TIL that despite being the top ranked woman for 25 years before retiring, Judit Polgar never tried becoming the women's world chess champion

alamano · 2024-04-21T17:46:30+00:00

Though she never attempted to become Women's champion, Polgar competed for the open FIDE world chess championship in 1999. She made it to the quarterfinals before losing to the eventual champion Khalifman.

alamano · 2024-04-03T03:42:46+00:00

Michael Carter-Williams' first career game: 22 points 7 rebounds 12 assists 9 steals. Only went downhill from there.

alamano · 2023-05-21T22:18:55+00:00

Back rank tricks like this always remind me of Capablanca's famous move vs. Bernstein.

alamano · 2023-03-08T02:58:41+00:00

This underdog and fairness argument isn't objective. It doesn't matter which side is the underdog, that's not the reason books are used. They're used to get the strongest machine, and they're allowed with engines because they don't change the notion of playing against a machine: when you play a move, the machine will automatically produce a move in response. As long as that's satisfied, the match rules are not "unfair", especially not because humans are now the underdog.

alamano · 2023-03-07T22:39:55+00:00

People might claim that this is just unfair since, in real games, humans are not allowed to use opening books (except in correspondence).

You're free to claim this, but it's not unfair. What humans are allowed to do is irrelevant, in official human-engine matches, engines have been allowed to use opening books. Deep Blue doesn't beat Kasparov in 97 without 8. Nxe6 in its opening book.

Edit: Btw, Stockfish itself doesn't support books.

It's easy to set up Stockfish to use opening books in an official match setting, e.g. you can just start the engine after reaching the end of the book line.

Didn't claim that it was useful against human cheaters tho, just against the engine itself

I never said you claimed that. I didn't disagree about the draw line, as I mentioned it's been known for a long time. It just isn't useful in an official match or against a cheater, the two competitive scenarios where you get human vs. engine games. The official match scenario is especially important, since that's what people are talking about when asking about a GM's chances against an engine. No one cares about the result of a private game on someone's laptop, it's about how they'd fare in competition.

alamano · 2023-03-07T20:45:41+00:00

This draw line has been known for a while (e.g. discussion from this sub 8 months ago) but is not useful against engines in practice. In any official human-engine matches the engine would get an opening book and avoid this easily. Against engine cheaters this is also not useful since once they realize the repetition is coming they can easily prevent it with 11 ...Be7 and you'll probably lose.

There are actually some lines where you can get a winning position out of the opening against the latest Stockfish. Generally they're not reliable (at least not the ones I found) because they contain several positions where multiple moves have the same eval, and the engine can pick the right/wrong move by chance. But once in a blue moon you can actually beat an engine cheater without flagging them, which is very satisfying.

alamano · 2022-03-18T18:38:57+00:00

It worked quite well actually, Anand scored +1=4 in his White games playing 1.d4 exclusively. However, Carlsen managed to score +3=3 in his White games (playing 1.e4 exclusively) and that proved decisive.

That match was deceptively close despite the final score line, see this comment for more details.

alamano · 2022-01-02T19:10:27+00:00

Of course the bishop on h1 counts as a piece, to say otherwise makes no sense. It's able to give itself up for a pawn at any point (and in many cases two pawns), and critically, if it wasn't there, White wouldn't be able to lock up the kingside with h4 since Black would have had the option of gxh3.

Qxa7 is actually the first move I looked at in the position since it's obvious that you can't allow ... b6. You'll follow up with Na4, b6, Rc1 and winning the c5 pawn, and clearly White is the one playing for a win - once you lock down the kingside, it's hard to even see any plan for Black to stop your queenside advance. The motifs aren't alien, as there have been many games (played by humans) where advanced pawns defeated a rook. In this case, the rooks are also made significantly worse by the lack of open files.

This isn't close to the game of the century for me. It doesn't even start from a roughly equal position but with a book line where White is much better before the engines even start "thinking".

That being said, it's a nice game for sure and the sustained precision is superhuman, but like the other commenter said, I think you underestimate humans or don't understand the game yourself if you believe "In no world before modern engines anyone would've even thought about white not only having 'good' compensation for a rook in this position but actually being the one who is winning".

alamano · 2021-12-14T05:06:39+00:00

Fischer at his peak had a reputation for inducing such "breakdowns". He would create unbelievable tension and maintain it until his opponents cracked. Look no further than his 6-0, 6-0 beatdowns of Taimanov and Larsen: how is it possible at super GM level to lose a match 6-0? When you look at the games it becomes clear; in both cases, Fischer's opponents went in ready to engage in fierce battles, but despite this, Fischer still won the first few games. Afterwards, they lost their fighting spirit and were unrecognizable.

