Chess with the Jacobites

After a brief detour for the World Championship, Flickr Friday returns with an 18th century historical image.

Chess Players © Flickr user Keppoch's Regiment under Creative Commons.

From Facebook, Keppoch's Regiment:-

Previously known as the Northwest Jacobites, we're a group of reenactors portraying the Scottish Highlanders of Keppoch's Rgt. in the 1745 Jacobite Rising.

From Wikipedia, Jacobite rising of 1745:-

The Jacobite rising of 1745 was the attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for the exiled House of Stuart. The rising occurred during the War of the Austrian Succession when most of the British Army was on the European continent. Charles Edward Stuart, commonly known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie" or "the Young Pretender", sailed to Scotland and raised the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan in the Scottish Highlands, where he was supported by a gathering of Highland clansmen.

The drawing is also in an album, 1746 Edinburgh Figures ('Figure sketches made in Edinburgh and the neighbourhood after the rebellion of 1745').

December 1966 'On the Cover'

Fifty years ago in American chess, the two major U.S. chess publications wrapped up a stellar year for chess.

Left: 'American Open Champion -- Photo by Art Zeller'
Right: 'To Chessplayers Everywhere : Season's Greetings'

Chess Life

Larry Kaufman (center), winner of the 1966 American Open at Santa Monica, receives his check from USCF Vice-President (and International Grandmaster) Isaac Kashdan. Miss Vardit Hirsch stands by to present the American Open Trophy to the new champion.

Inside the magazine, a half-page article started,

Larry Kaufman, a 19-year old student at MIT, scored a surprising victory in the second American Open, held November 24-27 at the Club Del Mar in Santa Monica, California. Kaufman nosed out Robion Kirby, a professor of mathematics at UCLA, on tie-breaking after each scored 7-1 to head the field of 128 players. Although Kaufman and Kirby are both rated Masters, their triumphs were unexpected in view of the participation of Grandmaster Pal Benko and Senior Master Anthony Saidy.

GM (since 2008) Kaufman has figured many times in this blog, mainly for his pioneering work in computer chess. See, for example, Practical Evaluation (February 2013).

Chess Review

A XMAS CARROLL [NB: before you shout 'sic', think!] • We herewith re-submit as a sort of Xmas Carroll what Ward Fenner sent us and we first published in January 1959. [NB: as a letter; ...] 'follows the original version of Alice's Jaberwocky' [NB: sic!; ...]

T'was Lasker and the Alekhine
Did Bird and Morphy in the Breyer.
All Falkbeer were the Rubinstein and the Lopez Allgaier.

[NB: ...; remainder mercifully deleted]

There was nothing about Xmas (or Christmas) in the poem. As for the funky green cover, it carried on a CR tradition: see December 1964 and December 1965, 'On the Cover'.

Last World Championship Hubbub

Tomorrow I'll be wrapping up the 2016 Carlsen - Karjakin match on my World Chess Championship blog, which should be one of the last posts in the current cycle, C27: 2015-16. That gives me one last opportunity to squeeze in another post on this current blog. After World Championship Sizzle (the tiebreaks) and Closing Ceremony, what could I write about that might interest a few people? I could mention the report on Karjakin and Kasparov lock swords after match (chess24.com), which started,

Garry Kasparov was almost alone in failing to praise Sergey Karjakin after the World Championship match, describing the challenger as "drab".

Given ex-World Champion Kasparov's long-standing habit of kicking people when they're down or his hateful obsession with anyone even remotely supportive of his sworn enemy, Vladimir Putin, this is a dog-bites-man story. I could also mention the matched pair of Reuters Breakingviews opinion pieces:-

• One-knight stand (video) • 'Chess officials were hoping this year's world championship would kick off a lucrative new effort to commercialize the sport.'
• Chess: a 1,500-year-old startup that doesn't scale (opinion) • 'A fresh attempt to popularize the game using this year's championship between Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin is destined to be checkmated.'

While this is more of a man-bites-dog story, there really isn't anything new in the analysis. No, I think I'll go with the most recent Yahoo News stories, last seen in World Championship Fizzle, my post on the final long game of the match (if you can call a half-hour game 'long'). It's probably the only chance I'll ever get to use a photo of a jet engine in this blog.

The first story pictured was in the Sports section; the second was in the Finance section, which still happens to be the best part of the slowly crumbling Yahoo empire.

