There several people, who are champions in two games:

Magnus Oberg - Hex, Go(13x13)

Martin - Hex, Go (9x9)

Jymon - Amazon, Go (9x9)

Scot - Word game, Dots and Boxes

David J. Bush - Twixt, Hex (13x13 and 19x19 too)

mirror_man - Go (9x9), Golem Word Game

michael - Golem Word Game, Dots and Boxes

These celebrities should kindly send their photos to Richard, and let Richard create a section in the main menu, called “LG Celebrity Photos”, so that other players can admire these great players, and can send their (wooden) boards for these great players to sign their signatures on. :)

We should now add :

alkosan - Gomoku, DOts and Boxes

I think even the players that are in TOP 10 or won a MC in two games are not so many.

The problem with TOP 10 is that it can change so maybe only the TOP-TOP players that clearly do not drop from there can be taken in consideration.

alkosan's championship does not really count – none of the top 50 players played gomoku when he won.

Alkosan's score does count… he won the championship… if you start putting conditions to 'double championships' it makes it less interesting I think.

it was easy to win a championship when there were no good players here yet. so it does not really count, only as an empty statistical figure.

It's hard to define 'good players'. Isn't good relative to the other players around? If not, who decides when a player is good? Maybe there aren't any good players at all.

To me, alkosan is a very good player who won two championships. And Hjallti is a reversi champion.

alkosan may be a so-so good player in gomoku, who lost all his important games against serious, really good players who came to this site later on. to me he might be a statistical champion only.

dots and boxes - yes, he is a champ.

mind you, we could implement some arbitrary conditions that would actually make these stats not only interesting but also a bit more realistic:

(1) the first championship (xx.ch.1.1) does not count in this comparison

(2) only those championships count that took place after there were at least 1000 players registered at this site

Babe Ruth shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, because he wouldn't be as good today? I disagree. Let the man have his title.

And what about Johnny Weismuller?

Babe Ruth was the best player of his age. Alkosan was not.

Babe Ruth was the best player in the most competitive baseball league of his time. Alkosan was not.

Gomoku became more competitive at this site only after Hungarian, Polish, and Russian gomoku players started to play at LG. Before that it was preseason; the real season began in January 2003. See the 2nd Championship season here:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/tournament/tournament.jsp?trnid=gmk.ch.2.1.1

Preseason tourneys with OK players are not real Championships, no matter how they are called.

so alkosan does have the title but with an asterisk, as they say.

What if new gomoku players, much stronger than you can ever imagen, join littlegolem tomorrow and participate in next championship? Would that make the current championship preseason too?

that was good point klaashas.

1-0 for klaashas! hurray!

Come on bloke, you really don't make sense…

So the WTA should ban all records of Chris Evert, and even maybe Graf because they weren't opposed to hard hitting players as Clijsters, the russians, the williamses.

What is realistic about taking conditions… all dot's and boxes champions except Michael should be banished because he is better?

I agree on your point about 'the best of his age (in the USA)' … in fact taking in account that game-play here is faster alkosan was the best of his age (period of the championship he won).

none of the top 50 go players aren't playing on this site yet, so the go championships don't count either. that leaves scot, david j. bush and michael as the only 3 people who won 2 championships

klaashaas: if you know anything about the game of gomoku, then you know that starting with the second season, the roster of the participating players was already internationally competitive, and it was a big jump from the first season which had a small circle of inexperienced friends playing against each other. the improvement of the quality of games in the first league was only gradual since then. that gradual increase will not change with the participation of the russians in the 8th season.

ypercube: your uninformed comment was a vote of popularity, which is fine

Hjallti: i do not get your point about Chris Evert and Co. she played in the best grand slam tourneys, won them, led the WTA rankings, so there is no reason to take her out of the annals. the first championship season here in gomoku was by far not of a grand slam caliber, it was a nascent tourney of some decent players, so the comparison between Evert and alkosan is nonsense. LittleGolem earned grand slam caliber among the internet tourney sites only when internationally known gomoku players started to play here, that is, with the second season.

alkosan: you may be right about go, i do not know. what is sure is that close to two-thirds of the 50 best gomoku players “on earth” (who ever played on the internet) have have appeared in LG championships – but only after the first season. some estonian and swedish players have not come here yet, but the russians, hungarians and poles are here already.

