The Chess Blog of the Boylston Chess Club... The Boylston Chess Club (BCC) is a part of the Boylston Chess Foundation (BCF).
Top 10 Overheard Things Freshmen at Georgia Tech Say9. "I can't believe it. This is where Hochtuey Sheshmed went to school before he became northwest Nepal semi-regional chess champ. I-have-arrived!"
It's good to have black belt karate masters as friends. Oh yeah, I edited out his humor indications to make him sound more fierce.Well, just remember that DG is our homeboy.... Mess with him and you'll have a bunch of Knights tilting at you...
When Stephen Chess sells the last commercial condo in Union City's Chess Commerce Center, his legacy will remain in the abstract form of a king, queen and pawn splayed across a chess board.Read "Chess pieces helped make him a player in commercial condos" from the San Jose Business Journal.
Although he says it was a "dog-and-pony show" to meet Union City's requirements for public art, Mr. Chess has become quite attached to the 6-foot-tall display visible to all who drive down Kohoutek Way. Even if the 19 new owners decide to change the name of the three-acre development, he's pleased to note that those three chess pieces that mark the entrance aren't going anywhere.
"This leaves my name here forever," said Mr. Chess...
Chessdude64 battles with former BCC Champion FM Chris ChaseThe Jewel Royale (Chess Set) Company Limited and jewelry partner Boodles is currently finalizing the commissioning of the design and production of The Jewel Royale Chess Set - a gold and platinum gem encrusted chess set and board valued at some US$9 million. Constructed in gold and platinum, this single chess set will be set with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and pearls.
A 15-year-old detainee at Shuman Juvenile Detention Center tried to escape Tuesday by punching through the ceiling plaster of his room with a smuggled wooden chess piece....Read "Detainee, 15, tries to escape from Shuman Center" from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In Tuesday's attempt, [Raemon] Thomas stood on a sink and used a king from a chess set to punch his way through the ceiling, Wilson said, adding that he thought the effort took place over the course of several days.
Maybe it's something about the internal solitary experience of playing chess; or, maybe it's the overly competitive attitude which comes from the unwavering effort to "kill" the opponent. In any case, it seems that chess players are often extremely skilled at making their points in ways which are unlikely to endear them to others.
Our "friend", Quandoman, is no exception. As a result of my post mentioning his anti-De La Maza rant, several readers have left comments on his blog. In response to a comment from Blue Devil Knight, Quandoman points out that:
What has happened to me? My first win against a master came only a few weeks ago, and my rating was peaking. Now, 1100s, 1500s, and 1600s are beating me down, as I blunder and blunder and blunder away. My only wins come from Grinch-like tricks. DANSON AND HARRELSON IN CHEERS CHESS WARFrom contactmusic.com.
TED DANSON is confident he will finally beat his former CHEERS co-star WOODY HARRELSON at chess, thanks to his latest film role.Danson is playing real-life chess expert DAVID McENULTY in [a] forthcoming US TV movie KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTH BRONX, and he sneakily intends to enlist McEnulty's expertise in a bid to thrash his opponent Harrelson in an online game.
He says, "I tried to whoop Woody during the Cheers years because he could beat me at everything else.
"I'm going to play him over the internet, because he's in Hawaii, but David McEnulty will be sitting next to me."
"I think if you start calling poker a sport, then you might have to call the CEO at Chrysler an athlete because his job is just sitting and thinking and doing strategy,"...
"It's very, very competitive -- and it's an endurance test as well. It's mental and physical endurance. If you think it's easy to sit there for 13, 13-½ hours for five to six days in a row, you're sadly mistaken."...
"We consider chess a sport, and if you're going to consider chess a sport, then poker is a sport,"...
"I like it because sometimes you're really bored. It actually gives you something to do," Dinkar said. "And you win trophies."Read "Chess players learn all the right moves" from the Centre Daily Times.
eBay is to launch a new service that allows its members to compete in online skill games for cash prizes.I'll give you $10 for your knight on d6. What do you say?
The online auctioneer has partnered with SkillJam, a gaming subsidiary of Fun technologies, to offer its users a selection of multiplayer skill games.
Starting in October, SkillJam will offer a selection of co-branded games on eBay, which will be advertised within relevant areas of eBay's online marketplace.