2016-12-01: Magnus Carlsen wins third world chess title; 'The games were watched by about six million people around the world' (bbc.com) • 'Magnus Carlsen of Norway has won the World Chess Championship for the third consecutive time after defeating challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia. Carlsen, 26, sealed victory following a series of tiebreakers at the finals held in New York. Karjakin tied against Carlsen in 12 regular rounds but was beaten in the final phase of four quickfire games.'

2016-11-30: ‘We haven’t captured the magic’: Chess missed out on a massive opportunity (finance.yahoo.com) • 'For the past two weeks, the FIDE World Chess Championship has been going on in New York City, and on Wednesday the event culminates in a thrilling tiebreaker of "rapid blitz" games. But most Americans, even those living in New York City, are likely unaware.'

The Yahoo Finance piece was written by Yahoo's Daniel Roberts, the same journalist featured in my previous post, The Money Game (May 2016), where he interviewed GM Maurice Ashley. I don't want to end this series of posts on the Carlsen - Karjakin match with a thumbs-down story ('most Americans are likely unaware'), so I'll slip in those two sub-stories shown under the BBC report.

• 2016 World Chess Championships are heading into OT with a chance for ‘Armageddon’ (sbnation.com)
• Birthday Present: Magnus Carlsen Retains The World Chess Title In Style (huffingtonpost.com; GM Kavalek)

Given that the match started on 11 November, I spent three and a half weeks covering it. Who said chess was slow?

TCEC Season 9 Superfinal Week 4

It's all over! In last week's post, TCEC Season 9 Superfinal Week 3, we left Stockfish leading Houdini by a score of +12-5=52, with 31 games still to be played. The 100th game finished this morning, giving a further score of +5-3=23. Adding those scores together gives us a total score of...

+12-5=52 after week three
+ 5-3=23 week four
--------
+17-8=75

...in favor of Stockfish. Congratulations to the Stockfish team on becoming the defacto, unofficial World Computer Chess Champion.

In my first report on the competition, Superfinal Underway, I took the results of the first few days...

In the nearly three days since the event started, the engines have played 12 complete games non-stop with Stockfish leading Houdini by +3-0=9.

...and extrapolated to a crushing final score of +25-0=75. I was right about the number of draws, but dead wrong about the margin of victory. Houdini won twice in the second week and three times in each of the two following weeks to put up a fight, although the final outcome was never in doubt.

The controversial scoring of game 17 in Superfinal Week 2, where Stockfish was awarded a win in a game that both engines evaluated as a draw, prompted some sticklers to declare a final score of +16-8=76. I'll give the event's organizers the privilege of scoring the game according to how they interpret the rules. Chessdom.com reported the result of the event in Stockfish is the TCEC Season 9 Grand Champion

Stockfish, the open source chess engine by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba, Joona Kiiski, and Gary Linscott, is the winner of the 2016 edition of the Top Chess Engine Championship. Stockfish 8 won the 100 games Superfinal match against Houdini 5 with a total score of 54,5 – 45,5. This is the second TCEC gold medal for Stockfish and it comes after the title in Season 6 and two runner up positions in Seasons 7 and 8. The third position in 2016 is for the ex-champion Komodo.

Given that Stockfish is open source -- anyone can go to its site and download the latest version for free -- why would someone pay money for a commercial engine like Houdini? That is a question that I can't answer. The day before the TCEC ended, Chessbase.com ran the following 'news' item on the home page of the English version of the site.

'Houdini 5 won the "Top Chess Engine Championship"
(TCEC, Season 9)'

The blurb neglected to mention that Houdini won the rapid event that preceded the Superfinal. As I write this, there has been no mention by Chessbase of the Superfinal result. The 'Impressive...' link went to a product page offering Houdini for Euro 99.90. Impressive, indeed.

World Championship Social Media

Let's get back to The Sociology of Chess, and specifically World Championship Sociology. Many chess players might not remember a time when a World Chess Championship had no related web site, like nyc2016.fide.com for the recently concluded Carlsen - Karjakin match, but most can remember when there was no related social media. One of the first articles to appear on Worldchess.com, the host domain for the nyc2016 site, was Chess Players Are Surprisingly Bad With Social Media (October 2015):-

Most everyone agrees that chess is ideally suited for the Internet. But, when it comes to one of the most powerful and omnipresent uses of the Internet -- social media -- some chess players, even elite ones, have been slow to adapt.

