Daily Archives: May 24, 2020

Those survivors from the Cretaceous period, like myself, may recallTheEaglecomic founded by The Rev. Marcus Morris. Along with the adventures of Dan Dare, space pilot of the future, and Storm Nelson, Sea Adventurer, not to mention extra special agent, Harris Tweed, young readers were entertained and instructed by morally uplifting lavishlyillustrated historical narratives, such as the life of Jesus Christ, the saintly story of Florence Nightingale at Scutari during the Crimean War, and the exploits of the warrior Emperor Charlemagne. There was even a chess column, and that is where I first discovered The Immortal Game, replete with its coruscating cascade of sacrifices to force checkmate.

This was a game so brilliant that top-hatted runners dashed down the Strand from Simpsons, where the game had been played, to telegraph the moves to the Cafe de la Regence in Paris, the epicentre of chess life in the French capital.

FromTheEagleI retained in particular four outstandingly memorable facts, apart from the Immortal Chess Game. Tony Buzan, the inventor of the memory technique of Mind Mapping,would have categorised them as Von Restorffs, unusual items which stand out in a catalogue to be memorised, for example: butter, honey, milk, bread, Tyrannosaurus Rex, potatoes, rice, peas and beans. No prizes for identifying the Von Restorff in that list

Memorable Fact number one: that Dan Dares chief intergalactic nemesis was The Mekon of Mekonta from The Planet Venus, with his army of green Treens.

The otherthree memorable facts were all, as it happened, connected with the Holy Roman Emperor and champion of Christendom, Carolus Magnus, aka Charlemagne. These established facts were later to be reinforced by my reading of theChansonde Roland, translated from the mediaeval French by Dorothy L. Sayers, author of the Lord Peter Wimsey crime novels.

Memorable Fact number two: Charlemagne was crowned Holy RomanEmperor in a carefully choreographed ceremony by Pope Leo III in St. Peters Basilica, Rome,on Christmas Day 800AD.

Memorable Fact number three: on returning from a major military expedition across the Pyrenees to crush the pagans (or Paynims as Dorothy L. Sayers quaintly put it) Charlemagnes rearguard, under the command of his most trusted paladins Roland and Oliver, was betrayed and annihilated by said Paynims at the battle of the Pass of Roncevalles.

Memorable Fact number four: in order to convert yet more pagans to Christianity, on this occasion during a campaign against the recalcitrant Lombards of Northern Italy, Charlemagne cunningly positioned a contingent of priests to consecrate a stretch of the River Po, then herded the defeated Lombard army downstream through the sacred waters, and promptly declared them Christians in a forced mass baptism.

Later on, in pursuit of my Carolingian interest, I read, or tried to read, the weighty scholarly tomeCharlemagne byJohannes Fried, Professor of Mediaeval Historyat the University of Frankfurt.

From this I discovered that my understanding of the orchestrated arrangement of the Imperial Coronation in Rome was somehow doubtful, with various versions in circulation, all conflicting with each other. Worse was to follow: it transpired that the heroic stand by Charlemagnes knights at Roncevalles was at best apocryphal. Then to cap it all, the mass watery conversion of an entire pagan army on the River Po was pure invention. What I had previously regarded as a supremely devious manoeuvre on the part ofthe Emperor, was not even mentioned by Professor Fried. Far from dramatic mass baptisms of conquered enemy forces, Charlemagnes theological activities seemed to be far more closely confined to the refutation of heresies, not by the sword but by the pen.

I experienced similar disillusion withDasGlasperlenspiel(The Glass Bead Game) by Hermann Hesse. Convinced by the promising title that chess would in some measure be part of the fabric of this epic, I pounced on it with great expectations. True, Hesses novel does indeed give significant mentions to chess and crossword puzzles, not to mention other brain teasing acrostics. However,on closer reading it became obvious thatThe Glass Bead Gamedid not in fact involve glass, there were no beads and it was not even a game. If anything it resembled a sequence of Mind Maps with added musical and mathematical elements.

The moral here is that much cherished Facts and narratives often crumble, when subjected to closer scrutiny. Take a recent example from the world of chess: last week our hyperactive world champion, Norwegian Grandmaster, Magnus Carlsen, in pursuit of the rapidly burgeoning new trend of switching toelite chess competitions online, not only announced a million dollar series of chess events online, but also, at astonishingly short notice, implemented the First Online Wilhelm Steinitz Memorial Tournament.

