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Checkmate Averted: U.K. Reversal Opens Door for Chess Prodigy, 9, to Stay Put
By Palko Karasz
Aug. 10, 2018
LONDON — When the news spread this week that Britain would send back to India its “best junior chess prospect in a generation,” more than a few people were astonished. But on Friday, British authorities appeared to change their minds, saying they may allow the 9-year-old prodigy, Shreyas Roya, and his family to stay in the country after all.
“Shreyas’s jumping and dancing,” the boy’s father, Jitendra Singh, said in an email. “Tears came out from my wife’s eyes.”
The family’s future in Britain had seemed bleak. The five-year visa that Mr. Singh, an information technology manager, had been granted to work for Tata Consultancy Services in Britain could not be extended once it expired in September.
Britain’s Home Office said there could be no exception. “There is no route within the immigration rules which would allow the family to remain in the U.K.,” a spokesman for the Home Office said Thursday.
But on Friday, Mr. Singh said, “We got good news.” Mr. Singh said the Home Office had informed him he would be allowed to apply for a new visa based on his son’s exceptional talent.
It was not clear why the Home Office, which did not respond to requests for comment on Friday, changed course. But according to The Times of London, the government decided to waive its requirement that a new application had to occur from outside the country, and said that the application would be sponsored by Tata.
Immigration law in Britain allows for visas to be granted to those with “exceptional talent” or in certain areas of “sport.” Dominic Lawson, the president of the English Chess Federation, described Shreyas as “England’s best junior chess prospect in a generation,” but he noted that chess mastery apparently did not qualify as an exceptional talent in a sport.
The case drew the attention of British members of Parliament, two of whom, along with Mr. Lawson, appealed to Sajid Javid, the British home secretary, to intervene.
Mr. Lawson said on Friday in an email that he welcomed the reversal by the Home Office.
“We at the E.C.F. are delighted that our efforts to persuade the government to recognize Shreyas Royal’s exceptional talents have borne fruit,” he wrote. “We are also grateful to Sajid Javid for personally taking charge of re-examining the original decision of the immigration department.”
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Shreyas arrived in London from India with his family when he was 3 years old. He learned chess in south London, drawing accolades when he competed for England in international tournaments, earning the title of Candidate Master. He is ranked fourth in the world for his age group.
Shreyas, who is competing in the British Chess Championships, has said his dream is to become world champion before the age of 18.
Mr. Singh told The Times of London that he believed that the home secretary stepped in to find a solution to his son’s case.
If granted, the new visa would allow Mr. Singh to stay for an additional five years and open the way for him and his family to settle in Britain permanently.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/world/europe/uk-chess-shreyas-royal.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fsports&action=click&contentCollection=sports®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront
Lyudmila Rudenko: Who was the Soviet chess champion and why was she influential?
The late chess great has been honoured in a Google Doodle
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/lyudmila-rudenko-google-doodle-who-is-chess-ukraine-birthday-soviet-a8465606.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Rudenko
https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&site=webhp&q=Lyudmila+Rudenko&oi=ddle&ct=lyudmila-rudenkos-114th-birthday-5392731118501888&hl=en&kgmid=/m/071x5j&ved=0ahUKEwi-65GGssDcAhXNneAKHaS6D_oQPQgI
I'm keeping my eye on two AI projects right now: Google's Alpha Zero and Leela Chess. I would encourage any lovers of chess to check out what is going on with Leela Chess!
https://en.chessbase.com/post/leela-chess-zero-alphazero-for-the-pc
https://lczero.org/
Enjoyed that~~ Thanks for posting!!
One of the most interesting and significant happenings within the chess world is Google's Alpha Zero, an artificial intelligence engine/entity, was given all the rules of chess and allowed to think about chess for 4 hours. Alpha Zero then absolutely crushed Stockfish 9 in a 100 game match. Stockfish won NO games but managed to draw several. Alpha Zero won 37 games outright.
This is unprecedented. I would encourage interested peeps to watch some of the vids:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stockfish+vs+alphazero
This is my favorite one:
These are my top two favorite YouTube channels for entertaining and educational chess videos. Chessbrah is very fast-paced usually blitz or bullet games that are played live with commentary. Agadmator is the #1 Croatian YouTube channel he gives brilliant commentary on famous games past and present. If you love chess these guys are must see TV.
https://www.youtube.com/user/chessbrah/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR/videos
This is funny lol https://www.chess.com/article/view/his-pawn-cheated-and-killed-my-pawn
Stockfish 9, the strongest chess engine in the world....and as usual, it's free!!!
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/
https://stockfishchess.org/download/
William Lombardy, Chess Grandmaster Turned Priest, Dies at 79
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAINOCT. 14, 2017
William J. Lombardy, who was one of the most talented and promising chess players of his generation, winning titles and accolades while he was still a teenager, but who all but gave up the game at the height of his career to become a priest, died on Friday in Martinez, Calif. He was 79.
His son, Raymond, confirmed the death. He added that the sheriff’s department in Contra Costa told him that Mr. Lombardy, who was born in the Bronx and had long lived in New York City, died of natural causes, probably heart disease, while staying with a friend in Martinez.
Mr. Lombardy was the first American to win the World Junior Chess Championship — doing so with a perfect score, a feat that has never been duplicated — and he led the United States to victory over the Soviet Union in the 1960 World Student Team Championship, beating Boris Spassky, the future world champion. He was later named a grandmaster, the World Chess Federation’s highest title.
“His abilities were native, with a natural talent,” Anthony Saidy, an international master who played with Mr. Lombardy on the 1960 team that won the Student Chess Olympiad, told The New York Times in 2016. “He always seemed to drag his matches out so long, getting out of jams until his opponent couldn’t.”
But he came of age in the shadow of Bobby Fischer, the phenomenon out of Brooklyn six years his junior. Virtually all the sponsorship money and support available for American players went to Mr. Fischer.
Raymond Lombardy said his father had felt that if Mr. Fischer had not come along, he might have become world champion himself. But Mr. Lombardy was not resentful of Mr. Fischer, with whom Mr. Lombardy had an almost brotherly relationship, the son said. “He was not jealous,” he said.
Mr. Fischer was not the only impediment to an even more successful chess career for Mr. Lombardy, however. Brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, he had a competing interest — his church.
