The Pylon Show

Just listened to the first episode of The Pylon Show. It's wonderful (though I would have called it "The Monty Pylon Show), I highly recommend it. I agree with Artosis and Incontrol's sentiment that the current SC2 community is too commercialized and that the amateurish feel of the early days of SC/SC2 are sorely missed.

What I liked most about the show is that the hosts can comment a little bit more freely on what's going on in the community and aren't bound to non-stop promoting a commercial product like they are when they cast WCS or GSL.
I already have enough corporate bullshit in my day job; when I play and watch video games, I want the "amateurish" and "dirty" look and feel, trash talk, and all...

(Having said that - and I know I digress - Artosis and Tasteless' GSL casts are far and away the best professional SC2 content out there.

OK, now to the point. Regarding the Avilo drama. Full disclosure, I don't know how this played out, all I know about the situation is what the two hosts discussed. I also have no opinion on Avilo as an SC2  personality. I'm just making a point on principle here:

It is ALWAYS a bad idea to penalize misbehavior in a current game by handing out a penalty for a future match, for the following 2 reasons:
Artosis and Incontrol discussed reason (1) but I think missed (2) which is more important 

1. It gives Avilo an opportunity to game the system because he can basically choose which unimportant "next" game he'd like to lose
2. It gives an unfair and potentially tournament-distorting advantage to the opponent of that "next" game who gets an easy win without deserving it. If Avilo is penalized because he accuses his CURRENT opponent of cheating (arguably just to get under the person's skin), it's also the CURRENT opponent who should benefit from any sanctions agains Avilo. Rewarding Avilo's next opponent for no good reason could even have tournament-distorting consequences (if for example Avilo's current and next opponent are in direct competition for something, or if Avilo gets a forced loss against a player he would have beaten easily under normal circumstances).

And thanks Artosis and Incontrol - apparently their show fascinated me enough to "resurrect" this blog... well done!

White House Finally Responds to Match-Fixing Scandal and Arrest of Yoda

About time, I hope he'll be brought to justice.

#WhiteHouse finally comments on #Yoda's arrest in matchfixing scandal #Starcraft #LotV #Proleague #Blizzard https://t.co/7xtrV4pSkl

— RevTiberius (@RevTiberius) November 21, 2015

2015 WCS Global Finals - Round of 16 Recap

DISCLAIMER: When I was still actively playing SC2, I never got beyond rank #1 in my Diamond League, so I'm clearly not good enough to really understand the nuances between the players at the very top.
However, I'm also Honorary Chairman of the League of the Ultra-Opinionated Gentlemen, and as such I'm always happy to share my point of view.

As I spent most of yesterday watching the events at WCS Ro16 unfold, I greatly enjoyed the high level of play yet at the same time came away a little disappointed because of the many one-sided series. Here are some of my impressions:

Fantasy - Hero
After a super-exciting first game, the series turned the way everybody including myself expected. Hero was too strong for Fantasy, and let's face it, Hero simply belongs in a WCS final, at least Ro4

Classic - Byul
I've been following the Korean SC2 scene for a long time, but for some reason I've always been pretty much indifferent about these two players. Whenever that happens, I usually root for the player whose advance would keep the race balance intact, Byul in this case because there were only 4 Zergs at this tournament, and I expected Maru to beat Rogue.
Decisive victory for Classic - I didn't know that apparently this always happens when they meet in a tournament, but it seems to me Byul sold himself short in this series. I'm not really sure what went wrong for Byul, but losing 0-3 just doesn't do him justice.
I recently read an interesting article about "The Strongest Chess Players Who Never Became World Champion". I hope Byul won't one day become the topic of a similar article about Starcraft.

Innovation - Zest
It's almost a shame that the WCS finals are so stacked because this match was definitely worth of the WCS final, especially ~6 months ago before Zest fell into a slump. Given all the hype around this series, the outcome was pretty disappointing. 3-0 just isn't good enough for players of this caliber. I'm always rooting for the terran, but in this case I felt sorry for Zest.
Yes, this was an excellent performance by Innovation, but where I seem to differ slightly from a lot of other commentators and observers is that I don't think this has made Innovation the favorite to win WCS just yet.

Life - Lilbow
I don't like Life because he beat Parting in the GSL final, and I don't like Lilbow because he's French ;-) Given the race distribution of this tournament (way too many Protoss) I was rooting for Life. Also because Life's the bigger name and would make for more interesting matches later on.
Other than that, again somewhat of a disappointment, 3-0's just aren't very exciting. Obviously Life was the clear favorite to win this series, but considering that he's no longer the UBER-ZERG he once was, I was hoping/expecting Lilbow to win at least one game. And yet, for the life of me (pun intended) I don't understand why Life's opponents always play as if they didn't know that he's known for early ling aggression.