For example, a user looking to buy a chess board may see a pop up inviting them to play a game of online chess on eBay's gaming section.
In 1933, two of the greatest minds that ever lived sat down at a table and played a game of chess. In this battle of brain power, renowned physicist Albert Einstein defeated fellow scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who would go on to help create the world's first atomic bomb.Read "Chess will be king for a day at Princeton Library" from The Princeton (NJ) Packet.
This Saturday, a re-creation of that match will be broadcast - and analyzed - at Chess Day, an all-day affair at [the] Princeton Public Library.
The second amusing point was the claim that sprinters top out at 10 m.p.h. We humans are slow, but not that slow: even top marathoners exceed 10 m.p.h., while the sprint record is at least 27 m.p.h....Well, it just so happens that I decided to play in the BCC Summer Open this weekend (I almost never play weekend tournaments anymore due to family commitments) instead of hanging out with a gaggle of relatives on Cape Cod. Who decided to play in their first BCC tournament in many years? That's right, Howard Goldowsky. It was great to add an in person connection to what has been to date a virtual acquaintance only.
Read "Chess Players Set New World Record" from FOXNews (last item in the column).PACHUCA, Mexico (AP) — Thousands of chess players set a new world record on Saturday for simultaneous chess matches at a public park in central Mexico, a Guinness World Records representative announced.
The total of 12,388 competitors participated to beat the previous record for simultaneous chess matches set in Havana in 2002 with 11,320 competitors.
Move the piece furthest in the upper right-hand corner of the board towards the upper right-hand corner of the board as much as possible (we need this qualification since not all chess pieces move in the same way). If such a move isn't possible, trying moving the piece towards the upper left corner, then the lower-right, and then the lower-left until you find a possible move. If no such move is possible, resign.Of course if you actually want to be good at the game of chess, Jaime has a suggestion:
I don't recommend you use this strategy.
This "overlooked" and "underproduced favorite," as described by Director/Producer Mike Webb, has an outdated plot built on an overstretched metaphor wrapped around a poorly developed love story with only one truly redeeming character.
In her latest exhibition, "Jane Grimm: The Chess Set," she explores the notion that we're all pawns in the game of life....Female busts placed on columns? Seems like just another one of those tactics intended to distract your opponent from the game at hand.
Several pieces consist of female busts placed on columns. Each is marked by symbolic imagery such as tears, flames and vines. Other pieces take the form of pawns, towers, bishops and unicorns.
Chess, a small-scale tactical turn-based strategy game, attempts to adopt the age-old "easy to learn, difficult to master" parameter made popular by Tetris. But the game's cumbersome play mechanics and superficial depth and detail all add up to a game that won't keep you busy for long.Read "Game Review of Chess" by Greg Kasavin. (Hat Tip: Chris Kilgore)
Chess casts you as king of a small country at war with a rival country of equivalent military power. There is little background story to speak of, and by and large the units in the game are utterly lacking any character whatsoever....
The setting of the conflict is equally uninspiring and consists merely of a two-color grid so as to represent the two warring factions. Adding insult to injury, there is only one available map - and it's pathetically small, an 8x8 matrix....
Inexplicable pathing problems also plague Chess - the irritating Pawns can only move straight ahead, but for some reason or other they attack diagonally....
Only two players can compete simultaneously, thus severely limiting any play life to be found. There is only one gameplay mode - no capture the flag or team play - and that involves the two players taking turns moving their units one by one....
The sluggish turn-based nature of Chess bogs the package still further and renders this strategy game an irreverent exercise in wasted time for all but the most die-hard turn-based strategy enthusiasts....
Consider a population of players distributed on the squares of a chess board. Each player interacts only with its immediate neighbours, obeying the parameters of the single-shot Prisoner's Dilemma. In the next generation, the square is inhabited by the player who scored the highest total: neighbour or previous owner. Obviously, a single cooperator perishes, but just four cooperators in a cluster can get a foothold, since each interacts with more cooperators than a defector can reach.Huh?!?
