Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Tight time controls. I anticipate having time trouble [of course, I am one of the slowest players] but such is life. To be perfectly clear, we get 2 weeks of slush time, and have 12 hours to make our moves before dipping into our 2 weeks, but we get no extra time for making a move - is this right?

And now for a request. Might I ask the indulgence of people commenting on the games they're playing? I for one am interested in improving my designs, so I am always willing to listen, and, like now, actively solicit comments on my designs, good, bad or indifferent. 

Enjoy.

Joe, if each player takes 24 hours after his opponent moves to make a move, then the game will proceed at the pace of one full turn every two days, and spare time will run out in eight weeks. If you move once every day, which is the target pace, the worst case scenario is that your opponent always moves right after you while you move 24 hours after him. This would use up your spare time in about four weeks. In the best case scenario, the game could be kept going at the same pace without any cost of spare time if you both moved 12 hours apart. In the most likely scenario, you will use up less than 12 hours per day while keeping the game going at the pace of one move per day. 
An average of six hours per day would use up your spare time in eight weeks, which is the target time for a game to end, but even after spare time ends, grace time can be used to keep a game going.

Lol, Fergus, I am often known to take 12 to 24 days to make a move. My typical game plays with a grace time of 3 weeks and no other time at all. 

I'm not complaining, mind you. But I'm going to have to work to keep from giving free games to my opponents. Actually, I'm sure part of the motivation for the tight time controls was the extreme slowness of some of the games in the previous tournaments. And I have to admit my game with David Paulowich was the final one, and it may well have lasted 3 months past the ending of the other games.

'Lol, Fergus, I am often known to take 12 to 24 days to make a move. My typical game
plays with a grace time of 3 weeks and no other time at all.'

I can make a move several months. But this tournament is not for such games. So, you must make moves quicker than usually.

Fergus,

Please use my rated account for these games: nickwolffrated.  Thanks!

The time controls should meet these goals:

(1) A game should generally take no longer than two months, proceeding at a pace of approximately one turn per day.

(2) Players should be able to take off extended periods of time occasionally.

(3) Games should be allowed to continue for as long as it takes to finish them.

To meet the first two goals, the time controls should encourage those who will be taking off time to move as quickly as they can while able, both before and after taking time off. To encourage making moves before taking time off, making moves should be able to extend the time a player has available to take off. But it should not extend it to the point where a player can take several extended vacations or play very slowly. Using bonus time with a maximum on the time a player has available should accomplish these goals.

To encourage moving afterward, the chance of running out of time should remain. So the bonus time given for moving quickly should not be too generous.

The third goal may be met with grace time, minimum time, or a combination of the two. Grace time gets deducted from the time used. Minimum time extends the time someone has left when his time left falls below the minimum. So if a person has 12 hours of each, they will allow 24 hours to make a move.

With this in mind, I will add bonus time, maximum time, and minimum time values to the time controls I already posted. So here is what I expect to use for time controls:

Spare Time: 2 weeks
Grace Time: 12 hours
Minimum Time: 12 hours
Bonus Time: 6 hours for moving within 1 second (before 12 hours grace time is up)
Maximum Time: 4 weeks

For a tournament targeting beginners sure is a heavyweight line-up of participants!

Can't find a description of or rules for Modern Carrera's Chess ... any help in finding those would be appreciated.

Thanks, and hope everyone rings in the New Year in good health and spirits.

Fergus,

Perhaps you can put links on the list of games for the tournament to the individual games' rules pages.

Fergus, I have an idea. Instead of implementing Circular Chess in a 
hurry, you could make use of my zrf:
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/circularchess.htm
In this varant only, you could make an exception and allow the use 
of an analysis engine. This is how they do it in ICCF, where computer 
analysis is permitted. In email chess the whole PGN protocol is 
typically sent. In this case you could send the move part of the ZSG 
file. Just save to file in every move. Then you will also get correct 
rules checking and no misunderstandings can occur. When a move is 
made, the receiving player can copy and paste the moves into his 
ZSG file. There is a point in allowing an analysis engine sometimes, 
if you really want to test how good a variant is. The ZSG protocol 
looks like this:
1. Pawn-ccw sa2 - ec2 White H M1
1. Pawn-cw nd2 - eb2 Black H M2
2. Knight sc3 - wa2
2. Pawn-ccw na2 - wc2 Black H M3
3. Pawn-cw sd3 - wa3
3. Pawn-ccw na3 - wd3
/Mats

I always like to have a link to all the games in the tournament.