William James Joseph Lombardy was born on Dec. 4, 1937. Though he would be known as Bill in both his personal and professional life, he disliked the name, his son said. His father, Raymond, of Italian heritage, was a supervisor for the Savarin restaurant chain, and his mother, Stella, with Polish roots, was a beautician.
Though both his parents worked, the family struggled to pay the rent living in a less-than-adequate apartment in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. Bill Lombardy, while attending St. Athanasius School in the Bronx, slept in a room that had little insulation.
“I think we could have stored meat in there — like a refrigerator,” he was quoted as saying in the 1974 book “My Seven Chess Prodigies,” by the renowned American chess coach John W. Collins, who taught Mr. Lombardy informally for many years. (Mr. Fischer was another of his students.)
No one in the Lombardy family played chess, but when Bill was 9, a 10-year-old neighbor, who played the game but who always lost, decided to teach him. The neighbor wanted a sparring partner whom he could beat. In a couple of years, Bill was already showing unusual talent and playing regularly, often in city parks.
He went on to graduate from La Salle Academy, a Catholic school in Lower Manhattan; attended City College for three years; and later enrolled at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers with the intention of becoming a Roman Catholic priest. He was ordained in 1967 by Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman of New York and remained in the priesthood until the late 1970s.
Most great players start out as tacticians, always looking to attack, before they evolve into strategists, plotting a long-range path to victory from the very first move. Mr. Lombardy was a strategic player, and a good one, from the beginning.
By 14 he was a master, and in 1954 he won the New York State Championship, becoming, at 16, the youngest champion in the state’s history until then.
Two years later he tied for first in the Canadian Open, and in 1957, in Toronto, he won the World Junior Chess Championship with a perfect score of 11 wins, no draws and no losses. “Clearly, he towered over the field,” Mr. Collins wrote.
In 1960, Mr. Lombardy was the top board for the United States team that competed in the World Student Team Championship in Leningrad — now St. Petersburg — in Russia. It was there that he beat Mr. Spassky while winning a total of 11 games, drawing two and losing none as he led the United States to victory over the heavily favored Soviet team.
It was the only time the United States ever finished ahead of the Soviet Union in any team competition, and it caused a crisis in Soviet chess circles.
Later that year, Mr. Lombardy played in the Chess Olympiad in Leipzig, Germany, and again had an outstanding result, including a draw with Mikhail Botvinnik, the former world champion, who had lost his title several months earlier. (He regained it the following year.)
Mr. Lombardy was named a grandmaster after the Olympiad.
At the 1960-61 United States championship, he finished second to Mr. Fischer, qualifying him for the 1962 Interzonal in Stockholm, the next step on the road to the world championship. But instead of entering the tournament, Mr. Lombardy, by then enrolled at St. Joseph’s Seminary, decided to pursue ordination.
Mr. Lombardy, in an autobiographical essay on his website, said that in the late 1960s he worked in St. Mary’s parish in the Bronx, in a rectory next to his parents’ apartment. He also worked under Theodore Edgar McCarrick, who went on to become a Cardinal and the Archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006.
Mr. Lombardy continued to compete, though intermittently. He won or tied for first in the 1963, 1965 and 1975 United States Open Championships, and he played on United States national teams in the 1968, 1970, 1974 and 1976 Chess Olympiads, winning an individual gold medal and three individual silver medals, all as a reserve. But for all intents and purposes, the serious part of his chess career was over.
In 1972, when Mr. Fischer qualified to play a match for the world championship in Reykjavik, Iceland, against Mr. Spassky, the reigning champion, he asked Mr. Lombardy to assist him by analyzing adjourned games. In the Fischer-Spassky event, which became known as the Match of the Century, 14 of the 21 games were adjourned. Mr. Fischer won and was crowned world champion.
Mr. Lombardy eventually left the priesthood, his son said, because he had lost faith in the Catholic Church, which he believed was too concerned with amassing wealth. Soon after, while competing in a tournament in the Netherlands, he met and married a Dutch woman, Louise van Valen, who moved to Manhattan to live with Mr. Lombardy in his two-bedroom apartment at the Stuyvesant Town complex. Mr. Lombardy had moved there in 1977 to help care for his friend and coach Mr. Collins, who died in 2001.
The couple’s son, Raymond, was born in 1984. The marriage ended in divorce in 1992 after Mr. Lombardy’s wife had returned to the Netherlands with their son. Besides the son, Mr. Lombardy is survived by an older sister, Natalie Pekala.
Raymond Lombardy said that, as far as he was aware, his father made his living through chess after leaving the priesthood — mostly through giving lessons. He had been staying with friends since he had fallen on hard times and been evicted from his apartment at Stuyvesant Town for being behind in his rent — an episode that was the subject of an article in The Times in 2016.
Though he was a good student in school, Mr. Lombardy did not like to study chess from books; he preferred to hone his skills through practice. “There is nothing like plenty of experience,” he told Mr. Collins, “doing it on the board, getting your head knocked about a bit, and learning from every win, draw and loss.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/obituaries/william-lombardy-dead-chess-grandmaster.html?
live computer analysis of world championship games:
http://analysis.sesse.net/
Is there a place to watch online?
Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin Head to Tiebreaker in World Chess Championship
By JOHN LELANDNOV. 28, 2016
After two-plus weeks of nail-bitingly close play, the World Chess Championship came down to its 12th and final regulation game on Monday, with the two talented young grandmasters, Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen, in a dead heat.
But those expecting fireworks at the venue in Manhattan were disappointed. Within 20 minutes of the opening move, the game was headed for a near-certain draw. Both players seemed content to let their fate rest in a round of tiebreakers, which are scheduled for Wednesday.
After 30 moves and 36 minutes, it was over, with the players agreeing to a draw.
The game was the shortest ever in a world championship match, said Ilya Merenzon, who runs the company that organized the match.
The game began at near lightning speed, with both players making well-tested moves with little deliberation. Mr. Carlsen, playing white, began with a popular opening known as the Ruy Lopez, and Mr. Karjakin responded with the Berlin defense — both strategies unlikely to lead to errors. Within the first few moves they exchanged almost all their major pieces, making it difficult for either player to put pressure on the other.
“There isn’t much to say,” Mr. Carlsen said after the game, looking satisfied with the result. “I apologize to fans who might have wanted a longer game, but it was not to be.”