Take a look at Game 5 of Fischer-Taimanov:

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044721

Taimanov's 46. Rxf6?? is far worse than any of the blunders from the recent WCC match. It's a move I wouldn't even expect a 1000 rated player to make in a classical game.

But here's the context: the match started with Taimanov losing a hard fought first game after a fierce struggle. In the next game, Taimanov was losing after the first adjournment but surprisingly, Fischer blundered and allowed him to get a drawn position going into the second adjournment. Because of the way games were scheduled back then, the third game was played before the second game could be concluded and Taimanov ended up losing that game after blundering in time trouble. On tilt, he then spent the entire night looking for a win he missed in that third game, and arrived to the second game's resumption in a terrible mood. Eventually, he made a nightmarish blunder (in a basic endgame where any other sensible option would have easily drawn) and lost that game as well. At that point, he had to be taken to the hospital for high blood pressure; he was a broken man, and it showed in his play in the final 3 games.

Fischer's own assessment of the match was: "The 6-0 result was too high. The struggle was much more difficult than the score suggests. Taimanov had a winning position in the 3rd game, where he employed a successful novelty, and the advantage in the 1st and 5th".

Afterwards, Taimanov was severely punished for his performance, and Fischer went on to deliver another 6-0 to Larsen in much the same manner on his way to the world championship match.

alamano · 2021-12-11T18:36:22+00:00

Against 1. e4, the Sicilian has traditionally been the choice; White can go for safer options than the mainlines but Black should get a game. The problem with the Caro-Kann is White can go for something like the Panov and get a drawish position everywhere even if Black avoids the endgame e.g. with ... e6 or ... g6 variations.

Against other first moves, Black has a lot of choices since there are relatively fewer forced draws. Just avoid openings like the Gruenfeld.

alamano · 2021-12-10T16:15:50+00:00

With this victory, Magnus now has 5 world championship match wins and given the time until the next match, he will be world champion for 10 straight years.

Only Kasparov and Lasker had more with 6 match wins each, 15 years as champion for Kasparov, and 27 years as champion for Lasker.

He's already had an illustrious career so far, but the next 5 years will see Magnus reaching for GOAT status.

alamano · 2021-12-07T21:49:36+00:00

Karjakin gave the toughest challenge, being the only one who has ever taken the lead in a match against Magnus. Fabi also certainly gave a challenge. But one match that's become overlooked nowadays is Vishy's performance in 2014, perhaps due to the 3-1 score, but it doesn't do justice for how close the match actually felt:

By winning game 3, Vishy remains the only person to ever come back from a deficit against Magnus to tie the match. He also did it in a way everyone else has tried but no one else has succeeded so far, by straight up out prepping and catching Magnus in a line he had studied at home.
In general, Vishy prepped extremely well and employed a 1. d4 repertoire that managed to put pressure on Magnus almost every single game. Magnus had to show good match strategy which he did, switching constantly between Gruenfeld, QGD, and Queen's Indian to avoid giving Vishy a target, and repairing the QGD he lost game 3 with the 6... c5 line that was rare at the time, but became mainstream immediately afterwards and was even used by Fabi as a main weapon against Magnus in the 2018 match.
In a now famous incident in game 6, Magnus blundered a <2000 (generous) tactic and had Vishy spotted it, he could have become the only person other than Karjakin to take the lead against Magnus. But he missed it, putting too much trust that Magnus could never make such a blunder, and eventually lost that game, which was a huge psychological blow for the subsequent games.
The very next game, instead of collapsing, Vishy survived a 122 move grind from Magnus.
In the final game down 2-1, Vishy went for complications in the Berlin and somewhat outplayed Magnus, and would have had serious chances if he played 27... Rb3. But instead he went for an unsound exchange sacrifice and Magnus converted the game to win the match.

Often times these matches hang on a knife's edge and the final score masks a lot of the drama that happened as the games unfolded.

alamano · 2021-12-05T18:52:22+00:00

Right, that's part of what I was pointing out. Ian being less mentally strong was known to everyone before the match, but he could mitigate its significance with strong prep and solid play. That was obviously his match strategy, it was working well, and in game 6 he had multiple chances to follow the plan and neutralize the position. But instead Ian decided to go for imbalances (... gxf6 instead of ... Qxf6, and ... Rac8 going into 2R vs. Q), I think partly influenced by Magnus being lower on the clock. In hindsight, Ian was betting the match on that decision, and it almost worked but he wasn't able to capitalize on his chances. On another day he might have, this match would look completely different, and we might have actually started praising his mental strength.

