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Thibault de Vassal    (2006-08-19 00:06:35)
Tournaments with money prices

Hello Benjamin...

Many new tournament categories will be created when entry fees and prices will be available. Some will be designed for granmasters, others for special challenges. We'll have the opportunity to discuss about it in a few months.


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-09-10 14:31:47)
Sudden death games !

Hello to all.

Does someone have any idea about chess openings that would give White 50% chances to win & Black 50% chances to win OR draw, or reverse ? (in absolute, not ie. blitz statistics)

Thinking about 1.e4 Nf6 2.d4 Ng8 or 1.Nf3 d5 2.Ng1, in examples... but it's hard to know. Databases can't help much as very few games with obvious errors have been played. So mad gambits could be real challenges to play & analyze, with no draws at the outcome...

Your feelings ?


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-10-22 14:00:32)
Re: Best Game

That's right Wayne, but anyway I would have played it even with one Nf6-Ng8 more... I like these mad challenges :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-11-05 12:45:06)
Fischer : "Now chess is completely dead"

A new interview from the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer...

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3468

No surprise : Fischer’s problems with the Union Bank of Switzerland, United states founded and being run by extremists, Capablanca brillancy, but also : "I don’t like chess any more" (what about chess 960 ?), "Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. It’s a terrible game now. Very uncreative"...

I just wonder.. How can we find so much pleasure in correspondence chess ? .. Was his pleasure only to destroy weak players or in real challenges against strong[er] players (ie. Karpov).. I can understand why a grandmaster stop to play competitive chess because it's too hard & it takes too much time, but I can't explain myself such a champion finding "limits" to chess & getting no more pleasure...

"Play Go !" :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-02-17 18:07:31)
Gameknot vs. FICGS, other challenges

It seems GameKnot leads 5-4 in the games played here... Not bad :)

Any news about the games played at GameKnot ?

It could be interesting to discuss about other team challenges... A team tournament, matches against other servers or forums (which ones ?), maybe at different time controls or playing chess variants (chess 960) or other games (could be fun to play chess & Go, poker or anything against the same players).. with or without computer assistance and so on... It should be easier to build teams now thanks to the chat bar.

It seems there was no problem of cheating with chess engines during the match against GameKnot, that's encouraging to organize other ones.


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-02-18 19:14:30)
ICCF champions league

Hello to all.

While looking for interesting challenges that could take place here at FICGS (ie. simultaneous games at standard time control by a FIDE / ICCF IM-GM, or team challenges against other servers), Valer Eugen Demian (ICCF) suggested we build a team that could play in the next ICCF champions league... If we can build a team, why not ?

Rules of the event (taking place on ICCF server) are here :

http://tables.iccf.com/email/ChLeague/2004/season1faq.htm


What do you think ? .. Did anyone play this tournament already ?


Charlie Neil    (2007-02-19 13:52:00)
ICCF champions league

I have played on the ICCF webserver. So, it must be an easy webserver to play on if i can manage it! I think there must be a Ficgs team! More publicity and a chance to meet more chessfriends. Unfortunately I'm not of the standard required to be in a successful team but I can stand on the "touchline" with my Ficgs scarf and shout encouragement. C'mon! Also what about challenges to those sites such itsyourturn and chessworld.net and schemingming.com. you know the ones that aren't free to play on.....


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-06-06 19:12:00)
Rybka: $100,000 challenge to FIDE

The author of Rybka - undoubtly the strongest chess engine (Rybka 2.3.1), Vasik Rajlich challenges FIDE for a $100,000 match between Rybka and the winner of the "Ultimate Computer Chess Challenge 2007" between Deep Junior and Deep Fritz, that just started (first game drawn) :

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=1126


Also the match offer to grandmasters is more and more interesting :

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=794;pg=1


I doubt Chessbase or FIDE would accept to organize & play such a match, even if Fritz 11 or 12 can beat the next Rybka... The war of engines is not on the chessboard nowadays but that's quite interesting to follow anyway :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-06-20 22:54:33)
Internet chess

Well, the discussion with Tryfon Gavriel continues at TCCMB. As I had to explain the way I make FICGS, I copy my responses here :

http://ancients.correspondencechess.com/index.php?topic=109.15


Hello again Tryfon !

