A Kangarevuoo

Shaun Press reviews Goldowsky's Engaging Pieces with a Down Under twist ... This line caught my eye:

(My review copy of the book was supplied to me by the author)

Hey, wait a minute! Where's my free copy?

FIDE chess comes to Massachusetts

The New England Masters Chess Tournament is scheduled for August 13-17 at the Holiday Inn in Peabody, Massachusetts. The 9 round FIDE Swiss tournament is only open to players with a FIDE rating of 2200 or higher and is designed to provide the maximum potential to obtain both Grandmaster and International Master norms.

So far, 32 players have entered including 4 GMs (Alexander Shabalov, Leonid Kritz, Eugene Perelshteyn and Nigel Davies), 11 IMs and 10 FMs. The US Chess League will be well represented with the likes of Carolina Cobra Lev Milman, San Francisco Car Fixer Josh Friedel, New York Knight Robert Hess and, the Blitz's very own, Bill Kelleher. Other notable entrants include all (?) the local three well known IMs whose last names end with the letter "o" (Ippolito, Vigorito and Rizzitano), former spammer Braden Bournival, and the lone female participant, WFM Elizabeth Vicary.

Rounds will be on Monday at 7:00 pm, then every day from Tuesday through Friday at 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm. Spectators are welcome.

The dangers of playing outside

From "2 shot during South Side chess game" at the Chicago Sun-Times:

Two men are in stable condition early Monday after being shot while playing chess late Sunday in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side.

An unidentified man shot two 23-year-old men playing chess in the 7100 block of South Paulina Steet about 11:05 p.m. Sunday...

Caption Contest XX

This photo from the Kansas City Star already has a caption, but I bet you can come up with a better one.

Hat Tip: The Chess Club

IM David Vigorito is new Massachusetts Champion

IM David Vigorito became the 2007 Massachusetts Champion by winning the Mass Open with 5 of 6 points. His game against Meredith was selected by IM Igor Foygel for the "most interesting game" prize. Congratulations to David.

Though not yet a member, IM Vigorito is a frequent player (and winner) at Boylston tournaments. We are hoping he will join the club in time to compete for the BCC Championship.

Playing in the real world

Sciurus, the blogger behind Getting into Chess, reports on his first over-the-board tournament experience -- at the Boylston Chess Club!

He has some good things to say about OTB play in the post...

Here is the short message for all of you who don't have time to read the full post and play online only: it is fun to play OTB chess, go check it out yourself if you haven't done so.

...and about the club in the comments:

BCC seems to be a really good place to play chess. They have something going on almost every day.

Sciurus, we hope to see you back soon at another event.

From the left bank of the Seine

At the club, my friend Walter Driscoll and I have a running joke about his years of futility in trying to beat me as White playing against the French Defense. Over the decades, we've played many games and all but once "0-1" has been recorded at the end. He's tried the Classical, Tarrasch, Advance and his current choice, the Exchange, but to no avail. Things have reached a point where before rounds on Thursday nights, Walter can often be heard muttering things like "The French is the refutation to 1.e4" and "DG is unbeatable when playing black." Of course, there are plenty of people around the club who would be happy to produce game scores disproving the second point. To add fuel to the fire, I'll usually add something like, "Well, according to John Watson, after 1.e4 e6!, White is struggling for equality."

The one French I didn't win against Walter? I'd read a Secrets of Opening Surprises article in NewInChess about playing an early h6 as Black in the French and wanted to experiment with it. Well, I thought, playing it against Walter probably wouldn't be that risky. However, after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 h6!?, he went on to crush me. After the game I joked, "I'm never going to try that again. I mean, if I can't beat you with this line, then who could I possibly beat with it." We both had quite a chuckle.

It was a couple of recent blog posts which led me to share this story. The first, from the Streatham & Brixton Chess Club, offers a simple four point plan for defeating the French. I offer it to Walter as good advice, though I'm not feeling nervous (yet). The second is a mere mention in Tempo's Countdown to Dieren post where he says that he needs to "Learn a new system against the French." I bet Walter will have an idea or two for him.

Alexandra returns to the airwaves

After a nine month break, GM Alexandra Kosteniuk is back with a new podcast. In it, she explains that her hiatus was "due to her pregnancy and to the birth of her daughter, Francesca."

