Tuesday 8 July 2014

The Chess Genie

Image you find an abandoned chess board while walking along a beach. You pick it up and give it a rub, and suddenly a genie appears. "Hello, mortal" she says in quite a load voice. "I will grant you one, chess related wish". "One" you say, "what about the other two". "Budget cutbacks" she says, "there is a bit of a wish deficit at the moment". "And to make it worse, you only get to choose between two options". Realising this deal isn't as good as you'de been lead to believe by 1960's sitcoms, you simply shrug your shoulders.
"Your choices are: Your will never play anything worse than the third best move in a position or You will never play a move that makes you position worse by more than a half pawn"
Assuming the genie is on the up and up, and the power of the wish will always assess the position correctly, which option would you prefer?

3 comments:

Chris Skulte said...

Have to go for:
"You will never play a move that makes you position worse by more than a half pawn"

No more instant blundering!

shane lawson said...

Yeah agreed.
3rd best moves in certain positions are completely losing!

Anonymous said...

The other option is clearly better, it will make me the world champ in no time:)