Waiting for you December 21, 2006
Posted by dorigo in food, personal, social life.8 comments
The three large pans of lasagne (one containing bucatini with mushrooms and meat sauce, one with pine nuts and ham, and a third “regular” one) are ready to go. The calamary are done. The tuna steaks with olives are baked. Polenta is on its way. The large chunk of roast-beef is waiting to be sliced. An obnoxious amount of tartines with caviar, salmon, crevettes are all set in their trays. Some 20 liters of good to very good wine are waiting, either on the table (the reds) or out of the window (the whites and the cartizze).
All we are still missing is the guests! In 20 minutes they will start coming. You sure you cannot make it tonight ?
My chess game yesterday December 7, 2006
Posted by dorigo in chess, games, personal, social life.9 comments
Below is a report of my game with Alex Pehas, played yesterday on board 2 of the Dragons-Fermi match for the Chicago Industrial Chess League.
Alex Pehas (Dragons) - Tommaso Dorigo (Fermi), Chicago Industrial Chess League, 12/5/061.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.g3 Bf5This early sortie of the lightsquared bishop is playable although not best. It is a move I often employ with black in these kinds of positions to avoid the main lines where knowledge of theory (which I do not possess) might prove a factor. It’s a bit like saying “now we’re both on our own, pal”.
4.cxd5 Bxb1
Again, a psychologically-driven decision. My opponent is supposedly weaker than me, and also a tad older. Bxb1 destroys the simple plan white might have, of playing against d5 with Nxc3, Qb3 and Bg2, and places the game at a more tactical level. Sure, I have to part with my bishop pair, but I am not afraid of a fight…
5.Rxb1 Qxd5 6.b3
Probably not best. The a2 pawn really is to be defended, but it was more accurate to play a3, taking away a checking square from the range of the black’s remaining bishop.
6…., e5 7.Bg2
Again not the best move. I confess I thought i would destroy my opponent very quickly at this point, although objectively black has only just equalized here.
7…., e4!
8.Ng1
Sadly, Nh4 loses the N by 8….,g5, so the retreat is mandatory.
8…., Nf6 9.f3
Another move I did not expect, and which arose killing instincts in me. Surely the weakening of black squares around the white king is a clear signal of a mandatory attack by black ? However, 9.f3 is not really a losing move. It is actually perfectly playable, and poses some difficult problems to black. In fact, here I thought for 10 minutes before replying.
9…., Bc5 10.Qc2
I had been thinking for a while at 10.fxe4 Nxe4 11.d3? Qf5! where black is winning (12.Nf3 Nc3 and a rook goes), or the more complex 10.fxe4 Nxe4 11.Qc2 f5 12.d3 Dd4 13.e3 Qc3+ 14.Qxc3 Nxc3 which is roughly equal. But 10.Qc2 is perfectly playable and forced me into another long think.
10…., e3
I did not even look at Bxg2, considering it too much. I love bishops, I think they are superior to knights in most positions, and already Bxb1 was a concession - so Bxg1 was not in my agenda, although the computer likes it - white loses the right of castling, and after 10…., Bxg1 11.Rxg1 Qh5 black retains the initiative. Instead, I considered exf3, but I concluded that white would get a pleasant game, with two central pawns and an open f-file. So I really had to sacrifice a pawn for positional aims… Which is ok, of course, but always a grievious decision.
11.dxe3
Here I also thought for a while at the possibility of 11….,Ng4!? 12.e4, Qd4. Here, if white plays 13.fxg4, there might follow 13…., Qf2+; 14. Kd2,Qxg2; 15.Qxc5 and I thought that 15…., Qxh1 would lose because of 16.Ba3! In fact, however, black defends from mate with the simple 16….Qxe4, while if 16.Nf3 black has 16….,Nd7 and things look good for him. This was my worse miscalculation in the game. However, I did reject 11….,Ng4 also because of 12.e4, Qd4 13.Nh3, when it is not clear how black should continue.
11…., 0-0 12.Qc4 Qd6
After playing this move I got worried about 13.b4!, which is strong indeed, and thinking that 13.b4! Bb6 14.Rb3?! would get white in a very good position - after all, he is threatening to come to d3 with the rook, getting possession of the d file, and defending the e3 pawn. However, it is not all so clear. After 13.b4! Bb6 14.Rb3?! Nbd7 black retains an edge.