This was a powerful competition, featuring top Grandmasters, held in honour of the first official World Champion, the Austro-Jewish Maestro WilhelmSteinitz (pictured above). Introduced to readers in my column of 4thOctober 2019, Steinitz was born in Prague (then part of the Habsburg Empire) on May 14, 1836. It is my opinion that in both physical appearance and intellectual prowess, Steinitz may have served as the model for Professor George Challenger, the irascible academic at the core of Sir Arthur Conan DoylesLostWorld.

It is a commonly accepted fact that Steinitz was the firstWeltmeister, as expressed in his native German, translated as World Master, in other words: World Chess Champion. It is further well known that his reign extended from 1886, when he defeated Johannes Zukertort, until 1894, when the ageing Steinitz succumbed to Emanuel Lasker.

It had, though, always bothered me that this neat narrative was incomplete, not to say downright defective. What about the claims of such earlier titans of the game as Philidor, Labourdonnais, Staunton, Anderssen and Morphy? Why, when they all clearly dominated the chess world of their day, were their names erased from the magisterial role of honour? The English champion, Howard Staunton, even went so far as to defeat a leading continental rival, Daniel Harrwitz, by the Bobby Fischer-esque score of 6-0.

Worse was to come. On closer inspection it transpires that even Steinitz himself did not agree with the 1886 date for the commencement of his reign, claiming instead that he had truly become World Champion when he overthrew Adolph Anderssen in their London match of 1866. Such historically based revisionism would mean that Steinitz ruled, as World Champion, not just for eight years (1886-1894) but for twenty eight years, thus narrowly surpassing the currently acknowledged record holder Emanuel Lasker (1894-1921) and establishing ane plus ultrathat will almost certainly never be broken.

Steinitz justified his claim by scoring devastating match victories between 1866 and 1886 against such further luminaries as Blackburne, Zukertort and the ingenious English master Bird.

This weeks games are taken from the Steinitz Memorial, predictably won, with a massive margin, by Magnus Carlsen himself, plus one of Steinitzs own anthology pieces from his world title conquests. The latter victory was declared by experts of the day to be one of the greatest games of chess ever played, on a par, indeed, with the very high bar set by Andersens Immortal.

You can see the game between Magnus Carlsen and Bu Xiangzhi (2020)from the Steinitz Memorial here.

The Wilhelm Steinitz vs Mikhail Chigorin game (1892) can be viewed here.

Link:

Chess, comic books and the first "World Master" - TheArticle

Who will be the next world champion? As we witnessed GM Alireza Firouzja beat GM Magnus Carlsen in a very close match a few weeks ago, were starting to consider who will eventually beat Carlsen for the world champion title.

While Firouzja, 2728 as of this month, is a strong candidate to be reckoned with, there are many other strong contenders. Turning 17 later this year, he has already topped the world juniors rating list and is even ranked 21st on the Top 100 Players list. However, I want to bring special attention to other young players as well.

Reaching 2600 is not an easy feat, and a quick glance at the ratings list tells us just three 2600s are in the under-16 category in the world. However, the question remains, who will become the top player in the world, and not just the juniors list, in five years?

Table 1: The Current Under-16 Rankings for the Top 10.

We can see that while the highest rated under-16-year-old is 2627, the 10thhighest rated is 2481. While 2481 is still a very high and respectable rating, it is not quite 2600. Any of these players is extremely promising, but I want to bring attention to three.

Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan), Nihal Sarin (India), and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (India), who are all above 2600, are names we have seen at top tournaments. By any means, becoming the world champion is not an easy task, and we are not likely to see any of these three players become world champion tomorrow, but if youre looking to place bets with a friend, I would place my bet on any one of these three.

Before I dive into a more detailed analysis of each youngster, I want to also point out that while getting a high rating at a young age (Carlsen) may indicate you can possibly become the world champion in the future, it also does not necessarily mean you will reach the distinguished 2800 (GM Teimour Radjabov). Along similar lines, GM Fabiano Caruana started being considered as a potential top player at just age 19 or 20, when he started to beat a lot of the other top players. He was certainly not 2600 at 14 (he was 2444) and, in fact, only reached 2600 when 16 years old.

One such display of skill was in 2013, when Caruana beat GM Sergey Karjakin, who at that time had already been 2700 for years. Being a child prodigy neither means that you will become a world champion in your 20s, nor does it mean that you won't just because you are not 2600 at 14 years old. Of course, I think it is vital to point out that just because you are not 2600 at age 16 does not mean you should be deterred from playing chess and pursuing your goals in the game.

For the sake of conciseness, in this article I will only be looking at the standard Elo ratings.

