Ingo Zachos

Hello readers,

I am now calling “live” from the WMSG in Beijing.

The Checkers tournament started yesterday, and we have a record entry with 42 participants.

To call it a record is easy, as is the very first WMSG, but also the recent Qualifiers from the WCDF did not attract more players so far.

Especially the former Soviet Union is strongly represented, as there are 13 players from that countries and players from Germany, USA and Israel that were born as Soviet citizens.

Kim Willis

Also 6 ladies attended, most prominent amongst them the current World Champion Amangul Durdyeva and the recently dethroned World Champion Patricia Breen. Also the experienced American Kim Willis and the best Barbadian Lady Wilma Branch try to hold their own against the male competitors. Javzan Gerulchuluun from Mongolia, who already once won the US nationals in the Ladies category in 2003 and Anneli Veski-Burr from Estonia, who is the only debutant in that circle round up the Women’s field.

To all of them except Amangul there is much at stake, as the best placed woman in Beijing will be endorsed as official challenger to Amangul Durdyeva in 2009. In case Amangul will be the best woman, the second placed will become challenger.

After two rounds, Amangul leads the race with 5 points ahead of Javzan Gerulchullun with 4 points, Pat Breen and Anneli Veski-Burr on 3, Kim Willis on 2 and Wilma Branch on. That standing reflects how hard it will be this time to become a World Championship contender, and I hope that in 2012 Checkers, like Draughts 100 will hold a seprate Women’s event, with medals at stake.

Ron King

In the total score of the WMSG tournament, Ron King from Barbados leads with 8 points, ahead of Alex Moiseyev and Paolo Faleo from Italy on 7 points.

All three of them are actually World Champions: Ron holds the GAYP title in Checkers, Alex in three-move, as my readers already know. And Faleo ?

He is World Champion in Italian draughts, a style not yet recognized by the FMJD, as it is, like Spanish draughts, Portugese draughts, Canadian draughts or Czech draughts only played in one country.

But the Italian game is quite similar to Checkers, with the exception that a single man may not capture a king, thus making the king more powerful.

So his current place at the top of the field can hardly be categorized as a surprise.

Yesterday I also saw the most interesting pairing so far, as World Champion Alex Moiseyev played against Amagul Durdyeva, the Women’s World Champion.

Alex won the second game which was of high class, and Amagul managed to draw the first game, the first point Alex was dropping here, as he crushed Grandmaster Jim Morrison in round one, winning both games, showing his ambition to become the first WMSG Champion in the history of Checkers.

More details and a report on the venue tomorrow.

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Hallo,

the WMSG are approaching, and my travel preparations intensify.
This week we in Germany received the invitations and apartment reservations.
We all were busy filling visa forms, copying our flight tickets and probably spent more time on the phone then preparing for the event :-(

A problem is that one of our players, the former German Champion Dennis Pawlek, currently resides in Bangkok, Thailand.
Apart from the state of emergency there, he has to arrange his travel there almost on his own.
I also watched with amazement the establishing of the WMSG website here by the FMJD.

I have to say that I am impressed, especially with the fact that my contributions, which were pictures of the German Checker players and the including of the WCDF rating on the tournament base for Checkers, were quickly positively responded.

Keep on the good work!
Here I also want to suggest that the Checker players may take a look at their entry at the tournament base.
Especially the lack of pictures can be dealt with, if you sent in a digitalized photo of yourself if you are a participant.

The last week also brought some other exciting developments.
First, the GAYP World Championship in Checkers were played, and in a very close match the defending Champion Ron King of Barbados defeated his challenger Lubabalo Kondlo of South Africa by just one game.

Here we see them both at the board at the 2007 US nationals, an event won by Kondlo (left).
King (right) had to concede two draws to Kondlo then, and does not look happy about that.

