HalfPawn: How are we supposed to know??

HalfPawn: I hope the readers of this board find this to be of interest.

I don't.

HalfPawn: Why do you do nothing here but taunt players?

SMIRF, I assume you have already decided to ignore HalfPawn. He seems to be here just to stir up trouble.

Walter Montego: What's wrong with left-side castling and right-side castling? Aside from not being very elegant.

WhisperzQ: Thanks!

JinkyOng: They drive halfway across town to save two pence on a fillup of gas, burning much more than that along the way.

Sounds like some poeple I know. ;-)

HalfPawn: I just copied and posted what you had said on here Thad.

No, you added comentary saying that one statement I made was, "too unbelievable to be true", said about one statement, "Isn't that ridiculous?", and said that another "has to be a complete lie!"

I certainly do not appreciate such words, especially from someone I have never had contact with before. Why are you treating me this way? What did I ever do to you?

My 'too unbelievable' statement, 'ridiculous' statement, and 'lie' are all true. In my one and only game against Trice, he announced mate in 5. I asked him how he could be so sure and he told me that he used software. In addition, he told me that he always did (I believe he meant always did in his games at BK). Hiding behind software is tantamount to cheating. By the way, why would a player as good as he was need to use software to beat an inexperienced, low rated player such as myself with only a handful of games played?

Thad

HalfPawn: Kindly delete that post there, please. You make several untruths (some about me!) in it. Perhaps after you get the full picture, you can repost an updated version of it in which I don't look like a complete *******. I would be happy to discuss this further later, but I have to go to work now and will be away from my computer until this evening.

Again, I respectfully ask you to (at least temporarily) remove that post.

Thanks,
Thad

Pythagoras: Oh, right, Ed wasn't at the top. My bad. So maybe he wasn't the strongest player here. I leave it to you to decide who you think it was.

SMIRF Engine, I respect that your program plays/played here and that you use(d) it openly. We know you were using games played here to test it and find out its strengths and weaknesses. I don't think anyone else begrudges you for doing that either. Keep up the good work. :-)

Pythagoras: Well, I don't know for sure that he was the strongest, but he was rated first using both rankings and he was undefeated. Draw your own conclusions. Frankly, I'd gladly state that anyone else was stronger. State your case. ;-)

I know he cheated becasue he told me in a message in a game we played in a BK tournament.

HalfPawn: Grim Reaper/Gothic Inventor/Ed Trice was the strongest, but he cheated. He used software in every game without admitting it. According to the rules here, that is cheating. It's pretty unsportsmanlike too, but that's another subject. Anyway, the guy's gone. Can we move on? Gothic Chess is dead here.

Pythagoras: Oops, right, my bad. Those names are more confusing than I thought! ;-)

Archbishop makes the most sense for the piece that moves like a bishop & rook. Of course, using that convention, the other piece should be called an archknight. ;-)

ChessCarpenter: I don't care what you and/or Ed did on another site. I don't care who resigned what game for what reason. Ed wore out his welcome here long ago, but let's not go down that road. Although I am not a moderator here, I'm sure I speak for several people when I ask you to PLEASE take your discussion to an appropriate place.

ChessCarpenter: Why not make it a pro/am so he can enter as an ameture and others can pay a fee and compete to win the prize(s)? Just a thought.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2409

ColonelCrockett: Who told you that?

Pythagoras: I would be curious to see if SMIRF does any better with the same moves against ZoG given more time. Could you try that?

pierot: You are correct. Fencer & the guy who holds the patent for Gothic Chess cannot come to an agreement. The guy is known to rub a lot of people the wrong way. It's sad that things cannot be worked out, but we are better off without Gothic Chess AND the baggage that comes with it than we are being forced to dance thru the patent holder's hoops.

Walter Montego: I don't like the way moving one pawn opens an attack with a bishop without ever moving the bishop. Chess does not have this. The only starting position on an 8 x 10 board that eliminates this would be putting the bishops at E1 & F1. I'm sure everyone agrees that this is not good. My proposal is to play on a 10 x 10 board. This keeps everything Ed & others like about the Gothic setup and eliminates the flaw.

chessmec: Ed has LIED about what I did. I would like to see his post deleted.

And everyone should not gang up on NOT a floosie. She posted because she is a global mod.

EdTrice: I assume you won't tell us, but who told you I was doing what you claim?

And who did they claim I was sending these posts to?

EdTrice: Not true. You were lied to...or are lying now. But I'm sure you don't believe me ayway.

Ed has kicked me out of his fellowship, Gothic Chess Steamrollers today for no apparant reason. Thanks, Ed. What did I do to deserve that?

Thad

tedbarber: All games should NOT be rated. I am currently playing Pente against two other players trying to hlep them improve their skills. In many of our games, I lose intentionally while showing them a particluar sequence. Clearly these games should not be rated. I have also replayed a game against a few opponent to try and understand where one of us went wrong. Again, we should be able to make these game unrated if we so choose, since these games amount to practice. And also, I have a few friends who are rated way above or way below me in certain games. The hihger rated player does not like to play these games, because, if they win, their score does not go up, but if they lose, it goes down a lot! Playing unrated allows us to play and have fun despite our BKR differences.

Stormerne: Or place the pieces in columns A, B, I, & J (then rotate the board 90 degrees).

I have heard a rumor that this game will be leaving this site due to the fact that Fencer and the guy who holds the patent rights in the US will not be renewing their agreement. Does anyone know if this is true and when their current agreement ends?

In regualr chess, you must move a piece to use it in an attack. In Gothic, you can attack with the bishop without ever moving it, you only have to unblock it by moving a pawn. I suppose at the higher levels, this is just an annoyance, rather than a flaw, but for novices, I see this as a weakness in the layout.

