After five years of constant and peripatetic email writing, I have finally landed. I plan to write about current and world affairs, economic and environmental sustainability, chess study and improvement, quantitative investing and trading, workplace issues, relationships, and spiritual transformation. Much love to all.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Where There is Smoke, Their is Fire!
Might I recommend that you try watching this game between Bologan and Bacrot by paning your browser, with the video on one side, then actual game in your chess viewer on the other?
The way I did it, I moved the curser in chessBase move for move at exactly the same speed of the game.
It is from the first the ACP World Rapid Chess Cup in Odessa, Ukraine [1]. That these guys can really play chess--like other similarly endowed Super Grandmasters--with nerves of steel cannot be doubted. Enjoy!
Impatient viewers can move to the 5:40 mark with Bologan's very tense 31.e6, when things really heat up. No one disagrees that that is Korchnoi's unique voice in the background?
On one short personal note, I am currently spending several hours each day in job hunting. As French anthropologist Rene Dubos once said:
"In many ways, modern man is like an animal kept in a zoo, protected from the inclemencies, confined and depriving him of many of the natural stimulae essential for the well being of his mind and body".
That about says what it is like--home alone all week, cyber knocking on doors and occassionally on the telephone in an equally arcane and impersonal, dissociated world. Man.
Just as I was preparing to reproduce the article in full linked here from chessVibes, under 'What do we think of chess skill?', as I was typing this, first trying to find the source link to the referenced article below, found another similar but distinctly seperate article that chessBase JUST published, so must reproduce only the summary from chessVibes here, so that I can instead follow up with more content from the second article [1]:
'What are the effects of amount of practice, coaching and age of starting chess on chess skill? And how do we chess players view such notions as skill and talent? Dr Robert Howard of the University of New South Wales in Australia carried out a survey and its preliminary results answer a few of these questions.
'On June 15 we invited you to take part in a survey on chess skill by Dr Robert Howard of the University of New South Wales in Australia. Howard’s study of chess skill looks at effects of amount of practice, coaching and age of starting chess on chess skill and at chess players’ views about chess skill. The study involves a short online survey and is for anyone who has, or who ever has had, a FIDE rating. (Participating is still possible; if you’re interested and you have an FIDE rating, please click here.)
Double Click Image to Enlarge
'We have now received the preliminary results:
'Preliminary Results of FIDE Chess Survey
'Thanks to everyone who took part in this survey. Here are the preliminary results. The sample consist of 581 players to date, with five grandmasters, 25 international masters, 67 FIDE masters, two woman’s grandmasters, two woman’s international masters, and two woman’s FIDE masters. The results are only preliminary, however. Some highlights:
'Players learned the moves at a median age of eight years old (masters about two years younger). The median age of starting serious play and taking part in the first rated tournament is 14, 12 for masters. Most players have had coaching. Players average around five or six hours of chess study a week, but the range is huge (0 to 60 hours). Number of hours of study of chess material is a factor in expertise level but only a relatively minor one.
'Most players firmly believe in natural talent for chess and most believe that top ten players have some special traits, that few really can reach that level. However, many believe that a lot of study and practice can take a player a long way. Some believe that almost everyone can get to FIDE master with enough practice and study.
'Views on what natural talent for chess consists of vary, but some common ideas are good spatial ability, high IQ, good memory, creativity, high motivation, a strong will to win, control over emotions, and psychological hardiness.
Le-Mont St-Michel
'Eventual grandmasters take a median 390 FIDE-rated games from rating list entry to gain the title. Most players do not play anywhere near enough rated games in their careers to have a realistic chance of becoming a grandmaster. About two thirds of those who do play over 900games actually succeed in becoming a grandmaster. However, those who play over 740 games without becoming a grandmaster on average seem to strike an impassable barrier at around 2400 level.
'Analysis of rating data of players who played over 900 FIDE-rated games show that eventual top ten players indeed are identifiable from list entry. They get on the rating list much younger on average, get the grandmaster title much younger and much faster, and rise in theratings much faster than other grandmasters.
'Most believe that playing rated games and studying are equally important in developing skill.
'Read the full article here [highly recommended, dk].
'For any queries, please contact Dr Robert Howard, University of New South Wales.
'Not very surprising results, although I’d like to mention a few that struck me.1) “Number of hours of study of chess material is a factor in expertise level but only a relatively minor one.” This sort of confirms my impression that playing many (tournament) games is the best way to improve your chess. But not everybody agrees: “Most believe that playing rated games and studying are equally important in developing skill.”2) “Some believe that almost everyone can get to FIDE master with enough practice and study.” I was one of those, and I was speaking of a purely theoretical situation where you pick a random person in the street and put him in some kind of villa where he receives 8 hours of excellent training every day for a few years, and plays against many strong players. As long as this person likes chess, I think he(/she!) should be able to reach about 2200, 2300 FIDE'.
Were these riches not enough, chessBase just published a monster article every bit as good:
10.12.2008 – Discoveries on consciousness have inspired Norwegian philosopher Rune Vik-Hansen to forge a new view on development of chess skills. Challenging the current pedagogical climate, which claims that talent is insignificant and exposure to material a magic formula, he clarifies why blunders in chess are caused by a lack of interplay between consciousness and mind. Treatise with summary.
'Summary/Abstract
'Born out of recent findings from the field of consciousness and mind, the article explains that chess playing is based upon a fine interplay between a mind subconsciously triggering moves, and a well disciplined consciousness knowing what to keep and what to discard. The highly popular opinion that chess playing is done solely by a conscious self is challenged.
'Disputing the concept of “conscious memory”, it is shown that that one cannot remember material by acts of volition, and that development of chess skills cannot be explained by concepts revolving around consciousness.The article takes to task the current pedagogical claims that talent is of no significance and that exposure to chess material will bring the aspiring player equally far, and also the prevalent understanding that passion for, taking an interest in and believing in what you do are important components in improvement, chess or otherwise. On the contrary, the text demonstrates the significance of innate ability, and that passion and interest merely can direct our attention towards certain fields of study, but that acquiring skills involves different mental processes than these.Avoiding blunders being a major component in development of chess skills, they are here explained as caused by a flawed interplay between consciousness and mind, based upon the distinction between seeing and perceiving. A possible solution to the problem is suggested.
'A closer look is taken at the highly popular concept in chess lingua, “pattern recognition”. By pinpointing functional as well as conceptual problems, it is shown that the concept does not meaningfully lend itself to explain chess playing. Specific idiosyncrasies between patterns and structures are scrutinized to show that the conceptual problems run deeper than mere semantics. The fundamental difference is argued by looking at how these two relate to each other, and how they are expressed in chess discourse and chess literature. Since no formal definition of “pattern” in chess exists, it is impossible effectively to meaningfully communicate “pattern recognition” as a workable concept to explain the development of chess skills. To then explain chess playing and support the claim that the idea of “pattern recognition” is highly problematic, “exformation” is introduced as a new concept to chess discourse, thinking and communication.
'Upon closure, chess playing is compared with judgment in the field of morality, trying to explain that just as in morality, chess players constantly encounter and have to deal with situations (positions) never before encountered.Finally, it is offered why many present methods of study will not seriously improve or develop chess skills. In context of the undertaken analysis, Kotov’s method is suggested for chess improvement, and it is explained why it works. Note: you can use the "Print" function on the left to get a printer-friendly version of this article'.
Hope you all enjoy! Warmest, dk
[1] I sent this to BDK and, to his great credit, already was aware of the article. Nice going!
The bad news is I honestly remembered it that way, but heck, its been 37 years since 1973 when I last played! If I intended to misrepresent this to you guys and gals, the last three years, I would NEVER publish this. LOL on dk. Fire at me guys!
The good news is, I am serious about this, that way friends and foe alike will be able to find me online:
Dear Walter:
Charles Galore (FM) of Florida told me you were very responsive, and this is greatly appreciated. He also said you were very nice.
What a delight to not only get positive confirmation from the USCF, but at that to receive it from one of the well known Sanctus Sanctus of enterprising chess from the same era that I also played, albeit at my MUCH lower level back in the day. How poetic!
Question, but correct me if I am wrong, but will the variability of future wins/loses for my next 14 games (I assume this makes the 25 required to no longer be provisional) still be tied to calculations using the old rated 11 players, from before? That is to say, is it true those are used, and not that you start me at 1452, and only calculate 14 games? I don’t know how this works, but need a little reassurance there is a solid method from grandfathered ratings.
I will be sure to send good words back to the good GM Yaz.
Thank you again!
Warmest, dk
When Help Comes: Even Bobby Fischer to Wade...
-----Original Message-----
From: Walter Brown wbrown@_________.com Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 1:12 PM To: transformation@_________.com Subject: Re: USCF 8323: Ratings Question or Problem U.S. Chess Web Inquiry wrote:
SUBMITTED TO WEB CONTACT PAGE From: David Korn, Seattle Date: Wed 3 Dec 2008 6:49:29 pm CST Agent: Mozilla/4.0 Subject: USCF 8323: Ratings Question or Problem
Dear USCF:
I plan on re-joining the USCF, but have been away for 34 years! I was 1667 or 1671 or 1668 elo, provisional, at age 14, for 12/14 or 16 games, cannot recall, maybe 8 games but think more. It was published in the back of the old Chess Life & Review for the next three years. I lived in New Jersey. Born October __, 1958. Member, Montclair Chess Club, tournament director Al Gruter (sp?).
I am told that the USCF always wants to know if you have ever played in a rated tournament before, so wish to be prepared and know the procedure.
The condition of my joining is the suitable resolution of this. Thank you.
David Korn close friend of GM Seirawan's.
David Korn: I found your record in the 1975 annual list and you were 1452 for 11 games. Walter Brown, USCF [1]
Please, if any of you suffer from Sadness or Depression, do not play this Johnny Cash video. Warning.
That said, it is among his best ever songs. It might rip your heart in two to hear it [2].
On a more serious note, I heard from the State today. Leave it to likeForest to be one step ahead of everyone else, ALWAYS. For on Thanksgiving day, he simply asks me: 'Are they going to pursue terminate with cause?' ... guy even knows the exact term.
I just spent the entire day writing my side of the story, and now I need to go run for a whole hour to work off the shakes and trembles and tension. Sleep on the deadly contaminated waste, and FAX them the letter tomorrow after revision founded on rest. Bastards in corporate will do all they can to save a dime. Really.
I told it like it is. My boss, and my old boss copied me their two letters tdoay, and both are, to say the least, not at all accurate (which is putting it nicely) as to the facts, obligating me all the more so to set it the record straight as I don't want to be in any way associated with this story that they tell. Damn.
Warmest, dk [3]
... .. .
[1] Polly aka Castling Queenside, bless her kindest beautiful heart is also mailing me a photocopy of the same GM Brown referenced. LikeForest also so kindly and generously offered to make a special trip to the library to furninsh the same. All great friends! Thank you!
[2] I am particularly indebted to my very dear friend and now colleague, Phaedrus, for sending me this vdieo. He only sends me fine jewels because he himself is one also. [3] In college, the hardest professor called me Korn's Cornucopia on a good day. 'The cornucopia (Latin: Cornu Copiae) is a symbol of food and abundance'.
Attention bloggers over age fifty and inveterate collectors of, *well*, stuff, does anyone out there have old issues of 'Chess, Life, & Review', between 1973-76? I know this must come as a real shock to most of you, but I was once forteen years old.
If the USCF cannot respond appropriately, I need to furnish proof, I assume, of my old 1667 provisional rating. This puts me one step closer to joining the USCF and so, play some over the board chess. I am preparing. And, why yes, I have the time now!
The Caro-Kann, Slav, QGA&D, anti-Indian variations from 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5, Endings, and CT-Art 3.0. Yes, there is enough to do! Any help in finding old issues (ratings lists) much appreciated.
After six years working for the second largest building materials company worldwide, it’s over. That they performed their shameless deed the day before Thanksgiving, is now but a small minor detail illustrating the real lack of human regard of the prototypical, modern major, business enterprise.
Was it not Jesus who said: "By their fruits you will know them"?
And if that were not enough, when I got home, I made the appropriately immediate phone call to my now aged--but still very alert mother--who before I could tell her MY news asked me: 'Did you hear?' Since she was the one who informated me about the 9-11 attack in September 2002, with her again serious tone of voice, I suddenly had good reason to feel morbidly anxious.
What terrorist now, I thought? "In India, they were shooting hundreds, asking, 'where are the American's and British?' ... Steven was there, just last week in the same hotel".
My older brother, who travels the world at a Director level doing large scale enterprise consulting (aka 'System Integration) in travel and finance for one of the many large India computor services companies, had indeed been there at the exact same hotel in Mumbai just days before. The thoughts that go through our head. So that's when I got to tell her. This was all within the hour of getting uncerimoniously fired. Not the best of days!
Let’s face it, if an employer needs a reason to fire four people all at once, they can always find a way to do it. It's never pretty, but to me its all just economics, as I am not bitter, and have appreciated the last six years—truly. I have met hundreds of thousands of persons, and some real portion of them were the best encountered ever anywhere, I kid you not.
I have had much to say about the economy, and now my similarity to many persons in dire straights has only increased. While right now my overall health is very good [1] and my emotional state good, the system is oversupplied with job applicants—at every conceivable level. For example, JP-Morgan Chase, who bought failed Seattle based Thrift WAMU, just last night announced layoffs of 3,400 persons, and this clogs the State Unemployment system, and on the margin, vastly increased the already swelled ranks for job seekers.
Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas [1.1]
On principle, I had and have every intention of staying here, but in this economy MUST allow myself to entertain any reasonable job offer in any place, since my best shot of technical [2] sales clearly now take me anywhere, to any enterprise, doing anything. Yikes. I don’t want to leave this place; I want my mountains; I want my moderate climate; I want my diversity. But I want to sustain my economic viability even more.
This is first and foremost a chess blog, even if I roam current affairs, society, the planets, the soul, the edge of things. For the last seven weeks, I have been playing on line chess ‘every single day’ [3]. This has been my stress release. I was already looking for a new job, and for the last year, at work, I was already all but fired anyway, and kept around like a pig ready for slaughter. See the post called Hopeless at my other blog devoted to Inner Work.
I said I wasn’t bitter. That’s true. But it's also more than true to say that as the single highest paid person who was not a manager--AND paid more than most of the main managers--it was a testament to my work ethic that I was able to survive the last year under brutal top management's unrelenting pressure, ceaseless scrutiny, compulsive criticism, micro-inspection seeking blame and 'make wrong' at all costs, limitless demands, and implied threat [4] in a boundless parade of the divine comedy which in and of itself perfectly exemplified the full spectacle of ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity. Where is Rabelas and Cervantes now?
Along with that, I have been processing and viewing reams, hoards of high level GM games in chessBase daily. I hate to say it again, but more on that latter [7] as if to say that if I was already way too preoccupied with ‘the job situation’ the last three months since the financial crisis emerged [8], then that much more now. That hit the emergency break on blogging as you know it from me.
Thirdly, I have yet again resumed working at CT-Art 3/0, and as before, take a lot of time on each position. I set up a small travel set, and keep two boards for two positions open at a time. With the first open, I try to solve it; the second one is for pondering. Once the first is attempted in the program and have gone as far as I can absolutley go no further, the second assumes the fore, when I attempt the first problem formally and directly at the computor here, and open a new, second position.
Who are these rash fools who think that they have done CT-Art 3.0 in two months or two weeks? Did they ever calculate all the lines? Did they see the board or just 'click, click', and eat the virtual Fast Food of McTactics? No. Two years or more if you really spend real time on it. Not possibly any less than a year if they really concentrated.
If you do one CTA3 in less than a day, well *ahem* , then you never really saw the fucking board. Don't kid yourself with more dilusion. CTA3 is not about sustaining your dilusion but annihilating it and this, pal, is not fast. Remember, 'takes you to Master Level'. Master level is about rarety from 1500 to 1700 elo and rarety is not, sorry to say, fast.
