A matter of perspective

fortunecookie
Originally uploaded by firstfret.

A fortune is simply a reminder of possibilities, while busy is a matter of perspective. All pale in comparison to happiness which, in all its splendor and glory, is simply a state of mind.

Ed.

Hi Sean

DSC02645
Originally uploaded by firstfret.

Sean,

Dave says Hi!

We all miss you out here in the Pioneer Valley.

Ed.

PVCC Saturday, December 16, 2006

I made it to the chess club at around 9pm. It was a much bigger crowd than last week. When I walked in there was:

Paul Budney
Larry Williams
Antonio Laudati
Paul Spattarella
Willie
Dave Hall
Enrique McDonald
and, of course, me.

Larry and Paul were talking, Antonio was walking around the room, Paul and Willie were engrossed in a game as were Dave and Enrique. After a few minutes Enrique resigned and he and I talked for a few minutes. Then I asked Dave if he was up for a game and we ended up playing 3 (g/10 except the 2nd game where I gave Dave 5 minutes so it was dave 10, me 5).

David Hall - Ed Borowski 0-1
Ed Borowski - David Hall 1-0
David Hall - Ed Borowski 0-1

At this point Larry said he'd like to play a game against me, so he grabbed the white pieces and started resetting up the board. We ended up playing 2 blitz games (g/5).

Larry Williams - Ed Borowski 0-1
Ed Borowski - Larry Williams 1-0

Sometimes you just find the zone.

Paul beat Willie in their first game, and they were in the middle of a 2nd when I left.

Have a great weekend!

Ed.

PVCC Saturday, December 9, 2006

DSC02648
Originally uploaded by firstfret.

It was a small group that gathered at the Buger King on Saturday for the Pioneer Valley Chess Club. I didn't get there until late, but when I did it was just Dave and Chuck sitting around the chess board bashing about. But as luck would have it, I had my camera. So here's a pic of Dave and Chuck at the chessboard. I did play a game against Chuck a little later on. I won.

Enjoy the picture...

Ed.

Just another day...

So what am I doing up at 6:05am? Well, I spent the last 15 minutes trying to get out of bed. I'd probably try to go back to sleep for a little bit longer if it didn't hurt so freaking much. What a freaking idiot!

The pain has improved a little bit - and the shakes have gone down too. I have to go to school in a few hours... but my guess is that if I keep stretching I should be able to move around reasonably well by then. Let's hope.

I had forgotten how much this sucks.

Alright then, enough feeling sorry for me. Enjoy your day!

Ed.

Ain't nothing out here but me

I was hoping to play up in Vermont this past weekend - chess tournament. As it turns out, I forgot about it. Not completely forgot, but by the time I remembered I had made some other plans for the weekend. So I didn't play. It's probably for the best, my mind's been elsewhere lately. So my chess is certainly not at its peak. So it goes.

I have gotten in a few hours of Neverwinter Nights 2. It's a good game, though I hesitate to call it great. Then again, I can't remember the last time I actually called a game great. As I say so often, I just don't seem to get into them as much as I used to. Sometimes I miss those days.

As for this coming weekend, 3 days off! Nice. Big plans?

Clarity and inspiration
happiness is a destination
That's hard to find
it may take some time
But in my mind there's something more
and I'll open up a brand new door
and find the strength to close the ones I left behind
I'll get there leaning on some friends I know
The road and the radio

... Kenney Chesney

Not so much. Though a little clarity and inspiration would certainly be nice! Instead I'll settle for much of the same.

As some of you might know, I've started bowling again this season. It wasn't part of my original plan, but I was glad to be back at it. It was a good 3-4 years that I didn't bowl because of my back. Nothing serious in terms of requiring medical attention, but I was starting to get lower back pain. It's been feeling pretty good though.

Tonight, I was about 3 frames into the first game when... you guess it... I twisted at the lane and my back just froze. Damn! I can't remember the last time I felt that much pain. I remember lifting my ball back up to try to pick up my spare because, unfortunately, a strike didn't come with the pain... and I could barely lift the thing. Wow! I decided to stretch it out and see how it felt over the next few frames. I knew that I should stop... but I bowled 4 strikes in a row as I focused on putting as little pressure as possible on my back. I finished the first game with a 184 (or so). Not bad considering.

So I loaded up on Ibuprofen and kept bowling. I know... IDIOT! What can I say. My next game I pulled a 146. Terrible. But at the end I was finally starting to loosen up a little. I could stand without complete spasms. Pat told me that I needed to move 2 boards to the left since I kept hitting the pocket heavy. So I decided to finish out the night.

Last game... 220. Nice. So know I'm going to take a handful of advil and go to bed. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to wake up in the morning regretting every decision I've ever made in my life. But that's the way it goes. I'll need to do a lot of stretching this week to see if I can let bowling stay in my future. Let's hope so!

Until next time, Ed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Toiletgate?

If you thought the article yesterday about the world championship match was interesting, there's more. Rather than give you my summary, here are the short teasers from the chessbase site. If you want to read them, go to http://www.chessbase.com and check them out!

Kramnik may stop playing the match
29.09.2006 The team of Vladimir Kramnik has issued a statement rejecting the decision of the Appeals Committee and demanding that it be replaced because of its obvious bias in favour of their opponent. "The protests of the Topalov team and the suspicions in the press release of Mr. Topalov are utterly disgraceful and are touching Mr. Kramnik’s privacy." Will the match be interrupted?

Silvio Danailov: Players must be accompanied to the bathroom
29.09.2006 Just two hours after the FIDE ruling on the Bulgarian appeal the Topalov team has fired off another protest, demanding that the players must be accompanied by an assistant arbiter when they go to the bathroom. If the match continues Topalov won't shake hands with Kramnik.

FIDE decides: common toilet for both players
29.09.2006 The Appeals Committee of FIDE has taken a decision on yesterday's protest by the Bulgarian delegation. After viewing the video tapes it was found that the frequency of Kramnik's visit to the toilet had been exaggerated, but that the private WCs would be closed and a common toilet opened for both players. They also decided against the publication of the tapes. Toiletgate.

Happy Friday

It appears my posts made it last night. Weird. I had to clean up some "extras" but hey, when is anything ever *that* easy?

I heard some thunder out this morning. Quite a storm passing by. For a moment I thought that I was waking up to thunderous applause. Yeah, right. Hello world. Thank you for being such a great audience. Now let me get back to sleep.

I guess I won't be riding my bike in this morning.

When I first woke up this morning I thought it was Saturday. Let me tell you, that's the way you want to start your day. One big freaking letdown. I guess it can only get better from there, right?

So here's to a happy Friday!

Ed.

Homework and chess

I had planned a post on the current World Championship that's going on between Topalov and Kramnik. But I lost it when trying to post, and I just can't get myself to retype it all. So instead, check this link out:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3370

It's a fascinating read. And if you're curious, I don't go to the bathroom quite that often when I'm playing a game. Though my games are not for the World Championship.

In class this morning I asked if there was any homework for next week. It was getting to be the end of class, and he usually posts it on Thursdays. He said no, not this week. Nice! I could use a little break after my last minute destruction. Our first exam is coming up in a week and a half...

Anyway, I got home tonight and had an email. Homework. He apologized for forgetting...

The good news is, it's only three problems. The bad news - I haven't looked yet but I'm sure they'll take a long, long, long time. They always do.

Ed.

The World Championship

Wow, and I thought I had issues:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3370

Imagine, and these guys are two of the top chessplayers in the world. Still, it does seem unbelievable the claims against Kramnik. I'd certainly question if he was going to the "restroom" that often.

Right now, the match is 3-1 in Kramnik's favor. For Topalov, being the highest rated active player in the world and losing his first two games had to be a bit of a blow. That and Kramnik had been sick so he hadn't been playing as much over the past year or two, and his rating has gone down a little. But Topalov did have winning chances in those first two games, so I wouldn't put the possibility of cheating all that high on my list. Though you never know.

I originally guessed that Kramnik would win, though by a small margin. Either way, I was sure we'd finally have a unified chess title. Now, I guess we'll see...

