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| Mar-31-08 | | achieve: <Dom> Magnificent! Found it! NIC 2007/#8
Chaotic filing system suits me fine-- though shame on me that Ree's article escaped my attention... Actually my comp crash allowed me some time to sort out some literature that was indeed all over the place. And sheet music etc etc. Typically male me... |
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Mar-31-08
 | | Domdaniel: <Niels> Found it (NIC 2007/8) - but it's more about computer (and other) cheats than about engine analysis. One point Ree makes is that, if players are to be stopped from getting outside assistance, then live games on the web may have to be stopped. Games would be played 'in camera' (at top level, at least) with the score released afterwards... |
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| Mar-31-08 | | achieve: <Dom> Very interesting article nontheless, I remember reading it. Seems that the optional rigorous measures are indeed a blow for chess~ releasing scores only after the games are finished. Or as Ree says to destroy chess in order to save it~~ My gut feeling is that we won´t be heading in that direction too soon... PS my keyboard has gone haywire, hence the strange ~~ thingys |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: <Niels> Heh ... I'm sure that mutual "Found it! 2007/8" counts as a genuine KK-Jinx-Synchronicity City moment. It *is* an excellent article: I like the way he addresses the psychology of computer cheating - like the German guy who used a DM 4600 comp to win a DM 1660 prize. Maybe he was hoping for a long-term investment, but the numbers don't really add up. Ree seems to have it about right when he says "The successful swindler [cheater?] feels superior to the suckers who have spent their life trying to play good chess. What good have their efforts done them ...?" What's interesting is that (illegal?) computer help in casino games is usually seen as heroic -- because you're taking money from the all-powerful house, beating their sophisticated security systems, and probably have to devise your own computer system and become highly skilled in using it. And you're also using that skill to optimize your result in a game of chance that's loaded against the normal player. But chess is utterly different. There's no 'house' or casino, and it's a game of skill. Apart from tricks of concealment, the cheat's actions - copying engine moves - are the antithesis of skill. So the cheat is not heroic, but the opposite. And there's the whole drugs-in-sport question, which I think isn't as clearcut as some would say. You're obviously more familiar with this area from your sporting days -- but couldn't one argue that pro athletes are already being turned into 'machines for winning' via diet, training programs, etc. So steroids or whatever (apart from the health dangers) are just one more element in this program. The real analogy with using pocket Fritz in an OTB game is something like using a motorbike to win a marathon... |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: <Deffi, Jess> Forgive me. I didn't mean to rebuff your French Advances so brusquely. But I really don't like playing online, and I'm also really not in the mood for chess just now. It looks like your advice about health, remembering to eat, etc, was correct. As you've correctly deduced, I'm not the world's most health-conscious specimen. I've been on 2.5/5 in this tournament three years running: and scored one draw and two losses in the last rounds, all against players I'd normally expect to beat. Last-round exhaustion sets in, and I go mad OTB. Wanna hear a secret? My actual 50th birthday is coming up. Not *too* far off now. That's about 20 years past the point where most idiot males get health conscious, but I've long been determined to be the last surviving half-starved drug-addled skeleton genius still standing. Well, I suppose you could *call* it standing.
