On May 25, 7:04 am, "Chess One" wrote:
"The Historian" wrote in message

...

On May 21, 4:11 pm, "Chess One" wrote:

No, I say the one owed an apology is Mr. Brennen-- for
the impersonation of a nearly-an-IM 2450 while trashing
NB in multiple newsgroups, including rgc*. Sir IMnes has

**** you jock!

This guy stalks people and excites hatred. Has he ever done anything else

Read the June Chess Life, folks, and then answer the question.

CL published a known hate-merchant and stalker? Really?

PI

Don't worry, your 'prose' will never deface CL.

On May 25, 2:40 pm, "Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)"
wrote:

Or New York 1924:

1. Lasker
2. Capablanca
3. Alechin

etc.

On May 15, 3:54 pm, "Chess One", the cheap
advertiser, wrote:
**Well, anyone can do etc eteras,

Oh, really? Here is my etc:

4. Marshall
5. Reti
6. Maroczy
7. Bogoliubow
8. Dr. Tartakower
9. Yates
10. Ed. Lasker
11. Janowski

Phil, what were the names from your "greatest"
tournament again? Louder, please.

What are the names of the present
participants of the strongest ever US
tournament again? Louder, please :-)

It looks like Wlod has confounded fame for chess
strength.

Dr. Nearly-IMnes posted a list of names, several
of whom I had never heard of; but that doesn't
matter, since their FIDE ratings are pertinent,
while their fame (in my eyes) is immaterial.

Take a gander at some of the names above:
Ed Lasker does not even make 2600 on the
chessmetrics site-- the site which rates Em.
Lasker at "2830" for this tourney. The same
goes for Mr. Yates and Mr. Janowsky.

Clearly, one cannot simply take the fame
of old timers and compare that to modern
players who have yet to have their shots at
achieving fame; not to mention that the pool
of rated players is much, much larger now,
so that fame is relatively tougher to come by.

The original issue was, as you know, not
fame or familiarity or how many old chess
books a name might be listed in, but chess
*strength*. In that respect, I think it is safe
to say that I would far rather play one of
those players named above (numbers 9, 10,
or 11) than any of the Russian names I've
never heard of listed by Sir IMnes, who are
allegedly 2600+ FIDE right now (and who
might very well weigh in at 2700+ or even
2800 on the chessmetrics scale).

I must admit that I would not want to play
any of Mr. Wlod's top three above, unless I
get my usual handicap of Queen odds, to
even things up a bit.


-- help bot

On May 27, 2:18 am, help bot wrote:
On May 25, 2:40 pm, "Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)"



wrote:
Or New York 1924:

1. Lasker
2. Capablanca
3. Alechin

etc.

On May 15, 3:54 pm, "Chess One", the cheap
advertiser, wrote:
**Well, anyone can do etc eteras,

Oh, really? Here is my etc:

4. Marshall
5. Reti
6. Maroczy
7. Bogoliubow
8. Dr. Tartakower
9. Yates
10. Ed. Lasker
11. Janowski

Phil, what were the names from your "greatest"
tournament again? Louder, please.

What are the names of the present
participants of the strongest ever US
tournament again? Louder, please :-)

It looks like Wlod has confounded fame for chess
strength.

You are confusing the strength of
a tournament with the auxiliary
abstract notion of rating. Our
exercise in this thread has clearly
established the limited value of
the historical rating over 80 years
when it comes to evaluating the chess
strength. Anyway, the chess tournament
is called strong if and only if it
attracts the strongest players of the
day.

Dr. Nearly-IMnes posted a list of names, several
of whom I had never heard of; but that doesn't
matter, since their FIDE ratings are pertinent,
while their fame (in my eyes) is immaterial.

It's not the fame but the chess successes
over the board, over the opposition, which
made those participants of the New York 1924
so strong.

I must admit that I would not want to play
any of Mr. Wlod's top three above, unless I
get my usual handicap of Queen odds, to
even things up a bit.

