Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Unfortunately, you can call a draw at PMC only after 50 moves without
capture or promotion, so maybe one or both players are simply taking time
to think. Still, a general rule that third repetition is a draw unless the
game rules specify it to be a loss or a win might be welcome for GCT #2.
Anyway, I'm all for starting Round 3.

This is a misinterpretation of Rule 8 of PMC. Triple repetition is a draw,
just as in FIDE Chess--per rule Zero, all FIDE rules apply except as
contardicetd by the given rules. PMC has a differnt 50-move rule because
the essence of the 50 move rule is irretractable change--and a pawn move
in not unretractable in PMC. Triple repetition is the same as in FIDE,
therefor it isn't stated explictily in the PMC rules.

The game in question is indeed a draw if the player to move chooses to
claim it.

In the last two rounds, the privilege of moving first was given evenly, so
that you would have it as many times as you didn't have it. Since there
are a total of 11 games to play for those of us who played Michael Howe,
we can't all play equally as many games as the first player as the
second. So, in the last round, here is how who moves first will be
decided:

1) The player with the lower total score so far will move first.

2) When players have equal scores, whoever has moved first in fewer games
will move first. For these purposes, any game automatically won against
Michael Howe without actually playing against him will count as a game in
which you moved first.

3) If there is still a tie, the other tiebreaking methods will be used in
the same order they would be for deciding the winner. Whoever loses the
tiebreak would go first. [No ties were left unresolved by the prior
rule.]

4) Exceptions will be made to make sure that no one moves first in fewer
than five games and in more than seven. An average of five to six would
have been enforced, but counting any unplayed game against Michael Howe as
a game in which you moved first raises the total number of games in which
each remaining person in the contest moved first.

With these conditions in mind, here is who will play whom in each game,
with the first player listed first:

Alice Chess

Fergus Duniho vs. Antoine Fourriere
Tony Quintanilla vs. Michael Madsen
Mark Thompson vs. Thomas McElmurry

Anti-King Chess II

Carlos Carlos vs. Fergus Duniho
Roberto Lavieri vs. Antoine Fourriere
Mark Thompson vs. Ben Good
Michael Madsen vs. Mike Nelson [exception]

Cavalier Chess

Carlos Carlos vs. Roberto Lavieri
Ben Good vs. Fergus Duniho
Mike Nelson vs. Gary Gifford
Tony Quintanilla vs. Mark Thompson [exception]

Maxima

Gary Gifford vs. Roberto Lavieri
Ben Good vs. Thomas McElmurry

Takeover Chess

Thomas McElmurry vs. Carlos Carlos [exception]
Michael Madsen vs. Gary Gifford
Mike Nelson vs. Tony Quintanilla

I think this was the fairest way to decide who goes first in each game,
but if Antoine thinks it will be fairer for him to move first in our game
of Alice Chess, given that he would be moving first in fewer actual games
than anyone else, I'm willing to allow it. This is not because I doubt
the fairness of this method, but only because it might appear unfair, and
if I defeat Antoine and win the tournament, I don't want anyone to think
I did it by manipulating the tournament.

I think the real issue is to alert the players to the fact that a drawn
game has in fact been achieved so the game can be concluded and the final
round started.

It is evident that both players were suffering from the same misperception
of the PMC draw rules. Carlos had earlier posted an inquiry to the PM page
about a perpetual check draw. I answered him that the rule was the same as
in FIDE--perpetual check is not a draw per se, but always leads to triple
repetion or the fifty-move rule (virtaully always the former).

It is self evident that Carlos intended to achieve a draw--Antoine has a
won game absent the perpetual check--therefor he must have been unaware
that he has done so.

Oops! I was indeed unaware of that rule. But I'm going to claim a draw
myself at next move if Carlos repeats the position, since my only
voluntary retreat from perpetual check would be a loss. (Or would that be
unethical from me now? Please, don't comment on the position itself.)

I do not mind playing as Black in my two remaining games, especially
considering the fact that Michael Howe's withdrawal has spared me the
obligation to play a game I do not like (Cavalier Chess - sorry, Fergus)
against a good player.

I´ll get Carlos Carlos suggestion and I´m not going to add more. The PMC
game has not finished yet, oficially. Please, accept my excuses, for my
part, about some of my out of place comments, if it is the case, I feel
bad with it. 
Fergus, forget it. My humour is sometimes acid, and additionally I spoke
in a language 'close to English', not in Italian or Spanish, so you
could not understand what I said completely, but I tried a joke. There was
not an additional motivation in your comments on the rules, very probably, 
I only think the result is of interest for you and some players in the
Tournament.

