IRISH OPEN /QUALIFER 2010

[Ingo_Zachos]

Congratulations to Michele Borghetti for winning the WCDF QT at the first attempt.

A true champion knows how to fight when defeat is near, and he came back against Ron King and came back in the last round to take the tournament victory, the grandmaster title and the right to challenge Alex Moiseyv for the 3-move crown of the world.
He was lucky, but as we say in Germany, luck is the reward of hard work.

I saw him as a joint favorite with Ron King, and of course both lived up to my expectations.

Michele, you made Italy proud and rocked the checker world.

Also congratulatations to my dear friend Ron King.

Ron, I know how disappointed you are feeling now.
But you are still a very hot World Championship contender and worthy Wolrd Champion.
Everybody bows his head to you.
You made Barbados proud as well.


I think the match must be played within the next year, but time and venue are still unknown, but I would bet that the FID now considers to stage a bid.


Michele is also the first continental European to play for the title, and like I predicted a close outcome for this QT between King and Borghetti, I will also predict a close and very, very though match for the title.

I see no clear favorite.
Thery knowledge would favor Alex right now, but Michele has enogh time to mend the holes and cook something new.
And I am sure that there are strong italian seconds to assist him in his prerarations.

2010 was an exciting year, and 2011 will be even more exciting.


Greetinx from Germany in the night,

Ingo Zachos

[Alex_Moiseyev]

He was lucky, but as we say in Germany, luck is the reward of hard work.

In Russia we say: "Lucky as winner !"

[Ingo_Zachos]

So now Borghetti has about a year to prepare for a match? That's a lot of time to give a draughts savant.

Josh, compared to Borghetti's achievements with 37 years, Aley Moiseyey is the savant.
Michele is of the same calibre as Marion Tinsley, ableit in Italian Draughts.
http://www.federdama.it/
And the general level of competition in Italian draughts is high.
I say they have at least another world-class player in Sergio Scarpetta, that could be able to win a WCDF QT.

Note that more then 60 percent of the openings are exactly the same in Italian draughts (they even use the same names), only that they usually don't play all 156 openings, but only those who are not unbalanced.
Only for matches they switch to more openings and more unbalanced ballots.

As they only play one opening each round
All pairings.
Only one game per round.
They are not allowed to stand up until the first 10-15 moves, and there is no problem as luck of the opening draw (all have the same openig difficutly!), or the problem that in a break between two games of the same ballot a player might consult a book or a PC (see the case discussed above).

Also the round schedule is perfectly plannable (a maximum duration of one game is easy to handle, with 2 or 4 games the scheduled gets "cramped", and some games are almost declared a draw to avoid a longer duration of the round , which is, I am sad to say, outright ridiculous), and they usually play round robin tournaments in Italy, even at their nationals with 36 players that are all qualified from reginal events or reknown maters of the highest degree.

I would advice to the ACF and the WCDF to try to apply similar rules.
They are quite more sophisticated then anything I saw in the anglo-american checker world.

And I don't think that the centre of the checker world are the USA and GB & Ireland anymore.

One world champion is from Barbados, his 2008 challenger was from South Africa, the female World Champion is from Turkmenistan, a former challenger is from New Zealand, the current challenger to Alex Moiseyev from Italy and others like Germany, Czech Repubic, Israel, South Africa, etc. are keeping up, while Itlay might already be able to beat any US or GB& Ireland team if they would be invited.

And I think it is good that way, as competion produces growth and promotion of our game.

Greetinx from Germany,

Ingo Zachos

[Bernard Coll]

Gary Player, the great S. African golfer had a good saying. "The more I practice, the Luckier I get".

[william]

[quote="tommyc"]todays two TOP MEN of UK and Irish draughts . ...............but these two boys are from Ireland Billy??

Hey tommy , c'mon it's the same region of the globe LOL and I did say UK and Irish ( I did not mention north or south!!!)

