Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

Eugen, WDF? Why do you constantly respond to posts concerning me? What is it with you Romanians!! (no offence to Andrei) Stop stalking me and leave me alone already. First of all - the CFC did NOTHING for me to become the "player" I am today. I did the studying, I did the playing, and the paying and the only two worthwhile things that I got was a trip to Armenia, which I won in a very weak year and a $500 bonus from this year. Next, stop obsessing over the fact that you wanted me to play in a crummy canadian chess challenge when I won tied for first in the Keres and actually enjoyed the competition offered there. When was the last time that a first round match that I had was against a 2100 and not an 1800 in a normal Swiss event? Third, if you suck a lot at chess, it doesn't mean you get to harp on others for being better than you. So what if you have correspondence IM title; Gary has Correspondence Senior IM and you don't see him saying crap about others who are better than him. In fact, he complains about just about everything that I don't even know which complaints he's most pleased with.

So Eugen, keep this in mind, I let go of this issue a LONG time ago... let's say several months ago when I realized that it was useless to explain my reasons to retired chess players such as yourself, for ex. calling yourself an IM when in fact your fide is only about 2200 and your real otb playing strength is probably only 1900. Also, I asked you publicly on the old chess forum about the concerns of the March email that you sent me in a 5 paragraph essay concerning the art of sportsmanship with the canadian chess challenge and what your thoughts on it were. I never got a reply.

Now to actually go back to your main point of how I say the cfc doesn't do things for me... I NEVER said that until this post right here where I said the two things CFC actually did for me. So please get the facts straight and why the hell do you respond when obviously, I wasn't addressing someone who's played ONE tournament, if you can call it that in the past how many years but rather someone who's actually played tournament games where rating and prizes and other issues are at stake.

I was gonna criticize something concerning Gary... but Valer takes the cake and I'm pretty sure anything that I say to Gary will be automatically replied within half an hour with more points to criticize and such, the cycle never ends.

This ends my ridiculously long heckling post.

P.S. Eugen, have you thought of starring in the third Grudge movie, so you could act as the caucasian father to the kid and mom who gets pissed off in a weird flashback? Oh yeah, and Gary? Correspondence does not attract potential players and until you realize that no one (yes no one) at any education institution worthy of any decent chess players play correspondence, the sooner you will realize, no matter how worse off the CFC may be, correspondence will never appear on the globe like Fide has. It's like comparing the CFL to find the pin in the haystack corporation

Bindi

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

P.S. ... Oh yeah, and Gary? Correspondence does not attract potential players and until you realize that no one (yes no one) at any education institution worthy of any decent chess players play correspondence, the sooner you will realize, no matter how worse off the CFC may be, correspondence will never appear on the globe like Fide has. It's like comparing the CFL to find the pin in the haystack corporation

Bindi

Hi Bindi,

Thanks for telling me all that stuff. A couple of correspondence Olympics ago the Singapore (I think it was) team consisted of an adult instructor and the rest students. At least 2 of the players ended up on the OTB Olympic team. I beat the instructor on my Olympic board.

I think Zvonko Vranesic worked at a University (if I have that right), and played both the Canadian OTB and Correspondence Olympiads.

I have nothing against FIDE or OTB chess. FIDE recognizes my title. Our correspondence titles are submitted to FIDE. I think it's done at the annual congress but don't know the timing for sure.

I know I never had problems selling CCCA memberships. If there was one thing I was good at, that was it. I also sold a lot of CFC memberships.

So, absolute statements are ALWAYS wrong. :)

What gets me is the guys who are always crying that there is cheating in CC. It's like they just found Gawd the way they carry on. They probably never heard that cheating goes on in OTB chess.

If anyone tells you I don't play OTB chess simply tell them it's an urban myth started by my detractors in the dark of night over a few brews. :)

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

Eugen, WDF? Why do you constantly respond to posts concerning me? What is it with you Romanians!! (no offence to Andrei) Stop stalking me and leave me alone already. First of all - the CFC did NOTHING for me to become the "player" I am today. I did the studying, I did the playing, and the paying and the only two worthwhile things that I got was a trip to Armenia, which I won in a very weak year and a $500 bonus from this year. Next, stop obsessing over the fact that you wanted me to play in a crummy canadian chess challenge when I won tied for first in the Keres and actually enjoyed the competition offered there. When was the last time that a first round match that I had was against a 2100 and not an 1800 in a normal Swiss event? Third, if you suck a lot at chess, it doesn't mean you get to harp on others for being better than you. So what if you have correspondence IM title; Gary has Correspondence Senior IM and you don't see him saying crap about others who are better than him. In fact, he complains about just about everything that I don't even know which complaints he's most pleased with.