Often, I take them to my bed early each evening for my beloved daily nap. By the time I have moved the curser ONCE, to attempt the position, I have calculated every variation that I can. Artificial a measure though it may be, 2200 elo is still not attainable by someone who does not know something about chess, and who has studied a lot of tactics, and learned to calculate. Half way through Level Five, you really need to be able to first conceive an irrational move then see the best reply, THEN be able to envision an another counter-intuitive chess move, then a best reply, and THEN more of the same for many a ply. Its very hard, the way I do it. No moving pieces, just a deep brain stare!
After that, my enchantment with CTS continues. While I can no longer spend hours there, and at 50,000+ tries I have spared no effort, I manage after long breaks totally away from there, to make my way back. My motive now is to get to 96.5001% as dogWaste finally, and to get to 50,000 tries at 90.0501% as dkTransform. Its diminishing returns now, and the prize far and away lays elsewhere, such as CT-Art or Secrets of Pawn Endings, or Shereshevsky’s Endgame Strategy.
Finally I am working on repertoire. If any of you are on ICC, and not using wimpB to refine your openings, by playing a set sequence of moves 1450-1650 for blitz [9] which at the main departure point of the tabaya will vary its responses, forcing you to really learn your ‘lines’, then shame, shame on you!
Also, at FICS, I took what was gained from that concenrated burst at ICC and now only play a set repertoire. As a consequence of that, when I get to a place where I don’t have a set response to a new fundamental position, then endeavor to find or develop one. It might be very simple and need not be elaborate, such as always using g3 against the Dutch Defense. The main idea is--good or bad—to take a position, explore it, and not deviate until you reach a dead end and fail, then reassess, and so on [10].
The best for last. I while I must focus on my job search, yes, I do work at my chess daily. I have printed a list of all USCF events in the Northwest in the next few months, and it is my definite intent to see if I can get my old 1670 USCF back and if they wont let me start from there, well, start over!
Warmest, dk
The Low Point of the Last Seventy Years
[ 1] The blood pressure with the adrenal supplement program is now again excellent, and this is one more instance of integrative or holistic health bypassing the mere masking of symptoms by allopathic medicine, which only tries to suppress or inhibit them instead of getting at root cause. I do admit, while my current program has assuaged the prior (pre-hypertension), its still very, very hard for me to sleep normally. I am running daily again, and as I quickly re-establish the ability to run for an hour or more, this aught to help the sleep mightily (I hope)!
[1.1] A very nice list of MSA's or Metropolitan Statical Areas, is shown here. You want to know America? Then you must know this!
[2] The essence of my resume is my being the rare person who can communicate well, talk, write, do presentations all while being very comfortable with Contact, Project, and Knowledge Management alike. This is my calling card. A spreadsheet, technical, financial or visual data person who can negotiate and lead who it just so happens, is highly creative. Try explaining that one to blind server agents only capable of reading blind ASCE *.txt data! [3] Ok, ok. Not every single day, but 42 of the last 46 days, where I maintain perfect cumulative records of history both at FICS, ICC, and now Chess Cube [5] (my warm up place).
[4] The fact that I challenged senior and middle management on a regular basis only made it more so—my lasting there, proving that I gave them real dollar value, despite their repeatedly reminding me how much I was paid :) . In computing, this relates to what is called ‘the deadly embrace’ [6].
[5] Despite its lack of full features such as access to automated pgn reports, or performance history, this lack of professional polish gives it some appeal. I don’t need to invest much in my feelings about it. Almost, just, just almost 1700 in blitz yesterday, but not quite… At the same time, the game board interface is very pleasant, baring a clock too small for me since I play tight, increment games at 3/3 there, which is five minutes for 40 moves but avoids some stupid Armageddon.
[6] Information about the deadly embrace, can be found here, The Apollo Syndrome. Definition of The Deadly Embrace: This is a term used in computing some years ago to signify a problem between two computer programs - where each prevents the other from making progress.
"What happens is that Program A takes exclusive control of record 1, and program B takes record 2. Program A then tries to get exclusive access to record 2, but as this is under exclusive control of the other program, it can't. The program then waits until record 2 is released. Meanwhile, program B tries to get exclusive control of record 1, but can't, as it is under the exclusive control of program A. Program B waits until record 1 is released. Therefore, neither program can make any progress because it is waiting for the other program to give way. A similar situation can occur in discussions if each person is trying to get the other to concede the flaws in his/her argument, without conceding the flaws in his own. The way out of this situation is to look for the points of agreement, rather than trying to spot flaws."
[7] I plan to write two major essays: the first is to be called ‘Letters to a Not So Young BDK’ (only meant in the chess sense, of course), of course referring to my previously written Letters to a Young Blue Devil Knight) from 2005; the second takes on advanced issues of organizing high level data at chessBase, with Polly, Castling Queenside as the Proxy.
[8] I have had a mark on my head made more prominent since the Housing and Financial Crisis erupted.
[9] WimpB always and only plays 2/8, or 7:20 for forty moves. Very reasonable rate of play for compressing lots and lots of chess knowledge. Let me suggest wimpC or WimpD for others, to same affect.
Dear friends: a lot has been going on behind the scenes, and as is my nature, its very hard to talk about in fragments, or partial efforts, so I wait, and wait to talk about it here. Physically, blogging takes a lot of energy--the way I do it. But I will be back soon. It's been hard.
I have actually been studying an ENORMOUS amount of GM games, and playing a LOT of blitz, and now, actually also, play slower time controls finally.
Within near hours or within one day of the final event that will change my life for quite some time to come, who emails me out of the blue, but Polly Wright of Castling Queenside! What a lovely, wonderful woman. A few emails and calls latter, and we are taking a good walk around Redmond Washington, then meet for tea, and wonderful chatting.
I am not in a mind frame to talk much today, maybe for a week. But, believe you me, I will. Much, very, very much to say. But, for now, let me say I fear to let a single day elapse, and fail to acknowledge her, so do so now, but cannot write enough to honor her. She is out here for a tournament. Funny--I 'never' drive more than three miles and she who travels the globe meets me! I drive all the way to outside the Microsoft Campus, and volla, she is there.
She is very kind, loves her chess, loves the social aspect of playing, and I respect her. She is a good soul and a good heart. It's more accurate to say that she has a heart of gold. You really can learn a lot about a person sitting across from them.
Everyone has their own fixations, and mine is authenticity and honestly. Let me tell you: you are gonna have to meet a lot of people before you find someone more honest and real than Polly. How refreshing! No BS. Just as it is. Wow.
And visting the playing hall, after she got her camera at the hotel to get some shots off of us, we visited the chess playing hall and the obviously well appointed chess bookseller.
Meet the Newest Knight Errant: Pigeon Linus[1]
And this found to be a bit crazed guy is selling not only books, but has some big sign of selling copies of NEWeBooks he has scanned. I am not some copyright Nazi. But I asked him before I knew this: 'Do you have Lev Alburt's new book, the Pocket Chess Training Book, Volume II?' 'No, but I can sell you a scanned copy....' Then his speech, his pitch about all that he could do for a price. A chess book hooker. A chess book prostitute.
Much combustion and I had to tell him: 'I am not with the police or IRS or a copywrite Nazi, but I don't think that this is very fair to Mr. Alburt!' I told him that I felt sorry for him, and that he was not a very nice person [2].
All said by me with a smile, and, of course, much else said before, by him about, government spy's, snipers, having his tires slashed, and much that was probably true but on the edge about the government after him... I meant what I said at a very, very deep level, and to fire a pellet of conscience into his now shrived soul. Sad man.
Then I saw his state, and told him that his body was breaking, and that he 'was on a collision course with disaster'. Told him that he 'could gather all this knowledge, but if' his 'physical form could not hold it, his container [3], that it would all go to waste'. Lord Jesus, my first time in a chess hall since the US Chess Championship in 2003 as a visitor. Ho hum! Mellow dk lacking in any intensity. :)
Polly got to witness all this, a dk no holds bared zen shout of awakening. So it was a perfect evening.
[2] His entire modus operendae seemed to be: 'I have been fucked 4,321 times, so now I get to fuck someone else!' I told him that he was a genius sociopath. He had directed all his brilliance into a negative, manipulative, paranoid state of opportunistic entrepreneurship. [3] Remember the group suicide by the Hale-Bopp folks? Their leader said they were going to shed their containers. I always liked that. You remember it, the Heavens Gate Folks, ref here: INSIDE THE CULT OF HEAVEN'S GATE.
Right here on the eave of Game One of the long awaited World Chess Championship in Bonn, between WCC Vishy Anand Vladimir Kramnic, seems as good a place as any to highlite an excellent study by Charles Sullivan. Before my quoting much, but not all of the major parts of the article referenced at left, a small word on atribution:
Whether by my own failure to get new updates or simply that Mig Greengard had greatly updated his 'Daily Dirt Chess Blog' significantly is unclear, but all I know is that now Mig has a great site. I used to read it now and again, and find now that it always contains great riches--and with it, probably the smartest chess comments on all the web--never fail to miss it.
In fact, often reading his already excellent blog is but an excuse to then read the comments of his readers, often pointing out things from the side not easily found at chessBase, TWIC, or even chessVibes.com.
And it was there recently at his post, 'Awesome Augury Action' that a reader provided a link )Oct 8, 2008 7:59 AM) to this excellent study. The net result is that it compares the complexity of the games, with the raw error of the moves, and I reproduce the main body of the article here, as it is all said better than I can by it's originator:
'Truechess.com Compares the Champions:
'Who was the greatest chess player of all time? from Truechess.com home.
'The Project:
' For 24 hours a day for 15 months (from February 2007 through May 2008), 12 computing threads (on three Intel quad-core Q6600 computers running at 3.0 GHz) analyzed the games of the World Champions. Entire playing careers were analyzed -- for example, 69,084 positions from 2318 games were analyzed for just one player (Smyslov). In all, 617,446 positions from 18,785 games were processed. (For comparison, a previous analysis of the World Champions by Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko [1]-- that you can read about here -- examined about 37,000 positions.)
'The commercially-available program Rybka [version 2.3.2a], the strongest chess program available at the time, and a modified version of Bob Hyatt's open-source Crafty program [version 20.14] were used in the project.
'Calculating "Raw Error" and "Complexity"
'The first 8 moves in each game were ignored, but each subsequent position was searched three separate times. First, a search for a full six minutes (the average search was 17.4 iterations) by Crafty to determine a score for the best move available. A second search, to the same depth as was reached in the first search, assigned a score to the move played in the game. The difference between the move made and the best move in the position is the "raw error" score. Finally, a third search calculates the "complexity" score for the position.'
'Who Was "The Greatest"?
Here is the short case for -- and against -- each champion:
Paul Morphy (born 1837, died 1884)Although not usually recognized as World Champion, Morphy belongs on this list. Pro: Morphy was clearly way ahead of his time: the numbers indicate he would easily have beaten Steinitz. Had he kept playing, Morphy surely would have been the strongest player in the world from 1857 until his death at age 47 -- a span of 27 years. Had he lived, he might have been the best player until the beginning of the 20th century! Con: Judged by today's standards, Morphy's accuracy was just average. Also, his career in top-flight chess lasted only 3 years.
Wilhelm Steinitz (born 1836, died 1900)Steinitz was universally acknowledged to be the first World Champion after defeating Zukertort in 1886. Pro: Steinitz had a complex style, won a high percentage of games, was successful as a match player, and was probably the best active player for about 20 years (although he was "official" Champion for only 8 years). Con: Most of Steinitz's numbers place him at the bottom -- nobody else is even close!
Emanuel Lasker (born 1868, died 1941)Lasker was World Champion for a record 27 years. Pro: Although Lasker played in an era which had relatively few great players, it is still remarkable that he was one of the very top competitors for more than 40 years (he won the strong New York tournament of 1924 by 1½ points over World Champion Capablanca)! According to the numbers, Lasker is the first chessplayer who could have held his own against the great champions of history. Con: Lasker was absent for years at a time from competition, so it is difficult to get a fully reliable fix on his ability.
José Raúl Capablanca (born 1888, died 1942)Capablanca awed all those who saw him because of his extremely rapid comprehension of the position on the board. Lasker famously said, "I have known many chess players, but only one chess genius, Capablanca." Pro: Capablanca's numbers are universally excellent. He played with great accuracy, committed relatively few blunders, and won a high proportion of games. Con: He suffered an unexpected loss to Alekhine in 1927.
Alexander Alekhine (born 1892, died 1946)Alekhine was not born with the Capablanca's natural talent, but he showed what an unparalleled love of chess and a fanatical will to win can do. He played several of the most-admired games of all time. Pro: He defeated the "invincible" Capablanca in 1927 and decisively defeated the underappreciated Euwe in a match in 1937. Con: The numbers suggest that Alekhine was not quite as good as his reputation. He also suffered a most surprising defeat to Euwe in 1935.
Max Euwe (born 1901, died 1981)Euwe had a successful life away from the chessboard, which cannot be said for most World Champions. Pro: He convincingly defeated Alekhine in one of the biggest upsets in chess history. The numbers say that Euwe was better than his reputation. Con: Euwe's reputation as a player who blundered often is, sadly, richly deserved.
Mikhail Botvinnik (born 1911, died 1995)Botvinnik was so strong that he could have become World Champion as early as 1935. He finally become champion in 1948 and held the title for most of the next 15 years. Pro: According to the numbers, Botvinnik was probably one of the five best players of all time. In addition, his fighting spirit must have been very resilient -- after losing matches to Smyslov and Tal, he won return matches a year later. Con: After winning the title in 1948, Botvinnik became simply the first among equals and lost matches to Smyslov, Tal, and Petrosian.
Vasily Smyslov (born 1921)One of those rare players who played almost as well in his sixties as he did in his thirties. Pro: A player with impressive numbers -- he ranks 2nd behind Capablanca in the 15-Year Rankings (above). In 1984, he reached the Final of the Candidates' Matches in his 63rd year! Con: There always seemed to be at least one player better (or luckier) than Smyslov: Bronstein, Botvinnik, Tal, Fischer, Kasparov.
Mikhail Tal (born 1936, died 1992)Beloved by most everybody, Tal deserved a better fate: he was plagued by health problems throughout his life. Pro: He had a sensational rise to the top in the late 1950's and early 1960's. He probably was an objectively better player in the 1970's. Con: Although he was always among the handful of great players, he could never quite match his achievement of beating Botvinnik in 1960.
Tigran Petrosian (born 1929, died 1984)In many ways, the anti-Tal: solid, possessor of a puzzling style, and widely unappreciated. Pro: He won the Candidates in 1962 (over such great players as Keres, Geller, Fischer, Korchnoi, and Tal), handily defeated Botvinnik in 1963, and beat the great Spassky in 1966. Con: His tournament results were usually mediocre and the numbers say he is not one of the greatest Champions.
Boris Spassky (born 1937)World-famous because of his two matches with Fischer, Spassky was probably the best player for most of the 1960's. Pro: Spassky proved his strength by winning the Candidates' Matches in both 1965 and 1968. He also proved his superiority in the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup where Fischer finished second. The numbers show that Spassky was an impressive player into his mid-forties. Con: Spassky was not able to sustain the high level of brilliance he evidenced in the 1960's.
Bobby Fischer (born 1943, died 2008)Like Morphy, "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess." Fischer coupled the precocious talent of Morphy and Capablanca with the obsession of Alekhine. Pro: The sustained level of his play from 1967 through the 1972 match with Spassky is unmatched, as the numbers show. Con: He quit too soon.
Anatoly Karpov (born 1951)A steely competitor who, unlike most previous champions, was extremely active and competed successfully against the very best players of his time. Pro: The numbers and the results show that Karpov was the best of his time. Con: Karpov was not quite as good as either his predecessor or his successor.
Garry Kasparov (born 1963)Kasparov showed that aggression pays on the chessobard. Also, he demonstrated the importance of the computer as a training aid. Pro: The numbers confirm that Kasparov was one of the greatest players of all time. Con: His blunder rate (as defined by this project), is surprisingly high. And, almost unbelievably, he lost a match to Kramnik without managing to win a game.
