The FICS SR team is glad to present:
June 2000
Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) News
What's New? - FICS would like to welcome the 1,311 new players that have
joined the server in the month of May. Among the highlights in this month's
newsletter, the FICS Karpov Anniversal 5 0 Tournament, an OnlineTours update, and the
need for additional FICS Tournament Managers, (TM)s.
Other news items include the STC Bunch - Team League announcement, information on the
final standings of the Sarajevo 2000 tournament, and updates for the 1999-2000 FICS Grand
Prix. Be sure to read the rest of the June monthly newsletter for more
FICS news items and other chess related information. Plus, don't forget to check out
the link to our previous Newsletter issues, July 1999 to present. You may find a lot
of useful information in our previous newsletter's 'Server Tip of the Month' sections.
FICS Anatoly Karpov Anniversal 5 0 Chess Tournament
The FICS Anatoly Karpov Anniversal 5 0 Chess Tournament was held on May 23, 2000 in celebration of Karpov's birthday. With a goal of 60 or more players, the tournament closed with 74 participants. After seven rounds, with a total of six points out of seven, nonspiego, mezzominuto, and trikmamak shared first place. As an added note, a bucholz calculation (which is a formula used in determining tiebreaks) determined nonspiego with 28.5 points, mezzominuto 25 points and trikmamak 24.5 points. Congratulations to the winners.
The standings for this event are available in ASCII text format.
Online Tours Update
OnlineTours (TD): Onlinetours is one of FICS newest training aids for those who are new to the server.
TM Applications
If you would like to apply for a TM position on FICS, please read 'help mamer_tm'. Be sure to send your message to the account TMApplication. If you have already applied to SuperIntellect, please apply again to TMApplication. You can view current demand for TMs by typing 'finger TMApplication' on FICS. Please note, you can send in your application at any time, demand for new TM's fluctuates, but it is best to have your application on file.
New symbol on "who" listings - The '&' symbol
FICS has added the '&' symbol to the 'who' list to designate when a certain user has their tournament variable on. It will appear between the user's rating and handle, for example: 1556&DAV, to denote that DAV may not be challenged unless by someone also in a tournament.
KOTHbot (King of the Hill) Update
Please abdicate yourself as king before joining a mamer tournament. KOTHbot is designed to have the current king open for challenges by any player interested in rated blitz with that player. Since mamer is set up such that the challenges which a player should accept are restricted by tournament pairings that mamer assigns; any player interested outside of a tournament setting cannot access the current King of the Hill. The KOTHbot format and mamer tournament formats should remain separate. Any player joining a mamer tournament as king will be forfeited immediately.
STC Bunch - Team League Announcement
The STC Bunch (Channel 90) 5th Team League Championships are
now underway. The tournament is a five round Swiss paired 45 45 event with two
rating sections; the first will require a team average of U2200, the second, U1800.
The team tournament began May 11, 2000, it will last approximately 6 weeks with one week
as a bye. This tournament is not a FICS administered event.
More information may be obtained by contacting nham online, messaging him, or by visiting
the STC homepage at http://www.continet.com/ckmate/league.html.
Sarajevo 2000
The Sarajevo 2000 chess tournament took place from May 16th to May 29th with a live relay on FICS. While Garry Kasparov was the winner, other notable players in attendance included Shirov, Morozevich, Adams, Movsesian, and Topalov. Games from completed rounds are stored in the respective players' histories and can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/Bosna2000/ in PGN format.
Sarajevo 2000 links:
Official website: http://www.ks.gov.ba/bosna2000/gb/index.html
Photo Gallery: http://www.ks.gov.ba/bosna2000/gb/photo.html
This Week in Chess: http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic/
The FICS Grand Prix!!!
The 1999-2000 FICS Grand Prix! This is a 'standard tournament' competition that extends throughout the entire year and keeps score based on scheduled standard tourneys run on FICS. The FICS Grand Prix cycle lasts 52 weeks: Tuesday, September 21, 1999 through Monday, September 18, 2000. During the course of these 52 weeks, a number of Grand Prix events will be held. At the end of the year there is a $150.00 (US Dollars) guaranteed prize fund. You will find information for frequently asked questions, events listings, standings and a complete player list on the Grand Prix website at: http://www.angelfire.com/wi/EscapeArtist/FICSGrandPrix/index.html
The top three participants in a field of 334 players are listed here, bigbad maintains the lead!
