On Apr 25, 1:11 am, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

On second thought, the Swiss system has an inherent defect of
inequitable distribution of colors. A system which attempts to balance
the first move advantage of White through a scoring edge for Black
should help to correct this Swiss system problem.


Or... we could only have Swiss tourneys with an
*even* number of rounds, so that everybody gets
the same number of Whites and Blacks.


-- help bot

On Apr 25, 10:20 am, " wrote:


Snipped long-winded, sloppy story.


Poor Mr. Parr hates it when those ugly facts interfere with
the Evans propaganda!


The stories posted here by Evans ratpacker Larry Parr
always seem to goof on some key details.

For instance, the long-winded attempt to play back the
history of the world championship left out parts where
Gary Kasparov -- a favorite of the ratpackers -- failed, such
as his GMA and PCA debacles. Mr. Parr also "forgot to
mention" that GK's handling of his private world title had
selected GM Shirov as challenger, but instead of, say,
giving GK a rematch clause, Mr. Shirov was simply
cheated out of his shot at the title altogether!

As horrible a job as FIDE has done, it seems that
there will always be a few who can still "out-do" the
hacks at their own game. It reminds me of what went on
before FIDE took over, of the ducking and conniving of
just about every world champ whose name was not
Wilhelm Steinitz. In many cases, the result of the
champions having free reign was that the most worthy
contenders were not even able to get a foot in the door.

Instead of arguing that Gary Kasparov was a champion
of "justice", perhaps Larry Evans should take a good,
hard look at what justice is-- like he did when Bobby
Fischer was barking "demands" at FIDE.


-- help bot

GREG KENNEDY STRIKES OUT AGAIN

Or... we could only have Swiss tourneys with an
*even* number of rounds, so that everybody gets
the same number of Whites and Blacks. -- help bot

David Kane falsely claimed the rematch clause is no advantage to
the champion.
But here is what Mikhail Tal wrote after losing the title back to
Mikhail Botvinnik, who exercised the clause in 1961: "I often have to
answer a ticklish question: what do you think of return matches? As it
happened the honour of 'closing this page of the FIDE' fell to my lot.
What would it have cost the International Chess Federation to take
the decision to abolish return matches a year earlier?!"

Now Greg overlooks that an even number of rounds in a Swiss does
NOT mean equal colors for everyone. If two leaders both have 3 whites
and 2 blacks going into the last round of a six-round Swiss, one of
them will end up with 4 whites and 2 blacks.

And so it goes.





help bot wrote:
On Apr 25, 1:11 am, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

On second thought, the Swiss system has an inherent defect of
inequitable distribution of colors. A system which attempts to balance
the first move advantage of White through a scoring edge for Black
should help to correct this Swiss system problem.


Or... we could only have Swiss tourneys with an
*even* number of rounds, so that everybody gets
the same number of Whites and Blacks.


-- help bot

I AGREE WITH GREG BUT....

For instance, the long-winded attempt to play back the
history of the world championship left out parts where
Gary Kasparov -- a favorite of the ratpackers -- failed, such
as his GMA and PCA debacles. Mr. Parr also "forgot to
mention" that GK's handling of his private world title had
selected GM Shirov as challenger, but instead of, say,
giving GK a rematch clause, Mr. Shirov was simply
cheated out of his shot at the title altogether! -- Greg Kennedy

I criticized Kasparov at the time. And GM Evans was also sharply
critical of Kasparov in his Chess Life when replying to Owen Williams
{K's manager).

But the fact of the matter is that nobody offered to put up a decent
purse for that match because of Kasparov's lopsided record of wins
against Shirov in the past.
The outcome was deemed to be a foregone conclusion.




help bot wrote:
On Apr 25, 10:20 am, " wrote:


Snipped long-winded, sloppy story.


Poor Mr. Parr hates it when those ugly facts interfere with
the Evans propaganda!


The stories posted here by Evans ratpacker Larry Parr
always seem to goof on some key details.

For instance, the long-winded attempt to play back the
history of the world championship left out parts where
Gary Kasparov -- a favorite of the ratpackers -- failed, such
as his GMA and PCA debacles. Mr. Parr also "forgot to
mention" that GK's handling of his private world title had
selected GM Shirov as challenger, but instead of, say,
giving GK a rematch clause, Mr. Shirov was simply
cheated out of his shot at the title altogether!

As horrible a job as FIDE has done, it seems that
there will always be a few who can still "out-do" the
hacks at their own game. It reminds me of what went on
before FIDE took over, of the ducking and conniving of
just about every world champ whose name was not
Wilhelm Steinitz. In many cases, the result of the
champions having free reign was that the most worthy
contenders were not even able to get a foot in the door.

Instead of arguing that Gary Kasparov was a champion
of "justice", perhaps Larry Evans should take a good,
hard look at what justice is-- like he did when Bobby
Fischer was barking "demands" at FIDE.


-- help bot

On Apr 26, 2:08 pm, " wrote:

David Kane falsely claimed the rematch clause is no advantage to
the champion.

Quote him, then. What's that-- you haven't got a
quote of DK saying that? Hmmm.


