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Game result (chess) B. Ozen, 2269 N. Wilson, 2121 1/2-1/2 See game 152323 |
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Per Lea (2006-04-08 23:09:40)
Titles
A provocative question: Do we really need titles at all? Isn't rating more informative than a title that maybe has been won when the player was at the top of his playing strength, many years ago? I admit the rating system isn't perfect, but I still claim it tells me more than a title. Being a Norwegian I am possibly less obsessed with titles (within all walks of life) than people from other countries?
Thibault de Vassal (2006-04-12 12:46:22)
FEM, FIM, FSM, FGM
About titles obtained on FICGS, it would be the same ones. We have choice : We could add a special letter, from the organization the title comes from (very confusing I think : IIM.. IECG / ICCF) .. or consider EM, IM, SM, GM are "official" titles, and FEM, FIM, FSM, FGM are the other ones, including FICGS ones... Probably not perfect. Any idea ?
Per Lea (2006-04-15 00:01:42)
Minor notational bug...
In game 8, I had Rooks on f8 and b8. I played 18...Ra8 on the screen, but when I list the game, the move is recorded as Rba8. The "b" is superfluous, the f8 Rook can't move to a8. In game 13, I had Rooks on d6 and d1 and played 18.Rxd8. This came out as R6xd8. The "6" is superfluous. These are not serious errors, but it is a bit irritating....
Hakon Anda (2006-04-16 17:20:42)
Great
Thanks a lot to Thibault for adjusting the features on this server quickly and smooth for best performance and wishes from us players. Great work!
Glen D. Shields (2006-04-25 20:39:39)
Hmmm ... yup
Graham - I think you summed it perfectly. I have no objection to conditionals nor do I care how much time folks use. What I find "irritating" (the word used in this thread) are those situations where you move and ten minutes later you're back on the clock again. Overused conditionals contribute to the "irritation," but hardly are the root cause.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-05-17 15:37:39)
Best game :-)
Maybe we should wonder why players didn't vote for other 'better' games !?
A good game doesn't necessarily need to be perfect, but obviously it has to be spectacular. It seems to be the criteria for players. Who said there was no beauty without errors...
However, I hope Wikichess and Comments feature will reveal good chess games in another way.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-05-19 02:15:13)
Amici sumus
Hello Wayne. I agree, of course, your game was won. Here the problem is not the checkmate rule, it is about the adjudication of a forced win or draw ! Clearly, there's no perfect solution. There will be some abuses, more or less important ! One can't prevent this... Rules (particularly time rules) mean abuses. But don't forget that if a player abuses, it doesn't mean all players do the same intentionally in such a situation. I don't know if your opponent really stopped to play... (what for ? .. you'll get the point anyway) Maybe he just had other things to do these days... Who knows ? Even if this is not the case, it could have been ! It is the same problem (in the forced mate case) everywhere, there's simply nothing else to do than wait, then call referee when a time limit is reached. There's no other reasonable rule ! (and it would be too much work for referees)
Understand me, I don't say it was not an abuse, I just say there's no solution. If I change the rule, there will be abuses in another way ! There will be abuses anyway... Nevertheless, if you have an idea, I'll read it with interest.
Respectfully.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-05-19 11:09:58)
Re: Suggestion
Thanks for the suggestion, Wayne. Actually, I'm to implement a "comments" feature (see the discussion in a thread below). I don't think it's a perfect solution ! Of course it's a way to solve this problem, but it will create other problems with other abuses ! Anyway, it's a positive point more for comments. As David Grosdemange said, only players should be able to chat before the game ended. I think I'll do it this way...
Daniel De Noose (2006-05-20 17:55:10)
:-(
I'm not sure in case of equality we have to give the first place to the best rated. Because if a 1800 player and a 2300 player have the same score we can think the 1800 player makes a performance over his rating (good tournament) and the 2300 player a performance under his own rating (bad tournament). I think it's not correct to give the first position to the player making a bad tournament result and not to the player making a good tournament result. ;-)
Thibault de Vassal (2006-05-20 18:39:06)
Equality rule
Hello Daniel.
If the 2300 player scores 5.5 at this tournament, and the 1800 player scores 5, we can imagine the 2300 player makes a bad performance as well (possibly lower than the 1800 player), so the 1800 player should win ?
There's no perfect system, only conditions, but this rule prevents from 'accidents' and grants the rating that is the best players strength indicator. I think this is a way to ensure that the best players will reach the final stages. Because this is a world championship...
Thibault de Vassal (2006-06-01 21:25:04)
Discrepancies
It is very clear Lionel.
In another hand, each tournament rules and generally each situation influence the strategy at chess (so other games). And FICGS chess wch rules are special ones in the knockout tournament that should avoid draws. Actually, only a "one game match" can have no influence on 'the game'. (not perfectly true, as the player's strength is another factor)
Rules are flexible, particularly for the game of Go, so I think we can use even uncommom ones, if it is balanced enough (= there's still a challenge). Do you have an idea about this rule avoiding repetition, how many stones or komi it could be worth ?
Another question : Are there situations that look like zugzwang in Go (where the best move could be 'passing') ?
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 :/
Dorel Oltean (2006-06-15 13:14:09)
Criteria
In round-robin qualifing criteria is first number of points and then rating? In round-robin tournaments one can choose other criteria, after points, like Soneborn, number of wins, .., related to the performance one made. In rating list there are a lot of "provisional" ratings , which will become much too important.
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2006-06-14 15:32:51)
Rating formula
Hello Thibault!
Where can I found the exact rating rules of FICGS? I have found only these lines in the Memberships - Terms and Conditions:
"11. 7. Rating rules
The FICGS rating scheme is a numerical scheme, in which percentage results can be exchanged into rating differences, and rating differences into percentage performance probabilities. It is mainly based on the principles of rating calculations of prof. Arpad Elo.
The rating formula : New Elo = ((16 x Elo) + (Games x Perf)) / (16 + Games) ..."
What means "mainly based"?
You write in another topic
"1. The rating system do not take account of wins when the ELO difference is superior to 350 points "
Is this valid only for wins or for all games with a rating difference of more than 350 points?
Daniel De Noose (2006-06-15 18:33:39)
Perfect !
I think like this it more equal! Don't think I hope to be the 1st champion (I don't have that ambition), but it's just to have all the players on the same level. Thanks to you ! ;-)
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)?
Thibault de Vassal (2006-06-16 14:13:29)
Statistics, ELO and performances
Time and ratings will answer to that... It takes a few months for ratings to find themselves ! The same in FIDE and wher'ever...
Next rating list will be calculated on july 1st. :-)
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?
Wolfgang Utesch (2006-06-19 15:18:50)
Chess is a drawn game!
Hi, with perfect play on both sides, chess is allways a drawn game - even 1.e4 or 1.d4 (or any others). I'm really sure! The ways to come into theoretical drawn endings are just too many (for the defender). But who is playing perfect? Still waiting for the 32-pieces ending tool ;-), Wolfgang
Thibault de Vassal (2006-06-22 17:56:59)
King's gambit and statistics...
Wayne, where did you find such (wrong) statistics ??
Gambit (the real thing) is IMO first a psychological attack, most useful against a weaker player... "The best way to refute is to accept it", one said... but queen's gambit is NOT a real gambit and for sure 2. ... dxc4 is not the best move... King's gambit is, but a perfect play most probably also leads to a draw.
Queen's gambit accepted statistics : 33% (1-0), 48% (1/2-1/2), 17% (0-1)
King's gambit statistics : 35% (1-0), 27% (1/2-1/2), 36% (0-1)
... in classical time controls.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-06-22 18:10:05)
Acceptance of gambits...
Amir, in my opinion gambit is only a move like another... It is a psychological choice that depends on the opponent strength and play. IMO a gambit is "justified" (like any move) if the game is not lost... nothing more. If a gambit doesn't lead to a draw with a perfect play, it is a fault. And this thread is a troll :)
Wayne Lowrance (2006-06-22 21:11:43)
interesting question for the Gambit's a
Sir let me explain, the stats are taken from A database of 1600 GM's. the statistic is taken prior to blacks response but assuming pxp. Of course the percentages varies as you go thru the book lines. Where did your statistics come from (e-mail me, dont want to continue with troll)? Kings gambit with perfect play as you say leads to a draw. That does not impress me much. I agree the best defence against a gambit is accept, I usually do. Yes your right the thread is a troll, I apoligize for contributing but I found my self not being able to agree with where the last few topics were heading. I do not accept this mind games thing excet against a very weak player playing a much stronger player. In this case I agree. I end the troll with this...Wayne
Amir Bagheri (2006-06-23 12:25:36)
Blindfolded Chess
THE chess-world (for there is a "world" in chess as in other matters) has lately been startled by a very extraordinary performance at one of the "divans" of the metropolis. A young American has played ten games at once, against an equal number of players, without, on his part, obtaining a single glimpse at any one of the chess-boards. The feat is not new; but never before was it performed so triumphantly as in the present day. The writers who have ferreted out the early history of this beautiful game have found the name of one Tchelebi, who, nearly nine centuries ago, was able to play at chess without seeing the board. Many persons in the East acquired the art of playing by feeling instead of seeing pieces; but that is a very different affair, since in such a case the sense of touch comes in aid of the memory. In 1266, a Saragen, named Buzecca, came to Florence and at the Palazzo del Popolo played three games at once, looking at one board, but not at the other two. He won two of the games, and made a drawn or abandoned game of the other. As all his competitors were skilful players, his achievement caused irrepressible astonishment. At various times, in later centuries, this mode of play was exhibited by different persons--Ruy Lopez, the author of one of the earliest treatises on chess; Mangiolini of Florence, Zerone, Medrano, Leonardo da Cutri, Paolo Boi, Salvio, and others, many of whom were Spaniards. Boi is reputed to have played three games at once without seeing the board. Damiano, an Italian, who wrote a treatise on chess more than three centuries and a half ago, gave what he called the "Rules" for learning to play without seeing the board; but his rules are worth very little, amounting chiefly to a recommendation to cultivate the memory. Keysler, in his Account of Turin (1749), says: "The late Father Sacchieri, Lecturer on Mathematics at Pavia, was a remarkable instance of the strength of the human understanding, particularly that faculty of the soul we term memory. He could play at chess with three different persons at the same time, even without seeing any one of the three chess-boards. He required no more than that his substitute should tell him what piece his antagonist had moved, and Sacchieri could direct what step was to be taken on his side, holding, at the same time, conversation with the company present. If any dispute arose about the place where any piece should be, he could tell every move that had been made, not only by himself, but by his antagonist, from the beginning of the game, and in this manner incontestably decided the proper place of the piece. This uncommon dexterity at the game of chess appears to me almost the greatest instance that can be produced of a surprising memory." The most celebrated player of the last century, however, in this peculiar achievement, was the Frenchman Andre Danican, who then, and afterwards, was generally known by the name of Philidor. In 1743, when Philidor was about eighteen years old, M. de Legalle asked him whether he had ever tried to play from memory, without seeing the board. The youth replied, that as had calculated moves, and even whole games, at night in bed, he thought he could do it. He immediately played a game with the Abbe Chenard, which he won without seeing the board. After that, a little practice enabled him to play nearly as well in this as in the ordinary fashion--sometimes two games at once. The French Cyclopedie told of a particular game in which a false move was purposely made by his antagonist; Philidor discovered it after many moves, and replaced the pieces in their proper position. Forty years afterwards, he was residing in England, where he astonished English players by his blindfold achievements at a chess-club in St. James' Street. He played three games at once, with Count Bruhl, Mr. Bowdler, and Mr. Maseres, the first two of whom were reputed the best players at that time in England. Philidor won two of the games, and drew the third, all within two hours. On another occasion, in the same year (1788), he played three games at once, blindfold as before, and giving the odds of pawn and move to one of his antagonists; again did he win two of the games, and draw the third. His demeanor during these labors surprised his visitors as much as his skill, for he kept up a lively conversation during his games. Many eminent chess-players, including M'Donnell, La Bourdonnaye, Staunton, etc., have achieved these blindfold wonders, in greater or less degree, since the days of Philidor. M'Donnell, a famous player about thirty years ago, played his moves even more rapidly without than with the board; he did not object to any amount of conversation in the room during his play, but disliked whispers. La Bourdonnaye could play within a shade of his full strength without seeing the board; he won against good players, on some occasions two at a time; but when trying the threefold labor, his brain nearly gave way, and he wisely abandoned all such modes of playing his favorite game. Mr. Staunton, the leading English player at present (but who has almost ceased to play since he undertook the editing of an edition of Shakespeare), some years ago played many blindfold games with Harrwitz and Kieseritzky, foreign players of note.
Amir Bagheri (2006-06-23 12:26:28)
Blinfolded chess ( part II )
Very recently, however, all the honors of Europe, in this department of indoor games, have been run away with by two young Americans, Morphy and Paulsen. Paul Morphy, a native of New Orleans, seemed to be born with chess in his blood; he played almost from childhood; and at thirteen years of age he proved a formidable antagonist to Herr Lowenthal, a noted Hungarian. In 1857, when just twenty years of age, Morphy encountered Paulsen, a native of Iowa, only a little older than himself, at a chess congress in New Orleans (Editor: It was New York!). All the gray-beards struck their flag to Paulsen, and then he struck to Morphy. Of Morphy's subsequent achievements in regular play, which stamp him as perhaps the first living chess-player (we say this with fear and trembling; however, for the knights of the game are a sensitive race), we will not speak here, for our purpose is only to notice the blindfold performances. At the chess congress above mentioned, he finely played a blindfold game with a leading German player. Early in 1858, he struck the New Orleanists with amazement by playing six games simultaneously, without seeing any other the boards; winning five of them, and exhibiting beautiful play throughout. He then came to Europe, not only to "lick the Britishers," but "all creation;" and it must be admitted that he made great progress towards that achievement. At a meeting of the Chess Association at Birmingham, in August 1858, he played eight games simultaneously, without sight of the boards. His opponents were Lord Lyttelton, and seven other persons, mostly presidents or secretaries of provincial chess clubs. Against such players, and under such tremendous conditions, he won no less than six games out of the eight, drawing a seventh, and losing the eighth. In the following month, he went over and astonished the Parisians in a similar way; he contended blindfold against eight practised players at once, at the Cafe de la Regence, a famous resort of chess-players; and out of these did not lose even one; he was the victor in six, and drew the other two. In the spring of 1859, Morphy contended against eight of the most experienced members of the London Chess Club, including Mr. Mongredien and Mr. Walker, two distinguished players. He won two games, and drew the other six--all the players except himself being wearied out by a very protracted sitting. A few days afterwards, he played with eight members of the St. George's Chess Club, including Lord Cremorne, Lord Arthur Hay, and Captain Kennedy; he won five, and the rest were drawn through want of time to finish them. Nevertheless, inconceivable as these mental labors are, Morphy yields to Paulsen in blindfold play. There are whispers of twelve or fifteen games having been tried simultaneously by the latter; but the number ten has been most certainly reached, under conditions of the utmost publicity. On the 7th of October in the present year, at a Divan in the Strand, ten players accepted Mr. Paulsen's challenge to grapple with them all simultaneously, the boards being placed out of his sight. One of the players was M. Sabouroff, secretary to the Russian Embassy in London; the other nine comprised many names well known among chess-players. Ten chess-boards were placed on ten tables in the room. An arm-chair, turned away towards a window, was mounted on a dais. At two o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Paulsen, a quiet, courteous young man, with not a trace of "brag" in him, took his seat in this arm-chair. For twelve mortal hours he never rose, never ate, never smoked, and drank nothing but a little lemonade. What were his mental labors during that time, we shall see. His ten antagonists took their seats at the ten tables; and each table speedily became the centre of a group of spectators, whose comments were not always so silent as in fairness they ought to have been. Paulsen could not see any of the chess-boards. Herr Kling, a noted player and teacher of chess, acted as general manager. He called the boards by numbers--No. 1 to No. 10. Paulsen audibly announced his first move for board No. 1; Kling made that move; the antagonist replied to it; Kling audibly announced the reply; Paulsen considered what should be his second move, and when he had audibly announced his decision, Kling made the proper move on the board. Here No. 1 rested for awhile. No. 2 now made his move, leading to the same course of proceeding as before. Then No. 3 in the same way; then No. 4; and so on to No. 10; after which No. 1 began a new cycle, by playing a second move; and thus they proceeded over and over again. Now let us see what all this implies and involves. Chess is not one of the most frolicsome of games; indeed, ladies generally declare it to be very dull, seeing that a chess-player is apt to be "grumpy" if spoken to on other matters while playing. The truth is, there is a demand for much mental work in managing a game well; the combinations and subtleties, the attacks and counter-attacks, are so numerous and varied, as to keep the mind pretty fully occupied. Nevertheless, a fine game between two fine players is mere child's play compared with this wonderful achievement of Paulsen. He was obliged to form ten mental pictures; and every picture changed with every move, like the colored bits in a kaleidoscope. Most persons, even though knowing nothing of the game, are aware that it begins with thirty-two pieces of different colors and forms, and that these move about over a board of sixty-four squares. After every change of position in any one of the pieces, Paulsen must have changed his mental picture of the board, the field of battle, and then made that a fixture until the next move was made. This is hard enough in even one game, against an antagonist who has his eyes to help him in planning attacks and defences; but how hard must it be against ten! It is difficult to conceive what is the condition of the mental machinery under such circumstances; and yet, there he sat, the calmest man in the room. When told of his antagonist's doings, one by one, he looked quietly out of window, and rubbed his chin, as a man often does when thinking, and then announced his move--never mistaking No. 1 for No. 7, No. 9 for No. 3--never failing to recover the proper mental picture, and making the proper change in it; never embarrassed; never making an unlawful move, or likely to lose sight (mental sight) of any unlawful move made by his antagonists. Nor did he obtain the least pause for mental rest. Without one minute's interval, as soon as he had announced a move for one board, he was required to attend to the move of another antagonist at another board. Hour after hour did this continue--all the afternoon, all the evening, midnight, until two in the morning. He made two hundred and seventy moves in the twelve hours, twenty-seven per game average; this gave two minutes and a quarter for the consideration of each move. As all his moves were met by corresponding moves on the part of his antagonists, he was called upon to form five hundred and forty complete mental pictures in twelve consecutive hours, each picture representing the exact mode in which all of the sixty-four squares of a chess-board were occupied. Paulsen won two games, lost three, and drew five.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-07-02 12:52:15)
rules & ratings
Hello Peter.
Indeed, you were one of the very first registered players. I have fixed the rules since this time, though it seems to me this point was the same already.
Anyway, ratings of course are not only informative (like in life :)), as it allows to play class tournaments. Now, there must be a way to choose a winner in certain cases, even if there's no "perfect" way. But if you win the tournament, there's no discussion. It only lights the battle a little more... When a player register he can ask for a >1700 rating only if he has got an "official" rating already, so the influence of choice is not so important at registration.
Your reference to 1789 is amazing, but actually we ARE equal before the law (rules). Doesn't mean the law is perfectly fair, that's impossible, of course. Like in life... The rules slightly favourize the best players. Je t'embrasse itou :)
Gino Figlio (2006-07-04 01:07:56)
Symmetrical games
The format used(8-game match with simultaneous games, 4 white and 4 black) brings up the issue of avoiding symmetrical games. I don't see a perfect way of doing this other than being conscious of the problem, and trying to deviate early on. If I see an opening chosen by my opponent that I am also planning to use, I have waited to respond in one(or more) of the games, until the position reached a point where I would normal deviate, and choose an alternate move with the opposite colour. Anyone else with better ideas about how to avoid this problem?
Gino Figlio (2006-07-04 21:19:14)
statistics
Dear Thibault, I don't have the answer, I suspect there is no solution for this problem. If you apply statistics to extreme situations, there will always be some outliers that will prove your prediction wrong. One good example is ICC(internet chess club) and their self-proclaimed perfect method to detect online cheaters. I can tell you some OTB 2100-2300 players can perform sometimes close to 2600 strength, and sometimes more than 95% of their moves coincide with one of the chess engines...statistically you can call this a cheater, but reality is not respectful of normal distributions
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2006-07-09 00:46:13)
Leave/Reflection Time
Dear chessfriends!
In my dreams a perfect server has the following time rules.
Normal tournaments:
- 30 days with an increment of 30 days/ 10 moves
- 100 days maximum accumulated time
- 30 days maximum limit for one move
- 4 weeks leave per tournament (!) for every year since the start of the tournament
- no time lost or added during leaves
- a move in a tournament during a leave stops the leave in all games of this tournament
- all time calculated by a running clock in hours and minutes
Rapid tournaments
- 30 days start +1 day added per move
- 45 days maximum accumulated time
- 30 days maximum limit for one move
- no leave
- all time calculated by a running clock in hours and minutes
By the way, the world championship should not be a rapid tournament.
But how I said these are my dreams ...
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2006-07-10 20:06:15)
Vacation and reflection time
Hi Thibault
Vacation seems to be a great problem on all chess servers. The way you manage it is very special. I don't think, that your way is "hard to use". Of course you can always abuse vacation to have more time in time trouble. But your way is very easy. Take 10 days of vacation and play on. And at the end of a year add the not consumed vacation to the reflection time of all of your games.
Now you suggest that a player can not play during his vacation. That is ok. But if the player starts playing during his vacation "loosing the days leave taken and not used yet" is not ok. "Maybe it won't be appreciated in some particular cases". Too much and unnecessary administration. Let the server work.
You don't want to give up your concept (adding vacation time to the reflection time), am I right? You already have announced the corrections on "My messages". If you must change your concept, you would have to rewrite parts of the software.
Nevertheless I would like to say how I imagine the vacation rules on my "perfect server".
I can make the following things with my 4 weeks of holiday:
- If I'm on holiday far away from home or don't like to play chess for a while, I can take a leave in all tournaments.
- If I have much work (sorry - I had to earn money and my employer doesn't take it into consideration, that I would like to play more chess) and can't take care of all tournaments for a while, I take a leave in single tournaments. If the overload is past, I play on without losing the vacation which I perhaps haven't taken.
- I cannot take a leave in a rapid tournament. That is ok - rapid means rapid. There shouldn't be any way to get more time for reflection in this kind of tournament.
It's a pity that no more players express their opinion on this topic in this forum.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-07-22 18:31:31)
What future for correspondence chess ?
You may have noticed this "grave" question on the home page... :)
---------
Are draws and chess engines killing chess game, are the level and play simply standardized by Deep Fritz and Rybka... Is the extraordinary performance by Christophe Lotard at XIX th. ICCF correspondence chess world championship 'chancy', a statistical happening, or is there a place yet for human play in modern correspondence chess ?
"I really believe that Go is destined to take the place of Chess as the leading intellectual game of the Occident, just as it has reigned supreme in the Orient for some four thousand years." (Edward Lasker, international chess master)
"... {it is} something unearthly... if there are sentient beings on other planets, then they play go." (Emanuel Lasker, chess world champion)
It had been said that Chess 960 would replace Chess too. I don't think so...
Any predictions ?
Thibault de Vassal (2006-08-02 23:38:35)
Patience... what limit ?
Hello Graham.
Actually, he did break the rules... (obvious result + 30 days lasting) so game has been adjudicated. But this may be ambiguous in some cases... Not perfect for sure.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-08-24 20:32:23)
Re: Why do you play corr-chess ?
Because there are no chess players where I live... :)
And maybe because I'm quite perfectionist too ;)
Julien Baudement (2006-08-28 17:21:40)
Go rules : no pass option
A little problem with the go games : It's possible to move, to resign, but not to pass. I remember that it was extisting before because one of my opponents did it! Thibaut: je t'aurai... dans quelques annes mr Kobayashi m'a suggr un site pour se perfectionner !
Rodrigo Jaroszewski (2006-09-12 13:19:57)
Math... *sigh*
LOL Thibault, I guess it was.
I'm no mathematician (far from it), but I don't think that this theory will turn out to be true anytime in the near future, even in a "predictable" game like chess. Even chess engines depend on the skill of their programmers to find new ways to make their search algorithms become reliable and faster, and tablebase development is still petabytes away from being complete.
Anyway, I guess the future generations will have to tell us if it worked or not. Only God knows what can get in the way of this "gaming nirvana" as they call, and after I heard that it was proven possible that a computer user can subconciously influenciate the way an idle machine performs, I don't feel like trying to impersonate Baba Vanga on this subject! ;)
Dirk Ghysens (2006-09-18 10:33:56)
Not all, Henri
I know of two exceptions: 1. Yelena Dembo, FIDE rating 2466, WGM, IM, and a GM norm; rating at Gameknot 1775; 2. Marius Ceteras, FIDE rating 2427, FM (he missed IM title due to a strange decision by FIDE officials), very well-known correspondence chess personality, chess publisher, organiser etc.; rating at Gameknot 1740 (not in top 2000 there and loses regularly against 1800 rated patzers). Unfortunately Yelena Dembo is no longer playing at Gameknot; they threw her out. Also Marius Ceteras has no ongoing games there during the past month. So you may be right after all: most players above 1600 are using a chess engine (except the WIMs, WGMs, FMs, and IMs rated below 1800), and certainly all players above 1800 (with one possible exception, a WIM from Holland/Russia, who managed a rating slightly above 1800, but she got thrown out also, for being a nuisance). BTW, it boggles my mind why the use of tablebases is allowed there; unlike engines, tablebases tell you the perfect move to play and what the outcome will be with 100% certainty.
Marc Lacrosse (2006-10-04 18:55:32)
Rybka and others
I use rybka 1.1 and quite a few other ones :-)
I am pretty sure that rybka is stronger than all other engines but this does not in any way say that rybka's play is perfect.
A problem with the practical use of rybka is the fact that it has something like a different scaling of his assessments than most others.
+0.10 is a large advantage for rybka! and often he gives almost the same score to several candidate moves whereas other engines more clearly differentiate the value of different potential continuations.
Rybka often misses evidently promising tactical continuations if you do not give him a much longer thinking time than requested by some competitors
So I think Rybka is a powerful tool but not the only one to have for computer help
Marc
Marc Lacrosse (2006-10-04 22:50:34)
How many people actually use chessengine
I do, and I cannot even understand why some feel it is not fair : it is explicitly allowed here.
My feeling is that most (if not all) my opponents do use them also.
And this is perfectly OK for me. For several reasons :
1. I prefer not to have worked hard on a game and then win it because a sudden tactical error leads to a premature end after months of intense struggle.
2. I am far from being able on my own forces to have such interesting games as those that I play with help of engines.
3. Being on almost the same basis of computer help as my opponents, I feel that the human touch is clearly decisive in these computer-assisted correspondence games : it's precisely there that the difference can be made.
Marc
Glen D. Shields (2006-10-05 05:25:52)
Wayne no one ...
Wayne - no one is time trouble because no one is using their time. That's the point! "Correspondence chess" on a server has basically become an OTB match between chess engines. Players in all organizations are complaining about server burnout. Players who swore off postal are re-considering their decision.
What Thibault is trying to find out is how prevalent is the burnout. What I'm proposing any player can do manually, but why should it be done manually when the server can do it for us? Isn't automation the whole purpose of the server?
Help from the server to manage the pace (and one's game load) is a perfectly logical extension of server play. If you want to play fast, play fast. If you want to play slow, slow the pace, use the server to do it for you. Why is that bothersome? No one is suggesting a change from the 40/10 limit. There's no proposal to deviate from the 100 maximum accumulated days (great rule - every server should follow this rule!). What am I missing? I really don't get it :)
Thibault de Vassal (2006-10-18 21:31:24)
Re: Kick this player !!!
Thank you...
That was my first impression too, but I was not sure. The 'filter' is not perfect yet ;)
Thibault de Vassal (2006-10-23 18:00:29)
Rating / 8-game match
Hello Wolfgang. (FICGS, not FICS ;))
In these 1st FICGS WCH quarter finals, there were 2 forfeit cases & 1 match with 6 games out of 8 lost on time. In the first 2 cases, not all games were rated as a win (according to the 8-game match rule), the last case was a bit different but as far as I remember, the winner had a better position (winning or small advantage) in all games... Anyway, ratings wouldn't change significantly if 2 wins were not rated.
The real question is about 8-game matchs & fast time control 30 days + 1 day / move (quite hard). There's no perfect rule & particular cases could happen, but that's really interesting IMO & the number of games with rapid time controls are probably enough to balance ratings in time. We'll see...
Anyway, several players were surprised by the difficulty of this time control, I hope it won't happen again during the next cycle (that should start in january)...
Thibault de Vassal (2006-10-24 13:06:31)
Anatoly Karpov, world champion...
... signing 1951 copies of the book (written by David Llada) "Karpov, el camino de una voluntad" - record of most books autographed by a celebrity.. previous holder was Bill Cullen, who signed 1848 copies of his book "Golden Apples" in april 2005.
Quite funny & great performance :) .. this chess festival in Mexico city obviously was a nice event : Simultaneous exhibition with 14,000 participants (world record), rapid chess tournament with Korchnoi, Kosteniuk, Karjakin & Hernandez...
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3446
Thibault de Vassal (2006-10-30 08:54:15)
Re: JUDIT POLGAR
Hi Dinesh.
Seems to be a question a money ?! .. If I remember correctly, Sergey Karjakin was to play Topalov with a 1 M$ prize fund (?), so why not a Judit Polgar vs. Vladimir Kramnik match...
She (probably) only needs a good sponsor and a serious preparation to create such an interesting event... I'm sure Kramnik would play it. I don't remember Judit playing a 6+ game match, but I feel it would be hard for her, first because of Kramnik style (& Judit's).
Anyway, great performance at Essent with a 2-0 mini-match against V. Topalov and I. Sokolov !
Sebastian Palozzi (2006-11-05 14:29:19)
A Moment of Clarity
I find it interesting that no matter how bizzare his life and his thoughts might be I can usually find a moment of perfect clarity and thought; his description of Capablanca's style and ability coincide very nicely with the latest computer analysis of World Champion strength and style as posted on Chessbase. It seems to me that putting aside all questions of strength or playing ability Fischer has a profound knowledge and love of chess. If he is wrong about anything he is wrong about his own feelings about the game.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-11-11 06:16:23)
@ Sebastien Marez
Hello Sebastien.
That's always interesting to compare IECG and FICGS... Several players asked me about your forfeit in the previous tournaments, so I'm curious : Can I ask you why you finally came back to play some games at FICGS (after loosing about 240 points - future rating : 2204) ?? I suppose the time controls here are too slow for you (as Henri), do you have an idea about a "perfect" formula ?
Thibault de Vassal (2006-11-11 19:27:15)
Chess tournaments : Performances
Hello to all.
Performances are now displayed for chess tournaments in the tournament crosstable pages.. (click the picture near the tournament name)
It doesn't mean anything for the rating calculation as games taken in account depend on tournament entry ratings (TER). Informative only :)
Thibault de Vassal (2006-11-19 17:56:13)
Retire and come back.
Hello Dorel.
I'm very sorry about that, but actually Charlie just said everything.
"It is just one of the drawbacks of having a free site on the internet."
This was only an obvious example, but the problem is quite more complex... What about a player who just looses a game on time and continue his other games. Farther, why a player should draw to another one and win to a third. Any result in any round-robin tournament is partly 'aleatory' and depends on many other factors than chess, particularly rules.