That's a very interesting discussion...

Actually I have to explain FICGS in its whole to respond :) .. To be continued for sure..

While registering a new member wrote to me a few months ago "Thanks for creating this ultimate chess challenge" or so... That's exactly what I try to do, mostly with the FICGS championship knockout & round-robin rules... Players just want challenge, that's the only assumption I start with, so I try to create interesting challenges. About the intellectual part, you're right but I'm quite sure that top level correspondence chess players still consider their game as an intellectual challenge, much more than a brute force or computer skills one. That's not the case for Advanced chess with fast time controls.

Let's take a look at the bicycle races again... The "Tour de France" is dying IMO.. because everyone understood we "don't know" if the champion is ok.. If doping was allowed (it would be a scandal for health of course), I'm sure the interest would raise again ! I think it is the same for chess & for everything else... The "Tour de France" syndrom happened in Elista with the match Kramnik vs. Topalov... It will have consequences. We need champions and we want true champions, every means are ok for this ! .. So the "engines allowed" rule is the only one possible or reasonable in my opinion.

Of course, chess & correspondence chess are changing, because these "walls" are nearer & nearer... maybe chess will die, maybe not.. The main problem is that in 1997, a super computer became World Champion... this year a "simple" computer Deep Fritz became world champion, soon Rybka on a cellular phone... :) Who is really interested to be a champion in "human category" ? FIDE world chess championship will continue to progressively lose its interest IMO...

Correspondence chess is just starting to grow in popularity and is told to be dying already. Surely correspondence chess will ask more & more time at a high level to win a few points, but it is possible to create more challenge by ie. changing the rating rules (the "design" of Elo rating system will become a problem).. Then, if it is not enough, we'll look for other challenges... It's told for years that Go (Weiqi) will replace chess in western countries... why not Big chess as the "brain only" game if there can't be doping in it.. just trying, as there's no other solution :)

A word about Poker of course, as it's probably the fastest growing game in popularity : IMO this game is at a stade like chess in year 1900, but the same problem will happen, even quicker. At a high level the game will be just more and more boring (if you wish to win real money) or chancy (in a wch tournament), or you'll have to always find weak players (well, not very challenging).

About the simultaneous exhibition against Alekhine or Capablanca, I'm not sure at all they would crush everyone at our chess servers, they are undoubtly more talented than all of us, but I feel it wouldn't be enough in all cases to win against correspondence chess style of play & knowledge accumulated for 50 years... A few players rated OTB 2000-2200 could draw against them IMO...

At last, yes I'm a fan of Sun Tzu's "The art of war" :) .. I strongly believe that correspondence chess will not die in the next few years because players will follow its principles more and more, as the only way to win ! .. Big chess follows the same principles... and Go is the most challenging game because of it too !

Tryfon, I'm not sure that we're opposite in our vision of chess ! .. Our servers have obviousy different goals, nothing more.. I do enjoy playing mad blitz games without chess engines... I just believe that the future of internet chess is "serious (engines allowed, rated) correspondence chess" on one hand and "human chess for fun (no engines, unrated)" on the other hand... The other ways look like nonsense to me.

I hope it responds.


Best wishes, Thibault


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-12-28 14:11:54)
option 4

I tried to change the rating ranges but a few 2200+ players would retire from the rapid M tournament... I'm afraid we have to wait. Anyway I'm to make a major update (challenges) and other improvements on the server, so I can't do it right now.


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-12-29 23:27:34)
Major update : challenges

Hello to all.

Now it is possible to challenge connected players for bullet / lightning / blitz games (advanced chess tournaments - note : please verify time controls, ie. blitz games are played in 2 hours + 2 hours / 40 moves) with White or Black.

