Lets play a game of Chess

[LucyLovesCrypto]

pawn captures pawn is my vote

4 votes Qg4 (XMRpromotions, languagehasmeaning, Foxpup, jjacob)
4 votes dxc4 (gotmilk, swogerino, newb4now, lucylovescrypto)
2 Abstain (actmy name, bool berry)
1 vote Bf1 (dre1982)
1 vote Qf1 (Timelord2067)

[1714977012]

1714977012

[1714977012]

1714977012

[dre1982]

OP. Have you played recently a rapid tournament or the Millionaire Chess tournament?

[letsplayagame]

for the puzzle O-O, Kh6, Rf6#

Nice job finding the solution. The reason why this problem can be difficult even for good players is that it requires a move that is common only in the opening or middle game.

The studies referenced below are interesting because just like remembering the ability to castle very late in an endgame, scrambled positions are much harder to memorize than normal chess positions.

http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2012/02/15/how-experts-recall-chess-positions/

"In de Groot’s most famous demonstration, he showed several players images of chess positions for a few seconds and asked the players to reconstruct the positions from memory.  The experts made relatively few mistakes even though they had seen the position only briefly.  Years later, Chase and Simon replicated de Groot’s finding with another expert (a master-level player) as well as an amateur and a novice.  They also added a critical control: The players viewed both real chess positions and scrambled chess positions (that included pieces in implausible and even impossible locations). The expert excelled with the real positions, but performed no better than the amateur and novice for the scrambled positions (later studies showed that experts can perform slightly better than novices for random positions too if given enough time; Gobet & Simon, 1996).  The expert advantage apparently comes from familiarity with real chess positions, something that allows more efficient encoding or retrieval of the positions."

[letsplayagame]

OP. Have you played recently a rapid tournament or the Millionaire Chess tournament?

No comment. Answering that question combined with some previous clues would narrow down my identity too much right now.

[Timelord2067]

OP. Have you played recently a rapid tournament or the Millionaire Chess tournament?

No comment. Answering that question combined with some previous clues would narrow down my identity too much right now.

If it doesn't give away your identity,  what's your interest in Crypto?  Is it *just* BitCoin as the original, or do you have other's you're interested in?  I indirectly came to BitCoin/Crypto via PGP Public Key encryption.

(and if you're after a tie breaker, I'll change my vote to dxc4)

Regards,

[dre1982]

OP. Have you played recently a rapid tournament or the Millionaire Chess tournament?

No comment. Answering that question combined with some previous clues would narrow down my identity too much right now.

Could give it a try. ;-) No problem you still don't want to tell who you are. But it would be nice if we could congratulate you if you're who the most think you are.

[languagehasmeaning]

OP. Have you played recently a rapid tournament or the Millionaire Chess tournament?

No comment. Answering that question combined with some previous clues would narrow down my identity too much right now.

If it doesn't give away your identity,  what's your interest in Crypto?  Is it *just* BitCoin as the original, or do you have other's you're interested in?  I indirectly came to BitCoin/Crypto via PGP Public Key encryption.

(and if you're after a tie breaker, I'll change my vote to dxc4)

Regards,

4 votes Qg4 (XMRpromotions, languagehasmeaning, Foxpup, jjacob)
5 votes dxc4 (gotmilk, swogerino, newb4now, lucylovescrypto, Timelord2067)
2 Abstain (actmy name, bool berry)
1 vote Bf1 (dre1982)

[languagehasmeaning]

for the puzzle O-O, Kh6, Rf6#

Nice job finding the solution. The reason why this problem can be difficult even for good players is that it requires a move that is common only in the opening or middle game.

The studies referenced below are interesting because just like remembering the ability to castle very late in an endgame, scrambled positions are much harder to memorize than normal chess positions.

http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2012/02/15/how-experts-recall-chess-positions/

"In de Groot’s most famous demonstration, he showed several players images of chess positions for a few seconds and asked the players to reconstruct the positions from memory.  The experts made relatively few mistakes even though they had seen the position only briefly.  Years later, Chase and Simon replicated de Groot’s finding with another expert (a master-level player) as well as an amateur and a novice.  They also added a critical control: The players viewed both real chess positions and scrambled chess positions (that included pieces in implausible and even impossible locations). The expert excelled with the real positions, but performed no better than the amateur and novice for the scrambled positions (later studies showed that experts can perform slightly better than novices for random positions too if given enough time; Gobet & Simon, 1996).  The expert advantage apparently comes from familiarity with real chess positions, something that allows more efficient encoding or retrieval of the positions."

