Chess, Credit Derivatives, and a Sabaean Theft of the Oxen of the JPMorgan Jobses: Banking Laws and Legality: Time to Change the Rules of the Game?

The title to this posting applies to a highly informative article by Azam Ahmed at the New York Times on How Boaz Weinstein and Hedge Funds Outsmarted JPMorgan.

The market for credit derivatives has struck a "gambling" bank again.

Whatever the "croupier" regulators in Washington D.C. are doing about gambling with credit derivatives, it does not seem to be working.

Can keeping banks from "gambling" and keeping other "gamblers" from "counting financial cards" be that difficult?!

Or have we none smart enough in government to deal with the people they are supposed to regulate?


Maybe the government should hire some of the people who are MAKING billions to tell them how the system can outsmart those who are busy outsmarting the system. Why are all the top chess players on the private side of the equation?


On the other hand, we are very much in favor of wealth accumulating in the hands of those who understand wealth, and who know what to do with money, so perhaps this is just a battle for the survival of the fittest in financial circles.

But then again, what gain does the average citizen have from this, other than financial ups AND downs. Recessions are adjustments, nothing more.


After all, as a legal matter, all kinds of gambling can be prohibited by law, also financial gambling by banks and funds. Maybe also the government should hedge ITS bets!


But what then would be the cost of prohibition? Would the money all then run off to overseas gambling meccas? Perhaps.


Nevertheless, who says we have to play by traditional rules that always favor those who have deeply studied and best understand the game to be played, in which case the result of the game is determined by those same rules -- as John von Neumann game theory so aptly demonstrated.

It is perhaps time to change the rules and level the playing field -- again.


Pawn to King 5 to open the game!

That might bring things back to "square one".

Crossposted at LawPundit.

Fu Pan, Chess and Lenovo: Protect And Attack: Lenovo's New Strategy | Fast Company

At Fast Company, Chuck Salter writes inter alia at Protect And Attack: Lenovo's New Strategy:

"The emphasis on speed at Lenovo is particularly compelling because it's twinned with a deliberate effort to slow other things down. Upon his return as chairman, Liu emphasized a concept called fu pan. It means "replaying the chess board." The idea is to examine your every move to improve the next time. Lenovo trains its managers in fu pan, which can entail short reviews of an incident from that workday or a far more in-depth process." [emphasis added by Magnifichess]

China on the Move: Chess and Chinese Lady Marvel Hou Yifan, the New World Women's Champion at Age 16

Nicholas D. Kristof gambits to China and Checkmates to honor the 16-year Chinese Hou Yifan, who just became the new Women's Chess Champion of the world.

The United States Chess Federation has the winning playoff game here.

This video from ChessNetwork comments one of the games:

Chess prodigy Ray Robson winning in Corus Chess tournament | The Fabulous Forum | Los Angeles Times

Chess prodigy Ray Robson winning in Corus Chess tournament | The Fabulous Forum | Los Angeles Times:

"To this point, my blog posts have centered on Hikaru Nakamura, the reigning U.S. chess champion who is in the hunt to win the elite Corus Chess tournament in the Netherlands and solidify his status as one of the world's top players.

But there's another American here who is also on the verge of a breakthrough: 15-year-old Ray Robson.
Corus is split into three tiers. The world's best are in the top group. Robson is in the third section, but is tied for first place. After four rounds he hasn't lost a game, winning three and drawing one."

Shredder Computer Chess

Shredder Computer Chess:

"The Shredder chess programs by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen provide a game playing and analysis tool for everybody and are accepted as one of the best chess programs of the world. Since 1996 Shredder has won twelve titles as World Computer Chess Champion which makes Shredder the most successful chess program ever."

Chess Blogs, Chess Clocks and the Law, Synergies

We were looking for something....and found that
the Kenilworth Chess Club has a page with descriptions of and links to chess blogs.

Magnifichess is mentioned there and at the Boylston Chess Club Web Log as a pioneer chess blog. We regret, however, not having since then had much time to play more chess and do more chess blogging, an online art which of course has developed greatly in the interim, so take a look at those links.

We mention the Boylston Chess Club Web Log because one of their postings led to one of my postings at LawPundit, and that particular posting was chosen to be featured in the just published ebook BlawgWorld 2007, as I explain here, which will go out to 0ver 50,000 people in the legal field. I wonder how many of them are chess players?

It is this interlocking synergistic element which makes the internet so fascinating to this writer, because it opens up combinations, much as in the game of chess, which arise in the course of playing a match (or writing a blog) and which can not be foreseen in advance.

