Discuss about checkers game or find new opponents. No insulting, baiting or flaming other players. Off topic posts are subject to deletion and if it persists the poster faces sanctions. This board is for checkers.
Véčet klobu na mloveni
Néni tě dovoleny datlovat do toďteho klobo. Abes mohl datlovat do toďteho klobo, mosiš mit némiň členstvi Brain pinčl.
The tournament below is available to all skill levels from near Master to rank beginner. It should be a lot of fun and if you need an invite please let me know.
Youth Champion = Ryan Pronk (theunites)
Minors Champion = Anthony Tramontano - 17 year old (checkerprosback - eastsideprog)
Majors Champion = Albert Tucker (atuck at Zone)
Masters Champion = Ron King
My prediction of King winning masters was correct :)
Corey Modich has played here before. I don't think he's in favor of mail-play style of games. He is mainly focused on Anti Checkers right now I think. He is also a head administrator for the new game site being made, www.wgcenter.com. I will talk to Ryan and Josh about trying out BK.
He just finished ahead of Moiseyev in the PA state tournament. Ron King always finishes ahead of Moiseyev in tournaments :) I pick Ron King to win the masters division of the US GAYP Nationals.
Yunior Lopez, a 16 year old, also beat Alex Moiseyev. One game means nothing when they have the title and you stay home and play on the internet and brag about pointless wins and ignore simple challenges from me :)
Grim Reaper: You really treasure that occasion, don't you... Seems you've got that date burned into your memory and you can't help but toss it around every now and then.
Přetvořeny oževatelem Grim Reaper (7. června 2005, 03:56:37)
Over the years, starting with the MS Gaming Zone in 1996-1996, Case's Ladder in 1997-1998-1999, Playsite.com over the same tenure, there has been one common denominator.
Some virtually unknown player has issued remarks claiming "I cheat". I was 456-0 on Case's Ladder with about 20 draws. I was undefeated on Playsite.com, winning a game from (then) World Champion Ron King. Even George Miller and I first "met" on Gamezone, and we played many an interesting game.
I took my lumps, like everyone else, but once I got good, I changed my ID from "HoodedClaw" to "Marion Tinsley", and boy, did I get yelled at! It was like a sacriledge (I still did not know he had recently become deceased, about 8-9 months prior) so I switched it to "Ed Trice" very soon thereafter.
I believe this "sacriledge" in their minds made me a marked man first. So be it, the big guns knew who I was now, and we would duke it out and the shouts would come flying also.
That was the net then... and some things do not change. Rather than issue far-flung statements, let me call to the attention of everyone some unbiased facts:
1. I beat Chinook with its 6-piece database of 2.5 billion positions several times. I was the first person to defeat it twice in one day. It you go to http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/WallofHonor.php you can see this.
Novice level
286. Ed Trice, October 20, 1996
Amateur
52. Ed Trice, October 20, 1996
Then again the next day, on its highest level:
Intermediate
86. Ed Trice, October 21, 1996
You have to understand something. This list is built from the bottom up. You will see there are VERY FEW people underneath.
I was only the 6th person to win against Chinook on its highest setting, and it had been online a little over a year at that point. To win 3 game in 2 days against it was unheard of at that point.
So, people might say "You were using a program". You have to remember, back then, there were no programs! Dr. Schaeffer did not make his databases available to the public until June of 1997. In fact, Gil Dodgen and I were the first to use his 6-piece database probed in RAM when we released World Championship Checkers (WCC) on August 13, 1997.
Chinook was the undisputed strongest program out there at the time, plus it was running on a 150 MhZ SGI box in Canada. And, at the time of my victory, 100 MHz Pentiums were top of the line, with 133 MHz comming out later that fall.
Gil's previous program, Cornell Checkers, was a DOS program that had no databases in 1990 and a 4-piece database in 1992. He discontinued it in 1994 when an operating system change at Microsoft undermined his 32-bit DOS extender program. His software ran for the last time in 1994.
After I played a phone game against his Cornell Checkers program, and beat it soundly, Gil "hired me" on the spot to serve as the evaluation function consultant for our new checkers program. I coined the name WCC, published it, and we were a team.