The live event has an atmosphere unlike any other sport contest, because almost all of the spectators divide their attention between the game and computers — in their phones or on the video monitors around the venue — that could beat the two players. Only Mr. Carlsen and Mr. Karjakin rely on unaugmented human intelligence.
Mr. Carlsen, who will turn 26 on Wednesday, came into the match the overwhelming favorite. He is the highest-rated player of all time. Since winning the title from Vishwanathan Anand in 2013, he has dominated a sport that for a half-century had one Russian or Soviet champion after another, broken only briefly by the American Bobby Fischer in 1972. Like Mr. Fischer, who created a boom in chess in the United States, Mr. Carlsen has star power that seems to transcend the game. He is a huge celebrity in his native Norway.
But Mr. Karjakin, 26, a Russian who was relatively unheralded going into the match, has been his equal move for move. Before the match, Mr. Carlsen described his opponent as “very well prepared” and “extremely resourceful on defense,” and Mr. Karjakin has lived up to that billing. At the end of Game 11, when Mr. Karjakin, playing white for the final time, held off an assault by black for a draw, the Russian said he was unhappy with his play but satisfied with the result.
Both players have performed brilliantly, with almost no false steps. Through 12 games, each player has managed just one win, with 10 games ending in draws.
The tiebreakers on Wednesday will take on a character different from the methodical games played so far. The day will start with four rapid games, in which each player has 25 minutes to complete his moves. If the players are still tied after four games, the next round will consist of up to five two-game blitz matches, in which each player has five minutes to complete his moves.
Should each of these two-game matches end in a draw, the players will go to a sudden-death game, in which the player with the black pieces will have only four minutes to complete his moves. If that game ends in a draw, the player who has black will be the world champion. Mr. Carlsen, besides being the top-rated traditional chess player, is rated No. 1 in rapid and No. 2 in blitz. Mr. Karjakin is rated 11th in blitz.
Tension among the crowd at the venue, on the third floor of the Fulton Market Building in Lower Manhattan, has increased as the final game neared. The game on Monday, however, was thinly attended and low on drama.
In the audience, Christopher Yu, 9, who is poised to become the youngest player to achieve the rank of master, said: “I’m a little disappointed that the game wasn’t more interesting and we could stay here longer. But I think Magnus will win the tiebreaker.”
Mr. Carlsen said: “I think it’s 50-50. Either I win or he wins.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/nyregion/magnus-carlsen-and-sergey-karjakin-head-to-tiebreaker-in-world-chess-championship.html
Stockfish 8, the strongest free chess engine in the world (and most likely now the strongest of any chess engine, commercial or free!!!!)
estimated to be 80 elo stronger than Stockfish 7!!!!
https://stockfishchess.org/
https://stockfishchess.org/download/
free Arena GUI to run chess engines on:
http://www.playwitharena.com/
Speculation Ends: Date and Venue Set for World Chess Championship in New York
By JOHN LELANDAUG. 9, 2016
Back in February, the company that runs the World Chess Championship announced some big news: The tournament would return to New York City this fall, for the first time in more than two decades. The company promised to reveal a venue shortly.
But then it did not.
Players and bloggers cried foul, suggesting that the tournament would not come to the city after all. The company, Agon Limited, based in Russia, called the speculation “tittle-tattle and gossip.”
That was in May. Then more silence, more speculation.
The official chess world, it should be said, is as fractious as the Olympics. Kirsan N. Ilyumzhinov, the Russian businessman who heads the World Chess Federation, has been sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department after being accused of “materially assisting” Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and also said he was abducted by space aliens.
During the controversy about a planned Islamic center near ground zero in New York in 2010, Mr. Ilyumzhinov wrote to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg offering to build a 24-story interfaith tower designed like a chess piece on the site instead. Support for his governing practices is not unanimous in the chess world.
The silence on details about the coming tournament struck some chess fans as suspicious. Nigel Short, a British grandmaster and tart commentator, posted on Twitter, “Can’t imagine the next World #Chess Championship taking place in New York, for a whole host of reasons.”
The speculation can now rest. The world championship will be held at the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan, Ilya Merenzon, the head of Agon Limited, told The New York Times. Mr. Merenzon said a formal announcement would come later on Tuesday. Joel Lippman, the events director for the Seaport, confirmed the arrangement.
The tournament pits the current champion, Magnus Carlsen, 25, a charismatic Norwegian who appeared in ads for the sportswear company G-Star RAW, against the Russian challenger, Sergey Karjakin, 26, who will come to the match a decided underdog. Many chess fans had hoped the challenger would be one of two Americans, Hikaru Nakamura or Fabiano Caruana, who both have roots in New York, but Mr. Karjakin, a supporter of Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Crimea, bested them and others in the qualifying tournament in Moscow in March.
The games are scheduled to begin on Nov. 11 and continue for several weeks, until one player earns six and a half points (players receive a point for a win and a half point for a draw).
Mr. Merenzon said that securing a venue for such a long period proved harder than expected. Among the other sites considered: Trump Tower. The players will compete in a soundproof glass room, in front of 300 spectators plus VIPs, who will have a lounge area. Regular tickets will cost up to $50. Mr. Merenzon said he expected audience members to come and go during games, which can take five or six hours, with long stretches between moves. Commentators will analyze the game in progress, and a gift shop will sell souvenirs.
“It’s the first time we’re taking this product fully to market,” Mr. Merenzon said. “We’re saying chess is open for business.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/nyregion/speculation-ends-date-and-venue-set-for-world-chess-championship-in-new-york.html?
