The Delights Of Chess
The guys are back with more of the usual. The usual, in this case, being everything BC (Before Cheating). So expect a smattering of chess alongside a helping of romance, nostalgia, geography and etiquette.
The delights of chess
For the brand new Season 4, Jon and Phil are joined by new semi-regular panellist Rhys Cumming to discuss the Carlsen-Niemann furore, what it says about the modern game, and why chess seemingly always seems to eat itself.
Well, then. Magnus Carlsen has confirmed that he won't be retaining his World Championship crown in 2023. Phil and Robin round up the Candidates in the knowledge that the top two now qualify for a title match, and ask what Magnus's abdication means for chess.
This week the guys discuss how they could tutor a child in the ways of chess righteousness, while also offering adults tips on their first serious tournament games. A full lifespan in one episode! Also includes curry etiquette. You lucky people.
This week Robin has seven friends, Jon misses composing crosswords, and Phil seemingly casts aspersions on great mathematicians. The guys ponder encouraging female participation from the bottom up, and declare themselves to be far too busy for online chess.
The guys are back together for the first time in a month and get straight down to it with the nonsense this week including Spanish restaurants and boring names for pets. We also build on our visit from the chessfeels podcast to pep Robin up for his tournament this week.
He's awkward. He's charming. At age 23, he's the new chess champion of the world. And in a Silicon Valley speaking appearance, Norway's Magnus Carlsen unleashed enough of his dry wit to keep his audience tittering or applauding.
Réti achieved his highest rating in 1920-21 as the fifth best chess player in the world. In 1925 Réti set a world record for blindfold chess with 29 games played simultaneously. He won 21, drew 6, and lost 2. The Reti Collection holds two tournament postcards, one from Semmering, Austria in 1926 and the other from Bad Kissingen, Germany in 1928; the postcards feature a group photograph of all the participants in each tournament with their autographs on the verso. These were grand affairs played at resorts. Semmering was an 18-player round robin event (all-play-all) held at the Grand Hotel Panhas in the Semmering Pass south of Vienna from March 7-29, 1926 and attended by the strongest masters of the day: World Champion Alexander Alekhine as well as Rudolph Spielmann and Milan Vidmar finished on top. Twelve of the best masters of the world came to the Bavarian spa town of Bad Kissingen for a round robin tournament held August 12-28, 1928. The roster included former World Champion José Capablanca, the soon to be crowned Max Euwe as well as the US Champion Frank Marshall. Réti finished in the top half of both elite tournaments.
Réti wrote two books which are still regarded as cornerstones of chess theory: Modern Ideas in Chess (1923) and Masters of the Chessboard (1933). The Reti collection contains first editions of both titles in German, Russian and English. Also noteworthy in the collection is a 20-page typewritten and heavily annotated biography of Richard written by Rudolph. Additionally, there are a hundred chess columns from newspapers and magazines containing his analysis of his games, photos from his tournaments, simuls, and of Réti relaxing between games at the resorts, as well as a hundred obituaries from the media marking his passing.
There is a certain beauty to be found in simple positions with hidden twists. The next one is a classic, with which all chess players need to be familiar. Not because it is likely to occur very often in their games, but simply because the solution is wonderful and completely unexpected.
Only one move will win the game for White. If the position is new to you, then try it out on a real chess board. Find out which moves fail to make the breakthrough and you will eventually narrow it down to just one possibility.
However, it is not easy to find a coach who combines passion for the game with the ability to inspire children. The Ceren Chess Centre in Salihli, Turkey, is lucky enough to have a tutor who possesses the best qualities a chess coach should have whilst being a strong player herself.
The chess centre was established in 2007, with specially-restored indoor and outdoor classrooms. The school boasts an extensive chess library, with books in English, German and Turkish as well as the latest ChessBase software which the children love. Emine is truly grateful to Frederic Friedel and ChessBase who have been extremely supportive of her venture and have supplied the Ceren Chess Centre with all the latest materials to ensure that she has the best resources for teaching.
The school focuses on children aged 5-13 years old but welcomes people of all ages. Emine trains the children from beginner up to intermediate level. As well as teaching chess technique, she also ensures that they play chess in a sporting way and with the right attitude.
