You can't give up analyzing your OWN GAME! Back to work!

By the way this is the same kind of mug they sell in target for $14, it is stainless steel and has one of those thermal lids that keeps hot stuff hot for hours! I bought 300 hundred of them, so I need to make some damn money on this deal :)

Anyway, Caissas has the correct idea, exchanging off the queen for the Rook, Knight and Pawn is the only way to keep Black from getting in trouble.

With the king off of the back rank and the Rook able to eventually get free, white would have to settle for a 3-fold repetition.

So, after 40...Kxh7 continue, you are not out of the woods yet :)

OK, to help you guys out, here is the position again, this time with a little hint:

Juan vs. Ed

After 38. Ng5!! I will play 38...Ng6 and I claim white to move can draw.

If Caissas can win this, I would like to play the black pieces against his upcoming moves just to prove black has no worries at all :)

But, white should still be able to draw this line, and the first to do so wins the mug :)

Try pasting this into your browser then

http://brainking.com/game/ArchivedGame?g=99916&i=74

CaissasDream is on the right track, but there is no win for white as black can dispose of the Queen since the white Rook is already sac-exchanged.

I give 38. Ng5!! as it is the only way to draw. Black basically has only four moves to consider at this point: 38...Qe8, 38...Ng6, 38...Nc6, or 38...Nd5, so tell me which one you think leads to the draw.

65, go to my original post, and you will see a link at the very top, Juan vs. Ed, and this will take you directly to the move.

It was a strange ending, typical of the punishment I deserved for underestimating the resolve of my opponent!

The only way to win was to allow the Bishop to be captured, a very risky ordeal since it was parked in the h-file where not one but two passed pawns were heading down the pike!

Once the Archbishop expended the energy to capture the Bishop, I could exhaust all of the checks. This was a very lengthy exercise in running an Archbishop out of gas -- The Battle of The Bulge brought to Gothic Chess.

Juan vs. Ed

In the game above, played from round 1 of the finals between Juan Grande and myself, I had miscued and Juan fought back with a brilliant strategy.

I overexposed the King and Juan's Archbishop + minor were better than my cramped Queen and Rook.

At this point in the game, with White to move, I found a long sequence that forced a draw. When Juan played 38. h7+ next, I was able to announce a win.

The first person to show the entire line of the correct play for white to move and draw will win a FREE Gothic Chess stainless steel mug.

Start your engines!

That, my friend, is what we used to refer to as "a zinger!" Nice one! :)

Using Rob's numbers, here is what we would announce for the winners based on 100 entrants:

$50: 1st = $3500; 2nd = $750; BK=$250

This would strongly encourage the last two finalists to really duke it out!!

Question to the group:

Would you trade your Queen for an Archbishop and Knight? How about an Archbishop and Bishop?

Just trying to get a sense for what people think about this exchange.

I like this idea! Now, what to set down as an entrance fee? Let's assume we get 100 people, like as in our current tournament.

Then for $X entrance fee, the payouts would be:

$10: 1st = $600; 2nd = $250; BK=$50
$20: 1st = $1200; 2nd = $500; BK=$100
$30: 1st = $1800; 2nd = $750; BK=$150
$40: 1st = $2400; 2nd = $1000; BK=$200
$50: 1st = $3000; 2nd = $1250; BK=$250
$100: 1st = $6000; 2nd = $2500; BK=$500

Now, based on those projections, how much would everyone want to pay to play?

I am thinking about starting the World Championship online here in September. I woud like to know if "the masses" would be interested it making it a money event?

The prestige of a World Championship for other events always includes a nice purse for the winner, a trophy worthy of display, and of course a title that means something.

If we have an event played for money, there will have to be an entrance fee.

So, you guys vote on it here. Entrance fee or no entrance fee?

I am thinking of the following for prize fund:

1. Winner gets 60% of the pot, 2nd place gets 30%, Gothic Chess Federation holds the remainder for running the tournament.

2. Winner gets 80% of the pot, 2nd place gets 10%, Gothic Chess Federation holds the remainder for running the tournament.

3. Something else??

Let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by Rob! I know you had about a 90 minute drive to get here, so I appreciate you making the trip.

I enjoyed playing the games and, of course, any excuse to prepare a feast and have a party is perfectly fine with me!

As summer approaches I will try again to get listed in the Pennsylvania State Chess booklet as a Gothic Chess club and promote weekly evenings of Gothic and partying.

Maybe you could so something similar in New Jersey, who knows! This is how great things get started.

