Chess Match: 18/8/24

No post for almost two months and the current post itself was conceived last week but has started to be written only today. Anyway, that's routine here, let's get to chess. I did fancy myself as an above average chess player once reaching 1781 rating on Lichess. But have since lost my touch with the game. Played a good game last week after a long time and decided to at least write a post on it. So here is the game:

5. Qxd4

So a Scotch's Game with everything exchanged, these generally go slow for me.

7. ... Qc5

Black offers a Queen trade, I am up on development and have a centre pawn. But trading will let him develop a Bishop for free, so can't do.

An interesting line the computer suggests is Nb5 Qxc4 Bxc4 Bb4+ b3 Ba5 b4 Bb6. If black does not comply he either falls to a c7 fork or loses a piece or gives up on casting. But I will not blame myself for not seeing it. Instead, I went with Bb4 which is also acceptable. 

9. ... d6

Black wastes a turn taking my Queen allowing the development of the Bishop. Now I have three species developed, control the centre and am ready to castle. Next, I went to easily beat the opponent right? No, I just got giddy and the match was tied, but first let's see how it is. The biggest opportunity for me is the c7 fork. Now our Knight has two paths.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

And I took the worse one- Nd5. Black just gave up castling by Kd7, now I have nothing, my "attack" is dead. Had I gone the other road I would have still been able to eat up the f pawn. But alas I am now telling this tale with a sigh. 

13. g3

A blunder. It makes no sense to distort the pawn structure and restrict the range of my Bishop when i could just have gone Bg3. In game Black could, but didn't, have just taken the Bishop, destroyed my pair and blunt my edge.

16. ... Be7

So Black did the trade and both of us had extended pawns on opposite sides, I was still leading the development. I saw the long White diagonal and neither of us controlled it. And my monkey brain sees that and immediately puts the bishop on it without calculations. 

22. ... Kaxc8

I missed a couple of tactics in the moves between them and a few changes later I am but equal with black in a 2 vs 2 Rook Endgame. My paws are more advanced and I have the open file too. I will give my self a slight slight edge. Stockfish puts it as +0.4, so yea my assessment is good enough. t was either here or in a few other moves that I offered a draw which was rejected. Some normal Rook Moves and pawn trades followed by a few checks by me, but nothing drastic enough to merit being written down.

35. h5

I have two open files for my rooks and black have one, but my harry the h pawn seems to be picked up soon. Also Rg2+ might be a dangerous move to miss in any calculations. 

39. Re1 

I dropped the Rook to back row as to me black slowly seemed to gaining steam. I was on the defensive when the worst that came from Re6 is Black being able to force a draw. 

46. Rh1

More blunders by both sides and exchanges later now both sides have a single rook and couple of paws. While almost equal, things are better for our Henry the h pawn than anyone else. At this point, my only idea was a King Walk and exchanging the rooks and then offering to draw again.  

49. Kxa4

I think Black took the short end of the stick with the pawn exchange. But with perfect play the situation would be a draw. But we are real men and the Black pawn is nearer to my King and I can't get any sneaky checks, I have a small edge at least psychologically. But in the game, I was still in a draw mindset and a draw I did get. 


I won't claim that writing this did a great service to my game, nor was it a particularly beautiful game. The only take away being that I got the result I was aiming for and not the result I could have achieved. I played an aggressive opening and then forgot to calculate some early game tactics. Not forgot, I was just too lazy. This laziness is why I don't win games and this is why I did not write here for last two months. But not being lazy, Christian's Journey To GrandMaster Blog inspired me though I was not able to recreate that structure. 

India won Cricket WC, or smth

 So apparently we won the T20 world cup, not that I care about it much but people in real life and online won't let me have blissful ignorance. I did see some news of early outs in the lower banner yesterday and thought that once again we are losing, but somehow we did win. 

