Allegations of cheating are MUCH worse than any cheating that does actually occur.

If someone uses a program against you and you lose - so what, it's just a game. If you think they might have cheated then just don't play them, it's very simple. Results and so-called Ratings are meaningless for online internet play because you will never know. Win or lose just play to learn, improve your game and for enjoyment. I hear far too many people saying "cheat" and it's just so unpleasant. The same topic is also on the IYT message board.

Naturally, the only results that mean anything are from live tournament play, but that doesn't mean that only people who have played in live tournaments are good players. I played for many years before finding any books on the game and discovering "published play" but I found that often my first 10-15 moves or so matched many of the standard openings. But if you are a reasonable player without an ACF rating or live tournament reputation then should you be "called to account" if you win too many games? By whom?

Accusing an anonymous internet player of being a program is one thing. This has, surprisingly, happened to me on occasion and I just tell them that I'm pleased that they think I'm that good. The game is over and we can both move on. Not so at mail play sites like BrainKing or IYT where games aren't over in 5 or 10 minutes and some players have identified themselves with their real names.

Public allegations labelling someone who has given you their real name as a cheat is another matter entirely. It is potentially very damaging of their good name and smears their reputation and is, of course, libellous. Mr. Lopez's outspoken remarks are personal insults to Mr. Trice and are very unpleasant. I would be grateful if posts of this kind could be removed from the message boards and the perpetrators prevented from further postings. This kind of behaviour reflects badly on the character of the person posting and damages them as much as, if not more than, the intended recipient.

My guess is that Mr. Lopez is a young man with a lot of excess testosterone and aggression. I can just feel it oozing from every post. Mr. Lopez you will make many more enemies than friends in the checkers/draughts fraternity if you carry on with this kind of crusade. You (or someone claiming to be you) have made similar postings on the BBS (such as asking Mr. Fierz if anyone had a copy of Suicide-Cake). Please Mr. Lopez, I beg you, learn to lose graciously and congratulate someone on winning even if you are suspicious they did so unfairly. That takes much more courage and self-control than simply being confrontational and you will be a bigger man than they are. If they did cheat, so what! where's their sense of achievement and satisfaction?

It's human nature for Mr. Trice to seek to defend himself and his reputation. We all instinctively feel it's necessary to justify ourselves when accused of something - it's a trap we all fall into. But it is a trap. If I defend myself by telling you how good I am then it comes across as conceit or arrogance or "well he would say that wouldn't he!" Mr. Trice you have done yourself no favours by responding to Mr. Lopez's allegations in the way you have. Your best defence is to ignore him and let any that know you personally spring to your defence. Regrettably, nothing you can say or do will change the mindset of someone who is bent on attacking you in such a way. Your knowledge in the field of artificial intelligence and 2-player game programming is not in dispute. But to argue your case in the way you have reflects badly on you too, I'm sorry to say. Your retorts have just inflamed the situation.

As for the challenge for Mr. Trice to play at Kurnik. He would be well advised to steer clear of such a contest. For one thing playing 5 minute games at Kurnik is an entirely different matter to playing on mail play sites where you can take as long as you want on each move. The standard of play is quite different. The best players at Kurnik are those with quick (and young) minds or those with encyclopaedic book knowledge. Secondly, Mr. Trice would be in a no-win situation. Win at Kurnik and Mr. Lopez could still say "well he used a program there too". And if he loses at Kurnik, then he would no doubt claim that just proves he uses a program at BrainKing. I'm not sure what result Mr. Lopez would expect for him to say I'm satisfied that Mr. Trice didn't cheat!! Thirdly, I for one wouldn't wish to play someone who publicly posted such abusive and fatuous criticisms of me. Fourthly, and most importantly, the challenge is an uneven one. The way it seems to me is that Mr. Lopez would be playing a game of checkers whereas Mr. Trice is being asked to play for his reputation. How uneven is that? I can't comprehend being asked to play a game of checkers in order to defend my name and reputation. Mr. Trice would do well to avoid any such challenge.

Good point. I supppose it should be an honor of sorts to be accused of cheating. (Assuming of course that you're really not cheating. lol)

John Baker: No correction needed. The accusation of cheating is easily made but impossible to prove and also nearly impossible to disprove so it is best not made. One form of cheating, the use of boosting through multiple nics, can be determined by the site owner but computer programs, books etc. can not be. You could print out reams of games from published play and study them endlessly and produce results that might look like they approximate a computer program. Who knows for sure? The very few times I have been accused of using a program I am highly flattered that someone thinks I am playing at that level. LOL

Jake Lopez: I am an enthusiastic checkers player, but I care not about removing cheaters. If I suspect someone of cheating, I will simply refrain from playing that person. You say you "SLIGHTLY care," but it's obvious that you DEEPLY care. Read over your own posts. You've made it seem like this is very important to you. Sounds like you've done some research into it too. Also, you say, " It doesn't change or affect my life in any way," but if you are becoming emotionally involved in this battle, then it is affecting your life in ways we can't define.
If someone is cheating and you slightly care about it, then report the player and put him/her on your ignore list. I think that would be the right way to go about things. Purple can correct me if I'm wrong about that.

