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Lyle Craver
12-10-2017, 11:46 AM
Please welcome our president Vladimir Drkulec

Vladimir Drkulec
12-10-2017, 01:50 PM
I would like to welcome the voting members to the December quarterly meeting. There are no motions on the table so this is to provide the voting members with an update since the last meeting in August. There have been a number of developments in the chess world which affect Canada since our last meeting. The most troublesome was the incident at the World Cup where our player Anton Kovalyov was unceremoniously accosted by the organizer prompting him to withdraw after making it to the third round of the tournament.

We should probably encourage our organizers to make more use of our forums to advertise our events and encourage members to visit our forums for information about upcoming events. Chesstalk has introduced a new fee for tournament advertising starting January 1st, 2018. Its not even clear how much longer Chesstalk is going to be around as Larry Bevand looks for a buyer.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-10-2017, 01:53 PM
Raja Panjwani achieved his second GM norm recently at a U.S. Thanksgiving weekend tournament in Charlottesville. On this occasion, I thought back to something John Upper wrote in a recent email highlighting some of the positive results achieved in Canadian chess in the last four and a half years.
The following is an excerpt:


I didn't pay close attention to Canadian chess before I became the CFC newsletter editor, but since then, off the top of my head, I can recall:
WYCC gold - Harmony Zhu




WYCC gold - Qiyu Zhou




IM titles:




Aman Hambleton,
Razvan Preotu,
Michael Barron,
Michael Song,
Michael Kleinman,
Shiyam Thavandiran
GM title: Razvan Preotu
first ever WGM title for a Canadian: Qiyu Zhou




FIDE IA titles: both Danny Goldenberg and Vadim Tsypin








Results:




Best ever Canadian Olympiad Result: 2016 Baku Men's team




Anton Kovalyov qualifying for the World Cup twice, and winning three rounds in 2015 and two in 2017, defeating former FIDE Champions Kasimdzhanov and Anand along the way, and losing only to Caruana and the Testicle who Walks Like a Man.




Several North American YCC champions




Hal Bond working the Carlsen-Anand WC match and the Kamsky-Topalov Candidates Final




Aris Marghettis working the top board at both the 2014 and 2016 Olympiads

Other:

multiple records set for attendance at the CYCC

THREE (Editor: actually 4 as IM Jean Hebert has also published a book in French and English translations) chess books published by Canadian authors:

David Cumming's The English (Everyman);0
Raja Panjwani's The Hyper-Accelerated Dragon (Thinker's Press);
Razvan and Michael Song's The Chess Attacker's Handbook (Gambit)

Has there EVER been 4.5 year stretch where Canadian Chess has seen so many good things?

John Upper

Aris Marghetis
12-10-2017, 01:53 PM
I have not been on ChessTalk since it was recently virused up.

Aris Marghetis
12-10-2017, 01:54 PM
Great points!

Vladimir Drkulec
12-10-2017, 11:36 PM
I have not been on ChessTalk since it was recently virused up.

We need to prepare ourselves for a post-Chesstalk world. Either Larry will sell it to someone who will make more of it than it currently is or Larry will get tired of the exposure. I was under the impression that they had solved the virus problem.

Ken Craft
12-11-2017, 10:01 AM
Chesstalk is about to charge for tournament notices. I think we should emphasize that the service is free on our discussion forum.

Aris Marghetis
12-11-2017, 12:10 PM
Chesstalk is about to charge for tournament notices. I think we should emphasize that the service is free on our discussion forum.

I agree Ken. Maybe we compile a little starter email for TDs, providing all of the links (announcement, ratings, etc.)

Vladimir Drkulec
12-11-2017, 02:21 PM
It appears chesstalk still has an issue with a hacked website. As soon as you open it the CPU usage goes to 100%. Using this forum results in a short spike but returns to a negligible load on your CPU very quickly. Close chesstalk and usage drops back to normal.

ian findlay
12-11-2017, 03:31 PM
I agree Ken. Maybe we compile a little starter email for TDs, providing all of the links (announcement, ratings, etc.)

As the organizer of the Banff Open, I plan to use the CFC site as soon as the ACA (Alberta Chess Association) approves my 2018 tournament during its budget meeting. The $20 that Chesstalk will charge to advertize my tournament I consider a bargain, although I am sure the topic will come up at the next ACA meeting. The ACA also has a webiste where Alberta tournament are advertized. I am thinking most provincial organizations have websites?

Michael Lo
12-11-2017, 08:49 PM
It appears chesstalk still has an issue with a hacked website. As soon as you open it the CPU usage goes to 100%. Using this forum results in a short spike but returns to a negligible load on your CPU very quickly. Close chesstalk and usage drops back to normal.

My laptop's CPU usage is stable at 3-4% when accessing ChessTalk. Try to clean up your computer with one or more anti-virus software.

Ken Craft
12-12-2017, 08:49 AM
My comment that the CFC offered free advertisement of chess tournaments appears to have been removed from Chesstalk.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-12-2017, 12:06 PM
My comment that the CFC offered free advertisement of chess tournaments appears to have been removed from Chesstalk.

Well that is Larry's domain and perhaps to be expected. He doesn't want to give free advertising to the competition. For a tournament in Windsor, I don't think Chesstalk is a factor. I won't be advertising there particularly if the hacking continues. I am also not clear if this new policy also applies to tournament announcements like WYCC/WCCC and so on. If so, future announcements will be confined to the CFC forum and website.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-12-2017, 12:15 PM
My laptop's CPU usage is stable at 3-4% when accessing ChessTalk. Try to clean up your computer with one or more anti-virus software.

I regularly use multiple programs and just used Trend Micro to confirm that I am virus free. Others report the same thing that I have experienced. The issue is that people are hacking websites all the time. This time it is a bitcoin miner but it could be something much worse next time. I have known people that had all their files locked and lost by ransomware.

This forum was hacked and part of the reason that this meeting started a bit late was that Lyle could not get into his account but Chris Mallon has taken steps to repel the hacker and obviously Lyle is back in control of his account.

Edit:
It appears that Malwarebytes blocks the coinhive site so I am not experiencing the CPU load anymore. That does not negate the worrisome fact that this appears to be embedded in the Chesstalk website at the moment.

Aris Marghetis
12-12-2017, 01:49 PM
I dunno if anyone saw my previous post about this, but I would suggest a "cheat sheet" for TDs on where to post event announcements on the CFC website, and any other useful links; like to the supported programs, submission for ratings, etc. I think up until now, many TDs just went to ChessTalk (bookmarked in their Favorites) out of habit.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-17-2017, 11:54 PM
I dunno if anyone saw my previous post about this, but I would suggest a "cheat sheet" for TDs on where to post event announcements on the CFC website, and any other useful links; like to the supported programs, submission for ratings, etc. I think up until now, many TDs just went to ChessTalk (bookmarked in their Favorites) out of habit.

Great idea!