Dead Man's Chess

[Ethan Thane Athen]

If this needed someone with Grandmaster level chess skills, it would still be possible to involve them without them even knowing the nature of the match they were playing in. Some posters have already touched on the possibility of just asking people for help on the next best move and there's no reason the person / people asked would need to be in on the scam and no reason why it couldn't be another Grandmaster (or several) who was asked but kept ignorant of who was supposedly playing who.

Also, I may be mis-remembering but wasn't Korchnoi a bit of a nutter who believed in all sorts of woo things (didn't he want to avoid being in the same room as one opponent because of some 'death gaze' idea or something). If he thought he was playing an old master he may have read far more significance into the moves than was actually in the head of the person(s) making them ie he was effectively playing himself.

In any case, the length of time between moves would appear far too great for a coherent game so Korchnoi probably looked at the game board afresh each time. Hardly conducive to a good performance.

 

[Nursefoxfire]

Did anyone else get that

Fifteen men on a dead man's chess
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

ditty running through their head at this thread title?

 

[Civilized Worm]

Also, I may be mis-remembering but wasn't Korchnoi a bit of a nutter who believed in all sorts of woo things (didn't he want to avoid being in the same room as one opponent because of some 'death gaze' idea or something). If he thought he was playing an old master he may have read far more significance into the moves than was actually in the head of the person(s) making them ie he was effectively playing himself.

Dr. Zukhar, a parapsychologist and member of Karpov's delegation, was accused of sitting in the audience and interfering with Korchnoi's concentration. When Korchnoi was unable to have him removed, he engaged the Ananda Marga, a religious sect, to counterbalance the 'bad vibrations'.

http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Zukhar_Vladimir_369259884.aspx


Yes Korchnoi was definitely woo woo himself, it doesn't suprise me at all that he thought he was playing a ghost.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Interesting, no?

No .

I can't remember having seen a more asinine argument for communicating with the dead ..

Why do dead people seem to be restricted to totally useless and benign information, rather than where uncle Harry stashed the gold coins, or who murdered aunt Rebbecca ?

 

[Jimbo07]

Right on... the amount of effort to produce one good chess move every two months or so? Teeny-tiny. I could produce that kind of fraud right now, out of boredom, and would take less than a few hours. If you spread that few hours over EIGHT YEARS it is no big deal at all.

It all has to do with speed and access to information. It's possible to win a single game over 8* years, especially given access to books, early programs, etc.

The difference between any one of us with 8 years, books, computers and so on and a grandmaster is that the grandmaster wins tournaments consistently. So it is in every sport/contest.

...

* Of course, this (8 yr figure, etc.) assumes that at least the skeleton of the story is even true.

 

[Senex]

So can we have one woo channel Paul Morphy and another woo channel Bobby Fischer and put to rest who is the greatest chess player of all time -- or would these two rascals be put off because they are playing each other every day already on the other side (I'm sure Bobby Fischer is dodging Morphy even though he could kick his butt. It wouldn't be heaven for Fischer if he couldn't dodge opposition).

 

[Foolmewunz]

<snip>

The point is, if I told you I've been to Bangladesh, you might believe me. If I told you I'd seen a ghost once, you wouldn't believe me. Yet, your only proof that Bangladesh is real are anecdotal accounts by a large number of people who have written and talked about their experiences there (and some photographic evidence, which we all know could be doctored). Why you choose to believe one statement over another is very telling.

Do you get out much? I've been to Bangladesh four times. How does that weigh up against your "anecdotal accounts by a large number of people... etc...." "... doctored evidence"....? I have their visa still in my last passport, and I'm pretty sure it came from a real Bangladeshi guy and a real Bangladesh consulate. I could go check for you.

Yet, I've never seen a ghost, nor anyone who could talk to dead people.

In short... What A Dumb Rhetorical Point.

