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Novice Nook Dan Heisman
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Luck in the Sport of Chess Quote of the Month: There's no luck in chess. During my ICC radio show, among the most frequent questions asked of me were whether chess is a sport and if there is luck in chess. I would answer that by some Webster-type definitions, chess is clearly a sport, but it's primarily a matter of semantics and definition. And, of course, there is luck in chess – it's just a little different than the kind of luck to which the question refers. Let's consider both in more detail. Is Chess a Sport? There are different aspects to any definition of sport. Each involves competition and (in diminishing level of restricting definition) they are outlined below:
The further down the line, the more "open" the definition. Soccer and basketball satisfy all four, so they are a sport no matter how restrictive you make your definition. At one level down, weight lifting or shot-putting is athletic, but they're not considered aerobic, so by the strictest "aerobic" definition these activities would fail – but by most other definitions they are sports. Golf requires extremely well developed hand-eye coordination, other judgment skills, and is highly competitive, but is clearly not aerobic and arguably not athletic. Still, except for a stubborn minority, golf is clearly considered a sport. At the bottom (requiring the broadest definition) are mind sports, which are not very physical, but are highly skilled and competitive. The more skilled you make the activity, the more it follows the definition of sport. For example, chess with a clock is definitely more sporting than chess without a clock. It's not very sporting if you can sit there all day when you are losing, waiting to see if your opponent will give up in disgust. So in this sense chess at the World Open is more of a sport than chess at your local library or bookstore, especially if you play at these latter sites without a clock. As an aside, I always suggest my students play all practice games with a clock and record the game, even if your opponent is not recording it. So if you are one of those "gotta be aerobic/athletic" definition supporters (no, I won't write "athletic supporters"), then chess is not a sport. If you think that football is a sport, but that golf is not, then you certainly are not going to include chess. Everyone is welcome to their opinion and some (but not all) definitions will back up almost any reasonable stance. But if you include all the definitions of sport, and not just some, then pretty much all competitions of skill could be included. So being athletic is not always a requirement for considering something a sport. Editors of sports pages, sports magazines, and sports shows have to decide what their writers and reporters will cover. Michael Vick may have at one time considered dog fighting a legitimate sport, but most of U.S. society – and federal law – disagreed. In 1962 Bobby Fischer, who knew something about chess, wrote an article about his tribulations in the Candidates tournament in Curacao. He felt his sport was being controlled in a manner that restricted fair competition, so he penned an exposé "The Russians Have Fixed World Chess." It was not published in Chess Life or Chess Review; Fischer wanted a wider audience, so it was published in … Sports Illustrated! I side with the experts at Sports Illustrated, who have always covered highly competitive games like chess, bridge, or even poker - check out ESPN on late nights… Personally, I question most sports that require a judge's subjective opinion. Can you imagine telling Kasparov he lost because although he outscored Karpov on Artistic Merit it was not enough to overcome Karpov's lead in Technical Score? Or maybe the judge from Bulgaria liked Topalov's performance better while the judge from the USA thought Nakamura was not sufficiently humble last time they met. At least in boxing you might win on a TKO. I also believe that popularity should not define sport. For example, suppose I invent an activity similar to soccer. If my new activity uses the same skills and can be played competitively, then if soccer is a sport, so is my new game. Just because soccer is universally popular should not make it a sport – sure, that leads to more money and more competitors, but I can't see something "becoming" a sport just because it gets more popular. An activity can become a sport when you change the rules to make it more "sporting" (like adding a clock to chess, possibly). There is little sense arguing with your friends that chess is a sport. They are entitled to their opinion. Still, if you wish to sportingly make a friendly wager, then make sure that in determining the winner you are allowed to include all the definitions in official dictionaries. You will win… Luck in Chess Those who say "there is no luck in chess" are using only the issue of how a player gets to choose his moves. Obviously, since you can make any legal chess move you want, as opposed to backgammon, where you roll the dice and that determines which moves are legal, that part of chess excludes luck. However, to say there is no luck in chess for that reason is equivalent to stating that "chess" is, by definition, just how you get to choose your moves. That is quite silly; chess is much more than just how you get to choose your moves! I can give many examples of luck in chess, but let's start with this one: It is well-known that computers are more "consistent" than humans. That is, a computer rated 2800 will play much closer to 2800 each game than a human might. Kramnik overlooked a mate-in-one a few years ago – he doesn't usually do that so his opponent (a computer!) was lucky – he played well below his normal strength of 2800 for that move, and therefore in that entire game as well. In general, a