Machine, Computer games, Correspondence chess, Curiosities etc.. Now 2200+ games in, but it will grow quickly.
Feel free to suggest any link with interesting free chess database, or you may send to me PGN games (particularly looking for non-chess celebrities chess games).
http://www.ficgs.com/informations.html
(see A-Z)
All suggestions & feedback are welcome. Thanks in advance :)
Benjamin Aldag (2007-02-04 22:26:09)
To Marc Lacrosse
Hey guy, come down !
I just say, it makes more fun to play without computer-assistence.
I play here, because i will never reach the level of computerplayers and my opponents are in 99% free of computer-assistence. I dont want to be a slave of my computer and in my opinion is this the right way.
I know 9 people here with an official rating between 1500 and 1600 ELO(DWZ) and here they have a rating between 2200 and 2300. :-D<br
You say, with only computermoves you will never reach the highest level here and i can say - YOU ARE RIGHT !
Players with a FIDE ELO 2200 and higher will have here a rating over 2600 and they will not only play computermoves. But i play chess for two years and have an official FIDE rating of 1822 and believe me, it makes no sense for me to play with computer-assistence.
yk
Thibault de Vassal (2007-02-05 12:34:53)
Correspondence chess / OTB chess
Quote : "Players with a FIDE ELO 2200 and higher will have here a rating over 2600 and they will not only play computermoves."
Benny, this is just wrong ;) .. There are many examples, here and everywhere... Best correspondence chess players are not best chess players with computer assistance, they are 'only' the best correspondence chess players.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-03-29 04:57:34)
:o)
Merci pour la plaidoirie détaillée :) ... Bon, je suppose que l'idée d'une pénalité restrictive sur les inscriptions est assez bonne, mais peut être insuffisante également. Une pénalité immédiate sur le classement (entrainant une chute de catégorie) pourrait être plus persuasive, j'y pense !
Voilà ce que j'ai pu observer pour ma part jusqu'ici :
Les classements de ces joueurs (notamment dans ton tournoi) baissent malgré tout suffisamment vite pour qu'ils ne puissent pas se réinscrire dans les mêmes catégories, c'est le cas pour 4 des joueurs de ce tournoi, passés sous la barre des 2200.
Certains parasites qui, en effet, volontairement ont tenté de s'inscrire dans un maximum de tournois et abandonner toutes leurs parties pour troubler les classements ont eu un effet minime, pour la simple raison que je les vois faire et mets fin à leurs parties avant les 10 coups pour la plupart, ce qui n'a que peu d'incidence au final. Certains jouent maintenant leurs parties jusqu'au bout, les autres sont partis.
La plus grande cause de forfait en proportion est la "simple visite", le joueur qui s'inscrit, joue quelques coups dans un tournoi puis disparait... La rançon de la simplicité d'inscription et de la gratuité, contre laquelle je ne peux pas grand chose. J'ai pensé à mettre en place un système de limite de nombre de parties progressif, mais je ne suis pas sûr encore que ce soit positif.
Au final, j'ai tout de même envie de croire que ce qui s'est passé dans ce tournoi (à ce niveau) restera exceptionnel... Mais je suis d'accord pour trouver une solution à ce problème, au moins de garantir de ne plus pouvoir rencontrer ces adversaires avant un bon moment.
La pénalité immédiate sur le classement me parait être la seule solution. Toute autre suggestion bienvenue...
Marc Lacrosse (2007-03-29 23:44:48)
Fast double RR at five players
"Finally I think the idea of double round-robin tournaments with 5 players could be a good one for a new category, with a different time control (maybe longer ?!) .. What do you think ?"
Or why not testing it with faster time controls (5 days initial + 1 day per move, maximum accumulated time 20 days) for example.
Sure I would immediately enroll for a 2200+ tournament on this basis.
:-)
Strongly limiting maximum accumulated time is also a project I would support wholeheartedly !
Anyone for a test ?
Achim Mueller (2007-04-22 00:42:15)
Some more answers ;-)
@Don Burden
Full ack! If the rules stay as they are now it definitely makes sense to have groups of 11 or 13 players with e.g. 2 qualifiers.
@Mikhail Ruzin
Believe it or not, I would have been glad to play in group 02! There are seven "life" players and I bet a score of 4.5 or maybe even 4 points may be enough to qualify. In group 12 it's only 4 life players, and a result of 5 points (maybe 5.5 points) won't be enough for one player. There are only two remaining games, and all three strong life players have 4.5(one game to play), 4.5(1) and 4(2).
In this special situation exactly three games will decide who will quailify if you take a deeper look at the results and the contents of the games.
@Thibault
I never said it's easy for a 2300 ELO player if he plays for a draw only. But it's a big advantage for a player in a region between 2200 and 2500 if is aware that a draw will have the same quality as a victory against a certain competitor. Take a look at the world class cc players. There is a ~70% draw rate in the big tournaments, so the probability will be more than 70% if a player seriously tries to force a draw by choosing a certain opening and avoiding complicated variations.
Ciao
acepoint
Thibault de Vassal (2007-05-01 00:57:44)
Achim's answer
Achim Mueller asked to close his account, but he wanted to respond to Wolfgang & Sandor, here's his answer :
"A last clarification:
@Wolfgang Utesch: I wasn't aware of the "ELO-prefering" rule and I still don't find it here on the webpage. I opened a thread here in this forum and besides "then win all your games" or "in this case we ensure that the better player will qualify" there were no substantial arguments for this pretty unused and unknown rule (not that I agree with these two "arguments"!). Nonetheless I accepted the rule for this tournament.
My decision to give up and leave this server is based on an easy calculation how many games I have to play here to get a - what I call - competitive rating that somehow equals the advantage, players with a nominal rating of 2200 - 2500 will have in every tournament where this rule exists. Because my time is limited my decision was to leave the server, that's all. I don't complain, I don't take anything as an excuse. It's simple as it is: I gave it a try here, became aware of the rule and decided this is the wrong place for me, ok?
@Sandor Marton-Bardocz : I didn't say with any word that you are a blocking guy. This was a _general_ thesis how the player with the best rating can take an overwhelming advantage at this ruling. All good players (ask anyone in the region of 2400up at remoteschach, dbf, iecg or iccf) will confirm that it is most difficult to get 3.5 point out of 4 if at least 2 players know how to use computers and choose certain openings.
Finally ... ficgs is a nice place to play, the interface is good and I assume Thibault put a lot of work into it. So, enjoy your games here, but also accept that from time to time there might be players that will leave because of certain issues.
Ciao
Achim"
Rules (and chess WCH rules) - http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html
Thanks Achim. Best wishes & have good games :)
Nick Burrows (2007-05-10 07:24:54)
surtees
He is a player from my home town rated about 2200. He plays many weird and wonderful openings that he's worked out himself (eg French 4 pawn gambit!?) should be some games on Chessbase...
Marc Lacrosse (2007-05-22 22:20:20)
Any 2200+ for a rapid double round ?
Hi all, hi Thibault
Would you agree for a five players rated double round robin tournament at rapid timing (30 days + 1 day per move) if four other 2200+ players declare in this thread that they are ready to join ?
I am ready to play...
Marc
Marc Lacrosse (2007-05-22 22:22:35)
Any 2200+ for a rapid double round ?
I also suggest maximum 50 days accumulated time for this tournament.
Marc
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-20 22:54:33)
Internet chess
Well, the discussion with Tryfon Gavriel continues at TCCMB. As I had to explain the way I make FICGS, I copy my responses here :
http://ancients.correspondencechess.com/index.php?topic=109.15
Hello again Tryfon !
That's a very interesting discussion...
Actually I have to explain FICGS in its whole to respond :) .. To be continued for sure..
While registering a new member wrote to me a few months ago "Thanks for creating this ultimate chess challenge" or so... That's exactly what I try to do, mostly with the FICGS championship knockout & round-robin rules... Players just want challenge, that's the only assumption I start with, so I try to create interesting challenges. About the intellectual part, you're right but I'm quite sure that top level correspondence chess players still consider their game as an intellectual challenge, much more than a brute force or computer skills one. That's not the case for Advanced chess with fast time controls.
Let's take a look at the bicycle races again... The "Tour de France" is dying IMO.. because everyone understood we "don't know" if the champion is ok.. If doping was allowed (it would be a scandal for health of course), I'm sure the interest would raise again ! I think it is the same for chess & for everything else... The "Tour de France" syndrom happened in Elista with the match Kramnik vs. Topalov... It will have consequences. We need champions and we want true champions, every means are ok for this ! .. So the "engines allowed" rule is the only one possible or reasonable in my opinion.
Of course, chess & correspondence chess are changing, because these "walls" are nearer & nearer... maybe chess will die, maybe not.. The main problem is that in 1997, a super computer became World Champion... this year a "simple" computer Deep Fritz became world champion, soon Rybka on a cellular phone... :) Who is really interested to be a champion in "human category" ? FIDE world chess championship will continue to progressively lose its interest IMO...
Correspondence chess is just starting to grow in popularity and is told to be dying already. Surely correspondence chess will ask more & more time at a high level to win a few points, but it is possible to create more challenge by ie. changing the rating rules (the "design" of Elo rating system will become a problem).. Then, if it is not enough, we'll look for other challenges... It's told for years that Go (Weiqi) will replace chess in western countries... why not Big chess as the "brain only" game if there can't be doping in it.. just trying, as there's no other solution :)
A word about Poker of course, as it's probably the fastest growing game in popularity : IMO this game is at a stade like chess in year 1900, but the same problem will happen, even quicker. At a high level the game will be just more and more boring (if you wish to win real money) or chancy (in a wch tournament), or you'll have to always find weak players (well, not very challenging).
About the simultaneous exhibition against Alekhine or Capablanca, I'm not sure at all they would crush everyone at our chess servers, they are undoubtly more talented than all of us, but I feel it wouldn't be enough in all cases to win against correspondence chess style of play & knowledge accumulated for 50 years... A few players rated OTB 2000-2200 could draw against them IMO...
At last, yes I'm a fan of Sun Tzu's "The art of war" :) .. I strongly believe that correspondence chess will not die in the next few years because players will follow its principles more and more, as the only way to win ! .. Big chess follows the same principles... and Go is the most challenging game because of it too !
Tryfon, I'm not sure that we're opposite in our vision of chess ! .. Our servers have obviousy different goals, nothing more.. I do enjoy playing mad blitz games without chess engines... I just believe that the future of internet chess is "serious (engines allowed, rated) correspondence chess" on one hand and "human chess for fun (no engines, unrated)" on the other hand... The other ways look like nonsense to me.
I hope it responds.
Best wishes, Thibault
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-22 20:30:57)
Rybka's strength at CC time controls
An interesting poll, following a discussion at TCCMB :
http://ancients.correspondencechess.com/index.php?topic=109.msg809
Let's say Rybka playing alone, running 4 days per move (quite useless IMO) on a multi-processor computer, which rating would it/she achieve at FICGS ?
In my opinion, 2200 (with some peaks to 2300) would be great already... What do you think ?
Michael Aigner (2007-06-22 21:27:50)
Re: Rybka's strength at CC time controls
I think you are right with your Elo approximation (2200 to 2300). There is just a little problem. In the case everybody would know he/she is playing against the latest Rybka version this would be a big problem for the program. In this case Rybka should loose almost every game because everybody would know Rybkas response to any move and could build wonderful traps. Did you hear about the so called "Planetenmatch" (match of the planets) where correspondence Chess GM Arno Nickel played against several Programms of unknown identity (the alias was the name of a planet). I think the engines had 24 hours per move and no chance - a desaster for the programs. That was of course before Rybka appeared, on the other hand he won also against Hydra!
Nick Burrows (2007-06-22 23:35:27)
engine strength..
Surely if different engines beat a correspondance GM at 24 hours per move, then their est. rating on 4 days per move should be higher than 2200-2300. Especially Rybka.
Glen D. Shields (2007-06-23 00:14:24)
Chess Engine Strength
Thibault - I've been following the TCCMB discussion. I think it's impossible to answer the question what rating Rybka can achieve under the uncontrolled circumstances we play. If Rybka were playing only against humans, it would achieve a 2600+ rating. Since it plays mostly against itself and other top engines (with little human intervention), the typical results are win a few games, lose a few games and draw a lot.
Since tournaments are mostly set up so that players face opponents with similar ratings, a 2220 rated player using Rybka enters a tournament against other 2200 players. That player wins a few games, loses a few, draws a lot and leaves the tournament at approximately 2200. We conclude from that pattern that Rybka can achieve a 2200 rating.
Conversely, a player (like Uri Blass) who enters tournaments at 2600 and plays other 2600 rated opponents using Rybka wins a few games, loses a few games and draws a lot. He leaves the tournament rated approximately 2600. We conclude for that situation Rybka is rated 2600.
IMHO, it is impossible to answer the Rybka rating question under our typical tournament circumstances.
I think an even better question than worrying about Rybka's strength is "does anyone REALLY enjoy CC anymore?" Today's CC's is a race to buy the fastest hardware and make sure SSDF's top rated programs are installed. I'm playing beginners who can't explain what "en passant" is, but by parroting Rybka they compete in top tournaments and claim to hold titles that once upon a time had to be earned through hard work. After passing through the opening, it doesn't take much effort to figure out what program your opponent is using. At that point one can predict with high probablitlty every move your opponent will make for the rest of the game. Rarely do I see a move that I can can beat. The games are boring and pedictable. Those blunders and surprises that we once wrote funny stories about are long gone. IMO so is the fun.
Sorry to sound so "pessimistic," but until these problems are addressed and the fun is restored I find it just as easy to play against my computer. I can play at my pace, chose the engine I want to play, and unless my computer crashes I no longer have to worry about DMD :-)
Thanks for such a well run place to play chess. You do a great job maintaining it.
My best,
Glen
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-23 06:06:29)
Chess Engine Strength
Hello Glen !
I see your point, that's quite true and a consequence is what I called at TCCMB "the extensive nature of elo rating", however rating rules are more dynamic at FICGS.. So, let's say Rybka playing the FICGS championship against players of all kinds of ratings in the round-robin cycle... Anyway 2200 is only my feeling.
I understand your views about "rybka" [correspondence] chess nowadays, even if I don't agree with it completely. I saw some of your CC games played at IECG, and it looks much more like 'good old' chess with some unusual and beautiful tactical openings than typical 'correspondence computer chess' nowadays. I do believe there will be a place in the next CC years for more weird openings like bird, king's gambit, english... Also take a look at Peter Schuster and Wladyslav Krol games here !? .. Nothing boring with them, chess engine or not :)
Also advanced chess games with fast time controls could be quite interesting to watch in future as a way to see granmaster games with chess engines avoiding blunders 'only' (ok a bit more). We don't know exactly the human part in it, but draws won't be the rule for sure.
What is "boring" at correspondence chess (not new) is that achieving a top rating take a long... very long time ! .. But this is a great challenge yet IMO.
At last, thanks for you kind words :)
Best, Thibault
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-26 16:28:41)
Ratings
Fully agreed ! .. By the way, what performance could achieve Rybka (mp) in a CLASS M or CLASS A tournament. Finally, in average about 2200-2300 IMO.
Garvin Gray (2007-06-28 06:10:18)
board orders
Hello,
I have a real problem with the board orders that igame have put in.
Why is a 2200 elo player on board 25 for igame.
I was not aware that this team match was going to be played in this fashion. I thought it was a simple principle that both sides play in roughly rating order.
Not impressed at all!
If igame wants to win that badly that they are playing one of their best players on the bottom board, they can have two wins right now as far as I am concerned.
