If this is what it takes

To get my daughter to play chess, I can deal with it.

Hip Hop Chess Strikes Back Pt II

Mig's Blog Post brings up the subject again. I still dislike hiphop -- but I'm down with Hip Hop Chess. I hope the OG's become OGM's instead anyway!

My Previous Post

10 years later, what did Kasparov vs. Deep Blue mean?

I found this Article interesting. Exploring the similarities and differences between the "silicon" machine and the "protien" machine and how it makes complex decisions based on precalculated odds, and its own search patterns.

The fact is that the search space for chess is too big for even Deep Blue to explore exhaustively in real time, so like Kasparov, it prunes its search trees by taking calculated risks, and like Kasparov, it often gets these risks precalculated. Both the man and the computer presumably do massive amounts of "brute force" computation on their very different architectures.

Hat tip to Slashdot Games

Va Tech Chess

Boylston Chess Club just posted this letter

Dear BCC members and chess enthusiasts,

The Chess Club of Virginia Tech kindly requests your support and participation in its October 13 and 14 tournament commemorating the 32 lives lost and 25 injured persons in the April 16 massacre. To our knowledge, this will be the first sporting-type event to be held with all proceeds going to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. Your contributions are welcome in any form:

- chess sets and clocks to accommodate new players
- lectures and exhibitions from talented players
- corporate sponsorship
- donated items for a possible silent auction

The entire student center is reserved for the occasion, including an 88 seat lecture hall. Local hotels and restaurants are discounting rates for participants. Media attention will be strong so this is a great chance to promote your organization.

Most of all, we want you there as a chess player. Details for players will be forthcoming from the USCF and the Virginia Chess Federation.

To become involved, please contact Chuck Ronco, hokiechem -at- yahoo.com, or respond here and I'll answer what I can.

Respectfully yours,
Brian Salomon

I don't get nearly the traffic but I wanted to pass it along as well.

See Also:
VA Tech Chess Hero
BCC Article

in case your Tivo was on the Fritz

Here is the Assignment America Story

Turns out they were younger than teens. Still was a nice story.

Set your Tivo

Tonight on CBS Evening News, Katie Couric is supposed to do an expose on teens playing championship chess.

Still Searching

For Bobby Fischer?

CTS Problem of the Day from Google

I've had the CTS applet on my iGoogle homepage for a while now. Just sign into Google, click iGoogle, and Create a Tab called "Chess". Let it autopopulate with cool chess tidbits.

Its an easy way to add 3 chess problems to your daily activities. So I thought I would tell everyone else about it, in case they didn't know and show you a sample problem. And iGoogle is also an easy way to keep up with your favorite blogs.

Patriots sign Pro-bowler, Chess Philanthropist

He's a Renaissance man who puts his money and his off-day activities into making the world better. He started a chess competition for inner-city kids in Baltimore. He's worked for Habitat for Humanity.

SI.com Article by Peter King

Chess Players Key to WWII Codecracking

Churchill thought chess players had the right stuff.

Good chess players and those skilled at completing crossword puzzles were viewed as having the potential to turn their abilities to cracking codes. The Daily Telegraph was asked to organise a crossword competition to help them identify potential recruits.

I found this while looking at some Pearl Harbor related information and thought it an appropriate day to pass it on. Having spent 4 years of my own life on board ship I have an appreciation for those sailors in Hawaii that day. Fair winds.

Not exactly Magnum PI

I'm no Dick Tracy, but this Maine PI has a hot & sexy chess playing partner. Looks like an interesting tandem.

"Of the Year" Awards

I recently found this list on the British / English Chess Federation website. It makes for a nice recommended reading list for those interested in improving at chess. Year end awards are often over done, but its also a nice way to look back and remember just what was going on during each year. Like a little refresher course on modern history, this time with a Chess slant.

Hat-tip to Mig for highlighting the 2006 Book of the year.

Paranoia over the board

This post at the Boylston Chess Club blog revels in a rules changes that mandates a player must move and then write down his move, not vice-versa. Apparently it is "note-taking" if you write down a move before its made. Honestly this doesn't send my blood pressure sky-rocketing to dangerous levels.. but I think its a pretty weak rule.

First let me decribe my typical move process.

1. Write down opponents recently made move
2. Analyze position
3. Select a move
4. Write down selected move
5. Perform "blunder check"
6. Make move
7. Press clock

The action of writing the selected move, then performing the blunder check breaks your train of thought enough to sometime catch overlooked and often obvious mistakes. I find it a useful tool. Its also a tool that may come into play once every 2 or 3 games. I do on occassion change my mind after writing down the move and performing the blunder check, but not frequently enough that it should bother any one.

And that brings me to the real issue I have here. Why does any one care what I've written down. Look at the board and the position instead of what I am doing. That is what chess is all about. It was brought up that people could potentially come to the board and write down reams of notes that they had crammed just prior to a game. To this I call hogwash. In all the tournaments I've ever been a part of I've never seen anything even close to this.

I'm unsure where I actually stand on note-taking .. I mean actual note taking .. not just writing down your move before the move is played. It some respects I don't see the problem with someone writing down a line as they work it out at the board. Its their time on the time control. Why should someone who works better on paper be penalized over someone who works best in their head. Come to think of it, I don't like when someone looks up and to the left during a game. That indicates the brain is accessing long term memory and gives me a distinct disadvantage. Can we outlaw that too?

