Dilbert on Mastering Chess

Chess is often used as an example of the ten thousand hour benchmark for attaining mastery in some activity. The last time I encountered it was in posting Fischer Psychobiography, where Joseph Ponterotto wrote in the section 'How did Bobby Fischer Get so Good',

A general consensus is that it takes about 10.000 hours of deliberate study often accrued in about ten years to reach elite performance status, regardless of the activity (chess, violin, math, computer programming, music composition, and so on).

Here's a different take on the same subject.

Puts an entirely different light on chess mastery, doesn't it? For the original comic and related comments, see Dilbert comic strip for 02/07/2013 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive. For more about 'chess 10000 hours', search on that phrase.

Dr. Kasparov, I Presume

I like this photo for the art as well as the personalities. The photo's caption said,

President Jacob Zuma meets Dr. Garry Kasparov, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, widely regarded as the greatest chess player of all time and his wife Dasha Kasparova at his residence, Mahlamba Ndlopfu, in Pretoria. 23 March 2012.

Has Kasparov been awarded an honorary doctorate? It certainly wouldn't surprise me.

Zuma meets Kasparov © Flickr user GovernmentZA under Creative Commons.

The artwork's inscription says,

Thank you, President Zuma, for supporting chess on behalf of the children of South Africa.

Elsewhere we learn that the former World Champion was there to launch the 'Kasparov Foundation' in Africa.

One Imbalance Leads to Another

Strictly speaking, chess isn't infinite, but writing about chess might very well be. Whenever I'm working on a new post, I take notes of related ideas, many of which pop up during research. For my recent post, Soltis on Kaufman's Material Imbalances, I noted 'The many references to Spielmann need to be pursued, as does the Kaufman article in the January 2003 Chess Life.' I'll tackle the Kaufman article in this post and return to Spielmann some other time.

'Initial Values of Pieces and Pawns' by IM Larry Kaufman (now a GM) appeared on p.48 of the January 2003 Chess Life. It was a follow-on to his original article 'The Evaluation of Material Imbalances' in the March 1999 issue. I covered that topic in a recent post titled Kaufman's Material Imbalances. For 'Initial Values', Kaufman abandoned his database in favor of engine vs. engine competition, where he altered the initial setup of the pieces, set the engines against each other, and recorded the results. This allowed him to calculate the theoretical values of the various pieces before any moves are made.

The major/minor piece values that Kaufman calculated in 2003 were so close to the 1999 values that it gave him a defacto confirmation of the methodologies used in both exercises. On top of that, he derived a new set of values that I haven't seen anywhere else.

• 1.1 - d/e-Pawn
• 1.0 - c/f-Pawn
• 0.9 - b/g-Pawn
• 0.6 - a/h-Pawn
• 0.4 - Value of a tempo
• 0.2 - Value of first move
• 1.0 - Value of castling

With those values as a reference, Kaufman then analyzed some well known gambits. For example, he determined that the Benko Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.bxa6 Bxa6) gives Black a better value than at the start of the game before any moves have been made. It might be interesting to try a similar analysis on one or two of the gambits in my Guide to Chess Gambits (Part 1). There I go again -- one post leads to another.

***

Later: Re '[Kaufman] derived a new set of values that I haven't seen anywhere else', there is some overlap with Lasker's Table of Opening Values. Lasker's values were, however, estimates not based on objective criteria.

Putting Names to Numbers

In Countries with World Top-100 Players, I identified those countries having the most world class players as of January 2013. Who exactly are those players? The following lists show top-100 rank and FIDE rating for each player as of January 2013.

Russia (RUS); >2700, plus 13 other players on top-100

• 02: 2810 Kramnik, Vladimir
• 06: 2780 Karjakin, Sergey
• 11: 2764 Grischuk, Alexander
• 12: 2758 Morozevich, Alexander
• 15: 2747 Svidler, Peter
• 20: 2734 Jakovenko, Dmitry
• 22: 2727 Andreikin, Dmitry
• 27: 2722 Tomashevsky, Evgeny
• 34: 2709 Malakhov, Vladimir
• 40: 2705 Riazantsev, Alexander
• 42: 2703 Nepomniachtchi, Ian

Ukraine (UKR)

