Category Archives: Sports

A RANDOM EVENT?

A RANDOM EVENT? I could not find in the journalism that I looked at the key fact in trying to assess what happened: What percentage of the players in the tournament were women? (I looked at a list of competitors, … Continue reading

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A CHESS SCANDAL—OR A RANDOM EVENT?

A CHESS SCANDAL—OR A RANDOM EVENT? Here is the background for Hou Yifan’s protest: She has won four Women’s World Championships and has a rating of 2651 that is close to the top 100 in men’s rankings. She had declined … Continue reading

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A CHESS SCANDAL?

A CHESS SCANDAL? Nick e mailed me this link to a story about how Hou Yifan, the best woman chess player in the world, had lost a game in only five moves in the final match of an important chess … Continue reading

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THE CANADIAN SPORT OF AXE THROWING.

THE CANADIAN SPORT OF AXE THROWING. I have posted a number of reports on the invention of new sports. I had missed this article in the September 2016 Atlantic by Bianca Bosker on Canadian axe throwing. She begins the article … Continue reading

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HOW JET LAG AFFECTS BASEBALL GAMES.

HOW JET LAG AFFECTS BASEBALL GAMES. Nick sent me this article by George Dvorsky on the Gizmodo site about the effects of jet lag on the performance of baseball players. The article reports on a study by Ravi Allada and … Continue reading

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ECONOMIC ANALYSES OF WORKING THE REFEREES.

ECONOMIC ANALYSES OF WORKING THE REFEREES. Here is a link to a paper by Michael J Lopez published in Economic Inquiry which provides support for the finding that football referees are influenced in making calls by whether they are near … Continue reading

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EVIDENCE THAT YELLING AT REFEREES WORKS.

EVIDENCE THAT YELLING AT REFEREES WORKS. This article on the fivethirtyeight website by Noah Davis and Michael Lopez describes a study which shows that “a sideline bias in the NFL is real, and it’s spectacular.” A “natural experiment” results from … Continue reading

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WHY CARLSEN’S FINAL MOVE WAS BRILLIANT.

WHY CARLSEN’S FINAL MOVE WAS BRILLIANT.Gaffney explains several other reasons why Carlsen’s last move was brilliant (a technical term; chess tournaments will award prizes for “brilliancies”). 1. At the tournament level, games are rarely resolved by checkmate. A players realizes … Continue reading

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QH6CH!!

QH6CH!! For me, the greatest appeal of Carlsen’s last move is the drama. When Carlsen made his move (Qh6ch), he was facing several different threats of checkmate ON THE NEXT MOVE. (Black could checkmate by moving his rook to a1; … Continue reading

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YOU TOO CAN WORK OUT CARLSEN’S BRILLIANT FINAL MOVE.

YOU TOO CAN WORK OUT CARLSEN’S BRILLIANT FINAL MOVE. I have posted several times about Magnus Carlsen and his dramatic defense of his world championship against Sergey Karjakin. I had not looked at the last game and I had not … Continue reading

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