Does Sudan Exist vs Are There Faeries In The Garden ???? Gee, I don't know, there seems to be equal evidence for both sides.

Really?????



Kudos to Civilized Worm and Ethan Thane Allen..... I hadn't seen this thread and didn't think it would get beyond the third post before someone pointed out that Viktor was batcrap crazy. (Many chess players seem to be.) I mean he hired someone to throw a protective energy field around him because he felt his opponent's personal svengali was hexing him with the evil eye. He was also notoriously superstitious.

In fact, there are lots of stories out there, one of them being that the Swiss guy, Doctor Woo, asked Korchnoi who he'd like to play most, and that he named Capablanca and two others(including Maroczy). Now I posit that Capablanca (or Alekhine or Morphy) would have been far too familiar to the chess public, as every single game they every played is on record. But Maroczy was never even No. 1 in the world, much less a perennial world beater. Why was he even included? Perhaps because someone had interesting and obscure information on him? Perhaps because of just that - he was a lesser light and thus less known, so they could make up crap.

So you now have:

> Three (not one) woos.. Eisenbeiss, Rollan, and Korchnoi.
> The game itself? No where near in the the style of the deceased Grandmaster.
> The other credibility? Well, Eisenbeiss claimed he knew Rollan to be trustworthy. YOU MEAN OTHER THAN WHEN HE TALKED TO DEAD PEOPLE, RIGHT?
> Oh but it wasn't the game, it was the details of his personal life. No it wasn't! It was the details of his public life, but lesser known public life, unless of course, YOU ARE VIKTOR KORCHNOI who knew the entire chess world and chess players and fans know one group of people... other players and fans.
> But it took X dozens of hours to look up all that stuff! Yeah? And that and two bucks will get you on the IRT. I could give you details of certain very public parts of my life, right now, and even with the internet, you would need 84 hours to verify them, if not more. And they had EIGHT YEARS. Plus, they had Crazy Vic Korchnoi, who, no doubt, had known many people who knew Maroczy, personally.

There is just so much here that stinks of woo that I can't believe you're taking it seriously. You suffer one of the most awesome cases of confirmation bias I've ever seen.

 

[whatthebutlersaw]

Psychic's Chance?

Couldn't just a grandmaster/talented amateur with old fashioned style have unwittingly provided the counter moves?

Good chess players are often engaged in similar games - if the game is played at distance, all you would have to do would be to engage one good player in a 'regular' correspondence game and claim to the other one that he is playing someone channeling an old grand master. Then you have them play each other by simply forwarding their moves to the other one and wait for the outcame. The "other side" grand master forgets all about it because he is constantly engaged in similar games, and who remembers them all? The other one on the other hand remembers it as "the medium that nearly beat me".

Surely, that is the most plausible explanation?

 

[Rocko]

Couldn't just a grandmaster/talented amateur with old fashioned style have unwittingly provided the counter moves?

That was my first thought, I have to say. The old con job of playing two good players off against each other would be the easiest way of doing this.

 

[Jimbo07]

Do you get out much? I've been to Bangladesh four times. How does that weigh up against your "anecdotal accounts by a large number of people... etc...." "... doctored evidence"....? I have their visa still in my last passport, and I'm pretty sure it came from a real Bangladeshi guy and a real Bangladesh consulate. I could go check for you.

Malerin doesn't think physical evidence amounts to much, because we can only know that thought exists. From that perspective, your example fails.

From any reasonable perspective, on the other hand, you shouldn't have had to make your point in the first place...

 

[YeahDude]

HAHA! I will get in touch with the ghost of Bobby Fisher and you can have a match with him. I will send his moves to you, for a nominal fee of course.

 

[Brian-M]

Why would they fake it? Why would people make crop-circles, fake photos of UFOs and fairys in the back yard, or alien autopsy films? Who needs a reason?

If you wanted to prove contact with the dead, you'd use a password like Houdini did, not a chess game.

