30 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
    1. Flora, Carla. “The Grandmaster Experiment: How Did One Family Produce Three of the Most Successful Female Chess Champions Ever?” Psychology Today, July 1, 2005. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grandmaster-experiment.

      copy also at: https://chessdailynews.com/the-grandmaster-experiment/

    2. A file card system took up an entire wall. It included records of previous games for endless analytical pleasure and even an index of potential competitors' tournament histories.
    3. Susan once said she never won against a healthy man. What she meant was that men always had some excuse after losing a game to a woman: "It must have been my headache."
    4. Chess titans have anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 configurations of pieces, or patterns, committed to memory. They are able to quickly pull relevant information from this mammoth database. With a mere glance, a grandmaster can then figure out how the configuration in front of him is likely to play itself out.

      is this from Ognjen Amidzic's research on chess and memory?

    1. There will be errors in MESON – those I have copied from books, magazines and the card collections I have access to, those I have copied from the other free online databases and those I have perpetrated myself. If you find an error, do contact me about it, quoting the problem ids (PIDs).

      MESON is comprised in part of card index collections of chess problems and puzzles.

    2. http://www.bstephen.me.uk/meson/meson.pl?opt=top MESON Chess Problem Database

      Compiled using a variety of sources including card indexes.

      found via

      As for the Pirnie collection, not counted it, but I am slowly going through it for my online #ChessProblem database: https://t.co/eTDrPnX09b . Also going through several boxes of the White-Hume Collection which I have.

      — Brian Stephenson (@bstephen2) August 5, 2020
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
    1. Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 4, 2020Interesting to see this database, which I had read about. In the UK a #chess study enthusiast called Richard Harman built up a collection of endgame studies on index cards, indexed by material and features. He was regularly consulted by judges for 'anticipations' of new studies.1Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 4, 2020Richard died in 1986 and his Harman Database is now in my house. I kept it up-to-date for a few years but it was superseded many years ago by Harold van der Heijden's electronic database.1Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 4, 2020Card indices of #ChessProblem s exist around the World. The White-Hume Collection was split up years ago but some of it still exists. The Albrecht Collection in Germany is now on computer database and kept by Udo Degener.
    2. Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 5, 2020As for the Pirnie collection, not counted it, but I am slowly going through it for my online #ChessProblem database: http://bstephen.me.uk/meson/meson.pl?opt=top… . Also going through several boxes of the White-Hume Collection which I have.
    3. Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 4, 2020The Pirnie Collection of #ChessProblem s is index cards in Clark's shoe boxes and is held in my house. The late JP Toft created a huge card database of #ChessProblem s in Scandinavia and is now held in a public library.
    1. As his work developed over the following decades, Kasparian produced many studies of great depth and analytical refinement. He was a strong player (the champion of Armenia ten times and a competitor in four USSR championships) and it shows in his compositions. In introducing his collection of 400 studies, published in 1987, he described his work in the following terms. "I have paid the greatest attention to the themes of positional draw, mate, stalemate, and systematic manoeuvre. This is no accident, but entirely natural: in contemporary study composition these themes are often being elaborated, they are promising, fruitful and, perhaps, inexhaustible." Yes, his themes may be the familiar ones, but the originality and subtlety of the play give his compositions a variety that seems as inexhaustible as the game itself.
    1. Presumably Genrikh Kasparyan used his card index of chess puzzles as material to write one of his many books including: - Domination in 2,545 Endgame Studies by Genrikh Kasparyan. ISBN 0-923891-87-0 - 888 Miniature Studies by Genrikh Moiseyevich Kasparian. ISBN 978-86-7686-147-7

      As a chess champion, he surely used to to fuel his chess studies and chess career.

    1. It Took Decades To Create This Chess Puzzle Database (30 Thousand), 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9craX0M_2A.

      A chess School named after Genrikh Kasparyan (alternately Henrik Kasparian) houses his card index of chess puzzles with over 30,000 cards.

      The cards are stored in stacked wooden trays in a two door cabinet with 4 shelves.

      There are at least 23 small wooden trays of cards pictured in the video, though there are possibly many more. (Possibly as many as about 35 based on the layout of the cabinet and those easily visible.)

      Kasparyan's son Sergei donated the card index to the chess school.

      Each index card in the collection, filed in portrait orientation, begins with the name of the puzzle composer, lists its first publication, has a chess board diagram with the pieces arranges, and beneath that the solution of the puzzle. The cards are arranged alphabetically by the name of the puzzle composer.