Now, by Twitter timeline is 70% cricket! And I am the man unaware of the match till the toss itself. Not knowing and watching about seems to be some kind of Taboo. Look, my only connection with cricket is that I am from Ranchi so is Dhoni. (Not if my friend on Reddit is to be believed:

Have you guys ever seen someone from Jharkhand? Have you ever been to Jharkhand or know a person who has been to Jharkhand? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Jharkhand is a conspiracy created by cricketer M.S Dhoni in order to hide the fact that he is a Pakistani. He saw the state of Pakistani cricket and really wanted to play in the IPL, but could not because he was from Pakistan. So at the age of 17 his parents smuggled him inside a carton of heroin attached to a drone flying over the border. He was dropped in Uttar Pradesh where he met his friend Shoab Malik, Sania Mirza's husband who he married for whatever the Indian equivalent of a green card is. Shoab Malik dropped him off at the cricket ground where recruitment was happening without realising that Dhoni was high due to smelling the Heroin fumes.

Dhoni when reporting to the recruiters was asked where he was from and his brain panicked. His hands started sweating and his legs started feeling weak because he had forgotten his cover story, which was that he is a guy called Sachin Tendulkar from Maharashtra. On the spot he managed to make up a story about his life and told the recruiters that he was from Jharkhand. The recruiters, who were from South India, thought that it must just be another one of those North Indian states and thought it was normal. He played well and with the help of the rat controlling him under his cap (the rat was the spirit of Kapil Dev, who died earlier and is currently a clone, that is a different story I will tell later) won easily and got selected. However he felt bad that he was unable to use his Sachin Tendulkar cover and gave it to his Bangladeshi friend, who also joined him in a career of professional cricket.

And that is the story of Jharkhand. Don't belive me? Tell me another thing from Jharkhand. Can only think of Dhoni? Yeah, I though so. Don't let the deep state lie to you anymore. Jharkhand is fake, it's simply not real.

 

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/DesiCopypasta/comments/rqglsx/jharkhand_doesnt_exist

 ) And so I am seen as a CSK fan. Not just seen as, I am low-key forced into being one:

डरअसल जो हम है हि नहीं, आप वैसे हि देखें जा रहें हैं

अगर जाम-ए-माया संभलति नहीं , टो क्यों चढाऐं जा रहें हैं

I don't mind the friendly banter, rather I enjoyed it and even felt a bit down when CSK was out, but still, it makes no sense that I need to know about cricket. This is no isolated incident but a systematic feature of the country, according to Pew, a majority of the country feels one must support (and I assume know) the Indian cricket team to be considered an Indian.  This is not a serious country dammit. 

Anyway, the old age saying that India runs on cricket, Bollywood and politics is still true- and I am clean-bowled on two of these! 

On Writing Everyday II

 Write something worth a damn. Write something that requires you to tear a chunk of your soul away and leave it dripping, bloody, on the page. For my amusement, or your amusement, or her’s. Put something of yourself into the process. Get some skin in the game. If you don’t, you might as well be writing press releases. Life is too short, and the opportunity afforded us by this marvelous community and platform is too good to squander it on typological masturbation. Fuck me with your stories. Please.

- Gary Rogers's "Write Something Worth a Damn"

Just yesterday I wrote a piece on writing everyday, and I write on the same topic today too. Unoriginal and uninspired sure, but at least I am writing on consecutive days - A first on the blog. I did say that "I will be looking at Writing Prompts now" but because the laziness, I didn't. At the very least laziness did not stop me from writing this very boring blogpost. It could have been worse, all the self-hate of yesterday might have drawn down in procrastination. 

Anyway, it seems that faith of this blog is to be a very loosely kept diary ( I have tried keeping diary before, never lasted more than a week.) But that will be an improvement over it being nothing. Unlike yesterday I keep no bitterness writing this piece despite it being even more lame than yesterday, a good thing? Might it be "करत-करत अभ्यास के जडमति होत सुजान । रसरी आवत-जात ते सिल पर परत निशान ॥" in action? If yes, then ts surely a good thing. On other hand I have now tried reading more and more blogposts. I liked 'High-Speed Rail in India' and 'Why I Keep a Research Blog' today. Adding the links here with barely any readership on an unindexed website will not do any good to these already popular blogs, but I guess it will be easier for me to find them again and perhaps one day even write a post inspired by them! 

