Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Bindi, you did exactly the same thing at the Langley Open in Vancouver last year. You played against much weaker players than you to win $300 prize. You even managed to get two byes in the last two games after you left the city so that you can get enough points to win the prize money. Where was your pride in all this?

Dr Parmjit Sohal / Tanraj Sohal's Dad. I'm glad you brought this up. Allow me to refresh your memory on what occured at this tournament.

1) If there was an Invitational tournament where there are all GM's and IM's I would have gladly played in that rather than the Langley Open but alas there wasn't.

2) It's not like I had a choice as to who I played. I would have gladly played Butch or Alfred early on and have a competitive game but Swiss sys pairings don't allow that to happen.

3) As I recall, in the 4th round I played your son after you and your wife told him to take a bye to avoid playing me due to "sickness" after seeing the pairings 15 minutes before the round started. How did that attempted bye go for him?

4) I took 2 byes because university started and my classes would already begin by the time the tournament was finished. I asked the TD beforehand if this was possible as I wouldn't have played if that wasn't an option. I'm fairly confident I would have either won the tournament outright if I played all 6 rounds or tied it with Alfred or Butch seeing as they were the only masters in the tournament.

I'm glad you think $300 is a bucket-load of money and that all BC players including your son are weak. Shows a lot of character coming from you and your wife, known troublemakers in the community.

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Hmmmm.... A case of do as I say and not as I do. Maybe the behaviour being criticized is only wrong if you win $301 or more while engaging in it.

Way to be subtle Vlad. You're hilarious :D

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Way to be subtle Vlad. You're hilarious :D

I don't think you did anything wrong winning $300 nor did Jean do anything wrong in winning $800 but if you are going to criticize, you should try to be squeaky clean in situations of a similar nature. I have spent way more time on this thread than is prudent.

I spent all day yesterday at a free tournament for kids organized by Zoltan Kiraly where there were no prizes and no entry fees. The tournament was aimed at the local kids serious about chess who were either in individual lessons or in one of the local chess classes or were serious enough about chess to play in an OYCC or CYCC. It was a hard fought event that went all day. A few kids showed up for the first two rounds but then left early in the afternoon because they were attending Kitchener chess fest. We managed to pull a couple of the stronger kids off of their summer chess vacation and help them shake off some of the chess rust. We are having four more such tournaments in August. Afterwards many of the kids and their parents thanked us for our participation.

[Kenneth Regan]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

My runs of the COQ Premier section are en cours, but my run of the 14 available games by Jean Hébert and Haizhou Xu from the Open finished today. Here are their "Intrinsic Performance Ratings" and the projected error bars.

Hébert 2474, error bars 2240--2708
Xu 2176, error bars 1863--2488

Note I'd predicted here that Xu's performance would be around 2200. Both IPR's are similar to the players' ratings. Two conclusions I draw:

(1) It is possible for a 2200-ish player to contend with a 2400+ Heffalump in an Open section without needing to play like a 2400+ player. Just get into some good fights and make things happen.

(2) The error bars are theoretical and cannot be made narrower---which means that over a 9-game event a sub-2200 player is quite capable of putting up a 2400+ performance anyway. Also a sub-1900 performance of course, but ya pays your EF and ya takes your chances.

So I think my math comes out against the idea that the IM's presence should have a discouraging effect on the sub-2200s. Speaking as an IM who was in trouble for a coupe of wins against said players a year ago...

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

So I think my math comes out against the idea that the IM's presence should have a discouraging effect on the sub-2200s. Speaking as an IM who was in trouble for a coupe of wins against said players a year ago...

Thank you for sharing the results of your research. It is very interesting.

I always think of the presence of an IM or any strong player as a possible opportunity to gain 30 rating points at the risk of losing 2 rating points.

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

I don't think you did anything wrong winning $300 nor did Jean do anything wrong in winning $800 but if you are going to criticize, you should try to be squeaky clean in situations of a similar nature. I have spent way more time on this thread than is prudent.

I spent all day yesterday at a free tournament for kids organized by Zoltan Kiraly where there were no prizes and no entry fees. The tournament was aimed at the local kids serious about chess who were either in individual lessons or in one of the local chess classes or were serious enough about chess to play in an OYCC or CYCC. It was a hard fought event that went all day. A few kids showed up for the first two rounds but then left early in the afternoon because they were attending Kitchener chess fest. We managed to pull a couple of the stronger kids off of their summer chess vacation and help them shake off some of the chess rust. We are having four more such tournaments in August. Afterwards many of the kids and their parents thanked us for our participation.

There's always going to be skeletons in the closet. I don't mind people accusing me of doing the same thing if it were true. Of course I played in Langley for the money. There was no point for me to play it for fun. If I wanted fun I'd go on ICC and play against IM's and GM's rather than weekenders with a couple of masters. The difference being that I had no choice playing in the Open as we don't have 20 GM's/IM's in an invitational section and I wasn't invited to said invitational section which I proceeded to turn down in favor of playing in the lower section. Get your facts straight before jumping on the bandwagon.

