More Wiki Wars

If you have the energy to read another one of these Wikpedia fights, this one is fairly entertaining (and chess related). Slugfest's Clint Ballard tried to publish an article on his new chess tournament scoring system, BAP. Little did he know what he was in for.

Blundering is a sin

From "Adam made imperfect choice in opting to commit his sin" in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Q. Considering that a truly perfect chess player would be incapable of making a bad move, and likewise a truly perfect singer would be incapable of hitting a sour note, then how could a truly perfect man such as Adam be capable of committing sin? That Adam chose to disobey God indicates a character flaw in his design.

A. Unfortunately, it is your hypothesis that is flawed. There has been no such thing as a perfect anything since the fall of Adam and Eve. With sin came imperfection. Even the best chess player cannot perform 100 percent of the time at 100 percent accuracy.

So whenever I play badly apparently I have Adam to blame. Now, how does one become a born-again chess player?

Passionate about chess?

Now that Dennis Monokroussos has defanged his own surprise weapon against the French Defense, you're probably looking for something new to keep your opponents on edge. How about the French Kiss? Against the right opponent (a particularly attractive one I presume), it could be just the ticket.

Field of Play

Link

Dude, where's my former president?

While he hasn't been to the club in a couple of years, I usually run into former BCC President Peter Sherwood every few months or so. However, as of late he's been nowhere to be found.

Just yesterday, I learned through a mutual acquaintance that Peter has moved to California for a year. Mystery solved.

Ringer wanted

Maybe you can help out Mistress Kathryn in her quest to find someone to humble her boyfriend at chess?

Negro y Blanco Cinema

Katie was watching a chick-flick:

...so in Two Weeks Notice there's this part where Hugh Grant and another guy are playing chess and they start discussing how women aren't like a chess game. Apparently there are no rules, women follow no set patterns, and men always lose.

Out of your chess mind

Denny Shane perseveres through another VA group therapy session:

...another guy spoke up about how he gets angry when his kids beat him at chess.... "My kids always beat me at chess and I am really getting angry", the guy stammered. Geez guy... how about learning how to play?

Freebie Friday

It's not usually my policy to post promotional items I receive from chess related businesses (although I have done so in the past on rare occasions). Nevertheless, I know that many readers play chess online and like to try out different servers. So, with that in mind and with the fact that this offer will not cost you anything, here goes:

World Chess Network is offering "Free Chess Fridays." Each and every Friday, log in as a guest and receive all the benefits of Gold Membership for the entire day for free.

Caption Contest V

New Zealand junior Bobby Cheng's favorite movie?
The Fantastic Four (especially after he discovered
that he too could stretch his arm across the entire
length of the chess board)

Post your caption in the comments.

Source

More drinking chess

From The Daily Iowan Police Blotter:

Lindsay Chess, 18, 324 S. Lucas St., was charged Monday. with PAULA.

It took me a few minutes of searching to find out what PAULA is -- Possession of Alcohol Under the Legal Age.

The Year That Was

Some interesting facts posted on the bulletin board at the club:

• 188 people were members of the Boylston Chess Foundation for some period of time during 2005


• 306 different players entered at least one of the more than 140 events held at the club last year


• In total for 2005, 376 people were members or non-members who played in at least one event

Chess and Choir revisited

Margriet will find this item from the Judit Polgar Fan Club interesting. Little did I realize that the Princess Errant is able to pursue both of her passions while in Wijk Aan Zee.

A Pro-Chess Mall

Those upstate New Yorkers who got thrown out of their local mall's food court for playing chess might want to head over to the Crossroads Mall in Bellevue, Washington.

Leave us out of it

[Utah State Senator Chris] Buttars ... spoke about his ... bill, which would ban gay-straight alliances from Utah high schools. He said he has received many e-mails referring to him as "[a] bigot" and "narrow-minded" because he thinks the clubs are inappropriate because they involve "human sexuality," even though club proponents say they don't discuss sex.

"If I have a chess club, I'm going to be talking about chess," Buttars said. "And if I have a dance club, I'm going to be talking about dance."

Read "Buttars: Bill won't mention 'divine design'" from the Daily Herald.

Don't they have child labor laws?

Forget about trophies, at the 2nd Godwin Kiddies Open Chess Tournament in Cebu City, The Philippines it's all about the money:

The champion of the tournament will receive P700, while the rest of the top five will receive P500, P300, P200 and P100.

Now, I don't have the slightest idea what a Philippine P is worth, but I'd imagine that here in the States there would be an uproar about providing cash prizes to school children.

