portable wordprocessor a+

While I'm on the subject, I thought I would share an old Craigslist post that Greg and I and our friend Angela wrote several years ago:

Date: 2005-06-14 17:40:38

PostID: 78886459

Title: (casual encounters) Hot girl needs homeworkhelp - w4m

Heres what I want. A hot guy (Mexican preferred) to come over and do my homework. You will not be allowed in my apartment, you need to do it from outside on the front steps. I will not meet you or talk to you, I will simply slip you my homework, you will do it, and then return it to me without a word without once meeting me, seeing me or talking to me. portable wordprocessor a+. Get back to me quickly, thanks.

PS - Hope you are good at calculus

PSS - Im very hot, although you'll never know it

Of course we got more than fifty responses, one from a guy who claimed to be a college professor. Oh, those prank filled-days of youth.

Presidential Elections and the National Junior High

Don't think I'm going to relate the two because I'm not.

The problem I have with democracy as a system of government is that I have no idea what skill set makes for a good president. Maybe being an enormous policy wonk is by far the most important requirement; maybe's it's being good with people; maybe it's being a hard worker; maybe it's charisma; maybe it's about being able to amass power; maybe it's having had broad life experiences or a plethora of international diplomacy experience. How am I supposed to know??? And if I don't know, isn't voting just an exercise in absurdity?

While I'm going to vote for Obama, I have a sneaking suspicion that Ms. Clinton has exactly the right sort of personality to make an effective president.

subject change

So it looks like the team competition in the upcoming National Junior High is going to be insanely strong.

The K-9 open will have:
1. a team from Washington State with Michael Lee (2277), a 1991, a 1792 and a 1450,

2. half a Hunter team (probably a four 16-1800s) and

3. (rumor has it) Dalton with Parker Zhao (2225), Kassa Korley (2113) and who knows who else.

The K-8 open will have

1. the stronger half of the Hunter team with Alec Getz (2229), Aaron Landesman (1997) and at least a few 15-1600s,

2. Canyon Vista from Texas, with 8 1800s.

3. IS 318: 2 1900s and 7 more 16-1700s.

I've been going since 2000, and I can't remember a year that was half this strong or interesting. My school has won three of the last four years, and while the kids this year are easiest the best team I've ever coached, it seems we are very serious underdogs. Luckily I am also rooting for Mike Feinstein's students at Canyon Vista, and this raises my overall odds of being at least partially pleased with whatever outcome.

Mike was my very first chess coach, for 3 months when I was 11, until he moved to another state and became a lawyer. I have this vivid memory of sheets of yellow legal paper he would give me with chess advice like "5 things to do when down ....a pawn .... an exchange ... a piece." I read them over and over and over again for years. He's now moved to Texas and is back to teaching chess part time. It's strange to see him because he's really the only person I know who knew me when I was a kid.

Photos from Eastern Class / Testosterone

Darmen Sadvakasov

Darmen Sadvakasov
Jorge Sammour-Hasbun


Alex Shabalov and Braden Bournival

Braden Bournival thinks


Braden Bournival winks


Braden Bournival smiles

An idea occurs to Alex Shabalov

Alex is suspicious and frightened

Alex prepares on the smallest computer ever

Alex analyzes

I'm sick of writing stupid captions

whatever

I’m conscious that I may be type-casting myself as one of those people who thinks about gender constantly, but I had some thoughts on the subject this weekend that I’m prepared to share with you. It was towards the end of round four, when I realized I was very likely to lose. And I noticed that didn't bother me all that much, which made me both happy and sad. My normal response to internal conflict is to blame some outside person or factor, so I started thinking something like “Maybe there is no cognitive disparity between genders in chess; maybe men are just more aggressive and everything that comes with that: willingness to endure stress for longer periods of time, willingness to sacrifice happiness for achievement, willingness to invest emotional energy in games."

If that sounds ridiculous to you, let me turn your attention to Ilya Krasik's comment: "I play best against opponents when I hate them." Me, I just can't be bothered to work up any hatred.

