Monthly Archives: March 2022

[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]

Last Saturday, March 12th, I was at the RACsclubhouse (Royal Auromobile Club) in Londons Pall Mall for the annual Varsity match between Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

First played in 1873, this is the worlds oldest chess contest and was for years reported on in the pages of the famous Russian chess magazine 64. When I played for Oxford from 1975-7, Cambridge were in the ascendant and we lost all three matches: personally, I lost to Michael Stean and drew twice with Jonathan Mestel. These things swing over time, and at the moment its very close. Cambridge started as the Elo favourites, but after an endgame save in the last game to finish, Oxford ran out the winners by the narrowest possible margin of 4-3, with the overall score now 60-58 to Cambridge with 22 draws.

The 1921 Oxford team | Find more info at BritBase, John Saunders excellent games archive

The match has been at the RAC now for nearly half a century, with a dinner afterwards, and in recent years internet coverage and commentary on site. This years commentator was Mathew Sadler and for some of the afternoon I acted as sous-commentator, chatting with Matthew about the games.

At one stage I mentioned that I normally use Houdini as my analysis engine, but Matthew [pictured], who of course is immensely knowledgable about computer chess and has written extensively on Alpha Zero, told me that the latest version of Stockfish is much stronger. I therefore decided to switch to it as my default analysis engine in ChessBase, but Im now wondering (and of course this can be changed with the click of a mouse) whether I was right.

The question of course is how to use the analysis and assessments produced. Most computer engines (Alpha Zero and its daughter Leela are different) are giant bean counters which produce a maximin, maximizing the minimum score they get against the opponent's supposedly best play. Depending on the accuracy of the analysis and the size of the beans, the scores will vary, and while Houdini with its rating, I dunno, of 2700 or 2800 tends to bumble around with assessments quite close to zero,Stockfish thunders its pronouncements giving assessments like +/- 2.5 in positions which look to my human eye to be fairly but not entirely clear; and going up/down to +/- 6 or more when even my human eye can see that it oughtto be winning.

The Ruy Lopez Breyer Variation

Pavel Eljanov explains in depth what Gyula Breyer already saw in 1911 and what became an opening choice of the likes of Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand or Carlsen. The Breyer Variation, which is characterised by the knight retreat to b8.

The certainty is wondrous but rather unsettling. When I was a kid, I no doubt made the mistake of trying to play the best moves. Nowadays, of course, I know better, and while I will stop and indeed try to work out the best solution in an obviously utterly critical position, most of the time I poddle along choosing decent moves without worrying too much about whether there are better ones. To do this, Ive created a story for myself that I can quickly select goodish moves in reasonable positions (of course its much harder if youre under heavy pressure). But gazing into the face of God, I have to be careful not to be blinded and to undermine this essential fiction.

So Im still thinking about what to do. Perhaps with enough time available I should use both, analysing both with St Houdini and the deity Stockfish. Certainly when Im streaming I try much of the time to use my own carbon-based resources and sometimes dip into a fairly hobbled version of Stockfish which isnt too scary. But occasionally, when I want to know the truth I turn to My Lord Sesse (the Norwegian-based fusion of Stockfish and ridiculously powerful hardware).

One point I should make in general is not to take too much notice of computer assessments, even if they are right. They are extremely relevant to the worlds top players when they are doing opening preparation, but for the rest of us they are just a tool. In particular, Ive noticed that when people check their games after playing online, there are some engines which dish out ??s like confetti. Of course people do play some terrible moves, especially at blitz, but ?? should mean a move that loses a piece or maybe even a rook or at a higher level makes a complete mess of the position. It shouldnt mean that the assessment has dropped drastically without in human terms affecting the result.

One reason I go to the Varsity match is to help choose the Best Game and Brilliancy Prize often with Ray Keene, in this case with Matthew. Both receive works by the artist Barry Martin and, in this case, since the Brilliancy Prize was shared, both players got prints.

Cambridge team: back, left to right: Miroslav Macko, Matthew Wadsworth, Imogen Camp, Harry Grieve. Front, left to right: Jan Petr, Declan Shafi (captain), Ognjen Stefanovic, Koby Kalavannan. | Photo: John Saunders

For the best game, we decided on the board 1 win by Oxford, and Ive annotated it, out of interest, using both engines. Ive given them a fairly short time to make an assessment, so they might have changed their minds had they worked for a longer period of time but this experimentnonetheless gives an indication of the huge difference between them.

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

Understanding Middlegame Strategies Vol.3 - The Hedgehog

Throughout my playing career I have found the Hedgehog one of the most difficult type of positions to master. The basic aim of this video is to improve understanding of these complex positions and to help tournament players score better.

Follow this link:

A tale of two universities and two engines - Chess News

The first event of the 2022 Champions Chess Tour saw Ian Nepomniachtchi winning the preliminaries with a 29/45 score. In the second tournament of the series, Le Quang Liem managed to score 32 points in as many games to win the Charity Cup prelims. Both times, Magnus Carlsen finished in sole second place.

