Ding Liren's chances improve after he drew with Black.
Saturday, November 30, 2024
Friday, November 29, 2024
Tournament of Memory Champions
More chess and stats in the next post - today we take a break and recap the Tournament of Memory Champions. I was surprised to get invited. It was for former champions and top competitors who had come close to winning. Though I have been in the finals 6 times, I have never made it to the last round. After the 2024 US Championship, I took a short break and then resumed training.
On November 10, I arrived at MIT with 13 other competitors. I was pretty calm. No pressure - I figured I was one of the bottom seeds. There were 3 national champions in the field: Nelson Dellis (6 times), Ron White (2 times), and Lance Tschirhart (1 time + 2 world records). Makenna Good had won the online championship in 2020. Then a bunch of almost-champions who had made it to the final round of a previous competition: Avi Chavda, Grace Smith, Jason Smith, and Briley Lewis. Erdem had won the qualifier for the 2024 championship. The rest of the field (Patricia Lee, Tuan Bui, Samay Shah, Sophia Hu) was also quite accomplished.
Event #1: Long Term Recall. Three weeks in advance, we had been given a spreadsheet with trivia on the 50 states. Two mistakes and you are eliminated. The event ends when the field is whittled down from 14 competitors to 11. We started with a round of easy questions (e.g. what is the largest city in West Virginia?). Then the difficulty started to increase. I was sailing through comfortably. For all the questions I got, I knew the answer immediately. I also knew the answers to the questions that the other competitors got. Samay was eliminated quickly, and Lance followed shortly afterwards. Lance had largely retired from memory competitions after winning the 2019 national championship and hadn't trained much since. Then we got to the toughest round of questions, where we could have to combine information from multiple states. For example, which states have brook trout as their state fish? I found this very difficult, but many of the others were nailing it. Then it was Patricia's turn. I knew she had made one mistake in an earlier round. If she stumbled again, she was out and the event would end, since that would be the third elimination. But if she got it right, the event would continue, and I wasn't confident that I could handle the difficulty. I don't like rooting against anyone - many of these people are my friends - but I really needed her to mess up. Luckily for me, she made a mistake and I advanced to the next round with no errors.
Event #2: Words. We had 15 minutes to memorize a list of 300 words. Ron would have to say the first word on the list, then I would have to say the second, and so on. But skipping can backfire, since errors and eliminations can change which word on the list you have to recall. For this event only, we were joined by Claire Wang. She is a student at MIT and had finished 3rd in the 2018 championship. She had also been #1 in the world(!) at words on Memory League a few years ago. My plan was to attempt the first 120 words. No one ever does all 300. That's not necessary; you just need to know enough to outlast the 4 weakest competitors, since the round ends after 4 eliminations. There was a bonus prize for winning the words event, but I wasn't focused on that. Even on my best day, I don't stand a chance against Claire in words, so I was just trying to survive and qualify for the next round. Since I had already made it past the first event as a big underdog, I had already secured a respectable result. Now I'm just seeing how far I can get. Everything was going smoothly. I was getting everything right with almost no hesitation. Shockingly, Claire made a mistake early on, but it takes two strikes to get eliminated, so she still had a chance. Sophia and Makenna got knocked out. I don't know much about Sophia, but I can say that Makenna usually gets eliminated in words. We were nearing the 100th word, and I made my first error. Though I had attempted 120, I focused most of my attention on the first 100 and barely reviewed the end. We reached the 109th word, and it was my turn. I knew there was an animal involved (I later learned that the 110th word was "kitten"), but the rest was vague. But there isn't much time to think about it. We only have 15 seconds to answer. My time was ticking down. I panicked and jumped to an earlier point in my memory palace with an animal, where I used an image of a goose to remember the word "gossip." I was wrong and got knocked out. Two-time champion Ron White was knocked out next. Then Claire and Tuan battled it out to almost the 140th(!) word to see who would win the event.
So I finished in the middle of the pack in a tournament where almost everyone is better than I am. I can't be upset about that. The rest of the field had to memorize more than 109 words in order to eliminate me. But I have regrets. Advancing past that round was certainly in my grasp. If I had just done more review for the last 20 words - and I definitely had time for that - I could have made it to the third event. With another review, I could have visualized the kitten stabbing the glass of rum with the pirate sword, with the rum reminding me of the word "RUMor." Then I would advance to the Tea Party, which I have never gotten through in the past, but then maybe I would be writing about a top-5 finish instead of middle-of-the-pack. I've been overly cautious. I shouldn't have focused so much on the first 100 words when 120 is well within my grasp. In the 2024 championship, I skipped too much in the Tea Party, preferring to memorize a small amount perfectly instead of a larger amount with maybe some errors. With a bit of luck, that strategy might finally get me through the Tea Party some day.
