Polgar 4016

A mate in three from Polgar "Chess", #4016

White has four checking moves, but Black has an amazing ten, two of which (Qb1, Rc1) are mates in one.

With b8 double-covered and the knight in checking position, I am immediately thinking smothered mate. With a7 also double-covered, yes smothered mate is it:  1 Qb8+ Rxb8 2 Ra7+ Bxa7 3 Nc7#

Polgar 4015

A mate in three from Polgar "Chess", #4015

This one gave me some fits, until I got to the question, "what's the absolute minimum material I need for a mating net here?"

Black has 4 checking moves, and White only has 3, and again the only clean check, 1 Nc7+, is cleanly answered by Kb8 with no good followup.

The pawn on b7 is a big nuisance, able to either b6+ or bxa6, removing a key mate-net piece. So how about Bd5, pinning it? Nope, without a check, Black can give her own check Bb6+.

So we're down to sac checks, but neither sacking the rook nor the queen allows the other one to mate, and surely they can't both be sacked, right? Unless that is the whole idea, and yep, it is.

1 Rc8+ Nxc8  This both keeps c8 blocked to the king (later) and removes control from d5 for the bishop.

2 Qxb7+!  Removing the pest directly.

2...Kxb7 3 Bd5#

As with #4014, the king has been trapped in a corridor, this time a diagonal one (a8-h1), with a closed door (c8), and executed there.

Polgar 4014

A mate in three from Polgar "Chess", #4014

Black's king is exposed, four checking moves, while White's is not -- zero checks. White rooks are on two open files.

There is a clean check with Ne7, but Black has an apparently clean getaway with Kf7.

The idea with this one is to "draw the king in" to the h-file corridor, close the door on him, then open fire. 1 Rh8+ Kxh8 2 Ne7 any 3 Rh1#.

Of course the king needn't be drawn in; there is still 1...Kf7. But in that case 2 Re7 is, conveniently, mate.

Also it must be triple-checked that there really is no second move that blocks or prevents 3 Rh1 from being mate. Nope, absolutely no Black move to anywhere on the 1-rank or the h-file, no checks, and no luft move anywhere for the king -- Black would need both Kh7 and g5 to have luft on g6.

Polgar 4013

A mate in three from Polgar "Chess", #4013

If g3 were not pinned, g4 would be mate in one, so the queen is tied to the third rank unless it can give check. Therefore the rook is free to threaten mate in one also (on h7). The queen is overworked -- cannot both maintain the mate-preventing pin on g3 and also remove a mate-threatening rook.

So why isn't it mate in two? Because the queen can sacrifice herself to gain one extra move (Qxg3+).

And can't the rook threaten mate from either h8 or g7? Yes, but one of those moves (Rg7) also allows black to delay mate by a move (with h6).

1 Rh8 Qxg3+ 2 Kxg3 h6 3 Rxh6#

Star Trek TOS Goodness, 18 Arena

I had occasion to back up into Season One of the original Star Trek series (TOS) again.  Every time I rewatch I see things differently.  This time I seemed particularly sensitive to both the really good and the really bad simultaneously.  For some reason, I felt the desire to rewatch "The Devil in the Dark" and "The Return of the Archons", not my usual favorites, in that order.  I use Amazon Prime, which has the Remastered episodes, and these are episodes 25 and 21 respectively.  There are some really good parts of both.  Then I reviewed the surrounding episodes and realized there is a really good long string of "good" episodes here, everything between "The Squire of Gothos" (#17) and "The Alternative Factor" (#27) (both below the "bad" line for me).  This is where Star Trek may have gained it's first "stride" into history.  I thought it would be worth going through each of these nine episodes #18 through #26 and pointing out why they are so good, and where they are bad.

#18 Arena, 1/19/67

What a great intro -- happy anticipation of a great "unreconstituted" meal by Kirk and McCoy, tempered by foreshadowing questioning by Spock and the obligatory "ominous" music, culminating in "Red alert -- Cestus three has been destroyed" after transporting down.  In under two minutes we're completely hooked.

After the title sequence, the landing party, in short order: finds a lone survivor, detects non-human cold-blooded life on sensors, loses the landing party's sole red-shirted member to enemy fire, comes under continuous mortar-type fire, finds they cannot be transported up because the Enterprise is also dealing with an enemy ship, moves to shelter, and Kirk gets to zig-zag and roll trying to reach the "arsenal" which for some inexplicable reason is out in the open.

