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TheParrot Says…

8-23-2008

Chess Variants, Liberals, Radicals…
And what this has to do with chess as we know it

Ø      I find that the conventional use of labels like "far left," "far right,"
"liberal" and "conservative" mean less and less to me.  The truth is where you find it.Ø

I remember an anthropologist of note [Bill Thompson] re-stating these terms to everyone's annoyance by actually defining them, and also suggesting that in each of us all 4 exist - and they are not so much fixed as variable according to topic. He said there were 4 conditions:

Reactionary, Conservative, Liberal, Radical

Reactionary: to discard the present and return to a high-point of the past
Conservative: current mainstream or norm
Liberal: incremental changes to mainstream
Radical: to discard present for what is completely new

Now - to explore those elements in yourself, he suggested, don't think about politics - think about restaurants, shoes... !

Do you always buy the same shoes others wear [conservative]
Do you not buy sneakers, which everyone else wears, and instead chose good old leather Oxfords? [reactionary]

Then with restaurants - do you find a good place, but next time chose something completely different, just for the novelty? [radical]. Do you return to the same restaurant but eat something different than you tried before? [liberal]

Then sample with cars... &c. The interesting thing about this approach is that if you sample enough topics most people select 3 or even 4 of the categories. They are reactionary with shoes, eg., but liberal with food; conservative with cars but radical with vacations.

Furthermore, in his book, From Nation to Emanation, Thompson says that all 4 categories are always present in society, always have been, and are obviously always necessary to fully compass human behavior. The use of the terms has come to represent only attitudes to philosophy or politics, but, says Thompson, these are not necessarily the same as actual behavior toward politics, eg. You may vote Conservative, but when you are in charge be Liberal. You may advocate for a by-gone standard, but actually act to support completely novel ventures.

Of course, these are not the only ways to define those terms, but as a set of terms, the definitions are useful to allow identification of all behavior. Frequently people do not admit to being reactionary or radical since the terms are often used only prejudicially, and are mildly taboo admissions.

[Its hard to be on topic... but] Evidently, by those definitions chess variants are usually Liberal in nature; basic game with some adjustments, whereas regular chess is Conservative. To revert to say, the year 1300, with limited Queen or Bishop moves would be Reactionary, and to design a different board with pieces with completely different powers would be Radical.

Attempts to shift chess are usually within a Liberal scope of changes - even Fischer random, or other randomizing start positions, still utilize almost all existing rules and knowledge.

While these may be interesting as divertisements I think they are usually doomed since the Conservative corps of players who want to play the same game as Capablanca and Lasker do not seem motivated to shift even by small increments - and this has been the steady-state of the game for about 400 years.

Therefore there is no natural crossroads, or crisis [literally, cross] point in these discussions since the vast majority of players seem content with the game as it is. The very limited Liberal tendencies in chess seem to be experiments in changing time, almost always faster, and recently with scoring systems for W/D/L.

Those who wish to make experiments with chess-like games seem more interested in exploring a [short-term?] novelty for their own amusement, than actually reporting on any real problem with the classical game.

Rare Chess Pictures:

Never mind world championship shenanigans by chess politicians – “hands-on” attention by top players always got more attention from the chess public than burocratic talk. “Show me, don’t tell me,” chess players say. Here are 2 photographs in the great tradition of playing simuls by people who showed us.

[top caption] Sammy Reshevsky (8 years old, lower right, and recently arrived from Poland) playing 20 simultaneous games of chess, against experts at West Point Military Acadamy in 1920.

A commentator wrote: “I’d never heard of him until I saw this photo in one of my old chess books. But until 1958, when he was eclipsed by Bobby Fischer, he was the top name in American chess for 38 years.”

You can read a fascinating New York Times article about Sammy’s life and career here.

[lower caption] Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura in a Simul against Detroit Duffield opponent Jamonte Adams and others at the Jr. High Chess Nationals in Dallas, TX.

Afore ye go:

Beat The Parrot Prize

 FIDE Pres. buys Akropolis for new Women’s Chess City.  ‘Safe as houses’, says Leader.

No winner again! The Parrot scores another point and gets a GM [Grand Mockery] norm and retires as this seasons’ world champion captionist with the fantastic score of Parrot 5 : World 1

8-16-2008

More Monkey Business

USCF’s blog site is running an article by TD Tom Braunlich who officiated the recently concluded US Championship, titled Playoff Theory, with contributions by Joel Benjamin, who opined:

"The criticism directed at the U.S. Championship organization for the unfortunate events of the Armageddon playoff is ridiculous and overblown.  People may not like what happened, but the playoff procedure was fairly standard and spelled out for the players, despite the contentions of many Internet ‘commentators'."  This contrasted sharply with many of the online statements, which flatly declared the playoff method was "boneheaded," "degrading," or "demeaning to chess."

