What's MXI * II?

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Year-end Yahoos

In last month's Yahoos post, World Championship Yahoos 2021 (November 2021; see the note at the end of this current post for an explanation of 'Yahoos'), I noted four developments that demanded a follow-up.

No.1: 'Google News still returned 100 stories, but I noticed that many were published well before the month of November.'

December had 101 stories, of which 21 were published before the month started. The oldest was -- just as in November -- the phony April Fools' story 'Official Rules Of Chess Updated, Draws Removed' (chess.com). The second oldest was:-

• 2021-05-18 10 Positions Chess Engines Just Don't Understand (chess.com), by Sam Copeland

It turns out that this was also the second oldest story in November. Google tracks clicks from its results on news searches, so it seems that it is now presenting results from previous months that earned more clicks.

No.2: 'Another unusual feature of the month was the precipitous drop in stories from Chess.com, which has been averaging around 40 stories a month for the last six months. Is this an anomaly -or- a harbinger of future Yahoo activity?'

The chart to the left shows a count of sources for December. Chess.com had 25 stories, against 23 stories for November.

A fair comparison with previous months requires including the older stories that I excluded in 'No.1'. I'm guessing that Chess.com has a large number of older stories that I've excluded.

That guess would be a good basis for a follow-up post. At the same time I could look at the type of older stories that Google is flagging, which would indicate what chess topics are most interesting for chess fans.

No.3: 'In each of the last few World Championship matches, I've discovered at least one professional, non-chess journalist who provided an outsider's view of the match. Will the Guardian continue the trend? '

Short answer: No, not really. • Long answer: See the post on my World Championship Blog, 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, the First Week (December 2021).

No.4: 'All might not be rosy around the chess boom brought on by the events of the last two years. I noticed two stories about chess games that aren't played on chess boards. [...] I'll wait for December Yahoos...'

A corollary question is: How much interest in the recent World Championship was added by the 2020-21 chess boom? Looking at the six sources from the chart above might give a hint. Of the 25 Chess.com stories, only one had anything to do with the Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi match in Dubai:-

• 2021-12-15: Nepomniachtchi: What Went Wrong? (chess.com), by GM Gregory Serper

Of the six stories from Chessbase News, none were about the match. Of the three stories from World Chess, who organized recent title matches, all three had something to with the match. The most recent was:-

• 2021-12-23(?): The Chess Results of The Year (worldchess.com)

In that article, the Carlsen - Nepo match earned the title 'Disappointment of the Year'. World Chess explained,

Expectations of a huge fight. Fantastic excitement. Analysts around the world prophesied hard times for Magnus in the face of the Russian fighter, Ian-2021. [...] Sadly, at the end of the brightest victory in the sixth and already one can safely say the historic game, Magnus’s advantage began to grow. The match ended early with the victory of the champion, which certainly led to serious criticism of the Ian team.

Of the three sources with two stories each, only one story was about the match:-

• 2021-12-12: Dubov hits back at accusations of betrayal (chess24.com), by Colin McGourty

Of the other 40 sources with a single story, two stories were about the match. Either the news sources weren't interested in writing stories about the match -or- Google detected little interest in those stories.

My conclusion? The official World Championship has been with us since 1886. Only in 1972 did it fuel an increased interest in chess. No drama = no interest.

People are attracted to the game for other reasons. Let's focus on those other reasons.

[Yahoos (mainstream news stories about chess) are derived from Google News top-100 (or so) stories from the past month.]

TCEC/CCC 2021-H2 Summary

Since December 2018, Monday posts on this blog have been about chess engines (*). The last Monday post of the year means a summary of all Monday posts during the past six months. For the previous summary, see TCEC/CCC 2021-H1 Summary (June 2021), where I wrote,

The first column lists the fortnightly posts on the current status; the second column lists off-week posts on related topics that I wanted to explore in more depth. The last, blank space on the right is a space filler for this current post.

That explanation also works for the current post.

TCEC/CCC	Off-week
2021-07-19: TCEC Prepares S21 Sufi; CCC in Romantic Mode	2021-07-26: Stockfish vs. ChessBase
2021-08-02: TCEC S21 Sufi Underway; CCC Still Romancing	2021-08-09: Breaking the BDG
2021-08-16: TCEC Stockfish Wins S21; CCC Romance Continues	2021-08-23: Talkchess Is/Isn't Talking
2021-08-30: TCEC VSOB 21, CCC Blitz 2021 : Both Underway
2021-09-13: TCEC VSOB 21, CCC Blitz 2021 : Both Still Underway	2021-09-20: TCEC VSOB Opening Tools
2021-09-27: TCEC VSOB 21, CCC C960 Blitz Championship : Both Underway	2021-10-04: TCEC/CCC Link Maintenance
2021-10-11: TCEC Testing Cup 9; CCC C960 Blitz Semifinal	2021-10-18: CCC Changes the Guard
2021-10-25: TCEC Cup 9, CCC C960 Blitz Final : Both Underway	2021-11-01: Evaluating the Evaluations
2021-11-08: TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Both Underway	2021-11-15: Talkchess Is Talking Again
2021-11-22: TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Still Underway	2021-11-29: Engines Forced to Play Like Us
2021-12-06: TCEC Swiss 2 in Final Round; Stockfish Wins CCC16 Rapid	2021-12-13: Komodo Dragon
2021-12-20: KomodoDragon Wins TCEC Swiss 2; CCC16 Bullet Semifinals Underway

At the end of the '2021-H1 Summary', I noted,

The CCC hasn't run a structured, multi-phase competition in more than three months. What will the next six months bring for the CCC?

See the post dated '2021-10-18' for an answer to that question. As for the TCEC, the season become longer this year:-

• 2020-04-27: Leela Beat Stockfish in TCEC S17 & CCC13 Finals
• 2020-07-20: Stockfish Wins TCEC S18
• 2020-10-26: Stockfish Wins TCEC S19
• 2021-02-01: Stockfish Wins TCEC S20
• 2021-08-16: Stockfish Wins TCEC S21

The organizers have been adding more competitions, like the Swiss and VSOB events, to the regular season. Computer chess appears to be more popular than ever.

(*) With a few early exceptions, the Monday posts have been about chess engines since Catching Up with Engine Competitions (October 2018).

A Trio of World Championship Video Makers

A couple of weeks ago, for my monthly post featuring a Youtube video, A Flood of World Championship Videos (December 2021; on the 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi title match), I finished with an action:-

Now I have some time to spend making sense of that flood. Where to start?

I decided that this month's post on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), would be a great place to start. How to proceed?

I discovered that three important chess sites had produced videos about the match -- FIDE, Chess.com, and Chess24.com -- so I created the following table linking to the different clips.

	:	FIDE				:	Chess.com			:	Chess24.com					:
	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
OC	:	EN		PC		:				:			DK			:
g.01	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR		?	:	HHS	PG	DK			:
g.02	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.03	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.04	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.05	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.06	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.07	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.08	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.09	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.10	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH	HL	:
g.11	:	EN	RU	PC	AR	:	CHR	RR	?	:	HHS	PG	DK	DH		:
CC	:	EN				:				:						:

The codes are cryptic, but there is only so much info you can place on a blog where the posts are limited in width. Following is a legend for the codes used in the table..

FIDE:-

• EN - Live commentary in English by GM Viswanathan Anand and GM Anna Muzychuk; OC/CC - Opening and closing ceremonies
• RU - Live commentary in Russian by GM Sergei Shipov and WGM Dina Belenkaya
• PC - Press Conference
• AR - Recap by GM Alejandro Ramirez

Chess.com:-

• CHR - Live commentary by GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Robert Hess, and IM Daniel Rensch
• RR - Rapid replay
• ? - I don't know what these short videos should be called, but they're worth mentioning

Chess24.com:-

• HHS - Live commentary by GM David Howell, IM Jovanka Houska, and Norwegian journalist Kaja Snare
• PG - Live commentary by GM Judit Polgar and GM Anish Giri
• DK - Recap by GM Daniel King
• DH - 'Play of the Day with GM David Howell'
• HL - Highlights

I watched a few of the videos and was impressed with what I saw. There was a tremendous amount of chess talent commenting on the match, including two top GMs who themselves faced GM Carlsen in previous title matches. After the competence of the commentators, the most important factor in a commentary team is to have good chemistry between the various personalities.

