On the Road Again

"Kennedy Kid" Jon is on the road again, home from Haiti briefly, now off to Guatemala for a month to improve his Spanish language skills.

As I did with his stay in Uganda, as well as Haiti, I have begun to learn about chess in Guatemala.

For example, I learned that Silvia Carolina Mazariegos was Guatemalan Women's Chess Champion for the years 1981 - 1994. She returned as champion 2001, 2002 and 2004. During the same span of time the Men's title was dominated by Carlos Armando Juárez Flores, who was champion in 1980, 1983-88, 1991, 1993-1995, and 1998-2007. 

The Guatemalan Defense, 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Ba6, was covered in The Myers Openings Bulletin (New MOB No. 1, 3, and 4) in 1992 and 1993. Myers presented three games from the 1930s played by Hans Cohn, from his 1947 book Ajedrez en Guatemala, which had a chapter on "Defensa Guatemalteca". The MOB also gave the first part of a 1939 game by Georges Koltanowski (vs Cohn) and the first part of 1943 game by Reuben Fine, from a blindfold simultaneous exhibition.

Wrote Myers

It [the chapter on Defensa Guatemalteca] starts with a long quote from a 1913 magazine article by emanuel Lasker, expressing Cohn's opening philosophy. Summing up, it says that the ideas lefense will stop any attack, lead to counterattack, and enable Black to play for a win "si el blanco desconoce sus posibilidades o las sobreestima" [if White doesn't know about its possibilities or overestimates them]; I haven't seen Lasker's original German, but I found two of those Spanish words to be interesting: "desconoce" means doesn't know about, but it can have a sense of deliberately ignoring. As for "sobreestima", one might expect White to have problems when he underestimates an unfamiliar defense, but the Spanish word, which also means having too much respect for something, makes sense. Fear of the unknown affects judgement. When faced by a surprising opening a player may imagine dangers which are not really there. There or not, he'll spend time looking for them and trying to defend against them.

Hmmm, sounds like an opening I know...

If Jon gets around to playing any more Jerome Gambits (see "Artificial Ignorance" parts 1 and 2), I'll let you know.

Artificial Ignorance (Part 1)

How do you get a chess-playing computer to play poorly?

In the case of programs like Talking LCD Chess – see "Jerome Gambit and the Perfesser (Part I)", Part II, Part III and Part IV – you can limit how deeply it searches for each move. It sees less, it misses more.

In the case of programs like Chess Challenger 7 – see "A Jerome Gambit 'Challenger' " –  you can limit the amount of time it spends on choosing each move. Again, playing strength has a lot to do with how far the computer "sees".

Or, when you design a program, you can have it play a relatively decent game, but every once-in-a-while have it choose the 4th or 5th or worse move choice. That's the blunder-as-a-ticking-time-bomb model: with strong players, large mistakes are rare; but with weak players things go *boom* quite regularly.

I was thinking about this "problem" (most of the time programmers are trying to make their chess engines stronger and smarter) today while discussing the Chess Titans program (which is included in the Windows 7 operating system) with my son, Jon.

The youngest of the "Kennedy Kids", home on vacation from his work in Haiti, has been spending more time on chess lately. Of course, he wanted me to show him the details of the Jerome Gambit, and of course I spent a lot of time doing so.

He wants to return to The Haitian Project, play his boss at chess, and beat him with the Jerome Gambit...

Another Disaster Comes to Haiti

"Kennedy Kid" Jon has been at Louverture Cleary School in Haiti, before, during, and after January's devastating earthquake. He was there for the recent hurricane, as well.

The people of Haiti are resilient. They have survived many disasters and are already overcoming the recent ones.

The other day, however, Jon told me in a phone call that he had been teaching the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) to one of the LCS volunteers.

We can only hope that everyone is prepared for that.

Stupefy!

"Kennedy Kid" Jon is home from Haiti and watching Harry Potter movies.

A "Stupefy!" spell might explain the following game.

perrypawnpusher  - AirmanLeonidas
blitz game 2 12, FICS, 2010


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6

The Semi-Italian Opening.

4.0-0 Bc5 5.Bxf7+

The Semi-Italian Jerome Gambit.

5...Kxf7 6.Nxe5+ Nxe5 7.Qh5+ Kf8

Oddly enough, the updated New Year's Database, with over 18,650 games (and free for the asking), has only one example of this move – and none of Black's very reasonable next move.

Rybka recommends, instead, 7...Ke6 8.Qh3+ Ke7 9.Qc3 d6 10.d4 Bxd4 11.Qxd4 Nf6 12.f4 Nc6 13.Qc3 Rf8 14.b4 Kf7 15.Bb2 Kg8 16.b5 Ne7 when Black has a clear advantage.

8.Qxe5 Qe7

Also seen is 8...Bd6 9.Qd4 Qh4 10.g3 Qh5 11.Qe3 c6 12.d4 b6 13.e5 Bc7 14.f4 Ne7 15.Nc3 b5 16.Ne4 Bb7 17.Nc5 Bc8 18.f5 d6 19.Ne6+ Kg8 20.Nxc7 Nxf5 21.Qf4 Rb8 22.exd6 Bd7 23.Bd2 Rf8 24.Rae1 Kh7 25.Qe5 Qh3 26.Bf4 Black resigned, perrypawnpusher - LethHansen, blitz, FICS, 2009.

9.Qf4+ Nf6

Black's King does better to eacape with 9...Ke8. After 10.Nc3 c6 or 10...Bd6 the second player is still for choice. 

10.e5

Here I waited patiently as the clock moved on, for something like 10...d6 11.exf6 Qxf6 12.Qxf6 gxf6 when White has an edge: up a pawn, with better pawn structure, against the two Bishops.

Instead, Black resigned, right before his time ran out.

Two/Three Knights Game

I've mentioned that my son, "Kennedy Kid" Jon [left], is a teacher in Haiti. His exciting times – including when the earthquake struck in January – can be read about at his blog, jbkhaiti.blogspot.com. Today Jon's big brother (another "Kennedy Kid") Matt [below] starts a two week trip to Haiti, to put his physical therapy skills to work, assisting in a medical step-down facility and working with earthquake victims.

Matt will be accompanied by a colleague, an occuptational therapist [picture currently unavailable] who also plans on being very, very busy. 

On Break

"Kennedy Kid" Jon is home today, starting his Christmas break from teaching at The Haitian Project's Louverture Cleary School, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

(This is Jon, dressed for a Halloween party as "Route National 3", the road LCS staff and students have been cleaning.)

Louverture Cleary

When our son Jon goes off to Haiti in August (see "NOT the Jerome Gambit"), he will be working at Louverture Cleary, teaching English literature and history to high school students. He is also going to be teaching chess to those who want to play.

Of course, the brightest students will learn about the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+)!

I would like to play some postal games with Jon's students; but we will have to wait to see if that is possible.

NOT the Jerome Gambit

Occasionally I have taken a break from the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) on this web site to give an update on the adventures of my son, Jon, the youngest of the three "Kennedy Kids" (above, at his recent graduation from the University of Notre Dame, with brother Matt and sister Mary): see"And Now For Something Completely Different..."; "A Short Break from the Jerome Gambit"; and "Ugandan Chess Master" for his summer in Uganda.

I probably should have mentioned that he spent Spring Break 2009 in El Salvador. He was observing the election, however, not playing chess. Still, Ajedrez El Salvador is an interesting and informative site.

In the fall Jon will be off to Haiti. I haven't found out much about the Haiti Chess Federation, but I'll keep you posted.