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Game result (chess) S. Ligon, 2321 M. LaDuke, 2326 1/2-1/2 See game 152178 |
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Here are 0 results for Lee Django in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Jacob in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Jackie in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Kazuya in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Sukchan in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Samuel in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Kenny in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Wisem in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Christopher in the games.
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Here are 0 results for Lee Jae in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Regan in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Lameboiiz in the games.
Here are 6 results for Lee Subow in the games.
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Here are 0 results for Lee Hsu in the games.
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Here are 12 results for Lee Soowoong in the games.
Game_104102 Game_104101 Game_104100 Game_104096 Game_104092 Game_104087 Game_102262 Game_102260 Game_102258 Game_102255 Game_102251 Game_102246
Here are 6 results for Lee Roy in the games.
Game_104508 Game_104507 Game_104505 Game_104502 Game_104498 Game_104493
Here are 6 results for Lee Yongbok in the games.
Game_110392 Game_110391 Game_110389 Game_110386 Game_110382 Game_110377
Here are 6 results for Lee Sean in the games.
Game_113662 Game_113660 Game_113658 Game_113655 Game_113651 Game_113646
Here are 6 results for Lee John in the games.
Game_118200 Game_118199 Game_118196 Game_118193 Game_118189 Game_118184
Here are 6 results for Lee Sokwon in the games.
Game_119415 Game_119414 Game_119413 Game_119412 Game_119411 Game_119410
Here are 6 results for Lee Penny in the games.
Game_123802 Game_123801 Game_123800 Game_123799 Game_123798 Game_123792
Here are 6 results for Lee Hyeongjun in the games.
Game_126415 Game_126414 Game_126413 Game_126409 Game_126405 Game_126400
Here are 6 results for Lee William in the games.
Game_128323 Game_128322 Game_128321 Game_128320 Game_128319 Game_128313
Here are 6 results for Lee Larry in the games.
Game_137552 Game_137551 Game_137550 Game_137549 Game_137548 Game_137547
Here are 6 results for Lee Frank in the games.
Game_137922 Game_137921 Game_137920 Game_137919 Game_137914 Game_137909
Here are 0 results for Lee Kleidmi in the games.
Here are 0 results for Lee Tae in the games.
There are at least 94 results for Lee in the forum.
Thibault de Vassal (2023-11-20 19:39:27)
A Public Appeal to Chess Organisations
Juri, you probably spread fake news:
___________________________
Social media users recently circulated video footage they claimed shows an Israeli helicopter killing Israelis at an Oct. 7 concert in Israel.
Stew Peters, a far-right radio host and the filmmaker behind the anti-COVID-19 vaccine films "Died Suddenly" and "Watch the Water," shared the 14-second video clip on X, formerly Twitter.
"VIDEO PROVES and ISRAEL ADMITS it slaughtered its own people on Oct. 7th," Peters wrote Nov. 9. "This attack was NOT made by goat herders on paragliders. Footage from Israeli helicopter shows the IDF killing many people at October 7 concert in Israel. IDF helicopters fired on civilians fleeing the PsyTrance Music Festival."
Other social media users shared Peters’ post, and it was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) We also found this video clip misrepresented on TikTok.
(...)
GeoConfirmed, a group that works to geolocate video footage, analyzed the Israel Defense Forces’ video, and concluded it was not filmed at the site of the Nova music festival.
We found no evidence to support Peters’ claim that the video clip showed Israeli forces killing people at an Oct. 7 concert in Israel. A group that works to geolocate video footage analyzed the Israel Defense Forces’ video and said it was not filmed at the music festival site.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/nov/17/stew-peters/no-this-video-doesnt-show-israeli-military-killing/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57UQKWdZRco
_________________________
In doubt, such news (probably fake news) have no place here... Thanks in advance.
Now we heard your message (and I did respond to your public appeal), feel free to let chess organizations decide what they have to do, no need to discuss it more here.
Stanislas Gounant (2022-11-23 20:17:39)
I did not win a game since 3 years
The problem with the starting positions in FICGS thematic tournaments, one of the player can open the position and it will be draw. Some years ago, someone show me a youtube video about a game played on TCEC between leela chess zero and Stockfish.
https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&game=61&season=15
The engines start to play at move 7, white had more space and black can't open the position
Ilmars Cirulis (2022-10-29 23:59:26)
What about this position?
Do we have any rule that allows deciding (?) games when they have reached 7 piece endgames? (Too lazy and sleepy to read Help section...)
Thibault de Vassal (2020-05-06 01:41:10)
AlphaGo, the movie (Deepmind)
Actually, the story ends with the defeat 4-1 of Lee Se-dol, but it is really great to see more of the way the match was conducted (and how this incredible champion lived that huge challenge). Great archive IMO.
Thibault de Vassal (2020-05-05 17:54:22)
AlphaGo, the movie (Deepmind)
For all Go lovers, the film about the victories of AlphaGo over professional players, european champion Fan Hui 2 dan then Lee Sedol 9p and Ke Jie 9p.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y
Of course, AlphaGo was the start of the "AI" adventures in the Go game when it played Fan Hui... AlphaZero was even much stronger not long after that.
Ty Bowen (2020-01-23 15:12:37)
Lee Sedol quits Go because of A.I.
This isn't accurate. His retirement date was set long before AlphaGo.
Thibault de Vassal (2019-11-28 12:08:42)
Lee Sedol quits Go because of A.I.
Finally, is it time for Go players to play "advanced Go"? Would it make sense like it used to be at chess?
Meanwhile, Go champion Lee Sedol resigns (it seems for several reasons actually, now ranked #54 at GoRatings.org - by the way the full rating list is worth to watch until rank 800)
So, we human will not probably beat what will replace AlphaZero in the future, but as in chess we could learn a lot from it, if not build great centaur teams.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50573071
Thibault de Vassal (2019-03-27 21:05:13)
Leela Chess Zero & neural networks
... and I'm afraid that legislation advances much slower than research in A.I. fields :)
By the way, Gary Kasparov talking about artificial intelligence:
https://www.information-age.com/kasparov-and-ai-123481118/
William Taylor (2019-03-24 21:23:31)
Leela Chess Zero & neural networks
Early on it looked like it was never going to approach AlphaZero levels, but it went toe-to-toe with Stockfish in the last TCEC and must presumably be better than it in some kinds of position. I don't play much correspondence chess these days but will probably try using it for OTB preparation soon.
You're certainly right that AI is having and will have massive societal impacts - hopefully largely positive ones, but that will require smart legislation, responsible research and an informed general public.
Thibault de Vassal (2019-03-18 22:59:01)
Leela Chess Zero & neural networks
Month after month, it looks like Leela Chess Zero is taking on computer chess... what do you think? Actually neural networks engines could even solve the future CPU problem (i9 and Threadripper seem much stronger than the first versions of i7 but what next... technology seems to reach some limits) by using GPU in an efficient way instead.
Does anyone use it to analyze correspondence chess games already?
In my opinion, most top centaur players will use Leela or another neural network chess engine (more or less based on ideas that made the success of AlphaZero) within 1 year...
Actually, I'm more and more concerned with the spectacular way & speed A.I. now improves, I just spent some time to understand it better and I wouldn't be surprised if our societies are really shaked in many ways (and more and more) within the next few years.
William Taylor (2019-03-05 22:27:10)
AlphaZero 2.0
Hi Abdulsamad. No... we were all posting about AlphaZero. You are the one who posted about Leela!
Certainly another interesting engine - let's see if it approaches AlphaZero's level.
Abdulsamad Sujas (2019-03-02 17:54:14)
AlphaZero 2.0
What you posted is not Alpha zero. It is Leela zero, which is same as alpha zero in terms of using neural networks.
It learns by playing itself
Google Leela zero to get info. It is free engine, and need some software knowledge to install. There are YouTube videos and some sites. Find by yourself
. I was using it in my system but problem it is losing on time. Don't know why. But it is now rated no.2 in cc engine matches. Just neck to neck with stockfish.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-06-30 20:22:16)
Interview with 15th chess WCH finalist
For once, as Eros & I couldn't find much more to say after all his consecutive wins, I asked Ramil Germanes these few questions around his match & correspondence chess (with what may look like a quite surprising conclusion).
_______________________
- Hello Ramil, many thanks for answering those few questions! This is a first time with the WCH finalist, as the winner (Eros again) agreeded this could be an interesting experiment for a change, so we'll probably have a quite different point of view this time! You just finished your games to score 6-6 (12 draws), Eros retaining the title again. I guess this was the first time you played such a correspondence chess match, what are your impressions on this knockout format?
Yes this is the first time I've played a world championship match although I played before in earlier editions of this world championship but not reaching the challenger level. My impression? Its great playing for the world championship but I know its nearly impossible to beat the world champion.
- Let's rewind a few months backward, would you make other choices, in openings or anything?
I don't know. Tbh, I'm not very good on chess theory and not very updated as well. So I'm just playing basic moves hoping for opportunities to come up.
- So, is Eros beatable in this final match according to you? (please give us some hope) ^^
With how quickly you can search information and the strength of chess engines nowadays, its almost impossible to beat him unless you have access to alpha zero (haha). Though maybe Herbert Kruse can pull it off.
- What can you tell us about yourself and your relation to chess & correspondence chess?
I'm just an ordinary guy from the Philipines who happens to love playing chess. But my love of computers is what brought me to correspondence chess and to ficgs.
- Do you play other games, e.g. Go, Shogi, cards games?
No I don't know how to play those games.
- Could you tell us how these 12 games went from your own point of view?
