The Gladiators v Icy Shark Bar (Match Comments)

Soren Riis · Post by **Soren Riis** » Sun Oct 05, 2008 9:42 pm

Challenge from strong russian GMs

Almost two months ago we (the Rybka forum) received the following interesting challenge:

Hello, Dear Rybka forum
The Gladiator chess forum ( players from former USSR/СССР )
offer to you ( Rybka forum ) a friendly advance chess game.

Here the list of Some of ours players:
GM Maslak Konstantin (playchess MASLAKKOSTIA),GM Bryzgalin Kirill, GM Khismatullin Denis,GM Lastin Alexander
GM Drozdovskij Yuri ,GM Skorchenko, Dmitriy , Sergey Nefedov ( author of engine Anechka ) and some
other good advancers from playchess like OlegGR ,Kosmodrom, Zunkor ,Igalex

We suggest this conditions, but it's only a proposition we wait for your suggestions.
1) 2 games (one black, one white)
2) 1 move per day ( black and white)

We registered a special forum for advance games http://norival.ucoz.net/forum
( currently in russian but we will add an english version in some days)

On the Rybka forum we agreed it would be interesting to play such a match, but thought that we would like to play this match in corporation with your team.

The proposed conditions are identical with the conditions in our match e.g. 24 hours for each move. The Rybka team have currently very few strong OTB players, and the Rybka team discussions are mainly engine output combined with some general considerations. I suggest we try to find a way to avoid the vote becomes dominated by pure engine players.

Anyway you are hereby invited to take part in the match with a team that include at least five Russian GMs, and some strong advanced chess player that have access to at least one 16 core engine.

For the discussion on the Rybka forum see
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... pid=112133

NATIONAL12 · Post by **NATIONAL12** » Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:13 pm

hi Soren,if the challenge still stands,i am quite confident we can get a good result against them.

Soren Riis · Post by **Soren Riis** » Sun Oct 05, 2008 11:00 pm

Yes, the challenge stand and the Russians told us we were welcome to invite the Hamsters.

Dylan Sharp · Post by **Dylan Sharp** » Sun Oct 05, 2008 11:18 pm

The forums united? How would that be organized?

NATIONAL12 · Post by **NATIONAL12** » Sun Oct 05, 2008 11:32 pm

when we get it organised i trust you Dylan are prepared to be Captain.

NATIONAL12 · Post by **NATIONAL12** » Sun Oct 05, 2008 11:38 pm

in return for you being Captain i suggest we run the match on the Rybka forum.

Post by **Harvey Williamson** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:14 am

Are we really sure all these GMs will give up their time to play?! The sceptic in me asks are we being conned into a match v Strelka?

Dylan Sharp · Post by **Dylan Sharp** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:16 am

No, the Rybka forum software is a mess, it requires you to create a thread for each move and variation and people get confused when the threads get big.

On the other hand, here we just have 1 thread, everything is sorted by date and people only gets confused when lots of analysis is posted.

If something like this was going to happen, I suggest to just use the Rybka forum to post all the analysis (as I know you're going to produce mountains of analysis) but the main discussion thread, voting thread, trashtalking, and game thread would be better on here, even if I'm not captain (it's not a big deal, just counting votes, moving and tie-breaking.)

NATIONAL12 · Post by **NATIONAL12** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:26 am

i take your point.i would be happy with you as captain but R forum can handle all AN ,maybe a compromise,all AN and discussion on Rybka forum but move played on Hamters forum.this is on my own bat btw.

Dylan Sharp · Post by **Dylan Sharp** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:34 am

NATIONAL12 wrote:all AN and discussion on Rybka forum

Only the analysis, discussion is better handled on a forum software like this, on RF it appears out of order. Just enter an old, long thread and you'll see what I'm talking about, you basically see the replies to some posts over them, instead of under them, which creates utter confusion.

This is not a matter of where the discussion should happen but on what forum software it's better to have them, if Rybka Forum changed its forum software to one in where it's easy to read a long discussion I wouldn't have any objection of discussion to happen there.

Soren Riis · Post by **Soren Riis** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:52 am

I am happy that the pointed discussion happens here, while the analysis (engine outputs and loose comments) mainly are posted on the Rybka forum.

I would not mind if the Hiarcs team formally take the lead.

tomski1981 · Post by **tomski1981** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 1:18 am

my vote would be for discussion and analysis on RF, but maybe that's because i'm used to the layout. RF's branching let's replies stay on topic, while here i would have a hard time following one train of thought, as i may have to read through replies to other lines before i get to the one that interests me.

Dylan Sharp · Post by **Dylan Sharp** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:12 am

tomski1981 wrote:i would have a hard time following one train of thought

We have quotes and when used correctly this is not a problem, in RF you also have to skip some comments that were posted between the conversation anyway, and discussion about specific analysis lines should happen at RF, I think.

Now, about the team name, if both forums are fusing I don't think having "Hiarcs" or "Rybka" in the name is needed anymore, I'd like a more neutral name.

I suggest The Wizards

Let's see if other team mates want to participate first.

PortCitySlim · Post by **PortCitySlim** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:20 am

Dylan Sharp wrote: Let's see if other team mates want to participate first.

I am in, whatever, whenever and against whoever. If we pick the name the Wizards then "The Wizard" would be our mascot? Then again on the Rybka Forum he is "Big Ben"

PortCitySlim · Post by **PortCitySlim** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:03 am

A few more notes here on this match...

1. These days the realistic chances of either team winning almost zero. Only by precise and extensive opening preparation on today's top lines will one side be able to possibly gain an advantage worth converting into a win. Both of our games consisted of rarely played opening lines and I think that our advantage will be in more popular lines that we have databases with millions of games on including the so called "Playchess Theory" that our team (Hiarcs) was weary of taking on directly.

1a. After all the small stuff is sorted out we need to identify our strengths and in what opening we would be best prepared to find key advantages. An example would be "The Wizard" if he plays is very very good at lines in the french and has a very large database with possibly more games played in those lines then anyone I know. If we have players like Harvey and Jeroen commit their opening knowledge and databases it would be a big advantage too. I know the RW's had similar team members with specific opening line knowledge.

2. I would prefer more of a professional team name instead of what we are used to, kind of like "United Computer Chess Coalition" or UCCC for short. That is just a suggestion and not my vote, I just made that up real quick to get my point across. Maybe "Node" as an acronym for something like umm "New/National organization des Échecs", lol again just making things up. maybe "Team Stoked" short for "Statistical opening knowledge database", lol of course again making things up