Still crouching, anyhow. |
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| Mar-31-08 | | achieve: <I'm sure that mutual "Found it! 2007/8" counts as a genuine KK-Jinx-Synchronicity City moment.> To borrow a line from the 'last skeleton genius still standing': "Oh the sonorous clang of minds thinking (and typing - ed.)alike..." <You're obviously more familiar with this area from your sporting days -- but couldn't one argue that pro athletes are already being turned into 'machines for winning' via diet, training programs, etc. So steroids or whatever (apart from the health dangers) are just one more element in this program.> Yes, no and hmmm... Actually I have witnessed the use of some amphetamin cocktail, allowing a Danish player to wipe my teammate of the table like a freakin freight train... But since we got along off the table he admitted it later on... He lost a game in the next round later that day, not being able to hit one decent ball... I'm sure though that some of the aggressive growth hormones used in youth ranks already in eg cycling is way passed the diet, (food)supplement- and training regimen boundaries... That I am sure of; aside from the health issue, and unethical medics providing to minors ... I am not an insider, not knowing that much more than you do, if at all - but longevity, staying power is unconnectible with the outrageous effects of steroids, as is intensive maximum pressure on joints, muscles etc not sustainable for many years in a row... Perhaps that is one of the main reasons for the emergence and *need* for the drugs, as well... See what devious double helix like spiralling circles we are (they are) getting in to? Gonna take a break here for a sec now... I'm writing down about 1/5th of what I'm thinking and I detect a few holes... Maybe you got my (...) But I am in fact on the same page as you on all this. heh |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Eyal: <I picked up a copy of his games/autobiog book over the weekend - the one everyone says is among the best books ever, <The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal>> Btw, I can highly recommend his book on the 1960 match with Botvinnik as well - I've been going over it lately and it's definitely the best match book I've read. I can't really put it better than Dvoretsky, so here's a quote of what he has to say about the book: <This is a wonderful book; in my view, one of the best in all of chess literature. Tal's annotations are quite genuine, and very detailed: each game receives several pages of entertaining text. Tal was an outstanding writer, with a lively, picturesque style. His comments never devolve – as so often happens these days, now that computers have gotten involved in analysis – into an endless rehash of variations. Quite the contrary: at every point in the game, Tal offers us his view of what is happening on the board – a positional assessment – and not a formalized one, either, but a lively, dynamic one. The most valuable characteristic of this book is the way it overflows with psychological observations and considerations. Psychology is a vital element of the chess struggle; yet it is portrayed in the pages of chess literature in either too primitive, or too formalistic and unconvincing a fashion. But here we can observe a believable psychological picture of a great match and each game of that match in particular, described by one of its main participants. An additional important element, and also rarely seen, is that the times after each move are noted.> Interestingly, when you check with an engine the detailed variations that he gives - especially in the sidelines - you can find quite a lot of tactical mistakes. Dvoretsky comments about that: <Note that all his errors were committed in his commentaries – in the game, such tactical errors on his part almost never occurred [...] Tal was a chessplayer with a clearly drawn intuitive bent to his thinking. In sharp positions, he almost unerringly sensed the proper direction in which to search, what prospects lay down this or the other path. In his head, a multitude of ideas whirled; he saw lengthy variations in a split-second, with many unexpected, spectacular points. He saw – but he did not accurately test them – they served only as guideposts, and inspired his chess forays. When the time came to make a final decision, and turn this or that previously noted idea into life, Tal would reexamine them, and as a rule, he found mistakes (from his own annotations, it follows that such episodes also occurred in the game we have just examined). Then, he would correct his plans, choosing the optimal path to his goal (which he usually found, since Tal's intuition rarely betrayed him). Understandably, many of these variations never saw daylight, since his opponent chose a different path. But they remained in his memory, and then were set down in Tal's annotations, without being further tested at the board, with all their shortcomings.