I have chosen to look at Praggnanandhaa and Nihals progress together because these two young players spend a lot of time training together. Looking at the progress that Praggnanandhaa, with a rating of 2608 at just 14 currently, tells us a similar trend is experienced by most young players who reach high ratings (2400+): an overall quick rise with the K40 factor, dotted with a few significant rating drops also caused by the K40 factor. The new K40 factor, which was implemented in 2014, simply means that the ratings of all players under the age of 18 with ratings not above 2300 will fluctuate a lot.

Upon reaching 2300 in early 2016, Praggnanandhaa has since had a steady constant rise to 2600. Overall, the line of best fit would make the graph logarithmic, which makes logical sense because young chess players improve rapidly initially, but games become more difficult to win, and opponents become more experienced at higher ratings.

Figure 1: Praggnanandhaas Rating Progress Chart.

Figure 2: Nihals Rating Progress Chart.

Nihals progress chart follows a similar trend, achieving a rating of 2620 in May 2020. Since June 2019, Nihal has gained just 14 rating points in 78 games. While the plateau near the end (after a rather constant but slightly slowing in the rating rise) is in part affected by COVID-19, as tournaments are postponed for the safety of all, not all the plateau can be attributed to the lack of games in recent months. As mentioned, games become more difficult at a higher level, as players become stronger and more comparable to Nihal and Praggnanandhaa.

Sometimes it is difficult to believe such a young kid is already 2600. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Nihal hard at work. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

They also likely have better resources such as coaches and seconds compared to the opponents the young players have faced before, and players need to pay more attention to minute details of the game. While I have no doubt that Nihal and Praggnanandhaa are already seasoned players, most of the opponents in the tournaments theyre playing in will have quite a few more years of experience and knowledge.

Abdusattorov, who is very slightly ahead of Nihal and Praggnanandhaa at 2627, has a rating progress chart that is slightly different. I had played Abdusattorov about a year before his dramatic rating rise, which means I can say I contributed a bit to his 2600 rating! At the time of the game, he was already quite a strong player and quite a few years younger than I was (five to be exact), at only 10 years old.

In context, in 2014 I was 14 and had a rating of 2157, while my nine-year-old opponent had a rating of 2186. Did I predict his meteoric rise to 2600? Quite honestly, not at all, but I am glad to see he has been successful so far in his young career.

Figure 3. Abdusattorovs Rating Progress Chart.

While we can see both Nihal and Praggnanandhaa have had quite significant rating increases in any month, Abdusattorov gained 201.6 points in April 2015 with the help of K40, pushing him above 2400 (and quite significantly as well). Since then, he dipped below 2400 briefly between February and October 2016. However, after a brief spell in the 2300s, his rating since then has been increasing steadily with minor rating losses.

The young Abdusattorov deep in thought. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Because Praggnanandhaa, Nihal and Abdusattorov are already at 2600, the next question to ask is whether they will reach 2700. In my opinion, they will, and its only a matter of time. I know Praggnanandhaa and Nihal (whom I almost met at training camps in Europe) have the talent and resources necessary. Of course, this doesnt leave out Abdusattorovs contention for the world title in a few years, but I am less familiar with his training.

Aside from the clear favorites for the world championship title in a few years, I do believe there are many other strong contenders in future years. Dommaraju Gukesh (India), at almost 14 years old, is the second-youngest person to qualify for grandmaster. At 2563, he is perfectly well on track to become 2600 before his 15thbirthday and aim for 2700. Similarly, Javokhir Sindarov (Uzbekistan), who is currently 15, is a grandmaster at 2557. Another strong Indian talent, GM Raunak Sadhwani is 2545 at 14.

All three players have rating progress charts like either Praggnanandhaa's and Nihals or Abdusattorov's.

Figure 4: Dommaraju Gukeshs Rating Progress Chart.

We can see the plateau near the end that was discussed earlier.

Figure 5: Javokhir Sindarovs Rating Progress Chart.

Sindarovs progress chart is more similar to Abdusattorovs chart. It shows Sindarov has also experienced significant rating increases and decreases.

Figure 6: Raunak Sadhwanis Rating Progress Chart.

Sadhwanis progress chart is very much like Praggnanandhaas chart. Overall we can predict that all three players will experience rating increases.

Next I want to compare these top young players to the world champion and his last challenger.

Figure 7: Magnus Carlsens Rating Progress Chart.

Carlsen turned 15 in November 2005. Since 15 is roughly the average age of Praggnanandhaa, Nihal, and Abdusattorov, a lot of insight can be gathered from comparing their progress charts. At 15, Carlsen had just gone above 2600 in January 2006, and by October 2006 at age 16 was 2698, almost 2700. While, of course, Carlsen is the current world champion and is quite possibly the strongest player in history, in terms of milestones, I would say that the current three youngsters are very much on track to accomplish something similar.

