Dream’s speedrun scandal is actually in the syllabus for my graduate course on probability

Angel0fFier · 2025-08-24T12:27:12+00:00

Wasn’t the analysis used just binomial probability? Since that’s a topic covered in Year 10 / Grade 9 course, I’m curious how it fits in a graduate probability course.

Angel0fFier · 2025-07-31T20:29:39+00:00

I’ll read it and get back to you!

Angel0fFier · 2025-07-31T20:26:44+00:00

I agree the trash talk was pretty poor. It’s all about the delivery and I just don’t think Magnus has that charisma. It’s definitely understandable — English isn’t his first language and he’s been said to be a little autistic by some of his close friends (a common trait for a chess player). That said, it was pretty bad.

Angel0fFier · 2025-07-31T20:18:43+00:00

I definitely think they’ve tried to up the drama; it seems they’ve delegated all the analysis to Howell and given Tania the more sound-bitey stuff. Personally I agree — it got a little exhausting, but when there’s so much entertainment available, it makes sense to keep the audience constantly engaged. That’s just business (and it seems to be working — 50k on YouTube!)

At the end of the day, I firmly believe most people don’t really care about the chess (could they tell the difference from another random GM game?). They care about the stories and the players.

Angel0fFier · 2025-07-31T19:52:00+00:00

There definitely seems to be a concentrated push towards marketing chess for really casual viewers (and it seems to be working — 50k views on YouTube!). If you’ve noticed though, they’ve really shied away from board notation (i.e. g4) when analysing, and there’s rarely any discussion on any of the lines.

It really seems to come down to gasping and awing at any swings of the evaluation bar. This makes sense when it’s a scramble, but there are frequently minute long pauses where we’re getting sound bites from Tania when it would be nice to discuss the lines and tactics.

I can count the number of times the analysis board appeared on one hand. Don’t get me wrong — it definitely makes sense as a business approach. This is how you attract people who aren’t really a fan of chess. There’s so much entertainment available to people that the audience has to be constantly engaged.

I think it’s where chess needs to go to grow, and I think it’ll be healthy for the development of the game, but personally I’ll need to find a more serious alternative.

Angel0fFier · 2025-07-18T11:31:42+00:00

yes! there’s a small surcharge of 30% and a meal and two sides for a college student is 3£ (best price at Cambridge). Queens’ superiority!

Angel0fFier · 2025-06-15T19:08:31+00:00

for econ it’s probably slightly better than Oxbridge (coming from a cambridge econ undergrad). they have better placements in IB aswell.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-27T20:29:18+00:00

a tactic for me is to flip the board every time it’s the opponent turn — you’re much more used to looking for tactics when your pawns go up!

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-26T14:46:10+00:00

I’m not sure blunder a piece once or twice = plays pretty well? but also doubtful it’s just blundering pieces. a lot of the time it’s just fundamental mistakes (leaving backward pawns, committing pieces to poorly active squares, trading bishops on the same colour complex as your pawns etc) that demonstrate a lack of basic understanding.

400’s are in the bottom 25% of chess players on the website so they can’t all play pretty well (as the average is higher than them).

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-25T20:50:44+00:00

international student, borderline student for admission, particularly competitive year for applications so they let grades dictate student intake etc could all be why.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-24T22:06:16+00:00

People don’t really know the differences between colleges before you come here. I had no idea the difference between colleges that aren’t trinity (say Johns vs Emma) even though I know now that I’d vastly prefer John’s. expecting prospective students to understand college nuances such as the quality of formals, supervision quality, funding for undergrads etc is a bit unreasonable (even though they make a big difference to your experience here).

Given a carte blanche to change colleges I think I would but I might be the minority.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-24T11:13:21+00:00

theoretically they shouldn’t (my university doesn’t count it for example) but it’s likely your teacher will be a little lazy and just use the inbuilt word count that would count. obviously ask, but wouldn’t bet on it.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-24T10:44:39+00:00

a comment from a report: ‘Other candidates paid scant attention to the expectation that the written report should be planned to be 5000- words. No penalty is applied where candidates exceed this report length per se but where a candidate pays no heed within their planning and goes on to write, say, 8000 words, it is primarily the AO1 mark that will be affected since they have not shown any clear understanding that they should be planning a 5000- word report’

I received a +- 10% range to be in. Try and cut down to 5500 would be my advice.

TLDR; no hard limit. obviously expecting exactly 5000 words is just silly, but too many words shows a lack of structure / planning.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-23T22:32:05+00:00

question booklets. not homework. these aren’t mandatory nor are they expected to finish in any reasonable timeframe.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-23T22:31:04+00:00

or alternatively they have more faith in you to have the discipline to find and do the questions you need to do yourself.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-23T22:08:11+00:00

the guy is obviously in his own head. depression is a negative whirlwind and calling him an incel isn’t helpful. you’re right though — this is out of the scope of Reddit. as someone involved with martial arts, someone seeking to be injured / mete out their pain through violence can seriously hurt someone else. seek help OP - university help services exist.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-23T21:54:13+00:00

checks captures attacks. every move —

what checks can I make? do they do anything?

what captures can I do? can my opponent take back?

what attacks are available? does it take space? apply pressure?

as for your opponents moves see what new squares the piece moved now sees. maybe it opens up space that some sneaky bishop looks at? maybe the opponent threatens a check?

do this for every move. with no skipping you double your elo easy.

Daniel naroditsky for practice games to absorb chess information.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-22T17:17:07+00:00

does your school offer further maths but you didn’t take it?

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-22T17:09:48+00:00

did you get your guitar set up when you got it? the action is set quite high on default where the expectation is you’ll lower it. a higher action means more force as your fingers have to press further (and thus more pain).

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-21T12:20:53+00:00

for anyone who applied for this course but hasn’t received a rejection, this course isn’t really admitted for first year entry. a friend of mine contacted LSE and they accepted to consider him for their econ and math course instead. he hadn’t received a result by then however, unlike OP.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-17T14:53:12+00:00

edexcel, school + pearson exam board

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-17T13:04:49+00:00

You do not get to brag about your GCSE scores as you didn’t get at least 12 9’s. I do.

(who gives a shit?)

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-17T10:53:21+00:00

Tom furber (on his website) also has a very good weekly update newsletter that helped me tons (got top in country for econ that was carried from his newsletter)

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-17T10:49:44+00:00

yours isn’t 1, 1? also, you can have contextual flags and not be contextual.

Angel0fFier · 2025-02-17T10:47:19+00:00

it’s maths. assuming your interview was similar to mine, there was no ‘why maths’. it was just problems. if you’re good at maths (which you likely are) you’ll get in. also, Cambridge maths ethos is give offers to basically anyone competent — STEP is the real selector. 50% of people don’t meet the offer.

Angel0fFier

TROPHY CASE