FALL 2008

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Halloween Chess

October 28, 2008

Of the multiple games I played with Jose today, I lost three and won one. The first loss was due to a strategic error. Playing with the black set, I let me deviate from the offensive line. I played the second game with the white set and built my strategy as usual but failed to find a compromise solution when it was clear that it could not work. The third game was lost du to tactical error when I lost a precious pawn after having gained a slight material advantage. The fourth game was won while I was playing with the white set and was ingeniously played. After having gained some material advantage after a mistake of my mate, I have managed successfully to have his knight neutralysed during most of the of the end of the middle game so that the mistake could not be repaired.
   Now let me give some definitions of the different parts of the game. While the opening is easily described and everybody knows when it begins, it is hard to know when the middle game and the end game start and when the middle game finishes. The opening ends when the pieces have taken their position in order to begin the engagement. It is often described as the castling of the king, but this is not necessarily true. In fact, a good opening ends when the large pieces have enough open lines or space to participate in an offensive or to escape from or to push back an attack. Its end is also the beginning of the middle game. The later ends when the issue of the game is more or less clear that can be either a draw either a victory (or a loss). This is often accompanied by or coinciding with a drastic reduction of the sets, but not always. The end of of the middle game is also the beginning of the end game that ends with a check-mate, a resignation or a mutual consent.

Soon it will be Halloween and we will celebrate it at the Chess and Checkers' House in Central Park. It is only recently that I have begun to speak about the middle game. What distinguishes most this part of the game from the opening is the great mobility of the pieces. At the opening the mobility of the pieces are very limited, and at the very beginnng of the game, no piece can move backward. Because of that, the probability of a good move during the middle game is much limited and such probability is conditoned by any precedent one . While the strategy can stay the same during the whole game, tactics become predominant at the middle game but are themselves conditioned by the strategy. A good tactician can often foresee 5 to 10 moves ahead and the best one often foresees the many changes that can happen.
   Today October 26, Jose and I both lost a game against an unusual player at the park by making a bad move where an important piece of us was taking by a hidden piece of our mate. During the game a hidden piece is a piece that lags behind the attack line and is not seen or forgotten by one of the attacker; a good sight of the board is thus very important during the whole game and at the Chess and Checkers' House, because of the cliff, one of the player has often a bad sight. However overemphazing an attack while neglecting the defense is another problem. Finally, a good opening often helps to limit the possibility of being taken by surprise by a hidden piece and Jose lost his game against me by my good strategy, but I was playing with the whites (the last move of the opening in playing with the whites is a little bit different when you play with the blacks where the last pawn's move is to be more central; the explanation will come after)

Columbus Day Holiday Chess

The Colombus day has been marked by salient victories. Today, October 18, the end of the Columbus day's week has been marked by two salient victories against a brillant chessmate named Jose; another chessmate the old Jean, from Bretagne, France, was there as a witness and felicitated me after the games, the second one ended with a sacrifice of my queen while my opponent's queen was still on the board. I did not remember exactly how were the openings but I can tell that they were marked by the classical five to seven moves, like the ones described below, respectively with the Whites and with the Blacks that end with the kings castling.

Whites: 1.e3 d5 2.d3 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Nbd2 Nf6 5.Be2 Bg4 6.O-O Bd6 7.d4 e4
Blacks: 1.e4 d6 2.d4 e6 3.Nf3 Nd7 4.Bf4 Be7 5.Bc4 Ngf6 6.Nc3 O-O

The beginning of the middle game was a move of a pawn either centrally, of one case, on the column of the queen or laterally, of two cases, on the column of the queen's bishop, and depending of the circumstances and the positions of the mate. In fact, I was, at that time, following the lesson of my computer that is my tutor for this opening I have conceived on my theory and book on chess- Chess and the Bayesian Statistics. Chess indeed obeys to Bayesian statistics and many chess games can be won with a good opening, but the game shall be played after that withouth any error or any big mistake and the middle game offers such a huge possibility of doing those mistakes.

Before the game begins, the probability at the board is the same for both mates regardless of the opponents whose probabilitty of wining or losing is linked to their history and to their strenght, i.e., the historical environment, another kind of probability. This probability at the board then varies during the game. Since the middle game offers such a huge possibility of bad or uncautious moves, the probability of wining or losing the game rarely stays the same for both opponents after the opening. I often falter during the middle game and this week was partticularly bad for me but I have often refused or forgot to follow the lessons of my computer. After leaving the games today at the Chess and Checkers' House, I went to Barnes and Noble to buy a book on the midle game. There were many, but I wanted one that linked the middle game to the opening so that it satisfies to my hypotheses and theory; only one, the book "Learn Chess" written by John Nunn, a gold-medal winner and a grandmaster from England who wrote seems to have answered my expectations. Many of those books were only about special situations where some tactical moves have to be done but that may not present themselves during my games. The book of John Lunn is more general setting apart and also the general principles of the middle game. It is 3:04 AM, I have to close andd go take my meal and sleep; they will be given next time.

