Home
Information
Login
Register
Waiting lists
Membership
Hall of fame
Tournaments
Best game
Wikichess
Rating list
Problems
Forum
Links
Help
About
| Install FICGS apps | |
| play chess online |  |
|
Game result (chess) B. Ozen, 2230 H. Pechova, 2082 1/2-1/2 See game 151744 |
Hot news Discussions Files search Social network
Here are 0 results for Rang Joachim in the games.
There are at least 100 results for Rang in the forum.
Thibault de Vassal (2026-04-16 03:05:15)
Too many groups for tourneys
Done... Let's try new ranges, somewhat more coherent with current ratings.
Paul Guralivu (2026-04-03 08:40:09)
Is rating just a number on this site?
In terms of Tournament Rating range:
what can be done... like in IECG/LSS create 2 tiers of tournaments...
the current one where we have 2200-2600
and create another system: 2200 - 2400
2500-2600
(same for all the other categories)
Best regards,
Paul G.
Thibault de Vassal (2026-03-13 23:17:02)
Post-tickets FICGS
The long answer:
FICGS story is a quite simple & classic one, the reasons why it's declining are quite obvious, and unfortunately the solutions aren't. A bit of story:
1. Luckily, FICGS.com was created when there were a demand, just after IECG stopped... It grew very quickly, and I was in a rush to code it (FICGS was the very first dynamic website I ran from A to Z), there were ideas from everywhere. FICGS.com was the shortest domain name available, but not a so good one. Quite hard to remember, hard to tell, not clear for search engines (unlike chess.com which is a perfect one). Maybe it was a mistake to choose it, I can't tell. Either it meant "Free Internet Chess Games Server" or "Free Internet Correspondence Games Server", so I added another game, Go (Weiqi), to FICGS, which is a quite heavy decision: After that, FICGS is not only a chess server anymore.
2. A few years after, there are several thousands players (a few hundreds active). The number of new players slowly decreases month after month but a few sponsors come. Obviously, the way I coded FICGS made it more and more difficult to fully update from a PHP version to another one, or to change it in deep. Even now, I'm not sure to regret it though cause I couldn't have done it differently, so it is what it is. At this time, chess.com was less interesting than FICGS (my taste), but success is already here thanks to a perfect marketing formula: best domain name & pay for options. On the contrary, I chose to keep FICGS completely free.
3. Chess engines explode, correspondence chess continues its evolution (human's thinking decreases in moves decision), finally I add another game that is in a hype: poker texas holdem. New sponsors come, I still play correspondence chess myself but now I play another game even more: Google. FICGS also extends this way and it works in some ways. At its peak, FICGS is about the 32,000th most visited website worldwide. But the number of players continues to decrease, Android & phones started to change the landscape already. Chess.com released its app and added probably its best feature: a quick Stockfish analysis with evaluation & explanation for each move (which is excellent for blitz games but quite a non-sense for a correspondence chess website).
4. The number of players suddenly declines very quickly, I react by creating FICGS apps for Android, a dozen apps... On some apps, you can play against the machine, virtual opponents, chess 960, blindfold & so on. But the way to maintain it is not easy at all for many reasons, but the main one is that Google (Playstore) constantly change technical things & rules. After a few years, I even have to completely remake it, losing what was acquired. And some apps still fail to re-appear at Playstore, that's why I just made the APK files available to direct download. But these applications confirm something clear: blitz is more fun and attracts much more players. Changing rating ranges for correspondence chess tournaments or championships formats won't be a solution for this.
5. FICGS is now 20 years old! Internet completely changed over the years but it survived longer than Messenger, Skype & many other great services. If you look at many websites, new versions of their modern interfaces are often worst (bugs or options) than previous ones. FICGS was never perfect, maybe even clear, but at least it remained coherent. Now Google (just like all major services) is mainly governed by AI, sponsors left - that does not change anything, FICGS will continue to run. I created other websites, but none so far successfully helped in a way or another to solve the problem we encounter here: how to increase the number of correspondence chess, Go or poker players again? If FICGS becomes a pure correspondence chess site again with a brand new interface, I'm quite sure that wouldn't change anything or almost. I might be wrong of course, but according to me, this is a deep problem, connected to society evolutions, computers, phones, our attention, time, even health & so on... In my personal case, I wish to play correspondence chess again, but still cannot find the time to do it. Finally I have no idea what internet will look like within 5 years, but FICGS will be there. Maybe an AI will find a solution soon ^^ Meanwhile, I received many ideas to improve FICGS and I have to thank you very much for this. Few ideas were released for reasons I explained here (but new ones are always wecome), I hope you'll better understand it by reading this.
Have good games & take care!
Garvin Gray (2025-11-18 02:57:20)
Clarification of Rating Groups
So, based on this, each time I have tried to enter a higher rated tournament and received a message saying, you are outside the rating range, this has been false.
The rules of this site have actually allowed me a method of getting in, but that automated message has not been updated.
That is extremely poor and has now left a very sour taste in my mouth.
George Jempty (2025-10-05 14:58:16)
Cheating / Forfeiting
@Unlise Pineda, I do not think those situations are random. Because last one month, at least once, I had 3 or 4 games by "different" players, that have been doing so (letting their time run down to around one day or less) when I got all of their moves within 5 or 10 minutes of one another, very strange.
Account deleted (2025-03-26 01:43:09)
Delete account
Hi I would like to delete my account as I'm starting a personal project and don't want any IRL nosey people searching my name. Could you guys arrange that? thanks!
Thibault de Vassal (2023-12-15 01:51:10)
Referee Adjudication
Well, I thought that a one month limit for the game to finish could satisfy everyone...
IMO, that's quite strange to end a game when some players do NOT use 7-pieces tablebases and still could make mistakes in a winning or drawish position...
Thibault de Vassal (2023-07-27 19:06:48)
FIDE rating change proposal
Maybe you heard about this strange proposal made by a mathematician to make FIDE ratings (<2000) more coherent against some deflation...
http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-seeks-proposals-rating-changes
http://www.chess.com/news/view/fide-mathematician-proposes-changes-to-improve-rating-accuracy
I'm somewhat doubtful about this idea to change some data rather than the algorithm, what do you think?
Patrycja Zerowska (2022-10-06 09:54:59)
Threefold repetition
It seems that there is no way to claim a draw by threefold repetition on this site. In the game 136386, where I have Black, the position that occurred after my 50th move, is the same as that after my 58th move, and will be the same after my intended 60th move, namely 60... Bf7. I therefore claim a draw in this game.
Since apparently there is no "automatic arbiter" to process the claim, I called the "referee" on 1 October 2022 (5 days ago), explaining that I made a draw claim as described above (and mentioning my intended move), but I haven't received a reaction yet.
This particular game has been a dead draw at least since move 35. I offered a draw after my 35th move and on my 59th move. Both offers were declined.
1. Why is there no automatic arbiter which processes draw claims? If I am not mistaken, this site exists more than 15 years already, and yet the Laws of Chess are not yet fully implemented.
2. Why can't I stop my clock when I make such a claim? See art. 9.5 of FIDE's Laws of Chess.
3. Why doesn't the arbiter or the referee stop my clock? Without this, a player making a claim can timeout, or, when she is short on time, may be reluctant to make a draw claim.
4. Why doesn't the referee take action? Is there a referee at all?
In the rules section of this site I read: "Also, there is no way to stop the clocks, players cannot claim that they stopped to play after they called the referee for any reason..." This is a violation of the rules of chess; it implies that on this site it is not chess that is being played, but a weird chess variant. Of course I disagree with this corruption of the playing rules, and so should everyone who call themselves chess players!
Your strange rules also state that the referee will "act as soon as possible", but so far, after five days, no referee has shown up. So you are not even acting in agreement to your own rules.
Finally, I find in your rules the following statement: "All games are played until a player resign, accept draw, or lose on time." This is the most ridiculous "rule" I have ever encountered. Not only renders this farcical rule a win by checkmate illegitimate, it is a blatant ignoring of the Laws of Chess, which allow games to be ended by accepted draw claims, or for any other reason at the discretion of an arbiter.
Garvin Gray (2022-08-22 03:43:25)
RUSSIA AND BELARUS NOT SUSPENDED?
As I have just attended the in person 2022 ICCF Congress, and only just seen this thread, I will clarify some matters.
It is correct that before the matter of the situation in Ukraine, the ICCF statutes only allowed for a Member Federation to be suspended for financial reasons, and this could only be done at Congress ie by majority vote of the Federations.
