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By Tommaso Dorigo | May 16th 2009 08:04 AM | 87 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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About Tommaso Dorigo

I am an experimental particle physicist working with the CMS experiment at CERN and the CDF experiment at Fermilab. In my spare time I play chess, abuse the piano, and aim my dobson telescope at... Full Bio

Tired of reading about science ?
In need of a boost to your ego ?
You think you are smarter than me ?
Can you play chess at a reasonable level ? Or, do you have a chess program and you don't mind cheating ?

If you answered "yes" to the above questions, why don't you try to beat at chess a tenured particle physicist with a Ph.D. ? I am willing to take your challenge.

Just download the dasher or the blitzin interface at www.chessclub.com, and log in to ICC - the world's largest online chess club. I will be waiting for you there. My handle on ICC is "tonno". If you type "finger tonno" on the ICC command line you get the following information:


Tonno, by the way, is the italian name of "tuna", a fish not particularly known for its intelligence.

You can log on the ICC as a guest for up to seven days. You will not get a rating, but you can play against members there even if you do not register.

You can just type "match tonno 5 2 u" if you want to challenge me to a blitz game, 5' for the game plus 2" increments per move. The "u" stands for "unrated" -our rating will then not be altered by the result.
Or, you can try a longer time control: "match tonno 15 0". Not more than 15' per game, or you will bore me to death.

So, if you feel like giving me a sound beating, just leave a message here. I will be connecting to ICC tonight after 22UT (midnight italian time, 6PM NY time), or tomorrow after 9UT if you ask me to.

And I have even more to offer: the best game will get analyzed and published here!

Comments

Hank's picture
I have tried to become great at chess many times but I want to learn one great thing.   So I get caught up studying giuoco piano, people tend to prefer really bloody stuff these days but I like to be old school, and never learn a middle game worth a darn.   So you would feel like you were playing a grandmaster in the beginning and then wonder which 5 year old replaced me.

dorigo's picture
Ok, but you can still get Rybka running on one of your seven PCs and get some help from it ;-) . You would not be satisfied by your play, but you would inflict some damage to my ego!
T.
PS I'm not really serious! After having discussed openly my one slip to inappropriate practices of my otherwise adamant chess career in a recent post, I have to say it: I never did such a despicable thing myself, and I certainly do not advise anybody to do it!


Hank's picture
I have spread out the computers!   At the moment there are only two in my office - I keep two of the laptops and a desktop  at home and I moved the development machine into the office next door with another laptop.  I haven't had a 'local' developer here since November but I hope to have one next week so someone else will be using these extra machines.

Then I will have more time to practice chess!

dorigo's picture
Good! So there is hope for latex functionality soon!

Cheers,
T.

Hi Tommaso,

I'd love to play but not there. Correspondence would be fine. I will trust you not to use your chess programs :) and I will do the same. You are free to use any reference on openings you wish.

-drl

dorigo's picture
Why not there DRL ? It's fun.

Anyway, let's do it. I am not sure whether this is the right place for a correspondence game, but after all, why not ?
So please pick a move. To make it quicker at the start:
- on 1.e4 I will play 1...,Nf6;
- on 1.d4 I will play 1....,d5;
- on 1.c4 I will play 1....,c6;
- on 1.Nf3 I will play 1....,d5;
On other moves I reserve to think at a proper answer.
Cheers,
T.

Hank's picture
After we get re-do LaTeX and the profile page, we can even implement a 'forums' section and devote one of them just to chess.   I could finally write my "Ode to Giuoco Piano", for example.

very well

1. d4 d5
2. c4

-drl

dorigo's picture
1.d4 d5 2.c4 Bf5

If 3.Qb3 e5
If 3.Nc3 e6
If 3.cxd5 Bxb1
On others I'll think.
T.

shades of Keres :)

3. cxd5 Bxb1
4. Qa4+

dorigo's picture
4. ... Qd7
T.

5. Qxd7+ any
6. Rxb1

Hank's picture
I'm not used to reading these as we go so I had to google 'Qxd7+any' to find out what it meant ... and it didn't help, since his comment was 4th in google.

dorigo's picture
Hah! "Qxd7 any" means that he is considering any of the possible answers to his move. In fact there's only two of them - I have to recapture, either with my king or with the knight. Of course, I will recapture with the knight, avoid telling him, and then try to capitalize of his not knowing which of the two black pieces has landed there :)

T.

:)

Ok so

5. ... Nxd7
6. Rxb1

And by the way Tommaso, if I got into online chess I would waste a lot of time I could use to think about gravity. It's too addictive!

-drl

dorigo's picture
But see the good side of it - if you got into online chess you would spend cheerfully a lot of time you'd otherwise waste on thinking about gravity!
T.

logicman's picture
If I got into online chess, I'd be so busy studying the syntax that I'd lose the game.


e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Bb5.a6.BxN.e3.wtf?

