Er maybe I forgot to paste the link??

http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/diary18txt.htm

Well the position that I showed, which black can reach following this "technical win" line, could easily be drawn imo. Shame such a pretty study is imperfect :/

OK, I can't beat the computer in that position. But it looks so clearly winning!

Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary is quite interesting but it's too bad he hasn't updated this site recently.

Hilarious exchange online with fellow chess player who doesn't play rated tournaments...


Pyramid: So lets say a tournament has a 1st place, a top u1900, top u1700, top u1500
Pyramid: people can 'qualify' for multiple prizes
Pyramid: but you're only allowed to win 1
Pyramid: (whichever is the most)
Pyramid: but absurd scenarios can develop due to it
Pyramid's Friend: like women winning the tournament?


lolololol

my friend and i were having the great computer-human debate and a couple questions that i couldnt find by quick googling:

-have computers reached their absolute peak ability wise? if not, and i might be way off here, it would seem as though even though computers have been dominating the most recent big matches, its still humans>computers (since a human would basically have to 'teach' the computer how to get even better..again this might not be how it is done anymore, i have no clue)

-are computers capable of making a 100% original move (and if yes, how do they decide which line to take)? not necessarily a move that has NEVER been played anywhere, but just one that has not been programmed into their database of game histories?

Computers are waay better than humans now.

Rybka 4 will destroy any human that dared to play it.

It would probably win 99+% of the time against Carlsen as white, and 90%+ as black. Or something like that.

Humans PROGRAMME engines, and the way you programme the engine, and exactly WHAT you programme into it will determine how good it is. This does involve human concepts like central squares being important in the opening.

To answer your last line, ...it depends on the engine. I have Rybka 3, and if I set it to 1600, the first 6 or 7 moves are theory, and then sometimes it will carry on with theory, but sometimes it will play a new move. Here, the programmer has allowed Rybka to play a move not from the theory book.

At higher levels, I think it sticks to the theory for longer.

The theory in Rybka 3 and 4 is not like the old theory, though. It is much more refined and accurate, and new, much deeper lines have been found in the past 2 or 3 years.

But, for example, the theory book of Rybka 4 is "tested" (probably with the infinite evaluation on) in 1000 or more variations against itself, and so basically the opening book is extremely close to perfect.

Playing Rybka 4 at its best is therefore almost like playing God at chess. But not quite that amazing. But the point is that Rybka 4 might, at a low evaluation, want to play a new move, but the guys who write the theory book have already tested this move, and whilst it seems good at a low depth, it turns out to be a bad move.
So if Rybka plays only from the tried-and-tested theory book, then it will play close to, if not, absolute perfect chess. So the programmers of Rybka 4 do not want Rybka to play anything other than from the opening book, and you can easily restrict the engine to stay within the book only.

New innovations will, for sure, be found in the future, but if they are, then it will have to be verified by a super-strong, super-fast, super-powerful engine, and tested over 1000s of games. Well, that is what the Rybka team do, anyway.

I almost quit chess last night. We got into a position that was clearly a draw, but my opponent refused to accept the draw...until the 88th move. One of the worst experiences of my life.

Edit- After the game, I had to get dinner with my girlfriend. And I just sat there in a daze...could barely even think. Most draining game ever.

This isn't accurate. Computers are getting better because they're speeding up so they can go wider and deeper faster.

And even if you did have to 'teach' the computer but then it beat you, it would be better than you since it won.

Yes. That's what they do. After they leave the opening book, they look for original moves. The computer would suck if it had to rely only on a database of games. What would it do if someone else made a move not in the database -- how would the computer continue playing?

lol go blue that must suck

[ ] funny
[x] your friend is a sexist
[ ] good quality post
[x] I think it's ******ed that a GM can get shared U2200 money.

The phrase "pics of gf or gtfo" come to mind.

FYP

haha what the hell? anyway that "date" almost went horribly. she kept asking me what was wrong because i was so quiet (and i'm normally very talkative), and i kept saying "nothing." and finally i caved in and was like "i just played the world's longest chess game. the guy wouldn't accept my draw and he kept insulting me in broken english."

i'm lucky she didn't break up with me.

