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Our Chess Champion Has a Home

nytimes.com

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Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#71

Post by GhotVeren »

m0zg wrote: post #28
Dangeranger wrote: post #23

Tani’s family has an apartment, near his current school, paid for one year by an anonymous donor. They will be donating 10% of the GoFundMe to their church and the remaining 90% will become a trust to help African migrants seeking asylum in the United States. While Tani has been offered scholarships by several elite private schools in NYC, his family has decided to stay loyal to the school Tani is currently attending…

> “Maybe a computer”. Whereupon, sadly, he will discover social media, and all his progress will come to a screeching halt due to FANG PhDs gaming his dopamine cycles for a buck. I wish I was wrong, but looking at my 15 year old, I'm not hopeful. He used to be pretty good at chess, too, before he started spending all his time watching bullshit on Youtube.

As far as the bullshit goes, chess is probably the pinnacle of it. Perfect game of grind for pretense of intelligence. Chess doesn't solve half as much problems as YouTube videos.

Your 15 year old is more likely to grow up making living off making YouTube videos than playing chess anyway.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#72

Post by ovi256 »

GhotVeren wrote: post #71
m0zg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Maybe a computer”. Whereupon, sadly, he will discover social media, and all his progress will come to a screeching halt due to FANG PhDs gaming his dopamine cycles for a buck. I wish I was wrong, but looking at my 15 year old, I'm not hopeful. He used to be pretty good at chess, too, before he started spending all his time watching bullshit on Youtube.

As far as the bullshit goes, chess is probably the pinnacle of it. Perfect game of grind for pretense of intelligence. Chess doesn't solve half as much problems as YouTube videos. Your 15 year old is more likely to grow up making living off making YouTube videos than playing chess anyway.

Yes, the real economy is making and watching Youtube videos in a virtuous circle.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#74

Post by virgakwolfw »

Pure JOY! I admire the sterling character that the Adewumi family has so beautifully exhibited. It's so refreshing after the recent news about rich kids cheating to get into college. (And shall I mention Trump's Foundation, used to buy himself portraits of himself? ) Anyway, Tani, I see you have a very large heart and an incredibly bright future ahead!

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#75

Post by teddyh »

gowld wrote: post #34
sandov wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Or he will learn to code and become the next Dijkstra.

One of Dijkstra's complaints was that American computer scientists, with all their wealth and non-WWII-bombed cities (vs Europeans) , spent too much time and money playing with computers instead of doing computer science.

Some US computer scientists managed to avoid it, with great effort:

“Clearly the game was potentially addictive, so I forced myself to stop playing — reasoning that it was great fun, sure, but traditional computer science research is great fun too, possibly even more so.”

— Donald Knuth

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#76

Post by renholder »

hmcm55 wrote: post #60
blizkreeg wrote: post #54

It's interesting to me how no one knows or is talking about the kid who lost to the champ. He is perhaps equally good but lost in this game.

it's because the feat of winning K-3 NY State isn't that impressive. It's all the things he had to overcome/persevere through to get to that moment. The top players in the country that are his age are 2000+.

>It's all the things he had to overcome/persevere through to get to that moment.

You're demonstrating the OC's point: No one has any context around the kid who lost, it seems; so, for example, did he (or she) come from an equally disadvantaged position? If so, isn't he (or she) worthy of the same accolades and/or help simply for getting to that point, as well?

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#77

Post by reissbaker »

rjf72 wrote: post #55
m0zg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Maybe a computer”. Whereupon, sadly, he will discover social media, and all his progress will come to a screeching halt due to FANG PhDs gaming his dopamine cycles for a buck. I wish I was wrong, but looking at my 15 year old, I'm not hopeful. He used to be pretty good at chess, too, before he started spending all his time watching bullshit on Youtube.

It's unbelievable this is getting downvoted, because it's 100% true and a very major problem in society. I've taught lots of young players and success or failure has 0 to do with intelligence. It's a matter of who can stay focused and actually do the work it takes to improve (which at that age/level is tactics tactics tactics). The second they "discover" social media or the endless stream or inanity on e.g. YouTube,…

I don't think there's a strong research-based link between the Flynn effect reversal and Internet usage, social media, or videogames; in fact, (correlative) evidence implies it's something else, because the Flynn effect reversal actually started in the mid-70s in some countries, long before videogames or the Internet (or its precursors) were widespread enough to cause mass societal impact. "Kids today" have always been the bane of the kids yesterday; I don't think their behavior or culture is the source of stagnation, and the timelines don't line up.

The Flynn effect dropoff correlates decently well with the increasing rise of wealth inequality in developed nations; given the fairly strong link between IQ and wealth, I wonder if that might be a cause.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#78

Post by shivo »

joe_the_user wrote: post #15
cyberferret wrote: post #10

The takeaway from this story for me is the amazing loyalty of the family. To turn down scholarships at other 'better' schools and stick with the one that gave Tani free membership to the chess club and where the teacher that taught him how to play works. Plus the fact that they are donating the entire GoFundMe (which I donated a tiny amount to last week) to helping other kids from Africa to migrate to the US. That is…

Staying close to the kid's current school seems like good sense. They have media attention and donations now but the chances are that will dry up after some fairly short period. Using that money to put themselves in a sustainable position can be better than trying to leverage it into the most prestigious position. There's a long history of child actors, homeless who do heroic deeds and similar media-darlings later be…

People rarely get these moments when the public is aware and genuinely cares for their needs. I'm certain there are thousands more people with similar backgrounds. Hopefully they make the best of all of the attention for the long term.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#79

Post by waterpigcow »

renholder wrote: post #76
hmcm55 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's because the feat of winning K-3 NY State isn't that impressive. It's all the things he had to overcome/persevere through to get to that moment. The top players in the country that are his age are 2000+.

> It's all the things he had to overcome/persevere through to get to that moment. You're demonstrating the OC's point: No one has any context around the kid who lost, it seems; so, for example, did he (or she) come from an equally disadvantaged position? If so, isn't he (or she) worthy of the same accolades and/or help simply for getting to that point, as well?

it seems unlikely that second place came from an equally or more disadvantaged background. chess in general is a pretty exclusionary. sure the kid (tani?) might not have been the worst off kid at the tournament but kids from higher income schools or private schools might have an easier time dedicating time to the study of chess. what's significant to me is the difficulty of being homeless and dedicating time to studying anything, especially something extracurricular like chess. it's possible that second place came from the same place but if so you're kinda calling into question the entire premise of champions right? like caruana and carlsen are essentially the same strength so whats the use of calling carlsen the champion and giving him all the prize money?

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#80

Post by justaguyhere »

Bodell wrote: post #35

I cant remember the exact years, but I won two state championships in Idaho somewhere between 12-14 years of age (so early 2000’s I think. I would love to find some correlating information about this, but it seems the online records don’t go back that far). I even tied a game with a master who was 30-40 years older than me in a rated tournament. From what I remember I was the only one younger than 25 in many tourname…

The $200 dollars loaned for refinancing, to help a single mother leave a job that holds a car note over her head

This is like helping that small cafe down the street with their rent or some machinery vs that hot startup in the garage. The second one has a chance of hitting it big, however slim. The first one has a chance of supporting a small family business (and by extension, the local economy), but that is the max potential there. Since most people are interested in glory and multiple returns of their money, they are interested in the startup and not the mom and pop shop.

This isn't how it should be, but that is how it is :(

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