Don't overlook the 'NBC Recap' videos, which I documented on my World Championship blog. To find them, start with the post 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Wrapup (December 2021), and follow the links back for each of the three weeks, e.g. 'First Week', etc.

Merry Christmas 2021!

Fifteen years of Christmas blog posts with a chess theme...

...To see the original posts, start with Ghosts of Christmas Past (25 December 2020) and follow the links backward in time. Hey, wait a minute! If there are 15 years of Christmas, how come there are 16 photos? Because the year 2011 snuck in there twice; I don't remember why. And as always, please drive carefully!

KomodoDragon Wins TCEC Swiss 2; CCC16 Bullet Semifinals Underway

This is the last post of the year covering the world's two foremost, ongoing engine vs. engine competitions. Following the usual format of posts in this series, here's a summary of the previous post, TCEC Swiss 2 in Final Round; Stockfish Wins CCC16 Rapid (December 2021):-

TCEC: The 'Swiss 2' event is now in the last of 11 rounds. KomodoDragon is a half point ahead of Stockfish and LCZero. The tournament will finish in a couple of days, to be followed by 'FRC4', a chess960 event. • CCC: The site is currently running the 'CCC 16 Bullet' tournament, which is in the 'Qualification' stage.

Following is the current situation.

TCEC: KomodoDragon won 'Swiss 2', a point ahead of the two engines mentioned in the summary. The runners-up in 2nd/3rd places finished 1.5 points ahead of the next group, which placed 4th through 7th.

The site is currently conducting 'FRC4 Testing', preparation for the next event, which has been running for over a week. For more about FRC4 (chess960), see TCEC FRC 4 (wiki.chessdom.org). The number of engines has increased by 50%, but the extended testing period suggests that not all engines are fully compliant with C960/FRC rules. For posts in this series about the previous FRC event, see:-

• 2021-03-15: TCEC FRC3, CCC Rapid 2021 : Both Finals Underway • 'FRC3 has reached the final match, where Stockfish and KomodoDragon are tied with one win each after 29 of the 50 games have been played.'
• 2021-03-29: TCEC 'Swiss 1', CCC 'Streamer Bots Battle' Both Underway • 'For a report on TCEC FRC3, see the post TCEC C960 FRC3 (March 2021), on my chess960 blog. There I wrote, "In the 'FRC 3' final, KomodoDragon beat Stockfish by a score of +2-1=47."'

CCC: In the 'CCC 16 Bullet Qualification' event, Berserk and two other (tied) engines were promoted into the 12-engine 'Main' event. Berserk was also one of six engines to qualify into the semifinals. Stockfish, Dragon, and Lc0 -- in that order -- are well ahead of the other engines for the two-engine final event.

The emerging star of both brief reports on the TCEC / CCC is KomodoDragon / Dragon. For more about this return from obscurity by the faded star Komodo, see last week's post Komodo Dragon (December 2021).

[For further information from the various stakeholders in the engine-to-engine events, see the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page. • NB: Leela = LC0 = LCzero; Dragon = KomodoDragon]

Shallow, Green Chess Photos

My short list for this month's featured Flickr photo was as short as a short list can be without being empty : one photo. On top of that, the photo was by the same photographer behind a recent 'photo' -- in fact a collage -- that I featured in 'The Hand that Guides the [blank]' (October 2021). The newer photo was also interesting, but not as unusual as 'Hand that Guides'.

What to do? I went back to Chess in the Pink (April 2018), where I explored the '15 little colored boxes' at the top of Flickr search results. This time I looked at the four more complex little boxes to the right of the colored boxes. These are labeled 'Black and white', 'Shallow depth of field', 'Minimalist', and 'Patterns'.

The 'In the Pink' post mentioned a total 359,886 chess photos in the Flickr database. Three and a half years later there are now 572,616 photos. As you might expect with chess photos, of the four more complex options 'Black and white' returns the greatest number of photos, but I found 'Patterns' to be the most interesting. Here's an example.

flickr.com/search/?text=chess&styles=pattern

The 'little boxes' are check boxes that can be combined to return, for example, pink patterned photos. 'Advanced' options add another set of choices, like 'Orientation': horizontal, vertical, etc. I usually use photos licensed under 'Creative commons' (CC). These number around one-sixth of the total photos. Now if I need a shallow, green, landscape (or panoramic), CC photo, I know how to get one. (NB: There are seven such photos, but none of them have anything to with chess. Go figure.)

Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Checkpoint

It's been more than four months since I started to update Magnus Carlsen's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record (TMER; 2000-), and I'm still not close to making the final update. In the first post listed below (08-06), I wrote,

My deadline for updating the TMER will be the start of the 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi title match.

The match finished a week ago; so much for arbitrary deadlines. That first post listed the work I did in 2018 for the previous update. At that time there were a total of six posts, compared to 16 so far in 2021. Why the big difference? I see three reasons: 1) The current update covers a span of three years instead of two years in 2018; 2) The covid-provoked move to online events in 2020 inspired a number of new tournament formats that are more complicated to document; 3) I'm getting slower. Here's the list of posts:-

• 2021-08-06: Carlsen's TWIC Data 2019-21
• 2021-08-13: Carlsen's Events 2019-21
• 2021-08-20: Carlsen's Online Events 2019-21
• 2021-08-27: Carlsen's Prelim Events 2019-21
• 2021-09-17: Carlsen's Banter Blitz Events 2019-21
• 2021-09-24: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21
• 2021-10-01: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, 'Online = N'
• 2021-10-08: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, 'Online = *'
• 2021-10-15: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, 'Online = Y'
• 2021-10-22: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, the Tours
• 2021-10-29: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Lichess
• 2021-11-12: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24 • Wikipedia: 'In March 2019, Chess24 merged with Magnus Carlsen's company Play Magnus'
• 2021-11-19: Not the 'Under the Weather' Channel • more accurately described as 'Chess24 Banter Blitz'
• 2021-11-26: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24 Profile
• 2021-12-03: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Banter Blitz
• 2021-12-10: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24 'Classical' Games

Reviewing the three posts on Chess24 banter blitz -- 09-17, 11-19, 12-03 -- the events can be covered on the TMER in four entries: Match with Peter Svidler, Banter Blitz Cup 2019, Banter Series 2020, and Banter Blitz against Chess24 users (x16). That answers the question in the last post (12-03):-

The 16 sessions with Premium members plus 11 matches against titled players probably adds up to something like 300 Banter Blitz games to date. How much of that should go into the TMER?

As for the three posts on the two tours -- 08-27, 10-22, 12-10 -- all events in each tour deserve an entry: Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour 2020 (x5 events), Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2020-21 (x7, played through the cutoff point for the TMER update). The Preliminary and Final stages for each event can be combined into a single entry.

The single post on the Lichess events -- 10-29 -- might not be sufficient to proceed with the TMER. I already have an earlier event on the TMER missing all details ('2018-02 LiChess Meetup Stjernen 2018') plus nine newer entries. The post mentions '15 Titled Arenas'. I closed the post saying,

Since Carlsen also played a few such ['Titled Arena'] events which he didn't win, it would take some effort to locate all of the 'Titled Arena' events he played. Given that they were bullet tournaments lasting only a few hours, I could probably just summarize them for now; idem for the bullet matches.

Two of the bullet matches were against Alireza Firouzja. Since he is currently a person of interest involving Carlsen's future plans -- for background see the post 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, the Third Week (December 2021), on my World Chess Championship blog -- those matches take on additional importance. His name came up in four separate posts in the TMER series : 08-27, 09-17, 10-29, 12-03.

Looks like I'm still a long way from updating the Carlsen TMER. What a chess player!

***

Later: After I wrote this post, which was part of a Friday series, I took a break for the next few Fridays, starting Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. I finally returned to Friday blogging, but needed to tackle a more urgent project. When I come back to the Carlsen TMER, here's a summary of the next step(s):-

The single post on the Lichess events -- 10-29 -- might not be sufficient to proceed with the TMER. [...] Two of the [Lichess] bullet matches were against Alireza Firouzja. Since he is currently a person of interest involving Carlsen's future plans [...] those matches take on additional importance.