Polt - Rain
Pretty clear cut on paper: Rain, a recent 2015 GSL champion the heavy favorite vs. Polt, who's fallen off the radar a little bit in recent months. And yet I think Rain was the lucky one here and advanced when Polt was playing slightly better. I guess this is one of those times where you can play better than your opponent and still lose the match.

SOS - Parting
I know SOS's results are pretty solid overall, but I do feel that people are giving him too much credit because he won those $100,000 a while ago. At the same time though, Parting is also no longer the dominant force he once was. Maybe his lifestyle is finally catching up with him. Anyway, my money was on Parting because I thought that his superior micro would prove decisive. Parting has always been one of my favorite players ever since I started enjoying Protoss games. 
Parting's Immortal Micro Making Headlines  
Oh well, at least I can look forward to more unorthodox strategies from SOS.

Dream - Hydra
Well-deserved win by Hydra, though it was a shame to see another terran eliminated. I think Hydra played well beyond expectations and should be proud of making it to the next round. 

Maru - Rogue
What can I say. I'm a huge Maru-Fanboy, and I hate saying it, but: As I have said many time, Maru is overrated. He didn't deserve to go down 3-0 like this, yet at the same time he's had a few too many disappointing results this year - especially in Proleague - to be conveniently explained away.
At the same time, hats off to Rogue, beating Maru 3-0 in a Bo5 will forever be a highlight in his career.



A few general observations:

- I don't like one-sided series. Even when I have a clear favorite, I want "my" player to win 3-2, and not sweep the series 3-0. It's like that cheesy Stallone line "It's not about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and still move forward". Or something like that.

- Where are the high level terrans? Yes, there's Innovation, but who else? As I stated above, Maru is overrated, and there's simply no other terran with the stature of Innovation in sight. Too bad Taeja and Bomber in particular aren't around anymore.

- I expect Hero, Innovation, Rain and Rogue to make it to the semi final. It's clear already that names like Zest, Byul, and Maru are sorely missed at this point. No offense, but it just wouldn't feel the same if "second-rate" top players like Classic or Hydra were to win WCS 2015

STARCRAFT 2 ENQUIRER - POPE FRANCIS to Compete in GSL !!!

The second issue of the STARCRAFT 2 ENQUIRER has just been released:

Remember: You read it on the internet, so it must be true!

The STARCRAFT2 ENQUIRER:
YOUR TRUSTED SOURCE FOR ALL THE STORIES TEAMLIQUID.NET WON'T TOUCH!!! 

2015 Season 1 GSL Final - Reflections on Life and a Few Parting Words

Photo Credit: Teamliquid.net

For a long time I've wanted to write something about LIFE, and because history repeated itself this past weekend, I'm finally "annoyed" enough to write this blog:

I really enjoyed the 2015 GSL Final between LIFE and PARTING. I live on the North American West coast, and this tournament was the first time in a long while that I stayed up late for an SC2 tournament. I'm glad I did, the series was excellent and worthy of a final of what's arguably the most prestigious SC2 tournament in the world.
Congratulations to both players, they can really be proud of their achievements! I couldn't have done it better myself :)

DISCLAIMER: When I was still actively playing SC2, I never got beyond rank #1 in my Diamond League, so I'm clearly not good enough to really understand the nuances between the players at the very top.
However, I'm also Honorary Chairman of the League of the Ultra-Opinionated Gentlemen, and as such I'm always happy to share my point of view :)

LIFE has had an impressive run over the past 12 months or so. He's won many major tournaments recently, and generally gets pretty far in almost any tournament he plays in. Most notably, he won 2014 WCS Global Finals, and just this past weekend the 2015 GSL Season 1:

Source: Liquipedia

He is obviously an extremely strong player, and when casters these days refer to him as "the strongest Zerg" and "the best player" in the world, I think they are probably right for the time being.

At the same time though, and this is the reason why I'm writing this blog, I've always been surprised how much "help" LIFE gets from his opponents. What I mean is that it's a well-known fact that he is a hyper-aggressive player who much more than other top Zergs likes to make a ton of lings in the early-to-mid game for some major harassment that quite often ends the game right away.

And yet, even though this is clearly his trademark, his opponents seem to simply ignore that possibility time and again. Two examples:

2015 GSL Final vs. PARTING, Map 7 on Iron Fortress: PARTING goes nexus first and loses pretty much right away because even though he miraculously survives LIFE's initial zergling onslaught, he takes too much damage and never recovers.
I think just BECAUSE it is so seemingly unlikely that the zerg would rush on the largest map in the pool, PARTING should have expected it. Or at least chosen a slightly safer build than the "naked" nexus first.
Yes, LIFE deserves praise for his balls of steel to pull this off on the final map of one of the most important series of his entire career. But still, I chalk this up as a build order win thanks to a certain amount of luck, and avoidable carelessness on PARTING's part. In fact, I found PARTINGS's initial hold in game 7 much more impressive than LIFE's win.
I've heard ARTOSIS and the other GSL/Proleague casters say many times that the best players in the world don't really cheese all that often partly because by NOT cheesing. they are sending the strong message "I don't need to flip a coin, I'm gonna beat you in a straight game. I'm better than you, and we both know it". I thought it was interesting that in game 7 with everything on the line, LIFE chose to flip a coin rather than play a straight up game.