But here is what Mikhail Tal wrote after losing the title back to
Mikhail Botvinnik, who exercised the clause in 1961: "I often have to
answer a ticklish question: what do you think of return matches? As it
happened the honour of 'closing this page of the FIDE' fell to my lot.
What would it have cost the International Chess Federation to take
the decision to abolish return matches a year earlier?!"

Now Greg overlooks that an even number of rounds in a Swiss does
NOT mean equal colors for everyone. If two leaders both have 3 whites
and 2 blacks going into the last round of a six-round Swiss, one of
them will end up with 4 whites and 2 blacks.

Interesting. Of course, nearly every Swiss tournament
I have played in had fewer than six rounds. The main
problem is with the weekend Swiss of five rounds (that's
three on Saturday, and two on Sunday), where at the end,
the winner may have had an extra White and the losers
might complain of having been jilted.

Now that pairings are done by computer, the cases in
which somebody gets too many Blacks cannot so easily
be blamed on the tournament director or on favoritism. I
think players who have had a bye or who are in the lower
portion of the scoring table will be the most likely victims
here. Folks who have a perfect score tend to get their
due colors (unless they've changed the rules, again).

But let's talk about Mikhail Tal's issues for a moment.
We know that in addition to the rematch he lost to GM
Botvinnik, he was also subjected to the special rule
which restricted the number of qualifiers from "any one
country" (obviously meaning the USSR); that rule was
passed due to complaints regarding potential collusion
in the candidates tournament format-- complaints by
Bobby Fischer (which incidentally, wrongly implicated
Victor Kortchnoi as a cheater who purportedly "threw"
his games to keep BF from winning). Obviously, when
politics enter the fray, fairness goes out the window.

I am flatly against having a rematch clause. If one
cycle every three years is not good enough, then they
can change the cycle to make it "fit" in less time. The
champion should have no advantage whatsoever, or,
if that is not possible, then his advantage should be
limited to not having to qualify (again) and play in the
preliminary events, to show he is good enough to be
a "real contender".

I don't know which hurt Mikhail Tal more-- the rematch
clause, the special rule or losing a kidney. But the real
problem seems to be that the talking heads in the
chess press can't stand it when there are a multitude
of near-equals in contention for the title; they respond
by selecting one favorite, and then attacking everybody
else. Or the other way around-- they select one player
to play the villain, and everybody else is written into the
script as the good guys. LOL!

Larry Evans' approach has consistently been to cast
Gary Kasparov as a good guy, but this choice was not
well thought-out (consider his blatant cheating, and his
ever-changing lies). And one of the most obvious
problems with casting Mr. Botvinnik as villain, is that
he consistently defeated those players who were
beyond the reach of evil Soviet henchmen who were
cast in the roles of manipulators. For instance, when
the script calls for super-Soviet players to "throw" their
games, we are not supposed to notice that at the very
same time, western super-stars are also losing to MB,
simply being *outplayed* on the chess board.

Not to pick on Larry Evans, mind you; I notice this
same type of flaw in many, many movie and TV
scripts. It seems that the one thing all these story
writers have in common is, unsurprisingly, creativity;
and for whatever reason, creativity and logical thinking
just do not go hand-in-hand.


-- help bot

FIND THE QUOTE YOURSELF

It's in this very thread.

David Kane falsely claimed the rematch clause is no advantage to
the champion.

Quote him, then. What's that-- you haven't got a
quote of DK saying that? Hmmm.

help bot wrote:
On Apr 26, 2:08 pm, " wrote:

David Kane falsely claimed the rematch clause is no advantage to
the champion.

Quote him, then. What's that-- you haven't got a
quote of DK saying that? Hmmm.


But here is what Mikhail Tal wrote after losing the title back to
Mikhail Botvinnik, who exercised the clause in 1961: "I often have to
answer a ticklish question: what do you think of return matches? As it
happened the honour of 'closing this page of the FIDE' fell to my lot.
What would it have cost the International Chess Federation to take
the decision to abolish return matches a year earlier?!"

Now Greg overlooks that an even number of rounds in a Swiss does
NOT mean equal colors for everyone. If two leaders both have 3 whites
and 2 blacks going into the last round of a six-round Swiss, one of
them will end up with 4 whites and 2 blacks.

Interesting. Of course, nearly every Swiss tournament
I have played in had fewer than six rounds. The main
problem is with the weekend Swiss of five rounds (that's
three on Saturday, and two on Sunday), where at the end,
the winner may have had an extra White and the losers
might complain of having been jilted.

Now that pairings are done by computer, the cases in
which somebody gets too many Blacks cannot so easily
be blamed on the tournament director or on favoritism. I
think players who have had a bye or who are in the lower
portion of the scoring table will be the most likely victims
here. Folks who have a perfect score tend to get their
due colors (unless they've changed the rules, again).

But let's talk about Mikhail Tal's issues for a moment.
We know that in addition to the rematch he lost to GM
Botvinnik, he was also subjected to the special rule
which restricted the number of qualifiers from "any one
country" (obviously meaning the USSR); that rule was
passed due to complaints regarding potential collusion
in the candidates tournament format-- complaints by
Bobby Fischer (which incidentally, wrongly implicated
Victor Kortchnoi as a cheater who purportedly "threw"
his games to keep BF from winning). Obviously, when
politics enter the fray, fairness goes out the window.