Many improvements to come (when I find some time), to display ratings and so on... All feedback welcome.


Thibault de Vassal    (2008-01-06 17:05:31)
Challenges

Yes, I made and I'll make updates to avoid such aborted games... Now players are warned if they receive a challenge but as this is a web server and not a software, players still have to check if a game started (ie. by email or in the message box)


Andrew Stephenson    (2008-01-14 10:08:25)
challenges

Thibault I must confess to being mystified by this: a name appears in the box entitled challenge a player, the name varies. Whats happening? does the system generate random names of those currently on line to offer up in case I want to challenge?? Or is the player challenging me?? Out of curiosity I have occasionally pressed the challenge button but nothing appears to happen. All in all quite baffling - now I ignore it!


Thibault de Vassal    (2008-01-14 16:19:56)
challenges

Hi Andrew, yes players are ordered by login time (then roll so looks like random) while they most probably should be ordered by rating. Maybe soon... If a player challenges you, a line with an "accept" option appears below the box. If you challenge a player, a line that you can remove by clicking the double arrows appears below the box and your opponent is warned. But I have to make new improvements to increase the interest of these bullet/blitz bronze games - maybe it should be free after all :) .. Now, the empty games (without any moves) will be deleted by new ones...


Andrew Stephenson    (2008-01-15 11:20:51)
challenges

ok tks thibault


Philip Roe    (2008-01-17 03:05:06)
Excellent enhancements

Thibault,

Many thanks for the work you put into this!

I have one minor complaint. I think it is very unlikely that I will ever want to respond to any of the displayed challenges, so for me that is just clutter. Is there way to opt out of having this feature displayed?


Don Groves    (2008-01-17 03:33:19)
Same here...

Hi, Thibault -- Since I only play Go and the challenges are only for Chess, I will never use this either.


Thibault de Vassal    (2008-01-17 04:10:04)
Challenges option

Hi Philip and Don, yes of course I have to add this option. A few more days or weeks, and it will appear in preferences, that's written on my sheet anyway ;)


Purity Tallant    (2008-03-26 01:26:30)
Go! Challenges, why not?

I would like to challenge someone outside of a tournament.


Thibault de Vassal    (2008-03-27 22:58:03)
Improvements

Hello all. Yes, I still have to make some improvements this way (optional chess or Go challenges), it should be available in a while.


Thibault de Vassal    (2008-04-23 22:11:45)
Free bullet & lightning bronze games

Hi Benjamin, I don't think so 'cause chess bullet & lightning bronze waiting lists may be closed soon. A better way is to use the challenges option in "My games" as there are much less chances to start a game while the opponent is offline (and no more messages in the chat).


Thibault de Vassal    (2008-05-27 20:04:17)
Advanced Go games

You may play rated bullet & lightning Go games for free against 1 opponent only (see Waiting lists, challenges to a specified player are not available, sorry :/).

The scrolling message should warn you if a bullet or lightning game starts.


Don Groves    (2008-07-10 23:43:15)
Challenges

Thibault - Can we have a box on our preferences page that says whether or not we will accept challenges? Either that or a way to respond to a challenger with a message. I hate to appear rude and simply reject a challenge with no explanation.


Thibault de Vassal    (2008-07-11 01:30:59)
Challenges

Hi Don, I'll work on it in a few weeks only :/ BTW players use the "challenge connected players" [All] option sometimes...


Thibault de Vassal    (2008-12-02 20:07:17)
Update : challenges & move send

Hello all,

It is now possible to challenge a player for a chess, Go or Poker holdem game ! You can choose the game by clicking the pictures near "Challenge a player" in My games, you can also change the 'challenges' option in Preferences. This is an important improvement as advanced poker & Go games are a faster way to improve ratings ie. in order to qualify for the FICGS poker holdem & Go championships. (advanced chess has its own rating, different from the correpondence chess rating)

Also a new improvement in the 'move send' process, it should be much faster now, please report any bug if you notice one.