Read "Mbeki in zugzwang" from the Mail & Guardian.The Jacob Zuma saga has forced President Thabo Mbeki into the zugzwang chess position, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said in his weekly letter on Friday."This is a position in which a player has to move but he can only do so with loss or severe disadvantage. So, while the nation and the world wait for his move, he has no good place to go," Leon said.He said Deputy President Zuma does not intend to resign on his own -- a position he made clear in his evasive performance in Parliament this week.And if Mbeki dismisses Zuma, as he should, he will face the wrath of major constituencies in his party, Leon predicted.But he argued that if Mbeki does not dismiss Zuma or passes the buck to the judiciary by waiting for the appeal process to unfold, he will have failed the nation, the Constitution and the expectations of the wider world.
I put a bullet in Viking Sword. These descendants of Leif Erikson really need to upgrade their weaponry.
Don't despair though; a new knight has arrived just in time to take his place. Welcome to Martin -- the Wiki Knight.
FEN: "8/7p/1N5k/p7/4K3/7P/8/8 b -- 0 1"
Black to move and *draw*
Update May 26th: Martin called last night, he plans to leave ABC (Advanced Base Camp) on the 30th or 31st; as it seems several others will do as well. He says he is doing well, playing lots of chess with the Indian Army.
You say your mouse slipped? That's no different than a Fingerfehler in OTB chess. And if a man cannot control his mousie, is he a man or a mouse?In the second, Bill details the seven ways to draw a chess game. I can't find lust among them.
Educator Stephen A. Schneider, now the Director of Atlanta-based Championship Chess and the author of The Scholastic Chess Series, will demonstrate materials and methods of teaching chess at the annual Florida Parent-Educators Association Convention in Orlando, Florida, May 26-28, 2005....So that's the problem with my chess game -- not enough singing and dancing during my formative years.
Color My Chess World is a chess readiness activity book with an accompanying music CD of short, fun songs that invite kids to dance and sing along. It builds the skills to make the introduction of chess easy and fun for very young children. Developed by certified early childhood educators and scholastic chess coaches, this program builds academic skills through chess activities designed to capture the interest of young children. Color My Chess World introduces children to the "world of chess": the chessboard, chess "characters" and chess play. Activities in the book introduce basic chess concepts while improving spatial skills, developing math and reading readiness skills, and reinforcing skills in listening and following directions.
On June 21, Accoona will unveil its Artificial Intelligence ToolBar, providing users the most unique experience in Web search. The Accoona AI ToolBar grants users the ability to Search the Web AND their Desktop, utilizing proprietary Artificial Intelligence Search technology that locates lost files, emails, and documents....While access to a chess program, playing platform and content directly from the desktop certainly isn't going to be the critical factor in Acoona's competition with well-entrenched search rivals like Google and Yahoo, this toolbar might have interesting implications for chess software and server companies. The ease of access that the toolbar provides could pose an interesting challenge to companies like Chessbase and ICC. I'm looking forward to trying out the toolbar when it is released.
The Accoona AI ToolBar is also the first of its kind to offer a free, completely interactive Chess experience. Chess enthusiasts will be able to compete with others from around the World, and against the Accoona AI Chess Program included in the toolbar's technology. Accoona's ToolBar will also offer free daily chess tips and strategy sessions to toolbar users, where Chess players will be able to improve their skills over time with regular use.
...against the new FIDE rule which forbids writing down the move before it is played on the board.
RICH TONG said he knew that it was time to leave Microsoft when he made a presentation to its chief executive, Steve Ballmer, and was no longer scared. "I realized that if I could confidently tell him how I thought the company should be organized, then I was qualified to run my own business," Mr. Tong said. In his 12 years there, he led several marketing teams. One helped raise sales of Windows to about $400 million a year, from $50 million, in two years.
After quitting Microsoft, he devoted himself and his capital to Ignition Partners, a venture capital firm he said he founded with five other "young retirees" from Microsoft and McCaw Cellular. "The six of us didn't have any V.C. experience at all," he recalled, "so if we didn't put our own money on the line, no one else would trust us with theirs."
The firm, which has about $750 million under management, has attracted well-known investors including Harvard and General Motors. It has also drawn some well-known partners, most recently John Connors, who retired as Microsoft's chief financial officer in March.
"Great people who have just left Microsoft or Amazon come to us and say: 'I'm ready for something new and fun. What have you got going?' " Mr. Tong said.