I also found out, for example, at a posting of the MMU Melaka Chess Club Blog, that chess can make people smarter. As an educator myself, it is an intriguing possibility to suggest to elementary and secondary schools that chess be made an important part of the curriculum in order to improve student thinking abilities.

Garry Kasparov honored by Time Magazine

Garry Kasparov in the category of "heroes and pioneers" as a "chess player and politician" made Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influental people.

See
ChessBase News
Kasparov Chess Foundation
ON Deadline - USA Today
TheAge.com.au
Mida's chess corner
HabbOMG Forum
Daily Star Egypt
digg

Chessdom Website Started

A useful and nicely done new chess website has been started at Chessdom.

Goran Urosevic, the editor of Chessdom, sent us the following description of the site:

"- The mission of Chessdom is to cover all aspects of the chess game. We truly believe that Internet is for chess what television is for soccer. It is the element that can revolutionize the game, bring more fans, and with that, more sponsors.
- For years, various chess organizations have been trying to create large scale tournaments and yet players receive relatively low prize fund. The main reason is that chess lacks adequate global coverage. We hope Chessdom and its more than 20 sections will help chess eliminate the mentioned problems and will bring the game to a higher level. "

Boylston Chess Club Weblog Added to Magnifichess Blogroll

We have added the Boylston Chess Club Weblog to our Blogroll and even have a posting about them at our LawPundit blog.

Bobby Fischer Chess Website

Chuck Ayoub has a nice chess site on Bobby Fischer at
http://www.bobby-fischer.net/

We particularly like the way that chess pieces are used to head the links.
Clever.

How is Chess Played?

How is Chess Played?

For down to earth beginner's basics on chess see Chesscorner.com, About.com and the US Chess Federation.

US. Correspondence Chess Champion Jon Edwards has a website at Princeton University which he calls Chess is Fun. There are numerous materials presented which are a great help for beginners to learn how to play chess.

An explanation of chess rules is found at ChessClub.com.

See FIDE for the full text of the official FIDE Laws of Chess.

Chess.net Online Chess

Chess.net Online Chess

Chess.net requires a free download of its chess software Chess.net for Windows which can be used during the free trial period. However, when I logged on as a guest, both under the name "guest" as well as under a new handle, I got the message that too many guests were logged on and that I would not be able to log into the site. That of course is a waste of my time, waiting to log in to such programs, and I removed this software immediately from my PC.

Garry Kasparov at the London Chess Centre

Garry Kasparov at the London Chess Centre

The London Chess Centre reports that Garry Kasparov will be signing his autograph to his newest book, My Great Predecessors and to his newest DVD, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine on July 3, 2004 in London.

ChessBase Online Chess

Chessbase Online Chess

ChessBase, known for its comprehensive Chessbase database and makers of the superb chess software Fritz - now available as Fritz 8 - also have an online chess server at PlayChess.com with nearly 100,000 players. Software must be downloaded and play is free for the first 30 days. Thereafter, a serial number can be purchased for the software which is then good for a year.

A map of the world shows by dots where people all over the planet are online for Chess Online.

FIDE Women's Chess Championship 2004 Elista Kalmykia

FIDE Women's Chess Championship 2004 Elista Kalmykia

As reported at ChessGames.com, ChessBase.com and ChessCenter.com, the 25-year old Bulgarian, Antoaneta Stefanova, defeated the 30-year old Russian, Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, in the final of the FIDE Women's World Chess Championships which were held May 21 through June 8 in Elista, Kalmykia.

FIDE covered the games live.

GM (Chess Grandmaster) Yuri Yakovich analyzes the final game in annotation.

Chessgames.com has the Games

Chessgames.com has the Games

Chessgames.com Online is one place to go to hone your fine skills in chess. Great games by top players can be viewed from start to finish in the ChessGames database. One of the best ways to learn how to play the game is to see the masters at work.

Chessgames.com features an "Opening Explorer" for the analysis of openings move by move.

Chessgames.com also features up-to-date chess news and a directory of thousands of top chess players around the world.

We have added a ChessGames.com search box - this is not advertising - in the left column of Magnifichess for you to search for chess games of your choosing.

1. e4 Nc6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nf6 - Mate in 19 moves

1. e4 Nc6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nf6 - Mate in 19 moves

I have been taking it on the chin at the various online chess sites, where I am experimenting with all kinds of strange openings and moves and often getting clobbered by the opposition in the process. But trial and error are the sources of learning.

Good games, of course, are always remembered fondly.

