Remember the Alamo: The Endgame in Chess and Life

The Endgame in Chess and Life:

Placing a big priority on learning Chess endgames positions is futile if the player makes too many mistakes before the endgame even arrives. Most major mistakes made in a typical chess match likely come a long time before the endgame, and are far costlier than being able to execute a KRP vs. KR endgame appropriately. Said another way, short-term tactics employed prevent the long-term strategic theory of endgames, which comes in handy when there are only a few pieces left on the board. Or shortly, you dig your own grave long before you are killed.

A current “international chess champion” believes that:

“This (Endgame) is one of the most important phases in chess, because while it’s possible to make a comeback from mistakes made in the openings and middle game, it’s almost impossible to make a comeback from mistakes made in the endgame – as they are usually the last mistake made in the game. It’s also an area where one can score a lot of points, as it’s usually one of the phases less studied by opponents.” (end quote)

It makes sense. Victory hangs in the balance.

So what happens when you are in a position where every move you could make causes you to lose the game (or at least significantly worsen the position).The German word for this predicament is called “Zugzwang”. Is this the way Custer felt at Little Big Horn, or the band playing on the Titanic deck? Like what’s called a “Hobson’s Choice” (which is not a choice at all, b/c the “choice” is taking what is available or nothing at all), or being struck between a rock, and a hard place? As pressure dissolves all good strategies, tactics end up dominating the game execution. I think back poignantly to the mind-numbing, paralyzing horror of the patriots stuck during the Siege of the Alamo. Full disclosure, I'm a native Texan so forgive me for starting from the Texas perspective:

• Bowie and Travis led about 200 “Texicans” in the defense of the Alamo for 13 days but eventually the invading Mexican army overwhelmed them. This happened near San Antonio TX. All good 7th grade Texans learn this in public school history. But what was it like to be there, and know the odds of defense against an insurmountable force? Did “strategy” ever enter the frantic war-room discussions or was this a suicide mission? Did the enemy “surrounded” the Fort before they knew it? At what chilling moment in this Endgame did their fate become frighteningly clear?

• On March 5, 1836, after fierce fighting, Mexican artillery stopped shelling the fort. Their defensive positions weakened so, President General Antonio López de Santa Anna planned an all-out ground attack on the garrison just before dawn on March 6, 1836. Mexican soldiers would go over the walls in waves, risking hand-to-hand combat to fully and finally kill the rebellion called the Alamo.

The Queen is lost, painted warriors appear on the ridge, bullets fly, the band plays on…

Realizing the end is near, how feeble, exposed, and out-of-control one must feel? Dread rises as a fever, slowly strangling life out of the victim. A knotted gut, sweating brow, but most of all an overriding “confusion” seeps under the door like drifting fog. How is this actually happening? Looking at the Chess board, gulping, blinking, realizing there aren’t many moves left, you have found yourself in the astonishing “Endgame”. Keep up the fight, but don’t lie to yourself looking out over the precipice at a “Check-mate” on the board; it will not go away without one. more. move. ##

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Iowa Caucus: The 2016 Presidential Cycle Begins!

How to Think About Iowa

In 9 months, the polls will open to elect a President who’ll hopefully take the country in a new direction. The damage done to the American people over the last decade—lower incomes, diminished economic prospects, and a far more dangerous world, make this year’s voting the most important in decades.

As I wrote previously in my #blog post, “Primary Election” November 1, 2015, the first few primaries promise to be both surprising and populist; but picking a winner in Iowa feels like trying to peg the price of oil. Who knows what the future holds?

In the final debate before Feb. 1^st held by #FoxNews, the man who will not be named was absent; even though he’s emerged as the single most influential force in this upcoming primary season. Could a wave of first-time Republican voters propel him to victory in Iowa?

Was it a good or bad idea to miss this debate? Was a narcissistic political move more about the Donald than political strategy? After almost a year since CPAC last March, it all kicks off on Monday night, but I still don’t know which candidate to support in Iowa? 