The second example is even more striking to me. For the life of me (no pun intended) I can't remember all the details. It was a pretty important game in a recent top-level tournament. The map was Foxtrot Labs. LIFE was top left, his terran opponent was bottom right. I thought it was FLASH, but I don't seem to be able to find that game, so the opponent may have been someone else after all.
Anyway, the point is that the terran went for a super-greedy 3rd CC, and lost pretty much immediately because he didn't have a wall and clumsily lost his few hellions in the middle of the map to a ling surround.
If a top-level terran (who has surely studied LIFE's games in great detail) goes for an ultra-fast 3rd CC, doesn't wall off, and throws away his hellions, he really deserves the loss. At the same time though it seemed to me that LIFE just got lucky again.

These are but two examples of how I see a lot of LIFE's opponents lose games. They play as if they didn't know that LIFE is one of the most aggressive zergs out there...

Zest and Innovation at some point also held the distinction of being considered "best player in the world".
Photo Credit: Liquipedia

Take, for example, ZEST and INNOVATION. They were also considered "best player in the world" for some time, and might re-claim that title sooner or later.

INNOVATION, for example, is usually referred to as "robot" because he's extremely good at executing his standard builds. Doesn't matter as much what the opponent does, INNOVATION is a very solid all-round player, who doesn't really count on his opponents making major mistakes. He just executes his macro-strategy very well, and sooner or later just overpowers the other player without relying on lucky punches.
An even more extreme example in my opinion is ZEST. When he was at the top of his game in the first half of 2014, he was more dominant during his "reign" than any other "best player in the world" before or after him. And unlike LIFE, these two players didn't seem to depend as much on their opponents throwing away maps.

SUMMARY: I don't want to detract from LIFE's achievements, but he does seem to be a bit "luckier" than other champions because all too often his opponents are completely unprepared for what they should know is LIFE's trademark move: early ling aggression.
I know, you can't play too cautious against LIFE because then he's just going to be greedy and get too far ahead, but I don't understand how so many top-level players seem to have their guard down when they play LIFE, the most aggressive zerg out there...

And now, at the end of this article (if anybody is still awake and made it this far...) a few "PARTING words" (pun intended!). PARTING really has a bad "talent-to-tournament-wins" ratio, and I seriously hope he's going to get the recognition - and tournament wins - he deserves.
I'd be grateful if anybody could point me to an interview in which he reflects in some detail on his career, his strengths and weaknesses (if such interview exists).

Despite losing the 2015 GSL Season 1 Final to LIFE, PARTING struck me as the more impressive player of the two.
Photo Credit: Liquipedia

Starcraft 2 - Legacy of the Void - Balance Update

Blizzard is expected to release the second expansion to Starcraft 2 - Legacy of the Void - at some point this year.

Of course, the SC2 community is in uproar. Even though many details about LotV remain unclear at this point, virtually everybody seems convinced that their race is getting the short end of the stick.

In a recent interview that has already gained some notoriety, the lead designer on the project explained some of the coming changes:

This video cracked me up. Thanks to FrozenImpact, who posted it on Teamliquid in the first place!

On a more serious note though it's always been my conviction that instead of whining about balance, virtually all players have enough potential for improvement of their own game, which would more than outweigh any actual or perceived imbalances. It's also worth noting that "imbalanced" doesn't necessarily mean "unfair".

The Case Against Top-Heavy Prize Funds

The Intel Extreme Masters World Championship is a 3-day $100,000 winner-takes-all Starcraft 2 tournament. It is to my knowledge the first major tournament outside Korea with such a top-heavy distribution of the prize fund

There are two big tournaments that I am currently following with great interest: the IEM World Championship in Katowice, the culmination of the Starcraft 2 Intel Extreme Masters Season VIII; and the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2014, the winner of which gets the right to challenge world chess champion Magnus Carlsen to a match for the title later this year.

The FIDE Candidates Tournament 2014 is a massive three-week double round robin tournament in which 8 of the world's leading chess grandmasters determine the challenger for Magnus Carlsen for the upcoming 2014 World Chess Championship. The Candidates Tournament is also one of the most lucrative tournaments on the chess circuit.

