US Chess School Photos

I'm in San Diego, observing the current incarnation of the US Chess School. This is a nonprofit run by Greg Shahade that brings 8 of the country's top juniors together for 5 days of intensive training with a top grandmaster. Kaidanov is the trainer for this session; Shulman has done a camp and Joel Benjamin is scheduled for the August session. All the kids are 1900-2150 and 9-12 years old. The training is free for students thanks to the generous sponsorship of Jim Roberts, in conjunction with the AF4C. I'll be writing about the camp for CLO, but if you are curious now, more info is available at www.uschessschool.com.

Gregory Kaidanov plays blindfold blitz against Luke Harmon at the end of the day. Greg Shahade assists relaying moves.

Luke Harmon plays blitz.

Sasha Velikanov plays blitz.

Sasha's rook gets trapped.

Alexander Ostrovskiy enjoys the campJarod Pamatmat isn't scared of you.
Varun Krishnan

The Moods of Greg Shahade

Greg's friend Noel took us for a scenic beach hike.

reflective Greg

happy Greg

pensive Greg

Thoughtful Greg looks at sky.

Invisible Greg

More photos and commentary coming soon.

Photos from Marshall International

NM Chris Williams and GM Alejandro Ramirez
GM Jaan Ehlvest and Frank Marshall
IM Jay Bonin
FM John Bick

Now prepare yourself: coming up are three almost identical pictures of GM Sergey Erenburg. It's your job to spot the five differences.

GM Sergey Erenburg 1
GM Sergey Erenburg 2

GM Sergey Erenburg 3

Isn't that just some fantastic light? It makes him look almost angelic, don't you think?

No, so, really, the five differences was just a joke, just trying to get you interested in looking at the same picture 3 times. Suckers. But I really do want to know which photo you would select if you absolutely had to pick one. I know you don't care at all, ok, but just humor me and vote in the poll?

I'm doing a blurb on the tournament soon for uschess.org. This will include complete answers to the following questions:

1. What aspect of video game design does Alejandro Ramirez believe he excels in?

2. How did Alejandro Ramirez know his sixth round opponent, GM Mark Paragua, would accept a draw in 9 moves with white?

3. Which IM exclaimed loudly after round five, "Beating a sucker is the greatest thrill there is!"

actually....

http://billionairesforbush.com/music/dontvote.mp3

Really, How Is He Not Going to Win? And Easily?

Please watch.

I'm so excited. It's the first time I've ever felt 100% behind a political candidate. I can't believe he hasn't said one single thing I thought was stupid.

(I saw his much-maligned comment about lower-class Pennsylvanians turning to God and guns out of hopelessness as a statement of obvious fact rather than a controversial opinion. It makse sense that when people feel powerless, they turn to things that seem very powerful. Noticing that doesn't mean you don't believe in the existance/power of god any more than it means you don't believe in the existance/ power of guns.)

Alex Shabalov, former Republican

Adia Onyango, NY State delegate for Barack Obama and winner of the Cleveland Open, Under 1400 section.

What's really impressive is she didn't lose this position.

A Gallon of Karma Is Cheaper Than 200 Gallons of Gas

I have a favor to ask you guys. I teach a really amazing person, Angelica Berrios. She's a brilliant and hard-working chess player, a gracious and mature young woman, and a person who hasn't had a whole lot of opportunities in her life. She's one of my all-time favorite kids and she's graduating eighth grade this year, so I wanted to try to do something special for her. She's hardly gotten to play in any adult tournments ever, and I'd really like for her to be able to play in the World Open.

I should mention her recent accomplishments: she's the 2008 Brooklyn High School Champion, the 2008 National Girls 16 and Under Champion, and came 6th in the 2007 National Eighth Grade Championship. She's over 1800 (but not officially).

I was hoping some generous blog-reader might sponsor all or part of the cost of the World Open. It would bring you a truckload of good karma. She's a super-deserving kid, and it would mean a great deal to her.

I'm thinking the costs are about $750 ($375 entry fee, $250 for part of a hotel room (maybe less), and $125 food for 5 days). If you are moved to give something, but can only afford a smaller amount, we'd be extremely grateful for that also. Of course, you'll see every receipt. If she wins anything (not unlikely, as she's eligible to play the Under 1800 section), you'll get your money back first. And we'll go over your WO games with you, if that means anything to you.

Also, you have three straight years of being guaranteed not to be hit by a bus.

Thanks.

What's Up with the Watson-Hating?