We can see that for both Carlsen and Fabiano, the year or two after reaching 2600 is crucial, as both charts show rating increases. While Carlsens was more explosive, Fabiano steadily climbed to 2700 within two years after reaching 2620 in April 2008, when he was 16.

Figure 8: Caruana Fabianos Rating Progress Chart.

As I mentioned, we don't see Fabiano rise to fame (2800) immediately, but we see a rather gradual increase starting from 2012.

Using the five main players we have discussed so far, Praggnanandhaa, Nihal, and Abdusattorov for the upcoming candidates as world champions and Caruana and Carlsen as the current top two, we can predict what rating patterns we need to see for the three young players.

Figure 9. Rating vs. Age Projection.

In this analysis, I have assumed a logarithmic line of best fit, comparing it with each lines corresponding R2 value. While we predict that Praggnanandhaa, Nihal, and Abdusattorov will reach high ratings, they are not all you need to become the world champion. One can be extremely highly rated but not become a world champion. Also, the analysis is not taking into consideration potential human outliers, such as any player not continuing chess after a certain age, or other possible disturbances to the trend.

Keeping a close eye on Praggnanandhaa, Nihal and Abdusattorov will be important in the upcoming few months as tournaments start up again. Not being able to play chess for a few months is quite challenging for young players who are more used to playing tournaments every month, and I believe we are all excited to see what happens not only with their ratings after lockdowns lift globally, but also what changes in their chess skills we might see.

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Who Will Be The Next Top Chess Player? - Chess.com

Last week, we addressed the motions of castling on the Kingside and Queenside. Castling is a strange move, but not a complicated one. As mentioned last week, you cannot castle when you confront certain situations. This week, I will illustrate those situations through diagrams to give the chess beginner a better understanding of castling.

Castling Diagram 1

In Diagram 1, White is in check with the black Bishop. In this position, White can either block with his pawn, his Bishop, his Knight, or his Queen. He can also move his King to a White square. If he moves the King, he loses the right to castle. So, the most intelligent thing to do in this position is to block. Remember, it would be foolish to block with the Queen because the Queen is worth 10 pawns and the Bishop is worth 3 pawns.

Castling Diagram 2

In Diagram 2, the King has moved to evade the check. The problem with this move is that the King would not be allowed to castle. It was better to block the check.

Castling Diagram 3

In Diagram 3, White is unable to castle. White cannot castle when an opposing piece moves through or ends up on a square that is being attacked by an enemy piece. In this position the King cannot cross the line of the enemy Bishop.

Castling Diagram 4

Diagram 4 demonstrates how White can castle on the Queenside although Blacks Bishop is attacking the Rook. Remember, only the King is prohibited from crossing the line of fire, not the Rook. The way is cleared for the King to castle on the Queenside. However, the black King cannot castle on the Kingside because it would have to cross the f8-square controlled by the White Knight. But Black can castle Queenside if the player so chooses. The Rook can cross the b8-square which completes the castling move.

Read the original here:

An Introduction to Chess: More notes on castling - Stabroek News

Olivia R. May 22, 2020

Hikaru Nakamura is a five-time United States chess champion and world-ranked chess player who has recently become quite popular on Twitch.

Earlier this month, Hikaru shared that he was the top English language stream on May 17. On a platform like Twitch, where the most popular games are action-oriented multiplayer titles such as Fortnite, Valorant, and League of Legends, topping the charts while playing chess is quite the feat.

But what got Hikaru attention from the streaming community wasn't just this impressive accomplishment. It was actually the drama his popularity started within the chess community. Led by outrage from Norwegian chess grandmaster and current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, Chess24 spoke up about how Hikaru hosting their tournament was allegedly bad for chess.

According to Chess24, organizing the tournament was a "large undertaking" for them and they had asked participants to share the official stream or restrict their streaming to after each day of the competition.

"Hikaru did communicate proactively with us, and while he is within his rights, it is undermining us as teh organizer and affects our ability to popularize teh sport in a commercially sustainable way," Chess24 said in a statement.

Hikaru then shared a screenshot to his followers, expressing that he believed that hosting their tournament did the exact opposite for the sport, and was actually helpful.

"If I choose to host a channel on my stream, that broadens the audeince and gives other streamers a chance to have more viewers and become more well known. That's good for chess," Nakamura argued. "That whole notion is insane. I'm not gonna say much more."

The streaming community seemed to take Hikaru's side, stating that people new to chess would be more likely to pick it up or become active viewers by watching a popular streamer's channel. They also critisized Chess24's stream as being "inaccessible" due to the more advanced commentary. Others admitted that they weren't even aware that the competition was happening until they saw Hikaru hosting it on his channel.

