Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Just a Real Time Server Game
Yesterday I played three server games at 15 minutes per side. I lost one to a 2300+ player who was ‘using.’ How do I know he was and engine user? All his moves were the engine’s first or second choice. In one of the other games my opponent was rated a hair under 1700 and must have read that chess is 99-percent tactics because he set up the Colle formation, sacrificed a P, then the exchange and then a B, all in the first 10 moves and left himself with a Q and N with which he attempted to conduct an ‘attack’ before disconnecting a few moves later. The other game was more interesting and the ending was quite funny. My opponent realized his game was lost so after his 29th move, being one of those dog pukes who simply disconnects when he’s losing, he disconnected instantly when I played 30.Ra7+ which blundered a whole R!
Take a break...
The Sons of the Pioneers are one of the United States' earliest Western singing groups. Since 1933, through many changes in membership, the Sons of the Pioneers have remained one of the longest-surviving country music vocal groups.
In the spring of 1931, Ohio-born Leonard Slye—the cowboy singer who would later change his name to Roy Rogers—arrived in California and found work as a truck driver, and later as a fruit picker for the Del Monte company in California's Central Valley. He entered an amateur singing contest on a Los Angeles radio show called Midnight Frolics and a few days later got an invitation to join a group called the Rocky Mountaineers.
In the spring of 1932, Slye and two others left the Rocky Mountaineers to form a trio, which soon failed. Throughout most of 1932, Slye and another member moved through a series of short-lived groups until Slye finally joined Jack LeFevre and His Texas Outlaws, who were a popular act on a local Los Angeles radio station.
In early 1933, Slye and others formed a group called the Pioneer Trio and later that year the "Pioneers Trio" became the "Sons of the Pioneers" through a radio station announcer's chance remark. Asked why he'd changed their name, the announcer said they were too young to have been pioneers, but that they could be sons of pioneers. The name was received well and fit the group, who were no longer a trio.
By the summer of 1934, the Sons of the Pioneers' popularity and fame spread across the United States through short syndicated radio segments that were rebroadcast all over the country and they signed a recording contract with the Decca label, and on August 8, 1934, the Sons of the Pioneers made their first commercial recording. Between 1935 and 1984, the Sons of the Pioneers appeared in 87 films, several movie shorts, and a television series.
In 1938, Leonard Slye was offered a contract as an actor with a rival movie studio. Part of that deal required him to officially leave the group. Leonard Slye changed his name to Roy Rogers, and went on to achieve major success as a singing cowboy in the movies. When their contract ended, the Pioneers signed a new contract to be with Roy and were soon appearing as highly popular supporting players in many of Roy Rogers' movies.
In 1971 members Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer were both elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 1976, the Sons of the Pioneers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1977, the Smithsonian Institution named the Sons of the Pioneers as "National Treasures". In 1995, the Sons of the Pioneers were inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The group has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6845 Hollywood Blvd. for recording.
In the spring of 1931, Ohio-born Leonard Slye—the cowboy singer who would later change his name to Roy Rogers—arrived in California and found work as a truck driver, and later as a fruit picker for the Del Monte company in California's Central Valley. He entered an amateur singing contest on a Los Angeles radio show called Midnight Frolics and a few days later got an invitation to join a group called the Rocky Mountaineers.
In the spring of 1932, Slye and two others left the Rocky Mountaineers to form a trio, which soon failed. Throughout most of 1932, Slye and another member moved through a series of short-lived groups until Slye finally joined Jack LeFevre and His Texas Outlaws, who were a popular act on a local Los Angeles radio station.
In early 1933, Slye and others formed a group called the Pioneer Trio and later that year the "Pioneers Trio" became the "Sons of the Pioneers" through a radio station announcer's chance remark. Asked why he'd changed their name, the announcer said they were too young to have been pioneers, but that they could be sons of pioneers. The name was received well and fit the group, who were no longer a trio.
By the summer of 1934, the Sons of the Pioneers' popularity and fame spread across the United States through short syndicated radio segments that were rebroadcast all over the country and they signed a recording contract with the Decca label, and on August 8, 1934, the Sons of the Pioneers made their first commercial recording. Between 1935 and 1984, the Sons of the Pioneers appeared in 87 films, several movie shorts, and a television series.
