FICS Monthly Newsletter

What's New? - we have 1,509 new players that joined FICS in the last month - Hello and Welcome. What else, hmm, oh yeah, the Nightly 5 0 Tournament has a new manager, Brad Andersen, aka: Elohmrow(TM). Please welcome him, join us in channel 49, the tournament channel. There's also the new Tourney of Champions section, read about it in our 'Tournaments' section of the Newsletter. We also offer links to previous Newsletter issues, July through November. You will find a link to these at the bottom of our newsletter, in the 'Server Tips' section. The helpful 'Server Tips' can reviewed over and over! FICS Welcomes you to the new month of December and all the joys the holidays will bring.

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(U.S.Dollar) 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

Rank	Name	GP Points	# of events	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
1	bigbad	1144.42	19	12	1	4
2	SGV	1123.83	29	9	10	4
3	avani	776.84	14	5	5	3

(The following point totals reflect events posted as to the date of this newsletter.)

JavaBoard - the new Java interface for FICS has just been updated to version 1.0.2 beta. Some minor login bugs have been corrected. Those behind a firewall may find they can now access the site as the login is now directed through port 23. It is accessible from our home page by clicking on "Login Now". JavaBoard is an interface, primarily for new players, used to play chess on the server via your Internet browser. This project has been in the works for over a year, and FICS is pleased that it has come so far. You may also find help with JavaBoard by seeing the tutorial at:
http://www.freechess.org/javaboard/tutorial/tutorial.html.

**** Major Events ****

The 1999 Escape Artist Fall Tournament is currently under way and will be coming to a close in the first week of December. The tournament is in it's last round. Currently cppe is leading the pack with 6.0 points , DHP is in close second with 5.0 points. Its a close battle; watch FICS news items for a final result posting. Below, in our Tournaments section of the Newsletter, you will find more information on this event.

Just as an FYI; The 75th Anniversary Celebration of FIDE that took place November 20th in Paris was heard to be a public relations nightmare. The event, apparently, was snubbed by FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman perhaps in protest over FIDE’s failure to pay him his prize money for winning the FIDE World Championship in Las Vegas this past August. Besides that, simuls were given by 3 young grandmasters : Bacrot, Ponomariov and Kosteniouk in the luxury "Automobile Club de France".

The European Team Championships have started in Batumi, Georgia. The official dates are: November 27th-December 9th 1999. Each participating team will send 5 men (4 players and 1 reserve) for the men's competition, and 3 women (2 players and 1 reserve) for the women's competition. The Championships shall be held on the Swiss System in 9 round, on the model of the Olympiads, with one section for the men's teams and one section for the women's teams, considered as separate competitions. Time Controls: 40 moves in 2 hours, sudden death in 1 hour, in all 6 hours playing session.

**** FICS Tournaments ****

The Escape Artist Fall 1999 Tournament: The EscapeArtist (EA) tournament is currently in progress. The tournament is an 8 round Swiss, using a time control of 45 5. Unlike mamer tournaments the pairings for rounds are posted on the web site on Tuesdays, at 11-p.m. server time. You have all week to finish your game, and you arrange it with your opponent at both of your conveniences and run one round per week. It also counts towards the FICS Grand Prix and has a value of 750 GP points! Channel 201 is the unofficial channel for these tournaments. More information about this event may be obtained by emailing innocentone, or finger the EscapeArtist account on FICS, and by visiting the EscapeArtist web page at: http://www.angelfire.com/wi/EscapeArtist/index.html

The tournament's current progress is round 8, the postings for the final game will be Tuesday, December 7 at 9 PM. Week 8 is two weeks long to allow players to play in the 8th round in light of the American Thanksgiving holiday.

You can check out the current standings of the Escape Artist Tournament by selecting the 'Current Standings' link off the EA homepage. Currently there are 30 players involved; and so far there is a 3 way tie for first place.

Suicide on Saturdays (SOS): There is now a new scheduled Suicide Tournament on FICS! The SOS Tournament will be held every Saturday at 10 am server time (15:00 GMT). The score is kept for every player who plays in one or more of the Tournaments. Each quarter will have a championship Tournament consisting of the top 5 players from the under and over 1800 sections. The prize for the winner of the under 1800 section is a 1 hour lesson from Haley(2219), the 4th ranked suicide player on the server. The weekly tournament will be a 5 0 Swiss consisting of 5 rounds, and the quarterly Championship will be a 5 0 Round Robin. The winner of the over 1800 section qualifies to play in the yearly Suicide Championship. The yearly Suicide Championship will be a 4 player 5 0 Double Round Robin. More information about this event may be obtained by emailing DChessmaster(TM) or while on FICS, you can visit the SOS web site at: http://www.kingscourt.cjb.net/

"Nightly 5 0" tournaments:These are tourneys held every day at 10:00 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. There is also, an Under 1800 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 everyday 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 Elohmrow.

"Nightly 5 0" Tournament of Champions: Starting this week players will be invited to participate in a monthly tournament involving the winners of certain sections of the Nightlies.

Each week 4 players will be invited, if a player gets the same title twice, or sometimes -a combination of titles over multiple weeks, then second place finishers on down the list will be invited instead. If you take multiple titles during the week you can only be invited once. Players will be notified by a message to their FICS account.

The tournament will be a swiss system 16-player format, participants will play others in the same ratings classes. Each match consists of 5 0 games between the opponents, with the winner being the first person to score 2 points. This winner then moves on to the next round! For the first round, you need to score 2 points to advance. For the second round it is 3, in the third round you'll need 4 points, and in the championship round the winner is the first to achieve 5 points. Please see the Nightly Web Page for more information.