I read J.C. Hallman's "The Chess Artist", a good book about the "otherness" of chess. At first, I thought he was just going to be retailing all the "eccentric chessplayer" myths known to humankind. Modern chess gave him fertile soil, though, like the Republic of Kalmykia, where the local autocrat, now president of FIDE, the international chess federation, built an entire "Chess City" to convert people to the cause of chess. I forgave him the Iowa Writers Program tendency to draw deep meaning from things best rendered sans import, and ultimately decided he was a good, if wordy, egg. It was a fun read.
Artisans in Amritsar make their livelihood by chiseling wood pieces into fine chess pieces, as they provide the world market with premium chessboards.I certainly don't know much of anything about the chess set manufacturing industry in India. However, it strikes me that this article smacks of the typical plea: "we little guys are being harmed by the big evil capitalists; government please step in and help us." In this age of the internet, it seems to me that these artisans have the means to circumvent the middlemen and set up their own distribution channels -- websites, eBay, etc. The artisans are being squeezed because they have accepted the status-quo structure of their industry. Instead of appealing to the government for help, they need to step out of the comfortable and familiar and take the initiative to change the rules.
However, the artisans say it is the exporters who manipulate and run the Industry....
With the emergence of cheap plastic pieces and chessboards as well as increase in the cost of living, the artisans bear the brunt of rising prices with no economic aid from the government.
"We need to get at-least Rs 400 for our work. The electricity and raw material is so expensive. With VAT the input costs have shot up. The middlemen know we have no backup and they exploit us," said Harbhajan Singh Jabbal, a small manufacturer.
...I've been very hard at work on an eighteen page article I've been writing for ChessCafe.... The article is an amalgam of three things: A review of the forthcoming (June 1) DVD, GAME OVER: KASPAROV AND THE MACHINE, a quick look at computer chess and where it stands in relation to AI research, and a short interview with the manager of the team building the successor to Deep Blue.
Right on the heels of this article I will be working on an interview with Jen Shahade for the release of her new book, CHESS BITCH....
Just recently I completed my hunt for all known "chess novels", based on my personal subjective criteria. The count came to 48....
Towards winter, a friend and I hope to begin the process of self-publishing a book of my collected writing/interviews....
I hate the game of blitz not because I always lose, but it is an insult to chess when it is played rapidly. It can be likened to harsh, unthought, biased, angered decisions! Chess is a classic game that needs to be respected for its unimaginable possibilities in each and every step. The only way the purity and sanctity (literally) of the game can be maintained is by playing it slow, unless you really think fast, treating it as the very essence of your life. Think of each step as an important decision of your life, knowing quite well how a wrong move can change the entire scenario!
Chase Cunningham, 14, will be heading off to Ottawa on the May long weekend for his second national youth chess competition and he will be the only Albertan his age in attendance....Read "Chess-playing teen sets sights high" from the Airdrie (Alberta) Echo.
Cunningham said it wasn't difficult to learn how to play chess, although he still reads up on it to keep his game sharp.
"Once you learn the moves it’s easy," he said. "You read books (on chess) and stuff."
Speaking of the HB Global Chess Challenge, Maurice Ashley joined the chess blogosphere just a few days ago. His first couple posts find him in Minneapolis setting the scene.... I had this sinking feeling in my stomach. I tried ... thinking of what was wrong but I couldn't figure it out.
And when I thought about my opening repertoire the sinking feeling got stronger. I was nervous about the HB Global and my lousy preparation. Choosing your opening is really about asking who you are ... a philosophical question. I've been in desperation mode the past few days thinking about what to play, but every ten minutes I change my mind.
Mr. Times and His Knights of the Chess Board by Mark JacobsonUpdate (5/18): Here is the article. (Hat Tip: The Kenilworthian)
Can one streetwise coach and a virtual United Nations of kids from Harlem win a national chess championship?
John Foss, a retired OB/GYN and accomplished woodcarver, is making the pieces for the board. He will discuss his designs for the outdoor game board at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Grimes/Salter Room Public Library, Fourth and Columbia.
