Thats the beauty of games, you can't always predict who will win. How boring would that be?!

Grim Reaper: I not only deny it but let you know that is your last post on the subject. Ask Miller. He is a premier player but has a recent draw with J. Lopez who has a 6-1-6 record and an 1818 rating. He beat me and drew Miller..so things happen.

Doesn't anyone else on here think this is odd?

I don't.

Grim Reaper: That sort of unsubstantiated accustation will get you banned.

Grim Reaper: I played two games against Miller both draws. You try beating Ustica if you think you can.

It is down to Pinchitos30, Ustica and Grim Reaper. When you consider the excellent players who didn't get to this round it is quite and achievement for these three. Good luck to you and I'm sure many of us will be watching the games with interest.

Ladders are suppose to work as follows:

1. The "Top N" players are "sacred" and only accept requests from within the group. In most cases, it is the top 10 players.

2. The top level MUST BE VERY ACTIVE and cannot turn down a game request.

3. If any player on a lower rung (i.e. a higher number) wins over a higher rung (lower number), the winner takes over the rung and the loser drops one place.

Example, Rung 7 defeats Rung 4, then 7 is "teleported" to rung 4, old rung 4 gets demoted to 5, and 5 goes to 6.

So you can get bumped to a worse ladder rung (higher number) even if you yourself have not lost. Every time someone over top of you loses, there is a chance you will go down too.

4. If anyone outside the "sacred" circle wins, like rungs 11 to 100, then the winner moves "half the distance" closer to the loser if starting below the opponent. The loser drops one slot.

Example: Player 80 defeats Player 20. The new spot for Player 80 is 20 + (80 - 20)/2 = 50. Player 20 is then bumped down to 21, 21 to 22, etc.

This is so that someone down the bottom can't just "get lucky" and take over a high spot with one win. You have to "claw your way up" by moving "half the distance" repeatedly.

BIG BAD WOLF: Yes this is true but they have 3 sets of confusing ratings which are only available to the paying members..a miniscule segment of the site. There is the ladder ratings, the rating including provisionals, the ratings including friendly games and the best player ratings. Some have not been updated since the 18 months I played on the ladders. The site owner considers ratings unimportant and checkers even more so. I now play there under my name Purple and regardless of how many friendly games I win or lose my ranking remains the same..of course since I don't pay I can't participate in the ladders.

Purple: On GoldToken ladders, they system will automaticly pair you up with someone else on the same rung to play. (lose and go down 1 rung, win and go up 1 rung). And at that point you get automaticly matched up with another free person - so keep winning and go up the ladder, keep losing and stay at the bottom.

Grim Reaper: On IYT you must accept a challenge from whoever gets to you first if you have open spots. If someone with real skill is 60 places below you and wins you can crash 60 slots. In games like these the high ranked guy has nothing at all to gain..he must win or crash. I think you are right that ladders are difficult and inaccurate. On the other hand a BKR rating is pretty easy to protect by not playing any games. I won't even mention Gold Token where the number one player (when you add in friendly games) is Chief KM. LOL.

The problem with ladders is that the initial seeding gives the #1 spot a position that is almost impossible to wrest. A drawn match does not swap the ladder position, so the first player to reach #1 almost always keeps it forever.

Purple: I think the BKR lists are a great alternative to ladders. I play on IYT and AMU also, and I too have noticed how inaccurate the placements can be. In my opinion, the BKR system set up here is far superior. I've made it my goal to climb the BKR lists for the games I enjoy.

http://brainking.com/game/Tournaments?trg=10365&u=367&trnst=0

A lot of us have wanted to see ladders here for games like checkers and while they can be fun they are seldom an accurate indicator of true skill level. On IYT 48 hour ladder I am now #8 and ahead of some players I couldn't beat in a hundred years. It is very much a matter of luck and timing. That being said I would still like to see a ladder here just for the heck of it even though I know they are difficult to set up.

wer?

kanst du deutsch,hungarisch oder slovakish sprechen?

Advanced checkers player, but new to brainking. Can someone offer me an invite to a checkers game/match?

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.

http://brainking.com/game/Tournaments?trg=9662&tri=48772&trnst=0

Not easy to spot this one since there is still 8 pieces on the board, but this will distill into Second Position. Test your own precognition

http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=846243&i=44

Jake Lopez: Good information. Thanks.

eastsidepro **

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.

Jake Lopez: Can you talk any of the three into coming to BK?

I play all 3 of them daily :)

Ron King is going to the nationals!

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.

Jake Lopez: Ryan and Corey have been playing for years. I have played them both.

Ryan Pronk leads the top division out of 3 players. Corey Modich 2nd - and 13 year old Josh Armstrong right behind.

No problem :o)

Gooner II: YES! Thank you. I was spelling Wyllie with one "L" no wonder I couldnt find it. LOL

http://www.wylliedraughts.com/

Is this what you are after Bill?

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: I can no longer find the Wylie site with the animated games. Is it still available anywhere?

I have played against three World Checkers Champions. Alex Moiseyev, Ron King, and Don Lafferty, winning one game from each of them.

I could give you the other dates as well, but "treasure" is a strange word to apply to something that is just a simple matter of fact.

I will be a guest in tomorrow's TV debate on international public law situation in the Middle East...first channel of the Czech TV...

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.

Grim Reaper: Well you could mention that you found Alex "above average." LOL

And if Alex Moiseyev is listening, what would he think, given that he drove hundreds of miles to play some checkers with me on December 18, 2004?

Grim Reaper: Please do not forget to include in your remarks the comment "Purple is the most awesome checker dude I ever played." LOL

You'll speak about checkers I take it...

Next Thurday night at 9 PM Eastern I will be the guest speaker on chess.fm radio.

If you go to http://www.chess.fm just turn on your computer's speakers, and you can hear the broadcast.

There is a question-and-answer segment on the show, and for 20 minutes, I will be answering the questions tossed my way.

Grim Reaper: Prove it to me at Playsite. I will play you on your old home. Give you homecourt advantage. Any timer you want.

There could be an argument that Ed Trice is Marlon Alvarez (aka Steve Marlon, The Great Marlon, etc)

I have read somewhere: "Dr. Tinsley was exceedingly kind and loved by everyone."

Now you have to see why Trice 'got yelled at'....

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.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgamegid=1272214

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:

http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=325125&i=17

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.

http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=821982&i=31

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?

http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=347378&i=67

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.

http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=532067&i=31

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.

Do I need to prove that too?

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.

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.