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February 28, 2004To the last pawn - Part VHigh above, in the nosebleeds, Lisa wasn’t happy at all with the free seat she received. Not only she was too far to properly see the board, but all four 20’ plasma televisions screening the match were somehow just out of her line of sight. Oh well, at least she could hear the voice-over commentary from the broadcasters’ booth directly above her.
Dominguez-Favreau, after 5...a6 “So, we had a fairly quick start to our undercard match, and now things are starting to slow down. What do you think about the situation, Jimmy?”
Dominguez-Favreau, after 12...Be7 *** The first boxing round started the same way the game of chess did – rapidly, brutally, with no punches held. Favreau and Dominguez literally leapt at each other, meeting in the middle of the ring in a jumble of arms, elbows and gloves. Dominguez, more agile, was the first to get a few punches through, but Favreau retaliated with a mighty uppercut that threw the Mexican backward to the ropes. As they met again in the middle of the ring, Favreau hissed through his clenched teeth, “You’re going down.” “Too bad,” Dominguez smiled as the chess table was being lowered again, “I was beginning to enjoy this.” Dominguez knew what to do already. During the peak of his career, he was known for having one advantage over his adversaries – he could think about chess during the boxing rounds. While his opponents dedicated those three minutes to senseless pummeling, Enrique always had the board position etched in his mind, and considered his options in the split-second between a duck and a jab. This usually contributed toward large advantages on the clock. This time, he did it again. Even before Favreau was fully seated, Dominguez reached forward and pushed another pawn.
Posted by Alex Shternshain at 11:08 PM
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February 27, 2004To the last pawn - Part IV“’Saved by the bell’ rule will be in effect in all rounds. A player saved by the bell will be penalized by deducting one minute off his clock.” An hour later, Favreau steered the red convertible to the parking lot of the Caesar’s Palace Hotel and Casino. “Where do we go from here?” Dominguez wondered as they entered the luxurious lobby. His doubts were immediately dispersed by a young man wearing a black suit that fit him so well that it seemed surgically grafted onto his skin. The suit approached them confidently and said, “Mr. Dominguez, Mr. Favreau? I am Martin Bentley, Mr. Santoro’s aide. You’re late. Let’s go, your cornermen are already waiting.” The suit raced them through a maze of corridors so complex as to prohibit all possibility of an escape in case either of them changed his mind. Finally, after rounding a corner, they ran into a group of four men waiting for them in front of two locked doors. Markov refused to follow, and instead whispered something in Kalugin’s ear. The two trainers started a loud debate in Russian, in which the others could only understand “Garden”, “d6” and “Checkmate”. Finally they managed to resolve their disagreement. Markov went with Favreau, while Kalugin passed over to Dominguez’s side. The dressing room was very spacious, but barren on the inside. Only a massage table, a locker, a chess table, and a shower stall violated the monotony of the brick walls. Dominguez lay down and allowed himself to close his eyes while Vega was massaging his shoulders. Meanwhile, in the other room, Markov desperately tried to convince Favreau to play the French Defense. “So, how’s my man Vince doing?” Santoro stood in the doorway, radiating smiles in all directions. A minute later, Todd Santoro paid a visit to Dominguez’s dressing room. *** “Kicking the opponent is strictly forbidden, both during the chess and the boxing rounds.” The capacity crowd of the Palace roared like a hurricane when Favreau and Dominguez entered the hall from opposite direction. Each was accompanied by their trainer and cutman. Reporters snapped their pictures and fans high-fived them as they made their way to the ring. They stood there, face to face, like gladiators of ancient times, muscular and beautiful, their skin gleaming in the floodlights. He took a breath and then continued, “And in the white corner, from Mexico City, Mexico, weighing 81 kilograms, E-N-R-I-Q-U-E ‘E-N-D-G-A-M-E’ D-O-O-O-O-O-M-I-N-G-U-E-E-E-E-Z!! And now, your ring judge, Martin O’Mally.” As they shook hands, a chess table and a pair of chairs were lowered into the ring on cables. The players sat down and O’Mally started white’s clock. “Good luck, gentlemen.” Without thinking even a second, Enrique started with 1.e4 and punched the clock. The following moves were played quickly: 1…c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6, and at that point Dominguez plunged into contemplation. To be continued … And at this point I, the author, would like to ask you, the readers, a question: who are you rooting for to win? No, the results of this small poll will not change the outcome of the story (the story is already written), but I'm just interested to know with which player you sympathize more. Let me know.
