Chess in Schools

Deb is worried that she's going to be bored at her new school in Japan, so she's putting together "a list of things I could do at school instead of work":

9. Learn how to play internet chess. Write philosophical treatise on how black and white chess pieces symbolize the increasingly multicultural experience of mid-western Americans.

Retribution

Apparently if you mess with Blogshares, they mess with you:

Boylston Chess Club Weblog suffered a huge setback with several analysts urging their clients to ditch the stock as it suffered a public relations disaster. The exact nature of customer dissatisfaction was not known... Boylston Chess Club Weblog share price dropped from B$184.72 to B$81.28.

Blitz seek rebound after disappointing draw

The U.S. Chess League's Boston Blitz are still licking their wounds after squandering a golden opportunity to score their first match win last week against the Philadelphia Masterminds -- a team they out-rated 2378 to 2292 (see my "play-by-play" coverage here).

While all eyes were originally on Board 1 for GM Larry Christiansen's debut, the match came down to Board 4 where Ilya Krasik chose to forgo a chance for a relatively easy draw and instead pursued complications which led to his demise. You can see the critical position and read the gory details of what happened in the league's match report.

This outcome raises interesting questions about week-to-week team construction in the USCL. While the Blitz were able to put a 2600-rated GM on Board 1, the 2400 average team rating rule forced them to include a non-Master on Board 4. You can see a similar pattern with the line-ups of other teams as well. Those teams without ratings monsters at the top are able to field a more balanced line-up with strong masters from top to bottom. It will be interesting to see which strategy prevails in the end.

For this week's action the Blitz are competing with largely the same players as last week. Only on Board 3 is there a change, where FM Bill Kelleher replaces FM Paul MacIntyre. The Carolina Cobras counter with IM-elect Milman, IM Schroer, FM Hoekstra, and NM Samsa. As a result, the Blitz have a rating advantage on the top two boards and a disadvantage on 3 and 4.

While currently tied for second in the Eastern Division, the Blitz will look to gain ground on a Philadelphia team that is facing an average 88 point rating deficit against the Baltimore Kingfishers. However, to date, ratings differences have been of little concern to the Masterminds.

Schedule permitting, I am planning to provide "live" coverage of the Blitz vs. Cobras match on Wednesday Night (the games begin at 7pm EDT [GMT-5]). Here's hoping that Larry has another quick win, since as a guest on the ICC they don't let me view the GM games live.

Championship Season Redux

Last week I announced the start of Championship Season here at the Boylston Chess Club. Just to prove how few club members actually read this blog, not one left a comment indicating that I got just about everything wrong in that post.

I was mildly suspicious about the 1st round being scheduled for Labor Day, especially since the final rounds of the New England Open were also being played last Monday. But, heh, that's what the BCC website said (and still does, for that matter). In any case, the Championship and Hauptturnier start tonight.

I was also wrong about not qualifying for the Championship. It turns out that there were a sufficient number of unclaimed spaces by the club masters that everyone who scored > 50% in the Reubens-Landey was offered an invitation. Unfortunately, for the reason mentioned earlier -- adjournment fatigue, I chose to decline.

So what did I get right? Just that there will be some coverage of the Championship here at BCC Weblog. I spoke to Bernardo and he will be forwarding me the game scores from each round. In addition, it's possible that Bob will post updates on the Haup. Stay tuned.

Jude Acers alive and well

Read this post at rec.games.chess.politics.

Hat Tip: Jim Eade's Chess Journal

BCC Sept. TNS Rd. 1 - Part 2

So here's some analysis on the position I posted on Friday. But first, thanks to CelticDeath (CD) and Tony for playing along in the comments. As you'll see they ultimately found much of what I'm planning to share today. Of course, there are still some problems left to solve.