If the medium spent the months between moves looking for similar games in chess books, that would explain the archaic playing style.

And why would anyone come out and say "it was all a hoax" without a good reason for destroying their own reputation?

"In the survey of 1,044 doctors nationwide, 76 percent said they believe in God, 59 percent said they believe in some sort of afterlife, and 55 percent said their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine."

So that means nearly 13% of doctors who believe in god don't believe in an afterlife? Why would you bother to believe in god if you don't believe in an afterlife? It seems odd to me.

(76%-59%=17% ... 17% of 79% = 12.92%)

 

[Mark Felt]

So that means nearly 13% of doctors who believe in god don't believe in an afterlife? Why would you bother to believe in god if you don't believe in an afterlife? It seems odd to me.

(76%-59%=17% ... 17% of 79% = 12.92%)

To retain business.

 

[Malerin]

Couldn't just a grandmaster/talented amateur with old fashioned style have unwittingly provided the counter moves?

1. You'd have to have access to such a person. A grandmaster is so far above a "talented amateur", it's not even funny. You would also have to persusade them to play a mail-game for an extended length of time.

Good chess players are often engaged in similar games - if the game is played at distance, all you would have to do would be to engage one good player in a 'regular' correspondence game and claim to the other one that he is playing someone channeling an old grand master.

More than a "good player". Someone who could convince both a Grandmaster and indepdent chess commentator their play is old-fashioned, AND make the 3rd ranked player in the world doubt he would win at some point.

Again, back to the original point: Eidenbeiss or the medium had a "pocket" grandmaster/near grandmaster willing to play a mail-game for 8 years. They would also have had to persuade this player to appear to play old-fashioned.

Then you have them play each other by simply forwarding their moves to the other one and wait for the outcame. The "other side" grand master forgets all about it because he is constantly engaged in similar games, and who remembers them all? The other one on the other hand remembers it as "the medium that nearly beat me".

He's going to forget about a correspondance game he's been playing for 8 years? A game where he was only a pawn down and had a chance of winning against the 3rd ranked player in the world? Not likely.

Surely, that is the most plausible explanation?

It's AN explanation. It doens't seem very plausible. "Plausibility" is such a loaded term though. Your view of reality is going to influence it tremendously. If you believe reality exists of just physical things, the supernatural explanation won't seem plausible. If you think the supernatural exists and, for whatever reason, is hard to test and quantify, then the supernatural reason may seem more plausible.

 

[Malerin]

If this needed someone with Grandmaster level chess skills, it would still be possible to involve them without them even knowing the nature of the match they were playing in. Some posters have already touched on the possibility of just asking people for help on the next best move and there's no reason the person / people asked would need to be in on the scam and no reason why it couldn't be another Grandmaster (or several) who was asked but kept ignorant of who was supposedly playing who.

You would need access to either one very good chess player for the entire 8 years, or numerous very good players over the span of 8 years. Also, these player(s) would have to play in a way that would convince two independent chess experts (commentator, grandmaster), that the style of play appeard old-fashioned.

It COULD be done, but again, to what end? Once you eliminate any monetary motive, you're left with either publicity or the thrill of the hoax. Some have mentioned crop-circles and fairy pictures. For a supposed group of skeptics, you guys conveniently ignored key differences between the cases:

Both crop circles and fairy pictures were widely publicized and PROVEN to be hoaxes by admission of the perpetrators themselves. This story didn't register as so much as a blip on the regular media, both WHEN the hoax started AND when it concluded. The publicity value was essentially nill. One of the "hoax" masters went to his death not reaveaing the "truth". The others have kept quiet still, even after 15 years. If they set out to "fool" the world, it would have become painfully obvious early on that the world could care less about the game. Also, there were many crop circles and fairy photographs done. There's been ONE game of chess between a grandmaster and a "ghost". Why stop with Korchnoi? Why not grab another medium, the same chess "adviser" and challenge another grandmaster? Unlike crop circles and fairy pictures, the "hoax" was never attemtped again. Why not? Is there a shortage of unscrupulous mediums out there?