Posted by Alex Shternshain at 05:03 AM
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February 25, 2004To the last pawn - Part IIIIf you missed the previous installments of "To the last pawn", check under
For almost ten miles, they drove through the desert landscape in silence. Favreau was the first to break the ice. An hour later, two very sweaty, dirty and tired men were standing at the edge of the I-15 next to a dusty and once-red car with a slightly dented hood and one broken headlight. *** “If a player promotes a pawn to a queen and already has a queen on the board, he may use his mouthpiece instead of a second queen. For that purpose, players will be issued mouthpieces to match the color of their pieces.” “So, what are you guys going to do in Vegas?” Lisa took about ten minutes to break her oath. Vince and Enrique didn’t respond, so she tried another approach. “You know anyone in Vegas?” “Whoa! I know you, you are Vincent ‘Vindicator’ Fay-vro.” Lisa fished a notepad and a pencil out of her jacket’s pocket and meticulously wrote down every word, then asked, “So how does the side with the pawn win?” A few more minutes passed in silence, except for the howling of the wind, the roar of the engine and the scribbling of Lisa’s pencil. Then she put the notepad aside and said, “You know, Mr. Dominguez, I really liked your style. Too bad about what happened in Madison Square Garden.” “So,” he continued after he and Vince changed places and the convertible merged into the highway traffic again, “I’m up against this guy from Congo, Charles Kabeela. It’s a big match; winner advances to the Candidates tournament, right? And my trainer, Markov, you remember Markov, right, Vince? He says to me with this horrible Russian accent – ‘You take care from this guy. Some say he plays like a girl, but you watch your step, because one move and it can be over’. So we sit down, I have black, no big deal, and we start with the Sveshnikov Sicilian – 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd5 4.Nxd4 Nf3 5.Nc3 e5 6.Nb5 d6 – so far so good, right? And then he goes 7.Nd5 on me. And I think to myself oh my god; this guy really plays like a girl. I mean, I exchange on d5, and black’s main weakness in the Sveshnikov, the backward pawn on the open d-file, is gone.” To be continued …
Posted by Alex Shternshain at 03:04 PM
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February 24, 2004To the last pawn - Part IIIf you missed the first installment of "To the last pawn", check under To the last pawn - Part II “Thumbing and head-butting are strictly forbidden, and will be punished by deducting five minutes off the offending player’s clock.” By the time they passed San Bernardino, Enrique tried the Caro-Cann, the French, and the Petroff. Favreau’s knowledge fell short in all of them. He was perplexed by the Panov, bewildered by the Winaver and vexed by the Exchange variation. He was falling into every cheap trap in the book, losing the thread of theory after 5-6 moves already. Enrique began to worry – maybe it was a mistake to bring this drunkard along for the ride? But no, it was too late to change anything, he had to try and hope for the best. This was his last chance. Finally, as the red car turned onto the interstate, Enrique tried the Sicilian, and this time he struck gold. Vince was a natural Sicilian player, and there are some things one just doesn’t forget. They went through the Classical, the Najdorf, the Sveshnikov, the Dragon, and even the mind-bogglingly complicated Ponomariov and Karjakin variations. Favreau aced all of them, reciting theoretical lines till move 15 in all main lines as well as major theoretical deviations. “Well,” Dominguez said with relief, “I think we have at least the opening problem solved.” The convertible sped along the I-15 interstate, leaving the pleasant warmth of the Valley behind, heading into the scorching heat of the desert. Even the names on the road signs were becoming less friendly. Cheerful, feel-good, names like Palmdale and Riverside were replaced with more down-to-earth, working-class names such as Alray and Barstow. “Where are we?” Vince said, awakening of a short slumber. *** “So,” said Enrique as they were waiting for their order of waffles, “We have the opening covered. Let’s talk middle game.” “So,” he continued after the same waitress tossed the plates of waffles on their table, while doing her best to avoid eye contact, “What are the major middle game guidelines? Let’s say we… you and your opponent castled on opposite sides. What’s your game plan?”
