How can economist Tyler Cowen be NJ chess champion in 1977, ahead of Pal Benko?

[raylopez99]

Here's a conundrum: the George Mason University economics professor and blogger Tyler Cowen was 1977 New Jersey chess champion, ahead of Pal Benko (who won in 1976 and 1978--did he even play in 1977?), see the list: http://www.entryfeesrus.com/efru01.html

Yet TC says he is 'weak' and refuses to play chess anymore? Furthermore, he claims not to have any of his old games (private correspondence). How can that be? Another famous economist who is a grandmaster is Kenneth Rogoff, who also has co-authored a popular book "This Time is Different" on financial panics. Rogoff recently played Magnus Carlsen in a casual blitz game and drew.

I mention this because our own TK claims he was of 'championship calibre' back in the early 1980s, a 'correspondence master'. Could it be that on occasion average players can peak, and perform well, then drop out of the limelight? I'm sure TC could beat me or TK in chess even today, but it's interesting that he peaked in his teenage years, apparently satisfied himself with chess, then dropped out. Either that or, like TK, he used a computer and cheated, though back in 1977 I doubt a PC would be much help in an OTB tournament, unlike today with spy hardware and fast microprocessors (witness Alex Zelner in Florida).

RL

[Offramp]

What do the words Tyler & Cowan have in common with George Mason?

[Taylor Kingston]

On Thursday, September 27, 2012 8:55:07 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> I mention this because our own TK claims he was of 'championship calibre' back in the early 1980s, a 'correspondence master'.

I have never claimed to be "championship caliber" at anything. I did play in two USCF Correspondence Championships, the 1973 and 1981 Golden Knights tournaments, but those are open events anyone can enter. I made it to the semi-finals in 1973 but not to the finals. I did make it through the finals in the 1981 event, finishing with a record of something like +14 -1 =3, which was good enough for 22nd place out of probably several hundred entries. At my peak postal rating I was #46 on the USCF list.
I never used a computer for postal chess back then; didn't even own a PC. As I recall there were few if any commercially available programs or dedicated machines that were even close to master strength. IIRC, the top program in the world back then was something called Belle, and it was only about Elo 2250, which put it right around my postal rating.

[raylopez99]

On Friday, September 28, 2012 9:56:02 AM UTC-4, Taylor Kingston wrote:

[tooting his own horn]

I thought you're on your way to Vermont? I guess you're checking Usenet while in the air? Liar liar pants on fire.

And look at you comparing yourself to Belle, an Elo 2250 program. Nice use of name dropping.

RL

[raylopez99]

On Friday, September 28, 2012 2:06:48 AM UTC-4, Offramp wrote:
> What do the words Tyler & Cowan have in common with George Mason?

? what. I give up. It's Cowen not Cowan.

RL

[Taylor Kingston]

On Friday, September 28, 2012 10:02:45 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
>
> Liar liar pants on fire.

Ray, what is it that keeps a grown man like you at the socio-emotional level of a small child?

[William Hyde]

On Sep 28, 9:56 am, Taylor Kingston <ttk5...@gmail.com> wrote:

>   I never used a computer for postal chess back then; didn't even own a PC. As I recall there were few if any commercially available programs or dedicated machines that were even close to master strength.

Even I could give a rook to the commercially available machines in
1980. Close the position, wait for the machine to castle, direct
everything you have at the king - but don't make any immediate threats
until you are ready.

I did have a stronger machine later in the decade (allegedly 1800
USCF). It would have been a disaster at postal chess at my level (I
started at 2000 APCT but never came to equilibrium). Stronger machines
were available by the time I quit postal chess in 1990, but I don't
think any of my opponents ever used them.

William Hyde

[Offramp]

Put the following text into google:
freemason Cowan Tyler
What is the result?

[Taylor Kingston]

On Sunday, September 30, 2012 6:11:59 AM UTC-7, Offramp wrote:
> Put the following text into google: freemason Cowan Tyler What is the result?

Interesting. "Tyler" is the title of an officer in the Masonic hierarchy, while a "cowan" is a stonemason who is not a member of the Freemasons guild. This from "Freemasonry for Dummies":

The Tyler’s job is to keep off all “cowans and eavesdroppers” (for more on
the Tyler, see Chapter 5). The term cowan is unusual and its origin is
probably from a very old Anglo-Saxon word meaning “dog.” Cowan came to
be a Scottish word used as a putdown to describe stonemasons who did not
join the Freemasons guild, while the English used it to describe Masons who
built rough stone walls without mortar and did not know the true secrets of
Freemasonry.