For me, the games went through their normal course. Both of us didn't made any major mistakes so all games were drawn. That's just how it went. Though there were new moves on some the games it doesn't really changes result of the older games played before.
- Would you share a few tips to play good correspondence chess in 2018, or at least to beat the best chess engines? :)
Sorry but i dont know. I will be the new world champion by now if i know, hehehe.
- You told me that your computer configuration was basically a quad-core i5 3570 / 4gb on Fritz GUI (about 10,500 kn/s) / Windows 10, and we know that many of us (Eros included) still use such configs or even dual-core, would an octa-core have brought a significant advantage to you to win this match according to you?
Oh I don't know they still have those configurations. But I've already encountered opponents in Infinity Chess with 18-22 cores configs. Anyways, an octa-core or faster cpu would definitely be going to speed up my analysis and will let me analyze more lines and variations which may improves my overall play.
Honestly, I don't have that much time these days for correspondence chess. In my match against Eros, I had only about 1 hour of analysis time before work and about another 1 hour after work. Since I already have a family and 2 kids, they have to be my priority first. And I think somebody also can relate to this. So a faster cpu would be very helpful in the match and maybe will give a better chance than a slower cpu.
- As far as I know, you love to build computers, did you use or think about using several ones at the same time for analysis?
No. I only used one computer in my match against Eros. I have 2 other computers but both are slower.
- How much time you've been playing correspondence chess & how do you feel the way the game changed over the years?
I've been playing correspondence chess since 2010 and I have observed that its easier to win games in the past when chess engines were still weaker. Because you notice some players depend only on engine moves and engines still commit mistakes and you can exploit those mistakes if you "investigate" further.
Unlike now, engines are very strong that even players who rely solely on engines moves will be very hard to beat. It lessens the gap of players that know how to "use" the engines and the ones who do not.
- Finally, what makes you love correspondence chess in 2018?
I will always love chess and correspondence chess but what makes it exciting now is the rise of the new kind of engines.
Engines like Leela chess zero that has a different approach in playing chess. Maybe more of these kind of chess engines will be seen in the future. Because of its use of monte carlo analysis and neural networks, we are starting to see moves that we have never seen before. Very aggressive attacks and moves defying opening principles can now be seen. Correspondence chess is getting exciting again!
Peter W. Anderson (2018-06-02 09:21:07)
Komodo 12 with AlphaZero techniques
My gut feeling is that Monte Carlo is most applicable to the opening, but I am not sure that is better than alpha-beta even there.
By the way, in my judgement Leela is already very strong in the opening. If I was still playing correspondence I would be using Leela to help prepare openings.
Peter W. Anderson (2018-06-01 18:36:45)
Komodo 12 with AlphaZero techniques
Well I am a bit sceptical Thib.
Yes it is using Monte Carlo, but it is not using a neural network which is what made AlphaZero interesting (and hopefully will eventually make Leela really special).
The Monte Carlo version of Komodo is a lot weaker than Komodo 11 at the moment and time will tell if the Monte Carlo version will ever be as strong as alpha-beta searching, but my guess is that for normal engines it will not be as strong.
As an aside, the claim of a 30 Elo improvement from version 11 to 12 of normal Komodeo may be a bit extravagent judging by the ccrl rating lists.
Ilmars Cirulis (2018-05-17 14:12:28)
Leela Chess Zero
Watching Leela's (LC0) progress with interest (and helping with training when I can, too).
I believe that a year later LC0 should be good enough to use in CC. Or maybe much faster, dunno.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-05-15 23:07:40)
Leela Chess Zero
Yes, a project to follow for sure. As for me I only play Go with Leela (against Leela I mean) for a few weeks, I feel it is really instructive even if I lose every game :)
Peter W. Anderson (2018-05-15 11:29:42)
Leela Chess Zero
Hello everyone :)
I guess most people here will be aware of the Leela Chess Zero project.
I was interested in whether anyone here is already using Leela? I have run a few of my old FICGS games through it quickly and it gives very different evaluations to the standard engines in some positions - I am not sure if they are better or worse at a quick glance but they are different!
For those who aren't familiar with Leela it is an attempt to recreate something like Alpha Chess Zero for the PC. It is not yet as strong as Stockfish etc but is as strong as most grandmasters and some weaker engines and is gradually increasing in strength as it is trained. It comes in two versions: one to run on the CPU and one to run on a graphics card. A high end graphics card gives the best results, but it runs OK on CPUs.
Leela is nowhere near as tactically strong as the best engines (whether it ever will be on "normal" hardware is an open question). However, to my eyes, it generally exhibits pretty good positional judgement, and so I am figuring it could provide a useful alternative view for correspondence games.
You can contribute to this really interesting project by helping to train it by donating computer time. Helping with the training is pretty straightforward. A guide of how to help is at
https://github.com/glinscott/leela-chess/wiki/Getting-Started
A forum and progress chart is at
http://lczero.org/
I found getting it to run under GUI's as an analysis tool a little more fiddly as it not yet fully UCI compliant. However, I have got it to run OK under Chessbase, Shredder, and Arena OK for analysis. For running matches Arena or something like Cutechess may be best.
I would interested to know your thoughts on this.
Ilmars Cirulis (2018-02-14 11:27:28)
New FICGS app: beta test
Hmm, interesting. Going to test it on Android rectangle before the night sleep.
Ilmars Cirulis (2017-12-08 10:00:57)
AlphaZero stronger than Stockfish
No, just do some collective, distributed training of the neural network (multiple machines doing self-play, one doing update sof the network), with public weights of the resulting neural network and open-source "Stockfish-Zero" for running it.
The Leela author is doing something similar with Leela-Zero project, for example.
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.
Thibault de Vassal (2017-10-19 20:14:23)
AlphaGo Zero
Must read... AlphaGo would have been able to re-learn from scratch & reach the level of the AlphaGo (2015) that beat Lee Sedol in... 3 days... only 3 days!
http://deepmind.com/blog/alphago-zero-learning-scratch/
Not so surprisingly, it took 21 days to reach the level of the version that beat Ke Jie this year. Now he would have reached a stellar rating (that does not mean much to us poor humans) of about 5000 (!) and he's able to win 100 games out of 100 to the AlphaGo "Lee".
Really stunning.
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.
Thibault de Vassal (2016-09-12 18:36:27)
AlphaGo games commented
Interesting Go games to learn from...
https://deepmind.com/research/alphago/alphago-games-english/
Games played by AlphaGo (either versus itself or versus Lee Sedol)
Thibault de Vassal (2016-02-03 19:19:05)
AI beats a professional Go player
Yes, well... Obviously Fan Hui is not as strong as Lee Sedol but a first match between the champ. and this almost-AI would be interesting to watch :)
Steven DuCharme (2015-11-23 20:47:00)
New quotes?
"Who the bleep bleeped up chessquotes.com ?"
-Me
Thibault de Vassal (2014-09-10 16:38:26)
Ficgs is a money trap * BEWARE *
You could also look for a player by using the chat bar and start the match if you estimate that he's not too strong (or sleepy) for you...
Dominique Geffroy (2014-09-04 21:58:31)
Ficgs is a money trap * BEWARE *
1. I guess he obeys laws imposed on him without delving into the whys and hows of why they exist...
2. Well, the message I was trying to convey is that in the eye of the authorities and the regulator, a conversion of epoints to money triggered by a game which looks fixed is an open door to money laundering, and therefore ruled out. Regulator says: no risk, no money. If there was no move on the opponent's side, the regulator says there was no risk.
I nevertheless have to agree with you, as anyone with common sense would, that it is very convoluted and unfair, because you are obviously not a money launderer and you would deserve your reward. Such server rule therefore probably needs to be put forward much more clearly by the organisers, who have in my opinion absolutely no leeway in this respect (This forum post will probably useful for that).
So maybe there is greed, maybe you are right. I do not know this person and will neither launch an attack on his personal character, nor try a defense. But all I can say is that even if he was a benevolent benefactor of humanity, he would risk prison if he converted epoints to money following a not contested game.
Dura lex, sed lex.
Thibault de Vassal (2013-07-15 14:16:39)
Interview with new FICGS Go champion
Yen-Wei Huang, winner of the 8th FICGS Go championship, kindly accepted to answer a few questions for this very interesting interview!
_______________________
- Hello Yen-Wei and congratulations for winning the FICGS Go championship! Xiao Tong was obviously a tough opponent, yet you won 5-0, what happened during this match?
Hi Thib. Thanks again for your kind invitation. Xiao is definitely one of the strongest Go players on FICGS, and I was really, really lucky to have won all five games. In fact, I was behind in three of them until Xiao made some mistakes late in the games: in game 69092, I forced a tough ko fight which jeopardized my lower group. Xiao made a mistake at P2 as he missed my T3 could force another ko. Game 69093 was very close towards the end but I think the move at C13 caused him the game. Game 69096 was even closer that I won by half a point thanks to the big 7.5 komi. The other two games were not easy either and I am glad I could have hung on to the lead. Overall I really enjoyed our match and I would love to have a rematch with Xiao in the future.
- You're from Taiwan, could you tell us a bit more about you? At what age did you learn Go? Do you have any other ranks (e.g. at other sites)?
I learned Go when I was 5 and I have always enjoyed playing all my life. I used to play on servers like KGS and Tygem and I was around 6-7 dan on these sites. Recently I don't have that much time to play so that's why turned to turn-based server like FICGS.
- What do you think about the world of Go these days? Who is the very best player in the world according to you?