Ed.

I'll never reach my destination, if I never try...

I've got a problem. Homework. At first I didn't know how to do it, but now... now... I don't know how to do some of it, and the rest takes a really long time. That was unexpected. Made worse by my natural tendancy to wait until the last minute. Yes, trouble. That spells trouble. The good news is, I don't think I'll be waiting until the last minute anymore. The bad news, well, it means 2 homeworks in a row I'll have done poorly on. By poorly, I'm guessing D range. Not exactly my target.

For some reason, I'm happy to work things out. To find a solution. But as soon as I hear those dreadful words... prove it ... I'm lost. Mathematical proofs. Writing them. I'm struggling.

I really like the class, so that makes it even more difficult.

Tomorrow is another day. In fact, it's today. Here's to hoping it's a good one.

Until then,

Ed.

The League

I went bowling Monday night. I'm back in a league. I was going to wait another year, but sometimes things don't work out the way you plan...

So last week I was pretty rusty again. My average after 3 games was 146. Which meant that I went into this week with a pretty good handicap. This week I bowled:

Game 1: 200
Game 2: 164
Game 3: 256

Not Bad! That 164 needs some work, but who am I to complain!

Alright, I have a bit of a headache so that's it for me.

Take care, Ed.

The PVCC September Tournament

I played in the unrated Game/30 chess tournament last night at the PVCC (Northampton Burger King). It got under way at about 6:45pm and went like this:

The players:
Ed Borowski (1880)
Scott Farhat (1663)
David Hall (1661)
Enrique McDonald (1476)
Antonio Laudati (1459)
Paul Spatarella (1194)

Round 1:
Ed Borowski vs Antonio Laudati (1 - 0)
David Hall vs Scott Farhat (1 - 0)
Paul Spatarella vs Enrique McDonald (0 - 1)

Round 2:
Enrique McDonald vs Ed Borowski (0 - 1)
Paul Spatarella vs David Hall (0 - 1)
Scott Farhat vs Antonio Laudati (1 - 0)

Round 3:
Ed Borowski vs David Hall (1 - 0)
Enrique McDonald vs Scott Farhat (0 - 1)
Antonio Laudati vs Paul Spatarella (0 - 1)

Final Standings:
3 Ed Borowski ($20)
2 Scott Farhat ($5)
2 David Hall ($5)
1 Enrique McDonald
1 Paul Spatarella
0 Antonio Laudati

Thank you to Paul Spatarella for running the event.

Ed.

The Final Round

DSC02621
Originally uploaded by firstfret.

I played in the monthly PVCC Chess Tournament on Saturday Night. Here I am in the final round playing against Dave Hall. The same Dave Hall that crushed me last weekend. But this week, with 1st place on the line - and $20 to go with it - I prevailed. You can see many more pictures from this event by going to my flickr page. Just click on the image and it'll take you to the flickr page, from there look on the right and you should see an option to check out the PVCC (set).

Ed.

The Bear

DSC02604
Originally uploaded by firstfret.

I promised this photo a long time ago. I finally found my usb cable today to download all of my pictures from my digital camera. I also signed up for a free flickr account to stick my pictures on the Internet. So I'm trying that out as well.

Enjoy!

Ed.

Rustic Revelations

It's scary. As I get older it seems my weaknesses are more discernable than my strengths. Why? What does it mean? For some reason I just can't catch on to the concept of writing a mathematical proof. I'm trying. A lot! But I just can't seem to grasp the most basic of principles. I feel that I can discern the answer. The destination is clear. I just don't know how to write the directions to get there.

I suppose I could take the easy way out. Just consider myself an idiot savant. Though perhaps that is giving myself too much credit. Simply idiot might be more accurate.

And I haven't played chess since last Saturday's loss. Too busy. Rust. I can feel it. Though I may eventually get wherever it is I'm going, will anybody recognize me when I get there?

I did bowl Monday night. Back on a league! Wow! Of course, I suck. It's been too long. I think my average for the night was about a 146. So now we have to try to work that back up to the high 180's by the end of the season. It's a goal.

Alright, back to therapy. Or life, as some of you may call it.

Ed.

Home Schooling

In my desire to become a better chessplayer, I've been learning a lot more about the game. My latest lesson came from none other than the world famous David Hall. Last night at the chess club he gave me a little home schooling! Here's the game (it was a g/15).

[Event "2006 PVCC Skittles Game"]
[Date "2006.09.16"]
[White "Borowski, Edwin"]
[Black "Hall, David"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "D02"]
[WhiteElo "1880"]
[BlackElo "1661"]
[PlyCount "48"]

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c6 4. c3 e6 5. e3 Bd6 6. Bg5 Nbd7 7. Bd3 h6 8. Bh4
O-O 9. Nbd2 Re8 10. Qc2 e5 11. dxe5 Nxe5 12. Nxe5 Bxe5 13. Nf3 Bd6 14. O-O-O c5??
{loses a pawn} 15. Bb5 Re4 16. Rxd5?! {
Bxf6 wins the pawn without complications} Rxh4 17. Rxd6 Qxd6 18. Rd1?? {
The immediate Nxh4 was necessary} Qb6!! {and now white is lost} 19. Nxh4 Qxb5
20. Rd8+ Ne8 21. c4 Qc6 22. e4 Kf8 23. Nf5 Qf6 24. Qa4?? Qxd8 0-1

Ed.

In the books...

It's amazing how sometimes life just passes. Phases. We all go through phases. What does it all mean? I had my second class today. I find changing my hours at work difficult. I'm still ready to go at my normal time. Just doesn't work that way. Ah well, at least I'll be done. And I'm thankful for the opportunity to do it.

But for some reason I can't get myself into anything right now. Maybe it was because of the incredible high after the New York State Championship on Labor Day Weekend. How can you top that? My best chess result in over 10 years. But lately, motivation = 0. It'll pass. It always does.

My grade didn't help. I finally got my grade for my summer class. B+. It's not a bad grade, but knowing what I produced I was really hoping for more. I knew I had some weaknesses, so I really can't complain, but it's still a tough one. That's life. One big learning experience after another.

I'd been hoping to post some of my games from the New York State Championship - but again, that motivation thing.

My bike's back on the road. Yep, just in time to put it away for the winter. Oh well, I'll get a few rides out of it anyway. That was the plan. I knew it was foolish going into it, but I still couldn't stop myself. So I accept it.

Can't think straight tonight. Just one of those nights. Time for bed I think - get another day in the books.

There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. Why is walking so freaking hard?

Ed.

And so it begins

No, I haven't forgotten. Just been a busy week. My chess update will have to wait for the weekend. But it's coming! I started my final class this week. Wow! I feel old. Maybe the right word is aged. I'm aged. Weathered. Well-worn. Used. And so the story begins...

And ends.

What are the odds?

Enjoy your friday!

Ed.

NY State Championship 2006

It's always nice to get home. 3 days of nothing but chess is just about my limit. Don't get me wrong, I love to play. But when you're at a chess tournament it really takes over your life. Anyway, I have to work in the morning. So I'll be writing up some impressions and posting some of my games over the course of this week. It was quite an event!

Stay tuned...

Ed.

Let's talk about chess..

Dad I'm big but we're smaller than small
In the scheme of things well we're nothing at all
...
Son for all I've told you
When you get right down to the
reason for the world
Who am I?
...
Here's a riddle for you
Find the answer
There's a reason for the world
You and I

Great stuff - though it doesn't really answer why my chess sucks. What it does tell me... it doesn't really matter. It's not so big.

Larry and I are leaving early Saturday morning for the long weekend. I'm looking forward to it. I plan on changing styles a bit. I'm not sure how that will work out for me. Maybe poorly. But I need to try it. I'll be sure to let you know next week. My main goal is to be more aggressive. If you're a bit late to the party, I'm talking about chess. Chess! Get with the program!

And once again, next week, time to start eating better again. Back and forth. That's life. The pain that comes with not being perfect. Then again, would you really want it any other way?