John Baker: It doesn't change or affect my life in any way Mr. Baker. And I SLIGHTLY care because everyone should care about removing cheaters. It's obvious he cheats here at BK (My claim) and has been cheating for many years (Anonymous claim). It's not that hard to log in to Kurnik and play me some games. I've never been false about accusing someone of being a cheater in draughts and I know I'm not wrong about Mr. Trice, who seems to be the biggest program user in online draughts history.

Give it up Jake. If you succeeded in getting Ed to play you and he won, you'd just accuse him of using his program. And if he lost, he'd say it was just one game and you'd really have to play dozens of games in order to get accurate results. Why do you care so much anyway? How do the actions (or claims) of Ed change your life?
John Baker

Well you didn't show up to the Kurnik tournament. Fine players like John Chappell, Dustin Sherear, Carter Williams, and Clayton Nash participated. Missed out on a good oppurtunity to show your true skill. The best way to play true/safe checkers online is at Kurnik and VOG.

Why won't you go to Kurnik?

As for the earlier comments about my endgames.

Look at these two games.

Game 1

http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=647831&i=47

My opponent could win on the next move with d2-e1 but he played d2-c1 instead. If I was using a computer program, I would never have gotten into this psotion to begin with. I will allow someone like George Miller to confirm I am in a loss. I can't be responsible for my opponents not winning.

Here is a second example, when I forgot the Andrew Jackson Defense to the Switcher...

http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=208684&i=6

From here I should lose. f8-g7 was the way to draw that line, and I played it enough to know better, I just merely forgot it.

So, again, Jake and his far-flung assessments are demonstrated false. Every prorgam has moves in the opening book to avoid the early loss, and endgame databases can salvage draws from a great distance, which could have saved the first game.

....Who the hell is Pedro...

You're going to judge my skill by 6 games? Fool.

It is obvious you are scared to reveal your true skill at Kurnik. So it's obvious you use a program. It's easy to lose 16 games on purpose to throw us off but those games were obviously lost on easy mistakes you made on purpose. Play in the Kurnik tournament today at 5:15 eastern and see how you do.

What a blast...

Oh, I get it. Jake is Pedro's pawn account, now it all makes sense. Jake is Pedro. Got it. Bye bye (hides Pedro.)

I see Pedro needs a new hobby. Gee whiz Pedro. Don't you have a life, or are you still trying to derail the Gothic Chess Federation, lol.

[Grim Reaper, United States, Brain Rook, Male] Grim Reaper (hide) Re: 21. May 2005, 17:45:06
- viewing profile (Grim Reaper) -
Jake Lopez: If you don't know the answer to that, you don't get the American Checker Federation bulletin. You are now on hide Jake, I will no longer respond to you. Have a great life.
Reply
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Jake Lopez's Checkers record:

4 wins, 0 draws, 2 losses

Why am I even wasting my time with you?

You are now on hide.

Have a great life in your little imagined world of greatness. I am sure you will be the World Champion in no time.

(laughs so hard I almost fell off the chair.)

Say what you want, you can't make a 3000 member organization that was based in Canada disappear. The PGN of the games exist, I have seen them, I went over the games from my tournament, the move list is accurate.

I have computed the 10-piece database. Not only that, it has perfect play information, not just "win-loss-draw" like other programs. It also has an Aggressive Draw Hueristic that will put you into the position with the fewest legal moves to draw, move after move after move, until your own 8-piece database program's draws are beyond its horizon, meaning you will spiral into a loss before you software realizes it.

It sits on a box down at the University of Pennsylvania with 256 Gigabytes of RAM and 32 separate 2-terrabyte hard drives to store the databases. Its search speed is about 8 million positions per second.

I can't remember if I sent Purple an early copy of the paper I was writing on it, or not. He can reply if he wants.

If I used that program against people on here, I would have 0 draws, not 16.

You should really do some more research before you say fairly unintelligent things.

