WCL Newsletter Vol. II - issue XVII  Friday, April 25, 2008
	In this Issue:  CofC finals: MASSACHUSETTS! Grand Prix : Just Great ! Titled players challenge you ! Live on WorldChessLive  Tourneys: Join & Win Prizes Highlights WCL : The Community Past issues

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Titled players challenge you ! MasterChallenge(*)(C)(TD): >Congratulations WCL-Member for defeating GM Vladimir Too-Strong in the MasterChallenge event. Congratulations Player for this incredible accomplishment :) Played this week Some results of the week   Keep an on the scheduled Events, connect in time, then, jump in!  On Dasher, click in menu bar - Window - Activities then select the Events tab. That is where you find most of the info about Tournaments and EVENTS! Under (To)day Events, you find scheduled events, MasterChallenge, Simul, etc. But also the live games that are broadcasted. following, there is "tomorrow events" as far there is no last minute change.  vs is probably the toughest Time  Control for the Masters. So, in most on cases, we go for a  1 1 vs 2 1. Still one more minute for the player!     Let's see the results of the week: Thursday April 17 | 19:00 EDT GM Dejan Antic 16 wins and 1 draw to FarkasArpad. Friday, April 18 | 15:00 EDT GM Larry Christiansen  played 25 games, won 22 lost to MaryDawson twice and to ArjunPatel2. Saturday, April 19 | 15:00 EDT IM Miodrag Perunovic played 16 games, drew one and lost one both to MaryDawson. Monday, April 21 | 15:00 EDT  GM Victor Mikhalevski  21 wins in the Time-Odds, just perfect.  Monday, April 21 | 19:00 EDT GM Yuri Solodovnichenko played 19 games, and won 19! Wednesday, April 23 | 15:00 EDT IM Sasha Belezky for a 'classical' Master Challenge played 16 games and lost twice to Lena! Wednesday, April 23 | 19:00 EDT IM Branimir Maksimovic made a perfect score of 21 wins! Piece-Odds Friday, April 18 | 19:00 EDT IM Dragan Stamenkovic made a perfect score with 17 wins. Sunday, April 20 | 14:00 EDT IM Goran Vojinovic made a perfect score with 16 wins for his first Time-Odds on WCL. Tuesday, April 22| 15:00 EDT  IM Dragan Stamenkovic was there again for a piece-Odds but we increased a bit the difficulty so he won 13 games, and lost to MortimerM (a Queen down) CofC-Arizona (one the players of last week qualifier) and to Playwaycool! He stopped after 17 wins...  Of course, only members can play, so become a member! Thanks to all the players, Members and Masters, and Congratulations to the Winners. Rules and descriptions of all Titled Events can be found here  TGIF This Friday evening, (April 19), just after his Piece-Odds Events, IM Dragan Stamenkovic was facing IM Goran Vojinovic!  IM Dragan Stamenkovic 6-4 IM Goran Vojinovic . Do you want to see this games ? type /search DStamenkovic Goranvojinovic and you will get the list of all the games played between this titled players on WCL.    Don't miss this weekly battle! Be there next friday at 20:00 EDT!  Simul Results  Don't miss the registration! To make sure you'll be warned of the beginning of the registration for the simul, just do "tell simulbot alarm". Beware, that is a toggle command, so, if you send the command twice, that will switch the alarm off.   GM Dejan Antic, handled the Simul usually played each saturday by IM Martha Fierro. 8 players took part to that event. GM Dejan Antic lost to omarchesab and AKain. The game he reviewed deeply was AKain's.   GM Ronen Har-Zvi, played a Simul against 7 players and won the 7 ! He reviewed Robertbancod game. The diagram shows clearly what is going to fall on White's head! WCL is the only site where Simul are followed by an analysis and comments between the simul giver and  the  audience. Banter played this week:  During the 25 5 game, the two Masters whisper their thoughts and their plans. Of course, they can't read what their opponent is planning. Always interesting to try to understand how a Master thinks!  When the game finishes, the players review the game together, exploring other lines and analyzing their mistakes. GM Victor Mikhalevski vs GM Viktor Gavrikov. Two strong GM for that weekly battle that ended by the victory of... Viktor! These games are recorded with their commentaries for a further rebroadcast. You can also do /finger Banterchess to revie the games without the comments. Events Scheduled This Week (Saturday April 20th, May 4th)  Saturday  15:00 EST MasterChallenge  19:00 EST Simul+Analysis GM Viktor Gavrikov IM Martha Fierro  Sunday  14:00 EST Piece-Odds  18:00 EST Battle of the Week IM Goran Vojinovic GM Dejan Antic vs IM Branimir Maksimovic  Monday  15:00 EST Time-Odds  19:00 EST MasterChallenge IM Goran Vojinovic IM Branimir Maksimovic  Tuesday  15:00 EST MC Pieces-Odds  19:00 EST Simul+Analysis WGM Anna Zatonskih GM Ronen Har-Zvi  Wednesday  15:00 EST Time-Odds  19:00 EST MasterChallenge WGM Anna Zatonskih IM Dragan Stamenkovic  Thursday  15:00 EST BanterChess  19:00 EST MasterChallenge