Is the bonus time working properly? My opponents and I have exchanged several moves within the 12-hour grace period, and I don't think any of us have received the six-hour bonus.

Oh, and Happy Palindrome Day to one and all!

No, the bonus time has not been working right. I was supposed to enter a 1 instead of a 0. I have now manually edited the round file, and we'll see if that fixes it.

Happy Palindrome Day to you too.

What castling rule is for Modern Carrera's Chess? 3->Rook?

RANBQKBNMR

Where A = Knight + Bishop and M = Rook + Knight

It is on an 8x10 board; castling is done by having the king move three squares.

Thanks.

Fergus, I can playtest Circular Chess preset with you when it will be ready.

Vitya, no, there is no 'bare king' rule in HyperModern Shatranj. The operative rule is: 

'Victory is by checkmating the opponent's king. Any other result is a draw.'

It is true that every other shatranj variant I designed has a bare king rule. However, by this point, the game is close enough to modern chess that such a rule was not considered. I don't recall Roberto, Christine, or I even mentioning it during our various discussions.

Everyone should be receiving the error below in their Ajax Orthodox Chess games:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ':' in /home1/chessvar/public_html/play/pbm/sets/alfaerie-ajax.php on line 2

Actually the error is affecting all my Ajax variants presets.

I asked Fergus last night to update the Ajax Piece set for Game Courier with a few more pieces for my Ajax Wars game coming up, but unfortunately there must have been a typo or something that messed up the Alfaerie for Ajax piece set I use in my Ajax variants.

I asked Fergus to take a look at it, and hope that the problem will be resolved soon.

Thanks Fergus.

Everything is back to normal.

What's the tournament filter name for this tournament?

Thanks

I will finish all games I am currently playing. After that, I will not start any new games.

- Sam

Fergus, I changed Circular Chess board JPG Quality from 50 to 100 and it looks pretty nice now. 
Can you change it as default? I cannot do this in the game I'm playing.

Since Sam Trenholme has quit, the math will not work out for assigning
everyone to all games in each round unless something changes. Here are some
possibilities:

1) Someone else replaces Sam in the tournament, playing what would have
been his games.

2) Someone else quits the tournament.

3) Players already in the tournament play extra games, so that everyone
remaining in the tournament gets to play at least three games each round.

4) Sam rejoins the tournament.

If none of these happen, then three players will play only two games in
each subsequent round. This would be shared among the players as much as
possible, but with a loss of twelve games, and only nine players to
distribute the loss among, some would lose out on playing two games.

I am also considering dropping Modern Carrera's Chess from the tournament,
because this was Sam's choice for the tournament, and he has reneged on
the terms for including his choice in the tournament. This opens up a few
possibilities:

1) Allow a new player to join the tournament and pick a replacement for the
remainder of the tournament.

2) Let someone in the tournament who has not already chosen one of the
games in the tournament take on Modern Carrera's Chess as his official
choice.

3) Let someone in the tournament who has not already chosen one of the
games pick a new one.

4) Just drop Modern Carrera's Chess from the tournament.

Assuming Sam doesn't rejoin, which would remove all problems here, I favor
replacing him with a new player, and I would consider offering the
incentive of letting the new player pick a replacement for the remainder of
the tournament. But I would prefer to keep the games the same. So if
someone who hasn't picked a game would like to make Modern Carrera's
Chess his official choice, and if a new player joined without picking a
replacement game, that would probably work best.

Assuming we don't get a new player, then having each player play one or
two extra games during the course of the tournament would be the next best
option. But this would require the willing participation of everyone.

Short of getting everyone's participation in this, we could do it like
this. Those who are willing to play in place of Sam in a game someone would
have played against him will get priority in getting an alternate opponent
for the game he would have played against Sam. Those who are not willing to
play extra games may miss out on playing all their games.

