Norway Chess 2021

 The 6-player double round robin features Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi

EDIT: This applies to the classical games only. I do not have a forecast for the Armageddon. 

2021 US Memory Championship - Qualifying Round

My memory had never been better. But there was a new format, so I wasn’t sure if I would qualify for the finals. Traditionally, there were 4 disciplines: names, poetry, numbers, and cards. I would survive the first 3 and then run up the score in cards. But this year, cards was dropped. Poetry was replaced with images, and then there were 2 new events from Lumosity. I’m terrible at images and I had very little experience with the Lumosity games. So I didn’t assume that I would make it to the finals – no booking my ticket to Orlando yet. The qualifier would be online, but the final would be face-to-face in October.

 

About a month before the qualifier, I started training for the Lumosity games. The first one is Memory Match Overdrive. You flip through cards with different shapes on them. For each card, you have to remember if it matches the one 3 cards before it. I quickly realized that doing it “properly” with memory palaces was just too slow. But without those techniques, my memory is nothing special. I also had no idea what was considered a good score in that game.

 

The other Lumosity game was Rotation Matrix. It starts with a blank grid. Then some squares briefly light up. The grid is rotated either left or right. Then you have to reconstruct the pattern and rotate it accordingly. The squares light up for only a second, so I didn’t have enough time to apply the memory techniques. I just tried to recognize different shapes and patterns. I figured that some Lumosity enthusiast who had been playing these games for years would probably crush me.

 

Each of the 3 main memory organizations has a different format for images. I always focused on the other events that they have in common. One month of training in images is not enough to catch up. Tournaments that count toward the world rankings use International Names, not regular English names. I have done much more training for International Names, so my results for English names had never been outstanding. Numbers was the only discipline that I was confident about. I had spent 2020 upgrading my approach, memorizing numbers in groups of 3 instead of 2. This is more efficient, but making the switch is a tremendous amount of work. But by 2021 it was paying off and I was shattering my old records. The plan was to avoid embarrassment in everything else and then excel in numbers.

 

As the training progressed, my confidence inched up. My Lumosity scores were improving and I broke a bunch of personal records in names and images. But I still didn’t know how my Lumosity scores compared to everyone else. I did know that my results in names and images weren’t world class (to put it mildly). But only a few people in the country can memorize an 80-digit number in 40 seconds. I had a shot.

 

August 7 was the big day. I started with some warmup exercises in numbers. The online tournament started in the afternoon, which is when my energy tends to dip. So I also did a bit of weightlifting in the morning. Not a full workout – I figured I had enough nervous energy to make up for the rest. Then lunch and followed by the pre-tournament Zoom meeting. There were supposed to be 100 competitors, but only about 30 were at the meeting. Maybe the rest skipped it. Maybe they dropped out of the tournament. I didn’t know. I didn’t worry about it. The Lumosity games would be the first two events. We had 15 minutes to play Rotation Matrix and 10 minutes for Memory Match Overdrive. We could play the games multiple times. Only the best score would count.

 

I started with Rotation Matrix. My first score was modest. But it didn’t bother me since I still had plenty of time to repeat the game. On the next trial, I broke my personal record, scoring 28,050 points. I briefly wondered if I should quit and move on to the next game. But only the top score counts, so if I keep playing, my score cannot go down. After a few more modest results, I broke my record again right after my time expired. I took a short break before Memory Match Overdrive. Again I didn’t get a great start. But soon I scored about 32,000, just shy of my record. I was doing exactly what I needed to do: hit my targets in Lumosity so I was still in the running if I did well in everything else. Later it was announced that the top scores in Lumosity were 69,400 for Rotation Matrix and 56,600 for Memory Match Overdrive. But I didn’t know that at the time and thought I was having a good day.

 

We reconvened for the Zoom meeting. Attendance was still low. I was starting to think that a lot of people had registered and then decided not to play. Many of the big stars weren’t there. The top 10-12 advance to the final, so if they aren’t taking up those spots, the rest of us have more of a chance. The Memory League games were modified for this tournament. Instead of having a maximum of 1 minute, we had up to 5 minutes. They stressed that accuracy trumps speed. There is a bonus for finishing in under 5 minutes, but only if you are perfectly accurate. There were 2 trials for each event. Only the higher score counts. I didn’t know the formula for the time bonus. I thought about asking but decided not to. I didn’t want to be mentally calculating my score and wondering how that stacked up against everyone else. Just focus on getting stuff right.

 

Images came first. We had a sequence of 30 pictures to memorize. Then they were scrambled and we had to put them back in the proper order. Since accuracy was so important, I decided to go slowly and then review everything once. This took 55 seconds – a very slow time, but I got it all right. In the second trial, I went for speed and skipped review. I was done in 38 seconds. This is still a very slow time, but for me it was almost a personal record. Unfortunately, I made a few mistakes. Nevertheless, I had no regrets. Even a beginner can get a perfect 30 if you give them 5 whole minutes, and accuracy is more important than speed, so I needed to get at least 1 perfect score. Having secured that, I could focus on speed and my score can’t go down since only the top one counts. I just needed to avoid disaster in my weakest event – and I did.