[tommyc]

A word of caution Ingo "cowboys dont get lucky all the time" the words of a ol c/w song.Consider this before you make any predictions, King had Borghetti in a loss ,McCosker beat him 3-1 i dont think Moiseyev will shaking in his boots any time soon or having sleeping problems b/c of Michele??

Looking on the bright side..............now hes 2K euro richer Cannings Comp is a must."Hes got a long way to go and a short time to get there" LOL

[tommyc]

And for those who are not familiar with Sonne/berger tie breakers including myself until last nite,Liam Stephens (the quiet man from Mullingar who knows all about these kinda things lol) kindly explained it quite beautifully..................see below;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;YOU take the game point total of EVERY opponent you played and MULTIPLY it by the the number of points YOU got off that opponent=sonne berger pts.

As yu see below King played opponent number 20,who had a final game pts score of 16pts,King took 4 pts of him so.................the equation is..............16x by 4= 64 and so on for every opponent.


Hi Tommy, see below:

King Borchetti
Opp pts score Opp pts score
20 16 x 4 = 64 4 17 x 3 = 51
14 18 x 3 = 54 24 19 x 3 = 57
12 17 x 3 = 51 21 17 x 3 = 51
16 23 x 2 = 46 3 23 x 2 = 46
4 17 x 3 = 51 20 16 x 4 = 64
2 17 x 4 = 68 8 20 x 3 = 60
24 19 x 2 = 38 18 20 x 1 = 20
18 20 x 2 = 40 23 17 x 4 = 68
412 417

Regards - Liam.


I hope i did this right,no doubt yu will tell me if i didnt!!

[tommyc]

King Borchetti
Opp pts score Opp pts score
20 16 x 4 = 64 4 17 x 3 = 51
14 18 x 3 = 54 24 19 x 3 = 57
12 17 x 3 = 51 21 17 x 3 = 51
16 23 x 2 = 46 3 23 x 2 = 46
4 17 x 3 = 51 20 16 x 4 = 64
2 17 x 4 = 68 8 20 x 3 = 60
24 19 x 2 = 38 18 20 x 1 = 20
18 20 x 2 = 40 23 17 x 4 = 68
412 417

Regards - Liam.

[liam stephens]

Play just one side of a 3 move opening in major tournaments ??
Ingo – you cannot be serious. I very much doubt that suggestion will get much support.
They tried that on the IYT site and several players left the site in protest.
The purpose of balloted openings is that you play both sides, hoping for a win with the stronger side and (at least) a draw with the weaker side. And if the difficult 3 movers are withdrawn from the deck, all those years of study and effort by players of the Hard Deck (not to mention the 12 new openings – TC would do his nut!) gone to waste !

It is not entirely clear from your message, but is it also the case that the same opening is allocated to all boards (like they do with the hands in duplicate Bridge), this being the reason players are not allowed to stand up ? Well that would not be much use, as you could simply look across to the next board near you and follow that play. In the system you propose each separate table would have to be screened off from the next one. A totally impractical situation.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Michael Shabshai and Joe Schwartz contributed most to Michele victory and made a major difference for him. Sonne Berger is quite a good system, at least better than some others I played in the past. Somehow It includes both factors - opponents strength and performance.

To be successful with this system you have to play with strongest opponents and get more points against them. The fact that Michele lost round 3-1 to Shane and still had slight better HP only reflects well the fact that his overall performance in the entire event is better and more stable than Ron accomplishment.

As usually (ha-ha), Ron had in Dublin good level of luck with opponents and openings but Michele did better and had also some luck with opponents.

I can only repeat again that participation in Irish Open cost Suki 2,000 EURO. His play in QT wasn't so fresh, bright and aggressive as it was in Irish Open, week before QT.

I hope it will be a good lesson for Ron and he will reconsider and review now his tournament strategy based on aging considerations. There are many tricks you can use "to fight against age" and Ron should learn them now.

