Monthly Archives: September 2020

Geographically, the NBA of today is completely different from what it was 20 years ago. Compare the graphics of top shot locations from the 2001-2002 season to the current season there are very noticeable differences in the types of shots players are now taking. In the 01-02 season, the shots were dispersed throughout the court. Now, players are more judicious in their shot-selection, having excised most if not all mid-range shots from their repertoire.

There is no clearer sign of the influence of analytics in the NBA than the decrease in mid-range shots. The mathematical justification behind this trend is simple a three is worth more than two. Players shoot on average around 35% to 36% from the 3-point line every season. Since players will make a 3-point shot slightly more than one out of every three tries, a 3-point shot on average yields a little more than a point per shot. So, for a 2-point shot to be as mathematically effective, players would have to shoot a little better than 50% to justify taking the shot over a potential 3-pointer. However, the league average from the mid-range hovers around 40% to 45%.

Every team now knows where the most efficient shots come from and strive to create those shots. There is a certain uniformity to every teams style of play, at least in the results they try to achieve. While this trend might make the modern day offenses more efficient, some decry this push for maximum efficiency, arguing it sacrifices an element of creativity in the sport in favor of math.

These days theres such an emphasis on the 3 because its proven to be analytically correct, Gregg Popovich, the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, said. Theres no basketball anymore, theres no beauty in it.

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Similar concerns pervade across sports. In basketball, purists like Popovich lament how the game has been simplified to who takes and makes more threes. In baseball, analytics has ushered in an era of more home runs and strikeouts, prompting questions on whether the art of hitting is being lost.

Another sport where people have seemingly forsaken creative play for optimal play is chess, but in chess, these strategies are not derived by math; they are instead derived from chess engines. There are currently two types of engines that players consult. Engines like Stockfish use brute-force, relying on its computation power to analyze far more possible positions than a human could. On the other hand, engines like Leela (Lc0) learned chess the way a human would. After being given the basic rules of the game, it played itself over and over until it learned what strategies work and what strategies do not. Either way, engines have now far surpassed even the best chess players.

As there are more possibilities in chess than there are atoms in the universe, humans cannot always directly replicate the moves employed by these engines. However, engines have impacted the way people think about positional advantages, and especially about defense.

Human psychology is that if youre being attacked, you feel defensive, you feel uneasy, Stern sophomore and treasurer of the NYU Chess Club Manu Reddy said via phone. Computers dont care.

Without human emotions weighing it down, engines have shown that there are ways to maneuver out of defensive positions to punish overaggression by their opponents.

I think youre going to see less games with a lot of aggressive, sharp play because people will know far enough into the opening and neutralize that, Reddy said. They know that the computer will have said that their position is better.

The influence of engines in the sport has also prompted questions about whether this search for an optimal playstyle has drained the sport of its creativity. In basketball, math has restricted the types of offense a team can run. In chess, engines have shown that aggressive styles of play can be exploited with sound defensive play, incentivizing players to collectively adopt more defensively-oriented strategies. With an increased focus on defensive solidity and ability to plan their moves ahead using engines, players are also drawing more games than before.

But these concerns miss the mark. Analytics and computer processing might have produced these optimized principles of how to play basketball or chess, but human ingenuity is displayed in ways the teams or the chess player work to actualize those principles.

In basketball, the creativity is in how teams leverage the unique talents of their players to get good looks from the 3-point line. The Houston Rockets and the Miami Heat both ranked among the top three teams in 3-point shots taken, but their offensive philosophy could not diverge more. In their star guard James Harden, the Rockets have one of the most potent isolation scorers in NBA history. Thus, their offense is built to generate 3-pointers off of his individual brilliance. Without an individual scoring star like Harden, the Heat needed to construct a different type of offense. In Houston, everyone fits around Harden. In Miami, players work more synergistically. They run more actions that involve two or more players that work together to elevate each others skill sets. Both the Rockets and the Heat shoot a ton of threes, but those shots are not created in the same way.