And this in turn led me to the idea: maybe a woman preparing for a big tournament or match would increase her chances by taking testosterone supplements (not that this idea is either legal or healthy). But the chain of thought led me to Googling the topic, which uncovered a paper, “Testosterone and Chess Competition.” (Mazur, A. & Booth, A. & Dabbs, Jr., J.M. (1992) Testosterone and chess competition. Social Psychology Quarterly 55:70--77.) It’s not free, but you can download it for $14 at http://www.jstor.org/.

Here are some exerpts:

abstract:
The hormone testosterone (T) has a central role in recent theories about allocation of status
ranks during face-to-face competition. It has been methodologically convenient to test the
hypothesized T mechanism in physically taxing athletic contests, where results have been
supportive, although their generalizability to normal social competition is questionable.
Competition among chess players is a step closer to normal social competition because it
does not require physical struggle, and it is the arena for tests of the T mechanism which are
reported here. We find that winners of chess tournaments show higher T levels than do
losers. Also, in certain circumstances, competitors show rises in T before their games, as if
in preparation for the contests. These results generally support recent theories about the
role of T in the allocation of status ranks.

method:
...We studied 16 male players as they competed along with nonsubject players in one or both of two chess tournaments. Their T was measured from saliva samples taken the day before, just before, and just after each round of each tournament....

...The 11 subjects in the regional meeting include two 16-year-olds who competed in the youth division. Four subjects, including one 16-year-old, won three or four rounds of the four-round tournament and are counted here as winners; the remaining seven subjects won zero to two rounds and are categorized as losers....

...For winners we found a prematch rise in T (from Time 1 to Time 2), as we hypothesized and as is consistent with prior research. A period comparison t-test of T2 minus T1 is nearly significant (p= .08, based on only three winners because T1 is missing for the fourth). Also as hypothesized, the winners' T rises above that of losers, significantly so on the morning of the day after the tournament (Time 7: p = .03, t-test). T1, measured in the morning of the day before the tournament, is surprisingly different for the eventual winners and losers. This difference is not only significant (p = .02, t-test) but remarkably consistent: All seven losers have higher T1 values than any of the winners (we discount one winner for whom T1 is missing). This is not an artifact of the normalization procedure because all of the losers' raw T1 scores (ranging from 11.0 to 12.4 ngldl) also are higher than those of winner; (ranging from 2.0 to 10.7 ngldl). It
is not clear which group, if either, departs from normal morning values. Nonetheless, in relative terms the eventual losers of the tournament had reliably high T the day before competing.

discussion:

T was higher in winners than in losers after victories in both the regional and the city tournaments, confirming Gladue et al.'s (1989) finding that T is affected by nonphysical
as well as physical competitions. In the weeks-long city tournament, the effect occurred
primarily in the final weeks and in games where the players were closely matched, supporting the intuitively appealing conjecture by Salvador et al. (1987) that contestants must take their competition seriously if it is to affect their T levels. Our attempt to replicate the prematch rise
in T, which has been noted in physical competition, produced mixed results. There is
little indication of prematch rise in the city tournament. In the regional tournament,
however, which players regarded more seriously, we found a significant and consistent prematch rise among those players who went on to become winners, but not among players
who would become losers. The presence of the hypothesized prematch rise in the regional winners, and its absence in losers, is especially perplexing. The study design did not permit random assignment of subjects to conditions, and regional winners and losers probably differed in some nonrandom but unknown way. One might guess that the winners were better players than the losers, as is true in the city and most other tournaments, but our regional tournament included winners and losers of comparably high skill ratings. Our analysis of the
matchups in the tournament shows that the strong players who ultimately won had easier
opponents than the strong players who ultimately lost, a difference that these highranked
players should not have been able to anticipate on the day before the tournament.
In the Swiss system for setting matchups, two players of similar rank should not know
which one ultimately will face a tougher slate of opponents. Yet on the day before the
tournament, the ultimate losers had higher T than the ultimate winners, a result that is
difficult to explain in causal terms.

I should now wrap this up by drawing some concluion, but I got a nasty illness at the tournament

... I've been asleep for maybe 18 of the last 24 hours.... not really in a state to think much....