Or we could do it like this. Anyone who replaces Sam in a game gets the opportunity to raise his score in the tournament, but to keep things fair, this opportunity would be given only to someone who has already lost the game in question. That way, no one could win any game more than three times.

Fergus,

If it would be for the better, I can either resign from the tournament, as well, or take his choice of variant as my own.  Whatever would work best for you, I would do.  I am soon to depart for 3 weeks for work and I might not be able to play much, so I will not be upset whatever you choose.  Thanks!

-Nick

Reluctantly, I will withdraw from the tournament. The combination of family obligations and health issues and the tournament's rather quick pace is proving extremely difficult for me. Hopefully everything will resolve over the next several months, and I will then be able to participate more than I have over the past year. But right now, events have more control over me than vice-versa. I'll finish my current games, and ask that no new ones be assigned me.

My apologies to the participants in the tournament. I have enjoyed playing each of you, and would enjoy continuing. These tournaments are an excellent way to play new games and meet old and new friends, and I'll miss not continuing. But at this point, I seem to be unable to play even somewhat competitively with any grace period of less than 3 weeks. Heh, should anyone wish to play a slow game with me, I'm available. I just don't seem to be able to juggle everything both quickly and successfully now. 

Joe

With Joe Joyce leaving the tournament, we have an even number of players again, allowing everyone remaining to be assigned all three games for each round. Hopefully, everyone else will remain, and we won't encounter this problem again. I will accept Nicholas' offer to make Modern Carrera's Chess his choice for the tournament.

Nicholas, let me know when you will be away, and I can either put off assigning your games or adjust your time controls.

I'm getting ready to assign games for the third round. So that I'm clear on what I'm doing, I'll write out everything here first.

AJAX ORTHODOX CHESS

With Joe and Sam gone, we have five winners and three losers from the first round. So one pairing is of a winner vs. a loser (myself). For the next round:

Jose Carrillo (White) vs. Carlos Cetina (Black)
Thomas McElmurry (White) vs. Vitya Makov (Black)
Fergus Duniho (White) vs. Armin Liebhart (Black)
Je Ju (White) vs. Nicholas Wolff (Black)

EUCHESS

With Joe and Sam gone, we have three winners and five losers from the first round. So one pairing is a winner vs. a loser. For the next round:

Vitya Makov (White) vs. Carlos Cetina (Black)
Thomas McElmurry (White) vs. Jose Carillo (Black)
Armin Liebhart (White) vs. Je Ju (Black)
Nicholas Wolff (White) vs. Fergus Duniho (Black)

EURASIAN CHESS

One game was drawn, and with Joe and Sam gone, we have four winners and two losers from the first round. So all the winners get paired with winners, and those who lost get paired with those who drew.

Carlos Cetina (White) vs. Fergus Duniho (Black)
Jose Carillo (White) vs. Vitya Makov (Black)
Je Ju (White) vs. Thomas McElmurry (Black)
Nicholas Wolff (White) vs. Armin Liebhart (Black)

These are arranged so that no one plays the same color in all three games, but they are not arranged so that between this and the first round, each players has each side three times. Where a loser plays a winner or a drawer, the loser gets the advantage of playing White this round.

Fergus,

My opponent Thomas has made an illegal take back of moves in our 3rd round Euchess game.

How do we return the game to the position after my last legal move, which he also took back.

I sent my opponent an email to try to sort this out, but his email address is no longer valid, and the email bounced.

Can you please stop the clock in this game until the issue gets resolved?

Thanks.

Jose

http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Euchess&log=crazytom-j_carrillo_vii-2010-59-178

Yes, that's what happened.  I had gone back one move to look at the previous position, and then I think I just went back in my browser history, so that I was looking at the current position on screen, but the server was working with the previous position.  Usually I'm careful to avoid such things, but this time I forgot (I must have been distracted by my increasingly uncomfortable position).

I hadn't meant to take back a move, and I've replayed my previous move so that we can restore the correct game history.

No problem Thomas.

Everything is back in track.

You may want to update the email address on your profile though.