I think the past two years were the "warring period" in the world of Go. I would say Lee Sedol was the best player two years ago, but he seems to have lost his dominant position recently. There are many rising stars that are winning the world champions. I am especially keeping an eye on Yuta Iyama, who I think is No. 1 in Japan and has started to threaten the dominance of Chinese and Korean players.
- What about computer Go and its future? How many years do you give to the human before losing to the machine?
As a software engineer I foresee the computer Go beats the world's No. 1 player in two decades. Crazy Stone already beat Yoshio Ishida with four handicap stones earlier this year, and I believe it wouldn't take long for computers to beat pros in two handicap stones. The real challenge will come when computers need to go from handicap games to even games since they need to advance from defensive mode to attack mode. I am really excited to see how Artificial Intelligence can surprise us with its "creative" moves when the time comes.
- Do you use engines or databases? What advice would you give to beginners (and to your future challengers :))?
I know there are many useful Go engines and databases that are being developed these days, unfortunately I don't really know much about them. I do use http://ps.waltheri.net/ if I need to look something up, and I go to http://tom.com for commented games (they're in Chinese, nonetheless). Advice to beginners: just go to any search engine and you can easily find all the free resources you want. Advice to my future challengers: just try the new variations since I know none of them :)
- What new features would you like to see at FICGS?
Firstly I'd like to thank Thib for maintaining such a wonderful site. I enjoy playing Go and Poker here and maybe I'll start playing Chess sometime (I really suck so I'm not ready to embarrass myself yet). The ability to play different games is what makes FICGS unique. As Thib mentioned earlier, we need much more players, and I think FICGS simply needs to host much more tournaments, probably some with shorter time settings. With more games and more player engagement, more people will stick around. Another feature I'd really like to see is FICGS client for cellphones/tablets. The main advantage of turn-based servers is that it allows people to play wherever for whatever period of time: a 1-min ride in the elevator, a 10-min wait at the bus stop, or a couple of hours at home. If playing on FICGS is made easier, I know I will be more addicted to it :)
- Thank you very much and good luck in the next final match...
Thanks! And please go easy on our Poker match...
Horatiu Adrian Petrescu (2013-01-16 14:54:11)
FICGS admin scam me
Nothing Garvin ,sleep well with your soft machine.:)))).And when you wake up and you are ready for a honest game chess without machines call me and we play on playok website.sweet dreams!
Horatiu Adrian Petrescu (2013-01-16 00:23:43)
FICGS admin scam me
This admin is a big liar and scammer. I post here all story.
In 2010 I ask him how I cashout if I wish to.Bellow is our conversation :
"Re : cashoutMonday, January 4, 2010 3:25 PM
From: This sender is DomainKeys verified"Thibault de Vassal" - ficgs at yahoo . com - Add sender to Contacts
Hello,
There's no button, you just have to ask me :) How many Epoints do you want to convert in Euros ?
Please specify your email at Paypal or Moneybookers.
Best wishes,
Thibault
Hi!
I don't see the button for cashout! Where is it? "
He didn't tell me nothing about some condition.Why? Because that time
was not specified.
Bellow is our conversation in the present time :
"Hi, I wish to cashout my 7,14 Epoints, to my Paypal account.Thank you.Regards.
Hello ,
You have to win at least one silver/gold tournament to cash out Epoints, feel free to read the conditions here:
http://www.ficgs.com/membership.html#prize"
...and on chat:
petrescu horatiuadrian :
you are a charlatan
(2013-01-15 23:46:58)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
I lost more than 7 euros,My deposit was much more
(2013-01-15 23:32:03)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
I just ask my money only ,not a profit or an interest
(2013-01-15 23:31:13)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
not crook.
(2013-01-15 23:29:42)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
you think I care about 7 euros ,I have checked you if are or
petrescu horatiuadrian :
you are a bank,but for you only
(2013-01-15 23:26:30)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
you are just a liar
(2013-01-15 23:25:15)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
your rule
(2013-01-15 23:24:44)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
you told me about L511 ,I checked and write nothing about
devassal thibault :
This is a games server, conditions are clear on this...
(2013-01-15 23:17:12)
devassal thibault :
I would have told you to deposit? So, to be a bank for you?
(2013-01-15 23:16:07)
devassal thibault :
This is only a misunderstanding, obviously. sorry about that
(2013-01-15 23:15:09)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
You lied to me to make deposit here
(2013-01-15 23:14:01)
devassal thibault :
.. and let's see what others think...
(2013-01-15 23:13:59)
devassal thibault :
Just publish this email on the forum...
(2013-01-15 23:13:43)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
you think I am naive?then why you lied me then,in 2010?
(2013-01-15 23:12:10)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
ahaha,you are not lawer ,you are liar,liar, liar
(2013-01-15 23:09:24)
devassal thibault :
I'm not lawyer, but a lawyer told me what I can or cannot do
petrescu horatiuadrian :
from the law
(2013-01-15 22:39:35)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
ok ,tell me the article of legislation or give me the link
(2013-01-15 22:39:27)
devassal thibault :
french laws... but I guess that's the same in most countries
(2013-01-15 22:30:41)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
tell me which laws ,yours laws?or what
(2013-01-15 22:25:52)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
which laws?
(2013-01-15 22:24:57)
burrows nick :
ah!
(2013-01-15 22:02:52)
devassal thibault :
as money prize, by winning silver/gold tournaments
(2013-01-15 21:57:38)
burrows nick :
how is money recouped?
(2013-01-15 21:40:31)
devassal thibault :
FICGS cannot be a bank... that's you ask for
(2013-01-15 21:15:02)
devassal thibault :
In one word : because of laws...
(2013-01-15 21:13:32)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
or you don t want because the terms?
(2013-01-15 20:59:26)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
speak clear
(2013-01-15 20:58:33)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
I don t understand why u cannot,because the server?
(2013-01-15 20:58:24)
devassal thibault :
That's the point of this server after all
(2013-01-15 20:40:34)
devassal thibault :
Anyway, winning one silver game would solve the problem...
(2013-01-15 20:40:10)
devassal thibault :
.. but the fact is that I cannot do this & never could
(2013-01-15 20:39:11)
devassal thibault :
We can even discuss it in the forum if you want...
(2013-01-15 20:37:09)
devassal thibault :
That's specified in the conditions... just read it
(2013-01-15 20:36:18)
devassal thibault :
The number of Epoints had to be a multiple of tournament fee
(2013-01-15 20:35:59)
In my country exist many charlatans but I see in France too.France is beautiful country but "there are lees to every wine".
Don Groves (2012-12-27 01:50:48)
A gift for your favorite Go player
http://shop.gogameguru.com/lee-changho-kaya-go-board-83/
They are in stock at only $49,500 !
Dmitri Mamrukov (2012-08-19 23:33:36)
What happened to Boris Spassky?
I don't think there is any political case. Most likely, it's purely a personal matter (complicated by his 3 marriages) as Spassky suggested in his version.
I'm sure both brainwashed or paid liberals in Russia must be upset that Spassky fleed to Putin's Russia. :)
Thibault de Vassal (2012-05-12 13:35:05)
Top 20 Pro Go players
Here is a very nice series of articles/bios on current top Pro Go players by Gogameguru...
http://gogameguru.com/top-20-pro-go-2010/
Featuring Lee Sedol, Kong Jie, Park Junghwan, Choi Cheolhan, Kang Dongyun, Heo Youngho, Gu Li, Xie He, Won Seongjin, Li Zhe, Zhou Ruiyang, Tuo Jiaxi, Lee Changho, Qiu Jun, Kim Jiseok, Wang Xi, Cho Hanseung, Chen Yaoye, Park Younghun & Lee Younggu.
Daniel Parmet (2012-05-03 04:38:02)
Slow tournament entries
That doesn't matter... there was an IMMENSE drop in the quality of games from 30+1 day to 30 +1h now imagine the drop from 30+1h to 20+1h. The game quality would probably not even be better than an over the board tournament at that point.
You have two major problems 1) the poor time control driving the quality of games to utter crap and 2) the increment is not even enough to cover your sleep/work zone. So you are actually losing massive amount of time that had nothing to do with your number of games but rather your daily functions of survival.
If you think about 20+1h you are effectively saying the entire game should be played in 23 days per side.
Daniel Parmet (2012-05-03 04:30:30)
Slow tournament entries
That time control is impossible (20 days plus 1hour). 30 days plus one hour was barely playable! Minimum increment needs to be 12 hours to cover for sleep/work times but more like 24 hours. The WBCCC was awful directly because of its bad time control. The only reason I played the WBCCC at all was to play strong players.
Thibault de Vassal (2011-11-13 19:52:28)
List ordered by rating
Here is, but as usual the new ratings (january 2012) will be taken in account...