You can start your research here:

(a book I am in...)
http://ostg.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/isbn=1402077092/nrd=1/

By the way, I helped to correct the Chinook 8-piece databases, which had errors in them until late 2001. It is mentioned in that book, page 210. Write to the publisher, ask them to email you the "Acknowledgements" paragraph from that page. Or send an email to Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer himself, he will tell you.

http://www.gothicchess.org/7_piece_perfect_play.pdf

As for my abilities, articles I had written for Draughts Razoo, and English magazine, were very well received. And World Champion Alex Moiseyev said my annotation of one of HIS games was the best quality of analysis he has seen, and it will be given the most real estate in the book he is publishing. I guess a computer program I wrote distilled the essential strategic concepts and was able to put them into laymen's terms as well.

And I don't have 2 computers, I have about 175 or so in my company.

Grim Reaper: You are green with envy. Are aren't a nobody, you're a green man.

The tournamet you attented wasn't legit. Just like the state fair tournament I attended. I didn't bother mentioning it because it's a worthless tournament just like yours.

Do you consider yourself a draughts master?


Why do 99% of your endgame moves match up my 8pc endgame program? Do you think like a computer?

At kurnik you can't use a program unless you use 2 computers - But we can make the timer fast enough where you will not have time to switch from comptuer to comptuer. Lets play some games there and see how good you really are.

So you criticize my play, yet I have played in a live tournament, while you have not.

I see no logic in your statements.

If I am such a "nobody", and, using your own metric of "nobodiness", you are less of a nobody, I don't think anyone would care about the result of of "nobody" vs. "less than nobody" contest.

So, why don't you go play with yourself.

I never said I played in live tournaments. I'm going to my first one this summer. We should meet at Kurnik and play some games.

Still waiting for you to tell us where you have played live tournaments. All games from the 22 NACA tournaments are in the Wyllie Games Archive from what I have been told.

I don't see any results for this tournament online. Care to give them out? Or are those results not to be discussed either? If you are still online right now (around 11:10pm pac time) - Go to Kurnik.org and play me some games.

That's because Alex asked me not to discuss the result

I beat Kingsrow 1-0 with 19 draws, get your facts straight. That version of Kingsrow had the 2.9 trillion positions in the 9-piece database and an opening book of 800,000 moves.

How well would you do against it?

Present at the NACA tournament were two past and present Canadian champions, some mail players, and some people who started playing checkers about 20 years before I was born. While the Canadian Checker Federation was not as sizeable as the ACF, it has master members who have taken points off of ACF masters, and I took points off of them.

Say what you want. I played 32 games in 3 days, lost none, and won 18.

I played in one tournament, and, from what I saw, checkers tournaments don't have a lot going for them.

Let me hire you as the President of my company. You are now making $675 an hour.

Here are your choices.

Work Friday and half of Saturday, and earn about $8100 in straight time pay.

Or, take off Friday, earn none of the aforementioned money, travel about 600 miles to a tournament playing site to breath smoke for hours at a time, win maybe $50 - $75 in a checkers tournament, drive another 600 miles back, then listen to more buttheads like yourself say "Gee you only won 1 tournament... you couldn't win if condition X-Y-Z happened."

Now, Mr Lopez, care to disclose your checkers tournament career?

Grim Reaper: lol NCAA tournament? Are you kidding me? Who actually showed up to that to give any regular online player a challenge. That is like playing in a state fair checkers tournament. You were just playing amatuers. After your 2-0 win over kingsrow...It doesn't matter if Moiseyev went to your house. You beat kingsrow 2-0 with draws. That is a master-level result. I don't see Moiseyev telling anyone that you're a master after playing you at your house.

I wonder why World Champion Alex Moiseyev came to my house on December 18, 2004?

Hmmmm... I wonder.

And what tournaments have you played in?

By the way, I won a NACA tournament in 1997 (an Open invitation held in Nyak, NY), 28 points out of 32, with no losses. It was 11-man ballot.

Did you forget about that one tournament result?

I don't know if all checkers tournaments are like this one, but there were 3 people there under 60 in my section (myself and two others) and it was not played in the best of locations. The cafeteria featured creaky wooden chairs that were very uncomfortable and not well balanced. There was some Bridge event going on not far from us, which allowed smoking, so the place stunk like old cigars (though the cigarette smokers outnumbered them probably 10 to 1, the cigar smoke was what I remembered most.)

The mens room was crowded at times, and in the summer the pungent odor of urine wafted you when you were still 50 feet away. It was enough to make you wish for a third kidney.

There were only about 40 players in the so-called Masters Section, with a surprising 60 or more in what was labeled the "Mixed Amateur" section. There were only 2 ladies present in the whole event.

