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.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Should Have Been Draw: Looked like Win?
First off, so that the usually kind but also always fussy Blunderprone can look at this post without jeapordising his career as an 'engineer in embeded technology' in a state so liberal, that it makes Ralph Nadar look like a 'staunch Republican' there, I am leading off with a lovely photo of the delightful 'Mrs. Helmsley.
Just think about the fact that the beautiful woman in the lead photo of my last post is so indecent that in some places of work it is considered inappropriate yet this below photo is appropriate or non-offensive but so ugly. Remember 'The Joker' in Batman? [0. de facto insert]:
Since this is a chess blog, now is not the time to glorify her many 'ugly miss deeds' and ranchorous life, cronicled in the New York Times here. I simply note, that when she recently died, she and her widow had scraped their way into a four billion dollar fortune, squandering oppulent luxuries and along the way filling tabloids and press alike with page after page or misdeeds, conflict, betrayal, and the worst vindicitive form of hatred.
When she died, to the chagrin of her beneficiaries, she 'left left her Maltese (a Dog! Photo and text clip at link), Trouble, a $12 million trust fund to take care of his upkeep. I cannot but wonder if she had directed that money to poor children in schools if she might have died a less indignified death, partially redeeming her irredeemable life.
Remarkably, 29. ...f6 in deep analysis seems to almost hold in all lines: 30. fxe4 is a draw, and 30. Nd7 seems to win, but only after deep analysis [1.]
In the game below--which I convincingly won--I had to wonder if my opponent had played 'the only move' to try to hold the game, if theoretically the game could have been held by my opponent, but only after very deep work across many lines could I find the win.
For days [2.], I couldn't help but wonder if LikeForests [3.]could find a solid draw [4.]. And while it is very, very, very rare for me to send GM Seirawan my games, knowing he can read a game score blindfold without recourse to a viewer, I think that he could tell me if there is a draw, and will probably send it to him, after conducting then concluding my analysis:
[0 insert: I came to the independent conclusion of the obvious 'joker' similarity before checking now, after posting, to see if I might find an even better photo, and it appears others saw the same thing shown here. Some other flattering images. Really Ugly face? No. I have met many severely disfigured persons at my job {5.} and none of them are ugly. But ugly soul? Yes.]
[1.] Analysis not concluded, but indicated at 4. below] [2.] It's nice to present new posts. But I strongly debated NOT posting this game. For the more we show, the less it seems can readers distinguish something as special. At the same time, the more we show, the more readers come to the conclusion that renewed visits will result in fresh content. Sometimes we only want to show our best, and not the flavor of the day, three or four times a week. But I have worked on this ending for two long sessions now.
[3.] Remarkably, LikeForests notified me of his new post, but I was writing this post the last hour, without knowing he had analysed my last posted game, here! [4.] 29. f6 30.Nd7 Rc1 31. Kf2 Rc2+ 32.Ke1 Bxf3 33.Rb7 f5 34.Nf6+ Kf8 35.Nxh7+ Ke8 36.Ng5 Bg4 37.h3 Bh5 38.Nxe6 Re2+ 39.Kf1 Rxe3 40.Ng7+ Kf8 41.Nxh5 gxh5 42.Kf2 Re4 43.Rh7 f4 44.gxf4 Rxf4 45.Ke3 Re4+ 46.Kd3 Rh4 47.Kc3 Ke8 48.Rg7 Rxh3 49.Kb4 Rh2 50.b3 Rb2 51.Rh7 he 52.Ka4 Rh2 53.b4 Kf8 54.b5 and wins!
{5.} I estimate that after 100,000 phone calls in buying 100 to 150 million dollars worth of stock, that in my new career that I have met 500,000 persons (at least 1,500 persons per week). Other persons similarly engaged as I am with a wide and random public come to similar conclusions--or more!
Game for All Those Who Think Increment Bullet is Always Brief!
In the viewer below, in this game I used 5:24 on the clock, and my opponent used 4:14 (adding 4 sec increment per move. Not bad for a game staring with ten seconds on the clock! I finished with 0:38 and he 1:28). This game is proof of just how long or involved an increment bullet game can be. It was not error free, but I pulled off the ending: 88 moves!
While the opening had one really rough spot (even in a bullet opening, had you hesitated somewhere over a thorny problem or accessment, at some point you might have only ten seconds for one single move--unlike 5/0 where you can spend a minute to start out, in obtaining a set up) and while the middlegame contained one gigantic error (37. Nf7+, forgetting my enprise Rd1), the ending assumed study like or problem like proportions, but I managed to find my way, with some help from my opponent, of course.
But, lets admit it, although I was not free of some major errors (repeat if I haven't said it enough: THIS IS BULLET!), I also had many more chances at the end to go wrong and pulled off the win, and dodged many a 'bullet, no pun intended. Having played as many as 2,800 or so bullet games after ten months, and executed as many as 28,000 'CTS tries'[1] since then, much can come of it! Enjoy:
[1. chess tactical server, a free web hosted, chess tactical site with 16,000 registered users].