Also, I may be mis-remembering but wasn't Korchnoi a bit of a nutter who believed in all sorts of woo things (didn't he want to avoid being in the same room as one opponent because of some 'death gaze' idea or something). If he thought he was playing an old master he may have read far more significance into the moves than was actually in the head of the person(s) making them ie he was effectively playing himself.

Stonewall Jackson and Patton were also "nutters", but they were also brillaint military commanders. Why would Korchnoi's belief he was playing an old grandmaster limit his play in any way?

In any case, the length of time between moves would appear far too great for a coherent game so Korchnoi probably looked at the game board afresh each time. Hardly conducive to a good performance.

You can't have it both ways: Korchnoi's opponent would have had the same difficulty. If it even is a difficulty- having NO time constraints in a game may just as easily allow a player to play all the better. I've played in a few tournaments, and often, in the back of your mind, is the fear that you're wasting too much time on a move. One of the reasons classic openings are memorized is to move quickly in the beginning and save clock time for later on in the game. I'm of the opposite opinion as you: the freedom to analyze the game, at your leisure, would result in better moves.

 

[Malerin]

To retain business.

Why would taking part in an anonymous poll have any bearing on your business?

 

[Malerin]

The Journal of Scientific Exploration was started by the PEAR people, as they couldn't get their papers published by reputable journals. None of the articles in it appear to have been reviewed by anyone; all the ones I have seen have been published without any revisions, which is very unusual for a scientific publication.

Leon

Here are the leaders of the organization:
Leaders Emeritus
Professor Peter A. Sturrock
Department of Physics & Department of Applied Physics
Stanford University

Professor Larry Frederick
Department of Astronomy
University of Virginia

Professor Charlie Tolbert
Department of Astronomy
University of Virginia

Seem like a scientific bunch.

Anyway, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (which also published Stevenson's work) seems to be a reputable journal:

http://www.jonmd.com/pt/re/jnmd/cur...GyJp3hyyW6R2T1v!-1123973585!181195628!8091!-1

All articles published by multiple PhD's, MD's.

"But in 1996, no less a luminary than astronomer Carl Sagan, a founding member of a group that set out to debunk unscientific claims, wrote in his book, "The Demon-Haunted World": "There are three claims in the [parapsychology] field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study," the third of which was "that young children sometimes report details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021001393.html

"In 1977, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease devoted most of one issue to Dr. Stevenson's work."

 

[Ersby]

I think this post bears repeating.

Reading the goddess chess blog that was linked in the OP actually answers a few of the OP's questions. What was the motive for such a hoax?

A weird experiment to substantiate reincarnation was devised in 1985 by Dr. Wolfgang Eisenbeiss at the Swiss Institute of Parapsychology.

Successfully pulling off such a hoax could possible gain grants or other such benefits. The psychic obviously gains credibility as having been "scientifically" tested. It is also possible that Eisenbeiss was actually a victim in this hoax as well, and that the only true fraud was Rollins (the psychic)

Also from the blog is this comment on the "spirit's" play style

"Maroczy plays in an outmoded style that nobody uses today, but he's tough," said Korchnoi. Yet White had little hope after botching the opening. The real Maroczy faced the Winawer Variation four times, choosing 4 exd5 twice and 4 Nge2 twice instead of the uncharacteristic 4 e5. Correct was 12 Ng5! Nxe5 13 f4 Rxg5 14 fxg5 N5g6 15 h4. And 14 Ng5! was far stronger than entering an inferior and tedious endgame in this ghostly encounter.

So it would seem that white did not play like Maroczy, nor even much like a grandmaster. It would seem that we don't even require a chess expert as an accomplice. And you said:

I should note that the write of the blogspot was a 5 time US champ who thought Maroczy botched the opening. He had no comment about the middle/end game.