One thing I noticed is that the distribution of the prize money differs greatly between the two tournaments. At IEM Katowice, the winner gets $100,000 while all other 15 players including 2nd and 3rd place get nothing.
The Fide Candidates Tournament distributes the prize fund of 600,000 EUROs (~ $832,000) more evenly. The winner gets 135,000 Euros, and last place still receives 25,000 Euros. The tournament is a 3-week commitment though. The winner, of course, also gets the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the world chess championship. The loser of that match is going to receive at least another $500,000. In other words, winning the FIDE Candidates Tournament is worth $675,000 easily. So in a sense the tournament is pretty top-heavy, too. However, even 25,000 Euros for last place is not bad at all for 3 weeks worth of work. And participation in this tournament most certainly increases a player's market value. I am not sure if that's true to the same extent for the SC2 tournament.

Despite his rocky start into the tournament, Armenian "Super Grandmaster" Levon Aronian is considered to be the likely winner of the FIDE 2014 Candidates

I just googled "SC2 dying" and got 422,000 hits. I have always thought that this "bullshit" about "SC2 dying" is largely just people bashing the game, trying to turn this into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
At the same time though I don't understand the reason behind this extremely top-heavy prize fund. It seems to me that a vibrant professional SC2 community is in the best interest of Blizzard and all sponsors (like Intel) that try to make money by selling products and services to the community. The more buzz there is in the professional community, the more exciting the big tournaments are to watch for fans like me, and the more exposure sponsors get for their products. But by making these tournaments so extremely top-heavy in their prize money distribution, the organizers make it very difficult for almost all SC2 professionals to continue staying in the game. 
I check teamliquid.net about once a week, and whenever I do, there seems to be a new story about a pro gamer retiring, usually citing a combination of lack of interest and financial reasons.

Another - slightly less important reason - why I think the distribution of the prize money in Katowice is wrong is that there is such a big element of chance involved in winning a major SC2 tournament. Luck of the draw, a constantly changing map pool, patches, technical difficulties such as lag are just some of the factors  beyond the skill of the players that have a huge impact on the outcome of the tournament, and that turn the whole event into a lottery to some extent. If skill is just one of many factors (though arguably still the most important), it doesn't make sense to me to reward only one player for getting through all the "randomness" of the tournament. If the IEM tournament was to be held again in 4 weeks, the winner could very well be someone else. If the FIDE Candidates Tourney was to be played again, the winner would most likely be the same. 

And I'm not convinced that any player is going to try harder in a winner-takes-all format, no matter how much the casters hype this tournament.

As a former Terran, I would have liked Polt or Taeja to walk away with the $100,000 from IEM Katowice. Unfortunately, that is no longer going to happen.

A Position to Pawnder - Pyre's Reflections on his Journey into the World of Chess

The following is an article written by Pyre, one of my chess students, reflecting upon his transition from competitive SC2 to chess. My thoughts on Pyre's progress will be published here soon.
This article can also be found on TeamLiquid:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=429882

========================================================================

When playing Starcraft, I was very often asked by friends and family, “What is Starcraft?” and “How do you play Starcraft?”. My response was always, “Well, it’s sort of like chess, but faster and more difficult”. On the one hand, who can argue that Starcraft isn’t a faster-paced game? Starcraft is in real time and chess is turn-based. Some Starcraft games end in 5 minutes, while some chess games last for 7 hours! However, I could never have been more wrong when assuming that Starcraft was a harder game than chess. Learning how chess pieces move is one thing, but mastering the art, beauty, and complexity that encompasses it is as different as night and day. 

Pyre used to be one North America's most promising SC2 talents and was consistently ranked among TOP 16 on the GM ladder before he turned his attention to chess

Optional Backstory:

      If you don’t know who I am, it's because I haven’t logged onto battle.net for about 8 months. Back in September, I joined my high school’s chess club thinking that my strategic brain would easily be able to convert my grandmaster Starcraft abilities into grandmaster chess play. I was terrible at first, and the mere thought of eventually becoming good at chess was slowly slipping away. I lost to every single person in the chess club every week and wondered why I was good at Starcraft and not good at chess. But eventually, the constant defeats and humiliation got to me and I decided to seriously train to become better. The same competitive drive I applied to Starcraft in my humble beginnings was being applied to chess. What began as a side-project to Starcraft shortly took over as I regained the desire to become better at something--the same something that attracted me so much to Starcraft in the first place.

      With this ambition, I was lucky enough to fall under RevTiberius's wing and become a chess student of his. Soon enough, I started to see results. It was not long before my first competition happened, which was the culmination of all the high schools nearby and I got third place. Good right? Well, not as good as I had hoped. All this did was tell me that I still had a really long road ahead of me. But after several hours a day of studying and playing from January to now, I can confidently say that my chess is at a decent level (approximately 1800 ELO from 1000 ELO) and I hope to continue at the same rate during my stay at UCSD. 