It also happens in over the board tournaments to get prizes, it can happen everywhere and at ICCF too... That's why I prefer knockout system. Of course, I'd like to solve all problems, but no rules are perfect. (by the way all suggestions are welcome)
The original post was in 'temps de rflexion' thread :
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=forum_read&id=1453
Best wishes.
Marius Zubac (2006-11-20 00:25:05)
The penalty system - a proposal
A player that for a (good) reason is not able to continue his games should have two choices: A) Let some games get lost on time and then he would be treated under the penalty system. B) Ask for a retirement and in this case no penalties should be applied. Once a player asks for retirement the following actions should be taken: 1. His status in the rating list should be flagged to retired; perhaps a retired player should not be able to register a new tournament; 2. A retired player could get re-instated by applying directly to the FICGS adjudication commission; 3. All the retired players running games should then be frozen and dealt with on a by tournament basis: 3a) if in a tournament the retired player has finished games that are not lost the remaining games should be adjudicated by FICGS for rating purposes. However all the retired players games should not be counted for qualification purposes (if the tournament provides qualification to a next stage); how the games are to be considered for norms is a matter to be discussed. 3b) if in a tournament the retired player has finished games that are all lost the tournament director can act as in 3a) or has the option of canceling all the retired players games. This proposal is far from perfect but shows that we are not helpless and some action can be taken. The reason I mentioned IECG is because probably on the server the population is roughly equivalent with the FICGSs one but in IECGs case the distributed is more favorable in the upper section. This is the reason why there is enough active population at any given time for new tournaments and severe rules are not needed as much as in FICGSs case in order to maintain a meaningful activity. My belief is that the centaur mode will prove in time to generate stronger games, stronger chess and FICGS will have chances to become in time the most relevant correspondence chess server. The technical conditions are already met. Marius
Thibault de Vassal (2006-11-20 15:59:46)
Go : Komi
Komi 7.5 points is the 'estimated' fair value while playing perfect (at least pro)...
Since we use elo rating system for Go, I think any handicap (stones or komi) is nonsense, but maybe we could create an unrated category of tournaments, simultaneous games or matches with a handicap... Could be fun & more interesting in some cases.
Lionel Vidal (2006-11-20 21:29:31)
You seems in advance :-)
Well, considering the results of last year pro games (almost a perfect 50-50 result, according to my rather large but admittedly incomplete database) I am not sure a komi change from 6.5 will occur soon, at least in the japanese pro scene... And the number of recent games in gobase that ends in 1 or 1/2 points difference is astonishing :-) (not really significant, I know, as pros have the capacity to keep a tiny edge till the end, reducing it to simplify the game... but still :-))
Anyway, for us, simple and humble go mortals, that does not change much :-)
(but even at my low level I tend to be more aggressive in my fuseki while playing with an opponent of my level or stronger when the komi is 7.5 instead of say 5.5... so considering the increase/decrease (black/white) of aggressive attitude, maybe it is important for most of us because the feeling of a game might eventually change)
Thibault de Vassal (2006-11-21 21:24:02)
Poker, chess & chance
As many of you, I regularly read Chessbase news and I was quite surprised to read this article "A chess master's poker tour" by Almira Skripchenko about World Poker Championship, french celebrities and so on... (a way to popularize chess ? or is it only Almira ? :))
I used to play stud poker and I was just looking informations about the part of chance in games. I only found this article written in french (sorry) :
http://jeuxstrategie.free.fr/page_le_jeu_de_strategie_cest_quoi.php
If you know something about that or an article on the internet, I'm quite interested in.
Here is a personal estimation - at first sight - of the part of chance (opposed to a perfect play) in some games :
Chess, Go (& all determined games) : 0 %
Scrabble, Trivial pursuit : 20 %
Poker : 30 %
Monopoly : 70 %
Roulette, Loto (& all chancy games) : 100 %
Thibault de Vassal (2006-11-29 12:16:21)
"Next" request
Actually, it depends on quite aleatory factors.
"Next" request can't predict what game you want to avoid to play particularly :/ .. In my opinion, this change makes it better. Of course not perfect.
Thibault de Vassal (2006-12-04 01:27:44)
Reminds me something...
Ok, now I'm afraid conditions are 'ok' so that Kramnik looses this match...
Let's say game 6 is a draw, Deep Fritz 10 wins the match by score 3,5-2,5 first program on a normal computer to beat a world champion. Great...
However Vladimir Kramnik can be satisfied of his performance, he obtained a completely winning position and didn't really loose any game. He just gave his opponent a full point in a draw position.
Honor is safe, everyone wins. Like the song, what a wonderful world :)
Elmer Valderrama (2006-12-04 14:18:02)
intuition
I disagree, chess knowledge can't be equated to intuition, here is my long post about it (why am I writing about the same things all over and over and at the same time of year, I dunno ;)
1. Players without any intuition whatsoever but great working capabilitites (as Botvinnik, Fischer, Kasparov, ..engines..)
-they never relie on intuition (they dont have any at all after all) so everything must be subject to calculation, they have the "hardware" (perfect body and mental conditions, rigorous training, perfect visual/realistic representation of positions and a great chess knowledge which must be kept fresh in mind -if not, they wouldn't have reference points to judge/evaluate resulting positions.
When on top form they can beat anybody and I mean ANY body: human, extraterrestial, ultragalactic, trans-natural, hyper-divine,etc, and for an overwhelming score, like 6-0 ;)..well you know what I mean.
The drawback well you already know it, it last a mig, except for the engines, no-one can keep up with this regime (GK could for a long time, but resorting to short breaks (not playing for WC, choosing carefully where to play etc,) But most important it's impossible to implement for long if the "hardware" -see above- starts to "leak oil" then it's all over..
This can be brought up to an art, like Kasparov or Fischer, it is more powerful than understanding chess as a natural tongue (as intuitive players) because the "top-form" competitive element is always present and the "hardware" works in pristine conditions.
From the above it follows of course that engines are the ultimate chess warrior over the board at least (and only there, not in CC)
2. Those who have strategical intuition. (Capablanca, Petrosian, Karpov maybe Anand..)The general impression is that they are simply lazy people: not need to work out any thing as they just "know" where pieces should go and what the point is of their moves, usually there is no need for deep calculations, just two or three moves (4 to 6 plies) to corroborate the "feeling" and the game is won.
The "feeling" is hard to express in words, and usually is lost if expressed in words ;). It goes beyond a simply pattern recognition, or a full database of chess knowledge, it is about predicting the future possibilities (not having real positions in mind, just the "possibilities" or general lines of play in future positions which may or may not happen to appear for real in the game. They can play for long long time and win a lot of tournaments (Karpov I believe have the record of won tournaments)
3. Those who have special understanding in unbalanced positions (Alekhine, Tal, Korchnoi..) They are dynamic players who love to calculate but not for the sake of finding the best of the best of the best of the moves (as those in group 1 would do), they calculate SOME variations, those who have meaning to them I see them as players of group 2 with a more or less working "hardware" i.e they are not going to trust 2 or 3 moves variations neither they are going to speculate on the future possibilities without any ground/basic calculation under it. Their "feeling" is again hard to express in words, but I believe it is something like calculating a 10-12 plies variation with every position in-between being subconciously excrutinated for crushing unexpected turning moves (this is not done by players of group 1, they would calculate "normal replies" in that 10-12 plies variation and would have to go deeper (like 20-30 plies to see the point ;)
So that "feeling" is what enable us to compose music, create art etc but also it is something that enable us to err like fools :( Whether it can be mimicked by software or not it's an open question but as I said a calculation 40-50 plies deep it's practically equal to using intuition... Obviously the above classification of G Kasparov it's a bit rough in the sense that there are very few "pure intuitive" players (of either group 2 or 3) as mentioned by Don in his post most of the players is a mix of talent I believe, if I had to choose a pure intuitive player from those groups I would point Capablanca and Korchnoi, and of course Kasparov of group 1
Nigel Davies (2007-01-20 07:42:54)
Correspondence Chess
Hi Thibault, I picked up your message and I would agree in terms that an OTB player should not try to play 'perfectly'. The point of my article was that correspondence chess can help cure OTB players of becoming 'too practical' at the expense of good moves. A lot of OTB players will develop defective (but dangerous) methods to score heavily against weaker players but get cut to ribbons when they use the same methods against a stronger player. This is particularly noticeable on the ICC, where some players will just try to win on the clock regardless of the objective strength of their moves, and most of the time it works. But their 'chess habits' suffer mightily as a result. Best wishes, Nigel
Elmer Valderrama (2007-01-20 10:48:05)
practical play
I believe this can happen at all levels: at +2700 level for example, A Morozevich illustrates the case, +2951 Perf in Pamplona, not too awesome in big events, Linares or WCs :/
-I think he might be easily the Most Practical Player of All Time --if that award exists--
Ron Keyston (2007-01-29 19:04:14)
Specifics and Examples
OK, one PC is a 3.2GHz P4 w/1GB RAM running XP Pro. 256MB Hashtables with an ~800MB Maximum possible. The other PC is an Athlon X2 4600+ w/2GB RAM running Vista Ultimate (RTM.) It has 1GB Hashtables with ~1.5GB Maximum Possible. I can pretty much guarantee that it is not a hashtable issue though as the problem is with the legality of a move and only arises after saving into a database, closing the game and then re-opening it from the database. Also, if I open the same saved game from the database into Fritz 9, castling long as black is perfectly OK.
As for some examples, I will give the same five games that I sent to Chessbase. Some of these are contrived examples, whereas some are from my games here at FICGS:
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bc4 Bg4 6.O-O Nc6 7.d4
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Be7 6.Bxf6 gxf6 7.Nf3 b6 8.Bc4 Bb7 9.Qe2 Nd7 10.O-O-O c6 11.Rhe1 Qc7 12.g3
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c4 7.Qg4 g6 8.Nf3 Qa5 9.Bd2 Nh6 10.Qh3 Nf5 11.g4 Nxd4 12.cxd4 Qb6 13.Bg2 Nc6 14.Qh6 Nxd4 15.O-O Bd7 16.Bg5 Ba4 17.Nxd4 Qxd4 18.Qg7 Rf8 19.Be3 Qxg4 20.Bc5
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 a6 6.Be3 Nc6 7.Qd2 Bf5 8.Bd3 Bg4 9.Be2 e6 10.O-O-O
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c4 7.Qg4 g6 8.Nf3 Qa5 9.Bd2 Nh6 10.Qh3 Nf5 11.g4 Nxd4 12.cxd4 Qb6 13.Bg2 Nc6 14.Qh6 Nxd4 15.O-O Bd7 16.Qg7
In all five examples, it is black to move from the final position. Also, in all five examples, castling long/queen-side is perfectly legal and likely one of the best moves. BEFORE the game(s) is/are saved into the database, Fritz allows black to castle long (and it is at or near the top line in infinite analysis mode.) AFTER saving the game into a database, closing the game window, and re-opening the game from the database, Fritz treats castling long as an illegal move.
Richard Core (2007-02-03 03:20:17)
Computer free chess
Hi Benjamin Aldag, I agree with you. I really don't see the reason for playing with a computers help. What have you accomplished with the help of a machine? I have no idea. When I come up with a great combo, I get the satisfaction that the answer came from me, not the machine or any other source. It is alot more fun. A lot more fun. I think most people I have played are not ussing computer help. I haven't won a tournament yet, but I think I have had a respectable performance.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-02-07 18:26:15)
Illya Nyzhnyk
Younger and younger...
The new chess phenomenon seems to be this young boy, Illya Nyzhnyk (birthdate 27.09.1996). He just won Moscow open B (8,5/9 - perf 2633 !)
Impresssive, what do you think ?
http://www.dril-chess.com/
Simultaneous video
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DbGwDRgVOhZs
Article from Scacchierando
http://www.scacchierando.net/dblog/articolo.asp?articolo=890
Thibault de Vassal (2007-02-10 03:08:52)
Rybka, Fritz and future...
Computerchess is definitely an exciting challenge... The community is fast-growing, new versions of chess engines appear every day, many dream to be the next Vasik Rajlich and to produce an engine that would beat the well-known Chessbase engines and the famous Rybka.
These days, I had a look at Fruit 2.1, TogaII and Crafty source code that are available to download, and started to implement new search & evaluation functions. It's quite easy to understand why chess programming is so addictive, so much done and so much to do... finally I did not enter this mad race without an ending, probably for the same reasons Anthony Cozzie (the author of Zap! Chess Zanzibar) and many others retired.
However here are my feelings about future of chess engines, and the fight that just started between most probably Chessbase engines (Fritz, Shredder, Junior and Hiarcs) and a new era of chess engines that started with Rybka...
First, it's quite obvious to me that Rybka (now Rybka 2.3) is only another one of a long series of chess engines always stronger than each others ! .. I expect the next ones to reach 50, 100 then 200 points more (and maybe more) on the next chess engines elo rating lists, a scale that definitely can't be compared to human elo rating list ! .. Several reasons to this : (1) Chess engines are human killers at standard time controls, but chess engines are far to play perfect chess yet. (2) The way ratings are calculated.
Rybka taught us several things IMO :
- Algorithms and evaluation functions are no more enough. Now chess engines have to play chess, not only search a tree of chess positions... That's probably what Rybka brought to computerchess. Since Fruit 2.1 & Toga II source code is available, and computerchess community is constantly discussing improvements in algorithms, evaluations of positions and new ideas, to implement a chess engine becomes easier so I have no doubt that new very strong chess engines like Rybka will come.
- To become famous, a chess engine must 'also' beat his rivals. I first thought that Rybka was designed to be an engines killer only (at least before to be an analysis tool) with some tricks exploiting most engines weaknesses. No, Rybka is also a great UCI engine, simply stronger and with many options & features. Like Vasik Rajlich, who is engineer and international chess master, you'll have not only to think like an engineer to create such an engine. However I still don't think it is the best analysis tool for correspondence chess, it doesn't play really better chess and in all cases it is not enough. More, Rybka 3, 4, 5 shouldn't influence correspondence chess (maybe even human vs. machine) much... Computerchess influences computerchess first.
It's written sometimes that the strongest chess engines could reach a IM, even GM level at correspondence chess. I definitely disagree with that, at least for the moment (it will take a long time yet), but as chess engines results tend to approach correspondence chess ones (means more and more draws), I do think chess engines have much to learn from correspondence chess players way of thinking, meaning : A more psychological approach, bonus for traps detection. Evaluate moves, not only positions. A more complex search, not 'only' iterative (brute force is definitely useless). No more anti-human style, speculative moves (=weakness, ie. Deep Junior) for speculative results against strongest chess engines, draws are prefered. To avoid positions not understood by the engine. Longer games, closed games (if supported)... Opening books should look like correspondence chess GMs ones (of course according to the engine's style of play) and no more been made of FIDE GM games. A better time management... Future of computerGo may teach to computerchess about some evaluations.
A chess engine must play good moves AND try to win (which is not always the same). It seems Fruit & Rybka play solid and are waiting to exploit their opponent's weaknesses thanks to a better "chess" algorithm/knowledge. As far as I have seen, Shredder & Fritz still have the best 'eye', they see far but fuzzy. Quite the same about Fruit & Toga developped by a great engineer, Fabien Letouzey : Less chess knowledge but an improved algorithm. As for Rybka, a great chess knowledge and probably a smarter algorithm (not better, smarter !) were probably enough already. The future best chess engines will be made by good chess players...
An interesting point is it could be not so easy, maybe even nonsense, to create the best analysis tool that would also obtain the best results against other chess engines. My first prediction is Rybka won't be the top rated chess engine ever, hundreds of new ideas will appear in all parts of chess programming, slowly breaking Rybka secrets, then speed will be a factor again. Deep Fritz, Junior, Fruit or Hydra are most probably the core of the next generations of chess engines... but there's a lot of work yet :)
My two cents.
Marc Lacrosse (2007-02-15 22:55:30)
Why such a shouting ?
@Benjamin Aldag
"The discussion is not about to change something. It is about to build a new feature here"
You are completely illogical.
Evidently you may play without computer as you wish here.
You may also try to find other members who prefer to play this way and register together with them in a tournament.
So what you wish to do is already possible. But what you request is not that.
You request to play here against opponents for whom computer use will be forbidden.
This is simply not the rule here. It's even one of the fundamental originalities of this site.
The rules of the site are that everything is allowed
If you and friends of yours manage to play without computers this is up to you
But asking for special rules supposes that you intend to request that Thibault or someone will check that YOUR rule is enforced.
IMHO this is purely not working. You won't find any organisation that wil be able to ensure that no player cheats regarding this kind of rule.
So let me repeat (and it is MY RIGHT not to agree with your opinions) : if you find opponents with which you have an agreement for playing without comps here this is perfectly fine for everybody and it's up to you to see wether you are happy with the way your partners do or do not respect the agreement.
If you wish to change radically the rules so as to have tournaments where something like a police dept will check that no comp is used than GO AWAY and simply do register in one of the numerous sites where these rules do exist and where almost everybody cheats.
By the way : no need for shouting to tell what you wish.
Shouting will not make your opinions more valuable in any way.
Marc
Wayne Lowrance (2007-02-15 23:05:38)
more chess engine talk.
Thibault, you miss the boat on Hydra futre expectations in my opinion. Its advantage over pc engines was dedicated hardware (no necessarily speed) and ease of making program modifications. However you perhaps neglect to consider the tremendous improvement in PC performance multiple cores, processors and et all. My thought is that the pc programs already are superior to Hydra. Correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that Rybka has finished ahead of it in tournament play. As far as other programs, you did not mention Zap. You best keep an eye on this one. It is very very strong and improving. Right now it is the only engine that has a chance of catching Rybka in eng-eng matches. I think it will be number two on the computer rankings. I will try to look further into Zap for a top CC engine. we see. again, my thoughts Wayne
Thibault de Vassal (2007-03-10 22:51:55)
Anand virtually ranked #1
After Morelia-Linares 2007 tournament, Viswanathan is virtually ranked #1 on the next FIDE rating list (2007, April). Great achievement :)
Quite funny to see the separated results of Morelia & Linares tournament, particularly performances for Alexander Morozevich (!)
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3722
Tano-Urayoan Russi Roman (2007-03-10 23:24:38)
This is called the 4 knights sicilian
This line is a very complicated line of play. You could play the scheveningen with e6 as your second move,the difference is you chose as your second move Nc6 that allows this line of play. So e6 is a perfect line of play neither good nor bad. Just for your tastes :)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-03-11 01:24:11)
Kingston Defence
Glad to see Ilmars also began to analyze this defense in Wikichess !
I feel it's a draw on a perfect play, but we'll debate it on the board for sure in future... ;)
Don Groves (2007-03-11 07:04:51)
Draw on perfect play?
If this turns out to be true, then Black will never lose another game!
Elmer Valderrama (2007-03-11 10:41:50)
It's a draw on perfect play.
I agree, in CC 1.e4 is worse by test.
Elmer Valderrama (2007-03-11 10:43:49)
Anand virtually ranked #1
Maybe he's just started to overcome his I-can't-do-it-at-this-level syndrome :)
-Chess world is full of UnderAchievers: players who can't become IMs, IMs who can't become GMs, GMs who can't become WCs, WCs who can't performe as such --and all that includes both me and you, dear reader lol
Dagh Nielsen (2007-03-12 03:20:43)
5th Freestyle tournament
Just a short comment on the use of computers in these Freestyle tournaments:
There are two groups of participants:
1) Pure engines (with a book).
2) A somewhat larger group of "centaurs" who play the moves themselves, and use computers to analyse the moves actively.
Please note first, that the engine names behind some of the nicks in the crosstable do not necessarily mean that that participant played as pure engine (it's just an irrelevant effect of the server software somehow, decided by whether the participant had an engine uploaded during registration).
In fact, only two of those 10 who made it to the final (after the playoffs Saturday) are playing as pure engines. All the rest played as centaurs, including Cato the Younger.
This was also the case in the 4th Freestyle tournament: Only two pure engines made it to the final.
However, the pure engines surely made up more than 20% of the starting fields. What is more, these engines are usually operated by engine-chess freaks who have very strong hardware (Hercules01, who made it to the final after the play-offs, is allegedly running a 16-core system).
So my conclusion is: Centaurs perform significantly better than pure engines still. Even at this relatively short time control.
In other words: The human aspect is very much alive and kicking in this kind of chess :-)
I can only recommend interested people to try it out next time. It really is quite a bit of fun!
PS. I was lucky to qualify for the final, playing with nick "Flying Saucers". Also in the final is Corr. GM Arno Nickel (=Ciron) and FIDE GM Yuri Solodovnichenko (2585) (=Engineer). Several finalists have not yet revealed their identities :-)
Elmer Valderrama (2007-03-13 18:43:31)
Why isn't there a Chessbase forum?!
..any ideas?
The best I can think of is...they would definitely benefit from one..or maybe not -and that's why there isn't any ;)
Example, we could learn about CB freestyle tournaments impressions there, or about performance of programs, or about recommended books, DVDs, etc, oh well thanks God there are other forums ;)
Sandor Marton-Bardocz (2007-03-19 18:23:29)
Perf
What is perf in cross table, and how is it calculated?
Thibault de Vassal (2007-03-19 18:30:34)
Tournament performance
Perf in crosstable is the tournament performance. It is calculated exactly the same way chess ratings are calculated every 2 months. It uses your TER (tournament entry rating) and TER of your opponents.
Elmer Valderrama (2007-03-26 20:12:01)
The perfect title
As the title couldn't be more awefull, let's try to improve it:
"Decision Making: Invaluable Lessons Taken from Chess"
by G Kasparov
Instant best-seller.
Although the decisions of splitting from FIDE, creating a ghost GM association, not defending the WC in a proper Cycle, and....etc,etc..premature retirement, ..etc ..etc, don't speak too well about the lessons, let's try and improve it:
"Decision Making: Invaluable Lessons Taken from Chess, With Emphasis in What Not to Do"
by G Kasparov
A killer.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-03-29 19:51:24)
Double round-robin tournaments
Single round-robin tournaments with 7 players remains the very best option in my opinion. Shorter waiting time, more opponents... Playing White or Black against a particular opponent have consequences particularly in WCH tournaments, that is a choice but as there's no perfect system, the idea was to organize more cycles (about one every 6 months) for more chances. This way I'm convinced the best player will reach the final quite quickly :)
Double round robin tournaments with five players will be organized for special events (by the way this formula will not decrease the waiting time before a tournament starts... the more games in a tournament, the longer waiting time to begin another one, it doesn't depend on the number of players only)
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 ?
Thibault de Vassal (2007-04-05 18:42:04)
Big Chess championship
Actually the problem with a multi-stages (4 rounds or more) tournament is it would finish in 2009 as well :)
With my system, Big Chess tournaments would be a continuous championship. Not perfect for sure, but it may be enough. What do you think ?
Thibault de Vassal (2007-04-09 15:53:55)
Tatiana Kosintseva
Excellent performance so far by IM Tatiana Kosintseva, who leads Women's section of the 8th European Individual Championships by 6/6 ! .. In the Men's section, Volokitin, Jianu, Volkov, Moiseenko & Tkachiev lead with 5 points. Dmitry Jakovenko : 4,5 points.
Jason Repa (2007-04-10 00:13:32)
chess movie
I can't speak for Go, but there hasn't been a good chess movie yet. By far the absolute worst was "Searching for Bobby Fischer" which was a predictable prozaic drama that had nothing whatsoever to do with Bobby Fischer, or chess (real chess) for that matter. Dembo's "Dangerous Moves" was a pass. At least it was actually about chess. It was loosely based on a Karpov - Korchnoi championship but the character who was supposed to be Karpov was the older man. Neither of the actors were convincing in their attempt to portray top chess grandmasters. It would be nice to see a factual and well made movie about chess. Perhaps the Bobby Fischer story. I think an actor like James woods would be perfect to play an older Fischer.
Achim Mueller (2007-04-22 18:10:20)
I still don't see the point
Regarding the rating as a decision maker I have one questions: Who showed the better performance if two players have the same number of points at the end? The player with the higher or the player with the lower rating? @Mikhail Ruzin I don't see what you mean.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-04-23 01:05:39)
Performance / Rating
Achim, you just pointed it : "Regarding the rating as a decision maker I have one questions: Who showed the better performance if two players have the same number of points at the end? The player with the higher or the player with the lower rating?" .. of course the player with the lower rating :)
Once more, the aim of these rules is to find the very best player, NOT the best 'performer' in a group, tournament, match or whatever... ICCF & IECG do it well already and I thought this system could be more exciting. Maybe there could be some improvements in the rules yet, but the idea makes sense IMO. Does it really make sense to speak of performance in correspondence chess ? .. It makes sense in OTB chess because it reflects the level of players at a particular moment. But you can play a good CC tournament and a bad one at the same time...
Best wishes, Thibault
Thibault de Vassal (2007-04-30 14:05:46)
The meaning of Go for modern Russia
An interesting (as usual) article from IGN "Goama" newsletter - http://gogame.info
Alexander Rodin, the member of Go Federation
"The meaning of Go for modern Russia"
I'll try to state my thoughts about the meaning of the Go for modern Russia.
To begin with I suggested that we extrapolate Go models on the political and economical maps. These maps are very important as the spheres of social life, because the questions that are discussed at political and economical levels touch upon our lives, the lives of ordinary Russian citizens. In these spheres they continue the fierce struggle for life and death; in these spheres rivalry is especially keen and the made decisions define the vectors of our country development.
Let's imagine a situation if somebody inadequate came to power and set the totalitarian regime! Then all social "dissident" institution would start dying and so would do the Go Federation as a phenomenon which unifies people with independent thinking. Then it would be inevitable to start "hiding in basements" to keep the organization and set the secret addresses. Under conditions of modern Russia such kind of reasoning seems to be mostly fantastic than real. But if we look behind into our history well remember that we have already had this phase of social development and know everything about it.
I am for that only "adequate" people, patriots, must hold power (I mean all its levels: federal, regional, local and busyness elite as well). These people must think independently and it would be just perfect if they were the people who both understand the very notion of strategy and use in their activity all the arsenal of strategic instruments and among them principles, stratagems and Go philosophy.
Someone can argue: "What are the patriots who set Japan draughts?" the heart of the problem is not in the fact that somebody sets draughts and even the Japan ones. The matter of fact is that there is a "pacific" model the centre of which is the idea of balance and peaceful division of the territory and influence. If someone of us can offer something better, so let him rule. In my opinion, it's the same as to rewrite the Bible or "The Treatise of Military Art" Soun Tsi.
The Go essence manifests in the state scale in the following aspects:
The first one is historical and cultural. The game has a great history and longstanding traditions. Go is no less than a civil game with the development of which hand by hand goes statehood making in many countries. Besides, it's followed by strengthening of spirituality and moral principles of society.
The second aspect is social. Go unifies people, sets friendly relationships between them. Through Go a man manifests quickly, through it s/he can see his/her reflection. Owing to "open spiritual fight" your adversary is likely to become your best friend without saying a word during a game.
The third aspect is pedagogical. Through Go they bring up the grown generations and form their active civil position. Like chess, Go forms and consolidates dynamical stereotypes showing in following behavioral models of people. Penetrating and consolidation happen imperceptibly when sleeping, during the junction of conscious and unconscious.
The fourth aspect is economical. Why are business people interested in Go? Because through the game model a man learns how to manage material and non-material resources. Via the game s/he realizes economical and management notions: market (territory), economical integration, SWOT-analysis (the analysis of weak and strong aspects) etc. Managers start realizing the importance of interconnection and interaction of structural subdivisions ensuring. These subdivisions shouldn't be isolated from each other. They should work time in time like a well-tuned tuning fork.
The fifth aspect is political. The idea of community in politics is as relevant as the idea of group of stones. When a group is weak there is always a possibility of dividing it and this is a sign for the whole group. When our country, being a federal union of equitable subjects, was going through its stage of making a number of subjects had a wish to use the weakness of this chain. So, in 1992 1994 for the first time after the collapsing of the USSR there appeared first separatist tendencies. E.Rossel, the governor of Sverdlovskaya region, A. Philipenko, the governor of HMAO, claimed about the possibility of Ural republic creation. The emissary of Chechen separatists Gokhar Dudaev proclaimed the independence of Chechen-Ingush republic. The detachment didn't happen but the country paid with blood for it. Nowadays we can see demonstration of political integration and isolation on the modern political world map. Take a strong unity of the European Union and states-outsiders: Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Iran.
In terms of remaining of the USA's striving for establishment of world hegemony (from V.V.Putin's speech at the recent Munich conference), Russia needs the processes of integration and consolidation with other countries aimed at its strengthening. The unified countries have a lot of dame. Now we can observe the stronger split in the CIS as a consequence of energetic and territorial policy of Russia that uses economical instruments of pressure upon "unfriendly and opposing" countries. Is it good or not? It's more likely that its bad. But there are some positive tendencies: the role of the EurAsEC as a community which's built not on the basis of "strange brotherhood" and the role of Russia in it are increasing. Go is an ideological and spiritual base making us related to the countries of Asia-Pacific region. Go teaches how to see and distinguish creative and destroying processes.
The sixth aspect is psychological. The game develops thinking, in particular such processes as analysis and synthesis. It develops the ability of seeing the whole board and its details, the ability of seeing processes proceeding at global and local levels.
The seventh aspect is verbal and lexical or even philosophical. Through studying of the game theory we realize such categories as life and death, territory and influence, reliability, stability, the whole and the parts etc.
So, what is the Go meaning on the country scale? I assume that Go, as philosophy (an ideological and spiritual base), is a very important instrument of upbringing of strategic leaders, those who make decisions at high economical and political levels that influence the country's fate. Because in Go the idea of peaceful co-existence shows the way to harmony. The most pleasant is the fact the "Go way" doesn't have an end and there sky's the limit.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-04-30 22:34:37)
WCH rules
Thanks Sandor & Wolfgang for sharing your views.
As you said, there's no perfect rule for everyone, particularly in a correspondence chess championship, where time is a predominant factor. As for me, I like much FICGS rules so far because of these major points :
1) The best players have the best chances.
2) A new cycle can start every 6 months.
3) There's no external influence in a knockout tournament.
I think the lowest rated player has to prove he's stronger than the highest rated player or champion, so it's coherent in round-robin and knockout tournaments. I particularly like the special rule in the knockout tournament (stage 1, 2 & 3). I'm now playing an exciting quarter final against Wolfgang, that I'm to lose because of this rule - the winner is the player with the strongest TER is all games are draw, the player with the lowest TER if not all games are draw - even if it finishes with a 4-4 score. Simply because I'll lose most probably at least one game. I think it's fair ! .. I knew the rule (of course, I made it :)), I knew I had to draw all games or to win by one point at least. Rules are the game ! .. It's not more unfair than to draw a game with one or two pawns more ;)
However I agree that WCH round-robin tournaments should be 9, 11 or 13 players groups to give more place to chess. I'll take care of this in the next cycle.
Finally, not only rules are to be taken in consideration... To attract players, there must be a real challenge ! .. To take the title to the champion will be really hard for sure :)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-05-21 20:27:04)
Topalov wins M-Tel Masters
... incredible outcome, Topalov takes sole victory in M-Tel Masters with a surprising 5,5 / 10 !