In 1938, Leonard Slye was offered a contract as an actor with a rival movie studio. Part of that deal required him to officially leave the group. Leonard Slye changed his name to Roy Rogers, and went on to achieve major success as a singing cowboy in the movies. When their contract ended, the Pioneers signed a new contract to be with Roy and were soon appearing as highly popular supporting players in many of Roy Rogers' movies.
In 1971 members Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer were both elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 1976, the Sons of the Pioneers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1977, the Smithsonian Institution named the Sons of the Pioneers as "National Treasures". In 1995, the Sons of the Pioneers were inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The group has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6845 Hollywood Blvd. for recording.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Pachman on the Cybernetic Machine
In my 1963 edition of Pachman’s Modern Chess Strategy he wrote a brief section concerning chess and the ‘cybernetic machine.’ By cybernetic machine he meant computers. He wrote:
“There has been talk in recent years of building a chess automation or more precisely using a modern cybernetic machine (i.e. an electronic apparatus capable of solving extremely difficult mathematical and logical problems) to play a game of chess or solve chess problems…It is a simple matter to teach the cybernetic machine the basic rules about the movement and capturing of pieces, check, mate, stalemate, pawn conversion, etc…But that is not enough; the machine must actually play. For this two methods can be used."
"With the first, the automation examines all possible variations and selects the best move by rejection. This method can be employed for solving problems in which the number of possible move is relatively small…the machine must examine an enormous number of variations and despite the extraordinary rapidity with which electrons work, the process takes a lot of time. It is quite clear that this method cannot be used for playing a game…If the machine had to calculate for only seven moves in advance in a position with thirty alternatives, it would need 10,000 years to select the right move!”
“The second method is to teach the machine the most important principles of strategy and tactics. A cybernetic machine can solve not only mathematical, but also logical operations-even extremely complicated ones. And, after all, the principles of strategy and tactics have a logical form. This attempt was also made in the Soviet Union and the machine was indeed able to play a game of chess: but it played very weakly and was beaten by an average player...how could this result be possible…the reason is that play at the chessboard crosses the limit of logic and enters the field of dialectics (the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions). This is a field that is outside the scope of even the most perfect machine: it is a field of activity reserved for the human brain and will always remain so.”
Pachman gave a mate in three problem that appeared in Chess in the USSR in 1956 and observed that a cybernetic machine solved it in 12 minutes but he was able to do it in one minute. Out of curiosity I decided to test it out with today’s engines.
The solution is 1.e8B Kxf6 2.g8R Ke6 3.Rg6 mate. Using only a single core on my laptop the mate in three was found instantly by Houdini 2, Stockfish 5, Fritz 12, Critter 1.6, and Naum 4.2 while Komodo 8, Gull 3 x64 and Rybka 2.3.2a all found a mate in four instantly and after one minute were still showing only a mate in four. Eventually they all found the mate in three though.
Pachman’s thoughts on the subject remind me of the time I found a box of Popular Science magazines with dates ranging from 1912 to 1920 at the flea market. One issue had a letter to the editor from a university physics professor explaining why space travel would never be possible. Will chess ever be solved? The usual answer is no, but don’t forget Pachman’s words in 1963 that to calculate for only seven moves in a position with thirty alternatives would take 10,000 years to find the right move.
“There has been talk in recent years of building a chess automation or more precisely using a modern cybernetic machine (i.e. an electronic apparatus capable of solving extremely difficult mathematical and logical problems) to play a game of chess or solve chess problems…It is a simple matter to teach the cybernetic machine the basic rules about the movement and capturing of pieces, check, mate, stalemate, pawn conversion, etc…But that is not enough; the machine must actually play. For this two methods can be used."
"With the first, the automation examines all possible variations and selects the best move by rejection. This method can be employed for solving problems in which the number of possible move is relatively small…the machine must examine an enormous number of variations and despite the extraordinary rapidity with which electrons work, the process takes a lot of time. It is quite clear that this method cannot be used for playing a game…If the machine had to calculate for only seven moves in advance in a position with thirty alternatives, it would need 10,000 years to select the right move!”
“The second method is to teach the machine the most important principles of strategy and tactics. A cybernetic machine can solve not only mathematical, but also logical operations-even extremely complicated ones. And, after all, the principles of strategy and tactics have a logical form. This attempt was also made in the Soviet Union and the machine was indeed able to play a game of chess: but it played very weakly and was beaten by an average player...how could this result be possible…the reason is that play at the chessboard crosses the limit of logic and enters the field of dialectics (the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions). This is a field that is outside the scope of even the most perfect machine: it is a field of activity reserved for the human brain and will always remain so.”
