Always Interesting Aronian

For this month's featured video, I had a choice of good clips about AlphaZero, last seen on this blog in 'Game Changer' Excerpts. I went instead with one of the many interesting interviews made available during the 2019 Gibraltar Chess Festival, aka GibChess.

The Beauty of Chess: A Levon Aronian Interview (23:50) • 'Published on Jan 24, 2019'

The description said only,

Tania Sachdev talks to Armenian chess Grandmaster Levon Aronian about his life in chess.

About two minutes into the clip, the following exchange takes place:-

Q: There has been a shift in the chess calendar of the really elite players in the world. There was a time when this was a very decided calendar. You played amongst each other in these closed events. We see more and more elite players participating in open events like Gibraltar. What do you think is the reason for that?

A: The elite players are tired of playing against each other. We want some excitement. We want to face other players. We want to see what it feels like to play sompe riskier openings, to try to win more with Black. That's why the elite players like to play in open tournaments. We normally get accused of 'They all play against each other', but that's not our design. We like to be open and that's why tournaments like Gibraltar and Isle of Man are something that we look forward to.

Other topics are:-

How to prepare for opens? How to decide what tournaments to play? How important is the World Championship? The Candidates tournament? What about Magnus Carlsen? The change at the top in FIDE? Chess in Armenia? [More++]

GM Aronian did not succeed in repeating his victory at 2018 Gibraltar. He finished 6.5-3.5, two points behind the winner GM Artemiev. For more videos from the same channel see GibChess - YouTube.

'Game Changer' Excerpts

We saw the press release, AlphaZero Stars in 'Game Changer', including an excerpt from the book. We've seen the authors, where the most recent was 'Game Changer' Interview. Now we'd like to see the book. That excerpt from New in Chess is mainly 'Ch.4 - How AlphaZero thinks', plus a few pages from 'Part III - Themes in AlphaZero’s play' (Ch.6-13).

More pages are available from Google Books: Game Changer: AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI. The section 'Preview this book' is uninterrupted from the cover page through most of Ch.4.

Another reliable source is Amazon.com: Game Changer - Paperback. The 'Look Inside' feature warns, 'This view is of the Kindle edition (2019) from New in Chess', and stops near the beginning of Ch.2.

All of this is sufficient to prove that you don't have to be an expert in AI or NN to appreciate the book; Ch.4 explains everything you need to know. You do, however, need to be a competent chess player. The book is not for beginners.

Google+ Sunsets

Toward the end of last year, in Goodbye Google+, Hello Twitter (October 2018), I wrote,

I don't know when Google Plus will close, but Google doesn't waste time when it takes action.

The official notification arrived this week in the form of an email:-

Date: 01-Feb-19
Subject: Your personal Google+ account is going away
From: "Google+ Team"

You've received this email because you have a consumer (personal) Google+ account or you manage a Google+ page. In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers' expectations. [...]

On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.

The message included a few useful links like the following:-

• 2018-12-10: Expediting changes to Google+ • 'In October, we announced that we’d be sunsetting the consumer version of Google+ and its APIs because of the significant challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations, as well as the platform’s low usage.'
  
  
• Frequently asked questions about the Google+ shutdown

Sunsetting! What an ugly use of a beautiful concept. 'Google+ Team', lift your heads away from whatever mobile device you use and look at the natural world around you. It is far more awesome than your contrived technology.

I also received a notice from Blogger.com -- that's the backend product that I use to maintain my blogs -- with info specific to the blogs:-

• 2019-01-30: An update on Google+ and Blogger • 'Google+ Profile: In March 2019, Blogger will revert to only having Blogger profiles. Users that have selected a G+ profile in the past will appear as unknown authors until they next login to Blogger and supply a new display name and avatar.'

As far as I can tell, that's the only part of the shutdown that I need to watch. That leaves me plenty of time to enjoy a real sunset.

February 1969 'On the Cover'

Fifty years ago, what appeared on the covers of the two leading American chess magazines?

Left: '1968 Player of the Year'
Right: 'Phantom of the Squares'

Chess Life

To conclude the Mallorca story, it should be added the 1968 "Oscar" for best player of the year was given to Spassky. A special international jury voted for the ten best players of the year: 1. Spassky, 2. Korchnoi, 3. Larsen, 4. Petrosian, 5. Fischer, 6. Tal, 7. Portisch, 8. Smyslov, 9. Keres, 10. Bronstein.

Last year, in May 1968 'On the Cover', we had a more informative excerpt: 'The first "Chess Oscar" is a story worth repeating. From the May 1968 CR...'

Chess Review

Our cover illustration this month is a photograph by Vincent C. Vesce, designed to represent the spirit of chess. It was exhibited some years ago.

Spassky last appeared on the cover for the June 1968 'On the Cover'; CR: 'Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union is leading the prospective challengers in the elimination matches'. We will be seeing more of him as a result of the 1969 Spassky - Petrosian Title Match, 'Moscow, IV-VI, 1969'.

As for Vincent C. Vesce, a search on 'chess' doesn't ring many bells. A search on 'photographer' leads to Vincent C. Vesce, Technical Director of Harmon Colors, 'He was an outstanding amateur photographer whose work in this field was recognized by his being named an Associate of the Photographic Society of America.' I wouldn't have guessed that the CR cover was a photograph.

TCEC/CCC Head Scratching

Last week's post in this series about ongoing engine tournaments, Stockfish, Leela et al, saw both main tournaments in mid-event. Let's have an update.