For some reason I decided to register my bike and get it on the road. It's almost September. I'm a bit of an idiot. Ah well, at least I wear it proudly.

Wasting away...

Until next time, Ed.

Dumb and Dumber

I signed up for the chess tournament tonight. 13 minutes to spare! Unexpectedly... I got a laugh as the "thank you for your order" page came up:

Thank you for your order. Please print out this page and bring it to the tournament in the unlikely event there is a problem with your entry. If you cannot print this page, don't worry and don't contact us; we ask you to print the page to make less work for us, not more.

It's funny, but non-chessplayers seem to have this misconception that we chosen few, the royalty of the chessboard, are smarter than your average pawn. Truth be told, we're just as dumb as the rest of the world. In fact, in many cases, dumber. Dumb and dumber. Doesn't get much better than this!

For now I think I'll go to bed. Sleep - my personal expertise.

Ed.

Turbo Man!

If you're a 30-something and a programmer, there's one thing that you know. Borland! More specifically, classic borland. Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ to be exact. Those were the days. I thought it was the coolest thing back in the day when I was at STCC. It's amazing how far we've come. Now I cringe at the thought of trying to do any type of editing at a console level.

Back to the nastalgia though. It's mostly due to fond memories, but I was pretty excited to learn that in the current mess that is Borland trying to re-invent themselves, they are spinning off their developer tools group. As part of this change, they are going back to their roots. In doing so, they are releasing what I'm betting is mostly re-packaged versions of their products as "turbo" products. Turbo Delphi, Turbo C#, Turbo C++, and Turbo Delphi for .Net. These products will be available in both an Explorer and a Professional version. The Explorer versions will be free! The nicest part about Turbo C++ is that your programs can be compiled completely into an executable. No run-time crap required. That was always one of my favorite things about the borland products.

Nevertheless, I've moved on to other languages, other tools, and other directions. But it won't stop me from checking them out. Who knows, maybe the next release of my chess engine will be attempted with Turbo C++. If it's more standards based than Microsoft's Visual C++ - then it's got a chance. I don't think that Borland will ever return to their former glory, but it's nice to see them trying.

Here's the link: Turbo Explorer

And for now - back to trying to fix my brothers computer.

Take care, Ed.

The Final

I took my final last night for Linear Algebra. It was a little disappointing. I was really hoping to do well. After all the time and energy I've put into this class I really wanted to get an A. On the final I got an 88. It's not terrible, but it doesn't make the grade. I'm going to have to be happy with an A- I think. When I calculate the tests I took, it averages out to a 93. Now I've got 5 days left to get through all the work for my other class before giving the final presentations on Tuesday night.

Wish me luck!

Ed.

Cheating at the World Open

There was an interesting article at Chessbase (from the NY Times) about cheating at chess:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3280

Ed.

Factorize this!

Last night I wanted to finish chapter 5 in my Linear Algebra book. I had to. My other class is definitely suffering due to the amount of time I've been spending on it. Unfortunately, when I got home from work/dentist/chris, I had some trouble concentrating. I slept until 7pm. I suck.

Then I did what any other self-respecting person would do. I went to D'Angelos and got a nice, large, cheeseburg grinder. Nice! When I got home I planned to eat and finish Chapter 5. So I got home and played a poker sit-and-go on the Internet. This was not going well. Finally, by 9pm or so, I was totally in the zone. Finally looking over my Linear Algebra. It actually felt pretty good. The problem was, this section was hard. Very hard.

After about an hour I just couldn't take it anymore. I decided that I was just going to go ahead and take the chapter 5 test. If I didn't do that well, at least the lowest grade is dropped. I was a little disappointed, because I really want to get an A and at the moment I'm clearly an A-. That and I'd have to get 100 on the final, which could be tough. Anyway, I had to do it.

I reviewed the Chapter 5 practice test/notes that the instructor had put out on the site, then finally settled down for the test. It was about 10pm, so I figured it would take about 2 hours. It did. I felt really good as I was taking the test. It was hard, but spread out. What I mean is that in the homework each problem could consist of 3-5 steps. In the test, each of those steps were separated out into a separate question. So that was nice. It allowed me to focus on each question without worrying about never finishing the test.

There was only one question on the test that really bothered me. It was one of those questions where I felt the answer was one thing, but I was coming up with something "slightly" different. I went with my feeling. Then it was over - 100%! Wow! I was so wired. After that I had to get to bed and it was hard to fall asleep. My mind was racing. It really felt great after the time and struggle that I've had with this last chapter to do so well. A lot of email help from the instructor, and Paul, along the way really helped.

As for tonight, well, time for the final! Then I can move on and let the other class take over my life for the next 5 days. Next Tuesday that will be done as well.

Until next time, Ed.

14 seconds of fame

In case you're wondering about what it takes to be nominated for an Emmy, apparently that would be 14 seconds! Well, that and $200.00.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060808/ap_on_en_tv/tv_emmys_burstyn

Ed.

Diagonalization waits not

School is almost over. August 11th for Linear Algebra and the 16th for Decision Support. I had some good news yesterday. I emailed the instructor for Linear Algebra to ask her about the homework and when the tests will be posted for chapters 5 and 6. She told me that she doesn't do chapter 6 in the summer, and only during the normal semester if time permits. That means I'm on the final chapter! A little extra time - I need that. I'm really hoping to finish up chapter 5 today and take the test tonight so that I'll only need to do the final. I need a lot of time for my other class!

Paul has been a huge help for Linear Algebra. Last night at the chess club he spent hours, off and on, answering my questions while I was doing the homework. I needed it. I'm not sure if it's the 15 years since I last took a math class, but some of the concepts take a while to sink in.

I was hoping to go to Bradley next weekend for a chess tournament. But knowing what I have left to do for my other class I don't think it can happen. I think that miles to go would be an understatement.

I suppose I should be going. Diagonalization waits not, and the future is ours to see.

Ed.

Good Advice

Isn't it ironic... don't you think?

I won't go into details - moving on. 3 more weeks of school. Very excited. I can't wait to have that week or two off before my final class starts. Oblivion. I can feel it.

I've been struggling a lot with chapter 4 in my linear algebra class. But thanks to continued perseverence, and a long discussion at the chess club with Paul B., I think I'm getting it. Felt pretty good last night. Tonight I have to take the test. So I'll know for sure if I got it.

I'll keep the rest of my misadventures to myself for now.

Until next time, Ed.

Stupid is...

Yes, it's 1am and I have to be at work in the morning. Why? I was tired today and I planned to go to bed by about 10. I need the sleep. So what's the problem? I think a dash of Tobinitis. Truth be told, I watched 2 episodes of the west wing and really didn't want to stop. But I did! Yes, then I went to the computer to play a quick game of chess before going to bed. Several hours later, here I am.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The way cannot be shown, only experienced. When it happens to you, you'll know it. I'm still waiting!

Ed.

The blinding light

Believe it or not I'm still listening to Jonathan Coulton. I enjoy the music and some of the lyrics. Though I'll admit that I wish the lyrics were a little more "mainstream". I think, at least for me, the songs would have a longer shelf-life that way. Aside from that, I'm still loving "The Riddle" by Five for Fighting. I know, you care. Thanks!

Lately my life's been fairly routine. Probably a little too routine. It consists of work, school, oblivion, and the west wing. I'm enjoying it - all of it - but it will definitely be nice to have the summer classes finished. I really didn't expect Linear Algebra to be as time consuming as it is. It's partly my fault, I'm determined to get an A. Especially after getting an 85 on the first test. I was disappointed, since I had been spending several hours a day on it. Since then I've taken 2 more tests and scored 100 on them both. So I'm back on track.

I have to go to school for my other class tomorrow, so we'll see how far behind I am on that one. That's my next goal - catch up with that. If only I could pull myself away from Oblivion on the weekend I'd be all set.

Gayle asked me the other day why I hadn't written anything in a while. She was referring to poetry. I like to think of it as music that only I can understand. Nothing personal, I'm more than happy to share the words. But the song, the music, the pictures - only I can see. I think it's better that way!