“Hmm,” Favreau leaned over the screen and chewed on his waffle, “Let’s see. Black has his bishops and queen pointing at the center … a lot of tactical motives. Of course I can just retreat with Nd7, but the position calls for more … I know! I’d play 13…Nxe4, and if 14.Rxe4 then 14…Nxd4. Now, retreating the rook clearly loses, and after 15.Rxd4 or 15.cxd4 the endgame is in black’s favor.” Dominguez leaned back in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief. His friend is going to be ok after all. He looked outside the diner toward his car. Nobody got around to stealing it yet. “Shut up, they’re talking about the fight!” The big truck driver at the next table pointed in the direction of the TV set. Enrique and Vince stopped talking and watched Andrey Klichkovsky giving a press conference at the Caesar’s Palace hotel, surrounded by media persons, bodyguards and fans. “Americans! I will smack that contender of yours so hard he will not know what hit him! I will break his head, take out his brains and eat them for lunch! And that’s only the chess part I am talking about! Once we put the boxing gloves on, he is going to really feel the pain! Yes! I am Andrey Klichkovsky, undisputed World Heavyweight Champion! Remember this name, because it will be the last sound you will hear! Yes!” “Well, the guy sure doesn’t lack confidence,” said Enrique. “Mr. Santoro,” asked a TV reporter, “Is it true that you had difficulties assembling a lineup for the preliminary match, the undercard?” “Whoa, wait a minute, Rico. So they are having not one, but two replacement players for the preliminary match?” “Would you like a refill?” The waitress stood above them with a pot of coffee in her hand. “No!” They both waved her away. To be continued ...
Posted by Alex Shternshain at 02:25 AM
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February 23, 2004What makes a good chess community?A chess community offers one or more products/services to a market (the accessible pool of chess players), via a formal or informal organization (with a governance). We can divide this topic into two: (a) Product development and marketing (products include services for our discussion); (b) Establishing and sustaining the organization Before we cover the two main topics, let?s convince ourselves of the applicability of this model (product and organization). For large organizations such as US Chess, there is indeed a corporate structure and well defined products. How well they operate is a separate discussion (see rec.games.politics). But what about very small organizations, such as an informal club run by one person? I will argue that this situation is exactly the same. This person made a decision to start a club because they wanted to reach out to the accessible pool of players, and offer one or more of: (a) a club closer to where they live (accessibility); (b) a club that offers better or a different kind of tournaments (product); (c) a club with different leadership (better governance, organization). The key point is that the person(s) made a conscious decision to create an entity (organization) that has the responsibility to provide a product. They rely on customers to survive, and the dynamics are similar to the commercial marketplace. The product offered is a venue to play in, at an agreed (hopefully repeatable) time/place, and some structure about the format of play (casual, rated), etc. Product development and marketing Chess products ultimately revolve around playing the game. There is certainly a niche market for the aesthetics, such as art, and collectable historical artifacts (see www.ebay.com) but for our discussion, we can focus on playing the game. I will claim this includes products such as: Any particular chess community can only create, offer and deliver a small subset of possible chess products. Communities that try to offer too much will fail. A spectacular example of this is www.kasparovchess.com now defunct. It tried to offer ?world class? playing, instruction, news and more, and then couldn?t deliver on any of it well. First they lost their customer base, then investor base, and then failed. An excellent example of success is www.chesscafe.com which focuses on commentary from leading chess personalities, with an attached store. So we see that selecting the right product(s) to offer is an important decision. Two key questions are: (a) what is the need for this product in the marketplace? (b) do we have a management team (organization, individual) with a passion for the product, and the ability to deliver? We will consider the second questions below (?Establishing and sustaining the organization?). For now, let?s discuss product need, positioning and marketing in the chess marketplace. The ideas and concepts are adapted from widely used practices in the commercial product world. Product need ? this is hard. It is a simultaneous