Coming to grips with the truth

This will be my final post to this blog. I've decided to pull the plug on my quest. I've taken a good hard look at the numbers, and as we all know, numbers don't lie :-) What the numbers have told me, for a good long time now, is that I'm a mediocre chess player. Not only that, they've told me that my dream of reaching 1451 is for all intents and purposes a fantasy. I have a hard enough time maintaining a rating of 1200; to reach 251 rating points above that would take a quantum leap in my ability. This is not to say that I don't enjoy playing blitz, and I'm sure I'll still play every now and then for fun. I certainly won't be blogging about it, however, nor will I be obsessing over my rating. I'll still be following monvieux's progress, and cheering him on from the sidelines; he has a realistic chance of reaching 1451. Thanks for reading!

The dreaded quatro's non-evil twin

Inherently good things can have evil twins. Looked at another way, inherently bad things can have non-evil twins. The dreaded quatro, inherently a bad thing, thankfully does have a non-evil twin. It's everything the dreaded quatro isn't, except for the number four. Let's call this non-evil twin the good quatro. Instead of being the last four games of a session, the good quatro is the first four. Instead of four losses, a good quatro is four non-losses. Last night, I had a good quatro; my results, in order, were win, draw, win, draw, and loss. Another resolution I've made is to make every good quatro session a PTYL session; this is my shorthand for Play Til You Lose.

neostreet: 1159 (229-232-26 (487))
monvieux: 1365 (409-342-18 (769))

The dreaded quatro

On Tuesday night, I set a personal worst. I lost the last four games of the session in a row. I call that the dreaded quatro. I should have quit sooner, but couldn't bring myself to. The imp of the perverse was at work yet again!

To prevent the dreaded quatro from making a return appearance, I resolve to quit any session immediately after my third loss in a row. I'm not sure the imp will allow that, but at least it's something to shoot for :-)

neostreet: 1152 (227-231-24 (482))
monvieux: 1328 (393-331-18 (742))

Dreadnoughts

Last night, for the second session in a row, I started off with a loss. I call that a dreadnought, because it adds nothing to your win total, which is clearly something to dread :-) I have a strong suspicion I have a miserable record in session openers. Let me check the archives ...

Suspicion confirmed. I'm 17-25-4 in openers. If I could only somehow skip that first game, I'd be doing pretty well :-)

neostreet: 1174 (223-224-24 (471))
monvieux: 1334 (379-317-17 (713))

One the hard way

In blitz, as in many areas of life, you can do things the easy way or you can do them the hard way. I try to embrace the easy way, but that's not always so easy :-) On Saturday night, I made things hard on myself by digging a hole; I lost the first three games I played. There was no excuse for how I lost the first game; I failed to recognize a trap I'd fallen into less than a week before, fell into it again, and lost in seven moves again. At least the game wasn't a carbon copy of the earlier one; actually, it was worse. In the earlier game, I'd gone down the exchange and was about to lose a knight with no compensation; in the later one, I faced mate on the next move. In both cases, the only sensible thing to do was resign.

I buckled down after the first three games, won the next three, and quit for the night. I gained a solitary rating point for my troubles. That's what I call one the hard way :-)

neostreet: 1174 (216-216-22 (454))
monvieux: 1334 (379-317-17 (713))

Seven to the good

In my many years of playing online poker, I discovered many different ways of looking at my results. The most valuable lesson I learned was never to compare apples to oranges. I tried out a variety of poker flavors, and quickly realized I was better at some and worse at others. It didn't take a lot of thought to conclude that it didn't make a lot of sense to amalgamate the results from different flavors; they should be kept separate. The same is true of blitz. Just as blitz is a completely different animal from classical chess, blitz played at one time control can be a completely different animal from blitz played at another time control.

With this in mind, I decided it would be a really good exercise to keep my results at the 10 | 0 time control separate from my results at the other time controls. I feel that 10 | 0 is my natural blitz time control; it's certainly my favorite, and the one with which I feel most at home. Drumroll, please ...

