The Three Secrets to Beginner Chess Strategy: Power, Position, and Tempo (aka time)

Posted on 2010/09/10 by admin

This post will provide some simple rules of thumb for Chess strategy. I am aiming at the beginner, who has just learned the moves and rules of chess, but wants a few overall strategic principles so that they are not attacking blindly and without purpose.

I am no chess expert, but I read several chess guides as a kid, and one day I sat down and just put everything together. I had a flash of insight, which synthesized their advice into three strategic goals that I always watch for. Here it is. You want to gain small edges in your opponent in these three areas: Power, Position, and Tempo (aka time). Building an edge in these three factors will let you build up an overwhelming advantage and get a checkmate.

Learn to face down tougher opponents with these strategies

Power

Obviously, the more forces you have at your command the better, and the stronger the pieces you own the better. Of course you want to take your enemy’s pieces when you can, and not sacrifice your pieces unless it gets you a bigger advantage.

But what about trading? Often you see an opportunity to kill an enemy piece, but at the cost of one of your pieces. Should you? A “power scale” has been built up over the years, as a guide to the novice. The more useful a piece is, the better its ability to move and attack, the more points it gets on the power scale:

Points-Piece

1-Pawn

3-Knight

3 or 3.5-Bishop

5-Rook

8 or 9-Queen

“Infinite”-King

What this means is that, all things being equal, a bishop for a knight is a roughly fair trade. A rook is worth a bishop and two pawns. A queen is a fair trade for two rooks. A pawn should almost always be promoted to a queen when he makes it to the back row.

Explanation of the power scale:

The queen has the most power because she has the most flexible and wide-ranging movement type, allowing her to move and attack in many directions and at great distances.

The pawn is worth the least because it has the most limited move-type, and cannot move backwards.

The king is worth “infinite” points since if you lose him, you lose the game. It makes no sense to analyze a strategic trade where you lose your king. (If he were just a typical piece, the king would probably be worth about 3 points). Continue reading →

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Assign Control Valve Pressure Drops

Posted on 2010/08/30 by admin

Ever had to determine the pressure drops to assign to the control valve while doing hydraulics? This post will help you specify the control valve pressure drop on a rigorous and sound basis.

For this post, I’m going to assume you can work out the various flowrates and pressure drops the system will be subjected to. You know how to read the “pump curve” or “compressor curve” if said equipment is involved. (Good articles: Part 1, Part 2) Once you know the range of flowrates and pressure drops required of the valve, you can select the correct Cv and correct valve or get the help of an instrumentation engineer to do this.

This post will be focused on the initial hydraulic design of a system, when you first need to select a pump and also figure out the pressure drop you will allocate to the control valve. Let’s examine a simple hydraulic circuit problem.

Sample Problem

Liquid flow system: Drum 1—-Centrifugal Pump—-Control Valve—-Drum 2.

Drum 1 and Drum 2 are flash drums with their own independent pressure controls, and the control valve is installed to vary the flowrate.

Your overall hydraulic equation is: at the normal flowrate: Pressure at Drum 1 + Pump’s Pressure Addition – Pipe/Valve/Equipment Frictional Losses at selected pipe size and route + Static Head Pressure Effects – Control Valve Pressure Drop = Pressure at Drum 2

Written in variables: At  Qnorm: P1 + P + SH – f – CV = P2 Continue reading →

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Posted in Instrumentation & Controls, Pumps/Piping/Hydraulics | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Interesting facts at one year anniversary

Posted on 2010/08/20 by admin

Ok, so I’m a month behind our one year anniversary. Sue me. I thought I’d share some fun & interesting statistics about the site in this quick little post.

Most Popular Posts

The most popular post by far is our Relief Valve Introductory Series. Other hits were the P&ID checklist and Visio Tricks.

Also quite popular were Hysys Thermodynamic Notes, Crane TP 410, and Pressure Drop in Straight in a Straight Pipe.

Special mention goes to the Halloween Costume post, which I wrote on a whim and took off like a rocket. Naturally, it’s popularity peaked sometime before January.

My favourites

Some posts I think you should try are the TRIZ brainstorming introduction, the eight hour year, and the Excel Chart Cleaner. They may give you a little tweak in how you see problems at work.

Visitors

We’ve had visitors from almost every country in the world, excepting parts of Africa. Main sources are the U.S., India, U.K., and Canada.