Erwin Thiering 2515
Michael Bergmann 2475
Xavier Pichelin 2454
Thibault de Vassal 2449
Herbert Kruse 2436
Pavel Háse 2332
Ljubomir Tsenkov 2314
Rubén Cómes 2300
Wayne Lowrance 2266
Dariusz Fraczek 2261
Ramil Germanes 2255
Miroslav Gazi 2255
Alexander Blinchevsky 2253
Michael Sharland 2251
Sergey Kokoryukin 2251
Andrey Razumikhin 2250
Valery Nemchenko 2245
Lubos Fric 2241
Kevin D. Plant 2237
Christoph Schroeder 2236
Viktor Shishkin 2234
Slobodan Ilic 2218
Dmitri Mamrukov 2211
Vitaly Rudenko 2203
Alvin Alcala 2203
Carlos Sánchez 2203
Garvin Gray 2200
Scott Nichols 2189
Peter Unger 2181
Martin Zeman 2181
Christian Koch 2167
Stephen Hamby 2163
John Schutte 2136
David Evans 2132
Nelson Bernal Varela 2130
Darren DiAlfonso 2123
Ardiantez Polkwitzauer 2123
Thomas Dineen 2118
Peter W. Anderson 2112
Steve Lim 2110
Yu Ming Hoe 2100
Arkadiusz Wosch 2093
Djordje Kasabasic 2093
Luis Flores 2084
Daniel Parmet 2083
Lalit Kapoor 2080
Erik L. van Dijk 2074
Bernd Wolf 2072
Jose Lopez 2071
Sergey Uzdin 2064
Rodolfo d Ettorre 2064
Janos Helmer 2063
Om Prakash 2053
Mykola Simashkevitch 2043
Alexis Duenas 2037
Ireneusz Kasznia 2036
Mihail Larsky 2028
Joop Simmelink 2026
Pan Hardfeldt 2020
Henri Muller 2000
Jaroslav senior Pech 2000
Jaroslaw Gibas 2000
Bogoljub Teverovski 1997
Willy De Waele 1996
Fernando Vasquez 1992
Jose Moreira 1979
Andrew Endean 1975
Henri-Louis Muller 1972
Jose Maria Velasco 1972
Jordi Domingo 1969
Janeen Walden 1958
Andy Richard 1956
Roberto Migliorini 1949
Erika van Dijk 1943
Daniel Reboredo 1938
Coco Maceda 1938
Michael Rogers 1933
Aleksandr Aksenov 1927
Mariusz Maciej Broniek 1923
Robert Wilhelm 1901
Kieran Moore 1900
John Dyson 1889
Catalin Nita 1888
Daniel Jabot 1878
Johanes Suhardjo 1875
Mikhail Ruzin 1871
Benjamin Block 1863
Ilmar Ambos 1859
Vyacheslav Shchelykalin 1859
Jan Peter Lommler 1844
Stanislas Gounant 1840
Mircea Hrubaru 1838
Sasha Lipsits 1833
Nilson Pereira 1833
Aleksey Payzansky 1804
Jai Prakash Singh 1800
Fredi Brumec 1800
Gleen Duran 1800
Josef Strohmeier 1800
Ryszard Sternik 1776
Stepan Pech 1767
Dieter Faust 1764
Dmitriy Malish 1760
Dimitrios Ropokis 1743
Hasan Kirali 1715
Eddit Moreul 1700
Behzad Shahmiri 1700
Jaimie Wilson 1684
Dinesh Bhandarkar 1682
Philip Roe 1667
Olli Ylönen 1660
Graham Cridland 1655
Juan Alvar 1653
Jeremy Banta 1644
Luís Gonzaga Grego 1643
Pablo Siciliano 1623
Mariusz Jandula 1600
Sergey Biryukov 1598
Alejandro Canovas 1589
Jimmy Huggins 1577
Matthew O Brien 1575
Pablo Ruano 1565
Khaled Toutaoui 1528
Stanimir Denchev 1505
Leo Malagar 1500
Richard Hendricks 1479
Eric Price 1469
Antonio Pereira 1456
Angelo Piantadosi 1420
Simon Huxtable 1388
Peter Krakovsky 1326
Marc-Antoine Leurette 1243
Jorge Orden 1204
Hana Pechova 1204
Jorma Häkkinen 1192
Des Jefferis 1186
Deon Whittaker 1111
Matej Pech 1074
Jiri Mach 1022
Cédric Cavaillé 1003
Jay Melquiades 0909
Jaroslav Pech 0697
Daniel Parmet (2011-04-04 07:33:36)
Conditional moves
if I may play devil's advocate... I believe it is precisely BECAUSE conditional moves are more fair that is why players want them. Now when a person is low on time or trying to extend the game into the next rating period they purposefully wait until the BEST hour in which to make a move to clip the most time off their opponent's clock. If conditional moves were in place, a person could sleep knowing that their forced response is already in the system for their sneaky opponent that just wants to flag them.
Don Groves (2011-04-04 05:55:42)
Conditional moves
I agree Thib, particularly when a game is played in widely separated time zones. The conditional move could give one player several hours advantage on an opponent's clock while they sleep.
Daniel Parmet (2011-02-17 20:13:16)
request again tour
I think increment of 8 hours is a good idea. I find on average I lose 8 hours in my WBCCC game just cause of time difference. He moves literally 5minutes after I go to sleep.
Garvin Gray (2010-10-29 14:54:31)
Strong Tournament at Rybka Forum
Each tournament is slightly different and if a faster time control is used, then players will adjust. Just like playing rapid time controls in otb chess.
It is advertised as a blitz tournament, so of course the time controls will be shorter than the normal type of corro time control. All I have been trying to do is point out issues relating to players competing from different parts of the world.
I am certainly one of those who would be seriously affected by using the 40 move time control you have suggested previously.
I live in Brisbane Australia, so most of my opponents will be at least 4 to 8 hours at least behind me, so it is very common for me to receive moves in the middle of the night, or have a whole batch of moves awaiting me when I wake up.
This can mean that I already start with losing about 8 hours on the clock before I even get to look at a position.
I accept this in the time controls on here because that is just how it is and I am not that disadvantaged as it works the other way where I reply and my opponents are asleep/at work.
But under the 40 move time control posted, I would be severely affected and my only 'crime' would be living in Australia.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-09-17 00:29:38)
Svante Carl von Erichsen on Go WCH #4
As you probably read in the news, Svante Carl von Erichsen won the 4th FICGS Go WCH, beating his challenger Huayong Yang 3-2, Svante Carl wins the Go championship for the 4th time in a row!
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=tournament&tournament=FICGS__GO__WORLD_CHAMPIONSHIP__000004
Svante Carl kindly accepted to answer a few questions on his match & computer Go:
FICGS - Hello Svante Carl, congratulations once again for winning this match against a surprising challenger who started here a few months ago with a 10 kyu rank, Huayong Yang, now rated 2438 after scoring 2 points in your 5 games match (which is a great achievement for sure). What did you think about his play & yours in these games?
Svante Carl - I think that he greatly underestimated his rank initially. As far as I know, he had not played for a long time and believed that his ability had therefore deteriorated. I do not think that you can drop more than one or at most two stones, though -- it is like cycling or swimming, you never unlearn it. I had the impression that we were quite evenly matched in summa, but our strengths are in different aspects of the game; I cannot really put my finger on the difference, though.
FICGS - After a previous win, you said that you spend a quite long time to analyze, which probably helps you to reach a higher level than 2 dan (your EGF rating) compared to OTB play... It looks obvious to me that correspondence chess moves generally ask for much more time than Go moves at a high level but I may be wrong, how much time did you spend on your longest analysis during the match? Do you remember for which move?
Svante Carl - I usually spend at least a few minutes on each move, except when the continuation is obvious. I often use more, and if I do not find a satisfactory move then, I will even postpone the move to another day, so that I can sleep over it and let my subconcious work on it.
FICGS - Do you watch other games played by your future opponent before starting your match? Do you think that this is really important in preparation like it can be in Correspondence chess?
Svante Carl - I sometimes glance over the games in the championship qualification tournament, but I do not try to prepare this way. I do not think that such preparation has any value in Go, especially in correspondence Go, since you have time during the game to do deep analysis. I usually try to take each game out of standard fuseki patterns pretty quickly, anyway. Of course, I know that my opponents in these title matches are always very tough and demand my utmost respect.
FICGS - Do you still follow the recent developments in computer Go? What do you think about the latest Go engines? How much time do we have yet before the best Go players are caught by computers according to you?
Svante Carl - I have the impression that the currently most promising technology (Monte Carlo/UCT) has the potential to achieve a rank of about 2 or 3 dan (EGF/KGS). I think that the next fundamentally new idea or breakthrough might add 2 stones, to get to 4 or 5 dan. I do not have any idea where it might go from that, but I think that it gets always harder.
What I would find interesting is having more intermediate board sizes. The best bots are almost on par with the best professionals on 9x9 now. I would propose to try to achieve a similar level on 11x11, then 13x13, then 15x15 etc.. Regarding 9x9, I think that the currently predominant komi of 7.5 points is too big, and that this has a negative impact on the experiments because the bots do not play in a balanced environment. It might be worthwhile to introduce the Taiwan rule (last move compensation) to get more fine-grained scores.
FICGS - What programs did you use this year to analyze? (just trying, of course it may be part of your secrets ;))
Svante Carl - It is not a secret. I just use an editor, usually EidoGo or CGoban3, to visualize the variations I imagine.
FICGS - Finally, what thoughts would you like to share on your 5 games, that could help us not to miss the best times or to help us to understand the most complex moves...
Svante Carl - I cannot give a detailed commentary, but I can try to summarize my impressions.
I think that Game 5 was quite balanced until move 21, but I think that the white invasion was a bit ambitious then. Of course, White did not need to die there, but after moves 32-33 I think that Black had a good result anyway (move 32 should go out faster in my opinion; note how E14 helps Black in enclosing White).
In Game 3, I think things got quite difficult for White in the lower left, but I let him take the initiative by backing off at move 35 (I should have simply closed off F10 then). White gained control of the centre as a result, and in the large endgame, I lost too many points there.
In Game 4, I fell behind in the opening through some slow moves (there was some discussion on the Life-in-19x19 forum about this, see the link in the comments of that game). In the endgame, Black then lost some points in the centre, so that I was a bit ahead when the game timed out.