Therefore, with the situation in Ukraine, the ICCF EB set up the Online Congress and proposals were arranged to deal with that situation. All proposals were designed only to last until the 2022 Congress in Glasgow ie they would be reviewed at the 2022 Congress and the Member Federations would vote again on whether to keep any sanctions, or not.
At the Extraordinary Congress- The Member Federations decided to vote to suspend both Russia and Belarus Federations, but not the individual players.
First of all, there needed to be a vote to change the Statutes, this is what required the 2/3 vote. And the count for the 2/3's is a simple 2/3 majority- For - Against, abstains don't count.
If abstains were to count, then the term would be an absolute majority. That is not the case here. It is a simple 2/3 majority to change the Statutes.
As is pointed out, 'However, that EC was online.' Hence why the Statues proposals vote was first.
If it did not receive the 2/3 simple majority and the Member Federations did not approve the change to allowing Member Federations to be suspended for non financial reasons, then all the other proposals would be null and void, no further voting would take place on the other proposals and no action could be taken against Russia or Belarus until the 2022 in person Congress in Glasgow.
And at the 2022 Congress, this suspension of the Russian and Belarus Federations were continued until the 2023 ICCF Congress in Amsterdam.
Thibault de Vassal (2021-07-18 12:19:46)
3 times repetition not recognized ??
There is, but still buggy sometimes... it should detect the next occurrence anyway. Strange to see players declining such draw offers.
Don Groves (2021-07-09 21:29:37)
Confused
Yes, it looks fine now. Strangeness...
Thibault de Vassal (2021-07-09 12:33:43)
Confused
Hi Don,
Quite strange, I just checked: moves 38 and 46 are both Re4 in both PGN & game viewer.
Do you confirm it is ok?
Thibault de Vassal (2021-05-27 00:02:46)
Waiting List Expiration.
Hello Misha.
No there aren't, but sometimes I may delete & close a waiting list (or change rating range) if there's no hope to fill it.
Thibault de Vassal (2021-04-07 01:18:50)
Poker Rating
No, it wasn't non-sportsmanlike for sure, good example... but should this game really be rated? (rated for the winner I mean, you lost some points in this case)
The other problem is that players trying to manipulate ratings could do the same and reality is that they do not (or very rarely) when there are 10 moves at least to play, so this rule is efficient to prevent this. And as we all know, no rule is perfect for everyone.
You are right, lasting a won game to move 10 would be strange but it is a choice and a price to pay... the main thing is that it should be rare.
Thibault de Vassal (2020-09-03 22:20:33)
Stockfish 12, neural network
Now it tops CEGT rating lists, 40/40 and 40/4
http://www.cegt.net/40_40%20Rating%20List/40_40%20All%20Versions/rangliste.html
http://www.cegt.net/40_4_Ratinglist/40_4_single/rangliste.html
Thibault de Vassal (2020-06-09 13:03:41)
Chess DB
Strange name, strange criteria :) But why not...
Daniel Parmet (2020-04-28 22:59:06)
The State of correspondence chess
I have played correspondence chess now for 13 years. During that time, I have played 983 correspondence games. These days I mostly play at ICCF and some of these issues may be ICCF specific... but since ICCF has no forum and I want to get a sense of the health of correspondence chess in general... I posit my thoughts here.
First of all, I think the number of correspondence players and the number of correspondence games are decreasing across the board on all correspondence websites due to the things I want to talk about.
Second, I primarily shifted my playing to ICCF years ago for two reasons: 1) The higher level of competition available; 2) The norms available. Although I was concerned with their fees which are usually minor but, in many cases, certain organizers do construct outlandish tournaments that you need to be wary of (looking at you Venezuela).
On the first point, I think ICCF is a little more open to high caliber players competing up until a point (they really try to prevent you from playing a 2450+ player until you are 2450+ yourself). And the rating protections get tougher and tougher the further you go but they make it easy to play 2300 players. While most websites outside of ICCF, usually have one annual Cup / WCH or Thematics, these other websites usually make it impossible to play anyone more than a few hundred points above you no matter your rating outside of these few events.
On the second point, I think ICCF norms are somewhat of an illusion. They’ve always been hard and much harder to achieve than OTB norms which received a watering down of requirements of decades ago. In fact, ICCF norms are so much harder than FIDE norms that one actually needs to achieve two norms to receive the prerequisite title in ICCF vs the standard three norms required by FIDE. In the US, for example, there are 116 ICCF Titled players in history (13 GMs, 25 SIM, 78 IMs) vs 828 FIDE Titled players in present (101 GMs 166 IM 561 FMs) [https://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml]. Now however, there is a proposal, for the ICCF GM Title only, proposed by Dennis Doren, ICCF Rules Commissioner who really does a lot for correspondence chess, and SIM Uwe Staroske, ICCF Qualifications and Ratings Commissioner, to remove the requirement to have to play GMs to get the GM Title [leaving IM and SIM untouched] [https://www.iccf.com/Proposal.aspx?id=1280]. This proposal states, “A search of the ICCF data indicates that 21 players obtained at least 2 GM norms across 24 games but failed to get the GM title because of the requirement of "5 GM" opponents. (Only 5 of those players are currently active).” Leaving aside the fact that this proposal violates the very definition of the GM Title, one must beat the club in order to join it, the proposal further outlines the real problems without addressing them, “The GM Title has already become far harder to earn than it used to be, due to the rating suppression caused by the increase in draws.” Wow, let’s unpack that one line because it is a doozy!
Really, this one line, that is easily overlooked, is two huge problems that correspondence is facing: 1) death by one thousand draw paper cuts and 2) rating deflation. I will argue later that there is a third huge problem but let’s start with the ones acknowledged by ICCF itself. Every correspondence player knows the draw rate is going up. As engines and hardware get stronger, players are able to save positions that in the past would have been lost and we are finding ever easier ways to head straight towards 0.00 as Black. I would love to see a detailed analysis that describes how much harder it has become to win as Black against a decent correspondence player (let’s say someone 2300+). In the last five years, I have beaten three 2300+ players as Black without counting mouseslips (one in 2015, one in 2016 and one any day now in 2020) despite playing extremely aggressive openings like the KID (for the record that’s three Black wins out 103 Black draws or 2.91% Win rate). That may be part of the draw problem, but I have witnessed my own draw rate skyrocket 2014: 82.4% 2015: 86.7% 2016: 90.2% 2017: 90.6% 2018: 91% 2019 is still in progress. Often for these norms, you need to score +2, +3, +4 or +5 despite the fact that +1 usually wins the event… and with the draw rate North of 90% in a 12-13 game event that means you are likely to win 1 game on average… but in many events the entire cross table often sees one to three entire wins (look at a recently completed tournament here where I scored my first IM norm that required +0 and I scored +1). My win was one of five wins in the entire tournament 100/105 = 95.2% draw rate! [https://www.iccf.com/event?id=73482]. People love to tell me that’s fine because we are talking about such a weak event as Category 8 [2449 was the rating average]. Fine, I do not accept your argument but let’s look at the World Championship then shall we? Let’s look at the most recently concluded World Championship 30 which finished on 10/2/2019, Category 13 [2562 was the rating average]. This event was won by the new World Champion SIM Kochemasov, Andrey Leonidovich 2540 [https://www.iccf.com/event?id=66745]. Congrats to the new World Champion on his two wins! The event had 8 decisive games out 136 or a draw rate of 91.2% (not far off my own). But wait did I say SIM? I did. In fact, congratulations to the World Champion on scoring his final GM norm as well! This World Championship saw 5 SIMs compete in a field with 12 GMs. While 3 of the SIMs finished 1st 2nd and 3rd, only our new World Champion scored a GM norm. The problem is with all the draws that norms are not just becoming hard, but maintaining or increasing one’s rating is becoming hard. And one’s rating is how one receives any decent invites to have a chance at a norm in the first place.