Rank |
Name |
GP |
# of |
1st |
2nd |
3rd |
1 |
bigbad |
3200.85 |
82 |
23 |
28 |
14 |
2 |
SGV |
1903.28 |
32 |
17 |
2 |
11 |
3 |
Knightnite |
1480.12 |
27 |
15 |
6 |
4 |
(The following point totals reflect events posted as of the publication date of this newsletter.)
EscapeArtist Tournament 2000
The third EscapeArtist (EA) tournament is underway!!! The tournament is an 8 round Swiss, using a 45 5 time control. Unlike the server's mamer tournaments, players have a total of three months to complete their sections. Participants arrange the time to play when it's convenient for both players. If a section starts on March 1st, then the section will end play on May 31st. Each section of EscapeArtist Tournaments are worth 200 FICS Grand Prix Points. Channel 201 is the unofficial channel for these tournaments. More information about this event may be obtained by emailing innocentone. You can also finger EscapeArtist on FICS, or visit the EscapeArtist web page at http://www.angelfire.com/wi/EscapeArtist/EscapeArtist/spring.html.
You can check out the current standings of the Escape Artist Tournament by selecting
the "Current Standings" link off the EA homepage. Current sections in
progress:
May 1 - July 31 (Registration closed April 30, 10:00 p.m. server time)
June 1 - August 31 (Cancelled)
This Week in mamer
Monday, May 22, 2000
Congrats to bigbad for winning this week's 45 5 tourney. Turn out next week to see
if he can keep his title. Also, don't forget Tuesday's Karpov anniversal ('news
121'). Type "mam help schedule" for the regular tourney schedule.
Updates of mamer events will now be posted on a regular basis. Read "help
mamer" for more information on mamer.
Monday, May 29, 2000.
This week, there was a surprise prize blitz tourney. Tekken won $40 gift from
FICS. There are some of these surprise tourneys from time to time on FICS. You
never know when this is going to happen again. :-) Congrats Tekken! Join us in
channel 49 for other mamer events. Read "help mamer" for more info about
tourneys on FICS.
Other mamer information can be found at http://www.freechess.org/mamer/tourneys/schedule.html.
"Nightly 5 0" tournaments: These are tournaments held every night
at 10:00 PM server time. As the name implies, they are played with a 5 0 time
control and the tournament is a 5-round Swiss paired event. At the end of the week
an overall Champion for the week is crowned, and a FICS news item is posted with the
winners name. There is also an U1600 title and an upset title. The titles are
awarded each week, and are included on the weekly news items. You do not have to
participate every night to win titles.
The Nightly is an open tourney and all are encouraged to participate. The tourneys also last a little over 1 hr so plan ahead! For more information, contact timp online or message him. You may also find more information on the Nightly web page at http://freechess.cjb.net.
Suicide on Saturdays (SOS): The SOS (Suicide On Saturdays) is a tournament run each
week on FICS by WarHawk(TM). The tournament is held every Saturday at 10:00 am
server time (CST). The score is kept for each player who plays in 1 or more
tournaments. The weekly tournament is a 5 0 Swiss consisting of 5 rounds.
There is also a quarterly Suicide Championship held for all qualifying participants in the
previous three months. Lastly, there will be an Annual Suicide Championship 4 player
5 0 double round robin! The quarterly championships will be a qualification
tournament for the annual tournament.
To qualify for a quarterly tournament, you must be in the top 4 scores in the over 1800 section or top 2 from the under 1800 section. If a player is forced to withdraw or is unable to attend, a wildcard slot will be available to the next qualified player from their division. The winner of the under 1800 section gets a lesson from Haley (2344). More information about this event may be obtained by e-mailing timp(TM), contacting him on FICS, or visit the SOS web site at http://www.kingscourt.cjb.net/.
Click here for more FICS tournament information! 
The FICS Chess Academy provides a medium for the interaction between strong and weaker chess players. Chess advisors, designated by the symbol (CA), donate their time to help weaker counterparts in order to share their knowledge. The most common event is semi-formal analysis of games or positions. There will also be lectures, master challenge sessions, guided group analysis of GM games, and more! Instructors are master or candidate master (expert) strength players and are enthusiastic about helping others improve their chess.
To receive instruction or otherwise participate in the Chess Academy, you should follow these steps:
Channel 65 "Events"
Channel 66 "Examine"
Channel 67 "Lectures"
Use tells to channel 65 during the Academy Hours ('tell 65 I don't understand the Lucena position'). Chess advisers will have (CA) after their handles.