Also his performance is 2751 while his rating is 2772, so he'll lose some points because of this tournament...
Thibault de Vassal (2007-05-22 15:11:04)
#6869
.. but it was probably a draw and the defense was perfect :)
This is correspondence chess... King attacks are still the best way to victory. By the way our last 4 games were a great lesson of chess for me. Thanks for that !
http://www.ficgs.com/game_6869.html
Graham Cridland (2007-05-29 18:21:09)
M-Tel
Weird tournament. Topalov failed to impress against a weak field, when you would have expected a really strong performance. He needs to study a bit I think. Very surprised by Adams' result, that's just not acceptable to him I'm sure...
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-15 17:12:39)
Online chess today
A few links to discussions at TCCMB (The Correspondence Chess Message Board) on chess servers nowadays, future of ICCF, correspondence chess [once more] and so on...
http://ancients.correspondencechess.com/index.php?topic=105.0
http://ancients.correspondencechess.com/index.php?topic=109.0
In the second discussion I tried to answer on the future of correspondence chess & chess engines :
1) Like the 'tour de France', it is impossible to organize a "bicycle race" at chess without doping today IMO. Also there are so many 'products' : Various books, databases, engines, human help.. so it seems to me that it is a non-sense to try to make it like an OTB tournament. Online chess is "motorcycle races" & freestyle, nothing else.
2) The ratio of wins does not decrease much in computer games & advanced chess (blitz), and correspondence chess games will never be all drawn IMO. We just have to follow the horizon line... Engines still have difficulties when there are 32 pieces on the board... Make the position more and more complex & critical, play Benoni structures, East indians and English openings... There will probably be more and more draws but when looking at CC 2500+ games, the ratio is still quite good. The problem at CC is mainly the style of play with humans 'humanly' trying to remain in known positions where they can win and can't lose.
'The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy', 'Opportunities multiply as they are seized' (Sun Tzu)
A solution is to make rules that motivate players to avoid draws, particularly when playing against a higher rated opponent. (ie. the rule for FICGS 8-games matches)
3) We feel that engines play almost perfect chess because of our poor human's level of play (I should say ratings)... But engines & computers have to improve a lot yet - not obvious they can do it in a more or less near future -, the horizon line is not so far, each version of Rybka wins about 30 elo points... We'll see engines at level 3200, 3300 maybe much more... (4000 ?)
4) If too many players have their CC rating between 2750-2800 in future, we can make new rules : Ratings wouldn't be calculated on the basis of each game, but on the basis of ie. 8-games matches... Then strategy would be more important & we would see rating gaps again between the best players...
Finally if I'm completely wrong, play Big Chess ;D
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-16 02:23:50)
Dead Man's Defense
Ok, that's an interesting topic.. and should be discussed for sure !
Once more, there are 6 pieces on the board and even if it is an obvious win, my engine doesn't say Mate in # moves (so your opponent may not see the mate too).
How to react ? .. No hypocrisy, IMO there's no perfect way to answer this problem. If the DMD doesn't work after tablebases, it will work well before, so players will last the game earlier. Of course it's a way to manage rating and so on... Is it really possible to avoid this ?
Any suggestions ?
Be patient anyway... :)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-18 05:41:30)
New update !
"Tournaments" page and waiting lists have been completely re-organized by time control ! (more coherent and clear IMO)
Also a new rating list : Active players list.
- Active players list displays players who connected during the last 2 months... Right now almost 700 of 2100 which is quite good IMO :)
- Preliminary rating list now displays players who finished at least 1 rated game, less than 9 rated games and who connected during the last 2 years. (which is much more interesting)
At last, the rating rules for advanced chess (blitz & lightning) have been improved. Now a fair performance bonus for Black, see rules :
http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html#rating_advanced_chess
And now, I'm going to sleep... Good night everyone :)
Andrey Sumets (2007-06-21 09:34:40)
Alex
Don't worry, be happy:) I think it makes no difference what handle or what rating had been indicated by any of our players. If you gonna play chess - do it! Honest or not quite honest - anyway you play against pieces! Best wishes in forthcoming battle! (sorry for my imperfective English)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-21 15:21:45)
Ratings
Yes, actually I just wanted to order the first players by their future rating. Wolfgang has made a great performance these last 2 months (future rating 2544) :
http://www.ficgs.com/players/utesch_wolfgang/history.html
Salut Sacha-Alexander :) .. C'est agrable de lire du franais venu d'aussi loin ! J'avais quelques notions de russe il y a longtemps mais j'ai oubli depuis :/ .. A bientt !
Wolfgang Utesch (2007-06-25 17:48:40)
FICGS vs. IGAME.RU
Let me explain I dont want to have any exception rules for me! Its a principle thing: about 35 years ago I played some few correspondence chess tournaments by postcard (naturally with my real name). After a long period of abstinence (since 1999) I played correspondence chess by Email (IECG/Playchess-Server and ICCF/ICCF-Webserver) new transport medium but with old real name. So everybody can see my chess history: Im standing (with my real name) to all my many bad or neutral games as same as to my some very good chess performances. Ive always used tools (first just books and later also engines), but Ive always played my games alone (without help by any other person). I think there are many other players with FICGS (i.e. Peter Schuster, Hannes Rada, Harry Ingersol or others more) who have done it similar like me. In contrast, if DONALD DUCK wins and has played a very good game, he likes it to say his real name, if he loses or has played poorly, he is just staying DONALD DUCK. He wouldnt have to fear to disgrace himself, but there is a real chance for him to gleam! Sorry, but this is not my idea from a friendly match between two serious teams.
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.
Ivan Zarullin (2007-06-28 07:09:17)
2 Garvin
Hello, Garvin, most of our players have not got fide rating since they quited active chess before acquiring the rating. Even now most tourneys in Russia are not calculated by fide. Our team is ordered by a player performance on igame. Since our players typically played a hundred of games on igame, this performance most adequately shows our correspondence chess skill.
Jason Repa (2007-07-15 20:18:33)
Pure Stupidity!
So what you're saying is that chess alone is a perfect barometer of logic ability, and additionally, that a chess rating on a correspondence site where who knows who or what is playing the moves for you....not to mention you've only gained around 100 elo since you've been playing here compared to my 500+ elo and still gaining is proof of your "superior chess", LMAO!!
Wolfgang, are you pretending to be this stupid or is this really your mentality?
Nick Burrows (2007-07-15 20:29:03)
IQ vs Multple Intelligence
Are there other forms of intellingence independant of having a high IQ? Or are they simply 'skills'?
How about...
1. Linguistic intelligence involving sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals. This intelligence includes the ability to effectively use language to express oneself rhetorically or poetically; and language as a means to remember information. Writers, poets, lawyers and speakers are among those that
2. Logical-mathematical intelligence consisting of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically. This entails the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically. This intelligence is most often associated with scientific and mathematical thinking.
3. Musical intelligence involving skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns. It encompasses the capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms.
4. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entailing the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements.
5. Spatial intelligence involving the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.
6. Interpersonal intelligence is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It allows people to work effectively with others. Educators, salespeople, religious and political leaders and counsellors all need a well-developed interpersonal intelligence.
7. Intrapersonal intelligence entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations.
Mladen Jankovic (2007-08-06 00:06:41)
Algorithm
It seems to be implemented with Chinook. It offers perfect play. Like when knowing the solution to tic-tac-toe, play is perfect.
Dwight Oldenhof (2007-08-06 15:05:52)
future rating
What happens when I win a game (e.g. game 11686) and nothing changes the number of games calculated or my future ELO rating? That number was 3 before I won the match and unfortunately stayed 3. Consequently, future ELO and performance rating didn't change either.
Svante Carl von Erichsen (2007-09-06 22:04:56)
Norms
What is the exact definition of a "norm"? When googling, I found something along the lines of "a tournament performance indicating that a certain level has been reached", but what does it mean? Winning more than half of the games? How does it depend on the opponents' strength?
Hannes Rada (2007-09-09 21:26:43)
board diagrams + conditionals
Not for the imput of my own moves. For scrolling down through whole tournaments it is in my opinion more logic to see first the notation and then the current position on the diagram. I think it is quite hard or difficult to implement conditional moves. The ICCF-Webserver has this feature, but it is disabled. We had a perfect solution on the chessfriend server (silent conditional moves - great for saving reflection time and to speed up to game). Somte openings like the Grunfeld or the Sveshnikov are 'pefect' for conditionals :-)
Mladen Jankovic (2007-09-10 01:54:09)
Confessions of a Magic 8 Ball ;)
Well, first off I started with the provisional rating of 1200, then I signed up for a bunch of tournaments and started playing 60+ games. Next, add irregular Internet access with no conditions to perform any reasonable analysis of games in progress and the pressing requirement to answer 40 moves in one go, only to go trough the same at the next soonest opportunity.
I "solved" the problem by not playing and forgetting about the server for about a month (needed that). For that reason I lost more than 250 points (254 to be exact).
Needless to say, the recovery of my rating to any decent level is slow, as, in the meantime I have gone trough periods when I played little chess here, or even none, with games in progress.
Your speculated reasons for my supposed intrusion here (it might be argued that your first post here is the real intrusion) are just plain wrong.
I also don't find ELO ratings to be a valid measure of a man. The real reason I "intrude" in the matter is that I like the general atmosphere here. I am also quiet aware that I am probably the lowest rated poster here, but, before few minutes ago, I was not aware of your rating (good job, while we're on the subject) or Garvin's, for that matter.
Jason Repa (2007-09-10 03:14:13)
[moderator : partly deleted]
"I also don't find ELO ratings to be a valid measure of a man."
Of course you don't. (...)
Your "supposed" intrusion? (...) Garvin was way out of line and posted pure harassment that had nothing to do with the thread, or my post. I replied and gave it right back to him. It could have, and should have ended there, as Thibault pointed out. (...)
My post was indeed topical and perfectly legitimate for this thread. It was a valid question to ask what the reason for scanning the server might be.
(...)
Andrew Stephenson (2007-09-16 08:06:27)
Film Director
Thanks Thibault. 2 questions. 1) Thibault De Vassal is a cool name perfect imo for a film director why did you switch for your film directing to another name? 2) where did you find the assumed sirname "Gordh" Is it a family name or did you invent it? Will check out your film work I a film junky and often go to film festivals etc
Glen D. Shields (2007-09-16 18:43:13)
Explains Much
Dear Thibault -
Your "confession" explains a great deal. Twice you mentioned in posts your awareness of my IECG games. Since I am no chess celebrity, that left me quietly puzzled both times. Now I know why! You and I played twice. You won both games. Both encounters reamin as a couple of my favorites. Your 90 move victory required outstanding end-game play and you played it perfectly! Well done my man :-)
Now to my confession. I am actually Brad Pitt, no, not the real Brad Pitt, but a close good looking second. I have beautiful women walk up to me all the time asking for an autograph. Amazing that I was able to find time for chess all these years ;-)
My best,
Glen (aka "Brad")
Andrew Stephenson (2007-09-20 13:58:05)
chessfriends
I remember that chessfriends.com used to have the opposite rule ie the player with the lower elo advanced in the knockout. I guess their reasoning was if your better rated you should be able to prove it. As Thibault mentioned he may be a victim of the FICGS rule in his match against Farit Balabaev. He has the higher TER and his opponent as taken 4 draws as white by repeating the same 15 move sequence in his 4 white games (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd 4 Nxd Nf6 5 Nc3 a6 6 Bg5 e6 7 f4 Qb6 8 Qd2 Qxb2 9 Rb1 Qa3 10 f5 Nc6 11 fxe6 fxe6 12 Nxc6 bxc6 13 Be2 Be7 14 0-0 0-0 15 Rb3 Qc5+ 1/2 1/2) Not the greatest advert for cc games! It requires cooperation for this to happen although its dangerous for black to deviate after 9 Rb1. Still there are perfectly viable alternatives IMO in the Najdorf against 6 Bg5 other than this line. I suggest going to a 2 game mini match play off series at 5 days reserve and 1 day per move increment until there is a win. This would provide incentive to go for a result for the higher rated player in the main match. I would retain the lower rated player wins rule for decisive games (but overall draw) for the main match but leave it equal for the playoffs.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-09-21 00:09:15)
Knockout
Surely knockout format (FICGS rules or not) is not perfect, like round-robin. In this case ratings are important and a new cycle starts every 6 months. Let's agree to differ :)
Wolfgang Utesch (2007-09-21 16:10:20)
Figlio - Schuster
I think there is no perfect way to do it right for everyone. Thibault's rule is a compromise (as others) and his special way for matches. There is no reason to cry or to be crazy about - it's just a rule. Thibault by himself just has been victim of his own rule!
Thibault de Vassal (2007-09-24 01:04:39)
Rybka vs. Zappa
What a surprise... Zappa now leading the match 3,5-1,5
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=2228
Even if Rybka plays without tablebases, the point is "The match will be played on two identical 8-cores computers"... So it probably means that Zappa's author Anthony Cozzie did it really well while implementing multi-processors engine. It would be interesting to know the performance of both engines compared to single processor version. Can Rybka be improved significantly this way ?! .. We'll see it soon, anyway nice to see a "real match" :)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-09-25 22:00:51)
4,5 - 2,5
Another draw today (I read "wild draw and missed win from Zappa"). It seems that Zappa is going to win the match... but is this result significant as the engines worked on 8 cores ?! .. Hard to say, I just wonder if/how Rybka's performances can be improved on such computers...
Thibault de Vassal (2007-09-26 12:46:06)
Mexico, round 11
Unless an earthquake, Anand should win the FIDE WCH tournament... now leading with 7,5 / 11, by one point and a half, after another great game against Morozevich. That's a very impressive performance but not a real surprise, as he's always been able to play very well... and less sometimes (unlike Kasparov).
What could happen in a 12-games match against Kramnik if he plays at this level ?!
Viktor Savinov (2007-10-02 11:57:51)
Kasparov CC
Kasparov CC perfomans - 3126!! +56=2-0 (1979-1982 & 1992-9 - 1998)
Philip Roe (2007-11-11 19:16:42)
cui bono?
Thibault,
I'm not at all clear what your proposal is intended to achieve.
Are you trying to save us from ourselves? Ruined careers, failed marriages, social withdrawal, vitamin deficiency...? If so I can't imagine a one-size-fits-all solution.
Or are you protecting other players from the phenomenon of a player who takes on a large number of games and then, for whatever reason, forfeits many of them? This seems to happen regrettably often and for that purpose it seems perfectly reasonable to ask people to qualify before managing a large number of games. Can you pull any statistics that might be revealing?
Marc Lacrosse (2007-12-18 18:33:50)
High level performance
Marius Zubac just won tournament FICGS__CHESS__WCH_STAGE_1_GROUP_M_01__000003 with an impressive 2631 performance (6.5/8 and no loss in a 2378 tournament)
On his way to victory he cruelly refuted a knight-for-three-pawns sac that I tried in our encounter. Nice job!
Congratulations for this fine performance.
... we need more high level tournaments ...
Marc
Hannes Rada (2007-12-18 21:57:02)
conditional moves and ICCF bureaucracy
> ICCF decided to turn it off for all > ICCF tournaments. I don't recall the > exact reason for doing this, but it > has something to do with concerns > about time abuse. How can conditional moves be considered as "time abuse" ?? What is the rationale behind this ? Chessfriend.com had a perfect implementation of (secret) conditional moves. But ICCF is a slow, conservative and bureaucratic organization. Why not making a poll to find out if the players want this feature ....
Wolfgang Utesch (2007-12-19 08:03:06)
High level performance
This extra high performance is a result about forfeiting of the two both best rating participants of the tournament. Anyway comgratulations tu Marius Zubac!
Marc Lacrosse (2007-12-19 12:14:58)
corrected
"This extra high performance is a result about forfeiting of the two both best rating participants of the tournament."
Right.
Still 2550 if you consider his 4.5/6 against 2357
Not that bad ...
Thibault de Vassal (2007-12-19 18:08:38)
High level performance
Right, many congratulations to Marius, at least for beating Marc (who made a good tournament too) with the Black pieces !
And congrats to Dinesh for "submitting" new great quotes with an interesting Nietszche-like written style to FICGS files :)) (if you agree, of course)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-12-20 21:42:02)
Conditional moves
I don't think so, it worked perfectly ie. at Chessfriend server. The program stores the conditional moves, there can't be any error but a human one. There was no case yet of a disowned move at FICGS, so I suppose it would be (have been) the same with conditional moves.
Hannes Rada (2007-12-20 23:27:22)
Unfair ?
Thibault, Why do you think conditionals are unfair ? There are some openings which are perferct for conditional moves. For example Grunfeld. On chessfriend I offered my opponent the first 10 or 12 moves as conditionals. And the game really started on the first day with an interesting middle game position (avoiding to enter the boring and well known opening moves step by step).
Lincoln Tomlin (2007-12-22 13:56:15)
What will happen...
Is that fair? I mean, in that case it's the lower rated players that have performed better overall?
Thibault de Vassal (2007-12-22 14:26:28)
Highest TER qualifies
Dinesh is right. There was many discussions to justify this rule in the forum. Statistically (for correspondence chess) the rating may be more important than performance to know who has more chances to win a tournament. Anyway this is only a rule.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-01-11 17:30:04)
width, game number
Hello Mladen, you mean because of the scrolling bar ? (feel free to send me a screen shot)
Patrick, you're right... There's no place enough, that's a problem :/ .. Did you try to put the mouse over "Move : " and over the last move ? There are informations about the game there also, but that's not a perfect solution, I agree...
Thibault de Vassal (2008-01-16 19:32:31)
FICGS rules
Hello Peter, I understand your point of view. Correspondence chess is not OTB (over the board) chess and rules may not go the same way.
FICGS WCH rules can be found here :
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=entry_tournament&tournament=ficgs_chess_wch
http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html#chess_wch
... so you should have seen it before to enter the waiting list.
The idea in this correspondence chess championship is to find the best player, of course. In correspondence chess, rating is much more important than in OTB chess to know the "current" level of a player, and should be taken in account, just like performance. This rule is quite hard but this way we can organize a new cycle every 6 months, so more chances to reach the final stages. Anyway this issue will be discussed again and again.. and rules are just rules.
Best wishes, Thibault
Nicola Lupinacci (2008-01-30 12:18:55)
Under-10-move checkmate
I think checkmate under 10 moves will be counted in rating variations, becouse if you checkmate a player you do not win automatically the game: he has to resign.
I don't now perfectly how rating works but in my opinion rating variation is not cuonted only in games that endend before the 10th move with one player losing on time
Is it correct?
Thibault de Vassal (2008-03-15 12:43:07)
Unfought draws & rating calculation
An interesting article at Chessbase.com on unfought draws (mathematical, logical and practical considerations), also called "grandmaster draw" in the article, and ways to avoid it, by mathematician and logician Kung-Ming Tiong, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4513
I notice that the main solution proposed just looks like FICGS rules for advanced chess (Performance +/- delta according to the color) :-D .. Anyway I still have to take some time to make this part of the server more attractive.
This thread may be a good place to ask for a feedback about FICGS current rating rules (for both chess & Go), what do you think ? :)
Vjacheslav Perevozchikov (2008-03-27 11:14:31)
Ratings
I have played more than 40 games. 30 wins & only 1 loss (misclick :)), and don't understand one simple thing: why my rating is so small - 1867 points. I saw other members with much worse performance & much more rating? What's wrong here? Thanx
Garvin Gray (2008-03-27 15:38:36)
??
What were the ratings of your opponents. It is your performance rating that matters, not your win loss record.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-03-27 23:03:53)
Future rating & statistics
Hello Vjacheslav, everything's ok : Your rating first depends on your opponents ratings, obviously it will increase during next months :
http://www.ficgs.com/display_history.php?member=2290
ELO : 1867
Future rating : 1922
Games calculated : 9
Result : 77 %
Elo opponents : 1809
Performance : 2020
Rating history (from first to last) :
1600 1696 1740 1823 1867
Yugi Inving (2008-03-29 19:09:43)
performance.
How does the performance is calculated. like me Games calculated : 7 Result : 92 % Elo opponents : 1299 Performance : 1700 from this 1700 come from, from my victories and the elo of opponent or the types of games i play.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-03-29 19:36:02)
performance calculation
Hello Yugi. All explained here :
http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html
http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html#rating_chess
Marc Lacrosse (2008-05-01 18:03:17)
to Andrew
"I don't se much benefit to letting the computer think for hours frankly wants it gets to 20 + ply. There all sorts of horizons in positions that letting the computer run for a year wont sort out."
There are other ways to use engines than letting simply one of them run for hours.
You may interactively walk along the various branches of the tree going from current position with one or several engines running.
You may also have engines playing some kind of test matches against each other from the current position or from any critical position that you identify along the possible continuations.
You can use Rybka randomizer against itself or against other engines for more exhaustive evaluation through test games
And so on ...
"Marc why are you playing this c3 stuff against the sicilian with such great kit? You play the same openings all the time and I thought it was because you had not much time!!!"
1. I never played this disreputed c3 stuff against the 2..d6 sicilian (with or without the 4.Be2 pawn offer) before january 2008 in my 140+ former serious correspondence games
Indeed I did choose it because I erroneously enrolled in three new tournaments simultaneously and I feared to miss time for serious analysis due to heavy workload at that time.
Results are a bit disappointing with it : five draws so far and two unfinished games that I should win (one win is sure and the other one is probable).
This should lead to a 64% result and a 2333 elo performance. Not shining but not that bad insn't it ?
2. I like playing unorthodox openings in correspondence play.
I do not see any interest in beginning my games with 30 moves of overanalysed theory.
Most often I decide for a side variation and I do play it in as many games as possible simultaneously : I do the analysis job once for all while being fully "in the mood" of a similar set of positions.
Then I change for something else
I won't probably ever play any more game with the line I played against you.
3. An exception is the Basman-Sale Sicilian (2..e6 4..Bc5).
I like it a lot and even have a web site devoted to it (http://chessbazaar.mlweb.info/basmansale/index.html)
I am in a running series of more than twenty corr. games without a single loss with it and decided not to stop using it until defeat happens
I probably analysed it more than anybody : I have several thousands of analysed lines in my files.
I am just busy to consider switching to something more agressive for cases where I need to play for a win as Black.
Regards
Marc
Andrew Stephenson (2008-05-03 06:22:50)
Arena
I have loaded Rybka into Arena and it seems to be performing at a superchetged rate - unfortunately I cannot make sense of its analysis out put. I am used to a Fritz environment where you can select how many different moves it displays and it ranks them and assisgnsa value + 1.1 etc. it does the same for other uci engines. In arena hoe do I get this kind of output??
Andrew Stephenson (2008-05-05 12:50:53)
From here to eternity
Yes there might be some variations that are survivable especially OTB but at cc its tough to give up a pawn so early on. I think f4 is a perfectly ok first move (like b4) I just think it does not give any prospect of an opening advantage at cc because there is no surprise value and the black player has the time to research and find a response that equalises fairly quickly. That is why very few GM's have F4 as a main white weapon - it does not give enough prospects for an advantage - at the highest levels. Please note that qualification. I quite agree real chess is between people in real time and cc is a form of research competition. Getting experience for real world chess is a great reason to play a line at cc. There are exceptions OTB I often play the exchange french and have had good success (played by Kasparov Tal Morphy and others) I would not play it at cc though! In fact OTB I always play e4 but at cc gave it up because I see no way to get any adavantage against the caro kahn. Just relaying the moves the computer suggests does not, I think, give much chance of success against good players at cc. As for the From I do not believe in g5 white has to avoid the tricks and develop and is a pawn up. Not so easy otb!! - but at cc not so much of a problem. As for Nc6 yes I was talking about this move after 5 g3 and you are probably right I will try to look at the game you gave and do some analysis. As for the Mestel variation I thought black would get the pawn back unless e3 and d4 are played but again that was based on a quick look. Anyway perhaps the thematic tournament wil provide some answers.
Jason Repa (2008-05-06 23:08:30)
Bird Brain loses in 33 Moves!
"I think comparing f4 to b4 is quite reasonable"
You would. But we all know what happened to you when you and I played chess. I beat you in 33 moves. And we can see how not only do you not provide a game that's at least somewhat representative of the critical lines of the opening, but you can't even figure out when the supposed game was played, or whether or not White or Black won, and you only post a tiny fraction of it to boot. So evidently, what YOU think is not exactly to be regarded in high esteem here. Most people wouldn't have required my explanation where I described quite clearly how there have been many books written about the Bird's Opening. It has it's own discrete chapter in MCO, and its played in serious games in professional chess still today. They would already understand on their own, or would at least be intelligent enough to look up the information without having to have their hand held and have it spoon fed to them. But even after all this, you STILL don't understand. And you mention Christian Bauer who only pissed around with 1.b4 when he was playing opponents 400 elo LOWER RATED! One of his fabulous wins this year, that you were alluding to, was against 1861 rated Jacques Decamps, lol. The rest of the time they were 2100-2300. Has he ever played 1.b4 against another GM? (never mind super GM, as 1.f4 has many times been played against)
An opening move like 1.b4 might be fairly compared to something such as 1.g4. You won't see any dedicated chapter in MCO to either of those openings, but they're at least interesting enough to warrant some discussion in the "misc flank openings" chapter. 1.f4 might better be compared to something like Larsen's 1.b3. A sound sideline.
You want to talk about ratings? I've had to build up my rating from starting at the default of 1700, by winning 117 games (one of them against you), because I wasn't aware when I opened the account that the admin would let you start with your established elo. It's not surprising I played Sandor Porkulab a lot of times, as we both were very active playing a lot of games. Unlike you who started with the advantage of an inflated rating, which was somewhat tempered after that beating I gave you last year.
Sometimes in correspondence chess people abandon games and don't log in again. This was the case with Sandor Porkulab, although I had already beaten him a few times in games that were played to completion, and he wasn't better in any of the games that were abandoned. You're lying through your teeth there, or perhaps you're just too incompetent and dishonest to assess the games objectively. Why would Porkulab have 7 games against me where he was "level or better" when I had already beaten the guy every time we played before that? Did you even look at those games? Or is this just your pathetic way of trying to "score points" by using lies and deception? Additionally, the way the elo system works is that even if you do get a few easy points from say a win from an abandoned game that perhaps might have ended in a draw, that gain is quickly diluted and your rating naturalized as you play more games, because you win less points when you win,(or draw a higher rated opponent) and lose more when you lose (or draw a lower rated opponent), than you would have if you didn't receive those points. I've played many games since then and my rating here is probably where it would have been If I had not played Porkulab at all. Or if not already will soon be. So this is a pretty weak argument from you. A better argument is the fact that I CRUSHED you in 33 moves when we played. Porkolab at least gave me a decent fight when I played him. That's more than I can say for you. I felt like all I had to do was outsmart a machine when you and I played. I didn't have to worry about any human judgment from a real chess player getting in the way of my victory!
As for me getting a lost position after 17 moves against someone? For starters, I've played about 190 games here. What have you played.....32? And I think that's a testament to the fact that, unlike you, I'm a REAL chess player, so my goal here isn't to simply try to win the most online CC games to try to give myself some artificial illusion of ability. I don't always play what I consider to be the objectively best moves because I like to experiment and LEARN SOMETHING from the time I spend here. But having said that, I STILL outperform you greatly, and crushed you when we played last year. I'm also higher rated with a higher future rating, even though you had the advantage of started with a boosted initial rating. So much for what you "think" you know about the strongest moves in cc, lol. And your future rating is only 2247, not 2300+. If you want to discuss what might happen after some of your current games are resolved, don't sell me short at 2316, which is already a given. Talk about the 2370+ I expect to have after some of MY current games are resolved. If you want to argue/debate with someone, learn to do it in an intelligent and fair way. So far all you've accomplished is to lose the paltry amount of credibility you once had.
Jason Repa (2008-05-07 01:09:36)
Step up, or shut up!
"I know that you're only a 1912 rated player on this site" Yeah, on this site... I began here as a 1700 (the first rating here)"
Join the club. I started as a 1700 player also. You've lost over 25% of your games. And to weak opponents at that. So I'm quite justified in assuming that I'm a better chess player than you, and by a very wide margin also. The fact that you couldn't figure out on your own why 10...Bf5 is no improvement over 10...Qe7 is just icing on the cake.
But anyway, I've had enough of you whining about your low rating and making excuses for your poor performance in chess. Excuses are for losers.
And there was nothing "arrogant" in any of my statements. The problem here is your stupidity and incapability at understanding what has been said to you. I've already explained to you TWICE that you were wrong in assuming that there was an implication that "material is everything" when I was discussing the recovery of material. That was not said nor implied. What part of this isn't sinking into your skull? How many more times does it need to be repeated for you to be able to understand???
I don't normally give free chess lessons to insolent patzers like you, but I'd be willing to have you a few bullet games on a secure server like playchess.com where in bullet time controls you won't be able to use your chess program to do the thinking for you like you do here. I've already had this type of thing go down with another motormouth on this site. I beat him 100% of the games and posted a link to them. At least he was man enough to step up to the plate and play me. You made the challenge so don't back down with any excuses, like the excuses you used to explain your paltry 1912 rating. And obviously if we're going to play real-time chess with the assumption is that its going to be human mind vs human mind chess, it's going to have to be fast bullet games. Not standard blitz where you have time to see what rybka running on your other computer suggests. Let me know what your playchess.com account name is and when you're able to play.
Jason Repa (2008-05-07 06:46:43)
Bird Brain loses in 33 moves!
I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the behavior of this lowlife. After all, I beat him in chess and beat him in debate. I also caught him RED-HANDED telling lies and exposed him for what he is. What else is a sniveling coward to do but dig up old flame wars on the internet from four years ago, that have not an iota of relevance to any of the topics being discussed here. I bet his parents are real proud of him, LOL!
"Black's ...f5 stakes a serious claim to the e4 square and looks towards an attack on White's kingside in the middlegame. However, it weakens Black's own kingside somewhat, and does nothing to contribute to Black's development" My point exactly about 1 f4"
Another typical tactic from a chronic liar....to change the very premise of what was being argued. I'll refresh your memory since you don't have the mental capability of remembering your own words. The statement you made was: "1 f4 at cc seems a waste of white". That is what I contested. I never disputed that there is some weakening of the kingside involved here. But some weakening of the kingside doesn't mean it's a poor opening choice. You're trying to win an argument with lies and misrepresentation. Try being honest and sticking to the facts for once in your life.
My otb tournament rating is currently 2010, but my active rating is not anywhere near what you're suggesting. I'm actually much stronger in both 30 minute active and blitz chess. I won more blitz tournaments in 2007 AND 2008 than anyone else in my region, ahead of 2 FM's. And my performance in active events is in the mid 2100's based on all the otb active events I've played in over the last 5 years.
In the region I play in we don't have many active events. So I've only played in 2 that were rated, and that was over a decade ago. The provisional ratings used were far below what everyone was worth (not just me). We had a strong FM who was competing at 1800 and change, while both his FIDE and national rating were in the neighborhood of 2300. Stranger things have happened in small clubs.
Did anyone notice how the coward won't discuss what HIS national otb rating is? We don't hear a word from him about that. Very telling indeed!