GM Alex Finkel vs GM Viktor Gavrikov IM Martha Fierro  Friday  15:00 EST MasterChallenge  19:00 EST MC Pieces-Odds  20:00 EST TGIF IM Branimir Maksimovic GM Dejan Antic IM Irina Krush vs IM Dragan Stamenkovic  Saturday  15:00 EST MasterChallenge  19:00 EST Simul + Analysis FM Dragan Drasko IM Martha Fierro  Sunday  14:00 EST Piece-Odds  18:00 EST Battle of the Week GM Alex Finkel GM Dejan Antic vs IM Irina Krush   Live on World Chess Live USCF Month: only 24 Days to Tulsa for CofC-MA World Chess Live - April 20, 2008 - The United States Chess Federation and World Chess Live are pleased to announce that, after a close competition, IM David Vigorito, representing Massachusetts, has won the fourth U.S. State Champion of Champions event and will now go forward to the 2008 Frank K. Berry U.S. Chess Championship, 13-21 May, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Fifty state champions from Alaska through California to Hawaii, and from Maine through to New York and Florida battled their way through the Eastern and Western Conferences held on WCL (www.worldchesslive.com, the new sister-site of the Internet Chess Club), with the top four contesting the Finals. The four who battled their way through the Blitz Conference qualifiers to the Finals Weekend were:  Western Conference: IM Vinay Bhat (Northern California) and IM Enrico Sevillano (Southern California).  Eastern Conference: IM David Vigorito (Massachusetts) and IM-elect Ray Robson (Florida). In the semifinals, both Vigoreto and Sevillano scored convincing 2-0 wins, respectively,  against Robson and Bhat to set-up the final match-up of Southern California versus Massachusetts.  And in that final, it was David Vigorito, 36, from Andover, MA, who snatched the final U.S. Chess Championship qualifying spot by taking the title 1.5-0.5.  “It’s [The U.S. State Champion of Champions event] tough and demanding, yet at the same time innovative by being played online,” commented David Vigorito after winning the title.  “It was nice to be able to go to Tulsa having won through -- and doubly so by representing my home-state of Massachusetts.” This unique event demonstrates that online chess and over-the-board chess can indeed be a perfect mix – even for one of the world’s most famous national championships.   First, each player in the tournament had to prove themselves OTB by winning (or scoring highly in) their relevant state championship to be invited, then they had to play online on WCL (both in an all-play-all Blitz for the conference qualifiers, and then  the G\60 knockout finals, with independent proctors officiating at each venue to ensure fairness throughout), with the winner going forward to the U.S. Chess Championship. The press reported the event such as in the telegram.com USCF reports of course the results with an interview of IM David Vigorito by WGM Jenny Shahade. Click here Grand Prix on WCL : 1st Tournament played on April 24  The kickoff event for the 2008 Worldchesslive Online Grand Prix began Thursday, April 24th at 8pm Server Time. This inaugural event was FREE for all USCF members and a total of 20 points in USCF's 2008 WCL Grand Prix was awarded. Of course, Younger members can also earn points and, in addition, all games in the Online Grand Prix are USCF quick-rated. Full details can be found at WCL-USCF 2008 Grand Prix   When you register for the first time, make sure your USCF number and PIN have been updated, specially if you just renewed your USCF membership. Otherwise just come and play! USCF members are full part WCL members and can take benefit of all the events, tourneys, videos, that are provided by WCL to his members so enjoy and don't limit your pleasure to USCF events. On the other hand, all WCL members are invited to get their USCF membership and play in that great event! Grand Prix was hosted in channel 225 (Littleper) and run by Quickbot in 3 2 u blitz, 8 rounds. With 45 players joining the tournament, that first Grand Prix was a real success First words of the first winner scoring 7.5/8! AlexL(IM): yes I'm satisfied SpiralArchitect won the 2nd place with 6.5/8 and a tiebreak was played in 3 2 blitz unrated too for the 3rd place between gmtbh, knightenight and PlayWayCool with 6/8. PlayWayCool and gmtbh tied and a second tie break, sudden death, was needed. Congratulations to gmtbh who won the tiebreak and got the 3rd ticket. Congratulations to the winners ! Thanks to all who played or watch for making this tournament a true success !   "tell tournamentbot grid 5332" for full results and info We hope to meet you next thursday and every week then for what is promising to become one of the greatest regular events on WCL! USCF QR Sunday April 20, the tournament has been successfully tested. Twenty players took part to the tournament and went along the 6 rounds of 5 0 blitz Swiss Style. Congrats to Endgames who scored 6/6 and to TGRUN and Allan, 2nd and 3rd, both with 4.5/6 So get ready for April 27, 20:00 EST ! STC Bunch May Mania Interested in playing slow games? The STC Bunch organizes slow tournaments and helps people who prefer slower time controls to find games. Check out our website at www.stcbunch.net and join channel 90. We have over 1000 members, and membership is free! May Mania is here! The STC Bunch's annual four round sprint kicks off on April 28. The time control is 40 10, and you'll be paired against players with a rating close to your own in every round. There are prizes available to WCL members! Details of the rules can be found at http://stcbunch.net/eventswcl.php Available on WCL : Chess Talk with IM John Watson featuring Bill Hook  Weekly, IM John Watson Talk Show is broadcasted on ICC Chess.FM. This 60+ minutes feature some chess personality This week (Tue., 22 April), joining IM John Watson on Chess Talk will be Silver Spring master and Olympiad legend Bill "Captain" Hook.  He has played in a record 16 Chess Olympiads for the British Virgin Islands, winning the gold medal in 1980 at Malta for the best individual performance. But Cap't Hook likes to recall other memorable Olympiad moments, such as playing  the formidable Bobby Fischer in 1970 at Siegen, West Germany.  Drawing from a sheer bottomless well of memories from art, chess and gambling, he recently authored the highly-entertaining and eminently readable new book for New In Chess, "Hooked on Chess: A Memoir. . Future Events : BOCA RATON  2008 U.S. Senior Open WCL will cover that famous meeting running from April, 28 to May, 3 2008. more details on the website

Highlights

Predict a Move - An Event with PRIZES ! Started  January 1st, PAM (Predict-a-Move) is rolling. Every day at 13:00 EDT, you can join the line just type "tell PAM-bot join". The rule is simple. A game played by 2 masters is chosen in a database and the members have to guess what is the move that has been played by white as well as black. Any guess within the 30 first seconds gives you 25 points. The right guess gives 75 points, so, the right guess found in less than 30 seconds means 100 points. Of course, it is not allowed to search the game in a database in order to guess(?) the move. We hope you understand that cheating is just detrimental. You can join, leave and come back without losing your points. PRIZES : Each month the best player will be awarded with a 3 weeks membership extension and the player who has played the most during the month (with a minimun score of 3000 points for the whole month) will get 1 week membership extension! the winner of the best can't be, the same month, also winner of the most and can't be awarded for the best score, twice in a row but he can play for the most then. Here come the names of the top 3 in the PAM played from Thursday, April 17 to Wednesday, April 23:  Thursday  1. RobertBancod  3700 pts  2. Alstone52 3425 pts  3. EduardoAbramson 3700 pts  Friday  1. Zoraidax 3625 pts  2. timm 3600 pts  3. Janos07 3550 pts  Saturday  1. cj0467 4750 pts  2. timm 4725 pts  3. Zoraidax 4375 pts  Sunday  1. timm 2650 pts  2. robertbancod 2550 pts  3. ZoranMilenkovic 2175 pts  Monday  1. timm 4450 pts  2. EduardoAbramson 4375 pts  3. Alstone52 4250 pts  Tuesday  1. DejanKostic 4400 pts  2. Alstone52 4150 pts  3. Robertbancod 4000 pts  Wednesday  1. Alstone52   3550 pts  2. timm 3475 pts  3. MassimoViti 3100 pts  Each day, around 20 persons join this events and kibitz their thoughts via PAM-bot. So Join us and have fun!  In case of tiebreak, the system is very simple, it is the registration order which decides, so, be there at the very beginning!   Dasher - Hints and tips Tournament : Just think Two-Twennyohann 221 is the number! WCL's managers are always ready to run Tournaments if you ask. The best way is to send your resquest in channel 221 : "> Hi, can you organize a 5 0 blitz"  and if others people are waiting a similar tournament, they can say "yes, if you open it, I'll join". The managers are here to answer your wills . Tournaments would work better and filll faster if you kept an eye on this channel. Otherwise, they will open, in order to give you  fun, some tourney without knowing if you are interesting in it so... Instead of waiting the tourney you would like to play: Just ask!! Check also if there is already some tournament running or open to registration, click on >Windows >Acitivities and select the tournament tab :  Here you can see that 4 tournaments are actually in progress. But only the first one, named "Two losses and say Goodbye" is available for joining. You can see that the three others are locked and there is no  to click on and join. From the above, you know for example that the Tournament named "Valley Of The Kings" is in its 3rd round of 5 (3/5), it is a blitz rated (br) with a time control of 3 0 played with the Swiss Style (SW) pairing method. Clicking on the will give you the actual standings, the games in progress, the list of players and more details on