Match Tales from the Twittersphere

The much anticipated 2018 Carlsen - Caruana World Championship match starts tomorrow and journalistic protocol requires at least a perfunctory nod. What is Twitter saying about it?

On top of writing about the match itself, the Twitter angle gives me the chance to try another of the Algorithmia (AI?) services that I first used in From Black & White to Brown & Blue (October 2018). The particular service is Retrieve Tweets With Keyword (algorithmia.com). I fed it the three keywords 'chess carlsen caruana' and it spit out text examples of the 500 most recent tweets/retweets on the subject, in reverse chronological order, the earliest from yesterday. The 'retweets' aspect means that the same tweets are repeated over-and-over-and-over, most of which are a link to a source other than Twitter.

Of all the standalone tweets that I looked at, the most interesting is shown below. I initially tried to use the tweet embedded directly into this post, but the dimensions of the photo broke the blog container. I couldn't see a way to fix this quickly, so I resorted to a screen capture and shrank it.

https://twitter.com/seaningle/status/1060533865259954177

As for linked articles, the Twittersphere gave me three from Chess.com:-

• 2018-10-08: World Chess Championship 2018: Carlsen-Caruana; Peter Doggers
• 2018-11-01: Carlsen, Caruana Top Rating List Before World Championship; ditto
• 2018-11-07: 13 Things To Know About The Carlsen vs Caruana World Chess Championship; Jonathan Tisdall, 'My first feature via a major chess platform'

Of the non-chess sources flagged by Twitter, another handful appeared over-and-over-and-over:-

• 2018-11-07: Magnus Carlsen And Fabiano Caruana's Fight For The World Chess Championship Is Going To Be So Fun (deadspin.com) • 'It’s a phenomenal time to be a chess fan.'
• 2018-11-07: America's Chance at Chess Dominance Is in the Hands of One Young Player (si.com)
• 2018-11-07: Interview: How yoga and hip-hop helped Fabiano Caruana challenge for the world chess championship (theguardian.com)
• 2018-11-08: US chess prodigy Fabiano Caruana eyes world title in London as he takes on Norwegian Magnus Carlsen (standard.co.uk)

As for the oldest of the 500 tweets/retweets, the distinction goes to another article from Chess.com:-

• 2018-11-06: Carlsen vs Caruana: CAPS Predicts The 2018 World Chess Championship; Smarter Chess

As interesting as the Algorithmia exercise was, I could have saved a lot of time with a straight Twitter query:-

twitter.com/search?q=carlsen+caruana.

Next time I'll just do that.

Chess in Antarctica

That's the South Pole in the crosshairs on the map of Antarctica. The word 'McMurdo' is to its left.

May 1964, Source unknown

The accompanying newspaper clipping said,

CHESS ON ICE • Static Stops Play

A chess tournament between Christchurch [New Zealand] players and Americans at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, had to be adjourned with 10 games only half-way through when radio conditions deteriorated yesterday afternoon.

The play was tapped out on teleprinters in the communications room at the American base at Harewood and on teleprinters at McMurdo Station. But as the sun sank lower the radio frequency had to be changed, and difficulties at the Antarctic end began to slow up the games. The Americans suggested an adjournment to Sunday, June 14.

"It's a bit hard to tell," said Mr. A. S. Hollander, president of the Canterbury Chess Club, "but it looks as if we are leading." Chess is one of the very few ways in which the winter population of McMurdo Sound can participate in the life of the outside world, and Mr. Hollander thinks the Americans would like to play a lot more chess in future. "I'm sure there'll be a return match at least," he said.

My guess is that the photo was taken on the New Zealand side of the radio match. Why are there two boards in front of each player?

So Many Ideas, So Little Time

In last week's post, Happy 10th Anniversary, Stockfish!, I noted,

The name of choice for the commemorative release was 'Stockfish X', but with only a few days to go, it doesn't look like anything special is going to happen.

And nothing did happen. Let's continue with the Stockfish forum, FishCooking -- first seen on this blog three years ago in Chess Engines : FishCooking (October 2015) -- and look at some of the recent posts that attracted discussion from the Stockfish community *and* that provide some insight into the group's working methods. First up are a couple of forum posts about selecting a version for the TCEC final match, which is currently underway and nearing its conclusion.

• 2018-10-20: Executable for TCEC superfinal? • 'Apparently we haven't submitted an update to play in the TCEC Superfinal yet. I suspect it is too late now, but perhaps the senior devs could prepare one or comment on whether the e.g. abrok one should be used and contact TCEC?'
  
  
• 2018-10-21: Request for binary for TCEC superfinal • Marco Costalba: 'We have few hours left before TCEC deadline is met to provide a binary for the superfinal. We would need a fast binary of the current master within this evening (European time) and I will send to TCEC people. If not, we will fallback on current TCEC binary. If someone has a better idea, please share it.'

The open source nature of Stockfish development presents many challenges.