On writing everyday

 If you are looking to build a habit, then what you write isnt as important as just writing. Some of the hardest part is just sitting down to write and letting the words flow. This advice is just for that part. Once you actually start writing, then you make improvements. But just like you cant edit with whats not there, you cany get better at something you cant do!

-/u/SuperSailorSaturn 

 When I announced the purpose of the blog, I hoped to have written semi-frequently on the blog, maybe twice a month. But in almost half a year I have written but a single short post. And it is not the deep ramblings I had assumed but just a short voting experience in this election. I still strive to write every day, ever since I read this blog. 

I don't know the point of this blogpost itself, is this self-torture? Somehow there have been readers from Hong Kong, I don't know what they find in the 3 posts I have written here. But they have read, and I have not written more. I need to write. This makes no sense from a "flow" POV. Sentences are disjoint I, can't write no good. Even Tao says to write down even new maths. But I can't. 

I find solace in the quote at the top, it is the beginning that is most difficult. I sometimes begin to write, only to be bogged down in research. I find those moments very enjoyable if you remove the pressure of writing, but they take enough time that nothing ever gets written (or I learn how I don't know much on the topic, and my inability to honestly write so). But sometime back I forgot the research I did, I want to make those giddy moments permanent in my writing and help others by offering what I discovered in an easy consolidated form. Sadly it never comes through. 


I will be looking at Writing Prompts now, let's see if that cures anything. Not hopeful at all though. Not hopeful.  

Voted for First Time

On 25th I went to vote for first time. Reached at the booth before it opened and was done within an hour. Double Padma. 

Voting for Aparijita Sarangi the sitting BJP MP was no brainer. For Jatani AC seat, I was torn between BJD and BJP till last moment. In 2019, the seat was won by Sura "ମାଡି ଚାଲ" Routray. Sura Bhai by the way have given us this masterpiece: 

Last time he won by about 5% of the votes and talking to locals he appeared to be quite strong a candidate. But the six time MLA decided it was time to pass the seat to his sons. I am not aware of what happened but in the end his younger son ended up on a BJD ticket for Bhubaneswar LS and he was later thrown out of INC for "anti party activities." There was no Congress appreciation after that, so rather than a tactical vote to keep INC out, I pressed on the Lotus. 


Anyway lets vote for results, and hope I actually posting once in a while here. 

My Year in Books: 2023

 Another year has passed since I started keeping my record on Goodreads. 2023 was a year of change for me, I moved out of my house for the first time to join Integrated-PhD at NISER.  Undoubtedly, these transformative experiences must have left its mark on my reading journey. Anyway, let us start with some stats that GR provides. 

Books read: 98
Pages read: 33,813
Average Book Length: 345
Average Reading: 2.8



The year started with finishing Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies which was a 5/5. I really do need to buy the other two books in the series. Next was Joad's Guide to Modern Thought, which was my first review of the year. Quoting from the review:

  My edition is a reprint of 1947 edition, so "modern" in the title may be misleading now. The book primarily focuses on the impact of certain scientific discoveries, including some pseudoscientific concepts such as ghost mediums, on philosophy.

 I have no idea why the book has an average rating of 3.89/5. 

I read Basic Income: A Transformative Policy For India which converted me to a pro Basic income (as far as Micro Implications are considered, I have yet to study macro implications in detail.)  A compelling read that should be on the must-read list for Economics and Public Policy courses. Another book related to policy was Republic of Rhetoric: Free Speech and the Constitution of India. It is written by the son of the current CJI and the grandson of another. Found him a bit biased in the direction I thought he would be, but a fine book nonetheless. Lidl & Pilz's Applied Abstract Algebra was a great book I read for the course in Discrete Mathematics. I hope my research in future would be in a related direction. 