human with a rating of X has his playing strength fluctuate in any one game around rating X with a Gaussian (bell-shaped) performance. So roughly ninety-five percent of the time a 1600 player will play at a strength between 1200 and 2000 (two standard deviations either way) over the course of a game, and five percent either above or below that range. Professor Arpad Elo, who created the Elo rating system (the basis for most chess rating systems), calculated a player's chance to score points from the overlap of the Gaussian curves of each player. So the curve of a 1600 player overlaps the curve of a 1700 player enough that the player rated 100 points lower will win about thirty-six percent of the points. If there were no deviation (luck), then the better player would always win. But even lower rated computers occasionally beat higher rated computers, especially if they don't always play the same openings. Physical or external factors can play a part in determining how well you play each move or each game. However, even for completely healthy players in perfect conditions, their results will vary widely, but within the expected norms. What determines this? Well, for one thing, chance! For example, suppose a player rated 1600 makes a big analysis mistake every twenty moves, but one rated 2200 makes a similar mistake only every 200 moves. Then if you play a 1600 and it is a normally complex game, but he makes no big analysis mistakes during the entire contest (a small but possible likelihood), then you were unlucky he played that well. On the other hand, suppose you play a 2200 player and he makes one or more big analysis mistakes against you – that is also somewhat unlikely, so you were lucky to catch him on a bad day. At the 1968 Liberty Bell Open, there were 102 players in the first round: #1 got paired with #52, #2 with #53, and so on down to #51 playing the lowest ranked #102. I was rated in the 1600s and was #52, so I got paired against my first master. My friend said "Boy, were you unlucky! If you were rated only a few points higher, you would have played an unrated, but instead you are playing the only master in Philadelphia!" He was right. However, I won the game and still use that example today when telling players to not be afraid of their opponent and just try their best on each move. So actually I was very lucky to not only win the game but also to have this story to be able to help others! My win was roughly a 50-1 shot, assuming the ratings were accurate. I was slightly underrated, but not so much that the result was not a huge upset. Suppose you are playing in the World Open and are 4-0 and don't know any of the other players who are 4-0. Let's further assume you end up paired with a player that allows you to play your favorite opening variation, you get a great game, and win easily. That is a lot luckier than if you had gotten paired with another player who would not only not have allowed that opening, but instead you would have fallen into his favorite opening! Or suppose you get to 7-1 and need a draw to clinch first place. You might be lucky to get paired with an opponent a half-point behind that will be happy to draw and ensure third place money rather than another who would risk most of his prize in an attempt to beat you and take first. After all, you get first with a win or draw, so you don't need to take a risk, but it would be lucky to be paired against a willing opponent. The following type of luck happens to me all the time. As you might suspect, I try to play Real Chess and make sure that my candidate moves cannot be defeated by any check, capture, or check. However, we are all human and, just because we have a good thought process, that does not mean we won't make mistakes executing it. So every few games I make that one big analysis mistake: I try to do my best, but I fail to see an important check, capture, or threat of my opponent. After my opponent makes such a move I did not anticipate, I always think "Oh my! I missed that! What am I going to do now?" However, in not all cases am I punished. Sometimes the answer is "Whew! I still have a defense even though I did not anticipate this – that was lucky!" And other times the answer is "Oh no! I am dead lost" which can be thought of as not luck, but lack of better skill. And even then I am sometimes lucky because I see why I am dead lost, but my opponent does not – he was just lucky he made the previous move and did not realize why it won!" So instead of following up with a sequence that beats me, he just plays another move and I luckily get away with my mistake. This would be a case of a double-blunder, as I overlook the win and my opponent misses it too. While I was writing this column I had one of the luckiest experiences of my chess life: I was playing a casual club game at G/70 (five second time delay). Earlier in the game I had made one of those rare "big" analysis mistakes – I had calculated "If I go 'A' and he goes 'B' then I have to do 'C'." Then after I actually played 'A' and my opponent played 'B', on my next move I properly thought "OK, now I calculated I have to do 'C' – let's verify that analysis and see if 'C' is best (see "Not As Simple As ABC" in Odds and Ends). Unfortunately – and unluckily – I could not remember all my analysis and failed in trying to recreate it. Eventually time (Trigger 2 – see my favorite Novice Nook The Two Move Triggers) forced me to give up my search and I made another move. I was not lucky and my opponent's skillful reply immediately showed me why I should have played 'C' – and as a result of his reply I was lost. After some further trials and tribulations we arrived at the following disastrous-looking position with me having a little more than five minutes on my clock and my opponent about fourteen: Black to play after 40.c6
