gooner: Here's is Kaprov's signature on the contract:

http://www.gothicchess.com/zmnxcbv.html

A "hidden" html name for the obvious reason.

Good luck to all playing in the British championship in Scotland (For personal reasons) and to the competitors in the 3 move play off. Should be a classic.

DMatt: I don't remember anyone attacking you here for some time and your posts are welcome insofar as they relate to checkers and not to pointing out the real or imagined dark side of other players here.

DMatt: I cant dispute or agree with your statement about your play unfortunately, so I think that is the end of it as far as I am concerned. I will repeat myself again though when I say playing in tournaments will be the only bench mark any player can aspire to.

On your other subject, (If true) just finished reading "Bobby Fischer Goes To War" and would look forward to that event if it ever takes place.

P.S. Grim Reaper has been banned from every discussion board on BrainKing, in case you did not know.

I only came back here because your statement functionally impugned me when you wrote:

http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=9&ngi=544486

You implied I was avoiding you, and this is clearly not the case. I did not avoid the World Checkers Champion who came to visit the week before Christmas when I was walking around like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, so I would not be avoiding a game with you.

I can't back down from an issue where I am attacked for no reason. Rescind your statement about me trying to avoid you, and I will have nothing more to say.

The whole point is moot anyway. I haven't played checkers in a very long time, and I am trying to get Bobby Fischer to play Anatoly Karpov a 12-game match of Gothic Chess. So far, Karpov said yes, and I flew to Iceland just last month to meet with Grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson, Bobby's closest friend and neighbor.

http://www.gothicchess.com/images/iceland_1.jpg

From left to right:

A youthful 71-year old Fridrik Olafsson, Alexis Skye (a 6'5 blonde goddess) who is the most popular Gothic Chess tournament director, International Master Frank Camaratta from the HouseOfStaunton.com (Frank is designing the wooden Gothic Chess set for the Fischer-Karpov match) and on the far right, me with my big bald spot *1*

I am playing a couple of games of checkers on here to try and get back into the swing of things, but it is no longer a "focus" for me.

Just two things I want to make perfectly clear:

1. I have never declined or refused to accept any challenge to play a game of checkers.

2. I am, or was, very good at the game, and nothing anyone can say can change that.

DMatt: As always you miss the positives and always concentrate on the negatives. When a player like Alex makes that opinion you listen as he knows more than any of us. So when will we see you in a tourney? You seem so adament to defend your corner, yet the obvious way to finish off the critics is to play in tourney conditions, which seeing your personality would be something you should do and I would be the first to hold my hand up and apologise. The choice is yours but I can guess the answer.

btw...Grim Reaper or DMatt? Do you really need both?

This was the game with Pedro:

http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=967503

WCC does not annotate games. Sure it's a great tool, but it has no concept of strategy, and it certainly cannot distill essential elements into curt explanations that make sense. BTW, Alex has Nemesis and WCC and Kingsrow and Cake, so why can't he use them to annotate his own games? For that matter, since thousands of copies of WCC were sold, why didn't Alex contact any of these people to have them annotate their games?

I'll tell you why. Because I have a unique perspective that Alex values, and I can explain things in ways that are instructive and worthwhile.

You may recall, a while back, there was another discussion involving ustica, pedro, and myself. Ustica said something like "you would have shown more courage to play move X-Y in your game with me rather than W-Z which is an easy draw", to which my reply was "X-Y loses." Pedro chimed in, claim the move would not lose, so we played a complete game where he agreed to play move X-Y and I would play the other side.

It took about 117 moves if you count both sides's moves, but I won.

Can I see 117 moves ahead in a position with about 18 pieces on the board?

No, of course not.

It was my intuition based on many, many games that lead me to make the claim that I could win from that position. And you know Pedro was gunning for me, trying like heck to hold down the draw.

Even you cannot convince this board that a program is able to perform a 119 ply search and call a win a win from that distance.

Regarding Ron King, you missed the point entirely. Ron King did not drive 500+ miles to your house to play some checkers with you.

