joe

WHO IS THE BEST?

Chess Pieces 22june12Among the most exciting chess players in the game today is Magnus Carlsen. The 21-year-old chess prodigy was in action again last week, winning the 7th Tal Memorial in Moscow, one of the strongest events of the year.

Carlsen’s performances have been the talk of the chess world for several years now and the Norwegian lived up to expectations again, taking the title as the only undefeated player in the field of ten; each of whom could count themselves among the best in the world.

From a slow start Carlsen went on to dominate, taking victory in a tense finale. Five players shared the lead with two games (of ten) to play, including the 19-year-old Italian grandmaster Fabiano Caruana, who led going into the last round only to lose his final match and the title.

That Carlsen has remained at the top of the rankings, despite his relative youth, owes to his capacity to develop quickly and adapt his game, turning his previous youthful aggressive style into a more neutral one better suited to matches against leading players.

It’s a quality that separates the good from the great in many pursuits, with the best poker players measured in a similar fashion. Success in poker is often attributed to longevity, which in turn relies on a player’s ability to consistently change and improve to adapt to new, younger opponents, honing their raw talents on the internet.

It’s often said that the World Series of Poker Main Event is contested by the best players from every home game in the world. It’s a simplistic analogy but a useful one. Just because you can beat friends or even the best in your home town, it doesn’t mean you can compete against the very best in the world.

Right now Carlsen is ranked Number one on the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) list, his peak rating being 2,826, just 25 short of Garry Kasparov, the former World Champion and former trainer to Carlsen.

Without a similar rating system it is difficult to tell exactly who poker’s number one player is. Obvious candidates would include Viktor Blom and Tom Dwan, two extraordinarily gifted individuals who have developed almost supernatural reputations for prowess. Both, like Carlsen, live and breathe the game they love, but there are many others, egos charged, who could lay claim.

The International Federation of Poker will shortly be launching a ranking system that could prove the first step in analysing player performances to definitively say who is best. Until then, while Chess has absolutes, poker fans will content themselves with speculation.

joe

LET THE GAMES GO ON

Chess Pieces 22june12If you’ve been totally absorbed by the Olympic Games for the past 16 days, Monday morning may have left you with something of an empty feeling. The party is officially over, the flame is extinguished and they’ll be no more field hockey or weightlifting before breakfast, at least not unless you do the heavy lifting yourself.

For fans of Mind Sports there are a few of these moments every year; the end of a major competition, or the last days of the World Series of Poker main event – no more cards to deal, no more opponents to outwit, no more chips to riffle.

But Mind Sport fans need not wait too long before a vast array of various poker disciplines are thrust upon them, with the new look European Poker Tour about to start its ninth season and the International Mind Sport Association World Mind Games already under way in Lille, France.

With the likes of Bridge, Chess, Draughts, Go and Xiang Qi making up events, with action on-going until the final day on 23 August. Next time it’s hoped poker, which has Observer Status, will be among the events on show.

In the meantime it provides a spectacular demonstration of mental agility in the world. It may not come with flags and a big flame, but for Mind Sport players across the world the games have just begun.

joe

LATEST FROM THE WORLD MIND GAMES

Chess King Queen Large 7june12With the World Mind Games now in full swing in Lille, France, results are emerging from each days play in the five disciplines being contested.

While poker is yet to make its debut in the Games, fans of Mind Sports in general can indulge themselves in reports, interview and all the latest results from the games, including the last of the Xiang Qi results as well as news of Chinese Taipei double win earlier this week.

In the Daily Bulletin you’ll find interviews with current chess Grandmasters and key figures involved in the WMG in all five sports.

You can also read articles about the wider impact of the games, as well as details of how to listen to Broadcasts from the Games, which continue until the final day of play on 23 August.

Check out the results page for more details.

joe

CHESS HAS ITS PRODIGIES, WHY NOT POKER?

Kids Chess 29june12The Jamaican press reported the story of Leighton Barrett this week, who has left his home on the Island to travel to Philadelphia to compete in the annual World Chess Open Championship. It’s the biggest event of his career after dominating tournaments at home.

The crucial thing to know about Leighton is that he’s only nine-years-old.

His story is just the next in a long line of similar tales from around the world, of child chess prodigies succeeding on the world stage. Current world number one Magnus Carlsen for example became a Grandmaster aged just 13 and watching such young talents develop over time is part of the game’s fabric.

Leighton was five years old when he began playing chess. Having formerly watched his older brother at Wolmer’s Prepatory School Chess Club, Leighton now demolishes him in about three minutes.

So after so much success at home his coach Adrian Palmer is confident that his charge can handle the opposition in the United States, in what will be the 1,200 international rating category.

“This will be his first time playing at this level,” said Palmer. “Therefore, I hope he won’t be nervous, which may affect his thinking ability. Once he does what he is supposed to, he should be in the top ten.”

Leighton practices up to nine hours a week with two hours a day spent playing chess on his computer. It begs the question of how many nine-year-old poker prodigies there could be out there were the image of poker not unnecessarily linked to casinos and gambling.

At its most basic poker is just a card game, played by millions of players around the world without the need for money. As highlighted in a special conference at Harvard University earlier this month, poker is already being used in one New York school, and plans to use the game in curriculums is also being explored.

Chess clubs remain common on most schools but why not poker clubs as well? The word “Grandmaster” has an aura about it, one of excellence and achievement. Poker needs its word too to denote ranking, something IFP plans to introduce in the coming months.

For now chess fans will follow the progress of Leighton when the championship starts on 4 July. “If he continues along this line, there is a great possibility that by the time he is 14 or 15 he should be a National Master,” said Palmer.

The best poker players reach the headlines in their early twenties, occasionally earlier. How much better would they and the game be, if they could play uninhibited in school or even earlier?

joe

NEW YORK COURT TOLD POKER IS SKILL GAME

The debate over poker’s status as a skill game surfaced in a New York courtroom this week, when an expert witness said poker was a skill game, in the defence of a man accused of illegal gambling.

The case, which was heard in a Brooklyn Federal Court, centred on the defendant Lawrence DiChristina, who stands accused of running an illegal poker game on Staten Island, which attracted high stakes players from across New York and New Jersey.DiChristina’s defence attorney, Kannan Sandaram, called on Randal Heeb, formerly of Yale University and France’s INSEAD Business School, to explain how playing poker for money does not constitute illegal gambling.

Quoting analysis from “vast amounts of data” Heeb claimed to have sided with the consensus among the poker community that players rely on skill and ability to success.

“Skill predominates over chance in poker,” Heeb said.

As an article in the New York Post reported, Heeb’s convictions follow analysis of 415 million hands of Texas hold’em, which he used to determine that “skilful players are overwhelmingly more likely to win… than unskilful players.”

Heeb added that poker is now central to researchers developing artificial intelligence, and is of further value in the classroom, where Heeb formerly used poker to teach graduate students at Yale School of Management.

Ultimately, the case will go down to the decision of Judge Jack Weinstein, who while believing it to be an “interesting question” will be bound by the law, one that he believed the law included playing poker for money in the Illegal Gambling Business Act.

“It may be that Congress was embarrassed and put poker in because they were all playing it,” Weinstein said, to the amusement of the court room.
Read the full story in the New York Post.