Fr. Z's Blog

Meanwhile,….

Black to move (despite board orientation).  White has made a bad move with h4. Punish it.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

I checked the “Earth Labora” page of the traditional Benedictine monks of Le Barroux, who are making good wines from the ancient vineyards left by the Avignon popes.  They have 10 and 20 and 40 year PORTS.  HERE  I haven’t had any yet.

For 10% off at their store use the code FATHERZ10

They also have an assortment:

Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalis Wine Assortment

Of course it is mostly red.  I’ve had all three of these wines.  Very good.  HERE

Featuring 10 bottles of Via Caritatis Lux Red wine, this wine assortment was created in honor of his eminence Cardinal Mueller’s recent visit to Washington, D.C. It also includes one bottle each of the Via Caritatis Lux White and Lux Rosé wines, as an additional gift.

Remember that Card. Müller has been pretty vocal lately with a) his concerns about the upcoming “walking together” (toward the cliff) and b) pressure on Bp. Strickland.  A toast to Card. Müller!

I’ve been hearing more and more about ChatGPT, which is an online A.I. site.  You can ask questions or even put it to tasks.  About a year ago, one of you readers had ChatGPT write a poem about “walking together about walking together-ity” upcoming in October.  Since I will be in Roma at that time, I hope the air quality isn’t reduced because of their gaseous emissions.  I digress.  That eerily accurate and pretty good A.I. generated poem is HERE: It ran…

Synod on Synodality: A Poem by ChatGPT

In chambers where agendas play,
A Synod’s dance begins its sway,
A masquerade of “dialogue” they say,
Yet veils are thin, truth’s price to pay.

Synod on synodality, a modern scene,
Where liberal dreams may intervene,
A clever ruse, a cunning scheme,
In name of progress, they convene.

With every vote and subtle nod,
A liberal agenda seeks to prod,
Traditional hearts, they aim to sway,
But through the haze, we see their play.

Oh, Synod’s charade, you’re quite the show,
A liberal fest, with pomp aglow,
They whisper change and “open minds,”
Yet core beliefs, they leave behind.

Synod on synodality, a circus grand,
Where principles shift like shifting sand,
Tradition’s voice they try to drown,
While “tolerance” is their new crown.

But we’re no fools, we see the game,
Behind the curtain, it’s all the same,
A liberal masquerade, oh what a sight,
Where truth and orthodoxy take their flight.

So Synod, dance with your intent,
Your liberal leanings, blatant and bent,
A spectacle of “dialogue” and “new,”
Yet through it all, tradition rings true.

Meanwhile, white to move.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  US HERE – UK HERE

In chessy news, in Berlin, Wesley beat Nordirbek to emerge from the lower bracket to the final against Jan-Krzysztof Duda.  Duda won, garnering €80K.  This tournament was pretty kitchy in its coverage, but it was, I understand, broadcast live on TV in some places. I used YouTube to see it at a convenient time.  Wesley So secured €20K for 2nd.  The event shows that short-time format chess is on the rise.  A sign of the time.

Tomorrow, 22 Sept – the Birthday of Bilbo and Frodo – Nakamura v. Carlsen in the Speedchess Championship.

And…

? An incredible performance by 9-year-old FM Faustino Oro (2325)!
The ?? Argentinian prodigy scored 6,5/9 in the ITT Copa Ciudad de Comodoro Rivadavia with a performance rating of 2452 and achieved his first IM norm. ?

? El Mundo del Ajedrez pic.twitter.com/BFRQiY0t6O

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) September 18, 2023

Photo by The Great Roman™

Meanwhile, white to move and mate in two.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

In Berlin yesteday for the kitchy but lucrative “Armageddon” blitz, Wesley So defeated Richard Rapport and must now face Nodirbek Abdusattorov. The winner plays Duda for €80,000!

Use FATHERZ10 at checkout

Meanwhile, I watched a podcast yesterday Fabi, Christian and Yassir and learned about Chessify.

This is really interesting. Instead of getting ever stronger computers to handle chess databases and analysis, you can use a cloud based super-computer. You “rent” time on it. It can do things that our home computers couldn’t dream of… not that our home computers… at least I hope not. I’m not sure what my computer is doing when I’m away.

