ARNO NICKEL (born Feb-15-1952, 73 years old) Germany [what is this?] Arno Nickel is a well-known Correspondence Grandmaster, promoter of "Freestyle Chess" (similar to Advanced Chess) and publisher of chess books. He was co-editor of a chess journal called Schach Heute (1980), founded the popular Edition Marco (1983), and was editor of Schach Journal alongside Alexander Koblents (1991). After achieving the Grandmaster title in 2001, he qualified for the Final of the 21st ICCF World Championship (2005-2008), where he finished 5th, beating World Champion Joop van Oosterom in their individual game. In 2004/05 he defeated the supercomputer Hydra (Computer) in a correspondence match, 2.5 to 0.5. He was the first Correspondence Grandmaster to accept the Chessgames Challenge in 2006. He played against 2617 players, and lost an exciting Sicilian game with the black pieces. In 2008/09 he had a rematch against the World Team and drew. Later in 2009 Nickel won the very strong invitational Simon Webb Memorial, a category 15 event, ahead of 12 other grandmasters. In 2012 he won the ICCF gold medal with the German Olympic team, that is going to set up a new record with another gold medal in 2015 (surpassing former Soviet Union and Russia in the All-time tables of olympic medals). Nickel is currently no. 16 in the ICCF world rank list. Recently he started promoting 'Lasker Chess' with the idea of reducing the draw rate in correspondence chess. In view of the increasing draw rates he refers to Emanuel Lasker's old suggestion, promoted also by Richard Réti and other grandmasters, to introduce "stalemate wins" und "stalemate losses" counted as 3/4 and 1/4 points or at least as first tie-break method instead of Buchholz or Sonneborn Berger scores. Wikipedia article: Arno Nickel Last updated: 2017-07-27 07:28:06

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page 1 of 16; games 1-25 of 382  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. A Nickel vs H Gnirk 1-0 22 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 A04 Reti Opening 2. A Nickel vs W Heyland 1-0 41 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 A15 English 3. A Nickel vs U Mueller 1-0 26 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 A30 English, Symmetrical 4. A Nickel vs R Schmedtmann   0-1 45 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 A09 Reti Opening 5. A Nickel vs W Schubert ½-½ 57 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 A15 English 6. R Genannt vs A Nickel 0-1 22 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 B16 Caro-Kann, Bronstein-Larsen Variation 7. A Holl vs A Nickel 0-1 23 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 B16 Caro-Kann, Bronstein-Larsen Variation 8. K Kaehler vs A Nickel   0-1 48 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 B15 Caro-Kann 9. G Reichenbacher vs A Nickel 0-1 54 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 E54 Nimzo-Indian, 4.e3, Gligoric System 10. W Schoen vs A Nickel ½-½ 50 1986 FRG jub40 qg16 corr8687 E41 Nimzo-Indian 11. A Nickel vs H Kaiser 1-0 26 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 A17 English 12. A Nickel vs H Leserer 1-0 41 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 D37 Queen's Gambit Declined 13. A Nickel vs A Nowak ½-½ 50 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 A21 English 14. A Nickel vs Richter   1-0 34 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 A10 English 15. A Nickel vs M Dreyer   0-1 42 1988 Schleswig Holstein-ch 43rd A16 English 16. A Nickel vs H Bua   ½-½ 34 1988 Schleswig Holstein-ch 43rd A22 English 17. A Nickel vs W Reher 1-0 32 1988 Schleswig Holstein-ch 43rd A37 English, Symmetrical 18. A Nickel vs H Kock 0-1 55 1988 Schleswig Holstein-ch 43rd A54 Old Indian, Ukrainian Variation, 4.Nf3 19. A Nickel vs M Hass   1-0 65 1988 Schleswig Holstein-ch 43rd A39 English, Symmetrical, Main line with d4 20. R Helmreich vs A Nickel   ½-½ 35 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 B12 Caro-Kann Defense 21. M Holzhaeuer vs A Nickel 0-1 24 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 B14 Caro-Kann, Panov-Botvinnik Attack 22. W Moser vs A Nickel   0-1 22 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 B12 Caro-Kann Defense 23. E Neumann vs A Nickel 0-1 25 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 B12 Caro-Kann Defense 24. P Wahlbrink vs A Nickel   0-1 36 1988 FRG jub40 sf2 corr8889 E11 Bogo-Indian Defense 25. W Homuth vs A Nickel   ½-½ 41 1988 Schleswig Holstein-ch 43rd E54 Nimzo-Indian, 4.e3, Gligoric System  page 1 of 16; games 1-25 of 382