Meanwhile, in chess, creativity comes not only in identifying the principles that engines employ but also in incorporating them into ones own game. Engines do not provide a rationale for their moves. It is up to each player to analyze why the engines prefer a certain move, and, as engines like Lc0 that learned chess through self-learning do not rely on conventional theories of chess, properly analyzing engine-generated moves require a willingness and ability to look at chess in a different way. Moreover, there is nothing inherently more creative about an aggressive strategy than a sound defensive one.

I think humans will be trained to become better defenders, which means that you will still get creative play, just not as much sharp, aggressive styles of play, Reddy said.

Sports are games of one-upmanship, and teams and players will always try to find a new edge against their opponents. In basketball, both teams know that their opponent is prioritizing 3-point shots over mid-rangers. So, their offense needs to beat a defensive scheme specifically designed to force teams to take mid-range shots. In chess, a shift to a more solid playstyle means players will have to be even more unrelenting about taking any positional or material advantage they have. Many sports might be experiencing an unprecedented change in how people think about the game, but that does mean there is no longer beauty in them.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Sept. 14, e-print edition. Email Kevin Ryu at [emailprotected]

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Is Creativity Dying in Sports? - NYU Washington Square News

The number of chess moves made in the history of the royal game is incalculable. Data taken from the study of the 2015 MegaBase (a database that contains over 4.5 million games) indicates that the average number of moves per game is roughly 38. In this one database alone are over 170 million moves.

There are many databases of chess games, and most of these are solely for tournament playso they inherently and purposefully do not include the overwhelming majority of online games, much less friendly or casual games.So, how do you select the 10 best chess moves of all time?

We began in a similar fashion to how a player selects a chess move: The Chess.com staff created a long list of candidate moves. Our original list was created by scouring books, articles, and multiple expert lists. We added moves from newer games, and we researched the overlaps. Next we started cutting down the long listagain and again. Eventually, we created a strong list of candidate moves, and then the Chess.com Content team voted.

Here are the resultsthe 10 best chess moves of all time:

Coming in at number 10 is the move voted as the best of all time by ChessKid's Chief Chess Officer, FM Mike Klein (a.k.a. FunMasterMike). In the 1964 USSR Championship, GM Ratmir Kholmov had a tough-looking position against the legendary GMDavid Bronstein. Even Stockfish does not see a move that gives White the advantage after Bronstein's 17...Qe7:

With the knight on c3 attacked and Black one move away from consolidation with 18...Bb7, Kholmov needed to find something quickly. Luckily for the chess world, he found an amazing combination!

The first endgame position on this list is seen in the game between Martin Ortueta Estaban and Jose Sanz Aguado played at Madrid in 1933. Black is winning in the following position, but the path forward is unclear. Black's bishop is a tall pawn, at the moment, and Black's pawn structure is more than shattered.

In this position, Sanz uncorked an amazing rook sacrifice with 31...Rxb2!! It takes Stockfish extra time to realize that this amazing move is completely winning for Blackthe passed pawns on the c-file cannot be stopped!

IM Edward Lasker (a five-time U.S. Open Champion and friend/distant relative of former world champion Emanuel Lasker) played a famous game against George Alan Thomas in London in 1912. The legendary king hunt begins after Thomas' blunder with 10...Qe7:

Lasker has a lead in development, his minor pieces dominate the center, and Black's kingside has been weakened. In this position, Lasker found a wonderful queen sacrifice that forces checkmate in seven moves.

This bishop endgame is unique on this list as it is the only studythe position is not from a game played by two players but was composed by a problemist. According to the Harold van der Heijden Endgame Study Database IV, this study was composed by P. Heuacker in 1930 and published in Neue Freie Presse #44.

So, how did this 90-year-old study make the list for the 10 best moves of all time? Let's take a look.

At first glance, this looks like a boring and dead-equal bishop ending. It feels like Black can just move their e-pawn and forever control the queening square for White's h-pawn with their dark-squared bishop on d4. If you show this position to Stockfish, it initially agrees and shows an evaluation of all zeros (0.00).

