Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 10:12:27 10/17/01
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On October 17, 2001 at 00:53:45, Ricardo Gibert wrote: >On October 16, 2001 at 23:18:52, Michael Fuhrmann wrote: > >>Anyone know what's happened to JRLOK? An "fi" command says: "JRLOK does not >>match any player's name." Has he left ICC for good? If so, ICC -- not to mention >>people on ICC who enjoy watching great human-vs-comp chess -- is the poorer. > >He probably got challenged by SWM and they canceled each other out, disappearing >from all existence ;-) Actually this was not unexpected. The chess servers are having great difficulty in coping with the fact that the Elo rating system is not perfect. And on chess servers it is _really_ error-prone. ICC was unhappy that JRLOK (and a couple of other GM players) were playing Scrappy at long time controls for blitz (5 12 was one he used all the time). They contacted me about it. I told them "Roman is helping me in the development of Crafty. I have given him the password so that he can play longer games when he wants which eliminates some of the tactical advantage the machine has, so that we can more easily isolate and repair positional weaknesses. I have also given the password to other GM players, but _most_ don't want to play anything but 5 0 or 5 3, for whatever reasons they have. I have done this for 6 years now, and have _always_ had various players playing at longer than normal time controls. GM Bill Lombardy was one that played hundreds of 5 14 games. ADOLF (IM Brian Hartman) was another. There have been many others." The issue becomes one of some sort of personality conflict. If someone tops the "best" list, and that someone is Roman, then they don't seem particularly happy if others start to complain (one particular IM complained because he could not play longer time controls vs crafty while Roman (and others) could. I try to stay out of the confrontations that happen every few months. It is all a crock anyway. When Blitz ratings go from 3 0 to 5 14 time controls (maybe more, I haven't payed much attention although the ICC classification is in their help pages) I can't see how they could _possibly_ expect that "blitz" means anything. The new "5 minute" rating is the first attempt to solve the problem by only allowing 5 0 with no computers. Unfortunately, Roman was on top of _that_ list too, so I suppose something went wrong there as well and the problem exploded once more. :) If they would spend as much time worrying about cheating, new features, events, and the like, as they spend worrying about Roman, ICC would be a far better place. He's one of the very strongest players on there, and he puts on a good "show" for everyone watching. That ought to be enough for them, without the confrontational stuff... But it appears not to be.... Of course, he _will_ return. He has only had about 50 different handles in the last 5 years. :) He despises a couple of the ICC admins. But he loves chess _more_. :)
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