We have all heard of ways to build a repartore; we have all heard of ways to use Bookup. And whether or not he provides the final word on top of Steve Lopez's fine essays (both at chess Base.com [1] then latter at chessCafe.com) for aspiring class B's, nascent class C's, or A's looking for new polish, is beyond me. But I recognize the very finest in chess blogging when I see it, that raw, fresh, original, truly inspired stuff we all dream of. And, most of all, he incents us to new thinking, and I respect him greatly, and hope that you do too.
A year from today, I turn fifty (hopefully in saying this, I won't run the small risk of being 'inundated with unauthorized credit card bills', but the price of authenticity is not too great for me). This is a time to gather the last before winter.
If I could ask one tiny favor of all of you, every single one of you, it is to please drop by his blog and make a nice comment. That would be the finest birthday present anyone can give me today. He deserves our accolates and serinades. So far, outside of me, only one Knight or friend of a Knight has made a comment to him, that I am aware of [2]. Great chess, great blogging, great practical intelligence, that man, the creator of GrandPatzerBase and, for me, the provocator of uncanny chess database yearnings.
This short note or essay follows as an addendum to my previously writen: Prolegema, or Kant Help it: Wahrheit, Grand Patzer, Part II, whereby Essay Five is consolidated within or below Essay Six. Prolegomena To any Future Blogger Community, or ReAssembler, The Nimble Epicure: Essay Eleven was commenced on September the 16th, but is in draft, and other work must come first. Warmest, dk
One little picture for me, for my birthday. GP, hope you don't mind!
[1. Conveniently summarized under Support, at chessBase, across a wide range of issues such as Fritz, ChessBase9, and Product Reviews, etc. From here, you can find all the rest of 'it'] [2. What is the saying, I think I saw at Reassembler's Blog: "What is a day in blogging without comments?"]
This game is an true embarrasment [6:30 pm addendum: They are usually a lot less sloppy and if I drop a piece, it is usually one piece, not three!, but does show a certain wildness; it is a random selection, being my last games last night: 3w/12L/1d=16... the crap you play half asleep or when you should be asleep.
What is the saying: "Dance like nobody is watching..." but here, it is play because you simply want to play. I believe Blunderprone truly best understands this state of being, the best of all of us...the late night "what if I care?". I don't usually do that, but was tired and didn't want to stop, lossing seven games on time, and don't usually do that].
But since I usually resign lost games (I am that kind of player, and respect most folks and hate stupid games that go on forever that are lost to my opponenent and refuse to do that to others in turn) yet given his skill and rating, had to play it out. I won. Bullet craze (0/4)= usually about 2:45 per side or 5:30 for both sides, to as much as 3:30 or 7:00 for both sides. Without further ado:
Lots to say to my friends here, lots to do, lots to polish in a viewer, but to my good friends at chessBlogger, this is simply way better than nothing! I promise to continue to deeply research the best way to do this. Notes by Ignoramus's PGN viewer helped enormously, and it is still a minefield of difficulties and distinctions I don't quite need yet (my goal is first to study, then to play, then to share what I find and accomplish), and THEN to polish things like this THE RIGHT WAY. But that must necessarily come last in my hierarchy of needs (at this time, as they say)!
[addendum, late last night, Sunday:] What did the Wall Street Journal say, was it, in 1997 about SAP R3, "The demonically difficult German Software"? FYI, my client at Morgan Stanley was the Senior Partner at the big six public accounting firm Deloitte and Touche who concurrently implemented this at Microsoft AND Boeing at once, recalling to me, that--was it COO--le enfant terrible Bob Herbold [1] told everyone at Microsoft 'that there would be no delays allowed, and that we are going to stay on a fixed schedule' and, by gosh, they did:
dk in a coffee shop after fifteen emails with/from temposchlucker and an entire day trying to make my embed work like Getting to 2000's!
Folks like Porku show the right way using a LT-PGN-VIEWER which evidentally has many variations and flexability. While it allows self control it also takes a lot of fuss. Other information is shown at 'The Quick and Dirty Guide to Using LT-PGN Viewer' by Edward Gaillard, linked by the Kenilworth Chess Club here, with anther example here. Getting to 2000 has perhaps the the best example here. I love this clear, crips, congent easy method. He posts a diagram, then provides a link to an external web page. Opinions, ladies and gents??
Above is my first shot at a viewable game of mine.
It's not anywhere near the chess publishing level of 'Getting to 2000's' above, but, again, it's well enough to see the chess without duct tape, superglue, and banded string! BDK has kindly and often assisted me, looking over my shoulder in many html distinctions and areas, not to mention dogged insistence (here) on no one using txt (and slightly here). My goodness! Lots of little steps = big steps. Remember, 16 months ago, I never moved one spot of html in my entire life. :)
This is all very, very important to me. I am to visual phenomenom what a fish is to water, and I hate crap [ugly but works, see the Andrew Grove, or ICC variety here; and the recently trumped chess.com variety here (No disrespect to BDK but I don't like this site; again, with no offence to the great blog by polly or Castling Queenside, she has the chess publisher variety which, to my architect trained eyes just is not satisfying, similar to the ESPN and Sports Illustrated like chess Videos.com). Rook Van Winkle has another variety that is truly marvelous, which I have not researched]. [This one bychesspastebin.com, per BDK's kind mention in comments below. Bravo. I will try it! Thank you!] ChessVideos.TV is yet one more application with an example here. [addendum: 10/26/06 from a fabulous example that I found last night, in re-visiting Glenn Wilson which shows the depth to which one can use the LT-PGN viewer, where all the games are shown on one page, which cannot be bad. Shown here! Nice job Glenn!!]