The draws are a death by one thousand cuts as I recently played one of the ICCF’s proposal’s outlined “21 players that could have obtained a GM norm.” My rating is 2389 and his rating is 2504 (although SIM, he is recognized by all his peers as a GM caliber player). As Black, I obtained an easy draw without ever being in any trouble at all. The player had a rather angry initial discussion with me post mortem about how he felt it was wrong that a 2504 should have to play a player as weak as 2389 where the draw would kill his rating. He felt that his rating was being destroyed by these draws with weaker players and that ICCF should protect him from us. He felt I have it easier as a lower rated player because I can gain rating from these draws. Let’s look at his argument that one is causing the other and it is only happening to those 2500+. At the time that draw occurred, I gained exactly 1.17915 rating points from it (and he lost the same); however, this was the first draw in over 40 games in which I *gained* rating points (this statement is no longer true as a few higher rated players have since given me draws but at the time of the game’s conclusion this was the case). Yes, that’s right, ICCF already does such a good job of protecting higher rated players that it actively hands out advice to new players to be very particular about what invites and events they play because the draws could kill their initial rating. I too have experienced a net negative loss of rating points from draws and still seen my rating going up only due to the fact that wins are easier and ever so slightly more common to come by at my level. However, it means I am not exempt from the draw problem. It is patently false that this problem is limited to those 2500+ as in my last 43 draws, I lost rating in 42 of them and gained rating from 1 of them. Therefore, it appears draws are causing rating deflation and this is the real problem in both norms and correspondence in general. With the exception of matches, perhaps there is a way to have draws not count against one’s rating since there are so many of them? It kind of blends the Chess rating concept with that of Bridge where one cannot lose rating points once earned. What we can see is that the player’s argument that draws are causing rating deflation is probably true. One problem is at least partly causing the other one.
There is a third more devious problem worse than the two outlined above in my opinion. While rating deflation, draws, less players and norms are real issues… they are dwarfed by the change in behavior caused by these issues. I know it is a bit overdramatic to talk about such issues in a time of COVID, but there has been a great increase in the number of players playing Dead Man Defense (often shortened by correspondence players to DMD+ and DMD=). It is important to note that the death rate in COVID for those in the elderly category is markedly higher and the correspondence community in general is also markedly higher. I have heard estimates of the average age of correspondence player being 70-75 range though I haven’t seen any data. Back to DMD, what is DMD and why is it such awful behavior? The players are hoping you die before you win so they can claim either a win on time or if it goes to adjudication then at least claim a draw. The other hope is that you might mouse slip by being forced to play more moves which while that would never happen over the board does surprisingly account for a large portion of wins in ICCF correspondence high-level play. One of the main problems this issue causes is that if someone takes an early draw against a player who then goes on to die, the entire rest of the field gets a free half point and you are punished for playing your game quicker than your peers. Often, players over the board resign once mate is unstoppable or a simple endgame is reached in which the result is known to players of all levels. In correspondence, often even sooner than these players will resign or offer draws, knowing that perpetual check is unavoidable should we play another 10 moves past the piece sac against a bare king? How about when the engine reads +25 +30 or +40? So, for the most, correspondence players draw or resign much earlier than one might over the board due to engine and tablebase assistance. On that note, depending on the tournament, players can outright claim wins and draws either on the 6-piece tablebase (always allowed) or the sometimes allowed on an event by event basis the 7-piece tablebase. It is considered out right rude to make a player play all the way to the 6-piece tablebase to claim. I recently claimed one win in a six piece tablebase up an entire piece where my jolly opponent wanted to discuss the game in a post mortem (rarely done in correspondence in general anyways). I declined to even respond to him even though I was already having a very lively and fun post mortem with a Venezuelan on our extremely interesting draw. A worse example is the 92 move game I played with opposite colored bishops where I had two extra pawns. I offered a draw as white and the higher rated player to my lower rated opponent who declined it, forcing me to play to a 7-piece tablebase claim to end the game. This kind of behavior used to be quite rare. In the past, I would say it happened in 1 out of every 100 games… these days it seems to happen in every other game (1/2!). I have seven different opponents right now that are DMD+ against me where the engine reads +148 (or in some cases even sees mate! The 2504 player that complained about my rating earlier also complained someone was DMD+ him… I remarked that I have no less than 7 players DMD+ me and if they would resign? My rating would be about 2450 right which sort of eliminates his claim about our “giant” rating difference). The issue is that due to rating deflation these players need to artificially keep their rating high as long as they can because that’s how they will get their next invite. With the new terrible time control that is not yet Official (although there is a proposal to make it Official: https://www.iccf.com/Proposal.aspx?id=1282), players only need to make a move once every 50 days to pointlessly extend the game. I have a DMD= draw currently going on 16 months now where the player is just moving Kg1 Kf1 Kg1 every 50 days. This time control exasperates the DMD problem. When I contacted ICCF Officials to point out the severity of this problem, I was told that I should report it to the TD on a case by case basis only if it is DMD+ as they will not look at DMD= at all. However, it is usually the TDs that are the biggest offenders (6 of the 7 players described above were TDs). In fact, it is usually the same general casts of characters which allows for an easy black list to be created that bars these players from play until they can fix their atrocious behavior. This behavior needs to be punished. These players need to be reprimanded. In the end, lack of norms, rating deflation and the draw death will not make me quit correspondence chess. It is DMD+/DMD= that will make me quit. This experience is my personal experience with high level correspondence over thirteen years and I would love to hear from other correspondence players concerning these problems.
Thibault de Vassal (2019-02-23 19:38:05)
Advice for correspondence chess players
Quite strange that it is an optional "function" as it is probably more efficient in general, by the way that's what certain good engines do (more or less) by default already.
Christoph Schroeder (2018-12-25 17:00:44)
poker: not enough chips to pay BB
When a player has not enough chips left to pay his blinds for the next hand, the round should be lost for him.
But this is not the case. Example (just happened in one of my games):
My opponent has only 1 chip left. In the next hand, he ist the Big Blind which requires him to pay 2 chips. But instead of counting the round as lost for him, he gets a "discount" on his BB and has to pay only 1 chip, and the game goes on - but in a very strange way since my opponent has zero chips left, and there is no raising possible for neither side.
I cannot imagine that this behaviour of the poker software is intentional. Or is it?
Garvin Gray (2018-09-08 04:28:48)
Netiquette reinforcement
If a player clicks on call referee to make a complaint and that stops the clock and you determine that the claim is pointless, or worse, that you believe the player has 'stopped the clocks' to try and gain an advantage, then you are free to determine what penalty is applied from the range of penalties that are available to you:
1) Warning,
2) Increasing the remaining time of the opponent,
3) Reducing the remaining time of the offending player,
4) Increasing the points scored in the game by the opponent to the maximum available for that game,
5) Reducing the points scored in the game by the offending person,
6) Declaring the game to be lost by the offending player (the arbiter shall also decide the opponent’s score),
7) Exclusion from one or more rounds,
8) Expulsion from the competition.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-08-21 22:22:42)
poker reflection time
Unfortunately, the choice of "best of three" would have consequences on ratings (less accurate, more variable), as you can guess.
The 1 day / hand option could be confusing and may be dangerous at it would bring strange effects as one could lose a game on time when having 2 or 3 days on clock because of a few moves played at night. This would not affect fast players, but many players are quite slow for various reasons.
Christoph Schroeder (2018-08-18 01:03:49)
7 pieces tablebases
Regarding the argument that this rule might be unfair for players who don't want to use engines/databases, I would like answer with a comparison:
If I participate in a bicycle race - but as a runner (without a bicycle), this is strange enough, but maybe allowed. Much more strange, however, is the idea that the organizer of the bicycle race could be urged to adjust the bicycle race rules for the needs of the runners.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-08-14 20:04:00)
poker reflection time
Another recurrent topic, which is quite logical as some games are very very long... One hand consist in a variable number of "moves", that may cause strange things with clocks, but I agree that the time control should be different, I just did not find a fine one yet. Actually, playing poker by correspondence is a very unusual thing.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-04-18 02:01:58)
Design
I understand but it all depends on the number of players connected and ready to play at a given time. Right now, it is not possible to make bullet games popular, we would need probably 10 times more players.
Anyway this Go category just re-opened (it was the Kyu category a few week ago) so this is not really the 14th Go tournament for this rating range. So it shouldn't take too long (a few days though) to start.
John Hadden (2018-04-16 08:22:51)
Design
I would say if you make it easier to arrange Games then they would be more likely to happen. "I'd you book the bands they will come" bill and Ted ii
Eg. Right now I am unable to play any go games because I don't have the right rating. There is only one tournament open but because there are few players I won't ever play. If instead you make it easier for non tournament games then more players would be available for the tournaments.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-04-15 18:52:45)
Big chess castling
Hi William,
Everything is possible, as for me I always disliked the strange castling rules at chess 960 and didn't want to complexify rules for Big Chess (now also called Sweet Chess at another website, if I remember well :))
It is too late for a change on this one, but it is always possible to create new chess variants.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-04-09 03:44:13)
unable to play my move!