But if this entry isn't bloggy enough for you, try http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8241/443/

Performance Anxiety

wow, 165 comments for the last post. as matt phelps/ globular pointed out to me, "just for posting a few photos"... thanks everyone!!
pretty thrilling to be in ny times.

ok, beginner's mind. no worries. i'm all alone here.

let's start by mentioning how incredible amy winehouse is and how I could listen to back to black a million times.

inspiration is important.

amateur team east--- was pretty fun. I roomed with Abby Marshall, who is the coolest 16 year old ever. It's constantly a surprise to me that I don't feel the age difference when i hang out with her, but this is the beautiful thing about chess, right, that it enables people to be friends across normal barriers of age, gender, class, etc.? I was talking to an old student, Anna Ginzburg, and someone peripheral asked if it wasn't strange to make this adjustment from teacher-student to friend, but chess I think enables this. I remember noticing this most acutely with Aleks Wojt., who most people remember as an obnoxious drunk, but I found his stories pretty amusing. Anyway, things I admire about Abby:
1. She's remarkably chill and easy-going, but simultaneously tastefully discerning.
2. She beat Nakamura at bughouse but geniunely seems to think it's neither surprising nor remarkable.

Change of topic: let's look at some funny positions from kids' games.

Nicolas Polanco (IS 318)- Jiri Jranko
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cd 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. f4 b5 7. e5 de 8. fe Nd5 9. Qf3 Bb7

What to do? We'll make it a quiz and answers are at the end.

OK, the next position is not a child's, but from a teacher at my school who comes with us sometimes to tournaments. He was the first guy from the school who I worked with, and, while he is an excellent trip planner, he's less ... focused (just one s because the stress is on the first sylllable?) when he plays chess. I have a very strong memory of an early game of his that I went over, from Amateur Team in maybe 2001, in which he had some position like below, except with many more pieces.

So there is a lot more going on, but the point is that this guy is white and has the black king completely shut out of play. He moves Rb3-b8, so I ask him why. It's a pretty standard question for me-- I like to know why and I like the kids to expect the question. His response? "I was afraid that later I would forget the pawn was defending my rook and I would move it and then the king would take my rook." How incredible is this? The man is making a prophylactic move against his own imagined future stupidity. I just didn't know what to say. So this year he is fourth board on a team rated 1400ish, and he's playing a 1600.
Lauris Murnieks (1100) - Alex Bary (1500)

1.Nf3 e6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 c5 4.0–0 Nc6 5.d3 Qb6 6.Nbd2 Bd7 7.e4 Nce7 8.c3 d4 9.Nc4 Qc7 10.Bf4

Check this out: the 1600 rated opponent plays 10... Qd8. How crazy is that? It's barely a question, but the answer is at the end.

Ok and finally a reasonable problem:

Sasha Jouraview- Markel Brown (IS 318) 13....?
Amusing note about this kid: he won the k-8 Under 1000 section last year despite falling asleep in one of his games. He's one of my favorite students: always cheerful, interested, and genuinely trying to improve.

Look at his eyes: doesn't he look somehow wise beyond his years?

Gratuitous photo to cover answers:

ANSWERS!!
1. 10.e6! fxe6 (10...f6 11.Ndxb5 axb5 12.Bxb5+ Bc6 13.Bxc6+ Nxc6 14.Nxd5) 11.Nxe6 (11.Qh5+) 11...Qb6 (11...Qd6 12.Nf4 Nxf4 13.Qxb7 Qc6 14.Qxc6+ Nxc6 15.Bxf4) 12.Qh5+ g6 13.Qe5 Nf6 (13...Rg8 14.Nxd5) 14.Nc7+

2. Nd6#

3. 13... g5! 14.Nxd7 [14.Bxg5 Nxe5] 14...gxf4 15.Nde5 fxg3 16.hxg3 -+

So what else? I visited Greg in Philly for a couple days. He taught me the English and Accelerated Dragon.. I think I'm gonna switch. As much as I love the Sveshnikov, I always lose all my games....

I bought a cat playground for my cats... don't think I'm a crazy old spinster here, please, I know how it looks..... but I just figured it would provide me with endless amusement...