Bogoliubow placed 7th in NY-1924, with just
under 50% result. However, let me quote OCtoCh:

Bogoljubow's greatest successes came
in the years 1922-8, although his results
were erratic. He played in 17 strong
tournaments, winning eight first prizes
but on occasions scoring less than fifty
per cent. His first important wins were
at Piestany 1922 (+13=4-1), ahead of
ALECHINE, and at Carlsbad 1923, when he
tied with Alechine (both scored +9=5-3)
and MAROCZY. Still a Soviet citizen,
Bogoljubow won the USSR championship
in 1924 by margin of two and a half points.
At Breslaw in the following year he won
the German Open Championship (+9=1-1)
ahead of Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch, thus
becoming the only player to hold the
Soviet and German championships at the
same time. He again won the USSR
championship in 1925, and at the end of
the year the great moscow tournament
produced his finest achievement: first prize
(+13=5-2) ahead of LASKER, CAPABLANCA,
and Rubinstein.

END of Quotation

Bogo won still more, and at Bad Kissingen,
in 1928, with +6=4-1 score, ahead of Capablanca.

Now tell me, which of the participants of
the 2008 "strongest US tournament ever" is going
within two years to win a supertournament,
ahead of the strongest players of the day?
Which of them will play a world championship
match within the next twenty years? Give me
the name, please. Louder, please.

But Bogo placed 7th in the NY-1924, with
an under 50% score. It was not a bad tournament :-)

***

Rating and strength are well correlated
but not too well. A player might be uneven,
hence may have a lower rating than a more
consistent player. But it may be only the
first one who has a chance for world championship
-- Ivanchuk is like this; also Topalov was
like this.

***

A tournament may be Swiss with over a hundred
of players. But if it has the top 12 players
of the day than it is a super strong tournament
even if it has a very low category.

The same goes for a round robin with 24 players.
If it has 12 top chess players in the world then
it is again a super strong tournament, despite
the weak tail and low category.

Regards,

Wlod

PS. Chessmetrics is a nonsense.

PPS. I know how to make rating more
meaningful then the existing ratings.

On Tue, 27 May 2008 02:18:08 -0700 (PDT), help bot
wrote:


the pool
of rated players is much, much larger now,
so that fame is relatively tougher to come by.

But doesn't the larger pool make higher ratings (for those approaching
the top of the heap) relatively easier to come by ?

On May 27, 7:25 am, "Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)"
wrote:
On May 27, 2:18 am, help bot wrote:

Phil, what were the names from your "greatest"
tournament again? Louder, please.

What are the names of the present
participants of the strongest ever US
tournament again? Louder, please :-)

It looks like Wlod has confounded fame for chess
strength.

You are confusing the strength of
a tournament with the auxiliary
abstract notion of rating.

Um, no, I'm not.

What *you* are doing is mucking up the works,
as we see above where *you* substituted the
term "greatest" for "strongest". In sum, the
trouble here is that *you*, along with numskulls
like TK, have attempted various ploys which
confound player rankings or fame with objective
chess strength. You messed up; just accept it.


Our exercise in this thread has clearly
established the limited value of
the historical rating over 80 years
when it comes to evaluating the chess
strength.

Nonsense; nothing of the sort was "established".
One nutter merely /asserted/ that to be a fact.


Anyway, the chess tournament
is called strong if and only if it
attracts the strongest players of the
day.

That ploy is sometimes called "moving the
goalposts". Some friendly advice: when you
find yourself in a hole, put down your shovel!


Dr. Nearly-IMnes posted a list of names, several
of whom I had never heard of; but that doesn't
matter, since their FIDE ratings are pertinent,
while their fame (in my eyes) is immaterial.

It's not the fame but the chess successes
over the board, over the opposition, which
made those participants of the New York 1924
so strong.

Oddly enough, success over the board is
precisely what ratings compare. As we saw,
the three fellows at the bottom of Mr. Wlod's
list were not especially impressive in
comparison to Dr. IMnes' alleged 2600+
average players, except in terms of fame
and long-time familiarity. The top three do
impress in terms of /strength/.


Now tell me, which of the participants of
the 2008 "strongest US tournament ever" is going
within two years to win a supertournament,
ahead of the strongest players of the day?

This wrong-headed thinking has already been
debunked here. The challenge is relatively
simple: Sir IMnes' ten players need to be
bested in terms of /chess strength/. Thus
far, the talking heads have yet to even agree
on which tourney they believe is up to the
challenge; surely, this would be the first
step.


Which of them will play a world championship
match within the next twenty years?

