David Smerdon @dsmerdon Twitter profile

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

Ok sure @MagnusCarlsen those were two nice 'dominations' against Fedoseev, but can you do this?

Chess.com

@chesscom

3 years

One of the craziest #chess games you'll ever see. 🤯 GM @dsmerdon wins as White despite being down a rook and a knight! Replay the full game:

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Last Seen Profiles

@4OaC3XfOJc4lm8Y

@KatBellOrtho

@nightoscphere

@Fredericka40559

@MQuesee313

@Shironysan

@tomeupiza

@marietoftt

@Hanachan2345

@mojojojotwi

@GNucals

@mmateusssss

@maidongtongkuan

@kuuma_hoseki

@deeryeo

@MeltonAlea

@Pacomoraleschef

@Nooz433

@unlimited_ls

@StevBonhage

@Keremcrc

@_duangerous

@cvigneaux

@im_termeh

@iWrathfuI

@ken_de_gowasu

@H1xNata

@AtriumHealth

@slave_chang

@DevanHoffer

@Globku

@Karovoni

@dcase99

@yarntya

@Moore33Gaming

@_Iucywilde

David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Why does chatGPT make up fake academic papers? By now, we know that the chatbot notoriously invents fake academic references. E.g. its answer to the most cited economics paper is completely made-up (see image). But why? And how does it make them? A THREAD (1/n) 🧵

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

7 years

Official logos released for the 2018 World Chess Championships. No, this is not a joke. #ChessIsSexy #YouHadOneJob

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

r/chess user discovers the kryptonite to toppling @anishgiri . Wijk aan Zee opponents, take note. ( @MagnusCarlsen , take cover.)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Had FIDE not sanctioned Sergey Karjakin: - Most of SK's Candidates opponents would have refused to play him - SK becomes the Candidate - Carlsen likely refuses to play him - SK becomes World Champion

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 month

So... Does Kramnik still think Jospem is a cheat, or not? Wasn't that the whole point?

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 months

Current World #1 gave up the title. Current World Champion dropped 50 Elo in a year. One of the Candidates favourites literally doesn't care. Former World Champion believes said Candidate is a cheater. We the chess community live in strange times.

International Chess Federation

@FIDE_chess

3 months

Hikaru Nakamura: "If I become the world champion, the influence of that is so minor compared to streaming and content creation." #FIDECandidates Watch the interview 👇 🔗 📷 Michal Walusza

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

@chesscom

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

ChatGPT is based on a language model, which assigns a probability distribution over sequences of words. A rough way to think about it: Given the start of a sentence, it will try to guess the most likely words to come next. (2/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

New paper in Journal of Development Economics shows that learning chess lowers risk aversion and time inconsistency, and boosts math scores. Evidence from an RCT in rural schools in Bangladesh. @AsadIslamBD #EconTwitter

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

Introducing the Fighting Chess Index.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 month

"I'm too old to get good at chess now."

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

More controversial than the Fighting Chess Index.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Good thing the World Rapid & Blitz is about to start. There's been way too much elite classical chess lately.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Throughout the last 70 years, the two most common words in the titles of highly-cited economics papers have been “economic” and “theory” (hat tip: Hugo M. Montesinos-Yufa and Brandon Brice, “The Era of Evidence”) (7/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Who would have guessed that the most watched chess clip of 2022 would be a guy defending himself for not having a New York accent.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

ChatGPT is of course more sophisticated than that, and it also ‘predicts’ the start of sentences, and ensures that whole documents are consistent. But the fundamental idea of predicting the next words in a sequence is still the same. (4/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

A simplistic example: Give it “An apple a day…” and it will scan its immense library and come up with the most likely continuation: “…keeps the doctor away.” (3/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

4 years

Somebody asked me whether @GothamChess 's YouTube was any good for beginners. At first I'll admit I was sceptical of checking out Yet Another Chess Channel, but it's actually pretty cool - wish I had these resources 30 years ago!

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Why exactly chatGPT chose 1969 is unclear, but to a human, it is as plausible a choice as any – as is the fake paper! (19/19)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Now we have the title of our fake paper: “A Theory of Economic History”. We need the most probable author of this paper. The most highly-cited author associated with economic history is Nobel laureate Douglass North. (9/n)

Douglass North - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

So we get the stem “A Theory of Economic”. What comes next? The most probable word to finish this title consistently, given the pool of cited economics papers and the adjective ‘economic’, is “History”. (8/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Postscript: An interesting and plausible hypothesis for why 1969 was chosen 👇

Brian in Pittsburgh

@arekfurt

1 year

@dsmerdon A book called "A Theory of Economic History" bears a copyright of 1969. The obvious possibility would be that chatGPT created the title of the work and then used that to look for the date. Without checking the authorship.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

