Imagine the surprise when the Ironman brought to my attention one of the Chess puzzles used at chesspuzzle.net was from a game played by none other than my friend, the Discman, aka NM Chris Chambers. (https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/the-discman/) Then, just when you figure it cannot get any better, it does, because the game was a Leningrad Dutch! I’m not worthy…
My copy of this book was not in good shape like the one above. ‘Back in the day’ my copy was filled with games copied from the Informants, and other sources, which bloated it to double the normal size. I loved, and devoured that book…
WIM Dana Tuleyeva-Aketayeva (2130) vs NM Chris L. Chambers Titled Tuesday 19th Oct chess.com INT (5), 2021.10.19
9 c5 is a Theoretical Novelty, and not a good one. Prior to playing the weak move the WIM, according to the Fish, had an advantage of +1.0. After the bad move she found herself -0.2. There is a diagram with the puzzle after the move 14 Ne6:
The WIM let go of the rope when playing the ill-fated 11 Ng5. It does not take a program to see she violated one of the ‘rules’ by moving an already developed piece, in this case the Knight on f3, when she could have simply developed her dark squared Bishop by moving it to the g5 square. The female player is shown with a rating of only 2130. I have no way of knowing where the rating emanated because it is not specified. Could it be a FIDE rating? Or maybe a USCF rating? There is a huge difference in which rating is used. Then again, it could be a Chess.com rating for all I know. No matter from whence it came, it is the rating of an EXPERT, because an EXPERT Chess player is anyone rated between 2000 and 2199. Years ago I was an expert, and was proud of having earned that crooked number to begin my Expert Chess rating. If one is a woman rated over 2000 she becomes a titled Chess player. It makes me wanna PUKE! ‘Back in the day’ a title meant something. FIDE has so cheapened all titles to the point of irrelevance.
“Since you obviously love Rock & Roll music,” the email began. The author wished I would continue writing about music. “Is there anything you did not write about you wish had been included?”
After reviewing my last two posts there were some things I wish had been included, so I have decided to write this post in order to rectify things and make someone happy.
I will begin with the best concerts attended, one of which may surprise you.
The Fox theater in Atlanta, Georgia, is a magnificent place for music. For those inclined you can learn all about it here: https://www.foxtheatre.org/
Both of the concerts attended were at the Fox. The first one will not surprise readers of this blog. I was fortunate enough to see The Band perform at the Fox. In a time when many Rock & Roll shows had become extravaganzas the curtains opened and there was The Band as they began playing their music. After an intermission the curtains opened and again they performed their music. Nothing else was needed. It was a tremendous concert which I enjoyed immensely.
The next concert contains a story. Someone had given me two tickets to see a concert at the Fox. I was having much trouble finding anyone to go with me. Keep in mind the Fox is so wonderful just going, no matter what the event , made a trip worthwhile. For example, the woman with whom I lived asked me to go see Philobolus at the Fox. “What’s a ‘Philobolus?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of them.” She said they were a dance company. If you are fortunate enough to have a significant other one must attempt to please your partner, so I agreed, thinking, “Well, at least its at the Fox.” Fortunately, I was open to new experiences and they put on quite a show.
I called a platonic girlfriend I had known since we were young, Susan Bailey, who worked for the Atlanta Braves. “Susan,” I began, “would you like to go to a concert at the Fox?” She asked, “Who’s playing, Eggs?” Yes, there was a time my friends called me “Eggs,” for an obvious reason. “America,” I answered. There was silence for a few moments before Susan replied, “You mean that “Horse with No Name group?”
“That’s the one.”
“I dunno, Eggs.”
“Aw, come on Susan, I’m having trouble finding anyone who will go with me.”
“I can’t imagine why, Eggs,” she said. Finally, she decided to “take one for the team,” and agreed to go. “But don’t ever tell anyone I went with you, Eggs!” she said. I promised.
The Fox was only half full. “Imagine that, Eggs,” Susan said. Like The Band, the curtain opened and America came out and played acoustic music. When intermission came Susan said, “Let’s go, Eggs.” I urged her to stay, but she was having none of it. One of the members of the group said. “We’ve heard Atlanta was more of a heavy metal kind of town, but it is extremely disappointing to only half fill the venerable Fox. We are going to take a break and come out and Rock this city!”
“OK, eggs, I’ll stay a little while,” she said placating me.