Gata Kamsky? (I am merely guessing, of
course.)


-- help bot

On May 27, 9:31 am, Mike Murray wrote:
On Tue, 27 May 2008 02:18:08 -0700 (PDT), help bot

the pool
of rated players is much, much larger now,
so that fame is relatively tougher to come by.

But doesn't the larger pool make higher ratings (for those approaching
the top of the heap) relatively easier to come by ?

You tell me: if you jump into a swimming pool
and you become the fastest swimmer in the
pool, you get a rating X. Then you jump into
the Pacific Ocean, and find that you are not
only not THE fastest, but outclassed by just
about every large predator... and you get a
rating Y. Now, some of the talking heads
will revel in your apparent greatness in the
swimming pool, many years after you are
gone. But what are you, really, in the bigger
scheme of things? A small fish, who just
happened to be successful, in a small pool.

Rather than just say that things are "easier"
now, why not demonstrate just how easy it is?
Go ahead-- get a massive rating; show us how
very easy it is these days! No, I think that a
bigger pool makes for bigger predators, and
more layers of /food/ in the /chain/. I think it
is very likely that more than a few of the
familiar names could not compete at the top
these days, where some complain that they
are excluded for not being in the top-X by not
even being invited to play... .

Here are a few of the exceptions, folks who
I believe *could* compete at the top levels,
even today: Em. Lasker, Jose Capablanca,
Alex Alekhine, Sanny (just seeing if you
were paying attention), M. Botvinnik, etc.
All of these players weigh in at or above 2700
on the cheesemetrics Web site, for obvious
reasons.


-- help bot

wrote in message
...
On May 25, 9:39 am, "Chess One" wrote:

wrote in message

That would be a fine argument, except that there _were_ no ratings in
the 1920s. (Those back-chaining calculations are interesting but
unconvincing.) So, your choices are either a) deny the possibility of
a meaningful comparison (legitimate, but it makes your participation
in the discussion rather pointless), or b) use informed judgment and
commons sense. (Even though this means doing without your computer
crutch.) Is it really plausible to argue that any of the players in
the SPICE Cup are "stronger" (for any realistic definition of
"stronger")


The issue was, is, and will continue to be the category level of the
tournament.

No, Phil, that is no issue at all.

**Taylor, I take it that you have /another/ issue. And that is all very
well - but your means of pursuing it are to tell others that their point
makes them like Mussolini et co [the nearest thing that comes to your mind].
Therefore, there are at least 2 issues here.

**Since you do not take issue with my issue, then can I understand that you
do not contend that it is the strongest Category XV 10 person roundrobin
played in the USA?

**Pending that response, let us look at /your/ issue:-


The players have their ratings,
and figuring out the mean rating of the group is a cut-and-dried piece
of elementary arithmetic. If the mean is in the range 2601-2625, then
it's a Category XV event, no doubt about it. And as far as I know, in
the 38 years since FIDE started using Elo ratings, there has not been
an official Category XV event on US soil.

**As above. Therefore, neither I nor you are like Mussolini OR we both are.
But now, to your point:-

However, the original issue, as posed by Mr. HIllery in the first
post of this thread, is your claim that SPICE Cup will be the
"Strongest ever US Tournament." That is *_highly_* debatable.

**In which case, highly debate it! Either you or Mr. Hillery. Thus: please
begin such a debate at any time:-

Per your
own announcement, the highest-rated contestant SPICE Cup will have,
Onischuk, is #58 in the current FIDE rating list, and no one else is
even in the current top 100. This stands in sharp contrast to other
tournaments mentioned here which featured rosters composed mainy of
World Champions and world title contenders, players mostly in the top
10 or 20 of their day, and in the Top 100 of All Time, instead of
players who aren't even in *_today's_* top 100.

**Please tell us more. Which 10 of them for example played in similar
circumstances? To establish /your/ point you need to establish that the
category was 2600 average, not merely several individual players.

**If you merely extrapolate the [retro]ratings of players based on their
world ranking, then you argue not a fact, but a hypothesis. You make an 'if'
argument only - since naturally if you cite players who had no ratings, then
you cannot exactly argue that their non-existent category tournament stands
in actual contrast to the SPICE one.