In Game 1, I made some bad decisions on the left side, and never managed to turn things around. I think I was behind by about 5 points in the end.
In Game 2, I think that Black should not have ignored move 24. After I got quite some territory from my moyo and also reduced his top side, I could play it safe.
I look forward to the games with Olivier Drouot that recently started, but I also hope that Yang Huayong will re-enter the championship cycle.
Thibault de Vassal (2010-08-19 01:40:04)
Speeding up Poker games
Hi Sebi, would be too easy IMO :/ I don't think that such a solution could go without any problem... We must absolutely avoid that any game be lost on time by playing one move per day just when the opponent sleeps or something like that.
Francisco Gramajo (2010-07-12 22:33:01)
FIFA world cup 2010, predictions
@Rolf Staggat @Francisco
I was in korea for a while, at the begining was hard for me to diference one from other, they look similar, and believe it or not, every body is named Park, Kim, Lee or Chiung.
Seriously... the few Koreans who can get any atlhetic training becoming super athletes, that is for sure!
Another important note: most of the population dont believe in God, not in Jesus, even tough they have more respect from each other than the christians.
My highly respects for all them.
Regards to all,
Thibault de Vassal (2010-06-04 00:34:04)
Contest : FICGS, acronym for...
"First International Community for Global Sleep" (Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff) :)
Sorry, I couldn't resist.... :>
Thibault de Vassal (2010-05-05 15:41:56)
Topalov wins Game 8
Topalov strikes back in Game 8, now the score is 4-4, and as Mircea noticed it, the game follows a line until move 18 in another game played here "de Vassal vs. Leemans 1/2-1/2", I'm not sure if 18.a5 is a real improvement but it worked well against a world champion, at least!
Mircea Hrubaru (2010-05-05 09:24:06)
Anand vs. Topalov, world championship
Hi Thib,
Maybe you can publish something on your game against Robert Leemans in which you followed the line in the game Maletin-Amonatov (18. Rac1). Did you consider 18. a5 to continue?
Stephane Legrand (2010-05-01 02:25:48)
Speeding up Poker games
you dont sleep 24hours !
if he waits you go to bed he losses more time than you!!
but you are right some players can play with this rythm in certain case!!
Benjamin Block (2009-10-18 21:36:58)
I agree
Thibault you make a really good work. I hope you take some money self from the google ads you are really worth it. It is hard to think any person that can take over this site when you do not want or can. I really hope that my grandchild will play on this site and have that fun as i have and always will have (i´m still i child). PS: Please stop smoke we don´t want you to die in prematurly. You really work hard. Do you ever sleep?
Don Groves (2009-09-05 00:09:13)
Too much French wine?
CHENNAI, India (Reuters) - A leading French chess player turned up drunk and dozed off after just 11 moves in an international tournament in Kolkata, losing the round on technical grounds, domestic media reported Friday.
Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev arrived for Thursday's match against India's Praveen Kumar in such an inebriated state that he could hardly sit in his chair and soon fell asleep, resting his head on the table, Hindustan Times newspaper reported.
Indian papers carried pictures of the world number 58 sleeping and the organizers' futile attempts to wake his up.
The game was awarded to the Indian on the technical ground of Tkachiev being unable to complete his moves within the stipulated time of an hour and 30 minutes, the paper said.
The player was warned and reprimanded by the organizers afterwards but has been allowed to take part in the remainder of the competition, the paper said.
Thibault de Vassal (2009-08-05 17:16:53)
Bruce Lee quotes
I did not know the quotes by Bruce Lee, so I looked for more :) Among the best I found :
"Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier."
"The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a pattern of systems."
"Knowledge will give you power, but character respect."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee
Nick Burrows (2009-08-05 13:13:03)
quotes
"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water.
Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot.
Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
- Bruce Lee
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."-Mark Twain
No one should allow his mind to be a vehicle for others to use; He who does not direct his own mind lacks mastery. Ono who is looking for a reward is smaller than the reward; One who has renounced a thing has risen above it. So long as one has a longing to obtain any particular object, one cannot go further than that object.
- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Be who you are, and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. -Dr. Seuss
Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
- Frank Outlaw
Rodolfo d Ettorre (2009-04-18 17:36:57)
Draws and more draws ...
I can see the points, a verbal draw should be binding, but, because there is only one Thibault, we do not have many referees to solve disputes, so, checking the box offers no ambiguity, no misunderstandings and no human interventions, so Thibault can sleep longer.
Normajean Yates (2009-04-15 21:22:03)
11 half-moves: decent uper bound..
Thanks for the posts so far - So, we made progress (in the pure math sense) - we have a 'small enough' upper bound now - 11 half-moves for white, so by symmetry 12 (or 10?) half moves for black...
I can't say 12 or 10 (above) because I havent though about the answer at all - the question came to mind; I posted it; went to sleep... will think later..
Thibault de Vassal (2009-02-14 18:27:24)
Leela
Hi Svante Carl, I did not know this one, thanks for the info :
http://www.sjeng.org/leela.html
Svante Carl von Erichsen (2009-02-14 16:09:53)
Leela
I also heard good things about Leela. An older 9x9 version is free.
Michel van der Kemp (2008-11-28 19:29:17)
Link
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=viewer&game=26217&move=23 Humm 1 out of 649740? Unless you're playing with an extra deck up your sleeves ;)
Thibault de Vassal (2008-11-26 21:58:40)
Time controls for Holdem
Correspondence time controls (> 1 day) are very delicate to manage. If we set an increment inferior to 1 day, it may provoke some problems with a few players trying to find some tricks to win on time or at least to keep a time pressure on their opponents (most players sleep during the night yet :)). With the current time control, most players still seem to play fastly and, of course, do not hope to win on time. And last but not least, this is much less stressful than rapid chess tournaments :)
However the maximum days could be inferior for poker, that's right, but let's see... I'm not sure it is really necessary to change something yet.
Don Groves (2008-10-30 20:19:24)
Response to Scott
Hi, Scott -- How about specifying a minimum number of moves per day rather than a time increment? Four hours per move would interfere with my sleep pattern ;-)
Andrew Stephenson (2008-10-05 23:03:12)
The Many Faces of Go
...is the name of the program that just won the Go section in the Beijing International Computer Games Association tournament. It won all 12 games which included beating the 2nd place program MoGo. In the 9 x 9 Go competition Many Faces also triumphed winning 15 out of 18 games but was beaten by MoGo who took 3rd after a playoff with the program Leela. the chess of course was won by Rybka
Rodolfo d Ettorre (2008-08-04 15:06:15)
A silly one .....
I read this somewhere ...
Comparing George W Bush with Bill Clinton is worse than comparing Monica Lewinsky with Condoleezza Rice
Thibault de Vassal (2008-05-20 17:35:16)
Qutie fnnuy :)
Qutie fnnuy to see taht wthaveer the oderr of leettrs (but frist and lsat), one awylas utsanerdnad the mniaeng of ervey stneecne. The biran is rlleay ainzmag dno't you tnihk ?
Thibault de Vassal (2008-01-08 00:50:55)
Incomes of top Go players
One more interesting article from the IGN "Goama" newsletter - http://gogame.info
Incomes of Top Korean Professionals in 2007:
1. Lee Sedol - $600.000
2. Lee Changho - $400.000
3. Park Yeonghun - $360.000
4. Cho Hanseung – $180.000
5. Kang Dongyun - $150.000
6. Mok Jinseok -$148.000
7. Lee Yeongku -$122.000
8. Won Sungjin -$116.000
9. Yun Junsang - $113.000
10. Kim Jiseok – $113.000
Japanese players, even who is not famous on international arena, makes more money, but it's still hard to compare their tournament incomes with top football or hockey players.
Maybe better to compare chess and Go players: "As sports go, chess is not lucrative for the average professional. The well known top players who have been able to achieve millionaire status (Karpov and Kasparov) are the exceptions. Aside from them, there are only about 20 players world wide who do well financially from chess ($100,000+ per year income), and another 100 or so that make a comfortable living ($50,000+). The next 1,000 players, on average, come out about even -- earning in prizes what they incur in entry fees and expenses. Then come perhaps 10,000 players who invest several thousand dollars more per year than they earn." -- from "GM RAM: Essential Grandmaster Knowledge" by Rashid Ziatdi and Peter Dyson, PROChess LLC, New York, 1998
Thibault de Vassal (2007-11-27 22:37:57)
Baduk and chance : 1dan in LG cup final
A Go player ranked 1 dan is about 800 elo points below a 9 dan player (whatever the ranking system ?!), meaning about no chance to win a game against such an opponent, right ?! .. How is it possible to see a 1 dan player at this level in one of the main Go tournaments in the world ?
Of course everything can happen in a Go game, but I suppose it is not the case during a whole tournament...
From IGN Goama newsletter - http://gogame.info
"An interview with Han Sanghoon, 1-dan, the first 1-dan in Go history, who entered the final match of the World Go Championship (LG cup)
- Congratulations! What was the most difficult game in this tournament?
- The last one with On Sojin, 4-dan. It was really close finally and I think, that I was slightly behind until the endgame stage
- You became a professional about 1 year ago. Did you think that you can reach the final match of the World Go Championship so quickly?
- I remember that it was very hard to become a professional. I was almost 18 and it was my last chance to win the qualification among inseis. Of course, I did not think, that I can show good results quickly. I was surprised, that professional tournaments are not much harder than the insei league :)
- What are your weakest and strongest parts in Go?
