Vote Chess: Game 3

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by retina

I used to play chess in the long distant past. I was never any good though. If I was to join a team it would drag down the level of play I am sure. With some poor choices of move being suggested and a failure to understand why some other move is better, my vote would best be ignored.

But, however, I will be interested to watch the proceedings from a non-participatory position. I'll try my best to not throw peanuts into the ring.

Hey, is there any hope that you might reconsider about not wanting to be a player? If you have played chess before at any level, that is honestly sufficient. The real skills which we require to this are more on the lines of being able to work with our other team members, read their points of view as well as describing our own, and coming to a joint understanding of the position through this discussion.

I have a hunch that you have just the right sort of temperament to do this well.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Hey, is there any hope that you might reconsider about not wanting to be a player?

Sure, if you need a mascot I suppose. Hehe, all I'd want to do is attack and pummel the opponent as quickly as possible. And in Chess that is a great way to lose. Actually I don't think I have ever won a Chess game; never; not ever. Even when I played the local crippled deaf, dumb and blind kid he still managed to beat me even when I was cheating and he was eating the pieces (and he didn't even know what he was playing).

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by retina

Sure, if you need a mascot I suppose. Hehe, all I'd want to do is attack and pummel the opponent as quickly as possible. And in Chess that is a great way to lose. Actually I don't think I have ever won a Chess game; never; not ever. Even when I played the local crippled deaf, dumb and blind kid he still managed to beat me even when I was cheating and he was eating the pieces (and he didn't even know what he was playing).

I think we can take that as a "yes".


We have seven players, I think. Four former Geckos paulunderwood (who has agreed to take on captaincy), henryzz, richs, Brian-E, one former Pirate WMHalsdorf, and two new players davar55 and retina.

Maybe another player to make four vs. four would be ideal. However, four vs. three would not be a problem in my opinion.

There was a suggestion to wait until after the holiday season to start the game. Or are people keen to start sooner?

[retina]

Hmm, I just realised that you are using password protected forums. There is no way I can receive a password. I don't have PMs on here, and the email address I used for registration was hacked and I have no access to it anymore.

[axn]

Originally Posted by retina

Hmm, I just realised that you are using password protected forums. There is no way I can receive a password. I don't have PMs on here, and the email address I used for registration was hacked and I have no access to it anymore.

Enable PM for a day, receive the password, and disable again?

[Xyzzy]

Originally Posted by retina

I don't have PMs on here, and the email address I used for registration was hacked and I have no access to it anymore.

We can fix your email address for you.

[davar55]

I'll have to be PMed for the password.
A copy may become compromised. What then?

A move a week by each team sounds right,
A daily clock? Each team has five calendar days for
the team captain to make their move? Posting of move
should be between say 9 AM and 5 PM ?

Can teammates PM each other (I think not. Or maybe yes.)

Posting of analysis during game for spectators,
with a two move delay?

Just some suggestions.

[retina]

Originally Posted by axn

Enable PM for a day, receive the password, and disable again?

I guess that could work. I hope the PM system doesn't require JS, that would be a deal breaker.

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

We can fix your email address for you.

Now I am curious how? Do you have contacts there?

[davar55]

Suggestion: the official current game board and moves to date be easily available
to players, say as a url in the top post in a thread (or sticky), and the two moves back
version for spectators ... no, maybe the spectators should just get the moves ... maybe
the move should be accompanied by a textual re-cap minus commentary ... perhaps
the spectators should just be one move delayed, which would allow the password
protected player area to be free for commentary from spectator compromise ...

Since we have new teams, who goes first? What team names? If we have a
choice I'd prefer first move in the first of two games, second in second.

[Brian-E]

Answering davar55's questions and suggestions on the basis of the experience of the last two years:

Originally Posted by davar55

I'll have to be PMed for the password.
A copy may become compromised. What then?

If that happens we just hope that whoever is in possession of the password, when they should not be, acts honourably. We're dealing with a game of chess, not credit card transactions or state secrets.

A move a week by each team sounds right,
A daily clock? Each team has five calendar days for
the team captain to make their move? Posting of move
should be between say 9 AM and 5 PM ?

Seven days to make the move is what we did before. It worked well, and some people want to keep it that way, at least two players specifically requesting "no change", but at least one spectator has requested faster play.

I don't understand the point of the 9AM to 5PM suggestion. The site is open 24 hours per day and players live in different time zones.

Can teammates PM each other (I think not. Or maybe yes.)

That's not the normal means of communication: the point of the team subforums is to allow ease of communication between team members without the opponents seeing the discussion. And clearly retina for one will be unable to use this form of communication once retina has received the password and turned off the PMs again. However, the Geckos team at least did use PMs on rare occasions. I once sent a panicky PM to the other team members because I suddenly thought I saw something drastic in the position which had been overlooked, and we were close to our deadline to move. In fact I was wrong, but at the time I thought I needed the other team members' urgent attention and thought a PM would hopefully trigger an Email from the forum software to get the rest of the team to look at the forum urgently.

Posting of analysis during game for spectators,
with a two move delay?

The motivation behind this suggestion is a good one, I think: if you allow public discussion of the game under conditions, people are less likely to get frustrated that they can't post their point of view until the long game is over. But I don't think a two move delay, or any particular delay, will be satisfactory, unfortunately. Aspects of a chess position ("generate a passed pawn on the queenside", "watch out for opponent's threat to take control of seventh rank"), or even the possibility of particular moves ("Black overlooked the possibility of ...Qd5 two moves ago, oh, oops, they can still play it now"), can all persist for much longer periods than two moves. In my opinion, whatever we end up doing, we must keep all comments on the play away from the players. If we don't, it will quickly seem as if the spectators are playing the game instead of the teams.


[The above is cross-posted with your further suggestions which I have only just read.]

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by davar55

Suggestion: the official current game board and moves to date be easily available
to players, say as a url in the top post in a thread (or sticky), and the two moves back
version for spectators ... no, maybe the spectators should just get the moves ... maybe
the move should be accompanied by a textual re-cap minus commentary ... perhaps
the spectators should just be one move delayed, which would allow the password
protected player area to be free for commentary from spectator compromise ...

You're re-inventing the wheel in some of what you write.
For games 1 and 2 the arbiter Batalov maintained a publicly viewable (but not writable) thread (this one was the one for game 2) in real time so that everyone, players and spectators, could see the current board position and moves to date. This was for current position and moves to date only - absolutely no commentary. This worked very well indeed, and no-one has suggested changing it.
I'm not keen, personally, on time delays allowing commentary to be publicly viewable for the reasons I wrote in my previous post. Does anyone disagree with me there?

Since we have new teams, who goes first? What team names? If we have a
choice I'd prefer first move in the first of two games, second in second.

We will certainly need to decide these questions before starting. At the moment we have seven players, hoping that retina can play despite any difficulties with PM-ing the password, and we are hoping for possibly one or two more to show interest in playing plus honouring a suggestion that we should wait until after the holiday period before starting the game.