It's a whole new language, I tell you! :)



Hank's picture
That's modern algebraic notation.  You'll never see that in movies (any more than you'll see protestants in movies about demons - those movies need Latin!) instead you see nice things like Queen to Kings Bishop 3, etc., which can be more confusing but it's a lot of fun to say.  More drama.

For more fun, since chess notation has been around for a while, you can even see games Napoleon played.  He wasn't all that good but then again in real life he got his butt kicked by a British shoemaker so I am not surprised.

I actually prefer descriptive notation but it is all but extinct.

-drl

Steve Davis's picture
I play on a weekly basis and read the odd game, but I can't recall the move wtf. Please explain?

dorigo's picture
Must some short-hand for descriptive notation Steve, used in correspondence chess to mean "wait till Friday".
;-)
T.

Speaking of wait till friday, it's your move T!

-drl

dorigo's picture
Yes - sorry but I wanted to have a chance of looking at the position on a board for once.

1.d4 d5 2.c4 Bf5 3.cxd5 Bxb1 4.Qa4+ Qd7 5.Qxd7+ Nxd7 6.Rxb1 Ngf6.


7. Nf3

dorigo's picture
7...., Nb6.
T.

Hank's picture
Finally.  For those of us following along quietly it is taking a while.   Though, since this is on a Vista machine, a few days without crashing may be some sort of record.



dorigo's picture
Lol! Glad your machine can keep watching our game. thanks for the diagram, I was basing my moves on my poor brain so far.

T.

Hank's picture
If these chess challenges really take off, we'll build in some games in the sidebar.   Click button/invite/play.

Kimberly Crandell's picture
Could we also offer something else for those of us whose brains have been softened by motherhood?  Possibly a sidebar game of "Go Fish?"

Becky Jungbauer's picture
I vote for Scrabble and Cribbage.

dorigo's picture
Scrabble would be nice - I'd learn something. Always trying to enlarge my English vocabulary.
T.

logicman's picture
Scrabble would be scrabulous.
Always trying to enlarge my English vocabulary

Me too - I'm always inventing new words.  ;)

8. e3

-drl

dorigo's picture
8....Nfxd5
T.

9. a3

9. a3

-drl

dorigo's picture
DRL, I think you have to register, or I will never be able to claim you made a move since anybody can come here and type a random move adding your handle.

Cheers,
T.

dorigo's picture
...and you move too quickly for a correspondence game! You sure you don't want to try ICC ? :-)
T.

No one reads my papers - why should they edit my chess games? :)

I will register however soon enough.

-drl

Ok I registered as antimatter33

-drl

dorigo's picture
Ok antimatter, 9.a3,  e6
T.

10. Bd3

dorigo's picture
10. ... Bd6
T.

11. e4

dorigo's picture
11....Nf4
T.

12. Bf1

dorigo's picture
12.... Ng6
T.

13. h4

-drl

dorigo's picture
13. ... h6;
T.

14. h5

dorigo's picture
14. ... Nf8;
T.

15. Be3

See if this works

After 15. Be3

Position after 15. Be3

dorigo's picture
Hey that was fast - should we continue with some blitz interface ? ;-)

15...., Nfd7
T.

16. Rc1

-drl

dorigo's picture
16.... Rc8
T.

17. b4

-drl

dorigo's picture
Hi DRL, sorry for the late answer, but my time is a scarce resource these days, and I wanted to have a chance at analyzing the position...

So 17.... f5 is my answer.

Cheers,
T.

dorigo's picture
Still no answer DRL ?
T.

Hi Tommaso, I was tied up lately. I will post a move later today.

-drl

OK

18. e5

-drl

dorigo's picture
18...., Be7
T.

19. g3

-drl

dorigo's picture
19. ..., 0-0;
Cheers,
T.

20. Bg2

-drl

dorigo's picture
20...., c6

Cheers,
T.

21. Nh4

-drl

dorigo's picture
21.... Bxh4

T.

22. Rxh4

dorigo's picture
22. ..., Nd5

T.

23. Bd2

-drl

dorigo's picture
23. ..., N7b6
T.

24. Ke2

-drl

dorigo's picture
24. ... Rcd8, and sorry for the delay...

T.

25. Bh3, and likewise.

Interesting position.

-drl

dorigo's picture
25. ..., Nc7
T.

26. a4

-drl

dorigo's picture
26....Nxa4
T.

27. Ra1

-drl

dorigo's picture
Sorry for the huge delay - last week was in London at a conference.

27. ... Nb6; is my reply.

Cheers,
T.

28. Rxa7

-drl

dorigo's picture
28...., Rb8;
T.

29. Ra1

-drl

dorigo's picture
29. ... Ra8;

T.

Sorry for the delay Tommaso, I was on vacation.

30. Rxa8

-drl

dorigo's picture
30. ... Rxa8 - and I am sorry too - I had a bad connection, posted my move, it failed to get registered by the system, and I forgot to check it!
T.

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