Second, a disclaimer: I plan to share mostly what I was thinking about during the game and a few things my opponent and I looked at during the post-mortem. I haven't submitted the position to Fritz since I think this makes a more useful exercise without computer assistance. As a result, I'm sure their are flaws in some of the lines or assessments. Your improvements and opinions are welcome, but please don't berate me with stuff like "you patzer, Fritz claims White is better by .16 pawns in the final position." If you prefer closer-to-the-truth analysis, I suggest you read The Chess Mind (not that Dennis depends on computers for his analysis, but that he is a much better player than me and therefore his analysis is of higher quality).

Black to move

OK, let's start with the three retreating moves for the Knight. I instantly rejected 1...Nd8 since it breaks the communication between the rooks and virtually all the squares it might move to next are already occupied by other black pieces. I don't think I gave 1...Na7 much of thought either -- while it does attack the pawn on b4, after 2.a4 it looks pretty silly in the corner with nowhere to go. That leaves 1...Nb8 which does have a few positive attributes. For example: 1)if White maneuvers his c3-Knight to c5 Black might be able to play b6 since the Nb8 covers a6; 2) if White gets that same Knight to b6 Black might be able to extricate it with Nd7 (after moving the Rc8 of course); and 3) the Knight might be able to redeploy itself through d7 to b6 to c4. All that said, 1...Nb8 is a fairly passive move and I'm quite sure that if it is indeed the best move for Black then White clearly has some advantage in the diagrammed position.

Obviously not satisfied with any of those options, I focused my energies on 1...Na5. My immediate reaction was not pleasant -- "it just drops a pawn to 2.Nxd5." But as I looked deeper, I saw that there was much more to this particular variation. So let's see how the game progressed:

1...Na5!?

We'll call it interesting for now until we reach a firmer conclusion about its merits. Black threatens to invade at b3 and c4. If White opts to avoid the tactics beginning with 2.Nxd5 then the most plausible continuation is something like 2.Qd3 Nc4 3.a4 -- during the game I assessed this position as slightly better for Black (and certainly no worse).

2.Nxd5

At first blush this certainly looks like it wins a pawn. However, from the Black side I was able to generate an alternative perspective -- for a pawn I was going to be able turn my bishop which was functioning as a pawn back into a bishop. So in some sense I was giving up two pawns for a bishop, a trade that makes sense most of the time. Of course, the tactics needed to work also.

2...Bxd5 3.Qxa5 Bxf3 4.gxf3

White is still up a pawn, but this forcing sequence has left his kingside pawn structure a shambles and Black with the initiative.

4...Qg5+

I'm fairly certain this is better than CD's suggestion of Qh4 since White's response is forced, leaving him no time to get his Queen back into the game.

5.Kh1 Qf4

This leads to the next critical position (which Tony also reached in his analysis). Black is attacking a couple of White pawns and there are perpetual check opportunities in the air.

After 5...Qf4

Questions:

1. What is White's best move at this point (include the expected continuation)?
2. Given your choice, what is your assessment of the position in the second diagram?

No bonus question this time. Both CD and Tony answered correctly that this game started as a French Defense - Advance Variation.

Again, no computers please.

Remember

Strange Attraction

Dan claims he doesn't like chess, yet he seems drawn to it (like a moth to a flame?):

...after breakfast I watched a chess game for a bit. I've never really liked it. It's too cold and calculated, mere strategy. The unbegun game itself is fascinating. Order, and so many possibilities. After the pieces start to move, the paths narrow, choices dwindle, and you are eventually consigned to a certain fate. It's like picturebooks packed away irretrievably as you move on. It's kind of sad. Or at least that's how it always strikes me. I wonder why I always end up friends with the chess players then.

BCC September Thursday Night Swiss Rd. 1

Here is an interesting position from my tournament game last night at the club:

Black to move

Questions:

1. What is Black's best move (include the expected continuation)?
2. Given your choice, what is your assessment of the position in the diagram?

Bonus Question: What opening was played in this game?

I had to work this out OTB, so no computers please.

Foreign Relations

As has been discussed before, BCC Weblog has a much greater following outside the club than from its own members. Recently, I have been thinking about launching another marketing campaign with the membership to raise awareness and the theme I have been contemplating is something like this:

Chess players all over the world read BCC Weblog.