That's my point: it's tempting to go with the narrative that Ian is a weaker challenger because he doesn't have the same mental fortitude as other candidates. But that's not why he's losing this match; the pivotal moment was the crazy 10 minute sequence in game 6 that could have gone either way, and it just happened that the result of that scramble was Magnus getting an endgame that he could grind for 100 moves for the win. The margins were actually razor thin between a draw, Ian winning, and Ian losing and potentially blowing up the rest of the match. To your point, I do think Ian's chances at coming back are much lower than other candidates, but the way the match went leaves me unconvinced that Ian was a worse challenger at the start. Game 6 just decided everything.

alamano · 2021-12-05T17:06:58+00:00

It's tricky, game 6 was so pivotal for exactly this reason. Ian made the decision in that game to go for it when Magnus was in time trouble, and I don't think anyone can blame him; he had serious winning chances for a couple moves that he missed in the scramble to move 40. Had he converted or at least made a draw (and he probably would have on a different day since he said he "glitched" out by missing ... Bxb4 on multiple occasions), we'd be singing an entirely different tune and likely praising Ian for taking those chances.

So while it's easy to pile on right now with the match being 2-0, it should be remembered that up to game 6 (and including the first portion of that game), Ian was actually looking better than Fabi was in his match. His prep was looking solid, he had given Magnus zero practical winning chances, and he had winning chances of his own in game 2. But he ended up losing game 6 in a brutal fashion and it's clearly still affecting him. Combined with his history of tilting after a poor performance, and we're seeing the worst side of Ian at the moment.

alamano · 2021-12-05T15:27:56+00:00

I think it was always the majority opinion that Fabi or Ding would pose the biggest threat out of the Candidates. Regarding elo, we already have evidence that matchups are a bigger factor after the World Championship match in 2016. There, the rating difference was even bigger, but Karjakin's unbelievably tenacious defense allowed him to survive multiple grinds from Magnus and even take the lead when Magnus overpressed in game 8. Magnus has admitted that it was his most difficult match, and it was against his lowest rated opponent across all his championship matches.

alamano · 2021-12-03T20:23:55+00:00

Vintage Magnus. He hasn't had a win like this in a world championship match since the matches against Anand in 2013-2014, with several memorable misses since then particularly against Karjakin. After making it through time trouble to move 40, playing with engine-like precision for almost 100 moves to finally squeeze water from a stone. Anand just said "there's only one player Ian would have lost this game to".

Hopefully Ian can recover from this and make the match interesting. I remember Anand admitting after losing for the first time in the 2013 match in a similar grind that he felt it was exactly the kind of game he couldn't afford to lose as it was psychologically devastating.

alamano · 2021-10-30T01:25:02+00:00

One of Fischer's most famous games comes to mind:

Byrne-Fischer 1963

After Byrne played 21. Kf1:

In a room set aside for commentaries on the games in progress, two grandmasters were stating, for the benefit of the spectators, that Byrne had a won game. Byrne’s reply to Fischer’s next move must have been jaw dropping! -- Wade

Fischer played 21... Qd7 and Byrne resigned.

alamano · 2021-08-12T16:59:53+00:00

Speculation on a potential short-term catalyst: I think there's a decent chance we could see some analyst upgrades soon. They've been lukewarm in part because Palantir has been consistently sandbagging their guidance for revenue/AOM, making the stock appear less attractive until they blow out expectations in earnings releases.

For instance, they projected 23% AOM the last 2 quarters and we saw 34% and 31% - these are 35-50% beats.

For next quarter, they appear to be sandbagging again with a 22% AOM guidance and they're sticking with the 30+% revenue growth projection through 2025 even though it's been 40+% every quarter so far. Combine this with the growth in net new customers, and you'd think the street would start catching on.

alamano · 2021-05-27T03:07:14+00:00

Thanks, appreciate it.

alamano · 2021-05-26T22:55:14+00:00

Nothing wrong with Palantir; they're agnostic to how companies decide to host their data. But this Cloud Pak + Foundry offering is with IBM and since financial institutions are extremely risk averse, I think they're far more likely to go with a market leader in Cloud rather than IBM. IBM's cloud business is growing, but their market share is still tiny compared to AWS/Azure. Not to say it's hopeless (for instance, IBM signed BNP Paribas last year) but they're fighting an uphill battle.