The only argument to date is the tendentious one by Taylor Kingston who
thinks some 1920's tournament stronger - albeit, he has not demonstrated
that, even by retro-ratings.

Phil, you're just doing the same old flim-flammery you always do
when you're caught out in a mistake or exaggeration. This will no
doubt be a fine tournament, and I wish it all success. Just don't make
it out to be more than it is.

**It seems to me that you argue without any facts whatever - and failed to
even make your /own/ point, nevermind contest that of others - and you have
had more than 20 tries at this one alone. This is rather typical of your
spats, no? Doesn't matter if its me on this issue or on Lasker, Evans on
Soviet GMs, Keene on anything...

**Not only have you failed to substantiate your own argument, you nor
Hillery can't debate what you can't even say. This lack of definition seems
to exist in inverse proportion to your criticism of other people.

**Why you should conclude that I have made this tournament out to be 'more
than it is' is perhaps why I always think of you as Vaguer Kingston.

Phil Innes

" **In which case, highly debate it! Either you or Mr. Hillery.
Thus: please begin such a debate at any time." -- Phil Innes.

I think Phil, upon reading, say, the Declaration of Independence,
would likely respond with something like "Well, Tom, do you have
anything to say about British-American relations?" There is no point
in arguing with a man who cannot comprehend what he reads, or who, for
lack of ability to argue cogently, continually pretends not to
understand what he reads.
A variation on the Komodo Dragon skit comes to mind:

TK: The leaves on my trees are green.
PI: Yes, but what color are they?
TK: Green.
PI: If you have anything to say about color, spit it out!
TK: The leaves are green, Phil.
PI: This vague nonsense does not address the question of leaf
color.

etc. ad nauseam


On May 28, 9:25*am, "Chess One" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On May 25, 9:39 am, "Chess One" wrote:







wrote in message

That would be a fine argument, except that there _were_ no ratings in
the 1920s. (Those back-chaining calculations are interesting but
unconvincing.) So, your choices are either a) deny the possibility of
a meaningful comparison (legitimate, but it makes your participation
in the discussion rather pointless), or b) use informed judgment and
commons sense. (Even though this means doing without your computer
crutch.) Is it really plausible to argue that any of the players in
the SPICE Cup are "stronger" (for any realistic definition of
"stronger")

The issue was, is, and will continue to be the category level of the
tournament.

* No, Phil, that is no issue at all.

**Taylor, I take it that you have /another/ issue. And that is all very
well - but your means of pursuing it are to tell others that their point
makes them like Mussolini et co [the nearest thing that comes to your mind].
Therefore, there are at least 2 issues here.

**Since you do not take issue with my issue, then can I understand that you
do not contend that it is the strongest Category XV 10 person roundrobin
played in the USA?

**Pending that response, let us look at /your/ issue:-

*The players have their ratings,
and figuring out the mean rating of the group is a cut-and-dried piece
of elementary arithmetic. If the mean is in the range 2601-2625, then
it's a Category XV event, no doubt about it. And as far as I know, in
the 38 years since FIDE started using Elo ratings, there has not been
an official Category XV event on US soil.

**As above. Therefore, neither I nor you are like Mussolini OR we both are..
But now, to your point:-

* However, the original issue, as posed by Mr. HIllery in the first
post of this thread, is your claim that SPICE Cup will be the
"Strongest ever US Tournament." That is *_highly_* debatable.

**In which case, highly debate it! Either you or Mr. Hillery. Thus: please
begin such a debate at any time:-

*Per your
own announcement, the highest-rated contestant SPICE Cup will have,
Onischuk, is #58 in the current FIDE rating list, and no one else is
even in the current top 100. This stands in sharp contrast to other
tournaments mentioned here which featured rosters composed mainy of
World Champions and world title contenders, players mostly in the top
10 or 20 of their day, and in the Top 100 of All Time, instead of
players who aren't even in *_today's_* top 100.

**Please tell us more. Which 10 of them for example played in similar
circumstances? To establish /your/ point you need to establish that the
category was 2600 average, not merely several individual players.

**If you merely extrapolate the [retro]ratings of players based on their
world ranking, then you argue not a fact, but a hypothesis. You make an 'if'
argument only - since naturally if you cite players who had no ratings, then
you cannot exactly argue that their non-existent category tournament stands
in actual contrast to the SPICE one.