Jason Repa (2007-07-12 22:15:04)
One more needed for 2200 - 2600 tourney!
We've been waiting for the 7th player for the class "M" section to sign up for about a week now. Anyone interested?
Ilmars Cirulis (2007-07-24 02:14:01)
2200
I like you, Jason Repa. Now I have good stimulus. :)
I need to overreach this limit to play against Jason. :)
Jason, do you agree to post both our one minute games here. I don't understand how to get PGN from all cb* and others strange files. :)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-09-10 22:42:32)
chess engines
First of all, every chess engines is a choice, ie. about selectivity, and has consequences & weaknesses in particular positions. Fruit/Toga algorithm is really good but it has probably still much less chess knowledge than Rybka. I think Rybka's algorithm is really better also, Vasik Rajlich added some "human features" while other programs still think about chess like mathematics.
Rybka changed correspondence chess because Fritz or Junior (very strong chess machines) added to a good chess player makes a good centaur while Rybka is "almost" a centaur itself... Consequently a weak chess player can reach quite easily a 2100/2200 rating. That's the main reason...
Of course Rybka will always make some bad moves, but it/she builds an advantage move after move against other engines in most cases in 'calm' positions. HIARCS, that was told during a long time to think most like a human, was not a strong 'chess machine'. I don't know much about Hiarcs 11/12, but Rybka is a major improvement in this way IMO.
Marc Lacrosse (2007-11-01 15:56:06)
Tournament categories
In the list of players having enrolled for tournament Rapid M 000009 there are two players with 2174 and 2147 elo points.
The tournament is supposed to be reserved for 2200+ players
Is this OK ?
Marc
Don Burden (2007-11-01 17:04:22)
Tournament categories
I think they might have entered when their ratings were > 2200, but with the latest ratings recalculation today, their ratings dropped below 2200.
Wayne Lowrance (2007-11-02 00:13:09)
Change in class M rapid
Thibault I dont like that change at all. When I signed the entry was 2200. I do not like that to be lowered to 2100/ I think the division was just fine. Ive been busting my butt to get to that 2200 window. Would you please remove me from the waiting list. Thank you wayne
Andrew Stephenson (2007-11-07 15:03:22)
New category (chess rapid 2000-2200)
Thibault I think there may be a case for rapid tournament category 2000 - 2200 as there may be enough players in that category at the moment who might not feel very motivated to enter the 1800 - 2200 but would go for a 2000 - 2200 event. In the available tournament 1800 - 2200 for example no player above 2000 has entered. Just a thought.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-11-07 15:37:51)
New category (chess rapid 2000-2200)
Hello Andrew. True, but I don't think it is good to develop rapid tournaments too much, simply because it is quite hard to play, the risk is to see more forfeits on time & to concurrence the chess world championship as it is really hard to play 2 or 3 rapid tournaments at the same time. Also the more categories & players in rapid tournaments, the less in standard ones. Rapid tournaments are designed for players rated 1400-2200 who want to establish their rating quickly or to try the chess wch time control.
Andrew Stephenson (2007-11-14 12:54:32)
new rapid category
Thibault please reconsider your decision and set up a 2000 - 2200 rapid tournament which I think will fill up quickly. there are about 60 active players rated 2000 - 2200 and of these about 5 have more than 10 games going. 2 of these (Jason and Sandor) probably wont enter a 2000-2200 rapid as they are qualified and down for higher level tournaments.If the rapids are for players up to 2200 why have you got higher rated rapid tournaments? Lets get more chess played isnt that what its all about? Incidentally the standard ratings of 2000-2400 and 2200-2600 seems a mistake as no one above 2200 will enter the 2200-2400 tournament. Has anyone else got any views on having a 2000-2200 rapid category?
Andrew Stephenson (2007-11-14 20:38:49)
New category
Sorry I should have said I like the 200 band ranges options 2 and 4 - preferably option 2 as under option 4 I doubt you would see any 2200+ players entering. Wayne why do not want the bands to be reduced to 200 point differentials? dont you think there are a lot of players 2000 - 2200 who would like to play rapid?
Wayne Lowrance (2007-11-15 17:30:30)
new category
Hello Andrew. I have changed my thinking on this. 2000-2200> I would think 200 throughout would work. Wayne
Wayne Lowrance (2007-11-15 17:37:28)
Not 400 window tho
I think a window of 400 as suggested is bad, too wide...a player of 1900 playing a 2400 player is not conducive for advancement of the 2400 player, hence he would not enter. for example to be honest, I a 2200+ player would not enter such a category, just being honest. Wayne
Robert Mueller (2007-11-18 08:52:18)
Class M Waiting List
Hello Thibault, I noticed that in the Chess Class M (ELO 2200-2600) Waiting List there are two players with a rating of well under 2200 (2174 and 2147). I suppose, they had a rating higher that 2200 when they signed up, but dropped under 2200 before the tournament was started. Shouldn't they be removed from the waiting list now?
Thibault de Vassal (2007-11-18 15:21:04)
Class M Waiting List
Hello Robert, it wouldn't be conventional to remove players from waiting lists IMO. These players just lost their 2200+ rating but they probably deserve to play this tournament. Rating considered is the one you have when you enter a waiting list. Kind of "last chance" :)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-12-28 14:11:54)
option 4
I tried to change the rating ranges but a few 2200+ players would retire from the rapid M tournament... I'm afraid we have to wait. Anyway I'm to make a major update (challenges) and other improvements on the server, so I can't do it right now.
Wayne Lowrance (2008-03-19 05:43:02)
rapid Categories
Thibault you can never make everyone happy. I would like to have seen a rapid rating starting at 2200. But never mind, I wont be entering in any for quite sometime until hopefully when I get to the 2300 barrier. Gonna be very difficult. Impossible in any of the rapid tourney windows. Wayne
Andrew Stephenson (2008-05-06 15:01:06)
A bird in the hand
I think comparing f4 to b4 is quite reasonable - they are both off beat openings. On the question of chess knowledge I do not know how much he knows about b4? It can also be a dangerous practical weapon and can pose the black player more problems than f4. It is played by serious professional chess players in tournaments eg GM Christian Bauer (2626) has played it several times successfully this year and quite a few IM's regularly play it with success. Now to comparing rating sizes something I confess to not having done since I was in short trousers. My current rating is 2225 with a future rating of 2247 but with 2 rapid games in the pipe line this should be a future rating of 2300 + shortly lets see. Mr Repas rating is 2281 with a future rating at the moment of 2316. How significant is that? Well I had the opportunity to look at his games to see what his rating is made up of. 10 of his wins have come against the same opponent Sandor Porkolab and in 7 of these Mr Porkolab abandoned the games in level, drawn or in some cases better position for him. Given that in these "wins" he was often rated over 2100 or in one case over 2200 this has boosted Mr Repa's rating significantly. He has not so far had much success in WCC not having got past stage 2. As reference to my loss was made I can say that this was in a variation (the Prins of the sicilian) that I believe is unsound. Actually I overstepped the time limit while on vacation although I think the game could not be saved I learnt my lesson and do not play dodgy openings any more. I have never on the other hand been busted after 17 moves in a main line opening at cc as sadly Mr Repa found himslef against Bucsa Loan (Game 1249),then rated 1700. Then again I have stopped trusting the books and analyse for myself. Still less could I imagine being lost in a cc game after 16 moves in an exchange French (by tranposition) An instructive loss to Torsten Opas ( game 4388)- won with simple developing moves - worth playing over. Incidentally proves what I was saying about the exchange french it can be dangerous - although not of course, at cc. Finally there is Mr Repa's pet Bird shot down by Mr Kotlyansky in the approved way as follows 1 f4 d5 2 Nf3 g6 3 e3 g7 4 Be2 Nf6 5 0-0 0-0 6 d4 c5 7 dxc5 Qc7 and Black was fine winning in 72 moves. Never having lost with f4 did not include this because I suppose it was a bullet bronze game. I am afraid I am naive enough to think that people play chess on the server to win and increase their rating - clearly there are people who play to learn and strengthen their game and for whom results and rating are secondary. No doubt such people would not be interested in anything so vulgar as comparing ratings. Neverthe less its all just opinion and we are all free to express it within the rules of the server. So: f4 is a waste of time at cc little more than an invitation to draw and the From is unsound and almost like resigning.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-05-08 20:29:35)
Rating calculation & categories
Hello to all, I think it is a good time to gather feedbacks about chess (& Go) rating calculation and tournament categories. A player reported to me it was very difficult for a 2200-2400 player to reach the 2400 mark. Now we have a 2300+ rapid category, it may help but it is not very popular yet...
All feedbacks welcome :)
Best wishes, Thibault
Jason Repa (2008-05-12 01:14:13)
Rating changes
Could you write a script that removes players whose rating falls below the requirements before the tournament starts? It doesn't seem fair that a 2100 player should be playing in a tournament intended for 2200-2600 players.
Jason Repa (2008-05-12 11:53:52)
Rating changes
Its predictable that someone who expects to be falling under 2200 soon would possibly like to cheat the system and stay on a waiting list they are not qualified to be on.
Andrew Stephenson (2008-05-12 14:40:08)
Rating changes
"11. 1. Netiquette (...) No player may post in forums or send to another member any voluntary message that contains abusive, insulting, provocating, advertising, vulgar, foul, racist, sexist or other discriminatory or politically sensitive content. Doing so may lead to being immediately and permanently banned. You agree that the webmaster, administrator and moderators have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic, comment or message at any time should they see fit. Responding to a provocative message is strictly forbidden (...). In this case, please just warn the moderator or webmaster in private."
Don the more I think about it the more I think your view is correct there is no need to make the drastic change that was proposed. I have a current rating of 2225 and future rating of 2247 but have no problem with a person whose rating falls after they enter a 2200 tournament I am in. However it would be good to get other players views as this proposed change would affect players of all levels.
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2008-05-12 20:02:28)
Rating changes
Hello to all,
I think a player should be removed from the waiting list if his rating is out of the restriction of the tournament.
In my opinion TER means the rating at the start of the tournament not at the entry into the waiting list. If the tournament starts the current rating is used as TER.
For example in FICGS__CHESS__CLASS_M__000015 the games with Jason (!) and Sandor were rated with 2174 and 2147 and not with >= 2200 (their ratings when they entered the waiting list).
No words in the rules about this theme?
Best, Heinz-Georg
Thibault de Vassal (2008-05-12 20:43:04)
Rating changes, TER
About TER, it is fair IMO that a player who entered a waiting list with ie. a 2200+ rating can play the 2200+ tournament even if his rating decreases before it starts. There will be no change (it would have too many other bad consequences anyway).
Jason Repa (2008-05-12 21:42:44)
Rating changes
Nice of you to quote the one single solitary "M" class tournament that I was a few points short of 2200, out of the 7 such tournaments that I've played in, Mr. Lehnhoff, But my point stands. I would have had no problem waiting one more rating cycle back then if the rules were such to maintain the integrity of the rating categories.
As for the provocation that's going on here....It's amazing the lengths someone will go to for petty "revenge" after you beat them in chess.
Also, there is no point in quoting a "future rating" if you're not taking into consideration your losing games, some of which may end before the next rating cycle begins, that may indeed put someone under 2200.
Andrew Stephenson (2008-05-13 14:50:21)
ELO ratings
I believe ELO ratings are used for FIDE ratings I did not know you had a FIDE rating. I must say that ELO 2000 is an average to good club player and over 2200 in my experience is a good OTB rating. But looking at some of your OTB games between 1900 - 2000 seems to be the level of chess that I can see. Its ok - but the reality is that players do not improve very much after a certain age ...... Anyway at cc people tend to have it both ways if they win its because they are better players if they lose or draw its not real chess its just computers and it does not mean anything. I am sure we will play again at cc and then you can demonstrate your skill. If I win I will not place a great emphasis on it. It not difficult to draw a cc game if you have the resources to hand.
Andrew Stephenson (2008-05-13 15:47:39)
Mr cfc
Frankly I have alway taken someone saying they have an ELO rating to refer to having a FIDE rating and not a national rating I understand that you need to deduct about 35 points from sub 2200 ratings to get a FIDE equivalent. Well I have never met anyone before who thought that FIDE 2000 was such a high rating I dont mean that in a bad way I am just surprised that you think this is high. As for beating me at chess I thought this was not real chess? Well like I said there is a sense in having it both ways. Look we could easily organise a money match at cc say for Euro 1000 6, 8, 10 games whatever you want, rapid time limit you can have white in every game and I can give you 3 to 1 odds. You win 1 game you get Euro 3000 you fail to win a game I get Euro 1000. All you have to do is win a game you can even lose all the other games. Well like I said it does not prove anything - its a research competition. I dont want to hustle you but you have been making a lot of statements so if you are interested ....... But please dont challenge me to bullet games on playchess......
Hannes Rada (2008-05-13 23:53:25)
childish and offtopic
After posting No. 4 this thread becomes a childish and offtopic guerilla battle .... < It doesn't seem fair that a 2100 < player should be playing in a < tournament intended for 2200-2600 < players Are you afraid of losing so important FICGS - Elos when you have to play against lower rated opponents ?? If you want to play correspondence chess at top level than you have to sign up at ICCF.
Jason Repa (2008-05-14 00:35:54)
Re: Hannes query
I'm not "afraid" of playing anyone, and the FICGS rating points are only a means with which to play the stronger players. As I stated earlier, and in other threads, my primary interest in correspondence chess is to do research for my otb chess. Having said that I'm interested in playing the strongest players possible.
It's simple common sense that if a rating category says 2200-2600, then it should have players who are rated 2200-2600. Lower rated players are free to sign up for the category that they qualify for.
Do you play otb chess Hannes? You don't seem to have any otb rating as far as I can tell.
Wayne Lowrance (2008-05-15 19:45:42)
Rating calculation
Hello all. I have been reading the discussions here and did not intend to add my t hought. But I guess I am anyhow. Chess is about having fun, making new friends, competing with your peers, last but not least improving your skill. I am playing in several M tournaments, a couple have players whose ratings have dropped below 2200. This not a problem for me. I think they should be allowed to play. With respect Wayne
Wayne Lowrance (2008-06-02 18:54:39)
Rapid chess entry rating
I sure do not like the entry 2100-2300. I guarantee you, I will not enter here, and I doubt that any other mid 2200 player will enter either, It is a opportunity bracket for 2100 players. It is not easy I know to managed rating requirements for tournaments. But the proper bracket for the 2300 entry tourney should be 2200-2400. That is my opinion. So it the rating entry of 2100-2300 will attract 2100 players for the most part, a great opportunity for them to advance and a darn good chance that a 2200+ player to loose points (guaranteed) cause rybka prevails, in the hands of a 2100 Player. Bravo Rybka ! With respect Wayne
Garvin Gray (2008-06-02 19:14:39)
response
Wayne, this is an enternal problem and while you complain about it for the rating group 2100-2300, saying that only 2100 will benefit from it.
No matter what the rating bracket, it has been shown on this site many times that very few players will enter a waiting list when their entry is just below the cut off.
So changing the rating limits to 2200-2400 will not change this behaviour, all it will do is move the 'problem'.
Wayne Lowrance (2008-06-03 03:56:21)
Entry Rating
Okey Dokey Gavin, your right of course. I just feel like fewer players are inflicted with this misery at 2200-2400. I guess I am biased tho. I forsee that for me reaching 2300 will be almost impossible with the new bracket...I am in several tournaments at the previous bracket rating system, my hope is I can make it in this way, just dunno Thank you Wayne
Jason Repa (2008-06-04 09:22:21)
Rapid chess entry rating
I disagree with Wayne Lowrance completely. The 2300+ rapid category is an excellent idea. Obviously it's much more difficult to go from 2300-2400 than it is to go from 2200-2300. Without the 2300+ category it's ominously difficult for a 23xx player to get to the next level.