I will get this right. But chess it is, and here is--yes, you guessed it--my last game, of which I am duely proud, so let the chess begin, and let me get back to my chess (I played 63 games last night over 5.5 hours of play. After only 4.2 hours sleep last night right afterwards, and a fifteen minute nap today, I am NOT tired and so very hungry for blood now).
[2] In the odd way of life, I made all the rounds with the top labor and employment attorneys in Seattle, after leaving Morgan, to see if I could sue their ass for, believe you me, I was not the only one who did wrong ('It was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indianappolis 500' Col. Kurtz in epic Appocolypse Now), and made it as far as the senior partner at a big law firm, telling him my story for 2.5 hours, and, at the end, he told me: "I'm going to have to go in a bit, because I have to take the deposition of Bob Herbold tomorrow for EIGHT HOURS for a client of mine, against Microsoft. Mr K. this is a very big matter you have. For the way you were treated, I think that Morgan Stanley should be horrably and mercylessly punished. Since Washington is an 'At Will State' (can fire without cause: read all is written and indemnified for the BIG companies to be inviolable and migrate all risk to the employees with large stakes), and given your contract with them, I really don't think you have a case. I am recommending you get on with your life. But since this is such an important matter, I am recommending you get a second opinion from XYZ who specializes in reading theexact facts. He can do it".
It's very late here in Seattle, so most briefly. Kasparov continues to impress, and is of course making all the rounds to the key media here. Bill Maher, who is interviewed here, is just not my kind of guy or 'cup of tea' but the word is is that he is an astute man.
Be sure to hear what Chris Matthews--another talking head here in the United States [1]--says at the end, off his shoulder:
Talk about resourcefullness, depth, and perspective. Article in chessbase, as usual also here.
[2. I'd rather drive cross country in an ultra compact car like a Kia with three great daine dogs with funky phantom discussing my feelings MORE than listen to Matthews, who cannot seem to talk without interuption, a pet peave of mine.]
Gary Kasparov was on epically funny American satirist comedian show, The Colbert Report. As can be more than expected, he is nobody's fool at all, and displays his trade mark not only mental accuteness, but bristling physical presense if not machismo:
Chessbase.com also picked up on it here and partially shown below:
'Kasparov on Colbert 'Stephen Colbert... American comedian and satirist... the roving reporter for Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show"...created his own spin-off, "The Colbert Report". On this fake news show Colbert, who is extremely intelligent and very liberal, plays the role of a dull-minded and right-wing patriotic American. ...In 2006 Colbert was invited to the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner as a speaker, which in hindsight may not have been such a shrewd idea by the Administration, since a comedian cannot be counted on to hold back his punches [video]... He has won three Emmy nominations and was, like Garry Kasparov, named one of Time's 100 most influential people in 2007. Many people think he is the funniest human being alive...
'Wednesday... Colbert had a legendary former world chess champion on his show, whom he introduced in typical style: "My guest tonight is Grandmaster Garry Kasparov. Finally, someone else who sees things in black and white!" Kasparov was well prepared and seemed to take control, spewing gags which occasionally Colbert did not seem to catch – or was he just a bit stunned that his guest had taken charge of the banter? Note how he reacts to Kasparov's remark about "self-awareness and not wrist awareness," which is an insider jab at Colbert's broken wrist...'
Only 252 bullet games in seven of the last eight days. With one day off, that amounts to 31.3 games per day. I played till past seven a.m++ the last two nights. Mind you, I get off work at 11 p.m. but having been going to bed at 8 or 8:30 a.m.
Recently, as my gluten free diet kicks in (more on this next post, and this is just a taste, no pun intended), I admit to never being tired, and after four or five hour live chess sessions, I am not tired after three hours prepartion before that. :) In the last four nights, I have had only 19.7 hours sleep. Only two naps Sunday night, and one last night, no more than 20 minutes each three days ago then only 7 minutes last night.
This last bullet game--to me--shows why LOTS of slowish (but still timed) tactics at CTS (chess tactical server) can still boost a chess players strength and sight of the board. You are basically going from habitual 9 to 22 second drills, to a game averaging four to five per move for EACH of the moves. :)
Technically, 11. ...Nd4 is not a crusher, but in bullet, you throw problem after problem at your opponent, and, if they start to drift, the clock starts to flag. Remember, this is increment bullet. In 'normal' 'real chess', such a move as this is NOT devastating.
But he missed it. Thereby, suddenly out of nowhere I find a crushing attack, that EVEN I who originated it hadn't seen--but quickly realized that I in fact had. At first all I saw was an easy pawn win, or a tiny little trap. All he needed to do was move 12. Qf2.
