CCC PGN IV

In the previous post on engine vs. engine tournaments, TCEC S21 L4 Underway; CCC Opening 'Specials' (May 2021), I wrote,

After the three [CCC] events titled 'Eco Mini-Match', the site launched into a series of events based on specific openings. The first was 'Caro-Kann Special' with four engines -- Stockfish, Lc0, Dragon, Stockfish Classic (finishing in that order) -- in a round robin of 30 game mini-matches using a blitz time control. [...] At some point in my long, undistinguished chess career, I've played all five openings that have been explored to date. It might be useful to examine the results, but first I have to locate the PGN for the five events.

Locating the PGN turned out to be fairly trivial. Here is the sequence I used for 'Sicilian Najdorf Special':-

1. Switch to the event to be downloaded (using the inverted triangle to the right of the current event name)
2. Select the 'PGN download' icon to the right of the game displayed.
3. Select the 'Event' tab.
4. Click the 'PGN download' icon.

On that last step, I received no feedback that anything had happened, but the file was indeed downloaded to my usual target directory. I opened it with SCID and discovered that it contained 300 games, all starting with the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6. SCID reported the frequency of sixth moves by White as shown in the following chart.

Since the moves most played are currently the most popular for human players, I suspect that the engines are being guided by humans. The PGN for the first game in the file showed 'book' through White's sixth move (6.h4). The last game in the file showed 'book' through White's 16th move. Ugh! It would be far more interesting to let the engines play the variations without being guided at every step by players who might have ratings 1500 points less than the engines. (The 'Info' tab for the Najdorf event indicates the engines' average rating is around 3500).

The last time I looked at the topic of this post was CCC PGN III (September 2020). The CCC appears to have standardized its method of making PGN files available, which is certainly a welcome development. The Najdorf 'Info' tab points to the same 'Mystery Engine' PGN that I mentioned in Stockfish Wins TCEC Cup 7; CCC GPUs Back (November 2020). The current method for accessing CCC PGN files might go back at least that far.

Crypto Chess

A few days ago, in Business Yahoos (May 2021), I featured a couple of press releases from PRNewswire.com. At the time I noted,

The crypto tournament ['Powered by Coinbase'] merits a separate post and I'll come back to it as soon as I can. In fact, there were two such tournaments announced during the past month.

The first of those tournaments, which is nearing the final stage, was announced in a post by Leon Watson of Chessable.com (a Play Magnus subsidiary), that also reads like a press release:-

• 2021-05-17: FTX Crypto Cup: The world’s FIRST bitcoin chess tournament (championschesstour.com) • 'The FTX Crypto Cup is organised by Play Magnus Group, a global leader in the chess industry, and FTX, a leading cryptocurrency exchange. FTX has also entered into a long-term agreement with Play Magnus Group to become its Official Cryptocurrency Exchange Partner.'

The second tournament will be played next month:-

• 2021-05-20: CryptoChamps Chess Tournament Powered by Coinbase is June 12-13 (prnewswire.com; 'News provided by Chess.com') • 'Star personalities from the world of cryptocurrencies will play in a charity chess tournament. A $25,000 prize fund powered by Coinbase will be donated to charity institutions chosen by each of the participants, with donations made entirely in cryptocurrency.'

Entirely by coincidence, a few days before those announcements I posted Four Faces of Crypto Currency (May 2021), with a quality stock photo of chess pieces mingling with crypto coins. Strictly speaking, it wasn't entirely a coincidence. I've been following the crypto evolution for nearly six years on another of my blogs, Bitcoins and Blockchains. I decided early on that It's for Speculating, Not Buying Stuff (October 2015), a conclusion that has been reinforced through the years.

It's great to see chess get new sponsors. There has long been an implicit relationship between chess and poker, with some crossover between top-level players in both domains. Chess promoters need to be careful that they don't get too caught up in online gambling. I don't see how that would work out well for anyone.