CCRL chess engine ratings, 40/40 pure list:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/rating_list_pure.html
1 Komodo 10 64-bit 4CPU 3383 (+21) +27 -26 76.5% -174.2 43.3% 492
94.1%
2 Stockfish 7 64-bit 4CPU 3355 (+17) +26 -25 69.3% -116.9 55.4% 457
100.0%
3 Houdini 4 64-bit 4CPU 3285 (+30) +20 -19 61.2% -68.9 51.8% 793
100.0%
4 Fire 4 64-bit 4CPU 3225 (+18) +20 -20 51.2% -4.2 63.7% 691
92.3%
5 Equinox 3.20 64-bit 4CPU 3205 (+19) +22 -22 46.8% +21.3 65.9% 533
51.7%
6 Gull 2.8b 64-bit 4CPU 3204 (+14) +32 -32 55.9% -34.9 55.0% 278
81.6%
7 Fritz 15 64-bit 4CPU 3184 (+15) +27 -27 45.6% +29.5 60.7% 387
56.5%
8 Critter 1.6a 64-bit 4CPU 3182 (+11) +18 -18 47.8% +13.8 58.0% 910
63.8%
9 Bouquet 1.8 64-bit 4CPU 3176 (+17) +23 -24 46.5% +24.6 60.8% 502
53.2%
10 Protector 1.9.0 64-bit 4CPU 3175 (+24) +26 -26 46.6%
CCRL chess engine ratings, 40/4 pure list:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/rating_list_pure.html
1 Stockfish 200516 64-bit 4CPU 3476 (+34) +19 -21 79.6% -212.8 35.4% 916
92.6%
2 Komodo 10 64-bit 4CPU 3457 (+34) +19 -18 78.3% -201.2 36.2% 1134
100.0%
3 Houdini 4 64-bit 4CPU 3369 (+42) +16 -16 71.2% -156.3 35.9% 1507
100.0%
4 Gull 3 64-bit 4CPU 3310 (+44) +17 -17 61.9% -87.1 44.4% 1124
99.2%
5 Equinox 3.30 64-bit 4CPU 3282 (+33) +17 -17 50.1% +3.0 54.8% 1048
79.0%
6 Fire 4 64-bit 4CPU 3273 (+27) +16 -16 50.5% -2.2 53.3% 1157
87.2%
7 Critter 1.6a 64-bit 4CPU 3261 (+32) +14 -14 60.1% -70.4 43.5% 1647
80.5%
8 Fritz 15 64-bit 4CPU 3252 (+37) +17 -16 45.1% +34.8 48.9% 1142
74.5%
9 Andscacs 0.86 64-bit 4CPU 3243 (+25) +21 -21 47.8% +14.3 44.5% 688
62.7%
10 Rybka 4.1 64-bit 4CPU 3239 (+36)
Stockfish 7, the strongest freeware chess engine in the world!!!
https://stockfishchess.org/
that is respectable, but unless you have many games to establish it, there is always a level of uncertainty in a chess rating.....the more games, the less uncertainty, like all statistical samples....(you can't flip a coin only once to know if it is fair, the more flips the better)....
BTW, the Glicko rating algorithm is popular today, since it brings your expected rating into range with fewer games than Elo, which could take some time if you are (for example) a chess prodigy just starting out....changes in rating are large with your first games, then become smaller.....if you are inactive for some time in playing, the uncertainty factor in the Glicko equation goes back up, since it is not known if you got "rusty" or maybe improved in nonrated games during the period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system
That's a very good rating. Not sure what my rating is, but a guy who's at 2100 in my chess club gave me a 1700-1800 rating. I've only beat him once and it was due to a blunder on his behalf.
it was once over 2000 when I used to play OTB, but now I am mostly into computer chess.....
Out of curiosity do you have an elo rating? You seem pretty good. I'm decent at chess, much better than investing at least lmao.
The cyborg chess players that can’t be beaten
Computers have revolutionised the way chess is played – and the best chess programs are impossible to beat. But could a player that’s part human and part computer be even more powerful?
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151201-the-cyborg-chess-players-that-cant-be-beaten
Tobey Maguire plays the American prodigy Bobby Fischer, and Liev Schreiber is the Soviet champion Boris Spassky, in “Pawn Sacrifice,” a biographical drama of the so-called chess match of the century.
Opening in theaters today, it’s directed by Edward Zwick (“Glory”) and also stars Lily Rabe and Peter Sarsgaard.
Another case of cheating?
by Johannes Fischer
9/15/2015 – Smartphones, mini cameras, strong chess programs - the better the technology, the more cheaters rejoice. But how to explain your new playing strength? Or your strange behavior at the board? Or (when discovered) the hidden electronic devices? At the Imperia Chess Festival in Italy one player raised a lot of suspicion and left many questions unanswered.
http://en.chessbase.com/post/another-case-of-cheating
Coqueraut had watched Ricciardi closely and noticed that the Italian behaved in a suspicious way. As the arbiter observed, Ricciardi did not once get up during the game and constantly had his hand under his armpit. He was also "batting his eyelids in the most unnatural way". Finally, the arbiter decided to check Ricciardi with a metal detector and it turned out that the player had a camera hidden in a pendant around his neck. The camera was connected to a small box under his armpit.
Ricciardi claimed that the pendant was a "lucky charm" but the organisers decided to ban him from the tournament and declared all his games as lost by default because of the forbidden electronic equipment he had on him. They assumed that Ricciardi's equipment was used to transmit moves to someone with a chess computer who used Morse code to transmit the computer moves back to the player. Arbiter Coqueraut suspected that Ricciardi "was deciphering signals in Morse code" when he blinked.
Put's a whole new slant on trading Queens.
...but but, where's the king?
Don't say I never set you up.
TCEC Season 8 computer chess:
http://tcec.chessdom.com/
GM Hikaru Nakamura
http://www.uschess.org/content/view/134/203
Hikaru Nakamura is the strongest American chessplayer since Bobby Fischer, and represents the US in the strongest tournaments in the World. Once upon a time, Hikaru tagged along to tournaments with his father, the popular coach and NM Sunil Weeramantry and whiz kid older brother Asuka. Quickly, Hikaru rose to the top, over-shadowing his talented brother. He became the youngest master in American history at 10, and the youngest American GM at 15 (breaking Bobby Fischer’s record).
The most important chess tournament in US history
is about to kick off in St. Louis
Go Nakamura and Caruana!