Pachman gave a mate in three problem that appeared in Chess in the USSR in 1956 and observed that a cybernetic machine solved it in 12 minutes but he was able to do it in one minute. Out of curiosity I decided to test it out with today’s engines.
The solution is 1.e8B Kxf6 2.g8R Ke6 3.Rg6 mate. Using only a single core on my laptop the mate in three was found instantly by Houdini 2, Stockfish 5, Fritz 12, Critter 1.6, and Naum 4.2 while Komodo 8, Gull 3 x64 and Rybka 2.3.2a all found a mate in four instantly and after one minute were still showing only a mate in four. Eventually they all found the mate in three though.
Pachman’s thoughts on the subject remind me of the time I found a box of Popular Science magazines with dates ranging from 1912 to 1920 at the flea market. One issue had a letter to the editor from a university physics professor explaining why space travel would never be possible. Will chess ever be solved? The usual answer is no, but don’t forget Pachman’s words in 1963 that to calculate for only seven moves in a position with thirty alternatives would take 10,000 years to find the right move.
Komodo 8 vs Stockfish 5
In any case the results of the first match was Komodo 8 won +9 -8 =33, but only when it won the last game. As a result of the match being so close rematch, also of 50 games was run, and this time it was Stockfish that took victory on the last game by a score of +8 -7 =35. Final result +16 -16 =68!
When I reviewed the Komodo 8 engine on my book review Blog I wrote:
In answering the question as to which is best, the $60 Komodo 8 engine or the free Stockfish 5 engine, it depends on what you are going to do with it. If you are SERIOUS about playing on ICCF or LSS and have 8 or more cores and are willing to devote a tremendous amount of time to preparing your own well researched opening books and spend days analyzing positions, then by all means spend the money for Komodo 8. If you’re like me and only have a quad core laptop, play correspondence for fun and like to experiment with different openings (I have played the Sicilian Wing Gambit, the Urusov Gambit, the Grob and stupid stuff like 1.a4 and 1…a4, none of which have been outright refuted!!) then stick with Stockfish 5.
Based on the final results of a match at a decent time control it appears I was wrong. You might as well go for FREE and use Stockfish 5 no matter how much gear your computer is packing.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Lilienthal’s Q-Sac
Andor Lilienthal, the last of the original 27 GM’s, died at his home in Budapest in 2010 at the age of 99. Lilienthal who is largely unknown today, played 10 world champions and beat 6 of them. He was the last living GM to have played and beaten Emanuel Lasker; he also had tournament victories against Capablanca, Euwe, Botvinnik and Smyslov.
Lilienthal learned to play at 13 and never had any formal training. He honed his talent playing in the coffeehouses of Europe at a time when chess was reaching the heights of its popularity.
In his book, Chess Was My Life, Lilienthal described encounters in 1929 with Capablanca in the Café Central in Vienna, and with Lasker and Alekhine at the Café König in Berlin in October 1929.
At the Café de la Régence in Paris Lilienthal regularly played with great players like Savielly Tartakower, the artist Marcel Duchamp, who Lilienthal said was “the most talented French player,” and composer Sergei Prokofiev, who was of master strength, according to Lilienthal.
Lilienthal was born in Moscow on May 5, 1911. His parents were Hungarian Jews who moved to Hungary when he was 2. He grew up in poverty.
He began playing in tournaments in the early 1930s and quickly established a reputation as an aggressive and dangerous player. He emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1935 to work as a chess trainer and became a Soviet citizen in 1939. The next year, in his greatest tournament result, he tied for first in the 1940 Soviet Championship with Bondarevsky.
In 1950 FIDE listed him on the original list of Grandmasters. From 1951 to 1960, Lilienthal served as Petrosian’s trainer and he also acted as Smyslov’s coach during his world championship matches with Botvinnik in 1954, 1957 and 1958. In 1976 Lilienthal retired from competitive play and coaching and returned to Hungary.
The following game is, or at least was, pretty well known, but I imagine there exists today a generation of players who have not seen or enjoyed it.
Lilienthal was born in Moscow on May 5, 1911. His parents were Hungarian Jews who moved to Hungary when he was 2. He grew up in poverty.
