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coming up next... economic death bubbles? This way, the next economic crisis will hit when people start dying more slowly than the current models predict. What do you think the remedy for that will be?If you feel sick now, try a long, cool dose of sanity from Paul Krugman.
In other news, on Tuesday, I'm debuting for Queens and playing my new arch-rival, Tsagaan Battsetseg. I played her once before, in the 2007 US Women's:
Frank Berry U.S. Women's Championship 2007 White: Tsagaan, Battsetseg* Black: Vicary, Elizabeth
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 e6 4.O-O Nge7 5.b3 a6 6.Bxc6 Nxc6 7.Bb2 f6 8.c3 d5 9.exd5 Qxd5 10.d4 cxd4 11.cxd4 Bb4 12.a3 Ba5 13.b4 Bc7 14.Nc3 Qd6 15.Re1 O-O 16.Ne4 Qd5 17.Rc1 b6 18.Nc3 Qh5 19.Ne4 Bb7 20.Qb3 Qd5 21.Qxd5 exd5 22.Nc3 Rfd8 23.Na4 Kf7 24.Rc2 Rac8 25.g3 g5 26.h4 h6 27.Rec1 Rd6 28.Kg2 Bd8 29.hxg5 hxg5 30.Rh1 Kg7 31.Re2 Ne7 32.Rhe1 Rc7 33.Bc1 Bc8 34.Nxg5 fxg5 35.Bxg5 Ng6 36.Bxd8 Rxd8 37.Nxb6 Rc3 38.Re3 Rxe3 39.Rxe3 Kf6 40.Rc3 Be6 41.Rc7 Rd6 42.Na4 Bd7 43.Nc5 Bb5 44.f4 Ne7 45.g4 Rc6 46.Ra7 Nc8 47.Rh7 Nd6 48.Rh5 Bc4 49.Nd7+ Kg7 50.Rg5+ Kh6 51.Ne5 Rb6 52.Rg6+ Kh7 53.f5 Nc8 54.f6 Rb7 55.g5 Nd6 56.Rh6+ Kg8 57.g6 1-0
The game was summed up by CLO in this way:
"Battsetseg showed off her great fighting spirit with the following win over Elizabeth Vicary. It seemed like a drawish game for a while, but Battsetseg found a way to sacrifice a piece for three pawns and hand Black an extremely unpleasant defensive task."
That really isn't anything close to my impression of the game at the time, but .... let's just say I hope to improve the quality and consistency of my play in our second encounter.
maybe something more like this:
(where I am the fearsome red-eyed dog!) Further, I predict the overall match result will resemble this:
(where Queens is the man of color in the red loincloth!)
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to a bizarro ruling from the US Women's Open in Oklahoma:
for a while it looked like Chouchan would be the only perfect score 2/2. However, her round 1 game, which she won with checkmate, was ruled a draw after round 2 was completed. During that round 1 game, her flag had fallen. But her opponent, Julia Jones, had not kept score since move 32. At the same time, Chouchan kept score (omitting only one move) and was getting far behind on the clock because of the time it took to write her moves. Chouchan's flag fell around move 43. Therefore, the floor TD ruled that Chouchan should get 30 seconds on her clock and Julia should start keeping score. At the end of today (Saturday), however, Frank Berry made what he called a King Solomon decision, and gave each player .5 for the game. This reversed the recorded result of the game, and over-ruled the floor TD's action.
huh?
The reporter (Alexey Root) leaves out a couple pieces of important information: the time control is 90 minutes for the whole game with a 30 second increment, and when you have the 30 second increment, you are legally required to keep score the entire game. But even knowing this, do Berry's actions make sense to anyone? If you take the position that the floor TD was wrong, shouldn't Jones simply win?
*sic, although, to be fair, this happens frequently with Mongolians. Anyone preparing for Chimi, for example, needs to look at the games of both Batchimeg Tuvshintugs and Tuvshintugs Batchimeg.
I read the Krugman piece (ok, fine, only up to page 4 but I started feeling queasy).
ReplyDeleteApparently the economic troubles were caused by an irrational faith in free market laissez-faire capitalism.
One could almost believe this fairy tale, if one had no knowledge of government interference in the economy (which increases every decade, as new regulations are added, and old ones never seem to go away).
It wasn't the free market that politicized the housing market, subsidizing bad loans in order to foster the American Dream and inflating housing values along the way (increased demand combined with easy access to money tends to do that sort of thing...Econ 101). And then, when the actual value of those toxic assets, bought and sold and spread around the financial sectors, became known...the house of cards came tumbling down. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that deficit spending is not sustainable.
But no worries, I'm sure the philosopher-kings in DC will pull the right levers, press the right buttons, and captain the S.S Economy back to smooth waters. They just need to guide us, because individuals engaging in consensual trades just doesn't work without central oversight.
Now excuse me while I spend more money than I take in, in order to stimulate the economy...
The bizarro over-ruling made no sense to me. I think the floor TD was right and the checkmate should stand. What's up with Berry?
ReplyDeleteAs for revenge vs. the Batt, try a quick draw - that's sweet revenge.
Solomon would have handled the Chouchan game by declaring that a draw was the fair result and then forfeiting whichever player accepted his decision. That is, if he were following precedent.
ReplyDeletealso by cutting a baby in half!
ReplyDeleteKrugman 1-0
ReplyDeleteBerry 0-1
Checkmate always ends the game, providing it was preceded by a legal move.
ReplyDeleteYou've convinced me, Anonymous Commenter Without Any Links To Back Up His Assertions! What does Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman know? What did former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan know last year when he said he made a mistake in thinking markets would always act rationally? Obviously he was just knuckling under to political correctness.
ReplyDeleteThanks for setting me straight with your Rush Limbaugh talking points.
Rick Massimo
It's hard for me to tell if you were just crazy with ...b5 against Battsetseg or if that's a brilliant move. It worked out great, but I still suspect the former. On the other hand, I would have gone Qa6 and in addition I know nothing about chess.
ReplyDeletethanks Daniel, I don't know either, but I'm about to annotate the game, so maybe I can tell you soon
ReplyDeleteI had no idea what the time control was when I read the account. I figured maybe it was 40/2. SD/1 With the claim being invalid due to too many moves missing, you just go onto the second time control, and the mate would stand.
ReplyDeleteIn a sudden death time limit the lack of score would not be an issue, and the flag fall would stand. My understanding is a 30 second increment isn't sudden death. The current rule book doesn't cover increment time controls. I know with a 30 second increment both players are required to keep score the entire time. What is the penalty if you don't keep score?
It seems like the floor TD treated the situation as a non sudden death time control and made the other player catch up and gave the other player 30 seconds for the increment. That seems like a reasonable way of handling the situation, but perhaps there is some FIDE interpretation that caused Berry to overrule the floor TD and make the game a draw. Perhaps this would be a good question for the "Ask the Arbiter" column at Chess Cafe.