re: “alkosan: you may be right about go, i do not know. what is sure is that close to two-thirds of the 50 best gomoku players “on earth” (who ever played on the internet) have have appeared in LG championships – but only after the first season. some estonian and swedish players have not come here yet, but the russians, hungarians and poles are here already.”

and what does this say about the fact that in the 7th championship, the 6th championship after your so-called pre-season, only 19 people finished higher than me in the championships. (11 in 1st level + #1-4 in both 2nd level)

not much. as i said, two-thirds of the top 50 “on earth” have “appeared” in LG championships – it does not mean that they played in all seasons. those who won championship seasons 2 to 5 have all retired by now. but they all won against you. you have a mediocre 80-69 record in gomoku, occupy the 72nd place with a low 1667 score in the rankings, and won against an 1800-plus player only 3 times.

i mean, sorry, there is nothing wrong with not being a top caliber player in a particular game. but if a non top-caliber player wins a championship (the first, pilot or preseason championship) that is not yet a serious grand slam trophy.

this is nothing against you, you have a great and convincing record in dots-and-boxes. congratulations, champion!

1) bloke said: two-thirds of the top 50 “on earth” have “appeared” in LG championships.

How can you be sure? Do you know all of them?

2) bloke said: you have a mediocre 80-69 record in gomoku, occupy the 72nd place with a low 1667 score in the rankings, and won against an 1800-plus player only 3 times.

Perhaps alkosan is the best player on the planet, just got bored after the 1st golem championship! That could explain his results, bloke which I think are fine. He certainly has a win against iec who won the (2nd?) championship. I also have a low rating because (at least that's what I claim) when I play Gomoku here I only think 1 second per move. But I sometimes make it into the 1st division. What this makes of me?

Another thing is that there a few players that use many nicknames (as they have said themselves) and playing at 1st and 2nd divisions. So no championship is perfectly clear by this view. And one of them has won 2 (gomoku) championships! I seriously doubt that this makes him a better player.

In conclusion, my main point is that alkosan did win 2 (TWO) LittleGolem Championships. It doesn't really matter if you or I or a thousand better players had not found littlegolem by the time alkosan had won the gomoku championship.

ypercube: “In conclusion, my main point is that alkosan did win 2 (TWO) LittleGolem Championships. It doesn't really matter if you or I or a thousand better players had not found littlegolem by the time alkosan had won the gomoku championship.”

should we start the whole thing from the beginning again? did i say that alkosan did not win the first championship? no.

what i said that the first season was not a serious one as no really good player started to play before the second season.

to me it is not a surpise that you made it into the first division: as i said, several top ranked players retired after winning championships – perhaps they got more bored than alkosan who has not been able to make it into the top division since the roster became “thicker”

I don't think this thread should continue. This bloke guy is sore or has something personal against alkosan.

The thread is about double champs on Little Golem, amaizing players by the way. He keeps on talking about some abstract list of the best players in the world, which is not relevant.

I did some checks and following his logic none of the gomoku champions on LG deserve this title as there are no japanese players here. You can check the rating lists for Renju (the pro version of gomoku) here, check the last rating list, half of the first 100 are from Japan.

International Renju Federation

Agree “Bloke” does have issues by the sounds of things.

You can only beat those peole who take part, if you beat all who take part you are the champion, he did this and deserves the recognition.

hey, Crelo, do not be selective in your argumentation. i said many-many times that

(1) i have nothing against alkosan

(2) on paper he is indeed champion in two games

(3) the first championship in gomoku should have an asterisk

-- as it included players who later on were non-factors in later championship seasons. so, realistically, it can be considered only a pilot or preseason championship

none of the Bane Ruth or Chris Evert arguments have any sense, as they excelled among the best players of their time. the best gomoku players simply did not yet participate in the first gomoku championship here

by the way, renju is a different game, world renju rankings do not represent automatically the best gomoku players

OK bloke, then all the chess and go championships should have an asterisk, I don't know about the rest of LG games.

The Renju IS the same game as gomoku, as it's description proves. More than so, Renju can be played in tournaments while gomoku can't. Even LG needs some special opening rule to make gomoku more fair. I found no site about a gomoku world championship on Google while Renju has an International Federation.

