Anti-ICCF group founded + 1st tournament

Group for serious online correspondence players who disagree with ICCF's approach towards computers and want to decide real human correspondence champion, 1st online, XV. overall.

(We do not recognize so-called champions who used computers to assist them.)

We will have own independent anti-cheating policy.

Group

Qualification tournament

Why "anti"? The ICCF is a well established group.

ICCF is just another online chess playserver, which usurps the rights to run online correspondence championships and proclaim correspondence chess champions. My points are:

1) ICCF doesn't prohibit and police computers, thus its "championships" are awful joke.

2) If ICCF playserver can host world championships, chess.com can too. There is no TM for correspondence world championship.

3) Chess.com is the biggest playserver, ICCF-web is pretty average. Apart from the dubious ICCF's computer approach, the world championship hosted here will be more valid, because of more members.

4) Lack of recognition by FIDE doesn't matter, because FIDE became untrustworthy itself under Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

Unfortunately, the very best players tend to play ICCF. Thus a Chess.com hosted "world championship match" would mean almost nothing.

You are not going to get the various countries of the world to prefir Chess. Com over ICCF.

The players who have ICCF titles earned those titles and are not about to give them up for an organization which predominately has average players.

I do not know that FIDE is "untrustworthy"

In my day, computers were very weak. Now they are very strong but still in any championship [such as the USCCC} the best players tend very much to win.

Since the new correspondence championship will be with a ban on computers--how can you enforce such a ban?  There would be quite a few players who will use computers for their games and what is to stop them?

If all are allowed to use computers--that evens the playing field.

If computers are "banned" the players who use computers anyway will win--I do not see how you can get around this.

I also do not see how you can think Chess.Com has sufficient of the very best players to ever host a world championship or even championship of one country?

It is not "cheating" to use computers if they are allowed.

In the new group--what about data bases?

If chess.com continues to refine & improve (fast-banning) it's cheat-detection systems then I like the idea !

( More titled-players are joining this site all the time... )

{1} Really? Really strong human ICCF players have either quit or degenerated into more or less lazy computer monkeys, IMO. ICCF doesn't represent many strong chess players today, rather quite a lot <1600 Elo mouse-clickers.

{2} The fact is that ICCF's so-called championships mean totally nothing and they are unfair towards real past champions who made achievements without computers.

{3} It cannot be 100% enforced, it can be detected post-mortem. This is quite complex, but manageable problem. I would compare it to banned substances in athletics. It happens quite often: records are erased, people get stripped off their titles, medals and banned. Nobody is surprised when that happens. In true correspondence chess it will happen too. People who cheat will achieve nothing: even if they win, their results will be erased and games forfeited by default to their honest opponents.

The bottom line will be to discourage people from cheating and pre-emptively filter out untrustworthy potential cheaters.

{4} I can't make such claim, but I definitely do claim ICCF is in similar or even worse situation. There are no strong human players active in correspondence chess today.

But as Polar_Bear outlines in post~#8 anyone doing so & subsequently being discovered (however much later) will be discredited & the results amended ?

Historical-integrity of the competition therefore remains intact & it provides useful platform for refining sophisticated cheat-detection in internet chess.

If computers are allowed, it is "different" game with different winning strategies. ICCF can proclaim its centaur champions. I don't care. But ICCF can't proclaim correspondence champions and put them next in line with true correspondence champions from the past.

Printed books and journals are all allowed. Electronic/internet chess articles written by humans are allowed. Raw electronic game databases are allowed. Electronic game databases containing computer evaluations are not allowed. Thompson/Nalimov endgame databases are not allowed.

I dunno but honestly cannot see how you can detect someone cheating by using a machine? [if they are careful]

I was lucky to play probably the last USA Championship where computers were irrelevant but if someone wins a championship with the use of computers and computers are allowed--why not recognize that person? I mean there are all kinds of ways to play chess   Some players are good over the board, some at blindfold, some at speed chess and some at the slower correspondence rate of play. There is no reason not to recognize a champion who followed the rules.  Saying that such a person was "cheating" because he used computers when computers were allowed is beyond the pale and I do not think you will do well with your new organization if you have to base it on "cheating" of past champions who followed the rules.

