Yet Another Chess Blog

Never Say Never

2008-07-10T14:35:00.001-07:00

Andrew had not worked for over a year. Andrew started his employment search by completing 2 assessments which evaluated his interests and skills in janitorial work. Upon completing the successful assessments we began job searching. Andrew had been looking for work and his dream job was to do janitorial work. We explored opportunities with large and small companies, janitorial companies and within local churches. He was very interested in working in a church but most of all he wanted to work in the Bellevue, Redmond area because he wanted to help people and give back to the community where he grew up. Washington Vocational Services assisted Andrew by creating a “terriﬁc” resume that “expressed him well”, a cover letter, setting up interviews and searching for jobs over the internet and from other resources.

Andrew is now working for ImagiCorps in Redmond as a janitor. He began working 6 hours a day, 3 days a week. Within the ﬁrst month he was asked to work 5 days a week!

When asked about the job Andrew said it “was a dream come true” it is an ideal location because he can live and work in the same community. Working has affected his life in a couple of ways. Now that he is working he is able to buy presents or ﬂowers for people on special occasions, pay his bills, and he hopes to publish a book about Chess someday. WVS “Hit a home run for me!” says Andrew about the services he received from Washington Vocational Services.

Kasparov Speech Interrupted by Flying Phallus

2008-05-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tube

Chess on the Sidewalk, Part 2

2008-05-07T13:22:00.001-07:00

Draw the board before you play
Chalk Chess

Chess on the Sidewalk, Part 1

2008-05-07T13:09:00.001-07:00

Postcards from North Borneo

The Cheetah Plays Chess

2008-05-04T23:31:00.000-07:00

Felicia, those are her whites in the dryer.

Cheetos

Microscopic Chess Art

2008-05-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

created by Vladimir Aniskin was recently featured in the Times:

A microscopic chess set no bigger than a match head could be the smallest board game in the world.
The board is 3.5 mm by 2.5 mm and the gold and silver pieces are 0.15 mm and 0.3 mm high.

Pawn on a poppy seed

Chessmen on a poppy seed

The USCF is doing it again

2008-05-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

Dan said:

Yeah, it was so successful that USCF is doing it again. See here.

So the story is, USCF created US Chess Live (USCL) as a free service for its members, then then sold out to GamesParlor for the high bid of $0, who started charging its "royal" (game-playing) members membership fees and renamed it Chess Live, and was about to go bankrupt when it was bought out by WCL, who are now offering free six-month memberships just like Chess Live used to in order to attract new members before hiking up membership prices again.

Chess Painting in Progress

2008-05-01T01:26:00.000-07:00

http://nhoinla.livejournal.com/83254.html

Happy Birthday Lisa Lane

2008-04-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

The former U.S. Women's Chess Champion turned 70 this week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Lane

Angry Kid Playing Chess

2008-04-29T16:12:00.001-07:00

http://meignorant.com/angry_kid_playing_chess

Chess Sculpture

2007-08-28T15:04:00.001-07:00

One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure

Liar Liar

2007-07-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

An Old Fashioned Fairy Story by Barbara Villiers

Once upon a time there was an ugly frog who desperately wanted to become a prince.
Alas royalty in Vietnam was not encouraged so our intrepid little hero packed his bag complete with toy sword and got on a boat to America.
This little fat frog was unaware that if he told lies he would never break the wicked spell that held him captive in his fat frog appearance.
The boat chugged on it's merry way and in due course the little frog reached America and freedom.
The fat little frog was very excited by the opportunities in this great land but feared that unless he told a few fairy tales - he would never become a prince or gain a fair queen as his wife.
Little frog decided that creative embellishment was the way to fame and fortune and became a brave slayer of pirates on voyage and a youthful champion of the noble game of chess.
Some people believed the little frog and his stories and his fame grew.
One day the little fat frog met a fat female frog liar who had some ability at chess. "You are the Queen of chess" he proclaimed pompously.
"Together we shall make our fortune" the female frog croaked.
Together the little fat frogs decided to start a special training academy in the great art of deception and lies.
This proved so successful that extra courses were added including
* The art of bullying
* Propaganda in the Goebbel style
* Running the Chess Live server to frog requirements
* Megalomania and it's application
* Grandiosity- special on line coaching by the Master
* Cosmetic Surgery - A short Course from The Queen frog of chess
Together the two frogs found some happiness. But although they married and lived happily ever after the unfortunate pair could never escape the curse that held them captive as frogs due to their unfortunate
habit of being incapable of telling the truth.
Long may the Frog Royalty of chess reign ! unless a heron stops by and dines on our heroic couple.

