Surprisingly, the feedback from my Fighting Chess Index was almost universally positive. I say surprisingly because I thought the final rankings would be controversial, especially Anand’s position (despite the lengthy explanation in the post), and these sort of lists tend to set off angry debates in the chess community. But the debates that were sparked seemed to be around ways to fix ‘the problem’, rather than about the rankings or the statistics. That was personally quite pleasing, because I spent a lot of time trying to keep the FCI objective and addressing all possible objections in the ex ..read more

Introduction The Fighting Chess Index (FCI) is a composite, weighted measure of the combativeness of top chess players. It combines data about the frequency, length and colour of drawn games from 2015-2020 to provide a single score for each individual that can be used to compare the degree of ‘fighting chess’ among players. This article introduces the FCI and the basic methodology, provides current rankings, FAQs, and a technical note with details for replication. An early caveat: all indices are controversial, to varying degrees. It’s important to note that I have used standard and widely acc ..read more

Australia’s annual music countdown, Triple J’s ‘Hottest 100’, has rolled around again. As always, I submitted my votes for the ten best songs of the past year. But I must confess I didn’t feel that familiar sense of satisfaction when I clicked “SUBMIT” this time. I’m not sure if it was because musical artists struggled to record during the pandemic lockdowns, or because anything with “2020” in the title inevitably leads to a sense of disappointment – but I’m significantly unenthused about this year’s countdown. You can find my picks at the end of this post, but to celebrate having survived f ..read more

The coronavirus has had large and unexpected effects on professional sports.  Seasons have been cancelled, delayed or shortened; stars have played in empty stadiums; broadcasts have dubbed crowd noises for television audiences, while fans have been able to buy life-size cardboard cut-outs to fill the empty seats. (The fan response has been reasonably positive in some leagues, such as the German soccer Bundesliga and the US Major League Baseball. But the cardboard idea took a sour turn in the Australian national rugby league when a cut-out of mass murderer Harold Shipman made an appearance ..read more

My odds match with the chess engine Komodo is over, finishing in a 5-1 victory to me. It was a fun and very interesting match, which also generated a surprising amount of interest from the online chess community (whose numbers have swelled in recent weeks for obvious reasons). The viewing experience was heightened enormously by the two talented and entertaining commentators, GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko and IM Andras Toth, who streamed the match live. The Day 1 and Day 2 videos are still online. My odds match against Komodo is over, with me prevailing by five wins to one. It turns out ..read more

A quick update on the details for the match: I’ve managed to convince two great guys to stream commentary of the match. They are Evgenij Miroshnichenko, who you may already know as arguably the world’s best chess commentator, and Andras Toth, a Hungarian IM living in Australia. They are doing this for free, which is pretty amazing. That means the easiest way to watch the match is to log on to Evgenij’s stream at www.twitch.tv/mironiusvulgaris , starting with the first three games on April 10 at 8:00 pm New York time (check your local day/time here), and then three more games the next day (chec ..read more

NOTE: My match with Komodo will be played on chess.com on the evenings of April 10 and 11 at 8 p.m. New York time (1 a.m. on April 11/12 in London and 10 a.m. on April 11/12 in Sydney). You can watch by going to https://www.chess.com/live, clicking on the “events” tab (the binoculars symbol) and searching for smurfo, my name on chess.com. In 1997, the chess world was rocked by the defeat of the reigning world champion Gary Kasparov at the hands of IBM’s Deep Blue. This sparked a wave of interest in human-computer chess matches over the next decade, featuring other esteemed masters such as Anan ..read more

It’s a new year, a new decade. And my main resolution is to make more free time. I know that sounds quite ambiguous. “Make” free time? With what ingredients? Does that mean there’s an infinite potential? How much time does one have to spend to make time? The economist in me wants to bring up marginal cost. But let’s just say, I want more free time this year, to do stuff (and not do stuff). Hopefully, that includes writing more often. To start the year, here’s my regular post about my votes in Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown. Voting in the world’s largest online music poll closed today, and we ..read more

The FIDE chess.com Isle of Man Grand Prix Swiss – yes, that’s the full name! – is going on at the moment. It’s quite a remarkable event: a large Swiss tournament where the winner qualifies directly for the Candidates. Besides a horde of 2650+ grandmasters, there are also wildcards and qualifiers from online tournaments, meaning that, in theory at least, you or I could have a lucky night at home playing online blitz, score a bit more luck on the Isle of Man, stay strong while the seven other candidates withdraw with food poisoning in Yekaterinburg next March, and end up playing Magnus Carlsen f ..read more