Next time you are in Witchita

The Wichita Chess Club ... meets on Sundays at Borders Bookstore & Cafe, 1715 N. Rock Road, on Tuesdays at Barnes & Noble, 8021 E. Kellogg, and on Fridays at the Barnes & Noble location at 3045 N. Rock Road.

Informal games can often be found at Riverside Perk, 1144 Bitting. If a cup of coffee helps your concentration, this might be just the place to make your move.

If the roar of an alternative rock 'n' roll band or pulsating beats from a jukebox hone your concentration, try setting up the pieces at Kirby's Beer Store, 3227 E. 17th St. The Kirby's kibitzers can be counted on for lively commentary, too.

Courtesy of the Witchita Eagle.

BCC Improvement Survey

We are conducting a survey on how to improve the BCC for the new year.

Click this link to take the survey

The online survey is very quick: a few questions you can just click on, and a couple of free response questions where you can type out your detailed thoughts.

Please respond to it and ask your chess friends to respond as well. Even - especially - if they don't play at the club. We want to know how to attract them as players and perhaps as members.

We sent out about 700+ emails to:

• BCC members past and present
• Players at BCC events past and present
• Players at some local clubs
• Any one who ever played at the BU Open

Naturally, many of the email addresses will be out of date. And we have about 600+ players at the BCC with no known email address. We will send many of them a request to participate, but, again, please ask friends in your circle to participate in the survey.

And come to the annual Herb Healy on New Years day afternoon for chess, chess friends, and food.

Develop your randomness skills

Next time you get fed up with the linear analytics of chess, try a game that exercises the right side of your brain.

Press the "#" key? How do you do that?

The Maverick Philosopher provides a discussion on Algebraic Versus Descriptive Chess Notation. Just a few points I would add:

• Other than pawn moves, most players typically use symbols to represent the pieces, e.g. KQRBN in English. Without these designations, I think you would have to use "full" algebraic, e.g. 1.g1-f3 instead of 1.Nf3, to avoid ambiguity.
  
  
• Where two rooks can move to d8, Ra8d8 is certainly clear but Rad8 is more compact and just as accurate. There is another variation on this, e.g. Rooks on d8 and d5 could lead to a move like R5d7.
  
  
• While "x" is the universal symbol for a capture in descriptive notation, in algebraic ":" is also used. However, no capture symbol is actually necessary as there is no practical difference in meaning between N:e5 and Ne5. In either case the knight now resides on the e5 square and the opponent's piece that was there (if any) is obviously there no longer.

Must be an old joke...

...but I haven't heard it before. Courtesy of The Bremerton Speakers Corner:

What do you call a group of chess grandmasters bragging about their recent tournaments in the hotel lobby?

Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.

Who cares about checkmate?

At the Switlik School in Jackson, New Jersey they run an annual chess tournament using this interesting rule:

“We determine winners by assigning point values to each of the chess pieces,” Henderson said. “At the end of the allotted time for the match, the points are totaled to determine the winner.”

I don't suspect gambits and sacrifices are particularly popular. But apparently, the prize for the winner is:

The winner this year was fifth-grader Matt Moran, who also won last year’s tournament as a fourth-grader. As a bonus, Matt has played a special match against the principal of the school for each of the two years the event has been held. “Last year Matt beat Ron Janesko,” Henderson said. “This year he was beaten by our current principal, Terry Kenney."

Here's a photo of that game:

Check out the multi-media set-up and the scoreboard (for counting those point values as the game progresses).

Courtesy of the Tri-Town News.

Humanity strikes back

Read IBM Chess Computer Defeated by Boredom.

"That was a totally unpredictable gambit," lamented IBM Chess programmer, Benny Morgan. "Our system lacked the capacity to function against such a boring human being and it simply shut down."

Move over Elista...

... the real chess city is Beersheba.

Here's a surprise gambit: the city with the most chess grandmasters per capita in the world is Beersheba [in Israel]....it's a ratio of one grandmaster per 22,875 residents in this city of 183,000. That's...impressive compared to traditional chess centers in Russia, like Moscow with one grandmaster out of every 170,000 people, or St. Petersburg with one per 215,000...

Read "Israeli Desert City Leads in Chess Champs".