This situation also led to a deeper criticism of the chess community at large, with many people feeling that they are "elitists" and "gatekeepers" who don't want inexperienced viewers or players watching the tournaments. This all came to Hikaru's attention when the chess community started expressing frustration over former Overwatch pro and popular streamer Felix "xQc" Lengyel playing chess on Twitch.

Because of xQc's popularity, his chess stream almost immediately took the number one spot in Twitch's chess category. This frustrated some professional chess players, who felt they were being outshined and having views taken away by someone who isn't very good at the game in comparison. Some also took aim at xQc's behavior while streaming, feeling that he was "immature" and "loud."

While it does take a lot of practice, intelligence, and skill to become one of the 1,500 existing chess grandmasters in the world, Hikaru couldn't help but speak out about the salty reaction to xQc's participation in the game. He once again took the stance that the chess world needs to understand that there's nothing wrong with popular streamers sharing chess with their fans, essentially bringing new people into the scene.

"If I look at xQc, the reaction is the classic chess world saying he's so bad at the game so it's a waste of time to watch. He's no good, so he's nobody. That's absolute rubbish obviously," Hikaru said. "Not even going into his streaming, we all know xQc was a grand master at Overwatch. If you put me playing Overwatch for I don't care how long, or Magnus playing Overwatch, we'd be total noobs. That's just a fact. The chess world just needs to get with the times."

Hikaru continued to stand up for xQc and other popular streamers on Twitter, voicing his joy over chess getting "new fans" involved in the game.

Original post:

Chess GMs upset with streamers like xQc playing their game on Twitch - OW - News - WIN.gg

Mastering Pattern recognition in the Opening

Do you know when and how to challenge the enemy pawn center? Do you know when to occupy the center with your pawns? How do you know when your opponent makes a random move on the board if that move is good or bad? Are you able to recognize a critical position in the opening? Do you know if to take with a pawn toward the center or if it's better to take toward the side? The answer to these questions and many others is pattern recognition. But how do you acquire such esoteric chess knowledge? Which patterns should you learn? Robert Ris says: studying patterns in openings will help you to learn chess, and become a better player in the process. Any player who studies this DVD will be able to understand the key factors of a position, thanks to a library of patterns skillfully chosen by IM Ris.

Mastering Pattern Recognition in the Opening

Pattern recognition is an important tool in modern chess, as it helps you to understand better the characteristics of a position. Particularly when you have been confronted with a surprise opening system played by your opponent, it helps when you can just

Ris begins the DVD with the well repeated chess mantra: "everything in chess is pattern recognition". So where is the trick one could ask? Well, the problem is definitely not a magical "talent" but memory and the brain. Passion for the game makes a big difference in the amount of hours one spends studying chess, instead of watching the latest flick on Netflix.

Then of course there is the age of the brain. A young player's brain and today if he is not already a GM at 12, he should consider another career has not the same level of hormones and neurotransmitters that my old nearly 54 years old brain has. Why is this important? Because with the same amount of training hours, let's say a minimum of 10 hours a week, the younger brain will be able to store more information from short term memory into long term memory.

Then of course we must be open-minded. Some people only want to learn one opening. This will limit the chess understanding they will gain. Since different openings teach the difference of importance of the different pieces, their placement, the different tactics which we are exposed to in different openings.

In the above position we see in practice the meaning behind Ris' words. The rook on a7 can be quite bewildering for someone who doesn't know this opening, but as Ris mentions, this is the right way to defend the pawn on b7.

This DVD is a must for every chess player because the themes treated are important for everyone. Ris has created a theoretical section, in which he gives us the important ideas we will use in our games. And he prepared 50 interactive tests, in which we work on our understanding of the material presented in the theoretical section, learning how to tune and synchronize theoretical knowledge, and how to apply it in practice.

The first section is about the center. Today, we can learn some topics in a very easy manner. Previously, we had to find a book, maybe Nimzowitsch, trying to follow the examples that were explained in an outdated language, by someone who definitely lived in a different century. Now we have a teacher speaking to us, and showing example after example, using a screen and the voice, like in a real lecture in college. Obviously this system, since it involves different senses, could help us in fixing the material in our memory, in a better way than a book.

But why is the pawn center important? In Ris' words the problem is that neglecting the pawn center means to let the opponent gain the initiative. However, Ris doesn't stop there. He gives clear guidelines how to play with a good pawn center and how to play against the pawn center. His guidelines go into the realm of strategy, teaching us how to think during the game, and which sets of ideas can be useful. Yes, a chess game is a battle of ideas, and the player who has more ideas will prevail in the end, or like Capablanca said: will be luckier! Ris shows different example of when White is occupying the center, and how Black can challenge it.The first example is quite interesting, because Ris shows one of the games of one of his students. In the following position would you play e4-e5 or Nb1-c3?

