Keep ready ! Our guy is coming back his long holidays tomorrow!!

Complete lack of sportsmanship for QFMCunctator.  Also the player has 82% timeouts currently.  He should be dropped from the tournament based on the sportsmanship alone.

http://www.chess.com/tournaments/player_summary?id=44802&member=QFMCunctator

I can't believe we really have to wait 24 days until this dude comes back from vacation. Like honestly, this tournament should have ended a long time ago. I'm like so ready to move on to the second round. 

I will also send a complaint to Patzer 24. Ridiculous.

I think the only thing we can do is complain. I'm going to complain to Patzer 24 about this player, and if you feel the same as me I encourage you to do so too!

http://www.chess.com/tournaments/player_summary?id=44802&member=QFMCunctator

this guy is so intelligent. holding 84 games on several tournaments by vacation status, while plaing dozen of live games every week. He is anoying so many people and expect to win on time later.

What can we do against him ? simply everyone of us claim to Patzer 24 to delete this profile.

More than slowing it down; it's ground to a halt. Why enter a 24 hour tournament if you plan to do this? Bad form.

How annoying that one player is slowing the whole tournament down..

I enjoy reading everyones comments about this particular tournament because I feel as though some people might be using search engines at times to help them through their games. Me, I prefer to just use my brain and make the best decision that way. I would agree with @spacebux that I'm not afraid of losing because you get to learn from your mistakes and go over your opening preperations a little better for the next games. Although my rating is over 1900, I feel as though that's overrated. Yeah, my "online" chess rating might be better than my "live" rating but I know where I really stand and I try not to pay attention to the ratings too much. I feel like I got to the level I'm at right now because some made some really bad choices in the game or they was winning by far and just made one mistake that change the game. 

Hi Spacebux, I like your amusing creation: "found a way to convert a winning position into a loss". You've made my day. I think we agree over the relaxing attitude for playing here, playing by human brain is much more enjoyable than CPU.

Sorry people for off-topic.

Never said I wasn't making mistakes that led to my own demise.  In fact, I'm likely to end up 4-6 this tournament mainly due to my own blunders.  So be it.  My suspicions arise from the stark contrast a lot of "correspondance" players show from how they play here versus how they play in "live" games coupled with a lack of errors on my opponents' part. 

Your stats, Minhdang, for example, seem more inline with what I would think to be par for a tournament such as this. 

Going through the game you listed - yes, you are correct, the engines I have do not list e5 as a stellar move for black.  Depending on the engine used, a slight 0.5 half-point to 1 full-point advantage for white at that point.  I think you are correct, he/she did not consult the CPU for that move.  The rest of the game goes without a major blunder or mistake for black, however.  I, on the other hand, found a way to convert a winning position into a loss.

My apologies.  I'll shut up and stick to my coffee.

It's quite a harsh offense, Spacebux. Being curious about your opponent, I looked for his games against you in this tournament, and this game seems to prove that he/she didn't use software:

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=55464220

At least the software wasn't used at move 6: ...e5 was a bad move, that leads to your advantage after the move 11th. Later on you lost by making some mistakes yourself and let your opponent exploit the mistakes rather than making sophisticated traps that could be comdemned for CPU usage.

May the best 'BOT win!

Cheers to the player with the best, fastest CPU.

In our group, the player with 10 wins has won our group.  I'm sure his CPU is in top-working-order.  He now has a career online score of: 27 Wins, 3 Losses, and 2 Draws, now rated at 1853!.  Compared to his "live" ratings of 85 Wins and 49 Losses - to an average rated player of 1274 - his "online" ratings and wins in this tournament are screaming for official review, ... but, I sincerely doubt that is going to happen.

There have been worse offenses, in my opinion, in other tournaments recently that the team & tournament directors here have turned a bl][nd-eye to.

I enjoyed my games with the other human players in my group, winning some, losing some.  The 2nd / 3rd rounds here, like most tournaments thesedays, are going to be replete with CPU-engine players.  Somehow, that seems fitting....

I agree that there is a time and place for engines, and it's not here. People need to also realize that computers are not perfect and cannot truly evaluate positions when they can't see all possible outcomes in a game that has not and probably won't be solved as there are so many variations just within the first couple of moves.

I think people who use chess engines during their games are just people who like to feel superior to others by winning a mind-challenging game. They have to look at themselves in the mirror though, knowing that they didn't really win those games. It's just a game. We all get upset when we've been cheated, but what is a chess rating really worth in the end? Not as much as we emotionally invest in it...

In general, we play better with more time to evaluate positions.  Thus, in blitz games, I'm about a 1300.  In Live games, I'm 1400-1500...  In these correspondance games, I play about 1600.  I assume most others are similar.

What I have disdain for are those who use engines to help them pick out their next moves, and in-the-end, end up playing a perfectly flawless game.

Chess, to me, is a game about over-coming ones mistakes.  The challenge is not to play a perfect game.  The challenge is to be able to survive ones flaws while playing the game.  I drop pieces in all scenarios.  I am human.  I make mistakes.  I don't mind losing to another human, who also makes mistakes, but makes fewer of them or less critical ones than I do.

People who want to use engines to improve their games should do so on their own time.  Not in these tournaments.

I'm pretty sure that my online play is FAR above my live play for the same reasons mentioned below. I can't play lines out in my head so I have to use the analyze board function. MOST of my losses come from being online at the same time as someone else and making 'rapid' moves just like in a 15|10 (which I've never actually played). My 'caught up in the moment' moves lead to blunders. My blitz rating is lucky to see 1200 (almost 400 games) and my bullet rating is around 1000 (~150 games). Time is not my friend. I don't chess think that fast. But in 3 day or 1 day games I beat 1550-1650 players 50% of the time. If you, @Spacebux, are insinuating that that players are cheating... well... they might be. I've thought of scams my self wherein I lose all my regular Let's Play games so that I can get into lower tournament brackets where I'll have a much better chance of beating people and looking good... but the point for me is to get better at chess--by practicing, losing, and not offering draws in difficult situations.

Spacebux,

I play online games a lot better thanks to the absence of a time pressure and the ability to use the board analysis. I can use the analysis to literally see what the board will look like if the line that's in my mind is played out. Personally, actually seeing those extra lines, makes it easier for me to decide my next move. Also, most of my live games are short because I'm too impatient to wait 4 minutes for somebody to make a move in a 15|10 game. I'd much rather log on and casually make moves in the games that it's my move in. Pressure in live versus online affects emotional responses also. In online games, you're less likely to move emotionally.

I second gallerjr. I even have zero for the "live" rating, I want to think like a CPU 

Speaking by myself ... I often play "on line" but only a few games "live".

I prefer to have more time to think. I just want to tell my friends the reason

I have such difference in punctuation.