--Ed

There are 13 sections, and each one will send one winner into the next round. So, 13 players make it to round 2. The section with the highest rated player will have 6 people in it. The section with the 2nd highest rated person will have 7 people. One winner from each of these 2 sections will advance to the finals. These 2 people will play a "3 wins match" which means the first to record a 3rd victory will win.

The thought had occurred to me to hold the first official World Championship online here at BrainKing. Previously we have only had National Tournaments, held in Philadelphia. But with the convenience of being able to play online, we might as well test the format and see if players would like to do this.

The play would be for the title of Gothic Chess World Champion, a trophy, and money; all things a World Champion should have!

Attention to All Brain Pawns: Make sure you have 8 slots open in your game list so that you will be able to play for the $$$$$!!

That is, if you have 12 or more games going, you will not be able to enter the tournament, unless you UPGRADE to become a BrainRook or otherwise decrease your game count (offer draw, resign, or checkmate your opponent).

There is only 1 day left to sign up, so please check your current game load!

Good luck, I hope everybody wins :)

It seems in my own games when I elect to remain uncastled, not moving both the e- and f-pawns is a large positional plus. It secures the king and virtually eliminates the chances of being placed in check.

In games where I enjoy the luxury of castling, I do constantly look for endgame themes that can be dangerous. In my endgame with nstre, which went all the way down to Rook and Pawns, I managed to win by just one tempo! In this game we both castled, and I was also forced onto j1 at one point, a tempo I needed to recover desparately.

Here is the game which is worth reviewing. I fast forwarded the game to the point where we were both castled.


Endgame win by one tempo

In case nobody saw yet, I am giving away $250 as the First Prize in the new Gothic Chess tournament. There is no entrance fee. Second prize is a free Gothic Chess set. A "brilliancy prize" will be awarded to the best game, judged by me. That person will receive a free Gothic Chess mug.

Check it out under the TOURNAMENTS section, so hurry up and sign up!

And if you are already playing in one tournament and are a BrainPawn, upgrade your membership and play in this tournament too! Why not, you have a chance to win $250!!

It does have that Dragon serpentine look to the pawn structure. Hmmm.

I think that Colanzi's Indian is the best example of the safest setup I have seen with the black pieces. Any comments?

Maybe we should name this opening after him! Any votes for this? :)

I would say hide your tail before playing, then they can't whip it :)

Well, you only lost 4 of your 30 games of Gothic Chess, you must be doing something right!

An interesting topic. I just castled on move 16 in my game with GKChesterton, even with my i-pawn removed and the Black Queen capturing onto h3 on the next move! Clearly dangerous for white, but with a lead in material, I could bait this attack then defend easily in later moves. So this is a rare instance of castling deliberately into a 1-move danger situation with a long terms benefit.

Of course at http://www.geocities.com/bow_of_odysseus/deadly_arch.html there are some examples of some castling blunders if you need to see a concrete example of some.

Personally, I have not made up my mind about this as of yet. Castling too early can be deadly. Not castling at all can be deadly, and castling too late can be deadly!

The best solution is to checkmate your opponent before you castle so you don't have to worry about castling!

:)

Fencer worked out a way to publish the Gothic Chess ratings on a nightly basis for my website.

Check out:

BrainKing.com Ratings


...where your rating window will now display your win-loss-draw count, and not just the "counted games" column.

Let me know if your rating is correct.

This month we feature The65thSquare as our guest writer, with the link below:

Guest Writer

Inventor's Corner is the link.

Enjoy!

By the way everyone, Matthew recently reminded me that he and I had actually met once in Philadelphia at JFK Plaza. At lunchtime, I would often take my Gothic Chess set out in the park or the plaza, and play some games with other local members of the Association. Although Matthew is now living in Spain and flies the Spanish flag on his profile, he just happened to be at the right place at the right time 2 summers ago.

:)

I think the entrance fee of $50 will be firmly established, and the prize money will be distributed as follows:

1st Prize: 50% of all monies received
2nd Prize: 25% of all monies received

Brilliancy Prize: The game judged to be the best of the tournament will receive 10% of the prize money.

The other 15% will go to the Federation.

What will this mean in terms of $$$

10 entrants
1st = $250
2nd = $125
Brillancy = $50

20 entrants
1st = $500
2nd = $250
Brillancy = $100

40 entrants
1st = $1000
2nd = $500
Brillancy = $200

100 entrants
1st = $2500
2nd = $1250
Brillancy = $500

Remember I will sit out of this event and just direct the tournament. I think there is no reason to believe we would have fewer than 100 participants if this event is announced widely across the various websites. I am hoping for about 200 actually. That would make things very interesting!