My only complaint is that the standard list doesn't have a 2300+ category as well.
Wayne Lowrance (2008-06-08 06:24:35)
Rapid chess entry rating
Jayson Repa has a point but I think he is missing my point. If Engine help was not allowed, I would agree 100%. But with engine help, in practice mostly Rybka, a 2100 player is grossly under rated, I mean gross. So that is a huge barrier to overcome for a 2200+ rated player. It is not obvious that a 2300 player climbing the ranks against 2400 players has a larger barrier than a 2200 player reaching 2300. \The point I am making is: It matters little the ratings in correspondence chess with very very long time controls. Rybka does not know or care, the lil girl just makes best moves anyhow. The skill comes in when the human selects the best opening and is the most capable of steering his engine consistant with his chess knowledge. Heck Mr Repa I would love to play 2400 players, my chance of loosing is no greater than losing to a 2100 player, both would be using Rybka or engine of their choice. With respect sir Wayne
Jason Repa (2008-06-08 20:37:40)
Rapid chess entry rating
No, Lowrance, you're the one missing the point here. And you're using engine assistance as much as anyone here, so don't pretend like you're somehow at a disadvantage. I've played you, and you're 100% program. Perhaps that's the problem.
Thibault mentioned once that a weak player running Rybka can get to around 2100 or so. To get beyond that requires some chess knowledge. While he may not be precisely accurate about the number....perhaps it's 2200 instead......nonetheless, the point is accurate. Everyone who's above 2000 on this site is consulting chess engines, but in corr. chess simply running a program alone is not the strongest way to play. You make it sound as though Rybka plays the perfect chess game. If that were the case everyone on this site would be rated about the same. It should be quite obvious to you that to go from 2300 to 2400 is much more difficult than going from 2200-2300. As a higher rated player, you get less points for winning or drawing, and lose more when you lose. As for your chances against 2400 players being the same as against 2100 players, that's pure nonsense. You'd be lucky to get the occasional draw against a 2400 player, (one who's really earned their rating and not just started with an artificially high rating as is the case with more than a few on this site) whilst you will lost most of those games. A higher rated player is higher rated for a reason. They win more games.
The correct spelling of my name should also be obvious to you, as it's on the same page that you're entering text into.
Andrew Stephenson (2008-07-12 22:45:22)
standard categories
Its a purely cosmetic change but perhaps it would be better to adjust the rating categories to: 2200-2400, 2000-2200 etc because thats what they effectively are. Nobody with a 2400+ rating wil join the current 2200-2600 category - they would join the list for 2400-2800. It seems pointless to have the overlap.
Andrew Stephenson (2008-07-12 22:52:44)
rating categories
Its a purely cosmetic change but perhaps it would be better to adjust the rating categories to: 2200-2400, 2000-2200 etc because thats what they effectively are. Nobody with a 2400+ rating wil join the current 2200-2600 category - they would join the list for 2400-2800. It seems pointless to have the overlap.
Dirk Ghysens (2008-07-13 18:29:25)
Disagree
There have been several 2200-2600 tournaments in which 2400+ players have started; in one of them even two 2500+ players participated. A well-known GM started in two such tournaments.
The 2400+ category tournaments fill up very slowly; it took about nine months for the last one to start.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-08-16 12:29:32)
Questions to Xavier Pichelin
Xavier Pichelin is 1st FICGS chess champion after beating IM Gino Figlio in the first candidates final, he accepted to talk about his match, the tournament, his views around correspondence chess, chess engines and so on... The most important part may be he'll defend his title against the winner of the 2nd candidates final :)
Unfortunately, the complete interview is in french only as he doesn't speak english, but if someone finds a good translator (if possible better than Babelfish), he may post it in this thread. Thanks !
- Bonjour Xavier et tout d'abord félicitations pour ta victoire dans le match qui t'opposait au MI (ICCF) Gino Figlio [Pérou] dans la finale des candidats. Tu devais éviter à tout prix la nulle dans toutes les parties, finalement les noirs t'ont porté chance, comment expliques-tu ce résultat ?
Xavier : Bonjour, merci pour les félicitations. C'est vrai qu'en cas de nulles pour toutes les parties, le règlement indique Figlio Vainqueur en cas d'égalité avec victoire(s) et défaite(s) je remporte le match. Donc il fallait que je prenne des risques en attaquant et c'est avec les noirs que je l'ai fait car je pensais que Gino, dans ces parties, attendrait sans prendre de risques pour assurer les nulles.
- Peux-tu nous décrire la manière dont tu as abordé ce match contre Gino et son déroulement au fur et à mesure des différentes phases du jeu ?
X : C'est assez simple, dans ce match je n'étais pas du tout favori car avec plus de 200 points ELO FICGS en ma défaveur, et Gino titré Maître International avec plus de 2480 point ELO ICCF, je pensais que je n'allais pas résister sur 8 parties simultanées car sur une partie tout est possible mais sur 8 parties... c'était pour moi un grand défi ! Pour le déroulement du jeu j'ai joué la diversité sur mes débuts avec les blancs 4 parties 4 coups différents : 1.e4 1.d4 1.c4 1.Cf3. Gino a fait de même : 1.e4 1.d4 1.Cf3 1.Cc3. Ce qui m'a fait douter aussi car 1.Cc3 m'a surpris, je pensais qu'il avait prévu un début tonitruand et c'est là que je me suis dit qu'il fallait que je prenne des risques avec les noirs. Au fur et à mesure des différentes phases du jeu j'ai assuré les nulles des positions équilibrées pour me concacrer a deux parties avantageuses dont une avec les blancs et une avec les noirs pour au moins faire la différence dans une partie pour assurer la victoire. Et en fin de compte c'est 3 victoires qui me reviennent, ce qui me paraissait impossible étant donnée la qualité du jeu de Gino joué sur ce site pour arriver à la finale des candidats du championnat.
- Tu as réalisé pendant le championnat un parcours sans faute, aucune défaite à signaler, tu affiches également des statistiques stratosphériques à 78% contre une moyenne elo à près de 2200, quel est ton secret ?
X : Mon secret? Je n'ai pas de secret. Si j'avais un secret je ne le dévoilerais pas sinon je ne gagnerais plus ! Je pense que j'ai eu un petit peu de chance car il s'en est fallu de peu que je ne sois pas qualifié au stage 3 (robin-round final) car il y avait 3 joueurs à égalité et j'ai eu l'avantage du classement du départ de ce tournoi comme l'indique le règlement. Quant à mes statistiques, c'est aussi grâce aux erreurs de mes adversaires qui m'ont permis de gagner des parties équilibrées.
- Que penses-tu du système mi-ko, mi-toutes-rondes du championnat FICGS et de ses départages inédits lors des matchs en 8 parties ? Quelles modifications y apporterais-tu ?
X : Très bonne question ! Le système mi-ko pour moi est un peu trop rapide car un coup par jour c'est des heures d'analyses pour exploiter une position compliquée, ce qui est difficile quand on à plusieurs parties en cours. Surtout quand on travaille. C'est peut-être aussi grâce à cette cadence que mes adversaires, faute de temps, ont fait des imprécisions sur certaines postions ou exploité mes erreurs. Mais cette cadence a un avantage par rapport aux cadences ICCF qui est de 5 jours par coup, c'est que les parties durent 5 fois moins longtemps ! Le départage inédit des matchs en 8 parties est excellent, obliger le favori à assurer tous les matchs nulles pour gagner ce duel et sinon d'obtenir une victoire supplémentaire contre le challenger est un mode très bien pensé. La modification que je pourrais y apporter est peut-être la gestion du temps qui est rapide pour un système de jeu par serveur. Peut-être augmenter l'horloge de départ de 15 jours, soit de commencer avec 45 jours contre 30 en ce moment. Et aussi la possibilité des prendre des vacances uniquement sur le tournoi en cours afin de gérer les autres parties du site. Par exemple prendre 7 jours de vacances sur un tournoi d'échecs du championnat et pouvoir jouer un tournoi de Big Chess, de Go ou un autre tournoi d'échecs pendant ces vacances. Pouvoir choisir une date de début de vacances à l'avance serait également appréciable.
- Pourquoi t'être investi dans les échecs par correspondance ? T'apportent-ils d'autres satisfactions par rapport aux échecs classiques et au blitz ?
X : Je préfère les échecs par correspondance par rapport au temps. Car les échecs classiques se jouent souvent le week-end, à une heure précise et souvent en déplacement pour effectuer un tournoi. L'avantage, pour moi, des échecs par correspondance est que je puisse me connecter à n'importe quelle heure pour jouer mes coups, ce qui me permet, par exemple, de faire des repas de famille le week-end et le soir tard de jouer un coup, ce qui n'est pas possible aux échecs classiques.
- Tu as su ne pas céder à la tentation et te limiter à jouer un nombre très raisonnable de parties sur le site tout le long du championnat, penses-tu néanmoins que les échecs par correspondance soient addictifs et à quel point ? Ont-ils des répercussions sur ta vie de tous les jours ?
X : Oui ! Limiter mon nombre de parties en cours est pour moi essentiel pour essayer d'avoir des parties de qualité plutôt que de quantité. Avoir beaucoup de parties en simultanée est quand même une chose très difficile à gérer ! C'est peut-être la clé de ma victoire contre Figlio, j'ai regardé ses parties en cours, il en avait pas loin de 90 sur le site de l'ICCF, cela a pu se ressentir sur son temps d'analyse consacré à nos 8 parties sur FICGS. Sur la vie de tous les jours les répercussions sont familiales car il est vrai que je passe plus de temps à analyser les parties et moins temps avec ma famille, ce qui est assez difficile pour moi. Mais quand les résultats sont là je ne regrette pas !
- Que penses-tu de la place actuelle des moteurs d'analyse (Rybka, Shredder, Fritz et autres) dans les échecs par correspondance ? Quelles sont pour toi les qualités complémentaires essentielles du joueur par correspondance, devenu centaure avec la machine pour jambes ?
X : Les moteurs d'analyses dans les échecs par correspondances sont utilisés par 95% des joueurs... Maintenant il faut s'adapter et savoir utiliser ces machines à calculer. Car jouer simplement le meilleur coup de Rybka 3, de Fritz 12 ou Hiarcs 12 sans réfléchir mentalement mène à la nulle si l'adversaire fait de même ou possiblement à perdre si l'adversaire se donne la peine de réfléchir en les utilisant également. En sachant que lorsqu'on est dans le milieu de partie ces logiciels vous donnent souvent 4 à 5 coups evalués de manière semblable, et c'est là qu'il faut choisir le bon coup alors que celui-ci n'est même pas forcément cité par le moteur d'analyse...
- Tu joues désormais au Big Chess sur le site, curiosité ou intérêt ? Que penses-tu de cette version étrange des échecs ?
X : Par curiosité et par amusement et je pense que Rybka 3 ne joue pas encore au Big Chess ! Cette version est quasiment inédite je ne connaissais pas cette forme de jeu d'échecs auparavant donc celui qui a inventé ce jeu a très bien fait ! A propos c'est moi qui vous pose une question sur le Big chess... Y a t-il possiblité de roquer avec ce jeu si oui comment? (NDLR : Non, il est impossible de roquer au Big Chess)
- Et enfin la question que tout le monde se pose, particulièrement François et Wolfgang qui disputent la deuxième finale des candidats, penses-tu pouvoir défendre ton titre l'an prochain ? :)
X : Bien sûr ! Je défendrai le titre ! J'aimerais si possible savoir la date et la cadence du match. Et je souhaite à François et Wolfgang une belle finale ! Je dois faire honneur à cette compétition qui est bien organisée !
- Le match devrait pouvoir débuter durant la première semaine de janvier 2009, la cadence sera à nouveau de 30 jours et 1 jour supplémentaire par coup. Merci pour tes réponses, et encore bravo pour cette belle performance !
X : Merci ! Et à bientôt ! Bonne continuation à tous et bonnes parties !
Benjamin Block (2008-08-18 08:52:18)
Try to translate!
I think it is something like that?
Hello Xavier and first congratulations on your victory in the match which t'opposait the MI (ICCF) Gino Figlio [Peru] in the final candidates. You should avoid at all costs void in all parties, finally brought blacks t'ont chance, how do you explain this result? X
avier: Hello, thank you for the congratulations. It is true that in case of zero for all parties, the regulation states Figlio winner in the event of a tie with victory (s) and defeat (s) I won the match. So I had to take risks in attacking and it is with blacks that I did it because I thought Gino, in these parts, expected without taking risks to ensure the void.
-- Can you tell us about how you approached this match against Gino and his conduct as different phases of the game?
X: It's pretty simple, in this match I was not at all favorite because with more than 200 ELO points FICGS to my disadvantage, and Gino titled Master International, with more than 2480 ELO ICCF point, I thought I n ' not resist going on 8 simultaneous games as a part everything is possible but on 8 parts ... it was for me a great challenge! In the course of the game I played diversity in my beginnings with white 4 parts 4 different strokes: 1.e4 1.d4 1.c4 1.Cf3. Gino did the same: 1.e4 1.d4 1.Cf3 1.Cc3. What made me doubt also because 1.Cc3 surprised me, I thought he had planned an early tonitruand and this is where I said that I should take risks with blacks. As the different phases of the game I assured the zero positions balanced for me concacrer deal has two parts, one with blanks and one with the black for at least make a difference in part to ensure victory. And ultimately it 3 victories me back, which seemed impossible given the quality of the game Gino played on this site to reach the final of the championship candidates.
-- You have made during a championship course without fault, no losses to report, you also posters statistics stratospheric to 78% against an average elo to about 2200, what's your secret?
X: My secret? I have no secret. If I had a secret I do not dévoilerais if I do win more! I think I got a little lucky because he is required by little I am not qualified to stage 3 (round-robin final) because there were 3 players equally and I had l 'advantage classifying the departure of this tournament as indicated by the regulation. As for my statistics, it is also thanks to the errors of my opponents who allowed me to win parts in balance.
-- What do you think the system mid-ko, semi-all-round championship FICGS and its new départages in matches in 8 parties? What changes would it be?
X: Very good question! The system mid-ko for me is a little too fast since a coup by day is overtime analyses to operate a complicated position, which is difficult when several parties in progress. Especially when you work. It is perhaps also through this pace that my opponents lack of time, made some uncertainty regarding postions or exploited my mistakes. But the pace has an advantage over the cadences ICCF which is 5 days a coup is that the parties had to 5 times less time! The départage new games to 8 parts is excellent, forcing the favorite to ensure all matches to nil win this duel and otherwise obtain an additional victory against the challenger is a very well thought out. The amendment that I could make is perhaps time management which is fast for a game system per server. Perhaps increase the clock starting 15 days, starting with 45 against 30 days at this time. And also the possibility of taking a vacation only on the tournament underway to manage other parts of the site. For example, take 7 days vacation on a chess tournament championship and be able to play a tournament Big Chess, Go or another chess tournament during the holidays. Being able to choose a start date of holidays in advance would also be appreciated.
-- Why t'être invested in correspondence chess? T'apportent there are other rewards compared to traditional chess and blitz?
X: I prefer chess match over time. For the classical chess is often play the weekend at a specific time and often on the move to make a tournament. The advantage for me, correspondence chess is that I can connect at any time to play my shots, which allows me, for example, making family meals on weekends and late at night to play a coup, which is not possible chess classics.