I always assumed most top chess players have great memories. It is interesting to hear that some (but not all) of the memory advantage is specific only to real chess positions and not random positions on the chess board. I wonder if the scrambled positions were even legal? Were both kings in check or were there pawns on the 1st or 8th rank?

Chess problems are easy to locate on the internet. I appreciate your commentary more than the problems themselves.  The reasoning you gave for choosing one position over a similar position for the first few problems you posted was interesting.

[hermesesus]

Hi
Can I join the game? I'm a beginner in chess but "the more the merrier"
If so, I vote dxc4.

[boolberry]

Hi
Can I join the game? I'm a beginner in chess but "the more the merrier"
If so, I vote dxc4.

Yes you can join! I will warn you that we are in big trouble already. Lately we have been updating the vote count with each new move to make counting easier. letsplayagame seems comes back every few days and makes a move but has said he does not like to count votes.

4 votes Qg4 (XMRpromotions, languagehasmeaning, Foxpup, jjacob)
6 votes dxc4 (gotmilk, swogerino, newb4now, lucylovescrypto, Timelord2067, hermesesus)
2 Abstain (actmyname, boolberry)
1 vote Bf1 (dre1982)

[letsplayagame]

Your move bitcointalk. You have the white pieces

The current position is updated below:

26.dxc4   Rxd2

[letsplayagame]

This is a good pattern for beginners to learn and memorize. White to move and win:

[Foxpup]

27. Bxd2, obviously.

[Timelord2067]

27. Bxd2, obviously.

Uh - huh... what are your other two moves after that?

27. Queen to f1 please, otherwise he'll move Bg5

1 Vote Qf1 (Timelord2067, )
1 Vote Bxd2 (Foxpup)

28. c4xb5
29. Ne2

[Timelord2067]

27. Bxd2, obviously.

Uh - huh... what are your other two moves after that?

27. Queen to f1 please, otherwise he'll move Bg5

1 Vote Qf1 (Timelord2067, )
1 Vote Bxd2 (Foxpup)

28. c4xb5
29. Ne2

An alternate play would be

27. Qg4
28. Be5
29. Qg7 Check Mate...

[Foxpup]

27. Queen to f1 please,

Loses the queen for nothing after 27... Rd1.

An alternate play would be

27. Qg4
28. Be5
29. Qg7 Check Mate...

You do realise that Black makes some moves in the meantime, right?

Can we vote to ban obvious trolls from casting future votes?

[ObscureBean]

I'll leave the current puzzle for others to solve. Definitely a good sequence to know, I've used it numerous times in blitz 

[Timelord2067]

27. Queen to f1 please,

Loses the queen for nothing after 27... Rd1.

An alternate play would be

27. Qg4
28. Be5
29. Qg7 Check Mate...

You do realise that Black makes some moves in the meantime, right?

Can we vote to ban obvious trolls from casting future votes?

R on d 1 gets taken by rook on a1, but he's not going to play that, his next likely move is his knight on b.

As to Trolls, you've already driven one person away (which was documented previously) and have made unsavory remarks about myself, so yeh, if you the Troll would like to leave, by all means do so.

[ObscureBean]

27. Bxd2, obviously.

Uh - huh... what are your other two moves after that?

27. Queen to f1 please, otherwise he'll move Bg5

1 Vote Qf1 (Timelord2067, )
1 Vote Bxd2 (Foxpup)

28. c4xb5
29. Ne2

No offense but I don't think you're taking the time to look at the position, Bg5 is met by f4. Also we might as well resign now if we gonna play the rest of the game a rook down.

[XMRpromotions]

I'll leave the current puzzle for others to solve. Definitely a good sequence to know, I've used it numerous times in blitz 

Same here. I also have seen the same sequence multiple times in real games.

1 Vote Qf1 (Timelord2067, )
2 Votes Bxd2 (Foxpup, XMRpromotions)