A few days ago the message from CSM in our Twixt game started the following way:
"Hi. I'm CSM's wife. I'm now his Widow. He passed away on May 5,2011. He enjoyed playing twixt. His placement and his points were very important to him."
And so, a geat Twixt player is no longer among us. My condolances to his family, and thank you for letting us know. May he keep playing forever in heaven.
What! That is very sad news. I had coached him a little in Twixt, about a year ago, and was glad to see him reach the Top 10 this weekend (albeit at #10).
I am very saddened. I probably chatted with CSM more than I do with anybody else during games and while our viewpoints were very different I always enjoyed his humor, reasonable tone and perspective. I will miss him here on LG. My condolences to his wife and family.
i was also playing many games and chatting a lot with Chuck (CSM). i was shocked to learn the sad news from his wife a couple of days ago. he really seemed to have a great sense of humour, and we had sort of a personal twixt rivalry going on lately, having had roughly the same number of ranking points. and only 53, that's no age for something terrible like this to happen.
My condoleances too. He was always friendly and we had some discussions too, it was interesting to see the view on TwixT from a good player not working in the field of mathematics or computer science (they seem to be the minority).
i agree with the idea of a memorial tournament. maybe kpato's idea of a user tournament is even more appropriate, since many people would want to join, i'd imagine.
also, another thing. i've been contacted by CSM's wife, asking me, if there's any way to preserve his rankings as they were, as she believes (and so do I, knowing him somewhat) that it would have meant a lot to him.
i'm not sure what's the correct way to proceed towards this, or even who to ask (Richard?), but CSM's bound to lose a lot of points from his open games. i know his wife has been sending draw offers from his account to the opponents, but even draws will cost him a lot of points, and while many draws have been accepted, there are a couple of players that do not want to (or, perhaps don't understand what has happened), so they have declined the draws and want to play on and win (even from a losing position).
No need to wait, let's set it up right away. I think it should start as soon as possible. (His birthday might have just recently passed, or be many months from now.)
His ranking will always be preserved with the rating chart. Looking at his Twixt graph, I can clearly see he's been at or above 2150, since January.
Regarding the question of preserving ratings, it is important that either CSM's wife or Richard should be sure that CSM is un-registered for the Championship tournament list.