The Chessmill

OK, so I liked the Opening Report. Turns out that this is just about the only feature of working with an opening that I like in CB9. For example, when building a repertoire database, CB9 decides where the appropriate place in the tree is to add a particular game. This is a decided headache (I’m going to stop just short of calling it a bug; it’s a deficiency, undoubtedly, but “bug” tends to mean something inadvertant, and I suspect CB9 intends to impose its will on me like this) that I had run into in previous editions. Also there is little to no transposition dection available. You never know how many times in your analysis the same position has arisen.

So the Opening Report gets high high marks, but is it by itself worth the price of admission? So far, given unlimited resources, I’d generate Opening Reports from CB, then turn to CA to build my repertoire database, move it into Bookup for training purposes, and then either back to CB for repertoire scans on future game collections obtained, or leave it in Bookup for the same purpose.

I’m currently fiddling with all three because I’m looking for some power tools. For opening study, CB’s Opening Report clearly tops the field: there’s nothing like it in either of the other two, and it seems to be extremely useful and informative. However CB’s pokiness, and it’s reluctance to accept guidance from the operator about where games belong in the tree, and its near-complete ignorance on the subject of transpositions are damaging. Both CA and Bookup catch transpositions immediately, CA is much faster at finding games and much more obedient about putting them where they belong when you’re building your personal game tree. Bookup is tops at drilling you on the opening, and both CB and Bookup are good at showing you what’s new and relevant in a recently acquired game collection.

What this means is that CA and Bookup combined take first place in all of these categories except for the opening report, and even though you’re buying two products, they will cost less than CB9 with MegaBase2005. Whether that’s the best solution for yourself is up to you.

(Note: I’ve been a CA user for years now, and have just been looking in on the development of CB over the years, trying to figure out what it does better; part of that is curiosity — I keep wondering why it’s so popular — and part of it is because I need to stay somewhat familiar with it because friends use it and I get called on to help them; I need to know a way to do something, not necessarily the best or fastest way. So I admit there may be tips and tricks I’m unfamiliar with that address the problems I’ve seen. In my defense, I can say there’s nothing I’ve been able to locate so far in any of the help screens or documentation that helps. You should take this into account when deciding how useful my information is to you.)

Study of the crosstables from the Western and similar events reveals some interesting patterns. There are several interesting observations one can make, but the most prominent one is, of course, the way top players rarely play against each other, even when paired. The draws are quick and lifeless. In the recent Western, for example, draws were as short as 3 moves, and several under 15 moves.

I can understand the approach. This is the real world, after all, and players want to ensure they get something for their effort, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s a better way, one that rewards the spectators, organizers, and other players with the spectacle of a well-played game, even if then the outcome is a draw.

One technique I’ve seen used by the Canadians is a lotto-style rollover prize for a perfect score. An extra bonus is offered a player with a perfect score, and if no one gets a perfect score, then the prize rolls over to be included in the next event. It has its attractions, and it’s tempting to subtract something from the top 3 prizes to put into this kind of a bonus.

It’s something to think about; next year’s first prize will be $1k. Maybe I’ll drop every top three prize by $100 and add a $300 bonus for a perfect score. Would that make for a few more fights? Or would they just agree under the table to split the bonus as well?

The 49th Running of the Western Open has completed, with a 5-way tie for this year’s first place between IM’s Kriventsov, Smetankin, Young, FM Stamnov, and NM Tennant. Top Expert prize went to Erik Santarius, while first place in Class A was another 5-way tie: Gary Aranovich, Patrick McElwee, Jeremy Lynch, Paul Fricano, and Mehmed Covic.

The Reserve Section was won by Rishi Sethi, who also won the trophy for top Junior, with a four-way tie for second between Jimmy Yu, Matthew Hass Laszlo Nazodi and John Bowen. Class C prizes went to Ben Rothschild and Sasha Velikanov, While Ben Anzis won Class D and Sriram Datla won Class E.

With three IM’s, seven players in all above 2200, and 14 total players above 2000, this was the strongest Western in years. Thanks to all who helped make the event what it was.

I’ve been given a chance to review how CB9 works, and so far, I have to say, I’m not all that impressed. It has some opening study tools that seem quite useful, I’ll admit, and I’m taking advantage of the short time I have to work with it to get some value out of it, but it’s so slow that at times I’ve been sure the machine I’m using for the test (a 2.4GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM) has locked up. It’s been a good lesson in patience, all by itself, to realize that an Opening Report will take as long as it does (Half an hour or more, generally, once well over an hour).