I've been reading these two books, Attacking Manual 1 by Jacob Aagaard, and True Lies in Chess by Lluis Comas Fabrego, both from Quality Press (overall a great publisher). They are both interesting and rich with ideas, but I'm struck by the recurrant cheap shots both take at John Watson. I should say up front that I'm a HUGE fan of Watson-- I find his books instructive, philosophical, and extremely enjoyable to read. I think his Secrets of Chess Strategy is a very important book in the history of chess thought. However, even if I thought he was a hack, I would still be taken aback by the treatment he's getting here.

Let's take a look:
Attacking Manual 1, Preface, p. 21:

"I remember when I read John Watson's Secrets of Chess Strategy back in 2000 that I was unconvinced about his idea of "rule-independance" where he was claiming that the strongest players were relying less and less on rules and more and more on calculation. I had a problem with this notion for several reasons.

One is that Watson is American and that the strongest players in the US do not have the kind of chess culture players in Eastern Europe (and even some in Western Europe) have. If your training consists solely of opening analysis and tactical exercises and is not based on a chess education, it is an understandable point of view to have. However, the East Europeans who have thought a lot about rules (just go through Watson's hero Mark Dvoretsky's books on positional play) are much better. At one point there were no autodidact American's (sic) on the US National team."

Where to start? OK, I am absolutely the last person to express pro-American opinions, but you can't attack someone's thoughts because of their nationality. It's a well-known logical fallacy (ad hominem) to attack an argument because of the person making it rather than the ideas themselves, but attacking an argument because of the author's country of origin? It's incomprehensible to me that Aagaard seriously tries to do this.

Secondly, Aagaard uses Dvoretsky as an example of why Watson is wrong, yet calls Dvoretsky Watson's hero sarcastically. That doesn't make any sense, right?

Thirdly, (and this might seem bitchy of me, but I'm an English teacher) if you are going to be high-brow enough to casually use the word autodidact (meaning self-taught person), then I think you should know the difference between a plural and a possessive. It's also not clear to me which US National team Aagaard refers to-- certainly not one in recent memory. And again, let's say this was true in 1985. Let's say they were also all tobacco-chewing second cousins with three arms who had never seen a chess book in their lives. What does that have to do with Watson's ideas?

The second thing I am struck by is the comparative discussion in both books about inaccuracies in the annotations of classic games.

Aagaard (p 21):

"Later in his writings, Watson included strategic decisions in his definition of calculation and it seemed to limit rules to be something uttered by Tarrasch and Lasker a hundred years ago. Understood in this way, meaning that the top players think for themselves at all times and are not bound by dogmas, it is impossible to disagree with Watson, though I would question the assumption that would then be inherent in this interpretation: that Capablanca, Lasker, and Tarrasch were excessively dogmatic in their play. I choose to believe that they simply annotated their games with a weak audience in mind and therefore explained their thoughts in a simplistic way at times, bowing to the expectations of the public."

So, first of all, the assumption that Tarrasch, Capa etc were dogmatic is absolutely not inherent in "this interpretation" (which is arguably not even a completely fair summary of what Watson says). It would be like saying Watson and Crick (sorry, of course a different Watson: he and Crick discovered that DNA was structured as a double helix) were dogmatic for not mapping the human genome. It's not dogmatism or inflexible thinking not to be ahead of your time. It's just normal.

Secondly, you can't criticize Watson for "limiting the rules to be something uttered ...a hundred years ago" when his book is sub-titled "Advances Since Nimzowitsch."

But Aagaard's point about annotating for weak audiences is fair enough and I agree.

But then Comas Fabrego begins chapter one with the words:

"In the games that appear in the classic manuals the analysis is usually too one-sided. History is always written by the winners and often their research lacks objectivity. Later treatises blindly copy these 'exemplary games' thus reinforcing the transmission of the inaccurate, sometimes utterly false, knowledge they try to show." But he's pissed off about this-- in the introduction he claims his own chess education was slowed by the "lies and mistakes" of annotations, and he blames "authors' lack of chess strength, scant ability to pass on their knowledge, superficial analysis, etc." as well as their "lack of honesty." Is he really calling Watson (who he names repeatedly as one of these problematic authors) a liar? That seems quite ridiculous, especially since in the game that follows, Comas Fabrego agrees more often than not with Watson's annotations.