I saw a quote that I enjoyed the other day:

"An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts, for support rather than for illumination".

I'll have to think on that one.

Until next time, Ed.

Happy 4th of July

As another day quickly comes to an end, I hope you all had a good one. Happy 4th of July! It's been an interesting few days for me. This weekend I had planned on taking my Linear Algebra test and doing some work for my other class. As you may have noticed, at least from Saturday, I didn't do that. Oblivion! Will I ever get sick of it? I don't know, but I'm sure it won't be anytime soon.

I do need to get to bed. Work will be here before you know it. Today, to celebrate the holiday, I ate too much. It wasn't actually part of the plan, but you know how my plans go. It actually would have been a fine day if I didn't go to McDonalds for lunch. Always a mistake. Without even thinking that you're eating "too" much, 2000 calories pass by!!! Ouch. It's in the spreadsheet, though I'm not happy about it.

Again, I mostly played Oblivion. I am now the Grand Champion of the Arena, though I'll admit I'm a bit of a wussy. I noticed on some of the message boards that people have found some parts of the arena that you can jump on if you have a high enough acrobatics skill. I do. So I jumped out of range and kept summoning zombies to do my dirty work for me. Not much honor, but life isn't fair - why should Oblivion be! ;)

Oh yes, I finally took my Chapter 2 test for Linear Algebra tonight. I was pretty nervous. The first chapter I really spent a lot of time on and wanted to do well on the test. I only managed an 85, with the class average being around 86.5. So that was a bit of a letdown. This time I continued my trend of spending a lot of time, but added some last minute review before taking the test. It went well.

To finish off the day I watched "Find Me Guilty" with Vin Diesel. It's based on a true story about what they are calling "the most remarkable criminal trial in US history.". With comparisons to My Cousin Vinny, and with a brief role for Annabella Sciorra, I had certain expectations. It wasn't a bad movie, but it was no "My Cousin Vinny". And Vin Diesel... with hair... and putting on a few pounds for the role. I guess at least he was trying something different - and he did a pretty good job.

I've still got to make my plans to see "Superman Returns" this week. It's one of those I just have to see on the big screen.

Good night!

Ed.

The game of the week

I almost forgot, but I had a chess game scheduled at 9am this morning. It was on the ICC. Before the game I looked at how the team was doing, and realized that I had to win. We have 4-man teams and two of my teammates lost their games. Well, technically, one of them forfeit for not showing up. So I knew that if I didn't win we didn't have a chance at drawing the round.

With that information in hand, I knew I couldn't play my normal game. Not that my normal game is bad, but it can be "careful". As it turned out, I played one of my best games of the year! Seriously, I really felt great playing it. I also won in convincing fashion. Not bad for playing aggressive when you're not generally an aggressive player. Here was my favorite position from the game. White to move, can you guess what I played?



If you guessed Qxd5 you've got the talent. That's what I played and went on to win.

I watched Failure to Launch tonight with my Mother and Sister. It was a pretty good movie. So if you haven't seen it, I can certainly recommend checking it out. It doesn't make it into my hall of fame, but it was good.

And to end my night I was just playing a few games of blitz on the ICC. My last game I had a winning endgame against my opponent when I lost on time. I was pretty pissed. I happened to be leaning back on my chair at the time, and without taking a moment to let it down I found myself shaking my fists. Then I found my chair falling towards the floor, with me in it. Ouch! When I got off the floor and picked my chair up, I noticed that it was a draw. My opponent didn't have any pieces left but his king so he didn't have any winning chances.

So there you have it. A day in the life.

Ed.

Not like I would have played it

I can't seem to get the song "Millionaire Girlfriend" out of my head lately. I don't know why - it's not like I've got that problem. So Friday I spent most of the night working on my homework for Linear Algebra. I got home a little after 9pm and decided to spend some time playing Oblivion. How did it go? I played until 1AM, then I was up at 9AM playing again until about 7PM tonight (Saturday). It was awsome! I've overcome my previous issues, and my character is currently a Magician if I remember correctly. Next comes Warlock, but I think I need to work on a few other things in the game first. I've tried the quest for becoming a warlock and died pretty quickly.

I went to the chess club for a few hours. I ended up playing 3 games against Willie. I'm not exactly certain who Willie is, or how strong he is, but he was certainly playing reasonable. The first game I won on time, but since he was up a pawn we played it out and he won it. We played a second game and he dropped his Knight early and lost. He made a comment about us being 1-1, and wanted to play one more game. I didn't remind him that technically he lost the first game so he didn't actually have any points.

The third game he also lost on time but we continued playing. As my luck would have it, he got himself into a winning position. He must have had a mate on the board, though it wasn't easy to find. He had to keep checking me, or at least be very careful, because I was also threatening mate in 1. In the end, he made a bad choice and lost the game. Again, though, it was already lost on time.

Tonight ends my second full week using the spreadsheet. How did it go? I'll find out in the morning.

Until then!

Ed.

Links

I caught this link over at "dubiousquality":

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~kritip/managers job.htm

Kind of makes you stop and think about all the opportunities you could be missing out on!

Ed.

The Mages Spellbook

I finished with my homework a little earlier than expected today (8pm). That gave me a chance to get home and play some Oblivion! I booted it up and decided to continue my quest to get into the Mages Guild. To gain status, you first have to travel to all the guilds in the various cities and garner the recommendations of the head mages in each guild. What that inevitably entails is a series of quests. For each recommendation, they all have something they want you to do for them first. I've already gotten 2 recommendations and I was going to try for my third tonight. The deal is this. I need to find a missing mage. He hasn't been seen in a while, so if I can find him I will get the recommendation I need. I start talking to some of the other mages in the guild and learn that he and Valdermort (made that name up) liked to play games with each other. So I go find Valdermort and he tells me that he'll help as long as I agree to get him the head mages spell book... as a prank. It's locked in the head mages desk, so he gives me a spell to unlock the desk. I find the book and I return to Valdermort. He asks me if I've gotten him the spellbook yet. Unfortunately, even though I have it - it's in my inventory - the "quest" in the game doesn't seem to recognize that I have it when I'm talking to Valdermort. I can't give it to him.

Have you ever seen a grown man cry?

The tears. They're welling up again just thinking about it. I had to turn the game off. How could I go on? What's the use? Why?

So I moved on to chess...

I played a game/15 tonight on the ICC against Znebster. I have no idea who Znebster is - as is so often the case when playing on the ICC. I was a little nervous when the game started because my opponent made his first move almost instantly, but then took almost 90 seconds for his second move. That's very unusual in a "quick" game. I started thinking that maybe he was going to grab a book or something. I know, I always think the worst.

It turned out to be a very exciting game. As I started an attack against his kingside, he was planning an attack on my queenside. The goal, of course, is the equal and opposite reaction. In this case it turned out to be not so equal, but it was fun finding out! I was nervous about his attack because I knew that if mine fizzled out I'd find myself immediately on the defensive.

Here's the game:

[Event "ICC 15 0"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2006.06.27"]
[Round "-"]
[White "EdBorowski"]
[Black "Znebster"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ICCResult "Black resigns"]
[WhiteElo "2012"]
[BlackElo "2034"]
[Opening "Queen's bishop game"]
[ECO "D02"]
[NIC "QP.06"]
[Time "21:23:29"]
[TimeControl "900+0"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 Be7 5. Bd3 O-O 6. Nbd2 c5 7.c3 Nc6 8.Qe2 c4 9. Bc2 b5 10. e4 dxe4 11. Nxe4 Nd5 12. Bd2 h6 13. a3 a5 14. O-O Qc7 15. Ng3 Ba6 16. Nh5 b4 17. Qe4 g6 18. Bxh6 Rfb8 19. Nf4 bxc3 20. Nxg6 Nf6 21. Nxe7+ Nxe7 22. Qh4 Nfd5 23. Qg5+ Ng6 24. Bxg6 fxg6 25. Qxg6+ Kh8 26. Ne5 Ra7 27. bxc3 Qe7 28. Nc6 {Black resigns} 1-0

The critical move was my 20th. It was one of those moves where you know it's right even if you can't fully calculate a win. You just know it has to be winning, so you play it anyway. Of course, you keep your fingers crossed - and hidden - as you do. This was the position before my 20th move. What would you have done?


