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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.

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