Author: Djordje Vidanovic
Date: 15:14:39 11/01/03
Hi CCC members, I suppose that quite a few of you play on the playchess.com server. I have played there lots of games from time to time: more than 2,500 games at blitz levels, about 1,400 games at lightning levels and over 1,000 games with my chess programs, mainly testing opening books. Of course, I registered quoting my Fritz 8 licence number and had no problems till a couple of days ago when or so when I noticed that I had been downranked to Pawn meaning that I could not take part in any tourneys and could not even let my engines play in tournaments. Tonight (it is Friday night here in Europe) I had plenty of time to kill so I decided to clear things up with the Sysop on playchess.com (ChessBase owned ICS) -- named Holger Lieske. I asked him what could be the matter with my sudden demotion and he said that I should put down my real name (which had been there all the time), the name of my country (which had also been there all the time, regardless of the change of the name of the country (it is now called Serbia & Montenegro instead of Yugoslavia, but the flag is still the same), as well as my email address. The email address had not been required at the time I first started playing on playchess.com. Anyway, I did comply with the request and asked Mr. Lieske when I would be promoted to the rank of Knight thus reclaiming my right to play in tournaments and the like. (BTW, I had been a Rook for quite a while before). I got the answer that he, the Sysop, had to consult a colleague and that I would get the answer soon. But I never got the reply, because after a little while Mr. Lieske said that his colleague was quite tied up and that I should wait. He also said that I had provided him with everything needed... Mr. Lieske was even more informative saying that I might have been deprived of my full rights for having been abusive, having used racist language, having been reported by someone for my improper conduct on the server, etc. After I pointed out that the personal data that have boxes describing manners, fairness and similar did not list any of the mentioned, he clammed up. I said that I would provide him with my Fritz license number again if needed, and that he might look up some URLs where he would be able to easily check on my real identity and find my photos, find out who I was, and I also stated that my University had a file on me on its web pages. I offered to talk to him about any problems regarding my identity. He said that I should sign off and come back later on. I promised that I would, and I will. Meanwhile, as I had a very strong gut feeling that there was something strange, I hastened to post here in time. My slightly paranoid thinking goes like this: did this strange behaviour on the playchess.com merely coincide with my newly edited personal notes (sort of fingernotes, just like on FICS or ICC) saying that I was on the Ruffian/Arena team that had won the Dutch Open and that I was Ruffian's book author? I hope that the new notes did not mean a thing and that my suspicion is utterly unfounded.... Will keep you posted. Sorry for the outburst but I feel very frustrated, after having spent almost a whole hour on playchess, sitting like a dunce there. Djordje PS: I have waited to find out the final reply. And, I can tell you that Mr. Lieske, the ChessBase Sysop told me: we have grounds to believe that you played with computer assistance... I have to say this in public: I have _never_ ever played with any computer assistance. I have played lots of games on different servers with lots of strong players but never using a program. No fun there. This was just incredibly foul, stupid and groundless. When I asked Mr. Lieske about when and against whom I had played using a computer program (how is it possible in games at 3 minutes?), he said that he did not know. So much for ChessBase.
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