Ligon, Scott   (USA)       [FICGS member # 12964]



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Scott Ligon


As black, I run Stockfish in a deterministic configuration and play the move it suggests. My opponents can know in advance how I will respond to any given move. For my upcoming games with black I will use Stockfish 17.1 with a 50 million node search. See forum posts in my thread "Stockfish unbeatable at modest settings?" for details. This deterministic strategy does not apply to thematic tournaments, and no longer applies to my games with the white pieces.


Scott Ligon has currently 8 running correspondence chess game(s), won 79, lost 0 and drawn 445 other games against an average elo of 2246, does not play advanced chess (fast time controls), does not play big chess, does not play Go (wei-ch'i, baduk), and does not play poker, finally Scott finished a total of 524 games and is still playing a total of 8 games.



Correspondence chess statistics :

vs. Herbert Kruse (2363) :   50%   (42 games, 0 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Bahadir Ozen (2253) :   50%   (36 games, 0 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Ilmars Cirulis (2246) :   51%   (28 games, 1 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Janusz Swiatek (2261) :   60%   (25 games, 5 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Aniruddha Duttagupta (2308) :   58%   (18 games, 3 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Stanislas Gounant (2287) :   53%   (15 games, 1 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Theodore Mirra (2305) :   50%   (13 games, 0 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Matt LaDuke (2312) :   53%   (13 games, 1 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Sergey Kireev (2289) :   50%   (12 games, 0 wins, 0 losses)
vs. Garvin Gray (2344) :   50%   (11 games, 0 wins, 0 losses)



Scott's favorite game is : Chess

Style of play : deterministic

Uses engines : always

Favorite chess player : Stockfish




Search posts and games by Ligon in FICGS games server     (only for connected players)


Last messages by Scott Ligon in the forum :


Game 149969    (2026-08-20 14:42:41)

I don't understand how the site's code automatically detects some checkmates but not others. But this seems to be the case. (...)


Closing Standard chess tournaments?    (2026-08-15 19:12:45)

The standard starting position is trivially drawn with engines. A focus on thematic tournaments is one way forward. Not just one thematic at a time bu (...)


Closing Standard chess tournaments?    (2026-08-08 17:21:45)

I prefer Rapid, but closing one or the other would make sense to me. Closing Rapid and keeping Standard would be ok too. The existence of the 2500+ ca (...)


Stockfish unbeatable at modest settings?    (2026-08-04 17:22:28)

17.1 @ 50 million nodes still holds up, so I'll continue playing it as black. But I see no need to keep playing these deterministic strategies as whit (...)


Next thematic tournament    (2026-07-30 16:47:06)

After 1. e4 d6 2. d4 f5 3. exf5 Bxf5 4. Nf3 it does appear that white is just winning. With Stockfish 17 (still not SF 18 because the Mac Stockfish GU (...)


Too many groups for tourneys    (2026-07-28 17:34:22)

So what I'm really describing is the death of correspondence chess, which I think everyone can see by now. My suggestion to make the game somewhat int (...)


Too many groups for tourneys    (2026-07-28 17:23:30)

About the top rating group. Under current conditions, there is no meaningful difference in playing strength between any of the players rated above 220 (...)


Next thematic tournament    (2026-03-01 19:25:51)

It does look like black is skating on thin ice in this line. These are exactly the kind of lines that might still be interesting to play in the Stockf (...)


no engines    (2026-01-22 23:22:11)

In the Special Tournaments section there is a No Engines Tournament, looks like anyone can join the waiting list. (...)


Too many groups for tourneys    (2025-12-04 18:31:57)

I agree, though I may be biased. My rating has never been high enough to get into the 2400+ tourneys, and currently isn't high enough for 2350+, unles (...)