The curtain opened for the second part of the show and Rock they did! They plugged in and blew the proverbial roof off of the building! At one point everyone was standing on their seat, Susan included, which made me smile. When they concluded their performance Susan, all smiles, looked at me and said, “Damn Eggs, who woulda ever known they could play like that!” Who indeed, I was thinking. The best part was when Susan began telling anyone who would listen how great was the performance, which perplexed the hard core Rockers. “What got into Bells,” was the usual reply.
Those two concerts stand out even though I attended a Bob Dylan and The Band concert at the Omni, of which I have fond memories.
Another thing I wished had been written about was an email received from the Discman, with whom regular readers will be familiar. He considers the period between the middle 60s and middle 70s to be the best period of Rock & Roll. Chris sent me an email with his top ten one hit wonder albums. In reply I mentioned only one album, the one I have always considered the best album of the one hit wonders. I am not talking about a one hit wonder single such as Drift Away by Dobie Gray,
who made a career out of singing that one song, but a complete album with many songs. That album is the first album by Christopher Cross, titled Christopher Cross.
The next morning there was a reply from the Discman in which he wrote something about having listened to it the previous night, and he agreed it should have been on his list. “Every song is good, and it really came together,” he wrote.
The last thing I wish had been included was Steely Dan. I somehow neglected to write about how much the Dan influenced me into listening to more Jazz, because of the exceptional way Jazz rifts were incorporated in their wonderful music. Steely Dan was one of, if not the most inventive of Rock musicians. The Dan expanded the boundaries of what could be classified Rock & Roll. Steely Dan may be considered the most extraordinary of Rock groups with what some called “sophisticated” Rock music. I went from listening to The Band, who many have said wonderful things about, such as Eric Clapton and George Harrison, among others, to listening to Steely Dan, causing some of my friends, who were into, let us say, hard core R&R, to say, “Musically, Eggs has gone in a different direction .” Every album is good and solid; some great and other exceptional. The love of my life, Patricia, was watching a show, Gotham, in which the star was someone with whom I was familiar, Ben McKenzie, but I could not place him, so I went to the Internet Movie Data Base and found he had earlier been in an acclaimed TV show, Southland, which is rated highly at the IMDB. Then it hit me…I was channel surfing years ago and saw only a few moments of one episode in which Ben was with his partner and they were getting into the squad car when Ben mentioned something about his partner’s fondness for Steely Dan, which made me smile before flipping the channel. Steely Dan was probably the most sui generis of all the R&R groups. I thought of this when watching a movie at Amazon Prime about the group recently, which brought back fond memories.
While living with the aforementioned woman with whom I attended the Philobolus event, Gail Childs, I would listen to the Georgia Tech student station, WREK. (https://www.wrek.org/) My favorite spot was when one bird would start singing, and then be joined by another, and another, until many birds were singing. Then came, “Here at WREK we give all the birds a chance to sing.”
Listen to all forms of music and let the birds sing.
An email concerning the previous post was received from my friend the Discman this morning. Before turning to poker (he cashed in at the World Series of Poker) Chris Chambers earned his National Master Certificate in Chess.
“Excellent description of Mr. Vest.
Looking back at my records, I never played him in a regular tournament.
I did play him 33 times in the Wednesday night Quick Chess tournaments (G/15) with a record of 8-20-5.
There were 16 players I played more than him, with (Murphy) Clay at the top of the list at 131 times played.
I played in 390 Quick Chess tournaments at the HOP from 1993-2005.”
The Discman obviously keeps meticulous records not only of Rock & Roll music. My reply was: If you give permission I will post this, providing YOU choose a song!
“Hmmm. That’s a good one.
I’d say “Investigation Blues” by Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson
In an interview with Albert Silver appearing on Chessbase, former World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov said, “…the quality of the players has worsened. In the autumn, Carlsen and Anand were playing, and I came to the final. The FIDE Vice President Georgios Makropoulos came to me and said: “Judging by today’s games, even an out-of-shape Karpov would beat either of them…”
It is natural for older people to consider things having been better “back in the day.” This is common in all walks of life. For example, many years ago I worked for a company owned by a former Delta Airlines employee. The company transported vehicles to nine different Southern states, and many of the drivers were former Delta employees who had retired. To a man they all agreed Delta was a better company “back in the day.” Upon hearing this for the umptheenth time, I said, “Maybe it was just a different company back then.” This was met with glares and stares, and I was shunned. A short time later I mentioned one of my girlfriends had been a stewardess for Delta in the early ’70’s, and another had worked for only Delta, and had done so for decades, adding, “Seems like it was a better company back then.” Everyone smiled, clapped me on the back, and things were right with the world of James Auto Transport!