Regards,

Alex

[tommyc]

"Cowboys dont get lucky all the time".....................i can tell you now another win was missed on Borghetti ,forget sonneberger i guess he got that song in his downloader................."Some guys have all the luck"!!!!

Quite right Liam.................you cant adopt Ingos proposal ...........id do my nut as Ron is doing today no doubt.his song is "Some guys have all the PAIN"....huh.

[Bernard Coll]

Alex, I disagree with your summing up re- Ron playing in Irish open AND World Qualifiers. Ron had Michele Borghetti in a loss in 2nd game, misplayed the position and lost. For some obscure reason in checkers/draughts, history has shown that by misplaying a winning position can inevitably result in the tables being turned!!. Having said that I look forward to forthcoming tussle between yourself and Michelle. May the best player win! I also offer my commiserations to Jan Mortimer, who as we all know travelled from NZ, to Ireland at great expence. I have no doubt the unfortunate incident in the 1st round must have affected her physological outlook towards forthcoming rounds.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Ron had Michele Borghetti in a loss in 2nd game, misplayed the position and lost.

Bernard, you answered yourself ! Isn't Ron misplay in this game mainly base on his some sort of tireness and softness ? I think so. And I also should say, that playing in QT without playing in Irish Open - it is much more likely that Ron can score more points.

All after all - I do not have any intention underarate Michele performance, abilities and ... and luck ! Today I started my preparation for the upcoming match. My task is easy - all I need: do my best and the best should win ! There were no strangers among Challengers in 3-moves WCM and also there were no strangers among champions Our match in 2011 shall prove this.

There are only 2 possibilities in match - you can win (retain) title or not. This simply means that both players in match have 50% chances !

[Bernard Coll]

Poor auld Ron, I do hope he is not ower the hill!

[Ingo_Zachos]

Dear Tommy, could you plz provide the games King and Borghetti played?

Becasue what might be an "apparent" blunder after being in a win to you might be not so apparent to players like Ron and Michele.

Also, Alex, we need to have the games of the Irish Open and the QT to determine if Ron suffered from fratigue or was overplayed.
I would be cautios with that assumptions.
Also note that the QT was a class better in top quality then the Irish Open were, due to the participation of the Italian and Turkmenistan players, though we also need the games to determine the real quality.

I have the impression that Ron played well in both events and that it was no mistake to play both.
It was just that the Irish Open did not have a player in it that could keep his pace by creating enough wins to score 70 per cent or more.
Ron had no pressure there.
Borghetti proved he can do this and put him under pressure.
Ron was by no means bad or made a disappointing performance at all.
In contrast, anyone that can score 70 percent against such players would deserve to be a world champion.

And so two outstading players had a clash and in the end one was ahead by a slighly stronger performance against the best opponents, but only slightly better, and only in results.
It might not reflect the actual quality of the games.

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To Tommy:

What is the puropse of playing openings that do not give equal chances to all players over the whole event?
There is only one answer: it is an attempt to let chance play a greater role then talent.
Why is it that you ask for a new opening, so that Shane has a chance to beat Ron?
It indicates that you already gave in the thought that talent should prevail, as deep inside you see that the current system has the setback that chance might prevail talent.

A round robin with openings that offer scope for both sides is much fairer then an event in which Ron King gets a well-known drawn opening against Shane and Michele gets something more exciting against Shabshai.
Though both Shane McCosker and Michael Shabsai are equally hard to beat.

It might be that Ron could have defeated Shane with another opening, but FAIR means that the opening Ron has against Shane offers the same chances then the opening Michele gets against Shabshai ie should be the same.
And the current system does not provide that kind of equal chances.

And believe me, it is posisble to place tables in another way then just in a line...
That task is very easy.
Also you can place a masters pairng and a msters pairing on one table and still only use one opening ballot for the masters and one for the majors.

Greetinx from cold Dortmund,

Ingo