Since this is a prize money event with the prestige associated with being the National Champion, I will be directing the event, but not participating in it. The tournament is open to all players of Gothic, with the entrance fee a function of whether or not you are a member of the GCF. Existing members get in for the flat fee, non-members pay to joing the GCF at the same time they enter the tournament.

I think it would be better to make the time controls cumulative for the entire game. Maybe 24 hours for the entire game, with the idea that most moves are made in real time as you face your opponent. I am not sure if Brainking is capable of implementing such a time control.

The problems we had in the past were pairings. Many people were not playing in local events, just waiting for the national, so about 60% of the field had a rating of 1500. This included international masters from the USCF who were playing Gothic for the first time.

We solved this one year by playing an email double round robin at time controls of 1 move per 24 hours, but it took 7 months to conclude that portion of the tournament. At the end, we had a fair idea of people's ratings, and we held a closed tournament with a plus score in the round robin as the qualifying criteria to enter.

I was thinking of something similar for 2003. Maybe do a double round robin online at accelerated controls, facing one opponent each day. After playing everyone, we will have an idea about how to do Swiss pairings.

Otherwise, you might have the undesireable result where strong players are being paired against other strong players early in the event, knocking one of them out due to the nature of the Swiss system.

More feedback on this is welcome.

I was wondering if the 2003 Championship should be made an online event this year? Traditionally the national is played over the board in Philadelphia. Also, the entrance fee from previous years has been $50, with 50% of all collected fees going to the winner, 25% to the second place finisher, 10% going for the brillancy prize of best game, and the rest to the federation.

I would like everyone's thoughts on this.

Cool with me then, send them that link :)

I think it would be a good idea if everyone "invites" your chess friends from those other sites to play a game of Gothic Chess here on BrainKing. You can give them the "Game of the Month" link which is http://www.geocities.com/bow_of_odysseus/gotm.html which should get them interested in Gothic Chess.

Will you do this Terry?

Does anyone here also play on GameKnot or IYT or some other site? If so, what are your names and which site?

--Ed

here is the link to Terry's game.


BF_vs_Jestone

I don't see why we can't have a "Pawnchucker's Mate" since there are mating patterns in chess!

Look at:

Morphy's Mate for a look at a Morphy Mate from 1859. I am thinking about having a mate with an Archbishop against a king not in the corner named after me :)

I hope there is not any at this point, because the existence of one would be a direct infringement on my patent! If anyone knows of one, please let me know.

Just to let everyone know, I am building a graphical user interface that will not only replay games, but act as a database as well. That is, as you enter moves, it will build a list of games where the same position occurred, and you can automatically naviagate through the games to see how others played your opening.

Thanks to Windows XP being such a boondoggle, this thing is nowhere near being ready for release yet, but look for it this summer.

I am still looking for you article for the Guest Writer position for this month. Have you put anything together yet?

The web page is now up but not linked to the rest of the webste yet:

Openings

Let me know what you think.

--Ed

I think we might as well start naming them here. I used to "cater" to the chess crowd and adopted some names with chess counterparts, like the Pirc-Kahn Defense, since it would be apparent to a chess player what motifs have been transplanted.

How about we do this: instead of people jsut sending in concocted moves and posting them here, how about we derive names from their current games on BrainKing as a basis?

There is one opening that I have labeled "Trice's Gambit", which is a little unsound, but interesting. Maybe I will make a web page that everyone can look at, then we can discuss the information on the website here.

Does that sound like a good idea?

The names on the website are subject to change based on popular feedback.

More on this later.

--Ed

Yes there have been, especially among the Indian type openings. I think the names should bear the trademark of the person who forges the system, and I do not think we should call them by their chess equivalents (like the Gothic Reti of Gothic Alekhine.)

I would like to know everyone's thoughts on this. I am thinking since you could have an opening named after yourself, it would be like very much by everyone :)

Fernando, the database is generated starting by assembling all of the checkmate positions first. From each of these, you generate legal moves "in reverse". That means, you "undo" one move, then it is the mating side to move, and the move you undid must lead to a mate in 1 since the parent position was a checkmate. From all of these mate in 1 positions, you have the other side try to avoid entering the position. If every legal move leads to the mate in 1, then that side to move is mated in 2, etc.

From the parent position, I did not generate king moves, which means should the white king have been able to move and REVEAL a check of the bishop that resulted in a checkmate, that position was not assigned a "mate in 1" value. Since everything else in the database depends on all of this information, it has to be recomputed.