[raylopez99]

On Saturday, September 29, 2012 5:04:32 PM UTC-4, William Hyde wrote:

> Close the position, wait for the machine to castle, direct
>
> everything you have at the king - but don't make any immediate threats
>
> until you are ready.
>
>

Wait, isn't that the formula for success in winning playing positional chess?

RL

[raylopez99]

On Saturday, September 29, 2012 10:52:22 AM UTC-4, Taylor Kingston wrote:
> On Friday, September 28, 2012 10:02:45 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:

> > Liar liar pants on fire.
>
>
>
> Ray, what is it that keeps a grown man like you at the socio-emotional

> ? level of a small child?

"Socio-emotional"? Those are big words for a 10 year old.

RL

[None]

On Saturday, September 29, 2012 5:04:32 PM UTC-4, William Hyde wrote:

I had a Commodore 64 in 83? 84? with a tape drive. Sargon III was the only program I knew of but I'm sure there were stonger ones. I hadn't played corresponcechess since the early 70s. I was tempted but just couldn't see the point for all the effort to get moves, load the machine, wait for its thinking to end (hours on complicated positions), and send moves and have a phony rating.

[Taylor Kingston]

On Sunday, September 30, 2012 10:12:18 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> On Saturday, September 29, 2012 10:52:22 AM UTC-4, Taylor Kingston wrote: > On Friday, September 28, 2012 10:02:45 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> > Liar liar pants on fire.

> > > > Ray, what is it that keeps a grown man like you at the socio-emotional level of a small child?

> "Socio-emotional"? Those are big words for a 10 year old. RL

Yes, I thought you would have trouble with it.

[raylopez99]

On Sunday, September 30, 2012 1:14:46 PM UTC-4, None wrote:

> I had a Commodore 64 in 83? 84? with a tape drive. Sargon III was the only program I knew of but I'm sure there were stonger ones. I hadn't played corresponcechess since the early 70s. I was tempted but just couldn't see the point for all the effort to get moves, load the machine, wait for its thinking to end (hours on complicated positions), and send moves and have a phony rating.

Well you are a better person than Taylor Kingston.

SOrry for my sorry reply--Google Groups reader is acting up again.

RL

[raylopez99]

You just won the Nobel Prize for troll baiting! George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen is highly rated blogger in the economics field and he just mentioned your reply on his blog, which is read widely by prominent economists (i.e., some say the recent "QE3 and NGDP" action by the US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke was due to a suggestion by a reader of TC's blog, a certain professor named Scott Sumner) see here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/10/emails-i-receive-the-consumer-surplus-of-the-internet.html

Reproduced below. And TK says I don't add value to the internet! Ha. I do add value, by cutting and pasting elsewhere replies to my posts here.

RL

Emails I receive (the consumer surplus of the internet)
by Tyler Cowen on October 3, 2012 at 3:08 pm in Education, History, Religion | Permalink
…the origins of your name, off by a letter.

RL

> Put the following text into google: freemason Cowan Tyler What is the result?

[Taylor Kingston]

On Thursday, September 27, 2012 8:55:07 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:

> Here's a conundrum: the George Mason University economics professor and blogger Tyler Cowen was 1977 New Jersey chess champion, ahead of Pal Benko (who won in 1976 and 1978--did he even play in 1977?), see the list: http://www.entryfeesrus.com/efru01.html

I did a little digging to try to answer the original question, but can't find any games of Benko's played in New Jersey 1976-78. The list of tournaments in his autobiography gives no NJ championships, even those he won. In 1977 he seems to have played mostly in South America, aside from Lone Pine. Can't say for sure whether he skipped NJ that year.