exercise of considering the existing chess market, who the big incumbents are that are delivering current functionality; contrasted against the functionality you are considering creating, including quality of service. The picture you will create in this exercise is that of a current need, where customers (chess players) are willing to purchase the product. Remember that you generally can?t displace an incumbent with an identical product, there has to something different about your product. For example, are you an organizer considering creating a new set of regional tournaments? What need is that filling that isn?t already filled? Are you thinking of starting a chess club or an online community? Think very carefully about the specific product(s) you will be offering. Ask yourself why would a chess customer buy my product? Are you the only club in the area or the only club that night? What about the kind of games you will offer? A recipe for disaster is to just say ?I?ll wing it, and see what happens, I?ll build it, and they?ll come?. It is certainly advantageous to be flexible, but you must be aiming for specific products, just like you aim for specific squares in a game of chess. Product positioning ? this is crucial, and is often ignored. For the product conceived above, who are you selling the product to (what segment of the chess customers), and what makes your product different, and perhaps unique? Product positioning is where you can fine tune the characteristics of your product (including price) to closely match the needs/pain of your paying customers. For example, if you are a club offering tournaments as the product, what is your differentiator? Do you offer fast games, or slow games? Do you have a consistent or variable schedule? Do you allow business travelers to jump in the middle of a tournament? How professional is your level of service? What is your reputation for getting games rated, and paying out prizes? In the crazy world of chess, high integrity and excellent reputation become important differentiators. Marketing and measuring ?crucial, frequently misunderstood and executed badly. Marketing has three aims: (a) promote the organization; (b) promote the product(s). In addition, you need to (c) record and measure the results. The first step in promoting anything is to know your audience, and have a channel to reach them. Perhaps through a mailing list of a national chess organization, you can use a piece of. Maybe it is a newspaper advertisement. Maybe it is circulating a flyer at popular tournaments. This must be the same audience that you were assuming when you made important product decisions above. Once you can reach your audience, then you will advertise to them. Usually you will want to promote both your organization, as well as your product(s) in the same advertisement. The tricky thing is that people tend to get the two confused easily. The advantage of keeping these distinct is that you can abandon or change a product, and still keep the organization and its brand. When you promote your organization, you are really selling your target audience on the fact that they can trust you (the organization) to create a certain range of products that they will like (even though the products can change over time). For example, in the US, if you see an advertisement for a ?CCA? tournament, you immediatly know if this is something you want without looking at the details, because ?CCA? has a strong brand and relatively well defined pool of customers, as well as a streamlined product set. When you promote a product, you are selling a particular thing, to fill a particular need to a particular customer set, for a particular price. For example ?CCA? has the Foxwoods Open. This replaced the New York Open a few years ago. The CCA brand allowed a product to be replaced with little disruption, because people already had a trust level and an expectation level already set. Then it is simply a matter of judging product accessibility, time, price, etc. for the individual chess customer. Even if your organization only ?does one thing?, it is still useful to keep the two aspects separate. When you promote the organization, you are promoting a trust level to your customer base. When you promote a product, you are driving sales. You can abandon a product, but it is fatal to abandon the organization. Finally, you will want to measure your activities, so you can tell how effective your marketing is. At a minimum, you want to record contact info from sales that actually happened. It is usually easier to maintain and grow an existing customer base, than always having to start over. Promotions directly to existing customers are generally very effective. Establishing and sustaining the organization Chess communities are commonly wholly or substantially dependent on volunteers (or low wage ?I do it for love? people) for their