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[faust]

Did you read the books?

No; I played one of the games but it didn't entice me enough to want to read a book set in that world.

[silverspawn]

Have to say the climax of Annihilation is extremely well done. Mad respect. I have some qualms with the movie but most of them are fairly minor.

[silverspawn]

White to move. What's the move?

(This was the most strangely rated puzzle I've ever see; chess.com says 2300 and ~35% pass rate but it's like really easy?)

[MiX]

White to move. What's the move?

(This was the most strangely rated puzzle I've ever see; chess.com says 2300 and ~35% pass rate but it's like really easy?)

Well, there's a really obvious move that isn't correct, and it's all about sacking the queen: maybe that's related?

[Dylan32]

White to move. What's the move?

(This was the most strangely rated puzzle I've ever see; chess.com says 2300 and ~35% pass rate but it's like really easy?)

Well, there's a really obvious move that isn't correct, and it's all about sacking the queen: maybe that's related?

Am I insane, or isn’t there a mate in 2 without a sac?

[Dylan32]

1. Qc8+ Ke5 2. Qe6#

[MiX]

1. Qc8+ Ke5 2. Qe6#

No, that's the solution I got too. But analyzing the other move Qf8 can be complicated and counter-intuitive enough that people probably don't fully explore it and pick it.

[silverspawn]

1. Qc8+ Ke5 2. Qe6#

that's the solution I got too.

Congratulations; as 2300 players you can go to local tournaments and probably wipe the floor with everyone.

I actually thought   d6  was the most obvious move, but well you shouldn't have tunnel vision on one move for too long

The puzzles are ratings are generally way too high, or rather perhaps they correspond to what you would get if you only take about 10 seconds for each (but you can take way longer). But even 2100 puzzles are usually still quite hard, just not 2100 hard.

[silverspawn]

The 35% pass rate, if it's real, suggests that  most people do these way differently than I do. Maybe many of them are way better at chess but try to do the puzzles way more quickly, and maybe they think one of the two wrong moves looks promising and just go for it

[silverspawn]

honestly though this looks like a 1200 puzzle to me. It's neither hard to calculate nor does it involve difficult concepts, and the solution is trivial to verify

[silverspawn]

Like a recent 2100 puzzle that I found hard had the solution [sack a rook and two minor pieces to win the queen] -> [have just a queen vs tons of small stuff] -> [win a minor piece with a fork]. I managed to calculate the 3-pieces-for-queen line and concluded that it can't be the solution because rook+2minors is generally considered to be worth more than a queen; but it was different there because the solution also involved exposing the opponent's king and the real value of a queen goes way up when the opponent's king isn't behind pawns. You could have probably proceeded to fork your way to victory from there.

[silverspawn]

The queen is very powerful when the king is exposed, thehehe

[silverspawn]

You can take a screenshot of Spirited Away at just about any time and have something that looks amazing as a poster. it boggles my mind how beautiful this movie is

[silverspawn]

[silverspawn]

The German translations of chess pieces are such bullshit it's really easy to get mad about it

English Version -- Literal English Translation of German Version
King -- King
Queen -- Lady
Rook -- Tower
Bishop -- Runner
Knight -- Jumper
Pawn -- Pawn

Like, in English we have

-- The people (pawns)
-- Religion (bishop)
-- Military (knight)
-- Royalty (king&queen)
-- A rook for some reason

And then the German version so utterly butchers that. The transation of queen is the biggest sin.

The only one I like is the tower.

[silverspawn]

Similarly bad are the names of time formats (this time not German's fault)

Classical (totally meaningless name)
Rapid, Blitz, Bullet -- all sound really fast
And Blitz is slower than bullet because that's logical

[silverspawn]

And one hour per game is 'rapid'

[silverspawn]

It's even more maddening considering the queen is the strongest piece

[silverspawn]

Also remember how in Harry Potter 1 original they have to play a chess game and take the place of pieces, and then have to avoid getting beaten. And Ron chooses A rook for Hermione, a Bishop for Harry, and  Knight for himself. How dumb is that?