Vladimir Kramnik (born 1975)Kramnik, at his best, is one of the most difficult players to defeat who ever played. He has had some health problems in the last few years. Pro: In 2000, he defeated the truly great Kasparov (who was at or near his peak strength) in a match by two points without losing a game. Con: Although he appears to have the talent to be the dominant player of his generation, he seems content to win by attrition. Also, perhaps because of his health issues, his form has been inconsistent.
Vishy Anand (born 1969)As a youth, Anand shocked the chess world with his strong moves that were played at blitz speed. After several years of steady improvement (and learning to curtail his impulsiveness), he became Champion in 2007. Pro: Anand's numbers have been outstanding in recent years -- his performance in 2006-2007 was almost flawless. Con: Anand is at the top now, but he needs to sustain his current form for a few more years before he can be mentioned in the same breath with Capablanca, Fischer, and Kasparov.
The Greatest Was ...I think you can reach your own conclusion! And of course, it depends -- what are the necessary qualifications for the world's greatest chess player?'
With a match about to begin, with two of these mighty fifteen chess greats having a showdown, and one of them who wrested the crown from a third among them (Kramnik from Kasparov), this makes the match about to begin in Bonn of potentially great historic importance, not to mention enormous potential chess pleasure, creativity, imagination, and of course beauty.
Needless to say, right before the Anand-Kramnik match in Bonn is as good a time as any to broach the subject of the highest ranking Chinese Chess Grandmaster, Wang Yue [0].
I have wanted to write this for weeks since his recent top result at the second FIDE Grand Prix in Sochi. You see, it all started with a snide viewer remark at ICC, while watching the last FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, in December 2007 where some ‘mere’ Grandmaster asked “WHO is Wang Yue?”, wishing to disparage him, dismissively saying that he was lost, and that he “couldn’t play’ My antenna went right up that moment! And you know what, he won the game!
After that tournament, where he scored very high into the double elimination, it seemed like his time had come. Adding to his obvious imprimatur, he then went on to share first place with Gashimov, Carlsen at the First FIDE Grand Prix in Baku in May, and clear second place with Gata Kamsky at the Second FIDE Grand Prix in Sochi early this August.
His rank today, at Live Ratings, at 2740.5 ELO puts him fair and square at number ten in the world, just below what Mark Crowther of TWIC recently called nine who ‘clearly form the current elite’ (excellent table, enhancing the FIDE ratings).
And now for our simple and clear major point: he did not loose ONE single game, among those two sets of 13 game tournaments (26 games) among many of the world best chess players at their best preparedness [1].
In fact, I have just created a chessBase file, and compiled all the data, and he only lost NINE times among 222 games in the last two years [2]. More to the point, the bulk of those were among seven losses in 2007 across 148 games (1 with White and 6 with Black), and even more remarkably, only two of those occurred in 2008 across 74 games (both with black)! His last loss that I can detect was on March 3rd, at the Reykjavik Island 23rd Open [3]. One loss with white in all those games back in 2007. Man.
Hence our title of his starting to be recognized as ‘the Kramnik of the Far East’. He is plays very super solid. Like Vladimir Kramnik, he proves very, very difficult to win against. You don’t think he gets major support from the Chinese leadership now? Think again.
Much like Carlsen, he is often seen winning seemed drawn endings, and converts to win with unrelenting if not manically calm pressure, not unlike the patent boa constrictor squash Nakamura applies when he is in form and refuses NOT to not win or just as Fischer did in the early 70’s. This guy is tough! Just look at him. We could also call him the Clint Eastwood of Chess. Just look at this guy:
Look at this game, which he won when no one could see any real large advantage:
'Our surprised and respectful attitude to the Chinese grandmaster slowly turns to sincere admiration. [Source, you guessed it: ChessVibes, here! Very convenient viewable java applet. dk] He demonstrates not only typically Chinese composure, tenacity and good calculation skill, but also shows good chess education. His endgame technique is very high. 'Today Wang Yue won another complex bishop ending, against Radjabov, after going through the storm of complications and obtaining a slight advantage against a dangerous opponent…. Radjabov showed his ambition by not looking for equal positions. He was determined to play for a win, and missed the moment when he had to secure the equality.
'His last chance was 19...Rxd3! (instead of 19...Rdc8) 20.Rxd3 Bg5 21.h4! (21.Rd7? Bc6 22.Rc7 Be8) 21...Bxe7 (21...Bf6 22.Rd7 Bc6? 23.Rd6!) 22.Rd7 Bc5 23.Rxb7 Rxa2 24.Rd7 Rxb2 25.Rd2 Rb1+ 26.Rd1 Rb2 with a move repetition. 'After that Black desperately fought for a draw, but Wang Yue's technique was superior to Radjabov's. The Chinese player calculated a bit deeper and maneuvered a bit finer. I (Shipov) think, Teimour could and should have taken White's dangerous central pawn.'
'He played 24...Bxa2, but I failed to fins any danger after 24...Bxe4. For example, 25.Bc4+ Kh8 26.Re1 (26.Rff7 g5!) 26...Bf5 27. Rxe8+ Rxe8 28.Kf2 Bb1!, and Black will not lose in this sharp ending. However, this was not the critical moment of the game!'
'In my opinion, the game was decided in the bishop ending. Radjabov's passive strategy proved wrong. He could transfer the king to c5 by
31...Kd7! (instead of 31...Ke7) 32.Kf2 Kc6! 33.Bg8 h6 34.Bf7 (34.Ke3 Kc5!) 34...Kc5! 35.Kg3 (35.Bxg6 Kd5; 35.Ke3 g5) 35... Be4 36.Kf4 Bb1, creating an unbreakable fortress. After the move in the game, the Chinese grandmaster prepared a zugzwang position (46.Bf5!) and took the b4-pawn. Then the b6-pawn fell as well. I was impressed by 55.Ba6! (intending 55...Ke7 56.b5!). Compared to that, 58.Bd7! looks really simple. White created an adjacent passed pawn, and secured a win. Wang Yue is now one of the leaders!'
1-0
I expect that we will be hearing a lot more from him in the future and certainly this is one more facet of major evidence of the rising supremacy of China.
Warmest, dk
[0] Did you know that China is now third among all chess nations, for having the near highest average chess rating of it's top level grandmasters? See FIDE Country chart, at this link. They now surpass even Israel, Azerbaijan, USA, Hungary, India, Armenia, and Bulgaria in the top ten. Of course, Russia and the Ukraine occupy the strastophere for ELO density and elevation. [1] Needless to say, I have objectively aggregated the data in xls of the two tournaments, but this is a matter for another day. Yasser kindly sent it to the editor of chessBase for me and I also sent it to TWIC, also Peter Dodgers at ChessVibes, but the feeling was that its still early yet. At the third tournament, I will be ready to resubmit! Remember, there are six tournament, you play in four, and get to pick your best three results, dropping your fourth worst. Wang Yue wont be dropping any of these two [4]!
[2] Please email me at the email provided at my Classic GM Game Collection file, and I will gladly send the cbv file (no pgn’s please for this file. I am not a web service in this case please).
[3] That I have found. Not perfection, but probably very, very close to accurate. {addendae: I did exact checking today, and had to revise these figures, and THESE are now perfectly accurate. cf. FIDE player data, directly. Thur 09 Oct 08 dk}
[4] Again, much to his credit, I much prefer Peters format at the now, in my eyes, preeminent chess site ChessVibes, shown here (Baku), and here (Sochi) for the two Grand Prix to date.
The Eyes! Asiatic Dreaming, for some deep far off place like chess Jupiter! That GM look of many troubles and cares that is uncanny greatness!
We all had the equivalent of our first love in 'real chess' and mine was named Ibrahim. He was the first giant I had met along the path of getting started back in real chess. And before he went back to Bahrain, eloping in secret with the very lovely sister of our mutual best friend Benjamin, but in the end leaving me out of their circle, when they coldly made sure not to invite me back with them for Thanksgiving dinner, before he left, he made many, many astute recommendations about how to study chess that I use to this day. I did much if not nearly not all that he said and his sporting a 2,000 FIDE elo seemed ample evidence enough. That is another story.
But like our first mentors or guides who have strong opinions, not all of them can be judiciously correct. For example, he had a very low opinion of Bruce Pandolfini. Now, lets be clear: after a life time of scholarship, I have found it most important to draw a distinction between the man and his work. Early on, I discovered in copious checking that mythographer Joseph Campbell never mentioned Romanian French expatriate Mircea Eliade, nor the latter the prior. I always preferred Campbell's views, but somehow, despite my inability to ever read Eliade with satisfaction or utility, nevertheless also always found the man fascinating [1]. Similarly, I loved Nietzsche's books in my younger days, but the man could be a real ass, not to mention Thoreau or Veblen assuredly as well. And so I found that this young man had really confused the work of Pandolphini with the man, and if not the work, then the production.
Years latter, after using 'Pandolphini's Endgame Course: Basic Endgame Concepts Explained' with great benefit, upon AJ Goldsy's glowing recommendation at Amazon [2], I had to agree that despite the well known innocuous typo's, that his book was even more useful than Chernev's already very, very useful Practical Chess Endings [3].
I have lived a lot of years by now. I have learned not to judge. Some of Pandolphini's books had well known production problems, but are we to blame him concretely? Were we there? Did we know the publishers or editors or printers? Did we know the circumstances? No. But mark my words, I have been reading his monthly column 'The Q & A Way', at chessCafe, for as long as I can remember, and always enjoy it, and never fail to read him.
He is both affably and warmly kind and unpretendingly eruditely sophisticated without grandstanding or pretense if not on occasion acerbic [4], in a way well beyond most chess scholars and teachers. He gives ample evidence bespeaking of wide awareness, well beyond the narrow specisim of the our beloved chess venues. His humanity [5] at times reminds me of Znosko-Borovsky, who not only managed to beat quite a few of the truly great world chess champions, but starving as he was between the two great wars, demonstrated a enormous familiarity with belles lettres in what must have been a beautiful heart.
Warmest, dk
Mr Pandolphini, who wrote me back promptly and without any complications, very kindly approved my copying the first part of his most recent column below. There have been many Q & A's over the years, but this one simply struck me as if not among his best then surely most representative. Without further ado:
Beware of Regimens
Question:
After five to ten years of practice, chess players usually reach a plateau. This supposes the chess player has over this long period of time: participated in a number of chess tournaments, played in over 100 classical games (40 moves in 2 hours, 20 moves per hour, etc); gone through classic books on openings, tactics, middlegames, and endings; analyzed his own games, as well as having gone through classic games (World Chess Champions, current top GM games, etc.); and played many blitz games in a chess club or on the Internet. Let’s assume, for sake of argument, that all this brings the player to a level of a seasoned club player, corresponding to a USCF 2150 player (FIDE 2100). How do you suggest improving your own level of play (obviously not as strong as the FM/IM level), without repeating the basic stuff? How do you separate what you already know (rook endings, typical tactics, such as pins, skewers, and double attacks) from what you should learn to make progress? What should you pay attention to when you replay grandmasters games? Frank Fortune (USA)
Josh Waitzkin and his first chess coach, Bruce Pandolfini
Answer:
Chess players don’t have to wait five or ten years before reaching a plateau. It can happen much sooner than that, and typically does. Nor need there be just one plateau. Periods of stasis occur all the time. They can last a few weeks or go on for years. All along the way are potential obstacles halting improvement, putting our playing ability in a virtual freeze. Regressions are even possible, where our method of addressing troublesome stages can retard progress, if not detract from overall skill. Clearly, how we cope with such troubling circumstances plays a role in shortening those episodes. It also is a key determinant in how far we can ultimately go.
Moreover, there’s no single path that guarantees advance. Some players achieve success naturally, absorbing ideas in the context of regular play, with aptitude developing over time, without specific effort. Others do it by dint of hard work, studying this and that, until all major areas are reviewed systematically and everything seems to fall into place. Still others, taking definite steps or not, never get beyond a point. Either they accept who they are or give up altogether.
I’m going to take slight issue with another one of your implications, which is that it’s wasteful to study things you’ve already gone over. Indeed, constant review of the same or similar techniques and concepts, viewed for a variety of situations, reinforces what you know. And it gives you a range of conditions under which you can adapt that knowledge to efficient use. This modus operandi is a chief weapon in the chess player’s arsenal. That is, players are always looking for analogies. You can’t employ analogous reasoning so effectively, however, if you haven’t a proficient grasp of what you’ve already experienced. The way you acquire such facility is by constant reconsideration and repeated immersion. To that end, the argument that learning some things well, rather than lots of things on the surface, may have greater impact here. I’m not suggesting that tangential treatment of many different notions doesn’t have value, too. But if you don’t constantly review your past experiences, you’re bound to make the same mistakes, fall into the same snares, miss the same shots, and form the wrong plans, again and again.
Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart
So, even though you’ve laid out your question hypothetically, I’m going to take exception with the nature of your basic premise anyway. It implies that one has to do certain things in order to succeed (play at least one hundred serious tournament and match games, study particular tactics and strategies, examine the games of great players, and so on). Yet, there’s no accepted evidence whatsoever that one has to follow a definite regimen of any kind before attaining specific playing levels. To be sure, such an approach is antithetical to the idea that each of us is an individual. Put simply, an activity is more rewarding if we’re able to pursue it along a unique pathway, to the Thoreau inspired beat of our own drummer.
Here’s my advice for those who are decent players but seem to have been stymied in their recent attempts at progress. Begin by playing a bunch of serious games at respectable time controls. Take those games and have them assessed by a competent observer. Have the analyst spell out what he or she thinks you need to work on in order to move ahead. It probably won’t be right on the money – it almost never is – but it’s a place to start.
Acquire, borrow, or tap into the recommended materials. Start using them on a regular basis, and in accordance with the laid out program. Play lots of serious games, all of which should then be analyzed by you first, then by a strong player who cares that you exist. The strong player could be named Fritz, even though Fritz is likely to be indifferent. Modify your original program as it reflects your recent experience. Over time this constant testing of challenging opposition, intense review, from within and without, should direct you to relevant areas worthy of attention. It’s typically the best way to break the stalemate in your progress and move you along. It’s tough to say what may be the best thing to study to push improvement along. But probably it should be pertinent to your needs, rather than satisfying some abstract ideal. If you want to get more out of you, study you [6].
[3] At the same time, to be clear, I cannot praise Chernev's book too highly: READ and STUDY both, might I suggest: first PEC/BECE, then move onto PCE. In this order, the latter will mean more.
[4] Bertrand Russell, AKA Lord Russell, who if anyone ever could write the English language, was said to be acerbic. He relates in his wonderful Autobiography that he had learned to write the English language with precision by taking the advise of his brother in law, to take the already very, very clear a and concise writings of John Stewart Mill, and TRY to summarize each of his paragraphs with one sentence. Can you imagine?
[5] My definition of humanist, quoted from my 1989 letter of application to teach architecture, at UNC Charlotte: "As a humanist, I believe in the betterment of man through self knowledge". [6] His original ChessCafe article in full, directly here.
The Planet and It's People are All Crying, And I am Crying With It. Get a cleanex.
My very dear friend BDK, who is one of the smartest guys around, has been gently pushing me, but without let up all the same, to write about the meltdown. Now, this is a chess blog, and chess besides being a form of mental combat if not 'mental torture' [1], is a form of consumption. We consume free time, and emotional energy in pursuit of our craft. And if we are forcibly disturbed daily, neh, not disturbed, but unrelentingly attacked by the media, by financial markets, by national instability, by sinking and towering debt to fight two wars offshore when we cannot even mobilize our society to put shoes on children or fix the many potholes in our roads then, well *God Damn It* , it seems to me that this is chess too. You know the drill: we have to send probes to Mars but cannot regulate the ten largest banks in the country, we cannot face the issues.
KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis [2]
So yes all right. Its chess. Fuck yea it's chess. I was on a roll. I was blogging several times a week, I was in flow and all the rest is in my brain. But I can't write. No I cannot. Not today. Am I to write about chessBase intervening files when we are reeling with staggering upset? I have a lot more to say in chess, but not today:
When someone closer to a Fulbright Scholarship to Japan than not, when someone is a Registered Architect, when someone is a deft knowledge manager, and nimble in sales and customer service is asked three times, in eight days, to unload tractor trailer trucks, when such a person protests the third time constructively to his HR Department that this is bad business, leaving his Tool World Empty for theft or lost and helpless customers, to what? unload a tractor trailer truck AND hurts his lower back, AND then works sick the next two days because it is pre-inventory, yes, America, we are fucked. When at the end of the second day, I am approached by my bosses boss, told that big boss 'WILL DEFININETLY BE WANTING TO SEE' ME 'TOMORROW', said in an intimidating fashion, this is a problem. So I call District HR Manger, who asks me to stay home today and rest my back, and that it is very wrong for me to have to work in an intimidating work environment. Let me say more:
This is not an economic crisis. Yes, yes, I know.... 'we didn't land on the moon, but Disney did it in hidden areas in Yemen' and 'Nixon had it done with off the books money...'
It is not an economic crisis! Got your attention?
Global Warming is NOT Real, and Soylent Green is People
The crisis is that we think it is an economic crisis, that somehow we are going to, 'baby, baby, just one more time baby' re-engineer ourselves, borrow more money, postpone the day of reckoning?
We are immature. We are juvenile. We overconsume. We are fragmented. We allow hatred to rule the day. We are petty. We concentrate wealth among the few, fewer and fewer each day, while cutting taxes to the rich? We abuse our workers, seperate ourselves from our neighbors, we are overstimulated, and overtaxed. Our cars are too big, are wars too far from home, our spending leaves us ill prepared for an unsustainable future. We polute. We cut down. We both allow drugs and punish drugs. We punish guns, and we shoot guns. We talk of conservation, then we reward big Golf with Big Skin Games, we have gigantic Superbowls, we have Emmy's, we have monstrocity sized Indianappolis 500's while preaching air quality, Dupont while talking of water quality, we have glory, but we are a society which rewards hatred, excess, instability, narcisisim, ignoreAnce, and fame. We exploit sexuality. We disrespect our old. We disregard the moans of our planet, which is crying.
No Caption Necessary!
We ALLOW corporations to run our so called democracy, and we remove and punish dissenters, much as Ralph Nadir says, and Noam Chompsky, yes, all of it is true. We are infantile and spiritually bankrupt. We conduct our work places, like gulags, so that those who work the hardest are often treated the worst. And if you are not honest, you get more sick time, more days off from work, and if as me you are the sort who never calls in sick unless you are dying, then, yes, you sir, are off on an adventure.
Upper Deck, Now Making Presidential Predictor Trading Cards... Yes, Yes, We are all Serious About this! [3], [4]
Me? I have seen it all. The zen monks with shaved heads with the stick that smacks you if you sleep. I have trained with Marine Special forces in martial arts, I have walked with Grandmasters for hours discussing the global world and FIDE's travisty of mismanged irresponsibility. I have bought and sold $150,000,000 worth of stock with these same fingers, I have unloaded trucks with ten intercity kids, I have sat with the ineffable Joe Six Pack and know his hurt. I have sat with his lover, hearing of her hurt, the worry for her children while he watches videos as she cooks and cleans and mends. I have seen it all.
We cannot fix this, and it is too late now, by re-engineering our society. The economy is a major minimal signal, maybe one of the largest most significant signals, but this is not the problem, but the symptom. We, my friends, are in very, very serious trouble, and if the 'virtuous circle' or virtuous cycle accelerates, as it surely will, falling equities, leads to falling dollars, then they are repatriated offshore, leading to lower stocks, leading yet again to lower dollars.
Lets Be Clear. I don't like Ted Nugent or agree with his views, but put it up here apropos of passion. I give him credit for that. And authenticity.
More of the Same. I repeat, I do not agree with him. But he is real man!
It is time to pay guys. And it won't be financial. It will be physical, social, psychological, behavioral, and relational, as in how we are each day with each other, but yes, for sure, someone will really have to pay, and I suspect that both Joe Six Pack and Vanila Ice will all be paying.
God Bless, yes. Now I have said it. Thank you BDK for giving me the initiative to say this, say this now, say this here. May you all carry on and be well in your lives.
Warmly, dk
[1] Attribution, well known to Garry Kasparov, the very essence of masculinity.
[2] Links to Obama web site and video here (I have not planned to vote for Obama but keep thinking about it. I think that he is a truly great man, but cannot do half of what he promises, and this, I feel, perpectuates more dilusional thinking here on our shores).
[3] Makers, for example of 'World of Warcraft'; needless to say, as a young stock broker, I called on the two founders, and had a big two hour meeting with them, but they were, yes, surprise, real bona fide jerks. They asked me to do a bunch of free work, then, at its conclusion, wouldn't return my calls. Oh well.
[4] It took a bit of counter intuitive digging, but the full series can be handsomely viewed here, at Presidential Predictors.
Tools for Structuring Getting Better, Part One: Starting
In order to get better at chess, you are going to need a structure to work within. I will be having a LOT to say about this structure, in the weeks ahead--so much so, that I will have to take this one in bite sizes. I usually like to dive in head first, in large scale, but this is one (and good for me at that, against my nature as it is!), that necessitates piecemeal discussion. Also, the cap stone post will have to be last, as the 'big chessBase discussion', is one that I need to both build up to, and cover a lot of ground, first.
Today we begin this discussion, but first with miscellaneous subjects to prepare the ground as it were:
To begin with, I am not the foremost example of improvement. In fact, I am fairly typical. Perhaps above average in chess knowledge, significant in some ways, but lacking transfer of that knowledge. It doesn't mean it will be this way forever, but is so now. Added to that, I am an extremely very 'type A' person, and chess IS tension, so the need for more of it is antagonistic to getting better at chess, if not simply antagonistic to PLAY AT ALL. The net result is that I don't enjoy playing chess or rather don't get to play chess much unless I add stress, so that I greatly prefer study, which is more about lifestyle or hobby or activity than chess per se. I don't say this with pride or shame but as a fact about me.
Tama: Nine Year Old Cat Wearing Stationmaster Cap Helps Debt Strapped Japanese Train Company As Thousands come to visit him [3].
So what I can share with you is how I organize that effort, not what you DO with that effort, or what you extract from that effort. If you want to know more about 'types of correct effort', then go to Phaedrus's wonderful blog, Chess Vision, previously called Chess Training, I think it was. I wrote about chessedelic weeks ago, and he must be a very good coach. But if I were in Europe or had the right circumstance, Phaedrus is another coach that I would have to carefully consider. Might I suggest you go to his blog? He not only talks about it, but has 'done it'. For example, he once took a young man, who was pretty much considered uncoachable, and this man recently made his third IM norm.
Finally, I need not remind anyone that while he neither seeks money nor fame, full with his own successful career outside chess, loving family, and serious chess study, but rather that he not only has 'done it' himself but also knows how to skillfully communicate it, not to mention much else besides?
* * * And now for the bones of our current essay:
In order to structure your effort, first you will need to be able to access and store your games, so that you can review them. If you are not doing that, you simply won't get better. Many of us do that already, but I have to start, in 'Aristotelian fashion' at square one, and work my way progressively forward by topic. And if you can do that, then you will be able to view high level games, both in classical and contemporary form.
'I am Done Organizing My Books by Color'
There are many viewers and I much prefer chessBase, but not everyone wants to spend that much, so there are alternative. To name but one, SCID is reputed to be the best, when previously ChessPad was recommended to me as recently as last spring-for those who like to research comparisons [4]. Free downloads are available at this link. ChessBase Light is very, very good, but I am going to ask readers to wait on that, for that is a separate post completely (chessBase Light is for great for viewing work in hand but cannot CREATE files, nor access them when too large). For now, I can say that I am going to recommend both but again, lets discuss this latter.
With your viewer, you will need a large database, and again, a completely free 4M game database is available for download at: ICOfY [1]. Now, there is a LOT to say about this. It is not a perfect database, but we are talking free, yes? The key is to get started, and you can make substitutions latter. What this database lacks it makes up for in shear size. What is really good about it, is that few record games are NOT in it [2].
This database will not stand still. And each week, you go to chessCenter.com, and download the full games form the last week here or at The Week in Chess here, also free. There are few if any serious chess players who do not do this each Monday night (EST) or Tuesday morning (CST).
Florence: Old World Effort at Control
Finally, a small detail but might be news to many here, for I myself only discovered it by accident: chesscenter.com had a Silverlight Chessboard application enabled embedded at the news site for months, before I realized that I had to both download and enable the Microsoft Application. I am not going to get into Macromedia, and Flash, and all that, only that I avoided doing so, for a long time, then one day I did and boy am I glad! Now I have viewable java applets at Mark Crowther's wonderful, World Number One chess site, and get immediate updates on live game's. I suggest you try it. If you are not going to chesscenter.com daily or weekly, then you, kind sir, are missing out big time.
Much, much more to follow. Stay posted! Warmly, dk
[2] For someone as scholarly minded as me, its lack of detailed game data bothers me, but I use it daily for when I cannot find a game in my $Megabase$, sold by chessBase. For example, it lacks round numbers and venue information such as the name of the tournament, using only city name. [3] Alert males will notice the carefully calculated complete absence of inclusion of any eroticized females at this blog when previously widespread if not frequent. Yes. Believe you me, every week I consider the matter, so that WHEN I do restore that feature, you all will REALLY have something to see, and duly note it as such. For now, we must suffice with fractal, heuristical, urbanistic, geopolitical, iterative, natural, mechanical, global, and feline scenes but not permanently as you can appreciate. [4] Thanks to Phaedrus, who just wrote me back, from my inquiry earlier today, to tell me that SCID was the best.
After Aristotle, came Plato, and in the mysterious groves of Ancient Greece before them, the Pre-Socratics. Much latter, in a carbon based world, nano-technology followed the semi-conductor and biotech revolutions, and excess food allowed the division of labor to elaborate detailed gaming structures and heuristical methodolgies, and chess cannot be excluded in the deepest urge to escape persistent thantic urges, or thoughts of ultimate mortality. Such an anger [1]!:
[1] If any of you find him at all amusing, here is another one that definitely portrays something!
Allow me a brief digression but, yes, yes, we will get to the harsh combat of chess tactics in a second... Despite having boundless energy, my mother was a slight woman, all 86 pounds of her when she had me, so that my reasonable 5'-10" stature and decidedly endurance type build is a work of gratitude. When she gave birth to me, she was told not to expect to live, for her frame could not take another cesarian section, her third. She did live, and the very old world jewish Doctor Pearlman (we are not Jewish but were surrounded at my birthplace) had tears in his eyes when he delivered me.
It was this same Doctor Pearlman, who upon telling my mother in reply to her certainty that she 'could NOT be pregnant' (my dad had a vasectomy, and my mom for sure only 'knew my father') in heavy Yiddish accent: 'Vhat do you vmean to tellm me, hez Jesus Christ??' But so it was, and here I stand today, four weeks from my fiftieth birthday.
Much latter, as he was in his last days, this dear man, who was so tough that he REPEATED MEDICAL school here (for they wouldn't recognize his credentials from Europe), summoned me to his home right before my freshman year of college. He told me a few things, none of which I remember except one in particular: "Always David. Always Marry the Bosses Daughter".
Now what the heck does that mean? Is it a spiritual thing, or is it concrete?? One thing is for sure, I never did marry her (in either sense of it), and have suffered for it ever since. How prescient of him! Fast forward.
Every Karateka gets a new white belt, and one of the first things you notice is not only are there few black belts, but the really senior students have them in tatters. Just threadbare from battle, sweat, and arduous training. At my Dojo with Sensei Vic Coffin, the former Special Forces guy, there was a guy named Mr. Dempsey. Every dojo always has somebody who not only has all the teaching, but from long ago, a fixture, but Dempsey-San was young, so he had been there from the start! His Gi or Karate Uniform was tattered and falling to pieces. His belt was worn to threads from all his tumbles and scrapes.
Today, kind readers, I am almost done with Reinfeld's 1001 Winning Sacrifices and Combinations. The binding is wrecked, and it is beyond taping. I have taped, and retaped. I yearn for completion, so that when I go to the beach, as I am want to do, studying tactics, always, I need not fear for half the loose pages blowing away, as happened to a few pages in the front, so that I must put an apple on top!
I met a man once, who was an aspiring chess master. He told me, in 2002 that I needed 'to sleep with that book;, and that, I have done, literally for more than two years--not in a mad rush, not like some classic novel you rush through, but like the book you never rush at, taking in every word like a gold button.
I did this with Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji in 1982 [1] and I did this with E.M. Cioran's Temptation to Exist in 1978 particularly. If he mentioned Tacitus or Montaigne, I would look it up, every single citation. Now you, have any of you taken a chess book and so used it, that you would destroy it, pulverize it? I cannot recommend it enough, as GM Seirawan calls it, 'burning it into the circuitry of your brain'.
warmest, dk
[1] Reputed to be among the world oldest novels. It might be suggested that it almost makes either Tolstoy's War and Peace or Prousts Remembrance of Things Past but short vignettes or of limited complexity, in comparison. I would read only a paragraph and then sometimes have to stop, so beautiful was its artistry of thought or touching the emotion. And--yes--it was writen by a woman.
I am starting to get comments far and wide from a lot of new people, which is a sure sign that I am on the right track in my primary motivation to 'share' in its higher, formal sense as against incipient attention seeking in its lower, baser kinds. This is emboldening. All your visits and each of your comments--however small, all of them truly mean a lot to me. They provide additional energy. Thank you.
I Love this Audio. I listen to it three times per day. Might I suggest you listen to it, while reading?
I still plan to write both regularly and a LOT more in the near term, as there is just too much to share to allow much pause, for otherwise I would get buried under 'to-do lists' and 'wish lists' as distinct from the habit of concrete action. Nevertheless this means that at times I must put up smaller posts--in no way lesser, but among those subjects affording more laconic or concise explication and thus more ruled by simplicity, even if it is simplicity concerning very large things.
Take, for instance World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand and former World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik. Now that is big. My good friend GM Seirawan wrote me two weeks ago, before his 'simul' trip to Malaysia, and upon my asking what he thought about this big match, said that 'this is the match that' he 'always wanted too see'. Heady stuff from the originator of the Prague Accord!
Now things should be so simple and clear, but they are not: and so we begin the first post spotlighting some super GM's:
Clearly if the tally were taken any time in the last year, few among us would ever have any reason to grant anything other than higher odds in favor of Anand. Not big odds, but greater odds we might say?
He has the fate of it being perhaps his turn at the page of history after all these years, the ceaseless brilliance of his high speed mind, and good manners. He even has the kind thoughts of hundreds of thousands of chess fans, which can hardly be underestimated as an outside subtle factor [1]. My goodness, he even has a pleasant, beautiful, and affable wife [2].
But after taking dead last upon yesterdays now concluded FIDE Grand Slam Final in Bilbao, we have to wonder how good a form he is in? I am not predicting a loss or collapse, but a note of concern. It is even rumored that he has Wunderkund Magnus Carlsen among his seconds [3], which cannot hurt at all!
Now for Kramnik: despite his irregularity in tournament play, where he can be as good as Kasparov one month, and in the lower half in another, not to mention his health problems previously impairing him, no one has beaten him in a match for a long, long, long time. This is a big factor. It is one thing to play scores of high level round robbins and wholly an altogether vastly different thing to prepare for match play.
It is true that Kramnik beat Kasparov, or rather the latter could not win a SINGLE GAME in his match in 2000, but he came back and successfully defended against Leko, then yet again against Topolov with the usual and also well known controversy, also winning.
Being Ready
Finally, we can talk extensively all about openings, and psychology, and all sorts of chess things but let us not forget knowing how to prepare and peak at the right moment is an art distinct from the technical side of chess. Just look at Michael Phelps effort in winning eight Olympic gold medals. When asked how he felt, he kept saying 'how tired' he was.
Think about that. Swimming two miles or 2.3 km at world record pace in most instances, not to mention time trials. But he knew how to be fully ready at each key event. Kramnik must have the edge there [9], as he has been there three times already and Anand, while world champion by contract agreements in place has not defeated Kramnik in a match yet, as Kramnik wryly points out. Here is one of many excellent interviews, Kramnik: “I think my level is quite all right.”