Then the little weasel reposts a game that he already posted in this thread earlier. Could it be that the poor loser whom I CRUSHED in chess, has run out of ammunition with which to compensate for the fact that he lost to me? I've lost 6 games, drew 59 and won 117 on FICGS, including the beating I gave to you. I beat you EASILY and I'm HIGHER RATED than you. Keep crying about that. Its entertaining.
Again, crybaby, if 1.f4 is a waste at cc, why did I gain rating points here playing 1.f4. And why did I beat you so easily at chess? I think I proved on the chess board, that you don't know what you're talking about. All you have is lies, slander, and random usenet group flame wars from 4 years ago. I have FACTS:
I BEAT YOU IN CHESS AND I'M HIGHER RATED THAN YOU ARE.
""Look what happened to Evgeny Alexseev as black - a very strong 2600+ GM at the time - he continued 6 ..b6 7 h3 c5 8 Qe1 Bb7 9 g4 and lost to IM Sengupta." Alexseev lost and the criticisms of IM Sengupta's moves by Mr Repa are quite funny "
You're copying and pasting the same nonsense you posted earlier. Did you even read the words you typed? You're saying "look what happened to Evgeny Alexseev as Black", as if he's the one who lost. Then You switch it around and suggest that Evgeny Alexseev was White and say that he played 9.g4. Are you pretending to be this stupid or is this really how you are? As I said earlier, you're probably making the whole game up, or at least changing moves around, etc, because it doesn't appear anywhere that I could find, and you're still not bright enough to figure out how to post the whole game as you were asked to do earlier. It's a pretty sad state of affairs of that's the ONLY game you can think of to try to smear a legitimate and recognized opening such as Bird's Opening. Whoever played White played very poorly. I spelled out for you the moves that White played that were very poor. Did I use any words too complex for you to understand?
" 1 f4 has been championed by GM Jakubiec who is the only GM who has played it regularly"
This is also pure nonsense. There are MANY strong GM's (and super GM's)who haved played 1.f4 in serious games. GM Henrik Danielsen used it as a MAIN MOVE for many years also.
Keep posting lies, slander, and irrelevant 4 year old flame wars from the internet little man. I defeated you in chess and in debate. I proved that what you said is pure nonsense. All you have is hot air!
Jason Repa (2008-05-07 06:57:07)
Bird Brain loses in 33 moves!
I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the behavior of this lowlife. After all, I beat him in chess and beat him in debate. I also caught him RED-HANDED telling lies and exposed him for what he is. What else is a sniveling coward to do but dig up old flame wars on the internet from four years ago, that have not an iota of relevance to any of the topics being discussed here. I bet his parents are real proud of him, LOL!
"Black's ...f5 stakes a serious claim to the e4 square and looks towards an attack on White's kingside in the middlegame. However, it weakens Black's own kingside somewhat, and does nothing to contribute to Black's development" My point exactly about 1 f4"
Another typical tactic from a chronic liar....to change the very premise of what was being argued. I'll refresh your memory since you don't have the mental capability of remembering your own words. The statement you made was: "1 f4 at cc seems a waste of white". That is what I contested. I never disputed that there is some weakening of the kingside involved here. But some weakening of the kingside doesn't mean it's a poor opening choice. You're trying to win an argument with lies and misrepresentation. Try being honest and sticking to the facts for once in your life.
My otb tournament rating is currently 2010, but my active rating is not anywhere near what you're suggesting. I'm actually much stronger in both 30 minute active and blitz chess. I won more blitz tournaments in 2007 AND 2008 than anyone else in my region, ahead of 2 FM's. And my performance in active events is in the mid 2100's based on all the otb active events I've played in over the last 5 years.
In the region I play in we don't have many active events. So I've only played in 2 that were rated, and that was over a decade ago. The provisional ratings used were far below what everyone was worth (not just me). We had a strong FM who was competing at 1800 and change, while both his FIDE and national rating were in the neighborhood of 2300. Stranger things have happened in small clubs.
Did anyone notice how the coward won't discuss what HIS national otb rating is? We don't hear a word from him about that. Very telling indeed!
Then the little weasel reposts a game that he already posted in this thread earlier. Could it be that the poor loser whom I CRUSHED in chess, has run out of ammunition with which to compensate for the fact that he lost to me? I've lost 6 games, drew 59 and won 117 on FICGS, including the beating I gave to you. I beat you EASILY and I'm HIGHER RATED than you. Keep crying about that. Its entertaining.
Again, crybaby, if 1.f4 is a waste at cc, why did I gain rating points here playing 1.f4. And why did I beat you so easily at chess? I think I proved on the chess board, that you don't know what you're talking about. All you have is lies, slander, and random usenet group flame wars from 4 years ago. I have FACTS:
I BEAT YOU IN CHESS AND I'M HIGHER RATED THAN YOU ARE.
""Look what happened to Evgeny Alexseev as black - a very strong 2600+ GM at the time - he continued 6 ..b6 7 h3 c5 8 Qe1 Bb7 9 g4 and lost to IM Sengupta." Alexseev lost and the criticisms of IM Sengupta's moves by Mr Repa are quite funny "
You're copying and pasting the same nonsense you posted earlier. Did you even read the words you typed? You're saying "look what happened to Evgeny Alexseev as Black", as if he's the one who lost. Then You switch it around and suggest that Evgeny Alexseev was White and say that he played 9.g4. Are you pretending to be this stupid or is this really how you are? As I said earlier, you're probably making the whole game up, or at least changing moves around, etc, because it doesn't appear anywhere that I could find, and you're still not bright enough to figure out how to post the whole game as you were asked to do earlier. It's a pretty sad state of affairs of that's the ONLY game you can think of to try to smear a legitimate and recognized opening such as Bird's Opening. Whoever played White played very poorly. I spelled out for you the moves that White played that were very poor. Did I use any words too complex for you to understand?
" 1 f4 has been championed by GM Jakubiec who is the only GM who has played it regularly"
This is also pure nonsense. There are MANY strong GM's (and super GM's)who haved played 1.f4 in serious games. GM Henrik Danielsen used it as a MAIN MOVE for many years also.
Keep posting lies, slander, and irrelevant 4 year old flame wars from the internet little man. I defeated you in chess and in debate. I proved that what you said is pure nonsense. All you have is hot air!
Jason Repa (2008-05-07 13:43:09)
Lasker Variation of the From's Gambit
[moderated : rule 11.1 Netiquette]
My correspondence chess game with Marc-Eric Plante finally wrapped up after over a year. It was an interesting game, IMO, and I thought that Marc had made some improvements over what had been played before by Black, such as 10...Qe7!? (instead of the usual 10...Bf5). However, it's been my thought that the Lasker Variation of the From's gambit might, at the end of the day, be lost for Black with perfect play. I'm not sure of Black could have done anything different in this game. http://chessmusings.blogspot.com/2008/05/from-night.html
Jason Repa (2008-05-13 13:37:50)
Repa vs Stephenson 1-0
It's interesting how you feel qualified to post my games for analysis, when I ALREADY BEAT YOU in chess, lol. In fact I have a perfect score against you Stephenson. I'm also higher rated than you are to boot. So what you "claim to be a great believer in" is hardly of interest to anyone.
What IS of interest is the fact that you still refuse to answer the question of what YOUR otb rating is, after being asked three times. One can only conclude that you are embarrassed about how low it is. Under 1500?
Hannes Rada (2008-05-14 20:10:41)
Jason's query
Jason, I gave up OTB chess some 20 years ago. So I have no OTB rating (anymore) Playing in my chessclub was not and ist not compatible with my working hours. CC is perfect for me. Analyzing and making move later in the evening when I am returning from work, or whenever I can find time. It's wise to play the strongest possible opponents. But cc rating does not implicitly say anything about chess strength. Too many variables may influence the players chess abilities. (Too many games at the same time, lack of motivation, ....) On the other side an ambitious 1800 Elo newcomer can sometimes more dangerous than an "old" CC-GM. FICGS is quite a nice community. Here you have the chance to raise your rating and play against the higher rated players pretty soon compared with ICCF. But your "strong opponent experience" will end here around 2500 - 2550. Raising your rating in ICCF takes much more time (because tournaments are slower) but when you've established yourselve at a certain level than you have the chance to play the > 2700 guys like van Osteroom & Co :-) But at this level correspondence chess is no fun anymore. I've talked to GM Peter Hertel from Germany several years ago and he told me that he had to analyze and work on his cc - chess positions around 10 hours per day to compete at this level .... if you are retired or jobless and a billionaire (van Osteroom) than you have the best chances of winning an ICCF championship final .... :-) Do you think the playing cc helps to improve your otb abilities ? I've talked to several players regarding this issue and I received different answers. From: Yes I benefit from my cc-opening experience To: No, these are absolutely different stories. OTB requires the abilites to calculate deeplines correctly and to maintain concentration for a couple of hours. All things which are absolutely not necessary for cc. My experience for the short time frame when I played both otb + cc is that for the purpose of improving the otb abilities it would have been better to study chess books and solving tactical exercises than playing cc.
Mik Kris (2008-05-29 06:37:00)
so thing you might not know about go
go is not about making a better move its about keeping the game equal you cant win in go unless youre oponent had a misstake that you fix or a simple misstake you didnt evean have to fix most players take too long to realy understand this hell i know this i stil dont understand it but its true ask any strong player or pro its evean more true in our kyu games where we make a wrong move every few also i took some time lookin at some games on this site it seems that most players here dont use the extra time they have to read or make shape any way in fact many games are lost becouse of misstakes in reading what seems to me becuse the lack of faster games where you have to read perfactly fast
Jason Repa (2008-06-04 06:48:23)
Poker
"I should have said my statement was about those who know the mechanics of the game"
Actually, you've just confirmed that you don't know anything at all about the game of poker. As is the case for you with chess. And you obviously didn't understand the expression "-EV" , so I'll explain it to you. EV means expected value. It is the sum of the probability of each possible outcome of the event multiplied by the outcome value (or payoff). Thus, it represents the average amount one "expects" as the outcome of the random trial when identical odds are repeated many times. Obviously if this value is a negative number, money-management is completely meaningless as you will lose money in the long run. Money management is actually the easiest thing to figure out. It's a no-brainer for anyone who knows anything about money gaming. It has to do with ensuring that you have enough cash on hand to keep the risk of ruin down to a comfortable level, to account for standard deviation (bad luck). If you're a losing poker player, ie, one in which the net result of all your decisions results in a negative expected value, money management is clearly totally meaningless. This simple concept is quite obvious to most people. I've never before met an adult who required it to be explained to them like this.
People who's minds go beyond the superficial understand that there is much more to poker than working out the simple arithmetic of the game, such as how many outs for a flush/straight.... pot odds, implied pot odds, etc, which is probably what you mean by "knowing the mechanics of the game". Playing that kind of mindless, one-dimensional game might work OK at microlimits, but beyond that you'll need to learn that poker is much more of a game of psychology than it is a game of math. A mathematician by the name of Barry Greenstein, who incidentally has won more than $10,000,000 playing poker, once said that also. I've got a feeling he knows a bit more about the game than you do, lol.
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.
Jason Repa (2008-06-09 00:22:32)
Rapid chess entry rating
If you're not bright enough to figure out how to look up someone's rating, you better stick to "engine-assisted" chess. I'd probably beat you blindfolded in chess where you have to come up with the moves using your own mind. You're not even intelligent enough to figure out how to spell someone's name, when the spelling of it is right in front of you.
And for someone who doesn't want to engage in insults, you sure are doing a good job of insulting. Nice of you to "claim" I wouldn't accept your "challenge" of playing match games, before you even make the challenge. Obviously it's YOU who's backing down from match games with me, under the pretense of not having any time to play. What sheer nonsense. You seem to have a lot of free time on your hands....enough to blabber away with numerous forum posts where you whine about not being able to make it to 2300.
I'm challenging YOU to some human mind vs human mind chess on the playchess server right now. You can get a free trial account there (if you don't already have an account) in about 2 minutes. For a guy who's incessantly bickering about Rybka hurting your performance, you should love having the opportunity to prove to everyone reading this that you're not the spineless hypocrite coward I'm claiming you are and step up to the plate to play me some fast (so rybka or other engines cannot be consulted) online games.
Nice of you to tell us you have problems, but it was already obvious.
Don Groves (2008-06-10 08:05:43)
Brackets
Sometimes truth hurts, repa, but your opinions most certainly are not truth. Your rants about me are simply the opinions of one person who seems to believe that belittling others makes himself seem more important by comparison. There's a word for someone who mistakes his own opinions for facts: delusional. From what I've seen of most of your posts on FICGS, it fits you perfectly. Ta ta.
Wolfgang Utesch (2008-07-21 18:36:12)
Congratulation
Great performance!
Normajean Yates (2008-07-29 19:06:18)
ok...
Ok.. I was just curious :)
Well no one is preventing me from posting retro-problems in the 'problems' section - so it is perfectly fine!
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 flicitations pour ta victoire dans le match qui t'opposait au MI (ICCF) Gino Figlio [Prou] dans la finale des candidats. Tu devais viter tout prix la nulle dans toutes les parties, finalement les noirs t'ont port chance, comment expliques-tu ce rsultat ?
Xavier : Bonjour, merci pour les flicitations. C'est vrai qu'en cas de nulles pour toutes les parties, le rglement indique Figlio Vainqueur en cas d'galit avec victoire(s) et dfaite(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 dcrire la manire dont tu as abord ce match contre Gino et son droulement au fur et mesure des diffrentes phases du jeu ?
X : C'est assez simple, dans ce match je n'tais pas du tout favori car avec plus de 200 points ELO FICGS en ma dfaveur, et Gino titr Matre International avec plus de 2480 point ELO ICCF, je pensais que je n'allais pas rsister sur 8 parties simultanes car sur une partie tout est possible mais sur 8 parties... c'tait pour moi un grand dfi ! Pour le droulement du jeu j'ai jou la diversit sur mes dbuts avec les blancs 4 parties 4 coups diffrents : 1.e4 1.d4 1.c4 1.Cf3. Gino a fait de mme : 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 prvu un dbut tonitruand et c'est l que je me suis dit qu'il fallait que je prenne des risques avec les noirs. Au fur et mesure des diffrentes phases du jeu j'ai assur les nulles des positions quilibres pour me concacrer a deux parties avantageuses dont une avec les blancs et une avec les noirs pour au moins faire la diffrence dans une partie pour assurer la victoire. Et en fin de compte c'est 3 victoires qui me reviennent, ce qui me paraissait impossible tant donne la qualit du jeu de Gino jou sur ce site pour arriver la finale des candidats du championnat.
- Tu as ralis pendant le championnat un parcours sans faute, aucune dfaite signaler, tu affiches galement des statistiques stratosphriques 78% contre une moyenne elo prs de 2200, quel est ton secret ?
X : Mon secret? Je n'ai pas de secret. Si j'avais un secret je ne le dvoilerais 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 qualifi au stage 3 (robin-round final) car il y avait 3 joueurs galit et j'ai eu l'avantage du classement du dpart de ce tournoi comme l'indique le rglement. Quant mes statistiques, c'est aussi grce aux erreurs de mes adversaires qui m'ont permis de gagner des parties quilibres.
- Que penses-tu du systme mi-ko, mi-toutes-rondes du championnat FICGS et de ses dpartages indits lors des matchs en 8 parties ? Quelles modifications y apporterais-tu ?
X : Trs bonne question ! Le systme mi-ko pour moi est un peu trop rapide car un coup par jour c'est des heures d'analyses pour exploiter une position complique, ce qui est difficile quand on plusieurs parties en cours. Surtout quand on travaille. C'est peut-tre aussi grce cette cadence que mes adversaires, faute de temps, ont fait des imprcisions sur certaines postions ou exploit 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 dpartage indit des matchs en 8 parties est excellent, obliger le favori assurer tous les matchs nulles pour gagner ce duel et sinon d'obtenir une victoire supplmentaire contre le challenger est un mode trs bien pens. La modification que je pourrais y apporter est peut-tre la gestion du temps qui est rapide pour un systme de jeu par serveur. Peut-tre augmenter l'horloge de dpart de 15 jours, soit de commencer avec 45 jours contre 30 en ce moment. Et aussi la possibilit des prendre des vacances uniquement sur le tournoi en cours afin de grer les autres parties du site. Par exemple prendre 7 jours de vacances sur un tournoi d'checs du championnat et pouvoir jouer un tournoi de Big Chess, de Go ou un autre tournoi d'checs pendant ces vacances. Pouvoir choisir une date de dbut de vacances l'avance serait galement apprciable.
- Pourquoi t'tre investi dans les checs par correspondance ? T'apportent-ils d'autres satisfactions par rapport aux checs classiques et au blitz ?
X : Je prfre les checs par correspondance par rapport au temps. Car les checs classiques se jouent souvent le week-end, une heure prcise et souvent en dplacement pour effectuer un tournoi. L'avantage, pour moi, des checs par correspondance est que je puisse me connecter 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 checs classiques.
- Tu as su ne pas cder la tentation et te limiter jouer un nombre trs raisonnable de parties sur le site tout le long du championnat, penses-tu nanmoins que les checs par correspondance soient addictifs et quel point ? Ont-ils des rpercussions 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 qualit plutt que de quantit. Avoir beaucoup de parties en simultane est quand mme une chose trs difficile grer ! C'est peut-tre la cl de ma victoire contre Figlio, j'ai regard 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 consacr nos 8 parties sur FICGS. Sur la vie de tous les jours les rpercussions sont familiales car il est vrai que je passe plus de temps analyser les parties et moins temps avec ma famille, ce qui est assez difficile pour moi. Mais quand les rsultats sont l je ne regrette pas !
- Que penses-tu de la place actuelle des moteurs d'analyse (Rybka, Shredder, Fritz et autres) dans les checs par correspondance ? Quelles sont pour toi les qualits complmentaires essentielles du joueur par correspondance, devenu centaure avec la machine pour jambes ?
X : Les moteurs d'analyses dans les checs par correspondances sont utiliss par 95% des joueurs... Maintenant il faut s'adapter et savoir utiliser ces machines calculer. Car jouer simplement le meilleur coup de Rybka 3, de Fritz 12 ou Hiarcs 12 sans rflchir mentalement mne la nulle si l'adversaire fait de mme ou possiblement perdre si l'adversaire se donne la peine de rflchir en les utilisant galement. En sachant que lorsqu'on est dans le milieu de partie ces logiciels vous donnent souvent 4 5 coups evalus de manire semblable, et c'est l qu'il faut choisir le bon coup alors que celui-ci n'est mme pas forcment cit par le moteur d'analyse...
- Tu joues dsormais au Big Chess sur le site, curiosit ou intrt ? Que penses-tu de cette version trange des checs ?
X : Par curiosit et par amusement et je pense que Rybka 3 ne joue pas encore au Big Chess ! Cette version est quasiment indite je ne connaissais pas cette forme de jeu d'checs auparavant donc celui qui a invent ce jeu a trs bien fait ! A propos c'est moi qui vous pose une question sur le Big chess... Y a t-il possiblit 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, particulirement Franois et Wolfgang qui disputent la deuxime finale des candidats, penses-tu pouvoir dfendre ton titre l'an prochain ? :)
X : Bien sr ! Je dfendrai le titre ! J'aimerais si possible savoir la date et la cadence du match. Et je souhaite Franois et Wolfgang une belle finale ! Je dois faire honneur cette comptition qui est bien organise !
- Le match devrait pouvoir dbuter durant la premire semaine de janvier 2009, la cadence sera nouveau de 30 jours et 1 jour supplmentaire par coup. Merci pour tes rponses, et encore bravo pour cette belle performance !
X : Merci ! Et bientt ! Bonne continuation 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 dvoilerais 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 dpartages 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 dpartage 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'tre 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!
Gino Figlio (2008-08-22 06:19:53)
Congratulations Xavier
I did not have a chance to properly congratulate Xavier after losing a match against him.
While it's true the number of ongoing games affects performance in correspondence chess, in our case this was not a factor.
Xavier played better and did not give me a chance to find significant advantage in any of our games.
He simply outplayed me.
Long live the Champion!
Andrew Stephenson (2008-10-03 22:42:17)
Psychology
I give an edge to Kramnik not in terms of chess ability or strength but he seems stronger psychologically more able to take the pressure. On the other hand the match is a bit short 8 games which I think is good for Anand. Finally Anand is favourite in the tie break games. For me the key opening questions are: Whats kramniks e4 defence? my bet is at least 1 outing for the Marshall which Anand has performed badly against and the Caro Kahn (which Kramnik has hardly ever played) and no Petroff at all! I think Anand will stick with his semi slav. After his problem in the Leko match Anand will not be able to surprise Kramnik with 1 d4! My prediction: either 1 win and the rest drawn for Kramnik in the classical games or an Anand win in the rapid tie breaks.
Lars Klassen (2008-10-04 00:27:06)
Performance?
Hello, what means 'Performance' in the personal ELO statistic? Good night ;-)
Thibault de Vassal (2008-10-04 15:18:08)
Performance
Hello Lars, Performance (next to Future rating) is calculated according to FICGS rules and based only on your results in the current rating period - ie. from september 1st to november 1st.
Have a good day :)
Thibault de Vassal (2008-10-05 20:30:11)
Go ratings, rule update
In order to limit the inflation of Go ratings, I've updated the rules for ratings superior or equal to 2000. The idea of the original rule was to help players to find their rating range more quickly only.
"Go ratings are first estimated from Go ranks (n kyu give a 2100 - 100 * n rating, n dan give a 2000 + 100 * n rating, n dan pro give a 2630 + 30 * n rating), then adjusted in real time after each result :
Performance = Opponent Current Rating + 350 if the game is won, -350 if the game is lost.
Case of a win (rating > 1999) : New Rating = ((9 x Current Rating) + (1 x Performance)) / 10
Case of a win (rating < 2000) : New Rating = ((8 x Current Rating) + (2 x Performance)) / 10
Case of a loss : 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 superior to 350 points, the same with losses by a weaker player.
In case of a loss against a player rated more than 350 points less, the opponent's rating considered in calculation is : Current Rating - 350."
Denis Ivanchenkov (2008-11-13 22:19:23)
wrszzzzzyrdybooom
>"do you blieve in the wrszzzzzyrdybooom! ?"
God is Who gives sense to man's life.
God (either existing physically or just as guiding idea in head of a man) is who/what struggles against destruction forces of material world.
God is the force that raises man up, that leads man to perfection in both material and spiritual world.
this is my definition of God
Thibault de Vassal (2008-11-16 19:43:10)
Jacques Brel
Hi Don. Don't you have the complete Jacques Brel collection yet ? :)
Maybe there are some rare live performances to download on the p2p...
Ben Milton (2008-11-22 18:13:24)
...
Also is there a way for me to increase my chess rating? since i am a centaur player using Rybka 3, fritz, zappa, with strong opening books such as perfect 15 (tuned) and at this rating many of my opponents are not even using engines and it the games are not challenging. Regards
Andrew Stephenson (2008-12-02 16:21:04)
Drugs in chess
I have read views of players who claimed that there are prescription drugs (eg modafinil) that enhance concentration and thus performance in chess tournaments - significant improvement but not dramatic. However even small improvements could prove extremely useful at the top levels. Of course no one would ever admit it but I assume if there is some effectiveness then some top players will definitely be taking them. Drug testing at the higher levels is quite reasonable if chess is seeking olympic status.
Thibault de Vassal (2008-12-22 20:44:55)
2610
Very nice performance ! Congrats, Michael...
Just like Xavier, a reasonable number of very well played games.
Matteo Tognela (2008-12-25 16:56:46)
Small Linux script - pgn to clipboard
I know it's not of vital importance... but looking for some more automatic way to copy to clipboard the moves from a game window, say to be pasted into db software, I I've written this little bash script. (this requires xclip to be installed; for the rest I make reference to gnome&firefox, but it should work also in other environments)
#!/bin/bash
#content of grabpgn
xclip -i -selection clipboard $1
exit
...chmode +x grabpgn, and then associate the extension pgn to be opened with it (in gnome it's quite easy, but for sure there's some conf file where you can do it manually)
Then from a game window, click the "download" button, and in the dialog box, select "open" and check "always perform this action on similar files".
Done! now when you hit "Download" you end up with the game in your clipboard, ready to be pasted wherever you want.
(you can still download it with a right click on the link)
Ben Milton (2009-01-05 16:00:41)
CHALLENGE!!!
I hereby challenge all to 2 games one as black and one as white, to whoever believes they can beat Rybka 3 using tuned Perfect 15 book and depth 23 after opening. This is ofcourse to win my E-points. Any one interested at all?
Marc Lacrosse (2009-01-05 23:17:16)
First flaw is in the book
There are many published lines crushing perfect15.
I am not sure that sedat already corrected all the known ones for the coming perfect16.
Either you publish your ctg at the beginning of the games or you cannot affirm that you run a "modified" perfect15 without providing proofs that you are not playing yourself during the opening phase
So i fear it's a flawed challenge
Apart from this I suppose that any player among top-50 here is ready to play against a pure R3. If we were not ready to accept this, then this would mean that correspondence chess has come to its end.
Marc
i must admit that in case your opponent plays postman chess with his engines, times have become tougher for those who try to demonstrate something, and much tougher since rybka 3 appeared. But so far there are still players who keep achieving 70% against opponents who probably all use top engines ...
Ben Milton (2009-01-06 03:22:29)
.
Im not sure what exactly move mirroring is. Also as i said my opening book is perfect 15 book BUT it is tuned. Thibault Id have put 100 E-points on the line if i had it. At the moment i only have 12. Does anyone believe they can beat the conditions i proposed and are willing to have a game?
Thibault de Vassal (2009-01-06 14:14:28)
How to beat Rybka 3 ?
Hi Ben, the main -enormous- advantage you have over Rybka 3 is of course that you know by advance what she may play at least in "some" cases. At correspondence chess, you have to create a trap according to the horizon's effet (don't remember if this is the correct term) or analysis depth. Well, it may represent several weeks of analysis though, to understand such engine's weaknesses, then to incitate her to follow you in a good line, knowing the book she uses.
Playing against Rybka 3 in a freestyle chess tournament will be even harder, only someone who perfectly knows the engine & has a very good understanding of the game may hope to have a good score (over 60%) against the engine IMO.
Finally a good centaur would have quite good chances to win this match in my opinion.
Don Groves (2009-02-04 02:10:20)
Normajean's point
This is sorta what I was getting at above -- that hardware advances (other than faster clocking) only help if the chess software is written to make good use of them. Otherwise, as Normajean points out, the software may actually perform worse.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-02-14 13:29:46)
Topalov vs. Kamsky
The match between Veselin Topalov & Gataulla Kamskiy (Gata Kamsky) is about to start, a former challenger of Vladimir Kramnik and a former challenger of Anatoly Karpov in the FIDE World Championship, quite surprising.
Both usually make amazing performances in top chess tournaments, but not exactly as regularly as Garry Kasparov. Who do you expect to win such a match ?
The prize fund is $250,000, the winner should play current FIDE world champion Viswanathan Anand later this year.
More to read in an interview with Veselin Topalov in Chessbase news, particularly on the Lvov bid, originally of $750,000.
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5207
Thibault de Vassal (2009-02-28 03:35:14)
Svante Carl wins FICGS Go WCH (again)
Congratulations to Svante Carl von Erichsen who keeps the FICGS Go champion title by beating Ke Lu 5d on an impressive 5-0 score, also reaching a rating of 2653 !
A rematch just started between our two top Go players, as Ke Lu convincingly won the 3rd FICGS Go WCH preliminary tournament by 7/7
You can follow the games here :
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=tournament&tournament=FICGS__GO__WORLD_CHAMPIONSHIP__000003
Svante Carl kindly accepted to answer a few questions on his match :
FICGS - Hello Svante Carl, first of all congratulations for your win in the FICGS correspondence Go championship final. Your opponent was Ke Lu 5 dan, you won 4 games out of 5 already (the last game is not finished yet), how do you explain such a result?
Svante Carl - Hello! Thank you very much! It is certainly astonishing for me that I was able to hold my own in these games. I believe that the main factor that helped me in getting on even terms with such a strong player was that I could spend much more time analyzing each move than in a face-to-face or online direct playing situation.
FICGS - Did you have a particular preparation or plan before to start the games?
Svante Carl - The only things I planned beforehand was to really give my best, and to make the games as distinct as possible.
FICGS - The site will now try to attract more correspondence Go players from Asia (with a few chinese, japanese or korean words on the home page already), what do you think about the games format played at FICGS (30 days + 1 day / move, chinese rules komi 7.5 points) and the championship rules?
Svante Carl - I like the format. I am also interested in the rules of Go as well as the rules that surround Go, like tournament rules and time settings. My current conviction is that the "real, pure" Go rules are area rules with superko, and territory rules should be seen as a shortcut which should give the same result. I have come to think that the "Taiwan rule", i.e. White gets a point of compensation if Black got the last play (before the first pass), is a sensible part of the rules. FICGS has taken a very easy route by declaring the rule set and leaving negotiation of the result to the players. While in the end, it is only important who won, I think that showing a result as e.g. "White+3", "Black+Resign" adds a lot of flavour. As a time system, I think that bonus time (a.k.a. Fischer time), like on FICGS, is a very general and sensible approach to timing a game like Go. I think that many "real-world" tournaments and internet servers will switch to that in the future, for all, blitz, speed, normal, slow, and correspondence games. The championship format is quite nice. I like the title holder/challenger way of tournament series. The only thing I would like to see is some sort of nigiri to determine the colours in the odd game. Attracting players from Asia is really a worthwhile goal. I look forward to playing players from all over the world.
FICGS - Does correspondence Go bring you something more than real time Go? What is more addictive according to you?
Svante Carl - Since I think that analyzing is a forte of mine, I might be a bit stronger at correspondence Go than at "real time" Go. I don't think that one is more addictive than the other.
FICGS - Do you often play real time Go online? What servers do you prefer?
Svante Carl - I usually play on KGS, but not too much, perhaps one or two games per week on average, often in "bursts". KGS is quite nice, but not perfect. Sometimes I play at CyberOro, but there is much less communication; I like to watch pro games there.
FICGS - Do you use softwares that assist you in your games (FICGS rules allow this)? What do you think about computer Go in general nowadays?
Svante Carl - I only use a board or a simple SGF file viewer for analyzing. There are no playing programs that could help me. The programs have advanced quite much recently, but I think that it will still be a long time before they can beat me in an even game. Currently, most tests of these programs are against professional players with high handicaps, and I think that this is a good situation for the bots, since they get exponentially weaker the further the game is from the end -- high handicap practically eliminates the opening, their weakest spot. I would like to see more tests against amateur players at the bots' own level.
FICGS - Do you play other games (board games, video games...), what is your favourite one?
Svante Carl - Go is certainly my absolute favourite. I also know chess, although I am really weak at that. I also like "german board games", there are some really nice pearls there. In video games, well, there are also some pearls, but they get drowned by a mass of ... not so good games..., I don't waste time looking at that scene any more. I also played some online poker, but it wasn't able to keep me interested.
FICGS - Will you defend your title again against Ke Lu who also won the 3rd wch tournament?
Svante Carl - Of course, I am looking forward to that!