-- You knew not to succumb to the temptation and you only play a very reasonable number of parties on the site throughout the championship, do you think nevertheless that the correspondence chess are addictive and at what point? Did they affect your everyday life?
X: Yes! Limiting my number of games in progress is essential for me to try to have parts of quality rather than quantity. Have a lot of parts simultaneously is still something very difficult to manage! This is perhaps the key to my victory against Figlio, I watched its games in progress, it had nearly 90 on the site of the ICCF, it has been felt on his time devoted to analysis our parties on FICGS 8. On the everyday life impacts are family because it is true that I spend more time to analyze the parts and less time with my family, which is quite difficult for me. But when the results are there I do not regret!
-- What do you think about the current position of engines for analysis (Rybka, Shredder, Fritz and others) in correspondence chess? What are the qualities you complementary core player by correspondence, now centaur with the machine for legs?
X: The engines of analyses in chess matches are used by 95% of players ... Now we must adapt and learn to use these machines to calculate. Car simply play the best shot of Rybka 3, Fritz 12 or Hiarcs 12 mentally without thinking leads to zero if the opponent does the same or possibly lose if the opponent gives himself the trouble to consider using them as well. Knowing that when you're in the middle part of these programs give you often 4 to 5 strokes assessed similarly, and that is that we must choose the right time when it is not even necessarily cited by the analysis engine ...
-- You get the Big Chess now on the site, curiosity or interest? What do you think of this strange version of chess?
X: For curiosity and fun and I think Rybka 3 is not yet the Big Chess! This version is almost unprecedented I did not know this form of chess before therefore the one who invented this game was very well done! About I'm the one who asks you a question on the Big chess ... Is there possibility of castle with this game if so, how? (Editor's note: No, it is impossible to castle the Big Chess)
-- And finally the question that everyone arises, especially Francis and Wolfgang disputing that the second final candidates, think you can defend your title next year? :)
X: of course! I will defend the title! I would like if possible to know the timing and pace of the match. And I wish Francis and Wolfgang a beautiful final! I must honor in this competition which is well organized!
-- The match should be able to start during the first week of January 2009, the pace will again 30 days and 1 additional day by coup. Thank you for your answers, and even congratulations for this excellent performance!
X: Thank you! And see you! Bonne continuation to all and good parties!
Andrew Stephenson (2008-08-18 16:06:16)
translation
I will have a go off the top of my head at giving a sense of the interview in english (I dont know the phrase tonitruand but I am guessing it means dynamic!)?: Hi Xavier and first of all congratulations on your success in the candidates final match against IM (ICCF) Gino Figlio [Peru] You had to avoid drawing all the games and finally you succeded with the black pieces. How did that happen? Xavier: Hi thank you. Its true that if all the games had been drawn then under the rules Figlio would have won whereas if the match was drawn but with a win and loss I would win. Because of this I had to take risks and attack. It was with Black that I did this because I thought that Gino would play safely to be sure of a draw. - Tell us how you approched the match and how the different phases of the game went x: Its quite simple, I was not the favorite I have 200 ELO less on FICGS and Gino is an IM on ICCF with a 2480 rating. I did not think I could survive 8 games at once - in a single game anything is possible but 8 games .... it was a big challenge for me! In the openings I chose 4 different moves 1 e4 1 d4 1 c4 1 Nf3 Gino chose 1 e4 1 d4 1 c4 1 Nc3 I was surpised by 1 Nc3 because I was expecting dynamic openings and it was then that I decided I must take some risks with black. I kept most of the games balanced with a draw in hand and concentrated on 2 games 1 white and 1 black to get a result. In the end I got 3 wins which seemed an impossibility given the quality of the games Gino had played on this site to reach the final. - you have not lost any games in the championship and you have fantastic statistics 78% against an average elo of about 2200. What is your secret? x: My secret? I havent any secret and if I did I would not say because I would not win anymore! I think I have been a bit lucky because in the the Round Robin final there were 3 of us on the same score and I went through under the rules because of my rating. As for my statistics I was helped by mistakes by opponents who allowed me to win some drawn games. - What do you think of the system for the FICGS championship (round robin and knock out matches)and what changes would you make? x: Very good question. The matches are a bit too fast for me - 1 day per move when there are hours of analysis needed to exploit a complicated position its difficult when you have several games running Particularly if you are working. Perhaps that is why my opponents have made errors or failed to exploit my mistakes. But this time limit has an advantage over ICCF where it is 5 days per move the games here are 5 times quicker! Having 8 game matches is an excellent idea and obliging the favorite to draw all the games and the challenger to get a at least 1 victory is very well thought out. The change that I would suggest is to have 15 days extra starting time that is 45 days at the start instead of 30 and also the possibilty to take holidays for tournaments for example take 7 days for championship games and to be able to play big chess go or another chess tournament during the holiday. To be able to choose the start of a holiday in advance would also be good. - Why do you like cc and how does it compare to blitz and normal chess? x: I prefer cc because of the time factor. Classical chess is often played at the week end at a fixed time and you have to travel to the tournament. The advantage for me at cc is that I can connect at any time to play a move which allows me for example to have meals with the family at the weekend. Late night moves for example are not possible at classical chess. - You limited the number of your games on the site to a reasonable amount throughout the championship. Do you think nonetheless that cc is addictive? Does it affect your daily life? x: Yes! Limiting the number of my games is essential to try to have games of quality not quantity. Having a lot of games going at the same time is something very difficult to handle. It is perhaps the key to my victory against Figlio - I looked at his games - he had not less than 80 games going on at ICCF this must have affected the amount of time he could spend analysing his 8 games at FICGS. The effects on daily life are felt by the family because the reality is if I spend more time analysing the games I spend less time with the family. Thats difficult for me. But when the results come I dont regret it! - What do you think of the role of chess engines (Rybka Fritz etc)in cc. What are for you the important skills of a cc player - to supplement the machine? x: Chess engines are used in cc by 95% of players. You have to adapt yourself and know how to use the engines. To play just the best move of Rybka 3 Fritz 12 or Hiracs 12 without thinking leads to a draw if your opponent does the same or to a loss if your opponent is thinking. You have to choose bewteen 4 or 5 moves with a similer evaluation from the engine during a game and sometimes the best move is not among these. - You play Big chess. Interest or curiosity? What do you think of this strange version of chess? X : Curiosity and amusement and I think Rrybka 3 cannot yet play Big Chess! This version is new and I did not know it and the inventor has done a good job! By the way I would like to ask is it possible to castle at Big Chess? [No its not possible] - Finally the question that everyone is asking particularly Francois and Wolfgang who are contesting the 2nd candidates final. Do think you will be able to defend your title next year? :) x: Definitely I will defend the title I would like to know if possible the date and time limits for the match. I wish Francois and Wolfgang a great match! I would also like to express my appreciation for this tournament which has been well organised! - the match should start in the first week in January next year the time limit will be 30 days plus 1 day per move. Thank you for your answers and once again congratulations on a great performance. x: Thank you. Cheers. Best wishes to everyone and good games!
Thibault de Vassal (2008-09-13 13:45:25)
Correction
Hi Wayne, yes I mean Rybka unassisted and playing with the best book possible. But this assumption of rating was based on games played with a ~2450-2500 centaur... But in my opinion, Rybka would not outplay a centaur rated 2200 as well, so her rating may be closer to 2200-2250.
Finally, maybe the most interesting part would be a match between Rybka 3.0 and a correspondence chess player rated 1900 :)
Ben Milton (2008-11-06 16:47:28)
Downloading games
Is there a way to download all the long games (non blitz, bullet, etc) above the rating of 2200? Im sure a very strong opening book can be made from that considering that most of the people use engines here...
Ben Milton (2008-11-07 19:38:27)
Thank you
Thank you for the helpful reply, however when i try 2200+ for black and white and type Sicilian. it says no games...
Normajean Yates (2008-11-07 20:36:31)
but I found lots, + wait for hashtables
but Mr Milton, *I* found loads of 2200+ v 2200+ sicilian games!
Hashtables haven't been implemented yet, but thibault said they are soon to come. so will not yet, but soon in the future, find transpositions into a sicilian, and at present but not in the near future you *will* find games that transposed *out* of sicilian...
What *did* you search for? In 'Opening' type 1.e4 d5, and for both black and white elo type 2200 - and you will get the sicilians, with the provisos I mentioned above
Thibault de Vassal (2008-11-22 22:43:23)
Ratings
Chess ratings increase quite quickly here, once you reach 2000-2100, every player most probably use chess engines, but there must be such rules (max. provisional rating) to guarantee the quality of the games at a higher level. It shouldn't take more than 4 or 6 months to reach a 2200 level. Correspondence chess is a game of patience :)
Marc Lacrosse (2009-01-06 21:30:45)
Wayne ...
... We all had to wait according to these rules that are present since the very beginning of FICGS
I do not see why your impatience deserves changing what has been running for years.
If I see well you have one FEM norm recorded and wish to see the second one recorded as soon as possible
So far you played against a mean 2000 rated opponents
Most top accounts have mean opponent rating higher than 2200
This is probably the reason why you do not achieve more master norms at a faster pace
Do play in higher rated tournaments and you will soon earn as many norms as you wish if your playing strength is OK against stronger opponents
The best way to enter high-rated tournaments here is to go as often as possible in Ficgs-Wch qualifications tournaments
Marc
Scott Nichols (2009-04-17 12:47:18)
Team chess league?
What about instead of teams from a certain country, we could form teams from the many friends we have found here. It could be in the form of a league. An open section, a section where the "average" of the 4 players is under 2200, 1800 etc. We could form the teams on our own and enter the waiting list as a team with some fun names. What do you think?
Daniel Parmet (2009-04-21 19:26:04)
team league 1st then olympiad later
the olympiad sounds like a great idea except I think Thibault is right there still needs to be more players sign up for countries and teams of 4. Maybe just a team league for now for u2200 and u1800 would be coool.
Scott Nichols (2009-04-21 22:51:04)
4-person teams
It should be 4 players to a team. The under 2200 section the ratings should AVERAGE under 2200, e.g. a 2511, 2278, 1804, 2205=AVG. 2199.50. Same for other sections. Teams should form on their own and enter a waiting list. A league would be the best if we can get that much organized.
Nick Burrows (2009-07-04 07:55:18)
Minimum rating idea
A common problem encountered in correspondance chess is that of strong players forefitting several games and their rating dropping by hundreds of points
This spoils the tourny for lower rated players who often have a 2200 rated player in their group with a misleading rating of 1600.
It also de-stabilises the ratings across the whole site as many players grades are false.
Lastly, and of least concern because players who made the drop deserve some handicap - the artificially low-graded player has a whole year of uncompetitive matches as he waits to regain points.
In o.t.b tournaments in England, a method employed to stop rating cheats is that a player who has won a certain class of tournament previously, cannot re-enter at that level.
The equivalent here would be that your rating has a minimum value, equal to the highest rating requirement of a tournament class you have previously won.
This seems to solve the problems experienced by many on this site.
It may be said that the rating drop is a necessary deterrent to prevent players from doing this. My experience is that it occurs from factors out of one's control (illness) and any deterrant is irrelevant - just as a death penalty doesn't stop heroin addicts from stealing!
What d'yall think?
Garvin Gray (2009-08-29 16:05:33)
Issue for 2150 rated players
I am starting to notice an issue with how the rating bands are set for tournaments, both standard and rapid.
Currently I am rated between 2150 and 2200, depending on the rating period. After having been in this rating band for a couple of rating periods, I am noticing it is very difficult to get rated games against players rated above 2200.
This makes it very difficult to improve my rating, or at least have it proven that my playing standard is not deserved of a higher rating, or a lower rating as the case maybe.
I know it is possible to look at my results from players rated similar to myself and try and work out conclusions from there, but to not have the opportunity to play people rated above myself does not afford me the opportunity to see how I go against them, or to record results against higher rated players that might suggest I am underrated.
I suggested awhile ago that each of the tournament bands need to be 200 points apart, with the standard and rapid tournaments operated on odds and evens 200 point rating bands. I still believe this to be the answer to a lot of the sites ills as I still see many tournaments where players just under the rating cut off not entering when the rating band is 400 points.
Garvin Gray (2009-08-30 16:23:48)
200 point bands in both!
nooooo, i am suggesting the complete opposite. That in both standard time control and rapid that the bands be 200 points.
It is only that in the standard time control that the bands be 1700-1899, 1900-2099, 2100-2299, 2300-2499 etc and for rapid it would be 1800-1999, 2000-2199, 2200-2399, 2400-2599.
This would mean for a person with a rating of 1950 would be at the top of the ratings for one of the bands and at the bottom of the bands for the other.
Garvin Gray (2009-09-02 07:33:40)
to be clear
Apologies if my post irks anyone, but just to be clear, the standard and rapid rating cutoffs have to at the opposite 100 point bands.
So as I said previously,
It is only that in the standard time control that the bands be 1700-1899, 1900-2099, 2100-2299, 2300-2499 etc and for rapid it would be 1800-1999, 2000-2199, 2200-2399, 2400-2599.
Of course this idea also works if Thibault decides to have the standard tournaments using an even rating cutoff ie 1800-1999, 2000-2199 etc.
Don Groves (2009-09-17 07:52:52)
Rating bands
What's the difference between 1800-2000 and 1800-2200? No one rated 2000 or above would enter that tournament either. I just don't see how your choices have been reduced.
Besides, if everyone adopted the attitude of only playing higher rated players, there would be no games at all.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-09-19 22:14:20)
Rating bands
Well, you have to win even more games to enter the upper rating category and I'm not sure it is always a fair system for the winner of a tournament to access it, based on the argument you quoted & also is it fair to play more games to finally win one tournament and lose elo points because of the number of games played at the same time, what happens if 3 or 4 players win a tournament ? (we could use the WCH tournament rules but is it appropriate in this case)
Moreover IMHO, such a rule wouldn't be necessary for ratings below 2200. On the other hand, it may be envisaged to casually offer to the winner of a 2000+ tournament to enter an upper waiting list to complete a waiting list in certain conditions, eg. if his rating is not more than 100 points below the upper rating band (it may be an idea to launch the 11th class SM tournament), what do you think ?
Thibault de Vassal (2009-10-20 22:14:38)
Shredder 12 vs. Rybka 3
Shredder 12 (the chess engine more than the interface) looks much more promising than Fritz 12, here are the current CEGT rating lists, Naum 4 and Rybka 3 are not so far !
40 / 40 rating list
1 Rybka 3 x64 1CPU 3105 16 16 1293 71.7% 2944 35.0%
2 Rybka 3 w32 1CPU 3053 16 16 1234 68.3% 2919 38.7%
3 Deep Shredder 12 x64 1CPU 3000 27 27 351 55.1% 2964 45.9%
4 Naum 4 w32 1CPU 2988 17 17 831 58.2% 2930 47.9%
5 Naum 4 x64 1CPU 2982 18 18 728 54.2% 2953 48.8%
6 Deep Fritz 11 1CPU 2936 14 14 1298 53.5% 2911 47.3%
7 Fritz 12 2928 18 18 778 47.3% 2947 46.3%
8 Fritz 11 2916 7 7 6292 54.9% 2882 42.3%
9 Zappa Mexico II x64 1CPU 2915 15 15 1134 54.5% 2883 45.1%
10 Shredder WM Edition Bonn 1CPU 2912 13 13 1580 50.7% 2907 41.7%
http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_40%20Rating%20List/40_40%20SingleVersion/rangliste.html
40 / 4 rating list
1 Rybka 3.0 x64 4CPU 3238 11 11 3400 80.4% 2993 27.7%
2 Naum 4.0 x64 4CPU 3126 11 11 2400 64.9% 3020 41.7%
3 Deep Shredder 12 x64 4CPU 3105 15 15 1300 65.8% 2991 35.9%
4 Deep Fritz 11 4CPU 3066 10 10 2500 58.3% 3008 44.5%
5 Stockfish 1.4 JA x64 4CPU 3032 11 11 2400 53.0% 3011 38.8%
6 Zappa Mexico II x64 4CPU 3026 8 8 4050 49.6% 3029 40.1%
7 Thinker 5.4D x64 4CPU Inert 3012 11 11 2200 50.3% 3010 39.5%
8 Hiarcs 12.1 4CPU 2998 11 11 2400 49.7% 3001 39.2%
http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_4_Ratinglist/40_4_BestVersion/rangliste.html
Congrats to the author of Shredder !