He began playing in tournaments in the early 1930s and quickly established a reputation as an aggressive and dangerous player. He emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1935 to work as a chess trainer and became a Soviet citizen in 1939. The next year, in his greatest tournament result, he tied for first in the 1940 Soviet Championship with Bondarevsky.
In 1950 FIDE listed him on the original list of Grandmasters. From 1951 to 1960, Lilienthal served as Petrosian’s trainer and he also acted as Smyslov’s coach during his world championship matches with Botvinnik in 1954, 1957 and 1958. In 1976 Lilienthal retired from competitive play and coaching and returned to Hungary.
The following game is, or at least was, pretty well known, but I imagine there exists today a generation of players who have not seen or enjoyed it.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Sometimes You Need a Break From Chess
For some reason as a kid I always loved these kinds of things:
I don’t know what the fascination was but I remember getting a lot of puzzles like shown above for Christmas and spending hours tinkering with them even after I figured them out.
Our brains have two separate hemispheres with each one performing different functions. Right brain deals with emotions and performs tasks holistically while the left-brain functions in linear fashion. When you are able to use both the sides of the brain, you will find that your mind power is harnessed to its best and gets better. How do you do that? Jigsaw puzzles! They help exercise both the parts of your brain.
While working on jigsaw puzzles it has been found that there exists continuous activity involving all parts of the brain. This intense activity works to exercise the brain and increase their efficiency and capacity.
The MacArthur Study has found that people who have been used to doing jigsaw puzzles as well as crossword puzzles had a longer life span and also had lesser chances of falling prey to Alzheimer’s, memory loss, dementia and other old age problems. It also affects our physical health by lowering our breath rate, reducing heart rate and blood pressure too. Alzheimer’s research shows that really what matters is novelty. Constantly exposing yourself to something new will help keep you sharp. Experts also recognize that changing about and doing different types of puzzles is better than doing the same type over and over again.
Our brains have two separate hemispheres with each one performing different functions. Right brain deals with emotions and performs tasks holistically while the left-brain functions in linear fashion. When you are able to use both the sides of the brain, you will find that your mind power is harnessed to its best and gets better. How do you do that? Jigsaw puzzles! They help exercise both the parts of your brain.
While working on jigsaw puzzles it has been found that there exists continuous activity involving all parts of the brain. This intense activity works to exercise the brain and increase their efficiency and capacity.The MacArthur Study has found that people who have been used to doing jigsaw puzzles as well as crossword puzzles had a longer life span and also had lesser chances of falling prey to Alzheimer’s, memory loss, dementia and other old age problems. It also affects our physical health by lowering our breath rate, reducing heart rate and blood pressure too. Alzheimer’s research shows that really what matters is novelty. Constantly exposing yourself to something new will help keep you sharp. Experts also recognize that changing about and doing different types of puzzles is better than doing the same type over and over again.
A Top CC Player’s Startling Move
While looking over the games of some of the top players on Lechenicher SchachServer I came across a position from a game by one of the top players, Djordje Petrovic, that startled me.
This Djordje Petrovic is a 48 year old programmer from Belgrade, Serbia and has been playing CC for 16 years. He is an ICCM with the ICCF and is rated 2533 on LSS which places him 3rd on the LSS rating list although he has not been active for over a year.
After first running an analysis at 10 seconds per move using Komodo 8 I noticed White’s next move, 21.Be4, was given a “??” which indicates a serious error. How could this be from a top CC player?
I decided to let Houdini 2 and Komodo 8 examine the position for about 10 minutes and both engines suggested white should have played 21.Bh5 which resulted in a position that was evaluated at move 36 by H2 as being dead equal. Komodo’s analysis reached move 29 with the same conclusion.
I actually made the move 21.Be4 on the board to see if the evaluation changed. After 15 minutes H2 thought black should capture the B and gave an evaluation of about a half P in black’s favor. K8 thought black was doing even better and evaluated the position at a little over one P in black’s favor.
Black actually played 21…d4 which in the 10 seconds per move analysis by K8 also got two question marks. Here things got interesting because after 10 minutes both engines thought black was better with the following recommendations:
Houdini 2: 22.f5 (0.50 Pawn) and 22.Qh5 (one Pawn)
Komodo 8: 22.Qh5 (1.10 Pawns) and 22.f5 (one and 1/3 Pawns)
So while both engines thought 22.Qh5 left black a Pawn better, they disagreed over the merits of 22.f5.