Some may argue that the history of blues is one of musicians, regions, and movements rather than something so business-oriented as a record label.Chess Records, however, is not just some record label. It's a sound in itself --
-- A sound which, for many, epitomizes the best of Chicago blues, and maybe even the best electric blues has to offer. Through the recordings of Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, and many other talents great and small, the Chicago-based label and its subsidiaries (Checker and Argo, later renamed Cadet) did an enormous amount to amplify the blues, record some of its greatest talents, and bring the form into the modern era.
These are achievements that few could have foreseen when the label was founded by Leonard and Phil Chess in the 1940s....
Read more...
As I cared to listen to the real sentiments of the "guso" farmers, I came to grip with certain realities. I found out that they were a surprise mixture of professionals, fishermen and farmers who felt that this government had ceased to take any move for the peoples' welfare.
If life were a chess game, they were checked mate. They had somehow lost faith in the functional utility of government such that their only recourse was to bond together and work from dusk to dawn, hoping that by their enterprise they would have something to sustain their lives with.
The men who surrounded the chess players were not dissimilar to the "guso" group in so far as their estimation of our government was concerned although, their approach varied. Instead of addressing their worsening living condition, they, by playing chess, hoped that they could not notice the hours passing by. Tragically, those men chose to escape from reality.
....It is the story of a legendary chess service, owned by Charlemagne, that is said to contain the secret to a mystery of great power, a mystery that fuses elements of the Grail Myth with alchemy and Hermeticism. The quest for this chess service serves as the driving force behind the book, and motivates the two protagonists, Catherine Velis and Mireille de Remy. Apparently, the quest for the chess service plays out like a chess game, with two sides, black and white, and each character a piece. Therefore, the main struggle of the book is for Catherine and Mireille, pawns both, to make it to the other side of the board and be made queens....
Burglaries Reported for May 02, 2005
Occurred 830 Avon St on 4/29 bet 4:45-10:00pm Unk entered by unknown means MISSING: misc chess boards, misc dvd's, misc vhs tapes
Colton Bouse, 9, took the top place in the beginner's category.... Bouse, who learned to play chess by joining the Knights at the beginning of the year, said he practices by playing with family members. The third-grade student was told he could play against himself for practice, but he said he has no idea how someone would do that.Read "School uses chess to improve students skills" from The Galveston County (TX) Daily News.
"You would know every move," he said. "I don't see how you could do it."
Some two hundred students from Secondary One to Secondary Five of the said school attended yesterday's anti-drugs talk as part of activities that included an art competition for Primary students, singing, story-telling, traditional games, a CHMS Art exhibition as well as a book and educational fair.Read "Educating Students On Dangers Of Drugs" from BruneiDirect.Com.
In the afternoon, a chess competition was held in which a Chess Master used telepathy to challenge opponents in the games.
A chess tournament doesn't look like a basketball tournament. There is no running, no wall of screaming fans, no hoops.Read "Chess team at Park Center making their move" from the Brooklyn Park (MN) Sun Post.
DURHAM -....the Durham Unified School District board of trustees...will be considering a range of drug and alcohol policies including one that would extend the random testing to students taking part in other extracurricular activities.I guess I better not reminisce in this blog about the bus ride back from the 1979 National High School Chess Championships.
If that policy is passed the district would randomly test members of the campus Chess Club in the same way football, basketball or track team members are tested.
Groups specifically mentioned on the extracurricular activities list that could be subject to such testing includes: Academic Decathlon, Art Club, Associated Student Body officers and commissioners, Block D, California Scholastic Federation, Chess Club, Class officers, Drama Club, Future Farmers of America, Interact, [and] Student representatives to the high school site council and to the Board of Trustees.
Students in these groups, as well as the athletes who test positive for alcohol and drugs, are immediately removed from the team or group, but the policy includes ways for the offenders to earn their way back into participation.
Band members can also be tested but since band is a class, students with positive tests won't be ousted from required performances.
....Spencer was not immune to the less-abstract pleasures of the game. His favorite part is "watching the opponent’s face when you beat him."
If anyone thought chess players were less competitive than athletes in more physical sports, they would quickly be told otherwise by the students competing. More than anything, "winning" was mentioned as the best part of the game.
AURORA -- A former West Aurora High School assistant chess coach and registered sex offender was arrested Wednesday on charges of possession of child pornography, police said.