> |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Eyal: PS Those quotes are from his article "A Battle of Opposites", on the 3rd game of the match (http://www.chesscafe.com/text/dvore...). |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal> Very innaresting ... from what I gather in John Nunn's intro to the Tal book (current Everyman Chess edition, first published 1997, reprinted 2007), he has corrected some - but not too many - analytic errors. This strikes me as the best approach -- SuperFritzing the text would destroy Tal's genius (as in 'genius loci'), but letting major errors stand would also be unfair. And I totally agree about psychology. Here's a position I've been looking at, from one of my tournament games this weekend: 
click for larger viewAs you can see, it's a King's Indian, Fianchetto Variation, barely out of the opening. Black has played an early, somewhat dubious ...Nh5 - I don't think this precise position has occurred before, but I haven't looked very thoroughly. In this position, Black has just played 11...c5 to chase my Knight from d4. I replied 12.Nf5, which probably doesn't deserve any kind of exclam: it's fairly obvious, and must be good. What I particularly liked about it was not so much the clear attack after 12...gxf5 13.Qxh5 (when Black could grab a pawn with 13...Nxc4, but gets murdered on the kingside) - but the fact that the Knight is fantastically useful simply sitting on f5. It blocks black's bishop access to g4 or h3, either of which might have been awkward; and of course it lets me snap off the g7 Bishop at my leisure, weakening the dark squares. I was convinced it (12.Nf5) was a strong move. So was my opponent, who'd missed the idea - and said afterwards he wouldn't have played ...c5 if he'd seen the reply. So he got demoralized, played some weak-ish moves, and I won quickly after 12...Be6 13.Nd5 Kh8 14.Rad1 Qd7 15.Nxg7 [15.f4 is even stronger, but this suffices] Kxg7 16.b3 Bxd5 17.Rxd5 Qc6? 18.f4 etc. Then later I fed it to Fritz and got a surprise. My laptop is being repaired, so I've only got Fritz on an old slow machine, but I still thought Nf5 would be its kind of move. Nope - it briefly showed up as 4th (!) choice, then sank even further. And Fritz even thought the pawn sac could be taken, 12.Nf5 gxf5 13.Qxh5 Nxc4. This was originally evaluated as equal, with a slight plus for White after some sliding etc. Looking at it now, I'm sure this is an engine power problem - the poor beast simply can't see far enough to find white's attack in the Qxh5 lines. Does your Superbeast have an opinion? Or your intuition, for that matter? |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Eyal: <Dom> Looking at the diagram I was also thinking that Nf5 has to be good, but my beast agrees with yours... The "refutation" seems to be 12...gxf5 13.Qxh5 f4! (easy to miss) - and now after either 14.gxf4 or Bxf4 Black plays 14...Bg4 forcing an exchange of queens followed by Nxc4, and White doesn't have any advantage left to speak of, apparently. |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: <Niels> Table Tennis, phew. For a moment there I thought the teammate being wiped out by an amphetamine-driven foe was a chessplayer. (There used to be a rumour that speed increased IQ temporarily ... even if true, the IQ goes into the minus zone when it wears off.) I don't *think* I ever tried that particular ruse, but it's hard to be sure. Parts of the 1980s are quite hazy. I *do* recall my one attempt to play a club matchgame under the influence of cocaine. Not my favourite drug at any time, and I gave it up for good in 1989 before it became fashionable. But the game stands as An Awful Warning... I was Black. My opponent had a (then) lower rating of about 1880, and was a gambit-plus-king-attack type. But he'd beaten me twice before with violent gambits against the French. I should've stuck to what I know and played solidly, but my electrified braincells had other ideas ... 1.e4
Me: Better try something different. I know! The Nimzowitsch Defence! 1 ... Nc6
2.d4 d5
3.Nc3
A gambit line, of course. The solid move here, as played by Nimzo himself, is 3...e6 - transposing into an odd kind of French which has become fashionable lately. But I wasn't thinking like that. 3 ...dxe4
4.d5 Ne5
5.f3
A gambit! Not a very good one, but Black should remember that he's dangerously undeveloped. 5 ... exf3
6.Nxf3
I vaguely recalled that exchanging knights was recommended here, when White probably doesn't have enough for the pawn. But I thought I had a better idea: force further exchanges, attack his kingside, some mad idea or other... 6 ... Bg4??