There is some guy with a mobile phone in the U.K. who keeps indexing the entire site every few months.

What’s Next?

Some upcoming articles I’m considering:

  • Determining control valve pressure drops during your initial hydraulic designs
  • Advice for working with electrical engineers on load lists and area classification diagrams
  • A key interview tip to handle questions about your past
  • Chess: 3 principles that will take you from beginner to intermediate
  • Refining: How to estimate the amount of cracked gas generated by vacuum unit heaters
  • Air pollution: What you need to calculate for an air dispersion calculation
  • Advice for business trips
  • A book suggestion that will permanently decrease the boredom you experience in life (tip: you can already find it in the store)
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Introduction to Aspen Basic Engineering (Zyqad) and Database-Driven Design

Posted on 2010/08/20 by admin

Trouble with Aspen Basic Engineering,  formerly known as Aspen Zyqad? This post will help the new user get acquainted with the program.

What is Aspen Basic Engineering/Zyqad? What is Database Driven Design?

Aspen Basic Engineering is one of those database-driven productivity tools that are starting to enter the workplace, somewhat along the lines of Intergraph SmartPlant, Bentley Axsys or ConcepSys.

The basic idea of these database-driven programs is great: it’s something I’d thought about and wanted years before I even realized that it already existed on the market! The idea is your drawings, lists, datasheets, and other documents are all connected and linked together, sharing a single set of information from a single database.

So for example, you draw a Process Flow Diagram and add a pump. The pump now exists in the database. You create the pump datasheet and input some data. Now, when you go back to the PFD, the drawing’s equipment label reaches into the database and the extracts title that you wrote into the datasheet, displaying the datasheet’s title on the PFD. The equipment list will also pull the info you just typed from the database. This means that after doing datasheets, a properly programmed equipment list is basically automatic! And because the documents are all linked, if you redesign the pump, you can update all three documents by making the change once in just one place. Saves you time and prevents errors.

Aspen Basic Engineering, specifically, is geared to Front End Engineering Design (FEED)1 . Because of this focus, Aspen Basic Engineering allows you to import a process simulation, generate a Process Flow Diagram (PFD), equipment and instrument datasheets and lists, early cost estimates and heat exchanger designs, and preliminary P&IDs and plot plans. You can link it to SmartPlant if you want to keep using the database driven approach for further work.

The upside is huge potential gains in consistency and productivity: all your deliverables in the system “talk” to each other.

The downside is a big increase in complexity. The users have to learn new software and templates for their deliverables. A new IT team may be required. This post is intended to help you soften the downside.

Continue reading →

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  1. Front End Engineering Design (FEED) is a phase of plant design that begins when you have the basic outline of the plant. For example, knowing what sub-units will go together and having some idea what flows each unit will produce for the subsequent units. But at the start of FEED, there is still very little engineering done for any discipline. FEED continues up until process design is largely complete and there is some idea of the cost and design of all equipment and aspects of the plant. After FEED, it’s time for the other disciplines to take the lead on the next phase, called detailed design [↩]
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Posted in Database-Driven Design, Drawings and Diagrams, Excel, Simulation & Thermodynamics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Words and phrases that indicate the boss is lying

Posted on 2010/08/17 by admin

Interesting little article that you may want to check out before it disappears behind a subscribers-only wall: The Language of Lying by Canadian Newspaper Globe and Mail. It describes specific language patterns that executives use during their earnings reports to shareholders, where computer analysis indicates that the language is correlated with executives trying to mask bad results. (e.g. the Lehman Brothers Chief Financial Officer)

There were basically three key speech patterns that indicated that the financial forecast was hiding problems within the company:

  • Use of third-person speech patterns that dissociate the speaker from the results. So instead of saying “I know” and “we  will,” the executive would say things like “the team did this” or “our auditors say that”
  • Use of value-laden, over-the-top words of enthusiasm. Like “fantastic” or “great” performance, “incredible” potential, “unbelievable” breakthroughs, etc. The executive uses generic and overly enthusiastic words instead of specifics
  • Very short sentences, delivered quickly without hesitation. Indicating that the statement had been rehearsed mentally ahead of time

The newspaper jokes that when the boss boats of “the incredible year” the company has had, or will have, it may be time to dust off the resume.

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