<[The game] will adjudicate as won for one side if both playing engines have an eval of at least 6.50 pawns (or -6.50 in case of a black win) for 4 consecutive moves, or 8 plies - this rule is in effect as soon as the game starts.>

US Chess League rd 5: Molner-So
US Chess League rd 5: Arizona-St. Louis
TCEC Stage 1a rd 5: Gull-Stockfish
TCEC Stage 1a rd 5: Gull-Stockfish: OVER/UNDER
Baku/Durban/TCEC: PICK THREE
Baku Open rd 4: Baryshpolets-Efimenko
Baku Open rd 4: Areshchenko-Rasulov
Baku Open rd 4: Wen Yang-Berkes
Durban Open rd 7: Brunello-Gupta
Durban Open rd 7: WALRUS SPECIAL

Now immortalized in the ChessBookie Hall of Fame is the first place winner <dakgootje> who receives a free year premium membership to Chessgames, and also qualifies for the Winter championship.

Because of the skipped Spring Leg, we are allowing the top twelve to qualify.

Due to concerns of possible rule breaking for one of the qualifiers, we are going to let one more player (AnotherBike) qualify as well.

This gives us the winner list:

1. dakgootje (15,194)
2. Winter (8,851)
3. Robin01 (8,657)
4. ManicSquirrel (7,446)
5. centralfiles (7,431)
6. wordfunph (7,183)
7. 4tmac (6,444)
8. scout118 (6,102)
9. Sneaky (6,054)
10. posoo (6,052)
11. moronovich (6,046)
12. CHRM (5,578)
13. AnotherBike (5,247)

Congratulations to <dakgootje> and the other 12 qualifiers.

And on da VERY FIRST TRY as a chess gumbler! only STARTED da game in September and STILL manged to get in da top ten.

I am ITCHING to kno who broke da rules, and how! I admit dat I thot about creating ghost accounts and hedging, but I codnt figure out how to DO IT, nor did I have da time.

Once again, congratz to <Switch> for running the game, and good luck to the next person (which I believe is <wordfunph>).

<Benasque Open>
Total Wager: 5,194
# of events: 9
Average per event: 577 1/9
Juice: 186
_______________

<TCEC> 15®
Total Wager: 128,691
# of events: 41
Average per event: 3,138 33/41
Juice: 3,643
_______________

<Multiple Tournaments> Total Wager: 24,911
# of events: 10
Average per event: 2,491 1/10
Juice: 981
_______________

<Dortmund> 1®, 2®
Total Wager: 79,506
# of events: 43
Average per event: 1,848 42/43
Juice: 2,391
_______________

<ACP>
Total Wager: 34,377
# of events: 18
Average per event: 1,909 5/6
Juice: 1,152
_______________

<Biel>
Total Wager: 76,125
# of events: 43
Average per event: 1,770 15/43
Juice: 2,402
_______________

<Olympiad (Women)>
Total Wager: 25,775
# of events: 9
Average per event: 2,963 8/9
Juice: 794
_______________

<Gelfand-Svidler>
Total Wager: 12,360
# of events: 5
Average per event: 2,472
Juice: 321
_______________

<Politiken Cup>
Total Wager: 52,283
# of events: 34
Average per event: 1,537 25/34
Juice: 1,596
_______________

<Olympiad>
Total Wager: 233,578
# of events: 82
Average per event: 2,848 21/41
Juice: 8,077
_______________

<Ibero-American>
Total Wager: 2,521
# of events: 2
Average per event: 1,260 1/2
Juice: 66
_______________

<Geneva Open>
Total Wager: 4,398
# of events: 3
Average per event: 1,466
Juice: 156
_______________

<FIDE>
Total Wager: 19,789
# of events: 2
Average per event: 9,894 1/2
Juice: 287
_______________

<Riga Open>
Total Wager: 170,811
# of events: 57
Average per event: 2,996 13/19
Juice: 4,872
_______________

<Abu Dhabi> 3®
Total Wager: 23,214
# of events: 7
Average per event: 3,316 2/7
Juice: 663
_______________