The article then continued to ‘discuss’ at extraordinary length, rules and regulations, including those from soccer [!] including important people contacted for their views.

As with many USCF ‘surveys’ the survey failed to include actual critics, dismissing them much as the non-playing Joel Benjamin did above.  So what’s new about USCF’s Circle the Wagons approach to chess life?

This approach is new.  What is entirely absent from the article is the slightest sense that the game has traditionally belonged to its players – and players views are paramount.  In this article they do not even get a mention, and the irony of Benjamin’s dismissal above is that he himself decided not to play this year, because of organization factors, and he himself is no more than an ‘internet commentator.’

If USCF really wanted to address the issue they would have asked the mostly European commentators [which included some senior TDs] why they thought their own tournament degraded and demeaned chess.

If they really wanted to know what players thought they might have asked Irina Krush.

But no.  The organization can’t be wrong, and when the Parrot exchanged substantial questions with the organizers they were entirely defensive, suggested I was being personal and ‘attacking’ them, rather than clarifying who and why organized a national final this way – and if USCF had the slightest interest in what WE THE PLAYERS think of them.

They did not then, nor now.  See for yourself if official thinking is all about officials, or if any substantial criticism is represented in the Braunlich article on behalf of the players of the game.

I know the issue is just women’s chess, and I know that these are just 2 male writers, but I note that As Above, So Below, seems like Fide have just the same attitude about the women’s game.  And hey!  Whether its just a few bombs Russian-style World Championship, or just US-style Monkey Business, where are the just criticisms?

One writer to USCF’s forum asks what level of critique is invited? “It appears the forum has devolved to the same ol' glad-handers and back-slappers.  Rarely is read a contrary viewpoint.  Is that not be the point of a forum?”

This writer was then excoriated by the other writers of the forum, including challenges to compare himself to officials of the game!  Instead he replied that Fischer didn’t let sponsors dictate chess conditions to officials and players…

Well… deaf ears to that one, the same nothing that was offered to Krush - but who wants another era that can produce the quality chess of a Fischer?  Nope!

No Fischer no Krush
Its rush rush rush
Down Armageddon street...

I was going to re-show a picture here of Fide Officials, but on Googling the site I found only other investigators asking what happened to it?

8-9-2008

The end of it all?

This week a $25,000,000 lawsuit has been brought and served at the USCF Delegates Conference, Dallas Texas.  There are 15 named parties to the suit, and many of them attend the conference, including USCF President Bill Goichberg, and USCF Executive Director Bill Hall.  The suit is brought by lawyers acting for Susan Polgar, and follows suits brought against her and her husband by other parties in an on-going imbroglio of factors over the past year including a recent one filed in the State of Texas.

It is unclear if USCF’s insurance will cover the amount should GM Polgar succeed, since it is in effect a counter-suit and in response to matters brought against them in the state of Texas.  USCF’s annual income is in round numbers only about $3 million per year, and much of that comes from their retail outlet Chess Cafe, with whom they are also in dispute.

It is thought three honest and techno-savvy nuns could run the rating system.  Championships are in effect already in the hands of sponsors.  International events seem to be of little interest to USCF.

An immediate effect of the Polgar suit will be to level the playing field, so that those issuing accusations also have something to lose by doing so – and to object to the endless and very personal speculations which have heretofore been ‘free’ by suggesting in the courts there is a formal consequence to making them.

Afore ye go:

The Parrot wins Beat the Parrot again! Pathetic entries last week by the World will not even be mentioned, except that the Parrot wishes to point out that “Got Slime” is practically at the genius level, and also the score stands - Parrot 3 : World 1

Also – from the sidebar above “which GM said what about another?”  The Answer is:

Watson was British Rapidplay Chess Champion in 1992 and British Chess Champion in 1994. Boris Spassky once famously described his style of play as that of a drunk with a machine gun. - Dr. Stephen Dowd.

Smeets-Adams Game: 19...Nxe5!

Another hammer-blow, the main point being that 20.Kxe5 Be7! regains the material. With Smeets by now in time-trouble, his position quickly collapses.

20.h6 Ng4 21.hxg7 Rhg8 22.Kf5 Rxg7 23.f3 Nf2 24.Rh2 Bc5 25.Bh6 Rg6 26.Nd2 Bd4 27.Bg5 Re8 28.Rxf2 Re5+ 0–1

A great show of tactical control by Adams.

8-2-2008

FOR AND AGAINST SAM SLOAN

AGAINST: Chess Messing

Recent board member Sam Sloan criticizes GM Polgar for her opinion that the Chess Olympiad qualifying rules given below are ‘absurd’:

Average of the 1) current published USCF rating at time of invitation; 2) current published FIDE rating at time of invitation. To this number shall be added the following adjustment points based on the player’s age as of January 1 of the Olympiad year: 5 points for age 25, 10 points age 24, 15 points age 23, 20 points age 22, 25 points age 21, 30 points age 20, 35 points age 19, 40 points age 18, 50 points age 17, 60 points age 16 or below.