That said, I must agree with Mr. Karpov. The matches for the World Chess Championship this decade have left much to be desired. Back in the day we looked forward to the upcoming WC match with much anticipation. This is no longer the case. I am having trouble recalling the last interesting match for the World Chess Championship.
I must also agree with the former WCC about the quality of the play of the current top players. I am not exactly certain, but it could be the influence of the computer chess programs in that they have humbled the Grandmasters, or, shall we say, taken them down a peg, or two. My friend the Discman said something, published on this blog, some time ago, “GM’s used to be thought of as Gods.” Now the Gods of chess come with names like Komodo, and Stockfish.
As an example of what I mean let me refer you to the coverage on Chessbase of the most recent “elite” tournament, the Grenke Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. The players were having much trouble converting winning endgames. I watched as GM Etienne Bacrot, who had been winning for quite sometime, came completely unglued trying to push home his advantage versus GM Michael Adams. (http://en.chessbase.com/post/grenke-rd5-carlsen-back-in-the-lead) This was one of many butchered endgames in this particular tournament. Unfortunately, it is not the only recent tournament about which the same can be said.
What makes it worse is that the players make statements like, “We are so much better than the players of the last century that even when they were on top of their game the best players of today would wipe the floor with them, and we have got the numbers to prove it.” OK, I am paraphrasing here, but you get the idea. Their ratings are higher and the best players of today do seem to strut around like Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in the movie Silver Streak, saying, “That’s right, we bad, WE BAD!” Then they go out and draw another winnable endgame. For example, “…while Adams could not convert his advantage against Aronian.” (http://en.chessbase.com/post/grenke-rd6-anand-only-win)
Sometimes it is even worse than the above. Consider what was written after the headline, “GRENKE Rd4: Two Blunders, Two Black wins.”
“What a round! Two major blunders defined the two victories, games that were on the verge of being wildly interesting and dissipated into a win for Black as in both cases the White side simply missed Black’s resources or overestimated his own attacking chances. Carlsen bounced back with a win over Anand in a stonewall, while Baramidze basically gave Naiditsch the tournament lead.” (http://en.chessbase.com/post/grenke-rd4-two-blunders-two-black-wins-2)
What a round, indeed. Baramidze failed to answer a question every chess player should ask himself before making a move, “Am I leaving anything en prise?” He actually put a Knight en prise, giving Naiditsch a piece for nothing. Amazing….Granted, GM Baramidze is clearly not a Super GM, but still…
Not to be outdone, former World Human Chess Champion Vishy Anand gave his opponent that day, World Human Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, a full ROOK! I kid you not. The game is annotated by GM Alejandro Ramirez at the Chessbase website. (http://en.chessbase.com/post/grenke-rd4-two-blunders-two-black-wins-2) Anand should give some serious consideration to retiring. If he continues to play he will only continue to embarrass himself, and tarnish his reputation.
That’s right, they bad, THEY BAD!
Speaking of GM Alejandro Ramirez…Annotating the game between Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Magnus Carlsen from round three of the Tata Steel tournament, after 1.d4 d6 2.Nf3 g6 3.c4 f5 4.b4 Bg7 5.Bb2 a5 6.b5 a4!?, Alejandro writes, “This brave pawn will be weak, but it does restrict White a little. Carlsen has to be very careful not to lose it though.”
Come on! I know Magnus is the World Human Chess Champion, but I do not need a 3300 rated program to tell me this move is bad, REAL BAD! And this is not an isolated example. Everyone in the chess world, except maybe the VP of the GCA, is aware of the “howler,” Kd2, Magnus played against Viswanathan Anand in their most recent WCC match. Magnus was saved because Vishy sat there for one minute without asking himself the first question every chess player, other than the VP of the GCA, asks himself after his opponent makes a move, which is, “Why did my opponent make that move?” But what about the move Carlsen played as White against Fabiano Caruana in a Bishop’s Opening last year at the Sinquefield Cup?