We tend to start out in increment bullet with a resouvour of time, since after ten moves, you might make them in a second each, and then have a time bank of forty seconds. But then you or they start to really think after the usual flurry. You do actually plan, but you do it fast! So when you throw them a zinger, they might after a moment of--say--twenty seconds sit back and take it all in, and when you uncork a move, they then freeze and as if they said: 'holly-molly, now what do I do?' and now as the clock comes down to eight or ten seconds, they (or I!) have to move.
Good bullet players can feel the clock. I don't look at the clock much. In fact, I am truly amazed at how often when I do move and then get to actually have time to look at the clock, amazed at how often there is only 8 or 12 seconds left, etc.
You say to yourself: 'I know that I have to move now'. As temposchlucker more or less said in his marvelous recent post, much of chess has these micro strategies or positional plays, and each can add 0.1 or 0.2 to a position. So you learn to make a decision on demand. In bullet you learn to move on demand, every single time. And since you cannot calculate it all, you must necessarily feel it, and so much feeling is bound to resolve into recognizable level of play by definition, since randomness is fairly evenly distributed.
Now, very technically, 19. ...Nf5 doesn't quite work. I usually only fritz or examine my bad losses that were painful lost 'wins in the bag' to see where I went wrong, or, in this instance, to relish 'pretty wins'.
While fritz shows f5 as very strong, and follows from another second or third best move (in retrospect), 17. ...Bc6, bearingly down unrelentingly against the painfully placed white Q at f3. Also, my Rf8 nascently pressures this file.
And here is my point. The N move to f5 is disturbing. I admit, I saw at a glance Rxc6 (perhaps immediately after I made my move had reconsiderations), and suspected my move might be bad, and as the clock ticked, was worried. But he didn't take the B at c6.
Isn't that called 'hope chess?' Yes. But in bullet, we are both in this same rush, and when you throw complications out, there just isn't always time to find the best recourse. And, of course, I was convincingly winning either way, but just faster. We never try to make a worser move, but in bullet, sometimes a second rate move is the one to set things off balance or 'create imbalances'.
In real chess, we'd all get to see this, but bullet is a game of instinct, and with 0/4, many a game go to + 3 min, and offer decent endgames, which I have had into the high 4 minute range--avoiding the ruination of 5/0 penultimate and final armaggedon terror.
A copy of my note just now at CTS (chess tactical server), when chessDog asked "Did anyone catch the show on the savant Kim Peek 'The Real Rainman' I dont know if that guy has ever played chess but he could easily dominant this website by simply memorizing every problem!?" (short video version, here:) As I wrote at CTS: "On a side note with regards to Kim Peek: yes, there are chess folks like this. In a personal conversation with the Worid Junior Chess Champion, in one of our long walks together, who till recently was in the world top 75 in FIDE elo ranking, and at one time was in the top ten or so in the world, beating Kasparov and Karpov alike (the prior several times, as few have done, and the latter three times in a row at blitz, the latter saying to him: 'No one else has ever done that to me the 2nd K said'), he who it is best for me not to mention in this circumstance by name but well known in identity to my friends or readers of my blog, said that it is
'Widely understood by Grandmasters that Vassily Ivanchuk is probably autistic. He also loves poetry, and has memorized one hundred Russian poems. I asked his wife,'why did it not last? Were you both too young?' 'No. That wasn't it at all. With Vassily, all there was chess, chess, chess, and more chess'.
Another look of true disturbed genius!Or, as Nietzsche said in Beyond Good and Evil: 'Whatever happened to me? Did the sirens fly over my table?'
As many of you know, Svidler can go into a deep think often closing his eyes, but it is one thing to play blindfold, and another as a habitual way of being or thinking to calculate chess in great depth without a a board, seeing or knowing better in his own head what others cannot see with a board! He is often seen staring into space--away from the board--for long periods of time. A true Genius. His elo now? 2787 puts him firmly at number two in the world--ahead of all but Anand, and of course ahead of the likes of meerly Kramnik, Topolov, Leko, Morovzevich, Mamedyarov, and Rabjabov! And absent from Mexico City. Boo! Boo! Boooo.
[Addendum Sat 13Oct2007: I have added the following game from last night to the post below with other games. I am very proud of this particular game, relative to time spent. The thing to remember is that these games are only 2 to 3.5 minutes each. In this game, I used only 1:28.3, and finished with 18.3 seconds on the clock. My opponent used only 1:13 and had 33 seconds to finish.
Try finding 19. Nxb7 in one to two seconds, about how long it took me:
Playing again, and finally the form is starting to come back. No books or extensive CTS or even CT-Art 3.0 can equate to live play. Link here and here for sound effects.
Again, for all those who say that bullet 'is of course not chess' please see the following two specimens. While I made one bad mistake in this game, I did manage to still pull it off. It is often said that ones form is comming back when you start winning lost games! I finished with fifteen seconds on the clock.