I am flatly against having a rematch clause. If one
cycle every three years is not good enough, then they
can change the cycle to make it "fit" in less time. The
champion should have no advantage whatsoever, or,
if that is not possible, then his advantage should be
limited to not having to qualify (again) and play in the
preliminary events, to show he is good enough to be
a "real contender".

I don't know which hurt Mikhail Tal more-- the rematch
clause, the special rule or losing a kidney. But the real
problem seems to be that the talking heads in the
chess press can't stand it when there are a multitude
of near-equals in contention for the title; they respond
by selecting one favorite, and then attacking everybody
else. Or the other way around-- they select one player
to play the villain, and everybody else is written into the
script as the good guys. LOL!

Larry Evans' approach has consistently been to cast
Gary Kasparov as a good guy, but this choice was not
well thought-out (consider his blatant cheating, and his
ever-changing lies). And one of the most obvious
problems with casting Mr. Botvinnik as villain, is that
he consistently defeated those players who were
beyond the reach of evil Soviet henchmen who were
cast in the roles of manipulators. For instance, when
the script calls for super-Soviet players to "throw" their
games, we are not supposed to notice that at the very
same time, western super-stars are also losing to MB,
simply being *outplayed* on the chess board.

Not to pick on Larry Evans, mind you; I notice this
same type of flaw in many, many movie and TV
scripts. It seems that the one thing all these story
writers have in common is, unsurprisingly, creativity;
and for whatever reason, creativity and logical thinking
just do not go hand-in-hand.


-- help bot

wrote in message
...
GREG KENNEDY STRIKES OUT AGAIN

Or... we could only have Swiss tourneys with an
*even* number of rounds, so that everybody gets
the same number of Whites and Blacks. -- help bot

David Kane falsely claimed the rematch clause is no advantage to
the champion.

I said that it is not an advantage in the title defense itself. Even though
I am no great fan of the rematch clause, it is akin to the practice
of seeding the defeated champion in the Candidates cycle.

The point was that there is no way to *mathematically* compare
that advantage with an actual advantage in the match. I would
rather go on vacation to Hawaii than paint my kitchen, but it cannot
be characterized as a "mathematical" comparison.

I'm sure Parr is one of those with absolutely no understanding
of mathematics. And he is all too willing to ramble on about
topics which he does not understand.

On Apr 25, 10:13 am, Rich Hutnik wrote:

Bid for time? Do you mean set the clock at 6 minutes, and players bid
less to decide what side they would play? This way they players who
bids less time would pick the side (let's presume white here). Not
sure bidding more time is the right answer here.

I'm not sure how that was intended to work, either.

I know that in Go, it has been suggested that players bid for komi in
order to get black - that is, the player who offers to score the most
points over the other player to win, if he gets the first move, does
get the first move.

A bit like Contract Bridge.

I suppose the player gets White who offers the largest time advantage
to his opponent...

John Savard

"Quadibloc" wrote in message
...
On Apr 25, 10:13 am, Rich Hutnik wrote:

Bid for time? Do you mean set the clock at 6 minutes, and players bid
less to decide what side they would play? This way they players who
bids less time would pick the side (let's presume white here). Not
sure bidding more time is the right answer here.

I'm not sure how that was intended to work, either.

I know that in Go, it has been suggested that players bid for komi in
order to get black - that is, the player who offers to score the most
points over the other player to win, if he gets the first move, does
get the first move.

A bit like Contract Bridge.

I suppose the player gets White who offers the largest time advantage
to his opponent...

John Savard

What I meant was that the player who agrees to play with the least
time gets the first White.

"David Kane" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
. ..

wrote in message
...
GREG KENNEDY STRIKES OUT AGAIN

Or... we could only have Swiss tourneys with an
*even* number of rounds, so that everybody gets
the same number of Whites and Blacks. -- help bot

David Kane falsely claimed the rematch clause is no advantage to
the champion.

I said that it is not an advantage in the title defense itself. Even
though
I am no great fan of the rematch clause, it is akin to the practice
of seeding the defeated champion in the Candidates cycle.

The point was that there is no way to *mathematically* compare
that advantage with an actual advantage in the match.

Why not?

If challenger and champion have the same chance of winning
a 24-game match then the champion will retain the title
75% of the time, winning either the match or the rematch.

If the odds are 7-3 against the champion the odds are even
that he will win either match or rematch.

In other words: the advantage is enormous.

I would
rather go on vacation to Hawaii than paint my kitchen, but it cannot
be characterized as a "mathematical" comparison.

I'm sure Parr is one of those with absolutely no understanding
of mathematics. And he is all too willing to ramble on about
topics which he does not understand.


You think Parr are rambling when they are actually reporting
on their historical research. They are now, very likely, working on
the important question of what would have become of Europe
had the Siege of Vienna succeeded in 1529. Suleiman the
Magnificent would then have become Sultan of the Occident and,
obviously, the World Trade Center would still be standing.