Potpourri

by kevinspraggettonchess · December 19, 2010

SPRAGGETT ON CHESS

1ST PRIZE FOR BEST PHOTO CAPTION

SUICIDE
By Sam Loyd.

In how few moves can White force Black to mate him?

The answer is to castle queenside!

Every single legal Black move is mate!

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Dessert

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Is bowling the next ”sexy” thing?

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/11064418 w=400&h=225]
JACQUES: The Sports Issue, Trailer 2. from Jacques Magazine on Vimeo.

TEST YOUR INTELLIGENCE

You must participate in a three-way duel with two rivals. Each of you is given a pistol and unlimited ammunition. Unfortunately, you, Red, are the weakest shot — you hit your target only 1/3 of the time. Black is successful 2/3 of the time, and Gray hits everything he aims at.

It’s agreed that you will take turns: You’ll shoot first, then Black, then Gray, and you’ll continue in this order until one survivor remains. At whom should you shoot?

solution

Shoot at no one. You’ll actually maximize your chances by firing into the air.

You certainly don’t want to shoot at Black — if you’re unlucky enough to hit him, Gray will murder you on his turn. Similarly, if you hit Gray then Black’s chance of emerging victorious is 6/7 (the sum of the infinite geometric series 2/3 + (1/3)(2/3)(2/3) + (1/3)(2/3)(1/3)(2/3)(2/3) …).

But if you leave the other two to contend with one another, then you’ll have first shot against one of them on the next round. If Black hits Gray, your overall winning probability is 3/7. If Black misses Gray, Gray will kill him, and your winning chance against Gray is 1/3.

So, surprisingly, by shooting into the air you can engineer an overall winning probability of 25/63, or about 40 percent, ahead of both Black (8/21, or 38 percent) and Gray (2/9, or 22 percent).

From David Silverman, Your Move, 1971. (He asks, “Is there lesson in Truel which might have application in the field of international relations?”)

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REALLY COOL VIDEOS!!

BLACK WIDOW!

In 1902, 42-year-old Norwegian emigrant Belle Gunness bought an Indiana farm with $8,500 in insurance money she’d received when her husband and two children died. A second husband died after only nine months, and over the next six years a succession of prosperous suitors visited her farm and failed to return.

When the brother of one of these men grew suspicious, the farmhouse suddenly burned to the ground in April 1908. Firemen discovered the remains of four people stacked in the cellar: Three were Gunness’ children, but the fourth — an adult woman — was unidentifiable because its head was missing.

Investigation began to turn up butchered corpses buried around the property. Under questioning, farmhand Ray Lamphere said that Gunness would lure her victims to the farmhouse, drug them, kill them with an ax, and bury them in the hog pen or around the grounds.

It’s estimated that Gunness killed more than 40 people, making her one of America’s most prolific serial killers of either sex. Curiously, her own fate is uncertain — officially she was declared dead, but neighbors insisted the headless remains could not have been hers. Lamphere claimed she had staged her own death and absconded with $100,000 in stolen money. He may be right — there’s not enough surviving DNA to decide for certain.

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MEANWHILE, SOMEWHERE IN BULGARIA…