Thursday Night Controversy

We had a bit of an incident just prior to the 3rd round of this month's Thursday Night Illinois Swiss which prompted a rather lengthy letter from Jason Rihel. Prior to posting it below, let me make an attempt to describe what happened.

There were an odd number of competitors planning to play the 3rd Round in the Open section necessitating the need to give one a full point bye instead of a game. According to the rules, the bye is awarded to the player with the lowest score who has not previously been given a full point bye. If two or more players share the low score, the lowest rated player receives the bye. In this particular case, only one player had zero points after two rounds and therefore he was scheduled to receive the bye.

Not wishing to take his bye in lieu of a game, this player chose instead to re-enter the tournament (by paying a new entry fee) with half-point byes in Rounds 1 & 2. This now gave him one point after two rounds which left him tied for the lowest score with Jason Rihel. Though Jason is rated higher, according to the tournament director, a full point bye can not be given to a re-entry. Therefore, Jason was now scheduled to receive the bye.

Needless to say he was not particularly pleased with this turn of events. An animated discussion ensued in which several options were discussed, e.g, Jason could re-enter the tournament and push the bye up to the next player in line, everyone in the tournament could re-enter forcing the bye back to the original player (but, of course, this would make no sense for players with more than one point). Finally, the issue was resolved when a player in the lower section agreed to take a full point bye and Bernardo (who is the TD and was playing in the lower section) agreed to take a half point bye in the lower section and play as the "houseman" in the Open section. While this proved to be a satisfactory answer at the moment, it is still clear that the re-entry resulted in another player getting "screwed out" of a game (not to mention a reshuffling of the pairings in both the Open and Under sections).

With this background covered, here is Jason's letter:

I am, perhaps irrationally, still really angry about what transpired at the BCC this past Thursday, when [Alexander] Paphitis re-entered to avoid his third round bye. By doing this, he slaps me with a bye 15 minutes before the round is supposed to start, when I fully expected to play my 3rd round game. [Alexander] knew he was destined for a bye for the whole week, and Bernardo even called him that afternoon to inform him of his likely bye. Instead of accepting his well earned bye, he shows up at the club 15 minutes before the round is supposed to start and re-enters the tournament to avoid his bye.

I am especially angry because after the round, I confronted him and asked that he, in the future, might show a little more consideration for other players, who also would like to play their games. At the VERY LEAST, he could have indicated his desire to re-enter a week in advance, so that I might be aware of my pending bye fate. He refused to admit that he even did anything rude at all, which just infuriates me. When my own bad play earns me an early bye, I take my lumps instead of sticking them to other players who might deserve to play more (either because they have scored some points or they have earned over time a higher rating).

For example, how would [Alexander] have felt if the situation were slightly different? In round 2, [Alexander] has the game of his life against a master, and he wins, while I lost my game in round 2. He now has 1 point, and I have 0. I am getting the bye, and [Alexander] has earned the right to keep playing. However, I come to round 3, [Alexander] is already sitting at the board, setting up his pieces, relaxing after his commute to the tournament. Suddenly, I declare that I am re-entering, which gives me 1 point to his 1 point, and now HE is slapped with the bye, as his rating is lower. He could now do two things:

1) Get his just desserts and go home

2) Take the really stupid step of paying to re-enter, giving him the SAME SCORE OF 1 POINT, and then slapping someone else with the full point bye. In some cases, this would mean that a person who has 1.5 or 2 points out of 2 would have gotten the bye.

In fact, such silliness could have happened on Thursday when [Alexander] re-entered like he did: If I then re-entered, that would have given Sullivan the bye. If he paid to re-enter, then Salomon would have gotten the bye, then Salomon re-enters, giving Godin the bye, and then Godin re-enters, giving one of the players with 2 out of 2 a free bye, which they gladly take.

In other words, by ponying up the entry fee again, [Alexander] bullied us into the same -- you want to play round 3, you have to pay. As most of us are paying 17 dollars to play some chess, not really to win, this just doesn't seem fair.

As a result of Thursday, I think that the BCC must consider more carefully rules about re-entering tournaments, especially for a 4 round event. The rule could be quite simple -- you only get 1 bye, and you have to declare it before round 2. Or if you want to re-enter, you have to declare it a week in advance. At any rate, it is more than just silly to have a player enter half a tournament and have any hope of winning the money. Would this happen in any other competition (OK, I guess in ice skating Michelle Kwan got to be on the Olympic team without qualifying, but that is different)? This late re-entry is also odd in small events with only 10 people, as it could force situations that give the tournament leaders a full point bye.