Academy proceedings start in channel 65, but often "follow (CA Lecturer)" is used while examining a game or position. Prepare your questions and interesting games before the Chess Academy hour starts. Game submissions for analysis are welcome, and should be e-mailed to academy@freechess.org and/or saved in your journal, accompanied by a message to Academy.
The FICS Chess Academy weekly schedule for June:
| Day | Server Time |
Academy Event |
| Monday | 13:00 | Group Analysis |
| Wednesday | 15:00 | Group Analysis |
| Thursday | 7:00 21:00 |
Group Analysis Group Analysis |
| Saturday | 15:00 | Group Analysis |
| Sunday | 15:00 | Special Events* |
* Every Sunday at 15:00 server time, the Chess
Academy will hold
Special events such as: team games, simuls and master events.
A total of 1,311 new player accounts have been created for the month
of May.
Currently to date, FICS total size is 65,981 player accounts.
Active accounts in the month of May totaled 11,558.
The 'finger' Command
Among the most useful commands on FICS, the finger command provides rating and statistical information about a particular user, as well as any personal information that user might wish to provide.
The user's rating for each type of chess are displayed, along with the glicko RD (or index of ratings deviation), the total results from games played, and the best or highest ratings for each variant. You can also tell if the user is 1) currently logged on, and if so, for how long and whether they are idle, 2) playing, observing, or examining a game, and if so, which game it is, and 3) currently running a version of timeseal or not. Beneath these ratings are note lines where a person may 'set' their personal notes or profile.
Options: finger <user> [/[b][s][l][w][B][S]] [r][n]
The parameters '/', 'r', and 'n' allow you to display a portion of this information, and thus reduce the amount of information shown at one time.
The '/' parameter allows you to select which ratings information will be displayed: b=blitz, s=standard, l=lightning, w=wild, B=bughouse, and S=suicide chess.
The 'r' parameter will display logon information, including the use of timeseal, and the ratings.
The 'n' parameter will display logon information plus the notes.
Here are some useful examples:
Command: |
Display: |
| finger | will display your complete information. |
| finger Shane | will display Shane's complete information. |
| finger Shane r | will display Shane's ratings information. |
| finger Shane n | will display Shane's note information. |
| finger Shane /bB r | will display Shane's blitz and bughouse ratings only. |
| finger Shane /wS | will display Shane's wild and suicide ratings plus notes. |
Special Notes:
Your email address is automatically displayed beneath your ratings table, but is NOT displayed to other users. Only you, and FICS administrators can see this information; unless you choose to include it in your 'finger' notes.
'Best' ratings and date are given only after your RD falls below 80 for the first time. Also, the 'best' rating will not change if your RD is greater than 80.
If a user has not played rated games of a given type, their rating will be indicated by dashes (----) and the RD will be 350.0
If a user is not logged on, the display will indicate when they last disconnected and the timeseal information will not appear.
Since unregistered users have no permanent ratings or notes, they cannot permanently set their finger notes like registered users can. If a guest does create finger notes, the notes will only last until the user disconnects.
If a user is on a special list, such as blind, GM, or computer, the special list symbol will follow his/her handle.
The current RD displayed for a player is the RD as revised by the time since the players last game of that rating type.
To set your personal notes you must type 'set 1 <note content>', 'set 2 <new note>', 'set 3 <another note>', etc. FICS allows up to ten notes per user. To erase these notes, just enter 'set #' and that particular line will be cleared.
If you should you have any problems with our 'Server Tip' that you
cannot resolve,
please email support@freechess.org for
assistance.
Would you like to see previous issues of the newsletter?
It's a great way to locate other helpful "Tip
of the Month" sections
and older news highlights that were covered in past issues.
The FICS Link Exchange Program:
The FICS Link Exchange program is where registered users can submit their homepage to have a link posted directly from the FICS homepage links section. If you have a personal homepage that you'd like to add to our list, then email MAd your web address for approval. It's as easy as that!
To view our links section, press the links button located on the bottom of our menu on the left. From here, you can access the many pages that have already been submitted y our players. Although it is not required, we request you add the FICS banner somewhere on your homepage in order to help promote FICS. More information about our banner is available on the Links section of the homepage.
We are currently looking for users who want to help us in promoting
FICS.
Among things, we are working on is to get the FICS Banner on your local
chess club and personal web pages. If you have time and want to help us
then send an e-mail to binford@freechess.org.
Please send comments and feedback on what you would like to see in future editions.
Edited by: afw and Oxymoron.