Hello again Aniruddha,
While talking with another player about this strange case, an important question raised: what was the 7th move you intended to play? 7. ... Ng4 as I suggested, 7. ...O-O as the game showed, or another one?
And just to be sure, how did you make the move? What did you type if you used the text field? (or did you click the pieces?) Many thanks for your answers.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-04-07 20:01:26)
unable to play my move!
Hello Aniruddha, well that's the first time I see that strange bug. I don't understand yet how it happened but you probably entered it (meaning Ng4 I guess) in the text field rather than clicking the pieces.
I'll investigate to avoid this in the future. Meanwhile & unfortunately, according to the rules, this game must be declared as a win for your opponent. Very sorry about that.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-04-06 17:03:20)
New style? Please revert
?? .. that seems very strange... if you could send me a screen capture, it could help much to prevent some strangeness. I'm always afraid of browsers updates :)
Thibault de Vassal (2018-03-31 02:06:03)
Vallejo Pons leaves European Chess Ch.
Quite incredibly sad story for GM Francisco Vallejo Pons after having played poker for money under an old & strange spanish law...
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2018/03/chess-francisco-vallejo-pons-poker-tax-dispute-30327.htm
http://www.chess.com/news/view/hunted-by-spanish-tax-authority-vallejo-leaves-european-championship
http://www.change.org/p/spanish-tax-authority-my-aim-is-to-seek-as-many-signatures-as-possible-to-help-out-a-sportsman-in-distress
Thibault de Vassal (2018-03-14 23:12:38)
A few questions to Nelson Bernal Varela
Nelson Bernal Varela is an early FICGS correspondence chess player, now rated 2277 but also rated 2359 at ICCF (Correspondence Chess Master - CCM).
Last but not least, and as all poker holdem players here probably noticed, he is also our ranked #1 for years, who just reached an outstanding poker rating of 2382, while number two is now rated "only" 2212. A good occasion to ask him a few questions, that he kindly accepted to answer.
-----------------------
- Hello Nelson! You are the 2nd most active player at FICGS for years now. Everyone here probably noticed your incredible results in poker tournaments. "Correspondence poker holdem" was probably a strange idea as it is very unusual and very different from "Internet poker". What's your opinion on this and on the presence of a card game (played without money) at FICGS?
NBV: There are more important things than money and one of those is HONOR; It is honorable to be a chess master, international master, grandmaster, world chess champion at ICCF and at FICGS and to be number one in the ranking. It is honorable to be a FICGS world champion at Go and to be first in the ranking, it is honorable to be poker world champion at FICGS poker and in my case, it is an honor to be number one at poker here at FICGS during the last years, understanding that our general level of play has improved remarkably. None of these activities produces money, but to achieve any of the mentioned titles, it is necessary to have extraordinary abilities.
When I was about 18 years old, I had the opportunity to meet a person with immense material wealth, we spent whole evenings playing chess and then I told him my perceptions about each movement of the game. He thanked me for my chess explanations and paid me with good money. That wealthy man in his turn told me about life and recommended that I should always be proud of the gifts I had, since he knew, with all the money he had and being able to hire the best grandmasters in the world, that it could hardly come at the level of chess master. That person told me that the intellect can be turned into money whenever you want.
Now, by playing poker without money at FICGS, I understood that it was my extraordinary and wonderful opportunity to study-learn-perfect and test my poker theories without costing me a single dollar. In FICGS there is no money, but thanks to the knowledge I gained playing poker in FICGS, today I can go after the money in online poker rooms and probably in OTB poker tournaments. I am studying the possibility of becoming a professional poker player.
- The understanding of your opponent's behaviour is usually quite important at Poker. Do you manage to establish some profiles while playing so many simultaneous hands & games? Did you build any method?
NBV: Today I am sure that the most important thing to raise, and keep raising my level in poker, has been to build a psychological profile of mine, to get to know Nelson Bernal Varela in depth and above all to understand me, accept me, love me and be work every day eliminating my technical errors, strategic, psychological that make me play badly. I am aware that in poker I can play perfectly and still lose, what I can not forgive me is playing badly, which is why I work hard correcting my wrong decisions.
Of course, there is a space in my brain where I have built a psychological profile of each contender, that profile I have been able to elaborate with all the information that is provided to me in each hand we play. The way each of us plays, gives reliable information about our personality.
About my method I can write the following: A few years ago, I created a table in excel, where I had all the games with each contender, I identified them with the FICGS numeration and each movement in each hand (preflop, flop, turn, river ) it I was writing and studying; I started to add technical-psychological variables that seemed important to me, resulting in 20 variables that I had to qualify in each movement. With the passage of time and my effort, I no longer needed the excel table and I did not use it again (it was exhausting and time consuming) because I was assimilating things faster and with greater depth. Today I can say that I evaluate these 20 variables in a natural way, as if I was breathing and that when I am at a poker table, online or real, after a few minutes I get the psychological profile of the table and each of my opponents. In the pocket of my shirt I keep a small paper with the list of variables, periodically reread it and I wonder if I should modify, remove or add something.
- You won 1007 poker games, and lost only 380, with a ratio usually going from 57% to 80% according to your best opponents. Undoubtly you know the mathematics hidden behind poker but that may not explain everything. How did you learn to play?
NBV: Mathematics is an ingredient in poker, in the same way that my psychological aspects and of my opponents (I recommend reading-studying about four times the book “The Poker mindset” of Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger), it is vital to understand the Law of Large Numbers. Next I make a list of topics that I consider important to raise the level of poker; compete with EV+ cards, you have to know the small ball theory of Negreanu (but not apply it, hahaha) you have to always look at the texture of the board, you have to evaluate your reality and your future, also that of your opponents (act and power), the position to talk is important, the stack, the personality of the table, know who has the panic button on. All these and other variables must be evaluated in the few seconds they have to make a move and the only important thing is to make the right decision according to the circumstances. There is a good list of poker books to read... it is mandatory to have read about 15 poker books.
- As for me, I may be wrong but I can't imagine that you reached such a rating without special techniques & maybe by optimizing it in some ways... Of course, "rating management" is not a problem, and it is only one thing with a limited impact, but maybe you have some other secrets? What about this "+1" technique that I noticed in many of our games, if this is not a secret? :)
NBV: In these years I have used different techniques that I had to read, study, learn, repeat, modify, invent and sometimes eliminate. Poker is a sport that seems easy, with time one manages to understand that it has an amazing complexity, today I consider poker to be as complex as chess and I study them in a "similar" way. As an example, I have tried to create "openings in poker"; based only on probabilities I invented something that I called mirror theory and another "opening" that I called opposite outs. I am fascinated by mathematics and from the mathematical perspective they are perfect "theories-openings", but I have lost tournaments and a lot of money for applying such theories in mistaken emotional moments. In poker it is important to never lose sight of the Law of Large Numbers and be aware that this LAW likes to make fun of each one of us... I am working on giving an emotional nuance to my theories "mirror" and "opposite outs". There are moments when perfect mathematics becomes an unforgivable psychological error...
For the last few months I have modified my way of playing and my results have improved; Today it must be much more difficult to win a game me, thanks to small and imperceptible adjustments that of course only I know, because I have followed my mistakes-successes-evolution in the game over several years.
- Isn't it too frustrating for you to play heads up only (here at least) ? Of course it is a way to improve this important technical case but we know that many complexities come with 3 to 8 players on the table, which is the most common case in professional poker tournaments.
NBV: Currently I spend little time every day playing heads-up in FICGS, thanks to the fact that I have the profile of each contender. The 4-5 hours that I study poker daily, include practice in micro limits in cash tables of 6 players and tournaments in tables of 8-9 players. I think I'm covering the whole range of possibilities, experiencing game situations between 1 and 8 contenders.
- What do you think about computer analysis in poker? Do you think it could make a difference here just like the way we play advanced chess?