Philip Roe    (2009-03-06 14:06:34)
Thanks for the check, not for the clock

Thibault,

The notification check on the My Games title is a typically thoughtful touch. Thank you.

However, the clock just adds clutter unless you have a use for it. Can this enhancement be made an optional preference?

Also, since I am not interested in accepting challenges, is there a way to prevent challenges from being issued?


Don Groves    (2009-03-07 00:50:45)
Agreed...

... on both counts, Philip.

The Challenges at the top of the page are more annoying than the clock for those of us who are not interested in challenges since they take up space that could be better used by displaying games. Making both of them optional would be a welcome change.

Another solution might be to put the Challenge section also at the bottom of the page.


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-03-07 01:51:18)
Clock / Challenges

Well, the "My games" timer feature may exist without showing the clock also... About the challenges I'll add the option soon (it should have been done months ago, lack of time).


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-03-23 15:55:15)
Checkmate detection (finally)

A few improvements to come today !

Checkmate detection : Finally I implemented it even if I like the idea that a player should resign by himself (just like for Go). It will be in test for a few days/weeks so it may not work for everyone during this time.

A few informations more in players statistics (number of advanced chess, Go & poker games won, lost, running...)

In Go games, a reminder will appear when a player "pass" (one player has to resign or call referee to end the game, with a link to the Go scorer)

Thank you all for making suggestions that help to improve the site, I know there are many others to implement (e.g. challenges option & so on...), be patient :)


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-09-07 19:11:36)
Games vs. Tournaments

Hello Maurice, FICGS is mainly a correspondence games server so it is much easier to play tournaments (you can register in Waiting lists) than live games (advanced games and challenges), be patient and you may use the chat bar to try to find an opponent !


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    (2010-02-05 21:48:48)
Advanced games : Problems & solutions

Hi all,

There's a real problem with the advanced games so far, anyone who tested it lost on time at least once without having played and/or won a game because his opponent forgot to play or to retire from the waiting list.

The challenges partly solves the problem as the program verifies if both players are connected to the server (also I added some warning messages explaining how to use the advanced games) but it seems it is far to be enough.....

Anyway I agree that a web interface is not really designed to such games, particularly when it is hard to find an opponent for these games (which is probably the main problem).

Whatever the way, both opponents should probably be able to discuss just before their game in the chat bar, so one solution would be to verify if the players wrote (or even posted a kind of "start" message) in the chat bar during the last few minutes, it would be a way to be "SURE" that both players are ready to play, even if I'm not sure that it would be enough again.

In my opinion, no more advanced game should start if both opponents did not confirm their presence to the other player in the chat bar.

Any opinion on this ? Any other idea to solve this ?

Thanks in advance and sorry again to all players who experienced this.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-02-05 22:39:18)
Advanced games : Problems & solutions

When a player signs off (or sign on), his challenges are cancelled, the problem is that players rarely sign off (/logout) anyway. And it would partly solve the problem only, this is a web interface, people jump on other pages while waiting an opponent and just forget, even pop up windows are not enough.


Garvin Gray    (2010-02-09 16:08:18)
Advanced games : Problems & solutions

An idea might be set a time period that challenges are valid for ie after a person sends out challenges or joins the waiting list, if no one has accepted inside a certain time period (say 15 minutes) the challenge automatically expires.

If the challenger wants to keep their challenge going, they have to re-send, helping to ensure that they are online, or at least near the computer.


Don Groves    (2010-03-25 22:50:03)
Challenges

Thib: Please give us an option in Preferences to remove our name from the challenges lists.


Don Groves    (2010-03-25 22:54:57)
Challenges

And also to remove the Challenges section from our My Games page.


Don Groves    (2010-04-10 18:22:19)
Challenges

Is this so hard to do? I keep getting Chess challenges but I'm only playing Go now. I don't have time for both.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-04-10 18:25:44)
Challenges

Ok, I should find some time to fix this this week, at last ;)


William Taylor    (2010-04-10 18:27:50)
Challenges

I'll second this request. Another related issue which I and several other players have been experiencing recently is that of repeated spam challenges (i.e. a player keeps sending challenges even when they are turned down). Perhaps it would also be a good idea to be able to exclude certain players from challenging you (like an ICC 'noplay list').