Also inexplicable is why Sulu must leave orbit when the Enterprise has not come under any fire itself.  Oh well, drama must be served.

Next we transition to an offensive part of the battle, initiated by Spock joining Kirk at the arsenal with a couple rolls of his own, with tricorder info on enemy location.  Working very closely together with a phallic grenade launcher operated by Kirk, they scare off the enemy AND the enemy ship with a single tac-nuke type grenade.

Is this eight-minute sequence the first and only extended land battle portrayed in TOS?  I think so.  And it's not bad -- well sequenced, lots of movement, significant pyrotechnics.

Next phase, the Enterprise pursuing the alien ship.  So far we're in a parallel story to "Balance of Terror" #14, except that the identity and appearance of the enemy is still unknown.  We also have Spock in a more pacifist role, while Kirk appears adamant that the enemy must be destroyed, very parallel to "Devil in the Dark" #21.  Clearly one of Roddenberry's recurrent themes is pacifism vs. engagement, where the most stark example is probably "A Private Little War" S2#19.  The context of all this is of course the U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the 1960's. End of act one; this has to be one of the best/tightest starts of any episode.

Act two is another twist. Yet another alien species, the Metrons, puts a stop to the space chase and deposits both ships' captains on a barren planet to fight it out one-on-one. Thus the title "Arena". And here is another of Roddenberry's tropes, the third-party "parent" species that brokers others' conflict. Errand of Mercy (Organians), The Savage Curtain (rock creature), but usually it is the humans: A Taste of Armageddon, The Devil in the Dark, The Alternative Factor, Journey to Babel, A Piece of the Action, A Private Little War, Patterns of Force, Bread and Circuses, Spock's Brain, Elaan of Troyius, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (unsuccessful), The Cloud Minders.

And we finally get to see the reptilian alien form and learn their name, Gorn. End of act two.

Act three is all the hand-to-hand maneuvering on the "arena planet" until the Gorn gets the upper hand.

Of course Kirk escapes. The Metrons feel sorry that he is losing and let the Enterprise watch events on their viewscreen. (Characters watching on screens is another trope -- The Cage, The Menagerie, Court Martial, Bread and Circuses, Patterns of Force.)

But of course Kirk figures out how to make a primitive gun and defeats the Gorn. But there is one final beautiful twist.  Kirk, primed for aggression at the beginning over Spock's entreaties, at the end relents out of the mere possibility that the Gorn is redeemable (as well as to poke the Metron puppeteers).  "No. No, I won't kill him!"

That is what truly makes Star Trek special.  I must be getting sentimental in my old age, because this really got to me on this watching. It goes straight to what Robert McNamara finally realized in The Fog of War -- empathize with your enemy.  Vietnam would have been very different if that lesson had been learned when this Star Trek episode was first broadcast (1969).

Anyway, a representative of the Metrons finally makes an appearance and congratules Kirk on his civility, and all ends happily.

What a tour de force of action, conflict, and morality. And a great setting (shot at Vasquez Rocks, CA). I used to consider this episode rather cheesy, mostly because of the over-done Gorn, but it is growing on me as I look deeper.

Building a Better Chess Thought-Process

I want to develop a better chess thinking process.  I miss too many of the simplest ideas at the board, even at longer time controls.  From watching many of Kingcrusher's YouTube live videos in which he verbally annotates his thought process in real time during 5-minute ICC games (there are literally thousands of these videos), it's clear that he has a strong mental process of interpreting what is happening on the board very very quickly and fairly accurately.  I want some of that.

I want something thorough, i.e. that will cover "everything" on the board at a given level of detail, and yet which is as simple as possible at each level of detail and thus as quick as possible to use.

Inspired by Dan Heisman's tactics/middlegame advice to consider "Checks, Captures, and Threats, in that order", I would like to put together a more detailed and specific procedure to implement Dan's advice, which I'll call "All One-Move Tactics".  The idea is that this procedure must be followed at each move, first for my moves and then for my opponent's (assuming a "null move" for me).  This should give a complete first-order picture of all tactics (simple tactics) on the board in the current position.  Note that this is not about evaluating the strength of any of these tactics (which I am pretty good at), merely at identifying every (simple) tactic (which I sometimes fail to do).

So, let's start the list.  Items on this list must be identified/eliminated in order.  (Note: this list assumes my king is not already in check; if it is, that will need to be a completely different "list".)

