Can chess help you beat the heat this summer? | Latest News

Summer chess help

When the temperatures start to rise, one of the first things to do is plan to go outside. For many people, that means staying in the comfort of their homes. But for those who love the sport of chess, there are ways to keep cool while still enjoying the game. One way to beat the heat is to play chess in the morning or early afternoon. These are the times of day when the air is still warm, but the sun is already high in the sky. This means that the air is not too humid, and there is less chance of getting a headache from the heat.
Another chess help is following the chess news and playing trends, so let’s check what’s new.

Titled Tuesday – Andreikin Wins

Underdog And Favorite Win Tuesday Tournaments Titled Tuesday on July 19 was won by FM Abtin Atakhan and GM Dmitry Andreikin. The latter tournament ended in a four-way tie on first after Andreikin defeated GM Daniel Naroditsky in the final round, and Andreikin’s tiebreaks barely won out over second-place Naroditsky’s. Andreikin has now won seven Titled Tuesdays since February. The only player with more, GM Hikaru Nakamura, was the only player to finish in the top five in both of this week’s events. Early Tournament The win for Atakhan, a 17-year-old FIDE Master, out of a field of 342 players, came as a shock. The last time a non-GM took Titled Tuesday was November 30 of last year, when Russian NM Valery Sviridov won. But Sviridov’s FIDE ratings are 200-300 points higher than Atakhan’s. It was actually a win in the final round over the upcoming winner Andreikin that ended up deciding the tournament in Atakhan’s favor. Second-place GM Aram Hakobyan, who recently qualified for the Knockout round of the Chess.com Global Championship, was the only player to defeat Atakhan on Tuesday. That game came all the way back in round three.

July 19 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)
Number Rk Fed Title Username Name Rating Score SB
1 64 FM @atbenina64 Abtin Atakhan 2779 9.5 52.5
2 12 GM @Njal28 Aram Hakobyan 2978 9 63
3 1 GM @Hikaru Hikaru Nakamura 3165 9 58.75
4 7 GM @Jospem Jose Martinez 3009 9 54
5 23 GM @amintabatabaei Amin Tabatabaei 2931 9 52.75
6 11 IM @MITerryble Renato Terry 2978 8.5 56.75
7 3 GM @mishanick Alexey Sarana 3038 8.5 54
8 2 GM @FairChess_on_YouTube Dmitry Andreikin 3127 8.5 52.25
9 22 GM @Nitzan_Steinberg Nitzan Steinberg 2903 8.5 46.75
10 33 GM @TimofeevAr Artem Timofeev 2844 8.5 46.5
11 84 FM @KononenkoD Dmitry Kononenko 2690 8.5 40.25
12 10 GM @OparinGrigoriy Grigoriy Oparin 2991 8 50.5
13 42 FM @Iball95 Vakhlamov Igor 2819 8 50.25
14 8 GM @dropstoneDP David Paravyan 2971 8 48.25
15 5 GM @Oleksandr_Bortnyk Oleksandr Bortnyk 3014 8 48
16 6 GM @Duhless Daniil Dubov 2998 8 46.75
17 44 IM @nikitakhoroshev Nikita Khoroshev 2795 8 46.5
18 9 IM @wonderfultime Tuan Minh Le 2982 8 46.25
19 74 IM @leejunhyeok Jun Hyeok Lee 2693 7.5 45.5
20 66 IM @Legendinunknown Harshavardhan GB 2720 7.5 45 etc.

Atakhan claimed $1,000 for the win while Hakobyan earned $750 in second place. Nakamura won $300 in third and GM Jose Martinez $150 in fourth place, after each won an event last Tuesday. The $100 prizes went to GM Amin Tabatabaei for fifth place and WGM Meri Arabidze for the highest score among women, 7.5/11. Late Tournament Nobody completely differentiated themselves in the late tournament out of the field of 261. Halfway through, there were already no perfect players after Nakamura and GM Eric Hansen drew their round-six game. Hansen took the sole lead after defeating Andreikin in round seven. In the next three rounds, however, Naroditsky emerged in the lead after defeating Hansen, GM Oleksandr Bortnyk, and Nakamura in succession. Impressively, Naroditsky’s best-played game of the three came against Nakamura. The streak guaranteed Naroditsky a share of first place entering the final round, which is what happened after he encountered Andreikin. Not only were four players now tied on nine points, but their tiebreak scores were all very close, with only a half-point separating first and second and less than two points between first and fourth. Ultimately, however, it was enough for Andreikin to claim the victory in the tournament.

July 19 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)
Number Rk Fed Title Username Name Rating Score SB
1 2 GM @FairChess_on_YouTube Dmitry Andreikin 3130 9 55
2 3 GM @DanielNaroditsky Daniel Naroditsky 3156 9 54.5
3 7 GM @OparinGrigoriy Grigoriy Oparin 3016 9 54
4 1 GM @Hikaru Hikaru Nakamura 3165 9 53.75
5 22 GM @Zhigalko_Sergei Sergei Zhigalko 2910 8.5 60.5
6 24 IM @Bulldog167 Leon Livaic 2852 8.5 52.75
7 9 GM @dropstoneDP David Paravyan 2978 8.5 50.75
8 13 GM @erichansen Eric Hansen 2947 8 56.5
9 8 IM @MITerryble Renato Terry 2976 8 49
10 6 GM @Jospem Jose Martinez 2993 8 46
10 82 IM @atigerman Nail Bashirli 2684 8 46
12 112 GM @gmcorrales Fidel Corrales Jimenez 2813 8 43
13 42 FM @sofaceindisguise Dmitry Tatarinov 2741 8 41.5
14 36 IM @ckgchess Cem Kaan Gokerkan 2801 8 37.5
15 47 IM @Legendinunknown Harshavardhan GB 2737 7.5 39.25
16 48 FM @peonrojo150 Gonzalo Navarrete 2701 7.5 38.75
17 55 GM @GMRafpig Rafael Leitao 2689 7.5 37.25
18 37 NM @Abund Yuan Qingyu 2810 7.5 36
19 21 GM @MrTattaglia Kozak Adam 2866 7.5 32.25
20 23 GM @alexrustemov Alexander Rustemov 2824 7 39

