? ? ? Did any one else feel bemused by this. The game position between
? Shirov
? ? &
? ? ? Korchnoi could be found in any up-to-date Database, and to award the
? ? prize
? ? ? based on the tactical refutation to Korchnoi's blunder seems very
? ? shallow!
? ? ? I thought the position merited a realistic appraisal and not just to
? ? ? repeat the game line. To do justice to this position in 100 words did
? ? not
? ? ? give you sufficient room to include the blunder & refutation. Please
? ? ? Jonathan lets have a more substantial competition. What were we
? ? supposed
? ? ? to learn from that position and the "solution" ?
? ?
? ? Realistically anyone's chances of winning the contest are probably not
? all
? ? that good. When you think about it, any position will only have a
? handful
? ? of reasonable moves possible, and several entries. The selection of a
? ? winner will always be subjective at best.
? ?
? ? But, I do have to admit I have been turned off by this portion of the
? IYC
? ? site. I had originally entered in that round after spending somewhere
? on
? ? the order of 5 hours playing out my main line versus a couple of
? different
? ? chess engines, then wrote it all up, then saw a week or so later that
? all
? ? entries had been deleted because the position posted online was
? incorrect
? ? and they had now corrected it. So, that wasn't very fulfilling.
? ?
? ? Then I spent a similar amount of time on the 'new' position. I am far
? ? from anything even resembling a master player of chess, but I could not
? ? find anything that gave either side an advantage. I tried several
? lines
? ? vs my chess engines, but everything I tried was refuted for an equal
? ? exchange and all lines ended in a draw. Stumped, I simply did not
? submit
? ? a solution.
? ?
? ? Then I saw, much like you, that the solution was completely based on a
? ? blunder. I had been hoping for something very creative that I had
? missed,
? ? but that is not what happened.
? ?
? ? I have chosen to not participate in UYG, for the time being anyway,
? until
? ? I see some future solutions. If counting on your opponent to blunder is
? a
? ? recurring theme I don't see much reason to bother. The puzzles in the
? gym
? ? are time better spent than setting up positions and saying to yourself,
? ? "Now, if my opponent makes a bad move I will win."
? ?
? ? Unfortunately I am betting the position for April will be the same. In
? ? reading the description it had some verbage along the lines of 'your
? ? opponent is in time trouble'. So, whatever the 'winning' move is, it
? ? sounds a lot like you will be counting on a blunder again.
?
? A couple of things.
?
? The settings need to be OTB. That is, we need to set up the chess board
? and think about the position. List out the candidate moves and
? systematically analyse the individual variation. If needed move the pieces
? around. Work on short 30 mins sessions and believe me, you'll perhaps work
? any where between 8 and 20 such sessions. No computers absolutely, even to
? verify your answers. If one can do that, the exercise is worthwhile.
?
? Setting up position with the engine defeats the whole purpose, imho. What
? we need to derive out of it are positional assessment, candidate move
? selection, prophylaxis and OTB simulation. Computer is an antidote.
?
? Just my 2c.

I agree that if you are using a computer to solve these things, then it defeats the purpose, and also makes it less fun for the rest of us. Because then I am left in a situation where I feel it necessary to check my analysis in a computer just so I can "compete" to win the prize. And I agree, that using positions from famous games makes it too easy for people to "cheat" and see what actually happened (but I'm not exactly sure what the alternative is if you don't pick positions from real games).

Also, just a thought, maybe they are specifically NOT picking a winner that appears to have used a computer to solve the problem.