Kondlo, who lost the last game in this year’s match, had recently problems with the organizations promoting Checkers in South Africa, and that lead to him not being nominated for the WMSG.
I hope that the readers of this bloq will agree that at least the best players in the world should get a chance to play in Beijing, and I hope that an arrangement for Lubabalo can be found in the next four weeks.
Secondly, the Turkemenistan Draughts Federation’s bid for the GAYP World Women Championship was accepted by the WCDF and the challenger Jan Mortimer, of New Zealand, now has to accept or reject this offer until the end of September.
Looks like finally we have things moving towards a match in which the defending youthful World Champion, Amangul Durdyeva is facing her first challenger since winning the title in Prague 2005.
Talking about the Women’s World Championship, I also like to point out that the WMSG event is also regarded as a Qualifier for a World Championship Match, but, of course, in 3-move, as the WMSG will be played in that style.
So the best placed Lady in Beijing will be endorsed as challenger to the current World Champion, Amangul Durdyeva.
Yes, you read correctly.
Amangul holds both the GAYP and 3-move title, as she beat the former World champion Pat Breen of Ireland in Ireland last year.
Pat will also play in Beijing, and must be regarded as the favourite to finish as best lady, but as I read, there might be 7-8 ladies playing at the WMSG, so things might not be so easy for her to qualify for a revenge against Amangul.

After all these exciting news for the Checker players I might say a few word about our game.
Checkers has the simplest rules, and from time to time news agencies wrote that it has been solved.
As a players myself, I only know of a claim By Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer and his Chinook team, that they have proven that Checkers, if played in GAYP style, is a drawn game.
Even Schaeffer has not solved the game in the sense that a database or program exists that can play all positions perfect.
He just picked a few openings, known to be the best and checked their main lines with his program and found them to be drawish.
In my mind his prove is not a prove, but just something that was known to the checker theory for a very long time:
If no one makes a mistake, the result of a game must be drawn.
In Beijing , the games r played in a different style then the style Schaffer has “solved”.
This style is called “3-move restriction”
The first three moves of the opening r chosen randomly from a deck of 156 openings, that r regarded as playable.
Then the players play two games starting from that opening, as it is tradition to switch colours after the first game, so that each players has to play the opening with both(!) red and white.
For newcomers to the game, this may seem strange, but in that way a special preparation for the given opponent is almost impossible, and with a little bit of luck you may find an opening that suits your playing style, but not your opponents style;-))

If I take a look at the list of participants of the WMSG at the checkers event, I am surprised and excited.
Some players are from countries that hold no regular national tournaments, and I guess that a lot of “former” Draughts 100 and Shashki players take a try to conquer our game.
This might be no bad approach, as the current 3-move World champion and heavily favourite for Beijing, Alex Moiseyev, in his younger days also played Shaski and then switched to Draughts 100. Finally he became American citizen, and also World Champion in Checkers.

Alex Moiseyev (left) and Patricia “Pat” Breen, pictured at the Irish Open 2007.

So maybe a future World Champion might emerge from Beijing, and new federations will begin to organize regular Checker tournaments.

Finally, I must apologize that I did not introduced myself properly.
I am 39, German, originally a chess player and chess book collector, but a fellow chess book collector sent me a few checker books and asked me if I was interested, and guess what…
I became hooked!
Since then I have played at a few Checker tournaments in the last five years, including a World Championship Qualifier. I won the German Championship once and finished 2nd two times and since 2007 I am also the president of the Checkers section of the Interessengemeinschaft Damespiel in Deutschland (IGDD). I was nominated for Beijing as I am the 2nd best rated German player on the WCDF rating list

The WCDF is a body. originally formed independent, that acts as the Checkers section for the FMJD.

Did I forget something?
Oh yes: how do I look like?
So here, this is me:

I am sitting on the right, and I am just wondering why I did not see the remarkable, but also quite apparent coup that allowed Tomas Novoty to draw a lost ending against me.
Checkers may be simple, but the simplest things can be overlooked easily as we all know.

P.S:
As I am German, this bloq will sometimes also contain my “diary” in my native language.
So if you don’t understand me, don’t be surprised, it just might be that I switched languages.