Frankly, its marketshare mystifies me. I’ll have more to say as I continue the experiment.

A lot has been written about the road to chess improvement. But the question comes: How much is accurate and how much is written to fill someone’s purse? How many books are necessary?

We’re not likely to be confused with a grandmaster any time soon, but that doesn’t stop us from having an opinion on this.

In the current age of chess database software, even fewer books (and I’m including the db-based ebooks in this as well) than ever before are truly necessary. A beginning player needs a book (or books) which explains the general principles of the opening, the basic tactical maneuvers (pin, fork, etc.) and the basic endgame themes (elementary mates, pawn promotion, etc.) and patience.

The latter quality is hard to find, but essential to develop if it doesn’t exist.
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There’s a lot of chess activity stirring in SE Wisconsin these days. It seems to be focused on the youngest set, but that’s good. We had lost that foundation, and MASCA seems to building that back up. We would like to take the opportunity the thank Bob and his crew for the hard work they’ve put in on this, and hope they continue. For our part, we’re goingto help where we can.

It’s the elementary chess scene that has atrophied the most. The rebuilding has begun, but the task is far from over. It’s our hope that more can be found to assist Bob and MASCA in this endeavor.

The Chessmill is being relaunched today. We haven’t ported all our content over, just the better pieces. We will be tweaking the new look and the new home as we go, hoping to create a very comfortable place for your viewing pleasure.

New features include an RSS feed and comment board for posts. The navigation isn’t quite right yet, so we’ll be working on that as it rolls out. We’re struggling within the limitations of a new tool; like most such it refuses to fit our hands as well as our own hand-crafted variety, but hopefully once we’ve smoothed off the sharp edges and shaped it a bit more, we’ll be more able to spend our time doing what we love best, talking chess.

Looking over the recent batch of “Top x” lists from the USCF (Feb 2005) yields the following interesting tidbits:

1. Raymond Hayes is tied for #52 on the “Seniors” list.
2. Daniel Kane is #96 on the “Age 18” list.
3. Erik Santarius is #17 on the “Age 17” list.
4. Joseph Richards is #44 on the “Age 17” list.
5. Siarhei Biareishyk is #56 on the “Age 17” list.
6. Wesley Jervingis tied for #99 on the “Age 17” list.
7. Derek Paitrick is #64 on the “Age 16” list.
8. Jeremy Kane is #39 on the “Age 15” list.
9. Brian Luo is #1 on the “Age 7 and under” list (by 180 rating points).

Notably missing: any names from girls or women. Why? We had one promising girl, but she’s moved on, mainly because her school (Homestead High you should be ashamed of yourself) gave her no support. There should be more. Where are the females?

At least five of the names are directly traceable to the same coach in Madison, Alex Betaneli. One cannot help but wonder, though: How many other names would be found on this list if only there were some support for chess coaching in other school systems? And how many names outside of Madison that are there would be higher? The questions need to be asked of your own local schools. To paraphrase an old advertising campaign: Chess builds strong minds twelve ways. This has been proven over and over again in the literature. How long can we afford to have our schools ignore this?

In 1922 the Hamilton chess club of Chicago came up to Milwaukee and played a match. Milwaukee won, 4½–1½.Hamilton, it may be remembered, was home ot the National Chess Federation (one of the two federations which merged to form the USCF in 1939) and was the strongest chess club in Chicago.

The next year, 1923, the Hamilton Chess Club invited the Milwaukee Chess Club, down for a rematch, hoping to change the score. They succeeded; this time Milwaukee won 5–1.

School pride is understandable, but when I read an article like this (article has been pulled) I start worrying. How am I going to continue pitching chess as improving scholastics, when a major chess power can’t even count to four? Gentlemen, a Grand Slam is four events, not two.

Yes, they listed three, but one of the events is the President’s Cup. It’s an invitation-only event, which alone should exclude it from the “Grand Slam” moniker. How does one get invited? By being one of the top four US finishers in the Pan-Am. Given that, it can hardly be surprising that the team which wins the Pan-Am also won the President’s Cup, now, can it? Children, can we say “redundant”?

Calling it a “Triple Crown” would have been at least defensible; now I have to reassure educators that chess really doesn’t impair your ability to count.