success. The scourge of chess communities (especially clubs) is burnout due to the person who created the community being overloaded, and/or the volunteers failing. The trick to sustaining the organization is to recruit, build and retain a sufficient pool of volunteers. The key is balancing volunteer value, workload, and commitment. The person(s) who created the chess community will undoubtedly be the most committed. People, who are just given small tasks to make the operation work, will have a low level of commitment, because the volunteer value to them is low. They will most likely think ?I?ll do this just because I want to play chess here?. These people will be the most likely to be intermittent, or quit altogether. On the other hand, creating high volunteer value is an approach that lets a volunteer own a piece of the organization. Give the volunteer responsibility to drive that part of the organization, and let them shape it. Put their mark on it, own it. Do not micro-manage them. Then their commitment is high, turnover is lower. This in turn makes recruiting easier, because now you are deliberately looking for people that want to take over, not just do little tasks here or there. They naturally want to make things happen. You just have to let go, which for some is not easy, and can be a fatal flaw. By recruiting and retaining people that want their big piece of the pie, the creator of the organization can now focus on maintaining a neutral structure for the volunteers to operate. This can be a charter, by-laws, Board of Directors, etc. This is structure that the active volunteer will naturally not be too interested in, but usually will be happy to operate in, mainly because it constrains everyone the same, and in a transparent manner.. Once you have a structure and a volunteer pool that wants their big slice of the pie, you need to keep recruiting. The reason is growth. If you have created a community and organization with a brand that people trust, and products that people buy, then you will be in growth mode. You will need to keep recruiting volunteers. Start looking for volunteers with management skills. Look at the structure of the IECC (http://www.iecc-chess.org/) for a good example of an organization that has grown because they put a good structure in place, and let people own pieces of it. [NOTE: Even though IECC offers a ?free? product, I still consider it a ?sale? if a player decides to commit 3 months to playing an email chess game with IECC. Nothing is ?free?] The last topic is vague, but nevertheless important. It is attitude. Attitude comes from the top, so start when the organization is small. A sustainable attitude is one where everyone can feel powerful, and they are constrained only by neutral structure like policies and procedures and not by arbitrary personalities. Everyone feels powerful, and everyone is in growth mode, so no one feels threatened. If someone wants to make a positive impact, then they can. Once a core group of people are in place, it is easy to recruit more of the same. Communities with positive energy tend to attract more of the same. Future topics for the entire chess market There are many topics that I could ?blog? on in the future including: 1. Federations of chess communities I?d like to get some feedback to help me decide where to go with this. continued?.
Posted by Harvey G. Reed at 04:23 AM
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To the last pawn - Part ITo the last pawn “Before the start of a chess round, the referee will make sure there are no loose chess pieces on the canvas”
As they were talking, a man in his thirties, well dressed, well built and well tanned, exited the car and walked up to the front porch, where he checked the name on the doorbell. ‘Vincent & Deborah Favreau’. Yes, this was the house. He rang the bell, but there was no sound. He tried to knock. No response. The hours were actually not so early for most of the inhabitants of this Los-Angeles suburb, who were busy selling crack and violating parole from dawn to dusk and beyond. But Vince Favreau should still be in bed at that time. The man knocked again, harder this time. And again. After the fourth time, there was finally some movement behind the door. “What is it? I’m only one month behind on my rent, you fat …” A hoarse voice called, and the door flung open. “Rico Dominguez, is that you?” Inside, Favreau pointed in the direction of a flea-infested couch, as he himself collapsed into a rust-colored armchair. Enrique declined to seat, and instead began walking around the room. Enrique started walking to the door, but to his surprise Vince refused to follow. *** “If bleeding occurs during a chess round, the referee will stop the contest and wipe the blood from the board and pieces. The offending player’s clock will keep running during that time.” It all began over a dozen years ago in