Walter Montego: Is that an inside joke? Does Janus chess have the same flaw? I've never played it. ;-)

Well, my current games will be my last. I just gave away my B pawn (and my rook will follow) again.

I do not like this setup because when an opponent advances a pawn, it exposes a direct threat to my pieces. Chess does not have this flaw.

ughaibu: I see you. ;-)

Geez, I think that's my most embarassing typo/misspelling of all time!

I guess there is one mod who is 'head moderator'. I don't really know, but you'll notice that when there is more than one mod on a DB, the first one is always listed in larger text. Walter mentioned that, after being mod along with bwildman & me for several weeks, that he could boot mods. I never had that ability, so I can only conclude that there is a little difference from the powers of the mod listed first and the rest.

I still don't know WHY I was booted. I never did anything wrong as moderator (unlike him). I have asked this question before both publicaly and privately with no response. I guess Walter has chosen not to speak to me any longer.

No, the government makes us all pay taxes. If you VOTE, then you have the right to complain!! ;-)

Speaking of complaining, I have set up a new fellowship called Rants & Raves - Anything Goes. Anyone who wants to complain about anything that has happened here at the Gothic Chess DB can PM me for an invite. Well, almost anyone.

Ed has signed in today. There is no problem.

Walter, WHY did you remove me as moderator?

redsales, you are right in thinking that there is a double standard going on of sorts. I am not moderating much of the language that is going on right now because I am too busy dealing with trying to get the situation with Walter resolved.

As soon as that is resolved, I will try to clean up some of the insulting posts that have eluded me recently. I can do a good job of moderating this board, if given the chance, but I cannot overcome all of the negativity/bickering/debate over Walter's position.

You are right, harley, but the overall problem here is more than just that. With the two of us as mods and the way this board goes with all the flareups, it is impossible to manage. The best solution in my opinion is for him to be removed. I am not saying this just because I think he was out of line with his patent posts, but for other reason too, the main one of which is that the voices of many other people are speaking and the overwhelming majority of them want him removed. Doing so would bring peace back to this board.

Harley,

Thanks for the voice. Walter & I did have some disagreements at first. I think most of them were just misunderstandings. We exchanged some good PMs and I thought we were cool with each other, but then he got into it with Ed over the whole patent thing. As a poster, I didn't see it as a problem, but since he is a mod, he should have exercised better judgement. He went way over the line and even admits it himself in posts below. I think he should resign or be removed.

Ok, thanks for your thoughts BBW. If I can't get this situation resolved shortly, I suppose it will have to come to that. I will only switch to that as a last resort. Unfortunately, we are nearing that point.

Some pawn votes should count and some should not. It is easy to tell which are which. It just takes a few clicks.

1) If you are a true player here and haven't expressed an opinion, please do so.

2) If your account was just recently created, we will not count your vote, so please don't bother posting here. We have enough going on as is.


I would really like to see this board come back under control. I think the only way for that to happen is for Walter to resign as moderator (Fencer has basically told me that if Walter requests to be removed, it will be done). I have asked Walter to please step down.

I would like to continue to see everyone's opinions posted here for all to see.

Thad

I used to agree with you ted. I thought games within a match should be rated individually. But I have changed my thinking. Now, I can challenge someone that I am fairly confident I can beat to, say, a three wins match. If I stumble and make a boneheaded move, I might lose one game, but since only the entire match is rated, the loss does not appear in my ratings. Is this fair? Maybe not. But, since we all play under the same ratings rules, maybe it is. It should certainly encourage the top players who want to protect their ratings to play more, and that is a very good thing. I know of other gaming sites where that is a big problem. I'm sure that doesn't solve your problem, but maybe it softens the sting a little. ;-)

I can add a little insight, but not much. His seven wins all came in one tournament (and one win was against me). He advanced to the second round, but, thanks to the very slow play of one individual, the second round started months later and it looks like he wasn't even coming to Brainking any more, so all three ended without a move. I believe that those are not included in the ratings (correct?), so his rated games consist of only seven wins against no losses.

Now, does a player who is 7-0 deserve to be ranked above a player who is 126-0-1. Not in my opinion, but that's why there are established and provisional ratings. ;-)

Walter,

You are as guilty as anyone is today with respect to anything that deserves banning. I have unbanned all whom you have banned today. Do not ban anyone else. You are obviously wwwwaaaaayyyyyyy over the line here. The vote is 2 to 1 in favor of you stepping down. Please do so!

I had seven people contact me via PM expressing their interest in having Walter removed as moderator. Three of them have posted their opinions here too. I agree that Walter, as a moderator, was way out of line with his anti-patent posts. I suggested to him that he resign as moderator and then he wouldn't be in a position of conflict of interest. He would be free to post and say whatever he liked as the rest of you are. Seems things between him and some others have heated up again!

So I guess that's five more votes for Walter to step down, the four who contacted me privately who haven't posted here yet, plus myself. Everyone, please add your votes.

Aloha Ed,

I do not own Gothic Vortex, but I do have two Macs. One is a Titanium Powerbook and the other is an older B&W G3. I would be happy to beta test anything for ya. I could easily set it up so you can see my screen in real-time from my website, etc. PM me for any other details, etc.

ughaibu, I have placed you on hide for your obscene post. If you delete or edit it, I will unhide you.

Thad

Got a version for Macs? ;-)

No, I mean a practice board, where I can set up positions and make a few moves and see what it leads to. For example, there is one here for Pente (this link might not work if you are not a member..not sure). You can test out lines etc.

Is there an online practice board anywhere?