The Chess Blog of the Boylston Chess Club... The Boylston Chess Club (BCC) is a part of the Boylston Chess Foundation (BCF).
Mass chess synergies in recording events and history.
Recently in the Blog we copied the MACA release of the Somerville Open tournament. We got some comments implying that the BCF should not have ripped off MACA but written their own article. George Mirijanian gave us permission to copy the post and we felt that this was a well written article of the facts so why duplicate effort? Re-use what is good; it's the way of the green ethos, the lazy ethos as well.
Some suggest perhaps it would be nice if some BCF member hand crafted their own version of the Somerville Open but surprisingly most chess players like to spend their surplus time playing or studying chess?! And if such reporting was deemed a necessary requirement it would fall on the few BCF volunteers that already do so much. Regardless lately more BFC members have been writing for the blog and contributing quality/fun entries. I hope these guys continue to contribute.
I look at this "borrowing" from MACA as leveraging a good report of the facts of an event from George Mirijanian who was nice enough to write it. In fact perhaps there are other ways that BCF, MACA, and other organizations could work together sharing information and resources creating other synergies that enhance each other and therefore all of local chess. I think the MACA site has it’s audience and BCF has its audience, and while they may intersect they are also partially exclusive. So why not borrow from each other at times?
Hopefully soon Steve Dann, George Mirijanian, and myself are trying to start a Mass chess oral history archive. We missed Gus Gosselin but are hoping to catch the likes of Irving Yaffee before they pass. Also I'm thinking of trying to use our records and these guy's memories to create a Mass Chess history timeline.
The pool of chess volunteers is very limited, it would be nice if every chess player could find a way to contribute some time to chess and their beloved organizations. Even if it's 15 minutes a year to help move chairs and tables at the Herb Healy. Or even if it was 30 seconds to pick up after themselves. Take a look at the average chess day of Bernardo Iglesias: every tournament directed by him is an act of dedication to the game. And realize that every empty cup, piece of paper, un set chess set, has to be picked up and set up by someone and it's usually the director?! While it would take almost no time for an individual to pick up after themselves at the end of day there are many cumilative/multplactive tasks that add much time to the director before going home. Per Bob Oresick "Reduce Entropy."
Do you have any ideas about where these organizations could borrow, cooperate, and co contribute?
Please Comment
Thank You
Mike Griffin
07/15/2009
Simon Warfield won the 2008 BCC U2200 championship - the Reubens Landey with 4 of 5 points.. Ben Goldberg and Carey Theil tied for second with 3.5 of 5. Simon was invited into the 2008 BCC club championship to play against the club masters.
http://picasaweb.google.com/oresick/ReubensLandey2008#
Translation: You move one of your pieces onto a square occupied by another of your pieces. These two pieces “fuse” into a new piece which from then on moves like either of the two original pieces, which stay together on the same square. The King may not fuse!
Translation:
Translation:
After assessing Rfd8 as a fine move, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to throw in Be6 to b3 first, controlling the d1 square and soon the open file will forever be mine:
In my mind, this looked great. In the quantum mechanics world, my piece might be called Schrodinger's Bishop-- both alive and dead at the same time, until the box gets opened with White's next move, the "impossible" Rd7!
Poof! goes the ghost on e6, and ugliness ensues.Ghosts are always creeping into my calculations, but rarely are they so vivid.
Jason
Some social psychologists claim that we all have "UAC's" Underlying Automatic Commitments that are behaviors learned (many unconsciously) that can cause a person to act and decide in certain ways. Successful people and leaders that have battled their way up the competitive ladder are even more susceptible to behaving in a risky way as their experiences in gaining success and power sometimes provide a "king of my hill" mentality that blinds them from some seemingly obvious simple stupid self destructive behaviors. Granted addiction is the god of UAC's. Parallel to this is the common trait of many people to eschew medical care, this attitude toughens them up, until ultimately the quality and length of their lives gets diminished by a problem they take too long to deal with. Nonetheless, psychologists say many times people can't change until enlightened about, and worked thru, their hidden/uncontrollable dominant UAC's.