• 2018-10-17: Discussion for optimizing methodology • 'SF has been able to progress with the same 7(?) year old recipe and without doubt still is, but in my opinion with some adjustments in accordance to its current situation and needs it can be helped tremendously'

A technical issue related to evaluation has been under investigation for months.

• 2018-10-03: First results of contempt tests • 'Actually on STC it seems that optimal contempt value is somewhere between 30 and 70. I will try to build the same diagram for LTC and if it shows the same stuff then we can probably conclude that for TCEC divP optimal value of contempt will be much higher than default 21 - closer to 50 because field there is much weaker than SF9, in fact, every single engine there is weaker than SF9.'

As those excerpts show, the forum members use so many acronyms and so much jargon that they might easily dissuade casual chess engine fans from trying to understand what they are discussing. Here are a few terms that are worth knowing. These first two acronyms I covered in a recent post titled Catching Up with Engine Competitions (October 2018):-

CCCC = Chess.com Computer Chess Championship
TCEC = Top [formerly 'Thoresen'] Chess Engines Competition

The next two acronyms are used throughout the forum. If you don't know what they mean, there will be many discussions that you won't understand. The terms are key elements of a testing strategy that starts with STC games and, if no problems are discovered, continues with LTC games.

STC = Short time control
LTC = Long time control

This next term is not specific to chess.

SPRT = Sequential Probability Ratio Test

It is a type of statistical analysis that is explained in Wikipedia's Sequential probability ratio test. The next acronym stems from a web domain that is used for administration, e.g. Stockfish Development Versions.

ABROK = abrok.eu

The word 'contempt' in the last thread listed above is a current topic of experimentation. In Contempt Factor (chessprogramming.org), the wiki defines it as:-

The Contempt Factor reflects the estimated superiority/inferiority of the program over its opponent. The Contempt factor is assigned as draw score to avoid (early) draws against apparently weaker opponents, or to prefer draws versus stronger opponents otherwise.

In other words, even if the evaluation shows a small advantage for the opponent, treat it as equality (a 0.00 evaluation). The typical debate is about what numerical value should be used. If it's too large, you risk losing drawn games; if too small, you draw games that you might win.

Another thread that has been running for nearly two years points to a useful tool for understanding Stockfish evaluations.

• 2017-01-22: "Stockfish Evaluation Guide" tool • 'I developed tool where you can investigate each part of Stockfish static evaluation function. It is standalone single HTML page with javascript. Every evaluation term is rewritten in single small javascript function. You can setup any position with FEN or by moving pieces on chessboard and see how evaluation is computed and what is result and if possible to attach score to individal squares it is visualized on chessboard.'

The thread eventually points to Main evaluation (hxim.github.io). If I had the time, I would definitely take a closer look at it. I could say the same for many of the threads in the FishCooking forum.

Elegant 19th Century Austrians

For this November edition of Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), my first choice would have been a painting titled 'Charles Schreiber, 1845-1903 French, "A Game of Chess" Oil'. Then I realized that it was exactly the same item that I featured three months ago in Chess with Two Cardinals (August 2018) -- same title, same description. This time the painting sold for US $1500 after one bid.

Instead of the cardinals for a second time, I picked the painting shown below. Titled 'A Game of Chess Antique Genre Oil Painting Josef Morgan (Austrian, 1839–1898)', subtitled 'Attributed to Morgan - Signed with Initials - Inscribed', it sold for GBP 620.00 ('approximately US $803.71', according to eBay) after receiving 37 bids from 14 bidders.

The description added little to the information given in the title:-

A very fine 19th century genre painting depicting an elegantly dressed couple playing chess in an interior which is presumably the work of Austrian artist Josef Morgan (Austrian, 1839–1898).

The frame (not shown here) carried a small plaque, 'J. Morgan 1894'. Another variant of the name is Jozef Belohlawek Morgan. Whatever the artist's real identity might be, we have another reminder that Chess Paintings Require Dogs (April 2011).

GPU Configurations

In my previous post, GPU Specifications, I closed with:-

The emphasis in the video is on gaming, but the connection with AI is clear enough. I'll look at that in my next post.

This led me to a page, Deep Learning Server - 8x GPUs (lambdalabs.com), about a specific product, called the 'Lambda Blade'. The essence of the product is captured in the following image, the physical machine on the left, its component list on the right.

The essence of the 'What's Inside' column is repeated below. The small print in the image lists options for upgrading this basic configuration.

OS: Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic)
GPUs: 8 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
CPUs: 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2650 (12 cores, 30M Cache, 2.20 GHz)
RAM: 128 GB DDR4 ECC
SSD: 2 TB (SATA)
HDD: 4 TB (SATA)

This basic introduction leads to a 'Customize' page, which I'll look at in my next post.

November 1968 'On the Cover'

Chess magazine covers aren't reserved exclusively for World Champions and top grandmasters. Sometimes they feature prominent members of the B-team. Here we have two of them for the same month.