NBV: I think the algorithms are ready to be written in machine language and the question is where are those algorithms? Well, in the brains of the best players in the world and in their games compiled in huge databases. But programming language can be accelerated with artificial intelligence brains, making A.I. studying databases of the best professionals, playing with itself millions of games and building an invincible TACTIC-STRATEGIC SYSTEM, similar to chess software and GO... I think preflop and flop play would be very similar between humans and artificial intelligence, but on the turn and on the river artificial intelligence would take considerable advantage, but in the short time the level of human poker would rise because artificial intelligence would teach us to play poker, this event that would diminish the profits of the professionals. It will always be said in favor of poker that because it is an incomplete game of information, to make computer algorithms are quite complicated, but despite that, I am sure that artificial intelligence will far surpass the best human poker player. It is possible that an artificial intelligence that plays a perfect poker already exists, but unlike GO and chess, poker does produce a lot of money. Due to the money factor, in today's world, it is very difficult that there is a Prometheus willing to steal fire from the gods and give it to mankind...
- How would you describe your relation to games in general?
NBV: I can summarize it in one of the first chess books I had the fortune to read, by the great Danish master Bent Larsen, "I play to win"
- When did you start to play chess & poker? Do you play other games?
NBV: My first contact with chess was at the age of nine, it was love at first sight and until death separates us; I must confess that for some years we have been separated, due to my stupidity and my erroneous decisions. I have always been self-taught in any subject, my method is to buy about 10 to 15 books of the subject that interests me and I read them thoroughly, sometimes 3 or 4 times; already with that information in my head and thanks to the constant practice, I build MY SYSTEM (Nimzowitch) according to my personality, my dreams, my desires, my anguish, my fears... I was youth champion of Bogotá, for 4 years , my OTB level was strong, but I had to abandon chess because I had to work and survive; Being an athlete in Colombia is an absolutely difficult thing, but being a chess player is extremely complicated since there is no support or respect from society and you can not live by chess, because it does not produce money.
I met poker in 2009 in FICGS, at that time I was in a terrible emotional situation, trying to get away from a relationship with a woman that I should never approach and where I wasted valuable time and energy. In that context, looking for my thoughts to be occupied, I ended up playing the FICGS C-24 poker tournament and tied the first place with three more players; I kept playing, without understanding what was happening with the cards and obviously, losing, until in 2010 I won the FICGS D-21 tournament with perfect score, 6 out of 6. I had already bought-read my first beginner book: Poker for Dummies of Harroch and Krieger, but my poker was coarse, wild, street, intuitive, amateur, without dedication or study. In the background of this paragraph, the affection and gratitude that I have for FICGS is condensed, a place where I have been able to build-practice-study-test MY SYSTEM in poker.
I play Backgammon, I do not care that it may sound pretentious-petulant, but I have a very strong level and I have not read my first book yet. Hahaha. Any year I register as a participant in the world championship and I will cause disgust to more than one professional. Hahaha. Unlike chess and poker, backgammon does not cause me stress, on the contrary, I feel a lot of joy and pleasure when I play backgammon. I feel something similar with math, reading and music. It's true and I'm proud, I've always been a NERD.
- We all know how difficult it is to reach a number 1 rank but it is even more difficult to keep it during a long time. What is your motivation? Do you have more goals to achieve (chess & other games included) ?
NBV: My motivation in any activity I undertake in my life is to do it with absolute passion (passion is everything you would do to get a breath of air, in the second before dying by drowning or suffocation).
I have several goals to accomplish before December 2021; In the ICCF correspondence chess I must reach the 2400 elo and get the titles of International Master, SIM and Grand Master, also perform outstanding performances in world championships. In FICGS Chess I must complete my Master and International Master titles and overcome the 2450 elo, also snatch the title from our eternal champion Eros Riccio. You're warned Eros, hahaha. On the LSS site where I also play, www.chess-server.net I want to be a world champion.
In POKER I find myself playing micro limits bets in several online sites; in June 2018 I hope I have built some bankroll. In July of 2018 I must be evaluating my poker to know if my immediate goal is to become a professional poker player, that would completely change my chess goals and I would have to dedicate myself to OTB poker. At the moment I study and practice poker every day, about 4-5 hours a day. At this moment my poker is full of errors that I am eliminating one by one. MY SYSTEM needs to win and raise money in the micro limits, so that it can succeed in professional poker.
In chess OTB I should become a great master, but that topic should be left as a goal for after 2021. I could achieve the record of being the oldest human in getting the title of Grand Master OTB. Hahaha.
In backgammon I would like to play some important tournaments in USA and Europe and maybe to be OTB world champion, but at the moment I do not have clarity on how to do it. I must mature that idea.
I hope they invent immortality before I die and that I have enough money to buy it, because time is what I need to realize all these and other dreams...
- Finally, playing so many games on several websites (obviously with serious ambitions in each game & place) may look quite inhuman and exhausting, does your body or brain say "stop" sometimes? Do you train by melting sports and brain games just like Kasparov did in the past?
NBV: It's true, it takes willpower and a lot of resistance to sustain the pace that I carry. To take care of my body, I am doing daily exercise for 60 to 90 minutes, including routines of strength, elasticity, speed and endurance. I also practice table tennis to preserve the agility of my body. I'm also divorced and I do not have a girlfriend... Hahaha
- By curiosity, do you consider playing Go in the future, even after... 2021? (which would surely be an enormous charge more, but the game is really interesting)
I have a kind of commitment with the best Colombian GO player, exchange of classes, he makes me a competitive player of GO and I turn him into a competitive player of backgammon. But the truth is that I do not have time... it could be after 2021...
- Do you confirm that you are not (entirely or partly) AlphaZero or any kind of A.I. (yet) ? :-)
NBV: Hahaha, of course I would like to be a real centaur, human with machine power, I do not care what physical form I should adopt. I offer myself publicly as a guinea pig in projects of technological singularity. Hahaha
- Many thanks for your detailed and instructive (impressive as well) answers! My best wishes of luck in all your games and future tournaments.
Garvin Gray (2018-02-22 11:22:43)
Norm qualification criteria, incorrect?
In looking at the current group/event that I am playing in, which is Rapid SM 15, according to the current way FICGS sets the scores for norms, to get a FIM norm for that event, FEM is at 4 and FIM as at 4.5 for all players.
It has occurred to me that this is different to how fide works out norm opportunities in round robin and swiss events.
In those events, each players average rating of their opponents is worked out and then that is plugged into the system and then that expected score is used to work out what score they need to get a FEM or FIM norm or higher.
To explain further as that might be unclear.
In the group I am talking about, PoulErik Jorgensen has an equal chance of getting an FEM or FIM norm than someone who is rated lower than him, even though that other player is playing a field who is stronger.
So using the FIDE way and the percentages for FEM and FIM norm, I play and average rating field of 2337.8, round up to 2338. This means that in a category 4 event, I need to score 56 percent, or 3.5 for an FEM and 67 percent or 4 points, not 4.5 for a FIM norm.
Now also doing some further calculating, Alex Wosch is able to score a FSM norm as his average rating of opponents is 2,329 and would then need to score 4.5. Under the current arrangement, he is deprived of this opportunity.
Therefore, I could give a rundown of all players, but I am of the conclusion that the current method of calculating Norm qualifications is inadequate and needs to be refined.
My thoughts were triggered to this from the FICGS world cup when any player to reach a FEM norm needed to score 12/16, which was clearly an outlandish score given the field.
Thibault de Vassal (2018-01-25 01:53:48)
Conditional chess moves (again)
As you may have noticed, chess.js & chessboard.js are now integrated as an option in the viewer page...
But strangely, it seems there are some bugs in the PGN processing, or at least this 24.R2e1 in WCH game 98780 (Kruse-Riccio) should be ok with the "sloppy" option.
You can see the new feature here:
http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=viewer&game=98780&auto=1
Thibault de Vassal (2018-01-20 20:30:32)
Names updated (the accents issue)
Hi all,
Finally, I just removed all special characters (accents & others) from first names, last names, names in the games & names in the forum, names in games discussions...
This is a very strange issue since the last server update (following the last server crash), as several characters sets/encodings were used and I did not find a way to make it compatible.
To be continued...
Daniel Parmet (2017-12-24 18:51:20)
Monte Carlo Analysis
I thought the whole idea of IDEA was a human thought merge of computer analysis through MCA?
I had the thought about using MCA with chess engines as the brain nearly 5 years ago at work. My boss loved the idea and tasked me with it. However, I have no coding skills so my ability was limited to what was available which was extremely limited at the time.
The best way to think of MCA is to accept that we don't know what move is best (hence why Alphazero didn't have or want an opening book or games database). From here now, it's like trying to predict what's best and what will come from flipping a coin 5 million times. You know in a coin scenario that it is 50%. But what about the stock market? A lottery ticket? A game of black jack? Or Chess? Each individual decision could yield 50.1% in favor and by MCA you will find it. It will create a tree that shows a RANGE of your worst possibilities to best on a probalistic manner. The most common use is for wealth management investing.