To enter the contest, just tell me where you want to place a knight, bishop and king that results in the longest checkmate of an enemy king, The board has 80 squares, a1 through j8. Good luck in the contest.

--Ed

I found the bug in my database code. It was very stupid, of course. But hopefully you will be able to understand my logic flaw. Ok, the endgame is Bishop + Knight versus King. You are on the strong side, and you know you have a mate in 1 move. So I was generating every Bishop move from the position, then testing to see if the enemy King was checkmated. I was also generating every Knight move from the position to see if the enemy King was checkmated.

There, now do you see my logic flaw?

It is subtle. And it is NOT related to the Knight not being able to force checkmate. There are certainly mate-in-1 positions where the Knight seals the win due to an opponent's misplay.

I WAS NOT GENERATING KING MOVES LOOKING FOR MATES IN 1!

It never occured to me that the King could move in such a way to reveal the Bishop and exhaust a flight square for the enemy King, so my mate in 1 list was incomplete. This effects everything else in the database.

Now that it has been indentified, I will recompute the database, then regrade everybody's longest win.

--Ed

It is that time again. I am looking for someone to volunteer to write for the Aprill 2003 "Guest Writer" spot for my website. If you have not seen the March editorial, done by chesscarpenter...


click here to see it.

The title of the article is "How To Beat Ed Trice", which, I think, could have been called something else :)

While Rob did annotate one of his wins against me, the content of the Guest Writer spot need not be a Gothic Chess game.

Write about the weather in your home town. Talk about the war with Iraq. Let others now what your favorite ice cream is. It does not matter.

I will review all of the submissions and select one for the month. I will keep all of the material, perhaps for a later issue.

All of the columns will be kept in an archive, so it will not "disappear" when it is over.

Just so you know, my own column...

Inventors Corner

...is really just some silly ramblings about caterpillars and Jesus' Grandpa this month. Pretty light reading by anyones standards.

So, give it some thought, send me whatever you like to GothicChess@aol.com and I will contact you afterwards.

--Ed

Suppose on an 8x8 board there is a white pawn on c5, and white' king is very far away, like h1. Where can the black king catch it?

The answer is found by drawing a square that includes c5 on the bottom-left from white's perspective. c5..c6..c7..c8.. now over the same number ...d8..e8..f8 then down to ...f7..f6..f5...and back over ..e5..d5..c5.

If it is the black king to move, he must be able to reach this square, or else white promotes and wins.

OK, now "the concept of the square" can be used in other ways. This geometric trick can be used to determine "any square", not just a promotion square, that must be reached in order to save a draw.

Because the gothic board is wider, there are usually fewer "crowning races" but more "horizontal opposition races" when it comes to K + P endings. Usually pawns are on each side of the board, somebody tosses one to get a king out of position, then races over to the other side to take them all out from behind. You can tell at a glance geometrically if you can resign or if you should run like hell after the king.

I think it is time for me to put up some more web page material. This is a topic that has no real equivalent in the 8x8 world.

--Ed

I finally finished the page with the mathematical derivation of the piece values. Each step is explained in great detail. Take a look at:

Piece Values

for more information. I came up with these values for the approximate piece weights. Feel free to discuss this, argue with it, defend, attack, or modify these values as much as you want online here.

Pawn 1.00
Knight 2.50
Bishop 3.00
Rook 4.75
Archbishop 6.50
Chancellor 8.25
Queen 8.75

From Juan:

-----
Ed (GothicChessPro) claims that it would be faster because more games would be decided by an outside passed Pawn due to the increased width of the board. I find that hard to believe.
-----

Nowhere did I discuss the specific ending theme of outside passed pawns.

My exact remarks were:

-----
Look at the concept of "the square" in king and pawn endings. Now the board is rectangular, which means, by default, you can swap down even from all minors to just pawns and be in an instant win.
-----

The concept of "the square" is not limited to outside passed pawns. Keyword: concept.

If the board was populated entirely by minor pieces, one miscue in Gothic, and a flurry of swaps could leave you in a King + Pawn ending that cannot be drawn because your own King would be too distant to reach a square where a breakthrough could be initiated or an opposition would need to be contested.

I have been in countless speed games and done this to chessplayers who would make comments like: "But this is a bishops of opposite color draw" to which I replied: "If you remove any two files on this board and make it an 8x8 board you are correct. But it is 10x8, so I win."

In the future, if there is something that is written that needs additional elaboration, just ask me and I will explain in more detail. As was seen in this case, and in the Juan/Felix discussion, it is possible for us to have "different understandings" of what was being discussed.