However, it is really White to move and win. The first move isn't terribly difficult to find, but it is the fourth move that blows my mind.

A truly beautiful endgame idea that displays that there is life in even the dullest-looking positions. The simultaneous simplicity and complexity make this my favorite studyI consider it icing on the cake that it still confuses powerful engines.

Bura had the white pieces against Paric in their game played in Yugoslavia in 1982. Bura was down two pawns, and his queen and rook were both hanging:

Trading queens with 1.Rxa1 Nxd4 looks unpleasant, but what else is there? Bura shows us!

It is rare that a desperado queen sacrifice occurs on an empty squareit is even rarer when it wins!

Kicking off the top five we have a favorite move of Chess.com's Chief Chess Officer, IM Danny Rensch. In the 1949 USSR Championships, GM Efim Geller had Black against GM Salo Flohr, and they reached the following rook and pawn endgame:

Geller is up a pawn, but his rook is attacked. If he allows White to take the e5-pawn with check, then his extra pawn on a4 could fall. What spectacular move did Geller play?

GM Evgeny Vladimirov, a world-class player at his peak, was on GM Garry Kasparov's team in the 1986 world championship match against GM Anatoly Karpov. However, he should be best known for the move he played against GM Vladimir Epishin in 1987, which reached the following position after Epishin's 25.Qxb3:

Recapturing the queen seems more than logical and would be the likely move by more than 99.99999% of chess players. Stockfish gives 26.cxb3 as roughly equal, while 26.axb3 gives a nice advantage to White. However, Vladimirov had other plans, and he found the only move that wins on the spot.

It takes a lot more than guts and calculations to find and play a move like 26.Bh6!! It requires creativity and vision beyond a measurable scope. Moves like this one are why some people play chess.

Frank Marshall was known for his brilliant attacks and tactics, and the move he played in this game is definitely the best move he ever played. Marshall had Black against Stefan Levitsky at the 1912 Breslau tournament, and the following position was reached after Levitsky's 23.Rc5:

Black is winning and has several moves that can maintain the advantagebut one move is outstanding in this position for Black. Can you find it?

Marshall's 23...Qg3!! is one of those moves that gets burned into people's memories quickly. To put a queen on a square where it can be captured so many times and still win so emphatically is unforgettable.

At the number-two spot, we have the first of two unanimous picksthat's right, the entire Chess.com Content team picked this incredible move. Meier was White against Muller in 1994 and achieved the following winning position:

Many moves keep White's advantage here, and more than one increases the advantage. However, the move played in the game is by far the most spectacular. Can you find it?

This move looks like an upgraded version of Marshall's legendary move for a few reasons:

The top move on the list will come as little surprise to those who have followed chess for a long time or have seen this move beforeit is widely accepted as the single best move of all time.

This move was the second unanimous vote by the Chess.com Content team and was voted as the best move by several Chess.com content team members, including Chess.com's Director of News, Peter Doggers; Chess.com's Curriculum Director, NM Jeremy Kane; and Director of Chess.com India, IM Rakesh Kulkarni.

Those who haven't seen this move before may be surprised that the sacrifice comes in an endgame, as GM Alexei Shirov is known as one of the greatest attacking players of all time. Although GMs Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana are ranked numbers one and two in the world (as of September 2020), Shirov still has the best move of all time.

Shirov produced his brilliancy as Black against GM Veselin Topalov at Linares in 1998, and the following opposite-colored bishop endgame was reached after Topalov's 47.Kg1:

Opposite-colored bishop endgames are known to be notoriously drawish. Despite being up two pawns, Black's path to victory is not clear. If White can get their king to the center (to e3 or d4), there will be no way through.What makes this move even more amazing is that Shirov finds the only way to actually win this position.