What about you?

For example, I could put together a flyer with flags from all the different countries that visit the blog surrounding the text above and list the URL below. A similar e-mail is another idea.

In any case, with these ideas swirling in my head I had one of those "not everything is random, there must be someone directing these things" moment when I discovered that BCC Weblog was mentioned twice in foreign language blogs (foreign to me, not the bloggers. Come to think of it, what a parochial term that is) in the past two days.

From Italy: Quattro link interessanti - From France: It's a wonderful life...

Measuring the Chess Blogosphere

Susan Polgar's post on the top 30 Chess Blogs has generated some conversation and a lot of confusion. Unfortunately, the initial post did not mention that the rankings were simply the first thirty names off the Blogshares Chess Industry list (this has since been changed). As a result, Satish got all excited about being named the 3rd best chess blog by Susan Polgar. Sorry friend, of course we all still like your blog.

Now I don't want to get into a long discussion here about what the Blogshares list measures (you can read my comment to Susan's post and/or read more about Blogshares if you wish). What I will say is that Blogshares measures something derivative of the number of other blogs which link to you. It's not simply a link count (like Technorati) since it assigns more value to a link from a blog with more links and, somewhat strangely, it assigns more value if the linking blog has fewer outbound links. Michael Goeller also points out (in the comments to Susan's post) that you can easily manipulate your Blogshares valuation by creating a large set of interlinking blogs. He mentions Magnifichess as a particularly egregious example of this. Even Satish's valuation is influenced by this effect -- more than 10% of his Blogshares value comes from links from his other blogs (But to be fair to him, 37 of his 39 links are independent and I am certainly not suggesting that he has been trying to manipulate the system).

Links certainly have value and I would argue that cross-linking is critical to the development of virtual communities like the Chess Blogosphere or more specifically, the Knights Errant. And most of you know that I actively promote this cross-linking both on BCC Weblog and across the Chess Blogosphere. To a large extent this explains BCC Weblog's ranking on the Blogshares list. But, please please please, don't confuse these kind of rankings with measures of popularity, readership or quality. BCC Weblog is not the most read chess blog and neither is Susan Polgar's or Satish Talim's. As to the subject of quality, well that's obviously a subjective decision. I have my own favorites and while I'm not going to list them here, you probably know who they are if you've been reading this blog.

What we can do, to some extent, is measure readership in terms of unique visitors to a blog. I've spent a few hours collecting as much data as I could on all the chess blogs I have listed. Before I present it however, I must mention a number of caveats:

• Most chess blogs don't have publicly available stats. Therefore, these lists only include those that do. If you know your own stats for the periods mentioned below and want me to add them to the list, leave them in a comment to this post or e-mail me.


• There are all sorts of apples to oranges problems in comparing these numbers, e.g., different counters count differently (on this blog SiteMeter and Extreme Tracking virtually never agree) and September 7th in Australia only partially overlaps with September 7th in New York.


• Some counters only provide seven days of detail in their free versions. Therefore, I have month of August data for fewer blogs and in some cases I needed to use five days of data to project the full-week number.


• The Daily Dirt Chess Blog does not have public stats. However, Mig has stated in the past that he receives 5,000 unique visitors a day. I have opted to accept his self-reported number. It is possible that this number reflects visitors to his entire site and not just the blog. However, even if only 20% of those visitors are to the blog (and I suspect the percentage is much higher), he would still have the most widely read chess blog by a wide margin.


• Some people exclude their own visits to their blogs, others don't. At BCC Weblog, my visits are excluded, but those of other contributors are not.


• Visits based on a single day should be taken with a grain of salt. Several blogs had unusually "good" days on 9/7 including BCC Weblog, J'adoube and especially Satish Talim (who had more visits on 9/7 than in the entire preceding week).