For the 4th round, these players will be paired together:

CIRCULAR CHESS
Nicholas Wolff (W) vs. Vitya Makov (B)
Carlos Cetina (W) vs. Thomas McElmurry (B)
Fergus Duniho (W) vs. Jose Carrillo (B)
Armin Liebhart (W) vs. Je Ju (B)

HYPERMODERN SHATRANJ
Armin Liebhart (W) vs. Thomas McElmurry (B)
Vitya Makov (W) vs. Carlos Cetina (B)
Fergus Duniho (W) vs. Nicholas Wolff (B)
Je Ju (W) vs. Jose Carillo (B)

MODERN CARRERA'S CHESS
Carlos Cetina (W) vs. Armin Liebhart (B)
Vitya Makov (W) vs. Fergus Duniho (B)
Thomas McElmurry (W) vs. Je Ju (B)
Jose Carillo (W) vs. Nicholas Wolff (B)

Since I'm tired, I will make the actual assignments tomorrow.

In looking over the previous games to decide who will play whom in the next round, I noticed that I assigned two games of Euchess to the same pair of players. This inflated the scores of the player who won both games, who is in fact the only player to win two games of Euchess so far, and possibly deflated the scores of the other player, who might have been able to win against another opponent. It is my intention to assign you different opponents for each game each round. So if I fail to do that, please let me know.

Since Tom is the injured party here, I'll let him decide what would be  best here. One option is to do nothing. As a consequence of these scores, Jose will be paired against a stronger opponent, in fact the creator of Euchess, while Tom will be paired against someone who has lost both his games of Euchess.

Another option is to include some extra games of Euchess, and let these games replace the extra one Tom and Jose played. The incentive for the other players would be the opportunity to earn an extra win. Tom would be paired with someone who has lost twice, and Jose would be paired with someone who has lost once and won once.

If there is an injured party, I don't think it's me.  I was surprised by the repeat pairing but didn't realize it was a mistake.

Despite my 0-2 score, I didn't feel hopelessly overmatched in those two games.  In the first game I may have been winning, but underestimated the importance of king safety against a rampant marshal.  In the second game I had an extra pawn and a decent position until I blundered a major piece.  Even if the pairings had been different, I could have blundered against any opponent.

I don't think any correction is needed as far as I'm concerned.

Here's who will play whom for the fifth round, with White listed first:

AJAX ORTHODOX CHESS

Vitya Makov vs. Jose Carrillo
Carlos Cetina vs. Nicholas Wolff
Je Ju vs. Fergus Duniho
Armin Liebhart vs. Thomas McElmurry

EUCHESS

Jose Carrillo vs. Carlos Cetina
Nicholas Wolff vs. Vitya Makov
Armin Liebhart vs. Fergus Duniho
Thomas McElmurry vs. Je Ju

EURASIAN CHESS

Vitya Makov vs. Carlos Cetina
Fergus Duniho vs. Thomas McElmurry
Jose Carrillo vs. Armin Liebhart
Je Ju vs. Nicholas Wolff

Here's who will play whom for the sixth round, white listed first each time. Since this is the last round in the tournament, I have made sure that everyone got to move first in 9 out of 18 games. This has sometimes resulted in the same player moving first every time in the same game. I'm not sure it is possible to make it fair both ways, and giving each player the first move advantage in the same number of games seemed fairer. Because these pairings are based on how well we have done previously, some of you are paired with the same people for more than one game. In no case should you be playing someone at a game you have already played against that person in the tournament.

CIRCULAR CHESS

Carlos Cetina vs. Vitya Makov
Jose Carrillo vs. Thomas McElmurry
Nicholas Wolff vs. Armin Liebhart
Fergus Duniho vs. Je Ju

HYPERMODERN SHATRANJ

Carlos Cetina vs. Fergus Duniho
Vitya Makov vs. Armin Liebhart
Thomas McElmurry vs. Jose Carrillo
Nicholas Wolff vs. Je Ju

MODERN CARRERA'S CHESS

Thomas McElmurry vs. Carlos Cetina
Armin Liebhart vs. Vitya Makov
Fergus Duniho vs. Jose Carrillo
Je Ju vs. Nicholas Wolff