You should obviously start by taking the King. If your opponent doesn't try to kill those pieces, I would probably continue with the G2 and F2 pawns. maybe the A2 pawn. definitely no knight or bishop

[silverspawn]

Trivia: they've hired someone to design a really clever chess puzzle for the movie that fits the description from the books (you have to find a hard move that results in checkmate without losing Harry and Hermione but by sacrificing Ron), then the director of the movie totally messed it up and you can't even see the position in the film.

[silverspawn]

Harry from hpmor: "I assume the intended solution was to ignore the game and fly over the board using the broomsticks from the previous room"

Quirrel from hpmor: ignores the intended solution of any room and kills everything in his path with fiendfyre

[silverspawn]

"Uh," Harry stuttered, trying to think over the continued roaring of the chamber's guardian. "Uh. If it's like the Cerberus from the Muggle legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, then we have to sing it to sleep so we can pass -"

"Avada Kedavra."

The three-headed beast fell over.

Harry looked back at Professor Quirrell, who was giving him a look of extreme disappointment, as if to ask whether Harry had attended any of his classes, ever.

[silverspawn]

Trivia: they've hired someone to design a really clever chess puzzle for the movie that fits the description from the books (you have to find a hard move that results in checkmate without losing Harry and Hermione but by sacrificing Ron), then the director of the movie totally messed it up and you can't even see the position in the film.

I also don't buy that Ron is that good at chess. I think Rowling models chess as a total unitary property: doesn't say anything about the person. But that's most likely not true.

I have admittedly heavily updated downward on how closely dominion is linked to IQ over the years, and chess would be kinda similar. (It's also trivial to see that the link can't be too strong because they're not that correlated to each other, e.g. I'm way more talented at dominion than chess.) But (a) there is certainly still some correlation, and (b) even though they are both a poor measure of IQ, they probably still measure something. I kind of buy that just about any type of person can be a world class player in things like football or tennis (I think this is born out by examples); I don't buy that this is true for chess or dominion. It's just poorly understood what exactly the requirements/correlations are. But for example, my impression from hearing top chess/primsata/dominion players talk is that they are altogether much smarter (using that as a name for overall sanity level, not IQ) than the average person, and that doesn't seem particularly true for say football (meaning soccer).

Point being, based on my intuition about what this link is, Ron isn't the kind of person who would be good at chess. Even if I'm unsure about the characteristics, he doesn't seem to check any of the boxes.

It could have less to do with talent and more with being the kind of person who is willing to grind by themselves. That theory would predict that the dividing line could be solo vs. team sport rather than phyiscal vs. mental, e.g. dota could be a little more like football.

Or maybe all of this is BS; much more uncertain about all the above than most things I talk about.

[silverspawn]

But like the real reason Ron is good at chess is because Rowling wanted to have something he's good at

[silverspawn]

I'm kind of wondering right now. I'm extremely familiar with the harry potter books. I've listened to some of the audiobooks probably 10+ times. There were several years in my childhood where that was just the go-to thing to do in my free time (not itself, but in addition to other stuff).

Looking at it right now, I don't think Harry is a particularly good character. Ron definitely isn't. Hermione is better but not jaw-dropping. On the other hand, a lot of the supporting characters seem quite strong. (Snape is the best but there are other good ones, e.g. dumbledore, the twins, a bunch of professors.)

Maybe this is a feature. Maybe having a generic main cast surrounded by more unusual people makes it feel both relatable and real. Something about the way she constructs the world is extraordinary, anyway. Knowing it so well and for so long actually makes it harder to judge it by my normal standards though. No idea how much I would ike it if I read it for the first time now. That is such a crazy counterfactual.

What Rowling most certainly does not have is an extraordinary understanding of the real world and real people. I've talked about this recently; her book repeatedly strawmans philosophical views and even types of people that aren't like her (unlike a song of ice and fire). But that's probably not a very important fact, or may even be a feature, for a series starting out as children's books.