Once again, I do not need a computer program to tell me how bad is this move. This move stinks. It is the kind of move that may be played by the VP of the GCA, a triple digit player. I give the rest of the game for the record, and as proof as to what kind of chess is being passed off a being better than that played “back in the day.” 13…Nxg3 14. fxg3 Nc5 15. Bxf7+ Kxf7 16. Nxe5+ Kg8 17. Ng6 Qg5 18. Rf8+ Kh7 19. Nxh8 Bg4 20. Qf1 Nd3 21. Qxd3 Rxf8 22. hxg4 Qxg4 23. Nf3 Qxg3 24. e5+ Kxh8 25. e6 Bb6+ 26. Kh1 Qg4 27. Qd6 Rd8 28. Qe5 Rd5 29. Qb8+ Kh7 30. e7 Qh5+ 31. Nh2 Rd1+ 32. Rxd1 Qxd1+ 33. Nf1 Qxf1+ 34. Kh2 Qg1+ 0-1
Keep in mind the current human WCC backed into the match in which he became Chess Champ of the World. In the biggest game of his career, a game he had to win, Magnus Carlsen LOST. He was saved when GM Vladmir Kramnik also lost, giving the right to Carlsen to play a match with an old, tired, and obviously worn out toothless Tiger. I can still picture the young Magnus sitting on his knees in his chair like a little boy at a weekend swiss as his time dwindled. This man could never stand toe to toe with the Giants of the past. They would wipe the floor with him, and then eat him alive.
Is there luck in chess? After receiving a “gift” from former World Champion Viswanathan Anand in sixth game of the current match for the championship of the world, World Champion Magnus Carlsen admitted he was “lucky.” When playing backgammon professionally decades ago some of my vanquished opponents would say, “You were lucky.” My response was invariably the same, “I had rather be lucky than good, because when I am good and lucky, I cannot be beat!”
I found this on the “Sabermetric Research” blog by Phil Birnbaum: Monday, January 14, 2013
Chess and luck
“In previous posts, I argued about how there’s luck in golf, and how there’s luck in foul shooting in basketball. But what about games of pure mental performance, like chess? Is there luck involved in chess? Can you win a chess game because you were lucky?
In #27 James writes, “I think it comes down to what is the relative difference in skill between players and the role of skill vs luck in a game.
If a game is 100% skill (say chess) and say for the sake of argument that the two players are perfectly equally skilled then who wins a single game is purely luck. Regardless of whether they are two unskilled beginners or the two best players in the world.
How do you differentiate between that and the two of them tossing a coin.”
Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov were “the two players perfectly equally skilled.” Garry was obviously not the equal of Anatoly when they first met in the ill-fated match that went on for many months, with one short draw after another after Kasparov was down 0-5, until the slight Karpov neared collapse, when Kasparov won 3 games before FIDE President Florencio Campomanes ended the match, fearing one of the players may “drop dead at the board.” From the second match on, Kasparov was ever so slightly better than the much older Karpov. We know this because they played hundreds of games in many matches for the title. Games are played to determine who is the better player, and by what margin.
Because my friend the Discman played, and has followed, baseball, and because Sabermetrics emanates from the field of dreams, I asked him to read the post and let me know what he thought of luck in chess. This is his response:
“I have a much less esoteric and simplistic example of luck in chess. This happens frequently in over-the-board tournament games where neither player is being assisted by a computer. The frequency is directly correlated to the strength of the players, occurring less frequently the stronger the players are. At my level of play when facing competition of similar strength it occurred maybe once every 20-25 games. Here goes:
I’m sure you have heard it said that chess is 98% tactics and I generally agree with that. How many times have you gone back over your games and realized that you had made a significant oversight that your opponent could have taken advantage of, but also missed?
In many cases, seeing the correct combination to punish you was well within the skill level of your opponent, but for any number of reasons (he was having a bad day, he was distracted at that moment, his biorhythm’s were off, etc.) he just missed it.
If he had been put in that same situation next Tuesday instead of today he may very well have seen it. You were lucky that he missed it – he didn’t miss it because you were a stronger player than he was.
Sometimes the oversight is so simple a 1200 player could see it, like the time Leonard Dickerson missed a mate in 1 and got checkmated by a 1500 player. There was a simple defense to the checkmate – in fact the move Leonard made allowed the mate so it was truly a Helpmate. You could put Leonard in similar situations 10,000 times and he would make a similar mistake 1 time.
Did his opponent get lucky? Hell yes he did. You might argue that the 1500 player was better than the master at that one point in time but I don’t think so – he got extremely lucky that Leonard had a brain-fart that allowed a mate in 1.”
Luck in Chess?