USCF Membership Numbers

2007-05-07T00:46:00.001-07:00

[Graph of "total members" from tabulation at detroitchess.com 1, 2]

"Cold War"
Wow that's a nice surge there from 1971 to 1973!

Q: What caused that?
A: The phenomenal Bobby Fischer single-handedly defeated the colluding Russians, and won the World championship.

Q: And why did it end?
A: Bobby Fischer did not defend his title. The media lost interest in chess.

"Chess makes you smart!"
Wow, that's a nice surge there from 1990 to 1996!

Q: What caused that?
A: The USCF was well managed by executive director Al Lawrence.

Q: And why did it end?
A: In 1996, Don Schultz was elected USCF President.
The day before Schultz took office, Al Lawrence resigned.
Everyone understood that Schultz intended to remove Lawrence.
Mutiny on the USCF

Lightweight Study

2007-05-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here's an original lightweight study which I hope is amusing.

White to move. Black to Draw.

1.Ng6 Rxg6
1.Ne6 Rf6
1.Na7 Rb6!
1.Nd7 Rc6! :-)
1.Kg7 Rh1 2.Ne6 or 2.Ng6, ...Rf1
1.Kg7 Rh1 2.Nd7 or 2.Nh7, ...Rg1+ followed by Rf1

Insomniac

2007-05-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

1) To dream of playing chess, denotes stagnation of business, dull companions, and poor health.

2) To dream that you lose at chess, worries from mean sources will ensue; but if you win, disagreeable influences may be surmounted.

(What's in a Dream)

Kovalenko Correction

2007-04-20T02:45:00.000-07:00

Dennis Monokroussos has shown that the ChessCafe endgame study #534 (V. Kovalenko, published in Shakhmaty Moskva in 1971) is cooked.

The study is busted, but since the refutation is so simple, I initially suspected that the webmaster forgot to add a piece to the diagram, such as a pawn on a6. Unfortunately, the study is cooked a second way, too!

Here, I offer a correction for Kovalenko's endgame study, which does not require any additional material.

8/4N3/1k3P2/8/8/8/6r1/3K4 ; White to play and win

Below, each exclamation is only move which wins.

1.Ke1!
1...Ra2 2.Nc8!
1...Rc2 2.f7!
1...Rg1 2.Ke2!
1...Rg3 2.Ke2!
1...Rg4 2.Nd5!
1...Rh2 2.f7!

The world's smallest chess program

2007-04-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

/***************************************************************************/
/*                               micro-Max,                                */
/* A chess program smaller than 2KB (of non-blank source), by H.G. Muller  */
/***************************************************************************/
/* version 3.2 (2000 characters) features:                                 */
/* - recursive negamax search                                              */
/* - quiescence search with recaptures                                     */
/* - recapture extensions                                                  */
/* - (internal) iterative deepening                                        */
/* - best-move-first 'sorting'                                             */
/* - a hash table storing score and best move                              */
/* - full FIDE rules (expt minor ptomotion) and move-legality checking     */

Micro-Max, a 133-line Chess Source

Playing chess with Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

When I was 12 years old I played chess with Kurt Vonnegut on a Thanksgiving Day in New York City.

(salon.com)

Rollercoaster Chess

2007-04-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

What are you doing?

Gluing down chess pieces.

Why?

Because there's a picture I've always wanted. I'll need your coat to sneak this onto the ride.

xkcd.com

Kasparov Arrested at Moscow Rally

2007-04-14T22:06:00.000-07:00

Russian opposition activist Garry Kasparov was among about 170 people arrested as police moved against a banned anti-Kremlin rally in Moscow.