In chess we have certain biases and prejudices and usually revel in them. I know my outlook about chess was framed by my early coaches and teachers. Although upon my return to OTB chess I was enticed by the "Soviet/Botvinick approach" which I think instills in a player the drive to be disciplined to play the perfect game every time. But during the past two years I have really focused on how Harry Lyman wanted me to play, although stylistically to be questioned, it has lifted my strength to a place I have never been before and has been a lot of fun. I play the opponent and not the position, many times letting my gut override my brain. I'm willing to sacrifice to nick my opponent, have a brawl, and see what happens. Objectively this is all bad stuff. A situation occurred last Saturday in my game against Arthur Nugent:
YOUNG PLAYERS DON'T DO THIS AT HOME! [full score below]
Move 15. Bxe6??!! All in.............
Later David Vigorito told me. "Mike that was unsound as hell -- you should have lost!" From the tone of his voice you could tell he wasn't happy with me getting a half a point with junk like this. To that Arthur said "Harry would have played it the same way." Upon home analysis I feel I was delusional and lucky.
What are some of your UAC's of chess?
Please Comment Thank You Mike Griffin 07/01/2009
Mike Griffin,1 (1800) - Arthur Nugent,2 (2000) [B01]
BCF - Swiss #23,
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.d3 c6 6.Bf4 Bf5 7.Nf3 e6 8.Qe2 Bb4 9.Bd2 Nbd7 10.0-0 0-0 11.a3 Bxc3 12.Bxc3 Qc7 13.Nh4 Bg6 14.Nxg6 hxg6 15.Bxe6 Rfe8 16.Bxf7+ Kxf7 17.Qf3 Ne5 18.Qg3 Nd5 19.Rae1 Nxc3 20.bxc3 Re7 21.f4 Nd7 22.Rxe7+ Kxe7 23.Qxg6 Kf8 ½-½
Thank You and have a Happy Fourth
Mike Griffin
In a strategy you don't see every day, Jesse's King led his Rook and Queen on a valiant but ultimately fatal charge down Zaroug's e-file.
IM David Vigorito, Boylston Chess Club President, recently married Heather Kroll and honeymooned in Italy.
I saw all this and thought Black's lines will open quickly now. One thing I didn't realize was important enough-- Black's dark squares are very weak. This turns out to be critical.
But I played 28...Rb6. So much for my active defence. 29. Re7 Qf8 30. Rd7 Rb8 31. b3 Qe8 32 Re7 Qf8 33.Qxd6 Rd8 34. Qe5 Rxd5 35. Qxd5 Qxe7 36. Qxa5 Qe4+ 37. Kh2 Qc2 I hit upon the idea of attacking the f-pawn way too late 38. Qa7 h5 39. h4 f6 40. Qd4 Kg7 41. a4 Qxb3 42. a5 and some more moves were played but is soon becomes clear that Black can't stop the a-pawn.
Many will remember my last tournament result. Some chess friends remind me weekly about it (you know who you are). After two creative and very fun games against masters, I uncorked this scorcher:
Black, an expert, crushes himself with Nxe4??.Let me say for the record that I had planned to take this break BEFORE the event. Looking back, that decision was fortuitous-- instead of replaying the tournament 100000000 times in my head that week, my decision to take a break lent a cosmic-comic air to the result.
Even so, six months later, I am ready to return and clean that one from my synapses.
I'd like to share two thoughts at the outset:
1) We all know skills erode without practice, and, if that last game of mine is any evidence, some of us don't have many skills to erode. To keep up, I have been doing my daily chess tactical problems. I am currently using Anatoly Lein's "Sharpen Your Tactics!" which I found in a used bookstore (support local bookstores!).
I love this tactics book. No text, just problems. The problems get hard at the half-way point. I am nearing problem number 1000, and now they are difficult enough that I can only do 1-2 a day.
2) I have also been sneaking short lunch breaks at Harvard Square, where blitz chess rules, and the hustlers are pretty decent chessplayers. I am no good at blitz, but I did discover one useful fact: There are certain openings in which I don't understand the plans, the pawn structure, or anything. I would lose dozens of games in these openings, and all the gawkers and kibbitzers were more than happy to point out my opening errors. So, in preparation for my return, I have borrowed from Harvard library several opening books on each of these and am going over my nightly master games. I dislike opening books and those endless variations that start on move 4, but I think if I stick to the main games/main lines and get a feel for the plans, I can improve a lot.