[Taylor Kingston]

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 2:54:04 PM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> On Sunday, September 30, 2012 9:11:59 AM UTC-4, Offramp wrote:
>
> > Put the following text into google:
>
> >
>
> > freemason Cowan Tyler
>
> >
>
> > What is the result?
>
>
>
> On Sunday, September 30, 2012 9:11:59 AM UTC-4, Offramp wrote:
>
> > Put the following text into google:
>
> >
>
> > freemason Cowan Tyler
>
> >
>
> > What is the result?
>
>
>
> You just won the Nobel Prize for troll baiting! George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen is highly rated blogger in the economics field and he just mentioned your reply on his blog, which is read widely by prominent economists (i.e., some say the recent "QE3 and NGDP" action by the US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke was due to a suggestion by a reader of TC's blog, a certain professor named Scott Sumner) see here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/10/emails-i-receive-the-consumer-surplus-of-the-internet.html

So you contacted Cowan? Why didn't you ask him about the 1977 NJ Championship, your original question in this thread?

[raylopez99]

On Saturday, October 6, 2012 3:40:32 AM UTC+3, Taylor Kingston wrote:
>
> So you contacted Cowan? Why didn't you ask him about the 1977 NJ Championship
> , your original question in this thread?

It's Cowen, not Cowan. The Cowan is the eavesdropper, the anti-Masonite, who is at odds with the Masonic Tyler. It's just a coincidence that Professor Cowen teaches at George MASON University.

FYI, yes I contacted him a while ago, and asked him to show me some of his NJ championship games. He said (somewhat implausibly) that he did not keep any of his old games--I think he's trying to be modest. I also challenged him to play GM K. Rogoff, another famous economist, but Professor Tyler Cowen said Rogoff is much better. On TC's blog he talks about chess on occasion, and he's friends with the billionaire Peter Thiel, who happens to be a strong expert in chess. I would imagine they play each other on occasion.

So much you don't know TK. About evolution, about cichlids, about life. But notwithstanding, you once opined about Greek politics, LOL. Jack of all tirades, master (baiter) of none.

RL

[Taylor Kingston]

On Saturday, October 6, 2012 3:39:50 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> On Saturday, October 6, 2012 3:40:32 AM UTC+3, Taylor Kingston wrote:
>
> > So you contacted Cowan? Why didn't you ask him about the 1977 NJ Championship
>

> FYI, yes I contacted him a while ago, and asked him to show me some of his NJ championship games. He said (somewhat implausibly) that he did not keep any of his old games--I think he's trying to be modest. I also challenged him to play GM K. Rogoff, another famous economist, but Professor Tyler Cowen said Rogoff is much better. On TC's blog he talks about chess on occasion, and he's friends with the billionaire Peter Thiel, who happens to be a strong expert in chess. I would imagine they play each other on occasion.

But it seems you did not ask him the question you posed in your first post of this thread: did Benko play in 1977, and if so, how did Cowen manage to finish ahead of him?

[raylopez99]

Why don't you ask him? He's quite accessible by email. On second thought, you will muck things up for sure...probably by lecturing the professor on his area of expertise, economics. So let me ask him and get back to you if I hear anything. It's interesting that Benko won the year before and the year after, which argues he skipped 1977. Or he had a really bad losing streak.

RL

[raylopez99]

On Saturday, October 6, 2012 7:30:10 PM UTC+3, Taylor Kingston wrote:

> > > So you contacted Cowan? Why didn't you ask him about the 1977 NJ

OK here is Professor T. Cowen's reply, by email, on whether Pal Benko played in 1977:

"I believe he played in the tournament, and did poorly, but I wouldn't want to swear by that..."

I guess enough people were in the tournament hall so that it would not be easy to track all the participants. Are state tournaments usually opens? Or do they invite winners of previous tournaments, like a zonal system? If an open, you could have 1000s of wannabes like TK who enter the tournament, with no realistic chance of winning, just to be able to say "I was a finalist in the XZY State chess championship", whatever "finalist" might mean.

Also it's clear from Prof. Cowen's remark that this was tournament that was either Swiss but not Round Robin, or knockout, so that you would not necessarily meet every strong player. Otherwise Cowen would have remembered playing Benko.

The tourney was not Round Robin, and certainly not Swiss Round Robin, quadro? That was a joke, Kingston. Like the joke Kingston. Like the joke, Kingston? LOL I am so clever by half sometimes.

RL

[Taylor Kingston]

On Saturday, October 6, 2012 11:01:06 PM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:

>
> OK here is Professor T. Cowen's reply, by email, on whether Pal Benko played in 1977:
>
> "I believe he played in the tournament, and did poorly, but I wouldn't want to swear by that..."
>
> I guess enough people were in the tournament hall so that it would not be easy to track all the participants. Are state tournaments usually opens? Or do they invite winners of previous tournaments, like a zonal system?