As your last assertion that good Renju players are not good gomoku players seems realy forced and needs proof.

Bloke to be honest I still can't understand your point. So tell me one thing: In 1996 the best 800-metres runner was Wilson Kipketer (he was world chmapion in 1995), but he couldn't take part in olympics games in Atlanta because he was from Nigeria, and wanted to start in representation fo Denmark. Anyway gold medal went to Norwegian Rodal Vebjorn. So please tell if Vebjorn is champion or not (or only champion on paper) or there should be asterisk on 800-metres results?

Btw. Sorry for my english I normally would not say anything but it's really interesting thing for me. Of course it's just an example and we could find much more such situation when the best players of their time couldn't attend and somebody else became a champion.

uhh, Crelo, i said:

“by the way, renju is a different game, world renju rankings do not represent automatically the best gomoku players” (emphasis: do not represent automatically)

you said:

“As your last assertion that good Renju players are not good gomoku players seems realy forced and needs proof”

this was not my assertion, either logically, or lingusitically.

gomoku is not an underdeveloped renju, it is a different game. there are sites all over the place where gomoku is a respectable game, and the rankings do represent some kind of a world ranking.

here it was not the case before 2003, and it is occasionally the case afterwards – the ranking list at LittleGolem cannot be completely representative because good players do leave the site (retire). nevertheless, the rankings here do tend to reflect the russian dominance of gomoku (not renju, see, e.g., the championships in Tyumen, etc.).

the only debate we can have is whether gomoku became a “word class” grand slam type championship already with the 2nd championship season, or only later.

passenger: you are talking about one person, who happened to win the 800 metre race because Kipketer was not running. but the 800 m race was already an established sport in the Olympics, for many decades. i cannot compare LittleGolem to the Olympic games, especially not in the first season

ok, better example olympicks games in 1980 in Moscow and 1984 in Los Angeles where many really good (soemetimes the best) sportsmem hadn't chance to take part in because of political situation? I just want to know why You divide champions for this “good” and “bad”. Alkosan won Littlegolem gomoku champioship because during it he was the best gomoku player on this site. After that level of gomoku games are much higher but it dosen't mean that 1st championsips was worst than other. If You see things this way You should say, that David, Martin and Magnus aren't real champions in hex (because when they won championship there weren't all players from Poland), Jymon isn't Amazon real champion (nobody from these championship isn't even in Amazon top10 now), and Scot, Michael and Mirror man don't deserve to name “GWG champion” cause there they won it where Abigail didn't play here. Also I'm sure that other gomoku champions we also can't name real champions because there are still not all best players here (as Crelo wrote).

I see you bloke keep on responding no matter what other people say, I am sure you can do this indefinitely, it also has a name on forums - trolling.

As I said in my first message, this thread was about LG champions, not about World class players or whatever. As LG is not afiliated to any game associations it only lists the players and tournaments on LG at that moment. Alkosan was the best gomoku player at that moment.

Suppose for instance the next month some inhumanly strong gomoku player will come here and win 10 championships in a row. Will this make all the actual champions a joke, an asterisk will be added near their names?

And what you do with games for which the best players aren't on LG? Deserve the chess and go champions that asterisk?

But I see I cannot keep myself my own advice :-) By now everybody should have an idea about this so I'll finish here.

arghhh, passenger, i need to repreat myself again…

David, Martin and Magnus are not comparable to alkosan, Glen C. Rhoads is, who won the first Hex championship, so he is the “preseason champion”. and he is nowhere now, just like alkosan is nowhere in gomoku.

similarly, big bad wolf is the “pilot champion” in GWG, and not Scot, Michael or mirror_man. the latter are still among the top-ranked players.

and similarly again, Roman Bocka and Kim Basinger are the “pilot champions” in Amazons, their rating is horrbile now. but jymon lost his rankings only because he retired, just like Istan Virag did in gomoku.

i mean, a real (and not statistical) champion should have at least a 70 percent record in a competitive environment.

do you see my point now?

i mean, a real (and not statistical) champion should have at least a 70 percent record in a competitive environment.

