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Post by Ozymandias on Feb 19, 2019 10:31:25 GMT
In the absence of any real action, I turned to the slow motion flavour for a year, to see if I could stand it. I played 44 games between FICGS, ICCF and LSS. Out of those, 5 had no moves from my opponent, 3 weren't really played (too short) and 3 ended with the other side being disqualified. The score for the rest was +21=12-0. That might entice some to keep going, but the way I see it, this is the worst possible result because it means that out of the 75% of "serious" players (those who at the very least, observe the rules) almost 64% of them don't even use computers, or not very well. There's also the thing about people dragging games unnecessarily, which is particularly bad when you get 40 days more for every 10 moves, or something like that. All this, obviously, at the bottom of the ladder, but what's the point in investing years to climb? A 100% draw rate once you face the top players? Or worse yet, finding out they aren't even that good? For example, the guy leading the FICGS__CHESS__WCH_STAGE_2_GROUP_03__000019 isn't really up to Freestyle standards (I beat him in the previous stage). I'm sure there has to be some good players, as I know some names from the Infinity Chess tournaments who happen to be correspondence GMs, but in general, I'd say there's not enough of them to justify all the other boring games you'd have to wade trough. And I'm still unconvinced you can use all that extra time for anything other that drawing more games than you'd do in the fast motion flavour, if that's even possible at this point.
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Post by matejst on Apr 10, 2022 0:42:41 GMT
If you want, we could start a match. For me, it would an occasion to check my human repertoire, analyze and also test Rebel. Since the repertoire is not for correspondence, and my desktop is used for Counter Strike, I will be happy if I manage to draw, and if I learn something from the games I played.
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 10, 2022 6:20:14 GMT
You mean corr games? They would need to be fast ones, I wouldn't want to be tied up past Eastern. And where can we play that allows two players to be matched? Or do you mean here? Or do you mean Freestyle games? In this case, it would have to be right away, electricity today is unusually low, the rest of the days I could switch the computers on for an hour or two, at the most.
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 10, 2022 7:01:49 GMT
The link in the 1st post. It looks like you need to login to see it. Long story short, he made it trough to the Round Robin, where there was only one win:
[Event "FICGS__CHESS__WCH_ROUND_ROBIN_FINAL__000019"] [Site "FICGS"] [Date "2019.07.04"] [Round "1"] [White "Stephen,Zack"] [Black "Ortiz,Clodomiro"] [Result "*"] [WhiteElo "2023"] [BlackElo "2448"]
1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 g6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 O-O 8.Bb3 d6 9.f3 Bd7 10.h4 h5 11.Qd2 Na5 12.O-O-O Nxb3+ 13.cxb3 Qa5 14.Kb1 Rfe8 15.a3 Rac8 16.Ka2 a6 17.Nc2 Qd8 18.Qf2 Be6 19.Bb6 Qd7 20.Nd4 Rf8 21.Qd2 Rc6 22.Ba5 Rc5 23.Nce2 Qc8 24.Bb6 Rc6 25.Rc1 Bd7 26.Nxc6 bxc6 27.Bd4 Qb7 28.e5 Nd5 29.exd6 e5 30.Bf2 Rb8 31.Qd1 Be6 32.Ka1 Rd8 33.Ng3 f5 34.Ne2 Rxd6 35.Qc2 Bf7 36.Rhe1 Qb5 37.Qc5 Qb8 38.Rcd1 Re6 39.b4 Qe8 40.Nc1 e4 41.Bd4 Bh6 42.fxe4 fxe4 43.g3 e3 44.Ne2 Bf8 45.Qc1 Re4 46.Qb1 Rg4 47.Qc2 Re4 48.Rf1 Qe6 49.Qb1 Bh6 50.Rf3 Qg4 51.Rdf1 Re7 52.Qd3 Qe6 53.b3 Rd7 54.Bb2 Bg7 55.Bxg7 Kxg7 56.Nd4 Qe5 57.Kb1 Rc7 58.Rc1 Qe8 59.Nc2 Re7 60.Ka2 Kh7 61.Rcf1 Bg8 62.Kb2 Qb8 63.Re1 Qe5+ 64.Qd4 Qxd4+ 65.Nxd4 Kg7 66.Nxc6 Re4
Look at the final position, without engines, and tell me who won.
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Post by matejst on Apr 10, 2022 10:28:07 GMT
I guess you will told me that black won, because I had the clear impression that white had an obvious advantage.
I played the opening twice as black and lost the first game, won the second (I prepared hastily the Dzindzi repertoire from his book "Chess openings for black explained) but in general I think that with good play, white can force a very good ending in the Dzindzi recommendation, and otherwise simply stands better.