Most state championships are open Swisses, to my knowledge. Occasionally there have been closed invitational round robins, such as the 1931 New York State Ch, won by Fred Reinfeld ahead of Fine, Dake, Santasiere and eight others. But as far as I know, Swisses are the norm. Most state championships don't have sponsors or wealthy patrons, so Swiss entry fees are the only way to raise a decent prize fund.
As for Benko finishing behind Cowen in the 1977 NJ Ch, even a very good GM can have a bad game, and in a 5- or 6-round Swiss that can be enough to ruin any chance for 1st place. It's also possible in a Swiss for a less-than-top-tier player to get some lucky pairings and avoid having to face the highest rated opponents.

[raylopez99]

On Sunday, October 7, 2012 10:31:02 PM UTC+3, Taylor Kingston wrote:
***

As for Benko finishing behind Cowen in the 1977 NJ Ch, even a very good GM can have a bad game, and in a 5- or 6-round Swiss that can be enough to ruin any chance for 1st place. It's also possible in a Swiss for a less-than-top-tier player to get some lucky pairings and avoid having to face the highest rated opponents.

***

Google groups groggy with replies, hence the above.

It would be interesting for Jeff Sonas or somebody with a solid statistics background to compute the probability that in a 5 round Swiss of X people, that the top Y people would all have bad games allowing a unknown average player, of say Class A strength, to have a great tournament, win all his games (against weak or ill-fated opponents) and win the tourney outright?! Every man's everyman dream. Probably 1 in 100000, or 1:1000, depending on how strong the average player is, but it seems Tyler Cowen had such a tournament in 1977 (or he's stronger than he puts on).

RL

[Taylor Kingston]

On Sunday, October 7, 2012 2:48:46 PM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:

>
> It would be interesting for Jeff Sonas or somebody with a solid statistics background to compute the probability that in a 5 round Swiss of X people, that the top Y people would all have bad games allowing a unknown average player, of say Class A strength, to have a great tournament, win all his games (against weak or ill-fated opponents) and win the tourney outright?! Every man's everyman dream. Probably 1 in 100000, or 1:1000, depending on how strong the average player is, but it seems Tyler Cowen had such a tournament in 1977 (or he's stronger than he puts on).

I did some checking on Cowen's rating history. He improved quite rapidly, going from novice to master in just 5 years. I found him first on the December 1972 list with a provisional rating of just 1303 based on 13 games (he was age ten at the time). By 12/1975 he had jumped considerably, to 1911, and on the 12/1977 list he was 2233.
Usually when someone is improving that rapidly his published rating lags behind his real strength by 50 to 100 points, or more. So it seems quite plausible for him to have won the NJ Ch.

[raylopez99]

Thanks TK, good cybersleuthing. I'll forward the information to Prof. Cowen and if he has any comments I'll post them here.

RL

[raylopez99]

//

BTW I figured out an easy way to compute the odds of a weak player lucking out and winning a tournament if the strong players all have bad games--it can be done quite easily using Monte Carlo simulations (rather than a complicated Bayesian analysis). If I have some downtime I'll even come up with a table and post it here. It will have several variables: N, the number of players total, the rating of each, and how many rounds in the Swiss (you mentioned a minimum being five or six rounds)--then you would run a large number of 'what if' simulations--10k to 100k such tournaments sounds about right--and watch for 'upsets' where an average player ends up winning (this would be the variable of interest--dramatic upsets rather than routine wins where one of the top five players end up winning the tourney). Historically, if anybody reading this thread knows of any 'weak' player who won a championship along the lines of Tyler Cowen (meaning, not that they are weak at the club level, but that they beat out grandmasters in a state championship round robin) please post me such tournaments here...I will try and use it as a test case, also if you have all the participants and their Elos (I bet Bill Goichberg has these stats from all the organizing he's done over the years, but I don't know how to contact him and I doubt he would want to share his data, since stripping out the name and formatting it might be a chore) and they do not have to be state championships, but multi-player tournaments. The trivial case is for a two-player match--trivial since you can easily figure out the odds without Monte Carlo simulations, just by running Arpad Elo's formula. Last I checked, Elo's (2nd ed?) book itself had a whole chapter on just this topic--he had a table of two-player matches where one player exceeded their 'expected wins'. The most famous example (of many) is Dr. Euwe's match win over Alekhine.