Thibault de Vassal (2009-10-29 23:01:27)
Most active players, amazing statistics!
These statistics (updated every 2 days) are available at :
http://www.ficgs.com/about.html
And the overall winner is........ :)
Players most active : General (moves played)
1. Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff : 124234
2. Rolf Staggat : 81806
3. Anderson Barradas : 55829
4. Stephane Legrand : 47936
5. Scott Nichols : 46711
6. Mark Noble : 37387
7. Findlay Murray : 35874
8. Volker Koslowski : 33241
9. Don Groves : 29539
10. Thibault de Vassal : 26104
11. Francisco Gramajo : 25281
12. Sergey Uzdin : 25256
13. Michael Sharland : 24890
14. Josef Riha : 24193
15. Jason Repa : 22765
16. Laurine Ségur : 22577
17. Alexis Bromo : 20198
18. Benjamin Collette : 20112
19. Fernando Vasquez : 19928
20. Laszlo Kis-Kos : 19174
21. Christian Koch : 18450
22. Evgeny Yarkov : 17168
23. Xavier Pichelin : 16559
24. Garvin Gray : 16388
25. Ranganathan Raman : 15750
26. Sebastian Boehme : 15190
27. Zdravko Stoyanov : 15186
28. Nick Ioffe : 15151
29. Phil Cook : 15007
30. Sean McNabb : 14572
31. Daniel Parmet : 13814
32. Ilmars Cirulis : 13118
33. Joaquim Malpalma : 13057
34. Dmitriy Panov : 12733
35. Nelson Bernal Varela : 12119
36. Marco Roncagliolo : 11741
37. Dmytro Romaniuk : 11648
38. Miroslav Rakovic : 11435
39. Nick Burrows : 11242
40. Janeen Walden : 10967
41. Claude Brisson : 10812
42. Sandor Porkolab : 10714
43. Christophe Czekaj : 10678
44. Janusz Kepinski : 10675
45. Peter Willoughby : 10634
46. Benjamin Block : 10633
47. Kate Lubeck : 10155
48. Charlie Neil : 10076
49. Darko Pipac : 10072
50. William Taylor : 10036
Players most active : Go
1. Don Groves : 17026
2. Claude Brisson : 10812
3. Nick Ioffe : 10795
4. Alejandro Suarez-Moreno : 10018
5. Mickaël Simon : 8986
6. Thibault de Vassal : 8870
7. Sean McNabb : 8666
8. Sergey Tarassov : 8236
9. Phil Cook : 8186
10. Tetsuya Kobayashi : 7816
Players most active : Chess
1. Josef Riha : 24119
2. Fernando Vasquez : 19820
3. Zdravko Stoyanov : 14523
4. Anderson Barradas : 12587
5. Ilmars Cirulis : 12200
6. Laszlo Kis-Kos : 12068
7. Janusz Kepinski : 10675
8. Garvin Gray : 10638
9. Scott Nichols : 10211
10. Charlie Neil : 10076
Players most active : Chess 960
1. Christophe Czekaj : 1224
2. Joaquim Malpalma : 916
3. Frederick Estieu : 672
4. Ilmars Cirulis : 605
5. Pavel Háse : 600
6. Sefa Sarihan : 524
7. Sandor Porkolab : 512
8. Jay Melquiades : 495
9. Christian Koch : 470
10. Rick Spangler : 447
Players most active : Big Chess
1. Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff : 5583
2. Peter Willoughby : 4368
3. José Carrizo : 3319
4. Thibault de Vassal : 3199
5. Mark Noble : 2949
6. Sandor Porkolab : 2467
7. Volker Koslowski : 1887
8. Paul König : 1790
9. William Taylor : 1706
10. Ranganathan Raman : 1620
Players most active : Poker Holdem
1. Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff : 111119
2. Rolf Staggat : 75570
3. Stephane Legrand : 41639
4. Anderson Barradas : 38671
5. Scott Nichols : 36500
6. Findlay Murray : 33008
7. Mark Noble : 31172
8. Volker Koslowski : 25829
9. Michael Sharland : 20721
10. Francisco Gramajo : 20431
Congrats Heinz-Georg, definitely you're the most addicted player ;)
Michel van der Kemp (2009-11-30 12:51:02)
Andersson
Didn't Ulf Andersson become ICCF World Champion? At least I remember a game where he beat then world champion Gert Timmerman (2200-2300 FIDE rating) with black. I know for a fact he was at one point the highest rated player in ICCF.
Pablo Schmid (2009-12-27 13:42:31)
Rating calculation
Salut Thibault, bon j'écris en français cette fois, j'ai lu les explications sur les calculs mais ça me semble assez obscur, alors je vais poser des questions proches de ma situation. Imaginons que je commence un tournoi 2000-2200 avec un rating à 2000 pile et que je fais un score de 50% contre des joueurs à 2050 de moyenne, en théorie je devrais gagner quelques points non? Et maintenant mon classement réel a monté depuis le début du tournoi disons à 2120, et du coup le 50% contre cette moyenne à 2050 me ferait perdre des points si on compte mon rating le plus récent. Alors est-ce que c'est mon ELO de départ qui va être pris en compte ou mon ELO actuel? En gros je suis en train de me demander s'il est intéressant de commencer un tournoi avant la nouvelle liste avec un classement supérieur sur cette liste, ou si cela ne change rien voire désavantageux...
J'espère que tu auras compris ma question et merci d'avance pour ta réponse :)
A +
Pablo
Andres E. Leon (2010-03-31 19:06:50)
Difference between class A / rapid A
FICGS__CHESS__CLASS_A Tournaments admits chess players with 2000-2200 ELO and FICGS__CHESS__RAPID_A is for 1900-2100 ELO players. Why there is this difference?
Thibault de Vassal (2010-03-31 19:15:30)
Difference between class A / rapid A
Hello Andres.
The reason is that many players asked for this to help players rated 2000-2100 to reach the 2200 mark.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-04-05 00:58:06)
Advanced chess ratings calculation
For some reasons that I'll explain below, I updated the advanced chess (bullet, lightning, blitz, freestyle) rating calculation rules to the following :
"Performance = Opponent Current Rating if the game is drawn, + 350 if the game is won, -350 if the game is lost.
The following bonus / malus applied to White and to Black makes ratings fair, as it is not possible to force a player to take White or Black before a game :
(White) Performance = Performance - 50
(Black) Performance = Performance + 50
If there's a winner and if his rating is below 2400, his new rating his :
New Rating = ((8 x Current Rating) + (2 x Performance)) / 10
Otherwise :
New Rating = ((9 x Current Rating) + (1 x Performance)) / 10
The rating calculation does not take account of wins obtained by a stronger player when the Elo difference is greater than 350 points, the same with losses by a weaker player.
In case of a draw or loss against a player rated more than 200 points less, the opponent's rating considered in calculation is : Current Rating - 200. A player who wins a game cannot lose Elo points, a player who loses a game cannot win Elo points."
More details :
http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html#rating_advanced_chess
The rule that just changed is "If there's a winner and if his rating is below 2400, his new rating his : New Rating = ((8 x Current Rating) + (2 x Performance)) / 10".
This rule will probably be updated again in a few months with a rating limit of 2200 instead of 2400, when advanced chess ratings will be more coherent with correspondence chess ratings.
The reasons are :
1) Advanced/freestyle chess is often neglected partly because players will likely lose some rating points (many strong players using Rybka 3-like engines still have a rating of 1800 or 2000, there are several reasons to this), the main point is probably the interface but I'm fixing it (e.g. the new touch-move option - see Preferences).
2) Chess engines are just stronger and stronger while the ratings do not increase with the previous rules, as a consequence players who just tried advanced chess once years ago shouldn't still top the rating list. It is of course a way for players to find their place quicker in the rating list & to incitate players to play more games as well.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-04-21 20:40:33)
Wider rating range tournaments
So, maybe we should come back to the 400 points ranges for every category, e.g. 1600-2000, 1800-2200, 2000-2400 and so on... ? Any other opinion?
Thibault de Vassal (2010-05-08 21:08:51)
New proposition
Here's a new idea, based on the fact that I don't think I'll have time (before a while, at least) to implement a script that would allow 1 or 2 tournament's winners to enter a higher class waiting list... many particular cases, not so easy.
The idea :
We could allow one (actually 2 would be still ok IMO) tournament's winner to enter a higher class waiting list for 10 Epoints (not Euros, big difference as most Epoints are won in free tournaments and cannot be cashed out if not played in tournaments with entry fee). I would place the players in the waiting lists by myself but finally it may satisfy everyone -> A player rated 1900 could enter a 2000+ waiting list but could not enter a 2200+ waiting list, the server can offer more Epoints prizes (that just increased for chess tournaments, by the way), and players could find their place more easily in the ratings.
Any opinion?
Thibault de Vassal (2010-05-08 23:45:26)
New proposition
Actually the main problem is IMO what to do if let's say 5 players rated 2000-2200 suddenly ask for an entry in a 2200+ (class M) waiting list... It may take so much time for the 5th player to be able to enter it (waiting for a 3rd M tournament starts if 2 players can have a ticket per tournament) that he may reach the 2200 mark before that his ticket be useful.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-05-09 23:31:20)
Careful wht you do with our loved F
Sorry Garvin, I was not clear enough, I meant "what to do if let's say 5 players rated 2000-2200 (who won 5 different tournaments !) suddenly ask for an entry in a 2200+ (class M) waiting list".
We can discuss your other suggestions of course, everything is possible there, but we must find an "agreement" on the other points before :)
> The entry fee for this qualified player should be the amount they won in their previous division.
I guess that we could try this way, but it seems a bit unfair for the winners of strong tournaments, any other opinion?
Garvin Gray (2010-05-12 08:51:01)
Entry fee for higher class tournament
To answer one point, as opposed to point one hehe.
While it is true with hard work and good results, it is possible to get into the very high rating groups, the way this site works makes it very difficult indeed.
In fact, it is more likely that a persons rating will stay the same or reduce due to the fact that more players come into the system, take away rating points from those with established ratings and this keeps happening.
With how this site is set up, there are very few opportunities for players in the 2100 rating group to get back those points by playing opponents in the 2200-2300 or more as it stands atm.
So it is highly likely that a player, or players, could be improving their games, but their rating does not improve because they do not have the opportunity to improve their rating because they do not play people rated above them as much as they are playing people rated below them.
Garvin Gray (2010-05-15 11:45:34)
Entry fee for higher class tournament
Just thought of another benefit. This idea might also get those who are just under the rating cutoff to start joining tournaments where they think there is nothing to gain except loss of rating points.
So in a 2000-2200 rating division, 2150+ might start entering knowing that they can win that division and get to the next upper division, rather than just having to get there on rating alone.
So this idea could provide a compensatory return for being in a group with 6 other people rated lower.
Arno Bezemer (2010-05-20 14:57:17)
Late resignation
Normally I don't mind to play out a winning position, but my opponent in game 32535 keeps on playing for ever, with just a pawn vs my rook and 2 pawns. On the lowest level i can maybe understand this but not in a class M 2200+ tournament. Is there anything i can do about it?
Thibault de Vassal (2010-08-03 11:49:16)
Match vs. ICCF
Hi Gino, thanks for your precious advices... Good ideas, and indeed ICCF could host the whole event (if they wish).
Still thinking about it... another idea (among others) : if only FICGS players who are not members of ICCF could enter the FICGS team, maybe the experience could be interesting as well as I feel that many 2200-2300 players here are getting stronger [maybe also due to the increasing level of engines] and will probably reach 2400 in a while, so they would have a chance to play a match against very strong ICCF players... The idea would be to see the real strength difference between these 2 categories of players (ICCF would be almost sure not to lose but for us the challenge would be even greater).
The other idea behind this is that ICCF may see an opportunity to make discover their server to these new players.
Finally we may suggest several ideas to ICCF, Gino's one, this one & maybe others... Whatever they choose, it could be interesting for the players, what do you think?
Garvin Gray (2010-10-01 13:30:27)
WCH Stage 1 groups (new players)
GG- "2) All the provisional rated players are put into groups by themselves." ,
TB- You mean they play together in special groups?
We can think about it as well but one goal of the championship was to help those players to find their place quicker in the rating list before the next cycles. I'm not sure if a 2300 player provisionnaly rated 1800 is an advantage for anyone else in the group more than seed 1.
GG- It is not an advantage to have an 1800 in your group if they play to a standard of 2100. It is a severe disadvantage.
It means there is one more person in some groups that plays to a rating way above their provisional rating.
I am very concerned that you seem to be putting the needs of increasing those players ratings in the WCH above the integrity of the competition as a whole. It means you are unfairly affecting other players chances of qualifying, just for the sake of allowing new members the chance to gain a few extra rating points.
The new members still have a lot of chances to increase their rating through playing in normal tournaments, which is where the longer term members had to get their ratings from.
I am saying that those with provisional ratings should be seeded into groups by themselves in stage one.
Whoever wins these groups will clearly be about 2100/2200 playing strength and so will not be crushed in stage two anymore than those with long term 2100 ratings.
A secondary option is to seed some of these players using their advanced rating (if they have one), so at least then there does not end up being three or four 2100's trying to qualify from the same group, while having other groups with only one or two 2100's.
