Well… that should only take me 50 games. 
nevermind… my maths is teh worstest. 
No, there are 4 rounds, maybe 5. Draws kind of confuse things. Most tournaments are 5 rounds but the fact that we’re playing on the internet (where attention spans are short) means that we might be better off declaring a winner after the 4th round. Assume, for now, that we’re going to a 5th round like a normal tournament. If one player really runs away with it after a 4th round of play, then we might just call it there.
Although, judging from the turnout of this match, we might as well play indefinitely. I see no problems playing a permanent ladder. I mean, if certainly posters can keep a Lost thread going for 7 years, why not a chess thread?
<snipped>
and it might very well take that long for me to actually win a game. 
Since Oredigger won, it looks like I’m against Maserschmidt now. I’m Hamletsdmb on Chess.com, whenever you’re ready Maser.
I challenged you on gameknot already. Should I revoke that and sign up for chess?
While I’m waiting for the moves to come in my ending game, I’m open to friendly challenges from other board members today, you can challenge me at Chess.com or at GameKnot (I have the same user name)
Mmm… Edward The Head has now 38 hours to make his next move…
I’m still open for other friendly matches.
And all that for a draw, sorry if we are making a mess of the pairings Chessic Sense.
Well it seems that I just won two hours worth of chess instruction at a silent auction. Two hours, that might get me what, a bit more understanding!
I’m ready for my next game if the pairings are ready.
Auto and I are still pretty much in the middle. I think we’re completely even unless he sees something I don’t, which is entirely possible. We’ll need a couple more moves unless Chessic wants to create multiple pairings again.
No you pretty much nailed it Ore. We both had some offensive things going on, but then with that last exchange I think we are both pretty much impotent until one of us gets something together again. I’m up in points now but probably not after your next move, heh.
Quick question, chess buffs.
If Deep Blue played itself at chess, would every game be a stalemate?
Well, not “stalemate” which has a specific meaning in chess and is rarely seen (like a tie in cricket), but you would expect a high percentage of draws. However, it would not play the exact same line every time and it is possible that it can at any time spot some tactic that was “over the horizon” when it considered the previous move, so some games would not end in draws.
“Over the horizon”? How many moves ahead could Deep Blue see, and how many moves does an average chess game take until it is finished?
I’m not sure as to the first, and as to the second, “mister, the average varies”. It’s rare for a serious game to run to fewer than 10 moves barring a ridiculous opening blunder (and they have been known) and most games are probably decided long before move 70. Maybe one of our serious chess theorists has some figures from a database. 
But you can be sure that even a fantastic computer can’t analyse all the way to the end of the game in most positions. The number of possible positions grows exponentially, typically by a factor of about 400 for one move by each side. So it stands to reason that if Deep Blue can see n moves ahead, it’s possible that after it has moved it can examine the new position and will now see something that was *n + *1 moves ahead before. Avoiding this “horizon effect” has been a major concern of chess programmers since the early days.
Deep Blue, by the way, is yesterday’s news. Rybka is the new kid on the block.
Footnote: Actually, even 10 moves or so would imply “serious opening blunder”, although sometimes the serious blunder takes serious smarts to exploit. Example.
Hamlet was playing a rational game as Black when he made a bit of a mis-move. Sorry for the rough finish, Hamlet, but good game!
- e4 e5
- Nf3 Nc6
- Bb5 Nf6
- O-O Nxe4
- Bxc6 dxc6
- Qe2 Qd5
- d3 Nf6
- Nc3 Qd6
- Nxe5 Be7
- Re1 O-O
- Bf4 Qb4
- Nc4 Bd6
- a3 Qc5
- b4 Qd4
- Nxd6 cxd6
- Qd2 Bf5
- Ne2 Ng4
- Nxd4 Rae8
- Nxf5
Care to tell me the result, then?