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-important-chess-tournament-in-us-history-is-about-to-kick-off-in-st-louis-2015-8?nr_email_referer=1&utm_content=FinanceSelect&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Sailthru
Chess games that last years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_chess
Stockfish 6, now with Syzygy endgame tablebases:
https://stockfishchess.org/
and a Godlike 3424 Elo rating:
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/rating_list_pure.html
1 Stockfish 6 64-bit 4CPU 3424 (+34) +19 -19 75.0% -167.5 42.6% 985
100.0%
2 Komodo 8 64-bit 4CPU 3380 (+32) +19 -19 66.7% -109.1 45.0% 898
80.3%
3 Houdini 4 64-bit 4CPU 3369 (+41) +20 -20 70.9% -164.8 35.7% 943
100.0%
4 Gull 3 64-bit 4CPU 3300 (+31) +19 -19 61.4% -89.9 43.8% 936
98.2%
5 Equinox 3.30 64-bit 4CPU 3273 (+36) +18 -18 47.4% +17.9 56.3% 868
75.9%
6 Fire 4 64-bit 4CPU 3265 (+32) +16 -16 52.1% -14.3 53.7% 1135
54.5%
7 Critter 1.6a 64-bit 4CPU 3263 (+32) +15 -15 62.0% -87.2 42.4% 1463
100.0%
8 Rybka 4.1 64-bit 4CPU 3225 (+28) +17 -17 55.0% -39.1 41.8% 1200
99.8%
funny video:
"the bishop is a sneaky bastard....."
breaking news: Magnus Carlsen wins WCC 2014 in game 11, no game 12 needed!!!!
World Chess Championship 2014, live coverage starting in a few minutes:
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/7928738/events/3553668/
Move by Move computer analysis by a very strong machine and software:
http://analysis.sesse.net/
Game 5 starts at 7AM EST today, score tied between Anand and Carlsen at 2 points each as game 5 starts. First to get 6.5 points wins.
Chess Boxing!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing
http://www.chessboxing-global.com/#1
A quest for the smartest and toughest man on the planet
NEWSFLASH: Komodo 8 takes the lead in "pure" computer chess engine ratings at 40/40 time control!!!!.....more testing to come to reduce "level of uncertainty" (statistical significance)
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/rating_list_pure.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance
Will the small Komodo team outperform the massive Stockfish community????....
stay tuned.....
Dr. Frank Poole: [playing chess with HAL, Poole studies the chessboard] Let's see, king... anyway, Queen takes Pawn. Okay?
HAL: Bishop takes Knight's Pawn.
Dr. Frank Poole: Huh, lousy move. Um, Rook to King 1.
HAL: I'm sorry, Frank, I think you missed it. Queen to Bishop 3, Bishop takes Queen, Knight takes Bishop. Mate.
Dr. Frank Poole: Huh. Yeah, it looks like you're right. I resign.
HAL: Thank you for a very enjoyable game.
Dr. Frank Poole: Yeah, thank you.
Stockfish, now the strongest Chess Engine in the World!!!!
get it free here (you will need your own GUI)
Stockfish is the strongest chess engine in the world. Period. You're getting the best-of-the-best in chess analysis.
http://stockfishchess.org/
a decent free GUI, Arena 3.5:
http://www.playwitharena.com/
TCEC computer chess Super Final contenders:
Stockfish (the most likely to win, based on tournament performance so far)
Komodo
watch it live here, 40 games to go:
http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php
TCEC season 6, stage 4: chess engines still in contention:
Stockfish
Komodo
Houdini
Critter
http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php
I heard this on NPR the other night as it relates to surveys on Amazon.
https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
It got it's name from this,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk
The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player (German: Schachtürke, "chess Turk"' Hungarian: A Török), was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was exposed in the early 1820s as an elaborate hoax.[1] Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734–1804) to impress the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight's tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chessboard exactly once.
The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The operator(s) within the mechanism during Kempelen's original tour remains a mystery. When the device was later purchased in 1804 and exhibited by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, the chess masters who secretly operated it included Johann Allgaier, Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques Mouret, and William Schlumberger.
Thoresen Chess Engines Competition: Season 6 now running.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoresen_Chess_Engines_Competition
view it live:
http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php
(MIT) DIGITAL CHESS REVIEW: One chess champion per laptop
New chess engines bring ancient game to unprecedented heights
http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N62/chess.html
By Roberto Perez-Franco
STAFF WRITER
January 15, 2014
Search in YouTube for “too weak, too slow” and you will find a video of two young men sitting across from each other at a small table, frantically moving carved tokens on a wooden grid and slapping a clock mercilessly. They are fighting each other to the death, with bravado and gusto, in one of the oldest battlefields known to the human mind: the chessboard. The cocky guy in the green shirt, with the looks of a Viking and the nose of a boxer, is a 22-year-old chap named Magnus Carlsen, who happens to be the strongest chess player to ever walk the earth. The other guy, at the receiving end of Magnus’ Muhammad Ali-esque taunts (“Too weak, too slow! C’mon! What, you wanna play?”) is his close friend and sparring partner, Grandmaster Laurent Fressinet.
Mean as he may sound, the awful truth is that Carlsen is right: Fressinet, and almost everyone else on the planet, is indeed too weak and too slow for him. None of us mere humans stand a chance against him: he is too fast, too strong and too accurate. Less than two months ago, he beat World Champion Vishy Anand in a match without losing a single game. Yet even Magnus, at the peak of his powers, refuses to meet one opponent in a match, notwithstanding the incessant pleadings from chess fans. That opponent is here in front of me as I type, quietly waiting for the champ to accept the challenge. Carlsen won’t budge, and is wise in doing so, because — as he and all other Grandmasters know — even he himself is too weak and too slow to stand a chance against this opponent. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the opponent I’m talking about is my laptop… and yours!
Back in 1996, when most of the current MIT undergrads were still in the process of being potty trained, Gary Kasparov — the Carlsen of the previous generation — lost his first game ever against Deep Blue, a top-secret, multi-million dollar supercomputer that IBM built using thousands of chess-specific processors with the sole purpose of defeating this one individual. Today, thanks to the increase in computing power of the average computer and to the appearance of a new generation of chess software, there is no longer need of specialized hardware to beat the best human: any decent laptop would maul World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a match.
At the core of this new software are algorithms that evaluate chess positions and calculate variations in order to decide on the best move. These algorithms are called chess engines, and — among the myriad currently available — at least two dozen have an estimated playing strength (or ELO) higher than the best human ever. Seldom have humans reached the rarefied stratosphere of speed and precision where these chess engines fight. Arguably the strongest chess engine of all is Houdini, developed by Robert Houdart. Since its appearance in the chess world back in 2010, Houdini has been widely regarded as the best chess player ever in the long and rich history of the game. A new version is released every year, and each one exceeds the previous one. The current release, Houdini 4, is the de facto gold standard against which all other chess engines are measured.