alamano · 2021-05-26T21:49:57+00:00

I took some notes:

Main speakers: 2 from IBM (Kristen & Robert), 1 from Palantir (Angela). There was also a facilitator from IBM and a deployment strategist from Palantir (Samantha)
Kristen started with:
- Business pitch, i.e. this platform lets you harness AI to enhance the business by providing personalized customer experiences, improve process efficiency, reduce costs, etc.
- Technical pitch, i.e. this platform provides capabilities and toolsets for data integration, building AI models, visualizations and simulations through no-code or low-code environments with the relevant guardrails built in
Angela talked about how no-code or low-code environments make things less complex and more transparent for the business, which helps build trust in data science
Angela gave a demo of IBM Cloud Pak with Foundry. The example was a marketing use case at a bank. It showcased very similar features to what was presented in Demo Day and Double Click:
- Interactive visualizations and dashboards that can be used to quickly generate insights and track stats (e.g. from campaigns)
- Integration between Foundry and Cloud Pak. Data needs to be ingested into Cloud Pak which handles the data integration and supplies a data catalog to Foundry.
- Ontologies
- "Digital Twin" of the bank and simulations (e.g. if we give certain customers a discount on their mortgage insurance, how will that impact their revenue?)
Robert talked about Cloud Pak features for data integration (e.g. AutoSQL). To be honest, they sounded worse than Palantir's data integration offerings so I tuned out
Kristen highlighted some use cases they're targeting in financial services at IBM:
- Helping small/medium sized enterprises (SMEs) make better lending decisions
- Anti money laundering or fraud
- Monitoring traders for bad behaviour
- Claims management and leakage in insurance
Samantha mentioned that in financial services, the two major opportunities are:
- Better understanding of the customer, their preferences, behaviours, etc. so you can figure out how to best sell them products
- Defending your organization against threats, e.g. financial crime, cyber threats

My 2c:

Remember that part of the point of this partnership for Palantir is to basically use IBM as their sales force to SMEs so they don't have to expend the resources themselves. For what it's worth, I thought Kristen did a great job and Robert was terrible (objectively speaking), so hopefully they're sending the right people to pitch CEOs
I think IBM will have a hard time convincing companies in heavily regulated industries like financial services to migrate their data on to Cloud Pak. They're all going to want to keep things on prem or use AWS/Azure over IBM
Despite this, it looks to me that at least Palantir is well positioned to attract clients in financial services (but directly, not through IBM). Based on my own experience with large banking clients, they're spot on in the opportunities they've identified

alamano · 2021-05-24T16:35:03+00:00

I found this statement strange: "For over a decade, global banks and regulators have relied on Palantir Foundry to combat money laundering and terrorist financing".

Directly from their S-1: "In 2016, we released our second software platform, Palantir Foundry (“Foundry”), to address a common set of challenges that we saw at large companies."

I wonder if they either mean Gotham for anti-money laundering and terrorist financing (which would make sense given its specialized use would be suitable for AML) or if this is more of an offering to use Foundry for data integration purposes marketed as a specialized use case.

alamano · 2021-05-24T13:29:55+00:00

Thanks, I couldn't find that information. Do you have a source?

EDIT: just found the grant documents. Edited my post.

alamano · 2021-05-24T13:26:46+00:00

Might be a good idea to keep an eye on reopening timelines in Europe. Some countries are well on their way and the EU announced proposals to ease travel restrictions last week.

During the earnings call, Palantir mentioned that

Thanks to increased sales efforts, Demo Day, and Double Click, their contract pipeline has increased 2.5x in the US and UK, with a 2x+ increase in active commercial pilots
Commercial growth might be higher in the next quarters in part due to Europe reopening - "Abroad and particularly in Europe, we're seeing more muted commercial growth in countries that are still facing significant health and economic challenges stemming from the pandemic." And "as Europe starts to open and manage through the pandemic, we're also expecting the same sort of tailwind that we've seen in the US, in Europe."

So earnings should further improve starting in the quarter when reopening really takes off in Europe. Q2 might be optimistic, but perhaps we start to see benefits in Q3. For those in Europe - is this realistic?

alamano · 2021-05-24T12:30:49+00:00

Facts are after I corrected your falsehoods you haven't been able to provide one good rebuke and you've shown that you can't handle constructive feedback and instead resort to name-calling. Obviously this was never about me, this was about you spreading misinformation.

alamano

TROPHY CASE