Up next, a weekend event, then the Ruebens-Landy.
Photo: Tony Cortizas
| WEAVER WARREN ADAMS (born Apr-28-1901, died Jan-06-1963) United States of America |  [what is this?] |
| Weaver Warren Adams was born on April 28, 1901 in Dedham, Massachusetts. An American chess master, he participated in the U.S. Championship in 1936, 1940, 1944, 1946 and 1948. He won the Massachusetts State Championship in 1937, 1938, 1941 and 1945. In 1939, he wrote a book entitled "White to Play and Win." After publication he played in the U.S. Open at Dallas. He did not win a single game as White (3 losses and 1 draw) and won all his games (4 games) as Black! Weaver Adams won the 49th U.S. Open, held in Baltimore, in 1948. He also wrote "Simple Chess", "How to Play Chess", and "Absolute Chess." He passed away in Cedar Grove, New Jersey in 1963. | |
At the Mass Open George Mirijamian and I got into an interesting conversation about Chess Archives. Historically chess organizations do a poor job of record keeping for posterity. In fact, I find that the BCF bound collection of past Chess Horizons is probably the best source of Mass chess history around. But old state and club history is difficult to obtain. Example: there existed a slight controversy as to who was the Mass Open Champ of 1964 & 1965 for some time because of sketchy record keeping.
We both feel that many times the few records of existing or former chess clubs are on shelves in a person's house and end up getting thrown out when the holder of those records passes away and the family does not recognize the importance of them. There is probably much information that would be useful to chess fans but never gets turned back into circulation. The sanest thing to do if the records can't be returned to the original organization is to donate them to the Cleveland Public Library which has the largest chess library in the world called The White Collection. At least there they will be well taken care of, cataloged and accessible to the public.
Several years ago Paul MacIntyre made a redundant offsite repository (his house) of critical BCF records, like legal and tax records, in case of fire at the BCF. Recently at a BCF board meeting the same subject came up because Bob Oresick was trying to find more former BCC champions and mentioned that there are very few old records around. Paul MacIntyre related how he was excluded from going back to try and retrieve some old files that were left behind in a separate room of the BCF following the move from Clarendon street to Elm Street. BCF is in possession of some records about the Rhode Island chess club from the 1960's.
The Quincy Chess club had to dissolve it's assets when it moved to the Atria assisted living at 4 Seaport Drive because the Atria would not provide a location to put a steel cabinet for storage of their stuff. Over 50 years old, the Quincy chess club had almost no records, not even a list of the club champs, only some photographs of past members. BTW these are now possessed by Irving Yaffee, who I believe currently is 86 at this time. Everything else: clocks, books, sets, were divided up among members with the thinking at least they are being used somewhere in the promotion of chess instead of being cooped up in someone's basement rusting.
One positive thing: clubs & state associations can have are web sites and blogs. Now here are living documents developed to meet current daily needs that can become historical records of the on going life of an organization. Over time you are building quite an asset, a record of daily chess life.
Also you have people like Tony Cortizas who's photo journalism creates images of players that can be viewed years later. In fact a photographer like Tony possesses his own private library that has 1000'nds of more photographs than were ever produced in the past when developed film and processing made photography more expensive and time intensive. I should also add Bob Oresick and Steve Stepak as possessors of huge personal photo archives as well. I hope these gentleman make arrangements for their archives to be maintained beyond their days.
And it would be fantastic if some of these unknown, "lost", archives of players 30+ years ago popped up because of this essay. Do you have, or know of any chess archives?
Please Comment.
Thank You
Mike Griffin.