- I am weak at the opening, but I feel myself confident in middlegame fights. Usually I try to defend my groups solidly, before fighting
- Who is the hardest opponent for you?
- Yun Junsang, 6-dan. I lost him twice and feel that he is much stronger than me. Also his Go style is very impressive
- What do you think about your final match with Lee Sedol, 9-dan. How big are your chances?
- I never played him before, but I saw lot of his game records and I know that Lee Sedol, 9-dan is much stronger than me. Any way, I will try to win the match! Usually I am not afraid of the star opponents at all!"
Dirk Ghysens (2007-09-14 09:28:07)
Openings
Why is the Indian Defense so strong?
Because there are more than a billion Indians.
What is the best weapon against a Sicilian?
An AK47 ... or fleeing.
Why doesn't anybody play the American Defense?
Because its moves are 'classified'.
Why wasn't the Scotch popular in the 1920's?
Because of the Prohibition.
Rodolfo d Ettorre (2007-09-11 07:25:33)
Tolerance
Also the only moderator we have is Thibault. Unfortunately he is human, so he sleeps and has other activities ... FICGS sans frontieres
Thibault de Vassal (2007-09-01 00:38:30)
My favourite quote...
... from FICGS chat :)
devassal thibault : Ilmars discovered sleep :) .. Good night !
cirulis ilmars : I was in very interesting chat with girlfriend...
devassal thibault : Oops.. I was wrong... :>
devassal thibault : lol !!
Dinesh De Silva (2007-07-17 04:53:18)
Re:
Haha! Good point! I actually do sleep. In the game you refer to, I was actually lucky to make the time control. Nevertheless, I had earlier lost a few games due to sleep! as I sometimes missed moves by a mere few seconds to time control. Some of those games I had some good positions Anyway, the main thing here is I enjoy my games win, draw or lose.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-07-16 13:54:06)
Dead Man's Attack
Finally, it didn't work... After more than 40 days with less than 9 hours (then 4 hours) at his clock, Dinesh easily reached the time control at move 40 !
Do you ever sleep, Dinesh ? :)
Jason Repa (2007-07-15 09:29:04)
Rybka vs. Human
Conversely, computers, or AI in general, are still very primitive with regards to activities that are simple for a four year old to conduct, such as shape and speech recognition. I agree with Utesch, there is no point in losing any sleep over the increasing improvement of computers in chess. We need not be in competition with them.
Dinesh De Silva (2007-07-11 14:04:49)
Re:
I doubt it.......I'm fast asleep.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The only one who's almost always awake is Ilmars. Let's tell him to wake us all up when the tourney starts.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-06-27 04:02:55)
DMD / DMA : Dead Man's Attack :)
You know the DMD - Dead Man's Defense... but do you know the Dead Man's Attack ? :))
Dinesh opponents may know this "funny" situation, but this time I prefered to wait the next rating calculation... Sorry Dinesh, I hope you did not sacrifice your sleep this last month (sure not) ;) .. Quite strange anyway, I'm curious to understand.
http://www.ficgs.com/game_2931.html
Alexander Shalamanov (2007-06-22 20:00:58)
L'histoire de la verite, Thibauld :)
En bonne justice, les invitations pour entrer dans l'equippe ont envoiee aux participants d'IGAME choisie. Alors beacoup de gens qu'ont vraiment voulee jouer le match n'ont pu le faire.
Dmitry Mendeleev (2007-06-19 12:00:37)
FICGS vs. IGAME.RU
Hi, guys! Nice to meet you here. Hope to play some exciting games
Robert Mueller (2007-06-18 21:09:21)
Lightning and Blitz Time Controls
Question: Let's say I subscribe to a lightning or blitz time control (30 min or 2 hours) match and I am the first one, when does the game start? As soon as another player signs up? That could be hours or days later. I could be asleep and lose on time. Or am I missing something here?
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 :)
Garvin Gray (2007-06-04 11:41:42)
Wch 3 in rating order
KAZ Balabaev, Farit 2580
FRA de Vassal, Thibault 2512
USA Ingersol, Harry 2502
NZL Noble, Mark 2497
DEU Schuster, Peter 2480
POL Ostrowski, Leszek 2458
ARG Brunsteins, Daniel 2452
CAN Zubac, Marius 2415
ROU Mathe, Iosif 2414
UKR Khokhlov, Igor 2370
MLT Sammut, Ronald 2362
ROU Helmer, Janos 2343
PRT Pires, Miguel 2270
LKA De Silva, Dinesh 2235
POL Sanner, Zdzislaw 2219
RUS Dyakov, Alexander 2217
DEU Schiller, Wilfried 2217
DEU Koslowski, Volker 2204
DZA Ould Ahmed, Samy 2195
FRA Appendino, Jérome 2192
GBR Taylor, William 2182
GRC Bleker, Frits 2171
DNK Jorgensen, Poulerik 2168
DEU Kesselheim, Peter 2149
CAN Repa, Jason 2144
PRT Louro, Eugénio 2123
USA Kotlyansky, Edward 2114
DEU Markus, Roland 2103
FRA Czekaj, Christophe 2098
AUT Dudulec, Konstantin 2084
CAN Plante, Marc-Eric 2079
LVA Borisovs, Leonids 2078
AUT Mueller, Robert 2069
DEU Unger, Peter 2065
AUT Riha, Josef 2019
POL Skwarczylo, Marek 2018
MUS Stephenson, Andrew 2000
CZE Stanislav, Musil 1990
SCG Vidanovic, Djordje 1966
USA Burden, Don 1959
DEU Haluschka, Rainer 1950
CAN Rotaru, Dan 1937
GBR Wyborn, Graham 1890
GBR Burrows, Nick 1884
POL Broniek, Mariusz Maciej 1879
BIH Dautovic, Dzenan 1875
AUS Gray, Garvin 1863
USA Minkin, Alexander 1850
GBR Josse, Mark 1806
ARM Khachaturov, Vadim 1803
USA Kotlyanskiy, Ilya 1800
DEU Krueger, Karsten 1800
PRT Vasquez, Fernando 1775
DZA Toutaoui, Khaled 1763
DEU Wosch, Arkadiusz 1746
TUR Yuvarlak, Ugur 1732
ROU Hrubaru, Mircea 1726
ARG Carrizo, José 1724
USA Phillip, Lennox 1700
ROU Kondort, Mihai 1700
ROU Ioan, Bucsa 1700
BRA Miranda, Marcus 1691
VEN Flores, Luis 1680
RUS Ruzin, Mikhail 1639
DEU Faust, Dieter 1627
MYS Behrmann, Klaus 1617
FRA Bellanger, Michel 1606
POL Bester, Kazimierz 1600
DEU Nent, Alexander 1593
PRT Oliveira, Carlos 1586
HUN Nagy, Attila 1549
ROU Ionescu, Catalin 1535
HUN Kis-Kos, Laszlo 1512
ITA Lupinacci, Nicola 1492
BEL De Groof, Pieter 1465
DEU Odendahl, Marcel 1462
USA Hendricks, Richard 1459
BRA Queiroz, Florencio 1444
CZE Pech, Jaroslav 1433
USA Goodwin, Adam 1415
HUN Csoma, Robert 1400
USA Gillz, Nicolas 1400
BGR Toktas, Ibrahim Ugras 1400
IND Veeraiah, Karuppaiah 1400
MEX Ortiz Durán, Esteban 1400
TUR Ilhan, Alper 1400
CHE Margot, Alain 1400
TUR Erdonho, Erdinç 1400
USA Lipsits, Sasha 1400
BRA B. Lima, Edmilson 1400
DEU von Buttlar, Paul 1386
HUN Fenyves, Adam 1330
BGR Stoianov, Stoian 1316
GRC Serd, Than 1300
TUR Ak, Murat 1300
GBR Willoughby, Peter 1294
ARG Orden, Jorge 1264
GBR Neil, Charlie 1212
NLD Oldenhof, Dwight 1203
USA Greer, Stephen 1200
BRA Barradas, Anderson 1194
IND Malvankar, Vikrant 1188
BEL Tuteleers, Bruno 1145
DEU Bothe, Matthias 1143
BGR Stoyanov, Zdravko 1136
Don Burden (2007-05-11 02:32:13)
Chinese thoughts
Confucius could give answer to that, unfortunately Confucius not here at moment.
Kindness in heart better than gold in bank.
Truth like football, receive many kicks before reaching goal.
Politeness golden key that open many doors.
Any powder that kills flea is good powder.
Knowledge only gained through curiousity.
Man without relatives is man without trouble.
Sleep only escape from yesterday.
Do not challenge supernatural unless armed with sword of truth.
To destroy false prophet must first unmask him before eyes of believers.
When fear attack brain, tongue wave distress signal.
Drop of plain water on thirsty tongue more precious than gold in purse.
Thought at present like dog chasing own tail, getting noplace.
When money talk, few are deaf.
Humility only defense against rightful blame.
Luck happy combination of foolish accidents.
Alibi have habit of disappearing like hole in water.
Good fisherman, like clever merchant, know lure of bright colors.
Man without enemies like dog without fleas.
Front seldom tell truth, to know occupant of house always look in backyard.
One small wind can raise much dust.
Caution sometimes mother of suspicion. Suspicion often father of truth.
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 we’ll 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 it‘s 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 (2007-04-01 19:00:23)
Internet Go vs. Masters
From Goama newsletter - http://gogame.info
How strong are Tygem ( http://tygem.com/ ) stars?
Korean Tygem Go server announced a tournament between top 3 Tygem players and Korean Dream team: Cho Hunnyun, Lee Changho and Yoo Changhyuk.