I was eleven years old. My older brother is just a year and a half older than me. He was very good at soccer. He played in a soccer team and then decided to take up chess. As a Turkish girl, it was difficult to be accepted as a football player (even though I was very good at football), so I went with my brother for chess lessons and learnt with him!
Yes. I have thought about it and have told the parents of the children I teach to come along to learn to play chess as well, so that they can play against their children. However, they prefer going shopping and doing nothing!
I always try to teach them that losing is not a bad thing and that it is a part of chess. I show them that I often lose games and nothing bad happens to me. We just have to work hard to get better at it.
Sabrina was studying medicine but gave that up in favour of chess teaching CHESS is mailed to subscribers in over 50 countries. You can subscribe from Europe and Asia at a specially discounted rate for first timers here or from North America here.
It reveals how chess is a metaphor for life, and how skills honed at the chess board can be applied in many real-life situations. This compelling chronicle takes you from Birmingham to Moscow, and plunges you into the life of an author with a remarkable original mind, while also highlighting the hazards of stealing a half-cooked sausage from a deranged German.
After 30 years working with the Ministry of Defence, Carl Portman took early retirement to concentrate on freelance photography, chess coaching, natural history travel, writing and lecturing. He is a keen arachnologist, owns a large collection of live tarantulas and scorpions, and has bred some of the rarest arachnids in the world. Married to his childhood friend Susan, they also have three border collie dogs. Born in Birmingham, (a proud Brummie) he now lives in Oxfordshire.
Now he offers us an autobiography in which his life in chess features prominently. Carl was born on a Birmingham council estate in 1964 and, when he was still very young, his father left home, never to return. When he was 12, his mother, an alcoholic, remarried. Her new husband was a psychopath who was physically, verbally and emotionally abusive to both Carl and his mother.
Chess would therefore be my mental opiate; the living embodiment of disappearing down the rabbit hole. I played it in class, on the bus, in exams, in the toilets, in the playground, the chess club and in my room at home.
One thing Carl enjoys is meeting his heroes: he relates stories of travelling to France to play in a simul against Karpov, and arranging tuition from Mickey Adams and Jovanka Houska, as well as playing chess against the astronomer Patrick Moore.
In this book, I have openly shared my experiences about the wonder of finding chess in my formative years and how it has shaped and influenced my life. The people I have met and the places I have visited have been wonderfully life-enriching, and the mental nourishment that the game provides is so powerful that I cannot quantify it.
It was the 2004 Olympiad. I had just had a rough night, stayed up a little later than I should have. I didn't figure out what the pairing was until late morning. The preparation was beyond my reach, my opponent was too strong to outplay over the board: Viswanathan Anand, world chess champion.
Of course, I was nervous, and of course he won, but it was a good fight. He was only one of the many elite players I have played in my life, a list that includes Magnus Carlsen, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Hikaru Nakamura, Sergey Karjakin and many others that are in the top 10 of the chess world.
And yet, never have I been so nervous at picking up a chess piece as when I had the pleasure, and the honor, to set up the positions at the current World Chess Hall of Fame exhibition: "Encore! Ivory Chess Treasures from the Jon Crumiller Collection."
The use of ivory in any art, shape or form is incredibly controversial nowadays, but learning the history of the material and its use in chess makes the game jump to another level. The exhibition includes a retrospective on how ivory was used as a way to make game pieces, from practical purposes to simply elaborate table pieces. I simply cannot emphasize it enough: The Jon Crumiller collection is a must-see in the World Chess Hall of Fame and well worth your time!
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand recently went out for dinner with chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa and grandmaster Sandipan Chanda. He took to Twitter to share a selfie from his dinner outing, and the picture has racked up thousands of likes on the microblogging platform.
Chess created excitement in the capital. The arrival of Alsace-born engineer Charles Godfrey Gümpel would add a scientific dimension to the game. In 1878, at his Leicester Square home, he presented a chess machine to the public. It won a tournament that same year. The board moves were carried out by Mephisto, a puppet with a black mustache wearing a red oriental-looking costume. 041b061a72