Raming GM Ram

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.

Brief Interlude

I am still hard at it, and plan to continue blogging for some time to come. But right now, time is diminishing... My boat is full on several fronts:

1. A project under careful development on the side with one of our leading bloggers, which we will be announcing in the weeks ahead. Lots of writing, lots of emails.

2. Full intensity at my job, where more and more work is done with fewer and fewer persons, in less and less time. Tiring and demanding. The housing downturn has hit the building materials retail world, and those of us with jobs wish to keep them! In order to get a better job, it is incumbant upon us to still have a job, to bargain from strength, not weakness or dire hunger.

Once a month, I work 17 out of 21 days, and I am less than half way through this term. To start, this is 10 out of 11 days. Oh my god, this takes energy! It also vastly simplifies my social arena but also backloads creative time at the end, when I work only 3 out of 7 days, my most creative week of the month and richest in chess play and investigation.



Kasparov - Karpov NY 2002
See Kasparov's face at -1:08. Talk about stress and emotions!

3. I have returned to CTS, got my 40,000 at 88.3%, soon to be 88.4%; my main focus there is now shifted to this last push to 97.00%, by 10,000 for my second ID. Once that is done, I will finish with the first ID to 50,000 at 90.00% resolutely according to plan.

4. Playing at FICS again, every day if I can, but not always, limited by vital energy burnt at 2. (Job) above.

5. I am also back at viewing my Classic GM Game Collection. The GM Ram unit is particularly rivetting, as the games of Steinitz, Morphy, and Anderssen are of delectable and steller quality. Thank you again Takchess for the pointer.

6. An acquaintance who is now a close friend approached me about the possibility of either teaching at a University or consulting in Europe, and all the writing both to develop this channel or idea is another major piece of writing. Blogging is wonderful, but some things are far more important.



Tiger Woods is "only 32 and already is tied with Ben Hogan for third in career victories with 64". This Sunday epic victory is the third time he has won Five PGA's in a row.

"Woods is so dominant that he has won seven of his last eight times on the PGA Tour, the exception being a runner-up finish to Phil Mickelson at the Deutsche Bank Championship on Labor Day. He's an incredible 16 for 25 since the 2006 British Open." Echo's of Fischers 13 Wins in a row against Chess Grandmasters.

7. I was viewing the pgn of Seirawan's Winning Chess Endings, and made primitive efforts to view Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy, but given the magnitude of 1. (Project) and 6. (Overseas) above, I just have too much to do now.

8. On the side, as it is still winter, I cook a lot on my days off, and have made pot after pot of low-fat, completely delicious gourment soups. If only I had someone to clean dishes for me... :) ... I would do all the cooking in trade.

9. I turn 50 in October. Lots of shit to do before, believe you me! Lord almighty god.

10. Lunch and a long walk with GM Seirawan this Friday. Do you of you make outlines before you see your friends? :)













Our ways really don't work any more

11. The financial meltdown I have been predicting for the last year is here now. This goes beyong financial excess, but is a subset of human excess, entitlement, and disturbing socio-psychic imbalance, driven by a world gripped by capital markets at all cost, irrespective of human needs for health, sustainability, creativity, and fulfillment. Bush goes out, Obama surely goes in, but this only sustains the short term illusion of deliverance, when American excess must pay the piper amidst balooning debt spiralling out of control. Only sacrifices and re-engineering the way we live, move, and generate our energy can resolve this, not more economic engineering delaying the day of reckoning.



Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi. Can you cry?

April Oil is now US $107.00 per barrel, and China has the trottle turned 'full on'. Temperatures are raising and global warming is real. The complex adaptive system called our planet has gone from order to chaos, organized to chaotic, richly individuated to monocultural, and accumulative to dissipative. Please, lets not kid ourselves. The game is over. Life as we know it will never be the same and the future is now.

Warmest, dk

My New Method of Opening Study

The real meat of the video starts after about sixty seconds.


I laughed so hard that I was truly crying with glee! Is this what chess feels like sometimes?



Can you imagine? This gets especially good with about two minutes till the end. :) It might also be said that this second one quite well describes the experience of working for a large, mega-sized American Corporations within it rules and job requirements.