• 13: 2758 Ivanchuk, Vassily
• 21: 2733 Ponomariov, Ruslan
• 28: 2722 Volokitin, Andrei
• 29: 2720 Areshchenko, Alexander
• 43: 2703 Moiseenko, Alexander
• 52: 2696 Efimenko, Zahar
• 56: 2690 Korobov, Anton
• 69: 2678 Eljanov, Pavel
• 79: 2666 Kryvoruchko, Yuriy

France (FRA)

• 30: 2713 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
• 38: 2706 Fressinet, Laurent
• 44: 2703 Bacrot, Etienne
• 64: 2686 Edouard, Romain
• 83: 2661 Gharamian, Tigran
• 92: 2654 Istratescu, Andrei
• 102: 2650 Tkachiev, Vladislav

China (CHN)

• 14: 2752 Wang, Hao
• 33: 2709 Ding, Liren
• 46: 2702 Wang, Yue
• 60: 2688 Yu, Yangyi
• 73: 2675 Bu, Xiangzhi
• 74: 2674 Li, Chao b

I could probably identify around half of those players from photos, with the Chinese players presenting the biggest challenge. Perhaps I should do some work to improve that score.

Carlsen TMER Index

Taking a side trip from the project detailed in About to Tripod, I returned to A Magnus Carlsen Game Collection, brought it up to date with games played through January 2013, and uploaded the index of games (1602 by exact count) to carlsen.zip, suitable for import to a spreadsheet or database. For more about Magnus, see Carlsen Plays Everything.

(TMER = Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record)

Beating Dr.Lasker in a Simul

In this series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price, a lot of eBay auctions cross the CFAA radar. After Fischer, the most frequently seen grandmaster items of yore feature Capablanca, followed by Alekhine. For some reason, Em.Lasker doesn't appear very often. The item pictured below, titled 'Emanuel Lasker World Chess Champion Signed Letter, Admits Defeat, Super Rare', was on auction for '$1,000.00 or Best Offer'. Judging by its place in the list of items by descending price, I assume it sold for exactly $1000.

The item's description explained,

The letter is written on Chicago City Club letterhead, dated and signed by Emanuel Lasker. The auction includes the newspaper article, glued to cardstock for protection, which tells of the chess exhibition, how my grandfather Robert Stephan beat Lasker, and it directly mentions the letter itself. The letter was given to my grandfather by Emanuel Lasker, for beating him in a 'hard game of chess'. I have done some research, Lasker's autograph is fairly rare. But what's very rare is him admitting defeat in a game of chess.

This letter is guaranteed 100% genuine, by me, grandson of the recipient of the letter. It has been in family since it was written by Lasker those many years ago, and has always been well taken care of. This letter is absolutely positively guaranteed 100% genuine.

My grandfather took over a game that a player gave up on. He took over the game down a Pawn and a Knight. Thats what makes it all the more amazing that my grandfather actually beat Lasker, and probably why Lasker felt compelled to write the letter. I am told there are no other letters known in which Lasker admits defeat in a game of chess.

The caption on the photo, which appeared in the Chicago Sunday Tribune on 27 April 1924, said,

Dr. Emanuel Lasker, former world's champion and winner of the recent international chess masters' tournament in New York, revisited Chicago yesterday after an interval of eighteen years and gave an exhibition at the City club. The photo shows the master with a cup of coffee by his side, playing C.N. Owen, while to Owen's right Don Levi is getting ready for the next move. Owen and Levi both got draws with Dr. Lasker. Dr. Lasker played thirty-seven simultaneous games, winning twenty-nine, drawing six, and losing two.

An accompanying article said,

Robert Stephan, a 16 year old Hyde Park high school boy, yesterday jumped into the elite of Chicago chessdom when he vanquished Dr. Emanuel Lasker, former world's champion and winner of the recent international chess masters' tournament in New York.

Dr. Lasker spent the day in Chicago and in the afternoon gave an exhibition at the City club, playing 37 games simultaneously. Stephan, a spectator, was given an opportunity of finishing one of the games when another player had to leave, and to the surprise of everyone, beat the master. [...]

After the match the former champion sent a short note to young Stephan seeking an opportunity to compliment the young man in person.

Imagine beating Lasker from a deficit of Knight and Pawn!

Chess Sells Supply Chain Logistics

Dematic - The Chess Game (1:53) • 'Material Handling & Logistics Conference, Sponsored by Dematic'

'Supply Chain Advantage - The knowledge to give you an unfair edge'