by scribe | Dec 6, 2017 | current news, literature, openings, ruminations
Today, like many people, I was shocked by the news in my Facebook new feed. AlphaZero beats Stockfish! For those who (like me) had never heard of AlphaZero, let me explain that it is a new deep-learning algorithm created by the same folks who gave you AlphaGo, the...
by scribe | Nov 28, 2017 | current news, literature, off-topic, people, ruminations
I hope that everybody reading this will check out the new video about the 2016 Chess Olympiad at YouTube! I apparently cannot embed it in this post, but here is a link to the video. I really don’t think that people outside the chess world appreciated what a...
by scribe | Oct 17, 2017 | games, literature, people, positions
(A post in the Halloween spirit.) Last night I was playing chess against Shredder, the computer program, and set its rating at 2220. At that very moment, through a glitch in the time-space continuum, the ghost of Aron Nimzovich was summoned and possessed my computer....
by scribe | Sep 21, 2017 | current news, endings, literature, positions, tournaments
Watching the World Cup is just like watching a master class in endgames! We’ve already had three matches decided by very difficult K+R versus K+B endgames, with equal pawns on both sides. Today, in the semifinal round, the masters decided to teach us a class in...
by scribe | Jun 25, 2017 | current news, literature, off-topic, positions
I’m going off topic today to promote a book written by a friend of mine. This is a copy of the review that I posted at goodreads.com. Through the Shadowlands: A Science Writer’s Odyssey Into an Illness Science Doesn’t Understand by Julie Rehmeyer My...
by scribe | Jun 12, 2017 | literature, openings, people, positions
Yesterday I met again with Gjon Feinstein and Mike Splane, this time with Eric Montany as our fourth. For the last two years he has been working on a book, and this was the first time he had gotten together with us since he finished. Until this weekend, Eric had...