<Sinquefield Cup> 4®, 5®, 6®, 7®, 8®, 9® Total Wager: 490,696
# of events: 77
Average per event: 6,372 52/77
Juice: 15,835
_______________

<Sharjah>
Total Wager: 59,895
# of events: 13
Average per event: 4,607 4/13
Juice: 1,583
_______________

<Yaroslav the Wise>
Total Wager: 7,481
# of events: 3
Average per event: 2,493 2/3
Juice: 324
_______________

<GRENKE> 11®
Total Wager: 78,368
# of events: 20
Average per event: 3,918 2/5
Juice: 2,265
_______________

<Spanish League> 10® Total Wager: 78,722
# of events: 21
Average per event: 3,748 2/3
Juice: 2,284
_______________

<U.S. Chess League>
Total Wager: 53,227
# of events: 7
Average per event: 7,603 6/7
Juice: 1,429
_______________

<European Club Cup>
Total Wager: 66,896
# of events: 15
Average per event: 4,459 11/15
Juice: 1,658
_______________

<European Club Cup (Women)> Total Wager: 3,214
# of events: 2
Average per event: 1,607
Juice: 123
_______________

<Bilbao> 11®, 12®, 13®, 14® Total Wager: 185,948
# of events: 26
Average per event: 7,151 11/13
Juice: 5,751
_______________

<Amantea>
Total Wager: 9,938
# of events: 3
Average per event: 3,312 2/3
Juice: 273
_______________

<Durban>
Total Wager: 41,233
# of events: 11
Average per event: 3,748 5/11
Juice: 1,246
_______________

<Baku Open>
Total Wager: 20,754
# of events: 9
Average per event: 2,306
Juice: 720

===============

Summer 2014 Leg

Note: For juice, if the 5% from losing pools is a decimal number, I rounded up in favour of the house. Also, all refunded bets are excluded from the total, but mentioned below.

- 243 users received the benefit of Pay Day.
- ® means a bet was refunded. Since below for details.

1® The 1,305 chessbucks from Dortmund rd 3: Naiditsch-Caruana: DRAW NO BET (IN-PLAY) were refunded because the game was drawn.

2® Dortmund rd 7: Leko-Caruana: DRAW NO BET (IN-PLAY) was refunded due to the game being drawn.

3® The 3,324 chessbucks from Abu Dhabi rd 2: TOP SIX SPECIAL were refunded due to incorrect pairings.

4® The 9,988 chessbucks from Sinquefield Cup rd 2: Nakamura-Carlsen: DRAW NO BET were refunded due to the game being drawn.

5® The 4,798 chessbucks from Sinquefield Cup rd 6: Nakamura-Aronian: DRAW NO BET were refunded due to the game being drawn.

6® Sinquefield Cup rd 7: Topalov-Aronian: DRAW NO BET was refunded due to the game being drawn.

7® The 7,418 chessbucks from Sinquefield Cup rd 8: Caruana-Carlsen: DRAW NO BET were refunded due to the game being drawn.

8® The 3,863 chessbucks from Sinquefield Cup rd 9: Vachier-Lagrave-Topalov: DRAW NO BET were refunded due to the game being drawn.

9® The 6,683 chessbucks from Sinquefield Cup rd 10: Aronian-Caruana: DRAW NO BET were refunded due to the game being drawn.

10® Spanish League rd 5: Giri-Rakhmanov: DRAW NO BET was refunded due to the game being drawn.

11® The 3,255 chessbucks from GRENKE rd 6: Meier-Nisipeanu: DRAW NO BET were refunded due to the game being drawn.

12® The 5,242 chessbucks from Bilbao rd 1: Vallejo-Aronian: DRAW NO BET were refunded due to the game being drawn.

13® Bilbao rd 3: Anand-Aronian: DRAW NO BET was refunded due to the game being drawn.

14® Bilbao rd 5: Ponomariov-Anand: DRAW NO BET was refunded due to the game being drawn.

Woohoo :)

I wondered quite a bit whether someone, especially Robin01, ManicSquirrel, or wordfunph, would give First Place a shot. I would have done that.. and they had a couple of thousand to burn and still be safe as top-12.. but the previous days [at the very least] they'd been very stable, so I guessed they wouldn't.

