Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The Middle Game

I think that I mentioned I purchased a new game a little over a week ago. The Guild 2. Overall it was a disappointment to me. I never really got into it. I gave it a few hours, and it's really not a bad game, just not my thing. I've been wanting to try out "Bully" for the Playstation 2, but I also have a feeling that I'd play for a few hours and then... nothing. So I haven't broken down and tried to buy it yet. I did pre-order Neverwinter Nights 2 - and it's due to be released today! So I may have something fun to play this weekend.

What is Neverwinter Nights 2? Well, if you've never been into Dungeons and Dragons or games like Baldur's Gate, Might and Magic, or to date myself The Bard's Tale, then it's probably just a jumble of letters. For me, to be sure, it'll be an epic battle of good versus evil. That and it's sure to be a pretty good time waster. If not, then I've slipped. A lot.

Speaking of slipping, I bowled last night. 222, 166, 212. Middle game blues. What's that all about? I think that's two weeks in a row where my 2nd game was a little weak. When I got home I played a game of chess on the ICC. It was a good game - at least it felt like it. I lost the game (it was a G/15), but only because my opponent decided to "blitz" me in the last few seconds. So I ran out of time first. I was up a queen at the end. So at least I get the moral victory.

One of these days I'll get some more games up here. I just find it a bit of a pain to upload images here. It's not bad if you only want to put up one or two... but more than that it becomes a bit of a chore. Maybe there's a better way to do it, but I haven't found it yet.

Alright, time to get on with the day. Miles to go...

Enjoy, Ed.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

The world got in my way...

Been a crazy week. They all are. Just a few more months to go, then things should at least get a little better. I saw my doctor today. He gave me some good news, I'm probably not going to die anytime soon. At least, I'm a low risk for it. We're going to validate that, but I'll take his word for now. He also agreed that I had to get some weight off. Just a little exercise. Why does it have to be so hard?

I played a couple of exciting games this week and I was planning on posting at least one of them out here. I enjoyed the one in particular because it wasn't the usual me. I haven't had the computer check it yet, so maybe it was terrible, but it was still a lot of fun. The end result was a draw, but I still think I had the better of it for a while. I'm definitely looking forward to reviewing it. This weekend. Really!

Saturday is the monthly G/30 tournament at the chess club. I still haven't decided if I'm going to play, though it is tempting.

I'm going to try to get some sleep tonight - haven't had enough of that this week. So until next time!

Ed.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

On the coast of somewhere beautiful

They were searching for intelligent life... they found me. Welcome to the stories of my life.

I don't understand it. The last few nights I've been playing 1 G/15 on the Internet Chess Club. Monday night I played a player with a slightly higher rating, had an amazing game, and won. Last night I played a player MUCH lower, he played an amazing opening/middlegame, and finally lost it in the endgame. Though with our 500 point rating difference I really expected much less from him. So he did well. Tonight I played someone with a slightly higher rating as well. I was crushed. It wasn't even a game. It was in an opening I know. By move 15 I was lost.

The other thing I don't understand - motivation. Why does everything always have to be at the last minute? My homework. I had a great summer doing my Linear Algebra homework. Week after week I spent hours, seriously, every night just to keep up. Now I find that every Wednesday I'm struggling to get my homework done for Thursday's class. What's wrong with me? It seems like the motivation finally hits me when we reach that point where most people will start saying that I'm never going to make it. Why do I need that? It's not like my life is all that exciting at other times. It's not like I've got a million other important things going on. Work and school. Everything else is just me wasting my time away.

Anyway, I've got to get back to my homework. I'm halfway done... so I have a chance of finishing it before class tomorrow! I've got a bunch of things I've been wanting to talk about. Total Pro Golf, Chess Assistant 9, The Guild 2, Neverwinter Nights 2. Lots of interesting stuff in the world of computer software, games, and chess. Ah well, another time.

And with the poker sites all "closing doors" to US business... sad, sad times.

Ed.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Time Passes

Vladimir Kramnik has won the world championship. For the first time since the mid-90's, we have a unified champion. It was won on the 4th tiebreak game. Since he won, I don't see a lawsuit as doing that much good. We'll see what happens.

My mother and I watched "Click" and made Apple Cobbler Saturday afternoon. They both were good.

I was at the chess club for a little while Saturday night. While I was there we had 7 people. I didn't actually play any chess, mostly just sat around and talked for a little while.

Sunday I slept. A lot.

I also started watching Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica this weekend. Wow! Very good show. I'm already half way done with the season. Granted it only had 13 episodes.

There goes the weekened. Why is it that every time I turn around, time passes? Where does it all go?