Ukraine, as a joke between two college students, both avid amateur chess players and boxers. Their friends, who came to watch the bout, returned home stunned, telling tales of the best entertainment they ever had. Rumors of the new exciting sport spread across the world like wildfire. Soon its governing body, WCBA, became the most powerful sports organization in the world, uniting under its wing all the squabbling boxing federations, as well as FIDE. A bout of Chess-Boxing would start as a normal-looking game of chess, except the board was set in the middle of a roped boxing ring, and the players wore boxing trunks. Between eight and fifteen times during the game, at steady intervals, a gong would ring and the chess table was carried away, as the players put on their gloves and engaged in a round of boxing. Advertisement blurbs called Chess-Boxing ‘The Ultimate Sport’, and they weren’t far off. To be successful in this most popular sport in the world, one needed the cranial capacity of a professor, and the strength and stamina of a lumberjack. Chess-Boxers were revered like Gods, wooed by young girls, and sought as companions by rich ladies. After all, how often do you get a consort who can recite the Theory of Relativity and bench-press 300 pounds? *** Down on the street, a twelve-year-old punk was trying to steal the convertible, but couldn’t get past the electric force field. Seeing Vince and Enrique closing on him, he turned away and ran, leaving a string of curses at his wake. Enrique took the remote out of his pocket and clicked the force field off. “So tell me,” asked Favreau as they were cruising alongside the L.A. River, “What really happened at the Garden?”
Posted by Alex Shternshain at 03:34 AM
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February 05, 2004ICCF and PlayChess: Looking in the FutureGreetings! I'm new here, but I saw Thomas's call for bloggers and figured I'd try my hand, so... be gentle with me, eh? ;-) PlayChess.de has made me curious about the broader correspondence chess world, especially the "official" structure under the aegis of the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF). Up to this point the ICCF has specialized in what I'd call "old fashioned e-mail chess" and "really old-fashioned snail-mail chess." Even the e-mail version requires users to e-mail moves according to a text file format, track number of days of think time according to the honor system, etc. Compared to the convenient interface of a site like PlayChess, i'm not terribly interested in this e-mail format. But apparently for a few years now the ICCF has recognized that the future of the correspondence game lies in servers like this one. (GRATUITOUS OPINION #1: It's a pity they couldn't have just worked a deal with Thomas or other chess site maintainers a few years ago; they could be up and running by now! Sounds like a lot of "reinventing of the wheel" if you ask me.) In a 2002 article (here) at ChessMail.com, Tim Harding looked into the crystal ball to a CC world oriented around servers instead of loose e-mails. The ICCF official site actually has a November, 2003, announcement (here) about the progress of this project. It also figured quite prominently in the President's Christmas message (here). It seems they've been working with Chess Base GmbH on this project, and, "ChessBase has pledged to support the innovative standards, which we will use," whatever on earth that means. (GRATUITOUS OPINION #2: My fond hope is that these "innovative standards" involve open-sourcing the code for this server. In my mind all competitors should have the right to inspect the software with which their moves are being recorded. But I'm not terribly hopeful on that front.) Here's how they assess their progress: Design and development work is progressing well and the first events should be running on the new system around mid-2004. The ICCF schedule of events will be phased for Webserver tournaments over future months and new types of event will be developed, to exploit technology which will be available. (GRATUITOUS OPINION #3: I sure hope they're willing to work with sites like this one rather than seeing them as the competition. They could bring huge numbers of CC players "into the fold" of a worldwide tournament structure, if they play their cards right. Or they could further divide the CC world into factions if they play their cards wrong.) (GRATUITOUS OPINION #4: Ideally they could at least coordinate with this site and the other major CC servers to build a worldwide championship structure.) Now, i'm a total neophyte to correspondence chess, so I don't claim to have my finger on the pulse of the CC community. So I'm posting this to ask others: What do you think about this direction? Would you have any interest in joining ICCF events if their server worked like PlayChess? Or is it not that important to most people?