Anyway even IF note-taking should be illegal I think tournament directors should decide what is and isn't note-taking on a case-by-case basis. This rule is a bit far reaching and misguided in my opinion. At least if it was a TD decision and I didn't like a particular decision I could just boycott tournaments directed by that particular TD in the future.

Anyway let the debate rage on. At least I've tried to formulate a counter argument and I feel a bit better about the whole issue now that I've said my peice.

Edit: For the record while I pre-write my moves, I never have attempted to "cover them up". Either way I direct you to my previous comment, "who cares what I'm doing, study the board bloke".

Oh Em Geee

I read Chessbase just about everyday, and they often have pictorial reports with stunning chess footage but this article takes the cake. I've played chess with an attractive female before a time or two... but not with anybody THAT perky.

Just a fair warning, this could be concidered unsafe for work content.

Sloan and Moan

The Sam Sloan fiasco is crazy. I think he is likely just what the USCF needs to get off its duff and change some things that need changing. No one is asking you to let your kids spend the night at his house. If you don't trust him with your kids, don't let your kids be alone with him.

This is a win / win for the USCF general membership. Either he will change things for the better... OR ... he will make such a nuisance of himself someone will step up and do something about it and maybe THEY will then have the support to make the necessary changes in the USCF.

Chinese only play Fischer Random?

I'm usually not big on decorative sets, but this one caught my eye while I was window shopping in Chinatown on my San Francisco trip. Did you notice the shopkeeper has the rooks and bishops mixed up?

Trip to San Fran

Well I just got back from a business trip to San Francisco. While I was there I dropped in on The Mechanic's Institute Chess Club for a visit. The club was a little slow when I was there, apparently Yermo usually gives a lecture on Tuesday's but he was already headed down to the AF4C's U.S. Championship in San Diego.



Anyway John Donaldson was there (and also kind enough to answer my emails) and he gave a lecture. The talk centered mostly around his performance at a local tournament. It was humourous, he talked about not just needed to win all 5 games over the weekend, but wanting to spend no more than 1/2 hour thinking each game so that he could conserve energy. The lecture summed up to be about the importance of the Maroczy Bind
position in GM chess, and the importance of NOT just learning an opening up to the "starting point". Basically he was talking about not learning the moves up to move 10 or 12 or 15, where the books say =+ or += then quitting. That's where your opening preparation should really be starting. Reviewing Database games, and finding out what the common plans for both sides from that position are. He was a very humorous and engaging speaker.



I also got to play a couple of games with the locals while I was there. A group of (apparent) Russian immigrants played chess there and they invited me to play a couple of them. Very nice men. The first man I played did not speak any English, but his friend did and he translated a bit for us. He was very amused to inform me that he was 82 years old and could still kick my butt! We played an odd French Defense where white fianchettoed his Queen's bishop. I was able to hold my own and win an endgame in that one after an interesting middle game with a lot of tactical threats but no real finishing moves. When I played his friend I lost on the black side of a Nimzo Indian.

All in all it was a very good few hours at Mechanic's Institute. I enjoyed the chess atmosphere and the friendly games. Not to mention the free lecture. I suggest giving a stop by if your ever in SF. Its on 57 Post St, right in the middle of the financial district.

The Secret to Grand Mastery

Wear a jacket and tie.

What makes a good online chess service?

DG, over at Boylston Chess Club points out a few recent posts about
cheating. These sorts of posts always get me thinking back to my days as a member of http://www.caissa.com which is a small, relatively old chess site that had a nice product. The trouble at caissa.com was that the admins saw the chess sight as a labor of love but not as their primary business proposition. Long periods of time with no admin interaction would take place and in the mean time the inmates ruled the asylum.

Well as with any place on the web, anonymity leads to some less than stellar behavoir. While the admins are away the mouse will play so to speak.

Cheating.. ahh yes, the reason I made this post. The problem with online chess (i've no experience with OTB tournament cheating to speak of) cheating is that it comes in a couple flavors. You have the cheaters and you have the disconnectors. On top of all that, and what finally pushed me off of Caissa.com was a message board ji'had about who was cheating and who wasn't.

What's worse than cheating in an online chess game, to me? People accusing anyone and everyone they lose to of cheating. That's just as bad sportsmanship as cheating itself. Names getting sullied, reputations spoiled, chess playing friendships destroyed and often with no real evidence. Which brings me to comparison of a persons moves to Fritz or Crafty. The rationale behind this supposed method of outing cheaters makes sense, but I question it in practice. Just because someones moves match a computer's moves does not, in and of itself, prove that person used a computer. It points to the likeliness of computer use. At what point does likeliness become enough evidence to tarnish an online persona? After 1 move? After 1 game with 85% simularity? Or after someone is 203/7 on FICS?

What needs to happen is these decisions need to be made by an abitrary Administrator. Not the players. The decisions need to be made even handedly and regularly, and by a human being not emotionally involved in the outcome of a blitz game. So back to what I was getting at... a good chess service needs live, involved, active admins. The interface and features are nice attractors, but the admins make these services run.