Here are my current results at the 10-0 time control: 196-189-20. I'm seven to the good!

neostreet: 1173 (213-213-22 (448))
monvieux: 1334 (379-317-17 (713))

The tyranny of expectations

I've been trying to figure out if it's a good or a bad thing that I'm almost breaking even after playing more than 400 games on chess.com. It might just be a thing :-) The software is essentially set up so that the vast majority of players will fall into this category. It's only the outliers who will be able to steadily improve their rating. I'm not an outlier yet, and there's a decent chance I'll never be. In order to achieve my goal of reaching 1451, however, I need to somehow morph into an outlier.

Why do I say that the software is set up so that the vast majority of players will break even? Due to two essential selection criteria:

1. it always pairs you with a player of roughly equal strength; for example, I'll never get to play a 1400 player until I raise my rating well into the 1300s

2. among the players of roughly your strength that it pairs you with, it tries to ensure that roughly half the time, you're a favorite (i.e., you have a higher rating than your opponent)

Looking at expected outcomes, in the 440 games I've played so far, I was a favorite in 235 of them, but only managed to win 157 of those games. Thankfully, expectations can be thwarted in either direction; of the 198 games where I was an underdog, I won 49. In the remaining 7 games, there was no favorite; I won only 2 of those.

neostreet: 1161 (208-210-22 (440))
monvieux: 1334 (379-317-17 (713))

When a pet opening goes south

Lately, I've been faring miserably with my pet opening, the Queen's Gambit Accepted. I haven't won with it the last 8 times I've played it, losing 7 and drawing 1. Last night's fourth game marked my third straight loss with it, the first two having occurred on February 28th. What do you do when a pet opening goes south on you like that? The answer for me is pretty simple - don't play it nearly as often :-) The good news is that the QGA loss was my only loss last night.

neostreet: 1171 (205-206-21 (432))
monvieux: 1354 (373-309-16 (698))

Demolished by unorthodoxy

Chess is a great humbler. It's hard to sustain a belief in your greatness when you keep getting crushed :-) This is not to say that I was crushed last night, though, at least not at the chess session magnification level. At the single game level, however, I was absolutely demolished in game 6. It was especially humbling due to the extremely unorthodox play of my opponent, and my utter inability to deal with it. I resigned on move 9 when my opponent pinned my queen. My opponent's first two moves were h4 and g4. I ask you :-)

neostreet: 1140 (200-205-21 (426))
monvieux: 1354 (373-309-16 (698))

Pattern recognition

You may be getting fed up with my constant comparisons between poker and chess, but bear with me, because I'm about to make another one :-) Both poker and chess richly reward pattern recognition. When you can recognize a situation you've been in before, you'll know what to do; just as importantly, you'll know what not to do.

Come to think of it, many things richly reward pattern recognition. Software engineering is another example. Debugging a program is largely an exercise in remembering why things didn't work, and figuring out whether the same conditions could be occurring again. I feel quite lucky that I ended up as a software engineer; it certainly wasn't a career I was considering while in college.

Let's put all the cards on the table and just state plainly that life itself rewards pattern recognition! Life is a fractal, and rewards pattern recognition at every magnification level.

Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, I had another losing session last night. My rating is now the lowest it has ever been. However, I'm not discouraged in the least. I know what to do now. I predict my rating will begin a slow but inexorable increase soon.

neostreet: 1137 (196-202-21 (419))
monvieux: 1311 (368-309-16 (693))

Career worst two bagger

Last night, despite my switching to the shorter 5 | 0 time control, my losing ways continued. I had a marathon session, playing 31 games. I lost more rating points (85) in the last two sessions than I ever had in any two contiguous sessions before. Tonight I have two goals:

1. play no more than 10 games
2. play more slowly

We'll see how I well I keep to them.

neostreet: 1149 (192-197-21 (410))
monvieux: 1311 (368-309-16 (693))

Doppelsession

I coined the term doppelsession for poker sessions, but it applies equally well to blitz sessions. A doppelsession is the twin of an earlier session. Last night, I had a dopplesession of the "lower 48" session I suffered on February 2nd. I played the same number of games (16), had the same miserable record (5-11), and lost the same number of rating points (48).