The results are:
First game: Cho Hunhyun, 9-dan lost by resignation to "spiderman1"
Second game: Lee Changho, 9-dan lost his game by resignation to "GoldHammer"
Third game: Yoo Changhyuk, 9-dan lost by 6.5 points to "gurenarukl"
It's hard to believe it, but they played without any handicap! Each game gathered more than 5000 observers. It seems, that Tygem has lot of other good players, considering that these 3 masters are not undefeatable. Their scores: Spiderman1 , 9-dan on Tygem, W113-L51 GoldHammer, 9-dan on Tygem, W275-L60 gurenarukl, 9-dan on Tygem, W893-L360
Maybe the online Go is far from the offline Go, or do we need a special experience for playing Go on servers? How strong are Tygem star players? Do we know them in real life? There are so many questions.
Chess players will also ask about the possibilities of computer help. Unfortunately they don't have English client available.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-03-29 04:57:34)
:o)
Merci pour la plaidoirie détaillée :) ... Bon, je suppose que l'idée d'une pénalité restrictive sur les inscriptions est assez bonne, mais peut être insuffisante également. Une pénalité immédiate sur le classement (entrainant une chute de catégorie) pourrait être plus persuasive, j'y pense !
Voilà ce que j'ai pu observer pour ma part jusqu'ici :
Les classements de ces joueurs (notamment dans ton tournoi) baissent malgré tout suffisamment vite pour qu'ils ne puissent pas se réinscrire dans les mêmes catégories, c'est le cas pour 4 des joueurs de ce tournoi, passés sous la barre des 2200.
Certains parasites qui, en effet, volontairement ont tenté de s'inscrire dans un maximum de tournois et abandonner toutes leurs parties pour troubler les classements ont eu un effet minime, pour la simple raison que je les vois faire et mets fin à leurs parties avant les 10 coups pour la plupart, ce qui n'a que peu d'incidence au final. Certains jouent maintenant leurs parties jusqu'au bout, les autres sont partis.
La plus grande cause de forfait en proportion est la "simple visite", le joueur qui s'inscrit, joue quelques coups dans un tournoi puis disparait... La rançon de la simplicité d'inscription et de la gratuité, contre laquelle je ne peux pas grand chose. J'ai pensé à mettre en place un système de limite de nombre de parties progressif, mais je ne suis pas sûr encore que ce soit positif.
Au final, j'ai tout de même envie de croire que ce qui s'est passé dans ce tournoi (à ce niveau) restera exceptionnel... Mais je suis d'accord pour trouver une solution à ce problème, au moins de garantir de ne plus pouvoir rencontrer ces adversaires avant un bon moment.
La pénalité immédiate sur le classement me parait être la seule solution. Toute autre suggestion bienvenue...
Lionel Vidal (2007-03-27 15:57:30)
Chess and Xiangqi
A very interresting article in Chesscafe (www.chesscafe.com) by K.Müller on some endgame similarities in chess and xiangqi.
Xiangqi is great chess game (one of the greatest, even if I am quite weak at it; and in any cases, by far the greatest chess game by the number of players :-)): in short time limits (standard is 20 minutes per players) you can't beat that game for a exciting tactical mélée... and then if both palyers survive, the endgame is full of subtilities...
BTW *all* K.Müller articles on that site are a must-read! :-)
Thibault de Vassal (2007-02-17 12:26:13)
Les échecs en France
Here is the agreement just signed by the ministry of education and the french chess federation - fédération française des échecs (F.F.E.)
This should help to promote chess in France.
CONVENTION-CADRE
Établie entre les soussignés :
L'État - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche représenté par Monsieur Gilles de Robien, ministre, ci-dessous dénommé " le Ministère "
et
La Fédération française des échecs représenté par Monsieur Jean-Claude Moingt, président, ci-dessous dénommé " la Fédération "
Rappelant
Que le jeu d'échecs, activité à la fois ludique et sportive, constitue aussi et surtout une activité intellectuelle qui permet de développer des compétences diverses chez ceux qui le pratiquent, et notamment chez les jeunes auprès de qui il constitue un réel vecteur de formation ;
Que la pratique des échecs encourage notamment le développement des capacités intellectuelles telles que la mémoire, le raisonnement logique, la capacité d'abstraction, l'analyse de problème et la mise en oeuvre de stratégies de résolution ;
Que la pratique des échecs contribue également à la construction de la personnalité en encourageant l'attention, l'imagination, l'anticipation, le jugement et la confiance en soi ;
Que le jeu d'échecs, école de concentration et de maîtrise de la pensée, est enfin une école de maîtrise de soi qui favorise l'apprentissage des règles et le respect d'autrui, et à ce titre participe de l'apprentissage de la citoyenneté ;
Considérant
Que, pour toutes ces raisons, le jeu d'échecs constitue un complément légitime et pertinent des activités éducatives proposées par l'Ecole ;
Que de nombreuses expériences menées en académies ont permis de mettre en oeuvre des projets de qualité associant des établissements scolaires et des clubs d'échecs dans un cadre réfléchi et concerté entre les parties concernées ;
Que ces initiatives ont permis de développer des pratiques et des outils permettant une exploitation du jeu d'échecs dans un cadre scolaire et/ou périscolaire ;
Il a été convenu ce qui suit :
Article 1 - Objectifs
Par la présente convention le Ministère et la Fédération affirment leur volonté commune de favoriser le développement de la pratique du jeu d'échecs dans les écoles, les collèges et les lycées. Ils se donnent comme objectifs la mise en oeuvre de deux axes de travail privilégiés :
- le jeu d'échecs au service de l'égalité des chances, l'expérience montrant que la pratique des échecs peut constituer pour des élèves en difficulté scolaire une occasion privilégiée de se remotiver et de se remettre sur la voie de la réussite scolaire ;
- la dimension éducative du jeu d'échecs auprès du plus grand nombre, en favorisant la transférabilité des acquis entre les pratiques ludiques et les situations d'apprentissage.
Article 2 - Egalité des chances
Le Ministère et la Fédération conviennent de développer l'accès de la pratique des échecs auprès des publics scolaires qui en sont les plus éloignés pour des raisons sociales ou géographiques. Le partenariat portera en particulier sur des actions impliquant :
- les collèges " ambition réussite ", qui visent à offrir un cadre d'excellence à des publics scolaires confrontés aux plus grandes difficultés socio-économiques. La contribution de la Fédération consistera notamment en mise à disposition de matériel (ludique et/ou pédagogique), en actions de sensibilisation ou de formation organisées dans le cadre des établissements concernés, en appariements des collèges avec des clubs de proximité ou encore en parrainage de certains collèges par des joueurs de haut niveau recommandés par la Fédération.
- l'opération " Ecole ouverte ", qui accueille les jeunes dans les EPLE pendant les vacances scolaires pour leur proposer des activités de loisirs à visée éducative. Parce qu'il conjugue les dimensions ludique et formatrice, le jeu d'échecs correspond bien à l'esprit de ce dispositif qui contribue à modifier l'image de l'école auprès des jeunes.
- les dispositifs relais (classes et ateliers), qui accueillent temporairement des élèves en voie de décrochage ou de désocialisation. La pratique des échecs peut permettre à ces jeunes de reprendre goût à l'activité intellectuelle, tout en leur inculquant le respect des règles et de l'autre.
Article 3 - Action éducative
De façon plus générale, le Ministère et la Fédération conviennent d'encourager la connaissance et la pratique des échecs auprès du plus grand nombre. A ce titre, ils pourront notamment :
- développer la pratique des échecs dans le cadre des activités péri-scolaires au sein des internats scolaires, des clubs et des foyers socio-éducatifs, en partenariat avec les clubs locaux.
- mettre en place des actions de sensibilisation et/ou de formation dans les écoles et les établissements volontaires, en rapprochant les équipes éducatives et les clubs selon des modalités à préciser entre les partenaires concernés : enseignement et pratique dans le temps scolaire ou périscolaire, projets thématiques fédérateurs s'appuyant sur les dispositifs transversaux, opérations d'information et d'animation, tournois scolaires à l'échelle d'une ville ou d'un bassin, etc.
- développer des ressources en co-édition, en lien avec le réseau des CRDP et des CDDP (sites Internet de jeu pour les écoles, dépliants de présentation, outils pédagogiques, etc.).
Article 4 - Contribution des partenaires
La Fédération française des échecs s'engage à apporter aux écoles, collèges et lycées qui en font la demande une aide en matériel ou en ressources diverses (publications, outils pédagogiques etc.). Dans le cas d'actions spécifiques conduites au sein des établissements dans les temps scolaire ou périscolaire, les cadres qualifiés de la Fédération ou de ses organes déconcentrés devront avoir reçu un accord préalable du Ministère et/ou de ses services déconcentrés ; ils pourront apporter des aides techniques ponctuelles auprès des enseignants qui en feront la demande après avoir pris l'avis des corps d'inspection.
De son côté, le Ministère s'engage à diffuser, par le biais de son réseau de communication et de diffusion ainsi que par l'intermédiaire de ses services déconcentrés, l'information nécessaire à la mise en oeuvre de ce partenariat.
Article 5 - Communication
L'application du présent accord-cadre peut donner lieu à des déclarations et communications aux médias par chacun des partenaires, lesquels conviennent de se concerter préalablement.
Article 6 - Mise en oeuvre et suivi
Les partenaires conviennent de se réunir au moins une fois par an pour examiner les conditions de mise en œuvre de l'accord-cadre et dresser un état des lieux des actions entreprises sur la période de l'année écoulée.