This also means that the bye rules should be expressly stated for each BCC event. Check out the Marshall Chess Club in New York City -- to avoid confusion, they make it very clear when you must declare byes, and how many you can get. Presumably to avoid such conflicts as the one on Thursday, players rated below 2000 are only allowed one bye in most events there.

I just think that re-entering to avoid a bye in the third round is an abuse of the "right" to re-enter events (which I did not see granted by the USCF in any of the rules, by the way) and should be eliminated.

To highlight the abuse potential, I'm keeping my eyes peeled now for opportunities to force [Alexander] to take a third round bye. In fact, I could go so far as to pay the re-entry fee of multiple players if it slaps [Alexander] with a bye. And I'll wait until round 3 is about to start, and see how he likes it.

Of course this is just silly and spiteful. Shouldn't the BCC adopt rules that keep players cordial?

Jason

I agree with Jason that this issue needs to be addressed. However, I'm not sure that messing with the bye rules is the answer. We have many players who have unpredictable work schedules who benefit from the ability to take a bye or two when necessary (myself included). I haven't really seen any abuse of this kind from them. Further, we already have a rule in place requiring early declaration of last round byes to ensure that tournament leaders don't take byes in the last round to secure prize money without playing.

Instead, I would be more inclined to put prohibitions on re-entries. Re-entries are extremely rare in our tournaments in any case. In fact, I can only recall one other re-entry and it involved the same player (surely there are others that I am not aware of, but it is nonetheless uncommon). It's not as if our puny prize funds would ever justify paying an additional entry to take a shot at a big payday. Therefore, I would propose that the tournament committee consider the following proposals: 1) Do not allow re-entries at BCF events or 2) Do not allow re-entries after the beginning of Round 2 at BCF events.

I can think of only two counter-arguments. First, as a struggling not-for-profit shouldn't we be happy to take in every extra entry fee we can? Second, will we still let players who have not previously entered the tournament enter before Round 3 with two half point byes? If so, isn't this essentially the same thing as re-entering?

As to the money, as a Board Member familiar with club financials I am hesitant to shut off a potential revenue stream (as small as it is). However, allowing abuses in tournaments will only reduce tournament attendance in the future. Regarding the other questions, my answers are "yes" and "so what."

Now, it's your turn to weigh in...

Going all in is risky

Should efforts to promote chess in the United States focus on big events intended to attract media attention or steady and slow grassroots efforts? Steady and slow seems to have made some headway at the scholastic level, but not much among adults. On the other hand, the record for big "splashes" seems even worse.

First, consider the HB Global. Sure, those of us in the chess community thought it was a big deal. But did it really have any impact outside the already committed group? I think not. Instead, a good portion of the HB Foundation's money was wasted on an effort that probably will have little long-term impact on chess promotion in the States (o.k., it wasn't wasted if you were one of the prize winners).

Next, consider this article about the Karpov International School of Chess in Lindsborg, Kansas. Apparently, all the money they spent on bringing former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to Kansas for the Chess for Peace program has left the organization in dire financial straits. Now they are selling the building in which they are housed as part of a plan to stay afloat. Was their big splash worth it? One way to judge would be to ask your non-chess playing friends what they remember about the 2005 Chess for Peace program. I'm willing to go out on a limb and guess that "huh?" will be their most frequent response.

Truck driver puts Bitch down

WTOL Channel 11 in Toledo, Ohio chose a different lead to describe the scene at Jen Shahade's simul in suburban Cleveland.

Somerville's very own U.S. Champion

Paul MacInnis (not to be confused with BCF president Paul MacIntyre) is spear-heading a campaign to recognize the centennial of the death of Harry Nelson Pillsbury:

This message is for people interested in donating to the U.S. Chess Trust in order to place a plaque on Harry Nelson Pillsbury's grave. Harry Nelson Pillsbury was a Somerville resident and U.S. Champion.

June 17th is the centennial of the death of Harry Nelson Pillsbury. I have started a grass-roots fundraising effort to get the city of Somerville to erect a plaque (perhaps two) in his honor. Donations can be made to: U.S. Chess Trust c/o U.S Chess Federation; 3054 U.S. Route 9W; New Windsor, N.Y. 12553. Please note that because the U.S. Chess Trust is a non-profit organization donations are tax-deductible. Also donors should put "Pillsbury Memorial" in the memo part of their check. My thanks in advance...

Sincerely,

Paul MacInnis