FICGS - Could you give us your impressions on the games, how it went from the beginning to the end, do you think that time pressure were a non-negligible factor in the result (the clocks of Ke Lu were quickly near 1 or 2 days left)?
Svante Carl - I was a bit surprised that he let his time drop to such a low level right at the beginning, perhaps he was not familiar yet with the vacancy feature at FICGS. I can't see his reasons for this, or how much time he actually could spend on his games. I was ahead in each game when it timed out, though.
I think that game 2 was quite even from the start. The skirmish in the lower left resulted in me capturing a little group, but he got a nice framework on the lower side. My prospects of reducing this were a bit hampered by the fact that my right side group was not completely settled. I found a way to sacrifice some stones to settle my group while fixing the framework's extent and keeping sente to secure my top side, at which time, the game was still almost even, but I think that I was a few points ahead then. Later, I could seal the top side with some extra points through some rather blunt forcing moves.
In game 3, my opponent made an approach with White 24 that is usually regarded as bad in this situation, because the pincer Black 25 works out very well in conjunction with the stone on the left side. He tried to settle with White 26, but I refused to make things so easy, even though the result from the usual joseki would not have been bad. He resisted Black 27, but I think that White 28 is an overplay. The resulting fight left me with nice profit in that corner and sente, while he made some centre thickness. I then tried to carefully neutralize this thickness, but I may have played some slack moves in the course. Later, I was able to keep a little moyo in the lower right centre, and then I poked into his right-side territory where he had left a serious weakness earlier.
Game 1 started out with an interesting fight in the upper right. After White 42, both the three captured black and the two almost captured white stones retain some serious aji, which I came back to fix on my side a few moves later. When I could set up a splitting attack with Black 77, he was able to connect his two weak groups, but in bad shape. I continued to keep this dragon separated from the top, planning to invade the top side afterwards. However, with White 110, instead of connecting by playing B6, he saved some centre stones, and I proceeded to separate and kill the dragon. He may have overlooked that my upper left side group was still able to live after 110 and 111.
In game 4, after White 22, Black's stones on the left side have a strange relation. The three stones in the corner are a bit far from C10, but putting another move here is way too slow. He tried to remedy this situation with the following moves. After Black 27, there are weaknesses left in both sides' shape. When I entered with White 32, I thought that his weakness at F13 would let me settle easily, but he attacked very hard. After White 60, there are some weaknesses in my shape, but he also has a weakish group in the centre. Playing at K10 with White 76 before taking the two stones with H2 felt very important to me. At move 94, I couldn't find a good move to complete my moyo at the top, but I thought that I had found a good point to invade. This was much harder than I thought, since after Black 95, the 3-3 point fails to live. With 96 and 98, I thought that I would get a ko, but he played a line that I had excluded earlier on account of too many cuts in Black's outside shape. However, with Black 107, he made things very difficult for me, since cutting at P16 doesn't work out too well -- my inside group doesn't have enough liberties. I cut at Q14 instead with the hope to at least get some outside forcing opportunities that might have been able to keep me in the game. I think that Black 115 should have been at R12, because after White 116, R12 and N16 have become miai. Black 117 just doesn't work at all. I really got lucky in the end here. These impressions are naturally one-sided, and I would be really interested what stronger players might say about these games.
FICGS - Thank you very much and have good games !
Svante Carl - Thank you!
Thibault de Vassal (2009-03-15 22:52:47)
Championship rules
Thanks.. well, that's probably not exactly 'perfect' but anyway, let's try this before the next problem. I'll update the rules soon.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-03-18 11:04:06)
Ratings floor
That's a real problem (any other opinions on this ?) In my opinion, a rating floor may lead to more trouble in higher ratings : A player who starts at 2300 and drops to 1700 has more chances to drop all his games again than to play seriously. Anyway, once more there's no perfect solution IMO.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-03-21 19:26:53)
Slower time controls
Hello Robert,
Well, in a perfect world I would like to create another multi-stages tournament ("Cup" or something) with 40+40 days/10 moves time control. Maybe we can start it already but I'm not sure we have enough players... The same about the format. Any opinions ?
I think we should keep a fast multi-stages tournament anyway.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-03-31 22:22:54)
Poker ratings
I've just changed the rating rules for Poker. I noticed that poker ratings moved really fast, most probably too fast. Also I think it is better to favour experience to new ratings, at least under a certain rating limit (just like Go rating rules). I'll keep an eye on ratings during a few months. Consequently now the poker rating rules are :
"The poker holdem rating list takes account of rated poker holdem games played at any time control.
If you have no poker rating, you have to play at least one rated poker holdem game to appear in the rating list. Poker holdem ratings are adjusted in real time after each result :
Performance = Opponent Current Rating + 350 if the game is won, -350 if the game is lost.
Case of a win (rating > 1999) : New Rating = ((19 x Current Rating) + (1 x Performance)) / 20
Case of a win (rating < 2000) : New Rating = ((18 x Current Rating) + (2 x Performance)) / 20
Case of a loss : New Rating = ((19 x Current Rating) + (1 x Performance)) / 20
The rating calculation does not take account of wins obtained by a stronger player when the Elo difference is superior to 350 points, the same with losses by a weaker player.
In case of a loss against a player rated more than 200 points less, the opponent's rating considered in calculation is : Current Rating - 200."
Xavier Pichelin (2009-04-11 18:04:03)
Congratulations !!! Edward
Very best Performance!! Edward, Peter is a very good player! Good Lucck for the 2nd Final FICGS!!
Thibault de Vassal (2009-04-30 12:16:34)
Xavier Pichelin wins the 2nd FICGS WCH
First of all, congratulations Xavier !
That's a real performance to beat Wolfgang in a match (whatever the score..).
These games will have to be analyzed, Xavier has good positions but the FICGS withdrawals rule 11.6 may apply in a few games (otherwise basically Xavier's future rating is 2682 !!).
Any opinion on each game is welcome.
Scott Nichols (2009-06-03 03:09:30)
Chess is dead? Not hardly.
In his book "The world of chess" by Anthony Saidy the following paragraph appears. "Later in his (Capablanca) career, his play became ever more technical and drawish. He expressed the idea that with the perfection of modern knowledge it would soon be impossible to win a game against a master. Chess would soon reach a "draw death". He even proposed interchanging the initial positions of the Bishops and Knights to inject new life into the game."
An exact quote found earlier in this same book exemplifies more of what this thread is about---In reply to a Steinitz comment Tchigorin replied "Chess is a limitless forum for the human imagination. Each position is a fresh challenge. Rules and book openings, to the creative player, are no more than guidelines to be transcended. Individualize. Each position is new--terra incognita that may contain the seed of a beautiful combination. Gladly give up a pawn in return for the attack. Play chess with joy."
Thibault de Vassal (2009-06-03 17:15:24)
At most...
I agree tambien, of course. At most, some positions are "dead", really easy to understand perfectly.
True, it is not so easy to throw some fire on the board in real games at a high level, so in correspondence chess games, but every good player know he has to (if he wants some chances to win at least), so this is the main part of the game nowadays, and when there's fire on board the complexity of the position may be sometimes far away from human and/or chess engines understanding. The problem is that human nature make us reproduce known positions much more than unknown ones, unlike chess engines, that's why computer games are not so often draws and may be really funny to watch !
Thibault de Vassal (2009-06-16 14:17:09)
To Garvin
1) Quite strange... is there the same problem for other players ?
2) Did you try to click the magnifying glass just after the name of the tournament (on the tournament page only) to see the crosstable ? Not perfect but better, most probably.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-06-22 16:41:00)
Discussion at Rybkachess
That's an interesting discussion... Once more, the confusion reigns between Freestyle chess (commonly played at classical & blitz time controls) and Correspondence Chess, particularly for centaur players who did not experience correspondence chess at a 2500+ level.
IMO (in brief) on several points :
1) All these made-for-engines books have no other interest than to "manipulate" chess engines & other made-for-engines books, actually this has almost nothing to do with correspondence chess (where they are completely useless at a high level, let's say 2300+) or even chess.
2) Many players do not realize the multitude of factors that appear to be more important that the basic strength of centaurs once the correspondence chess 2400 mark is reached and that still increases at 2500 and 2600... The higher the level, the more "opening books" depend on the recent games played by the opponent (and his level), the number of current games played, the score to reach in 8 games matches, the importance of rating, the goal in life, even the month/season for a few players and many other things according to the persons... Actually these "openings books" just live the time to use it one time, so a better term is preparation, actually opening books do not exist anymore in correspondence chess at a very high level, at most it may be useful against weaker players.
3) The previous point is enough to explain the rating changes of most 2400+ players ! In example...
- GM Farit Balabaev is a very experienced player who constantly has(had) more than 100 running correspondence chess games at several places for years, he's also a fast player, it is quite logical to me that he looks for quiet games and fast draws (or lose sometimes to very strong players who want to win more)
- Wolfgang Utesch, FICGS WCH finalist, like many players at one time in their life, decided that other things were more important and that correspondence chess was too time consuming, particularly once the 2500 mark has been reached...
- Eros Riccio obviously decided to win every correspondence chess competition at FICGS while playing a high number of games at several places AFTER having topped the FICGS rating list with the highest rating so far (which he did), so it is natural to look for a few quick draws in matches if 8 draws mean a victory for him (and a few rating points lost, that is quite inhuman anyway :))
- Michael Aigner tops most FICGS rating lists by playing only games at 40 days + 40 days / 10 moves time control, which is an enormous performance as obviously the longer the time control, the higher the rate of draws. I do not know how many current games he's playing at ICCF or IECG and other organisations but I suspect he plays a quite reasonable number of games.
- Xavier Pichelin may top the FICGS rating list this year as he's an incredibly dangerous player with White and Black and with a reasonable number of running games.
Many strong players also choose to play some tournaments for "fun" or to experiment openings and may lose some points while their real strength is over 2500 or more... so it is quite hard to make the difference between the real strength and correspondence chess ratings. So many parameters... It is likely that we'll see one day a 12 games match between Eros and Xavier (Michael do not play fast correspondence chess time control, yet I hope), we all wonder what rating could achieve Vasik Rajlich (Rybka's creator) and other very strong freestyle players but it is very hard to predict only by knowing their results in freestyle tournaments. Correspondence chess is a mirror of real life.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-07-05 23:14:20)
Interesting idea
"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."
I quite like the idea in this way. Maybe it can be improved even without complicating the rules too much. Anyway if someone wants to make trouble in some tournaments (it did happen), there's no perfect way to prevent him and it is better in class B or A (2000+) than in class 2400+ IMO.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-07-09 23:20:06)
Men versus women
"(...) gender stereotypes can have a greatly debilitating effect on female players leading to a 50% performance decline when playing against males. Interestingly, this disadvantage is completely removed when players are led to believe that they are playing against a woman. This may, in part, occur because women choose a more defensive style when playing with men."
A must read article (at least funny) !
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5567
What do you think ? :)
Svante Carl von Erichsen (2009-07-29 00:41:23)
Unusual doesn't mean bad
I think that this is a perfectly valid opening. There have been much stranger openings that have been played by professionals, even though they appear to be "obviously inferior to standard play" (which this opening does not, in my opinion). I'd like to hear a solid reasoning for the stament that Black's first two moves "can't be best".
Daniel Parmet (2009-08-11 20:08:24)
Quotes!
The following 11 quotes are all by me:
1- "Experiences are the keys to life."
2- "Happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet."
3- "If you expect nothing then the following will happen: either 1) you will receive nothing and thus can be happy your expectations were met or 2) You will receive something and thus be happy you have received something. And.... Happiness ensues..."
4- "Step up and face your fear or you will never be what you should be."
5- "A mistake is only a mistake if you let it happen twice. Otherwise it is a learning experience. your experience."
6- "Life is painting a picture over many years with different paints and tools."
7- ""Horney concluded that love was at least a temporary escape from all her anxiety and insecurity" - Karen Horney
Does anyone else think that someoe named 'Horney' shouldn't be talking about love?"
8- "Take each event in a singularity and say if time passes will any of this matter?"
9- "Plans are ideas that never come to fruition."
10- "You should only get upset about the little things cause you have no control over the big things."
11- "Causing another problem without fixing the initial problem just makes the initial problem worse as time continues"
The following are classic quotes:
11- "If you lose the game you should win the analysis!"
12- "Every passing minute is a chance to turn it all around." - Vanilla Sky
13- "Life is pain my dear and anyone who says otherwise is selling something." - Princess Bride
14- "The 7ps: Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance" - U.S. Military
15- "Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!" - Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
16- "You can get in way more trouble with a good idea than a bad idea cause you forget the good idea has limits" - Warren Buffet
17- "Teach a child to be polite and courteous and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway."
18- "Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone."
19- "There is no tomorrow without the pains and pleasures of today" - Gabriel
20- "If life weren't this complicated, it would be nowhere near as fun. Why? WHY NOT!" - Catch-22
21- "When you've done things right people won't know you've done anything at all." - Futurama
22- "The right perception of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other." - Kafka's the trial
23- "the Trausi follow the normal practices of Thracians in general, except in one particular- their behaviour, namely, on the occasion of a birth or a death. When a baby is born the family sits round and mourns at the thought of the sufferings the infant must endure now that it has entered the world, and goes through the whole catalogue of human sorrows; but when somebody dies, they bury him with merriment and rejoicing, and point out how happy he now is and how many miseries he has at last escaped." -Herodotus Viv
24- "When a Persian herald demanded the surrender of arms, the king shouted back 'come here to get them'; and when he had seen that he was surrounded, he commanded his men to have a good breakfast since their dinner would be served in hell." - Herodotus
25- "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it"
26- "Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky Notes from the Underground
27- "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." - Scott Adams
28- "Nobody is always a winner and anyone who says otherwise either is a liar or doesn't play poker."
29- The darkness immutable tranquility holds sway. - Junichiro Tanizaki
30- People who are constantly asking 'why' are like tourists who stand in front of a building reading Baedeker and are so busy reading the history of its construction, etc., that they are prevented from seeing the building. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
31- Either move or be moved. - Ezra Pound
32- "The real meditation is the meditation of one's identity..... You try finding out why you're you and not somebody else. And who in the blazes are you anyhow??" - Ezra Pound.
33- The image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy. - Ezra Pound
34- The thought working its way towards the light. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
35- There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer. - Ansel Adams
36- When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. - Ansel Adams
37- "Wanting to think is one thing; having a talent for thinking is another." - Ludwig Wittgenstein
38- Philosophers use a language that is already deformed as though by shoes that are too tight - Ludwig Wittgenstein
39- Nothing is more important for teaching us to understand the concepts we have than constructing fictitious ones - Ludwig Wittgenstein
40- dont for heavens sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense - Ludwig Wittgenstein
41- In a conversation: One person throws a ball; the other does not know: whether he is supposed to throw it back, or throw it to a third person, or leave it on the ground, or pick it up and put it in his pocket, etc - Ludwig Wittgenstein
42- I really do think with my pen, because my head often knows nothing about what my hand is writing - Ludwig Wittgenstein
43- What I am writing here may be feeble stuff; well, then I am just not capable of bringing the big, important thing to light. But hidden in these feeble remarks are great prospects. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
44- I ask countless irrelevant questions. If only I can succeed in hacking my way through this forest! - Ludwig Wittgenstein
45- Even to have expressed a false thought boldly and clearly is already to have gained a great deal - Ludwig Wittgenstein
46- Dont concern yourself with what, presumably no one but you grasps! - Ludwig Wittgenstein
47- when you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there - Ludwig Wittgenstein
48- "You cannot step into the same river twice." - Heraclitus
49- "Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child." - Heraclitus
50- "Nothing endures but change." - Heraclitus
51- "For a guest remembers all his days the hospitable man who showed him kindness." - Odyssey Book 15 Line 75
52- "Watching [GM Nigel] Short peruse the photos of young women, I had a fanciful notion that the development of specialized skills and character traits in early childhood is like a country fair in which you are alotted a fixed number of tickets to spend on the various concessions. This particular fixed number of tickets to spend on the various concessions. This particular fair is of short duration and happens only once in a lifetime. Nigel took the chess roller-coaster a dozen times, and rode the honesty ride twice, and so he had insufficient tickets left to take the Train Beyond Adolescence more than a stop or two. I myself missed the athletic concession, and I should have ridden -damn it- the chess coaster three or four times." - King's Gambit: A Son, A Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman page335
53- I dont know, but I do know with great precision why nobody else knows either. - John H. Cochrane
54- "One must have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star." - Friedrich Nietsche
55- "I created chaos on the chess board and my strength lay in finding hidden harmonies. I always cultivated being at peace in chaos. manifest your unique character on the chess board." - Josh Waitzkin
56- "Leave numbers behind and ride the wave of the game." - Josh Waitzkin
57- "The weakness of an artist is dogma." - Josh Waitzkin
58- "Everything i've learned, i've eventually unlearned. I spend more time unlearning than learning. You must challenge your own micro thought constructs." - Josh Waitzkin
59- "It is like a tunnel, the deeper you get into the more you see there is to learn." - Josh Waitzkin
60- "Your emotions are there for a reason. Observe their ripple." - Josh Waitzkin
61- "The same mold, teachers have learned a certain way. great teachers should listen first." - Josh Waitzkin
62- "Change from psychology and technical errors, transition from opening prep to first middlegame decision or tactical to strategical." - Josh Waitzkin
63- "There is some part about any discipline that should appeal to any person." - Josh Waitzkin
64- "Identify thematic connections by breaking down the walls between different disciplines." - Josh Waitzkin
65- "You know your country is dying when you have to make a distinction between what is moral and ethical, and what is legal." - John de Armond
66- "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
67- "When you stop learning you start dying." - Scott Adams
68- "If you could buy some people for what they are worth, and sell them for what they "think" they are worth, there would always be a profit margin."
69- "Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about."
70- "Life is too short to waste time hating anyone."
71- "When in doubt, just take the next small step."
72- "When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer."
73- "Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?" - Ellis
74- "If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back."
75- "Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need."
76- "There are three sides to every story: your side, their side and the truth." - Bablyon 5
77- "Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher." - Japanese Proverb
My apologies if some of the classics are in the ficgs quote file already as I just keep my own (and pull quotes from everywhere). I tried to cull out the duplicates.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-09-02 02:15:29)
second stage
It was perfectly clear :) It should start on november 1st, 2009.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-11-03 19:44:40)
FICGS WCH 6 stage 2
To "clarify" the way groups are built, when looking at previous cycles there was 4 groups in most round-robin stage 2 and 7 players in every round-robin final, so there was 4 players qualified +1 from M group in stage 1 +2 players invited due to their result in the tournament (~1st place shared).
So I could have chosen to build 4 groups for this stage 2 as well, but there isn't a M group in this cycle and 3 players should be invited for the round-robin final which is a lot compared to the initial number, or it could be a double round-robin of 4 or 5 (with 1 invited) players, that I try to avoid as I think it is less efficient than single round-robin tournaments with more players... well I try to explain this complex way to decide how the groups are built to make it transparent at least, if not clear. As it is not possible to make a perfect algorithm, finding the best player should be the priority while building these groups, that's why IMHO it seems correct to see 2 (3 in rare cases) players qualified in these stage 1 tournaments.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-11-07 02:28:21)
Najdorf vs. Petroff
When I have no time enough - that is quite often - I also tend to play Najdorf in all my games (white & black), as IMO it looks like more a perfect geometric shape (kind of spiral) that looks quite "simple" & that chess engines & humans 'generally' play quite well/logically. Also it gives more chances with both colors, particularly against a weaker opponent, as most pieces stay on the board while avoiding symetrical positions.
Finally the Sicilian Najdorf looks quite reassuring, that defines most often the human choice... I used to play many other openings more often, some are much more interesting in some ways with more psychological, strategic & tactical issues, but I must recognize that the more I play against or with engines, the more I play like them, particularly when I feel a general "zeitnot".
John Smith (2009-11-13 02:56:53)
Introduction to Centaur Chess
Hi all,
While I have played allot of chess, so far I only used my computer for an occasional analysis and mostly for the database features.
I am assuming it takes to know engines quite well to become good at advanced/centaur chess, so any advice would be really helpful.
1) Which engines are better at what type of positions? Is Deep Junior best at unclear sacrifices?, Rybka best for positional play?, Schredder best for endgames?
2) Which engines understand different pawn structures better, e.g. which is the best engine to study a stonewall-structure game and which is best for a King's Indian Mar de Plata game?
3) How to interpret the engine value for the position? e.g. if I, say as White, sac a pawn and the evaluation is -0.1, that is less that 1 pawn, does this mean I have enough positional compensation for the pawn?
4) Which engines take long-term weaknesses into their evaluations, even if they can't see anything concrete within their horizon?
5) Which free engines are worth consulting? toga? stockfish? Glaurung? thinker? Which of these are good for complex positions, which for quiet ones?
6) Are there any engines which improve their play during time, that is they learn? e.g. if in a position guiding the engine by hand proves that another move than its preferred one is best, will it be able to spot the move again, if the same position is re-entered?
7) Which is the best interface for analysis?
8) Is there a page with statistics of how each engine performs in every opening?
Thanks!
Michel van der Kemp (2009-11-13 10:38:55)
Hi
I think for pretty much all these questions you are on your own. On the web you will find many rankings on how certain engines perform, mainly whilst playing other engines. All engines are able to make nice sacrifices or play positionally, as long as it doesn't go beyond their calculation horizon. If we as humans want to make decisions with a little help from our computers, well that's what determines if you are a top player I guess. But if there was a recipe to become such a player, I wish I knew it :)
Experience, and good understanding yourself is the key I guess.
William Taylor (2009-12-22 12:16:38)
Go Dark Knights!
Well done to all of us for performing above our rating, and congrats to Josef and particularly Scott for finishing with plus scores. Let's hope The Knights who say 'Ni' don't catch us.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-12-27 01:50:07)
Chess rating calculation
Hello Pablo! Bonnes ftes galement :)
All rating rules are explained here (there's a french version), feel free to ask if you have any question.
http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html
About the 10 moves rule, why 10 more than 9 or 8... well there must be a clear rule & easy to remember. I don't think that miniatures are a big problem, there may be an "unfair" situation in some rare cases, but it shouldn't happen at 2100+ elo ratings. The rule may be not perfect but I did not find a better one yet (any idea? :)).
Thibault de Vassal (2009-12-27 14:08:37)
10 moves rule
IMO this rule is important because :
1) It dissuades cheating by creating several accounts playing together through proxies... This rule makes it really hard to win some points this way, it would be detected even more easily.
2) In many cases, new players (who did not realize that computer assistance was authorized, who do not like the correspondence time controls or who just wanted to try) forfeit their games after 3 or 4 moves rather than let it go. There is no doubt to me that this phenomenon would have much more bad effects on ratings.
3) It is likely that a player who "miniatures" another player is actually much stronger than his opponent, so his rating shouldn't increase so much.
Finally and that's the main point IMO, "unfair" situations are statistically negligible compared to the other possible rules. See the other servers...
So far I'm quite convinced that it is one of the best implemented rules here, and this is exactly the way I optimise the programs: "Statistics give better results than looking for perfection" :)
William Taylor (2009-12-29 18:46:30)
Rybka demise
I wasn't suggesting that Stockfish was a Rybka clone - I was talking about RobboLito.
My testing of Stockfish vs Rybka was not serious - just a 12-game blitz match (4 minutes with 2 seconds increment). Rybka won 6.5 - 5.5, so not a bad performance by Stockfish, but we can't draw any real conclusions from such a test.
Nick Burrows (2010-01-05 07:52:00)
Poker Software?
There is a big difference between heads-up play & full table games. In heads-up the computers can apply perfect game theory
There have been a few human vs poker heads-up challenges with inconclusive results.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_poker_players
Thibault de Vassal (2010-01-30 01:58:20)
Go chinese rules : should pass count?
Extract from the tournament pages : "Scoring method is area scoring with chinese counting. Positional superko rule applies, it's impossible to repeat a previous board position."
I must admit that I have some difficulties to perfectly understand all this in english... so does it mean that passing never changes the score in FICGS games, or the contrary ? (anyway thanks again for helping)
Philip Roe (2010-02-22 16:39:32)
Rating calculation
The link is not totally clear, but the way I read it, your performance is based on your opponents TERs. This is then used to modify your current rating. Am I right?
Thibault de Vassal (2010-02-22 23:20:19)
Rating calculation
Thanks Hannes, Philip & Wayne... Yes I am not clear enough, I should have used the term "performance", sorry :/
Ralph Deline (2010-03-12 19:36:04)
Rating calculation
Hi Thibault,
Thanks for your earlier explanation. I wanted to respond sooner but then when I was at the FICGS site, I saw another player, also confused about his chess rating, questioning you about it so I threw in my two cents. In my situation, my opponent was rated about 80 points higher so when I drew, I thought I would actually go up in ratings points instead of down. That is still confusing to me.
Maybe my age is catching up with me, but for fifty years or more, using the formula for establishing ratings in Canada, I was always under the impression that your score and your opponents ratings, with a bit of math thrown in, determined your rating. I know at one time it was possible to win a tournament and lose rating points but I believe that was corrected about a decade or so ago. I wasn't playing for over a decade so I'm not certain on dates.
However, let me acknowledge the fact that I understand what you are saying, play less, win more, and your rating will improve. But I still have a hurdle to overcome. When a lower rated player ties with a highed rated player, regardless of colour, why does he get penalized instead of rewarded for achieving a result that is performing above his present rating? It doesn't seem logical.
You are probably busy and I've taken enough of your time. I don't think I will understand any explanation, you know, can't teach an old dog new tricks, so you don't have to try to explain any further. I just wanted my voice to be heard.
I have had three gross blunders in the last half year so maybe I am playing too many games. I hate to do it, but maybe I will try playing less.
Thanks for listening.
Ralph
Thibault de Vassal (2010-03-13 21:43:04)
Rating calculation
You have to make the difference between ratings updated in real time (like advanced chess ratings) & the FICGS correspondence chess rating calculation, the idea of those ratings updated every 2 months is to avoid peaks, consequently when you win, draw or lose three games after the last rating calculation, your future rating does not take account of the first result THEN the second one THEN the third one, it is actually completely recalculated by taking account of all results at the same time, so you DO NOT win or lose points AFTER EACH result, your performance is recalculated according to the formula explained in the rules & that looks like the french FIDE rating calculation. One thing that explains "strange" variations after 2 or 3 results only is that the rating calculation is just more accurate when you have many results & particularly when your score is near 50%.
That should answer to the discussions I had with Kamesh & Ralph, but maybe my explanations are not so clear, sorry about that again.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-03-16 10:37:01)
Interview with E. Kotlyanskiy
Congrats again to Edward Kotlyanskiy, new FICGS chess champion after beating Xavier Pichelin (2577) in the 12 games final match of the 3rd cycle.
Edward kindly accepted to answer a few questions on his match and correspondence chess in general :
_________________________
> Hi Edward, first of all congratulations for winning this 12 games match against the former FICGS chess champion, Xavier Pichelin. You had to score at least one point more than your opponent, what was your strategy when the games started?
Knowing that I had to score at least +1 against Xavier, I had to try to get the games into complex positions where there are many options to play for both sides. At the point when the games started, I was the underdog to Xavier (mainly due to the face that I was rated about 200 points lower). In part, I think that one of the reasons why Xavier allowed the games to reach such complex positions is due to the fact that his rating was undoubtedly higher than mine and therefore he probably assumed that he could outplay me. Although this was simultaneously a brave and admirable choice, I think an option that many other players would have pursued would have been to play drawish lines with the hope of having all of the games ending in draws. I have great respect for Xavier due to the fact that he didn't choose such a path and allowed us to put on a hard fought show that was worth watching.
> What could you say on the hot moments of the match?
The first game in which I thought I had very good chances to win was game 34739. In this game (particularly on move 18) Xavier played the move Nb8?? Looking back at the move, I realized that the game was lost for him. I assumed that Xavier probably underestimated the threat of f5. There were no good responses and/or countermeasures for the move f5. For example, if 19) gxf5, I have 20) Nxh5 Nc6 21) Rc3! Bxh4 (Qd8 was also possible) 22) Qf4 Be7 23) g4! His king is just clearly caught in the attack! 19) exf5 also fails to 20) e6 f6 (trying to keep the king safe) 21) Bxh5!! gxh5 22) Nc6 Rc3 and therefore its easy to see that it is just a matter of time. Xavier did try something better although even that failed due to some nice moves. I believe that 21) g7 came as a surprise to Xavier (or that at least he hadn't seen this move when playing Nb8). After Nxh5 (another neat move), another line that I thought Xavier would enter (which is also losing) is 22) Qxc2 23) Qxc2 Rxc2 24) Nf6+! Bxf6 25) exf6. Clearly my pawns are just too strong! Knowing that I am winning after the mentioned alternatives, the other games (although I won three others) were just necessary to hold without falling for any tactics/tricks.
A second game I want to briefly comment on is game 34729. I played a very nice (although I am not sure if it is winning just yet) move known as 17.a4! It was a very nice way to open the position on both of our kings. In all honesty, the move that I think was winning in this situation 25) Rd3, I did not even consider too highly until the position reached that very move. After a relatively short analysis, I was indeed pleasantly surprised to see that; overall, it was completely winning for me.
> What could you say on the advantages and inconveniences of this 12 games match format played at a quite fast time control?
From the days when I first starting playing correspondence chess, I have always been accustomed to making moves rather quickly. In fact, when I first started playing, in some games I made moves within 10 minutes of looking at the position. Although I take a lot more time to analyze now-a-days, I still consider the speed of my play to be relatively faster compared to most other correspondence players. Playing 12 games simultaneously can have drawbacks as not having enough time to properly analyze; however, I didn't have such a problem. With the exception of a few games that I was playing on IECG at the start of the FICGS Championship, the 12 game series was my main concern.
> Without revealing your secrets, how would you define modern correspondence chess as a centaur (playing with chess engines)?
These days, it is impossible to play correspondence chess on a high level without consulting the engine. It is also unlikely that one can achieve a lot of success just by following the engine blindly (even after a long analysis). Personally, I know that some of my friends believe that in correspondence chess you are just following the engine but I believe that most high level correspondence players know that it just doesn't work that way.
In my opinion, one of the most important skills that a correspondence player should have is having some sense of where the engine he is analyzing with is faulty. To give a well known example, many people know that there are certain endgame positions that an engine alone can't be trusted in (a simple case is the wrong color bishop). In essence, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of whatever engine you are analyzing with is critical to playing correspondence chess at a high level.
> Why did you choose to play correspondence chess, do you play OTB (over the board) chess as well?
Before starting correspondence chess, I played OTB chess for quite a few years. When my schedule became busy, I realized that I wouldn't have much time to play OTB in clubs. I came across correspondence chess and got hooked on it very quickly. Also, I began to enjoy more of the subtleties of the game; something that is just lacking in OTB blitz games. I imagine that some people prefer to play practical chess (OTB) in which a move order wouldn't make much of a difference; however, I guess I am a perfectionist and believe the game should be played on as high of a level as possible.
> How many correspondence games do you usually play at the same time (on different chess servers or by email)? Would you say that it is an addiction?