 

Names. I had never done it in this format before – 5 minutes for 30 names, with 100% accuracy required to get a bonus. Again, I started by playing safe. Go slowly and review everything once. About 2 minutes later, I stopped the clock. Everything was clear and I got a perfect score. For the second trial, I decided to go faster. But I was caught off guard by a few names that I hadn’t seen in training, like “Daryl.” We try to make everything visual and put it in a memory palace, but some names are harder to visualize than others. For example, “Ross” is easy (think of floss) and so is “Sam” (ham). But what do I do for “Daryl”? I decided to go with pterodactyl. A few names like that slowed me down and although I got another perfect score, my time was worse than in the first trial. But I was still happy with my performance so far. I had gotten through all my weakest areas. Now I could flex in the last event: numbers.

 

Safety first. I took 65 seconds to memorize the 80-digit number and review it once. I easily got a perfect score. In the second trial, I skipped review. But I was unable to turn on the speed. It took almost 47 seconds to finish. Normally I am in the 35-40 second range. But it was still good enough to take the top score. I knew I was nearly guaranteed to make the finals.

 

We had a short break while the organizers tallied up the scores. I took 3^rd place! My best result ever. Though I was 12^th in the Lumosity events, finishing 1^st in Memory League was more than enough compensation. I was so relieved. It felt like I had been carrying a burden for the last several weeks, and now it had been lifted from my shoulders. I enjoyed an extra long piano practice session and the next day I celebrated with family. In the finals, I will be facing a relatively weak field and have a real chance at winning. This could be my year!!

Memory League Scores

Scores from all events

Superbet Chess Classic

 This 10-player round robin is part of the Grand Chess Tour - over the board chess is back!

EDIT: Original post mistakenly had Rapport in the tournament and left out Deac. That has been fixed.

Candidates 2021

 The 2020 Candidates Tournament was postponed; the second half begins this month. Nepo and MVL were leading with 4.5/7, but in the forecast, Nepo is the favorite. That is because MVL shed 26 rating points in the 2021 Tata Steel Masters. Caruana trails at 3.5/7, but the model still thinks he has a chance due to his high rating. 

K+Q vs. K+R: One more key position to know

 A few months ago, I posted an article about queen vs. rook. I have one position to add to it. 

[Event "?"] [Site "?"] [Date "????.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "New game"] [Black "?"] [Result "*"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "8/8/8/8/1K6/8/rk6/3Q4 w - - 0 1"] [PlyCount "5"] {If it is Black to move, then it's zugzwang. If it is White's turn, then the best move is} 1. Qd5 $1 ({Not} 1. Qb3+ Ka1 2. Kc3 $4 Rc2+ $1 3. Kd3 Rd2+ $1) ( 1. Qd2+ Kb1 2. Qe1+ {hopes for} Kb2 3. Qd1 { zugzwang, but Black can avoid this with 2...Kc2}) 1... Kb1 2. Kb3 Rb2+ 3. Ka3 { and the rest is straightforward} *

Converting Q vs. R was critical to becoming the #1 endgame benchmark player on ChessTempo

Tata Steel Forecast

 We are back to forecasting chess tournaments!! The model was designed for classical games, so I could not use it for all the online rapid tournaments that we saw over the last year. World Champion Magnus Carlsen is the top seed in the 14-player round robin.

Trends in Social Distancing - Part 2

A few weeks ago, I wrote Part 1 of this series. It looked at anonymous smartphone data from several different sources. In all cases, I found that social distancing started after WHO declared a pandemic, even though the shutdowns did not begin until a week or two later. In this update, I now have data on Thanksgiving. Many feared that there would be a surge in cases after people celebrated the holiday together. But it looks like there was little change in social distancing. 

One of my sources, SafeGraph, changed its methodology, so I am not using it anymore. I still have data from the adjusted device exposure index (DEXA). Every day, it tracks how many smartphones were in each store (more information in Part 1). In the graph, time (t) is zero on January 20, when the first case in the US was confirmed. So Thanksgiving is around t = 300. There isn't a big spike during the holiday. But perhaps this is not the best data source to capture that. Gatherings happened in people's homes, not in stores. However, it should pick up a Black Friday surge. It is hard to spot it on the graph, so this means that people were shopping online instead.

DEXA

If social distancing fell during Thanksgiving, it should show up in the trips data (more information in Part 1). This is collected by the Department of Transportation. If you look closely, there does seem to be an increase around t = 300. However, it is pretty small.

Number of Trips

The Department of Transportation also estimates how many people left their homes. It was actually trending downwards before Thanksgiving. That isn't surprising; cases were rising, so people became more cautious. The trend briefly reversed for the holiday, but now it is heading back down. Once again, Thanksgiving only has a small effect.

Percent of people who left home

I don't have data on Christmas yet - when the Department of Transportation posts an update, there is a lag of about one or two weeks. Stay safe