tournaments in general. Littleper (channel 225) hosts this tournament. E2 E1 or SW stand for the styles. Ex is a tournament by elimination where x is the maximum of losses you can have before finishing (and losing) the tourney. E2 means you can lose one game but at the second loss you are done! Beware also, if you latejoin, each round missed counts as a loss. SW is for Swiss style where player with  similar scores play each other but max 1 time each. More about the styles. Luton is probably the more flexible one and allows the manager to start with only 6 players. The only thing requested is to have an even number of players, so if  a 7th player join when the manager is about to close the tourney, he will have to reopen it... and wait for one more (or kill a player if nobody is watching at him). The pairings are automatically done by the bots and players with similar scores play each other but they may play more than once and it happens that, in a 5 rounds tourneys, you meet three times the same opponent; thing that doesn't happen in Swiss style. So, we understand, when you join a tourney that you want it to start as soon as possible (thats why the manager will turn it from Swiss to Luton) but may be is it better to wait few more minutes and start with Swiss style ? well... up to you ! RoundRobin or DoubleRoundRobin  (RR or DRR) sounds a a good way of pairing. Each player will meet every other player; once in a RR and twice in DRR. That means that a tournament starting with 6 players will last 5 rounds in RR and 10 in DRR. So, why isn't it the most common style? Because it has 2 major drawbacks! First, no latejoin possible and second, if one or more players are forfeited for some reason, pairings become quickly impossible and the bot may go nuts (legally). So, when you enter a Round Robin tournament make sure you can play it till the end. That's true for any tournament but there, that can waste the fun for other players.    Make sure you have a version 1.2.2 or above. Click on the Help in menu bar and select About Dasher. It will display your actual version and if it does show you the 1.2.2 you have to download here. Lucky you!  You just downloaded the latest Dasher and, Included in this version, a link to the multi-title winning JUNIOR engine that you can buy much cheaper than anywhere else and integrate in Dasher to examine, analyze your games and, use as a tool to help improve your game!     We are here to help you and let you have fun playing chess!    : The Community  We need you ! As already said above, WCL is growing ! We need Helpers, we need more Tournament managers, so if you like chess and if you enjoy to help people to play chess and give them fun in playing in the best conditions, apply for Helper and/or for Tournament Manager. Go in Event Tab of the Activities Window and, at the bottom, you'll find the forms to fill. Don't forget that thing : if you are friendly with people, people will be friendly with you (well... almost !) You can also click on "I want to become a Helper" or on "I want to be a Tournament Manager"  Feel free to share your opinion and your wishes. We want to know what kind of event you like, in tourneys, in event vs titled players. We also need to know what is the best hour for you (of course, regarding where you live in the world) and how much time you can spend on WCL for an event. You can find the list of scheduled events, tourneys and broadcast of the coming week in the event window .   Well, we need to know who you are and where you are from in order to schedule the right events at the right time. Questions and some answers: Games of the day / Videos : they are available for members only (so join us !) with your WCL handle and password.  Mac / Linux :I adore the dasher program but I can't downloaded with my Mac OS X 10.5.1 and sadly I only play with it in my laptop. There is an alternative interface to Dasher for people who chosed Mac or Linux, its called Sonia. Time Control : Set up a game with time control like 40 moves in 60 minutes + extra time like on an OTB is possible when the game is in tourney mode, so you may need a Admin Tournament Manager to do it. What time is it ? : On WCL, the events refers to the Server Time EDT (New-York time), that is GMT-4 or PST+3. To check the Server Time (and see if your didn't forget to have lunch) you can type /Date in main tab and see the server time.   Two important addresses : If you have any suggestions, ideas or questions, feel free to contact us. We will give you a personal answer or publish it in this part if many of you are concerned by a topic. We collect also infos regarding members of WCL. If you have played a tourney OTB, if your club organizes an event or anything else, we can mention it. Some of you may have questions relatives to login, lost password, membership then contact support. We answer as soon we receive your mail.

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