Fischer v Karpov

Hi,

FYI , to anyone curious...

Some dissatisfied individuals that have invested money into Gothic Chess (myself included) have launched a SERIOUS investigation into these matters.

The truth about Ed Trice and the Gothic Chess Federation will be
discovered (through court order if necessary) and revelead as soon as it is known.

Thanks...

Gothic chess, an interesting concept. However I think targeting youths is a bad idea. They have yet to master the simplistic game of standard chess and that alone can take half their lives.

Was easy to find pictures of Gothic Chess tournaments.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010201081500/http://www.gothicchess.com

And just what was asked for, someone handing someone a huge winner's check. Looks like from 1999 also.

Great, now find the same for all the huge "scholarship" tournaments which followed it, or even the one which is apparently taking place at the moment: http://www.gothicchess.com/scholarship.html

Rafal Furdzik qualified for the World Championship (in normal chess) several years ago via an online tournament and then got disqualified for alleged engine use. He threatened to sue FIDE but I don't think anything came of it.

Ed Trice is currently writing an account his attempt to set-up the Karpov vs Fischer match at http://gothicchess.blogspot.com/. It makes for interesting reading, though some of the stuff is just straight out of cloud cuckoo land:

Brian's idea centered on selling out the hotel. If you have a hotel with 500 rooms, and you charge $15,000 per person for an all-expenses paid week-long trip to Iceland, you have $7.5 million dollars in revenue per week. If the event lasts a month, you basically have $30 million from "ticket sales" alone.

You forget there are some rich people in the world who would pay to see Fischer, obviously for the last time ever, and against his most celebrated rival. We live in a world where someone traded a paper clip for a house by continually "trading up" on Craig's List. Arabs funded tens of millions to build the Hydra chess computer and look how elusive it has been. Fischer could command $5000 a blitz game from rich Scandanavians. He travelled the world to play private games for bigger money also. This match was aimed at spectators that were super rich. They do exist. Some people bring in more money in 1 hour than you would in a year. They were the ones who'd buy the tickets.

It would be interesting to see roughly at what level Fischer plays at these days.
I suspect he'd still be around 2500 or so, even if he hasn't seen a board in years.

Other than that, he's a sad, nasty old git who should keep his mouth firmly shut.

Originally posted by PawnCloudHunter
Was easy to find pictures of Gothic Chess tournaments.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010201081500/http://www.gothicchess.com

And just what was asked for, someone handing someone a huge winner's check. Looks like from 1999 also.

A $US5000 prize is a long way from US$15000000.

I have just stumbled upon this thread for the first time and despite playing chess for 40 years and reading the chess press monthly I had not until now heard of this game.

If large tournaments existed anywhere I would have expected someone to have got hold of my name and try and get me to part with my money as, after all, I get plenty of other "junk" mail, a fair chunk of which is on chess.

I have to go with Fat Lady on this not Ed Trice but would welcome the opportunity to review real evidence.

Fischer was the account ID "umbra" here.

http://www.gothicchesslive.com/players-games.php

He played biitz mostly and even let time expire from his timer before making his first move to handicap himself against others. You can replay his games one move at a time by following links from here

http://www.gothicchesslive.com/one-players-games.php?id=379

Chances are Fischer only advocates Gothic chess because anyone from the top 20 could beat him with comparative ease in a conventional game.

He's been moaning about the death of chess since before 1972 (he went into semi-retirement in the 60's) & since the advent of analysis with computers I somehow doubt his stance has mellowed.

Originally posted by Dragon Fire
A $US5000 prize is a long way from US$15000000.

I have just stumbled upon this thread for the first time and despite playing chess for 40 years and reading the chess press monthly I had not until now heard of this game.

If large tournaments existed anywhere I would have expected someone to have got hold of my name and try and get me to part with my ...[text shortened]... with Fat Lady on this not Ed Trice but would welcome the opportunity to review real evidence.