What does Maxwell Maltz say in his book, Psycho Cybernetics? : "Confidence is the repeated experience of success". So Kramnik.
Very, very lastly, it is often said that Kramnik has the deepest understanding of chess. In a world with even still Kasparov in one form or another still demonstrating preternatural genius (breakneck instant speed comments at playchess.com, accurate at 15 to 20 ply, given while sitting at the beach, blindfold as it is said) and Ivanchuk in remarkably great form, to say that he is the deepest is a profound admittance. This will prove to be a great match, and with Anand now only 5th in the world and Kramnik 6th in the Live Top Ratings table [4], sufficient motivation exists, not to mention the likely super motivation to face Topolov [5], [8].
Warmest, dk
Joy Division: Penetration To the Depth of Our Very Souls
----------- [1] It has been proven that group thinking can, as it were, in a biomorphogenic field sense, affect individual performance, negatively or positively.
[2] Often seen in photos sitting, for example, Leko's wife Sophie, talking as women do in whispers and furtive private smiles (the latter with GM Arshak Petrosian, his trainer and father in law!) Can you imagine that one? Chessbase article with photos, here: 'Picture gallery'.
[3] Anand, when hearing how Magnus answered probing questions as to whether he was on the team (Magnus: "No comment"), was heard as saying: "The BOY gave a good answer". This was widely discussed in the last ten days, and here is but one of the articles mentioning this: 'Will Carlsen be Anand’s second?' from India's Daily New Analysis.
[4] Real time chess ratings, reflective of the must current results, day by day, as distinct from FIDE's glaciatic quarterly calculation!
[5] Who would say that Kamsky can win? A subject of another post. Let us note for now, despite Kamsky's well known dogged tenacity [6], it is hard for us to see him beating Topolov, in his current form [7]
[6] Who has not seen Kamsky win lost games, and drawn lost positions, not unlike Aaronian (7th in World today)?
[7] Topolov is number one in the world, in today's table. Kamsky is 'only' sixteen, a big difference from the world top six.
[8] Wikipedia: "Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik have played 51 classical chess games, of which Kramnik won six, Anand took four wins, and 41 games were drawn. "In rapid games, the score is 10–2 in favor of Anand with 34 draws. In blitz the score is 2–2 with four draws. In the blindfold games the score is 4–3 if favor of Kramnik with six draws. In Advanced Chess Kramnik leads 1–0 with seven draws".
[9] See this fantastically informative interview, from the Russian Online Newspaper, The Sports Express Train, conveniently translated here: 'Kramnik vs. The Rest of the World'. Hat tip Dennis Monokroussos, linked here, at The Chess Mind.
Chess Friends, I have resolved to post more often--not for the sake of ‘often’ or ‘frequency’ but as I have intimated in the last two posts, I have found that there is so much that I see, think, or know of that I greatly wish to share and not forego. And as I also said, my attachment to larger, more elaborated posts was stopping me and I was thirsting to surrender it, ‘give it up’ as they say. Tonight I thus begin the first of far many more, with the proviso that they will all be shorter, as best as I can given my overarching tendency towards the catholic and synoptic, or universal and maximally inclusive approach to all that I do.
In chess study, we all benefit greatly from routines. And, if you like me have many of them, in time they can become so utterly comprehensive, that willy-nilly we can find ourselves in our own massive prison of tasks, our own Boolean flow chart of ‘I must do A, B, C’. and thinking futher such as ‘then after P, D, Q, if S, T, or V occur, I must go back and to B…’ and so on. My goodness.
So in time, I have evolved my own routines that are sustainable, and this means not only downloading ALL the current games to my Megabase each week from chesscenter.com's pricelessly invaluable TWIC but also adding all the major games in high level tournaments each week to a separate, ‘stand alone file’.
In so doing, I always assign colored chessBase medals to exemplary games such as ‘Best Game’, ‘Ending’, ‘Tactical Blunder’ and much else to discussed at posts in the not too distant future [1]. This also includes viewing weekly both Benjamin’s ‘Game of the Week’ (each Friday), and ‘Attack with Larry Christiansen’ (each Wednesday) at ICC Chess FM.com [2]. And finally perhaps my favorite of all, this means viewing also in its entiretyChessedelic’s Videosof current high level games.
Korchnoi's Scoresheet from the recent Rising Stars Tournament [2.2]
To elaborate, I had wished to ‘be the one to tell you all about this’ but his work while not as yet widely known is, by now, not unheard of [3]. What I love about his videos is that unlike the exhausting myriads of variations presented by the two great ICC Grandmasters (so very well done, but a bit of an overload [4]), unlike those, chess trainerWaldemar Moes manages to keep a very high level while streamlining his smooth, warm, and approachable delivery into comprehensible nuggets.
To elaborate on this must mean to compare them to GOTW and AWLC at ICC mentioned above, but this is the subject of another day. He also often begins from a key diagram and if like me you use chessBase, you can tile the view with the web video on the left, and the cbv game on the right, adding variations if not noting the commentary as notes, in making the game more memorable. After all, what else do we strive for if not to absorb so much great chess?
Lets let his fine work speak for itself, and let me heartily encourage all of you to visit his blog, add his RSS feed, or if you have seen his work, then to reinforce the value of repeated visits. There are so many instructional videos today, in chess and blogging, some good, some bad, some indifferent, that it’s nice to know where more of the gems are [5].
Warmest, dk
Some Facets of Traditional Higher Culture Make the Space Shuttle Seem like the Work of Children, such Rich Archaic depth, like something from the Gods!
[1] I have an entire list of new things to write of, and two or three times a week intend to address them one by one, and knock them off in a workman like way, without making a chore out of it. One major highlight is a rich process to share, in how I manage my truly massive effort, in creating and accessing multiple if not vast chessBase files. This is two years now for me, non-stop effort and it is still building. Every day I find something new.
[2] In the future, I will compare these two, and only note for now, that those of you inclined to subscribe to ICC but not members have the further inducement of not only having access to high level chess, but a rich library of videos and interviews. ICC password necessary to access. This site is now truly rich gold to me.
[2.2] Can you imagine what his love making must have been like, 'back in the day?' :) Such a distinct exuberance, that even well into his 70's the Eros still shines through, like an elemental force of nature like wind, rain, or oceans!
[3] The excellent blog Greg’s Chess Progress, to his great credit, mentioned this weeks ago. Greg is not yet a ranking chess player, but A++ for his sincere effort and I read all his posts. I suggest you visit him. I love his blog.
[4] Along with note 2. above, I need to write about suggested ways to better use those ICC Videos, and how this relates to chessBase Knowledge Management mentioned at [1] immediately above.
[5] Please be advised that my video selections are in no way inadvertent. I have recently viewed about three hundred youTube videos and try to select the one that I think is best, choosing from a large short list, much as I have done the last two years here, in selecting from a now capacious library of images. So here too now.
Another Chess Board that the USA is Getting Crushed On!
As many of you probably know by now, Morozevich was world number one for ONE DAY about two weeks ago, through the now increasingly popular Live Ratings Website. This same table is conveniently viewed through the ChessVibes.com website. Experienced or news current readers among you already are aware of this, and this is only to inform those of you who love chess who might not have time or inclination to view these sites.
So many times in the past--hundreds, in fact--I have wanted to post some smaller factoid, but stopped myself for needing to be more extensive in blogging, as was my practice, but herein I am allowing myself to include shorter items.My goal is not to regurgitate news but rather, to spread the word in help further broaden horizons more quickly where appropriate.
More than news, when I post here outside my own chess about the world of chess at large, hopefully it won't be like the commonplace Susan Polgaresque inane creation of news about news, but rather to share some of the tools, resources, and discoveries I have found or realized.
Also, I will now have shorter subjects about chess and, as usual, still have bits and pieces about me. In the weeks ahead, I will be writing about the ascension of the Kramnik of Asia--Wang Yue of China, notes about the benefit of using ChessBase Lite for newer serious students, how to organize and structure ChessBase files as work in progress, sources for some notable chess blog videos that I have found and enjoyed, and much else.Stay tuned!
Without further ado, in beating Radjabov today in the FIDE Grand Slam Final at Biblao in the Basque Region of Spain, Magnus Carlsen is now provisionally rated Top in the world in this real time calculation, that is to say, if it were today, he would occupy that role [1].
Carlsen-Radjabov, Grand Slam Final 2008
Both Magnus and Radjabov have been resusitating the Sicilian Dragon of late, and needless to say with extensive preparation. But today, Carlsen was ready on the White side when the two highest ranking proponents of this resurgence meet in a topical line.
Here are the ratings. What an accomplishment for this once boy wonder, and now young man [2]:
Daily updates of top 10 ratings provided by Hans Arild Runde See chess.liverating.org for details and complete list'
[1] Change does not occur in a vacume or in isolation. Change occurs always in relation to something else. Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason outlined four categories: Quantity, Quality, mode, and Relation. For Carlsen went up while Anand went down. Helping Carlsen for sure, mighty Topolov today obliterated Anand in twenty five moves, as indicated here. As discussed at the link in the ChessBase article, this is a relatively rare phenomenon [3] [2] Finally, here is a very nice article with more about him, mentioning for example, his dinner with Anand and his wife Aruna, where they did the Monty Python skit. :) [3] Here in Microsoft country in Seattle, it is well known that not only was Bill Gates ruthless, brilliant, had good parents including a lawyer for a father, but in addition to great timing in seizing a new idea, he had GOOD STARS. In short, he had preturnatural good fortune, aka good luck. So here, Carlsen had to have good luck on top of hard work, boundless talent, enjoyment of the game, and the strongest connection to the royal game. My check now, of my megabase, indicates that this has happened only four times in his career, since 1995, twice by Kasparov and once, of course, by nemesis Kramnik. Just think about that.
[Proof of the Pudding: I wrote this on the 10th of August, and only now have a proper moment to reread and edit this! I aught to rename this post, dk Version 8.2orEcce HomoChess! warmest, dk]
It's not hard to see my massive blogging for two years then sudden silence if not motionless fixity at my leading post.
Many quit or cease from blogging perhaps due to feeling they have nothing worth saying; perhaps others due to exhaustion, or simply because they have other more important concerns; or the more rare occurrence: those who must deeply sort out their thoughts, and doing so in a community of knowledge, with great exchange if not notoriety and popularity, and after forming many great cyber chess friendships, find that they got what they needed.
What would that look like? It might be a great list of books, swaths of recommendations employed and put into practice such as routines, or realization of the need to 'do CTS' or 'not do CTS', resolve to do the first Circle such as through CT-Art 3.0, Position Chess Trainer, the Steps Method, Chess Tempo, resolve to join ICC or get a USCF Rating etc. This also might involve the purchase of chessBase10 and having strangers send you files you NEVER asked for which took someone six to seven years of constant work (as I have done many times), or it can be the gift in one's email of a file you were going to laboriously construct but was instead generously given to you by a total stranger, such as the Endgame Part of GM-Ram from a British Master. God bless them all.
Then the friends. I met temposchlucker, and BDK, and Bob aka chipschap (chessRelearner, inactive here now), Blunderprone, likeForests, Tanc (lousy@chess), chessLoser (the inimitible hardcore pawnography ), ReAssembler, Robert Pearson . So we have knowledge, we have skills, we have exchange of sources and data, we have relationships and alliances, and in time we meet folks, exchange emails... and we got exactly what we came looking for! In fact, we recieved far more than could be asked for. So what is left then?
Do we wish to impress others when this wears out?, or to do we wish to chart our plans when truly our plan is (albeit for me to say not confused) but truly crystal clear so that you no longer have to talk about it--nor even seek reassurances from close friends? Do we wish to expand our horizons when we already have a beautiful bouquet of humans, the best of the best in a genetic algorithm or fractal of discovery?
It takes a lot of energy to maintain these relations. For how many can you truly know in the cyber world and when you do, which ones to keep or to pass on, nice and all but when the connection is not there or if it is there, too busy for even your best and dearest friends? What else can concern us? Read on:
My blood pressure went way up in the fall then I got a horrid rash. Then both my hands started to give out... Of course, my general health is excellent and my diet impeccable, so what to do? I went through a lot of genetic tests for gluten and dairy allergies, and even had my cordisol or adrenal function tested.
It's a mix of things. To some extent, it is my being very, very alive. It is going into awakening, so that sleep is rare or short. Think of a brain going from 32 to 64 bit--there are all the more boxes to move things around in! The wall between the two sides erodes, and all there is, is ENERGY, VAST energy. So some of this is old imbalance, such as my being an obsessive compulsive person, some of it my broken heart so that I never stop so as not to feel, some of it is the result of such a refined diet, I ALMOST CANNOT get tired. The other night, I went to bed at 7:35 am, woke at 11:50 am rested, worked ALL day, then did several hours of chessBase annotations late into the night, then at 5:30 the next day, I was not tired. That's barely 4 hours sleep in 41 hours. No one get alarmed. No armchairs docs, please. I already have a Holistic Doctor (MD)and a nutritional councilor to a comprehensive degree. Some of this is being so energized that its a lot to process....
Then letters and emails. temposchlucker wrote me, and I have yet to write him back. Then Tanc, and likeForest, when all three wrote me right away about my desire to be USCF rated and the prior a warm and engaging note. I could not, as yet, reply. It hurts not to. But when you sleep less, the amount of work piles up and there is MORE work, which creates more work...
Then from temposchlucker, I met Phaedrus, the king of men. And Tom Chivers of Streatham & Brixton Chess Club. I have Yasser Seirawan writing me EVERY day, sometimes long emails, and even then I cannot do it all... but some cannot be ignored, such as when we talk as what are formally called 'sophisticated investors', or when he replies to my questions as to his take on the FIDE Grand Prix, such as at Sochi now... or emails between he, my best friend Robert, and Phaedrus about global confusion and current affairs, of which there are not a few, all treasures for real.
I can continue if you want? There is the yahoo! UCO, or Unusual Chess Openings user group which has a lot of so, so content, but the 20% of it that is good is fantastic, so you need to skim it all. There is my rendering into chessBase each game from ICC's Game of the Week (Joel Benjamin, Fridays) and Attack with Larry Christiansen (Wednesdays). I have done them ALL. Not just variations boys and girls, but notes as to what is said. Email for copies. I copy all the major games from the Week in Chess each week, and annotate where many top level games, such as the recent Tal Memorial or the FIDE Grand Prix at Sochi.
One small detail? Don't forget I have the gmC or Global Middle Game Collaborative Project, managing a team of seven of us scattered round the world, and ONLY 4,158 chess positions involved?
Then I work a job, and cook all my own food and when not then busy slicing fruit, meditate every day, I read widely in economics, trading, and financial markets, I read all your blogs, and comment when I can, and I trade markets, such as the other day buying SLW (the largest silver mining company on planet earth) near the close at $10.50 then selling the next day at $11.50 for my entire IRA: 9.865% or such in 6 hours to the next day. All from watching Light Sweet Crude for the last six weeks fall from $150 US per barrel to $115, so predisposed to be aware of commodities. Then short the Nasdaq and last but not least, endless work on my now 1,100 recent GM games in 2007 to 2008 and 350 high level GM games that I have been annotating.
So, I must find a new way. Not with me, but you all.
So be advised, I still have much, very much to say. But my buffers are not mental or spiritual but physical, and willy nilly I must choose. And now I will have a new way of saying it. I will be back here again, often, and you all will see it. Its been there these last two or three months, but now it is clear how and in what way, and when and why.
Warmest, dk
PS:
I Monetize Trauma and Disturbance:
Since I wrote this post in early August, my retirement account is now up about 35% in four weeks and the cash trading account is now up 270% in ten trading days. This is not a typo. How many times have I checked the overnight futures during lunch, or the price of oil or the US Dollar, of the Japanese Nikkei, or the German DAX or British FTSE?? This is not luck. How many spreadsheets, and calculating while laying in bed, planning my next move??