The move Black actually played (21…d4) after 10 minutes resulted in the determination that White was better by 4.5 Pawns (H2) and 3.5 Pawns (K8).
I ran a couple of Shootouts from the position after both 21.Be4 followed by 21…dxe4 and 21…d5 and White kept winning against both moves.
After messing around some more I gave up because I was unable to determine the true merits of whether 21…d4 or 21…dxe4 was better or to determine where, exactly, the evaluation changed from Black having the better position to White winning after 21...dxe4. Thinking that because the game was played a few years ago maybe the engines they were using weren’t as good as they are today, I switched over to the weaker Fritz 12 engine, but there were no drastic changes.
What I’d like to know is how the players conducted their analysis and reached their conclusions that White was winning after 21.Be4. Or was he? Was 21.Be4 a mistake? How did Black (rated over 2100) conclude that 21...d4 was the best move. Did Black err in not taking the B? After 21...d4 did he booger up the game at a later move?
I don’t know and am not willing to let my engines run for a couple of days to see if there are resources hidden deep in the position or even if my quad-core laptop is capable of finding them. What this proves is that even with engines, there is still a little room for human input in correspondence chess...if you have the equipment and software and are a good player with a lot of patience. Equipment, software, good player, patience. That's not me so why am I playing CC? That's another question I can't answer.
This Djordje Petrovic is a 48 year old programmer from Belgrade, Serbia and has been playing CC for 16 years. He is an ICCM with the ICCF and is rated 2533 on LSS which places him 3rd on the LSS rating list although he has not been active for over a year.
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Position after 20…Ng6.
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I decided to let Houdini 2 and Komodo 8 examine the position for about 10 minutes and both engines suggested white should have played 21.Bh5 which resulted in a position that was evaluated at move 36 by H2 as being dead equal. Komodo’s analysis reached move 29 with the same conclusion.
I actually made the move 21.Be4 on the board to see if the evaluation changed. After 15 minutes H2 thought black should capture the B and gave an evaluation of about a half P in black’s favor. K8 thought black was doing even better and evaluated the position at a little over one P in black’s favor.
Black actually played 21…d4 which in the 10 seconds per move analysis by K8 also got two question marks. Here things got interesting because after 10 minutes both engines thought black was better with the following recommendations:
Houdini 2: 22.f5 (0.50 Pawn) and 22.Qh5 (one Pawn)
Komodo 8: 22.Qh5 (1.10 Pawns) and 22.f5 (one and 1/3 Pawns)
So while both engines thought 22.Qh5 left black a Pawn better, they disagreed over the merits of 22.f5.
The move Black actually played (21…d4) after 10 minutes resulted in the determination that White was better by 4.5 Pawns (H2) and 3.5 Pawns (K8).
I ran a couple of Shootouts from the position after both 21.Be4 followed by 21…dxe4 and 21…d5 and White kept winning against both moves.
After messing around some more I gave up because I was unable to determine the true merits of whether 21…d4 or 21…dxe4 was better or to determine where, exactly, the evaluation changed from Black having the better position to White winning after 21...dxe4. Thinking that because the game was played a few years ago maybe the engines they were using weren’t as good as they are today, I switched over to the weaker Fritz 12 engine, but there were no drastic changes.
What I’d like to know is how the players conducted their analysis and reached their conclusions that White was winning after 21.Be4. Or was he? Was 21.Be4 a mistake? How did Black (rated over 2100) conclude that 21...d4 was the best move. Did Black err in not taking the B? After 21...d4 did he booger up the game at a later move?
I don’t know and am not willing to let my engines run for a couple of days to see if there are resources hidden deep in the position or even if my quad-core laptop is capable of finding them. What this proves is that even with engines, there is still a little room for human input in correspondence chess...if you have the equipment and software and are a good player with a lot of patience. Equipment, software, good player, patience. That's not me so why am I playing CC? That's another question I can't answer.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
William Windom
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| Erik Estrada vs. Windom at the Hollywood Celebrity Tournament 1988 |
After the war, he studied at both Fordham and Columbia universities in New York City before settling on an acting career and made his minor Broadway debut in November of 1946.