It's possible that Firouzja will fizzle when his big test starts in June; see Candidates Tournament to take place in Madrid sponsored by Chess.com for details. He is currently ranked world no.2, behind Carlsen.

Komodo Dragon

Not too long ago, the top-three elite chess engines were Stockfish, Komodo, and Houdini. Then Leela, incorporating AlphaZero's AI technology, joined the select group. Komodo fell behind and Houdini retired. Stockfish added an important AI component and Komodo added a similar component, becoming Dragon. Now the top three elite engines are Stockfish, Leela, and Dragon.

After I learned that Talkchess Is Talking Again (November 2021), I set out to discover what I had missed during the months after the forum went dark, plus the months before that when I hadn't been following it regularly. I was particularly taken by a series of announcements from GM Larry Kaufman, each of which generated many comments:-

• 2021-05-04: Komodo Dragon 2 released (talkchess.com)
• 2021-06-11: Komodo Dragon vs IM Andras Toth knight odds match (ditto)
• 2021-09-24: Komodo Dragon 2.5 released (ditto)

I had noticed in recent posts on this blog that Komodo Dragon had been regularly finishing among the leaders in both the TCEC and the CCC. Following are several of those posts.

2021-10-25: TCEC Cup 9, CCC C960 Blitz Final : Both Underway • 'The [TCEC] 'Cup 9' has reached the semifinal round, with Stockfish, ScorpioNN, KomodoDragon, and LCZero all qualifying for that stage.' • 'In the [CCC] 'Chess960 Blitz Semifinals', Stockfish finished a point ahead of Dragon as both engines qualified for the final match. Only one game of their 40-game minimatch was decisive, with Stockfish winning.'

2021-11-08: TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Both Underway • 'In the [TCEC 'Cup 9'] semifinal round, Stockfish beat ScorpioNN +1-0=21, and LCZero beat KomodoDragon +1-0=27. In the final round, Stockfish beat LCZero +1-0=3. In the consolation match ('Bronze') for 3rd/4th place, KomodoDragon beat ScorpioNN +2-0=2.' • 'In the [CCC 'Chess960 Blitz Championship'] final match Stockfish beat Dragon +10-1=589.'

2021-12-06: TCEC Swiss 2 in Final Round; Stockfish Wins CCC16 Rapid • 'The [TCEC] 'Swiss 2' event is now in the last of 11 rounds. KomodoDragon is a half point ahead of Stockfish and LCZero, which are a full point ahead of the next engine.' • 'Stockfish won the final match of the 'CCC 16 Rapid', beating Lc0 by a score of +80-32=188. In a 'Runners-up' match, Lc0 beat Dragon by a score of +60-41=199. Dragon had finished third in the 'Rapid Semifinals', well ahead of three other engines.'

Getting back to the Talkchess threads, this is how GM Kaufman introduced 'Komodo Dragon 2.5 released':-

KomodoChess has just released Dragon 2.5 at KomodoChess.com. Normally we would call this 2.1, but it is probably the largest upgrade we have had between versions in many years, with the exception of the NNUE idea first implemented in Dragon 1. It could easily be Dragon 3, but it's only been four months since Dragon 2 and we can't use that name this soon contractually.

It has a larger, "smarter", better trained net, and noticeably more search depth due to search enhancements. Estimated elo gains in standard mode over Dragon 2 range from 50 at long time controls on four threads to 60 at CCRL blitz (2' + 1") on four threads to 72 at CCRL blitz on one thread. In MCTS mode gains are even larger by about ten elo.

All this is based on direct matches of 3400 games or more with a normal opening book. Gains are even larger with unbalanced books, and especially large in Fischerandom (chess960), where on one thread at blitz Dragon 2.5 beat Dragon 2 by a full hundred elo in a 3400 game match! It also defeated Stockfish 14 in a 650 game bullet (half minute plus half second inc) FRC match by 11 elo (132 wins, 112 losses, 406 draws).

The main new feature is a major improvement to the Skill levels. There are now 35, up from 25, and they now consider node count, depth, and eval randomizing in a much more logical, gradual way than in prior versions. The levels should much better simulate the play of a human at that level playing a game with enough time to think thruout the game. The intent is that each level should be a fair match at Rapid (15' + 10") chess with a human of the same FIDE rating as the Skill level set with two zeroes added.

The rest of the post discussed issues related to calculating ratings for the various 'Skill levels'. The feature is related to an earlier post on this blog: Komodo Personalities (April 2021).

It's a positive development for all concerned to have another engine challenging the dominance of Stockfish and Leela. I'm especially interested to see how Dragon performs in the forthcoming TCEC FRC4 (chess960) event. To close this post, I'll repeat the standard footnote to my fortnighly posts on the TCEC/CCC series...

[For further information from the various stakeholders in the engine-to-engine events, see the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page. • NB: Leela = LC0 = LCzero; Dragon = KomodoDragon]

A Flood of World Championship Videos

The 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi World Championship match at Dubai finished a couple of days ago, so when I started compiling a short list for this month's featured video, I received a flood -- no, make that a tsunami -- of ideas for the short list. Here's something you don't see every day.

Harry Mack Improvises Rap About The World Chess Championship (2:40) • '[Published on] Nov 27, 2021'

The description starts,

Harry Mack may just be the best freestyle rapper in the world, and Chess.com was honored to have him rap the story of the World Chess Championship. Listen to these incredible bars he spits about the great like Emanuel Lasker, Garry Kasparov, and OF COURSE Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Now I have some time to spend making sense of that flood. Where to start?

Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24 'Classical' Games

In this ongoing series to update Magnus Carlsen's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record (TMER; 2000-), we've seen two posts on the Chess24 Banter Blitz events. I arrived at the first via TWIC data and at the second via Carlsen's Chess24 account:-

• 2021-09-17: Carlsen's Banter Blitz Events 2019-21
• 2021-12-13: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Banter Blitz

Both posts cover the same territory and confirm each other. In that second post I noted, 'There are 570 blitz games and 66 'classical' games listed [on Carlsen's Chess24 account]'. What can be said about the 66 'classical' games?

It turns out that all but one of those games were played during the first two events of the 'Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour' (MC-CT; 2020). I documented that competition in another post in the TMER series:-

• 2021-10-22: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, the Tours

There were five separate events making up the MC-CT. Where is the Carlsen profile for the games from the last three events? Same question for the second tour, 'Meltwater Champions Chess Tour' (MW-CT; 2020-21).

The 'Tours' post has links to Chessgames.com pages for all events in the two tours. The Chessgames.com pages have links to everything you might want to know about the two tours. Here's an example from the first event of MC-CT 2020, the 'Magnus Carlsen Invitational'.

Source: Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020 (chessgames.com)

Even with all of that info available, I wasn't able to answer the simple question 'Where is the Carlsen profile?'. I'll have to live without it.

Chess24 considers that rapid games, those with a 15 minute time control, are 'classical' games. This is another example of how the word 'classical' has been overused in chess, rendering it meaningless. Instead of controls classified as bullet, blitz, rapid, long -- why not use the actual time control?; 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 120 minutes (or whatever). And where does 3 minutes fit in?

TCEC Swiss 2 in Final Round; Stockfish Wins CCC16 Rapid

In the previous fortnightly report on this blog, two ongoing, continuous, world class engine vs. engine competitions were both conducting long events lasting several weeks. I can summarize that post, TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Still Underway (November 2021), in a few sentences:-

TCEC: The 'Swiss 2' event is now in the sixth of 11 rounds, the mid-point for the tournament. Stockfish is a half point ahead of the pack. • CCC: With less than 50 games remaining in the 300-game final match of the 'CCC 16 Rapid', Stockfish is close to clinching victory over Lc0.

Following is the current status.

TCEC: The 'Swiss 2' event is now in the last of 11 rounds. KomodoDragon is a half point ahead of Stockfish and LCZero, which are a full point ahead of the next engine. The tournament will finish in a couple of days, to be followed by 'FRC4', a chess960 event.