So Eugen, keep this in mind, I let go of this issue a LONG time ago... let's say several months ago when I realized that it was useless to explain my reasons to retired chess players such as yourself, for ex. calling yourself an IM when in fact your fide is only about 2200 and your real otb playing strength is probably only 1900. Also, I asked you publicly on the old chess forum about the concerns of the March email that you sent me in a 5 paragraph essay concerning the art of sportsmanship with the canadian chess challenge and what your thoughts on it were. I never got a reply.

Now to actually go back to your main point of how I say the cfc doesn't do things for me... I NEVER said that until this post right here where I said the two things CFC actually did for me. So please get the facts straight and why the hell do you respond when obviously, I wasn't addressing someone who's played ONE tournament, if you can call it that in the past how many years but rather someone who's actually played tournament games where rating and prizes and other issues are at stake.

I was gonna criticize something concerning Gary... but Valer takes the cake and I'm pretty sure anything that I say to Gary will be automatically replied within half an hour with more points to criticize and such, the cycle never ends.

This ends my ridiculously long heckling post.

P.S. Eugen, have you thought of starring in the third Grudge movie, so you could act as the caucasian father to the kid and mom who gets pissed off in a weird flashback? Oh yeah, and Gary? Correspondence does not attract potential players and until you realize that no one (yes no one) at any education institution worthy of any decent chess players play correspondence, the sooner you will realize, no matter how worse off the CFC may be, correspondence will never appear on the globe like Fide has. It's like comparing the CFL to find the pin in the haystack corporation

Bindi

Bindi, you getting it crunk at the dorms?

[Valer Eugen Demian]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

Eugen, WDF? Why do you constantly respond to posts concerning me? What is it with you Romanians!! (no offence to Andrei) Stop stalking me and leave me alone already. First of all - the CFC did NOTHING for me to become the "player" I am today. I did the studying, I did the playing, and the paying and the only two worthwhile things that I got was a trip to Armenia, which I won in a very weak year and a $500 bonus from this year. Next, stop obsessing over the fact that you wanted me to play in a crummy canadian chess challenge when I won tied for first in the Keres and actually enjoyed the competition offered there. When was the last time that a first round match that I had was against a 2100 and not an 1800 in a normal Swiss event? Third, if you suck a lot at chess, it doesn't mean you get to harp on others for being better than you. So what if you have correspondence IM title; Gary has Correspondence Senior IM and you don't see him saying crap about others who are better than him. In fact, he complains about just about everything that I don't even know which complaints he's most pleased with.

So Eugen, keep this in mind, I let go of this issue a LONG time ago... let's say several months ago when I realized that it was useless to explain my reasons to retired chess players such as yourself, for ex. calling yourself an IM when in fact your fide is only about 2200 and your real otb playing strength is probably only 1900. Also, I asked you publicly on the old chess forum about the concerns of the March email that you sent me in a 5 paragraph essay concerning the art of sportsmanship with the canadian chess challenge and what your thoughts on it were. I never got a reply.

Now to actually go back to your main point of how I say the cfc doesn't do things for me... I NEVER said that until this post right here where I said the two things CFC actually did for me. So please get the facts straight and why the hell do you respond when obviously, I wasn't addressing someone who's played ONE tournament, if you can call it that in the past how many years but rather someone who's actually played tournament games where rating and prizes and other issues are at stake.

I was gonna criticize something concerning Gary... but Valer takes the cake and I'm pretty sure anything that I say to Gary will be automatically replied within half an hour with more points to criticize and such, the cycle never ends.

This ends my ridiculously long heckling post.