Usually, I played about 5 to 10 games on average on all different sites. I did play via email on IECC but wasn't fond of playing by email therefore I went back to server only sites (IECG, FICGS, Schemingmind).
I can definitely say that correspondence chess is an addiction. All too often, I catch myself analyzing games when I really should be doing something much more time sensitive. Well, at least I can say that this addiction paid off in that I am the new FICGS champion!
> Are you interested in other games?
As far as board games go, chess is primarily the only game I play. At times I do play games like monopoly and scrabble with my friends. Another interest that I have is billiards.
> The next challenger for the FICGS chess champion title is SM Eros Riccio (winner of several PlayChess PAL freestyle tournaments). Do you think that you'll play him? What does this perspective inspire in you?
I can't wait to play Eros! I believe that he would be my toughest opponent yet (although I have played GM Leito, Rafael (fide elo: 2619) and managed to draw). Eros is like an unstoppable juggernaut in corr chess. That said, I look forward to our games and I am certain that they will simultaneously be challenging and entertaining.
> Thanks and best of luck in your future games!
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.
Garvin Gray (2010-04-05 16:48:43)
Poker Min Bid
There is also the other side of the story about rating accuracy in this situation where if players are getting bored with how long the games are taking because things just go back and forth, then they are less likely to play.
This leads to more inaccurate ratings. I think it would be easier to get more accurate ratings by there being many games against different opponents, even if each individual game is not perfect because the minimum bid has been increased.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-04-10 23:19:20)
Challenges hidden
New option for the challenges ! (see Preferences) .. now you can "hide" the challenges function. This means that a player still can challenge everyone (including you) but you won't see it. Not a perfect way but to be improved. There should be a blacklist function (during a session only) soon.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-04-19 16:41:06)
Advanced chess ratings calculation
As advanced chess (not correspondence chess) ratings move too fast, I just updated the calculation rules :
If there's a winner and if his rating is below 2400, his new rating his :
New Rating = ((18 x Current Rating) + (2 x Performance)) / 20
Otherwise :
New Rating = ((19 x Current Rating) + (1 x Performance)) / 20
Garvin Gray (2010-04-21 19:06:39)
Wider rating range tournaments
That title reads like I am doing some back-tracking (for those keeping track) and in a way I am.
I have previously asked for the rating bands of the standard and rapid waiting lists to be 200 points apart as rarely does someone join from outside those rating ranges.
Since then I have noticed that I am getting 'stuck' having to play the same people (feels that way at least).
We have only a couple of tournaments a year where players from different rating ranges are paired together and even in the World Champ groups, the 2300's or so are protected from the rest of the membership.
I would like to see some RATED tournaments created which allows more play between players of different rating ranges.
I believe this would also help with rating list accuracy as it gives the potential for players to increase their rating if they perform and would also sort out the over-rated players quite quickly.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-04-25 19:39:42)
Bullet & lightning time controls
Sorry I missed your message Wayne. Well, 30 seconds looks even a bit short to me compared to the blitz time control. Hard to find the perfect scheme.
Kamesh Nookala (2010-05-11 19:57:10)
Entry fee for higher class tournament
Dear Thib,
Points 1 and 4 are quite good. However, here comes the question.
What if the winner of the preceding (lower) category, after paying 10 e-points and entering into the next higher rated tour, fares decent enof, for e.g. finishes 2nd in the higher category (or doesn't lose a single game)? Will he have to again win his category of event and then pay 10 e-points and join the immediate higher rated event again? Or, he will "earn" a chance to play that higher rated category again considering his previous performance?
Kamesh Nookala (2010-05-12 19:08:03)
I need a break !
Dear friends,
Day after day, i am getting addicted to playing chess at this forum as well as other servers. I think it is time for me to cater and spend some valuable time with my lovely family. I am damn sure that i am failing to perform the responsibilities of a loved husband and father towards my little daughter and my adorable wife. And here I made the decision.
I am gonna quit playing for present, not sure when i will be back (i may come back). But i need to do a severe restructuring of my entire personal life. Balance things. I can be a good player when i have a good family and for that I need to perform (every individual) needs to perform his or her obligations.
I am honored and highly indebted to you guys who played with me and gave me a chance to showcase my skills.
I render my sincerest thanks to each and every player.. As a beginning, i am resigning all my games here and I wont be in action for indefinite period.
Good Luck all, you guys simply rock !!
Thibault de Vassal (2010-06-01 22:42:07)
Rybka 4!
Strange... many rybkaforum members will harass Vasik with questions on these performances, most probably :/
Just looking at the new CEGT rating lists, Rybka 4 would be 30 to 80 points stronger than Rybka 3 :
CEGT 40/20
1 Deep Rybka 4 x64 4CPU 3220 39 39 200 74.8% 3031 40.5%
2 Rybka 3 x64 4CPU 3181 10 10 3099 73.9% 3000 35.3%
3 Stockfish 1.7.1 x64 4CPU 3159 11 11 2201 69.1% 3019 40.3%
4 Rybka 3 x64 2CPU 3146 10 10 3481 72.6% 2977 35.7%
5 Naum 4.2 x64 4CPU 3140 15 15 1226 61.5% 3059 44.4%
CEGT 40/4
1 Rybka 4.0 x64 4CPU 3265 24 24 500 70.7% 3112 40.6%
2 Rybka 3.0 Dynamic x64 4CPU 3233 19 19 1200 79.8% 2994 25.9%
3 Rybka 3.0 x64 4CPU 3231 9 9 4300 78.0% 3012 30.2%
4 Rybka 3.0 Human x64 4CPU 3229 21 21 1000 78.8% 3001 26.8%
5 Stockfish 1.7.1 x64 4CPU 3198 13 13 2150 72.2% 3032 33.1%
Thibault de Vassal (2010-08-03 12:46:54)
Congratulations to "FSF en passant"
Finally here are the final results !!!
"FSF En passant" won this very interesting tournament by 1 point ahead of 2 teams !! The suspense was until the very last games to know the final team ranks.
The fact to note: Yellow Blue warriors finish second while they were actually 3 players in the team, Yura Lemekhov played an amazing tournament (5.5/6 , perf 2456) ... (the last player stopped to play :/)
Thanks to all players, it was lots of fun! I'll try to make the things clearer in the tournaments pages for the next edition...
10 points for : FSF En Passant
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2270)
Volker Koslowski (2264)
Sebastian Boehme (2175)
Roland Markus (2096)
9 (tot: 15.5) points for : The knights who say "Ni"
Michael Aigner (2602)
Xavier Pichelin (2577)
Hannes Rada (2559)
Thibault de Vassal (2473)
9 (tot: 13.5) points for : Yellow-Blue Warriors
Iouri Basiliev (2173)
Dmytro Romaniuk (1937)
Ostap Hladky (2176)
Yura Lemehov (2171)
8 points for : The Dark Knights
William Taylor (2140)
Scott Nichols (2089)
Don Groves (1991)
Josef Riha (1989)
4 points for : Happy Pawn
Stephane Legrand (2209)
Garvin Gray (2125)
Daniel Parmet (1961)
Ilmar Cirulis (1805)
2 points for : Our team King
Alexander Blinchevsky
Stanimir Denchev
Benjamin Block
Ranganathan Raman
0 point for : The Ghost Knights
Vadim Khachaturov
Yugi Inving
Sophie Leclerc
Jorge Orden
Ni FSF Dark Happy Blue Ghost King
Aigner 1 = = = = =
Pich 0 = = 1 1 1
Rada = = 1 = 1 =
DeVas = = 1 0 1 1
0 Lehnh = = = = =
1 Koslo = = 1 1 1
= Boehm = 1 = 1 1
= Marku = 1 = 1 1
= = Taylo = = = =
= = Nicho = 1 1 1
= = Grove = 0 1 =
= = Riha 1 0 1 1
= = = Legra = = =
= = = Gray 1 1 1
0 0 = Parmet 0 1 =
0 0 0 Ciruli 0 1 1
= = = = Basili = 1
0 0 0 0 Romani 0 0
= = 1 1 Hladky 1 =
1 = 1 1 Lemekh 1 1
= 1 = = = Khacha =
0 0 0 0 1 Inving 0
0 0 0 0 0 Lecler 0
0 0 0 0 0 Orden 1
= = = = 0 = Blinch
0 0 0 0 1 1 Denchev
= 0 = = = 1 Block
0 0 0 0 0 0 Raman
"Team 1" - "Team 2" : points (score)
"Ni" - "FSF" : 1-1 (2-2)
"Ni" - "Dark" : 1-1 (2-2)
"Ni" - "Happy" : 2-0 (3-1)
"Ni" - "YB" : 1-1 (2-2)
"Ni" - "Ghost" : 2-0 (3.5-0.5)
"Ni" - "King" : 2-0 (3-1)
"FSF" - "Dark" : 1-1 (2-2)
"FSF" - "Happy" : 2-0 (3-1)
"FSF" - "YB" : 2-0 (2.5-1.5)
"FSF" - "Ghost" : 2-0 (3.5-0.5)
"FSF" - "King" : 2-0 (3.5-0.5)
"Dark" - "Happy" : 2-0 (2.5-1.5)
"Dark" - "YB" : 0-2 (1.5-2.5)
"Dark" - "Ghost" : 2-0 (3.5-0.5)
"Dark" - "King" : 2-0 (3-1)
"Happy" - "YB" : 0-2 (1.5-2.5)
"Happy" - "Ghost" : 2-0 (3.5-0.5)
"Happy" - "King" : 2-0 (3-1)
"YB" - "Ghost" : 2-0 (2.5-0.5)
"YB" - "King" : 2-0 (2.5-1.5)
"Ghost" - "King" : 0-2 (1.5-2.5)
Definitely, even if the "Knights who say Ni" team decided before the match to play unusual openings in most games, this tournament shows again that the strength gap between top players and players rated 2150-2300 is not big at all as many of these players tend to reach the 2400 barrier...
Thibault de Vassal (2010-09-06 23:44:35)
Replacement in Class GM 2 & rapid SM 6
I agree, a late replacement is not a perfect solution... but there is probably no perfect solution in that particular case :/
Daniel Parmet (2010-09-19 22:34:47)
Corr. Chess Maxims
The more you talk Scott the less you make sense. You should just stop. Your idea for Corr Maxims is good and your #1 Maxim makes sense. The fact that #2 & #3 don't just means you made a mistake. Everyone makes mistake. But okay on to your rambling points.
What does Obama or IL have to do with anything? I don't even get it.
Hmm bad analogy time, okay yes talking on your cell phone in a theater gets you kicked out. At small establishments even just banned. Certainly not a right nor is it proclaimed as such anywhere. It is not "protected" and is well known to be improper. Unlike offering a draw being 80 pts lower has no negative connotation anywhere. Its not illegal. It is protected by the rules. It is not known to be improper. Incorrect analogy.
Driving slow in the fast lane. Highways actually have minimum speed limits and I have seen people get tickets for going below the minimum. On top of that, most states have laws about he fast lane being for passing purposes so they have rules about "slower" traffic keep right (state dependent). So not only is it again something protected by law, it is improper, it can be illegal (state dependent). So again an incorrect analogy.
As much as you wish to live in this strange world where you have to be a higher rated to offer draws, thats not how the rules of chess work. In fact, I would quit playing chess if things did work that way (because it makes no sense). I know people that have as their personal rule not to accept draws if they are the higher rated (fine, thats silly but your choice) (and it always backfires too since they usually end up losing the trying position so badly trying to win it as the "higher" rated should). But at least in the end the rules are preserved - my right to offer a draw was not revoked. You seem to be missing the point that at move 1, ONE player would always be at a disadvantage under your system of only the higher rated being allowed to offer draws. This is quite silly because as all chess players know - no rating system is perfect. Trying to tell someone that a 1989 is 100% better than a 1988 is impossible yet you willing to deny the 1988 his rights of offering draws when he plays that person 1 pt above him? You might just be better off declaring you don't accept draws (I know players like that too). But then you might see people head towards drawish positions knowing your policy and playing them for 200 moves until you're bored. You starting to see the point yet? Whatever system you concoct, there are tradeoffs. The one you proposes has tradeoffs that make no sense for anyone.
Daniel Parmet (2010-09-19 23:45:16)
Corr. Chess Maxims
Yep, I'm afraid you're a lost cause. No players cannot get away with whatever they want in tournaments read the rulebook dude. You are rating crazy. Do you not realize that for a person to improve they have to be playing beyond their rating? Ratings represent past performance. You need to judge a position based on its features not the person's playing its rating. Many positions reach draw positions early in the game as ours did when people play unambitiously. But I give up trying to convince you of your illogical ways.
Just know this: it is irrelevant whether you use the right to offer draw but it is important that you have it so your point is mute here as well.
A funny incident also happened a few weeks ago: two players kept offering each other draws every 2 moves, declining their opponent's draw then offering it themselves two moves later. It was funny because it was perpetual check and they both knew it. But everytime they offered a draw, the other one would decide maybe he'll mess up. Turn it down and offer it again about 2-3 moves later. By the end of the game each player had offered the other over 15 draws in the perpetual check scenario but the game managed to end decisively strangely.
And btw, your definition of respect and others will different. I certainly don't respect someone cause they've had more time than me to study and made a 2001 rating. I already explained I have no respect for Corr ratings whatsoever. I have also explained my rating does not represent my strength because I do not take it seriously. Do I respect people that have made a career of this? Of course. But I digress because here opinions will vary wildly and be to each their own. We have left the realm of facts. I just think it amusing to always remember that however good you are, there is always some one better. Or put even better, if you could buy a man for what he is actually worth and sell him for he thinks he's worth there would always be a huge profit. Ie there is always arrogance involved when you include ratings. A fun quote to conclude on: "First-class players lose to second-class players because second-class players sometimes play a first-class game." - Siegbert Tarrasch
Daniel Parmet (2010-09-27 21:38:34)
Quote festival, part 6
"The beginning is the most important part of the work" - Plato
"Nothing is more unpleasant than virtuous person with a mean mind" Walter Bagehot
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." - Dale Carnegie
"Necessity never made a good bargain" Benjamin Franklin
"Good People are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know" William Saroyan
"In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it." - Robert Heinlein
"A satirist is a man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about other people." Peter McArthur
Thibault de Vassal (2010-10-01 17:39:15)
WCH Stage 1 groups (new players)
I only meant that it is an advantage to play a 2100 player actually rated 1800 rather than 2100 in his group... Gives more chances to qualify but of course, a few Elo points will probably be lost in the process. There is a matter of luck there of course, just like when a player loses on time or forfeits his games in a group, that's why I try to launch almost 2 new cycles per year, it is not possible to avoid the lucky factor in a championship but it is possible to give more chances to everyone...
Anyway I don't think it is possible to build groups of perfectly equal strength (btw many players rated 2000-2100 after 50+ games are actually worth 2400 and more, but lost many games on time) while we need clear rules (if those players are in special groups, do they qualify the same way?).
Another option would be to prevent players who have not finished a certain number of games to enter the WCH waiting list... :/ I don't think it would be appreciated.
Garvin Gray (2010-10-05 16:31:02)
WCH Stage 1 groups (new players)
Thibault, I am more than happy to let others give their opinions, but I really do not think you understand at all what point I am trying to make.
This is now three times that you have misunderstood what I am trying to say.
Geez I wish we could quote better in these forums. It would make discussing points much easier.
Thib: So your point is that it is a disadvantage "in the tournament", right? I do not agree with this, if the best player was actually this 1800 player, he should be able to play the championship anyway (and you have the advantage of ratings there for tiebreaks)...
GG- I am not arguing at all that the 1800's should not be able to play in the championship. Please stop mis-quoting me. I have also stated this previously. I am stating that they should be in groups in stage one all by themselves.
The disadvantage is with how the groups are paired and I finding it very difficult to not get completely pissed off with having to explain items many times for you to understand what I am trying to say.
You keep failing to respond directly to my points and I keep having to point out how you have mis-quoted my points, which does not help in the debate at all.
The groups are currently paired in the first stage with the highest rated player in Group 1, second highest rated player in Group 2, third highest rated player in Group 3 and so forth for eleven groups (in this example there are eleven groups). Then the 12th highest rated player is placed in Group 11, the thirteen highest rated player in Group 10 and back we go to the 22nd highest rated player in Group 1. The pattern keeps repeating back and forth until all players in stage one have been allocated to a Group.
Now with the 1800's being seeded in these groups with their 1800 rating is that they end up being about the 4th or 5th seed in some groups, but are not allocated to each group.
Now when some of these 1800 players start performing at a rating of 2100, it means in some groups that the top seeds have received three players of similar playing level and some other groups have not. This makes some of the groups disproportionately unfair.
If these 1800 players were somehow seeded accurately according to their playing standard, meaning they entered stage one in their proper seeding position, it would push all the rest of the players down one spot and so the Group allocations would be fairer.
Another option could also be to make it a rule that players must have a proper rating ie not provisional, before being able to play in the championship. I have tried to avoid suggesting this with my proposal to have them play in a group all by themselves.
Rolf Staggat (2010-10-12 16:09:10)
Road to Grandmaster
William,
in the same time you need to become a GM you could learn ten languages perfectly or promote in different sciences. Its a waste of time. You do not live for a thousand years.
I organized some open-tournaments in earlier years. The older GMs taking part there all had only little money. If you are rich by birth, then just do it, otherwise better not.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-10-31 12:10:44)
Freestyle Fun
"new page with a different looking format", yes that's normal, if you see the crosstable (you may enlarge the window so that it appears perfectly) that's ok.
The problem with the other link is ununderstandable to me :/ looks like your browser does not manage cookies/sessions with several tabs.
Sebastian Boehme (2010-10-31 20:00:30)
Eros Riccio wins the 3rd Freestyle Cup !
Also here goes my 50 cents about the tour.
First of all: Thib, very nice tour. Without you we would not have such nice events. FICGS rocks!
Secondly: Congrats to Eros, who made a last minute join and made me think: oh maybe he is out of shape, but you proved the opposite!
Last but not least....am grrrrr about my own performance a bit. I think time management I need to practise a little better next time. ;-)
Many regards,
Sebastian
Jai Prakash Singh (2010-11-01 05:09:09)
Eros Riccio wins the 3rd Freestyle Cup !
Congrats Eros and Thib! Great performances. It was a nice experience for me too except that I was getting disconnected just before start of my games. So reconnection caused initial time loss in many games for me.
Wilhelm Schuett (2010-12-09 17:13:37)
New Swedish Constitution
Perhaps something perfidious and one-sided like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Sweden
Thibault de Vassal (2011-01-12 21:01:31)
Eros Riccio is the new FICGS chess champ
Congratulations to SM Eros Riccio who made it in the 4th FICGS correspondence chess championship, beating FICGS WCH Edward Kotlyanskiy 6.5-5.5
As he already won the candidates final match in the 5th FICGS chess WCH, we'll have the next final match "Eros Riccio vs. Eros Riccio" :) .. just joking, means that Eros just won the 5th FICGS championship as well... 2 titles at once, an amazing performance!
Sure that we'll need veeeery strong players to try to move the new FICGS king (who also won 2 FICGS freestyle cups) in the next WCH cycles! :)
Congrats also to Edward who was really near in this match, maybe the players will explain what happened in the only game that didn't finish into a draw... Finally many thanks to both players for a nice show!
Thibault de Vassal (2011-02-02 19:50:00)
Update for BigChess & Poker rating rules
Hi all, it was a long time there wasn't any update in rating rules.
First of all, as the number of results at Poker Holdem is quite high, I feel that a change should be tried so that ratings move less fast.
Case of a win (rating > 1999) : New Rating = ((39 x Current Rating) + (1 x Performance)) / 40
Case of a win (rating < 2000) : New Rating = ((38 x Current Rating) + (2 x Performance)) / 40
Case of a loss : New Rating = ((39 x Current Rating) + (1 x Performance)) / 40
As for Big Chess, the ratings deflate because there isn't the same rule than in Poker or Advanced Chess, this is now fixed :
If there's a winner and if his rating is below 2000, his new rating his :
New Rating = ((18 x Current Rating) + (2 x Performance)) / 20
Otherwise :
New Rating = ((19 x Current Rating) + (1 x Performance)) / 20
This rule may look strange from a mathematical point of view, but combined to the other rules that provoke deflation, it gives really good results IMHO. Let's see how it works here.
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 (2011-04-27 12:40:42)
Active rating lists
Obviously such changes are not good, but not doing these changes would be just worse... for Poker this is different, new players can estimate their level, existing players with no rating start at 1600, but it is quite easy to reach 1800.
For chess, maybe it should have been possible to start at 2000 from the start of the site (as it is possible in some cases at other sites), but by experience I thought it was too much, and engines are stronger today. Well, actually better would be to have a test to estimate a provisional rating... Still it wouldn't be perfect and not sure it would be appreciated :)
Jimmy Huggins (2011-04-29 18:36:20)
WBCCC-New stuff and Round 2 Update
B1-CumnorChessClub (Kevin E.Plant) vs Moz
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21180
Kevin makes an interesting choice here with 2.a4!? vs the Silicon Defense. Not exactly sure what he wanted out of the opening. I can only guess he wanted to mix it up here. Anyway, black equalizes fairly quickly and is better. But after 18.a5! He finds the best way to equalize and both agree to a draw.
B2-jitan vs Loboestepario (Gino Figilo)
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21181-
The somewhat unknown Jitan has had a good tournament. And is given his ICCF SM opponent all he can handle. In a game that is still going. Gino is down a pawn, but it appears to be a draw and I would guess the game is about to finish. This was an interesting approach by Gino who gets in b5 and h5 very early in this game. And Jitan plays the most naturally looking sac. 13.Nbxd5! it looked like for a long time Gino was in trouble, but he has found enough resources IMO. A well played game by both players.
B3-Fulcrum2000 vs Mark Eldridge
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21182
This was a nice French game to watch. The novelty move was ..11.Na5, OTB I would like white in this game and I had a feeling that white possibly could have risked an attack, but this game came down to endgame play and White was able to outplay black in the end.
B4-Kamesh vs Stephanie
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21183-
In my opinion this is the most important game the round and it is reaching its fianlly stages. I believe Stephanie to be one of the top players in this event. She has been doing well, but Kam has played the near perfect opening and got her in trouble. If you remember my previous post you remember I talk about Stephanie was in time trouble. Which has not help the cause. The one move I enjoyed the most so far in this game was 36.Ra5!, this was a nice exchange sac. And its given Kam nice pass pawns on the Queen-side. I would guess this game will be over soon. It has been a nice game to watch.
B5-David Evans vs National12
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21184
A battle of the English Countryman here. :) This was the Open Defense of the Ruy. Form the comments I got, it seems that the opening was played about as perfectly as you can get. David posed some problems to Paul(National12), but it ends in a fairly easy draw. One finally note ..10.d4 IMO is a very difficult move to beat.
B6-ppipper vs jitan
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21168-
This is one of the finally 4 games still playing. What looks like to be a draw here. The white black has been dancing for a few moves now, but blacks back rank is weak. That equals a drawish game. :)
This game started out form B90 and so has a ton of theory.
B7-indrajit_sg vs Wayne Lowrance
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21186
I fairly quiet B90 game. I don't think white got much out of the opening. Well played by Wayne here.
B8-tomski1981 vs Uly
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21187
A battle of good friends here. IMO I thought white played the this Queens pawn opening passively. And so we had an early draw at move 26.
B9-Sebastian Boehme vs Schachmatt (Matt O'Brein)
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21188-
This is one of the 4 last games. And I have to say its been a good game. We had an interesting Sicilian position. I had thought black was in trouble. But after he tripled up on the d-file. Then got massive exchanges. He looks like its headed toward a draw.
B10-Weirwindle vs donkasand
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21189-
This was a nice positional Sicilian game. Although it ends in a draw. Its a must see game! Watching the drawing combo at the end is very beautiful. It starts with ..27.e4! and you can watch it form there.
B11-Ruben Comes vs Balabachi(William Fuller)
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21190
Ruben opened up this rep with 3.h3!? and we ended up with a closed type of Sicilian. But his opponent stayed strong. Though out the game. Even if it looked like Ruben had some pressure. In the finally position.
B12-ralunger (Ramil Germanes) vs keoki010 (George Clement)
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21191-
This game saw the Exchange variation in the Queen's gambit. It has a high rate rate. But to Ramil credit he manage to give George a couple of weak pawns in the endgame, but not enough for any real advantage.
B13-Omparakash vs natmaku
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21193-
I would have hoped for more in this game. As I'm a lover of the 6.Bc4 (Sozin) Sicilian. After 14.e5!? this forces unneeded exchanges. After which, the game looked like a draw. And that is how it ended.
B14-deka vs Scott Nichols
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21194
Usually the Exchange Slav is pretty drawish. And this game was no different. But both players did try to mount some kind of advance. Both had good posts on each others side of the board. But a drawish opening is a drawish opening.
B15-TheHug (Jimmy Huggins) vs parmentd
(Daniel Parmet)
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21195
I tried my luck in an opening that was not something with e4. And it didn't go as well I had hoped, Daniel was able to get a equal position fairly quickly. In my try at making new theory in a very uncommon line vs the King's Indian Defense.
And finally we have this last game.
B16-SpiderG (Peter Marriott) vs Banned for Life
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=21196
This would have promised to be a nice Larson Attack game. By alas Peter timed out in this game as well. I would have loved to seen this attacking game with both sides castled on opposite sides.
Well that would do it for my reports for this round. This was a great round, and the next promises to be great as well. I will post info for the next round after the last game is over with.
Any feedback is welcome!
Don Groves (2011-07-09 15:57:14)
Active rating lists
Agreed 100%. I'm not "unhappy" with FIGCS just because I think a few things could be better. No one is perfect the first time, not even Thibault ;-)
Scott Nichols (2011-07-24 21:05:29)
No more draws (over the board)
So simple, but effective. I think it would do wonders for chess spectators and put enormous pressure on the players to perform.
Don Groves (2011-10-19 01:36:17)
One more request
Perfect! Merci beau coup!
Thibault de Vassal (2011-12-16 21:53:37)
Holiday
I noticed that in case of an accident or illness, the player does/can not take days leave... :/ I did not find the perfect rule there yet...
Changing from 30 to 45 days of vacation was a significant step towards this direction.
Garvin Gray (2011-12-17 13:17:47)
Holiday
Thib: I noticed that in case of an accident or illness, the player does/can not take days leave... :/ I did not find the perfect rule there yet...
Garvin: I am not sure part of the above was a quote from someone else, but anyways.
I think if a person has timed out some gaems through accident/illness and was unable to put themselves on vacation, then if they send a copy of their medical certificate to you (Thib), then that should be acceptable to get games re-instated, or time re-instated if the amount of time lost was substantial and in your opinion could cause some difficulties.
Thibault de Vassal (2012-03-05 00:22:47)
FICGS poker ratings
I knew that you would answer this way... And you are right on several points.
I read the rules before to write this, we could envisage to change the rules on the general forfeits issue but it wouldn't probably be so easy to "fix" it. Maybe another discussion is needed.
About chess, this has been done the same way several times for different reasons, see Wolfgang Utesch, Wayne Lowrance... The only difference is that Nelson gave a bad reason (with the excuse that he may have done this to help to find the best rating rules, which was not necessary). But he could have said something else. What would be the perfect rule? The current rule was probably discussed in the forum previously. Nothing better was found, that's all.
Anyway, this site stands for applying rules... and IMO I have the choice between doing nothing in this special case and preventing Nelson to enter a waiting list during 2 months. Nelson was totally wrong to do this... (also because of Paul's previous message that proves that it is possible to climb the scale quite quickly, which IMO goes in the way of not changing the rating rules) but now that it's done, I think that the best thing for the site is to let him continue, at least we'll learn something from this and it will improve the rating rules.
Peter W. Anderson (2012-04-22 21:27:28)
Slow tournament entries
That wasn't really my point, but as you rasie it, it is a combination of two factors that prevent you from playing stronger players outside of the WCH - the banding rules and your perfornmance. That is just fact.
My point was that it is possible to get good rating results against weaker players and it is practically possible to move up a category in months not years. Equally you should not fear playing in the WCH on the same basis. Win your group and then you will get plenty of strong opposition.
I accept that if someone is finding it hard to break through the top of one category then they will not get practice against much stronger players outside of the WCH. That is a disadvantage of the current banding rules, and might prove frustrating to some people.
However, the alternative has disadvantages. If you remove the banding you will end up playing not only stronger players but much weaker ones too.
Perhaps the best answer is to offer a mixture of both types of tournaments.
Thibault de Vassal (2012-04-30 13:25:51)
Slow tournament entries
Hi Goran and thanks for participating into the discussion, that's always useful to have more voices here :)
There are already rules that allow a player to claim a victory before the end to shorten a game. There is no perfect solution to the famous "DMD" (Dead Man Defense) but IMO this remains a minor problem here.
Don's suggestion is interesting. There is already such a rule (max 50 games running)... I don't know what better criteria, not too complex, could be used instead. I really think that things must avoid to get more complicated at the end.
Anyway once more the real problem right now is the too low number of new members, and I'm working on.
Peter W. Anderson (2012-05-03 18:28:20)
Slow tournament entries
Of course there is no perfect time limit. What is too slow for one person will be too fast for some others. The current Rapid speed seems to get the balance about right - quick enough to allow a sensible length to the tournament but slow enough to allow some real thought even if you are working or have significant family commitments.
But perhaps the acid test is how many people are prepared to play at that speed. It does not seem to put people off playing in the current WCH, so whilst it will not be everyone's favourite, it does seem to have a broad enough appeal.
In terms of format, I think large groups (say 11+ people in each group) work well and I think better serve the idea of giving people a chance to play stronger players better than a Swiss, which is fine for a game or two and then flattens out.
In summary, I think Garvin's original suggestion works well.
Dmitri Mamrukov (2012-08-19 03:56:37)
This is Russia :(
Kasparov is a well-paid shill of the globalist power.
"Is Kasparov an anomaly or does he fit right in with this coven of far-right loonies? And who are some of the prominent members of the Center for Security Policy? Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, James Roche and Laura Ingraham. Oh, boy. The whole front office of the neocons cuckoos nest. Now tell me, dear reader, with friends like that; what should we really think about Kasparovs performance in Moscow? Is he really interested in "democracy promotion" as he claims or is their acting out a script that was prepared in Washington?"
http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/12/05/why-murdoch-s-journal-loves-kasparov/
Paul Campanella (2012-08-22 15:24:09)
Faster Refresh Time
Yes, customizable for all would be perfect! Thank you, Thibault. :)
Thibault de Vassal (2012-09-22 12:39:41)
Limit number of poker games
It is possible to calculate it but in brief, for 1 game of 1000 dealts, the perf will be opp.rating +350 or opp.rating -350 .. for 10 games of 100 deals with a score of 7/3 (which is quite unbalanced already for so few hands), the perf will be about opp.rating +170 or opp.rating -170
Garvin Gray (2012-09-23 08:11:54)
Limit number of poker games
I have tried reading this thread a few times, but seem to be missing a point or three, maybe even four.