CCC: Stockfish won the final match of the 'CCC 16 Rapid', beating Lc0 by a score of +80-32=188. In a 'Runners-up' match, Lc0 beat Dragon by a score of +60-41=199. Dragon had finished third in the 'Rapid Semifinals', well ahead of three other engines.

The site is currently running the 'CCC 16 Bullet' tournament, which is in the 'Qualification' stage. The 'Info' tab says, 'CCC 16 Rapid', but the eight engines competing in the 'Bullet Qualification' stage are the same engines that competed in the 'Rapid Qualification'. Are the rules of the 'Bullet' identical to those of the 'Rapid'? I summarized the rules of the 'Rapid' a month ago in TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Both Underway (November 2021).

[For further information from the various stakeholders in the engine-to-engine events, see the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page. • NB: Leela = LC0 = LCzero; Dragon = KomodoDragon]

Not to Be Confused with Hermes

After nearly ten years of the series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), in the post Endorsements for Asuncion (January 2020), I was able to write,

I can't remember another article of clothing. The item pictured below, titled 'Magnus Carlsen's 2018 World Chess Championship Jacket', sold for US $4450 after 35 bids from 11 bidders.

It took less than two years for another post on clothing, pictured below and titled 'Exceptionally RARE Hermes Scarf - Echecs - 1939 - Charles Pittner - Vintage - WW2'. The scarf sold for GBP 575.00 ('Approximately US $760.15') on one bid equal to the starting price.

The four small chessboards near the corners of the scarf show the basic moves of four different pieces. The description started,

Amazing vintage and exceptionally rare Hermes Paris silk scarf carré 'Jeu d'Echecs' by Charles Pittner. Issued only once in 1939 and one of the earliest Hermes scarf designs. The first ever scarf being issued in 1937. A very hard to find and rare design. The scarf dates to WW2 & simply impossible to find. Very sought after by Hermès collectors and given an 'R' exceptionally rare rating, in the Hermes scarf guides, 'Carrés d’Art IV'.

'Jeu d'Echecs' or sometimes referred to as simply 'Echecs' or 'Le Leçon d'Echecs' literally translated as 'Game of Chess'. The scarf pictures a chess board on a mauve/lilac background. Just fabulous.

This was followed by some technical details.

Scarf name - None. One of several designs which do not show scarf name on the face of the design • Hermès Paris • Designer signature – None • Copyright Hermès - None as scarf dated 1939 & pre copyright • Vintage caretag - No longer attached • Size - approx 90 cm / 36 inches • 100% silk • Weight - approx 72 grams • Not a sale scarf • No box.

The description finished with some background information.

The scarf has been worn and washed but is in very good vintage condition overall for its 82 years of age. During WW2 silk was requisitioned for parachutes so scarves made during these years were often in alternative fabrics or whatever was available at the time. Silk, wool, cotton or a combination of the above. This scarf is in silk jersey. The silk is very fluid, soft & supple and drapes beautifully.

For more about the company making the scarves, see Hermès (wikipedia.org); 'Not to be confused with Hermes [...] a French luxury goods manufacturer established in 1837'.

Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Banter Blitz

The previous post in the series on Magnus Carlsen's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record (TMER; m-w.com) was Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24 Profile (November 2021).

It turns out there's a gold mine of TMER material under [Carlsen's MagzyBogues profile], material which I haven't sorted out yet.

The stats section of the profile ('Rated games') counts 547 games, but there are 570 blitz games and 66 'classical' games listed. Because I was most interested in Banter Blitz, I downloaded the blitz index, loaded it into a database, and examined the content.

GM Carlsen's first Banter Blitz (24-Feb-19) was the six game match with Peter Svidler that I mentioned in Not the 'Under the Weather' Channel (November 2021). His second was announced a few weeks later.

• 2019-03-07: Magnus Carlsen plays Banter Blitz (chess24.com) • 'Yes, you read that right! This Friday none other than Magnus Carlsen will be streaming his blitz games live here on Chess24 [...] For the first time ever Magnus Carlsen is now going to play Banter Blitz against Chess24 users.'

This became a regular feature for Chess24 fans. For example,

• 2019-07-16: Magnus Carlsen’s 5th Banter Blitz session (ditto) • 'Magnus Carlsen will be back to play more blitz against Chess24 Premium users [...] We’ve compiled all the Banter Blitz games so far into one "tournament" with four "rounds"'

The four rounds referred to the first four Banter Blitz sessions. That tournament now shows 16 rounds, where the last round was played earlier this year (27-Mar-21). Later in 2019 the site announced a tournament, the Banter Blitz Cup.

• 2019-09-20: Magnus Carlsen tops Banter Blitz Cup billing (ditto) • 'World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen will be the top seed for the 128-player $50,000 Banter Blitz Cup that’s set to start in a week’s time.'
• 2019-09-25: Banter Blitz Cup Schedule (ditto) • 'World Champion Magnus Carlsen takes on 21-year-old Argentine Grandmaster Alan Pichot in Round 1 of the $50,000 Banter Blitz Cup, with the full pairings tree now published.'

That second page links to videos for the individual matches. Carlsen reached the final (played 15-Apr-20), where he lost to GM Alireza Firouzja 8.5-7.5. A few months later, Chess24 announced another tournament:-

• 2020-08-31: The chess24 Banter Series, a new Banter Blitz Cup! (ditto) • 'There will be a 16-player final phase, with eight players invited and the remaining participants determined by a series of eight qualifying tournaments that will be played in the first weeks of September.'
• 2020-09-21: Carlsen & co. in Banter Series Finals action (ditto) • 'World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen and 7 more of the world’s Top 10 players are in action this week as the Chess24 Banter Series Finals begin Monday and end in a final on Sunday. All players must stream their thoughts live as they play in this 16-player knockout, which includes 8 qualifiers who battled their way through mini-knockouts over the last three weeks.' [Member comment: 'Where is Alireza?!']

Carlsen again reached the final, this time with a different result.

• 2020-09-30: Carlsen plays Bongcloud to win Banter Series (ditto) • 'World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen won after starting 1.f3, 2.Kf2 -- the notoriously bad "Bongcloud" opening -- on his way to beating Wesley So 5.5-3.5 to claim the $12,000 top prize in the Chess24 Banter Series.'

Carlsen did not use the MagzyBogues account to play the event. The results of all games are available in Banter Series - Events by chess24.

The gold mine I mentioned at the beginning of the post is as much for the streamed commentary as for the games. The 16 sessions with Premium members plus 11 matches against titled players probably adds up to something like 300 Banter Blitz games to date. How much of that should go into the TMER?

December 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover'

In this month's look at American chess magazines from 50 and 25 years ago, the left half continues the story from last month's post, November 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover' (November 2021), where the cover said, 'In training for the match with Petrosian, Fischer and his second, Larry Evans, analyze in the pool'. The right half introduces an early web resource that demands more research.

Left: '?'
Right: 'Gabriel Schwartzman Wins 1996 U.S. Open'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

The lobby of the Teatro San Martin in Buenos Aires. Crowds of enthusiasts who could not get in to see Fischer and Petrosian watched the games on giant demonstration boards. Photo by La Prensa.

A two column article 'Irresistible Force 6 1/2 - Immovable Object 2 1/2' by CL Editor Burt Hochberg started,

The final score of the Fischer-Petrosian match is not wide of the predicted mark. Very few, if any, of Fischer's supporters expected yet another shutout-Petrosian, as everyone knows, is the defensive player's defensive player, the consummate master of obfuscation. Fischer would have had to work hard to overcome the ex-world champion's bulldog stubbornness and would have had to call up vast reserves of sitzfleisch to avoid premature attacks -- just the kind of thing Petrosian tries to provoke with his do-nothing openings. Yet a victory for Fischer was predicted even by the Russians. Petrosian is 42, mind. and Fischer only 28. And Fischer was hot. riding a 19-game winning streak.

Hochberg, a talented chess writer, also gave a brief summary of the match. Here's his account of the sixth game.