Don Groves    (2010-04-10 18:49:13)
Challenges

That's been happening to me also today. Same guy, over and over and over...


Garvin Gray    (2010-04-10 18:59:54)
Challenges

I third this!


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-04-10 21:19:28)
Challenges

This is the software's fault (my bad), not the player's... because there's a "challenge all players" function that is supposed to be used... so this is unlikely to be harrassment! Please keep cool in this case, you may move the challenges at the bottom of the window if you don't use it by clicking the arrow (towards the bottom). I'll add an option in Preferences to completely hide it, and probably a blacklist function also. Now working on.


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.


Don Groves    (2010-04-10 23:37:00)
Challenges

Merci !!!


Don Groves    (2010-04-11 02:35:11)
Challenges

For the final solution, can you add a "none" entry to the challenges listbox in Preferences? That would be the same as "hidden" except also that person's name would not appear in the challenges list at all.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-04-11 14:46:49)
Challenges

Yes, that was a quick update... I'll see what I can do soon.


Thibault de Vassal    (2010-05-11 15:25:54)
A suggestion

Hi Don, of course that's very feasible but I just drastically optimized the My games page so that it displays faster (it seems to work, the number of SQL requests went in average from about 30 to 2).

A consequence is that one can see if a player is in vacation on this page only if it's his turn in the game, maybe that's not definitive but I have to make this test and observe how the server reacts.

I'm not sure if your suggestion is really useful (maybe for those who hide the challenges form) but it would be kind of bonus, so if I can do it while avoiding too many tests, why not. For now, I prefer to let this page as it is.


Paul Campanella    (2012-05-11 04:57:14)
Playing poker for e-points

Members of FICGS are able to play chess for e-points but poker challenges are only allowed in "bronze".

Why are members of FICGS not allowed to challenge other members to either "silver" or "gold" poker games?


Garvin Gray    (2012-05-19 15:31:54)
Advanced challenges, time out expiry

I think time has come to implement a time out expiry on advanced games challenges.

If an advanced game challenge has not been accepted by someone with 1 hour of its posting, that challenge expires and is automatically removed from the system.

The challenge would then need to be re-issued.

This would help prevent the issue of players accepting challenges many hours after it was posted and then waiting around for a time out.

It would also help to ensure that the challenger was around to accept their own challenge.


Don Groves    (2012-05-20 00:31:55)
Advanced challenges, time out expiry

This could also be fixed by not starting clocks until both players are online.


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-09-21 14:31:25)
A radical idea?

Yes, it is stored for each game, but the waiting list system does not work this way and the opponent must not miss the time control (in challenges or in the waiting list). But that's possible.


Thibault de Vassal    (2012-10-02 11:38:49)
A radical idea?

Nope, the idea is not radical at all... Now I know that I can do it quite easily in the waiting list system (not challenges)!

I can't do it right now but do not hesitate to harass me :)


Attila Ba    (2013-06-11 10:10:18)
Playing activity top 20 players

As to 'create your own site of you are not satisfied' I'm seriously considering setting up a big chess site of my own. I like the idea of engine free chess very much but I can't get a tournament running here for half a year or so.

My site is not fully working as yet but has fragments that work (you can sign up, modify your profile, create challenges, view the board and make moves on it etc.).

Should you have any comments on the design it has a forum.

you can find it here:

baatti.com


Don Groves    (2013-07-18 03:57:11)
A player goes on inviting me

On your "Preferences" page there is a section called "Challenges." Change its setting to "hidden" and your name will no longer appear in the list of players who can be challenged.


Robert Knighton    (2013-07-18 06:32:23)
A player goes on inviting me

Also I don't think it's intentional. I think when they join the waiting list for advanced games it automatically challenges all available players at the same time.

He is not trying to annoy you :)








 		 
 
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