***** 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.

Do you have a question on how to participate? To receive instruction or otherwise participate in the Chess Academy you should follow these steps:

                    Channel 65 "Events"
                    Channel 66 "Examine"
                    Channel 67 "Lectures"

The proceedings start in ch 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 emailed to: The Chess Academy and/or saved in your journal, accompanied by a message to Academy. Use tells to channel 65 during the Chess Academy Hours ('tell 65 I don't understand the Lucena position'). Chess advisers will have (CA) after their handles.

The FICS Chess Academy weekly schedule for December:

Day:	Server Time:	Greenwich Mean Time (GMT):	Academy Event:
Monday	13:00	18:00	Group Analysis
Wednesday	15:00	20:00	Group Analysis
Thursday	07:00 21:00	12:00 2:00	Group Analysis Group Analysis
Saturday	15:00	20:00	Group Analysis
Sunday	15:00	20:00	Special Events *

* Every Sunday at 15:00 server time, the Chess Academy will hold
Special events such as: team games, simuls and master events.
The Time indicated is Server Time (GMT-5).

GM Knezevic lectures are twice every month.
All lectures will start at 12:00 server time (17:00 GMT).
The next lecture is on Sunday, December 5, 1999.
To stay updated, finger the Academy account on FICS.

***** New Players *****

A total of 1,509 new player accounts have been created for the month of November.
Currently to date, FICS total size is 55759 player accounts. Active accounts
in the month of November totaled 10,527.

***** Server Tip of the Month *****

You can now find links to previous newsletters. It's a great way to locate the previous FICS monthly Newsletter issues, and the helpful: "Tip of the Month" sections. Click this button if you would like to review these.

December's Server Tip of the Month
is to provide a summary of the
alias setup process on FICS and how it works.

Sets up a command alias so that "word" is equivalent to typing "string". If"string" is omitted then the current value of "word" is displayed. If both parameters are omitted, then all of your aliases are displayed.

Here are some sample aliases that may be useful to you. They are listed here in order to
give you some idea of what is possible. Try getting ideas from other users as well.

There are many system aliases that everyone has by default; you do not need
to set them up, they are already there. Here is the list:

a	accept	p	who a	stats	statistics
b	backward	players	who a	t	tell
bye	quit	re	refresh	v	variables
cs	cshout	res	resign	w	who
e	examine	saa	simallabort	znot	znotify
exit	quit	sab	simabort	.	tell .
f	finger	sadj	simadjourn	,	tell ,
h	help	saadj	simalladjourn	!	shout
hi	history	seek	seeking	:	it
logout	quit	setup	bsetup	#	whisper
m	match	sh	shout	*	kibitz
mam	xtell mamer	sn	simnext	?	help
more	next	sp	simprev	+	addlist
n	next	setup	bsetup	-	sublist

Other system aliases are added from time to time.
The help files for the different commands will have the most updated information.

WARNING:
Be careful to avoid using an alias that can also stand for another commands
on the server. For example, "fg" could be a chess move (for f-pawn X g-pawn),
so don't have "fg" be an alias. For similar reasons, it would not be best to
use "t" as an alias since it is already assigned as an alias for "tell". You
could do so, of course; but then you would not be able to use the system alias
for tell unless you unalias your alias.

(a) Aliases can use the "@" wildcard symbol and thus save you a lot of
typing for routine statements or requests. For example, using the "mbl" alias,
you would type "mbl Shane" and execute the same command as if you had typed
"match Shane 5 12".

(c) You may not create an alias for the quit command, or for the unalias command.

(d) if you have an alias that goes something like "tell @ hi there", you can
substitute the '@' with a name or a channel (or with '.' and ',' to tell to
the last person or last channel you addressed). Sometimes it may be useful to
send the aliased tell to 'shout' or 'cshout', which can be done using 'tell !'
and 'tell ^'. Supposing your alias for the above example is 'hi', you can now
type 'hi !' to effectively shout "hi there".

(e) The command "unalias" removes your personal alias for 'word'. This alias will no longer be in use. This command will not, however, remove default aliases.

FICS is currently looking for users who want to help us 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 email to: binford@freechess.org .

Please send comments and feedback on what you would like to see on this page.
Edited by: afw(*)
Comments to afw or TheOnlyOne.

Round 1 11/29/99	Round 7 12/05/99
Round 2 11/30/99	Round 8 12/06/99
Round 3 12/01/99	Round 9 12/07/99
Round 4 12/02/99
Round 5 12/03/99	Closing Ceremony 12/08/99
Round 6 12/04/99	Departure 12/09/99

"alias"	-- lists all of your aliases
"alias word"	-- gives your alias for "word"
"alias word string"	-- creates/updates an alias for you so that typing
"word" becomes equivalent to typing "string".
Use the "unalias" command to remove an alias.
"unalias word"	--removes a set alias

fun	say Fun game!
gg	say Good game!
gm	say Good move!
idle	set busy is busy. Please 'message' to contact him.
mbl	match @ 5 12
mood1	set formula f2 & f4
ms	match @ 10 10
ps	who as
pw	who aw
ty	say Thank you for the game.
w4	match @ 10 10 0 0 wild 4
wave	it waves to @

Welcome to the World of Chess!

What's New !!!

Major Events

FICS Tournaments

* The Chess Academy *

* New Players *

* Server Tip of the Month *