No surprises there. But how does it choose the beginning of the title? It can’t scan papers themselves, but it can use website articles (inc. Wikipedia) that cite the titles of popular economics papers, and then use the words in the cited titles. (6/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Now consider the prompt “What is the most cited economics paper of all time”. The most ‘likely’ beginning to a language-based answer to this question is “The most cited economics paper of all time is”, which is what chatGPT spits out. (5/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

The Fighting Chess Index was not ready for this.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

This year, the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour is offering three bonus prizes for fighting chess, based on my Fighting Chess Index. A quick thread on how it works and how things stand after Day 1 of the #AirthingsMasters . (1/13)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Two approaches to harvesting chess likes.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

It is remarkable how often top players use "I'm better at chess than you" as a defence to criticisms of their behaviour.

Sergey Karjakin 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺

@SergeyKaryakin

2 years

@EmilSutovsky Yes, Emil. When I was 14, you played better then me.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

But wait - how many authors should our fake paper have? The most common number of authors in economics papers is 2. We need another author, and someone who best fits a co-author to Douglass North on a paper called “A Theory of Economic History”. (11/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Douglass North has been cited over 120,000 times according to Google Scholar, and his most cited work, the book Structure and change in economic history, bears similarity to chatGPT’s title. (10/n)

Douglass C. North

Department of Economics, Washington University - Cited by 193,414 - Economic History - Institutions

scholar.google.com

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

I have heard some criticism of FIDE in recent days, but frankly I am astonished at how swiftly and decisively it has acted to condemn the Russian invasion, despite its own strong leadership ties. It has so far exceeded my expectations.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Douglass North had many co-authors, but his most cited work with a co-author was “The rise of the western world: A new economic history”, with Robert Thomas. (12/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

So Robert Thomas is our co-author. Finally, we need to choose a journal to publish our fake paper. Given the title and given the authors, which journal does chatGPT think is most likely? (13/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Douglass North’s most-cited co-authored paper, "Constitutions and commitment: the evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth-century England", was published in The Journal of Economic History in 1989. (14/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

But this isn’t the only reason! When associating an economics journal to go with this paper, chatGPT also draws on ALL of the references to a journal that contain either “Douglass North”, “Robert Thomas”, or “Economic History”. (15/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

10 months

What an incredibly humble and mature reaction. Are we sure this is the same guy who sued for $100 million?!

Hans Niemann

@HansMokeNiemann

10 months

My proposition to Vladimir Kramnik

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

Jan-Krzysztof Duda scored the highest Fighting Chess Index out of the Meltwater Chess Tour Finalists. He earned US $20K from the Tour. Wesley So earned US $185K. 17% of his games were short draws. As a share of his prize money, that's over US $30K.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

7 months

💪

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Richard sums up why I left chess for academia 🥲

chess24

@chess24com

2 years

@forktown385

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Douglass North became editor of The Journal of Economic History in 1960, and many website articles about the Nobel laureate reference this appointment. Combine this with his highly cited paper in 1989, and the choice is clear. (16/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

8 months

Went for a dentist checkup today. As is tradition, I first found a difficult chess study, memorised the position, and then tried to solve it while sitting in the chair. Surely I'm not the only chess player who does this for boring and/or unpleasant appointments? #chesspunks

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 months

It was very interesting to be part of this project. I had no preconceived opinions, and I independently ran analysis on the same data. Cheating in Titled Tuesday isn't zero, but it's much, much smaller than most people think. Looking forward to the next report.

Chess.com

@chesscom

3 months

Read the report here:

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

Of all the take-aways for the chess world from watching World Championship commentary, the biggest is surely that we need @GMJuditPolgar to come out of retirement.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

And why 1969 as the publishing year? Here, the AI’s choice is not as clear. (17/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

My take on ’s (CC’s) Hans Niemann report: a thread 🧵👇

Chess.com

@chesscom

2 years

Today we released our official report on Hans Niemann, Magnus Carlsen, and cheating in chess. Read it here:

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

A friendly reminder that the #FightingChessIndex does not take into account Tweeting.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Douglass North published frequently in The Journal of Economic History from 1954-1992. He was the journal’s editor until 1966. The Nobel Committee cited his 1961 work as “Groundbreaking”, while his most cited work was in 1981. (18/n)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

5 years

Apparently @FIDE_chess asked chess players to post a memorable chess photo yesterday for International Chess Day. I missed the memo, but I offer a late Elephant Gambit. #InternationalChessDay

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

4 years

Imagine that Netflix wants Season 2 of The Queen's Gambit to be based on a real historical chess player. Who would you like to see?