Carlsen's 2021 Challenger

In last week's Friday post, USCF Awards 1979-92 (May 2021), I wrote,

That makes this post a good point to pause the series on 'USCF Awards' and move on to a different topic best handled by a series of posts.

The topic I had in mind was to take a closer look at Ian Nepomniachtchi, the winner of the 2020 Candidates Tournament; Yekaterinburg (Russia). Three years I did the same for Fabiano Caruana in a series of posts that are useful as a structural reference:-

• 2018-04-12: Carlsen's Next Challenger
  ...
• 2018-05-22: Caruana's Career • Summary of all posts: 'document a natural progression in the early career of any budding chess superstar: early steps, Grandmaster title, GM supertournaments, World Championship aspirations.'

Three other, basic references are useful to understanding GM Nepomniachtchi's career:-

• Ian Nepomniachtchi (wikipedia.org) • 'Ian Alexandrovich Nepomniachtchi (born 14 July 1990) is a Russian chess grandmaster and commentator.'
• The chess games of Ian Nepomniachtchi (chessgames.com; 'Number of games in database: 2,138'; Starts: 2001)
• Nepomniachtchi, Ian (ratings.fide.com)

To those I'll add my own record of World Championship events:-

• World Chess Championship : Index of players N-S (m-w.com; 'Nepomniachtchi')

The Wikipedia date of birth (14 July 1990) reminds me of an ancient post, The Class of 1990 (October 2009), where I used FIDE ratings to track the early progress of GM Carlsen and three other young chess geniuses. GM Nepomniachtchi should be added to the list.

In case anyone thinks Nepomniachtchi will be a pushover for World Champion Carlsen, their record of games in head-to-head combat says otherwise -- Classical games: Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Magnus Carlsen 4 to 1, with 6 draws (chessgames.com). The full story is:-

Including rapid/exhibition games: Magnus Carlsen beat Ian Nepomniachtchi 21 to 14, with 38 draws. • Only rapid/exhibition games: Magnus Carlsen beat Ian Nepomniachtchi 20 to 10, with 32 draws.

Whether classical, rapid, or blitz games finally decide, the forthcoming title match 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Dubai, XI-XII, 2021, might prove to be the toughest of Carlsen's five title matches so far.

Business Yahoos

The last post of the month not falling into a regularly scheduled series means it's time for a Yahoo post. What's a Yahoo post? See the footnote at the end of this current post for a brief explanation.

Last month we concentrated on Guardian Yahoos (April 2021), where the name was taken because The Guardian had 'the best showing I've seen by a non-chess source'.

On the left is the start of the summary of the past month's sources for the top-100 stories flagged by Google News. In addition to the nine sources shown with two or more stories each, there were 45 other sources with a single story.

As usual, Chess.com heads the list, this time with a little more than one third of the stories. A list of the headlines from the Chess.com stories would make a respectable summary of all chess news for the month, but then they wouldn't be Yahoos. I still might do such a list if I ever figure out a simple way to convert from the Google News style of presenting the relative date of a story -- e.g. '11 hours ago' or '22 days ago' -- to a real date.

Of the nine sources shown, the first four are top sources of chess news, followed by The Guardian, followed by four sources of mainstream news. Let's start with the two stories from PRNewswire, where 'PR' is an acronym for 'press release':-

• 2021-05-25: Grand Chess Tour Partners With Vivendi To Kick Off Chess Platform Kasparovchess.com (prnewswire.com)
• 2021-05-21: CryptoChamps Chess Tournament Powered by Coinbase is June 12-13 (ditto)

The Kasparov story was picked up by a few other sources. I might come back to it if it doesn't fizzle as fast as many Kasparov stories. Garry has a habit of grabbing the microphone from other chess personalities who happen to be in the spotlight. This time it looks like a reaction to the boom brought on by the twin phenomena of (1) the interest in online chess during the covid pandemic, and (2) the interest in the Netflix release of 'Queen's Gambit'.