Peter Unger (2011-01-03 00:26:00)
Private messages to the webmaster
I cant get to the following tournament - why - the accepted participants have no ELO 2300+
FICGS__CHESS__RAPID_SM__000008
(type : rated round-robin, time : 30 days, increment : 1 day / move)
7 players, 6 game (1 game against each opponent)
entry fee : 0 , prize : 20 (E-Points)
elo : 2300+
POL Broniek, Mariusz Maciej 2106
SVK Gazi, Miroslav 2289
USA Nichols, Scott 2200
Garvin Gray (2011-01-05 02:13:43)
WBCCC Pairings for Round 1 will be here
Click on this link if you wish to see the pairings in a more user friendly format: http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?pid=300666;msg=ReplyPost No Name Rtg Total Result Name Rtg Total
1 LOWRANCE, Wayne (1) 2488 [0] : RALUNGER, (18) 2122 [0]
2 VYTRON, (19) 2120 [0] : LOBOESTEPARIO, (2) 2438 [0]
3 MOZ, (3) 2345 [0] : DEKA, (20) 2110 [0]
4 PARMET, Daniel (21) 2087 [0] : BOEHME, Sebastian (4) 2327 [0]
5 NATIONAL12, (5) 2290 [0] : MARRIOTT, Peter (22) 2079 [0]
6 SCHACHMATT, (23) 2063 [0] : OMPRAKASH, (6) 2285 [0]
7 ELDRIDGE, Mark (7) 2271 [0] : WEIRWINDLE111, (24) 2050 [0]
8 STEPHANIE, (25) 2000 [0] : CÓMES, Rubén (8) 2260 [0]
9 BALABACHI, (9) 2257 [0] : JITAN, (26) 1900 [0]
10 NATMAKU, (27) 1900 [0] : CUMNORCHESSCLUB, (10) 2246 [0]
11 KEOKI010, (11) 2209 [0] : TOMSKI1981, (28) 1900 [0]
12 WIGHT054, (29) 1855 [0] : SEKOS, (12) 2200 [0]
13 NICHOLS, Scott (13) 2199 [0] : INDRAJIT_SG, (30) 1800 [0]
14 DONKASAND, (31) [0] : EVANS, David (14) 2197 [0]
15 PPIPPER, (15) 2160 [0] : FULCRUM2000, (32) [0]
16 MARGE, Anne (33) [0] : SCHACHPROFI, (16) 2150 [0]
17 NOOKASH, Kamesh (17) 2147 [0] : THEHUG, (34) [0]
No Name Rtg Total Result Name Rtg Total
1 DEKA, (20) 2110 [0] : LOWRANCE, Wayne (1) 2488 [0]
2 LOBOESTEPARIO, (2) 2438 [0] : PARMET, Daniel (21) 2087 [0]
3 RALUNGER, (18) 2122 [0] : MOZ, (3) 2345 [0]
4 BOEHME, Sebastian (4) 2327 [0] : VYTRON, (19) 2120 [0]
5 WEIRWINDLE111, (24) 2050 [0] : NATIONAL12, (5) 2290 [0]
6 OMPRAKASH, (6) 2285 [0] : STEPHANIE, (25) 2000 [0]
7 MARRIOTT, Peter (22) 2079 [0] : ELDRIDGE, Mark (7) 2271 [0]
8 CÓMES, Rubén (8) 2260 [0] : SCHACHMATT, (23) 2063 [0]
9 TOMSKI1981, (28) 1900 [0] : BALABACHI, (9) 2257 [0]
10 CUMNORCHESSCLUB, (10) 2246 [0] : WIGHT054, (29) 1855 [0]
11 JITAN, (26) 1900 [0] : KEOKI010, (11) 2209 [0]
12 SEKOS, (12) 2200 [0] : NATMAKU, (27) 1900 [0]
13 FULCRUM2000, (32) [0] : NICHOLS, Scott (13) 2199 [0]
14 EVANS, David (14) 2197 [0] : MARGE, Anne (33) [0]
15 THEHUG, (34) [0] : PPIPPER, (15) 2160 [0]
16 SCHACHPROFI, (16) 2150 [0] : DONKASAND, (31) [0]
17 INDRAJIT_SG, (30) 1800 [0] : NOOKASH, Kamesh (17) 2147 [0]
Thibault de Vassal (2011-02-26 22:44:09)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
Okay, I'm really thinking about a solution but right now I'm not completely satisfied with this option of having these groups of provisionnaly rated players. I really think that it just moves & postpons the problem while losing some advantages, by the way many established ratings are still underestimated...
I would like to try to explain again my whole point of view on the current wch rules. The way I've been thinking this championship is purely statistical, the idea was to find the best chances to see ALL the best players in the final rounds about each 2 years. It worked quite well so far IMO, actually my main regret is not to be able to extend the knockout tournament of 1 round (we would have 16 players instead of 8), that's why it is not possible anyway to have less than 5 rounds for the whole cycle. Each one is 30 to 40 months long, it could be worse. So the whole cycle's aim is not only to find the best player of the cycle but to give chances enough as quickly as possible to the new underrated players for the next cycles!
On this point, I'm quite glad to see players like Wayne who made it the very hard way, starting from ELO 1400 (!) to reach 2540 in about 3 years only. The WCH cycle helped many other players to find their place quite quickly in the rating list, also over 2400, and I have no doubt that the best players of the round-robin cycle play the round-robin final. Usually none of these new underrated players play the RR final, they have less chances than 2200 ones to play the 2nd round because of the TER rule but they win some elo points during the 1st round. That is fair IMO, some logical improvements now protect the ratings of 2200-2300 players but I agree that it is still hard to cross certain rating ranges because ratings do not inflate the same way than advanced chess, Go or poker ones.
In summary, let's say that it is unfair that 2200 players play 1 or 2 underrated players + one player rated about 2000 who may be worth 2100 or 2200, 2300 & more... He will probably lose some rating points during round 1. However he has more chances to reach round 2 with few chances to win but more chances to get some/many elo points back.
I do not say that there is no "problem" with the current WCH rules set (there will always be border effects, whatever the rules) but my point is that I'm not sure that any change that will have heavy consequences will have good effects enough.
Finally, if the most is favourable to such a change, it looks more logical to me to forbid the provisionnaly rated players to enter the wch waiting list. By the way we will have less forfeits during round 1, so the quality of the results may be improved. What do you think?
Garvin Gray (2011-02-27 09:28:07)
Plea for classical rating help
I do not have a solution for what I am about to whinge about, but it is a situation I am getting a little tired of on this site and I see the situation as rather terminal to my participation here.
For the last 12 rating periods, I have had a rating between 2100 and 2200. In the one tournament where I got to play a field with consistent 2200's, I scored 50% or better.
What I am noticing more and more is that for me it is impossible to get opportunities to find out what my true standard is on here.
I am continually having to play people rated around myself or below and these includes those who are provisionally rated 1800 or 2100. When these games are drawn or lost, my rating is dragged down quite a bit.
I do not ever get the opportunity get those points back by playing people above 2200.
It is an issue that I am so sick of and I feel that my progress is being stunted because of it. My rating progress is certainly being stunted.
We do have the higher ticket idea, but that still takes six months to win one and that does NOT help a persons rating all that much.
With the WCH cycle as it is, I also do not have an opportunity to qualify straight through to group 2, like those with higher ratings do.
As I said, this is a bit of a whinge, but I really am sick of this issue and would like some more opportunities to try and find out what I am like against higher rated opponents.
It is part of the reason why I have also asked that the top rateds in the WCH are not segregated from the lower rated as they are atm. I think they should be made to start from stage 1.
Only the defending champion and possibly the defeated previous finalist should receive preferential treatment.
Thibault de Vassal (2011-02-27 21:20:59)
Plea for classical rating help
I don't know if only the defending champion and/or finalist "should" have any treatment after all... That's the whole debate of the FIDE WCH and I wanted to make it quite the opposite way.
On the opportunities for 2100-2200 players to cross the 2200 barrier, your last 4 ratings were 2160, 2157, 2160 & 2135. The tickets system also allow you to enter the CLASS M (2200+) waiting list for 10 Epoints if your rating is above 2150. I'm not trying to sell anything there but it is an option that is dedicated to help in such cases.
On the WCH cycle, maybe another idea would be to "extend" the M Groups idea to the 2200-2300 players. With 2200 to ~2400 players in these groups, there will be more strong players in Stage 2... I'm not sure about the whole consequences but it may be worth a try, what do you think?
Thibault de Vassal (2011-02-27 21:34:13)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
Hi Garvin, sure there might be a language issue... sorry about that :/ I think I only try to interpret what you say in terms of consequences on the whole thing but I may be wrong at some points, be sure I'm not trying to avoid anything deliberately.
The provisional rating already takes account of if the player uses an engine or not (at least I try to make an estimation on what the new member says in the registration form).
As I just said in the other discussion, maybe we could try to extend the M groups to the 2200-2300 players, it may satisfy everyone as it is probably easier to cross the 2000 barrier than the 2200's, what do you think?
Daniel Parmet (2011-02-27 21:57:03)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
I disagree vehemently with the extension of the 2200 for the M group. The whole attraction of the FICGS world group is that its a chance to play these 2200s that I can never play otherwise. If you remove this chance, all you do is create a zone where the 2100s risk points and gain nothing. I'd have no reason to participate.
Garvin Gray (2011-02-28 02:09:54)
Plea for classical rating help
I do know what my previous rating are. That is my point, my rating is stationary and I believe this is because I am not getting the EVEN opportunity to improve it by playing higher rated players often enough.
If I had many games against 2200+ers and had a poor record, then the conclusion would be very different ie not good enough yet for that rating.
Garvin Gray (2011-02-28 02:16:26)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
If I understand correctly Thib ;)
You are suggesting that the 2100 ers get pushed up into the special WCH groups, rather than having to fight it out with the rest of the rif raf in first stage.
Is that correct?
If so, then while personally that might be helpful for me, I am against it on two reasons:
1) It will only push down the rating issues to 2000ers.
2) I think it would be better to not give the special exemptions to those 2200 and above. I think the special exemptions start at 2200, or is that 2300?
Jimmy Huggins (2011-02-28 04:38:07)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
Thib I feel for you :) Making a good tournament format is very hard. I know I pulled teeth to try and make my format. I had to do two things for my. 1.Make few games as possible and 2.Make it a reasonable time table for a blitz world championship. I believe Garvin did a great job with this in the parings. Lucky we didn't have a lot of unrated players. So Thib I would like to help, but can I ask a favor to you. Is it possible to get a breakdown of the ratings of the players for the last Wch? I think this would be helpful to maybe coming up with a solution. So maybe like..
What was the number of.
2300's+
2200's
2100's
2000's
1900's
1800's
below 1800's
provisional's
I know this maybe some work, but this breakdown can give us a picture of what you have. Personally speaking I think Garvin's idea is decent. Were you can put the highest advance provisional player in the lower stage round 2 bracket and the same for the lowest provisional player to go to the higher round 2 bracket, by performance of stage 1. I guess when you talk about statistical merits for your Wch tournament. You are trying to get the lowest error rate, but get the best value to it.
Thibault de Vassal (2011-02-28 16:05:47)
Plea for classical rating help
My point is that you never entered a class M waiting list while you were able to do it during maybe 6 months... During this time you entered many Rapid M & Class A tournaments (you play many games) so there may be also a rating management question into the problem IMHO. The same way you played 3 rapid silver tournaments, 2 against players with low ratings and 1 against Eros (good opportunity!) that you lost. These times many ~2200 rated players enter this waiting list.
Anyway I'll make other proposals in the other discussion today.
Thibault de Vassal (2011-02-28 21:02:18)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
@Garvin:
I suggest that all 2200+ players (but the 8 of the knockout tournament) play the M group at stage 1 OR that all 2100+ players (but the 8 of the knockout tournament) play the M group at stage 1 with the new rule that only half the players in these M groups can qualify for stage 2 and still 1 for stage 3. This combined to another new rule that would allow new members declaring to use a chess engine (not so many so far, maybe 20%) when registering would have a provisional rating of 2000 would solve IMO this issue (2000-2100 players would lose less points to those strong provisionally rated players during the wch) and would help to somewhat inflate the ratings that would be a logical thing when seeing the whole correspondence chess standards at the other sites (some already use this 2000 prov. rating). The ratings may even deflate due to the 10 moves rule. Actually I think I would be very favourable to one of these changes.
@Jimmy:
Fortunately there are players like Garvin, Scott, Gino & others who really helped to build the FICGS rules :) On the numbers of players by rating range, it is quite different from a cycle to another, sometimes we have 2 M groups, sometimes there is no M group at all so I'm not sure if it would be representative. Still I'm not favourable at all to have groups of provisionally rated players.
Daniel Parmet (2011-02-28 23:50:22)
Plea for classical rating help
yes this is exactly why I love your tournament ;) losses do not bother me. I learn from them. This has been my philosophy ever since I picked up chess a mere 3 years ago. What bothers me is all the restrictions people put into to place to prevent players from improving. Most do it unintentionally. However, many US organizers do it intentionally. They either cap their event sections strictly for 2200+ or they make insane rating determine entry fees. For a non 2400+ player to enter a GM norm swiss event it can cost $400. Or for an expert to enter a 2200+ section will cost you an extra $50 at the Goichberg style events or an extra $100 for the National Open.
It is this kind lunacy that makes improvement hard. You can have all the time and money in the world and still find through no lack of effort or skill that you are not allowed to improve.
I find most of the otb tournaments I am allowed to play in now... I usually end up being seed 1 or 2. Not exactly encouragement for me to use my whole weekend is it? I would dream to be able to enter a swiss where I am the bottom seed. But for this to happen I have to break the barriers without the extreme advantage of being allowed to play strong players.
FYI, I practice what I speak. The local tournament I am running next in my area will feature 5 masters (1 IM, 2 FM and 2 NM) - and it has a low entry fee. This is the type of event I wish was more common...
Garvin Gray (2011-03-02 14:59:29)
Plea for classical rating help
Thib- The tickets system also allow you to enter the CLASS M (2200+) waiting list for 10 Epoints if your rating is above 2150.
====================
Apologies for the slow replies. From looking at both threads on these items I wanted to wait to see if there were any trends. Not so far.
On to the comment I have picked out above, I just looked at the SM Rapid group and I notice three players who I think have accepted the 10 euro scheme into a tournament with 2300 players.
When I saw your comment about the ticket system, I was concerned that it could mean that a few 2150 ers enter the tournament and it ruins the experience for all.
This seems to have occurred where the scheme is in place to give the opportunity for a person to play higher rated opponents.
In fact, rechecking the SM rapid, no player is above 2300.
Perhaps the 2150 scheme should be limited to one acceptance per 2300 group. When that tournament fills, another 2150 person can accept.
So as it stands, I will not be joining that tournament as it will acheive nothing more than I am getting now, and I would be paying 10 euro for the privilege of getting nothing more than what I get now.
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-02 15:44:26)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
Hi Garvin :)
The main point is IMO this suggestion:
"All 2100+, 2150+ or 2200+ players (but the 8 of the knockout tournament) could play the M groups at stage 1 with the new rule that only half the players in these M groups can qualify for stage 2, while the winners will qualify for stage 3 as before.
Combined to another new rule, that would allow new members declaring to use a chess engine (not so many so far, maybe 20%) when registering to get a provisional rating of 2000, it could solve this issue.
Indeed 2000-2100 players would lose less points to those strong provisionally rated players during the regular wch groups, while they keep more chances to qualify for round 2, and it would help to somewhat inflate the ratings that would be a logical thing when seeing the whole correspondence chess standards at the other sites (some already use this 2000 prov. rating).
The ratings may even deflate due to the 10 moves rule."
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-03 14:26:01)
Plea for classical rating help
Sorry as well, I missed your last message in this discussion. So...
1) On tickets for class M ("...if your rating is above 2150"), that was my point, nothing prevented you to use this trick when your rating was above 2150.
2) On the next Rapid SM, only 2 players used it, Marius was above 2300 then lost many elo points as he had to forfeit several games, Miroslav also was above 2300 and lost a few points. That's a border case and it may happen. Anyway only 2 players under the rating limit can enter a waiting list.
3) To clarify, there is no 2150 scheme! 2150 is for the case of Class M, for Rapid SM you have to be rated 2250-2299 or to win a Rapid M event to use the ticket system.
4) You are probably right on the Rapid SM case anyway, maybe the ticket system rule should allow players to use a ticket only if there are no more than 2 players (including players not using a ticket) under the rating range.
5) Anyway you couldn't enter the Rapid SM waiting list unless you win a Rapid M tournament. But my point was only that you could have joinded a Class M several times (with most players rated above 2200)...
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-05 13:43:30)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
There is no similar issue for 2000's IMHO, it is probably easier to cross the 2000-2100 barrier than the 2100-2200 and of course 2200-2300. And once again they would lose much less rating points against these new 2000 provisionally rated players (that's mathematical).
On provisional ratings depending on if players declare if an engine is used, even ICCF (as far as I know) grants a 2000 prov. rating to some players, I was not convinced so far but finally... Of course new players can "lie" or change their mind on using an engine, they'll not be kicked out of any tournament but such a rule is surely better than nothing to get ratings more coherent, btw it is just an improvement of the current rule (new players who have no rating anywhere can choose their first rating between 1200 & 1800, and of course I fix it if e.g. the player declares to play with an engine with a new rating of 1200).