Posted by Philip Reed at 11:03 PM
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2003 in numbers (part II)Today I have prepared a statistical review of 2003 regarding games played in Advanced Chess League. Having added some experience from the previous article 2003 in numbers (part I) which presented HCL games, I believe that I have a lot of noticeable things to say. I use two formats to express final results: Advanced Chess League Games, moves, results In 2003 the PlayChess site hosted 2272 completed games by 471 players. Compared to HCL, since players have access to both categories, less than 16% have tried to team up with a chess engine (I have not taken into account those playing only ACL games). The number of games is less than 7% of the games played in HCL. PlayChess members need some encouragement to participate in ACL tournaments. In the near future I am going to dedicate a lot of articles upon this topic. White scored 52%. In detail the results were +910=542-820. When we examine each tournament class separately we find that the results do not vary more than 2 cents from the average. The following pie shows distribution of games over tournament class. You can see that Thematic tournaments are very popular. In ACL the number of games in 2003 for this class was 604 compared to 1312 in HCL. Many players use their computer in order to research a certain opening and its possibilities, or they experiment with their computer upon a known (though not so common most of the times) opening theme. Caissa has 209 games, Blitzmich has 168, and Goofy is third with 156 games. There is a game that ended in move 3, only because one of the opponents abandoned the effort (a game from the Swiss tournament). There are also 6 games that ended in move 5, only one of them with checkmate and another one with a "mate in 4" position. The longest game was ACL-M009-30 between Lindam and unconnected, lasted 102 moves, the final move giving the point with checkmate to Lindam. 71 games ended with early draws (less than 20 moves). First move choice 1285 games started with 1.e4, 670 with 1.d4, 87 with 1.c4, 93 with 1.Nf3 and 137 with one of the remaining moves. This final category includes lots of the thematic games with unusual first move. The pie representing these results is almost identical to the one you can find in the HCL article 2003 in numbers (part I). A little more about first move choice: 1.e4 or 1.d4? In the HCL article I used as reference games from OTB databases since 1990 with both players over 2400 ELO. This time I limited the range to games from the same period with both players over 2500 ELO. To my surprise 1.d4 is more popular than 1.e4. Bar labeled “TEST” in the following graph shows exactly this: Each bar compares 1.e4 (orange) to 1.d4 (blue) only, (100% represents total of 1.e4 plus 1.d4) for each tournament class. The “T” bar shows that Thematic tournaments announced by PlayChess prefer King Pawn openings rather that Queen Pawn openings. Don’t blame Thomas for this. He has also created tournaments for Grob’s Attack (1.g4), Sokolsky opening (1.b4) and From’s Gambit (1.f4 e5 2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6) especially for the ACL addicts. You can see that more experienced players (bars "E" and "M") trust 1.d4 more than players from A and B class. The "S" Swiss tournament bar shows that 73% opened with 1.e4 (compared to the total of 1.e4 and 1.d4). This result is higher than the average from A, B, E and M classes (63%). In order to provide a more accurate result, I should have taken into account the tournament class for all players with White in every single finished game. Sorry, I cannot do this. I simply conclude that the Swiss tournament affects our style from the very first move. Openings It has been very difficult to get any results about opening preferences. The database is small (2272 games) and for every ECO code with a number of games exceeding 40, most of them come from Thematic tournaments. I can only mention two openings: The following graph presents most popular openings (Thematic games are included). If there are any players who wish to know more about the Queen Gambit games I can only recommend to play games with these openings in the ACL to enrich our statistical knowledge. I compared the results for the above openings to the results of OTB games with the same openings. In all cases in OTB tournaments White scores approximately 55%. In ACL we have the same results for the French defense and Ruy Lopez. The Caro – Kann games favor White in the Swiss, E and M tournaments with a score up to 60%, while only 47% in the A and B tournaments. The Sicilian games favor Black in all cases. White scores no more than 43% in all classes.
Posted by Michalis Kaloumenos at 03:54 PM
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To the last pawn - Part V
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