I know... just like you would have played it! ;)

Until next time, Ed.

Manic Monday

I didn't plan on being up at midnight tonight. It was a good plan. After work I'd do my Linear Algebra homework until 7pm, then work on my Decision Support project until 9. What happened? Well, my Linear Algebra homework took me until 7:30. There were only a few questions for chapter 2.1, but they took a long time! Mostly because it took me a while to "get it". That and I had a few interruptions.

My project, well, similar I guess. I won't get into the details, but once I got going I kept at it. Until about 11:45. Just a few minutes ago. When you get into something it's hard to let go. Why is it so hard to get into it though? I must say though... Office 2007 Beta definitely takes a little getting used to. Once you know how to get to things, it all works pretty much the same. The trick is figuring it out. As for my spreadsheet, I'm going a little overboard. I can't help it. I need it to be cool, so cool it must be.

BTW, if you happen to know what "GREEN EMPORER WAY WHERE TOWER TOUCHES MIDDAY SUN" means, please let me know. If you're not playing "Oblivion" for the PC, don't worry if you have no clue what I'm talking about. Not many people do! I would like to get a little ahead on my assignments this week into Saturday so maybe I can spend at least one day this weekend playing some more. I love that game!

I hope you enjoyed your Monday.

Ed.

A slice of life

I had hoped to get a lot of my schoolwork done this weekend. I didn't. My weekend consisted primarily of Oblivion, Chess, and The West Wing. I'm not complaining, it wasn't so bad.

Friday night I decided to get the "Rustic" pizza from Papa Ginos. At the moment it's definitely my favorite pizza. I got there at around 8pm, finally heading home after a busy day. I go up to the register and give them my name. The cashier looks around, then says a large and a small. They have a special - if you buy a rustic pizza you get a free small cheese with it. So I said yes, a large rustic. Oops. It appears after a few moments of confusion that I'm probably telling the truth. Why else would they credit the small cheese on the receipt? So the manager walks over to the register and asks me if I want him to make me one, it would be about 15-20 minutes. I couldn't help myself. I wanted the rustic! So I waited for it.

When I got the pizza, they told me to keep the large as well. Otherwise they would just throw it out. Pizza Fest! On my way home I was heading towards the lights on King street by D'Angelos, at the intersection of King, Bridge Road, and Damon Road, when I noticed it was getting ready to turn green. As I got closer to the lights I started glancing in both directions. It's a habit. I wasn't going too fast, just passing the light, when a car from Damon Road doesn't notice that he's got a red light. He figures it out once he gets about a quarter of the way past the light, blocking my lane, and he stops. Right in front of me. hmm... what to do? So I stop before I hit him, and he's just sitting there. After staring at me for a minute, he finally backs up to the light, and I'm on my way.

Friday night I just watched a couple episodes of The West Wing and ate my pizza. It's a little sad, because I know that this is Rob Lowes last season, and I really like his character on the show. Still, thankfully, the show is full of great characters so I'll get over it.

Saturday I decided to take a break from work/homework and spend the day having fun. So I played Oblivion for most of the day, then went to the chess club at night. At the chess club, like last week, Paul Sarrazin and I played 2 games. If you remember last week I finished with 1.5/2. This week we start out with a game/15. After the game Paul was telling me that he wasn't expecting such a quick time control, and assumed we'd be playing at least game/25. I'm guessing he was primarily annoyed because he got killed on time. He lost on time when i still had 10 minutes left on my clock. In addition to that, he was lost.

The second game we played game/25 and got to the following position:



(the game continued with black playing Rxd2 Rxg5 Kxg5 Kxd2 Kf4 Ke2 and Black wasn't sure how to deal with the White Rook's flexibility.

I had fritz take a look at it today, and it should be a draw. Unfortunately, Paul was down to a couple of minutes left on his clock and I still had over 15. Paul resigned a little bit later because he was about to lose on time and he had dropped a pawn. When I got home from the club I watched another episode of The West Wing.

Sunday was going to be homework day. All day. So I ended up playing Oblivion instead. And some chess too! Not that I'm a huge fan of blitz chess, but today my ICC rating for Blitz just reached its highest. 2005. So that felt good. My ratings on the ICC tend to have a huge fluctuation. My blitz tends to fluctuate between 1600 and 1900 (so hitting 2005 is a surprise to me), my standard between 1900-2100 (my highest was 2199, and the current is 1997).

And on that note, I hope you all had a great weekend!

Ed.

The Riddle

Yesterday I fell asleep and missed the evening, so tonight I had to play a little catch-up. What did that mean? That meant I got to take my Linear Algebra Chapter 1 Test tonight. So imagine my disappointment when I got home to find my Windows Vista Beta 2 customer preview and Microsoft Office System Beta 2 2007 shipments waiting for me. Guess what I wanted to do?

So I started out by taking the practice test. It was 3 questions and didn't count towards the grade. It was simply to get you familiar with the interface and how you had to take the test. Still, they were linear algebra questions and I wanted to get them right. So I spent about a half an hour on it. I got 2/3. If this was a sign of things to come, I was in for a bit of trouble.

I moved on to the test. I think it took me about 2 hours. There were 20 questions, and even though they were multiple choice they weren't easy. I struggled with the 1st six, and they were only true/false. I also struggled with the last couple. It reminded me a lot of taking the Microsoft tests back in the late 90's. The questions were designed to make you want to pick the wrong answer. You really had to read them carefully, more than once. I'd like to say that I aced it, I really wanted to. I put a lot of time in the chapter, doing all the homework and practice tests. I've probably spent about 2 hours a night for a good week and a half. Still I only managed to pull out an 85. I messed up on 3 of them. I was actually pretty upset about it, but what can I do. Let's hope it doesn't get any more difficult because I've got to start putting some time into my other class as well.

I've been listening to "The Riddle" by Five for Fighting lately. It's a great song. Here's a piece:

The batter swings and the summer flies
As I look into my angel's eyes
A song plays on while the moon is high
over me
Something comes over me

I guess we're big and I guess we're small
If you think about it man you know we got it all
Cause we're all we got on this bouncing ball
And I love you free
I love you freely

Here's a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There's a reason for the world
You and I

And, yes, I did manage to fit in getting Windows Vista installed tonight - on the laptop. I won't really have time to play around with it, but over the next few days I'll probably have some impressions. I'm also looking forward to checking out the latest office. From the previews I've read, it sounds like it's a significant change.

I've also been playing really good chess lately. I don't know why that is... the busier it gets the better I seem to do. Still, I'm looking forward to mid-august when my classes are over and I have some time for a few weeks before my final class starts in September.

I hope you're all having a good week!

Ed.

Happy Birthday

It's official. I'm 35. Where does the time go? No, you don't have to answer that one.

So what's new with me. Well, life is crazy right now. Between work and two summer classes I find that I have absolutely no time. Part of that is my fault, because the time I do have is spent sleeping. Not the normal, necessary, nightly sleep. We're talking more the lazy, lethargic type. What am I doing to try to fix that? I'm sure there are plenty of reasons for it. Weight, nutrition, and exercise are probably the key reasons though. I'm not stupid, I only act it!

So what have I decided to do about it? The usual I'm sure. The latest attempt has been the addition of a spreadsheet. Years ago I used to track how I ate and found it helped me lose a bunch of weight. After years of failures without, I've decided to go back to it. There are better programs out there designed specifically for this purpose, but they can get a little overkill. It depends on what your goals are I suppose. For me, right now, it's simple. I just want to record the very basics. The weight, the calories, the exercise, and the all important... "How do you feel?". Has it helped me? I just started today so it's too soon to tell. But I think it will. To do this I've decided to use google spreadsheets. I wanted to try it out, and this way I'll be able to access and update my spreadsheet from anywhere with an Internet connection. My first impression is that for basic spreadsheets with simple functions, it's pretty good.