And there I was, in that 'internal dialoque' so discussed here(!) and I am saying to myself: 'DON't loose the Knight or a pawn in front of my king!' but, as Emerald Lagasse says on FoodTV, 'BAMM, BAMM, BAMM'. It is so hard to get it when, in an increment game, you MIGHT have five seconds left to move SOMETHING!:
Anyone with now regularly good photos, such as tempo, pose a serious threat to my position, so now I must work extra hard :)
As before the last time I published one of these, no need for a Hegelian or hermuneutical analysis, or a Laplace Transformation--just quick, brutal chess, where there is no time to ponder deep uncanny things ala Botvinnik. The execution is brutal:
[Event "FICS rated lightning game"][Site "FICS, San Jose, California USA"][Date "2007.10.12"][Time "02:37:38"][Round "-"][White "dk"][Black "adrotrico"][WhiteElo "-"][BlackElo "1400"][TimeControl "0+4"][Mode "ICS"]Result "1-0"]
Getting better at chess, the higher our performance, becomes more and more challenging. Or, as is said in systems theory: 'The most highly organized systems require the greatest energy throughput'.
Lastly, I am pursuing the old beloved 97.0% at CTS as dogWaste, and not many out of 2400 users have done that.
The Test of Time: Comparing the Relative Strength of Historic versus Leading Chess GM's of Today
I once knew a Doctor Beck who was a best friend of a best friend. This same Doctor Beck was the one who introduced me to my guru, and for whom I helped take a mere $700 U.S. and turn it into $50,000 U.S. in a single transaction, buying Incyte Genomics at the bottom of the biotech decline in 1999 and selling at the top WEEKS latter in the NASDAQ apogee, the realization of SEVEN years of independent analysis by me. He went out and bought a used Mercedes Benz, taking me joyfully for a ride with his partner Janet. What does he do? He writes the last letter to Morgan Stanley to get me fired, so this is not wholely unlike Paul who betrays Jesus. What does this have to do with chess or the gravitas of Doctor Nunn or tactical or puzzle bent? Listen I will tell you.
I knew another Doctor, Doctor Clark, who’s house I lived with in North Carolina, after returning from Korea in 1982, and he was a real alcoholic—you know them. You cannot believe it till you’ve seen it: entire Glad bags filled with large whisky bottles in a slow suicide. He spoke four languages well, and was a PhD in philosophy and had taught for years, having read all of Pragmatist Charles Sanders Pierce’s Notebooks in their entirety for learning and pleasure. He used to get drunk and using his dentures for accent, could make perfect Spanish ‘R’s. He used to say that being an attaché to a General in France or Germany after World War II, that he knew all the words for ‘essence of mind in German’ but didn’t know ‘knife’, ‘fork’, or ‘spoon’.
Now this first so called ‘Doctor’ who earned his PhD in an online course on line, in his case the University of Phoenix On Line, used to always say, “this is Doctor Beck calling”, so as to get good service or make himself important. The second one, Foggle, used to do the same, calling restaurants in tiny country Southern Pines, to get a reservation, saying: “This is Doctor Clark”. You get the idea. The first hardly legitimate. The latter certainly so, but we find this same uncertainty of their own certainty of their own pedigree.
We have some major PhD’s in our circle, and they don’t use that BS that I know of. We have NSA operatives who are simple country folk, we have all kinds of amazing people, but the real PhD’s don’t brandish this crap. They have it. They own it. They are it.
And now Dr. Nunn. John Nunn Hardly needs my introduction. He was a ardent problem solver from youth, went to Oxford, studied mathematics, and was “once in the world's top ten, Nunn has twice won individual gold medals at Chess Olympiads. He gained the International Grandmaster title in 1978 and in the same year was awarded his doctorate in mathematics by University of Oxford for a thesis on finite H-spaces. In 1989 he finished sixth in the inaugural (and only) World Cup, a series of tournaments in which the top 25 players in the world competed. His best performance in the World Chess Championship came in 1987, when he lost a playoff match against Lajos Portisch for a place in the Candidates Tournament". He is no less than a cofounder of the cutting edge Gambit Publications from the U.K.
Nunn in the last three years “won the World Chess Solving Championship in Halkidiki, Greece, in September 2004 and also made his final GM norm in problem solving. He is the third person ever to gain both over-the-board and solving GM titles (the others being Jonathan Mestel and Ram Soffer).”
Now this guy is a real Doctor if you ask me! Without further ado, his marvelous comments taken directly from IM John Watson’s Book Review #83, from 03September2007 at chessCenter.com:
'You might find it unusual to write a column about chess history and biographical games collections and then include a book of puzzles, especially one written 8 years ago! As a set of problems, John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book is a good one. Nunn takes his test positions from actual games, often between leading grandmasters. Be warned that it is also a very advanced book, in that the majority of exercises would be extremely difficult for the average player to solve. In fact, I think that the book is most helpful for strong players, say, 2000 and above, who want a real challenge. Even grandmasters might get a tough workout solving these positions, and they could well be part of a master's tournament preparation. For the record, I was impressed by the subtlety of some of these positions and showed a few of them on my Chess.FM Internet show.