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

6 years

It seems everyone today has a story about @FabianoCaruana . Here's mine. We drew when he was 15; I wasn't that impressed. After the game I asked what he wanted to do in the future. He looked at me like I was an idiot and replied "Chess player." I laughed. Guess who's laughing now?

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

7 months

First time I've seen a 2700+ apply Bayes' Rule.

Anish Giri

@anishgiri

7 months

Grischuk, an esteemed mathematician, has explained, that in order to calculate the probability of someone cheating, one must know the probability of someone cheating. [Directed by ROBERT B. WEIDE]

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 months

@DanielRensch According to game theory, Fabi and Nepo would both be better off* if they make the following agreement: If they game is a forced draw, they flip a coin and the loser resigns. *(Assuming FIDE laws aren't enforced and neither player has a moral conscience.)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

10 months

There is a good reason why I spent 5 pages on KQ v KR in 'The Complete Chess Swindler'. I called it "The most under-appreciated endgame in chess."

chess24

@chess24com

10 months

Carlsen defends with rook against queen for 50 moves and secures the miraculous draw to win the match! #ChessChamps #AICup

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

I've been searching for years for a Mac alternative to Chessbase for engine analysis/database searches/writing and editing articles, and now realise @lichess 's study feature has literally everything* I need. *(May not have everything you need, but I'm covered.)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

This game is insane. Why have I not heard of this girl before?

Women's Chess Coverage

@OnTheQueenside

2 years

12-year-old Lu Miaoyi beats Mkrtchian in 18 MOVES (!!) for the greatest win of her career so far, a historic miniature for all time! It gets Miaoyi her first WGM norm (!) and boosts her to a live rating of 2399 (!!). Replay the game: #chess #womeninchess

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

4 years

I had my doubts about this online #impactchess tour, but the way @MagnusCarlsen and @GMHikaru have handled themselves on and off the board has been exemplary, a credit to chess.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

Alexandra Kosteniuk's ( @chessqueen ) 7.5/8 at the World Rapid Championships is unreal. 1.5 point lead, TPR 2744.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

CALLING ALL CHESS PLAYERS: Does life get in the way of your chess performance? How do relationships and children affect your rating? Do you lose interest and study less as you age? Please help our research by filling in our very quick survey:

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

At least every chess coach now knows which game to show when a student asks "What's an outpost?" #FIDEmatch2021

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Not a good outcome for chess, but on the other hand, very good that the issue of cheating is in the spotlight and major chess orgs seem ready to work together to fix things.🤷‍♂️ END.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

@anishgiri @MagnusCarlsen So a few hours after I tweeted this, Magnus beat Giri from a complex middlegame with the bishop pair. Gimme some of that 1500 Kool-Aid, bruv.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

6 years

@polborta @Sopiko20 @anishgiri I can honestly say that the Chess24 commentary of this WC was the best chess commentary ever, of any tournament, that I've watched.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

Still not sure how this happened, but well done to @SatPaper for taking a risk and leading with a chess story in its Sports section.

The Saturday Paper

@SatPaper

3 years

Australian David Smerdon was just four-and-a-half when he discovered his father’s chess set. Within a few weeks he was beating his father. By the age of 14 he was an international master.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 months

To avoid the wrath of the gods, one must neither play too strongly, nor too weakly.

Vladimir Kramnik

@VBkramnik

2 months

I mean SO many obvious blunders from both sides, including both blundering (?) mate in 1, pawn on b4, after Rd4 instead of Rd6, after g5 instead of simpler moves like g6,after losing rook pawn against rook 2 pawns. Was it Magnus turn? Just looking strange all that

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

4 years

Did a little dance in my living room this morning. The 2 year old didn't know why but he enthusiastically joined in.

ECF

@ecfchess

4 years

Congratulations to GM David Smerdon! The Complete Chess Swindler by @dsmerdon is the ECF Book of the Year 2020. Read Ray Edwards and Sean Marsh aka @CSCTeesside comments on the book at

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

One way or the other, this will cause terrible damage to the chess world.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

FCI standings after Day 3 of #AirthingsMasters :

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

6 years

Move 23: +2.07 Move 37: -4.12 Move 41: +8.09 Move 49: -2.26 Move 72: +10.22 Move 90: 0.00, Draw. That's my sort of game!

Chess.com - Play Chess Online - Free Games

Play chess online for free on Chess.com with over 150 million members from around the world. Have fun playing with friends or challenging the computer!

www.chess.com

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

Chess players quibble over their favourites, but taken as a whole, the level of commentary in the #FIDEmatch2021 world chess championship has been amazing. The major sites have done a superb job. The coverage by non-chess media, on the other hand, has been surprisingly poor.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

8 months

Insane tactic from yesterday's top board of the European Teams. What did White miss?