For some time now, I've been trying to convince monvieux to try out the 10 | 0 time control. Meanwhile, he's been upset with me for playing much too quickly. He claims I play faster at the 10 | 0 time control than he does at the 5 | 0 one. I have no reason to doubt him. Accordingly, starting tonight, I'm going to give the 5 | 0 time control a try. If I can't slow myself down, at least I can play at a time control which forces my opponents to speed up :-)

neostreet: 1186 (179-180-20 (379))
monvieux: 1352 (360-296-16 (672))

Down is up

One of the benefits of having written 1,386 blog posts about poker is that there's a lot of material there to crib from :-) Whole passages can be taken verbatim, and reapplied to chess. To wit, on November 18th of last year I wrote a post with this self-same title. Here's how it began:

Johnny Depp is one of my favorite actors. Captain Jack Sparrow is my favorite Johnny Depp character. "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" is my favorite Captain Jack Sparrow movie. Johnny delivers so many great lines in it, it's an embarrassment of riches! One of my favorites is "Send this pestilent, traitorous, cow-hearted, yeasty codpiece to the brig". What does "At World's End" have to do with poker? It's simple, really. There's a great scene where Jack figures out that the way to get to World's End is to capsize his ship, The Black Pearl. He figures this out because of a cryptic phrase on the map he has to guide him. It takes him a while to figure it out; here's another great line he delivers while doing so: "Up is down. That's just maddeningly unhelpful. Why are these things never clear?". In poker, up is down and down is up. The way to make money is to lose money first. And the way to lose money is to make it first.

As I've discovered, the best way to win games in blitz is to lose a lot of games first. By the way, I never do this on purpose! However, whenever you do lose a lot of games, your rating goes down, and chess.com then matches you up with weaker opponents. That enables you to win more games than you lose, until such time as your rating goes up enough to force you to play against opponents who are your equal or your superior. Then the whole damn cycle repeats :-) This causes you to alternate between euphoria and depression; in the euphoria phase, you feel you can do no wrong and don't see why your rating can't just keep going up without interruption. In the depression phase, you feel you can do no right and don't see why your rating can't just keep going down without interruption. Of course, the truth is somewhere in between; it's just really hard to decide where :-)

neostreet: 1234 (174-169-20 (363))
monvieux: 1344 (358-295-16 (669))

The fractal nature of the imp

I had another chess debacle last night, shedding 36 points off my rating and returning to midnight on my chess VCR (the same number of wins as losses). The imp of the perverse went fractal on me, or I should say, revealed its fractal nature, which it had actually possessed all along. What do I mean by this? To explain, I'll first need to describe what fractals are. One caveat - I have only a layman's understanding of them. Essentially, fractals are mathematical entities with the bizarre but very beautiful characteristic that they resembles themselves at every magnification. One analogy I read somewhere is that fractals are like very special coastlines. When you zoom in on any section of such a coastline, what you see in your microscope is the same thing you started with. The fractal is basically telling you, "Your microscope is no good here" :-)

Why do I say the imp of the perverse has a fractal nature? Simple, really. When you're under the spell of the imp, you make bad decisions at every conceivable magnification. At the level of magnification of a single game, you make a series of bad decisions in that game. At the level of magnification of a chess session, you make a series of bad decisions in that session. The worst thing you can do at the chess session magnification level is to keep starting a new game, loss after loss after loss; that's what the imp will make you do. I know, because I did it last night, losing 6 of my final 7 games.

neostreet: 1200 (165-165-19 (349))
monvieux: 1367 (357-291-16 (664))

Bad Day at Black Rock

I don't think I ever saw the 1955 movie "Bad Day at Black Rock", starring Spencer Tracy, in its entirety, but its title really impressed me and has stayed with me all these years. It's stark, bleak, and a huge understatement. I remember enough of the plot to know that it was nearly the worst of all possible days for the character Tracy played; most of the people in the town, if not all of them, were trying to kill him.