But that has nothing to do with the reason that I've selected this book to talk about. Rather, I'd like to describe a fascinating and potentially controversial section that Nunn incorporated into this book, one that seems to have escaped notice in most book reviews: his historical comparison of older, pre-World War I players to modern ones. Nunn calls this section 'The Test of Time'. I'm going to essentially take Nunn's own words to give an abridged version of his goal, technique, and results. Thus you will read one of the least original reviews of all time, but learn about a fascinating endeavour. I feel that his is a brilliant analysis of this longstanding question, and easily the best solution ever offered.
First, Nunn discusses various methods for trying to make assessments of the relative strengths of the players. I'll quote a portion of this:
"One of the great perennial questions in chess is: how do the great masters of the past compare with the leading players of today? Like all really interesting questions, it is very hard to answer. It is even possible to disagree on the ground rules for the comparison: for example, should you take into account the development of chess theory over the intervening time, and not mark down the old masters for their naive handling of many opening systems? There have, of course, been many attempts to tackle this question mathematically, using rating calculations. At one time such efforts depended on manual computation, but today it is possible to use computers to tackle much larger samples. The simplest approach is to take a very large database and pretend it is one huge tournament which is played over and over again. If you assign every player an initial rating of, say, 2000, then as the tournament is repeated the familiar names of today's leading players gradually float to the top. When the ratings have stabilized, you can then perform the purely cosmetic tidying-up of adding a constant to all the ratings to bring them into line with the current Elo system (because your initial guess of 2000 might have been wrong). Of course, this final step makes no real difference, because it doesn't affect the ranking positions in the list. If you do this with the well-known MegaBase database, you end up with a slightly surprising result: the modem players end up at the top, with the old-timers lagging well behind.
"At first this seems a reliable method, but after a little more thought doubts arise. First of all, there is the selection of games. It is easy to see how a bias in the original database might skew the final ratings. For example, databases tend to be far more complete and detailed in modem times than in historical times, so modem masters will have ratings based on a full record whereas the data for historical players may be patchy and based only on a few major events. In certain databases historical players are often represented by a fair proportion of non-tournament games from exhibitions, friendly matches, etc. These tend to be preserved far more often if the famous player wins than if he loses, skewing the ratings in favour of the older players..."
"Even if it were possible to assemble a complete selection of games, there would still be uncertainties. If, at some point, there were a general advance in chess strength, this method might fail to detect it (since a player's rating will be based largely on games against his contemporaries). Moreover, a purely mathematical system raises other questions. A player's career typically takes the form of a period of ascent, a plateau near the peak of his strength and then a gradual decline. If one omits all Capablanca's games after he became World Champion, then his rating shoots up, since games from the 'declining' period have been eliminated. This may affect Fischer, who retired while at his peak, and many modern players, who have not yet had their 'declining' period."
This is great stuff, if ultimately unrelated to Nunn's final solution to the problem. He next describes his goal and approach:
"My main interest is in assessing how much the overall level of chess has changed since the pre-First World War period. My method of comparison is not mathematical, but is based on an actual analysis of games. While this introduces an element of subjectivity into the process, it affords a direct comparison which is valid across any span of time.
"One could undoubtedly devote a great deal of time to this subject and produce an academic treatise, but this is a puzzle book and so my discussion will be more limited. I decided to take two tournaments, one from the historical past and one recent, and analyse all the games in the two tournaments looking for serious errors. Since I wanted a fairly large sample, I chose tournaments containing a considerable number of games. My historical tournament was Karlsbad 1911 (325 games). This event seemed to have the qualities I Was looking for: top players such as Alekhine, Nimzowitsch, Schlechter and Rubinstein, together with only moderately familiar names such as Perlis and Fahrni (I did not want to restrict my assessments to the very top) and a tournament book by a well-known player (Vidmar) to help me find errors.
The final scores from this event were:
Karlsbad 1911 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 Teichmann,Richard * 1 1 1 ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 18.0 2 Rubinstein,Akiba 0 * ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 1 17.0 3 Schlechter,Carl 0 ½ * 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 1 0 ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 17.0 4 Rotlewi,Georg A 0 ½ 1 * 1 1 0 0 1 ½ 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 16.0 5 Marshall,Frank James ½ 1 ½ 0 * ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 0 1 ½ 1 0 1 1 1 15.5 6 Nimzowitsch,Aaron 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ * ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 1 1 ½ ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 1 15.5 7 Vidmar,Milan Sr ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ * 0 ½ 1 0 1 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 0 0 ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 15.0 8 Leonhardt,Paul Saladin ½ 0 0 1 ½ 1 1 * ½ 0 1 ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 13.5 9 Tartakower,Saviely 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ 1 ½ ½ * 1 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 13.5 10 Duras,Oldrich 1 0 1 ½ 0 1 0 1 0 * 0 0 ½ 1 0 0 ½ 1 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 13.5 11 Alekhine,Alexander 0 0 0 1 ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 * 0 0 1 ½ 1 0 ½ 0 0 1 1 1 1 ½ 1 13.5 12 Spielmann,Rudolf 0 1 ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 1 * 0 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 0 0 1 0 13.0 13 Perlis,Julius ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 * ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 1 ½ 0 0 0 0 1 12.0 14 Cohn,Erich ½ 0 0 1 ½ 0 1 1 ½ 0 0 0 ½ * ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 0 0 ½ 1 1 0 11.5 15 Levenfish,Grigory ½ 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 0 ½ * 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 0 1 0 11.5 16 Suechting,Hugo 0 ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 1 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 * 1 1 0 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 1 1 11.5 17 Burn,Amos 1 0 0 1 ½ ½ 0 0 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 0 0 0 * 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 1 0 0 11.0 18 Salwe,Georg ½ 0 1 0 0 0 1 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ 0 1 ½ 0 1 * 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 11.0 19 Johner,Paul F ½ 0 ½ 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 ½ 1 ½ 0 * ½ 1 0 1 1 0 0 10.5 20 Rabinovich,Abram I ½ ½ 0 0 0 0 ½ 1 0 ½ 1 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ * ½ 1 ½ 0 1 1 10.5 21 Kostic,Boris 0 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 0 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ * ½ 1 1 0 1 10.5 22 Dus Chotimirsky,Fedor I 0 ½ 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 ½ * 1 0 0 1 10.0 23 Alapin,Simon ½ 0 ½ 1 1 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 1 1 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 * ½ ½ 0 8.5 24 Chajes,Oscar 0 0 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 ½ 0 1 0 1 ½ * 0 1 8.5 25 Fahrni,Hans 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 ½ ½ 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 ½ 1 * 0 8.5 26 Jaffe,Charles 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 ½ 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 * 8.5 The recent event was the 1993 Biel Interzonal (468 games according to MegaBase), with players ranging from Kramnik, Kamsky and Anand to Gluckman and Kalesis, As with Karlsbad 1911, a couple of the very top players were missing.
The leading final round 13 scores from Biel were:
01 Gelfand B GM BLR 2670 9.0 31690 02 Van der Sterren P GM HOL 2525 8.5 31545 03 Kamsky G GM USA 2645 8.5 31470 04 Khalifman A GM RUS 2645 8.5 31390 05 Adams M GM ENG 2630 8.5 31345 06 Yudasin L GM ISR 2605 8.5 31340 07 Salov V GM RUS 2685 8.5 31285 08 Lautier J GM FRA 2620 8.5 31280 09 Kramnik V GM RUS 2710 8.5 31240 10 Anand V GM IND 2725 8.0 31435 11 Epishin V GM RUS 2655 8.0 31305 12 Lputian S GM ARM 2565 8.0 31275 13 Shirov A GM LAT 2685 8.0 31195 14 Ivanchuk V GM UKR 2705 8.0 31125 15 Sokolov I GM BOS 2610 8.0 31030 16 Portisch L GM HUN 2585 7.5 31855 17 Bareev E GM RUS 2660 7.5 31580 18 Sveshnikov E GM RUS 2570 7.5 31515 19 Abramovic B GM FIDE 2460 7.5 31140 20 Polgar J GM HUN 2630 7.5 30850
72 players
Mark Crowther comments (Source for the table: http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/9496fiix.htm) incidently it seems that the result in MegaBase 2007 of the game Dreev - Gurevich (2) is wrong, I believe it should be 0-1 (not 1-0 as given in ChessBase), presumably on time. I discovered this when trying to create a more detailed table for this article.
The method I chose to examine the games was a two-step process. I reasoned that a good way to eliminate differences resulting from 80 years' advance in chess theory was only to look for really serious errors - if you blunder a piece, it doesn't matter whether you understand Nimzowitsch's pawn-chain theories or not."
[Watson: Notice this important step. I'm always hearing (and reading) that "If the players of yesteryear could only catch up with opening theory, they'd be as good or better than today's players". The funny thing is that the many years (usually decades) of study that modern players put into opening theory should not only count towards their strength, but that study and practice contributes vastly to their understanding of the middlegame and even some endgames. The silly idea that you can just 'catch up' in opening theory ignores the vast undertaking that this would involve, especially to absorb the vast number of openings and opening variations necessary to a complete chess education. Nunn removes this factor from the equation, to the enormous detriment of the modern masters' strength assessment! Surely this will roughly equalise things? Let him continue: ]
"To analyse almost 800 games from scratch by hand would take years, so first I used the automatic analysis feature of Fritz 5 to look at the games without human intervention. It was set in 'blundercheck' mode, which fitted in with my objective of looking for serious errors. Then I examined 'by hand' all the points raised by Fritz to decide whether they were genuine blunders or products of Fritz's imagination.
"I had no particular preconceptions about what the results of this search would be. Like most contemporary grandmasters, I was familiar with all the standard textbook examples from the early part of the century, but I had never before undertaken a systematic examination of a large number of old games. I was quite surprised by the results. To summarize, the old players were much worse than I expected. The blunders thrown up by Fritz were so awful that I looked at a considerable number of complete games 'by hand', wondering if the Fritz results really reflected the general standard of play. They did. By comparison, the Fritz search on the 1993 Biel Interzonal revealed relatively little; many of the points raised had already been examined in the players' own notes in Informator and elsewhere. I had originally intended to have the Karlsbad and Biel positions side-by-side in this chapter, but the results were so lopsided that I decided to concentrate on Karlsbad here. Some of the more interesting Biel positions may be found scattered throughout the rest of the book.
