I understood the moves and some vague outlines of the strategies, but I did not get one of the "what do you think he did next?" questions. It did emerge a bit as the pieces grew fewer and how the passed pawns were progressing and being protected became increasingly important. But even then, no correct predictions.
The update on the Hans Niemann cheating allegations from last year are basically inconclusive. The judge dismissed his defamation lawsuit, but he is also continuing to play very well, even under more scrutiny.
3 comments:
That was fun. You are right, I wouldn’t have played it that way.
I did not have much clear idea at all, which is unsurprising. Chess is one of those things that takes a significant genetic endowment of spatial ability, and only then does practice, sometimes up to obsessive practice, take over. Chess grandmasters looking at a board of randomly-positioned pieces do not remember their locations any better than others. But if they look at an actual game they remember it with clarity. They see the relations and powerful or underprotected areas of the board. I have none of that. I have to tediously work out each piece's possible next few moves, only barely connecting them. One of my Romanian sons has the knack. He had only played chess against one of the evening staff at the orphanage, but when he got here and asked for games, my friends who would play with him said he was quite good. He doesn't like to play online, and there's not much chess action in Nome, so he only plays a few times a year. It show up in his card playing as well. https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-shape-of-hand.html
Interesting side note. Tyler Cowen was a chess prodigy but decided when young that only about ten people in the world were good enough to make a comfortable career of it, and he wasn't quite that good, so he dropped out of tournament play and only does it for fun now. Talk about seeing multiple moves ahead!
I'd like to blame it on being rusty, but even at my best I wouldn't have spotted those. Certainly not with time pressure.
Post a Comment