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18...Nh5? seems a mistake for me.Perhaps better 18... Ra5!?
For example 19. Ne5 Nh7 20. Re3 and after 20..Bh4!? Shredder 9 gives a small advantage for Black.(-0,60)
I have tried out FICS - http://www.freechess.org/ - the last days and I can say it is a very good server to play livechess (free) for all who wish to play without breaks (and without computers :-)) You can play there standard, crazyhouse, bughouse,wild,FRC,losers.There are also different free interfaces to download.The best seems to be "Babachess" http://www.babaschess.net/
In my neighbourhood there lives a strong chessplayer "Roland Schmaltz".We played together in a team 8 years ago,when he was not so good and I was not so bad as today.
Now he is Grandmaster in OTB und 12.th of Germany (Fide Elo 2553)!.But his strongest playing he has in internet chess with "bullet" (one minute for the whole game).In this game he got some worldchampion titles with his in internetchess worldwide known Nick "Hawkeye".
>http://www.hawkeye.de/
You can meet him at "ICC" or "playchess.com" but you should be a very good "bullet"-player.
I don`t think that such a player would play in internet so slowly as we do here.
Pafl: I don`t think that masters or international master are playing at turn based sites like BK.
You will meet them mainly at the great chessservers like "ICC" or "Playchess.com".
We should not compare the correspondence chess (here) with otb ratings.It`s another way to play.
A very good correspondence chess rating (at ICCF) has "Mely" with 2644!
One possibility to avoid this all is to play "live-chess"and a good reference could be the new " Schacharena"(unfortunately only in German until now).You can play there 15,30.45 and 60 minutes for the whole game each player,no client is necessary and it is completely free! And the best is that the webmaster perhaps wants to implementate 8x10 chess in the future!
Would be nice if we could play in this way here in Bk anytime.
The final round of the 35th German Correspondence Chess Championship starts now with 17 topplayers (wow,that means a lot of games simultaneously!).The tournement will be played on the traditional way with postcards only.One of the participants is our (in standard chess ) very strong member "Mely" (Uwe Mehlhorn ).Good luck, Uwe!
A really ridicoulous statement from a player,who always offers draw in completely lost positions (against me as well) combined with threats and offences.We know you meanwhile,Edtrice.
Again to the theme "using computers in correspondence chess" a statement from the "Faq" of the German Correspondence Chess federation (Bdf) in the original language(without comment,perhaps can anybody translate?):
Es dürfen alle Hilfsmittel eingesetzt werden, angefangen bei Büchern, fortgesetzt über Schachdatenbanken, selbst Computerschachprogramme dürfen eingesetzt werden (deren Nutzen im Fernschach aber insbesondere von wenig erfahrenen Spielern oder Außenstehenden deutlich überschätzt wird). Natürlich hat auch der eine oder andere Vereinskamerad beim Spielabend des örtlichen Schachvereins den einen oder anderen guten Tipp.
Beim Fernschach stand und steht der wissenschaftliche Aspekt der "Suche nach der schachlichen Wahrheit" noch weit mehr im Vordergrund als im Nahschach. Deshalb war der Einsatz jeglicher Hilfsmittel und die Beteiligung von anderen Spielern stets erlaubt (hinsichtlich der Computerprogramme kontrovers diskutiert; diese waren zunächst nicht zugelassen). Die Möglichkeit, aufgrund der großzügigen Bedenkzeit und der erlaubten Nutzung beliebiger verfügbarer Ressourcen leichte Fehler zu vermeiden und hoch qualifizierte Partien zu spielen, macht einen besonderen Reiz des Fernschachspiels aus.
Zu bedenken ist in diesem Zusammenhang, dass selbst dann, wenn ein Verbot des Computereinsatzes bestehen würde, dessen Einhaltung ohnehin praktisch nicht kontrollierbar und zu ahnden wäre.
Der Computereinsatz beim Fernschach sollte so verstanden werden, dass er den Spieler bei dessen eigenen Analysen hilfreich durch Zugvorschläge oder Nachprüfung unterstützt, aber keinesfalls anstelle des Spielers die Partie spielt. In dem Augenblick nämlich, wo ein Fernschachspieler zum Handlanger seines Computers wird und der Zug nicht mehr Produkt seiner geistigen Schöpfung ist, wird das Fernschachspiel für ihn zu Farce. Schon bald wird dann ein solcher Schachfreund sich nicht mehr über den Sieg seines Computers freuen können; vielmehr wird er sich über die sinnlosen Porto- oder Onlinekosten und die Zeitverschwendung mehr und mehr ärgern und den Computer beiseite stellen.
"Freestyle Blitz Tournament on August 7, 2004
Ingo Althofer und Timo Klaustermeyer
To win blitz games by the help of programs or grandmasters counts as cheating. Not so here! In our Freestyle Tournament teams with arbitrary composition are invited. If Kasparov is just sitting on your couch, please, let him help. Or take proposals by Shredder or Junior. All possible participants are welcome: single humans, single computers, but also teams
with arbitrarily many humans and computers and arbitrary decision structures.
