A Holiday Post

Christmas greetings to all readers, and in particular to the scandinavian logicians. See you at Costa in January.

A X-mas wish list

In earlier posts I've dropped some hints about presents for the upcoming holidays, but since I am obviously too subtle for my own good, it's time to get more explicit. And what is more explicit than a list?

Prices are all from Amazon.com.

7)
Vagueness: A Reader -- by Rosanna Keefe (Editor), Peter Smith (Editor); Paperback
Buy new: $42.00 -- Used & new from: $39.48

6)
Proof Theory : History and Philosophical Significance (Synthese Library) by Vincent F. Hendricks (Editor), et al (Hardcover - )
Usually ships in 3 to 6 weeks
List Price: $113.50

5)
From Trotsky to Gödel by Anita Burdman Feferman (Paperback - December 2000)
Usually ships in 4 to 6 weeks
List Price: $24.95

4)
Garry Kasparov on Fischer : Garry Kasparov on My Great Predecessors, Part 4 (My Great Predecessors) -- by Garry Kasparov; Hardcover
(Rate it) Buy new: $23.10 -- Used & new from: $21.99

3)
Mainstream and Formal Epistemology by Vincent F. Hendricks (Hardcover - December 31, 2005)

2)
Vagueness in Context by Stewart Shapiro (Hardcover - March 2006)
(Released later in Dec.)

1)
Logical Pluralism -- by J. C. Beall, Greg Restall; Paperback
Buy new: $29.95

When you're out, you're out!

After advancing to the fourt round, GM Carlsen met the experienced Russian GM, Evgeny Bareev. Bareev is three times Carlsen's age and has been among the top twenty players in the world for some time. The two first games both ended in hard-fought draws, but with Carlsen putting great pressure on his opponent. So with confidence, he entered the rapid games, where he started off as white.

In a complicated end game, Carlsen managed turn a significant advantage into a winning position. But, alas, with the audience already applauding, the youngster made a grave blunder, costing him not only the win, but giving it to Bareev. It is hard to fathom what effect this must have had on the young player, considering that he had been on top in all three games. His long time trainer, GM Simen Agdestein (Nor), said in an interview afterwards that this is the kind of loss you will remember throughout your life. He himself, he added, was cold sweating and shaking half an hour after the game was lost. Let us just hope the Carlsen will have plenty of other memories to balance out this one.

The second rapid game ended in an inevitable draw, thus terminating Carlsen's chances for the 1st place. However, given the complicated rules of the 2007 championship cyclus (of which this tournament is a part), he is still playing on until the 9th-16th place is decided. A place among 11th best (given that Kramnik does not accept his spot) will give Carlsen play in the Candidate matches next year. There he will meet the 8th best of this tournament, together with players directly qualified due to rating.

In fact, Carlsen has taken an important step in that direction already, beating French GM Joel Lautier in yesterday's game and drawing the first game. Since we are now robbed of our chances of seeing Carlsen play against former FIDE champion Ruslan Ponomariov, let us all hope we will at least be able to see Carlsen vs. Kamsky.

Turing's Thesis

The postponed talk by Prof. Shapiro, on Church's Thesis, will be held on Tuesday next week. There's no paper available, but information is here.

Notice also that the last seminar in Arché's philosophy of mathematics project is on Thursday 15th, that is, two days after Shapiro's talk. Last out is Chiara Tabet with the talk Indefinite Extensibility.

A 15 Year Old Turing Machine Revisited

Just minutes ago GM Magnus Carlsen (see below) won a sensational victory in the third round of the FIDE World Champion Cup. After five hours (!) and 85 moves, the Norwegian Zauberkind managed to win against GM Ivan Cheparinov, in a creative Queens Indian where the latter had an advantage (according to Fritz and most commentators) throughout the game. Indeed, at the most, Cheparinov, who obviously played a prepared idea, had close to an hour more on his clock than Carlsen. When Carlsen was down to ten minutes (with 15 moves to go before move 40 and additional time), Cheparinov had fifty minutes and a significant positional advantage. The experts are hinting that Cheparinov's 7. Bg2 was a novelty, and, judging on the following position, a strong one as well. Thus, it is even more amazing that his teen-GM opponent managed not only to stay within the time limits, but actually cracking Cheparinov in a hard-fought endgame with one R against K and B!

I am looking forward to the professionals' assessment of the game. Stay updated at www.chessbase.com.

The FIDE World Chess Cup

In these days the FIDE World Chess Cup is being played in Khanty-Mansyisk, Russia. This is part of the cyclus for the FIDE World Champion title. In particular, the best players in the tournament will qualify to play for a match against the current champion, V. Topalov.

Being Norwegian has rarely been a reason to celebrate in the chess world, but with our 15 year old wonder boy, GM Magnus Carlsen, things are certainly improving. Currently the youngest Grandmaster in the world, Carlsen has impressed the international media for two years already. And, apparently, not without reason: he has just won the first two rounds of the 128 players knock-out event, bringing him that much closer to the title. He now enters round three as one out of 32 players left in the tournament.

Of course, no one will dream of the youngster winning the tournament (which includes people a hundred ranking points above Carlsen), but he has fairly good chances to get through to the fourth round as well. There he will meet 19 year old Ivan Cheparinov, who surprisingly won over top-seed Vassilij Ivanchuk. Carlsen has already won a match against Cheparinov in a tournament earlier this year, so he will meet a familiar opponent.

Read more on Chessbase.