‘Chess,’ said the Dutch grandmaster, Jan Hein Donner, ‘is as much a game of chance as blackjack; or tossing cards into a top hat.’ There was a pained silence, then a polite babel of disagreement: it was a game of the utmost skill; a conflict between disciplined minds in which victory would inexorably go to the more perceptive, the more analytical player; a duel of the intellect in which luck played no part. Donner shrugged, lit another cigarette and said: ‘Believe that if you like.’ Bent Larsen smiled the smile of a man who had heard his friend air such iconoclastic arguments in the past but was quite happy to contest them again, when the score of the fifth game of the World Championship match between Karpov and Korchnoi was brought in. Both men pulled out of their inside pockets the wallet sets all grandmasters seem to carry at all times and began to skim through the moves.
It happened that the teleprinter tape had been torn off after Karpov’s 54th move as Black […]. They studied the position for a few moments, mated Karpov in four moves and were surprised when another whole sheet of moves was brought from the teleprinter.
When they saw Korchnoi’s 55th move – Be4+ – Larsen’s eyebrows went up.
‘There you are,’ Donner said, quietly and without triumph as though some self-evident truth had been revealed, ‘pure luck’.
KORTSCHNOJ,V (2665) – KARPOV,AN (2725) (05) [E42]
WCH29-BAGUIO CITY, 1978
I posted a link to the previous post on the USCF forum. It lasted about a nanosecond. I have received feedback via email, some of which I would like to share. The first one comes from a NM who shall remain anonymous:
Michael,
“One of the major problems connected to leadership,both politically and in the chess world(USCF)..is what exactly qualifies them for the office?..why should Haring be in charge of the USCF?….is she qualified because she plays chess?…Haring’s tenure as well as the USCF leadership over the last 30 years(maybe longer if you compare the prize funds of tourneys now to then!) have been a complete failure!…and yet just like in US Politics we keep electing the same less than “qualified” chess players to our leadership roles…we complain as we watch our noble game disappear as we have known it..do a search on whist..a VERY popular card game form the 1800’s…it does not exist anymore!…chess will survive,as a stunted hybrid of kiddie chess and chess poker-like hustlers…”
The second is from another regular reader with whom most readers know as the “Discman.”
“70,000 dues-paying female USCF members??
That’s not delusional, that’s grossly incompetent.
That’s like the GM of the Cubs saying he expects his team to win 211 games in 2014, evidently not knowing there are “only” 162 games in the season.
Anybody who says such a thing should immediately be dismissed from a leadership position.
Delusional would be doubling the number of female members; saying you’re going to get 70,000 is beyond ridiculous.”
“Bill James is the best known baseball analyst in the world” (http://sabr.org/about/bill-james). Bill began his writing career by questioning the assumptions in baseball, something commonly called, “The Book.” For questioning some of the commonly held beliefs in baseball Bill was excoriated by the MLB establishment. His books, and the thinking contained therein, caught on with many and his books became very successful. Many other baseball fans began to question things like the sacrifice bunt, held dear by the MLB establishment. Decades later Bill was hired by the Boston Red Sox as an analyst and the Red Sox became the World Champions. Now every MLB team has an analyst, or team of analysts.
Bill’s latest book is, “Fools Rush Inn: More Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom.” One of the essays is, “Classical Sport.” As is often the case, while reading the essay my thoughts would drift to chess and I would substitute the word “chess” for “classical music.” Read on and you will understand why.
Bill writes, “Classical music has very, very serious problems as an industry. The number of people who enjoy classical music is small compared to the market for other kinds of music and the market is composed primarily of old people.
“Classical music survives, or has survived so far, because it has advantages over the marketplace, rather than advantage in the marketplace. Classical music is perceived by a very large cadre of musical professionals as the highest form of music, and these people have integrated themselves and their music into the society in ways that insulate it from extinction by economic forces. High schools do not teach young musicians to play rock and roll, as a rule; they teach them to play “instruments,” which are in truth the instruments of classical music. Millions of small children take violin lessons, which their parents get for them because this is how music is taught. The perception that this form of music is “classy” -widely accepted in our culture- keeps the form alive by giving it these advantages, and many similar and related advantages. At the symphony I am below the median age and, I suspect, well below the median income. Those old people who go to the symphony have more-than proportional power because they have more-than proportional wealth. There is something much more than that going on here. It has to do with the perception of rectitude, of value and of virtue.”
“Music, like sport, is instinctive to us, exists in all cultures, and will never disappear. There are primal and sophisticated forms of music and of sport, which could also be called vibrant and calcified, or youthful and moribund. There is a spectrum in these activities that runs from vibrant, primal and youthful to sophisticated, calcified and moribund. All sports and all forms of music move across that spectrum, crawling toward obsolescence.”