Andreikin won $1,000 for the victory while Naroditsky settled for $750 for second place. Oparin won $300 in third. Nakamura’s $150 for fourth place gave him $450 on the day. GM Sergei Zhigalko finished fifth for $100 while FM Rochelle Wu won the $100 women’s prize with 6/11.

Source: www.chess.com/news/view/atakhan-andreikin-win-titled-tuesday-july-19-2022

Grand Chess Tour Croatia

The chess puzzle that led to a Fields medal

The chess puzzle that led to a Fields Medal by Albert Silver 7/21/2022 – In what can be only described as a wonderfully inspiring ‘comeback’ story, the 2022 Fields Medal was awarded, among others, to June Huh for his work in chromatic polynomials, stemming from a chess puzzle involving four knights. The Fields Medal is one of the most prestigious awards in Mathematics, given out only once every four years, to the brightest minds in the field.

What is the Fields Medal? In other fields such as literature, economics, and physics, the pinnacle of recognition is considered the Nobel Prize. Without quibbling on the politization of some of the choices, or the inability to give out enough awards to deserving candidates, none will argue on the sheer prestige it brings. However, there is no Nobel Prize in math. In mathematics, there are two major awards in that specialized sphere. One is the Abel Prize, a new award given out since 2003, and modeled on the Nobel Prize. Much like its better known peer, it rewards not only groundbreaking work, but careers in the field and contributions. Still, the best known and most famous of all math awards is the Fields Medal. The Fields Medals, first awarded in 1936, were conceived by John Charles Fields, a Canadian mathematician. It remains unusual among top academic honors in that it goes to people who are still early in their careers — younger than 40 years on Jan. 1 — and honor not just past achievements but also the promise of future breakthroughs.

Its impact is mentioned even in popular culture, and was a key point of the character Gerald Lambeau in Good Will Hunting, the breakthrough film of Matt Damon and the Affleck brothers, and garnered Robin Williams his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Dr. June Huh and the chess puzzle As Dr. June Huh, now 39, explains it, his first insight into combinatorial mathematics came from a video game called The 11th hour. This horror adventure movie game from 1995 featured the following puzzle to be solved: Fat Fritz 2 Fat Fritz 2.0 is the successor to the revolutionary Fat Fritz, which was based on the famous AlphaZero algorithms. This new version takes chess analysis to the next level and is a must for players of all skill levels. Goal: Exchange the positions of the black and white knights This puzzle took the young player a week to solve, though solve it he did, a testament to his ingenuity and temerity. This did not mean he sent the solution only to be given a Fields Medal 27 years later. Dr. Huh’s fields is known as combinatorics, which is an area of math that figures out the number of ways things can be shuffled. The way it applies to the problem above is where it gets interesting, since you want a broader system or solution that can apply to a class of similar problems. The key to finding a mathematical solution is to first break it down in a simpler way. Dr. Huh explains he realized the odd-shape board and the L-shape movements of the knights are irrelevant. What matters are the relationships between the squares. This particular set of problems is known as a chromatic polynomial, and is where he has advanced understanding with groundbreaking mathematical expressions that solve them.

From zero to hero Part of what fascinates about Dr. Huh is not just his ability to transform puzzles above into broader mathematical expressions, but how he got there. This was not a case of a budding genius from early on, wowing his less-gifted colleagues with his acumen, or perhaps a brilliant introvert who remained hitherto misunderstood. As he explained to the New York Times: Fritz 18 “Evolving Genius”: learn to attack and play brilliancies. Fritz offers you everything you will need as a dedicated chess enthusiast. “I was pretty good at most subjects except math,” he said. “Math was notably mediocre, on average, meaning on some tests I did reasonably OK. But other tests, I nearly failed.” As a teenager, Dr. Huh wanted to be a poet, and he spent a couple of years after high school chasing that creative pursuit. But none of his writings were ever published.

This hardly sounds like a path to a PhD in math, nevermind a future Fields Medal winner, but it all changed in his last year of college, when he was 23. Chance would have it, he would meet the legendary Dr. Heisuke Hironaka, himself a Fields Medal winner from 1970, and what began as a plan to just write an article about the professor became a lure and seduction into the field of math itself. With Dr. Hironaka as his advisor, he graduated and completed a masters degree, and then applied for a doctoral program in the United States. “I was fairly confident that despite all my failed math courses in my undergrad transcript, I had an enthusiastic letter from a Fields Medalist, so I would be accepted from many, many grad schools.” All but one rejected him — the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign put him on a waiting list before finally accepting him. “It was a very suspenseful few weeks,” Dr. Huh said.

At Illinois, he started the work that brought him to prominence in the field of combinatorics. The tale just shows what some talent and passion can accomplish irrespective of early signs and false starts, and should serve as an example to all.

Source: en.chessbase.com/post/the-chess-puzzle-that-led-to-a-fields-medal