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< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 19 ·  Later Kibitzing> May-27-05    Milo: He crushed Hydra... May-27-05    Kangaroo: Arno Nickel - is this another computer? May-27-05    WannaBe: <Kangaroo> Player from/in Germany. I gathered that from the 2 games played, Hydra was in Abu Dhabi, and Nickel was in Berlin. May-27-05    WannaBe: Okay, no pun on this Mr. Ar-no (Not Swartznegger) Nickel. May-30-05    Alegsm: Man x Machine - The legend returns... Jun-02-05    Kangaroo: <WannaBe> I was kidding. Personally, I knew one player whose last name was Nikel (might be spelled as Nickel, too), so ... please forgive me for such a painful pun. Jun-20-05    fgh: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail... Interview with GM Arno Nickel on chessbase. Some interesting stuff. Jun-21-05    Poulsen: Strange, that a GM only has 2 games in the database. Jun-21-05    pyryk: <Poulsen> That might be because mr. Nickel is a GM in correspondence chess. According to fide.com, his OTB rating is only 2100. http://www.fide.com/ratings/card.ph... Aug-25-05    BishopBerkeley: I note that Mr. Arno Nickel has played an unusual correspondence match against six strong Chess engines without knowing which engine was which according to these rather unusual rules: http://direct.chessfriend.com/struc... Engine hardware specifics: http://direct.chessfriend.com/struc... Here are the results, as I understand them (I'm just reading through the site quickly -- I may not have a full understanding of what's going on here): 1. Nickel vs Junior (Computer) 8,9 [drawn] 2. HIARCS (Computer) 9 vs Nickel [1-0] 3. Nickel vs Deep Shredder (Computer) 7,8,9 [1-0] 4. Deep Fritz (Computer) 8 vs. Nickel [1-0] 5. Nickel vs The King 3.23 (The Chessmaster (Computer) Engine) [drawn] 6. Chess Tiger (Computer) 15 vs Nickel [drawn] And here are two more games that are added: 7. Chess Tiger (Computer) 15 vs Nickel [0-1] 8. Nickel vs Junior (Computer) 9 & ? [apparently still in progress?] All the games may be viewed and played through at this site: http://direct.chessfriend.com/Nicke... It would be nice if someone would submit them to our database!! (I would myself, but 1) I don't know how to do this, and 2) I'm too busy posting overly-wordy messages on these boards.) I also note that Mr. Nickel's 3rd game against Hydra (Computer) is well under way: http://direct.chessfriend.com/Nicke... He has won the first two!! Hopefully, one day he will play against the new #1 and #2 programs in the World Computer Chess Championship, "Zappa" and "Fruit"!! Quite interesting!! (: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :) Jan-13-06    underrated: From Wikipedia: <Hydra has so far no loss on record against an unaided human player in over-the-board play. Hydra has, however, been beaten by humans who had access to the advice of other programs during their games; for example, correspondence chess International Grandmaster Arno Nickel beat Hydra in a two-game correspondence match lasting six months. Nickel played against Hydra Chimera. Since July 11, 2005, Hydra is playing a third game against him.> Is this really true? I havent heard anything about this so far. Is it possible to see the progress somewhere...i am really interested. Jan-13-06    underrated: See: http://direct.chessfriend.com/Nicke... Feb-15-06    BIDMONFA: Arno Nickel NICKEL, Arno http://www.bidmonfa.com/nickel_arno... _ Mar-17-06    who: Can someone upload more of his games? Mar-17-06    Jim Bartle: Why? His games aren't worth a dime. Mar-17-06    bob000: ? Correspondance GM play compares favorably in quality to the classical play of supeGM's. Mar-17-06    azaris: Here's one I picked at random for all the Nickel Heads: [Event "GER-ch23 sf7 corr"] [Site "Germany"] [Date "1991.??.??"] [Round "0"] [White "Nickel,Arno"] [Black "Stern,Werner"] [Result "1-0"] [Eco "A87"] 1.d4 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 d6 4.Nf3 g6 5.0-0 Bg7 6.c4 0-0 7.b3 e5 8.dxe5 dxe5 9.Qc2 e4 10.Rd1 Qxd1+ 11.Qxd1 exf3 12.Ba3 Nfd7 13.Bxf8 Bxa1 14.Bh6 1-0 Oh dear... Mar-17-06    who: I don't understand the queen sac. Even without fanciness (12.Bxf3) white's on top. Mar-20-06    who: <bob000> it was a pun on nickel/dime. Mar-24-06    trumbull0042: "Hydra's score is 0.24 - quite realistic in my opinion." (http://direct.chessfriend.com/Nicke...) This is kind of ironic. Hydra is supposed to have a deeper understanding of chess than anyone else, and here you've got this comment by some casual human observer who glances at the position and thinks Hydra's +0.28 evaluation is "quite realistic."!! Mar-24-06    trumbull0042: A quick look at http://www.hydrachess.com reveals NO mention of the Nickel games. What does that say? Apr-13-06    dakgootje: I seem to remember he is one of the best anti-computer players at the moment. <trumbull0042> Nickel played at the PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament, but under the nickname of Ciron (ended 6th) Apr-14-06    blingice: Here's Arno's comments about the game(s): http://amici.iccf.com/issues/issue_... May-05-06    technical draw: There are many places where I can make a pun on Arno's name. I can't decide. I'll just have to flip a coin. May-05-06    Phi: hehe, good one Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 19) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 19 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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