Left: 'I.S. Turover, "The Great Chess Lover"'
Right: 'Artist in Chess'

Chess Life

Last month's October 1968 'On the Cover', featured a report by TD George Koltanowski on the 1968 U.S. Open. This month's cover led to a continuation of that report.

Attending the U.S. Open at Snowmass from the start to the bitter end was none other than the "Grand old Man" (if I said "young" I would be more correct), I.S. Turover of Washington, D.C. The septuagenarian was in the thick of things, no matter at what time the games were adjourned in the evening or continued in the morning. And when the masters assembled at the special dinner given by I.S., we heard wonderful tales of the chess past from E. Schuyler Jackson of New York and from I.S. himself. Here's one of them:

The tale, omitted here, was a story about Turover meeting Alekhine and his wife.

I.S. Turover was born in the same city as M. Najdorf, in [Warsaw] Poland, and came to New York in 1912, where he played in his first tournament in 1913. At 17, he won the Championship of Washington, D.C. He won it altogether three times, gaining permanent possession of the Washington Post Trophy, retiring undefeated in 1928!

In business, he started as a jack-of-all-trades, and then started making good in the lumber business. Although he was blessed with success, he never forgot his great love: chess. Though well known in all charitable and civic circles as a great donor and supporter, he also supports chess. Only recently he participated in the sponsorship of Bobby Fischer's trip to the Natanya [Netanya] tournament in Israel, and he accompanied Bobby to the event.

Chess Review

Marcel Duchamp died at 81 last October 1st, in Paris. In the art world, he became the "stormy petrel," much as Nimzovich had been in chess, taking a leading part in rebellion against established conventions and beliefs and in promoting the skeptical school of Dadaism. As of today, however, he holds a revered place as a prophet of and leader in most or the recent experiments in art forms. In consequence, his obituaries have been impressive and featured as front-page news in the papers.

Most of the obituaries carry Duchamp's half-serious statement that he gave up painting for chess. In chess, he was a quiet and genial figure, playing a strong game and active mainly in New York state chess circles and in the London Terrace Chess Club in New York city. Duchamp was a Frenchman, became an American citizen; but, in art and in chess, he was truly international. • Photo by courtesy of the New York Times

This Chess Review would be the first issue of the last 12 months of the publication's existence.

October Yahoos

The two Yahoo stories I spotted this month were both about the FIDE Presidential election, which I covered on my World Chess Championship blog:-

• 2018-10-10: Out with the Old!, Ilyumzhinov / Makropoulos
• 2018-10-17: In with the New!, Dvorkovich

Both Yahoo stories used similar photos of outgoing FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to illustrate the headline. The logo for the Russia news agency, Interfax (wikipedia.org), is seen in the background.

2018-10-03: Global chess body elects new head amid claims of Russian meddling (yahoo.com; AFP). At the time I captured the Yahoo introduction shown above, the headline and the partial paragraph beneath the headline didn't match. The headline said that Dvorkovich had been elected. The lead said the 'federation is set to vote'. Here is the entire lead sentence and first paragraph:-

The global chess federation is set to vote for a new president on Wednesday, replacing its veteran, highly controversial Russian chief, amid allegations of undue influence exerted by Moscow. The race to head one of the world's largest sporting federations will see former Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich run against current World Chess Federation (FIDE) deputy president, Georgios Makropoulos, who is Greek, and British grandmaster Nigel Short. Whatever the result, the election will bring to an end the more than two decades-long reign of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as president of the body uniting the world's 188 national chess federations.

Now the lead paragraph on the same link says,

Batumi (Georgia) (AFP) - The global chess federation elected former Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich as its new president Wednesday, replacing a colourful but controversial chief amid allegations that Moscow was putting pressure on national federations.

I don't like online news stories that change from one moment to another. There's something sneaky, bordering on deceptive, about them. The second story was more straightforward.

2018-10-03: World chess gets first new president in two decades as Putin loyalist takes power (yahoo.com; The Telegraph).

The World Chess Federation elected a new leader today bringing to an end the colourful two-decade rule of a Russian politician who claims he was abducted by aliens. Arkady Dvorkovich, Moscow's preferred candidate, was installed as the new king of Fide after delegates from 182 nations voted at its congress in the Georgian resort city of Batumi. Mr Dvorkovich, the chief organiser of the Fifa World Cup, replaces the eccentric businessman-turned-politician Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who reigned supreme over the chess world for 23 years.

There was one other significant story that appeared on Yahoo, but which I didn't see in their headlines. It could be even more important to the development of chess than the election stories above.

2018-10-20: Meet the first American since 1972 to compete for the world chess title by Daniel Roberts. The same writer was behind two previous posts on this blog:-

• The Money Game (May 2016)
• Chess @ Yahoo Finance (ditto)

Let's hope that 'November Yahoos' will be filled with stories about next month's 2018 Carlsen - Caruana match, although the often repeated 'first American since 1972 to compete for the world chess title' is a disservice to Gata Kamsky. For more on the subject, see Gata Kamsky taking objections to the claim that Caruana is the 1st American since Fischer to play for World title (reddit.com).