Event #3: Tea Party. Four "tea party guests" told us their name, birthday, occupation, and other info. The 7 remaining finalists had to memorize as much of it as they could. They were Nelson (6-time champ), Avi (2nd place in 2018, 3rd in 2024), Briley (2nd in 2024), Jason (2nd or 3rd a couple of years ago), Grace (also 2nd or 3rd a few years ago), Erdem (winner of the 2024 qualifier), and Tuan. I don't think Tuan has ever finished in the top 3, but he did beat Claire in words, which is something that very very few people can do. Erdem was first to be eliminated. Avi was next to go. Nelson was struggling and had made 2 mistakes, but it takes 3 to get eliminated. Jason had 1 error. But both of them managed to finish the event without any more errors.
Event #4: Cards. This is the last event. They have 5 minutes to memorize 2 decks of cards. I figured Nelson was the favorite. It's hard to bet against a 6-time champion. Historically, Grace has struggled with cards. In a previous championship, Jason got eliminated quickly in cards, but he has improved since then. I didn't know how Tuan or Briley would fare. Tuan hasn't competed in a while, but he had been very impressive so far. Briley was very new to memory competitions - this is only his second event - but he was the runner up in the 2024 championship. The event got off to a shocking start. Nelson made an error on the 6th card! Of course he is capable of doing much more than that. But in this event, a single mistake eliminates you. Then Jason also messed up on the 6th card. Tuan made it a bit further, but then it was down to Grace vs. Briley. Was Grace going to win in what was usually her weakest event? But Briley looked so locked in. Grace started sounding very unsure of her answers, but she kept getting things right. Briley kept answering with almost no hesitation. Then Grace didn't know what the next card was. She had 15 seconds to answer, but it was clear from her facial expressions that she had no idea. Briley won the championship and gave an emotional speech afterwards. Congrats, Briley!
Thursday, November 28, 2024
World Chess Championship: Game 3 update
First, we'll look at the traditional forecast, which is based on the player's ratings. Ding Liren's chances soared after he won the first game with Black. Given that he is the favorite in the rapid tiebreaks, his overall chances of retaining the title were around 50-50. Gukesh bounced back with a win in Game 3. However, a tied match after 3 games is good news for the underdog Ding Liren.
In my previous post, I also considered a forecast based on the players' performance ratings. Gukesh remains the big favorite:
Saturday, November 16, 2024
World Chess Championship 2024
Gukesh will face reigning champion Ding Liren in a 14-game match. Gukesh is the clear favorite, but Liren's chances are better than I expected:
However, Gukesh's rating has been soaring while Liren has been bleeding points. To find a month in which Liren has gained points, I had to go all the way back to May 2023. I calculated the performance ratings for both players in the second half of 2024. Gukesh has been playing at the 2800+ level; his performance at the Olympiad was one of the greatest of all time. Meanwhile, Liren's performance is in the mid-2600s. If I plug in the performance ratings, then Gukesh is the huge favorite.
However, if the match goes to tiebreaks, Liren has better chances. Gukesh's rapid rating is 2654, and this does not seem to be a fluke. While his classical rating was skyrocketing in 2024, his rapid rating actually declined. The first tiebreaker is a 4-game rapid match:
Putting it all together: the forecast based on the ratings alone is
Gukesh wins: 0.6172 + (1 - 0.6172 - 0.2121) (0.14155) + (1 - 0.6172 - 0.2121) (1 - 0.14155 - 0.6509) (0.1611) = 64.71%
Which leaves about a 1% chance that the match will be decided in blitz tiebreaks.
The forecast based on performance ratings is
Gukesh wins: 0.9186 + (1 - 0.9186 - 0.0403) (0.14155) + (1 - 0.9186 - 0.0403) (1 - 0.14155 - 0.6509) (0.1611) = 92.58%
Liren wins: 0.0403 + (1 - 0.9186 - 0.0403) (0.6509) + (1 - 0.9186 - 0.0403) (1 - 0.14155 - 0.6509) (0.51675) = 7.15%
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