Chess and Sandbagging
"You Sandbagger!" [Tony Cortizas to Mike Griffin at the 2009 Mass Open]
Check my tournament history and judge for yourself if you think I was sandbagging or not. I deny the accusation and let my record speak for itself. But what is sandbagging in chess?
sandbag definition d:
to conceal or misrepresent one's true position, potential, or intent especially in order to take advantage ofintransitive verb : to hide the truth about oneself so as to gain an advantage over another
Players who are unable to win in the open section of a tournament having to beat all comers sometimes engineer a way to play in a lower section in order to increase their chances dramatically to win prize money. Action to intentionally lower ones rating in order to qualify, or misrepresent ones true strength is called sandbagging. The term is also used in pool, golf, poker, probably any gambling game. In chess there are three basic ways to sandbag:
1. "Play UP" in tournaments: Most swiss tournaments allow players to play in the section higher than their ratings qualifies them for. So a player playing "UP" will probably face opponents 80% of the time higher rated than they are and thus probably lose more games, thus probably losing more rating points than they would if they played in their natural section. Although some statisticians in the crowd might claim that the rating system will compensate for the variance in probabilities to win or lose in such cases; my feeling is that a class section in a tournament is a closed population which would skew the probability for people playing up, thus increasing the probably of them losing points. Rating point loss in order to drop into a lower section in a high prize tournament in the future. Also coaches sometimes want their students to play up in order to face a better quality of chess for developmental reasons.
2. Throw chess games: Lose on purpose. I very rarely have seen a player play in such a way that I had the suspicion they intentionally threw a game. Except in the early 70's when only one player comes to mind. A BCC player who's rating hovered around 2000 but was the strongest 2000 I had ever seen. Yet I witnessed this person lose several times to 1600 players?! Interesting enough I asked a strong Mass Open player if they had ever seen what they thought was a thrown chess game for sandbagging. He was pretty sure he had seen it. And It's more than rumored that in the 1951 World Chess Championship David Bronstein threw games to Mikhail Botvinnik in order to protect his imprisoned father. Sandbagging to keep dad alive. Leon Trotsky's last name was really Bronstein BTW.
3. Misrepresent ones self either by A. using the false ID of a weaker player or B. registering in a foreign country that has a different governing body, perhaps being so outrageous as to even claim one is unrated.
A. To George Mirijamian this is his biggest fear as a director: as there is no rule to require a player to show ID when registering. So a player could steal an identity, although if that person misrepresents themselves and collects winnings they are committing fraud. George feels there is nothing to preclude a stranger to go to a remote part of the country and do this. And you don't even have to be a member of the USCF!?
B. I have witnessed several cases of people with eastern block accents claim they have no FIDE rating, or understate their FIDE rating. Several years back, at a Continental Chess Tournament in Woburn, the class B section had a 2000+ FIDE rated player enter and play several rounds before being discovered. And although the person's games later were forfeited, the mere fact the guy competed in the section messed up the outcome of that section big time. A variant of this is to rejoin the USCF with a slightly different name and start over again where not known.
There was a fourth way that I consider ok, in the old days: a local Boston chess player could travel out to the then "boonies" of Western Mass to play say in the Palmer Open and know that their rating relative to the locals was deflated because the Boston population of players would have stronger players within their common playing group, thus be deflated when compared to a distant population pool. Except for New Yorkers in those days. And New Yorkers traveling up to a tournament, say in Sturbridge MA, would have an advantage over a Boston player because of the same phenomenon. But today with the internet, better and more books, instruction materials everywhere, and good coaches, this geographical effect is no longer significant. When the future world champ Magnus Carlsen can come from Norway having only one soccer playing grandmaster Simen Agdestein as his coach, it indicates that globalization has extended to chess wisdom.
And the classic gambling in speed chess: smart players will sandbag by just winning enough on the plus side to keep the weaker player thinking they could have a win if they only had a break. I was warned by my great uncle and BCC member Justin "Ducky" Power to look out if when gambling and your mental state is: "If I only had a little break here.......to cash in, get up, and walk away, as you are being hustled. In the 70's teenager Jim Rizzitano was an artist at this winning lunch money regularly while playing at the Boston Chess Studio on Newbury Street.
Do you think you've seen players throw games.
What do you think about sandbagging?
Please Comment. Thank You
Mike Griffin
06/05/2009
http://64.15.203.20/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://boylston-chess-club.
