Chessbase amp Correspondence Chess

  

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Thibault de Vassal    (2007-03-23)
Chessbase & Correspondence Chess

Chessbase just published an article (to be continued) about Correspondence Chess, quite interesting & debating the question 'should computer analysis be allowed' in correspondence chess...

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3749


Lionel Vidal    (2007-03-23 18:59:07)
Not too up-to-date article...

Computers are much better in chess now than in 1998 ( :-) or :-( ... hum maybe :-( for me...). I am not sure that a player, even J. Edwards (very good player and a good chess writer too!) could be sure anymore to CC-outplay an engine running 24h/day on a modern hardware platform. He might win, yes, but might only IMHO.

Nowadays, many CC players (most?) consider that using an engine is *not* cheating, and I am so sure that *most* sites, as said in the article, do prohibit such a use. At least it could be noted that the strongest players seem to play in ICCF (or maybe iecg ... and in FICGS of course :-)) where engines are allowed. (and this is good IMO, not per se but, as it is often recalled, because their ban could not be correctly enforced)

Anyway I am looking forward to reading the next article to use more effenciently chessbase :-)


Elmer Valderrama    (2007-03-26 11:47:37)
Oh dear

I've got nothing against chessbase, but as you can see, they go so low quality that is impossible to ignore them ;)

The main thing from this article (ie shot in the foot) is that actually nobody learns anything about how to use ChessBase in Correspondence Chess :)

All we got is a careful description of what is legal or illegal !?

It would be good if the second part is written by someone a bit more experienced but as it seems there is no-one available there, at least the author could benefit from reading some other CC forums (although judging by the "hope my opponents are using engine(Fritz) assistance" which looks familiar to me ;), they could be reading this one 8-)


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-03-27 14:02:24)
Correspondence Chess

Chessbase published the second article...

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3750


Elmer Valderrama    (2007-03-27 17:48:51)
the second article...

..At least we got an inmediate response after the criticism ;-)

Once I am relieved from the headache of reading the first part of this very involved article, I'll post my comments..

BTW at first glance it seems the author has the bad habit of NOT giving an assessment to his annotated lines, ..or are we supposed to look at the engine's evaluation :-) --which are illegal to use, remember?!


Elmer Valderrama    (2007-03-30 10:59:09)
Part 3 is out ..(yawn)...

Okey, Okey, guys, that's not bad for an introduction of e-mail(?!) CC techniques for beginners..

But to be honest you shouldn't be wasting your time in this series and start doing more useful things like implementing the XfccBasic client protocol for correspondence chess servers. Even the IECG server has not ruled out its adoption later (hope you neither, Thibault ;).

But this must be done tout de suite, and the tooter the sweeter, as said. ;-)


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-03-30 17:08:38)
Xfcc

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3751


Xfcc - XML web services for correspondence chess - http://www.xfcc.org

Now reading the technical specification ;)


Scott Prestwood    (2007-04-16 16:19:09)
Consider this

It has been a part of the correspondence chess tradition that you can use your own personal databases. Well, what if this database has a large proportion of computer verses human games? Computer verses computer? What if these databases were being generated by computers? Many chess viewers and database applications provide statistics and information are not reasonably generated by anything other than a computer. It seems that computer chess will be slowly keeping in.


Thibault de Vassal    (2007-04-16 16:45:13)
Fortunately...

... chess programs are not strong enough to generate good correspondence chess opening trees :)