My opponent clasped his head in his hands and thought for 30 mins. After about 10 of them - the coke must have worn off - I suddenly saw why. 7.Nxe5! Bxd1
8.Bb5+
And white comes out a piece ahead. I tried to complicate with 8...c6 9.dxc6 Be2?! but soon had to resign anyway. I should've been alert to this, because as a schoolboy I fell for the well-known Queen's Gambit version of the trap (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 ["Hey, I can win a pawn!"] 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Nxd5? Nxd5 7.Bxd8 [I actually tried 7.e4?!] Bb4+ etc.) Or maybe the fact that Black has a c7 pawn in the Nimzowitsch version makes it harder to see. I dunno: I just know my brain wasn't working properly that night. Another time - common or garden marijuana being the culprit - I worked out a vastly complicated mate in 17. Overlooking the fact that I got mated myself on the back rank after just three of those moves. It's enough to put one off mind-altering substances. Or at least trying to play chess simultaneously. (Then again, many atrocities occur stone cold sober ...) I suspect, however, that each drug makes you play badly in its own specific way. The one I dislike most is the coke-frenzied, madly optimistic, out-of-touch-with-reality, over-estimating your chances, doing stupid things on a whim. Give me dozy old opiated drowsiness any time instead. At least you can pinch yourself to wake up... Hmm ... I wonder if there's a book worth writing on this topic ... ? Sobriety is a drug and those who deal it should be kept apart from the rest of humanity ... |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Ziggurat: <Hmm ... I wonder if there's a book worth writing on this topic ... ?>
Yes! yes! |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal> Whatever about the position, the psychology is complex enough. My Nf5 was 'strong' enough to demoralize my opponent and make me feel I was winning. And yet there's a refutation. I suppose if the same position had come up in my game with Baburin I'd have been much more suspicious and given it a lot of thought - though I don't know whether I'd have found ...f4. I might have rejected Nf5 on the grounds that there must be *something* wrong if a GM permits it. Which isn't the right spirit at all. Actually Baburin *did* offer me a dubious pawn sac in the Nimzo-Indian (I was Black): 1.d4 e6 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 [shock! I'd prepared for 4.Qc2 but he recently switched to this] 4 ... b6 5.Bd3 Bb7 6.Nge2 And I barely glanced at 6...Bxg2, assuming it had to be bad after, eg 7.Rg1 Bf3 8.Rxg7. So I played 6...0-0 instead, and he replied 7.a3, giving me another chance to take the g-pawn. I played the dubious 7...Be7 and got a very cramped game. He told me later that Bxg2 (before castling) is best, and Black can get a good game after 7.Rg1 Bf3. It's apparently a theoretically 'hot' variation, but I didn't know that. Of course he'd have won anyway. But it helps to have some knowledge of the opening you choose, even so. |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal> That 12.Nf5?! gxf5 13.Qxh5 f4! and 14...Bg4! line really is amazing: I'd never have seen all its ramifications. Fritz evaluates it as equal, but I think I prefer black after the queen exchange. I'm not sure how strong a player would need to be to see it all over the board. Which returns us to psychology and the assumed strength of the opponent - my 1750-ish opponent caved in because he 'saw' me play a 'strong' move, never guessing it had a huge hole in it. It's ironic, given that 12.Nf5 isn't even a sacrifice because of the hanging black Nh5. But any attempt to make it a real sac is doomed - eg, 12.Nf5 gxf5 13.f4? fails to ...Ng4. I usually play h3 in this line as soon as possible. One reason I didn't here was because his unusual ...Nh5 removed the threat of ...Ng4. And I was slightly worried about the ...Bg4 idea, but not in conjunction with the amazing ...f4! It seems that a meek retreat like 12.Nc2 is best for White after all. So his ...c5 was good, apart maybe from the long-term weakness of the d6-pawn. |
