http://www.ludochess.com/jester_eng...

as White. Generally, I keep my total clock time per game under 60 minutes. I decided to play a Queen's Indian set-up for the first time, rather than the King's Indian.

[Event "Black Queen's Indian"]
[Site ""]
[Date "2008.02.10"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Jester"]
[Black "John L Spouge"]
[ECO "???"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.d2-d4 Ng8-f6
2.c2-c4 e7-e6
3.Ng1-f3 b7-b6
4.g2-g3 Bc8-b7
5.Bf1-g2 Bf8-e7
6.Nb1-c3 Ke8-g8
7.Bc1-f4 d7-d6
8.Ke1-g1 Nb8-d7
9.Qd1-d3 a7-a6
10.Rf1-d1 Nf6-h5

click for larger view

Out of ignorance, I omitted the usual Queen's Indian maneuver Ne4, but Jester's 7.Bc1-f4 is also an unusual strategy. As it turns out, 10.Rf1-d1 was definitely the wrong R. Jester now initiated a very nasty positional combination against me.

11.Nf3-g5 Be7xg5
12.Bf4xg5 Qd8xg5
13.Bg2xb7

click for larger view

13...Ra8-a7

I debated about sacrificing the Pa6 by getting Ra8 into the game along the 8th rank. I decided my K-side attack did not have enough punch to win a P, if Jester could keep offering to exchange Qs. Toga's later evaluation supported my decision. Now, I had to push my K-side attack, because otherwise my crippled Ra7 would probably cost me the game. The position is about to show my tendency to push the Pf7 against the opposing K in the King's Indian.

14.Bb7-g2 f7-f5
15.h2-h3 f5-f4
16.Qd3-e4 e6-e5
17.h3-h4 Qg5-h6
18.Qe4-c6

click for larger view

Now came all the puzzle of the day practice, with a routine sacrifice. Toga II 1.3.1 later verified that the sacrifice of the Nd7 was the correct and winning move.

To judge astronomy in this way [a narrow utilitarian point of view] demonstrates not only how poor we are, but also how small, narrow, and indolent our minds are; it shows a disposition always to calculate the payoff before the work, a cold heart and a lack of feeling for everything that is great and honors man. One can unfortunately not deny that such a mode of thinking is not uncommon in our age, and I am convinced that this is closely connected with the catastrophes which have befallen many countries in recent times; do not mistake me, I do not talk of the general lack of concern for science, but of the source from which all this has come, of the tendency to everywhere look out for one's advantage and to relate everything to ones physical well-being, of the indifference towards great ideas, of the aversion to any effort which derives from pure enthusiasm: I believe that such attitudes, if they prevail, can be decisive in catastrophes of the kind we have experienced. [Gauss, K.F.: Astronomische Antrittsvorlesung (cited from Buhler, W.K. (1981) Gauss: A Biographical Study, Springer, New York)].

Responding here rather than in yesterday's game.

I suspect that a computer needs in the close order of 10**10 fingers to pass a simple Turing test. However, my own work leaves little time for me to keep up with the developments in that field--right now, I'm a computer security specialist.

I'm not entirely sure that a Turing test is even the right test for AI, though.

Hofstadter, in "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid", points out that a human being is more likely to change the subject. Faced with, say, a chess question, a human is just as likely to say: "I'm bored with chess, let's talk about the concert last month." Obviously, of course, you can randomize responses from a program to mimic this behavior, but that brings its own problems in a formal Turing test environment.

<zb2cr>, I regard George Polya as one of the greatest of the 20th century mathematicians, both for his clarity of thought and his ability to find beauty in practical problems. One of my favorite Polya quotes is about why he chose to be a mathematician (with apologies to philosophers, perhaps): "I came to mathematics indirectly.... It is a little shortened but not quite wrong to say: I thought I am not good enough for physics and I am too good for philosophy."

Thanks for the kind words. Physicists have a lively appreciation for mathematics of all kinds, even though we occasionally induce cringes on the part of real mathematicians by our tendency to ignore mathematical rigor when it seems inconevient.

The real sign of your abilities, <UdayanOwen>, is that even when you are completely wrong, you are completely wrong with <such depth> :)

Actually, <zb2cr>, I often describe myself as a frustrated physicist (and I suspect many mathematicians would be happy to agree). I had two great mathematics teachers, but my university professors drove me out of honors physics at the end of my 2nd year by their uninspired teaching of an incredibly beautiful subject. I would rather get the right solution to a real problem than prove I was correct. A friend told me that I had defined myself as a physicist, not a mathematician (and I like to think it was a compliment :)

<Relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics are two prime examples of ignoring questions of mathematical rigor, proceeding to a solution, and having the solution agree precisely with experiment.<>>

I value making mistakes for my own development, and have no qualms about them being on display in public....

You responded with:

<johnlspouge: <<UdayanOwen> wrote: Presumably black plays 16...Bxg4 17.hxg4 Qxg4, with the plan to follow up with f5 opening lines for the rooks. [snip] I wonder how my plan would turn out with best play???>

Toga II 1.3.1 gives

[ply 15/38, time 00:15, value +1.05]

18.Qd1 Qxd1+ 19.Kxd1 f5 20.f3 b5 21.cxb5 axb5 22.Ke2 Rf7 23.Bb2 c5 24.a3 fxe4 25.fxe4 Raf8 26.Rh2 Rf3 27.Rc1 Re3+ 28.Kd2

The line is losing with best play, <UdayanOwen>.>

I did do some superficial analysis of the position, and if white played 18.Qxd1, I was planning to play 18...Qg2, expecting 19.Rg1 f5 with good play for black.

My argument about compensation for black was always based on the queens staying on the board, and at first when I looked at Toga's line, I thought, maybe it has just strategically misunderstood the necessity to keep the queens on.

But then I realised that if 18.Qd1 Qg2, white can defend AND counterattack with 19.Qh5, when black is forced to concede a queen trade after all with 19...Qg6 20.Qxg6 , since 19...h6 gets smashed by 20.Bxh6 gxh6 21.0-0-0, when white will win the queen.

To make matters worse for white, not only was I depending on the move 18...Qg2 to retain a forceful initiative, but now any move to avoid the queen trade will still be met by 19.Qh5, when black will have to be in position to swap queens, or else get carved for dinner.

I'll certainly continue to have the courage to post errors, but I think I'll refrain from taking such a superficial stab again in future :-)

You wrote: "I would rather get the right solution to a real problem than prove I was correct. A friend told me that I had defined myself as a physicist, not a mathematician (and I like to think it was a compliment :)"

We'll seduce you over to the dark side yet! (spoken with tongue firmly in cheek!)

I'm glad to have encountered you here on chessgames.com. I like to think that despite years of doing engineering work I still have a physicist's viewpoint. I suspect from your description you also have that viewpoint.

Thanks for the Planck and Vader quotes. A little culture is always appreciated here. If you will forgive me, there is some confusion about whose tongue is in whose cheek, however.

Check out the PowerPoint file for a talk I gave

"The Statistics of Gapped Sequence Alignment"

to the "SIAM Conference on Discrete Mathematics Victoria, Jun 2006"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CBBrese...

Look for slide 53.