Since the tournament is finishing the results of the games played by Joe Joyce and Sam Trenholme are also added:
Joe 1-0 Nicholas
Joe 0-1 José
Joe 0-1 Fergus
Thomas 0.5-0.5 Joe
Joe 0-1 Vitya
Je Ju 0-1 Joe

Vitya 1-0 Sam
Sam 1-0 Je Ju
Sam 0-1 Carlos
Fergus 1-0 Sam
Sam 0-1 Thomas
Nicholas 1-0 Sam

Congratulations, Carlos! Nicely played. And congrats to everyone who played in the tournament. It looks like it was quite a battle. Sorry I had to drop out. Maybe next time. 

One thing no one has commented on yet is impressions of the various games played. Would anyone care to offer an opinion on their quality and playability?

Thank you very much, Joe.

Of course, I did not win the tourney... my opponents gave me it! I lost
the count of how many gross blunders they made.

The quality of the games I played is... POOR. They can be deleted and
nothing would happen. They do not exist.

About playability, the six chessvariants chosen are quite playable and enjoyable.

Lol, that's right, Carlos, pick on your poor opponents! 'I never hit a man when he's down... I kick him, 'cause it's easier!' - Rowdy Roddy Piper, professional wrestler. ;-) Let me make two observations.

These tournaments are all about blunders. It's been said that the one who loses a game of FIDE is just the one who made the last mistake. With variants, that is much truer. First, you cannot possibly know the best openings and lines in all these games, nor play them by accident. Therefore, you must be making small mistakes all the time in these games. The winner is generally the one who can overcome his own mistakes and capitalize on the opponent's mistakes the best. 

I also noticed that just about everyone else was knotted up about 3 points back. That's a tough field. And everyone who played won at least one game, indicating the potential for winning more in the future. It couldn't have been easy to kick free of that pack. I suspect the next few tournaments, at least, will be quite interesting.

Anyone else have comments on the games played?

Running Tournament Filter: gamecourier4 will assign ratings and 
further demonstrate Carlos Cetina's accomplishment here.  Congratulations!
 
I may not have time to play many games on this site, but I am planning 
to post a few Game Courier presets (that I have already promised).
 
Name                         Userid  GCR          Percent GCR1 GCR2
 
Carlos Cetina                 sissa 1728 16.5/18 = 91.67% 1710 1746 
Jose Carrillo        j_carrillo_vii 1604 12.0/18 = 66.67% 1586 1622 
Vitya Makov                makov333 1590 11.0/18 = 61.11% 1580 1599 
Armin Liebhart              lunaris 1562 11.5/18 = 63.89% 1529 1594 
Fergus Duniho                fergus 1533 10.0/18 = 55.56% 1521 1545 
Thomas McElmurry           crazytom 1500  8.5/18 = 47.22% 1492 1507 
Joe Joyce                  joejoyce 1467  2.5/06 = 41.67% 1469 1465 
Sam Trenholme         sam_trenholme 1383  1.0/06 = 16.67% 1389 1378 
je ju                      jejujeju 1310  3.0/18 = 16.67% 1286 1334 
Nicholas Wolff       nickwolffrated 1306  2.0/18 = 11.11% 1284 1329

Hi, Gary. I think you'll have to sign up for Tournament #5, Carlos Cetina already won #4. 

Do we have any interest in a tournament? I wouldn't mind playing in one, if the time controls aren't too tight. We could, if there weren't a very large number of entrants, use the simple control of giving several months of reserve time, and no other time at all, then start all games at once. This would guarantee an end to the tourney in the set time of twice the number of months given as reserve. I gave 5 months for the last little one I ran, and it was completed in 10 months, even though one game had to time out before it was over. I completed all my games, although I took almost 2 months off at the beginning of the tourney because all the rest of life intervened then, and I did not really feel time pressure. 

That's just one suggestion. Any time controls that are flexible enough would be fine for me. I really would not like to drop out of another tournament because I couldn't manage the time controls.

Though I am not a particularly strong player, I would be extremely interested in participating should another tournament ever arise.