I have always thought of chess as a form of the “Glass Bead Game,” made popular by the greatest novel ever written, “The Glass Bead Game,” also published as “Magister Ludi,” Latin for “Master of the Game,” by Hermann Hesse, who won a Nobel Prize in Literature for the book. The Glass Bead Game takes place centuries into the future. It concerns the place the game occupies in the culture. “As the novel progresses, Knecht begins to question his loyalty to the order; he gradually comes to doubt that the intellectually gifted have a right to withdraw from life’s big problems. Knecht comes to see Castalia as a kind of ivory tower, an ethereal and protected community, devoted to pure intellectual pursuits but oblivious to the problems posed by life outside its borders.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game)
The game of chess can be thought of in the way Bill James writes of classical music. Chess has always been thought of as important because it requires thought, something some very wealthy people have valued highly enough to become patrons of the game. I am thinking of Gregor Piatigorsky and his wife, Jacqueline, and the famous tournaments they funded in Los Angeles in 1963 and 1966, called the Piatigorsky Cup. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piatigorsky_Cup) Every chess player knows of these tournaments, and if you encounter anyone involved with chess who has never heard of the Piatigorsky tournaments the question becomes, “What is this person doing in chess?” In 1961 the Piatigorsky’s sponsored a match between Bobby Fischer and Sammy Reshevsky. It ended prematurely when the wealthy couple wanted to change the scheduled time of one of the games because of a conflict Gregor had with a musical performance. Bobby refused because he had signed a contract that specified the round time of each game. The wealthy couple must have felt like Ronald Raygun, when running for POTUS, and he was heckled from the audience. Ronnie famously yelled, “I am paying for this microphone!” In actuality he was not paying. The people contributing money toward his campaign were paying, but why quibble? It was a great sound bite for the Gypper. The Piatigorsky’s were paying and thought Bobby should jump through any hoop provided. Bobby provided them with what is called a “rude awakening” when he “just said no.” Extraordinarily wealthy people are not used to being refused. They are also not used to being told “no” because they surround themselves with “yes men.”
I mention this because without the patronage of very wealthy people there may not be future chess as we have known it until now. Consider for a moment the state of chess without the largess provided by the latest patron, billionaire Rex Sinquefield. Rather than being held in the state of the art St. Louis Chess Club & Scholastic Center the US Championships may have been held in some room in a college, as has been the case previously. The STLCC&SC is an artificial construct. I mean that because St. Louis was never known as a hot-bed of chess in the way New York city was known to be a hot-bed of chess. The game of chess developed naturally in New York, San Francisco, and other cities without some fantastically wealthy individual building it so they would come. Please do not take me wrong; I am not saying this is a bad thing, just that it is a “thing.”
Chess is in a fight for its life in the marketplace. The common perception among adults is that chess is dead, and that it died when the computer program “defeated” human World Chess Champ Garry Kasparov. In order to survive chess has been “sold” as a wonderful game to help children “think.” Chess is a wonderful tool to help children learn how to think, but so are literature and math The game of Wei-Chi, popularly known as “Go” in the west, is also a wonderful game and in many ways it is better than chess because a computer program is not yet as strong as the best human players (I will discuss this in a planned future post). Go is exponentially more complicated than chess and it is much simpler to learn, with no “weird” moves such as castling or en passant. A draw in go is about as common as leap year. One of the major problems afflicting chess is non-serious games. It will be terribly difficult to explain the worth of a game in which he is asked to contribute after being shown a game such as the one played today in the British Championship:
Pert, Richard G – Pert, Nicholas
101st ch-GBR 2014 Aberystwyth WLS (8.2), 2014.07.27
1.e4 e5 ½-½
To those who may say they are related I say, “Go talk to Venus and Serena Williams.” To those who may say it is near the end of the Championship and they were tired I say, “It is only one game per day and the previous day was an OFF DAY!”
In reply to the post “Has Cheating Affected Chess?” my friend the Discman sent me an email in which he wrote, “Interesting discussion and on point. However, cheating isn’t the biggest problem facing chess. Computers have taken the mystery out of the game. GM’s used to be gods with almost super-natural powers. Now any schmo with a smartphone can figure out the best move. Technology and the public’s need for instant gratification have left chess behind. It is no longer relevant in the public consciousness. Yes, cheating and the potential of cheating are contributing factors, but not the root cause.”