Here's a headline about my school: http://www.escueladeajedrez.org/News_View.aspx?Articleid=92

The article originally appeared in the New York Spanish daily El Diario, but they don't have an online index I could understand.

We've been reading Romeo and Juliet, so I showed my class the Di Caprio/ Danes 1996 version today-- that movie truly is an English teacher's godsend. I fastforward through the violent/sexy bits, ok, but really what a great job they did. It epitomizes the whole concept of contemporary. Although I think Danes was a weak link.

I'm going to Sturbridge next weekend to play... small consolation for the fact that Foxwoods doesn't coincide with spring break for me this year and thus is out. But I will be at all 3 (4) scholastic nationals this year: elementary, junior high, high school and girls'.

US Amateur Team East 2008 Photos

NM Chris Williams is writing a thesis comparing the effects of various chemical stimulants on chess performance.

WFM Abby Marshall beat GM Hikaru Nakamura in the bughouse tournament. I challenge her to a blogoff.

FM Andrei Zaremba: serious

FM Andrei Zaremba: silly

NM Laura Ross: tea drinker

GM Roman Dzinzdichashvili: game face

FM William Kelleher: frightened of me?

He's the little g: five-year-old Stephen Fanning, whose teammates included GM Zviad Izoria, GM Eugene Perelshteyn, and GM Roman Dzindzichashvili.

I want to mention that I think the argument for banning stacked teams like GGGg is completely ridiculous. It's basically saying organizers should ban players for being too good at chess, because their presence is unfair to patzers. I heard this argument a few times during the last round and I had to walk away because it seemed so embarrasing and pathetic. Why don't people think it's awesome that three grandmasters are willing to spend their weekend playing 1800s and experts for no prize money, just for fun?

My student, Alexis Paredes, and cool shadows.

GM Eugene Perelshteyn, NM Chris Williams, GM Zviad Izoria in a warm embrace.

Ian West and Shawn Martinez (of Kings of New York fame) playing bughouse.

no you can't

a rebuttal video from Billionaries for Bush.
Don't miss The Real Dick Cheney

Correctness Quotient

For all of my friends I have, secretly, stored in the back of my mind, a number representing what percent of the time, overall, they are correct about any statement of fact or quasi-fact. I call this their CQ. For some people, their CQ is subject specific. For example, my mother's CQ is 90%, but that rises to 99% when she is giving directions. My colleague, ok actually boss, John Galvin has a irritatingly high CQ-- let's say 97, 98% except on matters relating to politics (50%) or children's relative chess strength (75%). Having a high CQ is obviously good in certain ways, but having a low one isn't necessarily so awful. My boyfriend, for example, has an incredibly low CQ, but I (recently) figured out that's because:
a) he's conversationally ambitious, meaning he says a lot of provocative, imaginative things and
b) he enjoys telling outrageous lies for fun.

I mention this because I am very ashamed to have gotten my rule about doubling letters wrong and know that my CQ is plummeting in your minds. Conversely I'm very impressed by anijaoshi's "stress on the last syllable" correction-- less so by the running-pruning one, since prune doesn't end in an consonant?

Naturally, I also have a "Lateness Quotient" stored for each friend.

On a side note, whoever it is who's voting 'no' every single day in my poll ... I hope you are having a lot of fun, weirdo.

Finally, I'm not playing in Amateur Team East, but I will be there with a truckload of children (badly taught, horribly competitive, ill-mannered children :)). Say hi if you feel like it.

Two Non Chess Thoughts

1. If you live in NYC and like weird theater, go see Deep Trance Behavior in Potatoland. It's a little like Twin Peaks meets Rene Magritte. Great show to take a first date to and then pretend you do that kind of thing all the time. Just in case you're suspicious of my taste, the Times liked it also.

2. You know how some words double the final consonant when you add an ending? (e.g. run--running) But some don't? (walk--walking) I figured out the rule: if it ends consonant-vowel-consonant, you double the final consonant; if not you don't. Of course, I was really proud of myself for figuring this out and announced it triumphantly to my class. I'm sorry to say they weren't impressed.