The former chess champion was freed several hours later after being fined $40 (£20) for public order offences.

The huge security operation was launched to prevent protesters from gathering at Pushkin Square.

President Vladimir Putin denies he is trampling on democracy, accusing the opposition of destabilising Russia.

Mr Kasparov leads the United Civil Front group, part of the opposition coalition The Other Russia.

(Link to BBC Article)

Rosenberg's Rationalization

2007-04-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

On the Michigan Chess Forum, someone 'associated with Steve' explains how Steve Rosenberg cheated in order to
save the life of a suicidal child.

Because Steve was worried about the youth in his care, he decided to take a chance and sacrifice his good name (if need be) and use this device to increase his rating. Because ratings increase so slowly, and because of the suicide risk of the kid, he decided that winning a major section would be sufficient to show the kid that hard work pays off, and that perhaps he (the kid) would return to his former habits of hard work and generally being a positive force.

I wish I had as much character as Steve does, he took a big chance just to help out a fellow human being.

Drink Like a Grandmaster, Part 3

2007-04-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

Are you sitting? (Yes)
Are you playing? (Yes)
I see you are laughing; have you been drinking? (Yes)
Are you winning? ...

- Jonathan Rowson, in 'The Seven Deadly Chess Sins'

Ugh! It's one of those 3D stereograms.
Usually these are impossible to decipher.
However today, you should have no problem staring crosseyed into the screen.

Can you see it? Yes, That's right! It's a pawn, a bishop, and a knight!

Drink Like a Grandmaster, Part 2

2007-04-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

"Karpov Vodka"

Drink Like a Grandmaster, Part 1

2007-04-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

"Shot Glass / Chess Set / Drinking Game"

Greeting Card

2007-04-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

YOU: "I saw this card, and I know you like chess, so I got it for you."

You captured the queen with just the pawn? Well, big whoop!
One time I got "checkmate" in three moves, Pal!
Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer

ME: "Oh, how thoughtful."

Happy Birthday! Kasparov turns 44.

2007-04-13T01:41:00.000-07:00

Chess Champion-turned-politician, Gary Kasparov survives another year, due in part to his cautious eating habits while flying.

Although he plays down the danger of being poisoned, "I don't consume any substances there (on Aeroflot)."

Hawaiian Chess

2007-04-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

Slow down. Speak softly. Relax. Talk Story. Do nothing at all. Or play a quiet game of chess at Waikiki Beach.

(Excerpt from the book "So You Want to Live in Hawaii")

Eigen Chess

2007-04-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

The Chrome Cow presents a quantum-like chess variant in which a piece can diverge to two possible squares, and later converge onto one square at an opportune time.

(Above: The author illustrates superposition and resolution.)

Chess Enlightenment

2007-03-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

xkcd.com

Atomic Chess ?

2007-01-01T04:09:00.000-08:00

Which piece is that? I'm not familiar with this chess variant.

Umakant Sharma, Chess Cheater

2006-12-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

"In the seventh round, Umakanth was found carrying a bluetooth device, hidden under his woollen cap"

"Pending further enquiry, Umakant's mobile phone and bluetooth headset were confiscated."

"Umakant has been among those under suspicion of using unfair means to gain the desired results. Umakant began the year at a modest 1933 and, after playing just 64 games, reached a whopping 2484 on October 1. During this period, Umakant won a few tournaments ahead of several illustrious players."

News article at hindu.com

Chess Book Reviews

2006-12-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a collection of links for chess book reviews:
Book Reviews by John Watson
Reviews at Jeremy Silman's Site
British Chess Magazine, Chess Book Reviews
Reviews from the Chess Cafe Archives
Book Reviews at Grandmaster Square
Chess Mail Book Reviews
Seagaard Chess Reviews

Butcher's Chess Board

2006-12-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

Feast your eyes on the butcher's chess board, the centerpiece of a delicious exhibit from avant-garde artist Jiacong Yan.

"Two butchers play an unusual game of chess out of a board made with steaks sliced into squares."