It is true that Les score has to do with the fact that the participants of the Charity Cup had a lower rating average (2693) than the participants of the Airthings Masters (2708), but that does not take away from his remarkable achievement. Le, after all, vastly outscored the likes of Ding Liren, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Richard Rapport not to mention that he finished ahead of the world champion himself.

The Ruy Lopez Breyer Variation

Pavel Eljanov explains in depth what Gyula Breyer already saw in 1911 and what became an opening choice of the likes of Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand or Carlsen. The Breyer Variation, which is characterised by the knight retreat to b8.

With Le and Carlsen easing their way into the knockout, Tuesdays excitement for the spectators was provided by the fight for the last qualifying spots. Going into the final round, no fewer than five players had between 19 and 21 points, and all of them were one bad result away from being eliminated.

In the end, Vidit, Praggnanandhaa and Rapport were the ones missing the cut, while David Navara and David Anton made it through thanks to wins over Pragg and Ju Wenjun respectively. Particularly impressive was Antons performance on day 4, as he scored 3/3 (or 9/9, with the football scoring system) to climb from eleventh to fourth place and get a spot in the quarterfinals.

Navara, Pragg and Rapport all finished on 21/45, but Navara was the one advancing to the knockout stage thanks to his better tiebreak score: a larger number of wins than Rapport and a better Sonneborn-Berger score than Pragg.

16-year-old Praggnanandhaa entered the final day of the preliminaries a point behind Vidit and Hans Niemann, topping the bottom half of the standings table. After drawing Niemann, the youngster convincingly defeated Van Foreest with the white pieces.

Van Foreest had overestimated his chances in the late middlegame, pushing his f-pawn to leave his king lacking defenders. Pragg immediately went for an attack, which culminated with 31.Rxg5+ Kh4 32.Qd4+ Kxg5 33.Ne4+, forking queen and king. Van Foreest resigned.

Going into round 15, Pragg had 21 points, as did his opponent Anton, while Rapport (20 points), Vidit (19) and Navara (18) all had chances to climb to the top half of the table.

In a complicated struggle against Anton, Pragg got what the engines considered to be a clearly superior position in the middlegame.

Smash the Sicilian with the Smith-Morra Gambit

The Smith-Morra Gambit (1.e4 c5 2.d4!) is a great attacking weapon against the popular Sicilian . On move two White sacrifices a pawn for fast development and good attacking chances, and Black can easily fall into one of the many devious opening traps.

Black has an exchange for a pawn, and he also has the bishop pair, while both players have mobile pawn chains, one in each flank despite the engines evaluation, all three results are possible here, especially given the tournament situation and the fact that this was a 15-minute encounter!

In the ensuing struggle, it was Anton who managed to better handle the tension, getting an 83-move win that catapulted him to fourth place in the final standings table.

Find both Praggnanandas games in the replayer below.

In the penultimate round, runaway leader Le defeated Navara from a materially balanced rook endgame. As Karsten Mller states in his annotations below, rook endings have a large drawish tendency, but a powerful passed pawn can change that picture.

50...Kd5, instead of 50...Rc4 (which would fail to 51.g4), was correctly chosen by Le, who went on to score his ninth win of the tournament!

Read more from the original source:

Charity Cup: Anton wins three in a row to reach knockout - Chess News

It's almost lights out on the new season of Formula 1 racing. This year, the chase for the championship begins on Sunday, March 20, at the Bahrain Grand Prix and continues for 22 races, concluding in November with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

In a thrilling finale, last season's winner wasn't determined until the final race when Max Verstappen of Red Bull beat out Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes for the Drivers' Championship -- in highly controversial fashion. It was Verstappen's first F1 title and ended Hamilton's run of consecutive championships at four. Mercedes, however, beat Red Bull in the Constructors' Championship, which is given to the racing team with the most points.

Will Verstappen and Red Bull continue to overtake the once-dominant Mercedes? Can 37-year-old Hamilton regain his crown as F1's best driver? Will other teams, such as Ferrari and McLaren, climb the leaderboard?

Those looking to follow all the drama at home in the US will need access to ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPNews in order to catch every second of the action. The entire race weekend, including practice sessions and qualifying, will be shown in the US on ESPN's family of television networks.

No single provider has exclusive rights to the network, so there are plenty of ways to get ESPN and watch the races without cable. We've broken down everything you need to know in order to stream F1 races this season.

Lewis Hamilton, driving Mercedes (left), and Max Verstappen, driving Red Bull, are set to open up the new F1 season.

What is F1 and how is it different from IndyCar?

Both IndyCar and F1 are open-wheeled, single-seater racing formats. This means that the cars can only fit one person and have uncovered wheels that protrude from the body of the vehicle. Despite their basic similarities, F1 and IndyCar offer very different experiences.