With all that mind, here is what I came up with:

Unique Visits - Month of August 2005

Daily Dirt Chess Blog - 150,000
The Chess Mind - 7,600
Open Chess Diary - 5,120
BCC Weblog - 2,210
The Closet Grandmaster - 2,010
Temposchlucker - 1,033
Chess News and Events - 884
Dennis M's Chess Site - 725
Shakmaty Bereolos - 609
Satish Talim - 305
Art of Chess - 290
2004 BCC Championship - 150
Chess Game in Colour - 145

Unique Visits - Week of 8/31-9/6/2005

Daily Dirt Chess Blog - 35,000
The Chess Mind - 1,896
Open Chess Diary - 1,538
The Closet Grandmaster - 679
BCC Weblog - 639
Chess News and Events - 354
Temposchlucker - 303
J'adoube - 230
Shakmaty Bereolos - 195
Dennis M's Chess Site - 167
Dread Pirate - 161
Art of Chess - 139
Nezha - 109
Satish Talim - 89
Patzer's Mind - 85
Matagala - 81
El mon de Caissa - 74
Druss - 52
Chess Game in Colour - 32
2004 BCC Championship - 23

Unique Visits - September 7, 2005

Daily Dirt Chess Blog - 5,000
Open Chess Diary - 312
The Chess Mind - 265
BCC Weblog - 167
Satish Talim - 97
J'adoube - 81
The Closet Grandmaster - 81
Temposchlucker - 60
Shakmaty Bereolos - 48
Chess News and Events - 39
Dread Pirate - 30
Art of Chess - 27
Dennis M's Chess Site - 21
Patzer's Mind - 19
Nezha - 18
Druss - 12
El mon de Caissa - 9
Matagala - 9
2004 BCC Championship - 3
Chess Game in Colour - 2

Nawlins Chess History

Chessdad64 had a chance to sit down with Jean Troendle, the proprietor of Cajun Chess, at last weekend's Illinois Open. Based on that talk, he shares with us the History of Chess in New Orleans pre-Katrina.

On a related note, ChessBase News has finally caught up with the Jude Acers/Hurricane Katrina connection. Their story is mostly a rehash of things which have been reported elsewhere (especially at Chessville). Everyone continues to be encouraged by the fact that Jude is listed as alive on the Gulf Coast News site. However, actual contact with him would certainly make many of us feel a whole lot better.

Blitz take early lead vs. Masterminds

It's US Chess League Night at the ICC and here at BCC Weblog. Tonight the Boston Blitz are facing off against the Philadelphia Masterminds. The buzz in Boston has been all about GM Larry Christiansen's debut on Board 1 for the Blitz.

And an auspicious start it was as Larry easily dispatched FM Rogers in 24 moves on the Black side of an Italian Game. Both players managed to open up their opponent's castled king positions. However, it cost Rogers a bishop to do so, while Christiansen did it for free. Meanwhile, Larry's attack came a bit quicker and there was nothing left for White to do but resign.

With Boston leading 1-0 the other three games are still in progress at this moment. On Board 2, the Blitz's IM Josh Friedel looks to have the better of it against NM Carl Boor. He is up an exchange in an endgame, though it looks like he still has some work to do to bring the point home.

Board 3 is not so promising for the good guys. FM Paul MacIntyre is down a pawn in a double rook and minor piece ending (queenless middle game?) vs. IM Richard Costigan and his opponent's pieces look much more active. Finally, Boston's Ilya Krasik looks to be holding his own against NM Elvin Wilson on Board 4. Playing white, he is down a pawn with each player having a queen, rook and dark squared bishop remaining. In compensation, white has a cramping pawn on e5 that may lead to some kingside attacking chances (though that same pawn currently makes his bishop bad). It will be interesting see how this one turns out.

My projection at this point -- a 2.5-1.5 victory for the Blitz. Stay tuned.

Update (10:47 pm): Friedel secures the point for Boston on Board 2. I guess he didn't have much more work to do at all.

Update (10:58 pm): MacIntyre goes down -- a two pawn deficit in a rook ending with three of his four remaining pawns lined up in a row on the e-file -- sadly amusing actually. This leaves the match hanging on Board 4 where Krasik's pawn disadvantage has been eliminated. It now looks as if black is trying to liquidate the remaining pawns on the queenside to increase the chances of a draw.