That observation doesn't apply to Worldchess itself, which promotes three social media services on every one of its own pages:-

• Facebook - World Chess
• Twitter - World Chess
• Instagram - World Chess

Following is a sample from that last service, which captures key moments from the match.

instagram.com/theworldchess

Add to the Worldchess list a service for the many excellent videos produced by the group:-

• Youtube - World Chess

As most keen observers of chess know by now, Agon Limited was both the organizer of the match and the owner of the Worldchess site. It tried to establish a monopoly over the transmission of the moves of the match (see my posts from another blog, World Championship Broadcasting and World Championship Bullying, for background) but was stopped at the last moment by a Manhattan court. Worldchess also doesn't have a monopoly on chess in the social media. Two popular Twitter hashtags for the match were

• #worldchess2016, and
• #CarlsenKarjakin

both of which tracked match progress through GM Carlsen's ultimate victory. While I was preparing this post, I discovered Seven Reasons Why Social Media Is a Chess Game (globalsevenagency.com):-

1. Sometimes you WIN, sometimes you LOSE
2. Practice makes PERFECT
3. It’s not always YOUR move
etc. etc.

With social media, everyone wins and it's always your move.

World Championship Closing Ceremony

Ever since the 2016 Carlsen - Karjakin match started, I've been wondering who would represent FIDE at the award ceremony. In November 2015, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was barred from entering the U.S. for "materially assisting and acting for or on behalf of the government of Syria", and I haven't seen any other FIDE officials at the match except those who have some responsibility in running it.

Closing Ceremony (30:50) • 'Published on Nov 30, 2016'

Joining hostess Kaja Snare on stage were Agon CEO Ilya Merenzon, FIDE Treasurer Adrian Siegel, Phosagro CEO Andrey Guryev (a sponsor), and Chief Arbiter Takis Nikolopoulos. Merenzon awarded the runner-up medal to Sergey Karjakin, after which Siegel awarded the winner's medal to Magnus Carlsen; Guryev then awarded the champion's trophy.

I was happy to find the video on the WorldChess Youtube channel. Except for the title 'Closing Ceremony', the clip has no keywords or other identifying information -- not even the names Carlsen or Karjakin. Ditto for the official copy of the clip I used yesterday in World Championship Sizzle; it's here: Final press conference.

World Championship Sizzle

My previous post, World Championship Fizzle, about the last match game at standard time control, contained more than a glimmer of hope for the rapid / blitz tiebreaks.

I watched the press conference, where the players said that they understood spectators might have been disappointed by the short, bloodless draw. They also pointed out that there will be considerable compensation in having the tiebreaks. [...] After the game 12 fizzle, the tiebreaks promise plenty of sizzle.

Sizzle they did. After two draws in the four game rapidplay mini-match, including a narrow escape by Sergey Karjakin in the second game, Magnus Carlsen won the last two games to retain the title of World Chess Champion. The post-game press conference is available in entirety on Youtube.

Magnus Carlsen Vs Sergey Karjakin - Rapid - Press Conference (31:32) • 'Published on Nov 30, 2016'

I picked out two key points that were especially revealing. Early in the press conference, GM Carlsen explained the quick draw in game 12.

As for the tiebreaks, I pretty much knew this was going to happen when we made a draw in the 11th game. [...] I felt good coming today. I had a few days of rest, days to prepare.

He later expanded on this in reply to a question from Chess.com's Peter Doggers.

It was an advantage for me that I didn't have to think about game 12 and he did. [...] I thought that playing four games instead of one seemed like a very good idea. Besides that, it was refreshing to play a bit faster after all these weeks.

In other words, before game 12 even started, Carlsen had planned the fizzle to give himself a head start in preparing for the tiebreaks. Later on, Agon's CEO Ilya Merenzon offered 'some numbers'.

90% of people followed the match on smartphones. Over 10.000.000 people from pretty much all countries in the world followed the championship live on the official website. Over 10.000 people attended the championship live. Over 400 media organizations were accredited here. Total media value of coverage was over $25.000.000.

Congratulations to GM Carlsen on winning the title for a third time. Congratulations to GM Karjakin for being a true world-class competitor. I hope that we see both players in World Championship competitions -- at any level -- for many years to come.