 "I could never have been more wrong when assuming that Starcraft was a harder game than chess". SC2 GM and chess enthusiast Pyre reflecting upon chess and SC2

      “We ain’t so different you and I”. It’s true. Both Starcraft and chess are similar games where both players start evenly and through smart decision making, the better player should win. There are starting imbalances very similar to that of terran, protoss, and zerg, although I doubt “white” is going to get patched anytime soon. There is a large amount of theory, strategy, and overall knowledge required in both games to be successful. Taking expansions in Starcraft is the same as developing your pieces and castling (bringing your king to safety, while bringing your rook into the game) in chess. Going for a baneling bust, or a 6 pool, is very similar to the infamous “Scholar’s mate” (trying to checkmate your opponent in 4 moves) in chess or even just moving your queen out too early and trying to do damage with it. 

      The strategy in both games is really no different. In both games, you build an army and often there is a main fight that decides the game. For all you positional, quiet players who like to “turtle” in Starcraft, guess what? You can do that in chess, too--just close up the position with pawns and its equivalent to a widow mine and siege tank line! And for all you attacking players who like blink stalker openings, roach baneling busts, and 1/1/1s, there’s aggressive type play in chess as well with what are known as gambits (sacrificing material for hyperaggression). 

      Both games have gone through changing times and changing ideas throughout their existence. In the beginning of Starcraft 2 in 2010, everyone (including zergs) opened on 1 base and it remained that way until even the 7 minute mark. Struggling, zergs eventually realized that they needed the extra larvae and they needed the extra base, so they started going hatch first. As a response, terrans started making reactor hellions to start putting pressure on the expansion. These are examples of trends. From the 1500s-1800s, chess players strived to control the center immediately and valued fast development. However, at the dawn of the 20th century, ideas changed and certain people (called “hypermodernists”) decided that as a response, chess players could let their opponent control the center at first, but then flank attack it later! This idea had never been seen before, but it changed the way people thought chess was played and it led to even more innovation further down the road. 

      Tournaments are seen in both chess and Starcraft 2 at the professional level and the amateur level. One of the most intriguing things I had found out about when I first started getting into chess was the fact that most local chess tournaments have sections. This was a new thing to me, as no Starcraft tournament I ever went to had a “diamond-only” section or a “platinum-only” section with cash prizes for them too. This seemed genius to me. Everyone who participated in these chess tournaments had something to play for. They weren’t just going to get “beat by a gm, then watch”.

      There are also chess pros, just like there are Starcraft pros. The “Flash” of chess would be either Garry Kasparov or Bobby Fischer. Both of these chess players are legends of their time and have been internationally recognized outside of the chess world. The “Taeja” or “Mvp” of chess would be Magnus Carlsen. Magnus Carlsen is currently the world #1 at only 22 years old! He is a superstar in his own world just as Starcraft players are in theirs.

      If you’re a fan of just one of these games, then I highly encourage you to try the other. As a non-Starcraft player, if you feel intimidated by the speed at which Starcraft is played, let me assure you that you don’t need 450 APM to be good. Plenty of successful Starcraft players, like Polt, are able to out-think and outplay their opponents purely out of strategy, tactics, and immense game knowledge. If you play Starcraft and have never gotten into chess, then just imagine you’re playing Starcraft except without the APM and constant movements--just the strategic portion. Nothing can match the pleasure of beating someone in a game of raw intellectual strength.

Bad Manner in Online Chess and Starcraft 2

One thing that has always puzzled me is a noticeable difference in the BM ("bad manner") I encounter in online chess and Starcraft 2:

Starcraft 2
Basically, in Starcaft 2 I got BMed in at least 50% of my games. As far as I could tell I got BMed pretty much across the board from players who were clearly better, about my level, and clearly worse. Here's a sample of the kind of trash talk that I'm sure anybody who plays online video games is only all too familiar with:

A classic

This one actually made me laugh

This came out of the blue at the beginning of a game

I never understood how someone who just lost a game can call you a "noob"

A classic... must have heard this about 1,000 times on Battlenet...

My all time favorite...

Chess:
Overall, there's clearly a lot less BM in chess compared to SC2. I've always found this a little surprising because it seems to me that in chess, there's even more ego at stake than in SC2. Losing in chess is definitely more humiliating than losing in SC2.
The fact there is noticeably less BM in online chess might be explained by the fact that in both online and offline chess you're clearly dealing with an older and more sophisticated and mature crowd. Of course there are exceptions, but it is clear that a 40-year old corporate lawyer in a chess tournament won't trash talk nearly as much as a 17-year old kid in an SC2 tourney who's cowardly hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and thinks he or she can get away with anything.

Even more surprising to me however, is the fact that in chess, I only get BMed by players who are much much worse than me, usually rated at least 300 points below me. Here are some examples:

I should have my second comment on Control + C at all times so that I can always paste it when necessary... 