Humans are not real competitors against Houdini, and for a long time, neither were other engines. But now, for the first time in four years, something else has reached Houdini’s level of play. Not one, but two engines have risen with a legitimate challenge to the alpha dog: Komodo and Stockfish. Together, they made headlines in chess circles when they obtained the two highest scores in the most recent Thoresen Chess Engines Competition (TCEC), above Houdini and many other engines. TCEC is regarded, against the wishes of its organizer Martin Thoresen, as an unofficial world championship for chess engines. The TCEC final between Komodo and Stockfish was a very dramatic event, for many reasons. Not only was it the first time such a final did not feature Houdini, but also it was being played at the same time as the human World Chess Championship was being decided in Chennai, India.
At least for this author, the TCEC final was more exciting than the human championship. Stockfish qualified first for the final without losing a single game, while Komodo qualified second with no loses to Houdini. After a long and hard-fought series of 48 games, Komodo won the final by a narrow margin over Stockfish. In a dramatic twist, Komodo’s main programmer, Don Dailey (who once worked at MIT) didn’t get to see the triumph; he died of acute leukemia on the same day the final started. His partner in the development of Komodo, Grandmaster Larry Kaufman, an MIT alum himself, dedicated the victory to Don. Together with Komodo’s new programmer, Mark Lefler, Larry released the victorious version of Komodo under the name Komodo TCEC, to a fan base that was clamoring for it like teenagers in line for a Justin Bieber concert. In a touching gesture of gallantry and admiration, Stockfish’s team, led by developers Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba, and Joona Kiiski, also released the runner-up version of Stockfish under the moniker “DD,” an open homage to Don Dailey.
The three-way rumble between Houdini, Komodo and Stockfish in the latest TCEC season revived enthusiasm in computer chess and spurred a sort of arms race, as the teams behind each engine prepare stronger versions for the next TCEC, due to start in late January. Larry Kaufman, regarded as an expert on how to evaluate positions in chess, has thoroughly “taught” Komodo the ropes. As a result, Komodo’s play in long games is rock solid, earning praise from world-class experts such as Boris Avrukh and Roman Dzindzichashvili. Not to be outdone, team Stockfish is leveraging the power of open-source to summon the creative power of a dozen developers spread around the world, and is constantly testing new ideas using a cloud-based network of computers volunteered by Stockfish fans, who like the fact that Stockfish is offered free of cost and its code is available online.
There are a lot of expectations from thousands of fans around the world: Will Komodo retain the crown? Will Stockfish prove the superiority of the open-source model? Will Houdini regain and retain the top spot it enjoyed for so long? The answers to these questions remain to be seen. But, regardless of the next TCEC’s result, the clear winner in this new rivalry is the world of chess, which has now access — even for free — to top-class chess analysis tools that were thought impossible just a generation ago.
http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N62/chess.html
I'm no expert at the game but I always enjoyed it. I think if I played the moderator here I'd get crushed in about 10 moves.
When I went to NYU there was a chess club near by that I was a member of.
It was a nice hangout to study in. I didn't dare play though.
NYT was always running articles on various chess matches and you could play the matches out.
Those were back in Fischer's days.
Paulson needs to get the Victoria Secret girls more involved.
British GQ ran a story about the match in the same issue containing a photo feature on the Victoria’s Secret lingerie show in New York. The surprised editors posted on Twitter, “So this story about #chess is currently more popular on the site than our 100 shots of Victoria’s Secret models.”
There is hope in the chess world that with Carlsen as the game’s official standard-bearer, it will regain the cachet it briefly enjoyed after Fischer’s victory.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94366018
Good morning BNB, I'm no aficionado
by any means, but I remember seeing a piece on Magnus Carlson and his 'chess dad' awhile ago. Thinking back, I suppose that was part an early campaign to promote the sex appeal of the game.
Another event that caught my attention was the "Kasparov vs. The world" drama with 15 year old Irina Krush being the main protagonist
which was briefly discussed here.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76206653
Being a typical non fan and drawn to these two stories, if they didn't generate the lasting desired effect, then I suggest Paulson has a long frustrating haul in front of him.
For Chess, a Would-Be White Knight
By MATT RICHTEL
If chess were storytelling, Andrew Paulson would be the undisputed world champion, the Bobby Fischer of raconteurs.
Not a moment of his rich life is not made richer by Mr. Paulson’s recounting, whether it be working in a science lab at Johns Hopkins University at age 11; his decision to come out at Yale, which he says inspired other gay students to do the same; the brutal murder of two colleagues in Russia who he says he suspects were KGB officers; the playwrights he has inspired; and, of course, his hard-fought business successes, as an American who became a Moscow media personality and pioneer.
Now Mr. Paulson, 55 and the former chief executive of SUP, a leading blogging platform in Russia, is turning his narrative skills to a sell that would tax the best pitchman. He wants to turn chess into the world’s next mass-market spectator sport.
The World Chess Federation, also known as FIDE, has sold worldwide licensing and marketing rights to Mr. Paulson’s company, Agon, in the hope that he will become the game’s white knight, able to monetize chess where past efforts have flopped.
Picture it as Mr. Paulson does: chess on television, or in mass-consumed digital feeds, sponsored by the world’s biggest companies, the players as sex symbols with bulging brains, a new generation of apps and hand-held gadgets that make the game easier to understand, and, of course, live commentators.
And, now, the world champion lifts his pawn — no, it’s his rook, his rook! No, he’s setting it back down....
If this sounds like a guy selling beachfront property in Nebraska, Mr. Paulson is ready to make his case.
“Do you realize there are more people in America who play chess than tennis and golf combined?” Mr. Paulson said minutes into our first conversation, in an enthusiastic burst that made it seem irrelevant whether chess is, in fact, more popular. “Who would’ve thought people would be watching golf on TV, and, yet, they are. And all of India is watching cricket on TV. The only thing more boring than cricket is golf!”
Mr. Paulson, who lives in London, has a good idea of what India is watching because he parked himself there for several months in advance of the chess world championship, which was decided on Friday in Chennai. The victor was Magnus Carlsen, a handsome and personable 22-year-old from Norway who made a Cosmopolitan magazine list of the sexiest men of 2013. To Mr. Paulson, Mr. Carlsen is “a sea change in the history of chess, who gives us the opportunity to reveal the individual of chess players rather than their introverted inscrutability.”