Let's see, a nine month break due to pregnancy ... seems totally plausible to me.

**********

Speaking of Alexandra, I discovered something interesting. If you search Google Images for "Alexandra Kosteniuk chess", on the sixth page of results* (2nd row, all the way to the right) you'll find a picture of none other than BCF President FM Paul MacIntyre. Hmmm, what to make of that?

* Page placement on Google changes all the time, so check it out soon.

Reubens Landey 2007 round 3

After three (of five) rounds, Alan Price (3) has slipped ahead of the pack in the Reubens Landey. An astonishing 5 players took byes for this round, including Greg Kaden (2.5), so his match with Alan is put off to round 4. Carey Theil (2) defeated Alexander Paphitis (1) and will face 12 year old Andrew Wang (2) next week. Andrew beat Walter Driscoll (1). Jason Rihel (1.5) will face Alex Slive (1.5) who got a fish egg from Frank Frazier (0.5) for his own collection of chess caviar. Farzad Abdi (1.5) had to accept a draw with Simon Warfield (1.5), who will face the hopefully healthier Ken Newman (2). Philip Nutzman (1) will take on Walter, and Natasha Christiansen (1) will play Alexander.

The winner or winners will be invited into the BCC championship, in which 9 or 10 club masters play a round-robin for honor, $300, and free entry to a year's worth of BCC tournaments.

USCL Blogger Award

The US Chess League has announced that it is instituting a Blogger of the Year award for the upcoming season. The award includes a $100 prize and "can be won by anyone from any team, or by any fan of a team." I suppose the coverage of the Boston Blitz here at BCC Weblog falls into the second category, even though some members of the team have previously expressed the view that the pieces are sometimes less than "fan-like." I was considering cutting back on coverage this year, but now instead, I'll be pulling out all the stops.

Just imagine what the West Coast conspiracy theorists will say if the commissioner gives the award to his sister!

$10 Open

The $10 Open is one of the Boylston Chess Club's most popular tournaments. The competition is good and the price is right.

The $10 Open on July 21 attracted 38 players, including four masters: David Vigorito, Chris Chase, Charles Riordan and Alex Cherniack and seven experts: Carey Theil, Dyland Xue (from Beijing), Ben Goldberg, Andrew Tichenor, Bennet Pellows, Arthur Nugent, and Andrew Wang (just turned 12). TD Bernardo Iglesias was able to set up a separate U1800 section with twenty players. A fine and economical day of chess.

Roman as raconteur

Roman Dzindzichashvili entertained about 30 Boylston club members and guests last Wednesday evening.

He decided not to give a formal talk but use audience questions to guide his remarks. Initially questions were about openings and we learned about the intricacies of some lines of the modern Benoni.

But the audience started to ask about his opinions and experiences, so Roman launched into a fascinating knights tour of topics: collusion and corruption in the highest levels of chess, experiences with Bobby Fischer, the strength of young players (with the observation that "young" is younger that it used to be,) his most memorable game in which he discovered step-by-step an astonishing combination, the GMs he hates, computer chess (no human can win nowdays, though he answered a computer challenge in the 70s by stipulating that he had to win 7 1/2 of 10 to draw and 8 to win. Roman won 9 of 10 with his strategic trick - which he explained in 2 minutes.)


Dzindzi was completely charming with a droll sense of humor and we all laughed most of the evening. Two hours flew by. Thanks to the GM and thanks to Paul MacIntyre to arranging an amusing evening of chess.

You can view some photos at www.picasaweb.google/oresick/.

Chessdom Interview Part 4: Knights Errant

Chessdom: Can you introduce Knights Errant group?

DG: Soon after I started BCC Weblog, I was trolling around trying to find other chess blogs to share links with. Unlike today when it’s almost impossible to avoid tripping over a new chess blog, back then it was quite a challenge finding them. In any case, I came across two blogs who seemed mostly to be talking to each other – Don Q’s Mandelamaza and Sancho Pawnza’s Tactics Tactics Tactics!?. Both were pursuing the intense tactical training regimen advocated by Michael De La Maza in his book “Rapid Chess Improvement”. They had chosen to blog about their quest using the story of Don Quixote as a thematic backdrop. I contacted them, offered to share links and they gladly accepted.

