Folks, I'm done. A recent story in the news involves the decision by FIDE, the world chess federation, to hold the Women's World Championship in Iran. That's a bit awkward, since Iran imposes certain religion-inspired dress requirements on women. This has led some players, most notably the current American women's champion Nazi Paikidze, to boycott. She is supported in this by the U. S. Chess Federation, among many others. Frankly, you have to go back to the 1970s to find a time when FIDE was something other than a corrupt embarrassment to chess players. So here we have a story about…
I've just posted the new Problem of the Week, along with an official solution to last week's problem. But this one will have to hold you for a while, since I'm taking next week off.
Better late than never! A small technical SNAFU yesterday interfered with the well-oiled machine that is Problem of the Week. But now we're back on track! The fourth problem has now been posted. The official solution to last week's problem will be up by tomorrow.
Do you remember those commercials, from a few years back, for Excedrin headache medicine? There was a whole series of them. In each, some very normal-looking and totally relatable person would talk straight to the camera, explaining that he or she suffered from terrible headaches and had tried every other remedy. The climax of each commercial was when the person said something like, “How do I know Excedrin works? Well, they have their “scientific research” to prove it. But you know what? I did my own kind of research. I tried it.” I use the scare quotes to indicate their tone of…
Kevin Drum has a short post noting that Trump has taught other Republican politicians how to lie more brazenly. Politicians have never been noted for their honesty, but we are seeing something new this time around. It is very aggravating that Trump simply makes it up as he goes along, while Clinton is the one endlessly on the defensive about her honesty. Relax, this is not going to be another election post. Instead I want to direct your attention to this article, from Slate. Compared to the daily calumnies emanating from our freak-show election, it is extremely small potatoes. And yet…
Just want to poke my head up to mention that I have posted a new POTW for you. You get three for the price of one this week. The official problem is pretty straightforward, I think, so I gave you two bonus problems just for fun. Enjoy!
The second Problem of the Week has now been posted. It's a harder version of last week's problem, but perhaps it is good for a bit of amusement. By its nature, it might be a bit hard to describe the solution in a comment, but have a look anyway.
On Morning Joe today, Mike Barnicle asked Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson what he would do about Aleppo. Johnson's reply was, “What is Aleppo?” We're done here. Johnson should withdraw from the race, go home, and never show his face in public again. When did running for President become a big joke? When did it become something you do on a whim, just because? The Libertarian Party is receiving more attention than usual this year since they have a superficially serious ticket, and since the two main candidates are unpopular. Turns out, though, that Johnson has managed to…
I realize that I never finished the story of how I achieved the exalted rank of expert at chess. Suffice it to say that I played two more games beyond the ones I have already reported on. Both were against 1900 rated players and both were rather dissatisfying draws. In the first I had the black side of a Queen's Gambit Declined, got the worst of it out of the opening, but then found a nice maneuver to get out of trouble when my opponent dithered a bit in the middlegame. In the second I had the white side of a Sicilian Kan, which quickly ended up in a standard Hedgehog formation. We…
In a technical, legalistic sense, the semester started last week. But as far as I'm concerned, the semester doesn't really begin until Problem of the Week returns! Our theme for this semester: Clock Problems. That's not code for modular arithmetic or anything. I mean it literally. Every problem this term will feature clocks in some way. Some are fairly easy, some are a bit harder, though I wouldn't say any of them are killer. Keep in mind that I deliberately keep the problems a little on the basic side, since I want students in the lower level math classes to be able to participate. So…
Classes start on Monday. I knew that intellectually, of course, but I had it brought home to me a few days ago when I innocently drove onto the campus, only to find a traffic jam and crossing guards directing the cars. Students were moving into the dorms, you see. Higher education is beset with problems nowadays, and I can recite the litany as well as any faculty member. But for all the legitimate complaints, the bottom line is that I still think I have the best job in the world. I get out of bed in the morning excited to go to work, and the upsides of my job vastly outweigh the downsides…
The AP is breathlessly reporting that 85 out of 154 people coming from private interests (as opposed to governmental functionaries) who met with Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State were also donors to the Clinton Foundation. The headline: “Many Donors To Clinton Foundation Met With Her At State.” Perhaps you are wondering why this is news. Big donors to the Clinton Foundation are generally major players in world affairs, and those are precisely the kind of people the Secretary of State will naturally meet with. Were the people in question unworthy of a meeting with the…
I have previously mentioned that the Washington International was the best run and most enjoyable tournament I have ever played in. One reason was the fact that all equipment, sets and clocks, was provided. And not just any equipment! Look at these beautiful wooden chess sets we were given to play with: They even gave us little clipboards for our scoresheets, since the table cloths were a little soft. And just look at how spacious the playing rooms were: So much space between boards and between tables! Those of us accustomed to the Amateur Team East, where hundreds of players are…
My reward for winning in Round One was to be paired up for Round Two. My opponent was the top seed in the section, with a rating of 2179. I received my second white in a row. Here's what happened. I started with my usual king pawn, and he replied with the Modern Defense. This was a fine how do you do. The Modern is a rare bird at the highest level these days, though grandmaster Tiger Hillarp Persson has defended its honor. In the Modern, black simply allows white to occupy the center and gain space, believing that he will later be able to chip away at white's position from the sides…
I know I haven't been around for a while. Sorry about that. A bit of the summer doldrums I guess. But now I have big news to report, for the handful of people who like my chess posts. As big a chess fan as I am, I have been mostly retired from tournament play for a number of years. Sure, I would play in the big team tournament in February, and occasionally I would get the bug and go to the World Open or something like that, but it's been quite a while since I made any serious effort to improve my play. But as I reported previously, some good results in the team tournaments over several…
I had a book deadline this past Friday. Making that deadline, which I did, thank you very much, has been all consuming for the past two weeks. And now I am on the road until July 16. So, the blog darkness will persist for a while. Sorry about that...
In April I gave a presentation on the Monty Hall problem, at the Museum of Mathematics in New York. That talk has now appeared on YouTube. Here it is: The talk is about fifty minutes, with twenty minutes of questions afterwards. There's also a short introduction by Jason Rosenfeld, who is a statistician with the National Basketball Association. I certainly won't hold it against you if you lack either the time or the interest to watch the whole thing, but you might enjoy the card trick I do starting at the ninth minute.
Back to chess! My quest for the expert title continued at the Continental Class Championship in Herndon, Virginia this weekend. Full report to come. While I was there, I played in the big Saturday night blitz tournament. Blitz chess is rated separately from regular chess, and with good reason! The time control was the traditional five minutes for the whole game, with no delay or increment. Going into the tournament, my blitz rating was an even 2000, but that was a provisional rating based on eighteen games. You need to play twenty before it becomes a real rating. The blitz tournament is…
Edward Feser thinks we atheists have overlooked a few things: The mentality is summed up perfectly in the notorious “Atheist Bus Campaign” of 2009 and its preposterous slogan: “There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” As if atheism promised only sweetness and light. As if the vast majority of human beings would not find the implications of atheism -- that human existence has no purpose, that there is no postmortem reward to counterbalance the sufferings of this life, nor any hope for seeing dead loved ones again, etc. -- far more depressing than any purported…
The latest issue of The Problemist showed up in my mailbox recently. It contained a very nice selfmate that I've chosen for this week's problem. This is one of those really clever ideas that I think you can only show once. The problem was composed Alexei Oganesyan, and was awarded this year. It calls for selfmate in nine: Let me remind you that in a selfmate, white plays first and tries to force black to give checkmate, in no more than the stipulated number of moves. Black, for his part, does everything in his power to avoid giving mate. It's a complete inversion of normal chess logic…