"In order to be more specific about Karlsbad, take one player: Hugo Süchting (1874-1916). At Karlsbad he scored 11.5/13.5 or 'minus 2', as they say these days - a perfectly respectable score. Having played over all his games at Karlsbad I think that I can confidently state that his playing strength was not greater than Elo 2100 (BCF 187) - and that was on a good day and with a following wind. Here are a couple of examples of his play:"...
[Watson: You have to get the book to see these examples of Süchting's horrendous mistakes and misunderstandings. Nunn also has talks about more positions, and then includes a section of 30 Karlsbad "puzzles", representing all of the players. The positional mistakes by the top players are particularly telling.]
"How, then, did Süchting manage to score 11.5 points in such company? Well, he did have a couple of slices of luck - Duz- Khotimirsky overstepped the time limit while two pawns up in a completely winning rook ending and Alapin agreed a draw in a position where he could win a piece straight away. However, there were some games where Süchting might have hoped for more; he certainly had Levenfish on the ropes (see puzzle 184), and he agreed a draw in the following position against E.Cohn:" [Diagram follows] "It is hard to understand this decision, as with a clear extra pawn Black certainly has very good winning chances and could proceed without the slightest element of risk."...
"Returning then to the question as to how Süchting scored 11.5 points, the answer is simply that the other players were not much better. If we assume Süchting as 2100, then his score implies an average rating for the tournament of 2129 - it would not even be assigned a category today. Based on the above, readers will not be surprised when I say that my general impression of the play at Karlsbad was quite poor, but the main flaws did not show cup in the areas I expected..."
[Watson: Here Nunn shows that openings weren't a problem in this tournament for the older players (who specialised in a few systems). Then he points out the generous time-limits in Karlsbad. Having eliminated those factors, he gives three reasons for his the weak play of the Karlsbad group:]
"The first was a tendency to make serious oversights. It is quite clear that the Karlsbad players were far more prone to severe errors than contemporary players. Even the leading players made fairly frequent blunders. Rubinstein, for example, who was then at virtually the peak of his career (1912 was his best year) failed to win with a clear extra rook against Tartakower ... He also allowed a knight fork of king and rook in an ending against Kostic..."
"The second problem area was an inclination to adopt totally the wrong plan...[examples follow]..."
"The third main problem area was that of endgame play...[horrendous examples of elementary blown endgames follow]..."
[Watson: In the course of research for a book, I made a lengthy look at endgames from a comparable period and found similar butchery, including some terrible blunders by top players such Lasker. The endgame skills of the great masters - excepting Rubinstein - are much exaggerated in books, for the reasons that Nunn gives, i.e, the understandable selection of a very small set of games for reasons of instruction and beauty.]
Nunn goes on to discuss the treatment of games in older tournament books, comparing them with today's analytical approach. He addresses an obvious objection:
"Doubtless, some will respond by searching through contemporary tournaments and finding errors just as serious as those presented here. However, a couple of words of caution. Remember that all the examples given here were played in one tournament. Of course, it is easy to present a player as an idiot by listing the very worst blunders from his (or her) entire career, but that is hardly the point - it is the frequency of errors which is important. The second cautionary word concerns the method of measuring the frequency of errors. You cannot just take a tournament book and count the number of question marks; modern players are far more critical and objective than their predecessors. Although there are exceptions, tournament books from the early part of the century seem to be strong on flowery rhetoric but weak on pointing out mistakes. You actually have to analyse the games to obtain a realistic assessment of the standard of play; one day, perhaps, you will be able to feed a selection of games to Fritz and it will come back with the players' Elo ratings, but that day has not yet arrived."
Nunn's argument makes sense to me, and I can subscribe to its conclusions. Of course, it would be interesting to hear from someone with a contrary point of view.'
Location: Tacoma-Seattle, Washington, United States
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, did a gigantic stint at a big box retailer in building materials.
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Most recently was running a Cloud Computing start-up in NJ, but starting over here in Tacoma where people are very nice, and where--aside from out of mainstream urbanism--I love the weather.
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Me? I try to be pretty straightforward in my conduct. In 2012 worked for a crazy big company, and wonder why, but what is it called, a market.
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I am not easily forgotten. Vanity? Yes. But it is also true that the older I get, the less can I be ignored. I have things to say, and say them. Take it or leave it, I am who I am. I have paid my dues. I have done my time.
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]
Since this is a chess blog, now is not the time to glorify her many 'ugly miss deeds' and ranchorous life, cronicled in the New York Times here. I simply note, that when she recently died, she and her widow had scraped their way into a four billion dollar fortune, squandering oppulent luxuries and along the way filling tabloids and press alike with page after page or misdeeds, conflict, betrayal, and the worst vindicitive form of hatred.
Since this is a chess blog, now is not the time to glorify her many 'ugly miss deeds' and ranchorous life, cronicled in the New York Times here. I simply note, that when she recently died, she and her widow had scraped their way into a four billion dollar fortune, squandering oppulent luxuries and along the way filling tabloids and press alike with page after page or misdeeds, conflict, betrayal, and the worst vindicitive form of hatred.