In the months leading up to the tournament, Mr. Paulson talked the ear off any Indian advertising buyer or media executive who would meet with him. Chess, he told them, is a chance to pair with a brand associated with strategy, intellect, creativity and winning. And, with Mr. Carlsen’s ascension, sex appeal.
The thing is, although people are listening to Mr. Paulson — and it’s hard not to — they aren’t yet doing much buying. In fact, he turned to India in part because his initial efforts in Europe to gain corporate sponsorship didn’t take. He faces many obstacles, like a governing chess body widely considered to be strange (putting it kindly), some top chess players who think that his efforts to popularize the sport are lowbrow, and the fact that he is promoting slow-motion entertainment in a world of short attention spans.
Mr. Paulson’s first big tournament, in September 2012, had to be moved at the last minute to London from Russia because of an internal dispute among chess authorities, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. His next big event, in March, was a relative hit. Mr. Paulson said that about five million people watched online, while a few hundred spectators in the London auditorium where the match was held listened to commentators and followed the play on tablets donated by Samsung.
This is what he calls “chess casting,” and it’s his big idea. It involves technology that streams multiple images, including video of the game being played, data showing in simple terms who is ahead, and another image of the game controlled by commentators who break down the action and show potential moves. He envisions providing viewers with readouts of the pulse and eye movements of the players, to show how they are digesting the board.
Still, no big sponsorships followed the London match, and now chess-casting is temporarily on ice. Mr. Paulson has invested $1 million of his own wealth, and things are generally not going well. He will be the first to acknowledge it.
“The view from on high is that I’m failing,” he said, but he soon found the narrative turn he needed: “I’ve got to have some sort of redemption.”
It does seem to be the perfect setup on the board. In Mr. Paulson’s world, failure is the foe that he must, and will, overcome, to get to the story’s satisfying end.
•
“We need someone like Andrew very badly. We need somebody to talk up chess,” said Malcolm Pein, a former prodigy turned junior chess champion in Britain, who owns chess shops in London and in West Palm Beach, Fla. “The chess economy,” Mr. Pein said, “is so impoverished.”
The chess economy, such as it is, comes down to nine big tournaments a year in the championship cycle, with the top prize money hitting $2.5 million for a world champion. Then there are popular hobbyist websites (chess.com has millions of users), stores and chess software. Chess tutoring is a decent business. But, all in all, on the continuum of sports enterprises, chess is much closer to Scrabble than, say, to the National Football League.
There have been efforts to turn chess into something more, notably via an Intel chess sponsorship in the 1990s, a time that included a 1995 championship tournament on the observation deck of the World Trade Center in New York. But the Intel relationship petered out. People in chess circles say that such partnerships have been hard to cultivate because of a lack of business acumen in the sport.
And chess players can be less-than-ideal ambassadors. In 2012, the current president of the world chess federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, met with Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president. A year earlier, Mr. Ilyumzhinov played chess on Libyan state television with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. On Russian state-owned television and in other settings, Mr. Ilyumzhinov has described his abduction by aliens.
“If the head of the World Chess Federation is a man seen at best to be crazy, and at worst, a monster, if you were IBM or G.M., why risk your reputation?” said Dominic Lawson, a British journalist who writes about chess. Mr. Lawson sees serious challenges to making chess a mass spectator sport but says he does think that Mr. Paulson might be the kind of person who could do it.
Mr. Ilyumzhinov said in an email exchange through a translator that his meetings with the leaders of Syria and Libya were “humanitarian” and “aimed at developing chess in those countries.” He said he believed that “talking and meeting with people is better than executing them.”
As to efforts to popularize chess, Mr. Ilyumzhinov said Mr. Paulson has “done a good job” but that his efforts are a part of FIDE’s larger plans to expand the sport.
Mr. Paulson can claim distance from the governing body and chess itself. He plays chess, but not seriously. He used this seeming liability as a selling point when he recently ran for the presidency of the English Chess Federation. Before the vote, he told people: “I represent the largest constituency in chess. I enjoy chess, I play chess, I love chess, but I’m not a professional.” He won. Now he’s thinking about using his outsider status to run for the presidency of FIDE, creating a challenge for the prevailing chess powers.
Being an outsider is not a problem for Mr. Paulson. He didn’t know Russian when he went to Moscow in 1993, after spending some years as a fashion photographer in France. He grew up around academics; his father is Ronald Paulson, a prolific author and an English professor retired from Johns Hopkins University. His own instincts are entrepreneurial. In Russia, he enmeshed himself in the media scene, and founded a company that started Afisha, a cultural magazine, among other publications. Later, he started SUP, a blogging platform that was one of the most visited sites in Russia and remains a major cultural influence. He declines to say how much wealth he amassed from these ventures, but says it is modest when compared with that of American media entrepreneurs.
What he is rich in is stories. Like the one about the executive who gave Mr. Paulson the keys to a BMW 7 Series vehicle for six months. Or the story about two KGB colonels he worked with in Russia who he said were kidnapped, castrated, taken into the forest, stripped, burned and shot. When asked later for specifics, he pointed to online articles about the brutal killings, but added that his own version “may in some way be both subjective and the product of the narrative rounding.”
Are his stories the unvarnished truth? Maybe. Maybe not, but it doesn’t really matter, said Julia Idlis, a Russian writer who chose Mr. Paulson as her subject when asked by a Moscow theater to write a play about someone who made a mark on the tech sector.
“He is emblematic of the American character,” she said. “For us, Americans are people who think they can do anything, which is both very aggravating and very inspiring.” She describes Mr. Paulson as a master seducer. “He manages to include everyone he talks to into his universe and in his projects and, even if when you get there you realize that reality is not like what he describes, you are already inspired and already there so it’s too late — and you’ve started working.”
After leaving Russia in 2009, Mr. Paulson kicked around Britain, exploring various entrepreneurial pursuits. In 2011, a friend connected him with FIDE, which wanted to breathe life into chess. After he agreed to pay a $500,000 deposit for the marketing rights for 11 years — he says no money has yet changed hands — one of his first steps was to try to create a brand and organization that stand apart from the governing body. His brand is called “World Chess,” with its tagline: “The best mind wins.”
In chess circles beyond FIDE, the view of Mr. Paulson seems hopeful, impressed with his vigor and ideas, but so far unimpressed by the results. Mr. Paulson also seems dissatisfied with his lack of success and with his unfinished narrative.