TCEC: TCEC Cup 2 finished while I was working on this post and Chessdom.com was quick to post the results: First major title for a Neural Network in chess: LC0 wins TCEC Cup; the post includes an image showing the event's brackets. For a reaction from the Leela forum, see Leela wins TCEC Cup.

The Season 14 Superfinal match starts today between Stockfish and Leela (LCZero). But hang on ... Two weeks ago in Results: TCEC S14-P / CCC3 S3, I reported,

The TCEC 'epic final match' didn't materialize. Komodo finished a half-point ahead of LCZero and Houdini, setting up another superfinal match between Stockfish and Komodo. This pairing echoes TCEC S12 and S13, where Stockfish won both superfinal matches.

The post included a copy of the S14-P crosstable, which is still in the TCEC archive, labelled 'Crosstable for TCEC Season 14 - Division P'. That Chessdom post 'First major title' said,

Lc0 did not have a direct match against Stockfish in the TCEC Cup this year. However, it defeated in the final Houdini - a version that has won the TCEC Championship and that eliminated Stockfish at the semi-final. At its own semi-final Lc0 defeated another multiple times TCEC champion -- Komodo -- thus confirming that the second place in the Premier Division was a deserved one.

I checked a few other resources and couldn't find the source of the discrepancy, so I'll come back to it later. In the meantime, see TCEC Season 12 - the 12th Top Chess Engine Championship for a recap of TCEC S12, 'the second in a new series of analytical articles on past TCEC events'.

CCC: In the previous post, we left Chess.com's engine event in the middle of CCC4. For the final result, see Stockfish Wins Computer Chess Championship Bullet; 'Escalation' Next (chess.com). The Escalation event (labeled 'CCC5') is a round robin format where the lowest rated engines play each other in the early rounds and the highest rated engines start play in the later rounds. The 'Stockfish Wins [CCC4]' article says,

Lc0 also managed the impressive feat of scoring dead even with Stockfish head-to-head in the tournament, at +3-3=14 in their 20 games together. Lc0 was the only engine to score a win against Stockfish in the event. These two engines began a 100-game bonus match, in progress now, which at press time Stockfish was leading comfortably at 35.5/66.

The article includes links to resources for the results of recent CCC events. I'll look at them more closely at the same time I resolve the TCEC S14 Superfinal discrepancy. It appears that checking on these competitions once a week is not enough.

***

To save a few minutes each time I catch up with the TCEC/CCC, I collected the most important links and recorded them in a blog page, TCEC/CCC Links. The same link appears at the top of each post on this blog after 'Home, M-W.com, etc'. For a few less frequently used forum resources, see Talking About Chess Engines (October 2018).

Abstraction of an Abstraction

There are at least two things I've learned in the series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010). The first, as stated in last month's Listen to a Painting, is:-

You might expect that there would be a big choice of interesting items from the Christmas / Hanukkah period, and you would be right.

The second is:-

You might expect that there would be a small choice of interesting items after the holiday period, and you also would be right.

Fortunately, it only takes one auction to make a post. The item pictured below was titled 'Zev Daniel Harris painting abstract expressionism 1960's Italy chess modernist'. The winning bid was US $791.99 after 15 bids from eight bidders.

Top: Complete watercolor
Bottom: Central portion

The work was part of the Samuel Collection ('based in United States').

Moving and liquidation sale has now started. Thousands of works of art, jewelry, artifacts etc to be sold off with no reserve and tiny opening bid. Some items I paid thousands for but will still start bidding at 12 dollars for assured immediate sale. No returns offered. All liquidation sales final.

The rest of the description was a mixture of auction terms and the appearance of the item.

Overview: Signed as shown. Original watercolor on thick paper. With the right frame this will look great. You set the price. No reserve! I'm starting bids at 12 dollars. Paid a fortune. Famous artist.

Condition: Just needs a nice frame. Artist cut out parts of paper. Sheet is irregular in shape. A few razor cuts or slices. A few wrinkles on edges. Few white spots of wear. Mild scuffs. Signed front and back. Painted in Italy 1960's.

Measurements: Sheet size 13 by 40 inches. Unframed.

As for 'famous artist', the page Zev Daniel Harris (askart.com) informs,

Zev Daniel Harris (1914 - 1987) was active/lived in New York, California, Italy, Hungary. Zev Harris is known for abstraction, fantasy architect, sculptor.

The artist executed other works with a chess theme. Chess is a ready subject because it is, after all, already an abstraction.

'Game Changer' Interview

Summing up last week's post, AlphaZero Stars in 'Game Changer', I quoted from the press release for the book:-

The highly anticipated book Game Changer: AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI will be released on Friday, January 25, at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament.

On the same day, the Youtube channel 'Tata Steel Chess' released an interview with one of the book's authors.

Natasha Regan - Co-author Game Changer (5:37) • 'Published on Jan 25, 2019'

Without having read the book, what can be said about it that hasn't already been said? For starters, it's not the first effort by the same team: Chess For Life, Sadler and Regan (matthewsadler.me.uk).

Winner of the [English Chess Federation] 'Book of the Year' prize 2016; "Sadler and Regan have between them written an important and original book"

According to Regan, 'We thought that we could do the same type of book for AlphaZero.' The authors approached DeepMind's Demis Hassabis and one thing led to the next and to the next and to the next...