Now these are two completely different authors, but given that Aagaard runs, or co-runs Quality Press, it seems strange that the two books that appear almost simultaneously express such contradictory opinions. But maybe I shouldn't be surprised: Aagaard is writing a book about the rules of attacking play, while Comas Fabrego is writing about the dangers of overly general applications of rules and the importance of rigorously accurate analysis. But I'm quite sure it's strange that they use these seemingly opposed viewpoints to attack Watson.

While I'm complaining, let me quote one more bizarro piece of reasoning from Comas Fabrego on a Geller annotation:

"Regarding the assertion that after a2-a3 the c5-knight feels at home, it reminds me of the classic and somewhat naive saying 'When a piece is badly placed the whole position is bad' only I would feel like phrasing it 'When a piece is well-placed, the whole position is good.' Obviously this is a somewhat limited statement" (p 21).

Slow down there, Nelly: you can't do that. The inverse of a statement is not implicitly true. (In other words, if a--> b, you can assume the contrapositive, ~b-->~a, but you cannot assume either the inverse (as is being done here) ~a --> ~b, or the converse, b--> a.) So he's correct to say this statement is somewhat limited, but that's because its truth value is totally unrelated to that of the original rule. Furthermore, Geller never comes anywhere close to saying "The well-placed nature of this knight alone is enough to make black's position good."

Conclusion:

I like both books and have learned things from each. True Lies is a little dense and difficult for my taste: I think I have an above-average work ethic when it comes to reading chess books, but this one kicked my ass. It's the kind of book I imagine Ray Robson reading. However, I really like his in-depth discussion of specific positions and his comparison of different authors' explanations of how to understand them. I also appreciate his summary of key points at the end of several games, although I found it more useful to read these before I began looking at the game.

Aagaard's book is much more enjoyable and reader-friendly. I love that he previews key positions at the beginning of each chapter and asks the reader to analyze them. I appreciate that he tries to limit the variations and explain ideas in words. I do notice that he sometimes cheats, explanation-wise-- giving absurdly computerish lines in a book that endeavors to explain how humans can use principles and intuition to guide us. (p. 29, top of the second column, for example)

It's a shame that I will remember both books primarily for their unprofessional and logically questionable attacks on John Watson.

Girls/Women Rock!

Some recent fantastic results by IS 318 female chessplayers:

Angelica Berrios (1800) won the Brooklyn High School Chess Championship today, beating 4 Murrow High School students, and leading IS 318 to our first place team finish. Angelica also recently won the National Girls 16 and Under Championship (she's 14)

Jasmine Fermin (1405) won the Brooklyn Junior High Chess Championship, also leading 318 to our first place finish in that section (ok, I should mention that there was an eight way tie for first individually, but all eight students were from 318. Jasmine won the blitz playoff.).

Angelica Berrios and Jasmine Fermin

Last week, at the New York Mayor's Cup, Rochelle Ballantyne (1761) went 4-0 on first board to lead IS 318 to team victory there. Rochelle and Jasmine tied for first last month in the National Girls 14 and Under Championship.

Rochelle Ballantyne

UPDATE: WFM Abby Marshall tied for first this weekend in a FIDE invitational in Virginia, beating 2 2300s. http://www.vachess.org/invitational.html

Adia Onyango tied for first in the Under 1400 section of the Cleveland Open!

No, *I'm* the Rightful US Women's Champion

After reading the latest development in the continuing controversy surrounding the Krush - Zatonskih playoffs, I've decided to break my tactful silence and assert

my own glorious victory!!

I'm not going to bore you with my interpretation of the USCF Championship Guidelines.

Instead I appeal to your sense of fairness and truthiness.

After all, it's not what the rules say that matters.

It's what you know in your heart to be right.

Even though I didn't technically play in the tournament, my inner moral compass tells me I won. And what could be more American than that?

First of all, I wasn't even invited. What gives, Frank Berry? Why the conspiracy against me, USCF rating computer? I deserved to play. Just because the other women have won more games against higher rated people than me in the past, that doesn't mean they are better in some absolute, quantifiable sense.

Besides, I've been studying a lot in the last couple weeks.

Let's ask ourselves, who's really behind this? Who profited the most from my outrageous exclusion? Clearly, it's the other ten participants.

Irina, Anna, Chimi, Tsagaan, Katerina, Tatev, Esther, Iryna, Airplane, and Courtney: SHAME ON YOU, YOU DIRTY THIEVES.

I expect an apology letter from everyone by early next week.

