Chess Thread 2009

[Gerald Tarrant]

After a post in Testing it was determined that there would be some SDN interest in a chess thingie, at the moment we're not sure if that will be a tourney? Or just some sort of free-for all and comparison of Elo rankings. In any case if you have any interest in participating and have your own preferences for how this ought to go toss in your input. I tried this for a little while back in late 2007. And this post is mostly from that period. The list of people interested in participating is current though (as of 9:45 pm MST). If you'd like to try post, or PM and I'll add you to the list.

Here's the old thread Chess Thread Mk 1 It lasted for a fair amount of time.

The old rules

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1. The first phase of the tourney shall consist of a "free for all" wherein each player will play each other player in the tourney at least twice -- playing each side of the board once.

2. Players may challenge another player on the tourney in this thread.  All challenges shall be accepted except where the challenged player is already involved in another game; the challenged player may then ask to delay the match until his or her other game is complete.

3. The challenged player gets to pick which side he will play, unless the two players have played before, in which case they should reverse positions from the previous game.

4. Players may use any method of play that they choose (IRC, online client, play-by-PM, etc), although they should endeavor to complete a game in no more than one week's time from the date of acceptance of the challenge.

5. One player in each game shall post to this thread the completed game in algebraic notation.  (Smack-talk and play-by-play analysis encouraged!)  Players have the option of posting ongoing games in a partially completed manner, please don't kibitz about ongoing games

6. If a completed game that is posted is shown by a third party to contain illegal moves, the entire game shall be replayed.  

7. Rankings shall use the Elo rating system (with a K-factor of 32, with a starting rank for all players of 1500.

8.  This tourney is supposed to be a reflection of your skill, not of what Chess books or Chess programs you have.  If you have any Chess aids please don't use them during your games.  Advice from third parties is a Chess aid.  Don't ask for it please.  And don't give it to participants in the tourney.

A few other sort of important things that came up in the planning

calculation of Elo ranking, maybe someone can through together a GoogleDocs spreadsheet for this.

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(S-Se) * 32 + Original Rank= New Rank

Where S=score over any interval, and Se is the expected score over that interval.

For example if two players were equally ranked one would have an Se for that match of .5 or a draw.

As a note the 32 is taken from the US Chess Federation's formula. If your rating passes a certain point the constant becomes 24, and then 16 past another point.

The expected value is also listed in the Wiki article

Ea is the expected value for a player A's games with 1 being a win and 0 being a loss

Ra is player A's rating

Rb is player B's rating

Eb is the expected value for player B.

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Ea = 1/ (1+10^( (Rb-Ra)/400 ) )

Eb = 1/(1+10^( (Ra-Rb)/400 ) )

The above formulas are pretty easy to calculate. My proposal is that we initially start everyone as a 1500 rating. Each person will play each other person once at least, twice if possible (mostly to remove any bias about being better or worse with a particular side). And it's not bad at setting up rivalries either, i.e. if someone comes out with an 1800, everyone will be out to get them.

The Jester who was fairly active, and universally victorious liked to use this software here to visualize his chess board and make diagrams.

Former Vice President Schuyler Colfax,
Thanas
Surlethe
Destructionator XIII
Gerald Tarrant
Jaepheth
Feil
Death


7 players

last thread I wanted at least 10 people for reasons that I can't remember

[Zablorg]

I'm interested. Sign me up as a probably.

[Temjin]

I'd do it, but last time I participated in one of these my opponent and I could never match up a time to play, and my schedule sucks even more now. That happens with a night shift job and random doctor's appointments at odd hours.

[Gerald Tarrant]

Ok the current list

Schuyler Colfax,
Thanas
Surlethe
Destructionator XIII
Gerald Tarrant
Jaepheth
Feil
Death
Tamijn (possible scheduling issues)
Zablorg (can't make up his mind thinks he'd like to play)

9 players 8 1/2 players

As for time conflicts I think we can manage a play by PM, and if needed just extend how long a game can go on.

That seems like a decent list, and barring any disagreements about THE RULES, I guess we could start challenging each other to matches

[The Jester]

I should be available.