Anyway the idea of players needing to have an established rating before being able to enter the WCH is also fine to me. Let's just try to have more opinions on this.
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-05 14:03:29)
FICGS chess WCH : choose your rule
Hi all, we need your opinion to choose a new rule for the next FICGS chess WCH, here are the proposals:
1) All 2200+ players (but the 8 of the knockout tournament) play the M groups at stage 1 while only half the players in these M groups can qualify for stage 2. Winners will qualify for stage 3 as before.
2) Same than 1) but also the new members declaring to use a chess engine when registering will get a provisional rating of 2000.
3) All 2100+ players (but the 8 of the knockout tournament) play the M groups at stage 1 while only half the players in these M groups can qualify for stage 2. Winners will qualify for stage 3 as before.
4) Same than 3) but also the new members declaring to use a chess engine when registering will get a provisional rating of 2000.
5) Players need to have an established rating (9 finished & rated games) before being able to enter the WCH waiting list.
6) Same than 5) but also the new members declaring to use a chess engine when registering will get a provisional rating of 2000.
As for me, I think that 2) & 4) are ok for all reasons I mentioned before. 5) & 6) are ok as well but it's a pity to reduce the number of players in the wch cycle :/
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2011-03-06 15:03:21)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
I do not like this special treatment of players from a certain rating (no matter whether 2000, 2100, 2200, 2300) already from the beginning of the WCHs. And I don't like that the TER is decisive in the case of equal points.
I think it's bad luck if in a group are players with a provisional rating or a small rating (and the player starts to use engines now). But in my opinion all members should be allowed to play the WCH without restrictions.
Maybe games should not be rated for a player with an established rating, if the rating of his opponent is provisional only. But that's another theme.
Wayne Lowrance (2011-03-08 06:19:02)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
Howdy all. I have stayed out of this discussion. I am biased for sure. Garvin I can see your side, it is tough. But I believe in the existing format. Maybe a few minor tweaks are ok, we will see I guess. Garvin if your good enough, in time you will climb the ladder. If that is your goal. I have played at ficgs for what seems like forever. I started out at 1400.I came here with a previous 4 year record at another side with a rating of 2300.
I did not think I would ever get past 2200. In fact a member told me face to face via ficgs I would never go higher. I got all the more determined. This does not help you but I just wanted to tell you it can be done.
Maybe it is not fair.
Another personnel observation of apparent unfairness. aboard a ship in the navy first class petty officers get to jump ahead in the chow line. It is not fair, but that is the way it was. Man when I promoted to first class I had no compulsion to jump in ahead of long chow line.
So Thibault I ask for no drastic step to ficgs rating posture.
Wayne
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-10 12:40:21)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
Hi Daniel, I don't get your point. Now you're rated 2094 so you would be probably a top seed in the next regular group, playing maybe 2 provisionals (maybe one centaur rated 2000 and one centaur or human rated 1800 or 1700) instead of ~2 centaurs rated 1800 + playing as Black against a player rated 2200. I really think that it is a better "deal" for players rated 2000-2100 also. Yes you may still lose a few points (less than before IMO), but your chances to go to round 2 and play stronger players are much higher... I cannot say more.
@Garvin: your proposal makes sense. By "if possible" I mean that the rule is not strictly 2150 or 2300, I'll just try to make coherent groups (in size & ratings) so it quite looks like your way in practice I think.
Jimmy Huggins (2011-04-25 08:58:00)
Active rating lists
+1 If you want an OTB rating over 2200. It takes years to do. So it is actually quicker in CC play to be honest.
Harshil Meraiya (2011-04-26 05:37:31)
Active rating lists
I started chess and my provisional rating was 1400. Now I'm rated 1767 after 1 yr and people joining just now have provisional rating of 1800. After 1 yr I'll be 2200 and people just joining will get provisional rating of 2400. Wow! Somebody is idiot here!!
Thibault de Vassal (2011-05-10 12:38:23)
Active rating lists
Hi guys, sorry for the delay for this one... :/
@Don : it may take a while, but I don't feel it's so hard for a good poker player... but it's kind of hard to say anyway.
@Paul : thanks for such a post with many ideas & questions! this issue is really complex of course but I made some observations during these years and my conclusions were:
- in average, self-estimated ratings are best. during the first years all players with no FIDE/IECG/ICCF ratings started at 1400 or 1700 and it quite distorted the list as many strong centaurs started from the bottom. your idea makes sense but it looks more "esthetic" for a centaur with no official rating to start with a 1900 or 2000 rating than e.g. 1937 :/
- your idea of 10 lightning games is very interesting! but not many players are involved in these games (I guess because of the time they spend on corr. games) and not many would accept to play unrated or low-rated players. I'll think about that though...
- about option C, there were early general forfeits by players FIDE rated over 2200, that's a pity and it distorted (not so much) a few ratings temporarily [actually it also helps to maintain a small inflation of ratings, which is logical] but in the other hand FIDE/ICCF ratings given as provisional ratings help to build a rating list with ratings that "tell" something... such choices are not obvious, obviously :)
Thibault de Vassal (2011-11-13 19:52:28)
List ordered by rating
Here is, but as usual the new ratings (january 2012) will be taken in account...
Erwin Thiering 2515
Michael Bergmann 2475
Xavier Pichelin 2454
Thibault de Vassal 2449
Herbert Kruse 2436
Pavel Háse 2332
Ljubomir Tsenkov 2314
Rubén Cómes 2300
Wayne Lowrance 2266
Dariusz Fraczek 2261
Ramil Germanes 2255
Miroslav Gazi 2255
Alexander Blinchevsky 2253
Michael Sharland 2251
Sergey Kokoryukin 2251
Andrey Razumikhin 2250
Valery Nemchenko 2245
Lubos Fric 2241
Kevin D. Plant 2237
Christoph Schroeder 2236
Viktor Shishkin 2234
Slobodan Ilic 2218
Dmitri Mamrukov 2211
Vitaly Rudenko 2203
Alvin Alcala 2203
Carlos Sánchez 2203
Garvin Gray 2200
Scott Nichols 2189
Peter Unger 2181
Martin Zeman 2181
Christian Koch 2167
Stephen Hamby 2163
John Schutte 2136
David Evans 2132
Nelson Bernal Varela 2130
Darren DiAlfonso 2123
Ardiantez Polkwitzauer 2123
Thomas Dineen 2118
Peter W. Anderson 2112
Steve Lim 2110
Yu Ming Hoe 2100
Arkadiusz Wosch 2093
Djordje Kasabasic 2093
Luis Flores 2084
Daniel Parmet 2083
Lalit Kapoor 2080
Erik L. van Dijk 2074
Bernd Wolf 2072
Jose Lopez 2071
Sergey Uzdin 2064
Rodolfo d Ettorre 2064
Janos Helmer 2063
Om Prakash 2053
Mykola Simashkevitch 2043
Alexis Duenas 2037
Ireneusz Kasznia 2036
Mihail Larsky 2028
Joop Simmelink 2026
Pan Hardfeldt 2020
Henri Muller 2000
Jaroslav senior Pech 2000
Jaroslaw Gibas 2000
Bogoljub Teverovski 1997
Willy De Waele 1996
Fernando Vasquez 1992
Jose Moreira 1979
Andrew Endean 1975
Henri-Louis Muller 1972
Jose Maria Velasco 1972
Jordi Domingo 1969
Janeen Walden 1958
Andy Richard 1956
Roberto Migliorini 1949
Erika van Dijk 1943
Daniel Reboredo 1938
Coco Maceda 1938
Michael Rogers 1933
Aleksandr Aksenov 1927
Mariusz Maciej Broniek 1923
Robert Wilhelm 1901
Kieran Moore 1900
John Dyson 1889
Catalin Nita 1888
Daniel Jabot 1878
Johanes Suhardjo 1875
Mikhail Ruzin 1871
Benjamin Block 1863
Ilmar Ambos 1859
Vyacheslav Shchelykalin 1859
Jan Peter Lommler 1844
Stanislas Gounant 1840
Mircea Hrubaru 1838
Sasha Lipsits 1833
Nilson Pereira 1833
Aleksey Payzansky 1804
Jai Prakash Singh 1800
Fredi Brumec 1800
Gleen Duran 1800
Josef Strohmeier 1800
Ryszard Sternik 1776
Stepan Pech 1767
Dieter Faust 1764
Dmitriy Malish 1760
Dimitrios Ropokis 1743
Hasan Kirali 1715
Eddit Moreul 1700
Behzad Shahmiri 1700
Jaimie Wilson 1684
Dinesh Bhandarkar 1682
Philip Roe 1667
Olli Ylönen 1660
Graham Cridland 1655
Juan Alvar 1653
Jeremy Banta 1644
Luís Gonzaga Grego 1643
Pablo Siciliano 1623
Mariusz Jandula 1600
Sergey Biryukov 1598
Alejandro Canovas 1589
Jimmy Huggins 1577
Matthew O Brien 1575
Pablo Ruano 1565
Khaled Toutaoui 1528
Stanimir Denchev 1505
Leo Malagar 1500
Richard Hendricks 1479
Eric Price 1469
Antonio Pereira 1456
Angelo Piantadosi 1420
Simon Huxtable 1388
Peter Krakovsky 1326
Marc-Antoine Leurette 1243
Jorge Orden 1204
Hana Pechova 1204
Jorma Häkkinen 1192
Des Jefferis 1186
Deon Whittaker 1111
Matej Pech 1074
Jiri Mach 1022
Cédric Cavaillé 1003
Jay Melquiades 0909
Jaroslav Pech 0697
Garvin Gray (2011-12-25 15:42:00)
Achieving playing norms
I have just started playing in tournaments on here that are able to earn norms and looking at the score for getting a norm, they seem rather high.
For getting a FEM norm, with a field of 2200+, the score is 4.5/6. Considering how many games are actually won between players over 2200, achieving a score of 4.5/6 seems very difficult indeed, unless someone forfeits all their games, or some games are somehow otherwise affected.
I am wondering, do others think that score is too high and 4/6 might be more realistic for one norm.
Thibault de Vassal (2011-12-26 18:15:15)
Achieving playing norms
Now that you reached 2200 it shouldn't be long for you guys :)
Gino Figlio (2012-01-03 15:37:10)
Houdini and draw rate evolution at ICCF
The influence is obvious, if you look at the draw rate of top OTB events you will find much higher numbers (>70%). The draw rate in top ICCF events is also pretty high.
The draws are not evenly distributed. If you look at the relationship of average rating (rating category) and draw rate in ICCF, they are correlated. I found this after reviewing 160 events in 2007 (I was studying how fast the events were ending and not directly draw rate). I am showing the percentage of draws +/- SD for 160 events that ended in 2007:
Events rated under 2200: 19.1 +/-11.6
Events rated 2200 or above: 33.4 +/- 22
Thibault de Vassal (2012-03-04 22:08:50)
FICGS poker ratings
Let's continue the debate that started in this discussion:
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=forum_read&id=10306
I'm still not sure of what is best but our top ranked poker player for a while (Nelson Bernal Varela) obviously participated to the discussion his way by resigning all his poker games to show us how much time it will take to regain his points.
His rating was about 2200, now 1924 and the date is march 4th, 2012.
As we're playing single round-robin tournaments only, the rating list was not so distorted but this is not at the advantage of class B players. Of course I do not encourage this behaviour in any way!
However, following the current rules on general forfeits I think that Nelson should continue his experiment so that we can learn from all this. In my opinion he'll reach the top rankings within a few months (particularly if he plays bullet games) which is quite short compared to correspondence chess.
This would actually justify - in my point of view (maybe Nelson's one too but I'm still not sure of what he's thinking about that) - the current poker rating system, so let's wait 1 month or 2 before to decide to make this change or not.
As a reminder, the initial proposal was: "should we change the poker rating rules so that we win or lose twice points after each game compared to now ?"
Ramil Germanes (2012-04-20 05:19:16)
Slow tournament entries
In my almost two years of playing here in FICGS, I have observed one major factor why tournament entries are going down.
For me, it's because of the large difference of the rating brackets in a certain tournament class.
For example, in a standard class M tourney (2200-2400), if I have a rating of 2300-2399, I will not play because possibly almost all of my opponents there will be around 2200+ and the thing is it's very hard to win against these players now and I may lose rating points even if I draw with them.
But by decreasing the difference in the rating brackets, let's say 2300-2400 or even 2300-2350 for example of a certain tournament class, will encourage me to play in these tournaments because the possibility of losing rating points by drawing is minimal.
With these new bracketing, it will also give us an easier way to climb the rating ladder thus encouraging us to play more games!
Garvin Gray (2012-04-20 15:28:37)
Slow tournament entries
Ramil:
When I first came across this site, the rating bands used to be 400 points, and then after a lot of negotiation, debates and cross topics, it was changed to 200, with the even numbers (2400, 2200, 2000) in the standard category, and (2300, 2100, 19000 in the rapid category.
While I understand your point that perhaps these should be changed to 100 point bands as this is what I think the market is trying to say, I think it is an issue of total number of players.
If we had many more players, then each category would fill quicker. Your point is certainly worth discussing and I would not be upset to see it work in practice, but we have had quite a few changes, and another change might just be a bit much for Thibault to consider at this stage.
I could be wrong though ;)
Garvin Gray (2012-04-21 16:42:15)
Slow tournament entries
I am a fan of the ficgs wch and I think it has many positives. One negative I am starting to notice is that since I am now above 2200, I am getting exactly the same opponents (give or take one or two) who I play in the normal tournaments.
So the groups start to blend into one and it can be difficult to remember if I am playing a wch game, or a normal game, against the same opponent.
I think it would be an interesting exercise to see if the same person can win both events.
The ficgs wch could be held twice a year, and this idea could be held in the other quarter of the year (twice a year also).
Then after some time, see which format gets the most entries and positive reviews.
Thibault de Vassal (2012-04-25 00:26:09)
Ficgs World Cup
Who thinks that a limited number of places (81 = 9x9 or 121 = 11x11 or 169 = 13x13 according to how the waiting list fills) would be a good idea?
And what about a rating band to avoid forfeits by casual players? Maybe ratings above 2000... In some ways it could be a real alternative to the WCH for all players rated from 2000 to 2200, and there would be less games to play at the same time (less frightening to entry)... just a thought.
Garvin Gray (2012-04-25 09:16:51)
Ficgs World Cup
Ahh now I think I understand some of the previous comments.
What you guys are talking about is a rating floor, not a rating band. With a rating floor of say 1999. So all players must be rated above 1999 to participate.
Not a big fan of a rating floor for this as it goes against the original objective, which is to provide more opportunities for players of different ratings to compete against each other. This does not only apply to 2000's v 2200's, but also applies further down the rating list as well.
The effect is not as pronounced, but still applies for the original objective.
I am in favour of an activity requirement. The standard in otb chess is that a player must have played nine rated games to get a rating, so the minimum activity could be ten completed games.
I am not as strong on the idea of an activity requirement as I am on no rating bands (which is very different to rating floor).
Garvin Gray (2012-12-02 13:51:13)
Problem with new groups for the chess WC
Nick- Did not have the oppportunity???? The waiting list for the wch is open for a month, sometimes even more. Any player who wants to enter can do so at any stage between when the waiting list opens and when it closes. So they have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for four or more weeks to enter.
It is not like the entry period for the waiting list is only open for a couple of days.