"This is absurd. It is blatantly unfriendly against players 25 and older." Wrote Polgar.

”The point is that we do better when we send younger players, than when we send elderly players like Polgar.”  Replied Sam Sloan.

---

I wonder if Sam Sloan was thinking his point was illustrated by the Chess Olympiad, where the 'elderly' Polgar led USA to its highest place finish ever, the Silver medal?

The point is that to accommodate an exception, a singular instance, there is now formal adjustment for all players, which prejudices experience - and mucks with the rating system, so that you don't have to actually prove your place by your rating, you get the benefit of the doubt because you are young.

In passing, I wonder who is going to tell Viktor Korchnoi he is no good any more?

Chess Politicians love this stuff, because they can mess with the only thing they have left to mess up, other than the rules - skewing the ratings into an even greater tangle so that, the USCF system as example, can no longer be calculated without use of a computer.

For very obscure reasons the Canadian Federation are speculating on changing their system to one like USCF, and away from the British system which you can immediately calculate in your head.

FOR: The ‘Secret’ Agreement

I have few occasions to praise Sam Sloan, but in this instance he has written to challenge the need to ‘reserve’ information from the public and USCF’s members in respect of its dealings with Chess Café. He actually praises Susan Polgar and Paul Truong for making matters known.

While the court case seems to be a matter for only a court to resolve. My own due diligence, an hour this week on the phone with Texas, would appear to substantiate the basis of the suit, and also that this is /far/ from being the whole story.

The issue does illustrate something which is a constant complaint about USCF's management - its obsessive secrecy. Now, whether money matters in a public non-profit can be held to be /necessarily/ secret, even from delegates and members of a membership organization, will be some matter for the law to establish.

The rather more public issue is whether other board members - perhaps minority ones in terms of voting blocks - are allowed to mention their demurrers, their concerns, and even strong reservations, especially in such a massively important relationship as exists between USCF and Chess Cafe?

Unless USCF are also suing the Cafe, then is Hanon Russell permitted to make his own case public? Surely if he already wrote of his dissatisfaction, then may anyone at all mention his letter, or is that an official secret too? May not even he speak of 'confidential things', even though his plaint is that conditions have changed so radically that, to paraphrase what I understand of his letter, he cannot be held to what no longer exists.

Surely we cannot conclude that resignation by board members is the only alternative to saying nothing at all? Superadded to this point, is the already chronic financial situation at USCF, and where the open speculation is about not if, but when USCF will go down the tubes, hanging on with either incremental lay-offs, or the whole nine yards at once.

Gumperz or Hess rendered a conspicuous service to Mendelssohn and to the cause of enlightenment by introducing him to Lessing in 1754. Mendelssohn actually met Lessing over the chessboard, just as the latter afterwards makes Nathan the Wise, in his play of that name, and Saladin meet over the chess-board.

Afore ye go:

WE have a winner in Beat the Parrot who also beat a dozen other entries:

“USCF’s Chess-in-the-Zoo Program skews ratings”, expert says.

Well done Russ Mollot – your prize is in the mail.

Honorable Mentions:

"So this is the 800 lb gorilla the USCF executive board is trying to ignore?" Rob Mitchell

"No, it's not an Orangutan..." Rick Kennedy

"YOU tell her she's moving on my time!" Rick Kennedy

“Having employed Gorilla warfare tactics in their politics for many years, the USCF has determined that these types of tactics are now appropriate for OTB play. Requests for further information can be made by sending a crate of Bananas to USCF, 137 O'Brien Drive, Crossville, TN 38555.” Roy Manners

Dishonorable Mentions:

Kelly Atkins, that is not a black sheep.

Rick Kennedy, next week I’m going to complain about you – haven’t figured out what yet, but… you just wait!

World Standings: Parrot 2 – Readers 1

7-26-2008

Fischer the Peace-Monger?

Its enough time passed now since Fischer’s death to take a deeper look at the life of the man.  I have exchanged some views with a Rev. J. D. Walker, who asked the question:

To what extent do we want the political, or even commercial worlds to intrude on our world of chess?  Some of us (including me) regard chess as a separate world that is a refuge from much of the stress and insanity (common meaning) of the world of daily life and all of its troubles.

Censoring, or punishing political speech has no place in my version of the chess world.  Neither does regulation by drug testing. [Rev. Walker.]

Interesting and clearly put.  Since I see Churchill mentioned elsewhere in these messages, it is interesting that Orwell actually supported him in WWII, since he proposed that such as you write above is all very well, except that if the excluded party [Nazism] would by being included extinguish the rights of others to their own expression.

