Kramnik plays Werle & Sebag
2 April 2008 9:45 AM | Last modified: 9:48
This afternoon, at 14:00 CET, in Enschede, the Netherlands a special event takes place: in a simultaneous exhibition, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik plays IGM Jan Werle & WGM Marie Sebag.
What is this?? we hear you think. A simul for two participants? Well, not the weakest ones. Jan Werle is a promising, 24-year-old Dutch grandmaster (2581) with a solid playing style - quite similar to that of Kramnik, whom he considers his idol. Marie Sebag is a 21-year old Française who holds the WGM and IM titles. She is one of the most talented female chess players and is currently the world’s no. 8 with a rating of 2521.
The match takes place in the new office of DGT (Digital Game Technology), and starts at 14:00 CET. Well-known arbiter Geurt Gijssen will referee and IGM Yasser Seirawan will do live commenting.
Foidos
Not a bad idea, to promote a new piece of software like this. Because that’s what it is of course: a pr stunt by DGT Projects, the company famous for their digital chess clocks and boards that make live coverage of chess tournaments possible. DGT will be testing their new showpiece: the internet system Foidos, for the first time live. A promising piece of software which seems to turn online chess into a completely new experience:
“With Foidos, the internet user will be able to watch all aspects of a chess game. Not just the moves, but close-ups of the player’s faces, comments by a Grandmaster and integrated computer analysis of the position are transmitted with this revolutionary software. During the game windows can be opened to witness the commentary by top level GM’s. Currently chess lovers have to visit a tournament for this experience. Now it will become accessible on the World Wide Web. Options to open a chat channel that connects the viewer with the commentator are built into the Foidos system. The user will also be able to link the games from a Foidos presentation to a chess playing program for further analysis.”
In December I met with CEO of DGT Albert Vasse in Dresden and he showed me a prototype of Foidos on his laptop. It looked impressive: lots of different with a chess position, camera positions, and a chat function, which can be dragged everywhere by the user. The idea is that it will be possible to follow the match Anand-Kramnik via Foidos.
What do you do when you’re that ambitious? You test your system, and not just behind closed doors, no, you create a nice event around it. This afternoon is the world première of Foidos, and it can be followed here at the DGT website or also at the Foidos website. ChessVibes will be present in Enschede today, so more news will follow.
Marvellous idea of DGT trying to ameliorate transmissions from great chess events! It would be a phantastic pleasure to see the WCC in October 2008 in Bonn by a very well workung system like FOIDOS! Thanks a lot in advance!
Hummm…it’s not working, or not working well, is it?
nope, thats quite a way to introduce a new product to the market. hehe.
I just had a call to DGT, and they suppose the system to be working in 10 minutes; hopefully I trust them!
it seems to be working now but only a little. there is some commentary on kramnik - sebag. but it is seriously annoying that the commentary window returns to the end every time it updates. which is often.
So, the only new feature of the program is at a beta test stage.
Good to know.
This is a flop.
Sorry, it´s mad and makes sad! I´ve stopped working in my busy neurosurgical practice from 02.00 - 04.30 h p.m. to follow this DGT-event, but it´s really worth northing!!!
Eeeh, where are all the windows showing the faces of the players etc etc…
or am I the only one having trouble?!
at least you can “watch” the games now. so its not a total flop. just a pretty big flop. must be reassuring for the one in charge.
Hi guys, a little note from the DGT office: it’s not a flop, as it wasn’t the company’s ambition to have everything working yet today. Perhaps their press release was a bit optimistic, perhaps I was, but in any case, the idea is to have everything perfect somewhere around August. They’re not testing the video functionality yet and (yes, slightly embarrassing), they’re having some problems with their DGT boards. But this is what testing is for; let’s hope everything’s fine around Anand-Kramnik.
Well.. when I used the word flop, I was referring to their communication (I’m talking about this press release, for example: http://foidos.com/20080327_DGT_pressrelease_kramnik_simul.pdf)
I personally welcome the Foidos project as extremely interesting, and I believe it can represent a big step forward (together with video reports such as the recent Amber ones) to popularize chess events over the internet (probably the only natural media for chess) hence attracting new and better sponsors to the chess world.
They could have stated clear that this event was meant to publicize their work (still in progress) in order to attract sponsors and, hopefully, make it better.
The ambiguity of their press release has obviously raised different expectations among chess fans that, of course, have by now been disappointed.
So, it wasn’t my intention to criticize the product, and I’m sure every chess enthusiast is hoping everything will work fine for the Anand-Kramnik match.
I can’t envision, though, why you’re taking part of the responsibility for yourself in all this: you just reported the info they gave out and what they showed you back in December.
Still no games from the Russian team championship? I at least , can’t seem to find them anywhere.
Found them at http://russiachess.org/online/
Btw., where does “foidos” come from? is it from greek “horao, eidon” where in old greek there was a digamma (weidon) and which leads to videre in latin? if yes, the “f” is strange since the digamma was spoken as a w/v and not like a f (which is a phi in greek). So maybe it’s from another word I don’t know.
Or does it come from another language? the -os at the end sounds quite old greek but of course it could also be spanish or sth. like this…
well we got to see the games but its safe to say everything else was a total failure
Mijn dank is groot Peter.
Indeed, Felix, they said it comes from the Greek language but I don’t know the details.
Hoe zijn de partijen afgelopen?
2-0 voor Kramnik, er volgt nog een filmpje deze week!
Foidos (or actually phoidos) means ‘bright’ or ‘pure’ and is a nickname for the god Apollo.
Appolo heet foibos, met een b.
Apollo…
Foidos is geen (oud) Grieks volgens mijn woordenboek.
That’s right tilde-person, the nickname of Apollo was phoibos with a b.
In my old Greek dictionary there’s not such a word. There’s the verb pheidomai = to spare, to abstain, to refrain. The relative noun is pheido-ous, though, meaning saving.
It could be modern Greek, with an apophony that occured in the meanwhile (from ‘ei’ to ‘o’), but still it could only mean saving, or something that make people save.
I’m afraid this is off topic, but I’m too curious now. C’mon Peter, can’t you ask them?
True, it’s spelled with b, not with d. So, it’s indeed intriguing where they got ‘Foidos’ from!
It could actually be Latin. The archaic spelling of ‘Foedus’ could be foidos (with the indoeuropen diphthong ‘oi’ still there). Foedus meaning treaty, union, alliance and…Federation. Are they teasing the FIDE?
You’re probably right, Janis. And it would also explain the f instead of ph. But can we show that this form was actually used at one point, for example in an Indo-european root, or in some proto-Latin text?
Peter, I’m just wondering what happened to the filmpje.