wrote in message
...

Phil in a way is much like Ray Goulding's character in the classic
Bob & Ray "Komodo Dragon" skit. One answers his questions, and he then
proceeds to ask the same questions again, as if they had not been
answered. I have yet to figure out definitely whether Phil's
comprehension is simply poor, or (more likely, IMO) this is a
deliberate dodge on his part, albeit a very inept one.

--
**Taylor Kingston commits his usual character assassination techniques,
because he asserted that some group of 1920's players were stronger than
these SPICE Cup participants in 2008. When asked to name the 10 players
rated average 2600 he responds by saying I am 'repeating the question'

**I suppose Taylor Kingston /could/ have made the 'correction' to my post
himself by adding that although there were no ratings at the time /he/
mentions, he personally subscribes to these retrospective ratings, and these
players [naming them], would in his opinion, provide a stronger group of 10
players rated over 2600 who played in the USA in the late 1920's. That at
least is a cogent statement in English syntax. He not only manages not to so
explain himself, but also not justify his reasoning, nor even select his
team of 10 !

**Instead he has written some dozen times on this subject, and then switched
to this thread - which avoids chess discussion entirely. He is angry at me
because I ask about his 1920's team of 10 which he hasn't named.

**So Taylor Kingston relies on this 'correction' technique to assert his
//own// point, and those who don't quite get it commit 'a deliberate dodge'.
I suppose that's true only in the sense of getting out of Dodge City and
back to Chess Ville!

**The last time Taylor Kingston made a campaign of an issue was about his
hero Lasker, since I wrote that he came 8th in a tournament, and our TK was
furious! He then demanded to know the reference, which I provided him, which
is contained in a chess encyclopedia that I know he posseses [but he didn't
look at before issuing his own crabby comments on other's sanity, etc] and
the encyclopedia entry was also written by one of his favorite chess
historians, Hooper!

**Taylor Kingston without apoloigy then continued by the remarkable means of
declaring Hooper wrong... and ... is the reader catching the 'drift' of the
Taylor Kingston?

Phil Innes
---


Younger readers not familiar with the skit can hear it by going
he

http://www.bobandray.com/listen.html

and clicking on the appropriate icon by "Komodo Dragon."

In case any actual chess players are reading here, the official announcement
of the 2008 SPICE Cup states:-

"This will be a category 15 event (Approximately 2600+ FIDE and 2670+ USCF)
which is the highest rated 10-player International RR tournament in U.S.
history. The last invitation will go out right after the July 1, 2008 FIDE
rating list is published."

Phil Innes

On May 23, 7:24 am, "Chess One" wrote:
In case any actual chess players are reading here, the official announcement
of the 2008 SPICE Cup states:-

"This will be a category 15 event (Approximately 2600+ FIDE and 2670+ USCF)
which is the highest rated 10-player International RR tournament in U.S.
history. The last invitation will go out right after the July 1, 2008 FIDE
rating list is published."

It is interesting to note the difference between FIDE
and USCF ratings at that level.

As I noted before, some ratings of, say, New York
1927 or some such tournament's contestants can
easily be found online; but these are not /directly/
comparable to FIDE (or USCF) ratings. The trouble
would be that a vague number like "2600+" is not
easy to beat, since it has no upper limit! It reminds
me of Rybka-- a program which seems limited only
by the relatively few other programs which can still
draw it, which in turn perform somewhat lower
against other programs, and so on down the line.

Q: Why is it that the ratpackers are not bashing
this tourney for being played in Texas, rather than
the Northeast? They bashed the USCF for daring
to relocate westward, as if that in itself was some
sort of heinous crime... .


-- help bot

wrote in message
...
But again, his point?

Well, _my_ point is that a tournament whose best player is only #56
in the world, and which has no one else even in the top 100, has no
business claiming it's "stronger" than tournaments that included the
likes of world's top three and many others from the top 10 or 20.

**At last - a plain statement. To answer it is also plain. Which previous
group of 10-players achieved a Category XV in a round-robin tournament on US
soil?

**An aside is merely to make a comment that maybe #56 these days is as
strong as #5 75 years ago, and that is 'the business'.

**I hope TK will answer with his list of 10 players averaging 2600 in an rr,
and I leave him with the final comment that it is the tournament that is
rated cat XV, based on overall participation, not just the retrograde
calculation of the top 4 or 5 players.

**I would answer the question I put TK myself, but don't know of any such
event. Since there are so many opinions in this thread, perhaps we could
declare open season on anyone providing an answer?

Phil Innes

"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

"David Richerby" wrote in message
news
If you'd just said something like, ``Oh, I'm sorry. By `US', I mean
`on US soil' and by `strongest', I meant `highest-category','' I
wouldn't have bothered to say anything.

If you had bothered to ask for a detail you wanted, instead of make demands,
huff puff and blame, then maybe you would have got an answer?

It would be nice if you went
back and corrected the original article but it's the lying that gets
to me. And the fact that you feel the need to insult intelligent
people who (and I'm being charitable to you, here) misunderstood your
ambiguous writing.

You condescending prat!

There is nothing ambiguous about the way you write.

If you know of a previous cat XV 10-player round-robin on US soil, then say
so. Otherwise, your and other peoples 'understanding' is completely
elective.

Phil Innes


Dave.

--
David Richerby Flammable Postman (TM): it's like
a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ man who delivers the mail but it
burns
really easily!

wrote in message
...


help bot wrote:
The loony TK seems to have come up with yet another
absurd ploy: using "rankings" to compare relative chess
strength from different eras. Well, we all know that this
doesn't work, because *strength* is best measured by
ratings, not rankings.

-- help bot


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")

Why don't you define your /own/ terms instead of prating about those of
others?

What, for example, does 'realisitic' mean?

than Spassky, Fischer, Larsen and Petrosian in 1966, or
Capablanca, Alekhine and Nimzovich in 1927? I don't think so, but I
would be interested in seeing a well-reasoned argument to the
contrary. So far I haven't.

The issue was, is, and will continue to be the category level of the
tournament. Therefore, 3 high ranked players do not a 10 person roundrobin
make.

If you want to argue 'strongest tournament' based on 3 players, then maybe
the 'realistic definition' of what a category is escapes you? In fact, what
are you arguing?

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 Innes

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. 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.
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. 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.

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.

Phil here thought he was arguing with me. Even though it was
actually John Hillery, I'll make a few minor rebuttals on various
points:

On May 20, 9:20*am, "Chess One" wrote:

**Since you don't align your text with mine, what facts are you contesting?
I made the simple statement that this was the highest category US
tournament, and asked you to contest it if you think there was a cat 15
before, or some equal field of players averaging 2600.

To be precise, Category 15 requires a mean rating of at least 2601.
An average of 2600 would make it Category 14.

**Of course Piatigorsky and Lone Pine were stronger -

Lone Pine? You're joking, right? The Lone Pine tournaments were
Swiss System events open to anyone rated at least 2200, or even as low
as 2000 if the player was under age 21. Lone Pine did attract many GMs
over the years, including some very high in the world rankings, but
overall those tournaments were in the single digits category-wise.

"Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)"
wrote in messagenews:
...

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 :-)

**To what end, Wlod?

Perhaps to make them finally known
to the wide chess public (not everybody
knows players from the sixth ten or
further down the road).

**If you choose [blah, blah, blah]

Phil Innes

Once again, who are those players
of yours, stronger than Bogoliubow?

Wlod