NACA ran events from 1996-1999 and was relatively short lived, based somewhere in Canada. They claimed to have 3000 members, but offered no publication (just a BBS online) and only organized 11-man ballot checkers, bridge, and some other non-poker card game that I cannot remember.

Ed Trice has not played in a live tournament. He is an unknown compared to George Miller.

Ahh yes, that's it, have been reviewing some lassie games since i am playing a few now, i know i saw one somewhere, thanks

Grim Reaper: This is a run up from a famous shot/stroke on the Ayrshire Lassie. On move #8 White has 3 jump choices: x1 x2 or x3. This occurs in the middle of an 18 piece exchange.

1. 11-15 24-20 2. 8-11 28-24 3. 4-8 23-19 4. 9-14 22-17 5. 5-9 26-23 6. 9-13 20-16 7. 11x20
30-26 8. 13x22 25x4 9. 14-18 23x14 10. 10x17 21x14 11. 3-8 4x11 12. 7x30 14-10 13. 6x15
31-26 14. 30x23 27x11 15. 20x27 32x23 DRAW

How many different legal jumps can 1 player have on one turn, stemming from an actual game (not a constructed problem)?

I have seen, on more than one occasion, positions where I had 3 jumps choices (which is usually a little surprising since jumps are forced.)

This usually comes about in a turbulent position where double jumps have occured in pairs.

Does anyone have a game runup where there is more than 3 jumps available for the side to move?

I usually go by the name of Ed, but maybe cousin Al is pretty good too.

bristoljohn: I agree with that! And any player can have an off game.

George Miller is an excellent player, but Al Trice is also very strong, Ustica also has a claim,lets wait to see who wins they will be number 1

Purple: Thanks Purple

THE HIT MAN: http://brainking.com/game/Tournaments?trg=9124&tri=44962&trnst=0

I think George Miller is the best player true player who plays here, regardless if he wins the "BEST PLAYER" tournament.

Purple: I don't know how To post a link LOL

THE HIT MAN: Post a link here if it will help the sign-up.

Purple: Heres a back up Tournament.Purple.The Mobs Checkers Challange.If you can Win both tournaments You will be the Best Here at BK Good Luck Have Fun and Enjoy Looking forword to Playing all the Best players because you are all the best.

I'm looking for a partner to practice GAYP (freestyle) published play lines with. Books and/or manuscripts allowed. I can usually play my games fairly quickly moving several times a day. If anyone is interested please send me a PM. Thanks.

The checker tournament kicks off and with the addition of Ed Trice the bar is raised even higher (if that is possible.) Good luck to everybody in this tournament where players who are only "good" can expect to lose most of the games. But everybody can learn. Thanks to all who entered.

If anyone tunes in to Channel 6 tomorrow at 10 AM, they can see me at the Franklin-Wyndham Hotel in Philadelphia in the Main Exhbition Room. In front of me is a checkerboard, and a member of the hotel staff that will be making the moves Chinook sends via instant messenger to his laptop.

JamesHird: Yes he has.. ;)

EdTrice: So which program will you be using against it, Trice?

That version of Chinook has the 6-piece database only and the 1990 version of its opening book.

I will not be playing that one.

The machine I will be playing against has a boatload of RAM (32 GB) and either 4 or 8 processors (I forget which). This will not be done via the web.

EdTrice: I always enjoyed playing Chinook. It was very fast and with your moves it would send you little game notes like "oh oh..you screwed up now." LOL. I started getting mad at a machine. It counted draws as wins for Chinook so it had a big home court advantage.

Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer of the University of Alberta has agreed to let me cross swords with the strongest version of the Chinook checkers program. Once it solves the next slice of databases it is working on, it will have over 39 trillion positions solved (39,000,000,000,000).

Stay tuned for more info.

There have been some sensational results in the sign up so far. We have the number one rated CW, the legendary George Miller, the seldom (if ever) beaten Ustica and many more stars. I am still hoping Bristol (who is very busy) will join as well as some other outstanding players who can only join one tournament and are locked into other ones for now. Also some slightly lower rated people have not joined because they say they have no chance..but I have asked them to see the movie "Rocky" LOL. There is still time and anything can happen. If we can not pull an upset at least we can learn something. So request an invite and no one will be refused.

bullet: Of course, good luck.

Purple: can i get invited?

Jake Lopez: It is real easy to fall into the trap of thinking that anyone who beats you must be using a program. As comforting as that thought may be it is not always accurate. I have learned that myself.

They're all progs

JamesHird: A knight can only join one tournament. I would upgrade him myself but he is scaling down his activity. We already have three of the most awesome players on BK signed..all 2300+ ratings..so while everyone is welcome I again caution that these are highly skilled players.