Jan-30-13
 | | FSR: I was following Kudrin vs M Wilder, 1987. Fleetwood deviated with 19.h4, which as I recall was suggested in the notes to that game in Chess Informant. Our game was very sharp, with each of us attacking the other's king. I was surprised when he played g5, ignoring the fact that his knight was hanging, but after analysis concluded that it would be too dangerous to take it. Fortunately, the tactics still worked out OK for me, and the game finished in a draw by perpetual check. My opponent finished just a half point out of first in the tournament, and ultimately became a correspondence grandmaster. |
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Mar-28-15
| | FSR: The gametype should be "CORRESPONDENCE." Correction slip submitted. |
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Mar-28-15
 | | offramp: <FSR: The gametype should be "CORRESPONDENCE." Correction slip submitted.> ...."by post". |
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Aug-14-25
| | FSR: My opponent is now the correspondence co-world champion, with nine others, having scored +1 =15 in the 33rd Correspondence World Championship Finals. Each of the ten co-winners won his one decisive game by forfeit against three-time champion Aleksandr Dronov, who died during the event. All of the other games in the tournament were drawn. Such is correspondence chess these days. No one can beat the engines. |
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Aug-14-25
 | | perfidious: One might say that both players here walked a thin line. From <Tusk>:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kK... |
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| Aug-15-25 | | Granny O Doul: <My opponent is now the correspondence co-world champion, with nine others, having scored +1 =15 in the 33rd Correspondence World Championship Finals> So, no tiebreaker?
Is Fleetwood now a shoo-in for the US Chess Hall of Fame? |
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Aug-15-25
| | FSR: <Granny O Doul> All of the ten had identical tiebreaks. As for the US Chess Hall of Fame, I see that Hans Berliner and Victor Palciauskas, both of whom were ICCF World Champions, are in it, quite deservedly. https://worldchesshof.org/halls-of-... I wouldn't consider Jon Edwards or Dan Fleetwood, both of whom are now ICCF World Champions or co-Champions, shoo-ins. Maybe they will get it, but the title is becoming less impressive every year. Fleetwood and the other nine co-champions in the 33rd Championship won by drawing all their games except for forfeit wins against Dronov, who died. Edwards got his two wins in the 32nd Championship after one player withdrew for some reason (he had equal positions in all his remaining games) and another player, in an equal position, hung a piece against Edwards. That put him into a four-way tie for first. He won the championship on tiebreak by one-quarter of a Sonneborn-Berger point. (He beat someone who finished with an even score, having received a win from the withdrawing player, while the other three each beat someone who finished -1.) Play has begun in the 34th Championship. Three Americans - Fleetwood, Edwards, and Jon Ostriker - are competing. https://www.iccf.com/event?id=107382 If no one dies or withdraws this time, the most likely result is that every game is drawn and there is a 15-way tie for first at 7-7. That pales in comparison to Berliner's 14-2 score and Palciauskas's 11.5-3.5 score. Game Collection: 5th Correspondence World Championship Final ; 10th Correspondence World Championship (1978). Today, anyone who can use an engine competently can draw anyone in the world. Edwards hates me because I said that the "Grandmaster of the Year" award he received from USCF was ridiculous. He rejoined that the USCF didn't give him that title just for winning the world championship final. He had also been a member of the US Olympiad team! So I looked up his performance. The cross-table is at https://www.iccf.com/event?id=83289. He played Board 6 for the US team. At 2530, he was the highest rated player on that board. His opponents' ratings averaged 2435, 95 points below him. He drew every game, and tied for fourth on tiebreak, finishing 1.5 points below the top scorer on Board 6. Certainly nothing to write home about. |
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| Aug-15-25 | | Granny O Doul: I played Ostriker some forty-odd years ago in my only-ever 0-4 tournament. I thought I'd gotten over it but now the opportunity I squandered will haunt me the rest of my life. |
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Aug-15-25
| | FSR: Incidentally, I recently completed two ICCF games against Ralf Anderskewitz, another competitor in the 33rd Championship. We played them in an Albin Counter-Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5?!) thematic tournament. Both were drawn. The Albin is bad, but with perfect play by both sides it doesn't lose. Ralf was one of the six players who drew all their games in the 33rd Championship and thus <didn't> tie for first. https://www.iccf.com/event?id=100104. He and Dronov agreed to a draw a week before the latter's death. |
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Kibitzing