1) Thib- Can you explain this a bit more in simpler fashion :)- It is possible to calculate it but in brief, for 1 game of 1000 dealts, the perf will be opp.rating +350 or opp.rating -350 .. for 10 games of 100 deals with a score of 7/3 (which is quite unbalanced already for so few hands), the perf will be about opp.rating +170 or opp.rating -170
2) When posters are referring to faster games, are they talking about reducing the time control, or having the blinds increase at a faster rate?
3) I would prefer best of 3, rather than best of 5. I am not sure if best of 5 on here really does produce more accurate ratings as I find it quite common that players will go all in early, or take risks early on, knowing even if they lose set 1, they are only behind 1-0 and there is a long way to go. Best of 3 would force players to play 'real poker' from earlier on.
This would produce more meaningful results.
The number of hands I play which involve just 1 and 2 chips pisses me off no end and deters me from playing more often.
Thibault de Vassal (2012-09-27 23:39:12)
Eros Riccio wins 6th and 7th chess WCH
By beating Alberto Gueci in the final match of the 6th chess championship & Ostap Hladky in the candidates final of the 7th chess championship, Eros Riccio will remain FICGS chess champion for at least 16 months! After this huge performance, Eros accepted to answer a few questions:
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- Hello Eros and congratulations again for winning your 3rd and 4th (respectively 6th and 7th cycles) FICGS chess championships in a row, beating Alerto Gueci in the 12 games match of the final match and Ostap Hladky in the 8 games match of the candidates final so that you meet yourself in the last round that thus will not happen for the 3rd time of the championship (first time was during the first cycle because there was no champion yet). All games of the two matches were drawn, but it does not say much on the intensity of the match as we all know your strategy since your win in your first final match vs. Edward Kotlyanskiy when you explained that your preferred a draw that guarantees the victory than a possible win where a mouse slip is still possible. Obviously your strategy works very well but one can add that you had an impressive number of running games at the rapid time control, so very much pressure... How did you live these last months of correspondence chess and these two matches?
Hi Thib! And thanks once again for the congratulations. These 28 games (let's not forget also the 8 games match against Gino Figlio) probably started in the worst moment for me, just a few months after the very important European Team Championship on ICCF had started. When I told my captain that I was starting another 28 games... he was very disappointed and worried, as he had repeated a lot of times to every player of our team not to start new tournaments and to focus only on this tournament. Also for this reason I had decided not to join the new Italian Championship and other tournaments and to withdraw from the Champions League, but unfortunately I had no control on when to start my FICGS games. So... my priority was for my ICCF games, and fortunately for me all I needed to do in my FICGS Matches to win was to make draws, and that's what I tried to do in most of my games as fast as possible, and to my surprise my opponents accepted to draw many games quite quickly, not trying to fight each game "to death" like I would have done if I would have been them. This of course only created quick boring games, but I didn't see the point in putting energy in trying to win games myself.... I think my opponents should have done that!
- We all know that you and Alberto are good friends from long time, did it influence your match in the 6th WCH in any way according to you?
Well, it's a good think knowing your opponent's habits... you can send your moves as soon as you know he goes to bed :-)
- Ostap Hladky is undoubtly one of the strongest players at FICGS, was this match (7th WCH candidates final) very different from the other one?
Hladky was the strongest player I had ever played on FICGS, he is very unpredictable, he simply plays unexpected moves that engines don't suggest, but if you show them those moves, they slowly realize those are very good moves. I risked to lose more than one game vs him, even as White. Luckily I still managed to draw, and in my opinion he also accepted some draws too quickly.
- With the last evolutions of chess engines, playing better & better chess, would you say that you now spend less time on each game or not at all?
I don't spend less time on my games, I still try to use (almost) all the time on my "clock". Trying to analyze as many variations as possible with the time you are given has little to do with engines improvement, who still are far from being able to always suggesting the best move by simply letting them run for hours on a static position. You need to analyze going "forward" in the position in order to be able to find the best moves.
- By the way, it is said sometimes (again) that correspondence chess will not survive the decade, what do you think? Do you envisage to change for Go or poker like many players? :)
Wins and Losses still happen even at the highest levels at the present time. I think that many years still have to pass before having all draws in high level tournaments. When that happens... and it will probably happen sooner or later as chess in my opinion is a draw with perfect play... then probably new rules will be introduced, maybe the board will be enlarged and even new pieces with new movements might be invented.
- You now are ICCF GM with an impressive 2624 rating, how are going your other correspondence chess competitions? Do you have any goal to reach yet?
All my ICCF tournaments are going good, and very soon I will be Italian Champion once again (just waiting my last opponent to resign a lost position). I still haven't reached the first place in the italian elo rating list though. That would be a goal I would surely have pleasure in reaching, and of course I would like to win the ICCF's World Championship at least once. After that I can retire :-)
- Thank you Eros, also for this great correspondence chess lesson.
Welcome Thib! A pleasure for me.
Mark Josse (2013-01-03 21:05:10)
winning on time
Hi All
I have won some games on time but they dont seem to show up in my future rating performance. Do you get rating points for time wins or do they become unrated games ?
Please Advise
Thanks
Mark
Thibault de Vassal (2013-01-16 13:42:09)
FICGS admin scam me
30 emails from february 2009 until now. I send it to you to your email.
As you can see, I have no reason to be afraid of anything :) You can defend your views, I do not ban you for that. But anyway you are of bad faith, why would you have kept only one email from 2010 and not the others? Anyway, the fact is that I mentioned those terms and conditions while I did not even have to do it because you were registered already.
I'm not angry about anyone, I'm just sorry for you that you do not even know how to use a website (reading & understanding terms is the first thing to do). Then I do not accept insults just like everyone, nothing more.
Finally, this site is perfectly legit and you are free to verify it.
Horatiu Adrian Petrescu (2013-01-16 14:08:00)
FICGS admin scam me
Of course you didn't hear about an security sistem that it can cach the player who use a software program.You are an superficial admin.
Thibault de Vassal (2013-01-16 15:39:18)
FICGS admin scam me
That's nonsense Horatiu, since this site authorize computer chess, it is perfectly honest to play with machines, and of course I don't have to implement anything to avoid that...
About your money, you bought Epoints... You cannot ask for money just like this, you have to win silver/gold games to claim money prizes according to terms & conditions. You accepted this when registering.
Continuation of the chat:
devassal thibault :
[Remove this comment] you just had to click the link...
(2013-01-16 14:18:23)
devassal thibault :
[Remove this comment] the conditions are in the link
(2013-01-16 14:18:04)
devassal thibault :
[Remove this comment] this is the right email! with correct date
(2013-01-16 14:17:39)
Thibault de Vassal (2013-03-14 21:29:45)
Freestyle tournament
Hmm, I did not think about what can happen in the 5 or 7 rounds options but anyway it's too late for this time... 5 rounds is really few, and 7 would need one day more. Really hard to find the "perfect" balance.
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.
Attila Ba (2013-05-15 17:41:52)
Deep analysis - can it be improved?
The idea behind deep analysis is to store engine evaluations of chess positions in a permanent way and build an analysis tree out of them. Deep analysis is an improvement over simple engine analysis in two ways:
1) Permanent storage of analysis results makes them reusable. You don't have to analyse the same position from scratch over and over again (which is a waste of valuable CPU resources) rather you can build and improve upon your earlier results.
2) The search is configurable. You have control over which positions are examined and in what way. This gives you freedom to tailor the analyis to your own needs not having to rely on the defaults provided by your engine.
This idea is presented in a revolutionary way in the Deep Rybka Aquarium GUI. However using this framework I have encountered some problems. The lesser one and non lethal one is that draws by repetition are not handled correctly. This is for a reason: moves in the transposition table should be valued in an absolute way (regardless of the line which lead to them) in order to preserve the integrity of the tree. Since Aquarium has no means to incorporate lines, it simply ignores them
My other problem is that though the search is configurable I'm not absolutely certain about what is going on. It is not entirely clear to me exactly which nodes are selected for analysis.
These problems made me to try to come up with a deep analyis program of my own. After several failed attempts finally I have on my hand a solution which is not only capable of performing deep analysis but overcomes some of the difficulties of Interactive Deep Analyis (IDeA) provided by the Aquarium framework.
First I introduced a mechanism that can handle repetitions. In order to achieve this I attribute not one but two scores to each move and re-define the concept of root position already present in IdeA. The first score which I call 'idea' score is the same as presented in IdeA. The second is what I call 'alpha' score is calculated by minimaxing the tree from the root position taking into account repetitions.
Consider the following game:
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Ng1 Nf8
The value of move 2. ... Nf8 at depth 18 by Houdini 3.0 is -19 centipawns. So the idea score of this move at depth 0 should be -19. Yet 2. ... Nf8 repeats the starting position. Therefore its alpha score with respect to a root equaling the starting position should be 0 centipawn which is exactly what my program calculates for it. ( For the sake of simplicity I don't require threefold repetition, since you would never allow your opponent to repeat a position if you have better ideas. )
So when my programs lists the tree it will present both scores for every move (which in most of the cases are equal of course - therefore this is mostly an aesthetic improvement rather than being a substantial one).
The improvement which I'm most interested in is that having full control of node selection now I have freedom to shape the tree search.
In order to keeps things simple I have only three parameters characterising the search:
1) engine depth
2) move distance (centipawns)
3) search depth
Engine depth means a fixed depth at which each move is analyzed. After long experimenting I have arrived at depth 18 as a good default for Houdini 3.0.
Move distance is a tolerance up to which moves are allowed into the analyis. For each position first the best move is determined. The search for alternative moves is continued until a move is found that has a valuation less than the valuation of the best move by 'move distance' centipawns (it is this 'distance' away from being the best move). The tree is then expanded for moves within 'move distance'.
To compensate for exponential growth of analyzed nodes I use a simple technique: at each ply after ply 1 the move distance is halved. So if the move distance at ply 0 and ply 1 is 20 centipawns, it will be 10 centipawns for ply 2, 5 centipawns for ply 3 and so on. This means that at greater depth less and less moves are allowed per position. So the analysis with greater depth slowly evolves into 'autoplay' rather than 'tree search'.
The other method to reduce exponential growth is the well known beta cut provided by alphabeta search. In order that all candidate moves in the root position and all candidate responses to them get proper values, I only allow beta cuts with ply 2 and deeper.
Once an alphabeta search of certain depth is carried out, the whole tree is mimimaxed out for the root. Now the initial evaluations of the root moves may change. This may make moves which initially fall out of the 'move distance' to become viable. So the search has to be repeated for those moves as well. This has to be done at every ply level.
My iterative search at a certain depth only ends when no new nodes are added by the alphabeta search (the tree is 'settled' for this depth). Only then the program is allowed to deepen the search (this I call 'refined' search).
With engine depth of 18 and move distance of 10 centipawns an average position can be analyzed to depth 10 within a matter of hours. This means a couple of hundred (possibly a couple of thousand) positions are analyzed to depth 18. Depth 10 deep analyis means an ultimate depth of 28 if you take into account that the engine depth is 18.
Whether this method has added ELO value over simple engine search is yet to be tested.
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.
Robert Knighton (2013-06-08 23:57:02)
Vacation: change for 3 days minimum?
I'm not creating a problem. I'm agreeing with a point of view already expressed by others on this forum and trying to clarify that point of view as I understand it.
Also, unless we are discussing the rules of mathematics for example, then pretty much all rules that exist are someone's opinion of how things should be right?
So what I understand you to be saying is that you want to be able to use vacation time to buy more time for your games and you believe this is acceptable behavior even if it gives you an advantage over other players who use their vacation time to go on vacation. It isn't called "performance boost time" or "buy a way out of a difficult position time"; it's called vacation time.
I think the topic here was started because there are a lot of people who disagree with you and believe vacation time is not intended to be used to buy an advantage against your more challenging opponents.
Garvin Gray (2013-09-20 09:25:56)
Poker for e-points?
I see this debate/topic quite often. In most countries the only way poker can be played for currency is if it is in tournament style.
Just like chess, tennis anything. As long as the prizes at the end go to the best performers.
Peter W. Anderson (2014-04-10 11:14:59)
Alvin Alcala in Freestyle Battle 2014
Yes, excellent performance by Alvin.
Anson Williams is interesting. I can't find him on any correspondence sites. I believe he is English but I cannot find any record of an English Chess Federation or FIDE rating for him. The only type of chess he seems to play is freestyle and he seems to do very well at it. He must have a lot of natural talent because there are some strong OTB and correspondence players in that tournament.
Good luck Alvin for the last round :)
Thibault de Vassal (2014-04-23 12:27:04)
Standard time control abusers
There have been many discussions here that concluded that human factor (particularly decisions by me) should be reduced to minimum... David, I'm perfectly aware of this case, this is a permanent test for FICGS rules. But reasons for a ban here would be kind of fuzzy and I think we must avoid that.
Thibault de Vassal (2014-10-02 23:01:55)
Eros Riccio makes a record at ICCF
GM Eros Riccio has now played 408 rated games at ICCF, since 2001. This is the highest number for the top 25 (at least) and this is a huge performance due to his rating and numerous games at other servers (including 212 games at FICGS). Just amazing!
https://www.iccf.com/RatingList.aspx
Thibault de Vassal (2015-12-13 21:37:03)
TER rating calculation
Hello Herbert.
TER is taken in account, so your performance will be 2400. Obviously, your rating may decrease by 1 point or so...
Thibault de Vassal (2015-07-05 14:49:03)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules
Also, Arno Nickel suggests:
"Therefore, I specifically suggest enhancing the score system to include a point for a performance with an added value as compared to a regular draw:
a) stalemating the opponent;
b) being a piece up against the naked king."
What about King vs King + 2 Knights?
I'm not sure if this b) point is really "natural" (and clear enough).
Peter W. Anderson (2015-07-09 09:35:12)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules
I have avoided commenting further on this idea because I wanted to see what other people had to say. But now I will reply to the points made.
Giving a bonus for stalemate is almost like playing for stalemating your opponent, which is not the aim of the game and this would change the game deeply.
As I said I am against a points bonus, but am in favour of using stalemates for tie breaks. The real question is would someone start a game aiming for stalemate as opposed to start the game trying to win? I am not sure how you would do that either way you have to try to build up an advantage and if it gets big enough it will lead to mate and if it is not quite big enough it might lead to stalemate. Anyone who gets the choice between a win and stalemate will presumably always take the win.
The one way I think this will really affect the game is by discouraging some very deeply analysed defences that are known to drawn or close to drawn but will almost certainly lead to stalemate. Personally I think this is a good thing, but I accept that the opposite view could be taken :)
I think you overlooking a little that a good defense leading to stalemate means showing great skill. Its not all about luck.
Reaching stalemate as the defending side can be very simple (e.g. king and pawn vs king) or can indeed show great skill. It is almost never down to luck. In the case where great skill is shown that skill earns you half a point instead of no points. Nonetheless, the very fact that you needed great skill to save the game shows how close you came to losing, so I see no reason not to use this as a tiebreak rule.
And stalemating gamepoints definitely will favour stupid engine playing and not human thinking with endgame skill.
Like Pablo, I think quite the opposite is true. In fact one of my motivations for suggesting the change was to increase the human element in the game.
According to me, stalemating an opponent (or having King + Bishop vs. King) reflects who played better ONLY IF rules say it before the game. In some cases, it actually reflects a better play, but in some others, it only shows that the stalemated player (or naked king) found a clever way to draw the game by giving the opponent the illusion of an advantage. Isn't it quite subjective after all?
I have some sympathy for this viewpoint. If we could play perfect chess and at the start of the game someone decided to take the draw by allowing themselves to be stalemated then that would be a very good example supporting that view. However, I think the reality is different. In most cases when someone gets stalemated (or would be stalemated if the game was played through to its conclusion) it is because they have got a worse position and have little choice if they want to save the game.
If the defending side could achieve a draw by stalemate or by other means, then under todays rules they could choose either way. Under my proposed rules they might be wise to choose the other method, unless of course they were confident of achieving more wins in the match.
Maybe the games become more interesting if instead give small extra score for win with black!? Encourage black to play for a better score, just as UEFA do in football.
This might be helpful for tournaments but I dont think it helps at all for match play. In reality, if you can win just one game in a match you will most likely win the match. Therefore you dont need a bonus to play for a win with black in a match situation.
However, I think this point indirectly touches on an issue with match play and how hard people try to win, and I do think the stalemate tiebreak rules would help a little with this.
The problem as it stands is that the higher rated player (or the champion in the case of the tile match) knows that if all games are drawn he will win the match. The higher rated player (or champion) can therefore take a low risk approach to the match, with both black and white (actually I think the low risk approach with white is just as much a problem).
If the higher rated player (or champion) was not certain that all draws would win them the match then they would probably try harder to win. This would give a better chance of decisive games in matches.
One way of a achieving this would be through a toss of a coin if the match is tied with all draws. Personally I would not find this satisfactory.
Whilst the likelihood of stalemate is quite low, it will nonetheless be there, so this rule might encourage the higher rated player or champion to try harder for a win.
I will speak from personal experience on this matter. In most of my recent matches I have been the higher rated player. I still play some relatively risky defences as black (e.g. the modern against 1.e4) and I always try to win with white. However, I have to be honest, if I am the higher rated player, I do not always play the very sharpest lines as white and I do not often play some of my riskier defences to 1.d4. If the stalemate tiebreak rule was in place, I would be taking more chances with both white and black.
So whilst I accept that it is not perfect, I still think the stalemate tie-break rule is a good idea. However, as nobody else has spoken out in favour of it I accept that it is very unlikely to be implemented and I wont write any more on this matter unless someone asks me a direct question. It is time to concentrate on my matches under the existing rules! :)
Thibault de Vassal (2015-07-11 02:18:11)
E. Riccio on his win in the 10th CC WCH
Once again, Eros kindly answered a few questions after his win in the 10th FICGS correspondence chess championship. His answer on tie break rules meets the discussion in this thread:
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=forum_read&id=11773
____________________________
- Hello Eros and congrats again for this new win in the FICGS correspondence chess championship! This time, your opponent was Peter W. Anderson and you're playing him once again in the next final match. Actually, all games finished in less than 3 months, which looks like superfast, how did it happen?
Hello once again Thibault! Yes, the match with Anderson was very quick. The reasons are that he moves very fast, and like me, I don't seem to remember that he took any day of leave.
Also, our games were not played until the very end; many draws were agreed with many pieces on the board, as soon as we thought that none of us had winning chances.
- For many players, it is quite impossible to beat you in such a 12 games match (probably because of the tie rule). After all these won matches do you start to think that the advantage is too big?
It's a fact that a very high percentage of correspondence games played at the top level ends up in a draw... (and that percentage is even higher in my case, as my strategy is to avoid taking risks) so yes, talking against my interests, I think that something in the rules should be changed.
- By the way, your opponent suggested an interesting tie rule in the forum ( Chess, Poker & Go forum - Topic 11773 ), in the context of more general new ideas for correspondence chess rules (e.g. article by GM Arno Nickel - Correspondence Chess the draw problem ) in order to increase the interest of the game. Do you have any opinion on all this?
The idea GM Nickel launched could be interesting, even if before we can say for sure if it can be applied in serious tournaments, it needs to be tested.
If I understood correctly, having a piece more in a draw endgame, after the game is over, a little plus on the score would be given to the player who had the small advantage.
I always thought like: How unfair! That player had King and two Knights against a lone King of his opponent... still he only got a half point anyway! Or even worse, in theory, one player could have this position: King in e1, Bishop in h1 and 6 Pawns from h2 to h7. (Black King in h8) Counting the value of pieces that would be a a +9 advantage, like a Queen more, but still it would be a draw. Another crazy scenario, more common, are those blocked positions were 16 pawns block the center (or more simply any fortress position) and not rarely it happens that a color has a huge material advantage but can't break through in any way. In this last case the player with material disadvantage could have found a genial idea to reach that blocked position, should his opponent with extra pieces still be given an advantage after the game?
Another important consideration is that this rule could discourage attacking players to play gambits or make sacrifices, as if the attack fails, their efforts to try to win would be punished! This last case would even increase the draw rate.
Probably Nickel didn't talk about giving a plus after games finished with advantage but still many pieces on board, anyway those positions (except the 16 Pawns one) could very well be played on until only one piece would be left.
After these examples we can see that there are so many different ways that a position with material advantage can be reached... but it's not always fair that the player with the advantage should be given a plus after the game. As a paradox, an advantage should be given to the opponent if he smartly managed to sacrifice one or more pieces in order to reach a draw endgame which he would have lost if he didn't give away material.
- Of course, the level of chess programs is for much in it. Do you feel that high level correspondence chess and centaur chess evolved much this year, or did it reach a kind of peak?
The level of correspondence chess increases in a parallel way as computers, databases and chess programs improve. Slowly everything keeps improving. Of course, due to the more thinking time, correspondence chess will always have a higher draw percentage than blitz games played by computers.
- Finally, what can you tell us about your correspondence chess path this year, particularly at ICCF where you're currently ranked #13?
On ICCF I am fighting with the Italian Team (I am playing in second board behind the World Champion Finocchiaro) in the 9th European Team Championship.
---> https://www.iccf.com/event?id=44123
Pablo Schmid (2015-07-12 02:09:18)
Wch Match Tie Break Rules
Here is most examples of my ficgs practice (corr and Advanced chess). This represent a low percentage of my games. These games are food for thought from my own assisted experience against that rule that I call "+1 decisive advantage chess". I believe you could already burn a lot of chapters in ending's book. Most of my games show balanced games until the end, sometime, the "punished guy" could have played another drawing defense, sometimes not, unfairly to me. The game would be more safe, with less sacrifices of piece vs 2 or 3 pawns and things like that because of fearing an ending with king vs king + piece or king vs king + pawn even if the sacrifice was sound and well played. Game 22895 and 84758 I would probably have been punished by the rule in the ending of game 22895 (and my opponent in the other game), and that type of ending in general (piece + pawn up vs piece when the king cannot block the pawn). Game 37122 Shame on me, my advantage in that ending was not sufficient to force my opponent to sacrifice his bishop for my last pawn. This is why I only deserve 0,5!
Game 37920 That king of pawns vs piece + pawn would become lost for the player without the piece, what a way of punish some balanced sacrifices for pawns!
Game 54907 and 20704 That kind of opposite bishop ending would be "lost" for the guy pawnless even if the transition into an inferior but drawn ending was the intention of the "inferior guy".
Game 74870 The ending is perfectly balanced but my opponent couldn't finish the game the way he did because of the rule.
Game 74875 I would have been half-losing in the pawn ending after a nice defense in an interesting unbalanced material line.
Game 74880 the ending knight + h pawn would have been "half losing" for me even if we can't say that I was clearly worse overall.
Game 76734 and 76764 Technichally this game is not directly concerned by the rule but it is very close. I was on the verge of defeat but I have managed to defend stubornely. If he have played well to get a winning position and then the win disapear because of bad play but still finish with a draw, he would get a bonus because he played better overall? The way I managed to defend would not be rewarded?
Game 77809 In this game the whole deep opening line would probably be "half losing" for Black in the ending because of the new rule.
Game 80954 Suddenly it seems that I would have been punished for my defense in the final position.
Game 85106 I did not play specially badly but... I would have been punished for my way of finishing the game!
Garvin Gray (2015-12-14 10:41:45)
TER rating calculation
Herbert, remember, rating is also only calculated at the end of two months based on all the games you have finished in that two month period and is a performance rating of those games.
In fact, from looking at the example given from just this one game, if it was based on just this one game only and using only the ratings at the time of the game, then you would have a rating of 2420 and your opponent would have a rating of 2400, then your rating difference would be larger than the TER of 2400, so in fact by drawing the game, you would lose more than 1 point.
So the TER calculation has helped you, rather than hindered you, in THIS CASE.
Ilmars Cirulis (2016-01-20 20:35:12)
(Random idea)
More like a program that plays given endgame perfectly for any board size.
Chess Programming wiki had something about it;.
George Jempty (2016-09-02 10:21:48)
Player of the Year
I've been thinking it would be interesting to have nominations for a "Player of the Year" that FICGS members could then vote on. Qualifications could be listed in a manner similar to the following:
1) 15 wins, 13 draws and 0 losses since Oct 2015
2) Rating increase of nearly 250 points (1904-2152) during same time period
3) As 1904 player finished tied for second with score of 4/6 in tournament where average rating was 2041
4) Won a standard B tournament with score of 5.5/6 and a performance rating of 2332
5) Guaranteed tie for first place in a standard A tournament (currently tied for first and is playing in the one remaining game in the tourney against someone one point behind)
6) Currently leading stage 1 group of 2016 World Championship with score of 5/5
7) Finished tied for first in Rapid M tournament for which it was necessary to buy a ticket because TER of 2077 being below normal minimum of 2100
Yes I'm bragging on myself more than a little bit, but still I think that the listed qualifications are pretty objective
George Jempty (2016-09-19 22:22:05)
Missing chat
I think the first thing that needs to be fixed from a technical perspective is that, when trying to cancel a deletion, it still performs the deletion of the comment. I'm a web developer and know that this should be a pretty easy fix. Otherwise I think the suggestions of somebody who themselves were abusive in chat should be taken with a grain of salt.
Thibault de Vassal (2017-01-18 03:32:56)
GM Eros Riccio 12th WCH & chess
Finally, here is a new interview with FICGS correspondence chess champion GM Eros Riccio, who gives us his (surprising?) impressions on his latest win in the championship, his current match and correspondence chess nowadays... A good matter to think about!
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=tournament&tournament=FICGS__CHESS__WORLD_CHAMPIONSHIP__000012
____________
- Hi again Eros... Once more, congratulations for winning this final match in the 12th FICGS correspondence chess championship. This time, it seems that things went quite differently than in your previous matches (you scored 9 out of 12, which is a huge performance at this level), could you tell us what happened in these games?
--> Hi, yes, finally we have seen some wins after a very long series of draws. I was surprised too, I didn't risk to lose any game and I could even win one as Black... What to say, my opponent was simply not as challenging as the previous ones.
- It's a long time since you won the previous match, would you like to tell us about your other results this year, particularly at ICCF where you now rank #9 with an outstanding 2643 rating?
--> My latest final on FICGS were my only games of 2016. On ICCF I have taken some rest, the too high draw rate didn't incentive me to start new tournaments, also because drawing all games with a high rating means losing points.
- In the next final match (13th cycle), you play Peter W. Anderson for the 3rd time... so you probably know each other's opening book quite well. What do you expect for in this match?
--> Anderson is a very tough opponent, it's not a coincidence that he reached the final for the third time. I tried to win at least one game as White, but he's incredibly hard to beat. I experimented with almost anything possible against his modern defence, but I could never find a single weakness in his repertoire. I will see what to invent this time against his terrific 1...g6.
- As you probably know, another Go champion (Lee Sedol) lost a 5-games match to AlphaGo this year, while chess engines (now Stockfish 8, Houdini 5 Komodo 10...) slowly but surely continue to improve... Still waiting for the quantum computers. How do you feel things should go in the next years? Did your way of playing advanced chess or correspondence chess change these last years?
--> I have said a lot already about the very high draw rate of the recent years... I am surprised that some changes haven't been done already, like switching to chess 960, even modifying some chess rules, or at least giving 1,5 points for one win. Otherwise a lot of players will lose interest in seeing a series of all draws in the tournaments they play. I am one of those players who lost interest in correspondence chess, and even in blitz chess, engine vs engine, as we can see the extremely high draw rate situation there too.
- Finally, what can we wish for you for the next year? :)
--> Wish me to lose the match with Anderson :-) even I got bored of seeing myself there over and over in the final! That will bring some new air and that way I can take some total rest in corr. chess.
- Many thanks for your time, have a great match!
--> Welcome, and thanks.
Roger Llull (2017-01-20 21:29:00)
GM Eros Riccio 12th WCH & chess
Pablo, changes to the WCH wouldn't make a difference for many years because the rules of each running event can't be changed now without sacrificing site credibility.
But I don't think this is about fixing the WCH final. This is about getting rid of the big frustration that represents the almost total impossibility of winning at the top level.
You can't mix thematic and classic CC Elos for the same reason you can't mix the Elo of classic time controls and the Elo of bullet time controls.
Thibault has an opportunity to bring new life to correspondence chess, but we need to see things from a different perspective. Let's make the most of what's already in place, -like Epoints- and introduce ways to add and influence new events even before they start. Because connecting with others and participating in more ways would bring new interest and benefit a lot more people than tring to fix what's already perfect -sort of- but stale.
Thibault de Vassal (2017-08-06 17:36:46)
When chess is just beauty
I just lost my chess master.
François Melison was a great friend to me, and a very special chess player as all who played him over the board know.
Actually he was the only one I never saw playing to win, even during a rated tournament (his performances were always 200 or 300 points below his level, often losing on time in winning positions - even when having the time to win, even against fide masters).
It seems to me that his deep motivation was to understand, to touch the beauty and nature of the game... that changed my vision of chess but not only, most probably, even if I was never close to approach his talent and vision of the board. He played correspondence chess when real mail was used, when it was a very special thing compared to this strange time dominated by computers. He was able to play blindfold of course, and some simultaneous games are great memories for a few of his chess friends.
He just played for the beauty of chess, or maybe he played for the beauty only.
He was 54 only. I'll miss him.
Condolences from all his friends at ESIGETEL go to his family.
Thibault de Vassal (2017-08-28 21:56:28)
Kasparovs comeback in chess
A summary of the former world champion's performance in St Louis tournament with Caruana, Anand, Navara, Aronian, Karjakin, Dominguez Perez, Nakamura, Le & a few others... and Garry Kasparov of course.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/kasparov-in-st-louis-a-closer-look
Well, it was just blitz & rapid but maybe a first step before a true comeback? Anyway, he did better than Viswanathan Anand (that's not meaningless) and a few games are worth a glance in my opinion.
Thibault de Vassal (2017-12-07 16:44:05)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish
It looks like there's no more month without news from Google Deepmind... This time again, this is quite stunning!
AlphaZero would have been able to beat (crush) the most recent version of Stockfish, that is also the world champion program and of course the free engine well known by correspondence chess players.
But most important is that actually AlphaZero would have outperformed Stockfish after only 4 hours of training (if I understood well), while it took 8 hours to outperform AlphaGo Lee and only 120 minutes to outperform Elmo at Shogi! However it seems much much harder for the neural program to improve at chess after this stunningly fast auto-learning.
100 games played (25 wins & 25 draws with white! 3 wins with black... no loss, either with white or black, which is an incredible performance)
All details available (must read) here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf
http://www.sciencealert.com/it-took-4-hours-google-s-ai-world-s-best-chess-player-deepmind-alphazero
A few games played by AlphaZero against Stockfish are included in the arxiv article.
Garvin Gray (2017-12-23 00:53:39)
Monte Carlo Analysis
In the Fritz 16 gui, you choose Monte Carlo Analysis from the header options, just like you would if you were choosing infinite analysis or deep position analysis and the many other types of game styles.
Your main engine must be Fritz 16, which seems to be a pain. This is one of my questions about this analysis style. Will explain more below.