I think all the players have enjoyed this First Game Courier Tournament a
lot. The last game to be played in it is ongoing now (Maxima,
Gifford-Lavieri), a game of high quality to the present (it is my
subjective appretiation), and in move 30 both teams may have more or less
equal chances in a very complex end. See and feel!.
We can START THINKING on ideas for the next Tournament. What about
ORIENTAL VARIANTS Tournament?. Can it attract a lot of players?. I think
it is very possible!. Other ideas?. Little boards Tournament?. Unusual
shapes?. Democratic selection as in the First Tournament?...
By the way, Antoine Fourriere is going to be in a clear first place in the
First Game Courier Tournament (as I expected, I know how strong he is!).
Congratulations!. And Congratulations to all the other players by the
moments we have lived in this Tournament, I expect all of them, as me,
have enjoyed it a lot!. Music to the soul!.

Roberto's suggestion seems too complex to implement, and it seems too
difficult to enforce. Since it would require the cooperation of both
players, it could not be enforced simply by exacting time penalties for
noncompliance. It would be more practical to just enforce stricter time
controls that would be too hard to meet without coordinated sessions. 

But even putting aside the logistical questions of how coordinated
sessions could be enforced, enforcing them just doesn't work out well
when two players have very different schedules. Roberto and I have been
able to rapidly play games in sessions of moves, because, despite living
thousands of miles apart, it is mainly north-south distance, and we live
in the same time zone. But it would be more difficult for someone in
California and someone in eastern Europe to find the time for coordinated
sessions with each other. If we had a tournament with time controls such
as this, we would probably have to limit it to people within a certain
range of time zones.

As for the time contols used for the tournament, they were chosen to be
flexible enough for people in different parts of the world with very
different schedules who may occassionally have emergencies when they would
have to stop playing for a while. Even given this, some people dropped out
because they didn't have enough time to play.

Nevertheless, given the experience I have now had with these time
controls, I would now consider tweaking them. I might make the spare time
two weeks instead of one and reduce by half the amount of extra time and
bonus time given after each move. This would prevent reserve time from
amassing as much, as well as give players some more time for emergencies
at the beginning of rounds.

Thanks again for the congratulations, Roberto, but there is little doubt
that having one hour for each move reflected in the outcome, especially
when I ended up sacrificing my Rook in our game of Anti-King Chess. Most
participants (and non-participants) had several other things to do, such
as work, family, studying or maintaining this site. 
In my view, the only fair equalizing methods are
1) to give all players enough time to think between each move, that is,
allowing them a pace of only one move per week at times in a given game.
For next year, I would suggest a January to June round-robin of six or
eight games, and a seven-player September to November final of six games
because these seven players might have enough time. (I would also allow
two players to replace their assigned game with any game that has been
played in any yearly tournament such as this one or last year's
tournament.) And I think you need a more lenient pace at the beginning of
the games, not merely to avoid blunders, but also to assess the possible
strategies, and because after twenty moves, half the games are already
more or less decided and you can drop them anyway if you're losing.
2) to play each game in four hours, or by slices of ten moves by hour with
one player playing a secret move at the end of the slice, like in
FIDE-Chess. Of course you need to have both players connected at the same
time (probably feasible on Saturdays and Sundays), but there is also the
problem of your Internet connection. It is one thing to lose an
independent game because of a technical problem, but I wouldn't like to
lose a Tournament that way. (Now, the penalty for not playing within the
clock in the middle of a ten-move slice in a given game could be the piece
of your choice (unless your opponent doesn't want it) the first time, that
same piece to drop for your opponent the second time and loss of the match
the third time. But it sounds overly complicated.)
Nevertheless, the implementation of that kind of device might be useful.

Bug report:  When I click on 'View Entire' on Antoine's comment on this
page immediately before this one, I get a 404 Page Not Found error, so I
can only see part of his comments.

Game Courier Tournament #2:  Yes!  I'm eager to get in on the next GC
tournament...  I have enough free time that I can I could deal with more
ambitious time controls, but I understand that most people don't, and I
think the priority should be on maximizing participation.  As for game
selection, I favor a democratic approach.  From what I see from the logs,
game selection was conducted in a very impressive way last time, and I
would like to see that process repeated.  The only change I can think of
that should be considered is a rule to preclude inclusion of the same game
in consecutive tournaments.  My suggestion: exclude games from this
tournament that were played in the last one except those that are
Recognized Variants.  This way, GC tournament #2 can still include Shogi,
Xiang Qi, Ultima, Alice Chess, Grand Chess, and Glinski's Hex Chess, but
other games won't be available again until GC tournament #3.  Otherwise,
I'm afraid we won't get enough variation...

Well, I'm certainly happy to have an entirely new list of games, and
RL blocks.