In the early 1950s he in got into television. In addition to hundreds of guest appearances on the most popular shows of the day (Combat! (1962), The Fugitive (1963), All in the Family (1971), Dallas (1978), Highway to Heaven (1984)), his best work included a co-starring role opposite Inger Stevens in the popular light comedy series The Farmer's Daughter (1963). On the show, Windom portrayed widower "Glenn Morley", a decent congressman who eventually falls in love with his pert and pretty Swedish governess "Katy Holstrum" (played by Stevens). Despite the show's critical merit and Windom's "Best Actor" Emmy win, the show lasted only one season.
Windom provided TV audiences with a colorful gallery of characters. He became a regular for over a decade on the Angela Lansbury whodunit series Murder, She Wrote (1984), joining the show in its second season as "Dr. Seth Hazlitt". He briefly left Murder to work on another series, Parenthood (1990), which was based on the highly popular 1989 movie starring Steve Martin. The show was off the air within a few months, however, and Windom was invited back to the mystery series -- a semi-regular until the show folded in 1997.
In addition, Windom did a Star Trek (1966) portrayal as "Commodore Matt Decker," appeared in scores of mini-movies, did various book readings, presented a second one-man show (that of combat reporter Ernie Pyle), and continued to film at age 80-plus, his latest being Yesterday's Dreams (2005).
Windom was married five times, the last for 36 years to writer Patricia Veronica Tunder. Windor was a chess, tennis and sailing enthusiast and was profiled in Chess Life magazine twice. One of his positions appeared in a Chess Life problem column before the magazine interviewed him. Windom was also a tournament player with a rating in the mid-1600’s. During an interview he once said that he planned to have a large Rook made of Nubian marble and cap it with a compass rose, "and one day my ashes will be buried underneath it". Windom died August 16, 2012 of congestive heart failure at his home in Woodacre, California.
Below is the only Windom game I could locate, a loss to Koltanowski who was playing a blindfold simultaneous. Windom played very well and was holding his own until he unwisely took the offered B on move 25.
Karl Robatsch
Robatsch (October 14, 1929) was a leading Austrian player and a noted botanist.
He moved to Graz at the age of 17 to become a student and often frequented the Mountainside Café and joined a local club 'SK Gemeinde' (Municipal chess club) where he quickly advanced to master.
Becoming an International Master (IM) in 1957 and a Grandmaster in 1961, Robatsch dedicated much of his life to serving Austrian chess, representing the nation at eleven Chess Olympiads and one European Team Chess Championship. Up until his last Olympiad in 1994, he played first board on every occasion and returned some impressive results. At the 1960 Leipzig Olympiad, he astounded the chess world by scoring 84.4 per cent and taking the board 1 gold medal, while still only an IM. This was also the year that he became Austrian champion.
While Robatsch played competitively over five decades, the high points of his international tournament career mostly occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He continued to play to a high standard into the late 1990s.
Robatsch displayed a highly combinative playing style in his younger days but like so many others, he adopted a more positional approach later in life. In his opening play he often played experimental moves and this led to some lively and historically important games. The system of opening moves commencing with 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 became a defense that Robatsch often played with the black pieces.
His development as a player was hindered by an interest outside chess: botany. He became a highly esteemed orchidologist and was awarded the title of 'Professor' for his outstanding research work in the classification of different species and sub-species of orchid. He specialized in the study of a taxonomically complex genus of orchids called Epictatis and made significant contributions to the study of this group of orchids even in the final years of his life.
Below is a photo of Robatsch with his registered Cypripedium hybrids (acaule x reninae) It is characterized by lush growth and a very attractive flower.
Robatsch died in 2000, following a long fight with throat and stomach cancer.
In the following exciting game Tahl had to sacrifice his Q to blunt Robatsch’s attack. Robatsch still had the advantage, but couldn’t quite squeeze out the win.
Becoming an International Master (IM) in 1957 and a Grandmaster in 1961, Robatsch dedicated much of his life to serving Austrian chess, representing the nation at eleven Chess Olympiads and one European Team Chess Championship. Up until his last Olympiad in 1994, he played first board on every occasion and returned some impressive results. At the 1960 Leipzig Olympiad, he astounded the chess world by scoring 84.4 per cent and taking the board 1 gold medal, while still only an IM. This was also the year that he became Austrian champion.
While Robatsch played competitively over five decades, the high points of his international tournament career mostly occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He continued to play to a high standard into the late 1990s.
