The 15 hour game

 Before the invention of chess clocks, players could generally take as long as they wanted over any (or all) move. In casual chess this could be avoided by simply refusing to play a particular opponent, but in tournament chess this option wasn't available. At best you might have a rule that limited the thinking time over anyone move (eg no more than 30 minutes), but this rule wasn't always enforced.

For example, the final of the 1st American Chess Congress , played between Paul Morphy and Louis Paulsen, saw games as long as 15 hours. But based on the times listed in the tournament book, almost all the thinking time was taken up by Paulsen. In the game below, 27 of Paulsens move's took more than 10 minutes to play, while Morphy's longest think was (on move 51) was only 10 minutes. On move 52 Paulsen took 75 minutes to play Qh3. However the extra thinking time did not help Paulsen too much, as this game was agreed drawn, albeit in a position were Paulsen was still winning. 

Paulsen,Louis - Morphy,Paul [C67]
USA-01 Congress Grand Tournament New York,NY (4.2), 30.10.1857

Damn the torpedoes

 A new paper on chess variants is creating a bit of buzz in the chess world. It is a joint research paper between the Alpha Zero team and Vladimir Kramnik, and investigates what effects changing the rules of chess have on the game.

To do this they let Alpha Zero learn how to play 11 different variants and then looked at things like win/draw/loss rates and whether the rule changes actually changed how the game was played (ie how often a 'special' move was utilised)

After a quick scan of the paper, a couple of things stood out. Firstly, when chess engines of equal strength play each other, lots of draws occur. Secondly, almost all the rule changes increased White's winning advantage, especially 'Torpedo Chess', where pawns could 'double move' at any time. This rule change resulted in the most number of decisive games, even beating out 'stalemate = win'.

The paper is available here and apart from the technical findings, contains a number of annotated games for each variant.

Answering my own question

 About 6 years ago I put up a post concerning Ringo Starr learning chess during the recording of Sgt Peppers (Link here). I finished the post with a question about who taught Ringo to play. I am now in a position to answer my own question, courtesy of the book "Revolution In The Head" by Ian MacDonald. While the rest of the band were busy songwriting and mixing, Ringo and Neil Aspinall (Beatles PA) taught themselves to play chess "to while away the time".

  

Cholera and 19th Century Chess

 Yesterday I had quite a bad run at the monthly 'Beer and Blitz' tournament, scoring 3/10. Looking for an excuse I suggested that I was handicapped by the 'Beer' part of the tournament, although my insistence on playing gambit openings and unsound sacrifices was the more obvious reason. Trying to shore up my excuse, I suggested that the 19th Century 'Hack and Sac' style of chess was a result of players drinking beer and spirits during the game, rather than risk drinking plain water, which was the unhealthy alternative.

It turns out that even this excuse was bogus, as the 'beer instead of water' claim is pretty much a myth. While it is true that city water (especially from communal pumps) was responsible for a number of cholera outbreaks in places like London, most people had access to fresh water as needed. Of course there were a few players who liked a drink during play (eg Blackburne) but in their case, this seemed to improve their play rather than affect it.

Is resigning becoming passe?

 With the current boom in online chess, I'm noticing a decline in the number of games ending by resignation. I suspect this is because online games are usually played with fast time limits, which means that the chances of flagging your opponent in a lost position is much more common. However it is also carrying over to OTB chess, with games I would have assumed would have been resigned instead being played to checkmate.

Of course I could just be suffering from confirmation bias, and am just noticing it more because I'm assuming the premise is true.

Good news for Canberra Juniors

 The ACT junior Chess League is pleased to announce the restart of junior chess events in the ACT. This coming school holidays will see the return of Boot Camp, as well as the holding of the 2020 ACT Junior Chess Championships.  Full details can be found at the ACT Junior Chess League web site.

The City and the City

 I've just finished watching an interesting Sci-Fi/Police procedural series "The City and the City". Without giving too much away, it involves two cities which seem to occupy the same physical space, but exist as distinct entities. As both cities have different languages, cultures and architectures, the director/producers utilised different colours/shooting techniques and cultural touchstones to differentiate the two. One of these touchstones was of course chess. While it was not part of the plot, it showed up quite often in the background of scenes set in Beszel, which appeared to be the 'older' of the two cities.

If you do want to watch the series, probably the best place is on IView (ABC), although I'm not sure how long it will be available. I do recommend it, although having finished watching it, I know have to think about what really went on (or buy the book it is based on)