Until next time, Ed.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Fischer vs Karpov

If you haven't heard the latest news, check out:

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com

There is currently a lot of talk about Fischer and Karpov playing Gothic Chess against each other. What is Gothic Chess? It's a 10x8 board with 2 additional pieces introduced. I believe they are called the Chancellor and the ArchBishop.

This sounds a little suspicious, but if it's true that the winner is being offered 10 million, and the loser 5 million, I suppose it could happen. Though I'd be much happier if it were "standard" chess, it would still be somewhat exciting to see these two face off.

Enjoy your Friday.

Ed.

It comes down to this

Yesterdays game was a draw, which leaves the match tied after the 12 standard games. The good news for Kramnik is that whether he wins or loses, in the eyes of most people he wins. This, of course, is due to the forfeit he faced earlier.

Here is the information (again from chessbase) about today's games:

Friday's Tie-breaks

3.7.1 If the scores are level after the regular twelve (12) games, after a new drawing of colours, four (4) tie-break games shall be played. The games shall be played using the electronic clock starting with 25 minutes on the clock for each player with an addition of 10 seconds after each move.

3.7.2 If the scores are level after the games in paragraph 3. 7.1, then, after a new drawing of colours, two (2) five-minute games shall be played with the addition of 10 seconds after each move.

3.7.3 If the score is still level, the players shall play a single decisive sudden death game. The player, who wins the drawing of lots, may choose the colour. White shall receive 6 minutes, black shall receive 5 minutes, without any addition. In case of a draw the player with the black pieces is declared as winner.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Game 12 is under way

As of 7am this morning, play begin in the final standard game of the world championship match. I just took a quick look, and after only 35 minutes the game is already looking very drawish. It's only on move 13 or so, and already most of the minor pieces are all exchanged. If the game is drawn it will be a 6-6 tie (if we count the forfeit, which unfortunately we must) and the match will be decided by tiebreaks on Friday.

Kip is back from Atlantic City! How did he do? I'll leave the details for his write up that he promises is coming, but let's just say that he did well. From the tone of his voice, he was very pleased. Maybe he'll even let me post his write-up here?

Time to get ready for the day. It'll be interesting to see how I did on my first exam Tuesday. By interesting I have no idea what I actually mean.

Until next time, Ed.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

World Championship Update

The match is tied 5.5-5.5. Today is a rest day so the final game will be played tomorrow (Thursday). If the result is another draw, then Friday is the tiebreaks day. If it goes to tiebreaks, as I mentioned before, the time controls get quicker and quicker. The absolute final game, if it gets that far, would be an armageddon game. I have no idea how to spell that word!

What that would mean is that the chess world championship would be decided by a game of blitz chess! I hope it doesn't come to that, because it seems a little foolish. Not only that, but armageddon is where one player has an extra minute, so if they don't win they lose. That's right, a draw will also count as a loss for the player with the extra minute. That's armageddon.

In case you're curious I had my first exam yesterday. Bad... very bad. Maybe not, but that's my guess. We had an hour for 4 questions (one of them had 4 parts), and when I was doing homework I could spent 30-60 minutes just on questions similar to one of those parts.

Until next time, Ed.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Study Time

Ok, new plan. I've got less than 10 minutes before I need to leave. Maybe I can get in 5-10 minutes of solid study time!

Wish me luck.

Ed.

My back

In addition to everything else, I was incredibly sore on Saturday. I couldn't figure it out. I remember lying down for a bit wondering why my arms were so weak. It was strange. Later that night it hit me. The 20-20-10. What is the 20-20-10? It's Nick's evil idea of a daily ritual that must be adhered to. For himself. As for me, well, I just seem to get caught up in the moment. The 20-20-10 is 20 pushups, 20 situps, and 10 leg lifts. I did it, but I'm weak. Very weak.

On Monday my back was a little bit sore after bowling. Not dangerously so, but still I don't like it. I think it was a combination of things. The extra exercise, the running around, the helping my brother take out his air conditioner. Carrying the ladder all around. All these things, then throwing around my 15lb bowling ball for 2 hours. It adds up.

Time to get moving... I'd like to get a little studying in before school. It's now looking like I'll get about 30 minutes. I'll take it!

Enjoy your Tuesday.

Ed.

Monday, October 09, 2006

The long weekend

I hope you all had a great weekend! How was mine? Overall pretty crappy. That's just the way it goes sometimes. It wanted to be good, or at least I wanted it to be. Lots of plans, not a lot of success. My brother asked me today if I was done riding my bike for the year. I think he's tired, after only a month, of it being in his way. What can I say? The most beautiful day of the year... and he chose today to ask me. Maybe in a few weeks, but hopefully we've got a few more good days left.