I'll calendar to start programming such a project as soon as I work off some work related stuff. It should not take long, since I don't envision a fancy user interface, just the engine to generate probabilities and export to a text file that you can import into an Excel spreadsheet. The only thing I'm a bit weak on is what exactly is a Swiss system (I understand it at the very abstract level but not concretely). So if you have any pointers on how pairings are done at the Swiss system please forward...it would be easier to program a "all play all" tournament of a handful of players...and for starters I might do that.

RL

[Taylor Kingston]

On Monday, October 8, 2012 6:41:50 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> On Monday, October 8, 2012 2:34:59 AM UTC+3, Taylor Kingston wrote:
>
>
> > I did some checking on Cowen's rating history. He improved quite rapidly, going from novice to master in just 5 years. I found him first on the December 1972 list with a provisional rating of just 1303 based on 13 games (he was age ten at the time). By 12/1975 he had jumped considerably, to 1911, and on the 12/1977 list he was 2233.
>

> Thanks TK, good cybersleuthing.

It wasn't cybersleuthing; USCF online records don't go back that far. I looked in the actual printed rating lists published by Chess Life.

[Taylor Kingston]

On Monday, October 8, 2012 7:01:42 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> Last I checked, Elo's (2nd ed?) book itself had a whole chapter on just this topic--he had a table of two-player matches where one player exceeded their 'expected wins'. The most famous example (of many) is Dr. Euwe's match win over Alekhine.

Can't say what's in the 2nd edition, but the first edition of Elo's "The Rating of Chessplayers Past and Present" (1978) does not devote a whole chapter to this topic. However, on pages 90-92 there is a table of 92 matches — from Anderssen-Kolisch 1860 to Korchnoi-Spassky 1977 — showing how much the final result differed from what would be predicted by rating.

I just noticed something odd about Elo's discussion of this table. He says that of the 92 matches, there were only two instances where the lower-rated player won: Euwe-Alekhine 1935, and a 26-game match between Gunsberg and Chigorin in 1889-90, said to be won by Gunsberg 14-12. This is all wrong. The match took place in 1890-91, had 23 games, and ended in a tie, each player scoring +9 -9 =5.

[MikeMurray]

On Monday, October 8, 2012 7:01:42 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:

> I'll calendar to start programming such a project as soon as I work off some
>work related stuff. It should not take long, since I don't envision a fancy
>user interface, just the engine to generate probabilities and export to a text
>file that you can import into an Excel spreadsheet. The only thing I'm a bit
>weak on is what exactly is a Swiss system (I understand it at the very
>abstract level but not concretely). So if you have any pointers on how
>pairings are done at the Swiss system please forward...it would be easier to
>program a "all play all" tournament of a handful of players...and for
>starters I might do that.

You might contact Thad Suits who wrote the SwissSys (www.SwissSys.com) pairing program. He lives in Great Falls, MT, and is a nice guy.

[Taylor Kingston]

On Sunday, October 7, 2012 4:34:59 PM UTC-7, Taylor Kingston wrote:
>
> I did some checking on Cowen's rating history. He improved quite rapidly, going from novice to master in just 5 years. I found him first on the December 1972 list with a provisional rating of just 1303 based on 13 games (he was age ten at the time). By 12/1975 he had jumped considerably, to 1911, and on the 12/1977 list he was 2233.

I did a little more research, and it seems that the 1977 NJ Ch was perhaps Cowen's peak as a player. A year later he had dipped from 2233 to 2180, and he does not appear in the year-end 1979 and 1980 rating lists. Perhaps he gave up chess to devote himself to his college studies, which would have been starting around then.
I read Cowen's Wikipedia entry, and he seems to be quite a polymath. Besides being an eminent economist, he is also knowledgeable about "Haitian voodoo flags, Iranian cinema, Hong Kong cuisine, Abstract Expressionism, Zairian music and Mexican folk art." Besides several books and a regular column for the New York Times on economics, he's also written a Washington DC dining guide. Sounds like quite a brilliant and cultured man.