At this point my first thought was "White is ahead the exchange and two passed pawns, is threatening Rc5+, and I have no meaningful checks. Seems like a good time to resign." My second thought was "Is there any continuation which might give me any chance at all of not losing?" After about a minute I found 40…Qe1 and decided it was worth a try, so I played it with about four minutes left on my clock. My opponent quickly played the expected 41.Rc5+ and after 41…Kb3 we arrived at another horrid-looking position, but this time one I had foreseen and was not dreading so much: White to play
Now my opponent started to think. While he did so, I thought, "This is amazing lucky! With no prior design, I stumbled into a line that looks dead lost, but I can't find a way for my opponent to win, despite him being on the move and having a big material advantage!" For example, after 42.Qc3+? Qxc3 43.Rxc3+ Kxc3 44.c7 I have the right color bishop (a 50-50 luck shot since I anticipated none of this before spotting 40…Qe1!) with 44…Ba6 and am likely winning in that line. After a couple of minutes he tried 42.Rb5+ Bxb5 43.axb5 Qf1+ 44.Kg4 (44.Ke4?? Qf5# is a good pattern to know, which Jon Tisdall calls a "Dovetail mate," and is very similar to what Renaud and Kahn call a "Gueridon mate") 44…Qf5+ 45.Kh4 g5+ 46.Kh5 Black to play
Now my clock was under a minute, and I saw a draw by perpetual check, but could not calculate the risk factor involved with the best try 46…h6! when White has to play accurately to draw! So instead I just took the draw with 46…Qg6+ 47.Kg4 Qf5+ 48.Kh5 Qg6+ 49.Kg4 ½-½. After the game, I went home and gave the position after 40.c6 to Rybka. It said White's best try after 40…Qe1!! was 41.Qc5+ Kd1 42.Qd6+ Kc2, but even then White cannot win after 43.Rc5+ Kb3 or 43.Rb5 Bg2+! So, amazingly, the diagram after 40.c6 is "Black to play and draw!" When I sent that position to Tim Krabbé, of Chess Curiosities fame, his response was "…Who says there is no such thing as luck in chess? I've always said chess is just that, a game of luck - remotely based on skill." – and Tim had no idea I was contemplating writing this column. Question: I am an older novice player (nearing 50!), who plays in clubs and in social settings. I enjoy reading your articles about thinking processes, "hope" vs. "real" chess, etc. But I have one question about that: Let's say there's a move that, if defended correctly, is inferior or even losing. But, if not defended or responded to correctly, would give a big advantage. And let's say the correct defense seems to be difficult to find, or you believe that the threat posed by your proposed move is hard to see. I gather that your advice would be to never play such a move – after all, that's the very definition of "hope chess." But surely even the most advanced players occasionally see positions like this, and sometimes take a calculated gamble that the reward is worth the risk. In your experience, how often do world-class players "gamble" in this way? I've always been curious about that, but I can find very little in the way of honest answers! Answer This is a complex issue, but I will attempt a brief answer: This is a form of hope, but not what I call "Hope Chess" – see #3 in Novice Nook Quiz. I call Hope Chess when you make moves and don't consistently check to see if there is an opponent's forcing move (check, capture, or threat) that can be made in reply which you cannot successfully defend next move. If you are not risking anything (see The Margin for Error and Steinitz, Zermelo, and Elkies) - then of course you want to set your opponent as many problems as possible. On the other hand, you don't want to make bad moves and just hope your opponent does not see them (see The Three Reasonable Types of Threats). So it really boils down to what you are risking and what you have to gain. For example, if you are playing a final round of the World Open where you win as much money with a loss as a draw, but get good compensation for winning, you can risk losing in an attempt to win. In my book The Improving Annotator you will see me play such a good "sub-optimum" move in my game with Steve Schonhaut (Qc4!?), which in that case was the right idea since playing the perfect move gave me no chance to win and I likely have a draw anyway with Qc4. © 2010 ChessCafe.com. All Rights Reserved. Dan welcomes readers’ questions; he is a full-time instructor on the ICC as Phillytutor. Yes, I have a question for Dan! Comment on this month's column via our Contact Page! Pertinent responses will be posted below daily. Readers' Responses Ed from Canada - You seem to be confusing the ideas of physical action and muscular action. It is true that chess is not "muscular" but it is just as "physical" as any other sport! The brain's activity is entirely physical if we accept modern science. In fact our brain, only 3% of our bodie's weight, takes up 25% of our caloric input. Chemical and electrical activity is just as "physical" as anything else we do. Chess does not require much in the way of muscular effort, it is true, but it is just as "physical" as football. Rick from the USA - I don't think the luck in chess is symmetrical. You can have good and bad luck in terms of the extraneous factors of the game, such as you mentioned in your column, or along the lines of "all I needed was for that 1700 player to beat that 1300 and I would've finished in the money!" But as for the game itself, you're responsible for your own moves, and not your opponent's. So while your opponent making a bad move is your good luck, you making a bad move is never your bad luck. Eric from the USA - Whenever the pro golf tour comes to town, I am reminded that golf is indeed an aerobic sport. Whenever I follow a particular golfer over the course of 18 holes, I've probably walked at least 3 miles. If an amateur has to carry their clubs and doesn't use a cart, it is both a strength and aerobic sport. |
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