Game Six. Petrosian tried his provoking tactics with his patented Nichevo (*) Attack, but Fischer, who knows how to make something out of nothing, gradually improved his position until Petrosian cracked and prematurely opened the Queenside. Fischer's ensuing endgame maneuvering reduced Petrosian to helplessness.

A footnote for the '(*)' explained, 'Nichevo: Russian -- nothing'. The article ended,

A single obstacle now remains between Fischer and the crown he longs to wear -- Boris Vasilievich Spassky. That match, which promises to he the most exciting and meaningful such encounter in chess history, will be played in late spring or early summer in a country not yet decided upon.

Yes, indeed. The 'On the Cover' series for 2022, which starts next month, promises to be full of news about the 1972 match.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Bill Hook's dramatic photograph captures 19-year-old Gabriel Schwartzman during a reflective moment at the U.S. Open. The goatee, by the way, was necessitated by a shaving accident. It disappeared as soon as he won the U.S. Open.

A five page article on the 1996 U.S. Open by Macon Shibut started with a detailed account of the last round circumstances leading to Schwartzman's tournament win. The leader's list looked like this:-

1st: Gabriel Schwartzman, 10.5; 2nd-3rd: Alex Yermolinsky, Gregory Serper, 10.0, 4th-7th: Alex Wojtkiewicz, Alexander Ivanov, Angelo Young, Jonathan Schroer, 9.5

GM Schwartzman had two 'Your First Move' articles in the same issue: one under the heading 'Chess Academy' with an ad for a magazine of the same name; the other under the heading 'Chess Chat'. For more about him, see Wikipedia's Gabriel Schwartzman. It mentions, 'He started the world's first interactive chess school in 1996, the Internet Chess Academy.' I should say more in this post, but the subject requires more research than I have time for. Maybe later.

World Championship Yahoos 2021

This month's Yahoos post harks back to the previous World Championship that I covered in World Championship Yahoos (November 2018). The footnote below explaining Yahoos says, 'top-100 (or so) stories from the past month', but this month there was a change in the Google News algorithm. It still returned 100 stories, but I noticed that many were published well before the month of November. Here's the oldest, from almost eight months ago:-

• 2021-04-02: Official Rules Of Chess Updated, Draws Removed (chess.com)

Before you get too excited about that news, note the date. It is, in fact, the 'updated' date, the 'published' date was one day earlier. Oh, OK. After eliminating all stories dated before November, I ended up with 82 real Yahoos.

The chart shows the breakdown of those 82 Yahoos. Not shown are the 35 news sources that had a single story

Another unusual feature of the month was the precipitous drop in stories from Chess.com, which has been averaging around 40 stories a month for the last six months. Is this an anomaly -or- a harbinger of future Yahoo activity?

As for stories about the World Championship in Dubai, I didn't notice any in-depth stories explaining the event to the general public. I'm sure they're out there somewhere; they just weren't flagged by Google News. The best story I could find -- and it's very good -- was:-

• 2021-11-15: Know The Challenger: Ian Nepomniachtchi (chess.com) • 'It is amazing how all contemporary world champions were born somewhere on the outskirts of the giant empire rather than in its greatest cities and chess centers, such as Moscow or Leningrad [now Saint Petersburg].'

One mainstream news source was ramping up to full coverage. The Guardian had a number of good background stories, one of them by the incomparable Leonard Barden (the Alireza Firouzja story):-

• 2021-11-12: The Guardian view on a chess renaissance: it’s not black and white • Editorial; 'Pandemic boredom drove many to the game, and The Queen’s Gambit piqued the interest of more. Will it last?'; 165 comments
• 2021-11-12: Teenager Alireza Firouzja aiming to be youngest ever world champion • 'The Iran-born 18-year-old, who now represents France, is the third youngest Candidate after Magnus Carlsen and Bobby Fischer and has Garry Kasparov’s 1985 record in his sights.'
• 2021-11-29: 'It is not biology': Women’s chess hindered by low numbers and sexism • 'The governing body is pushing to make the game more welcoming for women -- but is change happening fast enough?'

That last story, by 'Sean Ingle in Dubai', looks like continuing coverage of the Carlsen - Nepo match. In each of the last few World Championship matches, I've discovered at least one professional, non-chess journalist who provided an outsider's view of the match. Will the Guardian continue the trend?

All might not be rosy around the chess boom brought on by the events of the last two years. I noticed two stories about chess games that aren't played on chess boards. What do I mean? Consider these:-

• 2021-11-17: This Kingdom Hearts 3 chess set costs $700 and doesn't actually play chess (gamesradar.com) • 'Recreate the iconic Kingdom Hearts 3 opening scene with this incredibly detailed set.'
• 2021-11-24: We're Getting an Official Queen's Gambit Board Game That's Not Chess (comicbook.com) • 'The Queen's Gambit: The Board Game is a new programmed movement board game about trying to stay three steps ahead of your opponent. Each player has a "Gambit" piece that they move across the board, trying to capture chess pieces.'

Maybe that is rosy after all. Maybe I'm wearing smoke colored glasses and just need to replace them with rose colored glasses. I'll wait for December Yahoos before making an appointment with an optician.

[Yahoos (mainstream news stories about chess) are derived from Google News top-100 (or so) stories from the past month.]

Engines Forced to Play Like Us

A few weeks ago, in a post titled TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Both Underway (November 2021), I wrote,

I certainly wouldn't want to see forced openings used in chess960. It's high time for the chess engine community to investigate a more creative solution to the problem of excessive draws in engine play.

In the traditional start position RNBQKBNR (also known in chess960 as SP518), White has 20 possible first moves. For each of those 20 moves, Black has 20 possible responses. That makes exactly 400 possible positions after one move by each side. Why not run a match in which every game starts with one of those 400 positions, a different position for each game? Since some positions obviously favor one side -- 1.a4 b5 favors White, while 1.a4 e5 favors Black -- the start positions should be played twice, colors switched. That way, no engine has an advantage because of a single dubious position.

Positions well known to current theory, like 1.e4 c5, should be played without any forced book. If 800 games are too many for a match, select the start positions randomly. A 100 game match would need 50 different start positions.

'Oh, no!', purists will say, 'Hundreds of years of experience with 1.d4 and 1.e4 along with millions of recorded games shouldn't be discarded so easily!' That's what people might say. I can't imagine that engines will raise the slightest objection. Since that idea isn't going to fly anytime soon, if ever, let's look at how the openings were chosen for the latest TCEC season.

• 2021-05-08: Jeroen Noomen and GM Matthew Sadler announce TCEC S21 superfinal book cooperation (chessdom.com) • 'One of the key elements of TCEC is the opening book. Playing at a 3000+ ELO strength, backed by serious hardware, often leads to series of draws in direct battles. Providing imbalanced opening lines is essential to differentiating engine playing strength. Or the way the tournament organizers specify it, “We believe that a champion chess program ought to be able to perform well in a wide variety of opening systems, not merely those that it favors.” The opening book becomes increasingly important as the TCEC championship progresses and is essential in the Superfinal, where the stakes are highest. As of today, the TCEC S21 Superfinal opening book has a serious team upgrade: Jeroen Noomen and GM Matthew Saddler [sic] are teaming up!'

Along with GM Larry Kaufman, GM Sadler is one of the strongest human players participating actively in the world of chess engines. His entry in the Chessprogramming wiki, Matthew Sadler (chessprogramming.org), starts,

English chess grandmaster, chess writer and two-time British Chess Champion, in 1995 and 1997. In 2017, he analyzed the computer games of AlphaZero versus Stockfish, and along with Natasha Regan co-authored the book Game Changer which details the lessons that can be learnt from how AlphaZero plays chess. Since TCEC Season 14 in 2019, Matthew Sadler reports on the Superfinals of the Top Chess Engines Competition, published on TCEC and the ICGA Journal.

I finished coverage of season 14 in Stockfish Wins TCEC S14; CCC6 S2 Underway (February 2019). A companion blog post to the Chessdom article listed the criteria for selecting TCEC S21 openings.

• 2021-05-08: The TCEC 21 superfinal book, by GM Matthew Sadler and Jeroen Noomen (blogchess2016.blogspot.com) • 'I am excited to announce that the TCEC 21 superfinal book has been made in cooperation between chess Grandmaster Matthew Sadler and myself (JN).'