13.Nh3, Nd5 14.e4, Bb4+ 15.Kf2, Nc3
All my moves are aimed at keeping tactics in the agenda for as long as possible - such that my opponent cracks under pressure. Here I thought white is forced to play Ra1, since Rb2 gets forked: 16.Rb2, Nd1+ 17.Rxd1+, Qxd1 18.Qxb4, Qxc1 19.Qd2 and black is on top. However, my opponent found another possibility, which took me aback. He offers the exchange in another way, which forces the exchange of queens and leaves on the board a position where black has a rook for a bishop and pawn, and white’s bishop pair dominates the scene.
16.Bf4!?, Qc5+
Indeed, if black were to speculate on some tactical possibilities here he would get the worst of it: 16…,Bc5+ 17.Kf1 Nxb1?! 18.Bxd6 Nd2+ 19.Ke1 Nxc4 20.Bxc5 Nb6 21.Bxf8 is better for white.
17.Be3! Qxc4 18.bxc4 Nxb1 19.Rxb1
Sure, black has a rook for bishop and pawn, but the position is not nice. Objectively it is still a perfect balance, but with little time to play, black’s is the most uncomfortable side.
19…,a5 20.Nf4, Na6 21.Nd3, b5 22.cxb5,cxb5 23.Bh3,Rab8 24.Bd7,Rfd8 25.Bc6,Rdc8 26.Bd5,Rc3
Still trying to enter into tactics… The trick is easy: 27.Bd2?? Rxd3 and if 28.Bxb4 Rxd5! and black wins.
27.Bd4, Rc2 28.Bb3, Rcc8; 29.Bd5, Bc5; 30.Nxc5, Nxc5
And here I half-hoped on Rc1, which would save me from the pain of attempting to win a still balanced position… Objectively, the natural conclusion of the game would have been 31.Be5, Rb6; 32.Bd4, R6b8; and a threefold repetition. But my opponent, finally, played a bad move in a game otherwise surprisingly well played. My efforts to complicate the game payed off when I least expected it…
31.Rc1?? Nxe4+ 32.Bxe4 Rxc1
That does it. White is lost.
33.Ba7, Rbc8 34.Bd3, b4 35.Bd4, g6 36.h4, a4; 37.Bb2, R1c2!
The last finesse (and Fritz agrees!). Black gives back one exchange, but white has to pay dearly for it: part with his coveted bishop pair, and lose the a2 pawn. However, there is no choice.
White resigned.
Chess match tonight December 6, 2006
Posted by dorigo in chess, games, news, personal, social life.2 comments
The Fermi team was hosted by the Lucent Technology Dragons tonight, for the fourth round of the 2006-07 Chicago Industrial Chess League (see http://www.chicagochessleague.org/ ). I played as black on board 2, and won a complicated game. We won the match by the score of 5-1, with wins by Gustavo Garzon, myself, Irwin Gaines, Brian Degraf and Herman Cease on the top five boards.
I will report about my game later… For now, I just post a few pictures of the match below.
This is Brian (black) during the opening phase of his game.
Irwin (white) is thinking deep…
Herman (white) just out of the opening.
Me and my opponent are both in deep thinking in a complex middlegame.
And finally, Gustavo, our top board and a player of great class, is writing down his move in a dominant position.
Physics in trouble December 4, 2006
Posted by dorigo in Blogroll, books, food, news, personal, physics, science, social life, travel.12 comments
Last Saturday, upon arriving in Chicago, I went downtown and spent a couple of hours at the Borders of Michigan Avenue. Time really flies there… In the end, I bought two books, one by Raymond Kurzweil (”The singularity is near”) and another by Lee Smolin (”The trouble with Physics”).
I will post about my impressions on Kurzweil’s book later. I rather started reading Smolin’s book, which has been at the center of a heated debate lately, together with Peter Woit’s “Not even wrong”. For details, a good site to visit is Peter’s blog, http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/.
I only read a chapter and browsed carelessly through the rest, but I can already say I find Smolin’s “Trouble with Physics” a very pleasant reading and a well-written account of the situation fundamental physics has been facing in the last thirty years. The book has no formulas whatsoever, and I am sure outsiders will find it just as good a reading as insiders.
Which brings me to my thought of the day. The fact that people like me ends up reading about the status of theoretical particle physics in a divulgative book rather than in scientific journals is kind of depressing. I am no theorist, but I did study physics for ten years. A laurea, a PhD, several schools, plus 15 years of experience as an experimentalist. Notwithstanding all of the above, the level of theoretical discussions in most of today’s scientific papers is way above my head, and I have to settle on material such as Smolin’s or Woit’s book to know what is going on in theoretical physics.
