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Engine Forbidden Tournaments |
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Engine forbidden tournaments were started on AICCF Server in June 2018. In these games players are not allowed to take the help of computer chess engine software for analysis of their games. To enforce this, AICCF asks players to take a pledge and appeal to their own conscience to scrupulously avoid consulting programs like Fritz, Arena, Aquarium connected to chess engines like Stockfish, Komodo, Houdini, Fire, Deep Shredder etc. Additionally, AICCF can investigate complaints about engine use. The techniques we use to detect cheating cannot be revealed. Technology has evolved and algorithms exist to detect engine use. Such procedures are in use by online sites such as LiChess and chess.com and they do a fairly good job to weed out the engine users.
Correspondence chess with engine allowed continues of course and this is still the mainstream. All ICCF games and the main section of AICCF permits players to consult engines and here a player not using an engine would be at a serious disadvantage while playing at the higher level.
The two forms of correspondence chess: engine-allowed and engine-forbidden make for very different type of play. In engine-allowed CC, players avoid taking risks and the number of drawn games is on the increase. If you have to outwit a player in engine-allowed play, you need a well-researched plan which starts out from the opening phase itself. Players like Om Prakash, Lalit Kapoor, Mohan Turaga have mastered these techniques and have excelled themselves with tremendous strong play in AICCF Championships and ICCF.
Playing without engines is a different cup of tea. Once the engine is switched off, you have again to go back to basics. Traps which are many moves deep but perhaps not completely sound might even work. Over-the-Board (OTB) games of the legendary Mikhail Tal illustrate risky sacrificial play. One has to be wary of tactics, where you can’t let the engine take care of mistakes costing material damage. It also becomes possible to continue playing in minus positions since perfect play by the opponent is no longer a certain thing.
For AICCF engine forbidden CC, the first thing is to enrol in a tournament. Log in to AICCF Server and click “Join No Engines Tournament”. Then you see a table allowing you to join a No Engines Tournament at Normal, Rapid or Blitz rate of play. When the game starts you can play on the server in the usual way. But there is one difference. When you click on a game to make your move, you see a new button: Analysis Board. This opens a new window with the current position. Here you can move the pieces around like a regular chess board. Both Black and White pieces can be freely moved without regard to legal moves just like a real chess board. There is no risk of your trial moves getting transmitted and your analysis remains private. There is even a provision to add a note and view notes you made for earlier moves. We recommend that you either use the analysis board or analyse on a real chess board. On mobile phone, the analysis board does not work. If you are using YourMove, the app does not provide an analysis board. You should use a real chess board. Otherwise you can install Chessify from Play Store. When you install this app it does not load any engines. After installation, engines can be loaded.
Avoid loading engnges and you will have an app in which you can analyse Engine Forbidden games.