How much of an ethical faux pas is it for a chess group member to post that he can throw a match against another member so that that member's rating goes back up into the next tier (for tournament seeding purposes). Based on the premise that the first guy I mentioned said he's just won 4 matches due to "strange timeouts" so his rating was "artificially high".

I think it's not a huge deal but hours later he posted "or is that inappropriate?" and I responded with "technically, yes".

I feel like any kind of "ratings management" is ethically wrong, just like earnings management is in accounting. I also don't feel like his rating is artificially high. I feel like it would only be artificially high if his opponents had hatched a plan to lose to him via timeouts, which obviously wasn't the case. I feel like his rating is "correct", assuming no collusion.

Not to mention the guy who lost to fall below 1500 did so "naturally", by not playing well enough. So why the **** should he get back into the 1500 group?

It's unethical and will get you disqualified from just about anywhere.

Yeah he's since apologized. I'm sure someone PMed him and told him. It stemmed from the fact that the invitation the other guy got was for 1500-1699 and he'd since fallen below 1500 so he couldn't get into the tourney. Which is a non-issue since the tourney isn't starting for a few days and the TD can easily send him a new invitation.

I do find it funny that someone would think that was a good idea to post for all the group members to see. Instead of just challenging the guy and telling him you'd resign (still wrong). Like how do you hit submit and think "yeah this seems not wrong at all."

Of course I wrongfully think that about 75% of the posts I submit.

FWIW, on chessgames.com's endgame explorer (for paying members only, lets you look at games that have the designated material distribution for at least 3 moves/6 half-moves), I looked up R+B+2P vs R+4P. It found 663 games with the results +64.3% -6.8% =29%

It doesn't let me see just games with a given pawn configuration, though.

Where can I find some tournaments for intermediate players like myself? ARC what site do you play on?

I play on chess.com as do many/most people on 2p2.

You should be able to join the 2p2 team.

Be wary, though. Joining a big tournament can take several weeks to finish. I signed up for one once then was like man I can't wait until 2016 to see who wins!

I played black in a near identical position. I ended up misplaying it/getting outplayed, I didn't give myself enough space and f7 was gradually targeted which he got to by using a number of zugzwang m motifs. I think I should have been able to draw it though. I just played the ending incorrectly.

Knew this would happen at some point. Chess and poker are clashing. I'm not sure weather to play in the Beginia tournament. Which is my favourite chess tournament and Australia's second largest weekender (over the long weekend.) featuring plenty of strong competition and reasonable chances for me to win rating prizes which are 1st $500 and second $200 but usually gets mixed and goes to multiple players.


The problem is that it's the same weekend as the sunday million 9th anniversary which I also really would like to play in, though I'd need to try satellite in to it.

Nice problem to have though.

Maybe, but both events would have happened anyway so them being on the same weekend means I have to not play one when if they had been different dates I'd have been able to do both.

New chess.com app is nice

Lichess app(very light on features) is out on android now, iOS in a few weeks

Also I am loving KOTH

This looks dead drawn to me... But the best try has to be to play h4 then hxg5 hxg5, and try to get K to h5 (prob have to play g3). Then when black has his R on the 5th rank we play Be2 or Bd3 followed by Rb5. The ending after R exchange there should be winning when white just plays Bd3. Other than getting the K to h5, there isn't much else white can do.

I would just never come up with a plan here that starts with exchanging one of my only two pawns. I don't even see how to get h4 through - if you start with Bc4 Black can try h5 and h4 himself.

The bishop ending looks unwinnable though: say Rc4 Rc4 Bc4 Kg6 intending e5, f5 and the pawns must give Black enough counterplay. I can't find any good plan, I think I would move my king aimlessly and hope to win on time.

I would have gone bishop to C4, rook to C7, put pressure on him to give up his rook. If not bishop xE6. From there you would be in good shape.

Exactly. When there is only 1 path down the forest you just follow it. White literally can't do anything if black just plays h6 and moves his R on f5 e5 etc, so the only way forward is to get the K to h5 (getting K to e7 or w/e is impossible because of black's R). But if we don't swap pawns on g5 getting the K to h5 is useless too. Bishop ending is indeed unwinnable imo, so the only win is to get K to h5 then swap rooks somehow (or we can hope black blunders a pawn on e6 or f7).

Also I think Eddy's right- B to c4 and R to c7 at some point and maybe then we somehow get h4 in and hope black thinks it's a dead draw and wastes time for us to get K to h5 (and still hope that there is no defence for black there).

All in all the position looks very drawn.

I searched chessbase mega for this material, it also has a checkbox to specify all the pawns on one side. When the side with the bishop won, there was usually something else going on, like the defending king stuck in the center and cut off from defending his pawns. Another problem was the defenders pawns being too advanced, such that the rook can invade from behind. And it helps if white has an f pawn instead of an h pawn.

Here I just don't see much. White's pawns being g+h make it hard to use his king because he can't use them as easily to shelter from flank checks or being cut off along a rank. He also has a wrong rook pawn for the bishop, adding some drawing plans for black that involve trading rooks.

Carlsen didn't even play in Zurich, but he now is #1 in the rapid ratings, making him the current world champion and highest rated player in classical, rapid and blitz.

I'm trying not to self-promote too much here, but I'm too excited about this not to share. Today is only the eighth day my chess blog has been public, and I have already had 883 page views from 419 visitors, in 60 different countries! That last number in particular is making me ridiculously happy. Also, it's a cool representation of how global the game of chess is

Your blog is awesome

Can you post the link BJJ? I wasn't aware you have a blog.

^ https://chessnumbers.wordpress.com/

That's why I play only in TMs on chess.com (have withdrawn from two tourneys despite advancing in both; you can do this with no penalty when you've finished playing in a round but some other players haven't).

Note that, on chess.com, non-premium members can play in only one private tournament at a time. This limitation doesn't take into account official chess.com tourneys (those set up once a month by Patzer24; you can take part in all of them, except that you can't enter the quick knockout ones if you've had >10% of timeouts in the last 90 days or spent >3 hours per move lifetime), which are however the slowest because of the large number of participants and the tolerance for vacations.

On lichess.org, people have fewer concurrent correspondence games running on average (there's simply no room for any slow poke to get hundreds of games running, and there seem to be no vacations), so games get finished surprisingly faster, sometimes even within a few hours if both opponents happen to be online, as far as I can observe (see the game result reports of the first ever lichess correspondence tourney; the first results started coming in only a few hours after the tourney start).

The above assumes that you'd like to join a correspondence tourney; there are live bullet, blitz and rapid chess tourneys on both mentioned servers (as well as on chess24.com, whose interface is however laggy, especially for Black).

+1

First 90 seconds, for YKW.

hahahahaha great find