A “normal”, champion profile would show a high win rate during their period of dominance, but there win rate would be a lot lower when they were beginning and when they were overtaken by newer champions, the 70%+ win rate would only be for the period when they were near the top of their game.

let's see:

Glenn C. Rhoads - (who is nowhere now) won against Martin (the normal champion) in 1st hex championship

Big Bad wolf - Gwg stats: 1847 112 - 26 (81%) he played and won with many players with higher ratings

Jymon - Didn't lost his rating because time he resign all his last games at first move

Kim Basinger - is retired now and lost all his/her last games because of time

Roman Bocka - retired Amazons stats: 1574 (horrible?) 23 - 11 (68%)

Facts.

pip, check out the leaders of the gomoku rankings. Alex, Andrey and iec have around 90 percentage winning rate, even against the top players of their time. Mikle has 83, Malaj 79, Kacper 76 percent performance. only if they played against each other and only each other all the time would their winning rate approximate 50-55 percent. of course they will play against lower ranked players, too, so in the long run a true champion's winning rate would be closer to 70-75 percent.

but where is alkosan compared to these players?

passenger, what i said where facts too. were the “pilot champions” ever tested in a truly competitive championship?

The first golem championship gomoku was probably just as competitive for the players back then as the last championship.

Will you mark the last gomoku championship as irrelevant too, when new, much stronger players play in the next championship? Oh, wait… That's not possible, because the world's strongest players already play here. So, what if a new, very advanced gomoku game theory is developed and with the help of the knowledge of the theory, the current players will play alot stronger?

I think you are trying to give the title 'Littlegolem Champion' a different meaning (something like 'world champion', or 'very strong player compared to all the players in the world'). Am I correct?

Facts part 2

Big bad wolf - As U said “pilot champion” won 1st championship during this pilot championship he played with Tore Sandmark, Scot, and Ed Collins (now U can go to GWG page and check there's stats. He played also in 2nd championship he was 4th and as the only one he defeated Scot (normal champion). But he's champion with asterisk.

About else I can't say unfortunatelly the same thing. Anyway in their age they were best players in Littlegolem world.

there must be something interesting in this thread that it created such a controversy…

klaashaas: “The first golem championship gomoku was probably just as competitive for the players back then as the last championship.”

true, but what i said was that the “pilot champions” were never tested in really competitive championships, or if yes, they typically failed to maintain their ephemeral champion status.

the theory of gomoku is a bit limited, compared to many other games, and some people say that it is “solved”, that is, black always wins. with the arrival of Mikle, Alex and Andrey this theory is almost proven game by game. this means that there cannot be much further development in the game of gomoku – only perhaps when new, stricter rules are applied (but swap gomoku would be still gomoku and not renju, Crelo)

which means that no further quantum leap is possible in gomoku theory, strategy or tactics under the current rules at LittleGolem. this qualitative jump was possible, however, when after the “pilot championship” some really good players arrived to this site. that did make a difference, let us be historically precise.

and no, klaashaas, i am not saying that the LittleGolem champion is a world champion of gomoku – by far not, even if many of the strongest players now play here.

what i said that among the internet gomoku sites LittleGolem could qualify for a “grand slam” status only when the best players here were already of world class caliber (again, specifically for gomoku, after the first season)

come on, the US Open also did not start out as one of the most important tennis tourneys, it did not become a Grand Slam tourney immediately. you have to have world class players for that. here at littlegolem, the number of registered players was very low in 2002 and the strength of the first players was quite weak compared to those who joined later.

passenger: ok you may be right in citing the individual case of big bad wolf. but not in general. the point about “pilot champions” disappearing after better players arrive at this site is generally true.

Don't you find bloke funny? I do!

The tread was about champions in two games. Clear facts if you just take all champions of games and then check double names…

Then bloke starts a fuzz about that in GoMoku there should be a condition on the level of the players…

Only in GWG I can say: the best GWG players in the world are here… and apparently there is a claim that the best GoMoku/Renju players might play here as well.

So we should only take players that won GWG championships and GoMoku championships… leaving out still one of those championships…

So bloke is talking about something else than all the rest and still everyone responds (even I am at this moment responding….)

I don't feel like bloke is whining, or having something personal against alko. I actually find it quite an interesting and funny discussion.

LittleGolem could qualify for a “grand slam” status only when the best players here were already of world class caliber <

Littlegolem championship is no Grandslam. Littlegolem championship is… well, littlegolem championship. No Grandslam, no worldchampionship. Just littlegolem championship (no less prestigious, btw:). Alko won two championships. (period!).