The crypto tournament merits a separate post and I'll come back to it as soon as I can. In fact, there were two such tournaments announced during the past month.

As for Netflix and its adaptation of 'The Queen's Gambit', it appears to have run its course. I found only one story in May:-

• 2021-05-20: 'Queen’s Gambit' Costume Designer Makes Clothes Fit for a Chess Queen (indiewire.com) • 'Costume designer Gabriele Binder and series creator Scott Frank explained that much of Beth's sense of fashion is an attempt at imitation, at trying on different personas.'

Before signing off this post, I looked at the last source in the list, where its full name is 'Wisconsin Public Radio News'. In fact, the two references were on the same topic:-

• 2021-05-26: Milwaukee Resident Starts Neighborhood Chess Club (wpr.org) • 'A new chess club has formed in Milwaukee after a Bay View resident tried to find a community chess club for her 14-year-old son and posted online to find others who wanted to play. We talk with her about her passion for chess and what the new club has to offer.'

Good for her. How many titled chess players have started a local chess club? Not many, I imagine.

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

***

Follow-up: Crypto Chess (May 2021).

2021 CJA Awards Announcement

A year ago, I penned (moused? cursored?) a new slogan: '"If it's May, it's CJA" ... awards, that is.' Today is the last day in May where I have no other topic planned, so once again, 'It's CJA'. Last year I ended up with with five posts on the CJA (Chess Journalists of America) awards:-

• 2020-05-26: 2020 CJA Awards Announcement
• 2020-07-28: 2020 CJA Award Entries
• 2020-09-17: 2020 CJA Awards - Part 1 • 'First to discuss the process,'
• 2020-09-24: 2020 CJA Awards - Part 1 bis • [...]
• 2020-10-15: 2020 CJA Awards - Part 2 • 'then to discuss the awards.'

Why the month of May? Because that's the month when the forthcoming awards are announced in Chess Life, usually before they appear anywhere else. This year the May 2021 issue of CL carried the usual full page announcement.

The seven categories and their corresponding awards for 2021 are shown below on the right. Next to them, on the left, is the related announcement from 2020. This allows for a bird's eye comparison of the two years. If you're interested in specific awards for 2021, you would be better off viewing the list of awards on ChessJournalism.org ('Supporting journalists and their love of chess since 1980'), where you'll also find instructions for submitting your own entries.

2020	2021

One feature of the 2020 announcement that is missing in 2021 is the use of yellow to color-code new awards. In 2021, the color yellow is used to footnote award categories, e.g. 'JUNIOR (Under 18)'. Since the highlighting of new awards helps to track the process, I compared the two years and came up with the following lists. The upper case entries are categories; mixed case entries are awards.

BEST ONLINE NEWS AND FEATURES [2020]
- Best Review
BEST ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS AND FEATURES [2021]
- Best Online Review

At first I thought the 2020 award had disappeared. Then I noticed that it had been renamed and placed elsewhere in the 'ONLINE' list. I don't understand why the CJA continues to differentiate between 'PRINT' and 'ONLINE' awards. In the early days of the web it made sense to encourage the fledgling, often inexperienced, chess writers on the web. Nowadays those writers are mainstream, having assumed the role of the traditional writers. Continuing to account for a superfluous top-level class must place an additional burden on the judges, especially since some of the best writing -- Chess Life is a good example -- is available in both mediums.

The following awards are new in 2021. Note again the 'PRINT'/'ONLINE' overlap for 'Mainstream Publication'.

BEST PRINT ARTICLES (Open only to publications)
- Best Coverage by Mainstream Publication (free entry)
BEST ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS AND FEATURES
- Best Overall Website Small Organization (website for group of less than 500)
- Best Coverage by Mainstream Publication (free entry)
- Best Twitch Channel
- Best Instagram Feed
SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT CRAMER AWARDS
- Best State Chapter Website

In addition to that last 'State Chapter Website' award, I found two (duplicate) awards with a similar name in the same category. That makes three Cramer awards for 'State Website'. If you run a state website, this year could be your best shot at winning a CJA award.