The move Shirov played is still not considered by Stockfish, which makes it that much more deliciousOK, that's enough buttering you up. Here is Shirov's mind-bending move with annotations by GM Daniel Naroditsky:

So there you have itChess.com's top-10 best moves of all time. I hope you enjoyed taking a look at these remarkable moves. In the comments, let us know your favorite of these moves or another one if not mentioned in this list.

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The 10 Best Chess Moves Of All Time - Chess.com

Chess has a popularity for chilly logic, however Vladimir Kramnik loves the sport for its magnificence. It is a type of creation, he says. His ardour for the artistry of minds clashing over the board, buying and selling complicated however elegant provocations and counters, helped him dethrone Garry Kasparov in 2000 and spend a number of years as world champion. But Kramnik, who retired from aggressive chess final 12 months, additionally believes his beloved sport has grown much less artistic. From a report: He partly blames computer systems, whose soulless calculations have produced an unlimited library of openings and defenses that top-flight gamers know by rote. oeFor fairly plenty of video games on the best stage, half of the sport typically a full sport is performed out of reminiscence, Kramnik says. You do not even play your personal preparation; you play your laptops preparation. Wednesday, Kramnik offered some concepts for learn how to restore among the human artwork to chess, with assist from a counterintuitive supply the worlds strongest chess laptop. He teamed up with Alphabet synthetic intelligence lab DeepMind, whose researchers challenged their superhuman game-playing software program AlphaZero to be taught 9 variants of chess chosen to jolt gamers into artistic new patterns.

In 2017, AlphaZero confirmed it may train itself to roundly beat the very best laptop gamers at both chess, Go, or the Japanese sport Shogi. Kramnik says its newest outcomes reveal beguiling new vistas of chess to be explored, if persons are keen to undertake some small modifications to the established guidelines. The mission additionally showcased a extra collaborative mode for the connection between chess gamers and machines. Chess engines had been initially constructed to play in opposition to people with the purpose of defeating them, says Nenad Tomasev, a DeepMind researcher who labored on the mission. Now we see a system like AlphaZero used for artistic exploration in tandem with people reasonably than against them. Individuals have performed chess for round 1,500 years, and tweaks to the principles arent new. Nor are grumbles that computer systems have made the sport boring.

Learn extra of this story at Slashdot.

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AI Ruined Chess. Now, It's Making the Recreation Lovely Once more - editorials360.com

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) If it were any other year, this would just be entering fire season. Instead, firefighters have been out on the front lines for months, with very little relief.

With the dry fuel and hot temperatures, firefighters knew fire season would start a couple months earlier this year but with more than 29 fires burning in the state, they never imagined it would be this bad.

We keep saying that every year is going to be worse and worse and this year has definitely taken the lead as the worst fire season we have ever seen, said Fire Marshall Steve Aubert from East Contra Costa County Fire.

From the Deer Zone Fire in East Contra Costa County to the Walbridge Fire in Sonoma, resources have been stretched thin.

Aubert added, There are not enough fire resources to battle this effectively.

But with at least two good months of fire season left, weary firefighters are ready for the next fight.

I will speak for Sonoma County firefighters, they will do anything that they can to protect the community that they serve, said Deputy Fire Chief Scott Westrope with the Santa Rosa Fire Department.

For some crews on the Walbridge fire just west of Healdsburg, they initially worked 60 hours straight before they saw a break. Deputy Chief Westrope says moving forward, the goal will be to find better ways to rotate the crews.

Its a fine line to walk between pushing the equipment and people too hard and providing the help we feel like we need to provide to the community, said Westrope.

But instead of adding resources as fire season has gotten worse year after year, the COVID pandemic has tightened the budgets of city and county governments across the state.

The adage is we are doing the best we can with what we have and we just move pieces around and always try to play the chess game to protect the community the best way possible, says Westrope.

In Sonoma County, the Walbridge fire is 97 percent contained but that does not mean the firefighters are getting a rest. The Santa Rosa Fire Department has sent engines and air support to other fires in the state, helping agencies that have come to their aid in the past.

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Early Fire Season Puts Weary Northern California Firefighters On Front Lines For Months - CBS San Francisco