Tasty and the Concentrate Lady

There are some beautiful photo reports coming out of the Moscow Open, beautiful mostly for their hilarious half-English captions. The above photo was labelled: "Anna Burtasova is very communicative. She gave additional points in the first round because her rival hadn’t come. Anya is upset. She can’t do standards." I love that none of that makes any sense at all to me.

"Tasty Anya Muzychuk doesn’t used to keep in the background."

And let's not forget everyone's favorite concentrate lady:

"Ira Krush is concentrate lady. Is there any use in flying from USA but not fight for a victory? She often wins prizes at high-level men’s tournament here." She does? I can't remember her playing in Russia in a long time?

Check out the link above: these examples are only the tip of the iceberg.

Identity Theft, Vampires, Grammar, Warm Milk, Obama

a few amusing things:

A story about a woman who stole someone else's identity to... take the GED and SAT and then apply to and attend Columbia and Harvard? ... wow, a criminal who values higher education, kinda nice. The article makes some implication that the thief also murdered her victim, but it's all very vague. The reason I bring it up is that her ex-boyfriend says the con claimed to be a semi professional chessplayer, but that he stopped believing this after he beat her. I have a related story.

Many years ago (circa... 1993?), I wrote an article for Chess Chow (remember that magazine?) somewhat faecetiously titled "Why It Is Better To Date Strong Chessplayers." I was 18 at the time and a freshman at Duke: young, naive, rosy-cheeked, etc. The article described a date I went on the night before, in which I accidentally admitted that I played chess reasonably well. This assertation immediately transformed my charming, witty, conversationally-skilled date into a drooling competitive animal. I really can't describe him in any other terms. We played a few games, and he got more and more upset until he was basically saying he wouldn't let me leave until he won a game. I'm sure he wasn't serious, but the point is that at some moment I caved. I faked a chess game. I lost on purpose. Honestly, I just didn't see a better way out of the situation.

Keep in mind that I had not yet lived in New York, and consequently was not yet the assertive woman I am today. I did not yet enjoy laughing at people and telling them to fuck off.

Which reminds me of an amusing little side-story about the time I brought a non-chess-playing boyfriend to the New York State Championship maybe three years ago, when it was last held in some nice "spa-like" resort. So I'm playing and about move twenty the boyfriend comes up and whispers conspiratorially, "I like how you have all your pieces in the second quadrant." I just nod and put my finger to my lips, but my opponent has seen us talking and is immediately suspicious. Luckily, it didn't take a lot of explaining.

anyway... that was a long, pretty random tangent. Second amusing tidbit: those eco-friendly Europeans. I admire them, all using their creativity to save the planet.

third thing: I'm an English teacher in my spare time; I have a hilarious class of 34 gifted 13 year olds. One girl is completely obsessed by vampires. She's an exemplary writer (esp of teenage vampire fiction) but refuses to use most forms of punctuation for (what I'm assuming are) rebellious teenage reasons. So I ordered a book, which arrived today, called The Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed. I really can't stop laughing. Some examples from the section on restrictive vs. nonrestrictive clauses:

"If an adjective clause can be left out without altering the meaning of the sentence, it is nonrestrictive. If the clause is essential to the meaning, it is restrictive.

The hand that is languishing on the windowsill once was mine. (restrictive)
The marks that are fading on my throat are not fresh. (restrictive)
The specter that is lurching down the street is my pal. (restrictive)

The languishing hand, which was once mine, applauded. (nonrestrictive)
The marks, which are not fresh, were caused by neither man nor beast. (nonrestrictive)
Only a person who loves gargoyles can love human beings. (nonrestrictive)"

and the sentence-combining exercises:

"The megolomaniac was scudding. He crossed the vestibule. His harem was waiting for him. They were in an uproar.

suggested answer: "His harem awaiting him in an uproar, the megalomaniac scuddled across the vestibule."

"She was lying. She was dreaming. Her dreams were of biceps and divorce. She was in her rickety garret. It was crawling with rats."

suggested answer: "Dreaming of biceps and divorce, she lay in her rickety garret, which was crawling with rats."

Beautiful.

last thing: new genre: Obama political music video directed by Bob Dylan's son Jesse and featuring Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Scarlett Johnassen