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT CRAMER AWARDS
- Best Overall State Website
- Best Overall State Website

I'll end this post with my usual final sentence: 'If you're a CJA member (I'm not), good luck!'

TCEC S21 L4 Underway; CCC Opening 'Specials'

This blog's previous post on the world of first class engine vs. engine events, TCEC S21 Starts; CCC 'Eco Mini-Matches' (May 2021), could have been subtitled 'TCEC Vrooming in High Gear; CCC Stuck in Second Gear'. Here is a summary of that post:-

TCEC: An article dated yesterday, 'TCEC S21 starts today' (chessdom.com), opened with 'Season 21 of the Top Chess Engine Championship starts today...' The secondary news in that article is that Chessdom.com is back with a new look and a new attempt at keeping up-to-date. • CCC: The site is currently running a series of matches, each one with the title 'Eco Mini-Match'. Only in computer chess can an 800 game match masquerade as a 'mini-match'.

I covered the announcement that 'Chessdom.com is back' in last week's post, The Return of Chessdom News (May 2021). Where appropriate, I'll mention their coverage in future posts.

TCEC: The S21 Rules (wiki.chessdom.org) for the two lowest leagues say,

Qualification League: [QL] 'The top 8 engines promote to League 4.' • League 4: [L4] 'The bottom 4 engines relegate and the top 4 promote to League 3.'

The QL results were announced in:-

• 2021-05-19: Koivisto is the winner of TCEC S21 Qualification League (chessdom.com)

L4 should finish in the next day or so, although the top four engines have an insurmountable lead over the next group. Three of those top four are engines that promoted from QL.

CCC: After the three events titled 'Eco Mini-Match', the site launched into a series of events based on specific openings. The first was 'Caro-Kann Special' with four engines -- Stockfish, Lc0, Dragon, Stockfish Classic (finishing in that order) -- in a round robin of 30 game mini-matches using a blitz time control. Subsequent 'Specials' varied the format using different openings. The current event, just getting underway, is 'Sicilian Najdorf Special' with six engines using a rapid time control.

At some point in my long, undistinguished chess career, I've played all five openings that have been explored to date. It might be useful to examine the results, but first I have to locate the PGN for the five events.

[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]

Holmes vs. Moriarty, 2011

If you've never wondered why chess appears so often in movies, it's because you know why. It's the potential for symbolism. First you have two intelligent people in direct, intellectual combat. They manipulate six different pieces -- including a symbol for feminism and a symbol for the little guy -- where all six convey a different message. Then there are check, mate, and stalemate, each representing different phases of combat. Add to that circumstances surrounding the game -- a friendly game, an extended match, a game for life or death -- and there is room for boundless interpretations of real life situations.

Most competent chess players, club players and stronger, understand the symbolism, but what about the rest of the world? That's where this video plays a role.

Someone Had to Explain the Chess Scene in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (23:04) • '[Published on] Apr 22, 2021'

Along with links to a dozen different resources, the description says,

Playing a board game while stopping the bad guy is a really superfluous flex, Sherlock.

What does 'flex' mean in this context? According to one source, Definition of Flex (dictionary.com), one meaning is '[Slang] to boast or brag; show off'. OK, that makes sense. I get it.

The game used in the movie is the well known Bent Larsen vs Tigran Petrosian; Second Piatigorsky Cup (1966), Santa Monica, CA (chessgames.com), featuring a Queen sacrifice. Petrosian was World Champion at the time and Larsen was one of the best players outside the Iron Curtain.

For more about the movie, see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (wikipedia.org; 'the 12th highest-grossing film of 2011 worldwide'), and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - 2011 (imdb.com). The IMDb summary says,

Detective Sherlock Holmes is on the trail of criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty, who is carrying out a string of random crimes across Europe.

Both pages reference chess only once. That in itself is symbolic.