Kramnik Misses Mate in One

2006-11-28T01:29:00.000-08:00

How could a grandmaster overlook Qh7 mate?

Compare these two final positions:

(Deep Fritz - GM Kramnik, 2006)

(GM Gurevich - GM Serper, 2000)

FICS Still Up and Running, Despite Web Server Outage

2006-11-21T06:29:00.000-08:00

While the freechess.org website has been down for over a month, the chess server itself is still up and running.

I've been able to satisfy my blitz urges and also participate in entertaining online conversations, for example in channels 39 and 50.

Yesterday there was a scheduled downtime for hardware upgrade ...
and now it's back online, Hooray!

There's still no web page, but point your chess interface to freechess.org port 5000 for the best online chess.

Tarrasch Defense

2006-10-11T00:02:00.000-07:00

"I once asked Fischer if he would give me chess instruction, and he agreed. 'For the first lesson, I want you to play over every column of Modern Chess Openings, including footnotes,' he said, smiling but totally serious; 'And for the next lesson, I want you to do it again.'" - Profile of a Prodigy by Frank Brady (chapter 31).

I gave up on MCO several years ago after seeing atrocious typos such as "Map Large Attack" (instead of 'Max Lange Attack').

Fortunately there are nowadays several alternatives, such as Nunn's Chess Openings, Batsford Chess Openings, and my personal favorite the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings

I have yet to complete Bobby's first lesson. However, out of necessity, I've read all ECO lines and footnotes for the Tarrasch Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined.

Why are there no opening monographs on the Tarrasch Defense?

Well, it turns out there are TWO repertoire books on the Tarrasch Defense, but I had not discovered them because of their sneaky titles.

1) 'Meeting 1 d4' by Jacob Aagaard and Esben Lund

2) 'Complete Defense to Queen Pawn Openings' by Eric Schiller

Schiller's book has alot of coverage for lines lines where White plays e3.
I'd be delighted if my opponents would play e3 against my Tarrasch Defense.
Unfortunately, my weekend swiss opponents are typically booked up and play the main lines with g3 and finachetto.

Aagaard's book has better coverage of the main lines with g3, particularly the lines where Black pushes c4. Schiller says the c4 push is risky and only presents the cxd5 lines.

UPDATE:

Arne from chessvibes.com heartily recommends the book

3) 'Die Tarrasch-Verteidigung' by Harald Keilhack.

Well it's in German and out of print, but I'll certainly keep an eye out for it. Thanks Arne.

"Dear God,

2006-10-06T02:01:00.000-07:00

If you give me genie lamp like Alladin, I will give you anything you want except my money or my chess set." --Raphael

Tournament Director Achieves Criminal Notoriety

2006-09-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

Dr. Severine Wamala of Nashua NH was arrested Tuesday and faces 19 counts of incest and 11 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault.

Wamala heads the math department at Lowell High School in Lowell, MA.

His daughter and two sons are also nationally ranked chess players.

Fortunately, Wamala was not a USCF Executive Board Candidate.

Photogenic GM Boosts Magazine Sales

2006-09-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

The September 2006 issue of Chess Life features six sumptious photos of GM Susan Polgar.

Susan's on the cover.

Susan's on the Table of contents, page 4.

There's a full-page photo of Susan on page 18.

Susan squares off against Elisabeth Pahtz on page 21.

Susan stands beside Gata Kamsky on page 23.

The centerfold was a bit of a disappointment. There, Susan merely watches a game in progress.

Also in the centerfold, there's a photograph of Wile E Coyote.
Which reminds me there is a separate magazine for the kids.

There are still no borders on the chess diagrams.

Roman Review

2006-09-02T03:49:00.000-07:00

"I'm not a chess teacher! I have only worked with professional players." -
Roman Dzindzichashvili

I found that quote in an old book, "How to Get Better at Chess", published in 1991.

Those interviews are even older, most taking place in the late 70's and early 80's.

Fortunately times change, and today the Roman series of 36 instructional videos fills a bookcase.

This was my very first experience in watching an instructional chess video.