As for how to change off the Fritz engine, I don't know. I could never figure that out (though I only have the Fritz 13 gui). I guess I was hoping this feature would be improved over time. Perhaps now due to Alphazero, it will be.
Thibault de Vassal (2017-08-06 17:36:46)
When chess is just beauty
I just lost my chess master.
François Melison was a great friend to me, and a very special chess player as all who played him over the board know.
Actually he was the only one I never saw playing to win, even during a rated tournament (his performances were always 200 or 300 points below his level, often losing on time in winning positions - even when having the time to win, even against fide masters).
It seems to me that his deep motivation was to understand, to touch the beauty and nature of the game... that changed my vision of chess but not only, most probably, even if I was never close to approach his talent and vision of the board. He played correspondence chess when real mail was used, when it was a very special thing compared to this strange time dominated by computers. He was able to play blindfold of course, and some simultaneous games are great memories for a few of his chess friends.
He just played for the beauty of chess, or maybe he played for the beauty only.
He was 54 only. I'll miss him.
Condolences from all his friends at ESIGETEL go to his family.
Ilmars Cirulis (2016-06-08 04:50:34)
Bugs after the server crash
Can't reproduce the problem from this computer. It was fallen off lower row of chess board and some more problem with h1 square.
Today at the evening or tomorrow I will return to the computer where that happened and try to get some screenshot and more information.
Everywhere else it works okay. Yay for FICGS, nay for exploring this strange thing/bug. :)
David Fierry Fraillon (2016-05-11 21:46:12)
Bugs after the server crash
Tournament FICGS_CLASSE_A_000170
- i 'm also finding that strange 7 days increment ina ally my games, for both player
The good news :
-that over day increment seems to be a constant
-no moves lost
-As you said the more than 100 days bug does not exist after playing one move
i played one move : it looks to be a good move :-)
David Fierry Fraillon (2016-05-11 21:35:58)
Bugs after the server crash
New games times look strange to me :
I guess Thib has put a time increment to avoid the time lost during the server crash.
What i find strange (on my games only of course) :
- a player who it was not the turn to play also get the time increment
- on the tournament FICGS_CLASSE_A_000166 :
the increment seems to be 6-7 days more than it should be
A player who was on vacation get a 7+19 days increment. I think the solution in that case is to increase the number of vacation days instead.
I will check my other tournament and i'll be back
David Fierry Fraillon (2016-05-11 21:15:29)
Server crash (april 2016)
Can we put here some possible bugs ?
I had some save of my games times and the today version looks strange
Just tell it
Thibault de Vassal (2016-03-29 22:02:41)
3 catches on the "river"
Murphy's law... everything unlikely will finally happen. Anyway our mind will always feel it strange though, a famous cognitive bias.
Thibault de Vassal (2016-01-07 19:33:20)
FICGS chess cup : proposal
Garvin, we agree on that but I would be surprised if the entry fee would not divide the number of players by a factor of about 2, maybe 3 ... if we have about 70 players in the case without an entry fee, you can imagine the problem with: we would be sometimes able to launch a 1-round tournament (2 RR rounds for from 25 to 32 players would be strange IMO), sometimes not. If we choose no entry fee, the problem is solved, otherwise we must figure out several cases.
Firhan Firhansyah (2015-05-23 04:52:40)
untuk orang indonesia gabung di sini
maybe this site can use bahasa indonesia interface on the future
Thibault de Vassal (2015-05-17 15:33:35)
untuk orang indonesia gabung di sini
Hello Firhan,
Thanks. Yes, strangely we have many registered players from Indonesia, but almost all of them are inactive.
Firhan Firhansyah (2015-05-17 02:06:38)
untuk orang indonesia gabung di sini
bagi yang baru gabung dan belum tahu cara bermain di sini silahkan ajukan pertanyaan. saya akan bantu semampu saya
Thibault de Vassal (2015-05-03 01:25:37)
Chess tournaments rating ranges
Hello all,
As you probably noticed, we slowly have more and more difficulties to fill some tournaments waiting lists (mainly chess SM ones).
No change seem to solve this, actually all major chess websites seem to have less and less activity. Anyway I made a minor change (step backward) with the chess waiting lists rating ranges: brackets are now 400 points again. Looks more logical to me according to circumstances and players behaviour.
Let's wait and see. To be continued.
Bogoljub Teverovski (2015-04-14 14:28:18)
Thematic tournaments?
Triangle setup is fine because it offers a very wide range of options to play, but this circumstance means that it is not good for thematic tournament. A series of Slav thematics might be reasonable: (a) Winawer gambit 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e5, (b) Slav gambit 3...e6 4.e4, (c) Noteboom 4.Nf3 dxc4, etc.
Thibault de Vassal (2014-11-02 14:40:08)
Tournaments rating ranges
Well, usually I always ask for opinions (even if I don't get so many)... but it does not mean I can't agree with you... seriously :) .. I can make drastic actions (some tournaments have disappeared or appeared), it all depends on the context and experience. So, to be continued.
Garvin Gray (2014-11-01 22:53:27)
Tournaments rating ranges
And to carry on from the other thread to make my point, even here, you just can not bring yourself to say, ok Garvin, I agree with you. The division can not get begin, so lets get rid of it, but because I have suggested cancelling it, you decide to take a less drastic action.
Even though ALL THE EVIDENCE says that the event can not start.
Thibault de Vassal (2014-10-31 15:40:17)
Tournaments rating ranges
Maybe a new low rating limit for class SM should be 2350... Any opinion?
Garvin Gray (2014-10-28 23:52:30)
Tournaments rating ranges
The top class sm rating division should be abandoned. There are not enough players to fill it. It only started due to two ticketed players and dropping the rating limit.
Thibault de Vassal (2014-10-27 20:44:31)
Tournaments rating ranges
Hello all,
As you may know, certain top tournaments are really too long to start... After a long wait, I finally decided to test this new rule:
12. Tournament rules
(...) Please note that the referee may change the rating ranges if a tournament takes too much time to start (such cases are quite rare).
As an example, for the tournament chess class SM, I just changed the low rating limit to 2300 only to find the 7th player. The rating limit will return to 2400 after that. This is not a good thing according to me but it may be the "less worst"... To be continued.
Feel free to tell what you think about this.
Garvin Gray (2014-08-31 10:37:06)
Standard time control abusers
As for the idea of the rapid time control- I love the rapid time control, it is just that for my rating, and those around my rating range, very few tournaments start at all.
So to get our fix, we have to look to the standard time control events, and then we run into these issues.
I maintain that you stopped the trail of closing the standard time control divisions wayyyy too early.
Nothing at the top is really starting at this point in time, even though players on this site are active, or trying to be.
Ilmars Cirulis (2014-08-15 17:02:41)
Friendly thematic games or discussions
Does anyone want to play Sokolsky-Orangutan opening (1.b4) with white? For any theoretical, practical or other reasons - without any prizes, just friendly game for purposes of exploration.
Also I want to explore such variation of Traxler counterattack: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 Bc5 5.Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6.Kxf2 Nxe4+ 7.Ke3 Qh4 8.g3 Nxg3 9.hxg3 Qd4+ 10.Kf3
Two will be enough for me now.
P.S. Sorry for disappearance some time ago with lots of unfinished games.
Peter W. Anderson (2014-07-13 10:54:56)
FICGS WCh results summary updated
I have given the question of the format of the WCh matches a lot of thought.
There is no doubt that having the advantage of the draw is a huge advantage at correspondence chess, much more so than at normal chess, simply because the draw rate is so high amongst strong correpondence players.
However, there are disadvantages to other formats. It is true that a tournament final gives a better chance of having a new champion. But the outcome is dependent upon the results of players who are not necesarrily fighting hard for the prize (perhaps they have an early loss, perhaps other parts of their lives become too busy). You might hope that in the final this would not happen, but if you look closely at the games in the round robin finals you will see some strange results, clearly drawn games being lost etc. If it can happen in the round robin final it could happen in a championship final.
Having more games in the final is a very logical option. However, as Thib has pointed out, this will create a big workload. It would make it almost impossible for a serious challenger to enter consecutive championships without having to withdraw from later ones if they reached the final (this is already very difficult witouht more games!).
