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The strategy of “nettlesomeness”
A few days ago, Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, used the word nettlesomeness to describe Magnus Carlsen‘s chess-playing strategy during the first half of the 2013 World Chess Championship in Chennai, India between Viswanathan Anand (winner of the 2012 World Championship) and Carlsen. Here is an excerpt from Professor Cowen’s thought-provoking blog post:
I find two aspects of the [Carlsen-Anand] match notable so far. First, in the last two endgames Carlsen has been outplaying the computer programs (and Anand), sometimes for dozens of moves in a row. * * * Second, Carlsen is demonstrating one of his most feared qualities, namely his “nettlesomeness,” to use a term coined for this purpose by Ken Regan. Using computer analysis, you can measure which players do the most to cause their opponents to make mistakes. Carlsen has the highest nettlesomeness score by this metric, because his creative moves pressure the other player and open up a lot of room for mistakes. In contrast, a player such as Kramnik plays a high percentage of very accurate moves, and of course he is very strong, but those moves are in some way calmer and they are less likely to induce mistakes in response.
Can you think of other non-chess situations where “nettlesomeness” is used to frustrate or confuse an opponent?
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 Viswanathan Anand (IND) |
 Magnus Carlsen (NOR) |
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Magnus Carlsen, nettlesomeness, Tyler Cowen, World Chess Championship
2 Comments
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old …
… we grow old because we stop playing.”
–George Bernard Shaw
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Extra credit. Do you have any ideas or topics for future posts? Share them with prior probability in the comments section below.
The Power Point Effect
Is Power Point good or bad, on average? prior probability likes the visual and creative possibilities of Power Point, but all too often, Power Point presentations are terribly boring and poorly executed. Here, for example, is what the famous Gettysburg Address might have looked like had President Lincoln used Power Point to deliver his remarks:
For the whole hypothetical Power Point presentation (six slides in all), go here. Hat tip to The Faculty Lounge, another of my favorite blogs, for this whimsical pointer.
Explain this …
Here is NFL referee Clete Blakeman explaning why the penalty at the end of last night’s game between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers was not in fact a penalty:
So it was determined at that point in time that when the primary contact occurred on the tight end that the ball, in essence, was coming in underthrown and in essence it was [immediately] at that point intercepted at the front end of the end zone. So there was a determination that, in essence, uncatchability, that the ball was intercepted at or about the same time the primary contact against the receiver occurred.
But wasn’t Tom Brady’s pass, in essence, “uncatchable” precisely because of the defensive player’s interference with the tight end?
Justice Posner?
It’s remarkable that the most prolific and most cited legal scholar of the 20th century–Judge Richard A. Posner–has still not been appointed to be a Justice of the US Supreme Court … and probably never will be given his age and his caustic criticisms of the political nature of the High Court. As Judge Posner notes in a recent interview with Noah Charney of The Daily Beast,
Well, I don’t like the Supreme Court. I don’t think it’s a real court. I think of it as basically … it’s like a House of Lords. It’s a quasi-political body. President, Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court. It’s very political. And they decide which cases to hear, which doesn’t strike me as something judges should do. You should take what comes. When you decide which case to hear it means you’ve decided the cases ahead of time.
prior probability agrees with Judge Posner about the nakedly political nature of the Supreme Court, but not for the reason Posner gives. In essence, Posner is arguing that the Supreme Court is a political court because it gets to choose which cases to decide. But what other method of case selection could the Supreme Court use to allocate the hundreds, if not thousands, of appellate cases presenting federal questions? Also, don’t all courts, even lowly trial courts, get to control their dockets to a large extent through ad hoc application of the well-pled complaint rule, the standing doctrine, and other procedural devices?
Hat tip to Tara Colon
*Mincome*
Why don’t governments just give poor people cash with no strings attached–a minimum income or mincome–instead of in-kind benefits such as food stamps and housing vouchers? True, some recipients would choose not to engage in productive work, spending their time at strip clubs or the horse track. But so what? Others would use the security of a minimum income to create new businesses and follow their dreams. As an added bonus, a “mincome” system would reduce the size of government bureaucracy by replacing such in-kind and paternalistic programs as unemployment benefits, legal aid, food stamps, and public housing. (Perhaps this possibility explains why governments still prefer to give in-kind benefits over cash.)
For more on the pros and cons of mincome, see this report in the Sunday Times about an upcoming Swiss referendum essentially proposing to pay people for being alive. In summary, every single Swiss citizen would receive a monthly income from the government, no strings attached. Regardless of the outcome of this referendum, why hasn’t any wealthy country (so far) adopted such a radical and truly-effective anti-poverty program?
Why don’t we get rid of *time-outs* in sports?
One of the things prior probability likes about soccer is the simplicity of its rules–there are just 17 simple rules in soccer (*)–and especially the fact that there are no “time-outs” and thus no manipulation of the game clock in the beautiful game. The final seconds of a basketball or football game, by contrast, suck to watch because of the way players and coaches try to extend the game artificially by manipulating the game clock in various ways. So why don’t basketball and football just get rid of time-outs and simply extend the time of play to 45 NON-STOP minutes per half like soccer–yes, 45 minutes per half WITHOUT STOPPING THE CLOCK FOR ANY REASON, whether a team scores, is fouled, or steps out of bounds. A non-stop game clock would reduce all the strategic manipulation of the game clock and add more excitement to basketball and football games. What say you?
* Shout out to Carlos Reyes for this bit of information.
“You don’t like the old-time bikes, huh?”
Could this be the reason why Facebook doesn’t have an “Unlike” button?