Ris in the video gives a lengthy explanation showing some lines to prove why one move is better than the other.

Master Class Vol.9: Paul Morphy

Learn about one of the greatest geniuses in the history of chess! Paul Morphy's career (1837-1884) lasted only a few years and yet he managed to defeat the best chess players of his time.

The second topic, lead in development, is something we can learn also from other sources. The first player who comes to mind is Morphy, and I use his games as example for my students. Ris used material from his own games to explain how to punish someone lacking in development. Kasparov also played some nice games in which he was able to exploit a lead in development to keep the enemy king in the center, but the real beauty of such games is how he managed to transform one advantage into another other, till he won. Here's an example:

Master Class Vol.7: Garry Kasparov

On this DVD a team of experts gets to the bottom of Kasparov's play. In over 8 hours of video running time the authors Rogozenko, Marin, Reeh and Mller cast light on four important aspects of Kasparov's play: opening, strategy, tactics and endgame.

Ris explains some of his own games. I found some positions quite interesting. The following is such an example. What would you play with White? In the second video Ris explains it quite well.

Here's another position I found interesting. In this game Ris missed the move Qa3, which would have kept the enemy king in the center.

Here one is asked to find out why Black cannot play Qxb6. How would White continue?

The DVD has videos dedicated to: king in the center, neglecting kingside development, grabbing a poisoned pawn (the game used as example is beautiful because it shows how piece activity is more important than material advantage!).I also think it's important to have a mental library of games, which one can use to show students what grabbing a poisoned pawn means. One such game is the following, included in one of the best chess books ever written:

Master Class Vol.1: Bobby Fischer

No other World Champion was more infamous both inside and outside the chess world than Bobby Fischer. On this DVD, a team of experts shows you the winning techniques and strategies employed by the 11th World Champion.

Grandmaster Dorian Rogozenco delves into Fischers openings, and retraces the development of his repertoire. What variations did Fischer play, and what sources did he use to arm himself against the best Soviet players? Mihail Marin explains Fischers particular style and his special strategic talent in annotated games against Spassky, Taimanov and other greats. Karsten Mller is not just a leading international endgame expert, but also a true Fischer connoisseur.

Ris' videos continue with the following topics: capture toward or away from the center (Ris shows how the chess mind changed through different epochs, showing lines from different openings and the pro and cons of capturing toward the center or toward the side, and how chess fashion models our choices), castling too early, flank attack, misplaced piece, space advantage. These themes are quite important for beginners, because beginners often don't have the chess understanding which should guide them in taking the right decision. However Ris throughout the DVD uses examples from grandmaster games to prove the point, showing that no one is immune from a slip in judgment.

A moment from the video on misplaced pieces)

In relation to the topic of castling too early, I thought it was nice to share a game which was played a while back, in 1988, as it shows many of the ideas discussed in the video. The point is to be active learners. In this game we see how White castled too early, and Black, a top GM at that time, decided to go for the attack with g7-g5.

The meat of this new Chessbase DVD is the practical training. Ris prepared approximately 50 tests...

(Time to practice!)

...with which one can apply the knowledge acquired in the theoretical part.

The last part is the bonus section, which consists of two databases. One contains the games used in the video section, the other contains 50 games in which Ris gives light comments to highlight the theme of the games. These games are really important, because we can connect the dots between the theoretical videos in which Ris detailed the many mistakes, and the homework the games provide. Watching them a lamp will light up in our heads and we say: "Ah yes, this is what he meant..."

Pro and Con: in video number 3, entitled: "King in the center", Ris shows a line based on this position:

Ris says that Black cannot castle on the kingside because of the bishop sacrifice of h7, the so-called "greek gift". But after 11.Bxh7 he analyzes only 11...Kxh7 and then the king goes to g6. Unfortunately he didn't analyze if Black could play 11...Kh8. Since in my short life as chess player, I've been damaged by analysis made by titled players which I didn't check, this time I checked. I discovered castling kingside might be possible, if followed by 11...Kh8. This analysis would justify castling on the kingside.

I let my engine (Komodo 13 latest version, but the computer I'm using is not strong) run for 20 minutes and it confirmed the correctness of the move played in the game. Komodo at depth 37-40 is castling kingside, but the engine doesn't plan to capture the Bh7 and then go to g6. Not happy I used a better computer with Fat Fritz, and also Fat Fritz would castle kingside. Strangely Fat Fritz and Komodo would play the same moves for Black. Here is the game with Ris' analysis, and the one I added from Komodo, feel free to improve my analysis, since in chess we should all aim to discover the truth, and surely someone has a better computer than mine, or a better chess understanding.