Funny about this is that he actually hasn't won a championship in his strongest game yet:)

you are all trapped in the thread :D

is it an addiction or what? :P

(btw. i was not joking, only rose some interesting points)

Winning 2 champion'ships ain't simple

ok, the first ones weren't that difficult of had a very high level, but people won it.

I'm playing also on another turned based site and at that site I'm currently number one in reversi.

What will that be worth if better players will join? I'm not the best on the site anyway, just playing a lot.

On little golem I can hardly stand the top15-20 here at reversi (not thinking that much, but better players do play here at this site).

at the FFO (kind a european rating list) I'm currently 55th, but I know there at least 50-100 japanese live players who can easily beat me. Not to mention the many players who never played live before.

You just need to see all in his context of time and place.

at some stage, at some site or ranking, some people are the best. Comparing is difficult, but you can try to give it a shot.

We just need to name all the people who won champ'ships in 2 difficult games. You can discuss about the value of those wins, but they have won 2 :)

cheers tom

yeee, finally someone with a sense of history and context, not just statistics :-)

thanks tom!

I don't know bloke what changed your mood but I think tom rather disagrees with your point.

On the other hand things like:

“alkosan's championship does not really count – none of the top 50 players played gomoku when he won.”

“alkosan may be a so-so good player in gomoku, who lost all his important games against serious, really good players who came to this site later on. to me he might be a statistical champion only.”

hardly can be considered as “only rose some interesting points”

crelo,

by his own example, tom intentionally or not called attention to the fact that statistics are contextual. which means it is an empty statistical statement to say that alkosan won two championship if we do not see what it is its worth.

my mood all along has been the same – and i said all along that i have nothing, really nothing, against alkosan.

only against the empty, meaningless celebration of statistics. decontextualized, ahistorical statistical data do not make anyone a better player, however nice that person is.

get it, finally?

crelo,

by his own example, tom intentionally or not called attention to the fact that statistics are contextual. which means it is an empty statistical statement to say that alkosan won two championship if we do not see what it is its worth.

my mood all along has been the same – and i said all along that i have nothing, really nothing, against alkosan.

only against the empty, meaningless celebration of statistics. decontextualized, ahistorical statistical data do not make anyone a better player, however nice that person is.

get it, finally?

uh, sorry for the double post. for 60 mins the server was unreachable, surprise that the message went through :D

Before you read this… it is a bit boring, bad english and I got carried away a bit :-)

Even if Crelo got the point you trying to make now, I didn't :-)

You might have started the discussion with something like “I think this 'listing double champs' is worthless” and then point out that you don't like ahistorical statistics outside the context (whatever that is supposed to mean, I'll get back to this), but you didn't, you started with saying that alkosan doesn't belong in the list, which is not true. Alkosan does belong in the list because simply the list lists everyone who won 2 championships in different games, and alkosan is someone who won 2 championships in different games.

In other words, you discussed something other then you pretended to discuss, and everyone (the few who replied) got mad due to that confusion.

Secondly, the list is not really ahistorical without context, since it refers to a clear set of championships played on this server. Of course you could make it more historical by adding which championship someone won, and the date.

So lets summarize this discussion so far to: of course Alkosan belongs to the list of double champs, but having champions like Alkosan in GoMoku and Hjallti in Reversi shows that being a champ doesn't have to mean being a very good player in a particular game.

((( Alkosan, sorry to offend you, but it not personal and by the way: congrats on you double championship )))

((( Rio, Can you introduce MasterMind or so here, and put me in the championship.1.1.1. with some weak players… that way I could get on the list, which I think is very interesting and a good motivation to keep trying all championships ((even those biased with players that think that knowing the entire opening book of a game (like now in GoMoku) is interesting and fun)) ))).

Does Garry Kasparov play here in the Chess championship, if he doesn't then does that make our chess championship worthless, as we havn't got the best player in the world playing here.

Do you really know who you are playing against online, do you know if your facing a computer or a human opponent.

It's asserted that some of the best players in the world play here at Littlegolem now, but how can you prove that, how do you know there are not better players who play on other sites or who pay offline, since there is no check of a persons identity when they register at this site how do you know ?.