Short Description
7 rounds CH-system with 7 min + 2 sec/move thinking time;
Organizers: Prof. Dr. Ingo Althofer and Timo Klaustermeyer Venue: ChessBase Server (Schach.de)
Begin: Saturday, August 7, 2004, 15:00 h Middle European Summer Time
Address for Applications: freestyleblitz@web.de
Deadline for application: Tuesday, August 3, 2004, 20:00 h
Notification for Participants: until Wednesday, August 4, 2004, 22:00 h
Limitation: At most 40 teams will play
Teams from all over the world are invited.
Event languages are German and English.
In the sequel each participant will be called "team".
In the application the following data have to be given:
(a) true name of the team-leader (the team leader has to be a human), postal address and email address.
The address data will be treated confidentially and not given to other persons.
(b) name of the ChessBase account of the team
Also in case of single computer programs a human has to be the team leader!
For the ranking within the CH-system the server software and its "fine-rankings" are used. Prizes are not split.
Important
Each team really has only 7 minutes + 2 sec/move, as is counted down by the Server clock. There are no bonus times
for communication within a team.
The referee panel for the Freestyle Tournament consists of the following three persons:
Ingo Althofer, Lars Bremer, Timo Klaustermeyer
Cheaters, be warned!
"Freestyle" only means that the use of computers and human team members is legal. But, this does not hold for tricks of manipulation. For instance, collecting thinking time or stealing time from the opponent by network tricks is forbidden. Cheaters will be excluded without possibility of revision.
Right of Secrecy
Nobody has to lay open the structure or members of his team.
However, we would be happy, when after the event many participants report about their teams and experiences.
A last word
When this experimental tournament runs well, there will probably be successor events for Freestyle blitz."
Btw,it was Kasparows suggestions for a new form of an otb-tournement some years ago: He suggested that the two players should play with a computerprogram (as "centaur") against eachother. He called this chess "advanced chess"....
Schachmdmt, that is the problem : You cannot know how often the user looks in the chessprogram, only one time,two times or always.In one game he has easy positions in the next game the positions are very complicated for him.
The same is to differentiate between using database (like Chessbase) and chessprogram (like Fritz).You can also use Chessbase with an engine and Fritz as database too.You must put only one button and therefor this all is "wishi-washi".
Me for myself I would welcome if a l l players would play without programs.But this is completely unrealistic, because you cannot look in the player`s living-room.That`s why it is better to have no kind of prohibitions and every player should play with the helps,which he wants.This is the official point of view of the ICCF at the moment,because the chances are equal again.
If you study the rules of Brainking you can see that there are no prohibitions to use any helps.
Neither books,nor databases,nor computerprograms. So like you say we play a kind of correspondence chess here and the International Correspondence Chess (ICCF) rules also have no prohibitions (alike the rules of our German national federation - Bdf).
So it is not cheating to use any kind of helps.
The simple problem is if you make prohibitions you must have a real control! And this control ist not possible in correspondence chess until now. That`s why it is better to have no prohibitions, otherwise you make the most players to cheaters and this cannot make sense.
For people who are against all kind of helps they can play "Livechess" (face to face) at www.playchess.com,www.icc.com, www.chessgate.de (the last is for free),where all kind of helps are completely forbidden.
(15,30,45,60 min for the whole game) together at the same server : www.schacharena.de It is a playing without client,only webbased but unfortunately only in the German language till now.Perhaps can we have both possibilities of playing here in Bk too anytime?
I want announce,that you can download the Livechess-client Chessgate now in the new version 2.1. Chessgate (www.chessgate.de) is from Germany and also in the english language. It is usable to play livegames ,as interface for free engines (gnu chess and others) and for e-mail games.Mostly 100 people are online(Europeen daytime) and want play short games! (It is completely free!)
Perhaps we see us there for a five minutes or an half an hour match :)?
I have the same position.I know the IECG (www.iecg.org), a great organisation with more than 10000 members only chess,right? But why do so many people not use a chessserver? I don`t understand it.
Recently I read a statistic that the bigger part of the correspondence chess players is still playing with postcards (more than 50 percent). A smaller part is playing with e-mail and fax and only the smallest part plays on a webserver. Can you believe this?
Does anybody know how is the situation in his own national correspondence chess federation?
too less Backoff, in my game against Rabbitoid we are now at move 68, may be this game can perhaps reach 90 or 100 moves.
Anybody there, who has a game with more than 70 moves (chess only) ?:)
...and it is freeware, I have it too on my pc :).
Try also http://www.playwitharena.com/ for another good chess-application (like winboard)
...and in chesslab you can find some of my tournement games :)
You are right that could be a problem.In the single games you can look who is online, challenge and play at once. But if you speak about a tournement we have first to test the technic of he server.
The regular way is sure to set a fixed time in the invitation,when the tournement is starting and everybody has to decide about his participation.
Hello Chessplayer,on www.chessgate.de exists a new German chessserver (in english too) for live-chess (only standard)in real-time.It has a good quality for fast games and it is complete free!
You can download the software (freeware) here: chessgate_client_setup.exe or go to the site location: http://212.162.12.39/sv/pz.php3 Register with your brainking username and soon we can play our first five minutes blitzchesstournement only for brainking-players.I suggest every player adds there to his profil:"onlinechess on www.brainking.com"