I tried to find these games, but I seems I never entered the games from my last season in a database. Here is a game typical for me. A few comments: I lose the plot with Ng5 (should have played Nd2 and exchanged the knights), then, I think I was worse. I sacrificed an exchange to have chances, and the queen after that for a win. Back at that time I work very hard on the board and I always thought that there could be something hidden in a position.
[Event "Srpska liga - Sever"] [Site "Srbija"] [Date "2001.11.18"] [Round "10"] [White "Stanojevic, Boban"] [Black "Radovic, Dragan"] [ECO "C18"] [Result "1-0"]
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 Qc7 7. Nf3 Nc6 8. Be2 Bd7 9. O-O Nge7 10. a4 cxd4 11. cxd4 Na5 12. Ba3 Rc8 13. Bd3 Nc4 14. Bc1 Nf5 15. g4 Ne7 16. Ng5 h6 17. Nh3 Qb6 18. Be3 Nb2 19. Qe2 Nxd3 20. Qxd3 Rc4 21. Rfb1 Qc7 22. a5 a6 23. Rb2 Bb5 24. Qd2 Kd7 25. Nf4 Rc8 26. Nd3 Nc6 27. Nc5+ Ke8 28. f4 Qe7 29. Qf2 Kd8 30. Ra3 Kc7 31. c3 Rf8 32. Rab3 Nxa5 33. Rxb5 axb5 34. Rxb5 b6 35. Qb2 Rxc5 36. dxc5 Nc4 37. cxb6+ Kb7 38. Qa2 Ra8 39. Qa7+ Rxa7 40. bxa7+ Ka6 41. Rb8 Qxa7 42. Bxa7 Kxa7 43. Rf8 Ne3 44. Rxf7+ Kb6 45. Rxg7 Nd1 46. f5 exf5 47. gxf5 Nxc3 48. f6 1-0
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Post by matejst on Apr 10, 2022 10:44:34 GMT
Ozy,
It seems that white is really winning in the game you sent. How did the game end?
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 10, 2022 11:36:52 GMT
It ended there, there's no further white move and a 0-1 result. Clodomiro qualified for the quarter finals with that lone win, highly resemblance of the latest Freestyle tour, where Eros pocketed the $1,000 prize with only one "victory" in the whole tournament, achieved on the very last day (his opponent gave a +2 advantage in just one move).
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Post by matejst on Apr 10, 2022 12:28:09 GMT
In the freestyle tournament you sent me a link, I read that a player dropped a piece on the wrong square and lost immediately. Do you think it was on purpose? Was there a context?
For this game here, if they wanted to fix it, there were better ways. Just to chose a bad variation, e.g. It was so obvious that something was fishy. I don't even see how black can draw the final position after Na5-c4, or something alike. White is down an exchange and a pawn already and perhaps the best he can do is to win the h-pawn for the e-pawn, but I am not sure if he can do that.
Does it often happens, when there are prizes? OTB, in team competitions, fixing results is almost legal (agreeing to draws, not giving points away, of course, but...).
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 10, 2022 13:31:14 GMT
The key position was at move 25, where white plays Qa4 instead of g4, and if c5, only then Qa4. No piece hanged, but the eval went from 0.00 to +2 for black. Yes, I think the game was thrown on purpose, the white player had never made such a big mistake before and has a long Freestyle log, while Eros himself admitted back in the day, to resorting to all sorts of tricks to win tournaments; he described himself as sick and asked for forgiveness, which was obviously given while not asking for all the money he had won to be returned. Now he's back at it again, a relapse apparently. The corr game was most probably forfeited due to real life inconveniences. I once checked the results in my corr DB and about 10% of games had a wrong one. People abandon games for all sorts of "reasons". Excuses, really, but as noted before, people don't have a problem with conducting poorly over the Internet. Does it happen frequently? As often as it needs to do, would be my answer. Look at the last big Freestyle tournament which was played in 2017. Look at the winner in particular (a machine sponsored by the organizers: Round 1,Zor,,2563,suzy,,2450,90'+30'',04/22/2017,1-0 BOOK LOSS in line played by engine, but already known as book loss in 30 games Round 5,Zor,,2563,Medusa,,2500,90'+30'',04/28/2017,1-0 BOOK LOSS, lost line played out off book, known as loosing in 30 games Out of its 3 wins, the one in round 5 was IIRC the same line as the one in round 1. The opponent in round 5 was another machine maintained by someone in the organizing team.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jul 8, 2023 14:20:04 GMT
Speaking of servers, here are some stats for the past 5 years: - Total: 2787 66% 387K
- ICCF: 2823 71% 287K
- BdF: 2808 63% 15K
- LSS: 2687 53% 53K
- ficgs: 2668 47% 13K
- freechess.de 2596 41% 19K
Looks like the only serious alternative to ICCF is BdF, but although cheaper, you still have to pay both an entry and a yearly fee. Among the free ones, LSS has the most and better games, but it's far away from the top two.
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