FYP again

haha

turning into BBV

I was just playing through some old games of mine and found this gem from the last 2+2 championship. I was leading 2-1 in the match at that point and had I lost this game it could have made all the difference in the standings, so definitely a lucky break for me here.

http://ficsgames.com/cgi-bin/show.cg...27;action=show

So DONCASTI seriously missteps with 14.. hxg5 and after 15... Nd5 I am absolutely crushing and can win in several different ways. However, one of my biggest weaknesses is inability to play simple chess, I always looks for some flashy bullcrap (like 9.h4 shows clearly) So knowing that draw is enough for me to win the match, I come up with this line in my mind, thinking that I am a genius: 16. Qh7+ Kxh7 17. Rh4+ Kg6 18. Bd3+ f5 19. gxf6+ Kf7 20. Bg6+ Kg8 21. Rgh1 (because Bh7+ and Bg6+ is not flashy enough, gotta sacrifice moarrr!) gxf6 22. Rh8+ Kg7 23. R8h7+ Kxg6 24. R1h6+ Kg5 25. Rh5+ Kg6 26. R5h6+ etc., with a perpetual.

Now.. do you see a "little" flaw with my line? Yeah, f6 pawn is not defended :O For whatever amazing reason in my head I never even considered for one second that black can just play Kxf6, for some reason I thought that the pawn is protected Fortunately, DONCASTI was quite low on time and he blundered in time pressure some moves later.

Lesson from this - if there is an easy win, GO FOR IT, instead of looking for some flashy lines

lol calculation powahs (ok this time they failed with kxf6 but still..). I'd never even attempt to calculate that kind of line in blitz because I'd just explode.

World Blitz Chess Championship is taking place in Moscow, and, same like last year, the organizers have provided full videos of games which they were recording live, so you can actually see players physically make moves and even see the time, while at the same time see what is going on on the board perfectly. I for one think that this is absolutely fascinating

Carlsen is leading together with Aronian so far, and one game by Carlsen was particularly impressive to me. Now admittedly I am not a huge fan of Mr. Nakamura (as a matter of fact I dislike him quite strongly), but I was always able to appreciate his massive blitz skills. Now another thing I have noticed over the years is that in blitz games your weaknesses tend to show up more than in classical games. So say you are quite weak positionally - in a long game, you have plenty of time to carefully evaluate positions and therefore this weakness might be a bit less apparent. In the blitz game however, you don't have that leisure, and these weaknesses show up fully. Now in my opinion this game shows exactly why Carlsen is at the very top while Nakamura is a bit behind even though he has massive talent - Carlsen is simply superior in strategic play. Just watch this video and you will be able to appreciate what a perfect strategic performance that was by Carlsen, it was quite a mind-blowing experience to see him make all those simple yet incredibly strong moves on video rather than just on a 2d board on ICC.

There are plenty of other games, too, and I would recommend looking through them, it is tons of fun

here is the link to Nakamura - Carlsen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJ4w...layer_embedded

Caruana - Carlsen is another game that shows Carlsen's brilliant understanding of chess. He sacs a pawn in the opening for better development (I think it is probably a line but as I am not a Ruy Lopez player myself I can't tell) and I am thinking to myself: "well yeah, black certainly has compensation, white has weak pawn + black has attacking chances..." and while I am thinking that to myself Carlsen trades queens (!!) and sacs a second pawn in order to increase that development advantage even more. Normally kids are being taught that if they sac something for initiative, most often queens should stay on the board, yet here he not only trades them but sacs another pawn too, all for purely positional advantage with queens of the board. It starts to dawn on me how brilliant it was as white pretty much cannot do anything and is going to lose both pawns with a better position for black too. It is quite a humbling experience to be honest

I was debating opening a thread for this, but I was not sure about the interest level so decided to just post it here for now.

As most of you will probably know already, I am a proud Lithuanian citizen. As far as chess goes, Lithuania was and is just a province - we do not have any big chess tournaments that would attract strong players, we do not have many very strong players ourselves, (I am like #28 in Lithuanian rating list with my ELO being only 2325 and #10 player is currently rated 2405, so that should give you an idea..). We did have some very nice accomplishments in various junior competitions, and, probably most notably, by the crown jewel of Lithuanian chess, Viktorija Cmilyte, who has recently become a full GM and is on a verge of womans top 10 in the world, but that is about it. Therefore I was very very happy to hear that Lithuanian Chess Federation is organizing a huge event to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the greatest Lithuanian chess player ever, Vladas Mikenas.