The author is clearly commenting on the "inferior and tedious end game."

We now have a potential hoax that requires a minimum of one person and a maximum of two to pull off, both of which would have motive. Not proof that it was faked, but shows that a hoax is nowhere near is hard to understand or pull off as you claim.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

You would need access to either one very good chess player for the entire 8 years, or numerous very good players over the span of 8 years. Also, these player(s) would have to play in a way that would convince two independent chess experts (commentator, grandmaster), that the style of play appeard old-fashioned.

Korchnoi was very capable of fooling himself. If he thought he was playing a ghost he'd expect the play to be old-fashioned. Another possibility is that whoever was playing him was using openings etc from previous Maroczy games therefore of course they'd seem old fashioned.

It COULD be done, but again, to what end? Once you eliminate any monetary motive, you're left with either publicity or the thrill of the hoax. Some have mentioned crop-circles and fairy pictures. For a supposed group of skeptics, you guys conveniently ignored key differences between the cases:

Both crop circles and fairy pictures were widely publicized and PROVEN to be hoaxes by admission of the perpetrators themselves. This story didn't register as so much as a blip on the regular media, both WHEN the hoax started AND when it concluded. The publicity value was essentially nill. One of the "hoax" masters went to his death not reaveaing the "truth". The others have kept quiet still, even after 15 years. If they set out to "fool" the world, it would have become painfully obvious early on that the world could care less about the game. Also, there were many crop circles and fairy photographs done. There's been ONE game of chess between a grandmaster and a "ghost". Why stop with Korchnoi? Why not grab another medium, the same chess "adviser" and challenge another grandmaster? Unlike crop circles and fairy pictures, the "hoax" was never attemtped again. Why not? Is there a shortage of unscrupulous mediums out there?

Why not? Well you give one possible answer to your own question: 'painfully obvious early on that the world could care less about the game'. Ie there was little to be gained by it. Also if it took 8 years that would seem a hell of a lot of effort so I can quite understand why they didn't do it again.

Stonewall Jackson and Patton were also "nutters", but they were also brillaint military commanders. Why would Korchnoi's belief he was playing an old grandmaster limit his play in any way?

I was a very average chess player but often beat superior players by a combination of confidence and aggressive style. They'd fool themselves into thinking there was more behind my moves than there was and waste time countering a perceived threat that I wasn't even aware of. Psychology plays a large part in chess - especially at this level. You don't just analyse your own moves ahead but your opponents and if you think your opponent is a good player, you'll work out good moves for him from the current position.

You can't have it both ways: Korchnoi's opponent would have had the same difficulty. If it even is a difficulty- having NO time constraints in a game may just as easily allow a player to play all the better. I've played in a few tournaments, and often, in the back of your mind, is the fear that you're wasting too much time on a move. One of the reasons classic openings are memorized is to move quickly in the beginning and save clock time for later on in the game. I'm of the opposite opinion as you: the freedom to analyze the game, at your leisure, would result in better moves.

You're assuming Korchnoi spent all his time between moves thinking about that game. I'd suggest that someone with Korchnoi's profile would be busy with other things (and indeed other games) whereas his opponent may have had considerably more time to spare on this as it would probably be the only game he was playing.

 

[Malerin]

I think this post bears repeating.

That's an interesting analysis by an admittedly biased observer:
"This great hokum was reported in The National Enquirer decades ago and was revived last year in a lead article for the British journal of Psychical Research"

Vernon Neppe and Helmut Metz make different claims. Neppe is obviously predisposed toward the paranormal (but also an outstanding scientist (http://www.parapsych.org/members/v_neppe.html). I don't read German (or whatever language Metz wrote in), so I can't evaluate where he's coming from. It seems that the person's view of reality colors their perception of the game.

This goes towards what I was saying before: the game garnered so little publicity, analysis of the game itself is hard to find.