Alex did drive such a distance to play me.

Grim Reaper 15. March 2003, 15:33:49 14. July 2006, 23:34:36

Multiple nicks being used.. nothing changes

DMatt: To your final question my answer is WCC!

You seem to have a short memory aswell, let me refresh it... I have actually complimented you on this board aswell or don't you actually want to discuss that? Is it just negative behaviour you react to?

I know what I wrote in messages to you as you at first claimed it would be a waste of time me playing you because of your so called ability but the difference is, I would always prefer to play stronger players to further my game as I would learn more from losing those games as winning against lesser opponents.

btw... I met Ron King once!! What does that mean?

gooner:

I am not always trying to convince anyone of anything. People that lose to me are the ones trying to say "he must be using a computer."

What computer was I using when I defeated the Deep Thought chess supercomputer in 1989 when I played it in front of about 100 people?

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1272214

What computer program was I using when I beat Chinook on October 20, 1996? (see the link Purple posted to the Wall of Honor). If you count from the bottom up you will see I was the 5th or 6th person to ever defeat it on the highest setting.

I would like to remind you that it was this feat that put me in touch with Gil Dodgen. He was impressed with my win, and we agreed to collaborate on a new checkers program, WCC. We relased it as a Macintosh program in August of 1997 and a PC program in September 1997.

Year later, when visiting Gil at his home in southern California, he asked me to play WCC an 11-man ballot game on a computer that was averaging 400,000 positions per second. Not only did I get a draw with it, I predicted 12 moves it must make in order to secure this draw. Don't take my word for it, ask him yourself. His email is GilDodgen@cox.net and I'm sure he will vouch for my playing abilities.

I don't understand why you keep saying you made no such arrangements to meet and play checkers. Then why did you say I was "reluctant"? You told me you were coming to Philadelphia, you said you wanted to play, and I agreed.

Once you got here, I did not hear from you.

So what?

I have had players try and meet me before. I was in Kansas City in 2001 and I called Al Lyman. He could not play because he said he was going to some log cabin with a son-in-law or something. Leo Levitt wanted to meet with me one time, but his wife had to be taken to the hospital, and he could not swing by.

I didn't accuse them of fabricating anything. Stuff happens.

And if I am such and "amateur", as you say, just answer me this one question:

Why did the current World Champion ask me to annotate one of his favorite games?

I would love to hear your conspiracy theory on that one.

DMatt: Thanks for the excuse Ed, but if you want me to go into details I can. You have shown yourself up on checker discussion boards for a very long time now and are always trying to convince others (or maybe yourself) that you are a good checker player. Maybe you are or not who cares but why keep persisting in name dropping and boasting. Great players I have met have one thing in common and that is the art of not trying to convince others they are great they just show on the board at real tournaments face to face thats the difference.

As far as this so called meeting and giving you dates is concerned, proof would be nice as I find that statement very funny as my (girlfriend) as you put it would duly back me up.

gooner:

1. When Alex visited me, I had been recovering from re-injuring a previously broken back. Did he tell you that I could not even stand up straight the whole time he was there?

2. His son was with him, and we played chess and Gothic Chess for at least 2 hours. There was much beer and chatter, nothing much about checkers even started until about 10 PM.

3. I showed him the perfect play databases in my computer lab upstairs. He had to spot me a 3 minute head start for me to even get there!

4. Some of the most difficults wins in the 4x3 database Alex could not win against the program. He was impressed. At this point, he asked if I wanted some games with him. Back down the stairs we went.

5. I did not have a checkers set, nor did he. We played on a chess board using only pawns. At first Alex gave me 10 minute to 3 minute odds. Even in my injured state, I had a won 6x6 ending against him, and we both stopped the clock. The next game was played at 5 min to 5 min, which I resigned, the next at 5 min to 3 min, to a 6-piece draw.