#1  Checkmate in One.
#2  Any check of opponent's king from a non-attacked (safe) square, including via discovery.

#1 and #2 cover Dan's Checks except for sequences of checks.  I am still debating whether these also need to be considered for the opponent also before moving further down the list.

Before moving further down the list, it will be useful to identify loose pieces on the board, since these will be considered in multiple steps below, so:

#2.5  Identify all pieces on the board that are not protected at all (loose pieces).

#3  Any/all captures of loose pieces.
#4  Any/all captures of any piece by a lesser-value piece, considering knights and bishops as equal-valued.

Here already I can hear the second-order objection, "wait, what about captures above which open up a discovered attack on one of your other pieces".  Yes any such condition needs to be "noted and (mentally) logged" with the move under consideration, for later analysis.  But for purposes of simplicity, this cannot be allowed to slow down the "all one-move tactics" process.

Also to note here, no "removal of the guard" analysis fits in this scheme, since that is a two-move tactic.

#3 and #4 are all the captures this scheme considers. That differs from Dan's Captures in that captures of protected pieces by greater-or-equal-valued pieces are not to be considered.  And of course neither are sequences of multiple captures to be considered (no quiescence searching).  Again, we're only trying to identify the bedrock one-move tactics first, on which such further analysis should hang.

Threats.

#5  Any move which attacks a loose piece from a non-attacked (safe) square, including via discovery. Note: any such move that attacks more than one loose piece is one type of fork/discovery, and any such move that is also in #2 above is a king fork/discovery.
#6  Any move which attacks a greater-valued piece (knights and bishops equal) from a non-attacked (safe) square, including via discovery.  Note: any such move that is also in #2 above is a type of (king) fork/discovery, any such move that is also in #5 above is another type of fork/discovery, and any such move that attacks more than one greater-valued piece is yet another type of fork/discovery.
#7  Moving a passed pawn to a non-attacked (safe) square, or making a passed pawn via a push or a pxp capture onto a non-attacked (safe) square.  Note:  a #3 or #4 capture may also create a passed pawn.

That seems to be it.  This type of move identification would seem to be of good use also at the end of any later quiescence searches, although it would be harder to keep accurate mental track of what the board looks like then.  Assuming non-quiescence includes both checks and captures, the end-of-quiescence-search identification would only need to consider the Threats (#5, #6, #7) above.

I'm going to add one final Threat to consider, since it seems to be forcing in a similar manner to Checks in that it must be answered/answerable or the game is lost.  Technically maybe it is a 1.5- or 2-move tactic, but it also kind of "closes the loop" with the very first item on this list.  And it is:

#8  A move that threatens a mate-in-one on the following move.

Photos, Albany Pine Bush, 6/29/14

I took a couple hours for myself for a hike in the Albany, NY, Pine Bush while the family went to a movie Sunday 6/29/14.  With no definite plan, I ended up at so-called trailhead #3, Rensselaer Lake (pdf), via the parking lot at Six Mile Waterworks Park off of Fuller Road. This is an interesting combination of "wilderness" mixed right into the infrastructure of a major interstate interchange, the New York State Thruway Exit 24 (and toll plaza) between I87 and I90.  I hiked from there over to several locations off of Rapp Rd., including trailhead #2.

Anyway, here are some photos I took along the way.

This is a/the drainage point of Rensselaer Lake, looking North toward the visitor area

There are several signs like this all around.  Not clear whether the trails are really closed or not.  Info at the website indicates that 6/8 was the last closed date, but clearly no one has bothered to remove the signs.  :-S

Trailhead #2, Rapp Barrens, across Rapp Road from a clearcut area (species replacement?)

A managed flower bed at Avila Retirement Community, corner of Rapp Rd. (Lincoln Ave.) and Washington Ave. Ext..  To compare with the "wilder" Pine Bush.

Sumac near the Lincoln Rd. overpass over NYS Thruway I90, near the entrance to the Albany Landfill.  Yes, there is a landfill in the middle of the Pine Bush "wilderness" as well.

The "trail" heading back toward Rensselaer Lake (from Rapp Rd.).  This is, amazingly, very close to the whole Exit 24 toll plaza complex (off the right of this frame).

Pines, one dead or dying, on the shore of Rensselaer Lake, looking southeast from under the onramp to I87 North from I90 West.

Here is the same spot from overhead (Google Maps).

A swampy/silty ferny area just northwest of Rensselaer Lake, on a "secret" trail.