On Oct 7, 7:47 am, SBD wrote:
On Oct 7, 7:26 am, help bot wrote:

Generally, they like to show the ones which have been
"cooked", meaning that somebody demonstrated that it
was flawed in some way. Why the obsession with
"cooks" is beyond me, for much of the analysis in CL,
for instance, can easily be "cooked".

That is because a chess problem should be exact : there should be one
key, unless more than one is intended and the analysis should be
flawless. A mate in six should not be a mate in five or seven. Duals,
such as multiple ending mates, tend to be intolerable. And that is one
of the points of a chess problem: it isn't a vague "and wins" but a
sure win or a mate or stalemate in x moves.


Yes, but by the writer showcasing problems which
have been "cooked", he focuses on the flawed, on the
inferior problems while using up valuable space which
better problems might have desired for themselves.

Maybe it's really about showing how clever the writer
is, how smart he was to find the "cooks". I mean, this
is the impression I often get when reading about other
things, like chess games for instance. Or is the credit
for finding the "cooks" given to those who wrote in? In
that case, it could be a way of encouraging interest in
problem solving via recognition. This is similar to how
Larry Evans' old column used to work; readers could
send in "questions", along with corrections to faulty
published analysis and if he agreed, he might list the
person's name right along with the correction.



-- help bot

On Oct 7, 8:04 am, SBD wrote:

Some have compared chess composition and play as similar to
choreographed martial arts on the stage or screen to the bar brawl.

This is very good. In my experience, some OTB games
can be compared to a bar brawl, both in quality and style
of play. The outcome is not always a perfect measure
of skill, but luck plays a big role (did that bottle over the
head knock him out, or just make him angrier?).

In the movies, martial arts are often ridiculous, one
guy chops, the other blocks, the first guy kicks, the
second backs up -- as if taking turns as in chess. And
some problems are like this, pieces having been added
everywhere for no other purpose than to confuse the
issue so it will be tougher to solve, just as more
opponents are added in a scene to make the hero look
more impressive; but in reality, nobody would even try
to fight so many men without an uzi or flamethrower.


Like all human comparisons, you can argue back and forth on the merits
of each.

No you can't. Yes you can. Can not. Can so!


In the end, though, it seems to me that certain players - who already
have ELO envy of seemingly everyone around them

Ad hominem projections reveal something, but
I'm not sure what, exactly. It's like one of those
crazy chess problems where pieces are all over
the place, yet there is purported to be a forced
mate in six -- and only one!


- are dismissive of
problems without ever having tried the experience, or try to see why a
series of Umnov maneuvers

Needs explanation; many readers will have no idea
what the writer is trying to say here, for Umnov is not
a famous grandmaster. Maybe this was tossed out
to try and impress somebody, but who? (Only about
four people on the whole internet may know this guy,
Umnov.)


provide beauty and interest to a problem. I
still find Evans comment about endgame composers being relatively weak
players a sign of snobbery - who cares if they even played the game at
all? Isn't the chess what is important? And what is a "weak player?"
Sigh.....


To GM Evans, a weak player is any player who does
not sport the letters "GM" in front of his name. What I
found amusing was the fact that when Bobby Fischer
wrote a letter in a huff over LE's published criticism of
his match "demands", instead of rebuffing the loon by
pointing out that his answer was not an endorsement
of any particular move, he just cowed down and took a
verbal lashing instead. Far from operating on any real
principles, the man seemed to go more by butt-sniffing,
by who was the alpha-dog chess player -- and by golly,
there was no question of that. But moreover, all the
letters tend to be from far lesser players, and here the
GM takes a rather arrogant tack, often as not, falling
back on his own title as support for the arrogance, as
when he proudly proclaims that he does not easily
suffer (other) fools. But getting into a huff over a few
weak players making use of Chessmaster to "cook"
his published analysis only serves to reveal who the
real fool is; what do you expect weak players to do:
write in with corrections based upon analysis which
they have "checked" by asking their chess-playing
buddies to look it over for mistakes, knowing that an
arrogant snob will ridicule them for having even dared
to try and poke holes? It boggles the mind.


-- help bot

On Oct 7, 9:44 am, " wrote:

What is a weak player? A good test is someone whose tournament results
are poor. Sam Loyd, perhaps the most famous American composer ever,
quit playing after his disastrous result at Paris in 1867.

Alain C. White in SAM LOYD AND HIS CHESS PROBLEMS writes on page 47:
"What induced Loyd to enter the International Masters' Tournament at
Paris in 1867 has always been a mystery to me. Browning has a poem
about how Dante wished to excel for once as an artist and Raphael
aspired to distinction in poetry; so it may be that Loyd, who had the
very highest fame as a problemist, desired to be known rather as a
great player. Be that as it may, he entered the Congress as
representative of America against Kolisch, Winawer, Steinitz and some
ten other masters....and his final score was only 6 won, 17 lost, and
1 drawn...Certainly Loyd cared more for brilliancy far more than for
soundness, but whether his ideal is that of good chess is another
question"


As so often happens, Mr. Parr seems to lack any
real perspective here.

This result, 6 wins, a draw and a bunch of losses, is
not a "poor" one -- except by grandmaster standards,
if the list of names above is any indication.


Here is what the Web site chessmetrics has for
Sam Loyd:

Best world ranking: #15

Highest CM rating: 2445

Best performance: 2477, earned in the year *1886*

Note that is well after the year mentioned above, when
SL is alleged to have "quit playing chess". And while
these ratings may not be reliable (I spotted two players
given 2300+ ratings who lost every game at N.Y., 1886),
they do seem to indicate that Mr. Loyd was a very strong
OTB player, even if he could not claim to be a title
contender.

There is a huge discrepancy betwixt Sam Loyd's fame
as a composer and his OTB skill, obviously; but this does
not make him a weak player, by any means. Some
problemists may have had a tendency to focus on the
endgame, and such skills as that would be of little use
if beaten earlier, in say the opening or middle game. In
modern play, the focus is almost entirely on the opening
stage at the grandmaster level, and it seems to me that
problemists are working in a different realm.


-- help bot