We are always misjudging what we eat. If you know that a typical male can eat 2500 calories a day and not lose weight, and that a pound is the equivalent of x calories, what does that tell you? As I said, I'm keeping it simple, but you get the idea. Today I was going to eat a "relatively healthy" lunch. I was pretty pleased with my choice until I looked it up afterwards. 1600 calories. And since we were celebrating my birthday today I still had chinese food, cake, and ice cream to go! As you can imagine, today was definitely "in the red". A dark, dark, red.

A few weeks ago I went down to the chess club and happened to play Richard Gold a couple of games. For some reason, I seem to have good luck when playing Richard. This particular day it was no different, I finished 2-0. Last night I played 2 games against Paul Sarrazin. I finished 1.5-.5, but they were difficult games. The 1st one was truly a game of mistakes. I think I started out with a winning attack, transposed into a crazy endgame where I'm not exactly sure who was winning, but it was close - and I was lucky enough to win it. The next game was another crazy game that ended in a perpetual check. I hope to get the games into the computer for analysis this week, so I may post them up here.

A final note. Kip put me on to this site on Friday which is truly amazing - and hilarious. The guy is a musician who used to be a programmer, and his songs are great. Some of my favorites include "Code Monkey", "Millionaire Girlfriend", and "A Laptop Like You". Be sure to check it out:

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songs/

Until next time, Ed.

The Plan

I haven't forgotten about Day 3. It's still in the plan. Coming soon, I hope.

Ed.

The Powerbook

I just finished a long post about my powerbook. The ups and downs of attempting to replace my hard drive. I did it back in January so I was expecting it to be easy. Yeah, right.

Anyway, I submitted my post and lost it all. What are the odds? So instead you just get to hear me whine about it. It just ruined my desire to even attempt to rewrite it. Instead, this is what you get.

As for the powerbook, it's apart on the desk in my living room. Alone. The strangest thing I've discovered. When I put in the new hard drive my powerbook won't even power on. I put the old one back in and it works fine. A hard drive that prevents the computer from powering on? Hmm...

I have no clue. For now.

The battle has just begun.

Until next time, Ed.

Mass Open 2006, Day 2

I didn't have a chance to update yesterday. It just didn't happen. I think it was partly because I was planning on spending the $10 for 24 hours of Internet Access from the hotel but in the end I just couldn't justify it. I knew I'd only have an hour or two and it really just didn't seem worth spending the money. I know, it seems unthinkable coming from me, but there it is. For me Sunday was a quiet day. That doesn't mean easy, but there's just something about drawing both of your games. It's like that big eraser from the sky just flew down and did it's think. In the blink of an eye, gone. It was just another day.

Interestingly enough, I did get to play James O'Dickson again. He and I played in the last tournament I played in late last year. So far we've drawn both games. He's rated 1949. My other opponent yesterday was Valentin Levin who is rated 1906. So a reasonable result. The game against James was pretty uneventful, so I'm excluding it. But the game against Mr. Levin was pretty exciting. I came out of the opening with a much stronger position, went through a series of exchanges that left me slightly worse, and due to doubled pawns in the endgame and his backward b-pawn giving him some dynamic potential when/if he needs a free move I had to be very careful. Here's that one:

[Event "Mass Open 2006"]
[Site "Hotel Marlborough"]
[Date "2006.05.28"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Edwin Borowski"]
[Black "Valentin Levin"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "1884"]
[BlackElo "1906"]
[ECO "D02"]

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c6 4. c3 e6 5. e3 Bd6 6. Bg3 Ne4 7. Bd3 Nxg3 8. hxg3 h6 9. Nbd2 Nd7 10. e4 dxe4 11. Nxe4 Be7 12. Qe2 Nf6 13. Ne5 Bd6 14. f4 Nxe4 15.Qxe4 Bxe5 16. dxe5 Qd5 17. a3 Bd7 18. O-O-O Qxe4 19. Bxe4 O-O-O 20. c4 c5 21.b3 Kc7 22. Rd6 Bc6 23. Rxd8 Rxd8 24. Bxc6 Kxc6 25. Rd1 Rxd1+ 26. Kxd1 a5 27. a4 f6 28. Ke2 Kd7 29. Kf3 fxe5 30. fxe5 Ke7 31. Kg4 g6 32. Kh4 Kf7 33. g4 g5+ 34.Kg3 Kg6 35. Kh3 Kh7 36. Kg3 Kg7 37. Kh2 Kg6 38. Kh3 Kf7 39. Kg3 Kg7 40. Kh2 Kg6 41. Kh3 1/2-1/2

Larry went on the rampage. After a tough loss Saturday night, where later we found a perpetual check that he misplayed, he had 1.5/2. So going into the final day he's even with me. We both have 2.5/4. He has 2 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss and I have 1 win, 3 draws. The amazing thing about Larry's play is that he's been lost in almost all his games, yet he's managed to survive and even win.

I talked with the bookseller for a little bit yesterday as well. Randy Malcut. As most chess booksellers have learned, the poker books tend to sell better than the chess books so they always have a good selection of poker books at these tournaments as well. So we talked for a little while about poker, his new job working for the US Postal Service, and even blackjack. I felt bad because I've got to believe that the auction was killing his business. With people already having spent a bunch of their money on books, they probably won't be looking for more books.

Later that night Larry and I were going to head out to Wendy's for some dinner. While we were looking at the crosstables Patrick Sciacca stopped by to look at the Open section. I could tell that he didn't completely recognize me, so I said Hi. I told him that Sean would kill me if I didn't say Hi to him. It clicked. He said, "Borowski, right?". Then he asked me if I had more hair back when he knew me. Hair? I had forgotten those days. We all have our dark dirty secrets!

The final note for Sunday, and I say this in the nicest possible way, is the goop. I have no idea what this stuff was, but it was this freaky yellow goop that was all over the sink and the floor in the bathroom. I could tell you what it looked like, but it's just not possible. And neither Larry or I had anything with us that could have produced such a freakish spattering. I had to clean it off the sink, I just couldn't take it, but I wasn't about to get on my hands and knees for the floor, I was just careful to walk around its droppings. My curiosity finally got the best of me and I finally had to ask Larry... was that his goop? He said no, so the only logical alternative was that the cleaning people had a problem. I can't fathom, so I'm letting it go.

Oh - and this post was mostly written last Sunday at the tournament, but here I am finishing it up a week later. So if the tense gets a little odd, there you go.

Round 3 to follow soon!

Take Care, Ed.

Coming Soon...

Day 2 is coming! I was going to post it yesterday, but last night I got caught up in complaining about Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and how it doesn't completely support the ANSI C++ standards - by choice! What the ....! I also ate too much pizza, so I'm going to feel sick today. It's a disease. The cure? I hear Billy Blanks calling! Bootcamp tonight, for sure.

I also played around a little with the Arena chess gui. It's great for playing chess engines, or having tournaments/matches with chess engines, but apparently not designed to have human vs human games. Which means you really need to use some other program to enter your game in, save it to pgn, then load it into Arena to have an engine look at it. Of course, at that point, your almost better off having the other gui analyze the game too.

I had considered just loading my Shredder chess program, which uses the fritz gui. It's one of the most professional gui's out there. But I'm in an anti-establishment phase right now, and that just seems to mainstream. Anarchy, I say. Anarchy.

So, Day 2 will probably be up tonight.

Until then, Ed.

Mass Open 2006, Day 1

I found that even though they told me on the phone that wireless was complementary, it isn't. It costs about $10 a day. I'm not dying, so I'll at least avoid the temptation for today. It was a pretty good day, though I was really getting tired after the 1st round. Larry and I left at around 8:30 this morning, so I would say that I had about 7 hours of sleep. Not terrible, but apparently not enough.