Beyond Deep Blue

Eric Meyer, a self-avowed non-fan of chess, has a few suggestions for how to improve chess computer user interfaces. To summarize, he has three major recommendations:

1. The computer should not move instantaneously so as to appear more human and methodical in its "thought" process
   
   Eric's perspective is clearly limited by the one program he is using. Most commercial chess engines include time controls for the game and the engine will typically take advantage of that time to search deeper in its tree to find the best move. Contrary to what he states, engines do not complete their full analysis in seconds, but instead will continue to search further as time permits.
   
   Update (12/10/04): I got this one wrong. Eric's actual point is that the computer should evaluate for the amount of time appropriate to the level/strength setting selected but then wait for a period of time before making the selected move. He believes that for beginning players this will be less intimidating than programs which move instantaneously. Interesting...
   
   
2. The computer should show all the squares which it currently attacks so the player is less likely to move a piece to those squares.
   
   This certainly seems like a useful training mode for beginners to help them visualize the opponent's threats. I know that Fritz has several training modes including one that shows all the moves a piece can make, but I'm not sure if showing attacked squares is one. The idea of tinting the squares to show how many pieces are attacking is quite an interesting idea. Now if I could just get my OTB opponents to color the board for me after each move, I'd be all set.
   
   
3. The computer should play chess variants.
   
   When I first started reading this section, I thought Eric might be thinking about Fischer-Random, Suicide, CrazyHouse, etc. In fact, there are specialized engines that play these variants. However, he had something completely different in mind (which left me rather amused):
   

   My favorite was Nuclear Chess. In that one, any piece could instead of moving choose to self-detonate, destroying itself and any pieces in adjacent squares....And then there was Thermonuclear Chess, where any piece could detonate after making a normal move.

Not for blitz

Check out this set of photos of a glass chess set.

Replacement parts?

Bridgett Kinloch provides a long list of things to ponder, including:

Can you buy an entire chess set in a pawn shop?

Don't worry, he's not a member ...

... of the Boylston Chess Club.

A founder of a Colombian drug cartel that became the world's chief supplier of cocaine in the 1990s was transported to a Florida jail Saturday after being extradited from Colombia. Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, 65, landed before dawn in a U.S. government plane and was driven to a downtown Miami jail.... Prosecutors said Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela was the brains behind the concealment techniques, while Gilberto, nicknamed "The Chess Player," ran the family's financial empire...

Read "Colombian Drug Kingpin Transported to U.S." (hat tip: Hawspipe 12/06/04)

Human, not so human

MacIntyre took issue with one of the quotes in "Does Deep Blue present a challenge to Mormon religious thinking?":

"At some point, millions of calculations per minute transformed itself into intuition." - Just in case anyone was tempted to believe this, let me add that computer viruses are dangerous microbes.

I believe his point is that we must be careful not to ascribe human characteristics to non-living things. I think this is a fair criticism; but, for me, it raises the question of whether we are correctly describing the human activity in the first place. What do we really mean when we use the word "intuition" to describe our human approach to chess if a machine can find moves through a completely different approach which are indistinguishable from our own?

Anonymitch asks, "Does intelligence require consciousness?" and answers:

I think not.

It used to be that we thought it required intelligence to play a good game of chess. Machines can now play better chess than most any human. So, either the unconscious machines are intelligent or playing chess requires no intelligence.

BCC at a glance - membership and active players revised December 1.

We recently revised and updated the membership and activity lists: we have 133 members [including some multiple family and club memberships and honorary life members.]

In 2004 thus far, 326 different chess players have played in at least one of our events. Events include an evening of blitz, a one-day or two day tournament, 4 evenings of the TNS and Monday swiss, up to 9 or 10 round robins in the championship cycle.

"Everyday Ed" Lafferty is the most active member of the club - he played in 46 events. Second is our newest board member, NM Charles Riordan, wtih 39. Board member and TD Bernardo Iglesias was very active, of course, with 37 events. Board member Natasha Christiansen played in 35 tournaments; Chris Williams - 32; Tony DiNosse 31; and our President, FM Paul MacIntyre - 28.

Participation in events was down in November, but the overall trend is still increasing, since the move to Somerville and during the first and second half intervals of the year. However, the Thursday Night Swiss had been improving, both in number and strength of players, but now has been stalling.

You can review our profiles here.

