After having initially dubious thoughts about the nature of IM31's dismissal, my mind has been changed by the clear and mounting circumstantial evidence relating to the allegedly disingenuous nature of his games.
Despite what seems to be a shouting match going on in the main thread, a few things have become very clear about IronMan31's games, and his background:
1) He makes a tremendous amount of moves in any given month, and the speed at which he moves in no way takes away from the quality of play.
2) Those moves apparently match those of a very well-known chess engine to degrees close to 100%
3) IronMan31 appears to be xxxxxx, an official FIDE xxxxxx, who at one point in his career had an official rating of 1900.
4) In AA's games, it seems that his level of skill does not match the skills shown at correspondance level (apparently, his correspondance chess is better than that of Kasparov...)
5) In roughly 1300 games, he has endured only 2 defeats - one by Akizy (a top player on this site), the other by a player who now appears to have left the site, on a provisional rating of 1700.
OK, with regards to his likelihood of him having cheated - I don't know with any great certainty. A quick flash at my rating tells you all about my knowledge of chess, chess strategy or analysis. In those aspects of chess, I am found sadly wanting - and subsequently I can offer no comment on the games IronMan31 completed. However, I have faith in the moderators, and in the people that run this site. I truly believe that all the mods have the ability to analyse the games in great detail.
Sacking the top player on the site is a very bold move, and not one that can be taken without thorough analysis and a great deal of verification. With the statistics bandied about, it seems that IronMan31 has been using a chess engine to improve a class A rating to GM level. Objectively, it appears that IM31 is highly likely to be guilty of having cheated, and I personally applaud the action taken against him.
However, there are a number of questions raised regarding his ban.
Was he able to defend his actions, or point to OTB ratings verifying his seemingly robotic prowess in correspondance play?
What statistics were used to lead the mods to the conclusion that he cheated? I'm talking about his %closeness to optimum moves generated by engine's, and the number of games this happened in.
Unfortunately, when a person of such high-esteem topples from their pedestal, shock and disbelief are natural reactions. Please people, give the mods the chance to emerge with salient statistics regarding why this action was taken before you go off blindly following/opposing the guy on reputation alone.
Needless to say, this is a truly shocking day.
I guess at the end of the bloody day, use of this site is not a right. The admins of this site can cut anyone they god damn want to, for whatever reason, if they refund subscription. Under these circumstances, no one else has the right to demand public anything. Lets get over it.
P.S. I think we need another thread to fully discuss this issue...
Originally posted by PullhardThat's the first time I've ever recced a non-subscriber...
I guess at the end of the bloody day, use of this site is not a right. The admins of this site can cut anyone they god damn want to, for whatever reason, if they refund subscription. Under these circumstances, no one else has the right to demand public anything. Lets get over it.
P.S. I think we need another thread to fully discuss this issue...
Good point.
At the end of the day - this site 'belongs' to Russ. We're just unruly guests...