The only argument to date is the tendentious one by Taylor Kingston who
thinks some 1920's tournament stronger - albeit, he has not demonstrated
that, even by retro-ratings.

* Phil, you're just doing the same old flim-flammery you always do
when you're caught out in a mistake or exaggeration. This will no
doubt be a fine tournament, and I wish it all success. Just don't make
it out to be more than it is.

**It seems to me that you argue without any facts whatever - and failed to
even make your /own/ point, nevermind contest that of others - and you have
had more than 20 tries at this one alone. This is rather typical of your
spats, no? Doesn't matter if its me on this issue or on Lasker, Evans on
Soviet GMs, Keene on anything...

**Not only have you failed to substantiate your own argument, you nor
Hillery can't debate what you can't even say. This lack of definition seems
to exist in inverse proportion to your criticism of other people.

**Why you should conclude that I have made this tournament out to be 'more
than it is' is perhaps why I always think of you as Vaguer Kingston.

Phil Innes- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Tue, 27 May 2008 21:05:52 -0700 (PDT), help bot
wrote:


the pool
of rated players is much, much larger now,
so that fame is relatively tougher to come by.

But doesn't the larger pool make higher ratings (for those approaching
the top of the heap) relatively easier to come by ?

No, I think that a
bigger pool makes for bigger predators, and
more layers of /food/ in the /chain/.

Which makes for bigger numbers, does it not?

In a pool of, say, 100,000 players, the cream might rise to 2800 while
a pool of 2,000 might tend to top out at 2700 or something like that,
even assuming some mysterious top-end "strength" (as opposed to the
"performance" measured by ratings) which the best players in both
pools never exceed.

Maybe some of the more mathematically gifted jocks can point out the
errors, if any, in this.

On May 28, 1:06 pm, Mike Murray wrote:

Which makes for bigger numbers, does it not?

Only at the top. The numbers at the bottom will
be *smaller*, so it averages out.


In a pool of, say, 100,000 players, the cream might rise to 2800 while
a pool of 2,000 might tend to top out at 2700 or something like that,
even assuming some mysterious top-end "strength" (as opposed to the
"performance" measured by ratings) which the best players in both
pools never exceed.

Why muddy things up? There is no strength
which cannot be exceeded, except at a level
even Rybka cannot dream of achieving (the
endgame table-bases, plus middle game
table-bases, plus openings table-bases, all
patched together perfectly).


Maybe some of the more mathematically gifted jocks can point out the
errors, if any, in this.

Yeah... they might be able to point out that
in their efforts to attack nearly-IMnes, the
talking heads here have tossed reason right out
the window.

Take the chessmetrics Web site, for instance;
Mr. Wlod doesn't like it one bit, and thus, he
rejects their numbers even without examining
them for accuracy. Now me, if I rejected the
numbers for, say, Mr. Janowski, I might have a
look to see what the folks at chessmetrics did
wrong to come up with their (supposedly)
bogus number. Like say, leaving out a big
tourney he won with a clean score, or including
a match which he deliberately threw for $10,000
shekels. But not Mr. Wlod, no sir; he don't
need nuthin' but opinion to back up his opinion!

And then there's Taylor Kingston-- the man
who is so creative he can come up with a new
ploy on demand, so to speak. This time is was
a comparison of world rankings, from the top,
which were supposed to establish the relative
strengths of players from different eras. The
obvious flaw is that his approach mistakenly
assumes the top rank is a fixed point from
which all chess strengths can be measured
downwards, time having zero effect.

I am truly amazed that nobody seems to be
able to come up with a system which fairly
accounts for all known results, and the other
factors involved in calculating chess strength.
There are a few gaps, here and there, but by
and large we have the results, the ages of the
players, and powerful computers... what more
is needed for this job?

I pointed out three players on Mr. Wlod's
list who could possibly be bested by Dr. Phil
IMnes', since they were well below world
champion strength, as seen in their ratings
at chessmetrics. These guys were in a class
below the top contenders-- assuming that a
class is two hundred points or thereabouts.
In view of this weakness, the fact that names
on Sir IMnes' list are not of world champion
strength seems largely irrelevant.


-- help bot