Article 7 - Durée
La présente convention est signée pour une durée de trois ans à compter de la date de la signature. A l'issue de ces trois années un bilan global permettra de faire le point sur l'évolution des pratiques à l'école, au collège et au lycée et d'étudier sur cette base les termes du renouvellement de la convention. Elle peut être résiliée par l'une ou l'autre des parties, à l'expiration d'un délai de trois mois suivant l'envoi d'une lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception valant mise en demeure.
Thibault de Vassal (2007-01-21 13:48:44)
Go and chess, IGN Goama newsletter
From IGN Goama newsletter by Alexander Dinerchtein - http://www.gogame.info
Go and Chess Two Games, Shared Experiences
Chess and go show are similar in many ways, yet it's always strange to see how the masters of each game try to "invent the wheel", instead of benefiting from the knowledge of their colleagues.
Let's consider sharing experiences!
These ideas can be useful even for strong Asian Go professionals:
1. Currently, only a few pros use Go databases and programs for studying. It is easy to find commentaries, written by 9-dan masters, which state that a move is new and has never been played before. Yet if one checks such moves in Go databases, one can sometimes find up to 100 examples from professional games. How can they cheat the readers who study these commentaries?
Once in Korea, I showed the Bigo Assistant program (similar to GoGod, MoyoGo and SmartGo) to Lee Sedol's brother Lee Sanghun, 5-dan, who is the director of a large children's Go school. He was surprised and said that the program looked very useful, and he added that he had never met this kind of program before. He even suggested deleting all amateur games and games played on Go servers, because of their low quality. I promised to order the programs and to install them on the school's computers if he liked this idea, but he did not follow up. Lee Sanghun, 5-dan was not able to break the traditions of his forefathers …
2. Even such top chess players as Kasparov, Kramnik and Topalov enlist the support of trainers during important tournaments and matches. During the Communist era, almost every Russian grandmaster worked on behalf of world championship candidates. Our government forced them to help, to show them new moves and ideas. Those who refused to help were punished severely: for example, sometimes a player would be prohibited from playing in tournaments abroad and would be refused foreign visas.
We do not see this in Go. Everyone thinks only about his or her own self. Do you know who is currently assisting Lee Changho? I don't know, either!
3. I would like to say a few words about playing technique. Chess players often used to write the move on paper first and then make it on the board. This helps to avoid impulsive moves and to prevent blunders. Go masters record the game afterwards, and so one can often find terrible mistakes, such as overlooking ataris and recapturing ko without playing a ko threat first. As an example you may see Black's move number 271 from this game: http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/collection/sgfview.php?id=10828 I am sure that if a player looked at their move at least twice before they write it on paper and after they would not make such mistakes.
4. Even top Go tournaments are usually run by the knock-out system so we often see sensational results. Mightn’t it be reasonable to think about increasing the number of games in each round? If rounds were best-of-three (in case of time constraints, it would be possible to use blitz time controls for the third game), it would help to minimize sensations.
How about organising a definitive World Go Championship? Chess players have contested one for more than 100 years, and competitions for this World Championship have revealed the very best players of each generation. In Go it's harder to tell which player is true champion. In 2006, for instance, one international tournament was won by Lee Changho and another one by Lee Sedol, while Cho U won the largest amount of prize money. Whom can we call the World Champion? Who can say which tournament is the most important : LG, Samsung, Fujitsu, Chunlan or another? We don't even have a unified rating system …
If we determined a single World Go Champion, he might earn the same degree of popularity as Garry Kasparov achieved in chess, and this could have a very positive influence on Go popularity around the world!
Thibault de Vassal (2007-01-15 12:18:28)
Go : Korean awards
Korean awards 2006
Best player of the year: Lee Sedol, 9-dan
Fighting spirit prize: Seo Bongsu, 9-dan
Best junior master: Paek Hongsuk, 5-dan
Top female prize: Rui Naiwei, 9-dan
Best Korean amateur: U Dongha, 7-dan
Most popular male and female players: Lee Changho, 9-dan and Park Chiun, 6-dan
Korean records 2006
The highest number of wins: Lee Sedol, 9-dan, 78-28
The highest winning percentage: Paek Hongsuk, 5-dan, 77%
The longest winning streak: Lee Sedol, 9-dan, 14 games straight (2.13.2006 -3.21.2006)
From IGN "Goama" newsletter - http://gogame.info
Thibault de Vassal (2007-01-09 14:27:34)
Money in Go game
I just read on AGA e-journal that the top pro Go players (Takao Shinji 9P, Yamashita Keigo 9P, Gu Li 9P, Cho U 9P, Lee Changho 9P, Hane Naoki 9P, Park Jungsang 9P, Lee Sedol 9P...) in 2006 won a total of prizes between 330,000 $ and 750,000 $
Not so bad (I guess) compared to top 10 chess players...
Lionel Vidal (2006-12-02 09:54:32)
A lone engine in CC :-)
Suppose I make the following test (it has certainily be proposed before, but let's do it again, for the fun of the argument):
- I buy a recent engine (say the new Fritz10)
- I play in some CC tournaments (I do not want to pay fees, so let's say, here at FICGS of course :-), and at iecg)
- I choose the first moves of all my games based on some statistics made on a CC base (just to avoid some openings statistically bad in CC)
- starting from a few moves before the engine goes out of its opening book (to be defined, maybe 4 moves) I let my average computer run 10 hours by move (around one night per move... I know, I sleep too much :-)
- I *always* play the very move the engine finds as best
- I play as many tournaments as I can, considering the time constraint that limits the number of games (just to get a meaningful rating as fast as possible)
Now, what rating do you think I can reach at most, strictly following these guidelines?
(note that if I know some basic maths to do the stats, I do not even have to know chess rules... although a basic knowledge is assumed to ease the play in practice)
Are you ready to bet on your guess ? :-)
In pratice, the test does not work, because the tester dies from boredom long before he gets any rating :-))
Dinesh De Silva (2006-10-08 16:42:04)
Kramnik wins ultra sharp 10th game
Kram. won the 10th game just now. It was a very sharp, complicated game. A real tactical melee! Top. resigned as he was exchange down in an ending.
Ilmars Cirulis (2006-09-20 02:56:48)
Ups!
It is TT-15 already! May be I must go to sleep! (:
David Da Silva (2006-09-04 16:30:13)
Clock running while on holliday
Hello, I may have missed something but in one of my games, maybe more but this one I'm sure because I had few days left, my clock runned enventhought the hollidays I declared. When I came back, I had 6 hours to play 9 moves wich I couldn't do(damn sleep ;))... Is this a bug or a rule subtility ? Thanks for the answer and congrats for this great site ! David
Dinesh De Silva (2006-08-25 01:31:24)
Re: Re: Why do you play corr-chess ?....
You zee, I play zees thing calld corr- chess becawse I'm a firm beleever in zi phrase: " Off With Zi King's Head ".
Pablo Schmid (2006-07-28 21:57:37)
..
J'ai finalement constaté qu'un de mes adversaires avait un rating inférieur de plus de 350 pts (pas dans le TER), c'est probablement l'explication, affaire reglée ;)
Pablo Schmid (2006-07-27 03:04:03)
2 parties rated non comptées?
Salut De Vassal, j'ai un petit problème: j'ai 6 victoires en rated, mais que 4 sont calculées, et ce, depuis un moment. Qu'en est-il des 2 autres parties classées que j'ai gagnées?
Glen D. Shields (2006-04-25 16:48:28)
Another Opinion
I have mixed feelings on 'conditional" moves. I agree they save time, but they also can be irritating. Depends how they're sent and who sends them.
We all have those opponents who play whatever Fritz plays. When one gets in a rather simple series of moves, those opponents like to run out a string of 3 or 4 conditionals in a row. Opponents like that are like leeches. You can't get them off your skin without yanking them off and eradicating them :)
Time saving versus irritation. Considering the options, I vote for time saving. The faster I can get rid of Fritz opponents, the happier I am.
Just another opinion :)
There are 64 results for Lee in wikichess.
Charles McAleenan (1682)
d4 d6 f4 Nd7 Nf3 c6 e4
Transpose to wikichess #148442#
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Contributors : Charles McAleenan
Telmo Escobar (2043)
e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 Nc3 g6 Be3 Bg7 Bc4 Ng4 Bb5+ Kf8 O-O Nxe3 fxe3 Nd7 Ne6+
And, naturally, Black resigns. This was Giorgi-Escobar, Buenos Aires (Club tournament) 1976. Please not make it into a "famous game"! It was the only game I lost at that tournament- and the only game my adversary won! In fact I finished 1st, my adversary finished last :)
It's true that i was playing the game after a (memorable) night without sleeping, so I was not precisely awake while playing. But the position is not as easy to play with Black, otherwise I would be able to outplay my adversary anyway. I'm sure that this blunder 10...Nd7?? has been played by other people as well- alas even now I find difficult to renounce to such a natural move...
As you see, both moves I suggest in this position
(10...Nc6!? that sacrifices a pawn, 10...e6!? that sacrifices the square d6) are not trivial.
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Contributors : Telmo Escobar
Benjamin Aldag (1822)
e4 e5 Nf3 f5 Nxe5 Qf6 Nc4
Nc4:
This move in good too. The better move is d2-d4, but you must know a hand full lines in the d4-line, to crush the blacks position while sleeping ;-) For beginners its better to play Nc4, because you will get an easy and advantage game.
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Contributors : Benjamin Aldag
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