So, what were the highlights today? Most of the excitement was during the 1st round. Walter Chesnut, who used to come to the chess club years ago when Sean ran it at the Hampshire Mall, is playing in the lower section. His first game I happened to be checking out when his opponent blundered away a piece. Being higher rated, his opponent was somewhat pissed. He slammed his piece down on Walter's clock to finish his move. Walter gave the guy a somewhat polite smack-down. After that the guy kept playing, though clearly not paying so much attention to the game.

Speaking of polite, when my opponent got into a difficult position and noticed he had just blundered away a pawn, he went into a 40-minute think. It was pretty freaking boring. I'd occasionally stop by and listen to him chewing on the strings of his sweatshirt. But mostly I just walked around watching other people's games. At one point this one guy had stopped by the game of one of his friends. Thinking that the game was over he started moving some ofthe pieces to show his "friend" what he saw. Guess what? Oops! The game wasn't over. The other player walked up and was pretty pissed! In the end, he continued the game anyway. I'm not sure what the result was of that one.

Finally the 40-minutes went by and my opponent moved. He was a young kid and really not that bad. It's just that when you're hanging around for 40-minutes you start to wonder if your opponent is so pissed that he's just going to run the clock down. That wasn't the case:

[Event "Mass Open 2006"]
[Site "Hotel Marlborough"]
[Date "2006.05.27"]
[Round "1"]
[White "James Shao"]
[Black "Edwin Borowski"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1670"]
[BlackElo "1884"]
[ECO "B23"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Bc4 a6 6. d3 e6 7. Be3 b6 8. O-O Nge7 9. e5 Nf5 10. Qd2 d5 11. exd6 Qxd6 12. Kh1 Bb7 13. Ne4 Qc7 14. c3 Na5 15.Bb3 Rd8 16. Qf2 Nxb3 17. axb3 Rxd3 18. Neg5 h6 19. Nh3 Rxe3 20. Rfe1 Rxe1+ 21.
Rxe1 O-O 22. Nh4 Nxh4 23. Qxh4 Rd8 24. Qf2 Rd3 25. Re3 Qd7 26. Rxd3 Qxd3 27.Ng1 Be4 0-1

After the round I noticed the sandwiches they were selling outside the tournament. It didn't seem so bad, but I was trying to wait for Larry to finish before eating. In the end they closed down the food before I had a chance to smarten up and buy something. Larry ended up saving his tough game in Round 1, so that was good. They were having a book auction during the day today, so Larry spent a lot of time at that. There were some really good deals, with many books going for just dollars. I ended up taking a run to McDonalds because I really needed to eat something. Not a healthy choice, but the choice I made. Larry and I finally went up to the room at around 5:30, a half an hour before round 2, and rested a bit. I noticed that he eats dry oatmeal. Disgusting! I've never seen anyone do that before.

I was a little nervous going into Round 2. Not nervous as in nervous, but nervous as in I wasn't feeling at my best. I was tired. But at least I was White, and I feel pretty solid about my white openings. Even though I did end up misplaying it a little, and it turns out that my opponent is much more knowledgeable than I in the opening I chose. Still, having knowledge and being able to apply it are two different things. Lucky for me!

[Event "Mass Open 2006"]
[Site "Hotel Marlborough"]
[Date "2006.05.27"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Edwin Borowski"]
[Black "Bennet Pellows"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "1884"]
[BlackElo "1719"]
[ECO "A40"]

1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Bf4 Nf6 4. e3 c5 5. c3 Nc6 6. Nbd2 b6 7. Bd3 Bb7 8. Qe2 Bd6 9. Bg3 Qc7 10. Rc1 e5 11. dxe5 Nxe5 12. Nxe5 Bxe5 13. Bb5+ Ke7 14. Nf3 Bxg3 15. hxg3 h5 16. Nh4 Rhd8 17. Nf5+ Kf8 18. g4 Qe5 19. Bd3 g6 20. f4 Qe6 21. g5 Ng4 22. Qxg4 gxf5 23. Qe2 Kg7 24. Kf2 d4 25. exd4 Qxe2+ 26. Bxe2 cxd4 27. c4 d3 28. Bf3 Bxf3 29. Kxf3 Rd4 30. Rhd1 Re8 31. Rc3 Re2 32. Rcxd3 Rde4 33. R1d2 Re1 34. Rd1 R1e2 35. R1d2 Re1 1/2-1/2

After the game my opponent told me not to worry about losing too many rating points for the draw, because his rating is actually around 1850. He's gone up several hundred points in the past few months and the "official" rating hasn't caught up yet.

So, 1.5/2 for me, and I'm not sure about Larry. He was in the middle of another very tough game when I finished. So we'll see.

Until next time, Ed.

Who's the master?

I played a game of chess tonight against ctd(c) on the ICC. It was an interesting game, and an incredibly boring one. Not completely for me, but after moving the same piece back and forth for about 50 moves, it does make you wonder. Why? Why am I doing this? The answer, ctd(c) was rated about 200 points higher than me so I was pretty happy with the concept of a draw. I would have moved that piece back and forth all night if I had to. Thankfully, there's always the 50-move rule. Not wanting to fall prey, ctd(c) did start mixing things up a little before the conditions were met for the 50-move rule. Those conditions are really "resets". The counter resets on a pawn move, or I believe a capture. And the computers tend to have a contempt factor built in, which makes sense. If the position is even, and you can avoid the 50-move rule without negatively impacting your position, why not do so. Anyway, on my 127th move, it could be avoided no longer. Game drawn by 50 move rule. I'm not going to include the game because, and I realize this, you probably don't care.

It was nice, because my play has been a little sub-par lately. Primarly because I've been focusing on school, so not really playing. The Mass State Open is on the 27-29th of this month and I plan on playing, so I need to get with it. I was a little surprised, given the "big" sound of the name, that the prize fund is so... small. That means they are expecting very few players. Maybe the race for the under 2000 crown will be decided by a cage match between Larry Williams and I. We'll have to get dressed up as our favorite chess piece and battle it out WWE style. For the U2000 the prizes go $450-250-100 for 1st-3rd. With rooms being $89 a night, if you're going for the money you'll probably be disappointed. After room, food, and entry fee, if you don't come in 1st you've lost money.

So I'm sure that Sean will be covering it in his blog (http://cocjournal.blogspot.com), but I have a feeling we have very few crossovers and I've just got to mention it. Gata Kamsky kicks ass! There was a great article on the Chessbase site today, although under one of the captions they call him Rustam (which, if you folled him back in the mid 90's when he was one of the top players in the world you'd know that Rustam is his father and everyone hated the guy), which talked a little bit about him. But he's currently playing in the MTel Masters 2006 tournament with some of the top players in the world. Our current #'s 1-2, Veselin Topalov and Vishwanathan Anand are playing, as well as ex-FIDE champion Ruslan Ponomariov, French GM Etienne Bacrot, and Peter Svidler. The ratings and current world rankings go like this:

1 2804 Veselin Topalov
2 2803 Vishwanathan Anand
4 2743 Peter Svidler
6 2738 Ruslan Ponomariov
15 2708 Etienne Bacrot
33 2671 Gata Kamsky

So it's my opinion that Gata is only getting the invitations right now because of who he used to be. He used to be in the top 5 when those were Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishwanathan Anand, and Gata Kamsky. Certainly prestigious company, with Kasparov being considered by many to be the greatest chess player in the history of the game and Karpov being the winningest champion. But Gata left the game for 8 years. So right now he has the interest of a lot of people. Can he recapture the talent he once had? If he doesn't soon I think he'll find the invitations quickly disappearing. Being #33 in the world doesn't usually get you invited to the top tournaments.

The good news is that after some mediocre results, he's having a fantastic tournament. And against the caliber of players, that really says a lot. If he keeps it up for the final half of the tournament it will be quite a statement! So keep your fingers crossed and let's see how it goes. The standings as of today go like this (image taken from chessbase.com article http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3112 without permission):



One final piece of news. Bruce thinks that the animal I saw may have been a fisher cat. I'm not sure, because from what I looked at I'm not sure they get big enough. But there it is. Fisher Cat, Mountain Lion, Hallucination, you be the judge. All I know is that it was big, bad, and enjoyed staring me down.