P.S. Eugen, have you thought of starring in the third Grudge movie, so you could act as the caucasian father to the kid and mom who gets pissed off in a weird flashback? Oh yeah, and Gary? Correspondence does not attract potential players and until you realize that no one (yes no one) at any education institution worthy of any decent chess players play correspondence, the sooner you will realize, no matter how worse off the CFC may be, correspondence will never appear on the globe like Fide has. It's like comparing the CFL to find the pin in the haystack corporation

Bindi

It is not an issue of chess knowledge, but simply an issue of character. Chess can be taught, character you either have it or you don't! I let you guess what my opinion is...

Do not feel the need to comment on your opinion about my chess knowledge. You are in no position to judge that, regardless of your FIDE rating/ title. Others have been in that position at your age too, so there's nothing spectacular to it. Of course you can disagree and continue; it does not bother me.

As Gary said in another post ICCF titles are recognized by FIDE. You might be ignorant on that, or simply not care. It is still one of my achievements in life. The same goes for my inactive FIDE rating more than 12 years old. Can't wait for you to stand up on your own with family and 9-5 job to see how it is!

The simple fact you consider everything you did as having nothing to do with CFC proves my point about your character which IMO came under question this past spring when you came to us by your own will. You might not care what I think about this, but this will not erase my opinion of you. Maybe when you will grow older (in about 20 years from now) and a top junior of that time will take the same cocky position of "know it all" and "can judge anyone", you might understand what I am talking about. Until then no worries; be happy! :p

[Jason Lohner]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

It is not an issue of chess knowledge, but simply an issue of character. Chess can be taught, character you either have it or you don't! I let you guess what my opinion is...

At the Keres I watched Bindis game vs GM Georgi Orlov. Afterwards the both went through the game to a crowd of eager onlookers. I was one of them and I know that I (and probably all the other people) greatly appreciated this impromptu chess lesson. Neither of them had to explain their moves to the crowd but in TRUE sportsmanship they did. That showed character and was a class act on both of their parts. He missed a jr tournament to participate in a local one and you are complaining? sounds like sour grapes to me.

[Garland Best]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

I don't get the the point behind separate regional ratings. Why have 10 (or more) organizations all running their own rating systems and generating the infastructure and overhead everywhere instead of having one system where everyone chips in? "just some guy running SwissSys, Swiss Perfect, or something like that ... and posting a list on a website " just as easily applies to the CFC.

How are we supposed to get the same level of professionalism in every region?

If I move to Halifax, how will people know how my Ontario rating compares to their Nova Scotia rating? The systems may be completely different.

If I'm a player in BC who decides to play in a tournament in Alberta, am I suppose to pay another membership fee to be rated?

Either way you slice it, it sounds like your idea makes the Canadian chess scene more complex, not simpler.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

The CFC charges $3/player per tournament. Soon it could be $5. For a 20-player tournament that will be $100. For what? To enter some data into a computer? Trust me, as I have actually done the job of crosstable entry before, that it is highway robbery.

You have no way now of knowing how your Ottawa CFC rating compares with Halifax or Victoria or Saskatoon or pretty much every other region of the country. There is simply not enough cross-pollination of players to make it possible. This is not the fault of the CFC rating system, nor of the players. It is because Canada is a geographically spread out country with not a lot of players in it.

As for the "If I live in X and suddenly decide to play in Y, won't I have to pay more money?" argument, well ... let's take an example.

I took at look at your (Garland Best's) activity. You are a player with a typical rating, and are probably more active than average. According to the CFC site, as far as I can see, going back to 2000, the furthest you have ever played is ... Kingston. I would be willing to bet, that for players without a FIDE rating, that is very typical. Players with a FIDE rating would hardly care about their regional ratings, in the same way that players with FIDE ratings now hardly care about their CFC ratings. Regional ratings would measure the only people that you can be meaningfully measured against - people in your circle of players.

Saving money on useless bureaucracy and meaningless ratings is not rocket science, in my opinion. There is nothing complex about it.

[Valer Eugen Demian]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

At the Keres I watched Bindis game vs GM Georgi Orlov. Afterwards the both went through the game to a crowd of eager onlookers. I was one of them and I know that I (and probably all the other people) greatly appreciated this impromptu chess lesson. Neither of them had to explain their moves to the crowd but in TRUE sportsmanship they did. That showed character and was a class act on both of their parts. He missed a jr tournament to participate in a local one and you are complaining? sounds like sour grapes to me.

