this post is too long. I got through about 70 percent. So...Sofia is the brilliant lazy one, huh.
Supranormal Acitivity in Chess
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sloughterchess I find your post fascinating. I wish AfafBouardi had not tacked on his nonsense.
It is amazing how a person or a computer can get so deeply in the zone that they produce answers to the questions that chess positions pose to us. Sometimes Fischer, Reshevsky, Sofia Polgar, you, I, etc, will have a moment where we will give our minds over to chess and create beauty. Afterwards one may not be able to understand one's own actions but during the performance we were one with chess.
So you read a highlight real of sorts for different chess feats. Fischer's streak had a reasonable explanation, he was WC level -- other world champs have similar fantastic feats. Other strong players have similar etc.
You can beat Fritz 8 in a complex middle game (even once). Well you're fooling yourself. Check to see if it's thinking, make sure you're not running other programs like scanning for viruses etc. I had a version of chessmaster8000 that even on the highest setting wouldn't calculate and only moved instantly (had to re-install it) etc.
I watched a 1700 computer, a Par Excellence, play both sides of a position beyond World Championship level.
What are you talking about? Who told you it was beyond world champion level? Certainly not yourself.
You go on to say more crazy stuff (the last part with the computer I don't even know what you're talking about) so you're either delusional or I fed a troll 
My games against the computer are a matter of record. I was not running any other programs at the time. Check the two threads on the Wilkes Barre/Traxler and the thread on the Berliner Gambit (Fritz) for the games. See if you can find any but minor errors on Black's part in two of the most complex openings of all of chess and ask yourself, "How many Grandmasters could win two Rooks for Bishop and pawn in one middle game and a Rook in another middle game against a World Class computer (Fritz 8) at 120/30 in two of the sharpest middle games in all of chess?" Just play through the games and check the analysis that has been vetted on line.
For thirty years Dr. Hans Berliner, former World Correspondence Chess Champion claimed that his innovation, the Berliner Gambit, was the refutation by Black of the 4.Ng5 variation of the Two Knights' Defense. I was able to prove on the thread and accepted by the members of the thread (and IM Jeremy Silman) that the opening actually leads to the fastest win by White of any major opening in chess.
Garry Kasparov devoted over a page of analysis to the Berliner Gambit in BCO2 and indicated it was perfectly playable so I have cooked the analysis and theory of two World Champions (Although it is obvious that Garry took Berliner's analysis on faith without actually looking at it. Why would Garry doubt the accuracy of analysis by a World Champion when that World Champion had unlimited time to analyze his pet opening?).
Berliner was using the strongest computer at the time, Hitech, to assist him with his analysis. He offered a bet that he could beat anyone with his opening and offered to play anyone for $1000. I accepted the challenge on line, but was unable to get in touch with Dr. Berliner.
In response to another post: As far as determining the computer played beyond World Champiohship, I only had to count moves, not calculate moves, at a critical juncture to establish that the computer was seeing ahead at least 10-15 moves in a matter of seconds.
Here is what I think could be thought of as supranormal episode. In the last two tournaments, I went roughly +1-20 against average to above average players
between tournament games and blitz, yet am able to defeat effortlessly a 2700 level computer in a complex middle game at 120/25. How many GM's or even World Champions in the past 5 years have been able to win a Rook against a strong computer in a sharp middle game? If you know of any such games, please post them.
Here is the game in its entirety. Forget the moves immediately after I got a winning position and then see how I won the game twice (recovered from second best moves.)
Jan 18, 2010
0
#8
Not to poke fun or anything, but how does a player rated ~1400 in turn-based draw a GM, or write a book on the Evans Gambit? And how do you know that the computer played beyond world championship level?
As for my book on the Evans Gambit, Ken Smith, publisher of Chess Digest, the business with more chess titles than any other business in the world at the time, devoted more advertising space to my book on the Evans Gambit in his catalog (1/2 the outside back cover and the entire inside back cover) than to any books written by World Champions or other professionals
In my opinion, Estrin was much stronger than Berliner and is one of the greatest correspondance players ever. Anyways, the only person who thought the Berliner variation was good was Berliner.
I didn't even get through the first paragraph. I was expecting to read about flying chess sets or pieces that move on their own and tell the future or something so I was very disappointed.
i had alien intelligence controlling my brain once so i could beat Karpov blindfolded (he could still look at the board). it was great but the probe they used gave me bloody stool for a month...no seriously wtf!? Lasker was supranormal, as was Reshvesky, Capa, Fischer, Spassky, Petrosian, Alekhine, Steinitz, Botvinik, Tal, Karpov, Kasparov, and about 1,000,000,000 other people who play above the top of the bell curve...Capa going 8 years without losing a game is pretty spectacular though....
