Stochastic Madness! March 23, 2023, Glen Rock Quads and ICA Open Report
As many of the players and all of the parents and directors who were at Saturday’s tournament know, the story of the day did not occur in any one match. In fact, the story of the day is not about chess at all! Rather, the story of the day is set in the waiting room.
With 84 players competing at our events, Diana prophesied that we will need many tournament directors to run the tournament. Therefore, in addition to myself, Alessandro, Prashant, and Albert were all called in to assist. With such a strong team in place, the tournament was bound to run smoothly, even with one director being made redundant.
And so I sat down in the waiting room, needing to finish my Stochastic Calculus Homework. To define in simple terms what “Stochastic Calculus” is, it is a math related to randomness. I proceeded to begin solving Problem 2.5.
Almost three hours passed, yet I still could not solve the problem! Many of the players in the lower sections were finishing their final matches, with Alexander Florea of Section 8 in particular having a first ICA tournament to remember:
Hello, my name is Alex and I am 10 years old. This was my first time participating in a Glen Rock quad and it was a very exciting experience for me. I would like to share my first game, which I played against Jacob, with you.
Jacob was white and he played e4 and I responded with the Caro-Kann defense. He played the main line and we continued developing. At move 8, when I moved nd5, he defended with qe2 and I was able to win a pawn at c2.
Later, at move 14, I realized that his knight was pinned and I attacked it again with a pawn, winning the knight. At move 19, I pinned his queen, as it was on the same diagonal with the king. He found the best move, which was to block the pin with a rook.
After white did qb4, I attacked the pinned rook at c5.
On move 32 I thought I had a checkmate, but white's king escaped to h2. Then I sacrificed my bishop in order to promote a queen side pawn.
In the end, I converted the material advantage and I won the game with ladder mate.
After burning myself out, I decided to move onto the next problem in the problem set. Only then, however, did I realize that the problem I gave up on was not at all assigned! The entire building of players, parents, and directors burst out laughing as I completely wasted my time and energy.
But the story of Problem 2.5 does not end there: ICA Coach and Math Professor Eugene Sokolovsky entered the building to spectate the Open matches. Immediately after I encountered him, I challenged him to solve Problem 2.5. Invigorated by the challenge, Eugene ran to the office, grabbed some paper, and sat down in the waiting room, determined to immediately solve the problem.
But 10 minutes passed. Then 20. Then 30. Then I went outside to get some fresh air, where I met a few of the players. One of those players was Thomas, who was ecstatic about getting a draw against Yefim in the previous round! But Thomas was not the only one excited about that match; Yefim himself shared a beautiful epiphany from said match!
Before I describe what happened in March Open tournament I want to tell you an interesting story. I had (and still have) some chess instructional videos about openings from Roman Dzindzichashvili, a famous chess coach. More than 10 years ago I watched his video about a rare variation of the Benoni System, in which Roman explained a very beautiful idea of the “Opening Rook Vertical” (let’s call it ORV). I remember that I was thrilled by his idea at that time. This idea never happened in my games before March, 23, 2024 and I am happy that it occurred on this Saturday. Just look at the picture and I will explain it to you in terms of “pattern recognition”. An idea of the pattern ORV consists in the fact that a side (here is Black) suddenly opens a rook vertically to use some specific properties of the position.
Thus, the ORV pattern happens in different openings. For example, it occurs in the Grunfeld defense (the upper left diagram); in the Benoni defense (the lower left diagram, what I saw from Roman video). And it occurred in my Saturday’s game with Thomas. He had not expected this at all! It is a very wonderful idea, the one among many others for which we all love chess! So, I wish all of you to create something brilliant in your chess games. I have just created it!
??????? Finally, after I started Round 3, Eugene completed the proof. He utilized two tactics: a proof by contradiction embedded inside a proof by induction. So I thanked him, and TD Albert sat down to verify the proof.
I proceeded to continue my assignment, when I noticed that there is a problem - Problem 2.4 - which I already solved earlier in the semester. That is when I realized: I WAS IN THE WRONG TEXTBOOK THE ENTIRE TIME!
And this concludes the story of the ICA Open. The following day, I finished the correct problem set in 150 minutes, which is less time than I spent thinking about Problem 2.5 on its own.
May my experience serve as a lesson of carelessness to all ICA Players.
But before I conclude this report, I would like to bring everyone’s attention to “The ICA Show”. Luke and I are considering moving the show to a different time. Please fill out this form to allow us to determine the optimal time.
Section 8 Report: By Alexander Florea
ICA Open Report: By Yefim Treger
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