And: My now aged father who has been undergoing treament for cancer of the tongue, is now informed that he must go for still more chemotherapy and radiation and it is treatable, but this does give pause. He was always big and strong and now has lost 45 pounds and can hardly eat. Remember, he is deaf, so loss of comfort in eating never mind speaking is horrid for him. Can you imagine? But he DOES have a very stong wife, who he happily joined with years ago, after leaving my mother.
And finally: I still work for a very large an amazingly brutal and large American Corporation, and they are eating their children again, and while my status is very high 'as it goes', I am still in the cross fire, as they have begun a new witch hunt. I don't mean loss of job, but absolutely hunting down every criticism they can make, all while asleep on the main watch while leading us, shouting down all approaches while it happens. The pain, the pain: the pain!! What did I find myself unexpectedly saying to my store manager last week, after some smart ass comment to me? Remember, he has a staff of 170 and holds my job in his hand:
"Don't you just love to beat people?!"
"You don't know what beating is!!" was his reply. 'What a sweet man', I am thinking to myself! Can you imagine?? Then he continued:
"There are lots of things I can say about you, but I am giving you a little thing instead" If you knew the context, you'd fall over.
"Tell me what those things are, I want to know" , and he was silent. I have a special prayer that I say for him, and the words are very, very specific, believe you me. Oh yes indeed, very specific for him!
You know the saying: never mind 'no take backs' but tonight, at FICS, a rigorous if not very, very advanced and most severely underated opponent asked for a takeback in an already demonstrably lost position after an honest and long fight, and without further ado, took me all of twelve or fifteen seconds, went into BabaChess and entered him into 'no-play'. Somehow you are advanced but when you slip you wish to deny it? NO. What I am suppost to do, somehow give up my struggle and give YOU a chance to win when you are trying to kill me?? NO.
When I slip badly, more often that not, I just simply resign. This is not a chess problem but a real overall lack of integrity problem. At ICC and FICS I have not asked for single takeback in 4,000 games in 2.5 years. Why is this so hard for some?
I for mine am inordinately proud of my 35.5% win to total game ratio. When I can add another loss, and quickly, I know that I am getting the appropriate punishement and surely becoming a better chess player. If only I could enter the Noosphere and have an even more respetible ratio of 29.99% I would only be so happy, so glad!
As we used to say in Zen and/or Martial Arts: "Thank you for teaching me"
White to move: [1.h4 h5 2.Kh2 g6 g3 resigns]. Black is in Zugzwang (think about it before highlighting the moves between the bracket) .
Is this really a terribly difficult or profound position? Not really. But at the beach today (after two days of work on our global middlegame collaborativeeffort, the reason for my relative blogger hiatus), I recognized the game instantly, and knew the game was based on the inevitable b5 push, and was a Nimzowitsch game.
I admit, my instant thought was Nimzowitsch-Johner, which of course it is not: it is the classic Alekhine-Nimzowitsch 1930 game. But having looked at thousands of GM games, I knew in about two seconds that it was Nimzowitsch. It does sink in. How many of you recognized this, or recognized the position at a glance?
Geartness: A Triumphant Nadal. The end of an era, doubtless painful for Roger Federer recently at Wimbleton
Lots going on behind the scenes. More latter. Warmest congratulations to blunderprone, likeForests, Getting to 2000, and chessLoser simply for making it to the World Open. Man. Also double kudos to likeForests, 5th in the unrated at the recent World Open in Philadelphia. Outstanding.
Why am I blogging less? It is the intensity of our gmC effort (only 4,158 positions, rendered by six persons, link above), and deep immersion on chessBase GM games (extensively) when not otherwise occupied. My passion and interest is not less, just am full, full, full and full.
American Swimmer: Michael Phelps chasing phenomenon and legend Mark Spitz in Olympic Glory: in pursuit of more gold metals, a body made for the pool!
Prolegomena To any Future Blogger Community, or ReAssembler, The Nimble Epicure: Essay Eleven
What exactly does applying to become a 9-1-1 Dispatcher for a large city Police Department have to do with being an epicure, a chess expert, an editor of a security magazine, and a parser of unusual English words? What does this have to do with phenomenology, or French Deconstructionism or Structuralism, German anthropology, fencing, demi glace, or vinology? Kind readers are invited to read on:
I think of myself significantly eclectic, but our subject for today wins the blogger Ne Plus Ultra Award for catholic breadth and scope, reaching far corners of learning, culture, and taste and--yes--this includes chess too. Without further ado: we now bring you Derek Slater to our series, otherwise known as what I myself like to express as reAssembler.
Before we embark on our essay, let us visit for a moment recent essays along these lines and, in so doing, reintroduce or recapitulate the Prolegomena Series dating from the summer at our blog here.
I commenced an essay series, of course, starting with the mighty Temposchlucker, the omnipresent and nearly unstoppable Blue Devil Knight, continuing through the superior in all ways Wormwood, then introducing the wildcard feature, including topics or guests such as Peter Norvig--Director of Research at none other than Google; the essays continued with ventures to Grandpatzer and Robert Pearson or Wahrheit, and some others too many to mention or elaborate here. Readers can find these in my archives at right (Chess Relearner, WFMU, and the once infamous but now good friend chessDog).
Since we left off last with Blunderprone as Essay Ten, and he hales from Boston, it is perhaps not at all inappropriate we continue our connnect to the Boston Brahmin's by picking up on Derek here.
I am very proud of having found Derek here before, I think, most of the regular bloggers seemed to have found him, sporting him high up in my blogroll from the very inception of my efforts to give the broadest inclusiveness to the list.
Early readers who are alert will recall that he used to call his blog Chess Cooking (housed at the svelt and savy and semantical Wordpress), of all things. What strikes us as apparent and still remains is how evenhanded and wide ranging his blog is. His blog is funny and engaging in the same way Liquid Egg Product's is--a not wholy unrelated associated alternate wordpress blog--but perhaps without the degree of Saturyday Nightlivesque Jocularity of the latter.
Derek is marvelous in his use of language, explicating the lattest etymologies for us less prolix or polymorphic or euphoneous writers, commentating on the lattest episode of Top Chef (yum, Padma Lakshmi's features and charms), or as the case may be bringing our attention to a new classic chess game of Nakamura against Krashenkow involving bombardement of heavy artilary such as not seen since the days of Morphy or Tal, writing about modern safecracking,
He exhibits his urbane, no fuss, no muss--use of English in a way that hardly gives surprise when discovered that he is a professional editor for CSO, a publication about security. That such a man entrusted me with his direct email was endearing to me, and while we do not correspond regularly, when we do it is never without profit or succinct charm. He is one of the rare chess bloggers to engage me on the stock market, humble in these ways, and never ever unappreciative.
If I were to come back to earth again as one of the other bloggers, creation would indeed tempt me to perhaps come back as temposchlucker, or BDK, or even Blundcerprone. I might even wish to be Grandpatzer, or Phaedrus. What could that be like?
Well, if I were temposchlucker, I might get to focus on myself free of distraction, like a vast combine in some vast Ukranian estate run by serfs relatively free of rebelion.
And if I were BDK, would get to experience keen inteligence unfettered by neurotic complication with an academic position, a wife, a dog, a triathlon training regimine, and the ability NOT to save (never mind all my books) all my papers and emails from as far dating as the paleolithic era. Why stop here?
If I were Blunderprone, I would get to be the head of a family, with a solid job, music, food, drug memories of the 70's, and a now a solid recovery and the bonus of great practical inteligence keeled by a giantly good heart; or if I were likeForests, I would get to see what it is also like to never express resentment or blame, with a daughter that I love, and, again, undistracted chess study??
And if I were Grandpatzer, I could see what it would be like to live without an emotional merry go round going on inside my head like a Carnival bar no other.
And the best for last, if I were Phaedrus, I would get to see what it would be like to be a chess expert, with a decent position in society, the sort of beautiful wife who never leaves me bored without fiery emotions and spice, and two adorable children that I truly love, and limitless tolerance. How can you not like all these possibilities?
But if I really had to come back to earth as another blogger, much as I would enjoy being tempo or BDK for a week or a month, I would first choose to be reAssembler. Why allow such a thing?
ReAssember, for me, affords the possibility of hard work while always appearing to have fun, a life always free of blame or vindictiveness, and subtle taste embracing food, current affairs and popular culture, words, sport, chess, and the lattest in technology.
How can we not admire others and respect them greatly without revealing so much about ourselves, but Derek seems to swim in life with much better shock absorbers than me, doubtlessly making for a smoother ride, and I truly admire than, all done without a hint of possible narrowness, and a good kind heart. I do greatly appreciate him, and hope that you will too!
Last night I attained a big milestone. For it was only last July that I resumed my close study of Grandmaster Chessgames. And after ten months of sustained effort, I have completed the second major tranch of game viewing. Because not only did I actually view or visit at least four hundred games since then [1]--by itself alone this is actually quite a sizable accomplishment--but in so doing incorporated another 3,496 Classic GM Chess games to my collection. This often meant going back and comparing among game versions--using the chessBase reference function [2]--and comparing versions side by side, not analysis for sure, but in so doing learning to recognize on sight many famous games and growing my game knowledge. This also sometimes having to manually enter some of the games. Yes, I am too lazy as you all know. Smiles.
As those of you who in the last year saw the game collection (or one of it's earlier versions) already know, I had elected to preserve duplicates games (while marking them for deletion but NOT deleting them), so the entire collection now amounted to as many as 3,991 Classic GM Games once the file was copied then compressed, of which I have now viewed 1514 of them. More on this at the end of this post, to wrap up this summary.
Trailer Parks in Palm Springs, California USA: Row after row of pitiful sameness
Also with my partner Phaedrus, I helped launch the gmC or Global Middlegame Collaborative, where we have produced much that has remained out of view and will remain so. Suffice to say, much writing and thus planning has already been accomplised since as early as March, and we have now assembled a truly great team, even including someone who was closely connected to GM Ram author Rashid Ziyatdinov. When you remember the wave coming from my post 'Raming GM Ram', this is for me evidence of true cosmic resonance and synergy.
And let me not fail to mention that we still have room for four more of the RIGHT persons. And this whole project takes a lot of time, since we must manage it. Each email takes time such as qualifying each person, answering questions, forwarding key emails, and the scope of the entire endeavor swells with each new person and the cross currents of implication mushroom each month. As Wittgenstein said [3]: "And the rest, is silence".
Corporal Life is one of the most unpredictable things there is
Along with that, we are now talking about my flying to Chicago for two days, to meet the Saxion University department chairman who must be there early this summer for a conference, and so the possibility exists that this could afford our first meeting, get acquaited in real time. This is wonderfull but of course involves more work. I say 'we' because while my application to be a professor at Saxion University of the Netherlands is seperate from gmC, early on it organically grew out of that collaboration, and so eventuated our now extensive communication. In fact, according to temposchlucker, I 'had hijaked Phaedrus'. Can you imagine! At CTS or chess tactical server, as my friends already know, I have now attained the rank of number thirty two for 'number of tries' out of some 2,742 tacticians. But far more significantly, I have finally surpassed Morkovkin in both 'accuracy' and 'tries' all within a few days at 83rd in rank [4]. Since this might only mean something to those who make effort there (or anyone else active at a 'hosted chess training web site' where comparative results are illustrated), this note must be brief:
Don't Mess With My Shit
First: you all know how you try, try, and try and on matter how much work you do, there is always somebody ahead of you. So that when the day comes that you equal then surpass this person looming over you in a key measure (or two!), it is a most pleasant feeling, even if you know that their real chess strengtt far exceeds yours. So whom I like to call 'The Mighty Morkovkin' is now below me now and will remain so.
Second: I will do another 7,575 tries at =>97.4257% (or one wrong allowed in every 38.8 tries) and be at 90.05% at 49,800 tries. Initially in my future planned effort I will use the last 200 tries to 50k to reach towards 1600 elo =>90.1% thereafter, so that one in ten wrong will be remarkably different than the 98.5% that I am currently sustaining (recently: 31f/1,969 = exactly 2,000 tries @ 98.450%). My target is 90.1% and aught not to be 90.0% because if you get to 90.00% and start to slip, mathematically the real prospect exists that you can fall to a true 89.9501% and not even know it (where 90.0% would still be indicated). So when in the future 90.1% is shown at my user profile I will know that I am => 90.05%, etc. Wew.
Lastly, as far as chess goes, I am almost finished with the first Reinfeld book as planned. Admittedly it goes slow at times (I love the book. So no--not 'that kind of slow') but don't use a board or a game viewer, and can spend days on a problem.
Problem 738 from Reinfeld's: 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations, Fritz 7 (5 sec.), 05.01.2003 1.Qxh7+ Fritz 7: 1) 1...Kxh7 2.Nxf6+ Kh6 3.Neg4+ Kg5 4.h4+ Kf4 5.g3+ Kf3 6.Be2+ Kg2 7.Rh2+ Kg1 8.0–0–0# #7/7 Line
Now, seeing Qxh7 is not difficult. Nor maybe even seeing Nxf6, but to see it through all the way to the end is not easy. I do NOT wish to rush this in seven circles fashion cum MDLM (and MDLM2), but instead experience the effort, instead of the imaginary realm of 'thinking that I did a chess problem' by memorizing it through seven interations all out of breath and never once 'seeing it', convering one's eyes like a child with one's fingers.
I get the same chills watching this video when I see Fischer, the younger Mohamed-Ali boxing, videos of Kasparov playing against Karpov. Impatient viewers go to the 3:17 mark for an astounding succession of volleys.
I have not been playing much chess, I must admit it. I had tried to play 'off and on' all winter, but gmC, Saxion, and the Classic GM Chess Game database, and finally CTS have all combined to take the best of me. For me, playing chess is all or nothing. I play to win. Of course, there is this same janus faced flip, where I do not play to win, but only to improve, but the tension is there between two distinct factors or feelings.
I continue to update my databases from my now beloved chessVibes, chessbase.com, The Week in Chess, ChessCafe.com, listen to audios such as John Watson's chess talk at ICC Chess FM, as well as of course, stay aware of if not view the major games of high level chess at the major tournement level.
In sales, there is a thing called 'call reluctance', which I never really suffered from, but all sales persons can have it. Well we can have what might in kind be called 'chess reluctance'. Playing live chess--for me--is not enjoyable when mentally spent, or mentally overstimulated. I am very, very, very 'type A' as a personality, and chess study gives me relief from that; chess play does not. I found enormous comfort in the routine of study, comfort in iterative programmed rounds of repetition.
Radjabov,T (2751) - Bu Xiangzhi (2708) [D15] 4th M-Tel Masters Sofia BUL (7), 15.05.2008
"White's next move is a bolt from the blue!" 24.Rf7
"Dennis Monokroussos writes: 'The game has a bit of everything: former prodigies who are now elite GMs facing off in a popular (but positionally grounded) line, a transition to a remarkable tactical moment too deep for many computers to handle, followed by an amusing and instructive endgame. It's a very smooth performance by Radjabov, demonstrating both his skill in positional play and his considerable tactical ingenuity (It also serves to remind us that tactics are generally needed to subserve strategic goals.)."
The game continued: 24...Bxg4 25.Bf6 exf6 26.Rxd7 Bxd7 27.exf6 a4 28.fxg7+ Kxg7 29.Kf2 h6 30.Ke1 Re6 31.Qg3 Be8 32.Kd2 g5 33.Kc3... and the Radjabov runs his white king runs up the board:
Alert readers might quickly associate this with the famous Nigel Short game (active link to chessgames.com applet) versus Timman:
'Black Resigns. There is no defense to 35.Kh6 and 36.Qg7#. 1–0'
I finally found time to get an additional two ram added to my dual core Dell XPS Desktop pc, and the first thing I did was to test this position (I plugged this in seconds after the Dell Service tech standing right here told me that the new ram was active!). Fritz8 couldn't find this move in forty minutes, but am sure that once I get a dual processor version of Rybka or the lattest version of Fritz11 will realize better use of all this speed. I went back to work after lunch, and when I got home, Fritz8 had of course finally seen 24.Rf7 but cannot know if this took only an hour, two, or four!