Within days I came across Pale Morning Dun’s Self Flagellation to the Goddess Caissa where he wrote that his blog was “…In the tradition of (Don) Man de la Maza and Sancho Pawnza…”. At that moment, I realized that something really interesting was going on, though I couldn’t have known how big it would turn out to be. I decided to document the goings-on of this little band of chess bloggers at BCC Weblog. Every few weeks or so, I put up a post summarizing some of their more interesting posts and as new blogs joined the group I sought them out and maintained a list of their members.

For a short time, the group stayed relatively small. I still retain a soft spot for the original six – those mentioned above plus Pawn Sensei, Generalkaia and J’adoube (who I named “the off-center knight”, despite the fact that he has since trademarked the phrase – I’m sure the royalty checks will be arriving soon :) ). Each was also pursuing the De La Maza program and posting about their plans, progress, thoughts on improvement, issues with CT-Art, etc.

And then, things just exploded. Suddenly there were 18 to 20 active Knights. We were finding new ones almost every week. Some blogs started strong and fizzled out quickly, but many have stayed active and strong to this day like Temposchlucker, Takchess and BlueDevil. Over time the Knights Errant group has evolved – while it is still focused on chess improvement, its members have broadened their approaches beyond De La Maza’s narrow prescription. As long time members have left, new “leaders” have emerged. As disputes among members have occasionally risen, it has been remarkable to watch how the community has self-regulated itself.

The Knights Errant is truly a remarkable example of the development and strength of a virtual on-line community existing in the blogosphere. It’s continued growth and prosperity is a testament to its founders.

*****
You can read the entire interview here.

Easy for who?

Most everyone knows that I'm a big advocate of linking and cross-linking across the chess blogosphere. Nevertheless, I ran across this post at Knight of Chess Academy, a commercial blog which is somewhat surreptitious about the fact that it is a commercial blog, that rubbed me the wrong way. The author describes "the easy way you must follow if you want to exchange link[s] with me" - a six step process!

No thanks, I'll pass.

Hold on to the hand rails

A series of photos inspired by a cartoon about playing chess on a roller coaster -- here's one of them.

Chess as Speech Therapy

From an interesting story about a Michigan father who decided to use chess as a means for addressing his son's speech disability (the original article is no longer available on the web):

As a young child, Ben was diagnosed with speech dyspraxia, which made it difficult for him to speak like his peers. Often his sentences would come out rushed and jumbled.

"They wanted to put him in special ed classes, but I knew that he was highly intelligent," Scott Ploehn said. "He was in speech therapy. It's just that he had to really plan out what he was going to say before he said it."

Ploehn and his wife, Kris, began looking into ways to help Ben deal with his dyspraxia - and that's when Ploehn thought of chess.

"I had played since I was in fourth grade and knew it took a lot of concentration and forethought," he said. "And Ben just took to chess right away. He just really had the mind for it."

Ploehn said chess helped Ben remarkably, and he quickly showed a talent for the game.

Quote of the Day

"Chess is like ginger ale. No one thinks about bringing it, but people love it when someone remembers it." - comment by liquideggproduct on a post at Out of the Ether.

Hungry for Chess?

Source

Alex Cherniack's Questionnaire Answers

1. How long have you been playing chess? Have you played it consistently since you started, or were there lulls in your play? How did these lulls affect your performance?

I've been playing chess since I was 8. My father taught me the moves so that I could follow the moves in the Fischer-Spassky match of 1972. I started winning games against my father when I was 10, and played in my first tournament at the 1976 National Junior High School Championship (won by Jim Rizzitano).

At that time I went to the Waltham Community Chess Club, then at the library off the intersection of Main and Moody streets. I met Harry Lyman in 1977, when he gave a simul at the WCCC. He invited me to visit the Boylston Chess Club, offering a free 3-month trial membership. I started taking the B&M railroad from my home town of Lincoln all the way into Boston, and have been playing seriously ever since.

The only lulls in my chess have been when I was in college and grad school. The breaks dulled my tactical alertness at the board, which returned to normal after two or three tournaments.