Sure, I do follow theory seminars in my Physics department now and then (more then than now). But most of the times things get too complicated after the first 20 minutes. This is frustrating and is a side-effect of the complexities into which theoretical particle physics has spiraled in the last years of unbound speculation.
By the way, in the evening I visited the “Cafe’ Iberico” on La Salle Avenue with Giorgio and Simone (the new Ph.D. student for CDF in Padova, who took the picture below). The tapas were as good as ever… I only advise to get there early (as we did - we were all jetlagged and hungry) or an hour wait is quite normal on Saturdays…
Mezze maniche with bay scallops and asparagus November 2, 2006
Posted by dorigo in food, personal, social life, travel.add a comment
Yesterday evening I was feeling in a cooking mood. So I left office early (well, 7.30PM actually, but still early for the typical rythm when I am at Fermilab) and headed to Dominick’s to get the necessary groceries for an experiment: pasta with sea scallops and asparagus tips.
I got a large bag of frozen bay scallops and two pounds of asparagus. At home, I cut the better part of the asparagus in half-inch long bits, placed them in a large pan, added salt, extra virgin olive oil, and parsley flakes, and half a glass of water, and cooked at medium temperature.
The scallops were thawed in warm water, washed, and placed in another pan, where I sprinkled them with salt, again olive oil, black pepper, and lemon juice. I cooked them at low temperature for quite a while, subtracting the excess water they were giving out a couple of times, and consuming the rest until there was a thick broth left.
I cooked the pasta al dente, added the asparagus to the scallops, got rid of the boiling water of the pasta, and added the latter to the mix. Then let the whole thing mix together by cooking for a couple more minutes at high temperature.
Just as I was doing that, Julien and Silvia arrived from Fermilab, and sat down for dinner. The pasta was quite good, although there were mixed opinions on whether more pepper would have improved the taste (Julien) or more salt (me) - I always like things a bit more salted than what others do.
We drank a good Pinot Grigio Albola DOC with the pasta. It is a good wine from Friuli, a wonderful place for whites. However, I would have fancied more a Tocai from the eastern hills of Friuli, which is my favourite wine. Can recommend two lesser known brands: Luisa and Specogna, both excellent… Unfortunately, you cannot find them easily in the US (and if you did, they’d cost a fortune probably!).
By the way, I just remembered I did post a pic of the Specogna here from the Azores conference wine tasting session… I might cut it and paste it here. Maybe later!
And I will post a picture or two of the final result here once Silvia downloads them…
Update: here is how the Tocai Specogna looks like…. From the table at the wine tasting last September:
David Orban September 24, 2006
Posted by dorigo in Blogroll, books, computers, food, internet, italian blogs, personal, physics, science, social life.1 comment so far
As I anticipated in a previous post below, I met an old friend after a long time last Friday. David is the CEO of a small firm in Bergamo (http://www.questar.it), and a remarkable person. He has a broad scientific culture and very clear ideas - a better word would be “vision” - on several fundamental issues on science, computing, and technology. He is a sharp guy.
I envy him a lot for his voracious reading and up-to-dateness on several key issues concerning artificial intelligence, for instance. 20 years ago, when we were both physics students at the Padova University, we had been fascinated by books such as “Godel, Escher, Bach” by Douglas Hofstadter, and others by Dennett, Penrose, and the likes. But my ability to keep up with the topic faded, while his has stayed strong, if not increased - probably also due to the specific interests of his firm on those technological developments. That is all the defence I can put up to justify my ignorance to the books he cited 
I brought David to a nice restaurant in Campo S.Giacomo dell’Orio, in Venice, where he had dinner while I drank his wine (I had had dinner earlier with my kids, unfortunately) and we chatted about many things. I thus learned that the girl he was with back in the University days later became and still is his wife, and he learned that the girl I had mentioned to him once is now my own.
It was a very pleasant conversation. Of course, with 22 years to fill time flied, and as I cheered him when he left my house after the last glass of a russian cognac, midnight had already come and left.
I stole the picture on the left from his blog, http://www.davidorban.com/blog/ (now in the links column on the right here), since the one the bartender of the Osteria ai Postali took with my camera was badly blurred.
On a side note, in the background is a fresco painted on the wall of the Osteria by Davide dalla Venezia - I like it a lot.
