[blind-chess] Re: Revising Help Rules
- From: "alvin blazik" <ablazik@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <blind-chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:24:12 -0400
Richard,
I believe that the Game Help rules are fine just the way they stand.
What is so difficult to understand about " no computers or electronic games"?
I am not in favor of making it acceptable to show up for a marathon with a
bicycle!
Alvin
----- Original Message -----
From: R Dinger
To: chess
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2010 2:37 PM
Subject: [blind-chess] Revising Help Rules
Hi All,
Because of the correspondence chess tradition of using print reference
materials, this could be a
difficult rule change.
For many years correspondence chess players used books and their own past games
as references when
playing. I think this was used mostly to get the first few moves of a specific
opening correct, but
studying your own previous games could sometimes help avoid common pitfalls as
well. The whole
notion of references was not much of an issue, though, because manually
searching through piles of
written material took too much time.
Now with the introduction of personal computers and the availability of low
cost databases of
literally millions of games, the problem landscape has changed dramatically.
As Johannes correctly
points out, the better researcher has an advantage over his opponent no matter
the opponent's chess
skill.
Some chess game databases allow you to just enter your FEN position and the
software tells you what
the best next move is based on the millions of master level games in the
database. You don't even
need to enter the moves, just the current position. And someone told me
recently that some
databases don't even need the exact FEN they will find the closest ones. But
is that really playing
chess or just running some software. To me it seems a little like entering a
marathon race and
showing up to compete on a bicycle.
So where do we on the blind chess list want to draw the line?
Clearly using a chess engine or discussing your game with the local chess Grand
Master that is
giving you chess lessons is out. And maybe looking up your first few moves in
the ECO in order to
find the name and number of the opening could probably be allowed. But what
about the rest of it?
Nothing is really enforceable, though, and we must rely on the honor system. I
will make the rule
whatever appears to be the general consensus of the blind chess members. So
far I think the idea of
absolutely no help seems to be winning.
Some more ideas you might consider:
* Keeping the current rules.
* Limit to written articles and books only, like ECo or articles on a specific
opening.
* You must inform your opponent of any reference you use and furnish your
opponent a copy.
* No game databases or any published historical games.
* No chess software at all, like engines or databases like chess base.
* No opening advisor sites or automated opening software.
* Absolutely nothing but your own memory.
Any more ideas or additional comments?
Richard
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