It relates well to a post I recently did on my chess960 blog: The Engine Iceberg Looms Larger (November 2021). I was particularly interested to learn that 'Statistics of the previous two superfinals [TCEC S19 & S20] show that a Leela book exit below +0.30 is an almost 100% certain draw.'

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not questioning the quality of the TCEC S21 preparation. If engines are forced to play like us, this appears to be an excellent approach. I'm questioning why engines are forced to play like us.

Back to the idea for 400 positions, perhaps chosen randomly, the same idea can be extended to chess960. All 960 positions start with 16 possible Pawns moves, 2-4 Knight moves (depending on whether one or both Knights start in the corner), and maximum one castling move (positions patterned '**RK****' or '*****KR*'). That makes between 18 and 21 initial moves per start position, with that quantity squared after one move by both sides.

It's been almost 25 years since IBM's Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov, then reigning World Champion, in a chess match. Now the engines are rated hundreds of points higher than the best humans. Why do we continue to force the engines to start games the way we do when we are playing at our level? It shouldn't be the only test of chess skill.

World Championship Social Media 2021

It's been five years since the first post in the series The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), where the next two posts were about the 2016 Carlsen - Karjakin title match (m-w.com) being held at New York City:-

• 2016-11-20: World Championship Sociology
• 2016-12-14: World Championship Social Media

At that time the social media links in the second post were all run by 'World Chess' (worldchess.com). Fast forward five years to the ongoing 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi (m-w.com) at Dubai. Nowadays the official site for the match, FIDE World Championship 2021 (fideworldchampionship.com), points to a new, expanded set of social media links run by FIDE (fide.com):-

• FIDE chess | YouTube
• FIDE (@fide_chess) | Instagram
• International Chess Federation (FIDE) | Flickr
• International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) | Twitter
• FIDE - International Chess Federation | Facebook
• FIDE | VK

I can't possibly keep up with that flood of information, but I'll do my best.

***

Later: The most recent YouTube video on the 'FIDE chess' channel represents a milestone for chess in the USA.

FIDE World Championship Match - NBC Recap Game 1 (26:36) • '[Published on] Nov 28, 2021'

The description says,

The World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen and Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi are battling for the title at Dubai Expo from November 26 to December 16, 2021. Americal [sic; 'American', of course] broadcasting giant NBC is showing recaps of the games on NBCSN. We are pleased to present you with the first one of the series.

That typo is bad enough, but much worse is ignoring the world class commentator, GM Maurice Ashley. The FIDE/NBC deal was announced last summer:-

• 2021-07-20: FIDE and NBC Sports announce chess partnership for the World Championship Match 2021 (nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com); see also Search Results: chess on the same site.

The full broadcast schedule is available on a more recent press release:-

• 2021-11-23: Checkmate! NBC Sports Presents Fide Chess World Championship Match 2021 (ditto)

Here GM Ashley gets the credit he deserves:-

The programs will convey the emotions and stories of the games as well as expert opinions, including commentary by Maurice Ashley, who will focus on making chess accessible for all levels of viewers. Well known as a commentator for high-profile chess events, Ashley made history in 1999 when he became the first African-American ever to be awarded the title of chess Grandmaster.

The 'NBC Recap Game 1' is really well done. This could be the best chess to appear on American television since the 1972 Fischer - Spassky Title Match, Reykjavik (m-w.com). Let's hope the match goes the distance, maybe even into tiebreak!

Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24 Profile

The two previous posts in the Carlsen TMER series -- that's Magnus Carlsen's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record (m-w.com) if you're just joining us -- were:-

• 2021-11-12: Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24
• 2021-11-19: Not the 'Under the Weather' Channel; more accurately described as 'Chess24 Banter Blitz'

It turns out there's a gold mine of TMER material under those two posts, material which I haven't sorted out yet. On top of that, I'm scrambling to catch up with the World Championship match that started this week and would like to follow some of the games. I started to process the ton of available info in a post on my WCC blog:-

• 2021-11-24: 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Warmup

For this week's TMER post, I'll simply reference GM Carlsen's Chess24 profile.

MagzyBogues's profile | chess24.com

Carlsen's last game played on the site is dated 'Mar 27, 2021', which doesn't square with other info I've collected. Watch this space?

TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Still Underway

In the world of first class chess engines, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The title of the previous post, TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Both Underway (November 2021), serves just as well for the current post. Following is a summary of the previous post.

TCEC: The TCEC launched into 'Swiss 2', which is still in the first of 11 rounds. Each round consists of two games between paired engines with colors reversed in the second game. The 44 engines will be battling each other for the next month. • CCC: The CCC started a 'CCC 16 Rapid' tournament with four stages. The tournament is currently between the Main event and the Semifinals. Each stage is designed to last a week.

Two weeks later, both events are still chugging along.

TCEC: The 'Swiss 2' event is now in the sixth of 11 rounds, the mid-point for the tournament. Stockfish is a half-point ahead of the pack, with five engines tied for second.

CCC: The Semifinals saw Stockfish, Lc0, and Dragon finish well ahead of three other engines, although Dragon was also eliminated. With less than 50 games remaining in the 300-game final match, Stockfish is close to clinching victory over Lc0. The site's '!next' command is promising a 'CCC16 Bullet' event.

That's not much of a post, even by my lax standards. Let's throw in some color.

Google image search on 'stockfish lczero'

It's still not much of a post. Good thing we have a FIDE World Championship match starting this week : fideworldchampionship.com. Who is more dominant : Stockfish over the other engines or Magnus Carlsen over the other humans?

[For further information from the various stakeholders in the engine-to-engine events, see the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page. • NB: Leela = LC0 = LCzero; Dragon = KomodoDragon]

For Blacker Blacks and Whiter Whites

How could anyone not like the colors in this photo?

Your Move © Flickr user Brentonbythesea under Creative Commons.

The description said,

Patrons playing chess after breakfast. Yolk, Manzanita, Oregon.

What about those colors? Additional info for the photo said, 'This photo is in 60 groups', of which the six featured groups had something to with iPhone. On top of that, 'This photo is in 16 albums' featured one called Topaz Software. Bingo! The site Topaz Labs: AI Image Quality Software (topazlabs.com), informs,

Get better image quality. Not every photo or video requires exceptional image quality. For the ones that do, Topaz AI image enhancement software helps you achieve impossibly good results.

Is there AI that detects when the Kings and Queens are set up on the wrong squares in a photo? Apparently not.

Not the 'Under the Weather' Channel

Has it really been nearly two years since I was last Under the Weather (January 2020)? Because that post was on my World Chess Championship Blog, I used a photo of World Champion Magnus Carlsen looking not at his best.

This time I could have used one of a dozen similar photos of other world class players, but that's too easy. Instead I'll continue with the current TMER series (Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record), where the previous post was Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24 (November 2021). I signed off saying,

It's obvious from the structure of the deal that the transaction was a takeover of Chess24 by Play Magnus. In the article we learn, 'On our 5th birthday [Carlsen] took on Peter Svidler in a match, and last Friday he played his first Banter Blitz.' That mention of Carlsen and 'Banter Blitz' is worth further exploration for the TMER, but I'll save that for another post.

The following video isn't quite what I had in mind for that other post, but it's a step in the right direction.

Carlsen vs. Svidler chess24 Birthday Banter Blitz (47:50) • '[Published on] Feb 26, 2019'

The video description says,

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen and eight-time Russian Champion Peter Svidler play a first to five points blitz match to celebrate Chess24's 5th birthday! The players' thoughts are combined in this video (in left and right audio channels).

Then it adds, 'For the separate videos and more check out': Magnus Carlsen stars in birthday extravaganza (chess24.com). The 'first to five points blitz match' lasted six games. No bonus credit for guessing who won.

Talkchess Is Talking Again

Let's go back almost three months to Talkchess Is/Isn't Talking (August 2021). At that time I wrote,

I went back to the Talkchess forum once a week while preparing my weekly TCEC/CCC post and had the same message ['403 Forbidden'] every time. For this post I decided to look into it more deeply. [...; Unfortunately,] I ran out of time for working on this post. Maybe I'll tackle [the recommended workaround] later if I really, really need Talkchess. I can live without it for now.