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| Mar-31-08 | | achieve: <The most valuable characteristic of this book is the way it overflows with psychological observations and considerations. Psychology is a vital element of the chess struggle; yet it is portrayed in the pages of chess literature in either too primitive, or too formalistic and unconvincing a fashion. But here we can observe a believable psychological picture of a great match and each game of that match in particular, described by one of its main participants.> This is EXACTLY what I was hungry for -- thanks to <Eyal> for quoting that! <Dom> Approaching the big 50 eh? Well, in style I must humbly say from this position across the little pond on the main land... I'm a decade behind you. Very good posts -- I'm a bit deflated after some vigorous posting earlier today on various pages, but I will muster up some'n from somewhere... I have something cooking on the different planes that engine-chess and HUMAN Chess are locaterd IMHO -- there has been taking place a silent process, in a way obscuring.... OK more later. Re cheating: another element is that there also is a betting issue -- in Asia they're going nuts in placing bets on everything imagineable... Not sure if it is showing in Chess yet, but there are several incentives to cheat, although your motorcycle analogy was very realistic, I think. |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal & Achieve> More digging, more reflections on how perceptions affect psychology, even in the opening ... I've found just one King's Indian identical to mine up to move 11 (from the olympiad for the blind, which ought to be ironic, but isn't really). Cohn played 11.b3; in the same position I tried 11.Qe2, and Black replied 11...c5 to reach the position in my FEN: [Event "IBCA-ol blind 04th prel-C"]
[Site "Pula"]
[Date "1972.04.06"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Cohn,Hans"]
[Black "Van Driest,Therry"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "E68"]
1.c4 Nf6 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nf3 0-0 5.0-0 d6 6.d4 Nbd7 7.Nc3 Nh5 8.e4 e5
9.Be3 exd4 10.Nxd4 Ne5 11.b3 Ng4 12.Bc1 Ne5 13.h3 Bd7 14.Be3 Nc6 15.Nde2 a6 16.Qd2 Rb8
17.Rad1 Ne7 18.c5 Nc8 19.Bg5 Qe8 20.Nd5 c6 21.Nc7 Qe5 22.cxd6 f5 23.f4 Qc5+ 24.Kh2 fxe4
25.Bxe4 Nf6 26.Bf3 Nb6 27.Rc1 Qa3 28.Nc3 Qb4 29.Rfd1 Rf7 30.a4 Nc8 31.Ne4 Qxb3 32.Nxf6+ Bxf6
33.Be2 Bxg5 34.Bc4 Qxa4 35.Bxf7+ Kxf7 36.fxg5 Kg7 37.Qb2+ Kg8 38.Ra1 Qe4 39.Qb3+ Kg7 40.Qb2+ Kg8
41.Re1 Qf5 42.Re8+ Bxe8 43.Nxe8 Qf7 44.Nf6+ Kf8 45.Rf1 1-0 Is it possible these guys 'saw' all the complexities of 12.Nf5?!
Fritz doesn't even think 11...c5 is best, btw.
Also - 7...Nh5 is not as bad as I thought. There are about ten examples in the database, including some black wins. So I was (wrongly) primed to expect to find a way to get the advantage, and (wrongly) thought I had it with 12.Nf5. Luckily, my opponent had similar ideas. |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Red October: Ok you mean 12.Nf5 in your earlier FEN.. I was racking my noggin wondering what to do after 12..Nxe3 |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Eyal: <Niels> When I mentioned yesterday posting some thoughts concerning the "psychology" issue, it was actually connected to things I've been thinking about lately in relation to that 1960 match - especially the psychological importance of a player succeeding or failing to impose his preferred style of play on the game, in order to reach his "comfort zone", so to speak. This becomes especially dramatic in the Tal vs. Botvinnik case because it was such a sharp clash of styles, with Botvinnik consciously and continually trying to avoid entering into the sort of positions that he figured would favor Tal, and Tal continually trying to impose them. An interesting example of this is given in the article by Dvoretsky I mentioned above. In the 3rd game of the match, the following position was reached after Tal's 15.Qd2: 
click for larger viewTal was hoping for 15...Bxh4, with the possible continuation 16.Rxh4 Qxh4 17.Bg5 Qh2 18.Qb4, and he gives in his analysis some complicated lines leading to what he considers as "a very sharp game, perhaps not unfavorable to White". Later analysis showed that "objectively" he was probably too optimistic, and that the whole line clearly favors Black. What I find most interesting, though, is that Botvinnik apparently didn't really enter into all those calculations at all. In his own notes to the game, he writes about 15.Qd2: <Tempting Black into the line 15...Bxh4 16.Rxh4 Qxh4 17.Bg5 Qh2 18.Qb4. When you are playing Tal, looking at such lines is just a waste of time. Even if objectively poor, these lines would favor him subjectively. Black therefore chooses the prosaic transfer of the knight to a strong position at f5 [by 15...Ng7].