How this translates to a "good novice player" I don't know. Maybe because of my loss I walked into an easy shot in the endgame, but the other 2 games I thought I played well above the mark, given that he was crowned World Champion not too long before and I had effectively not played much in months.

6. You told me the name of the hotel, the address, and the dates you would be there. You left no phone number or any other way to contact you. I drove down there, you weren't there.

Amazing how the sands of time allow you to re-write history. Just take a look at both of your posts.

DMatt: By all means. He said to my father during a meeting while at a tournament that you were know more than a good novice player. Its amazing what computers can do. On the other subject a meeting was never arranged you seem to live in a world of fantasy. End of discussion.

Stardust: Correct!!

gooner: I waited 90 minutes in the hotel lobby off of Island avenue. You failed to mention that you did not make the reservation (maybe your girlfriend did?) so the hotel clerk could not find your name in the register.

Who was avoiding who?

And I have pictures of the World Checkers Champion visiting me on December 18, 2004. Funny, I can't play checkers, but Alex feels it necessary to make a trek to my house (with maybe 7 days notice) just to see how good I am.

Furthermore, he asked me to annotate what he considered his best game he has played. You can read about it here:

http://www.usacheckers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=609&start=15&sid=fe667613241dda0b193e9a2c000f182c

So I can't play checkers but the World Champion asks me to annotate his own game for his own book.

Care to explain that?

DMatt: Nice try lol! Both points are true but going into detail will just bore me. 10 out of 10 for effort though.

DMatt: Funnier how someone felt they had to open a bogus account to point out something that means nothing.

Just read the posts. Seems these two by the same person have flip-flopped more than John Kerry.

http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=9&ngi=381939

http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=9&ngi=544486

Funny how gooner forgot his own viewpoint over time.

Gabriel Almeida: As long as it is about checkers,

Chekers Ratings - Something is changing!

Purple: May I make some advertisement to my fellowship too? Or it's a privilege of the moderator, only?

Socrates: How old is Ryan? I rememeber playing him 6 years ago..maybe 5. He must have really been young then.

Gabriel Almeida: Alex Moiseyev plays at www.kurnik.org under the name "rusms"



Many other Expert - Master - Grandmasters play there as well.



It's not mail-play like BK though - and you most likely won't get a
game timer over 3 minutes against Alex - he likes fast games online -
but many other good players play longer timers.



The USA 3-move Nationals started today (6/19) - Ryan Pronk won the Youth Nationals again.

Mods are chosen by Fencer. Co-mods are assigned by the main mod. Nuff said.

Bruno Jesus: Please confine your discussion to checkers. This is one more warning than I usually give.

Bruno Jesus: Take care with your considerations... they use to ban people that makes questions/considerations or other types of thaughts... as I said before, Mr. Purple is not an European, and we must forgive him... USA has less than 300 years, europe more than 3000 years of civilization...

Bruno Jesus: You are used to Euopean democracys...Mr. Purple is not european, Bruno!

Bruno Jesus: A selection has already been made. Thank you for your interest.

Andre Faria: I would love it too...! Excelent choice!

Andre Faria: Does it matter? Why would anyone care?

Alex Moiseyev plays at Kurnik

Socrates: I was in Philly the other year and offered tp play Ed while I was there, he was reluctant, so it never came off.

I read in earlier posts from last year about Ed Trice. He said Alex Moiseyev went to his house and they played some checkers. This is true. It sounds to me that Ed Trice is thought of as a Master player. That's ironic because, when I talked to Alex Moiseyev recently, he told me that Ed Trice was no better than "an advanced novice". He also had no doubt in his mind that Ed Trice used WCC in his online games at various websites - most frequently, zone.com, from 1997-2001. I guess this solves any argument of this kind from the past.

Andre Faria: The mentioned name was deleted along with the poster. "Cheating", programs, KM etc is not checkers. It's flaming and there is zero tolerance for it. This is not something we are going to take up space debating...people come here to read about checkers. Nuff said.

Purple: If those stories are true, it will be a plaisure to be banned... I don't want to belong to something like it...