More on Chess and Madness

point2point posted a piece by G. K. Chesterton arguing that reason and logic, not imagination and creativity, lead to mental instability. Madness is not the destination of the poet, but of the chess player:

There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and history utterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been not only sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever really held horses, it was because he was much the safest man to hold them. Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination....

To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

Chess history does have its examples of great players who have succumbed to mental illness. Morphy and Fischer come immediately to mind. But are chess players really statistically more likely to develop mental problems? I doubt anyone has actually studied this question (though I recall that a study was done showing that chess players are less likely to develop Alzheimer's; perhaps this is the poet's curse).

I would argue that chess can be played using both logic and imagination. Are the hard core calculators, e.g., Tal or Kasparov, more susceptible to mental instability than intuitive positional players like Karpov? Perhaps Tal is not even a good example to choose -- was his bold sacrificial attacking play drawn from calculation, imagination or both?

See also "Chess, Personality and Madness"

Time-less

Over at Chess Underground, Pete reflects on the continuing compression of time controls in events ranging from World Championships to club tournaments and, of course, internet play. He points to scholastic play to suggest that things are likely to get worse (i.e., even faster - I know this is a value judgment on my part) rather than better in the future:

Consider this: the recent scholastic grades tournament had a time control of game in thirty minutes. The Junior Open? Game in 45. In fact there has not been a scholastic tournament longer than G/60 in the Midwest since the Nationals and Supernationals in Illinois, and even then side events such as "5-minute" and "bughouse" tournaments accompanied the main event....Perhaps the true problem is how we are starting children out - they learn to play in G/30 tournaments (where notation is not only not required, but not even recommended!) and it is only natural to presume the game is to be played at this pace in the future.

Here in Massachusetts the situation is much the same:

• Burger King Scholastics - G/45
• BCC Sunday Scholastics - G/30
• BCC Scholastic Quads - G/45
• MACA Scholastics - G/45

And, of course, time compression is a way of life in club tournaments. In fact, the BCC tournaments which still run at 40/2, 20/1, SD/30 with adjournments (for example, The Championship; Hauptturnier; Reubens-Landey & Paramount) are really anachronisms at this point. For comparison take a look at typical weeknight time controls around the area:

• BCC Thursday Night Swiss - 40/90 SD/25
• BCC Monday Night Swiss - 40/90 SD/15 (recently changed from 30/75 SD/30)
• Metrowest - 40/90 SD/30
• Waltham - G/60 (or faster)
• Newburyport - 40/80 SD/30

From Caissa's perspective, Mick didn't have right; time is not on our side (no it isn't).

Play chess against an advanced Russian A.I.

Link

We need more TNS players

Last month we had very few TNS players, but I thought the championship and hauptturnier had siphoned off players. But we started the December TNS with only 14. This is our signature event. Why don't more people play? Help?

Does Deep Blue present a challenge to Mormon religious thinking?

No doubt this question has been keeping you up nights. Have another cup of coffee, turn your brain on to overdrive and read Chess, Computers, and Spiritual Knowledge. Here are a few excerpts:

The wonder of this [the computer's ability to play "strategically"] lies in the fact that Deep Blue did not have any "deep strategy" algorithm. Its programmers did not design it to think strategically....At some point, millions of calculations per minute transformed itself into intuition.

The divide between the tactical calculation of [an] open position and the strategic intuition of a closed one arguably mirrors an ancient distinction in philosophy between two sorts of knowledge: episteme and techne....Mormon thinkers eager to lionize the seeming absence of a well-developed LDS theological tradition have frequently latched on to something like this distinction.....Deep Blue, however, seems to present a challenge to the neat dichotomy upon which this apologetic rests.

Tilting at windmills

Apparently, a small sub-culture is forming in the blogosphere around Michael de la Maza's "Rapid Chess Improvement: a study plan for the adult player." Two interrelated blogs using Don Quixote as their thematic launching point have been providing daily reports on two player's efforts to follow de la Maza's prescription.

Check out: (Don) Man de la Maza & Sancho Pawnza

Today I found yesterday's opening post of Self Flagellation to the Goddess Caissa, a blog which states that it is "in the tradition of (Don) Man de la Maza and Sancho Pawnza, another man's journey to escape the land of Class C rated chess."