Another option would be an advanced chess play-off. I would be concerned that this would be too dependant on who had the biggest hardware with less chance for human skill.
Finally, there is the chance to decide a tied match with a toss of a coin. Not a great way of picking a champion.
This problem is not so much an issue with the format as with the game itself - chess is almost certainly drawn with sensible play and as engines get stronger it is going to become harder and harder to win games.
All in all, I think the current format is very reasonable, perhaps the best.
One final observation re Neel's comment that a top player can draw a game if he wants. Perhaps, and if this is 100% true then the draw problem is realy severe. However, I am a little more hopeful. Eros Riccio sometimes beats even very strong players playing the same openings he plays - it is not as if the openings he plays are guaranteed draws in practice. He finds ways of putting them under pressure and sometimes they make a mistake. Perhaps eventually he will do so too (we may have to wait for him to get old!). Or to put another way, chess is almost certainly drawn but it is not an easy draw even at correspondence if white plays really well!
Josef Riha (2014-03-02 10:21:48)
Standard time control abusers
As I said earlier in this thread, look at chesshere.com. There are no tournament classes here.
You have three possibilities to play a game in CC:
1.) Start your own game and decide the time control and elo-range of your opponent or enter a game at the game list.
2.) If you are a teammember the teamcaptain assigns an opponent to you.
3.) You can apply a Championship with different elo-classes.
In all cases the time control range is mostly between 3 or 7 days. No extra days are added after a move.
If an opponent ran out of time you can remain your opponent to do a move or finish the game immediately. After each game your elopoints are updated and you can see your success (or failure).
Charlie Neil (2013-11-19 00:24:58)
World chess championship Anand / Carlsen
No one has anything to say about this match? Strange days indeed. As I write the score is +2 for Carlsen and game 8 starts tomorrow, 19th November. Let's get excited . . .
Dmitri Mamrukov (2013-10-22 21:16:49)
Kasparov candidate for FIDE president
Evgeny Bareev: Subjective speculations on the strange Kasparov-Karpov tandem
http://www.onefide.com/2010/05/28/kasparov-and-karpov-are-playing-another-game-this-time-a-political-one-by-igm-evgeny-bareev/
Dann Corbit (2013-07-31 20:22:59)
Thematic tournaments?
It takes guts to play that opening as white, because it looks like a serious disadvantage to me. Of course I like the Orangutan, which is theoretically weak for white as well. I will examine game 2032 to see how it came out
Joerg Moormann (2013-07-28 22:38:58)
Next WCH Stage start
I registerd yesterday for FICGS__CHESS__WORLD_CHAMPIONSHIP__000012 and my name is on the table. Strange.
Alvin Alcala (2013-07-15 17:51:28)
Invi. to play freestyle/centaur Chess
We can arrange a sponsored match over there. Just contack Kevin or William for details :)
Thibault de Vassal (2013-06-10 22:25:14)
Playing activity top 20 players
If I remember well, that was a request to help players to reach the next rating band (200 points is a lot when most players who enter waiting lists are near the low limit).
Anyway, now I cannot find any argument to have the same rating ranges for rapid and standard tournaments (maybe "coherence" only).
Thibault de Vassal (2013-06-09 01:46:15)
Playing activity top 20 players
I guess there are more strong players at ICCF to build rapid tournaments with more rating ranges, sorry for not being able to do that here :/
Finally, many players got a 2400 rating while starting at 1800 or even less... so maybe than playing a few games at standard time control would have brought you faster results than playing 200 games at rapid time control.
Sorry about that in all cases.
Dann Corbit (2013-04-05 04:16:58)
Thematic tournaments?
Do you hold thematic tournaments here?
I am interested, specifically, in the Orangutan:
1.b4
Heinz-Georg Lehnhoff (2013-03-12 17:38:02)
Vacation: change for 3 days minimum?
At work I can take a single day off, but not in my hobby? That sounds strange ...
Horatiu Adrian Petrescu (2013-01-16 01:49:36)
FICGS admin scam me
...and
petrescu horatiuadrian :
how you defend smart crook?
(2013-01-16 01:45:39)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
conversation from 2010
(2013-01-16 01:43:33)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
you defend of what? you forgot I have proofs?my proof is our
(2013-01-16 01:43:15)
burrows nick :
there's a strange smell in here...
(2013-01-16 01:39:51)
petrescu horatiuadrian :
you threaten me and others with your con
(2013-01-16 01:36:49)
devassal thibault :
Just pollute other places with this and I'll defend myself..
(2013-01-16 01:34:31)
devassal thibault :
.. defend your views but now you threaten me
(2013-01-16 01:34:08)
devassal thibault :
I was patient enough and gave you a large occasion to...
(2013-01-16 01:33:19)
Thibault de Vassal (2012-11-23 18:01:51)
How to amend rating?
Strange, I did not receive it... maybe retry or try to use the form at the bottom of page "My messages", just enter my name and resend the message.
Thibault de Vassal (2012-09-19 13:32:52)
From the quote file
Ah ! ... true, strange.
Thibault de Vassal (2012-08-19 14:07:45)
What happened to Boris Spassky?
After Kasparov vs. Putin, now Spassky vs. ??
A strange story... maybe we'll learn more soon on his last 2 years in french hospitals. Quite hard to conclude anything right now.
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8417
Don Groves (2012-08-04 04:58:39)
Rating List
As Robert pointed out, the Established rating list is meaningless as it now stands.
Only the Active lists are accurate. This seems to be a strange situation. But, yes, not an immediate problem.
Garvin Gray (2012-05-03 04:23:36)
Slow tournament entries
Gino: That is because you are high rated and so play only other high rated players.
Which is good for you, but I am not sure if that is in the best interests of the site as a whole when it is one of the only formats offered.
Scott: I would like to use swiss pairings and have one game paired a time with a time control of something like 20 days plus 1 hour increment. It short, fast and with only one game, the time control should be long enough.
It will take more than 1 year, but that is not so much of a concern here.
I proposed the group and final idea to fit in with existing arrangements on here.
I would also be willing to do swiss pairings on here, like I do on WBCCC.
Garvin Gray (2012-04-30 16:32:04)
Slow tournament entries
I think most players do not mind if others are taking their time, it is the unnecessary time wastage that can be an issue.
Maybe Thib can answer this- What is the average number of games that players have going at one time across the different rating ranges?
Daniel Parmet (2012-04-30 14:20:46)
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in Chessbase news
I am actually in that photo strangely enough. I was paid to be the Tournament Director for the blitz tournament he played in.
Thibault de Vassal (2012-04-29 23:39:50)
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in Chessbase news
Sometimes strange things happen...
http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8108
Thibault de Vassal (2012-04-18 18:08:24)
Slow tournament entries
That's right. It is a fact that the current rules allow (in extreme cases) that all players in a waiting list be below the low rating range.
To partly avoid that, the tickets may be used to finish to fill a waiting list only (e.g. when 4 players at least entered it already)... It's just a trick of course.
But it would be unfair IMHO to retire players who lost elo points from waiting lists, so it does not completely solve the problem.
Thibault de Vassal (2012-03-13 17:18:17)
Replaying games
That's really strange......
As for me I see something like that (with arrows replaced by < & >):
< Game 64299 > << move >> (poker_holdem)
If you don't see it, please send me a screen capture so that I can fix the problem, if you have some time of course... thanks anyway!
Thibault de Vassal (2012-01-01 20:05:53)
Unable to stay connected to FICGS
Quite strange... what browser do you use? Is FICGS the only site you encountered this problem with?
Thibault de Vassal (2011-12-24 17:42:57)
money prize tournaments
Hello Alexis,
Yes, it would be very easy to create such tournaments. We had no players with Epoints enough a few years ago for this. Maybe it is time now.
Who would enter such a waiting list among these possibilities?
1. Rated 7 players single round robin tournament, no rating range, 20 epoints entry fee
2. Unrated 7 players single round robin tournament, no rating range, 20 epoints entry fee
3. Rated 5 players double round robin tournament, no rating range, 30 epoints entry fee
4. Unrated 5 players double round robin tournament, no rating range, 30 epoints entry fee
Both rated & unrated options have inconvenients IMO... Any better idea? The prize would be about 96 to 100% entry fees.
(by the way, this may partly solve the problem of the other discussion about double round robin tournaments)
Thibault de Vassal (2011-11-11 22:22:05)
ficgs Server time
Yes, that's strange as it should be corrected regularly automatically... I just changed it. Thanks!