2. I beat the World Computer Chess Champion, Deep Thought, in 1989. I know, not checkers related, but I gave Deep Thought its quickest loss ever, 20 moves.
In fact, I am the only person who may make the claim to have defeated programs that have held World Machine Champions in the game of checkers and chess.
Basically, I know how to find positions that might be problematic for software programs, because I am software programmer myself. I know how hard it is to get a program to "understand" a piece of knowledge such as a tailhook, single corner cramp, double corner cramp, diamond cramp, 2-holding-1, when to break a bridge, when a doghole man-up scenario will lose and draw, etc.
I am uniquely quialified to beat up software, since I know what is usually outside of its domain of understanding.
On a side note, I also wrote the first software program to eclipse the 2200 mark (delineating the Master Class) when "The Sniper" won its 3rd round game against Mike Tempkin in 1987 at St. Joseph's Prep High School in Philadelphia.
This was that many years after Ken Thompson's "hardware master", Belle, eclipsed the 2200 mark.
He had a $600,000 system funded by Belle Labs. I had my 512K Macintosh with a 7 Megahertz clock.
That's Megahertz, not Gigahertz.
3. I have already showcases two checkers games where I should have lost. Any "majors" player could have won the game where I missed the Andrew Jackson Defence in The Switcher. I would like to beleive a Master Class player would be needed to complete the difficult ending to win against me in the other game.
Again, programs have books to avoid such losses, and endgame databases can drive you the rest of the way home.
4. I play dangerous, sacrificing lines that are far beyond the horizon of computers. Look at these games:
In this game, I sacrificed a Chancellor for Archbishop, then I throw away my Knight, all for position play, against a very strong player. There is a mate in 59 with optimal play.
In this position, I played Ri3 with my Queen hanging. If my opponent takes the Queen, I have a mate in 47. He avoided it. I wonder if anyone here could resist?
Here I sacrifice an Archbishop to begin a very lengthy mating sequence in Janus Chess, which I am sure came as a surprise for Caissus, a very strong Janus player.
And of course, here is my 26 move win against 2700 rated Alex, with a two piece sacrifice at the end to wrap it up.
The point of all of this: To have any form of software duplicate these moves, you would need, in some cases, over 80 plies of searching. This is BEYOND what a program can do tactically, and it is in the domain of what we call strategy.
Strategy is, essentially, long range tactics.
Why do you first try to double rooks in an open file, then seize the 7th rank with one, then the other? Because you have done it 1,000,000 times and you know it is a formula for success.
Sometimes moves such as Rad1, Rd7, Rf7, R1d7, Rxg7+, Rxh7+ are intersperesed between pawn pushes, recaptures, some checks or check evasions, or some other minor piece exchanges. This can push the tactic beyond the horizon of the program's ability to search. So, while we humans say "oh, double the rooks, seize the 7th, and you win", programs cannot do this.
Such is the case with my games on here. I do well because I bring the sum of my experience at beating software programs with me. I am unique in that I program them, have written some World Class software myself, and I do not give up thinking of ways to destroy my opponent until every last plausible attempt involving any amount of sustained attacks have been exhausted.
I will kill anyone who wanders onto my board and does not play with equal aggression.
Obviously you all jumped on the bandwagon now. I still conclude (and I'm 100% right) that Mr. Trice uses a program. I'll stop posting on this subject so no one else is offended like Baker and Elijay lol!
What is everyone's response to Moiseyev's victory over King?
What is everyone's predictions for the nationals coming up? Anyone here at BK attending the nationals?
Oh, and does anyone know where I can find a website that offers published play or any type of stragedy teachings in Brazilian Draughts?
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
[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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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.
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.
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.
Přetvořeny oževatelem Grim Reaper (5. června 2005, 19:41:18)
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.
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.
(do skréše) Chce se tě zrovna valet rechlé špil, keré zaročeně skonči v pruběho dvó hodin? Vetvoř nabidko ke špilo a zadé tam Čas na špil: 0 dni 1 hodina, Extrovnica: 0 dni 0 hodin, Limit: 0 dni 1 hodina. (TeamBundy) (okázat šecke vechetávke)