I spend most of Sunday trying to recover information from old hard drives. Mostly my brother's. He had a lot of stuff on their that he "needed". I rebuilt his computer a few weeks back because it was in terrible shape. And the hard drive had seen better days. Now I can't even get it to recognize the drive. It was very frustrating. And he's not someone who takes "I'm sorry, there's just nothing I can do for it" very well. So Sunday was almost wasted. I spent hours on his hard drive alone, with absolutely no luck. The only good thing that came of it was that I tried one of my old hard drives and managed to get all of my old iTunes music that I had purchased off of it and onto my current computer. That's music that I thought was gone for good. I also managed to recover my sister's old mail off of her hard drive. I also went over her house on Saturday to hook up her new Dell Monitor. She got a new Dell computer the other week, and every time the computer went into powersave she couldn't get the LCD to turn back on. Dell sent her a new one. Let's hope that fixes the problem.

I have my first test tomorrow. I had planned to study for a few hours today. Actual study time... 0. Not so good. What happened? I decided to do it today (Monday), and today didn't go exactly as planned. Mostly I'm just lame. I helped my mother with some ceiling tiles in her kitchen, brought a ladder to my sisters house and held it for her while she trimmed a big bush and cleaned her gutters, then got home with a headache. Watched the 1st two episodes of Studio 60 on the sunset strip, found my head was getting worse and I felt like I wanted to lose it. So I slept until 6 then went bowling.

I had a good first game with a 198, but from there I went to about a 146 and finally a 178 (or something close to those numbers). Adam bowled around a 420 series, so at least I didn't do that. In case you're curious, it's bad if you're Adam.

I'm going to get to bed soon, so I'll probably just try to get up an hour or so early tomorrow to study. At least get a little bit in. I picked up a new chess database this weekend, so I was hoping to spend some time with that. It hasn't happened yet, so maybe in the next few days. I'll be sure to post more about that in the near future.

Some great new games due out this month. I'm really looking forward to Neverwinter Nights 2. I played the first one a few years back when I was still living in Jon's basement. It was a fun game. It's a fantasy computer role playing game. Think Dungeon's and Dragon's. Though I haven't been motivated to get back into Oblivion lately, so maybe it's foolish to be excited about a new game. I'm just not the gamer I used to be years ago.

I went to the chess club Saturday night. I played a bunch of games against Frank (I've mentioned him before, he's a friend of Casey's who comes to visit every few months). He's planning to play in his first tournament soon, so he wanted to get some practice games in. I forget if we played 3 or 4 games. I didn't record any of them, but they were interesting. A few times when he made a critical mistake we moved the position back so he could play something else. He was telling me that people tell him he's probably around 1500 rated. I'm not sure I'd put him at 1500 yet, but he's getting there. Tactics! Study more tactics!

I then played a game against Wyatt. Again I didn't record it. It was another interesting game. I think I'm required to say that about all the games I play. Still, they are interesting. I'm not sure what Wyatt's story is, though chess-wise I'd probably put him somewhere in the 1300-1500 range. Tough to tell.

Holding out the most exciting until last, the Chess World Championship Match between the current FIDE Champion Vesselin Topalov and the Classical Champion Vladimir Kramnik continues. I know I've mentioned it before, but Topalov seems to have this uncanny ability to blow away the competition during the second half of tournaments. Could this continue during a world championship match? After games 8 and 9 one would say yes! Kramnik, who is a very difficult opponent to beat, lost 2 games in a row to the FIDE Champion. So going into Saturday's game he was down 5-4 with 3 games remaining. Of course, one of those losses was a forfeit, but unfortunately that's the way it stands. On Sunday Kramnik came out of the opening with an advantage that was easily turned into a win after Topalov blundered. So the match is now tied at 5-5. Today was a rest day, so the final 2 games will be played on Tuesday and Thursday. If it is still tied, then Friday will be tiebreaks. They'll be going to faster and faster time controls until a winner is determined.

As for me, I'm still rooting for Kramnik. He's never been my favorite player, but after Topalov and his manager with the bathroom debacle, it just left me with distaste. As I'm sure the salad Donna makes for me tomorrow to have at lunch will as well. Still, I hope I'm wrong. About the salad that is. I'd love to find some healthy food that I actually don't mind eating.

I hope that you've enjoyed your weekend.

Ed.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

My thoughts

Maybe it's me, but even when I play a game I occasionally pick the same move that fritz does - and I suck. To imagine that one of the top players in the world picks the same moves 75% of the time - it doesn't really surprise me so much. Should it? Am I missing something? Is this another psychological ploy?