However, Ris' advice is sound, one must be careful of possible tactics when there is a bishop on d3, and there is no defender of d7, like a knight on f6.

There are many positives in all of Ris' lectures. For one I felt how he chooses simpler lines over complicated one.

Mastering Pattern Recognition in the Opening

Pattern recognition is an important tool in modern chess, as it helps you to understand better the characteristics of a position. Particularly when you have been confronted with a surprise opening system played by your opponent, it helps when you can just

Final thoughts: I find this material useful also for teaching. Yes, I don't need to re-invent the wheel every time. Ris is a good teacher, I can get his material and use it in my lessons. No time spent for research, no time spent on preparing the lesson, more free time I can spend studying other parts of the game. Obviously, this is true especially if one has mastered and understood the topics taught by Ris before.

In general the DVD is very useful, because thanks to the exercises proposed by Ris we learn to distinguish good and bad moves, and how they should be punished in the opening. This can also improve our own games. Ris' sober analysis of the elements of the position help players of every level to better understand how to evaluate a position, gaining an understanding one can use for one's own tournament chess games. I believe it's worth having it just for gaining more insight into a titled player's mind, since Ris comments extensively on each topic, and the exercises give us an important practice moment. If one is trying to improve in chess, this DVD is a must.

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Mastering Pattern recognition in the Opening. - Chessbase News

Darnay Holmes is in a meeting room at UCLA, balancing on one foot, a dumbbell in one hand.

Pawn to E4.

Seth Makowsky makes his move.

Holmes has to think fast, and stay standing upright.

Knight to F3

...

At their training session that day, in the middle of a game-week, Makowsky and Holmes, now a Giants cornerback, are playing a round of speed chess, with distractions. The aim: Get Holmes to make smart, quick, efficient decisions. If it works, it should translate onto the football field, too. Holmes said it does.

Hes been meeting with Makowsky, an elite performance coach and Holmes chess instructor, since last year.

Holmes, picked in the fourth round of Aprils NFL Draft, is 5-foot-10, 195 pounds, so hes often dwarfed by opposing wide receivers, and that wont change in the NFL. He might be outmuscled, but he vows he wont be outsmarted.

Hed refer to himself as a player, not a piece, Makowsky said. Thats because he wants to be the player making the moves, not a piece thats acted upon.

Holmes is a unique prospect, if not for his skills, than his mind, and hell bring personality to a Giants defense that has lacked it for most of the last decade. He wasnt a first-round pick, so the expectation isnt for Holmes to be a superstar, though hes in line for a more significant role in the wake of Giants cornerback DeAndre Bakers arrest.

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Either way, this is no typical fourth rounder, and there were no questions about his maturity coming out of college.

That starts with his background.

When Holmes was 10, he walked into a hospital room where Darick Holmes, his father, was bedridden, shot seven times during a drug deal gone wrong. His father survived, and then Holmes thrived.

As a freshman at UCLA, he let his mom sleep in his apartment when she was evicted from her home. Hed often sleep at the teams facility piling pillows and blankets for a makeshift bed so she could have a bed to herself in his apartment.

Holmes graduated from UCLA in 2 1/2 years with a degree in African American studies.

He was drafted by the Giants on April 25, and is projected to earn more than $4 million, per Spotrac, over the life of a four-year contract, whenever he signs it.

Meanwhile, once a week for roughly two hours, Holmes continues to study chess.

He should fit in well to a Giants locker room that welcomes different forms of competition. Saquon Barkley is the driving force behind that. The star running back has an affinity for Connect 4, but has also challenged teammates to play him in chess, too.

Barkley is about to meet his stiffest competition yet in Holmes, who is learning chess as a means to improve the way he thinks on the football field.

We learned how to compartmentalize every move that he made and if he made a mistake, we just moved to the next one, said Makowsky, who also trains quarterbacks Deshaun Watson of the Texans, Dwayne Haskins of the Redskins, and Eagles rookie Jalen Hurts. We learned quickly, but we moved to the next move. What he got from that is the concept of: He may make a mistake, which hell learn from, but hell never let something break his spirit.

That last part, about spirit, is a lesson learned from his father.

So, the question is asked: At 21, was he like Darnay, playing chess in his spare time?

Darick Holmes cackles.

The short answer: No.

At 21, I was wild, he said. I tell him: If I wouldve [done] everything right, I would be you. Thats what I told him. So, youre me, doing everything right.

