Welcome to the World of Chess!
The FICS SR team is glad to present
the first issue of :
The FICS Monthly Newsletter
JULY 1999
**** What's New !!
****
A 24 hour lightning 1 0 tournament will be held on FICS August 21st,
1999.
If you would like to play, and are serious, -and- have played
more than 6 hours of lightning 1 0 in a sitting; contact "theblob".
Premove interfaces will not be allowed in the tournament. For more
information 'finger theblob' or 'message theblob' to inquire or join.
Rounds will be determined by the # of players. If 10 players join,
the formula will be determined along the lines of 24hrs/10players=2.4 hrs
per pairing, excluding breaks. Player Obliviax has also put other
related info on his website at:
http://bs.faithweb.com/blob.html .
The FICS Chess Academy Presents:
USCF Expert Dan Avery's lecture series on Wednesday's at
9pm Server Time beginning June 16, 1999 through July 14, 1999.
To listen to the lectures, log on to FICS channel
65 by 9pm server time every Wednesday! Type "follow attackcourse"
to observe. Also, "finger attackcourse" or message Dan (FICS handle
'Babeuf') for more information. The series of lessons is a five part
series; the first lesson was an introduction to the course, and a
discussion of back rank mates. Babeuf's lectures are aimed at those below
1800, adapted from successful 'real life' situations. If you would like
to take part, please make sure you are there at 9pm 'SERVER TIME' on Wednesdays!
-
Week Two: June 23 - The lesson will focus on attacking the g2/g7 square.
-
Week Three: June 30 - Will focus on the Lasker double Bishop sac.
-
Week Four : July 7 - An analysis of the 'classic' Bh7 sac.
-
Week Five : July 14 - Looks at f7 attacks, and attacking the queenside
castled King.
These lectures are expected to be entertaining as well as informative.
Enjoy!
**** Major Events ****
-
FICS broadcasted the 'Advanced Chess' match between FIDE
World Champion GMKarpov and GMAnand from June 11th to the 14th in Leon,
Spain. Advanced Chess consists in both players being assisted by
powerful computers (computer + chess program). GMAnand crushed GMKarpov,
(5.0) to (1.0). "finger leon" for more information on this event.
Visit the official site at http://www.advancedchess.com
. FICS was the official mirror site for Leon 99!
-
FICS had broadcasted *LIVE* coverage of the 9th World Computer Chess
Championship held from June 14-20. There had been seven rounds, the computer
program Shredder(5.5) managed to beat Fritz(5.0), Junior(4.5), and Hiarcs(4.0).
"finger WCCC" when on-line with the server for more information. The official
website is http://www.uni-paderborn.de/~wccc99
.
**** Fics Tournaments
****
-
Previous "Nightly 5 0" Champions
-
Week ending 6/19/99
Beyonder won the Nightly Title
with 22 points, wysknight captured best
U1800 with 19.5, and StarryKn won the Upset Champion with 1402 upset points.
-
Week ending 6/12/99
DepecheMode won the Nightly Title with 29.5 points, gen captured
best U1800 with 24.5, and levinb won the Upset Champion Title with 2267
upset points.
-
Week ending 6/5/99
Gen won the Nightly Champion with 18.5 points, Wysknight captured
best U1800 with 10 points, and tvail won the Upset Champion Title with
1217 upset points.
-
Other FICS Tournament News: June
6, 1999
Congratulations to RStar for winning the Invitation tourney with
a score of 6.5 out of 7. Congrats also to gvescovi(GM) for a clear second
with 6.0 out of 7. Thanks all for participating. RStar gets $150 for his
first place and gvescovi(GM) gets $50 for his second place. Congrats again.
This will be repeated in the future.
-
Nightly 5 0" tournaments are tourneys held
every day at 10 PM server time. As the name implies they are played with
a 5 0-time control and run 5 rounds. At the end of the week an overall
Champion for the week is crowned, and a news item is posted with the winners
name. Also, an Under 1800 title and an Upset title are awarded each week,
and are included on the weekly news items. You do not have to participate
everyday to win the title.
The Nightly 5 0 tourneys are 5 rounds and typically draw between
16-30 people. The tourneys also last a little over 1 hr so plan ahead!
See you there!
Check out the Nightly webpage: http://play.at/nightly
More tournament Information
? Click Here 
***** The Chess Academy
*****
The FICS Chess Academy provides a medium for the
interaction between strong and weaker chess players. Stronger players,
designated by the symbol (CA); donate their time to help their weaker
counterparts in order to share 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! In accordance
with the principles by which FICS was founded, all Academy advisers volunteer
their time and expertise. Instructors are users who are master or candidate
master (expert) strength players and are enthusiastic about helping others.
The next GMKnezevic lecture will be on June 30th, 12:00 Server
Time.
The topic is not fixed yet, GMKnezevic is open to suggestions.
For more information"finger knez"or contact pminear or death.
Did you miss our Chess Academy What's New event?
Click here
The FICS Chess Academy weekly schedule for July:
| Day |
Time |
Who |
What |
| Mon |
3:00 |
Maybegood - spurted |
Group game analysis |
| Wed |
15:00 |
dfgordon |
Group game analysis |
| Wed |
21:00 |
Babeuf |
Lecture series-see What's New! |
| Thu |
07:00 |
carlsbad |
Group game analysis |
| Thu |
21:00 |
river - death |
Group game analysis |
| Sat |
15:00 |
chessgod |
Event |
Every Sunday at 15:00 server time, the Chess Academy will hold
special events such as: team games, simuls and master
events.
The Time indicated is Server Time (GMT-5).
***** New Players
*****
Currently to date of this Newsletter we have the following totals for
new players. FICS is showing an outstanding amount of growth! We are averaging
70 new players per day. FICS total size currently is 49,560. Active players
in the last month total 9,915. Twenty percent of our accounts are
out there Kicking Royal Butt!!!
***** Server Tip of
the Month *****
For those who are new to FICS; while trying to learn or get accustomed
to the server, try turning off the shouts setting that you will see when
first logging in. The command is "set shout 0". This will cut down
on the noise pollution and may make things a little easier.
For PC/IBM compatible users have you ever pulled up your MS-DOS window
and at the prompt put in the command: tracert freechess.org while
on-line ? Try it, see what it does.
FICS is currently looking for users who want to help us promoting
FICS. Among things we are working on is to get FICS Banner on your local
chess club and personal webpages. If you have time and want to help us
then send email to: binford@freechess.org
.
The Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) Monthly Newsletter
please send comments and feedback on what you would
like to see on this page.
Edited by: afw(SR)(TM)
Comments to afw
or TheOnlyOne.