Best wishes to all other chessplayers,

Elizabeth Vicary

Buy This Book

I promise you won't be sorry. Click here for an easy-buying link. I should mention the author is a good friend of mine from college, but believe me, I have a lot of friends who are atrocious writers, so I'm not recommending it for that reason. An excerpt:

The First Night

For the Desk of:

His Excellency Wen Jiabao
The Premier's Office
Beijing
Capital of the Freedom-loving Nation of China


From the Desk of:

"The White Tiger"
A Thinking Man
And an Entrepreneur
Living in the world's center of Technology and Outsourcing
Electronics City Phase 1 (just off Hosur Main Road)
Bangalore, India


Mr. Premier,

Sir.

Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

My ex-employer the late Mr. Ashok's ex-wife, Pinky Madam, taught me one of these things; and at 11:32 p.m. today, which was about ten minutes ago, when the lady on All India Radio announced, "Premier Jiabao is coming to Bangalore next week," I said that thing at once.

In fact, each time when great men like you visit our country I say it. Not that I have anything against great men. In my way, sir, I consider myself one of your kind. But whenever I see our prime minister and his distinguished sidekicks drive to the airport in black cars and get out and do namastes before you in front of a TV camera and tell you about how moral and saintly India is, I have to say that thing in English.

Now, you are visiting us this week, Your Excellency, aren't you? All India Radio is usually reliable in these matters.

That was a joke, sir.

Ha!

That's why I want to ask you directly if you really are coming to Bangalore. Because if you are, I have something important to tell you. See, the lady on the radio said, "Mr. Jiabao is on a mission: he wants to know the truth about Bangalore."

My blood froze. If anyone knows the truth about Bangalore, it's me.

Next, the lady announcer said, "Mr. Jiabao wants to meet some Indian entrepreneurs and hear the story of their success from their own lips."

She explained a little. Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs -- we entrepreneurs -- have set up all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now.

You hope to learn how to make a few Chinese entrepreneurs, that's why you're visiting. That made me feel good. But then it hit me that in keeping with international protocol, the prime minister and foreign minister of my country will meet you at the airport with garlands, small take-home sandalwood statues of Gandhi, and a booklet full of information about India's past, present, and future.

That's when I had to say that thing in English, sir. Out loud.

That was at 11:37 p.m. Five minutes ago.

I don't just swear and curse. I'm a man of action and change. I decided right there and then to start dictating a letter to you. To begin with, let me tell you of my great admiration for the ancient nation of China.

I read about your history in a book, Exciting Tales of the Exotic East, that I found on the pavement, back in the days when I was trying to get some enlightenment by going through the Sunday secondhand book market in Old Delhi. This book was mostly about pirates and gold in Hong Kong, but it did have some useful background information too: it said that you Chinese are great lovers of freedom and individual liberty. The British tried to make you their servants, but you never let them do it. I admire that, Mr. Premier.

I was a servant once, you see.

Only three nations have never let themselves be ruled by foreigners: China, Afghanistan, and Abyssinia. These are the only three nations I admire.

Out of respect for the love of liberty shown by the Chinese people, and also in the belief that the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, cell phone usage, and drug abuse, I offer to tell you, free of charge, the truth about Bangalore.

By telling you my life's story.

See, when you come to Bangalore, and stop at a traffic light, some boy will run up to your car and knock on your window, while holding up a bootlegged copy of an American business book, wrapped carefully in cellophane and with a title like:

TEN SECRETS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS!

or

BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR IN SEVEN EASY DAYS!

Don't waste your money on those American books. They're so yesterday.

I am tomorrow.

In terms of formal education, I may be somewhat lacking. I never finished school, to put it bluntly. Who cares! I haven't read many books, but I've read all the ones that count. I know by heart the works of the four greatest poets of all time -- Rumi, Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, and a fourth fellow whose name I forget. I am a self-taught entrepreneur.

That's the best kind there is, trust me.

When you have heard the story of how I got to Bangalore and became one of its most successful (though probably least known) businessmen, you will know everything there is to know about how entrepreneurship is born, nurtured, and developed in this, the glorious twenty-first century of man.

The century, more specifically, of the yellow and the brown man.

You and me.

It is a little before midnight now, Mr. Jiabao. A good time for me to talk.

I stay up the whole night, Your Excellency. And there's no one else in this 150-square-foot office of mine. Just me and a chandelier above me, although the chandelier has a personality of its own. It's a huge thing, full of small diamond-shaped glass pieces, just like the ones they used to show in the films of the 1970s. Though it's cool enough at night in Bangalore, I've put a midget fan -- five cobwebby blades -- right above the chandelier. See, when it turns, the small blades chop up the chandelier's light and fling it across the room. Just like the strobe light at the best discos in Bangalore.

