I read on the great Portuguese site http://aladerei.e-xadrez.com/ –which discusses everything under the sun (and NOT only chess!)– about the Russian embassy in Portugal handing over some 400 old films to the Cinemateca Portuguesa …The importance of this gesture is that now it will be easier to understand the cinematic contribution of the Soviet Union.
Ala de Rei gives some short excerpts that have chess has part of the theme. I reproduce them here. Enjoy!
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CHESS PHOTOS FROM A RANDOM CHESS TOURNAMENT
The internet won’t let us chess players escape from each other! More and more tournaments are dumping photos, videos and tidbits…here is a sample from one such random event. Some of these photos are quite good–it has to be admitted–but it makes you wonder what was on the author’s mind…
Sporting the —”Get out of my face!” –look…
”I wonder what he is trying to do…”
”Isn’t chess so much FUN ?”
Ah, finally a normal shot
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And Anastasiya Karlovich covered the 6th World School Championships and sent chessbase.com the following great photos!
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FROM ONE OF MY READERS
One of my regular readers sent me this fun video. Enjoy!
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WHAT DO CHESS PLAYERS AND CRIMINALS HAVE IN COMMON?
Meet the controversial chess politico Hal Bond and the legendary crook Hal Capone. Could they have more in common than just similar first names and a life-long history of public scandals?
I was attracted by a book review of ‘THE INVISIBLE GORILLA” by Chris Chabris and Daniel Simons that put in bold print : What criminals have in common with chess masters. I had to investigate! But to understand this, first you must view the video below
”When you’re a chess player and you come across a chapter in a book with a title like this, it’s certainly got to perk your interest. Well, that’s exactly the name of chapter 3 of the new book, “The Invisible Gorilla,” by authors Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, two cognitive psychologists, and chess players, whose book has stemmed from their now famous “invisible gorilla” experiment, a pioneering study that demonstrated very clearly how faulty our intuitions can be.”
”If you’ve never heard of this experiment, essentially subjects were asked to watch a short video in which six subjects (three wearing white shirts, and three wearing black shirts) are passing around a couple of basketballs. The subjects are told they are to count the number of passes made by the subjects wearing white shirts (see http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com to access a link to watch the video). In other words, the subjects must carefully focus their attention on the subjects wearing white shirts. In the midst (not “mist”) of this action walks a subject wearing a gorilla suit, who walks through the basketball-passing subjects, stops briefly and faces the camera, and then walks off screen.”
”So, what moron would not notice a person wearing a gorilla suit in the middle of this video? Turns out, a lot more morons than anyone would’ve thought! The experiment, which has been replicated numerous times, under a variety of different conditions, revealed that usually half the subjects were oblivious to the presence of the gorilla, including many who were emphatic that they would’ve seen a gorilla if there “really” was one in the video!”
”With this experiment, and their continued research into the basis for just how we perceive our world, Chabris and Simons have produced a book that takes a very thought-provoking look at six everyday illusions that shape our lives, to include the illusion of confidence with a chapter entitled, “What Smart Chess Players and Stupid Criminals Have in Common.”
”Think about this statement for a second, “confident (and by confident I mean confident in their area of “expertise”) people are competent people.” Do you agree with this statement? Whether you agree or not, experiments in the field of psychology have clearly established that people tend to perceive this as a true statement in many variations. Do we not purport confidence as a positive trait in people? Interestingly enough, Chabris, Simon, and others, did some experiments on experienced chess players at two national tournaments which revealed some interesting results in terms of confidence.”
”On their way to the playing hall, they stopped chess players and asked them to fill out a short questionnaire which contained these two questions: “What is your most recent official chess rating?” and “What do you think your rating should be to reflect your true current strength?” Feel free to write down your own answers before continuing on with this article.”
”Because ratings are something every chess player is highly in tune with, the answer to the first question is usually very accurate, or at least pretty close. The answer to the second question in their experiment resulted in 75% of the respondents saying they were underrated by, on average, 99 points!”
“…What explains this extreme overconfidence in the face of concrete evidence for their actual skills? Not a lack of familiarity with chess: These players had played the game for an average of twenty years. Not a lack of feedback about their competitive skill levels: They had been playing in rated tournaments for thirteen years, and their average rating was 1751, well above the average player’s. Not being out of touch with their own skill level (from being out of practice): Over half had played at least one other tournament within the two months before we surveyed them.”
”Although Chabris, Simon, and others concluded that there may have been a nominal number of players who were rapidly improving at the time of the study, they went back one year later and found that almost all the subjects were rated close to the same as when they submitted to the experiment. In other words, their original ratings at the time of the experiment were overwhelmingly accurate! I won’t ask what anyone else’s personal results were from answering these two questions, but I will readily admit my own assessment was woefully bad! Then again, I suffer from many illusions!”
“…The illusion of confidence has two distinct but related aspects. First, as with the chess players, it causes us to overestimate our own qualities, especially our abilities relative to other people. Second, it causes us to interpret the confidence – or lack thereof – that other people express as a valid signal of their own abilities, of the extent of their knowledge, and of the accuracy of their memories. This wouldn’t be a problem if confidence in fact had a close relationship with these things, but the reality is that confidence and ability can diverge so far that relying on the former becomes a gigantic mental trap, with potentially disastrous consequences. Thinking you’re better at chess than you really are is only the beginning.”
”So, who else underestimates their abilities on a regular basis? Well, with a prison population that is one of the largest in the world, guess? Hence, the name of the chapter. From the book, a classic case of the illusion of confidence by criminals:
“In a brilliant article entitled “Unskilled and Unaware of It,” social psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning of Cornell University tell the story of McArthur Wheeler, who robbed two banks in Pittsburgh in 1995 without using a disguise. Security camera footage of him was broadcast on the evening news the same day as the robberies, and he was arrested an hour later. According to Kruger and Dunning, ‘When police later showed him the surveillance tapes, Mr. Wheeler stared in incredulity. ‘But I wore the juice,’ he mumbled. Apparently, Mr. Wheeler was under the impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice’ – a substance used by generations of children to write hidden messages – ‘rendered it invisible to videotape cameras.”
The $120,000 question: calculated over-confidence or stunning incompetence? (Or ,blissfully, both?)
”Studies over the years have demonstrated that incompetence causes overconfidence, but most of us who play chess know that with practice and study one can improve our competence at chess. As our skills improve, eventually our competence catches up to our confidence, which explains why masters are both highly competent and confident. An appropriate perception at that level! “…The most dangerous kind of overconfidence in our abilities comes out not when we are already skilled at a task but when we are still unskilled,” write Chabris & Simons. Not that playing chess really presents any kind of actual danger, just that those of us who are below the level of master must just face the fact that our ratings are a pretty accurate depiction of our playing strength…no more, no less. Be at one with your rating might be a new banner to play by!”
Spraggett on Chess 