[raylopez99]

Thanks MM. If you wish, please contact him and ask him to send his source code for the chess playing engine to my email: raylo...@gmail.com You probably have more credibility than I.

Often authors are reluctant to part with source code however. Also I find writing the interface often takes more work than the engine. So if figuring out Swiss is easy, then I should be able to do it, but if not, then I might switch to a Round Robin ("all plays all") format, which is trivial to program. This *should* be an easy project...a week at most, part time, but sometimes these fun projects surprise you with their complexity...

RL

[raylopez99]

On Monday, October 8, 2012 10:40:19 PM UTC+3, Taylor Kingston wrote:

> I read Cowen's Wikipedia entry, and he seems to be quite a polymath. Besides being an eminent economist, he is also knowledgeable about "Haitian voodoo flags, Iranian cinema, Hong Kong cuisine, Abstract Expressionism, Zairian music and Mexican folk art." Besides several books and a regular column for the New York Times on economics, he's also written a Washington DC dining guide. Sounds like quite a brilliant and cultured man.

Yes he is...and you can post at Cowen's unmoderated website blog "Marginal Revolution" on all things economics related. It's rare in the economics field, which is very ego driven and status conscious, to have an unmoderated blog (imagine doing that at Paul Krugman's blog; Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economics, leans to the left, and makes $1M a year writing the economics column at the NY Times). Tyler Cowen also answers emails on occasion, which I find pretty flattering. I'd like to think that perhaps Prof. Cowen replies to me because he sees a kindred spirit, an equally worthy mind. But maybe he routinely replies to everybody--you should write him TK as a test case for the opposite end of the spectrum.

RL

[Taylor Kingston]

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:07:48 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> Tyler Cowen also answers emails on occasion, which I find pretty flattering. I'd like to think that perhaps Prof. Cowen replies to me because he sees a kindred spirit, an equally worthy mind.

Obviously, he does not know you as well as we do on rgc, Ray.

[MikeMurray]

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:01:50 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:

> Thanks MM. If you wish, please contact him and ask him to send his source
>code for the chess playing engine to my email: raylo...@gmail.com
>You probably have more credibility than I.

AFAIK, Suits has never written a chess playing engine. SwissSys is a program that handles pairings, wall-charts, etc., for a Swiss System tournament. Since he sells the program, I doubt he'd release the source code to anybody. I thought he might be willing to discuss aspects of the project you're proposing, which, as I understand it, models a succession of tournaments with a database of imaginary players of varying ratings. I understand the goal of this project is to see how many underdogs end up winning events simply due to chance, assuming the odds in each game match what's expected from the rating difference.

[The Master]

On Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:55:07 AM UTC-4, Phillip 'ray lopez' Innes wrote:

> Here's a conundrum: the George Mason University economics professor and blogger Tyler Cowen was 1977 New Jersey chess champion, ahead of Pal Benko (who won in 1976 and 1978--did he even play in 1977?), see the list: http://www.entryfeesrus.com/efru01.html
>

> Yet TC says he is 'weak' and refuses to play chess anymore? Furthermore, he claims not to have any of his old games (private correspondence). How can that be? Another famous economist who is a grandmaster is Kenneth Rogoff, who also has co-authored a popular book "This Time is Different" on financial panics. Rogoff recently played Magnus Carlsen in a casual blitz game and drew.
>
> I mention this because our own TK claims he was of 'championship calibre' back in the early 1980s, a 'correspondence master'. Could it be that on occasion average players can peak, and perform well, then drop out of the limelight? I'm sure TC could beat me or TK in chess even today, but it's interesting that he peaked in his teenage years, apparently satisfied himself with chess, then dropped out. Either that or, like TK, he used a computer and cheated, though back in 1977 I doubt a PC would be much help in an OTB tournament, unlike today with spy hardware and fast microprocessors (witness Alex Zelner in Florida).
>

Not a good troll post, Phillip. You were MUCH too obvious --anything but subtle-- in your crude attempt to garner a response. A good troll post is subtle and difficult to distinguish from a 'regular' post. Yours was so utterly obviously blatantly self-evidently a troll, that only a complete idiot would take it seriously and respond as he would to a 'regular' post.