These kinds of comments proliferate on the web these days.
I have no solution to offer other than those previously written. The chess world has to look toward those in positions of power, for better or worse. A quote attributed to Albert Einstein to mind: “The thinking it took to get us into this mess is not the same thinking that is going to get us out of it.”
I posted a link to my last post on cheating on the USCF forum. In response Ron Suarez left a long comment culminating with, “So cheating can be a potential issue. However I think it quite extreme to say it is currently the most important issue facing the chess world.”
He was answered in the following post by William H. Stokes who wrote, “Is it really so extreme to claim that cheating is currently the most important issue facing the chess world. If class players exit the game in droves because they are convinced a program will win the event rather than the ubiquitous ringer (who at least used his own brain) , I just can’t see the sunny personalities of the great players making up for this shortfall in revenue.”
I do not know why my friend the Discman stopped playing chess because I never asked him, but there are clues. Like so many adults he was at the House of Pain playing in the Wednesday night event like every Wednesday night and then he missed a week, and we missed him. After missing for a few weeks we stopped missing him. Chris, like so many other adults, took his game to poker, and did well enough to cash in the World Series of Poker. This century the game of poker found great popularity. Something similar happened with the game of backgammon in the late 1970’s, early 80’s. The craze fizzled, and the same thing has happened with poker. There was no generally agreed reason for the sudden loss of interest in backgammon, but poker is a different story. Cheating, especially in online poker, has killed the game. The Discman told me that at the height of the poker craze there were many poker games in his neck of the woods each and every night. Now there are only a few games the way it was before the craze. Only a few years ago books on poker crowded out chess books in the games section, but now there are as few poker books as chess, because neither are selling. Most bars hosted a poker night, especially Texas Hold’em, but that is no longer the situation. Do a search on “Feds Poker Crackdown” and you will see page after page of articles on the demise of poker. To say the popularity of poker has waned would be a tremendous understatement.
If you are even a sporadic reader, you know the Discman, NM Chris Chambers, and I communicate regularly, and have for many years. Here are some comments the Discman has sent recently.
This was during a discussion of how few adult members are left in the USCF.
May 12, 2014
“There are between 90,000 and 100,000 ALTA adult dues-paying members – the Atlanta Tennis organization. Most of these people are also dues-paying members of USTA, the United States Tennis Association. They run many major events across the country, including the U.S. Open in Flushing, NY. I don’t know how many USTA members there are but I’m guessing over 1M.”
Chris was the first to inform me many years ago about the coming of a chess program strong enough to beat the World Champion coming to the hand-held gizmo.
May 12, 2014
“We saw this coming back in the ’90’s. The tremendous dedication and devotion required to become a top GM is not worth it, as there is not a tournament circuit to make a living playing in.
Without a viable reason to become a world-class GM there is no reason to pursue the game. It’s like cutting off the head of the snake; only the wiggling extremeties (scholastic chess) remain, serving no real purpose.
I have heard it argued that the scholastic chess machine could produce a champion by virtue of numbers. This argument is flawed, as chess champions are prodigies and should/would be playing against adults by the age of 10.
Saying ‘I see no reason chess cannot be as popular as tennis or golf’ is delusional. The reason is obvious – virtually nobody plays OTB chess competitively. In my neighborhood there are 575 dues-paying ALTA (Atlanta Lawn & Tennis Association) members, and 37 teams last year. Granted, there are 2,700 homes in my neighborhood, but still there are probably more ALTA members than there are dues-paying adult GCA members in the entire state of GA.
Sadly, I have to say “I told ya so…”
chambiz
May 13, 2014
“It’s hopelessly easy to cheat at a chess tournament, and with GM-strength chess engines available for less than $100 and $1,000+ class prizes it’s a safe bet that more than half of the top class prizes go to cheaters at a major open tourney.”
And here is one from last year:
Sep 30, 2013
“It’s still too easy to cheat – even in FIDE rated events. All you would need is a device that could send a pulse, for example a device in your shoe. An outside agent could then send moves to you through sequenced pulses via this device. A spectator could very easily signal in moves to a player simply by standing there – both arms hanging loosely at your side means “knight.” Left hand clenched means “bishop” etc.
Until you send every player through a screening device and allow nobody else access to the room I’m not going to be convinced that cheating isn’t possible. Nobody wants to play in an environment like that.”