In F1, there are only 10 teams, with two drivers apiece for a total of 20 drivers. Most races must go for 305 km, which is about 190 miles. Each driver needs to use two different tires in the race, so a pit stop is mandatory, though cars are not allowed to refuel. Races average around two hours in length and are held at venues all over the world.

Teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year developing their cars. All cars must have certain elements -- for example, gearboxes must have eight gears plus a reverse and last for six consecutive races -- but teams have leeway to tweak and change some parts of their car, including their engines, in the pursuit of speed.

In contrast, the cars featured in IndyCar are more standardized. They all have the same aerodynamic kit and chassis and can only be powered by one of two engines -- either a Honda or a Chevrolet. That said, teams are allowed to develop some of their own parts, like dampers and some of their suspensions.

IndyCar races occur on a wide range of tracks, from fast ovals to road and street courses. The length of the races also varies, with some, like the Indianapolis 500, lasting 500 laps and taking over three hours to complete. Not surprisingly, refueling during pit stops is a big part of the strategy during IndyCar races. Teams can field more than two cars, meaning that the amount of drivers on the grid fluctuates from race to race.

IndyCar is mostly considered an American sport and does not have the same level of money and glamour associated with it compared to the globe-hopping F1 circuit.

Why should I care about F1?

F1 races might best be described as a sort of action-packed chess match that takes place while drivers are throttling around a track at close to 200 mph. Teams need both strategy and skill to compete against some of the best minds in motorsports.

F1 is also full of strong personalities. The Netflix documentary series F1: Drive to Survivefollows many of the teams and drivers over the course of a year and has helped raise the profile of the sport in the US. Released earlier this month, season four of the series chronicles the tight championship race between rivals Verstappen and Hamilton. It also focuses on the internal battles between drivers on the same team, while giving viewers a peek into the tense, pressurized world of elite racing.

Does F1 stream on ESPN Plus?

ESPN does not air any F1 coverage on its ESPN Plus streaming service. If you want to watch the practices or races you will need a television provider of some kind or to pay for F1's $80 per season TV Pro subscription.

Races are held on Sunday and are usually spaced two weeks apart. Here's the entire schedule, all times ET:

Race weekends normally start on Friday with multiple practice runs and continue on Saturday with qualifying. The races themselves take place Sunday. ESPN typically airs practices and qualifying on a mix of ESPN 2 and ESPNews, while the races tend to air on ESPN. F1 events in North America often land on ABC.

As of now, the network has only solidified the exact channel lineup for the first two races of the season, both of which air on ESPN. Here are some of the best ways to catch the entire race weekend without cable.

You can catch the entire race weekend with a subscription to YouTube TV. ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPNews are all included in the package, which means you'll have all the channels you need in order to watch every second of the action.

Read our YouTube TV review.

Hulu Plus Live TV is a little more expensive than YouTube TV, but it also offers all the channels you need to watch every second of race weekend. As an added bonus, Hulu Plus Live TV comes with the rest of the Disney Bundle, which includes a subscription to Disney Plus, as well as ESPN Plus. F1 races don't air on ESPN Plus, but the service offers a ton of other content for die-hard sports fans.

Read our Hulu Plus Live TV review.

Sling TV's $35 Orange plan might be a good choice for F1 fans who are primarily looking to just watch the races on Sundays. This plan is one of the cheapest ways to get access to ESPN and ESPN 2. Those looking for ESPNews will have to opt for the $11 Sports Extra ad-on. Sling TV lacks ABC, which could be a problem for fans hoping to catch the F1 races in North America.

Read our Sling TV review.

FuboTV costs $70 per month and includes ABC, ESPN, and ESPN 2. The base package lacks ESPNews, but you can add it for an extra $8 a month with the Fubo Extra Package or pay for the $80-a-month Elite streaming tier that includes Fubo Extra. Check out whichlocal networks FuboTV offers here.

Read our FuboTV review.

DirecTV Stream is the most expensive live TV streaming service. Its cheapest, $70-a-month Plus package includes ESPN, ESPN 2 and ABC, but you'll need to move up to the $90-a-month Choice plan to get ESPNews. You can use itschannel lookup toolto see which local channels are available in your area.

Read our DirecTV Stream review.

For gearheads looking to get every angle on the action, F1 offers its own streaming service. F1 TV Pro costs $80 per season and gives fans access to all races from F1, F2, F3 and Porsche Supercup. You'll be able to livestream every track session from all F1 grand prix and have access to all driver onboard cameras and team radios. You'll also be able to watch full on-demand races, replays and highlights, along with F1's historic race archive.

F1 also offers a TV Access Plan for $27 per year, which only gives you on-demand access to races once they have been completed. Users will still be able to view all F1 onboard cameras, along with full replays of F1, F2, F3 and Porsche Supercup. It also includes the historic race archive.

See the latest cars and automotive trends from supercars to SUVs. Delivered Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Read the rest here:

Formula 1: How to Watch the Bahrain Grand Prix and F1 Racing in 2022 - CNET