Do Prius owners play chess?

When I lived in Mexico I had a computer for a year or so, and played chess on ICC (the Internet Chess Club) but I had a dial-up internet connection (nothing else was available at the time!) and the Mexican phone system was unstable and I kept losing my connection.

I don't know why it took me so long to decide to join again, since I've had cable internet since returning home in 2001, but I finally decided to. After ten games, I have a provisional rating of 1597, which is about middling. After 20 games, ratings drop the "provisional" tag and a different formula is used. I'll probably play a game a day, maybe two some days. After a couple of hours my brain stops working, so I've never been a tournament player. And I don't care for speed chess. On ICC you can watch other peoples' games, and I've watched high-rated players lose on time in a 3-minute or 5-minute game when they had a won position, but not enough time to carry it through.

Any other chess players on here?

 

In my early 20's I played very seriously. I eventually quit because I obsessed over it too much. I didn't lie awake analyzing games, but I couldn't stand to lose. I was so competitive that it did me emotional damage. When I finally got my first PC I got a chess game for it. No stress, because it's just a machine.

But chess is the only game I really enjoy, and always has been. There's no luck, as in cards or dice, and nothing's hidden from view, as in cards.

The problem with taking the outcome too seriously is that there'll always be better players, so you cannot win all the time unless you only play people below your level. So I'm trying hard this time to accept the fact that I'm going to find my level, and as long as I play people around my level I'll win some and lose some.

I do go over my games afterwards, but not obsessively. I try to find where I made mistakes, and then move on. And I want to make a habit of watching the chess lectures that ICC offers, to help improve my game.

Last night I won a game and my provisional rating is now 1630. It was a fun game; I was under a lot of pressure but finally broke the attack, and I think I had the better position as the clocks approached zero. The time controls were 30 minutes for the game and no increment, and I had about 30 seconds more on my clock than my opponent did, and the last couple of minutes of the game became more of a race as to who could move the fastest, which I do not like. I won on time. It's much more satisfying to win on the strength of your play than to win on time.

Any other chess players? Any active players? Anyone who's on ICC? (You can play unrated games for free as "anonymous" if you don't want to pay for a membership. There's also a totally free chess site, but of course it lacks the support a pay site can offer.)

 

I have some reason to believe (but no definite data) that ratings on ICC may be inflated compared to USCF. Or maybe it's just that in the 25 years since I last played regularly against rated players all ratings have been inflated.

I think they give you a provisional 1200 to start, and most players go up from there. I think 2400 might be grandmaster (???). A few people drop down lower than 1200 and a few are rated above grandmaster, but I'd guess that somewhere around 1600 to 1800 is probably the median, and around 1600 or 1700 is probably average for serious club players (people who regularly attend a club and play whether they are good or not.)

I just noticed in one of the help files that ICC tries to keep the average of all players around 1600. So if I keep my present rating I am average, which is how I use the word middling: in the middle.

The nice thing about internet chess, is that you can play whenever you like. There's a chess club in Spokane, but it meets at 7:00 p.m. once a week, a half an hour's drive from me. That's very late for me. And no chess program plays the way a human plays, so while programs are fun, they're not the same as playing a live person.

BTW, itsyourturn-dot-com also has chess, but all their games are the electronic version of postal play. You send in a move, and within a day or so you get your opponent's move back. That, too, is a very different kind of game.

 

I'm so old I never got comfortable with algebraic notation. C4 to me would be P-QB4. But I have to consciously "translate." The fact that if you're playing black you have to reverse the row numbers always unsettles me. Anyway, there's an additional problem with playing by exchanging moves over email, and that's the same that always plagued me with postal chess: one or the other misinterprets a move. It's so much easier to use itsyourturn-dot-com (which is free) for e-postal-chess.

1700 to 1900 is impressive, though I've never been on Yahoo Chess or MSN Chess so I don't know how their ratings compare.

We should have a game. You'd have to install a program that works with ICC, but would not have to register if you don't want to: We set up a time, I PM you my ICC user name, you log on as a guest, and send me a challenge. Not sure. I think a guest can challenge a member.

Or tell me how to get on as a guest on Yahoo Chess. I won't have anything to do with MSN.

 

Correction: Apparently guests cannot play on ICC. But there is a free trial period available. Or we could play on one of the free chess servers.

 

P.S. Apparently it's free to play on Yahoo. I prefer the user interface on ICC. ICC has better graphics, and ICC software corrects for internet transmission latency. But if one of the regulars here wants to have a game, and does not want to join ICC, I'd play the occasional game on Yahoo.

 

Any particular objections to on-line chess, or just don't like to sit in front of the computer for that long?

 

Fair enough.

My own interest in chess is the unfathomable problem of symbolic logic, which even the most powerful computers cannot solve, but which we address when we play. Thus, I don't care whether I'm playing someone in cyberspace and manipulating images on the screen, or playing over a board with actual pieces.

FWIW, I lost a game this morning to someone nearly 100 points below my provisional rating, which as a consequence is now once again a little below 1600. I have a tendency to make really stupid blunders, but this morning I was just outplayed.

 

This morning I played my 20th rated game on ICC, so my rating is no longer "provisional." I'm up to 1746, or something like that, which is ridiculous. Either ICC ratings, or ratings in general, have become tremendously inflated since the last time I played against rated players on a regular basis. I'm a respectable mid-level player, but I sure don't think I deserve that high a rating. Nor do I think that the people I've played against deserve the ratings they have, either, which amounts to the same thing.

Any other chess players here?

 

Send them a note, explaining that you've been too busy at work to use the site, and ask them if they'd annul your trial membership so that you could sign up again when you have some time and actually try the site for a week. Who knows, when they see that you've never played a game, they might agree.

Or, when you do have time, we could play on Yahoo, which apparently is free if you have a (free) Yahoo email account. I've never played there, and I don't like the looks of their interface, but what the hey. As I said, that 1746 rating is as inflated as a politician's ego. I'd probably be 1500 in over-the-board tournament play.