Here is a win I just completed at Game.Knot.com, which was particularly pleasing, resulting in a mate after only 19 moves.
Any checkmate under 20 is always a pleasure, as long as one is on the right side of the board, of course. The mate is already clear a number of moves previous to that since the king has nowhere to go.

[Event "Let's play chess"]
[Site "http://gameknot.com/chess.pl?bd=1850866"]
[Date "2004.06.04"]
[White "jan-p"]
[Black "magnifichess"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1229"]
[BlackElo "1200"]
[TimeControl "1/259200"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[Termination "normal"]

1. e4 Nc6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bc4 Bc5 5. d3 d6
6. h3 h6 7. g3 Nd4 8. Nxd4 Bxd4 9. Ne2 Bb6 10. f4 Be6
11. f5 Bxc4 12. dxc4 Nxe4 13. c3 Bf2+ 14. Kf1 Nxg3+ 15. Kxf2 Ne4+
16. Ke1 Qh4+ 17. Ng3 Qxg3+ 18. Ke2 Qf2+ 0-1

Online Chess at Yahoo!

Online Chess at Yahoo!

Yahoo under its "Games" section also has thousands of online chess players. I played two nice games there, but the green and white chess board is so horrid that it hurts my eyes - and I could not find a way to change the colors - so I will not be returning there.

FIDE - World Chess Federation Online

FIDE - World Chess Federation Online

FIDE is the abbreviation for the World Chess Federation in French, Fédération Internationale des Échecs.

Chess is regarded to be a sport - only those who have never played find this hard to believe (a real chess game can be as exhausting as any other sport) - and FIDE is recognized by the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, as the supreme ruling body for world chess.

FIDE organizes the official world chess championship tournaments and its champions are generally regarded to be the world champions of chess, although in recent years there was a competing organization, the PCA, since disbanded, whose champions were generally accepted as the true world champions. In recent years, the political infighting and wrangling over the world championship of chess has continued, so that there is still no unified world chess champion. Read this report from the Corus Chess Tournament.

For a history of FIDE and the tournaments it organizes, see FIDE and the Wikipedia.

USCF US Chess Federation Chess Hall of Fame Live Online

Chess Hall of Fame Live Online Chess

Chess Hall of Fame Live is the official online chess service of the United States Chess Federation and the World Chess Hall of Fame.

US Chess Live software must be downloaded, either as a Windows program or as Java for other platforms.

Of all of the tested chess interfaces, this appears to be the best of the bunch and the one we will probably choose to use, though it is also the only one with no free guest use - you must become a paid registered member. Chess here is played seriously. [Update: actually if you register on the site, you have a free trial period before you have to pay.]

Members of the US Chess Federation - see US Chess Online - obtain reduced rates.

IN rating chess players, the ELO system is used which is described at the USCF site as follows:

"The USCF rating system, developed by statistician Arpad Elo in the early 60s, rates the performance of chessplayers in sanctioned tournaments. Most ratings fall between 400 and 2600, with an average of about 1350. The highest rated active member in the US is Grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov, rated 2743 as of October 2003. In 1970, the World Chess Federation adopted the USCF rating method for international events. In 1993, World Champion Gary Kasparov achieved the highest international rating ever, 2805, breaking Bobby Fischer's 1972 record of 2780. GM Kasparov is now rated 2838, and remains the highest rated chessplayer internationally".

To see the actual rating of the Top Players worldwide, see the World Chess Federation Online, FIDE Online. FIDE is the abbreviation for the World Chess Federation in French, Fédération Internationale des Échecs.

Chess at World Chess Network

Chess at World Chess Network

The World Chess Network offers online chess. The World Chess Network software must be downloaded and installed (free).

Variations of Chess at ItsYourTurn

Variations of Chess at ItsYourTurn

Some strange variations of normal chess can be played at ItsYourTurn.

Experience at the Internet Chess Club

Internet Chess Club

The Internet Chess Club has a one week free trial and states that "the Internet Chess Club is the longest running and most vibrant chess community on the internet."

You have to download the free chess program
BlitzIn 2.34 for Windows
in order to play.

I tried some of the blitz games. Fun but I prefer normal chess.

Chess Experience at GameKnot.com

Chess Experience at GameKnot.com

I like the user interface here and the idea one can play several games at one time, so I will probably play some more games here.

Chess Queen History

Chess Queen History

The New York Times has a Book Review by Liesl Schillinger on the book, "'Birth of the Chess Queen", authored by Marilyn Yalom, a Stanford University "gender scholar". The book discusses the history of chess and particularly focuses on the Queen.