Next, I was in the mood for some Hindi (I often have periods of reading Hindi Literature) but found both Raag Bhopali and काशी का अस्सी were much overhyped and did not live up to their reputation. The same was true for Way Beyond The Three Rs, Rise of Modern Japan and Bhārat: India 2.0 read during the same period. 

Next were some books which could be called to be aligned to Pro Hindutva ideology. As in often the case with such books, I had to read Kautilya on moral hazard, poverty & systemic risk and Mathematical Method of Sanskrit Grammar both of which were products of Quackery. In fact I think I read a lot of quackery this year which must explain the low average rating. This is when I read Vikram Sampath's most talked about Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 which I think will become a classic. I have already ordered the second part in Hindi but have had not the time to read it yet. Interesting is that I finished the book on 7th July while started in May. This means I was reading it throughout my BSc and entrance exams. How I read it this long when the college library did not allow reissuing of the book? Its all thanks to the symbiotic relation me and Aman Kushwaha had (thought I have left to believe the scales were heavily tilted in my favour.) Anyway, the biography have left me further in awe of Hindutva. 

The next book worth mentioning was Grokking Algorithms An Illustrated Guide For Programmers and Other Curious People. Initially I read it to prepare for interview at IACS (wherein for unknown reasons I managed to get AIR 1 in the written exam.) Although due to network issues (and honesty I had no heart to join even if selected since I already had the offer letter from NISER) I did not give the interview, the study of algorithms is quite interesting. 

A literally life changing book was Monika Halan's Let's Talk Money: You've Worked Hard for It, Now Make It Work for You. This finally got me to think about money, the fact that in a few months I have was to be given a stipend by DAE to live on my own is what led me to read the book. I have bought Let's Talk Mutual Funds and started reading it, and have also started to invest via Mutual Funds (#SahiHai) and done a NPS too. 

With money matters settled (theoretically) and a Int-PhD offer letter in my hand, Imposter syndrome (I hope its just a thing in my mind but you never know...) kicked in and I began binge reading PhD advice books. Most of the are focused on labs sciences or s*cial "sciences" and none based in the Indian context, but one have to make do with what was available. 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School and Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School were genuinely funny. A Field Guide to Grad School (Despite her ideological leaning which sweeps much into the text), The Professor Is In and Grad School Essentials were helpful, at least in views of the first year me. Next I read श्यामला दंडकम् with a not so good translation, I planned to memorize it but got too busy and neglected it lol. 


Upto this point, a majority of books I read came from library of my College (or via LibGen.) I did not notice at that point but SVC library is very well stocked and it was a joy to randomly find books in it. In comparison to it, NISER library is nearly empty, possibly due to the much more focused nature of the institution or due to the small time it has been since its establishment. But anyway, the SVC library is much missed. The first book I finished from the new library was My Numbers, My Friends: Popular Lectures on Number Theory, not really much interesting. 

When I went back home in September, I took A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court with me. Parents were quite angry (Faltu ka wajan leke aa jate ho) but it was worth it. A big 5/5. Another classic I read was The Return of Sherlock Holmes, almost 5/5 but a 4/5, which is my first Holmes novel. Continuing with classics, I tried to read a Hindi translation of Swami Vivekanand's Rajayoga but the translation did not work for me. I later read the English original. At year ended with the banger named The Three-Body Problem. 

A very few words on the Blog

A look at my reading list would have helped justified the name of the blog - बहुश्रुतस्य परिभ्रमान् - the ramblings of one who have heard a lot. I hope to write randomly on random topics I become obsessed with at that time in the blog. 

Goals for 2024

• 52 Books
• 3 Books in Hindi
  
• 2 Books in Sanskrit or on IKS
• 1 Book in Odia
  
• Finish "3 Body Problem" series
• Read at least one work of Swami Vivekanand
• Complete Volume 2 of Vikram Sampath's Savarkar
• Read Rise and Fall of Rome Vol I
• 3 Books for "Ideologically Opposite" Camp