Robatsch displayed a highly combinative playing style in his younger days but like so many others, he adopted a more positional approach later in life. In his opening play he often played experimental moves and this led to some lively and historically important games. The system of opening moves commencing with 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 became a defense that Robatsch often played with the black pieces.
His development as a player was hindered by an interest outside chess: botany. He became a highly esteemed orchidologist and was awarded the title of 'Professor' for his outstanding research work in the classification of different species and sub-species of orchid. He specialized in the study of a taxonomically complex genus of orchids called Epictatis and made significant contributions to the study of this group of orchids even in the final years of his life.
Below is a photo of Robatsch with his registered Cypripedium hybrids (acaule x reninae) It is characterized by lush growth and a very attractive flower.
Robatsch died in 2000, following a long fight with throat and stomach cancer.
In the following exciting game Tahl had to sacrifice his Q to blunt Robatsch’s attack. Robatsch still had the advantage, but couldn’t quite squeeze out the win.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Difficult Game with a Material Imbalance
I first met my Australian opponent back in 2008 and lost against his Dragon Sicilian when I prematurely advanced two (!) passed Pawns on the Q-side and lost them. Then the following year we met again and I drew a difficult ending from the black side of the Ruy Lopez Zaitsev Variation where I ended up with a R plus g and h-P’s vs. his R and B.
I lost again in 2010 on the black side of the Schevenigen because of too many P weaknesses. We met twice last year and as white I managed to draw from an inferior position against the K-Indian. In our second game I defended against 1.e4 with the Sicilian, got an inferior position but managed to hold the draw when he let his advantage slip. So, going into this game I was +0 -2 =2.
This game was another Ruy Lopez and things got murky when, in a closed position, the engines couldn’t seem to settle on any clear path. The result was a LOT of time spent analyzing different plans and ideas. The game also included a material imbalance and, as you know, I am always leery of engine evaluations in those positions because they usually tend to put the emphasis on the material rather than any positional considerations. As a result you have to be very careful when investigating those positions.
Unfortunately there was only a couple of rating points to be picked up when he resigned because by the time this game was completed my opponent, who had well over 80 games going, had ended up losing a whole bunch of them and his rating had fallen drastically. I was a little surprised he resigned when he did, but I guess when you’re playing over 80 games sometimes it’s best to cut your losses and reduce your workload by resigning games where there is no chance of salvaging anything. A couple of Shootouts confirmed the win for black anyway.
I lost again in 2010 on the black side of the Schevenigen because of too many P weaknesses. We met twice last year and as white I managed to draw from an inferior position against the K-Indian. In our second game I defended against 1.e4 with the Sicilian, got an inferior position but managed to hold the draw when he let his advantage slip. So, going into this game I was +0 -2 =2.
This game was another Ruy Lopez and things got murky when, in a closed position, the engines couldn’t seem to settle on any clear path. The result was a LOT of time spent analyzing different plans and ideas. The game also included a material imbalance and, as you know, I am always leery of engine evaluations in those positions because they usually tend to put the emphasis on the material rather than any positional considerations. As a result you have to be very careful when investigating those positions.
Unfortunately there was only a couple of rating points to be picked up when he resigned because by the time this game was completed my opponent, who had well over 80 games going, had ended up losing a whole bunch of them and his rating had fallen drastically. I was a little surprised he resigned when he did, but I guess when you’re playing over 80 games sometimes it’s best to cut your losses and reduce your workload by resigning games where there is no chance of salvaging anything. A couple of Shootouts confirmed the win for black anyway.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Non-Chess Post – Rice Steamers
If you want to cook rice, they are great because they cook each grain of rice to perfection without any sticking. But, a rice cooker can cook more than rice: cabbage, potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, steam hot dogs, asparagus, mac and cheese, bake a cake, make stuff like cheesy jalapeno bread, chili, lemony risotto with shrimp, banana bread, cook oatmeal…the uses are limitless. They do it fast, too.
Health advice says we should eat fewer greasy fried foods and more vegetables, but taking time to cook is not something many of us want to do. Rice cookers allow you to fix a fast meal in a way that retains valuable vitamins and minerals, keeps food moist, keeps colors and flavors, is tender and they avoid nasty cooking oils and fats. Speaking of cooking food in oil, we don’t fry food very often at our house so when we do, it seems like it stinks up the whole house with the smell of grease.