Until next time...

Ed.

Lost and Found

I have 2 books on computer chess. One of them is called "Computer Chess Compendium" by David Levy, and the other is "Scalable Search in Computer Chess: Algorithmic Enhancements and Experiements at High Search Depths" by Ernst A. Heinz. They are interesting books, and I've read them several times. I really like the Computer Chess Compendium because it's about the old days. It was first published in 1988, and goes through the history, early attempts and algorithms, and some notes on writing a chess program. Of course, not with the latest techniques, but still an interesting read.

The last I saw these books they were in my living room. Then it was cleaned. As I was preparing my paper last week I was looking all over for them. I emptied stuff out, searched everywhere, nothing. I ended up doing my paper without them, but I was really hoping to be able to use them. I was also hoping to use them as reference for my chess program too. That's still possible, of course, just not within the scope of the class.

Tonight, as I was walking into my house after taking out the trash, something caught the corner of my eye. Books. On the "shelf" of my TV stand. Two of them were... need I say more.

Idiot.

And so it goes.

Take care!

Ed.

Hey aren't we all

I was sound asleep when my phone started ringing. I looked at my clock and it was a little past 7. I had to think for a minute, because I was really hoping that it was the weekend. Nope, I was pretty sure it wasn't. How come I forgot to set my alarm last night? Luckily, the phone woke me up. I was pretty sure it was my brother because I thought I heard him moving around, and noone else really calls me in the morning before work. Still, it sucks. I wasn't ready to get up and go to work.

As you're probably expecting, I won't dissappoint. My brother thought I was nuts. It was 7pm. Welcome to Thursday night. Welcome to my life.

Ed.

Adept

In case anyone is wondering how my chess program is doing... better than I had expected! Not as good as I want it, so much left to do, but a great start. I've got it running on the Internet Chess Club this week, and it's doing pretty well. Here are the blitz stats:

(it runs under the handle chessadept)
Rating: 1570
Win: 12
Loss: 10
Draw: 1
Total: 23
Best: 1600

So it's currently rated at 1570, which is around the average rating of all chess players in the country. I'm pleased with that given it's my first attempt and at the moment there is so much more to do with it. I expect that before I'm done it will be rated over 2000. Then I'll rewrite it and have a much better program. I can't wait!

I also tried having it play some bullet games, but the time controls were just too fast for it. I could try cranking back the ply count so it would move faster, but I don't want to mess around with that right now. I'm happy with it simply playing 5 minute blitz games. As I make more changes to it I plan to be adding some code for handling different time controls. Then I'll probably try again.

For now, it works.

Ed.

Tivo

My tivo is now running on my wireless network. I did that tonight too. Ever since I got comcast digital voice, my tivo stopped being able to connect to the service over the phone to update its listings. I have no idea why since the phone works exactly like it used it. It gets tone. It rings. It buzzes. But it doesn't tivo. Go figure. But luck was with me. I had a wireless usb network adapter hanging around (since my pc had died a few months ago), and when I plugged it into my tivo and configured it, it just worked. Nice!

Why is that nice? It now downloads over the Internet, I can now record from my computer or, if I made my tivo available on the Internet then from anywhere, and I can watch my tivo saved shows on my computer through TivoToGo. I've got it all!

Nice!

Ed.

Take it to the limit

Tonight I sat down to play a little poker on-line. I didn't want to, I had to. I had been talking with Kip about how I need to start trying limit, since my ups and downs with no-limit can be pretty severe. It would be nice to have a solid game to fall back on to keep the bankroll going and not have to worry about putting more money into it.

Given my current bankroll, he recommended that I start at .25/.50. I'm not going to explain the details, I can't claim to fully understand them myself. I know, weak. Anyway, the idea is this - if you're a good player you might be able to pull in about $2.50 an hour. He warned me, don't be disappointed if you don't see the money flying in. It doesn't.

So I decided to sit down and play for an hour. I went to the .25/.50 tables, but they were all full. Patience isn't my virtue, but I'm occasionally inflicted with a case of over confidence, so I decided to try out the .50/1 tables instead. Within 5 minutes I was down $5 of my $20 buy-in. I suck. As I was thinking about how I could stop now and noone would have to know, I decided to give it 5 or 10 more minutes. I remembered Kips advice. If the table's loose, play tight. 10 minutes later I was up to $25 and thinking that I should quit while I was ahead. Given the above calculations, that's near what I should be expecting for an hours of play. But I decided to continue on and try to do my hour.

A short while later, I found myself dwindling back down near $20. I was a little sad, but the swings are part of the game. If you can't handle the swing, you don't belong in the playground. I used to love the swings. Though I was the stupid one that always tried to jump off after getting it as high as it would go, while being afraid of heights. I'm a living oxymoron. Or just plain moron, if you prefer.

So now the real question, how does this story end? After the hour I was at $50, up $30 for the session. Incredible. Of course, I had a lot of great hands and started hitting my cards. So, essentially, I was lucky. I'll take it.

Ed.

We've only just begun

I'm done, and yet it feels like it's only just begun. But still, I'm done.

When I got home last night, as I was getting out of my truck, I saw this animal in the road. It was big. Bigger than a dog. At first I thought it was a Lion, but that isn't actually possible. I don't know what it was. All I know is that it stopped on the side of the road and stared at me. We stared at each other for a few minutes while I was making sure I could quickly get back into my truck if need be. Finally, it walked away.

Welcome to Friday.

Ed.

One more day...

Yes, my project is coming to an end. For school. I plan to continue my work on it, just at a different pace. Slower. Much slower. The last few days I've had enough, it's been tough to keep going. So I'll definitely be glad to have it behind me. Tonight I did a little bit on my paper - very little. Which means I'll need to finish it up tomorrow.

As for the program itself, another enhancement today. Move ordering. Here's the deal. In the beginning there was minimax. With minimax the idea was simple, you would search to a fixed depth (ply) and pull back to the beginning assuming each player made the best moves. What does that do for you? Well, for one, you only have to run your evaluation function on the nodes of the max depth, because those are the scores that you are pulling back to determine which move to play. For another, you're searching all possible moves up to that depth so you're not going to miss anything.

Then came Alpha-Beta. What did that do? Amazingly enough, it gave you a significant speedup... for free! The idea is that while you are scoring the maxply nodes you keep track of a cutoff. So once you find a score that is lower than in a previous branch, you can stop searching that branch because you know that with best play it's not your opponents best move to go down that branch. I may have messed that up a little, but that's the basic idea. So it gives you a significant speedup while coming up with the exact same answer. Not bad.

I have both of those implemented in my project. Tonight I added move ordering. What does move ordering do? It's Alpha-Beta, but you order the moves by what you think will be the best so that you ideally hit the best moves first and a lot more hits on your cutoff. I used one of the simpler methods of move ordering, which is to simply sort the movelist with the "best" captures first. Meaning that if a move captures a Queen it'll be checked before a move that captures a pawn... or nothing. It does slow down the nodes per second that the program can calculate, I'm down to about 100,000 (not just because of this though - implementing transposition tables for 3-fold repetition was a total hog on my performance. I need to work on that, but not until after I turn things in)! But I saw a good 50% reduction in the number of nodes that are being checked now, and my program is quicker when playing 5ply than it was. Which is good. It was taking up to a few minutes to make a move as the position started opening up... and now it's back to well under a minute.

Speaking of Ply, until I implement Quiescent Search (a search extension that goes beyond maxply when there are captures so that it's evaluation quiet positions) I'm thinking that I might be better off defaulting to an even ply (such as 4) instead of an odd ply (such as 5). 6 is too high for the moment, because it really does take minutes a move then. I am thinking this because at ply 5 the computer is the first and last to move. So if on its last move it sees that it can take a piece, it won't see that its piece is lost on the next move, so it will be more prone to making bad decisions. I could implement a 1-ply search extension on captures for odd-depth searches, but again, I'm down to only 1 more day.

Until next time,

Ed.