Another peculiarity about trash talkers on chess servers is they frequently lie against all evidence. This screen shot is an example of a message a pretty weak player sent me after a game. As the next screen shot shows, I did not "get owned" by him. Incidentally I believe Idra was banned from EG for a comment like "hope your death is slow and painful"

This speaks for itself

I really have no explanation why I only get trash talked by players who are, honestly, trash. From time to time I get clearly outplayed by players my level or better, but it is extremely rare to get some BM from them afterward.

Is it because these "noobs" are so disappointed because they think they are keeping their games against me balanced for longer than they actually are? Is it because they think they "almost" had a draw?

This is the only "BM" I ever engage in. This line has come in handy many many time in SC2 and chess 

I'd be interested to know if any reader has some theories on this. I for my part have decided to no longer accept challenges from players rated below 2000. This has also had a very positive effect on my rating which is something I'll blog about next time.

Aliens - In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

As a chess player, this is my favorite scene from the 1986 classic "Aliens":

Queen takes Bishop

An artist's rendition of the same scene; clearly the "Zerg" race in Starcraft 2 was inspired by the Alien films

The first two films of the Alien franchise are among my favorite science fiction movies. I prefer dark and gloomy science fiction over the PG-13 comic relief embarrassments such as the Star Wars franchise.
If Star Wars was as dark as the first Terminator, it would far and away be the best science fiction franchise out there. But characters like 3-CPO and Jar Jar Binks make it very hard for me to enjoy the films.

Aliens - This time it's war. Iconic poster that I remember from my childhood

Magnus Carlsen Wins 2013 Candidates Tournament

Magnus Carlsen after winning the 2013 Candidates Tournament

The 2013 Candidates Tournament is over. MagnusCarlsen won and is now the official challenger of Viswanathan Anand. I have been following international chess for almost 20 years now, and I can unequivocally say that this was one of the best tournaments I've ever seen. Many great games, unexpected results, and lots of drama till the very end. What more could chess fans have asked for?

Thanks to the internet and live streams it's also become much easier to share in the excitement of top level chess tournaments. I remember when I first got into chess and my parents bought me a one year subscription of a chess magazine, it just wasn't the same. Without the real-time experience, all the drama is lost. In fact I find watching chess tournaments online even more exciting than the seemingly more fast-paced Starcraft 2 events such as MLG.

I'm not surprised that Carlsen won the whole thing, but I certainly didn't expect it to come about the way it did. I thought I would see a neck-and-neck race between Carlsen and Kramnik all the way. Instead, the first half of the tournament saw Carlsen and Aronian pulling ahead of the field while Kramnik failed to convert his many promising positions into a single win.
And just when I thought Kramnik was out of the running for sure, he pulled a pretty impressive comeback while Aronian completely collapsed at the beginning of the second half of the tournament.

Many in the chess community seem relieved that there will not be a rematch of Anand - Kramnik 2008. I am not so sure. Leaving aside the fact that rematches are kind of fascinating in themselves, I do think that a second encounter between the two would have produced much more interesting chess simply because Kramnik was clearly out of form in 2008.  Foto by Fred Lucas.

Magnus Carlsen: I'm not surprised that he won the candidates tournament. I am surprised however that he managed to squeeze so many points out of drawn positions, especially in the first half of the tournament. It's really instructive to see how he so "effortlessly" keeps accumulating tiny advantages until he's got enough to convert the position into a win. I often have "dead drawn" positions just like he has, but of course I lack his superb positional skills. My play is just too inaccurate to capitalize on tiny positional imbalances the way Carlsen does.

Some commentators - rightfully in my opinion - pointed out Carlsen's comparatively weak opening repertoire. While his skill to win drawn positions is remarkable, it is equally remarkable to see that a player of his calibre more often than not fails to get any advantage out of the opening, especially when playing white. I know it is his strategy to deviate from well-known theoretical lines early in order to render his opponents' preparation useless and force them to start using up time early. On the other hand though this approach does allow his opponents to equalize without much effort.

Against a well-prepared Anand, Carlsen will most certainly have to show better opening preparation. At this tournament, Carlsen got most of his wins from the lower half of the field. In the match with Anand, there is no lower half.

Magnus Carlsen and Boris Gelfand at the 2012 Wijk "Super Tournament". Maybe Carlsen has really bad body odor. Or maybe Gelfand simply had a cold. Foto by Fred Lucas

Vladimir Kramnik: one of my personal favorites and the tragic hero of the tournament. He's been criticized for having lost his interest in chess after getting married and having two kids a few years ago. In fact similar things are being said about Anand. Kramnik however showed fantastic chess in London, and this tournament has been called "maybe his best performance ever" by Garry Kasparov. I think Kramnik is still a very serious contender for the world championship title, and might very well win the next candidates tournament, especially if Carlsen beats Anand later this year.