September 21, 2008

Yesterday has begun the fall season at the Chess and Checker's House in Central Park. There was the usual kids' championship to begin the season and I took those pictures that are above:

a) a chess diploma; b) the chess medals to be distributed, c) the chess trophies; d) a chess diplomate

The only thing that I have not appreciated was the distribution of places*. It has no place in a kid tournament (in any tournament, in fact) and generate frustrations and inferiority feeling among peers. It is unlike the chess standing among those who play chess regularly which is to facilitate the chess tournaments among players of approximately the same strenght and that is bound to excellence in the game.

Of the many games I Played this day against different opponents:

• I won three against Marx, drew one and lost one by forfeit after it has been discovered that I have misplaced my queen and king and that I have agreed to give up. The rule of the FIDE about this kind of irregularity is given in article 7.1 " If during a game it is found that the initial position of the pieces was incorrect, the game shall be cancelled and a new game played. " In fact, I did not want to deceive my opponent since "a player may claim victory if his opponent misplaces one or many of his own pieces", but the game had just begun.
• I won thwo against Sam in company of his little dog, Helene
• I won two against Augustin, the Bask
• and I won four and lost one against a young African American whom I do not remember the name

I think also that those wins were not only because I have improved my game but mostly because I have applied my theory about the link of chess and conditional probability (Bayesian statistics)**. This theory stresses the importance of the opening and the early middle game and the links that exist between the differents parts of the game. When you begin the chess game, you have to have a strategy. This should lead to an advantage in the middle game that may be a positional or a material advantage. The strategy I have adopted to win those games was a little bit different. It was to corner the king of my mate after that it has castled and to attack it pretyy fast with as much material as possible. In an excellent game (I am repeating what the assistant said) that I played against the African American Marc, the day before, his king was checkmated with his queen aside to it, by one of my pawn, my king and two other pieces of mine (probably my king's rook and one the bishop). This strategy goes till the end of the game, but may be more difficult to realize than simple gains of position or of material in the middle game.

I was also a little bit lucky since, in going to the park, I have had an episode of amaurosis fugax, with a partial loss of vision, in relation probable with my cardiac valve disease together with my overdoings, my lack of good sleep and my inconsistent meals. In fact I am lucky to have the possibility of playing chess while being besieged by many ills: intestinal, skeletal, cardiac, dental, nasal and occular, but chess helps me to escape the sorrow and the pain caused by those hills. Overalll, it helps me escape solitude.

The day before I win one game against Jose but lost (not even that) two against him. Jose do not know the chess rules as well as I know them and has refused to accept the rule of Put-stay which says that "the player who moved a piece in a case shall leave it there whether or not he has droped it."

Finally, those last days, my skill were increased much by learning different openings. Besides the Queen Gambit that I have learned years ago and the Ruy Lopez, I have added recently the Giuco Piano (that allowed me to win easily against some opponents, like Alberto, even before the end of the opening), the Caro-Kann and the Alekine (the later one having been played recently against Sam). I wil give my own ideas and comments about each of this opening as soon as it will possible for me.

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* Even in the classroom the distribution of places every month of every semester or trimester is wrong since the studenst are not in competition agaisnt each other, but the notes given to sanction a duty are exact and help to improve the skills.

** This theory stresses the importance of the opening and the early middle game

September 24, 2008

Today, I met again Jose, but lost three games and won only one. In most of the games I lost Iit seems that I have succumbed to one or more of the Bayesian fallacies - the judgment errors - I have described at the beginning of the folder SUMMER 2008. For example, I have dominated the first game till the very end, when suddenly I came to commit two stupid consecutive mistakes that I can describe as having been: "Overconfidence fallacy" or "Misperception of chance and randomness", or both of them. In the third game, the fallacy seems to be like "The problem of base-rate neglect" since I have acted with too much precipitation at a point in the end of the middle game after having offered my knight in sacrifice. Finally, I won the last and fourth game by avoiding this kind of precipitation and by attacking my mate's king with as many as five to six pieces after that he has castled: my two rooks, my queen, and my two knights. I have been able to put very soon in the attack my queen's rook by moving it in a partticular way, and my knights have been in a domination's position since the beginning of the middle game or since the end of the beginning. Jose was checkmated after having fought unsuccessfully during the whole game to let his king escape strangulation, the second checkmate this day, since I resigned the second game after having made a bad beginning.