I honestly do not know at this point how strong the players are in ICCF but would doubt that the players here are as strong at the upper levels.

It may be "cheating"  to use a chess machine,if your new organization gets going but to use the word "cheating" for past players who followed the rules is as I say: Beyond the Pale! [think I repeated myself!]

Well, I don't indicate recent ICCF champions were cheating. They weren't. But they became champions at new and different discipline than previous ones. And this discipline - centaur chess - is much less prestigious.

My goal is to determine human correspondence champion, much more valuable than centaur champion. A thing ICCF will never try.

Do you really think name calling is a good way to start your organiztion?

Do you really think call past champions "centaurs" or they played "centaur chess" is appropriate? 

Yes, you will get some quick membership by your methods but I doubt if it ever will be competitive in the sense that it represents the chess world.

Do you think you have the right [moral right] to use the terminology you are using?  Did ICCF wrong you in some way?

Do you have a rating system? How do you rate new players or established players for that matter?

One thing you should realize--yes, the most recent champions must have used computers--but they had little choice since computers were allowed. But even so, the players who rose to the top were still very good players and who is to say they would not have done equally well sans computers?

You know in my day we did not have such problems.

When I was 5 years old I said "Mommy, daddy, can I watch tv?"

Reply from both: "There's no such thing as a "tv"  [there were but my parents did not know it]

Ponz111, do you realize that word "centaur" isn't offence? It is regular term for legitimate computer-assisted chess player or team.

I blame ICCF for hypocrisy:

"It is expected that players will decide the moves for themselves. It is unacceptable behaviour to have someone else play your games. The whole ICCF ratings and titles system relies on the assumption that games are played by the players named in the starting lists (or approved substitutes)." ~ ICCF Code of Conduct Guidelines

I am sure you realize that the paragraph you gave has nothing to do with players using chess machines [or books] [or data bases] [or frequency of moves compilations] [or whatever as long as it is not a person]

So, there is no hypocrisy there. If there really is "hypocrisy" then show it but do not try and equate "some one else" with chess machines.

I had not heard of "centaur" as a regular term for legitimate computer assisted chess player or team. Is it really a "regular term"?

Almost all sports and games evolve over the years. Checkers has been "solved" so now players are required to start with certain set moves.

People used to jeer baseball players who wore a glove. A player with a glove often had to sneak unto a playing field.

And catchers were jeered when they started using safety mitts and then started using all the other safety equipment.

The gloves for baseball players have evolved. Now it is possible for a player to jump up over the fence and catch the ball AND the ball almost always stays in the glove. [now isn't that a pleasant sight to see?]

Chess has changed also. It is a whole lot easier to learn than in my day.

You have books, chess bases, and all the learning tools such as on chess.com.

Is it cheating to have these "extra advantages"? Maybe I should start a chess group for only players who will not use the new fangled gadgets to help them learn? 

[of course the average age of the group would be about 75]

Because ICCF Chess evolved to whatever it is today--is not a reason to name call and to use bad logic to state "hypocrisy"  

Centaur is a regular term. I've seen quite a few centaur players use it to refer to themselves.

The fact is that chess engines have advanced to the point that humans cannot beat them (no matter how strong the human is) at long time controls.

So PB is right. The current ICCF is just engines playing engines with almost zero human input.

Curiousity led me to check the amount of titled-players on chess.com & at time of writing believe that is approx 476 ?

I do not think the OP's suggestion should be met by a wave of negativity simply because he is irreverant to ICCF in the title. They are deserving of that since they were basically too lazy to address cheat-detection & refused to divert sufficient amount of the membership-fees they happily accept towards it ??

The principle or idealism behind establishing cheat-free correspondence-chess should be applauded. After all that was how it used to be prior to computers & was very popular.

Ok, thanks for clarifying that term. The definition is a player who uses a chess machine in his games?

Yes, usually in a setting where computers are allowed.

In the cheating forum, there were a couple of long discussions on the creation of a centaur pool on chess.com. Some people were arguing that cheaters should be placed in a hypothetical centaur pool, and others were claiming this would be unfair to ordinary, honest centaurs.