The Fischer-Karpov match story is unfolding here

http://gothicchess.blogspot.com

The money for the mega match was not their own obviously. The computer tournament for Gothic Chess is tough to find sponsors for since 1 program, Gothic Vortex, is dominating the rest of the field. Programs gets whitewashed by Vortex and they don't rise to the challenge next year, they just go away.

Chessville covered the 2004 Championship

http://www.chessville.com/GothicChess/ComputerWorldChampionships.htm

It had programmers from Germany, Poland, The Netherlands, and the USA.

Regaring tournaments: There was an issue at one event that mirrored the Who concerts of the 80's when some kids got trampled. Nobody injured severely, but enough noise was made about it that Liability Insurance quotes for other large events became problematic. Not long after, the decision was made to move from "forcing" people to come to the tournament, to having the tournament come to the people via an online playing environment. The person primarily involved with the online site turned out to be a flake and he took it offline when he failed to complete the project after nearly 2 years in development. So things are in a state of flux for now.

If you want direct answers I suggest you call the number on the GothicChess.com website. With one or two transfers you'll be speaking with the boss.

Originally posted by Squelchbelch
Chances are Fischer only advocates Gothic chess because anyone from the top 20 could beat him with comparative ease in a conventional game.

He's been moaning about the death of chess since before 1972 (he went into semi-retirement in the 60's) & since the advent of analysis with computers I somehow doubt his stance has mellowed.

He's been moaning mostly about the large amount of prepared play that you need to bring to the table just to have a chance of holding a draw. You are no longer playing your opponent, you are playing against every great mind that your opponent has studied. Anyone who has played a 6 hour game of chess that was at least 50% a rook and pawn ending can understand the extreme amplification of this at the GM and Super GM level.

Gothic Chess extends the "mystery" of the game without completely destroying what is so great about chess. I suggest you download the free version of the Gothic Vortex program at http://www.GothicChess.com/vortex.zip and give it a whirl. The first few games seem a little odd because your board vision is not oriented for this game, but after 4 or 5 games, it comes natural and the game is thoroughly enjoyable.

Reading through this interchange between Fat Lady and Ed Trice, it seems as is we have an American-English thing going on here. Or, to put it another way, US optimism vs British cynicism.

Looking at Gothic Chess stuff online for a few hours today (Bank Holiday!), my first reaction is like FL's: a lot of hot air and fuss about what amount to relatively nothing, and certainly nothing to challenge the regular chess we know and love. As an example, the Wikipedia article about GC is absurdly hyperbolic. The game between Susan Polgar and Trice receives so much attention in so much detail, making it obvious that he's playing it out for all it's worth. i.e. "Look, Grandmasters love this game too!", as opposed to "I found this GM, who was at a loose end at the end of a simul, and said 'Do you wanna see this cool new form of chess?'" to which anyone would presumably say "OK!"

As for the game between Karpov and Fischer, it seems pretty clear that it won't happen. And if it does, should we be surprised? I should think there's scarcely a person on the planet who wouldn't play 12 games of anything unembarrassing for a guaranteed $4million. It doesn't say a jot about the merits of Gothic Chess.

But then I realised that I'm English, and prone to being cynical about anything that smacks of exaggeration. Looking at it all in a more generous light, Trice is just pushing his invention (though we must remember that it's simply Capablanca chess with a slightly different opening position) for all it's worth, and that's admirable.

I guess I'm a little bit envious...

Originally posted by PawnCloudHunter
Was easy to find pictures of Gothic Chess tournaments.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010201081500/http://www.gothicchess.com

And just what was asked for, someone handing someone a huge winner's check. Looks like from 1999 also.

Of course it turns out that in 1999 "Gothic Chess" was exactly the same as Capablanca Chess, so this was not a Gothic Chess tournament in the current sense at all.

FYI, pawncloudhunter is probably Trice. He has a habit of making phony accounts it does appear.

I had a wonderful feeling of schadenfreude when I was told a few days ago that Ed Trice had lost his court case with Edward Labate:
http://www.rookhouse.com/blog/?p=314

Hopefully Ed Trice will now crawl back under the rock he appeared from and we will hear no more of his ridiculous mammoth Gothic Chess Tournaments.