Radjabov is indeed a genius, as many of these guys are. How many billions of positions, at 900k per second, did it take to find what he realized over the board?
Speed and Power
I am now ready for a modern chess engine, but for long have resisted it, as I do not want to get too dependent on these 'critters', yet they do have their place in the search for 'real chess truth'.
And a few odds and ends: I continue to listen to every single IM John Watson 'Chess Talk audio'. The recent one from 05.13.08 where on GM Simen Agdestein discusses his training of 'The Mozart of Chess' was just fantastic. It was wonderful. But last night, I listend to all of his interview on 05.20.08 with GM Fabiano Caruana who currently lives in Hungary, but lived in The United States, Spain, and Italy (he has dual citizen there with the USA) [5].
If you are not an ICC member, then you are missing out. And if you are a member and not hearing the best of these interviews, then you are seriously missing out. I would have to say that this last one was the best of all of them, from Short to Shirov to Nakamura--but of course, all of these are really great. Here you get to walk into the training mind of a truly bright young man, in it's broader, heuristical senses. Please.
Did any of you know that Rybka lost a match in Mexico City, against Zappa (September 20-27, 2007 and concurrent with the epic WCC Chess Match where Kramnik gave up his crown to Anand)? I don't want to have to dredge up all the details now, but do recall something about the time frames not being ideal for it's creator Vasik Rajlich. Not my point. Did any of you know that Zappa was created by a student still in graduate school? You think he gets any job offers for his brain? Notes from Wikipedia:
Zappa (Zap!Chess) is a chess engine written by Anthony Cozzie, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The program emphasizes sound search and a good use of multiple processors. Zappa scored an upset victory at the World Computer Chess Championship in August, 2005, in Reykjavík, Iceland. Zappa won with a score of 10.5 out of 11, and beat both Junior and Shredder, programs that had won the championship many times. In the speed chess portion of the tournament Zappa placed second, after Shredder. In Mexico in September 2007 Zappa won a match against Rybka by a score of 5.5 - 4.5. Zappa and Rybka are generally considered the two strongest commercially-available chess programs. Some speculate that Zappa's more efficient SMP parallel search could make it stronger on enough processors. In March 2008 Anthony Cozzie announced that "the Zappa project is 100% finished", which includes both tournaments and future releases.
Displaced residents at Dujiangyan in Sichuan Province
I will have to continue this post latter, such as about some wholistic health things that have markedly improved, news of my father whom I fly east to see in nine days, and what I derive from all this chess work, and where I plan to go from here and specifically and concretely how I aim to make more out of less hereafter... It is very, very tempting to go on and write on gigantic post, but honestly, who wants to read it all? I must be realistic and split it up, when its banks already swell with gushing water!
[1] Since I took weeks off at a time from viewing classic GM games, this is actually a larger effort than might otherwise appear: when I view these games, it is at the rate of 25 per week (3 per day, and as many as 5 per day on days of--not as might seem only 1.2 games per day!
[2] And on rare occassion necessarily instead refering to chessgames.com (filled with errors! Do not depend on it!)
[4] While 83rd in rank for accuracy sound trivial, let it be gainsaid that only six tacticians of out 2,746 users at CTS defined as 'Active' have accuracy =>than 87.7% AND tries => 27,375 and that I am one of them.
[5] Lev Alburt on 5.27.2008! Rock and roll baby! Silman on 3.04.2008.
The Global eBook Middlegame Collaborative, today announces its inception.
Phaedrus, and Transformation, have organized themselves as a cooperative effort, to create an eBook generated from the lesser known--but perhaps the most comprehensively useful--of Lazlo Polgar's three books often referred to as Bricks. To do so alone would exhaust most mortals, so we purport to accomplish this by combined and shared efforts upon Polgar's comprehensive book: 'Chess Middlegame, 77 Types in 4,158 Positions'.
Ardent students of systematic chess improvement are invited to join. We only ask for your time, and necessarily of course, confidentiality as to our communications such as email and identities.
We do not require that you have any chess pedigree as to knowledge or rating or skill, but only readiness to begin in the next month in your weekly contribution of hours and effort. What you will get in the end is the same 4,000+ chessBase cbv file that we all will share and the interpersonal discoveries realized in collaboration in it's best sense.
In the first phase, ten of us will collaborate in creating a powerful chess middlegame study and teaching tool, in each rendering some 320 positions into pgn files, from Polgar's book. Sir Pino has generously offered to join our efforts, which means that we still have room for seven more persons.
The reward will be your possession of a powerful tool suitable for almost a lifetime of chess study. You will be able to do advanced thematic training with all the advantages which eBooks provide such as 'Annotations and Variations', 'Search', and 'Evaluation and testing lines' by chess engines. The printed book offers several disadvantages such as its being out of print and thus extremely costly to furnish; it is also not very easy to handle in being very thick and heavy. Moreover, our eBook will be an improvement upon the original, as it is already well known that the book can either be incomplete or have faulty solutions.
Of course, more needs to be discussed about phase two and phase three, and specifics about what is involved concerning agreements as to confidentiality and use since this is not a commercial venture and is for private use. For more information you can email us at globalmiddlegame@gmail.com.
Those of you who are already well dialed into the current chess scene, may not need to read this short post.
But for those of you who don't manage to get all the major chess news, it should get our attention that recently the third ranking Chinese GM Wang Yue placed second in a three way tie for first place at the recent first round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Baku.
He did so by beating out the likes of world number seventh, eight, and nineth Mamedyarov, Radjabov, and Svidler, as well as Karjakin at thirteenth, Adams fourteenth, Kamsky fifteenth, Grischuk eighteenth, and Bacrot twenty-third.
He shared the podium with first tie-breaker Gashimov at forty-two and third tie-breaker Magnus Carlsen at fifth in the world. You can be sure that those dudes gave him no breaks.
Back in the qualifier in Elista, in November, at ICC someone fingered a comment, saying: "Who is Wang Yue?" Well, I think that they all know now.
Sorry folks: hard as I try, I cannot get the embed to go directly to the specific video from round four. Instead, go directly to the video either at The Week in Chess or Europe-Echeces.com. Then select the first of the forth round videos: 'ROUND FOUR MUSIC, GAMES AND INTERVIEW' (blue tone to background image). Therein is found the discussion about the Chinese press by the Spanish Grand Master hired by the Chinese who is fluent in Chinese.
Secondly, this week at Sofia, Chinese first Bu Xiangzhi is rubbing elbows with the pedigree of Topolov, Ivanchuk, and Aaronian. This part is not big news. But what is big is that the Chinese press are there, this time, in droves as only the Chinese can. There is an army of reports and photographers, and this is big news in China. China is big and with the Peking Olympics in August, peak oil, and now the sorrowfull earthquake in Sichuan province, it is time we all recognize the Chinese effort in chess. Whether it is too big now, is not for any of us to say.
Did any of you know that the average ranking of the Chinese top ten is now third in the world at FIDE, behind of course Russia and the Ukraine (Israel fourth, with USA sixth)?
Today I finished my letter of application to Saxion University in the Netherlands. Such an event in and of itself might not be too significant, but in context represents--for me--an enormous accomplishment. Let me please elaborate:
Since February I have been one busy beaver. I have: added another 3,496 or so games to my classic GM game database, often in exhaustive detail or entering games by hand. This necessarily included much checking, since the 1,350 games from AngelFire.com honestly had great benefit while also unfortunately contained many errors (and I do not mean in analysis, but outright wrong or incomprehensible game scores). On Wall Street, we call this a big beta.
I have also been back to CTS, not in huge volume, but always trying to attain 100% each and every session. I am finally in the top 100 their for accuracy at #98 @ 88.33, which is significant seeing how I did my first 10,000 tries at 80.0%. I am pushing to get to 50,000 at 90.00% which is well within my grasp by October or December at the latest. I just had a run of 223 in a row correct, and have now done thousands at 97.0%, often between 1480 and 1520 elo.
February was significant in far more ways than one: I had the good fortune to make a great friend in Phaedrus. We now have over 2,000 emails between us. No, not all of them were long, but believe you me, some went on for pages. We will be announcing our project probably within a week to ten days, and have only to first finish our effort to see if we can get me to the Netherlands in a teaching capacity. It has been writing, and writing and rewriting.
In our chess project, I wrote a ten page project document to outline our agreements and procedures, and this is in parallel to the GM chess game database, the Academic efforts, and my medical stuff. Phaedrus and I finally got to chat, and we talked for over an hour last night, with his mediating his two sons in Dutch time to time in the background, as Mrs. Phaedrus was getting some much needed rest. This man is a real gem of a man is all I can say for now. Man.
Bold Imagination, 2001 A Space Odyessy
Unfortunately (please, no one worry, I am in great hands) while having the constitution of a real athlete, my life time of elevated blood pressure has seen a recent jump. Himmm you say? Yes, a new store manager. Let me leave it at that, the sweet man! We of course watch it, but need to make sure that I don't go over THAT edge.
My holistic doc, who is fantastic, had my adrenals checked, and this explains partly why I never tire. I mean the tachometer is up ALL day. I only go to sleep as a decision. He has designed a program for me to go on natural supplements, and aught to ameliorate the prior issue. The neighsayers will all come to roost on this subject, but can only note that my impeccable diet 'doesn't help here', and only reduces the need for sleep or to stop. I prepare all my own food and do it like a Dharma or fine art.
Amazona vittata, Puertorican parrot fledgling
Also, for depression, I have to stay on track with the diet, too, since he is greatly against antidepresents, saying they only mask symptoms. He also has requested a full blood panel, which we are waiting on, from the mainstream medical or preferred provider loop. I paid out of pocket for the adrenal test, and the gluten intolerance test, and the dairy intolerance test. Damn. I am totally surprised. I have the intolerance to the two latter, and his statement that it was a 30% chance I had the intolerance since I am half German was met with skepticism by me... All my life I could eat anything, but we aren't talking what you can eat but what you should not eat for optimal health as you age and alergies build up...
Long story, I had a horrid rash, and wanted to tear my skin off... and this has been addressed, you get the idea, this is just one part of my life... If only my diet were total crap, this could be a tool, but I am already in the top 99.5% in my diet for white males (married Asian males throw all these stats off). And people who meditate and do yoga, etc, often but not always see this same drop off in sleep, as they live with less screens, and screens rob energy. You take them away, and all you have is what the Dhamapada says: 'long is the night to he who is awake', if you follow.
No Comment
I have resumed to trade financial markets analytically and quantitatively and of course have built an analytic model of domestic equity markets measuring the standard deviation of sentiment, consolidated with the second derivative of the stock market. The problem has never been the accuracy of my model, but sustaining my use of it, sticking to the discipline of what it says rather than trying to get it to express predictions correctly. It's like instrument flying in clouds.
Daily again I am working my way through the last of Reinfeld's 1001 Sacrifices and Combinations, and if any of you have never been to the torture chamber, I can recommend it unconditionally.
Lastly, if any of you have made it this far, I am committed by myself to write on post daily at my integrative blog, The System of the System. Yes, I do have some ego here at chess improvement, but there comments are not critical. I write for myself [1]. I try hard to conceive these in no particular order, but, believe you me, I have a 'plan' [2].
Daily I write a short post, such as on Risk, Grace, Exploration, Results, Cost, Acceptance, Learning, Energy, and Feeling. Tonight after this post, and checking in on the start of the tension filled final round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Baku in a few minutes, I must finish my post on Distribution, and in the days ahead will write: Completion, Sexuality, and Information.
I know that I need to really work on being less superficial and I ask for everyone's forgiveness. :) May god bless you all. Love to all beings, Love dk ... .. . ------------------------------------------------------------
1. Now I know how Wormwood must feel ( *wait a second, no one knows how he feels, but I can *caugh* just imagine what he must... ). 2. Yes, yes, it is Polly's turn indeed. Previously I was able to pester Samurai Pawn, Robert Pearson (aka Wahrheit), and even finally got to chessLoser (aka hardcore pawnography), and never without controversy. Polly, what is your plan and if you have one, are you serious about it, or is it just the desire to wish to have a plan? Plans are nice, but it is the implementation of them where the rubber meets the road. A plan must be challenging enough to galvinize our actions into concrete daily steps, but not so large as to inhibit the flow of enjoyment and discovery. Phaedrus (aka Chess Vision) has also been asked, but he has so much chess rank, that my rub is more in getting him to concretize and formalize his plan than to improve his chess. He has welcomed my penchant for planning with great aplomb.
According to a very recent email from Temposchlucker (cf. comment today on spacejunk), I have hijacked Phaedrus, which is probably true, but then again, Phaedrus I know for a fact holds him in the highest regards. Soon I can give him back! Our plan is to... 'wait, wait, we must do one last little thing, then....' (DK).
If Grandmasters are the big heros of chess to the denesins of chess, then surely supergrandmasters are the superheros of chess. Did any of you see Rabjabov in his chessvibes video, in his powerfull win against Kamsky at the end of round nine at the FIDE Grand Prix?
It is hard not to see him as having great affectation, but really, this is the way he is. All these guys are smart, but this guy is a fucking genius. What, is English like his third language, but listen to him go! Links here. Sixth video down from the top. Of course, there are many many videos round by round, but THIS is the round to see.
You folks ever try holding your breath for 3 minutes and 4 seconds? Try 17:04 minutes. Insane.
You also really get to see the folks as they are. For example, Adams chess rank is beyond question, but again and again you get to see him shirk from the camera. This is not a big man, as a man, I mean only. And, quite the contrary, just listen to Svidler (forth video from the top). This guy is a man's man. No wimp at all. Perfect English. Just imagine that. All those cricket scores do sink in. Sardonic but authentic enough.
Hear his response at the end. OMG. As they say in the (USA) south: "not dumb'. This guy is speaking in a second language and uses words I don't use, such as 'far fetched'. Brain cells multiplicity. Or is that, rather, superabundance??
BTW: tonight, two hundred in a row correct at CTS. The key, to borrow a question from temposchlucker, intra email communication, pm PST tonight: 'Relaxation while calculating all posibilities', even if I somehow 'imagine that it is obvious" Trust me, the stuff you think is obvious is NOT and the the surety that what is obvious is, in fact, NOT obvious allows you to score 100% in lieu of 97 or 94%. More latter. Lots more about job prosect, finally the announcement about the 'project with leading chess blogger' next week likely, and finish of 5.231 Classic GM Game Database. Gave my email to an African American woman tonight, in 'the store": Opening line: "You are beautiful from the inside out". Man oh man.
Serious chess study is almost an absolute impossibility amidst the shifting sands of life or the churning seas of the ocean.
After years of integration, the miraculous is almost ready to happen: while assisting a customer, two weeks ago, with a routine question easily dismissed as 'not in my area' when the plumbers were otherwise occupied (read mischeduled or 'out to lunch'), I dove in with both feet and insisted on getting his question answered. I called our store in Bellevue. Imagine, you cannot call down the hall but must call another more trusted location: Bellevue in lieu of Seattle, which is, incidentally, not far from Microsoft in Redmond or Medina where no less than Bill Gates Lives.
Long story, fast forward: in the course of quickly giving him outstanding service, just for sport, not for money or honor, as I am want to do, he realized that he knew me. Ken, who I will mention in a second, recalled having invited me to his house four years ago for a New Years Party, all from a deep conversation in my former haunt in flooring which, again at our store, annoyingly included wire shelving: read cut myriads of wire shelving with irritatingly loud and dull phenumatic shears.
I decided upon a second encounter with Ken, not to attend, very deliberately not to attend with a courteous email to count me out. He seemed rambunctious, and I had quit drinking in September of that year, and was in protection mode from all possible or elective disturbance.
So we finally recognize each other, and have a connection which is vivid four years latter again, only he has changed and I have changed. He is present in the moment, as I am... "Gosh, how are you at computing? I am CFO of a start up, and we sure could use a person like you..."
I check the website. Oh my god.... this is it. I email him within 24 hours, and the die is cast. Four rapid emails at 1 am in realtime, and I decide to go for broke and test the waters, and send him a dk-esque email as you can all imagine, with ONE OF MY CRAZY PHOTOS, THINKING 'if this doesn't stop them, then this will be ok and I can be accepted'.