Aspects of each candidate appeal to me; and at the same time Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t seem as inevitable as she did 4-6 months ago. This is a strange election...

Is this Caucus really about Establishment versus Outsider, young versus old, intervention versus isolation, conservative versus campaigner-conservative, political correctness versus practical politics, capitalist versus socialist, Bush versus Clinton, Christian versus Libertarian, digital versus analog? 

Striations of Republicanism vary like layered geologic formations hydraulically fractured. History will record this election field as one of the most diverse in the past 25 years. What follows is a phrase describing my thoughts on the eve of the Iowa Caucuses (minus Donald):

Candidate	Makes me think…
¡Jeb!	Great resume, but Bush vs. Clinton?
Ted Cruz	Campaigning hard, pervasive negatives
John Kasich	Fiscal genius, probably my favorite
Carly Fiorina	The woman to watch, powerful message
Dr. Ben Carson	The meek shall inherit the earth
Mike Huckabee	At least he's having fun!
Marco Rubio	Aspirational, serious contender
Chris Christie	A bigger version of John McCain
Rand Paul	Great debater, but not the right fit for the GOP
Rick Santorum	Do well in Iowa, get off the "undercard"
Jim Gilmore	I need more information, who is that?
Bernie Sanders	Not sure he can get elected
Hillary Clinton	Lack of focus, energy, momentum
Martin O'Malley	Looks more like a Mayor than President

How hard is Death... Part 4 of the storm-chaser saga...

And as we stood near the taffrail side by side, my Captain and I, looking at it, hardly discernible already, but still quite close-to on our quarter, he remarked in a meditative tone:

"But for the turn of that wheel just in time there would have been another case of a 'missing' ship."

"Nobody ever comes back from a "missing" ship to tell how hard was the death of the craft, and how sudden and overwhelming the last anguish of her men."

"Nobody can say with what thoughts, with what regrets, with what words on their lips they died. But there is something fine in the sudden passing away of these hearts from the extremity of struggle and stress and tremendous uproar—from the vast, unrestful rage of the surface to the profound peace of the depths, sleeping untroubled since the beginning of ages." [from "The Mirror of the Sea" by Joseph Conrad (Harper & Bros. 1906), page 101]

Decision-making happens along points in time: planning, policies, procedures, precedence, preparation, priorities, programs mean nothing when the urgency of a decision dominates the moment.

With lip service to these systems we hold dear; it is emotion, instinct, intuition, and common sense that often rise up as influencers of whether we move one way or another.

Gathering data like a sponge, comparing it with what has gone before, weighing the costs of one direction with the benefits of another; one cannot know the thinking of decision-makers, we cannot know the games playing in their head.

Assuming that reason, fairness, honesty, objectivity, rational experience, and logic plays into decision-making seems comforting, yet it is no more predictable than the course of a tornado. And if God controls the universe, our galaxy, this solar system and all its inhabitants; then who can know what paths to take?

With momentary inputs we do the best we can, hoping others operate similarly; or even better, actually implement the strategies they worked so hard to devise. Training becomes routine, routine becomes habit, habit roots deep in our brain’s conduits and eventually becomes almost automatic behavior during a regular 12-hour day. This turns into a pretty good life.

Nevertheless, at this crucial point, these junctures seem the same as daily, mundane decisions. For Clay, Rick & Jessica, danger and opportunity meet on a dusty road in Liberty County, Texas. 30-foot high flames roar to life, demanding attention. These young friends peer down the path and discuss quickly what to do next, the heat rising around them. Time, fear, and asphalt roadway limits their ability to operate methodically, with the luxury of balanced discussion. This is a crisis, and the hunters seem now to be the hunted.

(to be continued in Part 5...)

Fiction ripped from the headlines… ©Mark H. Pillsbury (2011)
photo credit, http://vi.sualize.us