I buy those small packages of mixed vegetables, usually broccoli and cauliflower, and throw in some baby carrots and in about 10-12 minutes have some nice, steamed veggies. It will steam a potato in about 15-20 minutes and I often fix a couple of extra, throw them in the refrigerator so that in the morning all that needs to be done is slice or dice and fry up some hash browns…I don’t eat healthy and avoid frying ALL the time.
Chess24
Viswanathan Anand and Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Peter Svidler, Paco Vallejo and Jan Gustafsson are involved with the site.
I checked it out today and Bullet ratings are listed for a few alleged GM’s like Francisco Vallejo, David Anton and David Lariño Nieto; they may or may not really be who they say. Who knows? Same for all the players with ratings over 2400. Who knows whether they’re real players or guys with engines?
Macauley Peterson is the main man behind the site. Peterson is Content Director for Cisha GmbH in Hamburg and is the founder and President of Chess Digital Strategies LLC, which provides media production, consulting and web services for companies and organizations involved in professional chess. Prior to that he served as a content creator and reporter for ICC, the Internet Chess Club and Chess.FM. Peterson written work has appeared in various publications around the world and in 2008 he was voted 2008 "Chess Journalist of the Year" by the Chess Journalists of America.
In 2006, he completed work as an editor on Adam Nemett's independent feature film, The Instrument, which appeared at the 2005 Dances With Films festival, in L.A., and was part of New York’s Anthology Film Archives' New Filmmakers series, and he has produced the DVD releases of A Turnpike Runs Through It (2008), and Excess Hollywood (2006), for the Princeton Triangle Show.
Appears to be worth checking out.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Cribbage, an Alternate to Chess, Poker, Go and Backgammon
Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbage board used for scorekeeping, the crib or box (a separate hand counting for the dealer), two distinct scoring stages (the play and the show) and a unique scoring system. It's not difficult to learn and if you can force your wife, your kid, your neighbor to somebody at the chess club to learn, it's a worthy alternative to chess.
How to play
American Cribbage Congress
Play on line against the computer
Friday, October 24, 2014
Brilliant Sacrificial Attack by Ghizdavu
Zvonko Vranesic (born 4 October 1938) is a Croatian–Canadian International Master both OTB and in correspondence chess. He is an electrical engineer, a university professor, and a developer of computer chess software. Vranešić was born in Zagreb. He won the Junior Championship of Yugoslavia in 1957 and immigrated to Canada in October 1958, settling in Toronto. He began competing with success in Canadian chess tournaments, soon after his arrival. Vranesic won the Toronto City Championship in 1959 (with a perfect score), and repeated in 1967, 1970, and 1972. He won the Ontario Open Championship in 1959 and 1963.
Ghizdavu, originally from Romania, was born in 1949 and sometime in the early 70’s moved to the US where he lived in Cleveland, Ohio. I remember a small tournament sponsored by my chess business partner in which Ghizdavu was playing shortly after his arrival in the US. I got off work one Saturday and stopped by the venue and was surprised to see his name on the wallboard ranked number one with a rating of around 2450. Remember that at that time 2450 was an astronomical rating. I also remember that he used to annotate games for the old Chess Informants and he was very active in chess in the Cleveland area until abandoning the game a few years after moving there. He is an International Master.
In the following game Ghizdavu’s 17.g4 set an ingenious trap and Vranesic fell for it, realized it too late the cleverness of Ghizdavu’s play and tried to back out, but by then his position was lost. He fought on and Ghizdavu began delivering one hammer blow after another that secured the win.
Ghizdavu, originally from Romania, was born in 1949 and sometime in the early 70’s moved to the US where he lived in Cleveland, Ohio. I remember a small tournament sponsored by my chess business partner in which Ghizdavu was playing shortly after his arrival in the US. I got off work one Saturday and stopped by the venue and was surprised to see his name on the wallboard ranked number one with a rating of around 2450. Remember that at that time 2450 was an astronomical rating. I also remember that he used to annotate games for the old Chess Informants and he was very active in chess in the Cleveland area until abandoning the game a few years after moving there. He is an International Master.
In the following game Ghizdavu’s 17.g4 set an ingenious trap and Vranesic fell for it, realized it too late the cleverness of Ghizdavu’s play and tried to back out, but by then his position was lost. He fought on and Ghizdavu began delivering one hammer blow after another that secured the win.
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