This is the only 150-square-foot space in Bangalore with its own chandelier! But it's still a hole in the wall, and I sit here the whole night.

The entrepreneur's curse. He has to watch his business all the time.

Now I'm going to turn the midget fan on, so that the chandelier's light spins around the room.

I am relaxed, sir. As I hope you are.

Let us begin.

Before we do that, sir, the phrase in English that I learned from my ex-employer the late Mr. Ashok's ex-wife Pinky Madam is:

What a fucking joke.

Another book that's awesome: Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

Hilarious Student Perspective on Chess-Playing Personalities

EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENT

1) The Aggressive Chess type-
I've known plenty of these types of players. These players are always the one looking for a huge attack since move one. One person that I could think of right away is ******. He makes me laugh sometimes during the Mr. Sher lessons. In all of his games, I always see him play some type of crazy move that attacks the king but just completely messes up his entire position. When Mr. Sher gives us a very complicated position where white has a huge queen side attack and black tries to stop the attack. ******* raises his hand and says, "...f5, for a king side attack."
Mr. Sher usually responds with laugh and says, "Are you serious?"
I start laughing. I even see Mr. Galvin laughing. Other aggressive chess players like to play really attacking openings (Like *******). I'm not that kind of type of Chess player, except when I have an opportunity to.

2) The show off -
This is the type of chess player that say that they are going to win all their games. They also act all cool when they win and brag about how they won. But when they lose they always make up some lame excuse of why they lost. They say I missed a tactic or I was winning but they outplayed me in the endgame or the most famous of them all, "I messed up." I know a lot of these types. The people who do these types of things are basically everybody. I think I probably did this before. Everybody in the I.S 318 chess team does this, in almost every single tournament.

3) The foolish type players-
This is the type of chess player that always seems to be fooling around at every single moment. One person that comes up in my mind right away is **** ****** and **** *******. They are some really close friends who fool around all the time. They fool around during G/30's, during after school almost all the time. They act serious mainly in overnight tournament (games only). There is never a moment when they are not fooling around. I think that I am a little like that except when I am playing a rated game. I think most people are like that, but the ones who are serious are the high rated players.

4) The old grumpy type of chess players-
This is the chess player who is old, really, really, really boring and gets annoyed pretty easily. I see these types of chess players at the Marshall Chess club. There are always grumpy men over there. There was this one time when Michael was playing a 2100 hundred. Michael offered him a draw, and the man got pissed off, for no reason. One man that comes up first in my mind of cranky people is *** *****. When he is playing and someone is observing his game he tells you to go away. He also gets mad over anything. This one time he was eating and these kids were laughing. He tells them to keep it down.

5) The calm one chess player-
The calm one is the player who doesn't freak during his/her games. When they are down a pawn in an endgame they don't panic at all. The panicking players get really scared when they are down material; they start to try to win really hard that they end up being crushed. I think I am one the calm ones. When I am down exchange or something else I don't get scared and just hang something and lose right away. When I play a 1200-1400 and am down a pawn for no reason I stay calm and eventually win. I see a lot of people who are calm, everywhere.

6) The Good players-
The players who are good get the most respect. Like in school the top rated players almost get what they want. During overnight trips the high rated people tell Mr. Galvin that the rooms are messed up and then they tell them the room that they want. Especially *******, he gets whatever he wants. He wants somebody in his room then he gets it. He wants somebody to get kicked out of his room then he gets what he wants from Mr. Galvin. I sometimes get what I want (I think). The good players always get most of the credit when their school wins national championships. They probably get 5-6 points out of seven when they are 1700-2000. But the lower rated who are like 1200-1500 who get 4-5 don't get that much credit.


7) *****'s type-

I think that ***** is the type of people who get themselves in really weird and bad situations. Since sixth grade he has gotten himself in plenty of weird and bad situations like the chicken accident. He also lost his cell phone a couple of times during Mr. Golden's after school program. He is also kind of weird and fun to be around with. The fun to be around with him is the fact that he will always make you laugh. Something slightly bad happens to him then he turns it completely around. There was this one time when he said he had a coconut tree in his backyard. So Ms. Santamaria told him to bring a picture of this coconut tree so she could believe him. Then two days later he said that his parents lied to him about having a coconut tree when he said he had one in his backyard. He is also weird because he sometimes pretends he is emo or he is a ninja and is going to kill everybody.