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you must be wondering where the comments of my friend the Discman, aka NM Chris Chambers, I mentioned in my previous post could be found. Chris sent me an email and rather than making a post I decided to leave a comment on my own blog. It did not work, and I do not know why. It is something I will have to look into, eventually.
Many years ago Chris was the first to give me a heads-up on a hand held gizmo containing a powerful chess program, telling me it would kill chess. I probably wrote about it on the BaconLOG. Monday, Sept. 30. 2013, the Discman sent me this email in reply to my post of “Widespread concerns about the potential for cheating.”
“It’s still too easy to cheat – even in FIDE rated events.
All you would need is a device that could send a pulse, for example a device in your shoe.
An outside agent could then send moves to you through sequenced pulses via this device.
A spectator could very easily signal in moves to a player simply by standing there – both arms hanging loosely at your side means “knight.” Left hand clenched means “bishop” etc.
Until you send every player through a screening device and allow nobody else access to the room I’m not going to be convinced that cheating isn’t possible. Nobody wants to play in an environment like that.”
How ironic this became after the article concerning Borislav Ivanov refusing to remove his shoes appeared on the Chessbase website Oct. 3!
Another email from Chris came down from the cloud and was in my box this morning:
“Agreed. I reached the same conclusion once $50 programs played at a GM level several years ago.
It’s way too easy to get moves transmitted to a player if he has a partner. I can think of 5 different methodologies off the top of my head that you and I could pull off with no sweat (if we were cheaters which of course we’re not).”
Sent from my iPhone The major problem facing chess now is the loss of credibility. Perception is reality. Unless and until something is done no one can ever be certain he was not cheated. Every player will wonder if it was really his opponent who came up with that amazing move, or did it emanate from a 3500 rated program. Many years ago I wrote, facetiously, the only solution was “naked chess.” That was before the possibility of implants. Now not even what we can call “Duchamp chess” will eradicate the onerous problem of the possibility of cheating. There is no solution, therefore, as I wrote to Chris before the latest reply in which he agreed, chess is doomed…DOOMED!
During the opening of the final round game between Nafisa Muminova and Alexandra Kosteniuk in the Tashkent Women’s Grand Prix being held in Uzbekistan it has been reported that Muminova lost when her cellphone went off. Mark Crowther reported via something called a “Tweet” that, “Muminova’s phone went off for an immediate loss.” http://www.theweekinchess.com/live
Here is the complete game:
Muminova, Nafisa – Kosteniuk, Alexandra
FIDE WGP Tashkent Tashkent UZB (11.2), 2013.09.30
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2 a6 8.O-O-O h6 9.Bh4 Nxe4 10.Qf4 0-1
A short while ago my friend the Discman, after reading one of my posts concerning cheating, sent me an email asking if FIDE still allowed electronic devices in the playing hall. I was uncertain then, but it is evident from the incident today that FIDE does still allow gizmo’s in the tournament hall. Susan Polgar felt the urge to tweet, adding this on TWIC:
@SusanPolgar @albionado2 “It’s pretty hard to understand someone forgetting to turn off their phone in this day and age. Very careless.”
My mother used to have a saying, “It would not have happened if he had not been there.” I first heard it after the guys I usually drove around on the weekend as what would be called today the “designated driver,” since I did not drink, drove off an embankment and wound up in a hospital. Since I had a date that evening and could not drive them around, I was naturally blamed. If you think about it, in a way it is FIDE’s fault for not banning all gizmo’s.
One of my opponent’s in the Georgia State Championship, a fellow Senior, had his cellphone ring. Rather than answer it he just sat there looking stupid while it continued to ring and ring until he finally took it out of his pocket and turned it off. It was very loud and disrupted everyone in the vast playing hall. For this infraction of the rules he was penalized, losing only two minutes of time on his clock.
Geurt Gijssen discusses the issue in his column An Arbiter’s Notebook, on the Chess Café website of September 18, 2013, titled, “Widespread concerns about the potential for cheating.” Geurt writes in answer to a question concerning a cellphone going off:
“What are appropriate penalties? With the current Laws of Chess, there are few possibilities. See Article 12.3b:
Without the permission of the arbiter a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone or other electronic means of communication in the playing venue, unless they are completely switched off. If any such device produces a sound, the player shall lose the game. The opponent shall win. However, if the opponent cannot win the game by any series of legal moves, his score shall be a draw.”
There is much more to read and you can find it here: http://www.chesscafe.com/geurt/geurt183.htm
Armchair Warrior 