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

10 months

Honestly if Kramnik ends up as Hans' trainer they should make a movie out of this.

Levitov Chess

@LevitovChess

10 months

A statement by Vladimir Kramnik 🔗

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Can you spot a chess cheat?? Try our survey, and guess the cheaters from real chess games. There are cash prizes available, as well as a place on the Leaderboard of the world's best chess cheat detectors! Survey here: Happy hunting :) #chess #chesspunks

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Great calculation exercise from a game in Reykjavik today. Evaluate the move Rxb6+.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

8 years

Prepping for @MagnusCarlsen with Eminem: "You've only got 1 shot/Do not miss your chance". Then noticed song's title is Lose Yourself.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

7 months

@MagnusCarlsen In addition, with more rounds, the *best* player is more likely to finish first than in an event with fewer rounds (less rounds = more variability). It's more likely the Blitz winner is actually the best blitz player, than it is that the Rapid winner is the best rapid player.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

@viditchess More like he was thinking "This guy will march his king to d2 without looking back, but he won't take a risk on carbs."

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Crazy idea for Australia to become World Chess Champions: 1. Host the World Chess Olympiad 2. Deport all the other countries* *Except New Zealand.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

11 months

20-yr-old Ivan Schitco (2507) has already knocked out GMs Mamedov and Shankland in the chess World Cup in Baku. But beating Wojtaszek (2676) with Black from the following endgame is really something...

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

1. HN cheated much more online than we knew, including up to age 17 and in $ events 2. No evidence of Sinquefield Cup cheating 3. Weak evidence that HN’s OTB rise is suspicious, but nothing concrete regarding cheating. 3/

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

@TarjeiJS Maybe we should publish some sort of list or, I don't know, fighting index, to help organisers with this task ;)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

4 months

😍

Anish Giri

@anishgiri

4 months

Oof.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

4 years

Fun fact: more people sign up to @chesscom or @lichess every day than have ever had FIDE ratings in history. But of course, online chess is not "real chess".

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

7 years

Congratulations to @DeepMindAI and @demishassabis for an historic victory by AlphaZero over the presumed world's strongest chess engine, 64-36. In my opinion, this is the most significant event in computer chess history: the rise of deep learning.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

@FIDE_chess declared 2022 the Year of the Woman in chess. If you had the power, what idea would you implement to improve women's chess around the world? (Better add the official hashtag #womeninchess ; it's only been used 3 times this year.)

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

@TarjeiJS I recently created a Fighting Chess Index for the same reason. Of the top 50 players over the past five years of games, Radjabov comes last.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

Next time someone asks you how they can become really, really good at chess - or any pursuit - show them this.

International Chess Federation

@FIDE_chess

1 year

Ding Liren: "I started learning to play chess at four years old and spent 26 years playing and analysing. I've tried to improve my chess ability in many different ways and using different methods. I think I did nearly everything. Sometimes there are tournaments when you are not

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

For years my coach chastised me for playing the 2.c3 Sicilian, and now suddenly top GMs are even playing it a move down.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

6 years

Good news: Top chess players live longer! Check out our research: via @ConversationEDU

Checkmate: top chess players live longer

Deaths of chess players led to alarm the game could cause fatal stress. Some researchers have tested that theory.

theconversation.com

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

And they say we can't trust chatGPT.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

After Day 2 of the #AirthingsMasters , 17 year old Vincent Keymer has jumped into the lead in the FCI bonus prize hunt, with a score of 75.3. Kosteniuk (74.7) is in second place, for bittersweet reasons, while Carlsen (74.2) is in third thanks largely to his aggressive openings.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

It is a strange world where we are supposed to applaud the mega rich for paying their taxes.

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

3 years

For those wondering, I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

3 years

My feed is full of people posting long lists of chess resolutions for 2022 so I would like to categorically declare that I have none.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Nice one from yesterday. Black to move and win.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 months

Where would an Elo rating of exactly 2600 place you in the chess world rankings? - 5 years ago: In the top 300 - 15 years ago: In the top 200 - 25 years ago: In the top 100 - 35 years ago: In the top 30 - 45 years ago: In the top 15

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

2 years

Unfortunately, the results of CC’s analysis are not what the chess world wanted to hear (not CC’s fault) because it means we are unlikely to ever get a resolution on whether HN cheated OTB. Super short summary: 2/

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

7 months

@gmjlh I have a current project about pre-arranged draws in chess, should be published next year.

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David Smerdon

@dsmerdon

1 year

The poor Brisbane Times journalist finding out the hard way what all us Australian chess players know: Our accent is not easily understood. #NepoDing

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