Update (11:09 pm): Apparently not! Wilson is playing aggressively for the win and looks like he might get it. That's it! What a comeback by the Masterminds to secure a drawn match. A disappointing outcome for the Blitz who squandered an opportunity for their first win of the season. Final Score -- Boston Blitz 2 - Philadelphia Masterminds 2.

See you next week for more US Chess League action when the Boston Blitz take on the Carolina Cobras.

Banned! Revisited Again

There are bloggers (people like me who find interesting things on the web and post them for your consideration and pleasure) and there are journalists (people who actually do the hard work and digging to determine whether something is true or not). Sometimes they are one and same, sometimes not. And, oh by the way, a large number of people in the traditional media who claim to be journalists are definitely not.

In any case, we have found one such journalist/blogger in our midst -- J'adoube wasn't willing to take at face value GM Larry Evans' assertion that a school in Alabama had banned chess in 1998. He did some leg work and filed this report on the truth about Oak Mountain Intermediate School and chess.

Job well done!

Related Posts: Banned! - Banned! Revisited

Too funny not to steal

Hat Tip: Blogshares

Wall Street Chess

Swedish telecommunications giant TeliaSonera confirmed [a week ago] Monday that they have purchased Norwegian mobile phone company Chess/Sense.

Read "Chess sale final" from Aftenposten (Norway).

Yankees Suck!

Oops! Wrong sport...

In the inaugural match of the U.S. Chess League on August 31st, the Boston Blitz scored a 2-2 tie with their dreaded foes from the Big Apple, the New York Knights. You can read a detailed report here. Apparently the key game for Boston was IM Eugene Perelshteyn's 1st board win over GM Alex Stripunsky (it was awarded Game of the Week by the league).

I thought a bit of bait and switch was going on with the roster since two of the players who played for the Blitz (FM Bill Kelleher and Expert Ilya Krasik) were not mentioned in Paul MacIntyre's newsletter piece. I have since learned that there are all sorts of rules regarding roster size and player replacements during the season. In addition, the team competing each week must have an average rating of 2400 or less (with some exceptions) which explains why many teams have Experts playing Board 4.

In the first round, the Blitz ran afoul of another league rule:

Controversy was abound before the first move had even been played, as the Boston Blitz' second board, IM Igor Foygel, had to cancel at the last minute due to a family emergency. This meant that the Blitz would have to find a replacement, and so they called on team member Paul MacIntyre. Things looked even more grim for Boston as a last second cancellation also results in a time penalty, and so MacIntyre began this game with 60 minutes whereas [IM Jay] Bonin had 90 minutes to start.

Paul overcame the time deficit and drew the game.

Championship Season

The 2005 BCC Championship and the Hauptturnier kicked off tonight with 1st round action. This year I am not playing in either event – the Championship because I didn’t qualify and the Haup because I just don’t have enough time right now for adjournments (and based on the Reubens-Landey, all I do is adjourn).

Needless to say, internet coverage of this year’s Championship will pale in comparison to 2004. However, I do plan to post the standings as the event progresses and the un-annotated game scores which Bernardo puts together each week. Hopefully, I’ll have time to annotate a couple of the more interesting encounters.

Chess Ceiling

Link

Full-contact chess

I'm going to need our resident karate master's opinion on the reasonableness of this analogy:

Few similarities exist between the game of chess and the sport of submission grappling. Although if you break them both down to their end goal -- earning a check mate -- they're not very different at all.

...when you consider that, in both chess and submission grappling, the two opponents are trying to outwit and outmaneuver one another, it's not hard to make a tangible connection.

"Part of the game is getting to a check mate position where the other guy has no chance of gaining an advantage," said sensei Larry Keith, the head instructor at the Dynamic Full Contact Club in Roseburg.

Read "A full-contact chess match" from The (Roseburg, Oregon) News-Review.