2. Aside from playing games, what is your primary mode of training?

I took lessons from John Curdo in the early 80's when I was an expert, but I didn't learn anything specifically that I already knew. What John imparted to me was that if I wanted to become a master, I would have to work much harder.

My primary mode of training has always been playing over whole games on a chess board from books, with detailed annotations (not Informant symbols) from world-class players. Such books are becoming more difficult to find, because all the analysis in today's publications is verified (and increasingly manufactured by) chess engines. It's hard to learn from "perfect" chess literature! It's interacting with human ideas on a page, discerning the mistakes, and writing the corrections in the margins, that makes me improve the most.

3. What is the single most helpful method of improvement that you have ever used?

Despite my above answer, playing against computers. Between the ages of 10 and 12 my father worked for Lincoln Labs, and I played against one of the world's earliest chess computers, a prototype created by MIT's Artificial Intelligence department. The program "talked" through a carriage return from a printer; I needed a chessboard on the floor to play out the moves. I swore that I wouldn't join a chess club until I beat the chess program in a 5-game match. I finally beat it after 18 months of trying, and joined the WCCC the following week; thanks to that computer my first USCF rating was higher than most (1443).

Nowadays computers are so freaking strong that playing them all day would be futile, and I wouldn't learn much either.

4. What is your favorite opening to play as white? As black against e4? As black against d4?

For some reason, my games are all over the Internet. Why database administrators find the games of an erratic 2250 player so fascinating is a mystery to me, but anyone can discover my favorite openings with little effort. At last year's World Open, 7 out of my 9 opponents arrived at the board 20 minutes late, looking up you-know-who on their laptops.

5. Who are your favorite chess players and why?

Victor Kortchnoi, for his longevity -- I can only dream that I'll be more than a honorary 2200 player when I reach his current age.

Harry Lyman, for his classiness -- he showed me in so many ways that competitive chess and kindness are not mutually exclusive.

6. What is your favorite chess book?

David Bronstein's book of the 1953 Candidates Tournament in Zurich. I have read and re-read it three times slowly, and learn something new every time I reach the last page.

7. What book would you recommend for a friend who knows only the rules of chess?

Tactics is everything in chess, so I'd recommend a book that develops tactical awareness and combinations, such as 1001 Combinations by Fred Reinfeld. The best book I've ever read in this category is Tal's Winning Chess Combinations by Tal and Khenkin, but it's hard to find. If you see it, snap it up.

8. Do you play in in-person tournaments? What is your favorite tournament experience?

When I can. I'm over 2200, so the only way for me to improve is to play in the open sections of big tournaments, where I get my head smashed in regularly by pros who study at least 4 hours every day. Because I have a full time job, and because I don't want to show up at big tournaments half-cocked, I prepare a lot. This means that I don't play that often; there are only so many hours in my day, and the tournament preparation doesn't have a long shelf life in my crowded memory.

My favorite tournament experience was a summer open in Ghent, Belgium in 1999. I was the only American in a field of 700 players, and no one with laptops knew me. I played in an uncharacteristically free-wheeling style, sacrificing pawns, pieces, and Queens in the majority of my games, and tied for third place. The event had an impressive closing ceremony, with a buffet, champagne, and a commemorative tournament book (with all the games!) handed out to the players. I spent the winnings on a five-course gourmet meal in Paris.

9. Please give us a link to what you consider your best two blog posts.

This is my second post to a chess blog, so this and the last one are my favorites (so far).

10. What proportion of total chess time should be spent studying openings for someone at your level?

To improve, many, many, more conscious waking moments than I have now. Even if I won the lottery and could spend all my time studying chess, I'd have to share memorizing opening theory with sharpening middlegame tactics and refining endgame technique.

From the Semiautonomous Tribal Area Times

13 Year Old Recruit Wins Al Qaeda Junior Chess Championship

North Waziristan, Pakistan - Nami Alzeri accepts his trophy from camp commander Mohammed al-Mohammed after besting a group of 18 young recruits in the annual four round swiss. Nami, who has been training for the past six months for martyrdom operations in the West, was quite pleased with his accomplishment. "God willing," he said, "Osama will be as pleased, when I bring the same destruction upon the infidels that my opponents experienced over the board."

We say, Allah Akbar, to that.