Now most of you probably have not even heard this name, yet he certainly had plenty of achievements during his career. Throughout his career Mikenas has beat players like Alechin, Botvinik, Smyslov, Tal, Bronstein, Keres, Bogoljubow, Vidmar, Stahlberg, Maroczy and countless others. According to chessmetrics ratings (and I trust their method quite a lot), he was #12 in the world ranking during one period. He was Lithuanian champion countless times and played on Board 1 for Lithuania in several chess Olympiads. Also, he participated in 10 (!) USSR chess championships, which, at that time, were probably the strongest tournaments in the world. He was also the main coach of great Paul Keres for years when Keres was at his peak. Later in his life he was the chief arbiter in several World Championship Matches, such as Kasparov vs Smyslov or Kasparov vs Karpov. He has several opening systems named after him, such as 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. e4 in the English, the 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. f4 in the Benoni (also known as the Four Pawns Attack, I always try to play this against the Benoni if my opponents let me as it is quite fun, and I feel obliged to honor the patriarch!) and the funny looking but probably quite dubious 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qd3 against Nimzowitch. Also, the 1. d4 Nc6 opening is often called the Bogoljubow-Mikenas system.

I am indeed very very happy that our chess federation has finally decided to organize a memorial tournament for this great player. I am also very very happy that they found quite a lot of sponsors which created a quite large prize fund, which in turn attracted many strong players. Now bear with me on this one - the last large international tournament Lithuania has held was 13 years ago! After that, it was mainly only Lithuanian players and maybe a couple weakish foreign IM's and GM's participating in most of the open tournaments. For this one, however, there are already 9 GM's registered (2 of them are over 2600+ and one of them, the Russian GM Shimanov is considered to be a great talent with a 2520ELO and a GM title at the age of 17) along with plenty of IM's, and from my friends back home I gather that there are around two dozens of other strong foreign GM's who plan to participate but have not made their decision final yet. Yes, for a lot of countries that is nothing impressive, but for Lithuanian chess this is absolutely huge and I am thrilled about it

The festival will last 3 days and will involve the Blitz tournament, the Rapid tournament, and the Grand Final. The Grand Final will be a 6 player affair, with 3 invited players, GM Navara (first 2700+ to play in chess tournament in Lithuania ever I assume, even though that is not confirmed), GM Beliavsky who was a good friend of Mikenas and is still rated 2660 and GM Rozentalis who has been our highest rated player for years and during one period was in the top 20 of the world. Other 3 players will be the ones who will take first 3 places in the rapid championship. So the final tournament should be very strong and exciting to watch Also, Anatoly Karpov , who was also a good friend of Mikenas, will be present during the festival, I am not sure if he is going to play though. The Maestro himself, Garry Kasparov, also wanted to visit to pay his respect to Mikenas (they were also good friends) but he couldn't as he will be in the U.S.A at that time. However, he promised to make room in his schedule in 2011, when a similar festival is going to be organized again.

So this has definitely turned in to TL;DR and I am sorry for that - I realize that most of you will probably not care about this at all, but I just wanted to express my joy that such strong tournament will finally take place in my home country and pay some honor to the great chess player who is rather unknown internationally, and where else to do that than in the great 2+2 chess community, right?

Now I do not want to just straight up advertise or anything, but if any of you reading this will be interested in participating, please PM me and I will give you all the details, including the official regulations of the tourney. Accommodation and food can be found pretty cheaply in Lithuania, so it would be quite a cheap possibility to see and hopefully play against some very very strong players. I would also personally appreciate it very very much if any of you would end up playing

Thanks for reading!

edit: if mods find this to be inappropriate advertising of the tournament, feel free to delete the post

I had seen the Nakamura - Carlsen game last night and it was incredibly fascinating to watch. The power and confidence that Carlsen showed by making these simple and yet powerful moves was very pleasing. The way Carlsen handled the endgame vs the very tricky rook and knight play by Nakamura was equally as impressive. With only 15 seconds on the clock Carlsen was able to dodge and calculate through all of the traps laid by Nakamura. I'm going to have to rewatch this game to get an even better appreciation of the skill of both players.

ykw: I certainly wouldn't be good enough to even consider playing, but depending on dates I might come along for a couple of days to watch/learn and see Lithuania.

The official dates are November 26-28th, but on 26th there is only a youth team tournament, so the main action is on 27th and 28th.

And trust me - as of now, there are about 200 players registered for each blitz and rapid tournaments and quite a large portion of them are Lithuanian amateurs using their chance to cheaply play in a strong tournament, and young Lithuanian kids, for the same reason of course top 40 or so in each tournament are quite strong, but apart from that.. the entry fee to rapid is an equivalent of 6 euros, to blitz an equivalent of like 3 euros, so why not?