They also used a new chess set at the Candidates Tournament. I agree with the criticism voiced by some of the players that the pieces are a little too big for the board.

Episode IV - Pyre Wins His First Trophy

It was only 2 months ago that I started teaching chess to SC2 Grandmaster Pyre. Therefore I was very surprised when he emailed me the following picture:

Pyre won his first trophy at a local high school chess event. Though I realized his talent very quickly, I did not expect him to score so well at over-the-board tournaments so soon. Of course most of the credit belongs to Pyre, but it is very gratifying to see that as his coach I seem to be doing something right, too.
I'd like to take this opportunity and take a closer look at the current state of Pyre's game:

Current State of Pyre's Game:

I regularly go through the games Pyre plays on chess.com to look for things that spark my interest. The following six positions I think exemplify Pyre’s recent progress very well, and also indicate where more work needs to be done. Pyre’s account on chess.com is [b][red]3hitu[/b][/red]. What I find most significant about the following examples is that they show that [b]Pyre has begun transitioning from simply making moves to formulating and executing plans[/b]. The very fact that he is already making short-term and long-term plans is significant progress indeed even if some of his plans are ill-advised or tactically flawed. . This kind of progress is far more important than fluctuations in his rating. I really don't care much whether Pyre's rating is 1100, 1200, 1400 or something like that. What I care about is improvements in his game.

In this position Pyre “saw” the hanging rook on d6 and took it. He won the game soon after, but 34. Qg8 checkmate would have been better instead. This is a good – though extreme – illustration of Emanuel Lasker’s recommendation “when you see a good move, look for a better one”. However, this is not just a problem for beginners. I’m very familiar with this kind of mistake, too.  I frequently overlook excellent moves after finding a good one.
In this example, Pyre’s move didn’t change the outcome of the game. It’s really quite frustrating when it does.

This position is a good example of how Pyre’s ability to formulate and execute plans has increased since the beginning of the year. In this position, he is a pawn down, but has a very strong attack against Black’s king. Pyre played 20.Ng4 which is a move that I am certain he could not have made 2 months ago. The idea behind it is to distract the knight on f6, which is the only defender of h7, where Pyre is threatening mate. I was very pleased indeed when I saw him play 20.Ng4.

In this position, Pyre’s bishop is under attack, and I’m sure that until recently he would have simply retreated it to maybe d4 or f6. In the game however, Pyre played 23.Qh6, threatening mate on c1. An interesting choice I find. I’m not sure if he simply overlooked 23. … Qxh2 or whether he didn’t like the response 24.Qh3. In any case, I was impressed by the fact the he put some thinking into the position and came up with something other than an obvious move with the bishop.

In this position, Pyre got really lucky. Black had sacrificed a knight on g4, and Pyre was imprudent enough to take it. Note to Pyre: In these kinds of positions taking a knight on g4 is almost never a good idea if Black gets an open h-file in return. Mate is usually inevitable. In this case, too. However, Black was too impatient and went for 10. … Qh2+, a useless check that allowed Pyre’s king to slip away via f2. Had Black played 10. … g3! first to block White’s escape route, there’s nothing Pyre could have done to prevent mate on h1. As the great Bobby Fischer said: “Patzer sees a check, patzer plays a check”.

In this position, Pyre has a nice bishop/queen battery on the diagonal b1-h7, and he eventually managed to win the game through an attack on the kingside. This position, however, is significant because both Pyre and his opponent overlooked a great defensive resource for Black. Pyre now played 11.e5, which is the right idea at the wrong time, because it allows Black to play 11. … Nb4!, forking Pyre’s queen and bishop and thereby trading Pyre’s important bishop on d3. So when you line up your pieces on that diagonal, it is important to make a prophylactic move like a3 first to make sure no knight shows up on b4.

This position is from the same game. Pyre now chose to play 19.Kh1 in order to play Ng1 to open the d1-h5 diagonal for the queen, a plan that ultimately resulted in Black’s resignation. Of course this was not a forced sequence. Black could have done several things to prevent this, and Pyre could have found a better way to activate his queen – one without moving the knight in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, I was very pleased when I saw this maneuver because it shows that Pyre is really developing the skills to formulate sensible plans. This is because while one should always look for the best move, from a practical point of view it is equally if not more important to have a realizable plan even if that includes moves that are - objectively speaking - not the best.

Bad Manner

Thankfully there is not nearly as much BM in online chess as there is in SC2. However, I noticed there’s a special kind of BM that I frequently encounter when I play someone who's much weaker than me.
Here are a few examples:

I'd be curious to know how much BM other chess players have to put up with. In top level chess tournaments rules around BM are very strict and players forfeit their games if they even just refuse to shake hands. This is a clip of the famous handshake incident at the Corus 2008 grandmaster tournament between Nigel Short and Ivan Cheparinov:

In my next article in this series I'll take a look at typical salaries of SC2 professionals compared to chess grandmasters. Any SC2 GMs or chess professionals willing to offer their thoughts on this are welcome to contact me.
I will also talk a little bit more about the theory behind formulating plans in any given position.