      The individual puzzle diagrams appear to have been done with a stamp of the board done in light blue ink with darker blue (or purple?) and red inked stamped pieces arranged on top of it.


      u/ManuelRodriguez331 in r/Zettelkasten - Chess players are memorizing games with index cards

  2. Nov 2023
  3. Feb 2023
  4. Nov 2022
    1. “In order to talk to each other, we have to have words, and that’s all right. It’s a good idea to try to see the difference, and it’s a good idea to know when we are teaching the tools of science, such as words, and when we are teaching science itself,” Feynman said.

      Maths, Logic, Computer Science, Chess, Music, and Dance

      A similar observation could be made about mathematics, logic, and computer science. Sadly, public education in the states seems to lose sight that the formalisms in these domains are merely the tools of the trade and not the trade itself (ie, developing an understanding of the fundamental/foundational notions, their relationships, their instantiations, and cultivating how one can develop capacity to "move" in that space).

      Similarly, it's as if we encourage children that they need to merely memorize all the movements of chess pieces to appreciate the depth of the game.

      Or saying "Here, just memorize these disconnected contortions of the hand upon these strings along this piece of wood. Once you have that down, you've experienced all that guitar, (nay, music itself!) has to offer."

      Or "Yes, once, you internalize the words for these moves and recite them verbatim, you will have experienced all the depth and wonder that dance and movement have to offer."

      However, none of these examples are given so as to dismiss or ignore the necessity of (at least some level of) formalistic fluency within each of these domains of experience. Rather, their purpose is to highlight the parallels in other domains that may seem (at first) so disconnected from one's own experience, so far from one's fundamental way of feeling the world, that the only plausible reasons one can make to explain why people would waste their time engaging in such acts are 1. folly: they merely do not yet know their activities are absurd, but surely enough time will disabuse them of their foolish ways. 2. madness: they cannot ever know the absurdity of their acts, for "the absurd" and "the astute" are but two names for one and the same thing in their world of chaos. 3. apathy: they in fact do see the absurdity in their continuing of activities which give them no sense of meaning, yet their indifference insurmountably impedes them from changing their course of action. For how could one resist the path of least resistance, a road born of habit, when one must expend energy to do so but that energy can only come from one who cares?

      Or at least, these 3 reasons can surely seem like that's all there possibly could be to warrant someone continuing music, chess, dance, maths, logic, computer science, or any apparently alien craft. However, if one takes time to speak to someone who earnestly pursues such "alien crafts", then one may start to perceive intimations of something beyond their current impressions

      The contorted clutching of the strings now seems... coordinated. The pensive placement of the pawns now appears... purposeful. The frantic flailing of one's feet now feels... freeing. The movements of one's mind now feels... marvelous.

      So the very activity that once seemed so clearly absurd, becomes cognition and shapes perspectives beyond words

  5. Feb 2022
  6. Aug 2020
  7. Mar 2020
    1. Humans can no longer compete with AI in chess. They should not be without AI in litigation either.
    2. Just as chess players marshall their 16 chess pieces in a battle of wits, attorneys must select from millions of cases in order to present the best legal arguments.
  8. Oct 2019
  9. Oct 2017
    1. The strongest.

      There is no one who can beat Magnus Carlsen in our lifetime. The contenders whom I hope would be able to do that all fall short in doing so. Their nervous system just breaks down. Wesley So is just sooo serious he needs to ligthen up. Anish Giri lacks the killer instinct. Fabiano Caruana is so temperamental.

      Magnus Carlsen is well-balanced chess player. I

  10. Apr 2016
    1. Georgian champ Gaioz Nigalidze was thrown out of the Dubai Open after his opponent, Armenian Grandmaster Tigran Petrosian, suspected that his frequent runs to the john were prompted not by the call of nature – but cries for help from a chess app, the Daily Telegraph reported.

      What an embarrassment! Kick him out forever!!Chess App

  11. Dec 2015
    1. Let’s map the contours of its nihilism a little more carefully.

      This sounds like Renfield detailing certain chess matches.

  12. Jun 2015
    1. En realidad el Ajedrez es un juego exigente, fuerte, duro y en ocasiones castigador; por ejemplo, es normal… » ver todo el comentario
    2. ¿Podría contar alguna anécdota de su participación en el desarrollo de Deep Blue? Hay muchas anécdotas, pero son largas de contar. Solo te diré que el día que empecé a trabajar para IBM para enumerar los puntos débiles de Kaspárov el folio se quedó en blanco.
    3. El otro día encontré en Youtube la película sobre la obra de Zweig, "La partida de ajedrez". Recomendable, sin duda. También me gustó otra sobre la vida de Capablanca. Puedes ver mi Twitter para hallar los enlaces.
    4. Bobby fue en ejemplo de como la voluntad humana puede lograr casi cualquier cosa, en su caso derrotar a todo el imperio soviético a costa de un enorme sacrificio personal. Pero Bobby no fue una persona feliz y equilibrada.