A couple of weeks later the TalkChess admins -- the people who keep the site up, running, and interesting -- decided to tackle the problem themselves. A pair of forum threads documented their progess:-

• 2021-09-06: Task force TalkChess access
• 2021-09-11: On the ownership of TalkChess

The admins set up a copy of the software and data behind the system, then used it to isolate and debug the cause of the problem. The entire process took only a few weeks and appears to have achieved a resounding success. Kudos to all who participated. Now I'm able to go back to an older post, Stockfish vs. ChessBase (July 2021), where I wrote,

Talkchess.com is currrently returning '403 Forbidden; You don't have permission to access...' messages, so I'll come back to that forum another time.

For the record, the relevant thread was:-

• 2021-07-20: Stockfish: Our lawsuit against ChessBase

That thread started almost four months ago and petered out nearly three months ago. The original complaint is likely still being litigated.

There have been other developments involving chess engines since then, so my time would be better spent looking into those. I'll save that task for another post.

Three Guys on 'Best Chess Moves'

What's this? Of the 21 videos on this month's short list for featured video, three were titled something like '10 Best Chess Moves Ever'. Here's the first of them.

10 Best Chess Moves Ever Played (36:28) • '[Published on] Oct 25, 2021'

The video's description didn't offer much that was unique to the clip, so I'll use one of the first comments.

I've had an extremely bad day and seeing the thumbnail itself cheered me up...

Yes, that's a great thumbnail and the description links to its source: Emil Adam (instagram.com; @jojochessnoob; 'Thumbnail editor for GMHikaru and GothamChess'). I could easily set off on a tangent about chess video thumbnails, but first I'll finish this post. Here are direct links to the three videos on the short list, where the first is the clip behind the thumbnail shown above:-

• 2021-10-25: 10 Best Chess Moves Ever Played • GothamChess (IM Levy Rozman); 406,341 views; 1,329 Comments
• 2021-11-01: 10 Greatest Chess Moves Of All Time • Chess.com (BriTheMathGuy); 38,829 views; 106 Comments
• 2021-11-05: 10 Greatest Chess Moves of All Time • Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Atlanta (GM Ben Finegold); 23,272 views; 110 Comments

Of course, I don't know how much originality went into these picks. The Chess.com video links to an article on the site that predates the GothamChess video by more than a year: The 10 Best Chess Moves of All Time (chess.com; September 2020; Colin Stapczynski). The idea 'Best Chess Moves of All Time' or 'Best Chess Games etc.' isn't exactly novel. Instead of worrying about ownership, I'll just enjoy the videos and the moves. Thanks, guys!

Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24

Continuing with Magnus Carlsen's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record (TMER; 2000-), the previous post, Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Lichess (October 2021), demands to be followed by an equivalent post on Chess24. We already know from Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, the Tours (October 2021) that Chess24 played a central role in the organization of the 'Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour' (2020) and the 'Meltwater Champions Chess Tour', (2020-21) but there is more to the relationship with GM Carlsen than meets the eye. In Chess24.com, Wikipedia informs,

In March 2019, Chess24 merged with Magnus Carlsen's company Play Magnus AS in a transaction that made the former Chess24 owners the largest shareholders in Play Magnus.

That sentence has two references in the form of footnotes:-

• 2019-03-15: Chess24 and Play Magnus join forces (chess24.com; Colin McGourty), and
• 2019-03-15: Sjakkekspert inntar Magnus Carlsens spillselskap; Sjakkmester Magnus Carlsen og app-selskapet Play Magnus kjøper en av sine største konkurrenter (dn.no; Dagens Naeringslivs)

Google Translate tells us that the Norwegian headline means,

Chess expert takes over Magnus Carlsen's gaming company; Chess master Magnus Carlsen and the app company Play Magnus buy one of their biggest competitors.

After reading the translated article, I can quibble with the headline phrases 'takes over' and 'one of their biggest competitors', but it's a minor point, maybe due to a glitch in translation. The essentials of the transaction were explained in a few paragraphs:-

The settlement in the transaction takes place by issuing new shares in the company. [Chess24's GM Jan] Gustafsson and [Enrique] Guzman will remain with 38 percent of the shares in Play Magnus, while the current shareholders will remain with 62 percent.

Last summer, Play Magnus raised NOK 38.5 million in fresh capital in a share issue that priced the entire company at close to NOK 150 million. The merger with Chess24 will be carried out at the same pricing as in the previous issue. The total company will thus be priced at NOK 291 million, says chairman of the board Anders Brandt in Play Magnus.

Magnus Carlsen and his father keep their shares, which in the last issue were priced at close to NOK 68 million. Following the acquisition, the second largest shareholder in Play Magnus will only be beaten by the holding company of the two previous Chess24 owners.

At current 2021 exchange rates, NOK 100 (Norwegian Kroner) is equivalent to USD 11.50 or EUR 10.00. More information about the previous transactions is available via links to other articles on the Dagens Naeringslivs site.

Current information about the company is available from its web site. The following image from the site's main page lists eight subsidiaries: Play Magnus app suite, Chessable, Chess24, Silver Knights, Champions Chess Tour, New in Chess [NIC], Aimchess, and iChess.net.

Play Magnus Group (playmagnusgroup.com)
'Defining the Future of Chess'

Getting back to the Chess24.com announcement, 'Chess24 and Play Magnus join forces', the article starts,

Today we’re proud to announce that Chess24 has merged with Play Magnus [...]

Later it also uses the word 'merger', but it's obvious from the structure of the deal that the transaction was a takeover of Chess24 by Play Magnus. In the article we learn,

On our 5th birthday [Carlsen] took on Peter Svidler in a match, and last Friday he played his first Banter Blitz.

That mention of Carlsen and 'Banter Blitz' is worth further exploration for the TMER, but I'll save that for another post.

TCEC Swiss 2, CCC16 Rapid : Both Underway

For the first time in a long while we have both world class engine vs. engine tournaments in full operation. Before we get to the current status, let's summarize the previous post TCEC Cup 9, CCC C960 Blitz Final : Both Underway (October 2021):-

TCEC: The site's 'Cup 9' has reached the semifinal round, with Stockfish, ScorpioNN, KomodoDragon, and LCZero all qualifying for that stage. • CCC: In the 'Chess960 Blitz Semifinals', Stockfish finished a point ahead of Dragon as both engines qualified for the final match, where Stockfish has a non-trivial lead over Dragon.

Since that post, both sites have organized the final round of their respective tournaments and started new tournaments.

TCEC: The results of 'Cup 9' are available on the page TCEC Cup 9, (wiki.chessdom.org), although missing the results of the final match. In the semifinal round, Stockfish beat ScorpioNN +1-0=21, and LCZero beat KomodoDragon +1-0=27. In the final round, Stockfish beat LCZero +1-0=3. In the consolation match ('Bronze') for 3rd/4th place, KomodoDragon beat ScorpioNN +2-0=2.

That semifinal round is an eye-opener -- two decisive games out of 50 played, all using a forced book. The page TCEC Cup rules (ditto), explains,

3. Matches and tiebreaks: a. Each of the matches will initially consist of 2 pairs of games (4 games, every second with reversed colors and the same opening). [...] c. In case of an equal score after 4 games, the tiebreak will be played out immediately. The tiebreak consist of additional game-pairs; a decisive pair of tiebreaker games decides a match.

After some testing, the TCEC launched into 'Swiss 2', which is still in the first of 11 rounds. Each round consists of two games between paired engines with colors reversed in the second game. The 44 engines will be battling each other for the next month.

CCC: I covered the site's 'Chess960 Blitz Championship' on my chess960 blog in a post titled CCC C960 Blitz Championship (October 2021). To summarize that post,

In the final match Stockfish beat Dragon +10-1=589. Yes, more than 98% of the final games were drawn. Stockfish switched to NNUE evaluation last year, while Dragon is also an NNUE engine. Is the high percentage of draws because they both use the same technology for evaluating positions?