Thibault de Vassal (2011-09-19 18:10:05)
Phantom ficgs
Hi Philip,
That's quite strange, this windows should appear in the main FICGS window (the chat bar is below this one).
What navigator do you use (on what computer or mobile)?
Alvin Alcala (2011-08-10 11:30:23)
Ideas for a Freestyle tournament
In free style cup section why not make an option of a freestyle tour so anyone online can immediately arrange a tour with entry fee of say 10 e-points or even bronze. Then the format would be minimum 2 players or even number of players. Money prizes will be broken down accordingly. I loved to play advance chess a lot but it will be more exciting if you will play more people.
Daniel Parmet (2011-04-17 20:53:43)
CHESS__WORLD_CHAMPIONSHIP__000009
The fact that all 2150+ were automatically seeded into round2. Making it completely pointless for anyone in the 2000-2149 rating range to play.
Mariusz Maciej Broniek (2011-03-17 10:07:03)
Strange game
No, you are wrong ;0)
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-07 21:45:17)
FICGS chess World Championship #9
Well, I see that the idea of "equal chances for everyone" is still in the debate, that's quite strange as I thought it was obvious & accepted that such a thing cannot exist in correspondence chess.
No correspondence chess championship format can give equal chances to everyone because there is no time for this, and to try to do it only gives less chances to the best player to win it.
The way IECG & ICCF do it has probably as many advantages & inconvenients as we do it at FICGS but at the end the efficiency is quite similar to find as accurately as possible the best player among the highest rated ones IMO & everyone have NOT equal chances (either you have to play a few rounds more or there is a TER rule or whatever).
I'm not saying that one format is better than others, some will like the FICGS format, some will prefer other formats, that's all IMO. Do not think that the WBCCC format solves all problems, it tries to avoid the time problem but the number of players is very limited in the running edition.
Finally, why to play another ICCF/IECG championship here?
I think that there is no argument that can justify that all players (including the 8 players of the knockout after all) should play in regular groups, as well as no argument can justify the opposite. It was just a choice to make it different and somewhat looking like the old FIDE championship.
That's why choices 2) & 4) are really best to me. 2) may be better because the range 2100-2400~ may be too large for M groups, but another solution may be to build M (2250-2400)& N (2100-2250) groups like it was done in one WCH cycle, where the number of qualified players were different. Actually the idea of class groups with different numbers of qualified players is really interesting but of course, the chances are not the same for everyone once again.
Whatever the choice, surely it will not be ok for some players for any reason, but I'm now quite sure that a change should be done.
Alexander Blinchevsky (2011-03-06 19:33:11)
Strange game
Hi Mariusz!
Thank you for detailed explanation.
For sure, your son needs using all the time till the end of control in such complicated position, am I right? Just for fun, of cause ;)
Mariusz Maciej Broniek (2011-03-06 14:14:48)
Strange game
dura lex, sed lex ;0)
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-06 13:40:46)
Strange game
Hi Mariusz!
Sure we all understand your point of view! Anyway that's why there are rules, to try to satifsfy everyone whatever the opinion... :)
Mariusz Maciej Broniek (2011-03-06 08:56:45)
Strange game
Hi;0)
maybe I am wrong in my opinion, but I think, that playing chess is for fun! I have a 7yo son, and he traing hard to learn playing chess. In lose position he play move by move and what is bad in that situation? It is only a hobby, its only for fun.. Not for rating, not for 1,0,=. All in FICGS used computers to play, he used a young brain and learn lose too. It is very important in my opinion. I have few games in the same sytuation - I am winner - but I have a time and... dont wont to die too ;0)) BECAUSE IT IS ALL ONLY FOR FUN.
Kind regards to you Alexander
Mariusz
Alexander Blinchevsky (2011-03-05 23:45:15)
Strange game
@Thib: Thank you. I did it. Wanna see explanation of the opponent :)
@Sebastian: Agreed 100%. For me playing the obviously lost game is also distressing...
Sebastian Boehme (2011-03-05 23:33:35)
Strange game
For my part I can say, I will always resign if I feel the game is just useless, because it saves me a lot of energy.
And really why waste time on a lost position? There are better ways to spend it.
Have a walk, listen to some good music, watch a good movie. Enjoy the time! ;)
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-05 23:32:15)
Strange game
Better would be to do the procedure (the forum is not the best place for this), this way your opponent will know about it (most often it helps to finish the game), and he may explain the situation.
Alexander Blinchevsky (2011-03-05 23:07:22)
Strange game
And, I beleive, such cases shall be shared around
Alexander Blinchevsky (2011-03-05 23:05:45)
Strange game
Thanks, Thib. Please see this post as an official report to the referee. :)
Jimmy Huggins (2011-03-05 22:07:48)
Strange game
That is still to long, but really it just seems like bad sportsmanship.
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-05 20:42:50)
Strange game
There's a rule that can help in such cases: 11.5 "(...) if a player doesn't want to resign (or accept draw) and obviously lasts the game, his opponent may report to referee a first time. If the player takes 30 days more to finish the game, his opponent may call referee another time, then the game will be adjudicated."
Eros Riccio (2011-03-05 18:29:48)
Strange game
Fast answer
Eros Riccio (2011-03-05 18:28:33)
Strange game
sadly some players continue (almost) until mate thinking all their time.
That is allowed in the rules, (I am not sure if a game can be forcedly adjudicated if the position has 6 or less piecees, if you can prove you have the 6 man tablebases) even if it is considered (very) unfair to common sense. All you can do is try not to lose your patience and try to avoid such opponents in the future.
Alexander Blinchevsky (2011-03-05 14:40:26)
Strange game
I wonder to see that at such level someone will continue playing in that position: http://www.ficgs.com/user_page.php?page=viewer&game=41015
The game was completely decided over 1 year ago, for now it's even force mate shown by any engine.
The only reason to continue playing that I see for the black is waiting for the opponent's (me) death. Sorry, Mariusz, I am not planning to do that in nearest future. :)
Thibault de Vassal (2011-03-03 14:26:01)
Plea for classical rating help
Sorry as well, I missed your last message in this discussion. So...
1) On tickets for class M ("...if your rating is above 2150"), that was my point, nothing prevented you to use this trick when your rating was above 2150.
2) On the next Rapid SM, only 2 players used it, Marius was above 2300 then lost many elo points as he had to forfeit several games, Miroslav also was above 2300 and lost a few points. That's a border case and it may happen. Anyway only 2 players under the rating limit can enter a waiting list.
3) To clarify, there is no 2150 scheme! 2150 is for the case of Class M, for Rapid SM you have to be rated 2250-2299 or to win a Rapid M event to use the ticket system.
4) You are probably right on the Rapid SM case anyway, maybe the ticket system rule should allow players to use a ticket only if there are no more than 2 players (including players not using a ticket) under the rating range.
5) Anyway you couldn't enter the Rapid SM waiting list unless you win a Rapid M tournament. But my point was only that you could have joinded a Class M several times (with most players rated above 2200)...
There are 100 results for Rang in wikichess.
Ranganathan Raman (1303)
e4 d6 Nc3 e6
Transpose to wikichess #55777#
============
Contributors : Ranganathan Raman
[Chess forum]
[Rating lists]
[Countries]
[Chess openings]
[Legal informations]
[Contact]
[Social network] [Hot news] [Discussions] [Seo forums] [Meet people] [Directory]
[Social network] [Hot news] [Discussions] [Seo forums] [Meet people] [Directory]
Social network : create your photo albums, discuss with your friends...
Hot news & buzz : discover the latest news and buzz on the internet...
Discussions : questions and answers, forums on almost everything...
Seo forums : search engines optimisation forums, web directory...
Play the strongest international correspondence chess players !
|
Zidu, Jan (CZE) [member # 1330] Correspondence chess : 2461 GM Ranked # 45 in the rating list. Rating history : No change this year. Advanced chess : 2496 Big chess : 2171 I am 54 years old, married, born and living in Prague - the capital of the Czech Republic. I have been playing CC since 1995. Since 2012, I have held the position of President of the Czech CCA. I got these CC/ICCF titles: IM (2005), SIM (2009) and GM (2011). My current CC/ICCF rating is 2604.  This member has no profile in the social network. |
 | Correspondence chess World championship Play chess games Go (weiqi, baduk) Advanced chess Play big chess Chess trainer apk Rated tournaments Poker texas hold'em Fischer random chess |  |