Then after choosing Monte Carlo Analysis, Fritz gui will change over to MCA and a new screen will appear with options:
Search depth: default is 5. The first is the search depth, with a default of "5". This controls how far ahead (in half-moves, or "plies") the engine will look before making a move. For example, if you leave this at "5", the engine will look 2.5 moves ahead before making a move. Remember, the engine is going to be playing a lot of games against itself and storing the moves in the form of a tree, so the search depth is important. You must realize, however, that there's something of a tradeoff here; the higher you set the search depth, the more time the engine will need to make each move -- so you're trading time for depth. On the other hand, setting a lower search depth means that many more games will be played in a given amount of time, but that the moves themselves are likely to be more superficial.
Keep in mind, too, that you should use only odd numbers for the search depth, because chess engines tend to develop a tactical "blind spot" when made to analyze at even ply depths. Rule of thumb: odd numbers good, even numbers bad.
The second setting is the "width" of the tree. This is similar in some ways to the "Branching factor" in Deep Position Analysis and is another "space for time" tradeoff. If you create a "Narrow" tree, you won't see many alternative moves displayed in your game tree but the overall process of playing games and generating the tree will be faster. "Broad" trees show more alternatives but take longer to generate (it requires more processor time and thus slows down the chess engine).
-------------------------------------
So in all from my reading- what I can seem to deduce is- MCA plays many games against itself starting from the set position. The longer you leave the analysis, the more 'reliable' the results.
The question, or issue I am having at the moment for testing is, in the Fritz gui, I am having to use Fritz 16 as the main engine but am not seeing the analysis change to any other engines, so am wondering how long before it does, or will it only analysis the position in Fritz 16?
Considering at the start when you were loading your setting, you were given the option of four engines, this seems confusing to me.
So I thought I would ask if someone else had more experience with MCA and how it works?
Also, what about Deep position analysis? We could start a thread about that one too.
Garvin Gray (2018-02-26 02:50:10)
Norm qualification criteria, incorrect?
ICCF is the FIDE way. As all events are round robin, each player is told the score they need to achieve to get a Norm before the event begins.
Almost any item can be easily understandable if kept simple, but does this mean it is the best system if it does not produce the most accurate results for player performances?
For Comparison with ICCF: Here you have the point total for all players to get a norm in norm tournaments.
At ICCF: In the Points table, they have columns which show what score each player needs to reach to get that particular norm.
So that information is included in the cross table.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-03-14 23:12:38)
A few questions to Nelson Bernal Varela
Nelson Bernal Varela is an early FICGS correspondence chess player, now rated 2277 but also rated 2359 at ICCF (Correspondence Chess Master - CCM).
Last but not least, and as all poker holdem players here probably noticed, he is also our ranked #1 for years, who just reached an outstanding poker rating of 2382, while number two is now rated "only" 2212. A good occasion to ask him a few questions, that he kindly accepted to answer.
-----------------------
- Hello Nelson! You are the 2nd most active player at FICGS for years now. Everyone here probably noticed your incredible results in poker tournaments. "Correspondence poker holdem" was probably a strange idea as it is very unusual and very different from "Internet poker". What's your opinion on this and on the presence of a card game (played without money) at FICGS?
NBV: There are more important things than money and one of those is HONOR; It is honorable to be a chess master, international master, grandmaster, world chess champion at ICCF and at FICGS and to be number one in the ranking. It is honorable to be a FICGS world champion at Go and to be first in the ranking, it is honorable to be poker world champion at FICGS poker and in my case, it is an honor to be number one at poker here at FICGS during the last years, understanding that our general level of play has improved remarkably. None of these activities produces money, but to achieve any of the mentioned titles, it is necessary to have extraordinary abilities.
When I was about 18 years old, I had the opportunity to meet a person with immense material wealth, we spent whole evenings playing chess and then I told him my perceptions about each movement of the game. He thanked me for my chess explanations and paid me with good money. That wealthy man in his turn told me about life and recommended that I should always be proud of the gifts I had, since he knew, with all the money he had and being able to hire the best grandmasters in the world, that it could hardly come at the level of chess master. That person told me that the intellect can be turned into money whenever you want.
Now, by playing poker without money at FICGS, I understood that it was my extraordinary and wonderful opportunity to study-learn-perfect and test my poker theories without costing me a single dollar. In FICGS there is no money, but thanks to the knowledge I gained playing poker in FICGS, today I can go after the money in online poker rooms and probably in OTB poker tournaments. I am studying the possibility of becoming a professional poker player.
- The understanding of your opponent's behaviour is usually quite important at Poker. Do you manage to establish some profiles while playing so many simultaneous hands & games? Did you build any method?
NBV: Today I am sure that the most important thing to raise, and keep raising my level in poker, has been to build a psychological profile of mine, to get to know Nelson Bernal Varela in depth and above all to understand me, accept me, love me and be work every day eliminating my technical errors, strategic, psychological that make me play badly. I am aware that in poker I can play perfectly and still lose, what I can not forgive me is playing badly, which is why I work hard correcting my wrong decisions.
Of course, there is a space in my brain where I have built a psychological profile of each contender, that profile I have been able to elaborate with all the information that is provided to me in each hand we play. The way each of us plays, gives reliable information about our personality.
About my method I can write the following: A few years ago, I created a table in excel, where I had all the games with each contender, I identified them with the FICGS numeration and each movement in each hand (preflop, flop, turn, river ) it I was writing and studying; I started to add technical-psychological variables that seemed important to me, resulting in 20 variables that I had to qualify in each movement. With the passage of time and my effort, I no longer needed the excel table and I did not use it again (it was exhausting and time consuming) because I was assimilating things faster and with greater depth. Today I can say that I evaluate these 20 variables in a natural way, as if I was breathing and that when I am at a poker table, online or real, after a few minutes I get the psychological profile of the table and each of my opponents. In the pocket of my shirt I keep a small paper with the list of variables, periodically reread it and I wonder if I should modify, remove or add something.
- You won 1007 poker games, and lost only 380, with a ratio usually going from 57% to 80% according to your best opponents. Undoubtly you know the mathematics hidden behind poker but that may not explain everything. How did you learn to play?
NBV: Mathematics is an ingredient in poker, in the same way that my psychological aspects and of my opponents (I recommend reading-studying about four times the book “The Poker mindset” of Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger), it is vital to understand the Law of Large Numbers. Next I make a list of topics that I consider important to raise the level of poker; compete with EV+ cards, you have to know the small ball theory of Negreanu (but not apply it, hahaha) you have to always look at the texture of the board, you have to evaluate your reality and your future, also that of your opponents (act and power), the position to talk is important, the stack, the personality of the table, know who has the panic button on. All these and other variables must be evaluated in the few seconds they have to make a move and the only important thing is to make the right decision according to the circumstances. There is a good list of poker books to read... it is mandatory to have read about 15 poker books.
- As for me, I may be wrong but I can't imagine that you reached such a rating without special techniques & maybe by optimizing it in some ways... Of course, "rating management" is not a problem, and it is only one thing with a limited impact, but maybe you have some other secrets? What about this "+1" technique that I noticed in many of our games, if this is not a secret? :)
NBV: In these years I have used different techniques that I had to read, study, learn, repeat, modify, invent and sometimes eliminate. Poker is a sport that seems easy, with time one manages to understand that it has an amazing complexity, today I consider poker to be as complex as chess and I study them in a "similar" way. As an example, I have tried to create "openings in poker"; based only on probabilities I invented something that I called mirror theory and another "opening" that I called opposite outs. I am fascinated by mathematics and from the mathematical perspective they are perfect "theories-openings", but I have lost tournaments and a lot of money for applying such theories in mistaken emotional moments. In poker it is important to never lose sight of the Law of Large Numbers and be aware that this LAW likes to make fun of each one of us... I am working on giving an emotional nuance to my theories "mirror" and "opposite outs". There are moments when perfect mathematics becomes an unforgivable psychological error...
For the last few months I have modified my way of playing and my results have improved; Today it must be much more difficult to win a game me, thanks to small and imperceptible adjustments that of course only I know, because I have followed my mistakes-successes-evolution in the game over several years.
- Isn't it too frustrating for you to play heads up only (here at least) ? Of course it is a way to improve this important technical case but we know that many complexities come with 3 to 8 players on the table, which is the most common case in professional poker tournaments.
NBV: Currently I spend little time every day playing heads-up in FICGS, thanks to the fact that I have the profile of each contender. The 4-5 hours that I study poker daily, include practice in micro limits in cash tables of 6 players and tournaments in tables of 8-9 players. I think I'm covering the whole range of possibilities, experiencing game situations between 1 and 8 contenders.
- What do you think about computer analysis in poker? Do you think it could make a difference here just like the way we play advanced chess?
NBV: I think the algorithms are ready to be written in machine language and the question is where are those algorithms? Well, in the brains of the best players in the world and in their games compiled in huge databases. But programming language can be accelerated with artificial intelligence brains, making A.I. studying databases of the best professionals, playing with itself millions of games and building an invincible TACTIC-STRATEGIC SYSTEM, similar to chess software and GO... I think preflop and flop play would be very similar between humans and artificial intelligence, but on the turn and on the river artificial intelligence would take considerable advantage, but in the short time the level of human poker would rise because artificial intelligence would teach us to play poker, this event that would diminish the profits of the professionals. It will always be said in favor of poker that because it is an incomplete game of information, to make computer algorithms are quite complicated, but despite that, I am sure that artificial intelligence will far surpass the best human poker player. It is possible that an artificial intelligence that plays a perfect poker already exists, but unlike GO and chess, poker does produce a lot of money. Due to the money factor, in today's world, it is very difficult that there is a Prometheus willing to steal fire from the gods and give it to mankind...
- How would you describe your relation to games in general?
NBV: I can summarize it in one of the first chess books I had the fortune to read, by the great Danish master Bent Larsen, "I play to win"
- When did you start to play chess & poker? Do you play other games?
NBV: My first contact with chess was at the age of nine, it was love at first sight and until death separates us; I must confess that for some years we have been separated, due to my stupidity and my erroneous decisions. I have always been self-taught in any subject, my method is to buy about 10 to 15 books of the subject that interests me and I read them thoroughly, sometimes 3 or 4 times; already with that information in my head and thanks to the constant practice, I build MY SYSTEM (Nimzowitch) according to my personality, my dreams, my desires, my anguish, my fears... I was youth champion of Bogotá, for 4 years , my OTB level was strong, but I had to abandon chess because I had to work and survive; Being an athlete in Colombia is an absolutely difficult thing, but being a chess player is extremely complicated since there is no support or respect from society and you can not live by chess, because it does not produce money.
I met poker in 2009 in FICGS, at that time I was in a terrible emotional situation, trying to get away from a relationship with a woman that I should never approach and where I wasted valuable time and energy. In that context, looking for my thoughts to be occupied, I ended up playing the FICGS C-24 poker tournament and tied the first place with three more players; I kept playing, without understanding what was happening with the cards and obviously, losing, until in 2010 I won the FICGS D-21 tournament with perfect score, 6 out of 6. I had already bought-read my first beginner book: Poker for Dummies of Harroch and Krieger, but my poker was coarse, wild, street, intuitive, amateur, without dedication or study. In the background of this paragraph, the affection and gratitude that I have for FICGS is condensed, a place where I have been able to build-practice-study-test MY SYSTEM in poker.
I play Backgammon, I do not care that it may sound pretentious-petulant, but I have a very strong level and I have not read my first book yet. Hahaha. Any year I register as a participant in the world championship and I will cause disgust to more than one professional. Hahaha. Unlike chess and poker, backgammon does not cause me stress, on the contrary, I feel a lot of joy and pleasure when I play backgammon. I feel something similar with math, reading and music. It's true and I'm proud, I've always been a NERD.
- We all know how difficult it is to reach a number 1 rank but it is even more difficult to keep it during a long time. What is your motivation? Do you have more goals to achieve (chess & other games included) ?
NBV: My motivation in any activity I undertake in my life is to do it with absolute passion (passion is everything you would do to get a breath of air, in the second before dying by drowning or suffocation).
I have several goals to accomplish before December 2021; In the ICCF correspondence chess I must reach the 2400 elo and get the titles of International Master, SIM and Grand Master, also perform outstanding performances in world championships. In FICGS Chess I must complete my Master and International Master titles and overcome the 2450 elo, also snatch the title from our eternal champion Eros Riccio. You're warned Eros, hahaha. On the LSS site where I also play, www.chess-server.net I want to be a world champion.
In POKER I find myself playing micro limits bets in several online sites; in June 2018 I hope I have built some bankroll. In July of 2018 I must be evaluating my poker to know if my immediate goal is to become a professional poker player, that would completely change my chess goals and I would have to dedicate myself to OTB poker. At the moment I study and practice poker every day, about 4-5 hours a day. At this moment my poker is full of errors that I am eliminating one by one. MY SYSTEM needs to win and raise money in the micro limits, so that it can succeed in professional poker.
In chess OTB I should become a great master, but that topic should be left as a goal for after 2021. I could achieve the record of being the oldest human in getting the title of Grand Master OTB. Hahaha.
In backgammon I would like to play some important tournaments in USA and Europe and maybe to be OTB world champion, but at the moment I do not have clarity on how to do it. I must mature that idea.
I hope they invent immortality before I die and that I have enough money to buy it, because time is what I need to realize all these and other dreams...
- Finally, playing so many games on several websites (obviously with serious ambitions in each game & place) may look quite inhuman and exhausting, does your body or brain say "stop" sometimes? Do you train by melting sports and brain games just like Kasparov did in the past?
NBV: It's true, it takes willpower and a lot of resistance to sustain the pace that I carry. To take care of my body, I am doing daily exercise for 60 to 90 minutes, including routines of strength, elasticity, speed and endurance. I also practice table tennis to preserve the agility of my body. I'm also divorced and I do not have a girlfriend... Hahaha
- By curiosity, do you consider playing Go in the future, even after... 2021? (which would surely be an enormous charge more, but the game is really interesting)
I have a kind of commitment with the best Colombian GO player, exchange of classes, he makes me a competitive player of GO and I turn him into a competitive player of backgammon. But the truth is that I do not have time... it could be after 2021...
- Do you confirm that you are not (entirely or partly) AlphaZero or any kind of A.I. (yet) ? :-)
NBV: Hahaha, of course I would like to be a real centaur, human with machine power, I do not care what physical form I should adopt. I offer myself publicly as a guinea pig in projects of technological singularity. Hahaha
- Many thanks for your detailed and instructive (impressive as well) answers! My best wishes of luck in all your games and future tournaments.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-09-24 00:15:43)
Some questions to H. Kruse, WCH finalist
After that the last FICGS chess WCH final match finished, the choice was made again to ask a few questions to Eros Riccio's challenger: Herbert Kruse, for the 2nd time. He kindly accepted to answer it so let's learn a bit more on our top-ranked correspondence chess player.
______________________________
Hello Herbert, you're not really a player to introduce as you're very active here and at several chess websites for years, with outstanding ratings in each one (as far as I know), you're the 1st FICGS CUP winner & several times FICGS WCH challenger, each time facing "the wall" Eros Riccio, what could you tell us about yourself particularly as a chess & correspondence chess player?
- i began late with 16 to play my first tournament game, but with 18 i already was kicked out of a night club in company with tony miles ;) (dresscode) had vlastimil hort as trainer for a short time and played in teams with gutman, michalchisin, klovans, gipslis and some other GMs. corr chess i began, because i love to find the truth and because of freestyle, where i began to build very strong computers
What kind of computers do you build? Is it all dedicated to chess?
- i have several dual xeon e5 computers with 64gb ddr3 and 16 to 20 real cores and they all play chess ;)
Once again, GM Eros Riccio managed to draw the 12 games of the match. What are your feelings on these games? How did you estimate your chances to destabilize your opponent in the openings and to create complications enough with White (or Black)?
- this time my feelings were neutral. 1% chances to win, but i hoped he would lose his concentration if i began more games with him (we played 6 other games at the same time)
Doesn't "1% chances to win (the match)" mean about 0.17% to win only one game with White, even when losing one with Black? Isn't it a bit pessimistic after all, or is it the new so called Riccio-effect? :)
- if the strongest players face each other there is no win possible, except some has a mouse slep or forgot something during human interfacing
When did you start playing correspondence chess and what changed since that time? What attracted you most in the game?
- 2004 and evaluation of the position is the key point of improvement since then. attractive was to be better than actual world class players :)
Could you tell us anything on the way you work chess and play your correspondence games? Any tip or secret? (nothing to lose to ask :))
- with black i play for fastest way to 0.00 and with white i try every promising way to make a game for a longer time complicated
Do you use several ones at the same time when analyzing a game? (still grabbing some tips)
- i only use the newest stockfish versions of brainfish and corchess because the other engines are not so good. because i have many games i decide which one gets the most cores and time and let them run in infinity mode until i am happy that can be after 1 week or more sometimes.
You're not far to rank 2nd as a poker player at FICGS, you obviously started to take on Big Chess as well. What other games do you play? Did you consider to play Go already?
- i played go against the german champion and lost so i quit :)) played backgammon money game and internet (in fibs with kit woolsey i played over 100 matches) in bridge i was best bidder in germany 1994 to 1995, but dont play much nowadays
Do you have specific goals to achieve as a player?
- 2 goals, since a long time: be ficgs world champion and win one german bridge championship
How do you imagine correspondence chess evolution within a decade? What kind of engines/computers do you expect to use and what will look like centaur chess according to you? (in other words, what part will remain to the human player in the decision?)
- i think the engines today are already unbeatable, so in 20 years the would still not lose and chess is dead since about 4 years
What did you think about Google Deepmind's Alpha Zero performance vs. Stockfish?
- it was a joke because they let a bad version of stockfish play. i would not have lost one game against az0 and maybe won 2 til 5 out of 100
Conditions of this AlphaZero vs. Stockfish match were very specific (opening books, unbalanced hardware...) What weaknesses did you detect in AlphaZero play?
- it was the lack of precision, what would let it lose against stockfish in its tuned newest version but i look from a view of a player who is used to play with deep 60 :)
It seems that computers did not completely take on Bridge yet, what do you expect within a decade?
- i have not seen bridge programms, but the game is so easy that it must be already mastered by computers
Christoph Schroeder (2020-02-21 14:28:01)
Game decided by tablebase
Nowadays, all players are supposed to have access to 7 men tablebases. Therefore I propose to extend the rules to 7 men positions - IMHO the ICCF rules (referred to by Charles) make perfect sense.
That means: When a 7 men position is reached and the opponent refuses to resign resp. to accept a draw, the arbiter can be called and adjudicate the game immediately.
Graham Kerr (2020-08-02 00:34:05)
Chess engines levels from 1985 to 2020
would have been a whole lot better if it used a
rating based on performance rather than just someone's estimate...
Thibault de Vassal (2021-04-07 01:18:50)
Poker Rating
No, it wasn't non-sportsmanlike for sure, good example... but should this game really be rated? (rated for the winner I mean, you lost some points in this case)
The other problem is that players trying to manipulate ratings could do the same and reality is that they do not (or very rarely) when there are 10 moves at least to play, so this rule is efficient to prevent this. And as we all know, no rule is perfect for everyone.
You are right, lasting a won game to move 10 would be strange but it is a choice and a price to pay... the main thing is that it should be rare.
Garvin Gray (2021-04-13 09:25:24)
Wch 22 Stage 2 ended
In terms of games management, I do not think there is any 'perfect' solution.
The only way a player could have any way of being able to predict when the next stage would start is if a full pdf calendar was published, which is not the case for this site.
With what we have to work with so far, the best way a player can predict game load is to monitor the remaining games in the cycle in progress and estimate when they are going to end.
And then a rule could be implemented that states something like: Once all games from the previous stage have been completed, the next stage will begin as of the 1st of the next month.
Which would mean that for Wch 22 Stage 2, the Round Robin group would start 1/5/2021.
And then once the last two games from the Semi Final knockouts are completed, the knockout final starts on the 1st day of the next month.
Garvin Gray (2021-04-18 17:28:11)
Wch 22 Stage 2 ended
I do not disagree with your general sentiment, but as someone who has been on this site a long time, I have experienced a lot of negotiations and discussions like this, where the discussions end up going nowhere, or some kind of 'change' is promised , and then after a while, those format changes are walked back.
Therefore, I have become rather jaded by this entire process and I am now of the opinion that Thibault just offers these discussions in an attempt to make it look like he is entertaining differing opinions, when really he TRULY can not bring himself to make the changes that some of these discussions are asking for as he already believes that the site is perfect as it is.
So, you are then treating the forum posters like mugs if you are saying, lets discuss the topic and come up with new ideas, if you have no genuine intention of embracing any of the ideas proposed.
I have now said my last post on this matter for quite a while.
I have made it clear what I think of these forum discussions and their purpose, so there is now no further requirement for me to reply.
Thibault de Vassal (2021-04-18 22:39:47)
Wch 22 Stage 2 ended
With all my respect Garvin, you couldn't be more wrong on that one... To me, FICGS is everything but perfect. Actually it is so heavy (mainly because it was coded very very fast - way too fast - with the [bad] idea to make it simple and to save as much processor & memory as possible) that some changes are very difficult to make. In this way, some good ideas could be very hard to bring to life.
But these 2 changes asked in the 2 running threads would be very easy to make! So it is only a question of time (it is most often bad to make a change fastly). For now, I have no clear opinion in this discussion and we could easily add a rule that states that any stage could start as fast as possible. And in the other discussion, the 10 moves rule could disappear even if I think it wouldn't be a good idea. Or it could evolve as it has been mentioned.
Vadrya Pokshtya (2022-02-19 06:11:11)
Grand Dice Chess
Thank you, Mr. Thibault!
This was facilitated by reducing the distance between the two armies to zero. Each move is a roll of 4 dice or a movement of four pieces. As soon as the pawn chain is opened, events develop at lightning speed. It is also interesting that the right of the first move is not an advantage here for the beginning side. The first games in the test tournament on one of the Russian gaming sites showed this. The balance of white and black victories is kept strictly around 50%. The game turned out to be one of the most strategic among all dice chess variants.
You can try playing against the AI here
https://glukkazan.github.io/checkmate/grand-dice-chess.htm?fbclid=IwAR1Tt6sFmrK8KYRxwPPZJnrGujGss7to2jzdV8GxSons7Pmjdk7udHoJ0PA
This is a direct link to the game with the bot. Registration is not required. The bot is very weak but perfect for understanding the game.
Mr. Thibault, I would be glad if you would consider the possibility of holding a test tournament on your site. It would be interesting to see how many people would take part and what would be their opinion about the game. In any case, everyone would get an unforgettable experience.
Since I am doing this for the game and not for the money, you are free to dispose of Grand Dice Chess as you see fit on your site.
Thank you!
Thibault de Vassal (2022-05-11 01:02:59)
Carlos Alcaraz y el ajedrez :)
The recent winner of Rio, Barcelona & Madrid Open 2022 talks about his incredible performances at tennis, and how blitz chess helps him...
(spanish language)
https://www.marca.com/tenis/2022/03/07/6225c2c6e2704ed95f8b45cc.html
"P. Uno de los aspectos más desconocidos en usted es que le gusta hacer siesta y el ajedrez antes de los partidos. ¿Me lo puede explicar?
R. Así es. Me pillaron con la cámara en el Next Gen de Milán y en Río también dormía porque el descanso es importante y más en una semana tan intensa en la que llovió y se retrasaron los partidos. La recuperación era clave y las siestas antes de los partidos para mí lo son. Y el ajedrez me ayuda porque estás concentrado, la cabeza te funciona...
P. ¿En qué le ayuda concretamente el ajedrez para la práctica del tenis?
R. Me ayuda a estar más rápido mentalmente, a observar jugadas, a ver el movimiento que quieres hacer, la estrategia... A estar concentrado todo el tiempo. En el ajedrez, como el tenis, te despistas un momento y ya se revuelve la partida. En este aspecto son dos disciplinas bastante parecidas."
Vadrya Pokshtya (2023-11-17 20:38:28)
Battle of Kings
Thanks, but you are wrong about the engine being able to crush this chess variant ;)
Knowledgeable people, programmers with whom I had the opportunity to talk about this chess variant, argued that not a single engine would be able to adequately evaluate positions in the Battle of Kings due to the colossal combinatorial complexity of the game.
Please note that the server bot plays very, very weakly. The program does not understand the concept of the game and makes a superficial assessment of the position based on material balance.
Playing against a bot is very different from playing against a human.
At the moment you can play by correspondence against other players here https://www.schemingmind.com/default.aspx
or here
https://games.dtco.ru/
Thank you again for your positive feedback!
Ulises Pineda (2025-01-17 14:34:09)
Stockfish unbeatable at modest settings?
That's very interesting. Can you share the line that defeats Stockfish at 5 million nodes per move? If it has reached perfection at ten million, we could investigate how many nodes it needs for it.
Ulises Pineda (2025-04-23 14:49:42)
Stockfish unbeatable at modest settings?
I'll request that if you ever play against me, jump at least to Stockfish 17.1 @ 20 million nodes, because a doubling of nodes is some 50 elo boost to the model, so a lot of games can be saved by increasing the nodes, as finding a winning line against such a thing isn't more difficult in reality, it just takes more time, so I guess those people don't think winning a game is worth the extra time used, or maybe they really don't know how, but if someone offered a million dollars for the line I'm sure they'd sit down and find it.
It's a matter of strength, someone with Stockfish 20 could find the line with a relative ease, and I don't think it'll play a perfect game already either, the blind spots just switch places.
George Jempty (2025-10-07 08:21:29)
Next thematic tournament
What about 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nb5 4.Bf4!? it would be a way to test out a perfectly sound alternative that is almost never played
Garvin Gray (2025-10-27 14:15:04)
Russian flag replaced
Before you take any action, you should actually check your facts regarding Israel. I really hate discussing this topic, but since now the site owner is considering taking similar against those who display the Israel flag as those who were from Russia and Belarus, it is extremely important to remember how we got here in both situations.
With Russia and Belarus, it was because they started a war of aggression on another correspondence chess federation.
And all sporting bodies took swift action against them in suspending their Federations and preventing their teams from competing, and players from competing and their own flag.
With the situation between Hamas/Hezbollah and Isreal, it was Hamas that was the aggressor. There was no war on July 6, 2023 and Gaza was in a state of peace. But then Hamas attacked Isreal, chopping the heads of babies and taking hostages and raping Israeli women hostages.
What did you expect the Isreali Government to do in response? Sit back and let a terrorist organisation keep the hostages and are you saying that Isreal does not have a right to defend itself?
It is quite disgusting that there are wars all over the world at the moment, about 20 at the moment, but it is only when Jews defend themselves that people feel the need to virtue signal their sense of outrage.
The correct word for them is anti-semites. We used to say 'Never again' after the Holocaust, but it now seem perfectly acceptable to support a terrorist organisation when it attacks Israel and Israel responds by trying to eliminate the threat once and for all.
And it should also be noted as we saw over a week ago. A sixth peace offer was made and Hamas responded like all the others. With more aggression.
Decide to take action against Israel on this site and you prove your antisemitism.
George Jempty (2025-11-26 13:19:19)
New Tie Break System
I still like my idea of using it based on performance rating FIRST, I don't see how it gives the lowest entrant an advantage if the tournament ends in a tie between all players.
But lets say two players tie, and one of them has a higher performance rating because they beat a stronger player than the other, that ALSO does not give an advantage to the lower rated player that I can see. Rather, that player must have beaten a higher rated player than the other in order to have a higher performance rating. So if the higher rated player beat a higher rated player rated player than the lower rated player did, the higher rated player would advance.
Perhaps Garvin can weigh in a little more specifically about how being lower rated gives an advantage. But, under his idea, my proposed order would be, 1) Number of wins, 2) performance rating, 3) Sonnen-berger, etc.
Thibault de Vassal (2026-03-13 23:17:02)
Post-tickets FICGS
The long answer:
FICGS story is a quite simple & classic one, the reasons why it's declining are quite obvious, and unfortunately the solutions aren't. A bit of story:
1. Luckily, FICGS.com was created when there were a demand, just after IECG stopped... It grew very quickly, and I was in a rush to code it (FICGS was the very first dynamic website I ran from A to Z), there were ideas from everywhere. FICGS.com was the shortest domain name available, but not a so good one. Quite hard to remember, hard to tell, not clear for search engines (unlike chess.com which is a perfect one). Maybe it was a mistake to choose it, I can't tell. Either it meant "Free Internet Chess Games Server" or "Free Internet Correspondence Games Server", so I added another game, Go (Weiqi), to FICGS, which is a quite heavy decision: After that, FICGS is not only a chess server anymore.
2. A few years after, there are several thousands players (a few hundreds active). The number of new players slowly decreases month after month but a few sponsors come. Obviously, the way I coded FICGS made it more and more difficult to fully update from a PHP version to another one, or to change it in deep. Even now, I'm not sure to regret it though cause I couldn't have done it differently, so it is what it is. At this time, chess.com was less interesting than FICGS (my taste), but success is already here thanks to a perfect marketing formula: best domain name & pay for options. On the contrary, I chose to keep FICGS completely free.
3. Chess engines explode, correspondence chess continues its evolution (human's thinking decreases in moves decision), finally I add another game that is in a hype: poker texas holdem. New sponsors come, I still play correspondence chess myself but now I play another game even more: Google. FICGS also extends this way and it works in some ways. At its peak, FICGS is about the 32,000th most visited website worldwide. But the number of players continues to decrease, Android & phones started to change the landscape already. Chess.com released its app and added probably its best feature: a quick Stockfish analysis with evaluation & explanation for each move (which is excellent for blitz games but quite a non-sense for a correspondence chess website).
4. The number of players suddenly declines very quickly, I react by creating FICGS apps for Android, a dozen apps... On some apps, you can play against the machine, virtual opponents, chess 960, blindfold & so on. But the way to maintain it is not easy at all for many reasons, but the main one is that Google (Playstore) constantly change technical things & rules. After a few years, I even have to completely remake it, losing what was acquired. And some apps still fail to re-appear at Playstore, that's why I just made the APK files available to direct download. But these applications confirm something clear: blitz is more fun and attracts much more players. Changing rating ranges for correspondence chess tournaments or championships formats won't be a solution for this.
5. FICGS is now 20 years old! Internet completely changed over the years but it survived longer than Messenger, Skype & many other great services. If you look at many websites, new versions of their modern interfaces are often worst (bugs or options) than previous ones. FICGS was never perfect, maybe even clear, but at least it remained coherent. Now Google (just like all major services) is mainly governed by AI, sponsors left - that does not change anything, FICGS will continue to run. I created other websites, but none so far successfully helped in a way or another to solve the problem we encounter here: how to increase the number of correspondence chess, Go or poker players again? If FICGS becomes a pure correspondence chess site again with a brand new interface, I'm quite sure that wouldn't change anything or almost. I might be wrong of course, but according to me, this is a deep problem, connected to society evolutions, computers, phones, our attention, time, even health & so on... In my personal case, I wish to play correspondence chess again, but still cannot find the time to do it. Finally I have no idea what internet will look like within 5 years, but FICGS will be there. Maybe an AI will find a solution soon ^^ Meanwhile, I received many ideas to improve FICGS and I have to thank you very much for this. Few ideas were released for reasons I explained here (but new ones are always wecome), I hope you'll better understand it by reading this.
Have good games & take care!
Ulises Pineda (2026-05-28 09:48:28)
Berlin Defense
Oh, I didn't know, it's the Jaenisch Gambit, perfect!
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