English Chess Forum

I was thinking about playing, but there seem to be very few entries so far. Any ideas on whether entries will pick up?

Its interesting that that the majority of the people commentating on this incident seem to be anti Carlsen's behaviour. While no one has produced any evidence that Neiman has used computer assistance in OTB play, on a human level I can understand why Carlsen isn't happy: (1) As the almost undisputed...

So many interesting discussion topics raised by this incident, to name just a few: - Whether players who gained the majority of their playing strength in the pre-computer era, or without training heavily with computers (for arguments sake, and having read this thread, possibly say Ian Rogers, Keith ...

The session last night was very interesting. I don't understand why GDPR prevents the 4NCL publishing the Z-scores of all the players in the 4NCL online. Any publication should come with a disclaimer that the Z-scores are statistics only and whilst they may create a very strong statistical inference...

Due to changes in player availability, I have overbooked a single room for the Sunday night (only) of the final weekend at the venue and its too late to cancel it. Please let me know if interested.

Without getting too involved in the ratings debate, having underrated players with K factors of 15 over-performing against established players with K factors of 10 does mean that the number of points gained will be 1.5 times the number of points lost. So overall, it could be seen as inflationary rat...

I'm also extermely sceptical that even long sequences of moves (or games) where a player's moves all match an engine's first choice moves proves very much. However, maybe this doesn't matter too much if the detection methods are also looking for other less ambiguous signs of computer involvement (or...

Surely, any half decent cheater is going to work out a way to throw in a few "human" moves often enough to beat any published criteria for checking games for move matching against computer engines. Its a pity that mobile phone jammers are illegal in so many countries. I'm sure I've seen/heard it sug...

I'm not a statistician, but I think I could easily be convinced that the system of +(-) 50 points for a win(loss) produces a stable set of gradings as long as a large majority of the players play against a reasonably even distribution of opponents by grade (i.e. they play approximately as many peopl...