So in the end a fairly smooth victory. Heh, my first real chessbookie achievement, after placing second at the world leg behind SQ - with some rather highstakes bets. Man, don't know my final score - but I thought it had some previous world leg winners beat ;)

Speaking of achievements: very nice job by centralfiles! I believe his first try - and a nice long run at the top of the leaderboard, plummeting a few days back, only to regain much of it and finishing 5th. So very nice job there!

Next legs will be tough, with CF as new competitor and <especially> with SQ back! Awesomely led leg - great variation in bets. I quite liked the draw-no-bet, and the different variations of favorites-vs-the-losers. In all honesty, I thought the handicap bets [team A +2.5 etc] were a nice touch, but they did seem to lead to some confusion. And besides, I probably made a net loss on them.. ;D

I hope next legs will feature a similar amount of bet variations :)

Uhm.. anything else.. oh right, pay day!

<No one has mentioned anything about Pay Day yet, so I would like to be the first person to support the idea of Pay Day for the next leg. I like it because it keeps players more interested in the game longer. It wasn't until last Saturday where I lost interest in the leg. If it weren't for Pay Day, I would've quit by mid-August.>

Ah, that's interesting. I was a bit hesitant, because the last few weeks much of the leaderboard stayed unchanged. Moreover, the amounts didn't seem that much higher than previously - so I had some doubts how effective the pay day was. That said, it did seem that the near-pursuers [lets say: those needing a double-up for the leaderboard] were more active than previously.

The juice should be rounded down; it's pretty much the only number not rounded in my favour.

Wellcome back.Hope you will enjoy the new season(s).

My proposition is as follows:
At the final the qualifiers start with
20.000 bucks

and the other participants with:

10.000 bucks.

Could seem strange but with this formula the difference is about the same as usual,but the qualifiers amount is only the double compared to now. And we certainly should have bigger pots with odds being more representive for the bets value.

Some of us mere mortals who managed to squeak in would benefit from a trial leg before the 2015 winter championship round.

I'm guessing the automatic qualifiers from the 2014 winter championship leg, namely Absentee, Touch of Knight, wordfunph, Golden Executive, Diademas, dakgootje, Robin01, ManicSquirrel, martin moller, and Annie K. could sort of like go all in unabashed anytime knowing they'd be getting 10k for the championship and didn't mind scores of minus 10-15k in basically non-bearing qualification legs.

The rest of us just wanted to stay on the leaderboard. Given a level playing field, we can all practice our magic formulas. ;-)

Whereas with bigger amounts the odds may be somewhat more representative - with the current rules, people would start out with an enormous max-bet. That is, I thought whenever you cross 10k, your max-bet becomes 10k. So to catch-up with the leaders, you'd need only a single double up - possible with a single max-bet. I'd fear that promotes recklessness, so that pure luck rather than skill determines the winner.

Sure, max-bets could go down - but then what would be the difference with the 1k/2k solution.

--

That all said, I wouldn't be opposed to changing the current championship system. It is possible to finish top-10 as non-qualifier. I did it last year, and if memory serves so did two others. It's even possible to win. But it's quite difficult, because the start is very very slow.

Starting out with 1k and a 200 bet limit and not much to loan, it takes some time to get going. Sure, the qualifiers start ahead, but currently the non-qualifiers have to tie their shoes first as well.

Certainly, being guaranteed 10k is a great advantage of finishing top-10 in a previous championship leg. Gives more freedom to bet, or for that matter to sit out a leg when you don't feel like it.

That was the main reason why I was worried this past week about Robin01, ManicSquirrel and wordfunph. I knew they had qualified already, and could easily take chances. The rest had not, and would probably stand pat.

...too bleepy high, as I keep saying. ;s

In any case, the final standings are immortalized here: http://www.chessgames.com/chessbook...

This weekend we'll start to train <wordfunph> as the next volunteer Bookie. He sounds excited about it and I'm sure he'll do a great job.

The real leg will begin in 5-10 days once we're confident we're ready to go. Ideally it would start on October 1st for the Baku Grand Prix but we might not make that deadline.

I just knew that surprisingly correct spelling (dakgootje) wouldn't last... ;p