I hate to say it because I think it would be a huge loss for the chess world, but I think Kramnik should abandon the match. He shouldn't have to play under these conditions with the constant accusations against him of cheating.

Then again, I think that's what Topalov's team wants. That way he keeps his world championship title. He's losing the match. Badly. Wouldn't that be in his best interests?

I don't even want to think about it.

Until next time, Ed.

Enough with the cheating accusations

I apologize for the blatant rip-off from the chessbase site, but the absurdity surrounding the current chess world championship continues:

Silvio Danailov accuses Kramnik of using Fritz 9
04.10.2006 "After very detailed analysis of all games of the match," the manager of Veselin Topalov writes this morning (15 minutes before the start of game seven), "we would like to present to your attention coincidence statistics of the moves of GM Kramnik with recommendations of chess program Fritz 9." What's going on?


Press release
Coincidence Statistics of the moves of GM Kramnik
with recommendations of the chess program Fritz 9

Elista, October 4, 2006

After very detailed analyze of all games of the match we would like to present to your attention coincidence statistics of the moves of GM Kramnik with recommendations of chess program Fritz 9.

First game:
From 75 moves: After the 12th move of Topalov Ba6, a novelty, from 65 remaining moves – 41 moves match with the first line of Fritz 9. (63% of matches)

Second game:
From 63 moves: After 17th move, where the theory ends, from remaining 46 moves – 40 moves match with the first line of Fritz 9. (87% of matches)

Third game
From 38 moves: after 10th move, when the theory ends, from 46 remaining moves – 40 match with the first line of Fritz 9. (86% of matches)

Forth game:
From 54 moves: After 14th move, when the theory ends, from 40 remaining moves – 30 match with the first line of Fritz 9. (75% of matches)

Sixth game:
From 31 moves: After 13th move, when the theory ends, from 18 remaining moves – 14 match with the first line of Fritz9. (78% of matches)

Thus, out of 5 games – 78% of GM Kramnik’s moves match with the first line of Fritz9.

Sincerely
Silvio Danailov

A whiff of this

I read an intereseting post this morning over at dubiousquality. I won't really summarize it, because you really wouldn't be interested. That and I'm just too darn lazy. But let me give you my favorite part:

jerks are like garlic--even a little bit overwhelms every other flavor in the food.

In other news...

The World Championship continues. At 7am this morning game 7 begins. Vladimir Kramnik has officially lost his protest and the score is and will remain 3.5-2.5 after 6 games. His only loss being that forfeit. He intends to sue FIDE after the match, but has agreed to play the match out. There has been tremendous support for Kramnik throughout the chess community, with the chessbase site publishing many such letters of support.

I was up very late last night, so it's going to be a long day!

Wish me well.

Ed.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Motivation on Demand!

The Chess World Championship continues. Vladimir Kramnik drew the 6th game as black, so with his forfeit in game 5 still standing he is winning 3.5-2.5. Today is a rest day, so we'll see how the next few days go. Half way through and Topalov's only victory was due to forfeit. Not too convincing so far.

I ordered 2 books the other day. "The Art of Harmony: A Guide to Happiness" and "Perfecting Ourselves: Coordinating Body, Mind & Spirit". They should be in within the next day or two. I'm pretty excited about reading them. They'll either be really good, or so bad that they are laughable. Either way, the journey of a thousand miles...

I stunk bowling last night. Stunk still means beating my "average", but it's early. And my team won 18 points out of 20. So we did really well, and I took all my points. How could I ask for more?

I actually did one of my homework problems this morning! I'm trying not to be doing them all at the very last minute - because that never works out as good as one might think. The motivation though, it's hard. Very hard. When someone starts selling motivation on demand, I'm buying. Buying!

Alright, time to move on with the day.

Until next time, Ed.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Under Protest

It appears to be official. Game 6 will be played, but Kramnik is playing under official protest due to the forfeit in game 5. It will be interesting to see what the result is from all of this psychological pressure that the players have been under these past few days.

Let's hope for more exciting chess!

Ed.

The show must go on

The word from the chessbase site is that there will be a 6th game - starting at 7am eastern time this morning. That's about 9 minutes from now! What was the settlement? The appeals committee was replaced, the bathrooms will be allowed, and Kramnik's forfeit in game 5 will stand. So the score is 3-2 in Kramnik's favor. I guess we're lucky the score wasn't tied, or he was only up by 1 point. Then I wonder if he would have agreed to that.

Topalov has played some amazing 2nd half's of tournaments. It seems like this is when he really shines. So it should be a very interesting second half.

Good Monday Morning to all!

Ed.