While Capablancas 8 years without a proffesionall loss is truly impressive, one should not forget that it was "only" 63 games. One should not forget that the two longest streaks without a loss comes from Tal(!!!) which is somewhat surprising, when thinking about the style that made him so famous and beloved.
Tal's longest streak without a loss is 95 games, and he also has the second longest streak in proffesionall chess with 86 games.
Tricklev wrote:
Tal's longest streak without a loss is 95 games, and he also has the second longest streak in proffesionall chess with 86 games.
really!? this is did not know! 95 games w/o a loss is almost divine, what year(s) did this amazing feat happen in?
I'd have to check but going by memory one of those streaks was 1979-1980, and he got to 2nd on the FIDE list (2700, which was nice and high for those days) behind Karpov.
January 1980 FIDE rating list. Top 8 players
1 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2725
2 Tal, Mikhail...................... URS 2705
3 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. SWZ 2695
4 Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2655
5 Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2635
6-8 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2615
Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2615
Mecking, Enrique.................. BRA 2615
edit: from Retguvvie98's link:
From July 1972 to April 1973, Tal played a record 86 consecutive games without a loss (47 wins and 39 draws). Between October 23, 1973 and October 16, 1974, he played 95 consecutive games without a loss (46 wins and 49 draws), shattering his previous record. These are the two longest unbeaten streaks in modern chess history.[10
These streaks do not coincide with the high ranking in 1980.
For interest, here are some early lists:
January 1971 FIDE rating list. Top 9 players
1 Fischer Robert James.............. USA 2740
2 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2690
3-4 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2660
Larsen, Bent...................... DEN 2660
5 Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2640
6-9 Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2630
Botvinnik. Mikhail................ URS 2630
Geller, Efim...................... URS 2630
Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2630
July 1971 FIDE rating list. Top 6 players
1 Fischer Robert James.............. USA 2760
2 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2690
3 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2670
4 Larsen, Bent...................... DEN 2660
5-6 Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2640
Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2640
July 1972 FIDE rating list. Top 6 players
1 Fischer Robert James.............. USA 2785
2 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2660
3-4 Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2645
Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2645
5-6 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2640
Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2640
July 1973 FIDE rating list. Top 6 players
1 Fischer Robert James.............. USA 2780
2-3 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2660
Tal, Mikhail...................... URS 2660
4 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2655
5-6 Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2650
Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2650
May 1974 FIDE rating list. Top 6 players
1 Fischer Robert James.............. USA 2780
2 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2700
3 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2670
4 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2650
5 Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2645
6 Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2640
January 1975 FIDE rating list. Top 6 players
1 Fischer Robert James.............. USA 2780
2 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2705
3 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2655
4-6 Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2645
Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2645
Tal, Mikhail...................... URS 2645
January 1976 FIDE rating list. Top 7 players
1 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2695
2 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2670
3-4 Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2635
Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2635
5 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2630
6-7 Larsen, Bent...................... DEN 2625
Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2625
January 1977 FIDE rating list. Top 8 players
1 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2690
2-3 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2645
Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2645
4 Mecking, Enrique.................. BRA 2635
5 Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2625
6-8 Hort, Vlastimil................... CZE 2620
Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2620
Tal, Mikhail...................... URS 2620
January 1978 FIDE rating list. Top 6 players
1 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2725
2 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. URS 2665
3-5 Mecking, Enrique.................. BRA 2630
Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2630
Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2630
6 Tal, Mikhail...................... URS 2625
January 1979 FIDE rating list. Top 6 players
1 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2705
2 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. SWZ 2695
3-4 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2640
Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2640
5-6 Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2625
Timman, Jan....................... NLD 2625
January 1980 FIDE rating list. Top 8 players
1 Karpov, Anatoly................... URS 2725
2 Tal, Mikhail...................... URS 2705
3 Kortchnoi, Viktor................. SWZ 2695
4 Portisch, Lajos................... HUN 2655
5 Polugaevsky, Lev.................. URS 2635
6-8 Spassky, Boris.................... URS 2615
Petrosian, Tigran................. URS 2615
Mecking, Enrique.................. BRA 2615
So you can play one opening, how do you perform in other openings? Probably not so good.
Well, if you believe in reincarnation (as I do), then you probably believe that souls "decide" what innate talents, abilities, personality traits etc., they will have for the next earthly lifetime, as well as their gender, race, country of origin, parents, and so on. Whether they are able to make full potential of themselves depends on a number of factors, chance being only one.
You also probably believe that souls are meant to experience almost every type of experience this earthly existence has to offer. And that may include - at least for some anyway - being a top chessplayer. Certain souls will reincarnate with tremendous chess ability already wired into their make-up. Such persons are usually described as "prodigies". Most other players achieve brilliance through countless hours of hard work, but these for these prodigies it all seems to come naturally and effortlessly.