Episode III - Keeping up with the Kardashians

When former World Chess Champion Boris Spassky was asked in an interview whether he preferred chess or sex, he famously replied “depends on the position”.

A few days ago I was checking some chess news websites, just minding my own business, when suddenly I saw something that almost made me choke on my coffee:

Kim Kardashian wants to learn chess. Have we really sunk this low? I guess she got interested in chess when she heard that mating is the objective of the game…

So now the question is: Can Pyre keep up with Kim Kardashian? Of course he can. It may or may not seem that way to him, but over the past month or so I have already seen him make significant progress. Some of his recent thoughts and analyses are evidence of a much better understanding of the game compared to, say, 4 weeks ago.

[b]The ugly truth is that improvement in chess comes slower than improvement in SC2[/b]. I think Pyre once mentioned that he started in Gold League and became a Grandmaster within a few months.  Unless you are a prodigy, making comparable improvements in chess takes much longer.  One of the main reasons is I think mechanics. Even if you can’t play SC2 any “better”, you can always play “faster”. In chess, if you want to play BETTER, you need to play BETTER.

I think one of the reasons why chess is so fascinating to Pyre is that it must be so much easier for him to improve his chess compared to SC2. He already plays SC2 at a very high level, and for him it must be much harder to get the joy of getting better in SC2 compared to chess.
In my experience though I enjoy being good at a game very much, I enjoy getting better at a game even more.

Pyre recently already started showing initial success at offline/over-the-board tournaments. In my next article I’ll probably showcase one of this recent games to highlight some of his improvements.
And I’m gonna make sure he’ll always be better than Kim Kardashian…

Pattern-Recognition:
The ability to recognize recurring patterns is an important skill of strong chess players. A significant part of my decision making in a chess game is based on intuition and experience rather than calculation and analysis.

For example, in one of my recent games I reached the following position:

I had just played Rook f8-h8 to counter White’s lethal threat Queen e3-h6. Generally speaking my position is a mess, White has a very strong attack and his Knights have two excellent squares on f6 and g5. Whether White’s position is objectively winning is unclear, but from a practical point of view his position is much easier to play than mine.
Now White committed a terrible blunder and played King e1-e2??, undoubtedly to activate his rook on a1. However, after my devastating response Bishop b7-a6 check the game is quickly over because to counter the check White has to either sacrifice his Queen on d3, or move his back on to the 1st rank, which disconnects the rooks again, and after I take on h1 it’s checkmate.

A few days later, I reached the following position in another game:

My opponent’s position is clearly better than mine: he has launched a very strong attack against my King. His Bishops and his Queen are targeting my king side, I was already forced to weaken my pawn shield by playing Pawn g2-g3. Black has just played Pawn h7-h5 with the intention to play h5-h4 to undermine my pawn shield even further and to open the h-file for his Rook.
To counter these very serious threats I had just played Rook a1-c1 to open the c-file, maybe in conjunction with Knight c3-b5 in order to force Black’s Queen off the critical diagonal b8-h2.
My opponent completely mishandled the position and a few moves later we reached the following position:

I don’t need to analyze this position in great detail for you. Suffice it to say that my next very strong move Bishop b2-a3 prompted Black to erroneously sacrifice his Queen to counter the check. Of course he lost the game soon after.

The lesson from these two examples is that I immediately recognized an important pattern in both positions: I had a fianchettoed queen side Bishop, and my opponent’s King was forced to come forward to e2 (or e7).  In these kinds of position I know that the Bishop check on a3 or a6 is usually lethal or at least very unpleasant.

I know this pattern, and when it occurs, I don’t have to calculate much because I’m already familiar with the implications. This also means that I never “overlook” a move like Bishop a3: while beginners have to “find” moves like Bishop a3, I already “know” it’s there and can immediately analyze its consequences when this pattern occurs in a game.

This also distinguishes a chess Grandmaster from a strong amateur player like me. A Grandmaster’s knowledge of typical patters greatly exceeds mine, and in many positions a Grandmaster simply “knows” what to do while I have to think about it.

Retroanalysis:

I want to finish this article with a little retroanalytical problem. Typical chess problems ask you to solve questions like “Find Mate in 3” or “How does White win a piece?” Retroanalysis seeks to answer questions about previous events of a chess game. To solve such problems, you don’t have to be a strong player. Basic logic is all you need. For example, in the diagram below the question is

Has at any point a pawn been promoted in this game? The answer to this seemingly impossible question is surprisingly simple. I’ll post it here in my next article. Enjoy~