[Kevin Me]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

There's always going to be skeletons in the closet. I don't mind people accusing me of doing the same thing if it were true. Of course I played in Langley for the money. There was no point for me to play it for fun. If I wanted fun I'd go on ICC and play against IM's and GM's rather than weekenders with a couple of masters. The difference being that I had no choice playing in the Open as we don't have 20 GM's/IM's in an invitational section and I wasn't invited to said invitational section which I proceeded to turn down in favor of playing in the lower section. Get your facts straight before jumping on the bandwagon.

[Dr. Parmjit Sohal]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Dr Parmjit Sohal / Tanraj Sohal's Dad. I'm glad you brought this up. Allow me to refresh your memory on what occured at this tournament.

1) If there was an Invitational tournament where there are all GM's and IM's I would have gladly played in that rather than the Langley Open but alas there wasn't.

2) It's not like I had a choice as to who I played. I would have gladly played Butch or Alfred early on and have a competitive game but Swiss sys pairings don't allow that to happen.


3) As I recall, in the 4th round I played your son after you and your wife told him to take a bye to avoid playing me due to "sickness" after seeing the pairings 15 minutes before the round started. How did that attempted bye go for him?

4) I took 2 byes because university started and my classes would already begin by the time the tournament was finished. I asked the TD beforehand if this was possible as I wouldn't have played if that wasn't an option. I'm fairly confident I would have either won the tournament outright if I played all 6 rounds or tied it with Alfred or Butch seeing as they were the only masters in the tournament.

I'm glad you think $300 is a bucket-load of money and that all BC players including your son are weak. Shows a lot of character coming from you and your wife, known troublemakers in the community.

I am totally disgusted by your senseless offensive remarks. Rather than focussing on the issue which you could not defend, you stooped so low and started making false personal attacks. You should be ashamed of your actions. You can criticize everybody but no one should criticize you. Ken MacDonald also wrote about your original comments, "irrelevant and in poor taste." Criticizing you is like opening a can of worms. You have been writing trash on chesstalk which anyone can sense. Just read yours April 30 comments. You should read the guidelines; think carefully before posting anything. I have asked CFC to review your rant on chesstalk.

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

I am totally disgusted by your senseless offensive remarks. Rather than focussing on the issue which you could not defend, you stooped so low and started making false personal attacks. You should be ashamed of your actions. You can criticize everybody but no one should criticize you. Ken MacDonald also wrote about your original comments, "irrelevant and in poor taste." Criticizing you is like opening a can of worms. You have been writing trash on chesstalk which anyone can sense. Just read yours April 30 comments. You should read the guidelines; think carefully before posting anything. I have asked CFC to review your rant on chesstalk.

LOL, you're funnier than Vlad. Congratulations! :)

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Dr Sohal has complained about your remarks Bindi and he has a point. Your thoughtful contributions aren't improved by adding personal shots or attacks.

[Nicolas Haynes]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Dr Parmjit Sohal / Tanraj Sohal's Dad. I'm glad you brought this up. Allow me to refresh your memory on what occured at this tournament.

1) If there was an Invitational tournament where there are all GM's and IM's I would have gladly played in that rather than the Langley Open but alas there wasn't.

2) It's not like I had a choice as to who I played. I would have gladly played Butch or Alfred early on and have a competitive game but Swiss sys pairings don't allow that to happen.

3) As I recall, in the 4th round I played your son after you and your wife told him to take a bye to avoid playing me due to "sickness" after seeing the pairings 15 minutes before the round started. How did that attempted bye go for him?

4) I took 2 byes because university started and my classes would already begin by the time the tournament was finished. I asked the TD beforehand if this was possible as I wouldn't have played if that wasn't an option. I'm fairly confident I would have either won the tournament outright if I played all 6 rounds or tied it with Alfred or Butch seeing as they were the only masters in the tournament.

I'm glad you think $300 is a bucket-load of money and that all BC players including your son are weak. Shows a lot of character coming from you and your wife, known troublemakers in the community.

[Lucas Davies]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Holy crap there is a lot of beef in this thread. I think that this needs to be solved with some chessboxing BO3's.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Holy crap there is a lot of beef in this thread. I think that this needs to be solved with some chessboxing BO3's.

Truth is, I've seen much worse ... and on the previous incarnation of ChessTalk to boot. The newish policy of requiring Members to use their own names helps moderators, like yours truly, a great deal.

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Congratulations to Haizhou Xu

Dr Sohal has complained about your remarks Bindi and he has a point. Your thoughtful contributions aren't improved by adding personal shots or attacks.

Nigel, you do understand Dr Sohal is just mad that I forced his son to play me in the Labour Day tournament right? If you read what I said, I was just defending myself when Dr Sohal tried to compare apples and oranges when he brought up the weekender that I played in. If anything, I was under a personal attack seeing as that event had nothing in common with the Invitational that just happened. I'm not sure what my personal shot was - I explained step by step the difference between the two events and called him a trouble-maker. I merely pointed out his attempt at trying to stir up a shit-storm.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: ...

Have a read of the PM I sent you, Bindi.