[micky]

The Master wrote:
>
> On Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:55:07 AM UTC-4, Phillip 'ray lopez' Innes wrote:
>

> > Here's a conundrum: the George Mason University economics professor and blogger Tyler Cowen was 1977 New Jersey chess champion, ahead of Pal Benko (who won in 1976 and 1978--did he even play in 1977?), yak yak yak & snip...

.
> Not a good troll post, Phillip. You were MUCH too obvious --anything but subtle-- in your crude attempt to garner a response. A good troll post is subtle and difficult to distinguish from a 'regular' post. Yours was so utterly obviously blatantly self-evidently a troll, that only a complete idiot would take it seriously and respond as he would to a 'regular' post.

Hi Greg, could u pls explain to the rgc thinktank how PI & RL are 1 &
the same & not the product of somebody's weird delusion?.. thks chum..

Hint: it's a fact that Slovenia was colonised by Philip of Cornwall & a
bunch of celts in 300BC..

Hint: trOlive (ie RL) knows not the diff ' tween Cornwall und Cornfed &
also believes the celts worship the potato, which everyone knows is an
American invention..

As usual, pls present any "evidence" to back your claim & hopefully this
matter may be put to rest, thks..

.

Fabiano Caruana vs Sergey Karjakin - Bilbao Masters 2012 · Spanish
Game: Berlin Defense. l'Hermet Variation Berlin Wall Defense (C67) ·
1/2-1/2

[White "Fabiano Caruana"]
[Black "Sergey Karjakin"]
[ECO "C67"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "80"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6
7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nc3 Ke8 10.h3 h5 11.Bf4 Be7 12.Rad1
Be6 13.Ng5 Rh6 14.Rfe1 Bb4 15.g4 hxg4 16.Nxe6 Rxe6 17.hxg4 Ne7
18.Kg2 Bxc3 19.bxc3 Nd5 20.Bd2 b5 21.f4 Kd7 22.f5 Ree8 23.Re4
g6 24.Rf1 gxf5 25.Rxf5 f6 26.Kf3 Rxe5 27.Rexe5 fxe5 28.Rxe5 a5
29.g5 Rf8+ 30.Kg2 Ne7 31.Re4 Ng6 32.Kg3 Rf5 33.Bf4 Nxf4 34.Kg4
Rxg5+ 35.Kxg5 Nd5 36.c4 Nb4 37.cxb5 cxb5 38.c4 Nxa2 39.cxb5
Nc3 40.Rc4 Nxb5 1/2-1/2

.

[raylopez99]

Obviously, you are mistaken. Take a look at the dateline of this post by Professor Cowen: marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/10/the-spread-of-priority-queueing.html It is after this thread.

And note who he credits. Just to make it easy for your lazy bones, I quote the professor, a potential Nobel Prize winner in economics: "For the pointer I thank Ray Lopez." Yes! "For the pointer I thank Ray Lopez." Great minds do think alike.

Nearly everything I say Kingston has a basis in fact. Everything. That's why my trolls are stronger and more impressive than Minor's. That's why I make an outstanding writer in all subjects while you and Winter are purveyors of the trivial in chess. The difference between a millionaire and a thousandaire.

"For the pointer I thank Ray Lopez."

RL

[Taylor Kingston]

On Friday, October 12, 2012 4:24:03 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 7:22:05 PM UTC+3, Taylor Kingston wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:07:48 AM UTC-7, raylopez99 wrote:
>
> > > Tyler Cowen also answers emails on occasion, which I find pretty flattering. I'd like to think that perhaps Prof. Cowen replies to me because he sees a kindred spirit, an equally worthy mind.
>
> > Obviously, he does not know you as well as we do on rgc, Ray.
>

> Obviously, you are mistaken. ... I quote the professor, a potential Nobel Prize winner in economics: "For the pointer I thank Ray Lopez." Yes! "For the pointer I thank Ray Lopez." Great minds do think alike.

I wonder what Dr. Cowen and/or the Nobel Committee would make of these representative Ray Lopez quotes? I rather doubt their great minds think along these lines:

"Check out that ass over there--I'd like to rim her ass, wouldn't you?"

"Those are big words for a 10 year old."

"Guess you're into this sort of infantile stuff."

"It must suck being a bitter old man, eh old boy?"

"It's a puny joke, puny like your penis."

"Why don't you tell us, azz whole?"

"Happy New Year, azz whole."

"I never insulted you azz whole."