IS 318 visits Jane St. Hedge Fund

Last Friday, I took a small group of kids to visit Jane Street Hedge Fund. Sandor Lehoczky, our kind host, gave us a quick but extremely informative lesson on stocks, currencies, and trading, and then took us on a tour of the trading floor.

Danny, Alexis, Miguel, Tommy, Anita

 

 

After the markets closed, we played bughouse with the traders.

 

 

On a quick break, near Battery Park City

A German Enigma coding machine from World War II.

 

more photos here

I finish last and go to Storm King

I am inordinantly proud of myself that I've started running. We bought a treadmill in June, and I am running 4-5 days a week. I like to run while watching 24 on netflix on Jonathan's ipad: I find the chase scenes very motivating.

On Wednesday I ran in a 5k at prospect park, and was proud to finished in 28:25, down two whole minutes from my two-week's-ago time of 30:36.

At least, I was proud until I saw the results page and realized I am on the very last page: last place (5/5) in my division of women 35-39. ouch.

Jonathan's time was 19:30. He finished 25th, and 5/17 in men 35-39. well done.

Today we went to Storm King Art Center, which is a easy day trip from NYC (njtransit). Below are a few photos, more on facebook here

success, balance, comments

Paul Tough's second book, How Children Succeed, is coming out September 4. The third chapter is about chess, specifically the IS 318 chess team, James Black, Matan Prilleltensky, the Polgars, Gata Kamsky, and myself. You can read a fun excerpt here of me going over a game at nationals and being a bit psycho.

 As you know, I love the Democracy in America blog, and I was especially struck by a recent article on balance in journalism:

       The problem of balance is neatly explained by a British hack, Nick Davies, who wrote a seminal (and underrated) book on falsehood, distortion and propaganda in journalism called "Flat Earth News". Mr Davies does a bit of teaching, and he has his students imagine that they are asked to write a report on what the weather will be like tomorrow. They interview a woman in one room who says it will be sunny. Then they interview a man in another room who says it's going to rain. Your job, as a journalist, is not to simply write up what you have been told, he says. Your job is to look out the window.

       Writing a "balanced" version of this story would produce an article that reads “he says it will rain” but “she says it won’t”. You have all these quotes fluttering around like “butterflies in a jar”, going nowhere. But there is a bigger danger lurking. What if the man who says it is going to rain is lying? What if he is an umbrella salesman? Your options are to either make a judgment about the truth, or print what you have been told. But if you balance an article when you know that all the evidence points to a sunny day tomorrow, then you are participating in a denial of truth.

And finally, is anyone else disturbed by the wildly inconsistent comment policy at the New York Times? Some articles allow comments; others don't, purely at the whimsy of the department editor, for reasons completely opaque to me. May I comment on a Science article? DON'T EVEN TRY IT. Racial profiling at airports? SURE! Assisted suicide? ABSOLUTELY NOT! A 17 year old Ambassador's daughter who falls to her death at a party in a high rise after drinking? NO PROBLEM.

someone explain it to me

adults and children

I am thrilled to tell you that my video, IM Greg Shahade vs. 10 year old chess master has over 50,000 views!

I am less thrilled to tell you that Chess in the Schools has kicked IS 318 out of their program (after fifteen years). I have no idea why. Their stated reason is that we are too successful. (?!)

In June, I had heard rumors from three different people (including one eighth grader) that this was going to happen, so I called my friend Shaun Smith, Chess in the Schools Vice President. He gave me his word, emphatically, insistently, over and over, that he had heard nothing about any plans to drop us and the rumors were completely unfounded.

One week later, after school is out, they sent us a letter saying we are out of the program.


Back to happy, I have been working hard on organizing my files and preparing some teachery materials for the Brooklyn Castle website. The first document, Advice for Teachers, has a number of google docs links within it that link to other word documents and chessbase files. The (much shorter) Advice for Parents has some ideas for setting up a club. I hope it is useful to you and appreciate any feedback you have for me!

olympics trivia

Which country has the fewest athletes competing in the London Olympics?

I had never heard of the answer-country, Nauru, which turns out to be a small Micronesian island with an unbelievably informative government website.

I love the DMV

So I lost my non-drivers licence. I went to a Counting Crows concert on Tuesday and wanted to bring as little as possible in my pockets, so I just had keys, my iphone, my non drivers license loose from my wallet. and of course I lost it.

I invented reasons not to go on Wednesday and Thursday (too hot) but on Friday, I went to the DMV on 34th st/Herald Square. As I stood in the introductory "information" line, where they direct you inside the cavernous room to the second, purpose-specific line, as I stood at least 7 twists away from the counter, only in that state of desparation did I think "maybe I can do this online?!"

I just ordered a replacement nondriver's license online in under 2 minutes for $8.

bravo, NY State government!

a very strange advance delegate motion

ADM 12-20(Jim Berry, OK)
Add to Article III, Section 8 the following:
The USCF will offer any person under the age of 13 a USCF life membership which will receive publications online only upon payment of $500. Explanation: Upon receipt of the $500, $400 will go to LMA and $100 will go to USCF operations. This member will have all of the rights and privileges of USCF membership except publications will be online only. The purpose of the ADM is to extend
scholastic tournament activity into chess players teenage years.


A life membership is $1,500 for adults and $750 for seniors.

7/23 -- To my confusion, most members of the scholastic committee are voting for this. I am not sure if they think:
a) Kids will stick with chess as teenagers if their parents buy them a life membership, and we will have more active members.
b) Kids will not stick with chess, and we will make a lot of money.
c) It takes until you are 31 for buying this to make economic sense anyway, so it's well-priced. But in this case, why are we charging adults $1,500 and seniors $750? Wouldn't it make more sense to have an ADM bringing all the prices into line? If I was an adult life member, I would be annoyed.

amazing dance video

we remodelled our bathroom! also I am right.

nice tiles, right?

Also, the ultimate arbiter, Geurt Gijssen at Chesscafe, agrees with me that James Black's first round repairing at junior high nationals was weird (4th question).

chess teacher quiz!

Want to test your chess teacher skillz? See if you have what it takes!
Start by downloading the following chessbase file. (or pgn here)

In the first part, you have a collection of games, one but sometimes two from a player*, and you need to figure out what the player's main problem is. You can choose from:

looks only one move ahead
doesn't look at what opponent is going to do
doesn't develop pieces
doesn't castle
doesn't know typical opening traps
trades too much
makes pawn breaks too quickly
doesn't make pawn breaks

Not all weaknesses are used.

In the second part, labeled "Whose Opening is Better?" you have a few positions that an engine or theory calls equal, but which in scholastic chess strongly favor one side. Determine which side is winning and explain why.

it's for a teacher training I'm doing. thanks.

*especially notice Bryan Parra is the first and last game.