> On which Dvoretsky comments: <The World Champion's logic is understandable, but not indisputable. Such players as Korchnoi and Polugaevsky – outstanding calculators themselves – did not believe Tal's calculations, tested them, and sometimes found mistakes, which they then successfully exploited. Not accidentally, both players had terrific plus scores against him.> In any case, I'll just mention that in our own day, I'm quite convinced that a very large part of Carlsen's alleged "luck" is related exactly to his ability of steering the game into the sort of positions where he feels more comfortable than his opponents, so that the chance of them making mistakes increases considerably. |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Red October: <Eyal> if I may chime in, in the quest for an original idea a player may play imperfectly but down a path not taken before, and he may be helped by his opponent who is also led along this path, that also makes the a chess game interesting in its review and which is why I sometimes prefer the players' own annotations though they may not be perfect and may subsequently be found to be erroneous. However, the player's own notes give you an insight into what they were thinking at the time, their emotions, this is what made the Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, or My 60 Memorable Games, even the Life and Games of L Szabo very interesting, I can even read those books without a chess board and be entertained I for one would be very interested in reading Anand's own notes to his game against Kramnik in Corus |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: <Red> Yeah, sorry, I just noticed that myself. Same as the Cohn game for 10 moves, then 11.Qe2 (instead of his 11.b3) and 11...c5 reaching my FEN. And *then* 12.Nf5?! Which is either (a) good [if it demoralizes your opponent and helps to win the game quickly] or (b) bad [if they find 12...gxf5 13.Qxh5 f4! 14.Bxf4 Bg4! 15.Qg5 Qxg5 16.Bxg5 Nxc4, when either 17.Rab1 or 17.Nd5 are roughly equal. Zat clearer? Than (a) before, (b) mud? |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Eyal: <Deffi> Certainly - that's why I like so much the sort of "press conferences" given by the players after their games at Corus, where in addition to everything that you mentioned we also get to hear their impressions when they're still very close to the game. I remember, for example, that when Anand analyzed his win over Topalov, he mentioned at a certain point considering a line which he judged as leading to an "unclear" position, and choosing instead another line which he thought was leading more safely to an advantage. As it turned out, the line which he rejected would have actually led to his loss, since exactly at the point where he stopped calculating Black had a nice combination by which he could trap White's queen (but without it White would have a clear advantage). So it was interesting to note that even though Anand didn't actually "see" this possibility, he had the intuition to avoid this line as somehow unpromising for him. |
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Mar-31-08
| | Domdaniel: I agree, of course, with ReDeffi (?!) about the value of a player's own notes. Tal was also famous for his chess memory - he could reel off games from 10-year-old tournaments, including the games he hadn't been involved in. And his notes to a game, as Eyal said, accurately reflect what he thought during the game. This is rare - most players, even good ones, polish their notes to make it look like they saw everything, and sometimes even persuade themselves that they did. Tony Miles is another great example. When he gives a complicated line, you believe him - because at other times he candidly admits to missing a move or not understanding a position. But at his best he saw incredible variations. And all this Tal and Miles stuff is so *totally* the antithesis of Fritzing a game with blundercheckers set to stun ... |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Red October: at first glance I like 17.Nd5, can't White think of winning the exchange there ? maybe I am not calculating right.... |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Red October: 17.Nd5 Be6 18.Rac1 Nxb2 19.Be7 Be5 20.Bxf8 Rxf8
or is that too much power to the pawns for Black ? |
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| Mar-31-08 | | Red October: <Eyal> yeah when we watch those press conferences we realize the human aspect of the players, and that they are just not merely calculating, that their prejudices, emotions, fantasy are all present at the board |
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Later Kibitzing> |
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