I started to answer that question in the previous off-week engine post on this blog, Evaluating the Evaluations (November 2021; 'My first problem was to learn how to find my way around the PGN files'). Given the protracted performance in the TCEC Cup 9 semifinal round, maybe the same sort of analysis should be applied to forced openings from the traditional start position (SP518 RNBQKBNR). I certainly wouldn't want to see forced openings used in chess960. It's high time for the chess engine community to investigate a more creative solution to the problem of excessive draws in engine play.

After the 'C960 Blitz Championship', the CCC started a 'CCC 16 Rapid' tournament with four stages:-

• Qualification (eight engines, two promoting),
• Main event (twelve engines, six promoting),
• Semifinals (six engines, two promoting), and
• Finals (150 rounds, 300 games).

The tournament is currently between the Main event and the Semifinals. Each stage is designed to last a week. Why the name 'CCC 16'? Because the previous scheduled event was 'CCC 15', which halted midway for technical reasons. See last year's post TCEC S19 DivP Chugging Along; CCC15 Halted (September 2020), for more info.

[For further information from the various stakeholders in the engine-to-engine events, see the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page. • NB: Leela = LC0 = LCzero; Dragon = KomodoDragon]

Coffee with Cherubs

In this blog's long-running series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), we've seen just about everything, including cherubs: Chess with Cherubs (July 2013). Of course, 'just about everything' doesn't mean everything.

Here's something we haven't seen. Titled 'Antique Dresden Wehsener Hand Painted Playing Chess Scene Cup & Saucer', the item pictured below sold for US $840.00 after three bids from three bidders, on a starting price of $780.00.

The item's description was informative, although I'll use a different order to present the information. It ended,

An interesting and beautiful Dresden cup and saucer set. The cup has a hand painted scene. Depicting a little boy and a little girl playing chess accompanied by beautiful views. The scene has some very fine details, a table covered by green tablecloth with a chessboard and chess pieces on top, the boy sitting on a chair covered by feathers blanket, with red curtain and marble column behind him. The hand painted scene with the beautiful views circle around the exterior of the cup. The surface of the saucer is fully gilded. An interesting and beautiful cup and saucer set.

Before that we had some technical details.

[Date] 1895+ • [Size] The cup: 6.2 cm high /8.5 cm diameter. The saucer: 14.3 cm diameter. • [Condition report] Very good condition with no crack, hairline, restoration or chip. There are gilt wears on the top rim of the cup, two small area on the saucer have gold lost.

The description started with a macro look at the business that produced the cup.

[Factory] Dresden (Richard, Gerhard & Werner Wehsener) Germany. Richard Wehsener started his own business in 1895.His next step was a studio store in the Zinzendorfstrasse. There was great demand for his designs. Even the British Museum and the National-Museum in Washington DC obtained his pieces. Wehsener became known around the world as "Dresdner Handpainting" and "Dresden China".

In 1914 Richard Wehsener, opened the store for his studio store on Prager Strasse; Dresden's famous Prager Strasse, a world-renowned shopping area which was obliterated by World War ll bombing. However, the Wehsener's Porcelain firm survived and is still in business today with Richard Wehsener's descendants although this art of styled of porcelain painting seems to be fading as less are proficient.

The guardian of blogging about chess and coffee is 'Spraggett on Chess' (not for all ages). A recent example, subtitled 'Black Coffee: Always Steamy', was Coffee, Death, FIDE and other Nonsense! (spraggettonchess.com; August 2021). Along with 'Latest Coffee Study', it discussed 'Historic First by a Woman!' (Dora Maar) and 'Trying to keep FIDE honest' (FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich).

Coffee, yup (with cherubs). Dora Maar, yup (see Dora Maar, Weeping Woman; June 2020). FIDE and Dvorkovich, yup. There are only so many subjects suitable for a chess blog.

November 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover'

Just like last month's October 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover' (October 2021), this month we have 'USA all the way' (with a little bit of Belgium). Here we see two giants of American chess, one from 50 years ago, the other from 25 years ago.

Left: '?'
Right: 'George Koltanowski Honored by California Assembly; Leah & George Koltanowski, the Dean of American Chess'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

In training for the match with Petrosian, Fischer (left) and his second, Larry Evans, analyze in the pool at Grossinger's Hotel in New York's Catskill Mountains. An early report on the match appears [inside].

'Inside' we learned,

FISCHER LEADING, 4 1/2 - 2 1/2 • As we go to press, the latest score in the Fischer - Petrosian match is 4 1/2 - 2 1/2. Fischer won the 1st, 6th and 7th games, Petrosian the 2nd. Here are the first six games.

According to my page 1970-72 Candidates Matches, two more games would be played in the match, Fischer winning both. For the previous CL&R cover on the candidates matches, see September 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover' (September 2021): 'Fischer and Larsen during the fifth game of the sensational match at Temple Buell College, Denver.'

GM Evans once had a falling out with Fischer. How did the story behind the CL&R cover fit into that chronology? [FLUP no.1]

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Most cover introductions take up a paragraph or two. The introduction to the November 1996 took up a full page. First there was an explanation.

"Pawns are like buttons. When they're gone, the pants fall down all by themselves."

Those words of wisdom by George Koltanowski, the Dean of American Chess, were offered to California Assemblyman Scott Baugh during their impromptu game at the California State Assembly in Sacramento on August 5. The occasion was the presentation of a special bipartisan resolution honoring Kolty for his blindfold chess achievements and for his eight decades of dedication to the Royal Game.

George, who celebrated his 93rd birthday on September 17, has been the chess columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle for 49 years. and was named 'Journalist of the Year' by the Chess Journalists of America [CJA]. Our thanks to the Chronicle's Associate Publisher Anthony Newhall. reporter Steve Rubenstein. and photographer Steve Yeater (who provided our cover this month) for sharing this story with Chess Life readers.

The full text of the resolution was copied on the same page.

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE
Assembly
RESOLUTION
By the Honorable Curt Pringle, Speaker of the Assembly;
and the Honorable John L. Burton, 12th Assembly District
Assembly Members [...]

For the rest of the resolution, I'll just give the start of the paragraphs.

WHEREAS, International Grandmaster George Koltanowski, a distinguished San Francisco resident, who was born September 17, 1903, has enriched the lives of countless people worldwide through his informative lectures, insightful writings, and spectacular and unparalleled, simultaneous blindfold exhibitions; and

WHEREAS, His staggering successes in Caissa's realm of blindfold play [...]

WHEREAS, His commitment to voluntarily teaching chess to young people [...]

WHEREAS, His accomplishments in the chess world [...]

RESOLVED BY SPEAKER OF THE ASSEMBLY CURT PRINGLE, ASSEMBLY MEMBER JOHN L. BURTON AND THE ABOVE-NAMED COAUTHORS, That the California State Legislature takes pleasure in honoring International grandmaster George Koltanowski for his truly monumental contributions to the game of chess, applaud him on his vast accomplishments that have astounded thousands for more than eight decades, along with the dignity with which he has always comported himself, making him a deserving legend throughout the world, and extend to him best wishes for continued success in his future endeavors.

Members Resolution No. 1366
Dated this 5th day of August, 1996
[signed by Pringle and Burton]

Flipping back 25 years to the 1971 CL&R, we find a curious story 'How Sick Can a Man Get?' by George Koltanowski, under the heading 'Chess Ramblings'.

There is no good way of starting this. "I shoulda had my head examined" is no good -- "I shoulda stood in bed' is even worse. So let me just tell it straight out and get it over with. [...] And now the butcher has asked me for chess lessons: what should I tell him? *** The above was written in 1954. It is pure fantasy on my part. To those members of the medical profession who feel miffed, my apologies.

Now, seventeen years later, I am still overweight, still complain of a variety of aches and pains, but my wife and I are still happy. I still teach on and off. My wife is a wonderful cook, so with her and Khayyam's loaf of bread, jug of wine, and -- not least -- chess, one could hardly ask for more!

Earlier this year, in May 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover' (May 2021), I commented on the unusual nature of Koltanowski's writing ('one of the shortest and strangest tournament reports I have ever seen for a national tournament'). The 'pants fall down' quote given above might be another example. How many other 'Ramblings' did Koltanowski leave us? [FLUP no.2]