Chess

dealmaker said:
Nitro how comparable are chess24 ratings to USCF?
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All that follows is based on my experience playing blitz, in particular G3 d0. I rarely play anything else because either I don't have the time or I don't have the patience for slow chess anymore.

I think it depends on the level. Different sites are different misrepresentation of real chess ratings.

In my experience, Chess24.com ratings are probably slightly inflated compared to USCF at the 2000 - 2400 level. Say around 50 ELO too high.

Next is lichess.org. This one is probably 100 ELO under rated at the 2000 - 2400 level.

Finally, I think playchess.com is hugely under represented all the way from 1500-2000, probably 200 - 300 rating points.

It is hard to tell exactly why, but I suspect either bots or bot help on playchess. lichess tries hard to spot engines so they can't sneak in, but the whole thing is silly since a human being can get past the captcha, and then let the engine loose on the site against humans. Chess24 is probably the most accurate, imo.

Another possibility is that strong players are using the sites to coach their students. I do this too. My own (blitz) rating are similar on lichess and chess24 and USCF, but is dramatically lower on playchess. I play blitz at around 2250 - 2300. OccassionallyI beat GMs, and I often beat IMs.
 
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This is what I imagine the Magnus-Fischer scene would look like if Fischer were alive today at around 50 years old.

 
Tremors in the chess world

Breaking news: Ilyumzhinov transfers powers

"12/6/2015 – After the extremely surprising announcement that the US Treasury had placed FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov on the sanction list, forbidding US citizens from conducting business with him, today FIDE released a statement in which he withdraws from FIDE’s legal, financial and business operations, passing these powers to Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos...."

http://en.chessbase.com/post/breaking-news-ilyumzhinov-transfers-powers

The FIFA incident, the sanctions against Russia, and very strong forces are aligning themselves even in the chess world.
 
Can female chess players take on male chess players? This study says yes:

Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus, new study suggests

"It has long been an accepted mantra that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

But if you look at the overall structure of the brain, they are generally the same, a new study suggests.

While specific parts show sex differences, an individual brain only rarely has all "male" traits or all "female" traits, researchers say..."


brain_2844622b.jpg


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...en-are-not-from-Venus-new-study-suggests.html
 
We need more women playing the game, I don't know the official statistics but I would venture to guess that ratio of women vs men playing the game is pretty dismal. "Birth of the Chess Queen" and "The Immortal Game" both tell us that women have been playing the game and have even saved the game from oblivion during the middle ages, more female participation is needed.

"Chess is everything: art, science and sport" - Anatoly Karpov
 
dealmaker said:
We need more women playing the game, I don't know the official statistics but I would venture to guess that ratio of women vs men playing the game is pretty dismal. "Birth of the Chess Queen" and "The Immortal Game" both tell us that women have been playing the game and have even saved the game from oblivion during the middle ages, more female participation is needed.

"Chess is everything: art, science and sport" - Anatoly Karpov
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When I played in my youth, even a single woman or girl in the tournament was unusual. Actually today, you go to a chess tournament and say 15% of the field are girls/women. This is close to my own student ratio of about 20% girls.

More and more parents are encouraging their girls into chess, but that is a trend in general of kids into chess regardless of gender.
 
Magnus is taking questions on CNN:

https://twitter.com/search?q=#AskMagnus

If I could ask Magnus, I think the most interesting question is, how were you trained as a youngster to find plans, and do you have some sort of systemic conscious method (as opposed to subconscious) to find a move that has carried over from your youth. And how have your refined it as you got stronger. After all, chess is all about moving pieces to squares.

It is well known that Magnus studied Larsen's "Find the plan" but I want to know if the search is mostly random pattern search, or if it is systemic. I am pretty sure it is random and subconscious, since "he doesn't know how he does what he does."
 
It is instructive to understand just how subtle chess is. It is also interesting just how much technique you have to acquire just to follow an endgame with very few pieces. The following video of the endgame between Carlsen and MVL is super instructive, and learning all the "well this is a draw" techniques will increase your strength by several hundred points. I purposely advance the video to the relevant game:

 
Today, you have not only have to be a good classical chess player, you also have to be a good speed player.

Because the need for a tie-break, Magnus against a very strong chinese grandmaster for all the marbles. The Chinese and the Indians will take over chess in the next twenty years.

Chess has very much a feel of a boxing match.

 
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