“So far, I’m an interesting, intelligent, romantic story,” he said. He said he still hoped for what he called a “resurrection.” And he says he can see the way there, if only the sponsors can, too.
“There’s a huge upside for any partners,” he added. “A, they’re getting chess, and B, they’re getting me.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/business/for-chess-a-would-be-white-knight.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
Norwegian, 22, Takes World Chess Title
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
Magnus Carlsen of Norway, right, greeted Viswanathan Anand of India before their final game on Friday in Chennai, India.
http://chessmagnetschool.com/gambit/nytchess.php?mode=game&dataset=46&first=1416
Position after 42 … f5; click to replay
Magnus Carlsen, the 22-year-old Norwegian who has been the most dominant chess player since 2010, finally broke through on Friday to win the game’s most important title, the world championship, for the first time.
He defeated Viswanathan Anand, 43, of India, the titleholder since 2007, and he did not lose a game in the best-of-12 series, which was held in Anand’s hometown, Chennai. Carlsen so dominated the match, which began Nov. 9, that it lasted only 10 games, with Carlsen winning three and the others ending in draws.
The championship has long been dominated by players from Russia and, before that, the Soviet Union. Carlsen is only the second player from the West to become champion since World War II, and the first since Bobby Fischer, the eccentric American who held the title from 1972 to 1975.
Carlsen has been the world’s top-ranked player almost continually since January 2010 and his current rating, the system used to compute the rankings, is the highest in history.
He has not achieved the level of celebrity that Fischer, who died at age 64 in 2008, enjoyed. But Carlsen has been something of a star since he was 13, when he became one of the youngest grandmasters ever, and he has won attention both inside and outside the chess world because of his youth and his looks.
He is frequently featured in magazines that do not cater to chess players, and is a favorite of television interviewers. He is also a model for the clothing company G-Star Raw.
For his victory, Carlsen will receive 60 percent of the roughly $2.5 million prize fund, although the World Chess Federation, which organizes the championship, would not be more specific.
It was Carlsen’s first time to make the world championship finals, and he said he was nervous going in because Anand had won the title four times, back to back, in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012.
Carlsen said he realized he had a chance to grab the title from Anand during Game 3 on Nov. 12.
Anand had built up a considerable advantage, but Carlsen fought his way back, and the game ended in a draw.
“What I realized during the game was that he was also nervous and vulnerable,” Carlsen said in a Skype interview on Friday after he won the title. “He was no Superman.”
Anand played well throughout, but he could not match Carlsen, whose specialty is to relentlessly pressure opponents and create problems for them.
“You have to do something to try to make your opponents make mistakes,” Carlsen said.
Carlsen does not like drawn games and tries to avoid giving his opponents that opportunity. “You should play to the end,” he said.
Even in the last game of the match on Friday, when he needed only a draw to clinch the championship, Carlsen pressed on until, after five hours and 65 moves, there were only kings left on the board.
Norway is not known for its chess players, and the championship match was shown live on television there, with the broadcasts topping the Norwegian ratings.
The games were also followed closely in India, where Anand is a national hero.
This championship also garnered greater international attention than usual, and in unexpected ways.
British GQ ran a story about the match in the same issue containing a photo feature on the Victoria’s Secret lingerie show in New York. The surprised editors posted on Twitter, “So this story about #chess is currently more popular on the site than our 100 shots of Victoria’s Secret models.”
There is hope in the chess world that with Carlsen as the game’s official standard-bearer, it will regain the cachet it briefly enjoyed after Fischer’s victory.
Carlsen seems to be aware of that pressure. In the news conference after the match, he was wary when asked if chess could have other than niche appeal, given the interest in the championship.
His answer was modest: “I know a lot of people who don’t play chess found it very interesting to follow.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/crosswords/chess/norwegian-22-takes-world-chess-title.html?ref=sports&pagewanted=print
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A place for people to meet, talk chess, post links of interest, and celebrate the greatest game known to humankind.
All are welcome, regardless of skill level.
Smothered Mate in 5:
MLM Playing Black
“The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very
valuable qualities of the mind are to be acquired and strengthened by
it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess”
(Benjamin Franklin)
“Chess is the gymnasium of the mind”
(Blaise Pascal)
“Not all artists are Chess players, but all Chess players are artists”
(Marcel Duchamp)
“On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long”
(Emanuel Lasker)
To Infinity and Beyond:
There are 400 different possible Chess positions after one move each. There are 72,084 different possible positions after two moves each. There are over 9 million different possible positions after three moves each. There are over 288 billion different possible positions after four moves each. The number of distinct 40-move games is far greater than the number of electrons in the observable universe
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note: in my posts, I usually refer to the opponent as he. In the off chance you are female and reading this, take no offense, "he" is usually the default for chess (unfortunately). BTW, one of the world's strongest players, male or female:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polgar
Oct 2009 Wall Street Journal Article: Women's chess titles:
(I don't agree with this, BTW)
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574457393421190888.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
OK, now a shameless picture for the guys
Women's World Chess Champion, ALEXANDRA THE GREAT:
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Some Links:
InstanstChess, a site I subscribe to, but anyone can play 25 games free (just clear cookies to play more if you run out of games). Good place to pick up a quick game
Chess.com, I used to have a subscription to this site. You can also play for free, but with limited features. This site is focused on turn-based correspondence chess, where you have several days to consider your move. This is good for those still learning the opening basics, as well as advanced players who wish to dabble in more exotic openings. A nice thing is the rules of turn-based chess allow you to reference databases, or anything else you wish (except computer chess engines, that's cheating!) for analysis during a game. If you are a paying member, you have access to a very large opening book that is easy to use, with stats on effectiveness of each move. Also has a live chess feature.
Other places to play: Yahoo (#1 for sheer player numbers, I believe) , RedHotPawn, FICS, GameKnot, to name a few. No matter what your skill level, there is competition to be found all over the Internet, with plenty of both free and subscription sites, so get playing somewhere now! Remember, you learn more from a loss than a win. (OK, I admit it though, I like to win, and don't like posting my losses!)
ChessGames.com, a **huge** database with a good interface for easy replay of the games, many annotated and also discussed in a "Kibitzer's Corner". All the famous games are here:
Endgame Database for all possible 6 piece endings. Instantly tells you if an endgame is win, lose, or draw:
www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html
Live Chess screen saver, for the chess voyeur in you:
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