The concept of reincarnation tends to support the view that we are here in bodily form in order to learn (our world is a giant classroom), and requires that there is some higher principle or force in the universe. So from that point of view, and in a very loose way, you might say some exceptional chessplayers have been the product of impulses and decisions made outside our everyday, physical existence. They were made in the ethereal state between earthly lives.
My definition of supranormal behavior in chess is any superior accomplishment in chess that has no reasonable explanation. How do you account for the fact that World Champion Bobby Fischer was able to win 19 games in a row when you add his Interzonal wins with his 6-0 crush of Mark Taimanov and then Bent Larsen? Has anyone calculated what that translates into in ELO rating? I'll bet over that 19 game win streak, had it happened in a single tournament, that Bobby's rating would have been well over 3000.
How do you account for a Sammy Reshevsky winning games in simultaneous events at age seven? How was it possible in such little time to have such spectacular results when clearly the level of sophistication of pattern recognition would have been limited by his age and experience?
How do you account for a Judit Polgar being able to beat a Master at blindfold chess at age 5?
How do you account for Sofia Polgar and her spectacular (never seen before or since) performance in Rome 1989 where she had a performance rating of over 2800 despite giving up a draw in the last round. How many top professionals you know would miss the opportunity to win the tournament with a perfect score even though losing the last game meant no change in your standing in the tournament? Judit Polgar claims that Sofia has the greatest talent of all three sisters and yet, according to her is, "lazy". This shows in the last game because from analysis of the final position, Sofia had excellent winning chances.
What makes this remarkable also is, according to Susan Polgar and Paul Truong, her husband, in their excellent book, Breaking Through How the Polgar Sisters Changed the Game of Chess, is that Sofia's appetite during the tournament was astronomical. She was eating about twice the amount of food she normally ate. We can only assume, absent massive physical exercise, she was flushing through her brain as many calories as full-grown woman would consume for her entire body.
I have beaten Fritz 8 four times in complex middlegames, yet can still lose some 20 games in the span of two tournaments between tournament games and blitz and also draw GM Lev Alburt on the Black side of a Blumenfeld Countergambit.
In another potentially supranormal event, I watched a 1700 computer, a Par Excellence, play both sides of a position beyond World Championship level. One day I was analyzing my favorite opening that I have written a book about called the Evans Gambit. Lacking imagination, I asked the computer for a move. It turned out it was a very good move. A few moves later, I asked it for another move, also a very good move. After the third time this happened, I decided to take the computer, "Out for a Spin" to see what it could do in a Queenless middlegame. Much to my amazement it played both sides of the game beyond World Championship levels on both sides of the board at Blitz speed!
World Championship level play has a certain "feel" about it. Having been involved in serious chess for over 30 years, it is even possible to distinguish play by an average GM and a World Champion.
At a critical juncture White had just enough pressure to force the win of the minor exchange. Then it began to dominate the Knights with its Bishops in a semi-open position. Then the computer forced the indirect exchange of pawns winning a center pawn and allowed Black to win a wing pawn.
The computer was clearly seeing ahead at least 10-15 moves in a matter of seconds. The reason I know this is that the computer was very careful to give me a yardstick into its brain. Near the height of the battle, White overlooked a two move combination winning a pawn. My immediate reaction was to think, "Aha you stupid computer you have blundered". Then the pawn remained as I expected a materially oriented computer to immediately regain the pawn with dire consequences for White. Instead the game went on for 4 moves, then 6 moves and then 8 moves and still no regaining the pawn. Then I looked at the board and suddenly realized that Black's Knights, which had been kept in check by the Bishops, suddenly were occupying very active positions on the a- and h- files either on a4 and h4 or a5 and h5 i.e. Black had compensation for the pawn sacrifice. Since this was a gambit opening, Black had the initiative and the advantage.
I went back to the starting position and then asked the computer what it wanted to play. It simply maneuvered for another fifteen moves and suddenly the pawn was gone. It was more like the computer wanted the square, not the pawn.
Both sides chopped wood and we wound up in an endgame of Rook, Knight and passed a- and h- pawns versus Rook, Bishop and connected passed center pawns on the fourth and fifth. By the way, I can't find a single reference to any Rook, Knight and pawn versus Rook, Bishop and pawn endings in either Fine's Basic Chess Endings or in Silman's Silman's Complete Endgame Course.
White stepped into the Queening square of the King Rook pawn, blockaded the a-pawn with its Bishops and then rammed the center pawns home. When Black was forced to sacrifice a Rook to prevent a pawn from Queening, I discontinued the game. Obviously, White knew how to win the game a Rook up.
For this to be due to chance, even if the computer flipped a coin and there were only two candidate moves, the likelihood of this being due to chance is less than 1 X10 raised to the 36th power (at least 120 half moves were played; I suspect it was more like 200 half moves), or less likely than an asteroid hitting downtown New York City on 2099 at 11:59 and 59 seconds.
Do any other post members have similar supranormal experiences in chess?