Last night, I had a bad day as Black. The chess.com software tries to ensure that it gives you as many White games as Black ones, and does well at this over the long run; however, sometimes one color predominates in the short term. Such was the case last night. In five games, chess.com assigned the Black pieces to me four times. I won just one of those games, and it was the only game I won. I felt like my penance for losing was to get the Black pieces again :-)

neostreet: 1236 (161-157-17 (335))
monvieux: 1358 (356-291-16 (663))

The imp of the perverse

Edgar Allan Poe coined a great phrase to describe self-destructive behavior - he called it "the imp of the perverse". You know you shouldn't do something, yet you go ahead and do it anyway. In some fundamental way, you're unable to stop yourself. I succumbed to the imp of the perverse in a landmark game last night. It was a landmark game because it was the first time I'd ever lost on time at the 10 | 0 time control. I'm hoping it'll be the last :-) A player like me should never lose on time at this time control. That's not braggadocio, it's simply an acknowledgment of how fast I like to play. In general, if I'm going to lose a game, I'll either resign or get checkmated long before my flag is in any danger of falling.

In my "imp of the perverse" game last night, I promoted a pawn to a queen on move 60. My opponent had just a king and a pawn. I was behind on time. All I needed to do to secure a draw was to take his pawn with my queen. My first opportunity to do so came on move 64; I declined to take it. My next opportunity came on move 66; again I declined. Again, on move 67; again I declined. I finally lost the game on time when it was my turn to move on move 75. What was I doing all this time? Trying to checkmate my opponent, of course. What a stooge I am :-)

neostreet: 1261 (160-153-17 (330)
monvieux: 1358 (356-291-16 (663))

Dos Equis

In my young blitz career, I've already discovered a favorite way to end a session - winning two games in a row. I hereby dub that occurrence a "Dos Equis" session :-) Aiming for this is a modest enough goal to be achievable, yet over time can really help grow your rating. The assumption here is that you've managed to battle to an even score (at least) before those final two games. As it turns out, my last three sessions have all been Dos Equis ones.

neostreet: 1268 (153-145-16 (314))
monvieux: 1364 (349-284-16 (649))

Warts and all

It's a given that it's instructive to play over one's losses; by pinpointing where you went astray, you can try to avoid such mistakes in the future. It's not well established how instructive it is to play over one's wins, however. Often, it isn't; when your opponent blunders, the only thing you can learn is the most efficient way to win from that point on. You can't learn how to cause your opponent to blunder, because there's no such technique. Playing over one of my wins from Saturday night, I discovered that the instruction lay in what my opponent should have done, and failed to do, when I blundered. It's never very gratifying to discover that the main reason you won was due to deficiencies on the part of your opponent, and not to any particular brilliance on your part :-)

neostreet: 1255 (148-142-16 (306))
monvieux: 1364 (349-284-16 (649))

A lifelong rivalry

I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but monvieux and I have been playing chess against each other on and off for the better part of forty years. Today I serendipitously came across a photograph of us squaring off against each other across a chessboard when we were about 28, roughly half our lives ago. Strangely enough, though I've been writing blogs of one description or another for over 5 years, I've never included an image in a blog post. After seeing the squaring off picture today, however, I feel compelled to include one at long last. Bear with me! Let's see if I can get the pixels to do my bidding :-)

That's me on the left, and monvieux on the right. We're both trying not to laugh, and I think I'm succeeding slightly better. Apparently we're about to play a game with 15 minutes on each of our clocks, which is a monstrous length. As I recall, our typical blitz game was 5 minutes a side. This photograph brings back many happy memories, and makes me very glad that monvieux and I are still great friends after all these years.

neostreet: 1240 (142-138-15 (295))
monvieux: 1334 (342-281-15 (638))

Chess calisthenics

Playing blitz well requires a limber and nimble mind. It's tough to be limber and nimble straight out of the gate, though. Some form of chess calisthenics is called for. If you can help it, you don't want to be wasting rating points while you're warming up your brain :-)

I'm not sure what the answer is; perhaps it's as simple as watching others play until you start to notice weaknesses in their games. I should try this, but predict I won't have the patience for it. Last night, I stumbled out of the gate, losing two horrid games as Black. When I won the third game after four forcing moves in a row, I decided to call it a night. It's always a good idea to end with a win!

neostreet: 1228 (136-134-15 (285))
monvieux: 1328 (340-280-15 (635))