That would be a necessary caveat I would like make to your otherwise apolitical comment.

Since the direct topic is Fischer it may be worth mentioning a specific: His Yugoslavian match with Spassky was clearly in violation of the Government's edict [that is to say, not the Congress, but an executive order.]

That would indicate censorship of Fischer's right to express himself in his own medium, the otherwise apolitical one of chess play.

My sense of Fischer is that he meant what he said when uttering that he believed in pawns, not psychology - and he might have added not politics either.  Did Fischer actually feel that he was an apolitical ambassador, and with Spassky would celebrate a /ritual/ conflict, instead of what was going on around them, a real and bloody one?

Did Fischer in his own mind adopt a culturally accepted means to express aggression - and consider that SUPERIOR to what the politicians and generals had achieved?

I think a literary parallel would be Falstaff - often called a coward, yet in his musing he did not see why he should waste his life, or anyone else's, running around and for the best possible reasons, slaughtering his own countrymen.  Falstaff is said to be the first modern man, in a psychological sense, to emerge in literature.

NOW - that is long-winded.  BUT - if you agree it can be so in Fischer’s own mind, then does it provide an understanding of the origin of Fischer's emotional wound - and since his previous prominence on the world stage in another rapprochement in the Cold War in Iceland – these factors destabilized him?

Did he hear no sympathetic voices from ‘home’, did he feel instead that he acted with the courage of his own convictions to try and wage peace and thereby become estranged from his better opinion and thus estranged and embittered from his own country?

Afore ye go:

Last times’s beat the Parrot was a big winner for the Parrot! No-one came up with anything anywhere as good as the Parrot, and because there were 2 possible captions the Parrot and his dog feels completely justified in awarding the Parrot 2 points. Good dog!

 World Standings: Parrot 2 – Readers 0

7-5-2008

Conversations in the real world.

Last week's public and private mail brought more denial of disaster - directly from those shoved in front of the bus to explain the world's dismay at the finale of the US Women's championship – and accusations published at the presumably neutral German site Chessbase, some by Euro-TDs used language such as 'demeaning', 'degrading', as well as those who opined that the American championship decider for women was not even chess as they know it. The answers from the proxies were to wonder if such reprobation even existed? Besides, why was I being personal about it. Personal, I asked?

To report what genuinely seem like widespread dismay is to make the matter, so I am to understand from officials, my personal issue - and no form of journalism they ever encountered. This will not surprise USCF watchers, who note extensively in private, that all is personal there. Perhaps any other form of the art is indeed strange to them, and they should get out more?

When that question, and such others as the recent Mil-Chess dialog [see above] are not discussed in public, but only by a partial US board contest, and they conspiring against other board members to the effect that USCF would want to destructively compete with other chess promoters already engaged in Mil-chess - this orientation has not any public benefit.

The chess public seem very ready to discuss real foundations for chess in the C21st.

Conspiratorial sentiment conceived in the basement of chess HQ, does not seem at all likely to appreciated or supported in a complex society and where more engaging stratagems are indicated to negotiate and promote a national trust.

Rare Chess Pictures:

A Chess Set inspired by the novel 'Alice through the Looking Glass' where the pieces magically turn transparent when they touch the board.

In ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ by Lewis Carroll, Alice falls through a mirror and on the other side of the mirror, she becomes a piece in a game of chess. Inspired by this, the chess pieces have an opaque mirror finish, when they touch the surface of the board they magically turn transparent and reveal the identity of the piece contained inside them. When removed from the board they revert to being opaque, hiding the identity of the piece.

This is a comment on how a chess piece has no value unless it is in play on the board. If removed from the board, a pawn and a queen are equal, in that neither have any value.

The theme of 'Alice through the Looking Glass' is the difference between the real world and the world behind the mirror. In keeping with this theme there is a contrast between the unlit mirrored piece and the clear glass piece. Each unlit mirrored piece is a smooth and modern shape. Each lit piece is clear glass, with the negative shape of a traditional, delicate Staunton chess piece enclosed within it. In the book the White Knight talks about how he thinks better when he is upside down. In a reference, the White Knights in the set only work when they are placed upside down. This joke is hidden to all but those who know the background of the chess set.

The Chessboard is made out of LightPoints a material manufactured by Schott, which is glass that has LED's embedded in it; the pieces are coated with Mirona, a Material that turns transparent when light shines through it. When the piece is placed on the board it completes the circuit and lights up the LED under it turning it transparent, like magic.

This product was designed in response to a brief set by Schott UK Ltd. for Final year students of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Afore ye go:

Next week, reader’s captions to beat the Parrot will appear here!

• TheParrot Squaawks - 2004

• TheParrot Squaawks - 2005

• TheParrot Squaawks - 2006

• TheParrot Squaawks - 2007a

• TheParrot Squaawks - 2007b

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