No, it is not only about 1 tournament he originally committed to attend. It is more than that one! Usually when I give my word I stick to it. Could be that not everyone is like that, but keeping your word is a useful habit for a lifetime. You cannot do it, don't promise. That's about it; could label it as "sour grapes" if you wish...

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

No, it is not only about 1 tournament he originally committed to attend. It is more than that one! Usually when I give my word I stick to it. Could be that not everyone is like that, but keeping your word is a useful habit for a lifetime. You cannot do it, don't promise. That's about it; could label it as "sour grapes" if you wish...

What's more important is that Bindi set an excellent example for all the local youngens. Hopefully, next year, none of BC's top juniors will waste their time playing in the Chess Challenge. Noam says he might, but only to go see the HHOF. Man, if Noam goes to Ontario, I will be sad. Noam and I watch Frasier together during chess tournaments. King of the Hill sometimes, too. Family Guy? Hell no.

[Jason Lohner]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

What's more important is that Bindi set an excellent example for all the local youngens. Hopefully, next year, none of BC's top juniors will waste their time playing in the Chess Challenge. Noam says he might, but only to go see the HHOF. Man, if Noam goes to Ontario, I will be sad. Noam and I watch Frasier together during chess tournaments. King of the Hill sometimes, too. Family Guy? Hell no.

Its hard to commit to any tournament that is scheduled at the same time as the PREMIER BC tournament. I am surprised that anyone would even ask when it conflicts with the Keres open. I would think that it is far more important to support your local tournament than to go off to some jr event.

Frasier???? /me shakes his head...

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

Its hard to commit to any tournament that is scheduled at the same time as the PREMIER BC tournament. I am surprised that anyone would even ask when it conflicts with the Keres open. I would think that it is far more important to support your local tournament than to go off to some jr event.

Frasier???? /me shakes his head...

It's generally agreed among men of substance that Frasier is the funniest network programme of all time.

There's a Weeds reference in this post.

[Alan Baljeu]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

The CFC charges $3/player per tournament. Soon it could be $5. For a 20-player tournament that will be $100. For what? To enter some data into a computer? Trust me, as I have actually done the job of crosstable entry before, that it is highway robbery.

Occasionally (maybe twice a year) I drive down the highway to a modest-sized CFC-rated tournament. For this I put out $50 to enter the tournament, and $40 to become a CFC member. It's worth it because I enjoy the tournament, and want to participate. But the tournament would be just as fun without the CFC membership.

The CFC provides the standardized rating which enables me to judge how strong a player my opponent is, and enables the TD to slot me into the appropriate section. That's the only reason to join the CFC, and I'd be much happier if the CFC's operation was reduced to only providing ratings at a bargain price, so that more people would join.

Local tournaments aren't CFC rated, because the prices don't make sense. When admission to the tournament is $15, and then you have to add the CFC fees on top, it's silly. The venue provides value, sanction provides very little.

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

It's generally agreed among men of substance that Frasier is the funniest network programme of all time.

There's a Weeds reference in this post.

There was a limit to how funny I could find those 2 whiner brothers, over and over ;)

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

Ok Gary, fair enough.

Eugen lol... What can I say? The only tournament that I changed my mind about is the chess challenge, and that was 2 months before the tournament ever started. So please, next time you accuse someone of being cocky, ignorant and a liar, make sure you know what those terms mean and how to use them in a proper sentence.

Also, why bother commenting on something so insignificant so many months ago? Don't you have a family and 9-5 work hours to do, not to mention taking money from ignorant chess parents?

Above all else, I hope that any good BC junior that qualifies for the chess challenge will not play in that and play in the Keres Memorial. I will probably be back just to play in the Keres Memorial and support the strongest tournament in BC.

Bindi

P.S. And yea, University is pretty fun Ben - but I'm falling behind a bit lol.

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Looking for one good reason to renew my CFC annual membership

P.S. And yea, University is pretty fun Ben - but I'm falling behind a bit lol.

That happens. How's Toronto, though? Smelly?