For this experiment, I selected Roman's Lab, Volume 7, "Think and Play Like a Grandmaster"

In my living room, I settle comfortably in my chair, and begin to analyze.

This video contrasts greatly with Kotov's similarly-named works, which emphazise the methodical selection of candidate moves, followed by a disciplined examination of those moves.

Rather than exemplifying moves, Roman expounds the simplicity of following strategical plans, based on positional evaluation.

As for the moves, Roman demonstrates there is often more than one move with which to execute a winning plan.

The video is in split-screen format. On the right, Roman sits behind a DGT board, explaining and moving pieces. On the left, a computer diagram is updated as he moves the pieces.

Sometimes the diagram gets out of sync with Roman's board and explanations. Usually this happens after exploring a subvariation, then returning to the main continuation.

At the beginning, Roman reinforces his professional resume, repeating that he has worked with Karpov, Kamsky, and Kortchnoi.

Roman shows 22 games. Almost every game is one-sided. White crushes black.

Half of the games are Karpov wins. The others are by Kortchnoi, Kamsky, Dzindzi himself, and one game from his student Eugene Perelshteyn.

The presentation follows a pattern.

He plays quickly through the opening, usually mentioning that the moves are well-known theory.

Reaching the middlegame he pauses, "Let's look at this position." Then he explains the various features of the position, bad bishops, weak squares, powerfully placed pieces, dangerous open lines, etc.

Next he reveals the winning plan such as, pawn advances opening lines, piece attacks on a weak square, kingside assault with pieces instead of pawns.

Finally he announces there's a winning combination, executes it, then contends that all the moves of the game were very simple.

Here are many of the games covered in the video.

Anatoli Karpov vs Lubomir Kavalek (1974)
Anatoli Karpov vs Henrique Mecking (1971)
Roman Dzindzichashvili vs Walter Shawn Browne (1984)
Roman Dzindzichashvili vs Bozidar Ivanovic (1973)
Viktor Korchnoi vs Artur Yusupov (1990)
Gata Kamsky vs Jon Gardar Vidarsson (1990)
David Bronstein vs Roman Dzindzichashvili (1973)
Anatoli Karpov vs Eldis Cobo Arteaga (1972)
Anatoli Karpov vs Dan Uddenfeldt (1972)
Anatoli Karpov vs A Ofiesh (1990)
Anatoli Karpov vs Lars Bo Hansen (1988)
Anatoli Karpov vs S Cabrera (1977)
Anatoli Karpov vs Judit Polgar (1994)
Anatoli Karpov vs Vlastimil Hort (1978)
Roman Dzindzichashvili vs Lev Alburt (1984)
Anatoli Karpov vs Klaus Wockenfuss (1977)

Using endgame tablebases with scid on debian

2006-08-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

With the debian installation of scid, I tried [Options], [Tablebase Directory], and I always received the error:

Scid: Tablebase results
No tablebases were found.

Why? The endgame tablebases feature is disabled by the package maintainer for legal and/or ethical reasons.

This I discovered from an ancient usenet posting.
Okay, that's fine. I've rebuilt it myself. And I'll post the instructions here.

0) sudo apt-get remove scid
This prevents our freshly rebuilt scid from loading the broken /usr/bin/tkscid.
1) wget http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/scid/scid-3.6.1.tar.gz
Or just use your favorite browser to download.
2) tar -xvzf scid-3.6.1.tar.gz
3) cd scid-3.6.1
4) ./configure
6) make
7) sudo make install

Great, now tablebases are fully functional in scid.

But why didn't I get some kind of warning that the feature was disabled?

Because there's a typo in the scid source file scid-3.6.1/tcl/menus.tcl, line 631:

$m add command -label OptionsTable -command setTableBaseDir
set helpMessage($m,14) OptionsTable
if {![sc_info tb]} { $m entryconfigure 13 -state disabled }

In the previous line, the 13 should be 14. If you look at the debian scid, you'll see [Options], [Load Spellcheck File] is disabled. Instead, the [Tablebase Directory] option should be greyed out.

Please forward this info to whomever has access to the CVS.