Anyway, Chessify gives access to the best engines and tablebase. There is a free level that analyzes at 1,000 kN/s speed. Paid, up to 1 BN/s. Not sure exactly what that is or how it might translate into actual language. One billion N per second where N is… “nodes”. Okay… HERE…

A node, … is a chess position with its evaluation and history, i.e. castling rights, repetition of moves, move turn, etc. Once you make a move, the engine starts calculating various continuations in search of the best move. This process can be described as a decision tree with its root being the current position. Every legal move creates a new position, known as a child node, and each of those child nodes, in turn, grows into more branches with every legal move.

FWIW… after White’s first move the number of possible positions is 20 (16 pawn moves, 4 knight moves). After 2 moves: 400 distinct chess positions. After 3 moves: 5,362 distinct chess positions or 8,902 total positions after three moves (White’s second move). You see where this is going. After 7 moves: 3,284,294,545.

The total number of chess positions is called the Shannon number, which is 10^120,.

That’s a lot of nodes. Anyway,

Stockfish working on 4 CPUs of an average local computer considers around 5,000k nodes per second, which is insufficient for in-depth analysis. A local high-end computer, on the other hand, can support up to 20,000 kN/s; and a special pay-top-dollar local server, which may be owned by some super GMs only, will provide around 50,000kN/s. Higher speeds are possible to reach only with cloud servers: from 100,000 to 1 million kN/s and even higher if needed.

When I turn on Stockfish to analyze something, immediately the cooling fan revs up.  I really need a new computer.

Fun facts.

Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  US HERE – UK HERE

Black to move and win.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  US HERE – UK HERE

The Benedictine in Norcia make great beer. I’ll bet your parish priest might like to have some.

If you want a meal that’s sort of awful but not completely, this is your place in the via S. Paolo alla Regola.

Wesley So (defeated Humpy) and Richard Rapport (defeated Gukesh) must duke it out in the lower bracket of the Armageddon Finale.  Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Jan-Krzysztof Duda will face off in the upper bracket.

Meanwhile, white to move and win.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Use FATHERZ10 at checkout

Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  US HERE – UK HERE

In Berlin the Grand Finale of the Armageddon Series is taking place on September 14-20 at the World Chess Club.  On Day 5, Wesley So (yay!), who had lost in the upper bracket and therefore dropped to the lower, defeated Sam Shankland.  Wesley will face Humpy Koneru who had defeated Nodirbek, even in the upper as Richard Rapport will face Gukesh D.    This is interesting because women and men are mixed in the brackets, thus responding to something I’ve wondered: how will women do against the male super GMs.   The video coverage and setting is pretty cheesy and high tech and, frankly, annoying.  One of the gimmicky elements is that you can see the heart rates of the players.

Also, for you historians, Chessbase is running a series of articles about 1993, when TWO World Championship matches were played, one sponsored by FIDE between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman in the Netherlands and the other by the wildcat Professional Chess Association (PCA – members – 2) between reigning World Champ Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short in London at the Savoy Theatre.  In the FIDE match, during the opening ceremonies on 4 Sept, the big banner over the stage caught on fire, causing energetic reactions.  Kasparov v. Short, the first match between a Russian champ and a non-Russian challenger since Spassky v. Fischer started on 7 Sept.     The press center in London was at the legendary 19th chess epicenter Simpson’s-in-the-Strand.  I wrote about it HERE.

Kasparov and Short broke with FIDE and formed the PCA six months before, mostly because FIDE venues couldn’t raise the prize money.  Eventually the London Times stepped up and offered £1.7 million.   This match had its own pyrotechnics: a bomb scare.

Kasparov pretty much wiped out Short, who nevertheless got 3/8 of the prize money, £65K.

The matches were played with analog clocks, since there weren’t digital clocks yet.

In other news, 20 years ago on 8 Sept there started the Russia v Rest of the World match in Moscow.  One of the games featured Judith Polgar v. Kasparov.  Judith won.

On the theme of anniversaries, I was with a priest friend last night and we reviewed (not fully) the three PODCAzTs I did back in 2009 for the 40th anniversary of the Novus Ordo.  Paul VI gave three General Audience talks about the changes that would be implemented beginning on the 1st Sunday of Advent in 1969.  In the PODCAzTs I give some context, what was going on in the world, what songs were popular, etc.   If analog clock were still in use in 1993 for chess, in 1969 when the Novus Ordo started, Apollo 12 was just on the Moon and the first 747 was used.