Archive for April, 2009:
How To Fight Perfectionism In Chess
The Pubering Brain
I just watched a weekly Dutch television show called “Boeken” (”Books”). In it the host interviews writers about their new books. Today the guest was Eveline Crone. She is a psychologist and researches the developing brain. The book she wrote is entitled “Het puberende brein” (”The brain in puberty”). Crone states that young adolescents obviously have not yet developed their frontal cortex in the same way as adults have. The frontal cortex is the area of the brain that does a lot of controlling and directing. Whereas the frontal cortex of adults functions much like a speedy motorway and has solutions for most problems and situations, the frontal cortex of children in their puberty is more like a set of meandering paths in the wood. One consequence is that the young adolescent has a more natural access to creativity and intuition. This outline prompted me to think about my own rusty, albeit speedy, motorways in chess.
Perfectionisme
Last Friday evening I played a game at my local chess club. In it I fell victim to one of my old bad chess habits: perfectionism. My opponent played an inferior move in the opening and I gradually outplayed him. Just when objectively speaking I should have reaped the fruits of my play, I was prone to wanting and carefulness. I felt that my position was so strong that I should be able to win more than just that one pawn that I could take on a number of occasions. Imagine analyzing after the game only to find out that indeed I should not have taken the pawn, but should have gone for bigger game (which is usually the case when I feel like that)! Also during the game I repeatedly thought of an advice that IGM Normunds Miezis once gave to a friend of mine: “One pawn is just enough! Why didn’t you take it?” But even gifted with the advice of an experienced grandmaster I could not stop behaving like the monkey that puts his hand in the cookie jar, “…trying to get all the cookies, only to end up with useless crumbles” (Anand after a game in which Karpov had spoiled a big advantage against him). lastly I felt that maybe my opponent would get some counter play when I would take the pawn. Yes indeed, I wanted it all, and under the most favourable circumstances! Read full artcle here
ANOTHER QUICK PLAY OTB GAME
This game was my first with a digital chess clock,and i got into allsorts of trouble with the clock.
The time was 15 minutes plus 10 seconds each time you move.
At one point i thought i only had 5 seconds left when it was 5 minutes.
I won the game because my opponent made a mistake,otherwise i think i should of lost.
I am black in this game.
Once i got the g pawn off it was a race to h8. Read full article here
Robert Hess wins 2009 SPICE Cup
He came. He played. He conquered. That was what seventeen-year-old international master Robert Hess from New York did over Spring Break at the 2009 SPICE Spring Grandmaster Invitational. This strong six-player double-round-robin (the highest rated round robin tournament in the United States so far in 2009) tournament took place March 16-22 in the Southwest Collection building at Texas Tech University.
For his spectacular play, Robert impressively earned his second grandmaster norm with three rounds to spare and clinched at least a tie for first with two rounds to go. He clinched clear first the day before the tournament ended. I expect Robert to earn his final grandmaster norm and title before the end of this year. His future is very bright.
The other young phenom in this tournament was fourteen-year-old Ray Robson of Florida. He also showed incredible promise by scoring four remarkable victories, including three against grandmasters. After a rough start with just half point in the first four games, Ray stormed back by scoring four and a half points in his final six games to finish with an even score! “I am very impressed by the performance of this young man and I believe that the sky is the limit for him in chess”, said Grandmaster Susan Polgar, the chief organizer of this tournament.Read full article here
Grand Master Liem makes it to World top 20
Liem is the only Vietnamese player to feature in the leading list of men’s chess masters.
The HCM City-born athlete gained an elo rate of 2,591 in April’s FIDE rankings to put his name alongside the best world athletes.
Liem, who born in 1991, was conferred the International Grand master title right after the Chess Olympiad 2006 finished in Turin in 2006.
His most successful year to date was 2005, when he pocketed a single gold and a team silver at the Asian Chess Championship.
Another IGM, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, was unable to clinch a place in the top 20 after being unable to compete in international tournaments around the year.
Liem and Son will hope to improve their ranking as HCM City hosts the World Chess Championship qualifiers (zone 3.3) on July 20-29, which see the men’s and women’s winners qualifying for the final round of the World Chess Championship.
Read full article here
Subject: Is CHESS just a two player solitaire game?
Many people complain than chess is kind of a boring two player solitaire game. To them chess is basically a race game with a simple auction mechanism for key spaces on the board. The general consensus is that chess has appeal to players who like economic efficiency games but has little appeal to player who prefer a lot of player interaction.
After playing chess several times, I have come to a different conclusion. I find that chess does indeed have enough player interaction to keep my interest up and is indeed conflictogenous (to borrow a great new word from a recent “power grid” review.) But I am getting ahead of myself by giving my conclusion first.
1.Introduction:
Chess is a ancient game predating Board Game Geek. It is now in the public domain and is published by numerous companies.
Chess is basically a simple race game on a 2 dimensional grid. Each player starts with their pieces on opposite sides of the board and races their pieces to the other side. Chess reminds many people of Chinese checkers because of this, BUT chess has several clever twists.
Chess is also a solitaire puzzle game since each of your pieces moves in a different way. This complicates the game and it is challenging to find the optimal path for your pieces from your side of the board to the other.
Chess is also an economic game with a simple bidding system for a scarce resource. The scarce resources are the key squares (remember that your pieces have peculiar movement abilities which makes some squares more valuable than others) that you need to get your pieces from your side of the board to the other.
So Chess is a race game, a solitaire puzzle and an economic game. Where is the fun? Is there any player interaction at all? It is no wonder that many people are turned off chess since all they see is an efficiency optimization game (kind of dull unless you are an actuary).
But those who stick with the game eventually discover that there is indeed some subtle player interaction.
Read full article here
Victor Ciocaltea Memorial
The traditional Victor Ciocaltea Memorial was held from 23rd March to 2nd April in Bucharest, Romania. Twelve players took participation in the round robin tournament which was eligible for Grandmaster norms. Gergely-Andras-Gyula Szabo and Ioan-Cristian Chirila jumped on the opportunity and seized the norms after sharing the first place with 7,5 points from 11 rounds. GM Constantin Lupulescu collected the same amount of points to complete the Romanian domination in this tournament. IM Szabo was declared a winner on the best additional criteria. Read Full Article here
Updates directly from Dallas! Apr 05 Final Four noon updates from the last round
Today the Final Four must come to an end. In a few hours we’ll know which collegiate chess team is the winner of this year. While watching the games live in MonRoi let me tell you the result of the match UTBrownsville vs. UMBC that was played yesterday night. The match was tied 2-2 thanks to the victories of IM Mauricio Flores (in the picture) and IM Daniel Fernandez. The Maryland squad was the top seed in this competition since they count with 3 2600+ GMs and an IM. But as you may remember, the Brownsville Scorpions are up to any challenge!
Right now the two powerhouses, UMBC and UTDallas are facing each other in an exciting match where every point will be decisive. Can you imagine the pressure that players from both teams have in this moment? Now that Zivanic from UTDallas beat Maryland’s Kaplan the local players might have a boost of confidence in this tough final round. Read full article here
