Media comments on chess

[Joshua Gibbs]

Ill just bang this here because its great https://twitter.com/SergeyKaryakin/stat ... 5769756672

[Stewart Reuben]

Sunil Weeramantry was concerned that the top board pairing in the last round at Gibraltar was incorrect. Normally the highest ranking player receives his due colour. Anton had had 5 White and 4 Blacks. Yet he played White in the tenth round. He asked for it to be verified.
It was quite easy to do so. 7/9 of the leading players had had 5 Whites and 4 Blacks. BUT Anton was the only one who had Black in round 9. Thus he got White in Round 10.
Had Hou Yifan requested a similar audit, I have no doubt she would have found she was paired with the correct opponents.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Stewart.

What about the round 9 pairings.

In Round 8 Yifan lost to Ju Wenjun her main rival for the top female prize.

In round 9 Ju Wenjun on 6 pts could have been paired with 6 of the 7 players who were due Black
who were also on 6 pts. Instead she was given a down float to play someone (Seb Maize) who had 5½.
Caruana was on 6pts and due a Black, why could Ju not play him.


If I had just lost in round 8 to a rival and the victor was given what I'd consider an easier game
in the next round, I await the outcome of that game ( Ju won) and make a protest in round 10.

I'd place half a banana under all the chairs and 15 minutes into
the games open the windows to let the Gibraltar Apes in.

This is what happens when you let computers run things. A proper balls up.
Send for Alex Mac and his deck of magic cards, he will do a fair unbiased draw.

This is also what happens when you have a separate prize for females.
Why have one?

[Leonard Barden]

Caruana was on 6pts and due a Black, why could Ju not play him.

Because Caruana was upfloated to Nakamura on 6.5?

In the final 7 rounds at Gibraltar, both Hou and Ju played Adams. Hou and Ju played each other.
In their remaining games all 5 of Ju's opponents were 2600s or 2700s. All 5 of Hou's opponents were only 2400s or 2500s.

Ju met much stronger opposition.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Leonard,

I suspected as much, Caruana getting upfloated being the highest rating.
IS there not a system (there seems to be so many) where the lowest rated player was upfloated.

I'm not questioning Ju's overall win at all, I'm trying to see if Yifan had other reasons added to
her Magnificent Seven from 9 rounds. The final straw kind of thing. She was obviously upset.

All good fun....and good publicity. It's the kind of story the main stream media lap up.
I noted in quite a few reports there was no mention of Nakamura (he won it don't you know).

This is new ground regarding media coverage, usually it is when a player is caught cheating,
a World Champions storms out of a press conferences or someone is punching Armenians.

[Stewart Reuben]

I am surprised nobody raised the question of how come both Adams and Short were floated down one round. Clearly favouring English players.
The alternative is too horrible to countenance. That the pairings were totally fairly decided by a computerised pairing system.

You can certainly argue with the computerised Swiss Pairing system. Indeed i often do - before the event. But not with their objectivity.

e,g, 9 or 11 rounds you are certain that half the players will have the advantage of 5 Whites and half the disadvantage of 4 Whites. 10 rounds, occasionally somebody will get 6-4 as happened rthere strikingly in Gib this year. But that isn't written in stone. Why not balance off the colours after each round with a couple of down-floats in the middle pairings?
I believe the Seeded Swiss Pairing system is mediocre.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Stewart,

I see nobody has replied to your draw query.

Stick around, you might get the 'It came out of a machine' explanation by the man in the sleeveless maroon tank top.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/gibraltar-flash


The round 8 draw that put Yikan and Ju together. Is that correct.

The round 8 draw.

http://www.chess-results.com/tnr257693. ... YES&wi=821

Rating wise should it not have been Yifan v Piorun Kacper (2615) he was the higher rated player,
Ju's rating was 2583. Yifan and Ju had not met either of the other two in a previous round.

Should Ju not have played as Black Carlstedt Jonathan instead of Yifan.

Just still trying to get my head around those 5 moves.
I have seen many draw disputes, you will not doubt have seen more.
The drastic ones end in a walk out. A default.

Yifan stayed away from the board for 25 minutes.
Possibly a 'I dare you to default' stare going on between her and the Arbiter(s).

Then came her unimaginative 5 moves. She should have played.

1.c3
2.e3
3.d3
4.e4
5.d4

Which spells out the word 'CEDED' (to surrender or give up.)

Of course I do not profess to understand this draw system, I never bothered with it.
I just sat down and played (swindled) who ever was it unlucky enough to get me.
My reasoning being if this person has ended up playing me then they must be a bum.

[Roger de Coverly]

The round 8 draw that put Yikan and Ju together. Is that correct.

A number of people have reversed engineered the pairings using actual Gibraltar data and the program used by the organisers. So if the question is, "did the arbiters cook the pairings?", the answer is no. If the question is "could alternative rules be employed?", the answer is yes, but that's always true. In particular, the pairings used are blind to gender and only depend on starting rank and subsequent results.

The method used in Gibraltar is widely used across the world, even in the UK.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Roger,

These other 'number of people' have used their copy of the said program, not The program used in Gibraltar.
These other 'number of people' have used their computer, not The computer used in Gibraltar.

It's now obvious the Gibraltar program and computer has been hacked.
Arbiters and players should change all their passwords with great haste.

In future tournaments will be run by one computer running one de-bugged, unhacked program.

Organisers will feed the data (encrypted of course) to the master computer via safemail.
(safemail is the same as email....only safer...uncrackable.)
The computer will make the draw and return it findings.

The location of this Master computer should be known only to a very few trusted individuals.
(if needs be I know a good hiding place in Scotland.)

[Stewart Reuben]

Sorry about this. I am returning to the topic of the thread.
Tuesday I had the following letter published in the Daily Telegraph:

SIR - Professor Trevor Harley expresses concern about the growth of Artificial Intelligence and how it will ruin the economy.
I have been reading science fiction stories about these problems for over 60 years. Indeed, in one of my fields of expertise, chess, I was very concerned. Would not professional chess be swept aside when the machines became stronger than the greatest humans? Indeed Gary Kasparov, then the world's greatest-ever player lost a match to a machine. But professional chess is just as thriving as ever.
Eventually people will have computers embedded in their brain. That may indeed spell the end of competitive chess, as we know it.
With AI, of course livelihoods will be at risk. We will have to adapt. I do hope we cannot predict all the future changes in our society.
But the idea, that goods made by robots must become too expensive to buy, is very short-sighted.
Stewart Reuben
English Chess Federation Honorary Life Vice President
Twickenham, Middlesex

[Brian Towers]

But the idea, that goods made by roberts must become too expensive to buy, is very short-sighted.

Indeed. British Leyland had this technology 35 years ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdxySJwGYdY.

[Roger de Coverly]

Chessbase notes that the Washington State lawyer who got the Trump travel ban suspended is/was a CM/FM standard player.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-former ... -president

https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2003643

[JustinHorton]

Not totally sure he was a "professional chess player" as claimed here.

[Roger de Coverly]

Not totally sure he was a "professional chess player"

I'm not sure he claims that. The relevant quote would seem to be

Ferguson compared the pace to his time on the professional chess circuit in Europe playing under the clock.

It's a loose definition, but any International Open could be described as part of "the professional chess circuit".

[JustinHorton]

I'm not sure he claims that.

He doesn't. The sub-headline (if that's the right term) does.