As I drove home, this is the first thing I heard on the Radio!
You know how he responds? "To work at L., you have to be a little bit crazy, and you will fit in perfectly"...
I read the Mezzanene B financing PDF and all kinds of alarm bells are going off in my head... interview set up, hours of preparation, read a 54 page doc, and watch four YouTube promotional videos. This stuff is cool, I am thinking, I cannot sell what I do not believe in. They need a Customer Service Guru and Ken saw me, all while taking care of him at the store, take care of swarms of persons calmly...
Today I had a several hour interview. He hugged me at the door. I used an example of the leasons learned in three marriages (not me = 0) off the top of my head, and he reaches behind him, shows me a photo of his wife, and it is his 'third marriage', yes, I tell him, 'I AM AN INTUITIVE'.
So this ties together architect, financial sales, CRM or customer resource management, buildings, and knowledge managment, project management , and contact management...
First interview with G: "Yes, you were in charge of OEM licensing at Microsoft and program management?" "Yes, HOW did you know that?" "Well, I read the whole report and it is all here", pointing at my head, "I had a photographic memory when I was 18..."
I raise issues about distribution, sub-prime crisis, intellectual property, the works.
I get the tour of the office, I hear Russian. From my job, I can recognize about fifty or more accents, including distinguishing Somali from Eritrian or Etheopian, Persia from Arabic.... we round the corner, and there is a chess position set up at a board, 'to capture the win for everyone'. Bunch of Russian Engineers! Here I am.
I take Ken down the hall, from the stair landing: pointing to the street directional arrows: "Did you ever notice that those match the company logo???!!!" "David, this is why I love creative people"...
I of course memorized the names of all their markets, no mention of Dubai... "Have you guys thougth about Dubai?" "You saw that?" "No, it just came to me now with Japan and Switzerland, Germany..."
The Entropic Break Point of our Planet: Aerial View of Burj Dubai and the Mall underneath
He said that had had other offers to sell and could go public, but prefer to build the company first. I mention Honeywell, Siemens, Motorolla, General Electric, then he says 'those are all obvious ones" but 'what about Microsoft or google?'. They are in wireless home automation...
These guys are grabbing me. Love is like that, business is like that, friendship is like that, the pets that somehow find us are like that, books are like that, spiritual teachers are like that, and even blogs can be like that. :)
I'd be surprised if I didn't get the job, but they must raise another million or two to get to six. Life is amazing. And, guess what? Out of 'the retail environment' I can join the USCF with more weekends free, a lot more in fact, and meet some more of you here, or on the road goodness sake!
My father died three days ago [link to youTube,Johnny Cash song, Hurt, ebedding disabled by request]. He had gone very far down, and as can happen, treatment for cancer of the tongue destorys the cancer, then kills you. His suffering is over. Well into his mid seventies, he could do things physically I cannot do today.
As many of you know, I lost my job the day before Thanksgiving. What a year it has been. While replenishing my income is a real need, more to the point, I never really recovered both spiritually, emotionally, and practically from when I left Wall Street in 2000 [1].
I turned fifty in October, and my job was gone within four weaks. The housing crisis hit building materials retail NOT in September of 2008, but had already arrived in October of 2007, when we saw all the signs. As I said many times, it signified how much value I gave Lowes for being able to keep my job in the next 13 months, under enormous pressure from senior management. But in the end, at my highest pay rate, a red bullseye sat on my forehead, and I challenged management often, go figure. Even if you are supposed to be the best, that has its limits. :) I say this with humor, I hope you all understand.
My oldest friend died of altzheimers two months ago. He was a bridge master, a chess expert, and even played tennis great Rod Laver in rounds at both Wimbelton and The Italian Open, such a talent. He hustled pool, took BASIC programming to its limits early in the day, read Wittgenstein, and was a gourment. He was a spy in Eastern Europe, learning fluent Czech in just three months at the Montery Language School. He had read all of Being and Nothingness as a lad and became president of the American Azalia and Rhodendion Society in his latter years, with the back of his left foot, learning the names of many of the plants in Japanese. It goes without saying, he was among the one or two most brilliant persons I have had the priviledge of ever knowing. He was my first real teacher, and what a teacher he was.
Three days ago, I signed up--after ten years of ardent resistence--for a clinical study in severe depression, with medication provided. All the visits are covered, and the providor is solid, solid, solid [2], all fully monitored, 24 access to Doc with pager... When I got home from my intake visit, the phone rang, and it was news of my dads death.
I have often said how psychic I am. All too true. I feel and see more than most want to receive, and am more sensative than most. Not knowing my dad had his last day, I RAN to the post office the day before he died, having writen him my first letter in four years (he was deaf, we did a LOT of email, but that in the end was beyond his capabilities), and mailed the letter. I got home, and could not stop crying. The phone rings--it's the clinic, and I am invited to come in the next day. I cry off and on all night. Off and on for hours. As I go to bed, I was thinking, 'if only I could have a contract put out on me, get drunk with the door unlocked and get shot in my sleep, it would conveniently be over...' [3]
The next day, I am in the clinic for five hours. I go to Lowes for the first time since November, to research major brands, having decided my only hope is to combine architect and territory sales, product representative roles, by researching major brands, all of which I know quite well, and also went to Home Depot. I can see what outsiders cannot in an hour, mapping major labels [4].
I get home, phone rings, dad is dead.
In one week: decision to go on antidepresents, go back inside Lowes for the first time in four months (another location, for sure, where I am not well known), and dad dies.
I still play chess, six to seven times a week, at FICS, and sometimes Y! or chessCube for minor warm up games, 1700 in latter, but no mental space to join USCF again, still. I finally finished Reifeld's 1001 Sacrfices and Combinations till the binding fully disintegrated, and have just done 1/8th of his 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate. I am annualizing 98.6% at CTS, and soon will hit 90.1% for 50,000 tries, something few in the world have done there. The Polgar project continues, albiet my current state a big hangup. I am starting to develop some blindfold skill, but mostly its in my sleep that I have it, when my heading is swimming in chess positions [5].
I want to write the big ChessBase post, but I have zero extra. My plate is full. Life is hard. Life seems over.
Those of you who are young--don't waste your life. If you see a girl or a boy you like go for her or him. Don't have a job you like--get out. Don't love you wife or husband--end it. Do what you love, take the chances given to you. The journey is a one shot deal. Loyalty, keeping promises, helping others, being authentic. Go to Europe or Asia, learn Arabic of German or Chinese, read the classics, learn to cook. Learn SQL and basic accounting. Learn carpentry and baking and homeopathy and how to cultivate organic vegetables and hydroponics.
Hold hands, hug, kiss, cry, laught, mourn, celebrate. Meditate, pray, share, listen. Like Robert Heinleins list of skills a man needs, go expand you palate to the maximum. Be nice to children and old people and the disabled, feed the homeless and give a bed to someone in need. And go ahead, and play a few wild gambits after drink.
Love dk
[1] Having almost a Senior VP title on your resume from Morgan Stanley THEN working at Lowes for six years after professional architectural practice AFTER living in a Zen Temple in Korea is like being hot iron brandished misfit, as far as the corporate world is concerned. Needle in haystack situation as far getting a 'job'. It like but being a refuge but only you are white middleclass, but might as well be a homeless drug addict felon.
[2] Not all is lost on me. I almost didn't qualify in the subjectivity test, since my physical health is so good, despite a great score on sinking mood. :) I continue to eat exceedingly healthily, just back from a 36 minute run, including hills five to six days a week.... When the psyhologist saw the numbers, my heart sank, but he left the room to go see the MD's, and said, 'Let me see what I can do'. Clearly, I not only belonged in the study, but could benefit enormously--and he knew it and I knew it. Mercy please, Lord. Yes.
[3] Armchair Doctors of the blogosphere, fear not. I DO WANT to live, but these are what are called feelings, defined in therapy as like/dislike.
[4] So the real rub of the matter is that I need to find a new direction. Technical sales, project management, program management open positions are flooded with applicants, not least of which WAMU, the largest bank bust in US history is from Seattle, so that 'on the margin', odds are 1: 400 or 500 I can find a job on the web. Prospective employers have their pick in detail here, of who they want: "We need someone who can do Quickbooks, answer four phones, do html, photcopy, mailroom, refill coffee machine, CNC die and toolmaker, knowledge of AutoCAD, SQL, Nissan Factory certified, AND perfect driving record, must be Ivy League, under age fifty, over age twenty-five, provide SS number, detailed references", at Seattle,Craigslist.com as much as $11 to 13 per hour by gosh! Wow! Not far from the truth. Fuck that. [5] Almost doesnt cut it, but dang it, I almost hit 1500 bullet at ICC and then missed it. 1500 bullet generally correlates (not alway, but usually) with a 1600-1700 blitz game and 1800-1850 standard chess. I am still trying... beating 1900's now and again, but also time to time losing to 1300 still, so not quite ready. My win loss ratio at FICS and ICC alike is about 33%, my pride and joy, badge of sustained punishment.
I have done a mountain of work beyond the view of most bloggers--hints:
Ten page letter to the Netherlands about a prospective University position;
Six page project planning document about a soon to be announced collaborative project with a leading blogger;
Mutliple tests in holistic mode, whereby despite having a diet in probably in the top 99.5% of white males in my age group, I am at that odd threshold of 'prehypertension' (one step from high blood pressure) where I probably cannot make marginal gains from diet but must do it with lifestyle, and state of mind.
My addiction to being DK what it is, that in my odd 49.55 years easily hundreds have said that I am 'as intense a person as' they 'have ever met'. Damn.
'The Mind Cannot Fix Itself'
'This is the shit' is more meaningful now. Test on stool for specificity on lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance, then four saliva tests, mailed today on adrenals. My holistic doc MD is looking at the big picture, believe you me. Rashes all over my body. High blood pressure: since childhood, but never to excess, but now inexplicably increasing. Terrable rashes as a child, now come to roost at age fifty, tried double rinse wash, new soaps, Aavion oat cry skin rash lotions, castor oil, all of it. Big picture time.
Processing another 1,953 games into my chess database of Classic GM Games, actually comparing them to the preceding 3,278 games, with chessbase, for accuracy, game length. Give me a drink. Chessbase orgasm, explodes through roof. Vertical.
Maybe all those GM games touched are not a complete and utter void? Two nights in a row, guest sessions at CTS: ready for my comeback, as more or greater than ever? 90% tonight at 1600 elo a hint of things burgeoning to come? "Test, test. I repeat", "Testing One, Two, Three".
Tehran: Swarms of Humanity Burst Our Planet. The Model does not work any more
At my employer, they finally had the good sense--despite my being senior level but non-managment--to ask me to have a lot more oversight. What is that? Authority comes not from job titles, but the ability to get others to do what needs doing? How true! To get others into correct motion and focus on the right task without the big title takes the ever so important: 'diplomacy".
Modeled from the most esteemed co-blogger Wahrheit, I need to quickly point out some nice leads on the web:
The ever acerbic Yermolinksy, at his Yermo Diary, also not without controversy, as indicated. Can you imagine trying to please this guy??
Usual same old jack ass anonymous all over, snipping at me. If I am so bad, the why the fuck do you keep paying atttention to me mother fucker? If you are so good, come here and talk to me in the light of day. As the Zen master said, grabbing the student by the throat, shouting, with blood curdling screams in a calculated display of rage to wake the student up: "WHAT CAN YOU DO??!!"
Who has not seen the Charlie Chan, top ten stunts, at youTube??
Props to the old XY, who while nevertheless coming and going from our sphere, hit the ball completely out of the park with this video, 'In Box Zero'.
For those of us caught in the flood ( * me* ) this is THE video. Six-partite quadruple bravo, in the tradition of prescient inteligence cum Peter Norvig, Director or Research at no less than Google?? Ne Plus Ultra indeed.
[1] I've been reading chessville.com for years, not least of which Wit and Wisdom of Nigel Davies but am indebted to the ever particular Dutch Defence Edwin Meyer for the reminder to be reading there again, having momentarily lost touch with them. Cornucopia II indeed!.
As is well known, chessLoser wrote a post to which I made a comprehensive comment, which precipitated many other comments, then even an Open Letter to ChessLoser by my very good friend and our most esteemed colleague Phaedrus. I hope that you all read it. Thank you chessLoser and thank you Phaedrus [1].
[1]. I wrote a post almost two years ago called Letters to a Young Blue Devil Knight, which is of course a backhand reference to German Expressionist Poet Rilke, who wrote the magnificient Letters to a Young Poet. It is highly recommended.
What if I told the kind reader that GM Ram by Rashid Ziyatdinov was a deep work? The more I look at it, the more do I find within it; the more I examine it, the more nuances do I find.
Silman gives an interesting review, as well as has a series of terse articles at his blog[1] by the author himself. One alert reviewer noted that the author 'is a mathematician and it shows', to which I heartily concur:
For example, the book has 256 diagrams. Could it be an accident that this is the square of sixteen, or that being an eight by eight board defines our royal game of chess and could contain exactly four full chess boards there?
Most experienced chess students who have examined the book know that it is composed of two major segments: the first consisting of 136 endgame diagrams [2] without notes or move order, and the second consisting of 120 middlegame positions also bare of identification, then at the same time, housing the full game scores following at the end of the book.
Some Things Simply Need no Explaination
My progress has continued through my carefully cultivated 3,274 Classic GM Game Collection in Chessbase9, and after months and years of effort, has me finally reach the 59 GM-Ram reference games as I approach the 1,562 game mark in this vast series mapped out by me long ago.
Here are some details about the book and its constituencies: while 14 of these games have only one illustrative key diagram, some 30 of them have two diagrams, and another 14 of them three diagrams. One game has four diagrams, totalling 120.
While Ziyatdinov provides 136 diagrams intended as source material for learning key endings to be 'learned by hand" (so well known that the student can know in his or her sleep the right answers, either as white or black to move--to win or draw, so that their solutions are automatic), alert readers who render the book into pgn or cbv files must really enter 272 positions. Again, the positions provide no hints and white or black to move are implicit choices in all those endings!
So this really would require not a database housing 256 distinct records, but in fact 392 of them!
Breathless Beauty!
My respect for this book knows no bounds. I resumed ranking each of my GM games, and had been rating them 1 to 5, with five as best. A grade of four or four-point-five is a rarety, but Mr. Ziyatdinov's book has many classic games that I successively rank 'stark raving' fives!
I will bypass the ending positions for now, and difer this unit till long after I have done a lot of other work, discussed extensively at this blog many times, but nevertheless fully intended by me not to be missed, and sternly included in my major chess study plan.
warmest, dk
[1] Substitute 2, 3... 9 in the web address for the full compliment of nine articles at the Silman site, or use the sloppy links embeded at Z's primitive web site.
[2] Essential Endgames =5 positions, K&P =19, Rook =28,Queen =6, Minor pieces =56, R & Minor 13, and Fortress =9, totals 136 positions.
Lewin in his well recommended Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos discusses 'lumpy interger constraints'. Kaufman of the Sante Fe Institute was contracted by Proctor and Gamble to see where savings could be derived in size of truck load, in preparing shipments. He analysed the entire supply chain, and found that they could save money (P&G) by shipping less than full truck loads, in dispensing time bottlenecks.
Similarly, Ziatdinov is mostly but not always forced to configure his book into units of sets of six, the postions per page!
Anyone got any LSD or other heavy drugs that I can take now? My brain valve setting is on now full. Then again, maybe Home Depot has a brain reducer valve back in stock that would suffice instead? Who needs drugs when you have an imagination? BDK: Kant rules.
Born in New Jersey and educated in New York, after practicing architecture, I lived in a zen temple in Korea, did a long stint on
Wall Street as a Senior Broker, studied with a guru who lived with Maharishi in India, and now recently and ingloriously unemployed after six remarkable years working for a big box retailer in building materials. I try to be pretty straightforward in my conduct.
With No Offence to Anyone: Old or Inactive Blogs [ALL above a MASSIVE SORT, and then, in kind, this below will be sorted next but for obvious reasons not important now]
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