The only people who could claim they did not have much opportunity to enter were those who only just joined the site before the waiting list closed.
As for why some of us might be 'getting too uptight'. Those who entered by the deadline have been seeded correctly as per the rules. Which means for some they have been placed in M groups with all those players being rated over 2200.
To now see the possibility of having a weak M group, which means those who have entered by the deadline have now been substantially disadvantaged compared to those who entered late.
I really do not care at all for your 'we are getting too uptight' argument Nick.
Those who respond have every right to debate the pros and cons of what is being proposed.
If you have something to actually add to this issue in terms of finding an acceptable answer for Thibault's conundrum, or wish to try and point out why his solution is not a good one, then feel free to add something to the debate and thread.
A few of us have pointed issues with Thibault's idea and our disagreement with the whole approach. That is our right to do so.
None of us have been abusive, derogatory or demeaning of anyone else, even if we disagree with the other viewpoints.
If I am an example of getting too uptight, in your opinion, so be it, but I do not like at all when players are able to enter late and even more when they look like, or are, getting an advantage they would not have gotten if they entered before the deadline.
Thibault de Vassal (2013-05-07 13:17:57)
Eros Riccio on his win in 8th chess WCH
As you may know, Eros Riccio won the 8th FICGS chess championship by beating Jeroen Van Assche (who remains undeafeated though, he did not lose a single chess game at FICGS yet) in the candidates final, preventing him to play Eros again in the final.
Eros kindly accepted to answer a few questions:
- Hello Eros. First of all, congratulations for winning this 8th FICGS correspondence chess championship. Once again, you did not even have to play the 12 games match to defend your title as you won the qualifying tournament. In these conditions, the challenge was really tough for Jeroen Van Assche, in despite of his prodigious chess. He had to beat you consecutively in the candidates final (8 games match), then in the final (12 games match). How did things go in this candidates final?
Eros: Hi Thibault, thanks again! I was also worried to have to play a very strong player like Van Assche, but fortunately I had again the advantage that all draws were enough to win, and so my strategy was again not to take risks in all my games. As White it was easy... and surprisingly also as Black. The only game where I had to be more careful than others was this one: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qf3 h6 8.Be3 Qc7 9.0-0-0 Nbd7 10.Qg3 b5 11.a3 Rb8. Here Jeroen surprised me with an interesting novelty, 12.Kb1. The two times I had played this position I was White against Gueci and Kruse, and in both games I continued with 12.Bxb5 but couldn't get more than a draw. The idea of 12.Kb1 is to sacrifice a Pawn for the initiative after 12...b4 13.axb4 Rxb4 14.Nb3 Nxe4. The White Bishops are very strong after 15.Nxe4 Rxe4 16.Bd3 Ra4 17.Bd4 and fully compensate the Pawn less. Anyway I managed to defend, and when I was finally able to trade the Queens we agreed for the Draw.
- You also won the ICCF Umansky Memorial a few weeks ago, the italian correspondence chess championship (again) as well, obviously you played numerous games last year, what do you plan for the next months? By the way, Jeroen already qualified for the candidates final of the 9th cycle, meaning that he may play you in the final match next year if you defend your title again, is there a chance that we can see a revenge?
Eros: Yes, like in the past, also last year I have played a lot of games... anyway for the future I am planning to reduce my games a lot. At the moment, except a few games in minor tournaments, I am only playing for the italian colors at the Olympiads and European Championship, for ICCF. I didn't register for the new Italian Championship this time... I prefer to wait that another individual top ICCF Tournament starts. And of course I am also waiting to meet my next challenger for the FICGS Final! Maybe it will be Van Assche again, we have to see if he beats his opponent in the semifinal (actually next candidates final).
- It looks like a few chess engines reached a certain maturity, I mean algorithms. As a consequence, the computer speed may become the major evolution factor during the next years, that is generally slower than the program's improvements (but the future may have surprises, of course). What do you expect from the computer chess world in the next few years and its impact on correspondence chess?
Eros: As I have already said in a previous interview, being chess probably a draw with perfect play, the more engines get stronger, the more draws we will see. That's quite obvious.
- You probably do not play chess over the board so often, yet you have a quite good ELO! (about 2200, while many correspondence chess masters are rated below 2000 or not rated at all) By the way, I can certify that you are a strong blitz player after we met a few years ago. Do you still play tournaments?
Eros: I am not playing otb chess for a few years, my peak was 22... and a few points, I don't remember exactly. One of the main reasons why I stopped is because later, when analyzing my games with an engine... every time I got frustrated a lot seeing all the blunders I was making.
- Do you estimate that playing OTB chess is good to improve at correspondence chess?
Eros: Yes, it's useful especially if you develop a strategical style, then also in your corr. games you can see more easily "long-term-strategy" plans, which is still the "weakest strenght" in all engines.
- Do you feel that you're still improving at correspondence chess? If yes, is it mainly a question of opening book or something else?
Eros: Improving at corr. chess... hmm... I will surprise you with my thought about this matter! I think I can evaluate my strenght according to the speed of the computer I am analyzing my games with. When I bought this computer, 3 years ago, I felt like I could beat the corr. World Champion. Now... as my computer is becoming older and older, I feel like my play is getting weaker each day it passes. So my answer is that I am still getting worse at corr. chess, not improving.
Daniel Parmet (2013-06-06 14:47:11)
Playing activity top 20 players
I know I don't count as one of these "higher rated players." But I have purposefully curtailed my activity here in favor of ICCF. The reason for my decision is because all the rules here are slanted against preventing a person from playing stronger players. The WCH is a perfect example; 2200's are given a free ride to the next stage while a 2150 has to play stage 1 as top seed where he will lose 35 points while WINNING the stage. So never having the opportunity to improve anymore here has forced me to find places where I can achieve that goal.
Thibault de Vassal (2013-06-07 01:01:26)
Playing activity top 20 players
Hi Daniel,
There are other ways to play 2200 players and gain rating points: class M tournaments (if you win a class A + ticket, or if you are rated 2150+ with a ticket as well), rapid M (2100-2300) tournaments, also the standard open tournament.
Building its rating is not all about the championship.
Daniel Parmet (2013-06-10 06:20:38)
Playing activity top 20 players
Well part of the problem is I don't see where it says I have these "tickets" to move up. I knew of the rule but had no awareness if I had ever actually won one to use.
The other part of the problem is the rating bands. By alternating rating bands between time controls, all the people over 2100 want to play 2100-2300 all the people over 2000 want to play 2000-2200 all the people over 2200 want to play only 2200-2400 or norm events. So effectively instead of 200 point bands you've create ONE HUNDRED point bands. The 2100-2300 band see only those rated 2100-2200.
Thibault de Vassal (2014-05-13 23:01:16)
Class A, class M & class SM closed
It is now about 70 days that these waiting lists are closed, time to make a point.
The situation was the following on march 2 : "Rapid SM 12 is now empty, rapid M 71 has one player & rapid A 158 has three"
Now, Rapid SM 12 has one player , rapid M 72 (one started) has two players & rapid A 161 (three started) has one.
However only one player rated above 2200 entered the Rapid M tournament that started, and another one the current waiting list. On the other hand, respectively 2, 3 & 4 players rated above 2000 entered the Rapid A tournaments.
My conclusion is that closing class SM & class M tournaments waiting lists was not really useful while it was more useful for class A. Finally, probably one or two rapid A would have started during this period if class A was not closed.
Of course the main problem remains the lack of new players.
I now re-open the class SM, M & A waiting lists. Let's see how it evolves.
Garvin Gray (2014-06-10 15:35:46)
100 point rating bands
Just to nicely illustrate my point, rapid m is forming with everyone between 2100 and 2200, even though the group is 2100 to 2299.
Garvin Gray (2015-10-23 13:11:56)
FICGS chess cup : proposal
I think this whole discussion has missed the original point of why I made the original proposal for the ficgs world cup.
It was to give players who were in the 2100 to 2200 and below more opportunities against players rated 2300 and above, whilst still also giving the top players something to play for ie the tournament win.
So the original concept was that there was no knockout groups, or starting final match, but instead that all players started from round one, and then everyone had to qualify for round two from there, with only the winners to advance at each stage.
The format above could have even taken over from the waiting lists we currently have, which struggle to be filled, as they give more purpose.
Instead, what is being proposed now, is just one big round robin. As someone who has just organised a round robin event, I can assure you, soon after the games have started, the players will soon forget which games are for the world cup, and which are their World championship games, and which are their Rapid SM, or Rapid M games.
Next, the strength of the field. For this event to work with the monster round robin, it really does need most of the top players competing. How can this be ensured to make it a worthwhile event?
Related to this- the time control. Very few serious correspondence chess players are going to sign up to a time control of 10 days initial time when they potentially have 31 games.
Remember, this is meant to be one of FICGS main events on the calendar. That is at least how I view it.
The time control should be 30 days plus 3 days per move if the format is single round robin with 32 or so players.
I still believe the original proposal of mine is the one that should be adopted, not the single round robin that is being discussed now.
I will not be playing in the single round robin.
Daniel Parmet (2017-07-01 07:48:12)
FICGS chess cup : proposal
I know this thread is old but I feel Garvin made an amazing point that got lost:
"It was to give players who were in the 2100 to 2200 and below more opportunities against players rated 2300 and above, whilst still also giving the top players something to play for ie the tournament win."
I haven't played actively since 2010 for exactly this reason. I did play over 470 games though but found that I was permanently locked into this rating band despite being far beyond the skill level of this rating band solely because I was never allowed to play stronger players. So I moved on to ICCF where I easily was able to compete against 2370+ players all the time.
Garvin Gray (2017-07-02 04:33:16)
FICGS chess cup : proposal
I have wondered for a long while whether:
1) The 2300 rated players or higher who started on this site, were not really 2300 in comparison to quite a few 2200 or so players
2) That deflation in the rating system at the top end has occurred in the system over time
Thibault de Vassal (2018-03-03 20:37:38)
World Championship Groups
Maybe not an advantage according to the point of view, but certainly "different". An occasion to reach stage 3 directly or to to play stage 2 as seed 1 in any group (kind of stage 1 and a half if you like fractals :)). An occasion to play more interesting games (and more chances to gain elo points). It is quite complex to balance all differences IMO. Anyway, there is not much interest for 2200+ players to checkmate 1300-1700 players, particularly when playing without engines I guess.
George Jempty (2018-03-16 12:29:42)
Anybody in USA want my computers?
Wondering if anybody in the USA I could ship to would be interested in buying my 2 desktop computers? They're a couple of years old but haven't been used in about a year. They were instrumental in me rising from the low 1900s to the low 2200s without a defeat along the way, and one of them has Houdini on it. They cost me about $1000 each but I would sell the two of them as a package for $900 and to make it official we could do it over eBay. I'm away from home for another week so can't get the exact specs until then, just trying to gauge interest between now and then.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-08-14 19:59:12)
7 pieces tablebases
I always thought that this rule was a bit unfair for players who actually just want to play the game, particularly when not using any engine and/or when rated below 2200... but maybe we could add this rule only when both players are rated over 2200 (or 2000). Any idea?
George Jempty (2025-06-26 23:39:19)
I did not win a game since 3 years
Yeah the only reason I'm winning in one of my games right now is because of poor play by my opponent. But 12 years ago or so I had an unbeaten streak for 2 years or so, with plenty of wins along the way (even one with Black with the Siesta variation against the Ruy) from an initial rating of 1900 or so, up to 2200+. The only reason I'm playing again now is too get some fodder for a chess opening book (about a different variation for Black against the Ruy) I've begun to write.
Garvin Gray (2025-11-04 16:15:02)
Clarification of Rating Groups
I have just seen the chat bar exchange where George Jempty has said:
You can play up if you are within 50 points, and now I am in and my account has been debited e points.
Where has this rule come from?
On countless occasions I have enquired about being able to enter a higher division than my rating when I have just been under the rating cutoff, and been told no.
The policy as I have known it has been that a player must win a lower division, and then can only enter the higher division when the field has gotten to the last two entries.
Has this policy changed?
If it has, then it would have helped to have it publicised, but also I would spoken against the changed as it makes a mockery of any rating divisions.
If this is the case, might as well call 2200 - 2600, 2150 - 2600
George Jempty (2025-11-20 22:23:26)
Clarification of Rating Groups
I guess I "opened a can of worms" by exercising the rule regarding the ability to enter a higher rated group. But in my case specifically, my future rating is now over 2200, so I personally believe there has been NO HARM DONE. But I intend to continue to use this rule, for instance to enter >=2300 tourneys, if/when I get to 2250, there are already five entrants, and I pay the requisite e-points. I didn't outsmart anybody, I just found the necessary rule at https://ficgs.com/membership.html#tickets. A button or some other mechanism however would be a great idea
Garvin Gray (2026-01-28 17:36:07)
Too many groups for tourneys
Time to wind the clock back quite a few years. What I suggested as a solution to this issue was that the rating bands for the class tourneys and the rapid tourneys should have rating bands of 200 point differences, but they be at a different cut off.
What this meant in practice is.
Class tournaments
2600 +
2599 - 2400
2399 - 2200
2199 - 2000
1999 - 1800
and so forth
And then the rapids would be
2500 +
2499 - 2300
2299 - 2100
2099 - 1900
1899 - 1700
and so forth I think after quite a bit of discussion, Thibault decided that this idea was either too much effort, or that the rating bands I was proposing was too restrictive. I think the evidence over the years has proven my conclusions more correct. Players do not enter the rating band tournaments when there is a 400 point difference. These events only get filled by players who have a ticket from a lower tourney win, or they buy their way in by being less than 50 points in. But, to beat the drum again. If Thibault is not on board, it does not happen. And at this point in time, I am more concerned with fixing the 5 player round robin WCH group issue.
Garvin Gray (2026-02-22 07:45:14)
Is rating just a number on this site?
There are two types of tickets.
The first kind is when you win a lower class/rapid event and that qualifies you to enter the next higher rated event, but you have to wait until five players above the rating cut off have already entered.
This system was introduced to get tournaments started as each tournament would sit for months waiting for seven players who had ratings above the rating cut off to enter.
And then Thibault has extended the system to pay to enter, where you need to be 50 points lower than the rating cut off.
As has been said previously, one of the biggest issues is not either of these concepts, it is the difference in the rating bands for entering a tournament.
When a tournament is 2200 to 2600, no one who is rated 2500 is going to enter that event when 4 players who are rated between 2200 and 2300 have already entered.
I have already proposed a solution to this, but once again Thibault will not embrace change and we are stuck with what we have.
And I am going to say this directly. Those who are playing on here are growing increasing frustrated and how it is being run.
From TER, to rating bands, to tickets and many other issues, nothing changes.
And I think quite a few of us are reaching the point of walking away. I certainly am.
There is no point continuing on when the site owner will not change anything anymore. The only option left is to leave.
Paul Guralivu (2026-04-03 08:40:09)
Is rating just a number on this site?
In terms of Tournament Rating range:
what can be done... like in IECG/LSS create 2 tiers of tournaments...
the current one where we have 2200-2600
and create another system: 2200 - 2400
2500-2600
(same for all the other categories)
Best regards,
Paul G.
George Jempty (2026-04-15 13:53:53)
Is rating just a number on this site?
Hello, I'd not responded earlier because I'd taken 45 days leave to begin the year, largely because of frustration around these very sorts of things. Even the 2300+ players do not enter 2200+ tournaments. It's not even because I want to keep drawing 2300+ players to inch my rating up, it's because I want the competition, to enrich my opening repertoire. Enriching my repertoire is the only reason I'm around here anymore, but not for long, not now that I've settled on 1.d4 and 2.g3
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