Holmes was tired of waiting. It was Saturday morning, Day 3 of the draft and he still hadnt been picked. It wasnt good for him, said his brother, Darick Jr. He was emotional. He was about to go outside to work out, shirtless in the Palm Springs, California sun, when his father implored him to bring his iPhone.

Once he grabbed it, it vibrated. It was the Giants. He talked to coach Joe Judge. Then, it was official: He was getting picked 110th overall, the 12th cornerback off the board.

He hugged his father, then went around the room. Darick Holmes sunk into the couch and put his head in his hands. He cried. He thought about his own NFL journey, and getting picked by the Buffalo Bills in 1995. His path was much different, though, and full of strife.

I was trying to hustle, he said. "Our mindsets were ... way different.

At 19, his mother died and he was left to raise his two siblings. While at Portland State, Holmes girlfriend was pregnant with his daughter, Darica. He needed money so he hustled, he said.

I was really focused on trying to get drafted, he said, but I was still wild to the point that I couldve got back in trouble at any time and had that taken away."

Darick Jr., was born in 1996. Darnay came two years later.

Once his NFL funds ran out, Darick Holmes would feed the family with fast food, going to different spots Monday: Popeyes, Tuesday: Chinese food, Wednesday: Wings each day depending on the deal.

Then, when Holmes turned 10, his father was arrested for running a tax-return scam, according to court documents, showing people how to fake documents to steal money from the IRS.

While that case was pending, Darick Holmes was shot seven times during a robbery. His friends had given him $80,000 in cash, according to court documents, to deliver in exchange for marijuana. He was duct-taped and his shoes and pants were taken. He was shot when he attempted to flee.

In the hospital, handcuffed to the bed, he assured his sons that he was going to be fine. It took him more than a year to start walking again.

Man, that moment in the hospital, Darick Jr., said, was life-changing for all of us.

Darick Holmes turned his life around and was spared jail time for the tax scam, he said, because of his work with underprivileged youth, which he continues through a successful football training business called Proway Training. It has helped dozens of youth achieve college football careers, including Darnay and Darick Jr., who played at University of Arizona.

Hell be bringing Proway to New York with his son.

Just seeing my dad, from that moment (in the hospital) on, he was always positive and on the right path, Darick Jr. said. "He never looked back on it, he never dwelled on it. ... He was making sure we did everything we had to do and he was there right with us. Im glad we were blessed with our dad.

He preaches to surround yourself with high-character guys," he continued. "If you surround yourself with bad people he always used himself as an example for us. He showed us the negative and the positive. Hed say: Look, this is what I did, and look what happened. Weve seen it firsthand. He went on the right path. So why wouldnt we trust him?

Holmes said his fathers turnaround had made a major impact on him.

He was a person who instilled that hustler drive," Holmes said. "That drive to compete each and every day, knowing that there is somebody out there working to take your spot or working to be better than you.

He always made sure (to say) that you cant take any shortcuts. If you take shortcuts, when the time comes and you reach that destination, there are lessons that you did not learn. The downfall is always going to be harder than the come-up.

Chip Kellys authoritarian coaching style and outside-of-the box teaching methods havent always been appreciated by players. He didnt last long in the NFL with the Eagles or 49ers, and his short time at UCLA hasnt been smooth, either.

Still, dont expect Holmes to rail against his old coach, even if they never had a winning season together. After the draft, Holmes called Kelly a great father figure of mine. Kelly and Holmes were on the same frequency.

I think one of the things you learn from Chip Kelly when you work for him: There are a number of ways to skin a cat, said Paul Rhoads, the former UCLA defensive backs coach. Darnay really embraced that."

Kelly often brought guest speakers to educate his players in a unique way. Makowsky was one of those. Kelly brought him in specifically to teach chess to UCLAs quarterbacks and he was granted full access to their position meetings and practices. He was also on the sideline at some games.

Holmes wanted to learn, too. He asked Makowsky to teach him. They met for the first time at a hotel restaurant in Los Angeles.

Hes so tenacious. How do you not help the kid that wants it that badly?" Makowsky said. "How someone plays chess really reveals their personality. When we play, hes so locked in. He doesnt get distracted. Its just like when he plays football, so its special to see.

Soon, the rest of the UCLA team wanted in, too. By the end of the season, quarterback Austin Burton said, more than 30 players would spend their free time in meeting rooms, playing intense games of chess, a couple times per week. That was because of Holmes, he said.

It was chaos, Burton said.

Holmes mightve been the best chess player of the bunch, too.

I like to play fast," Burton said. "Darnay is extremely smart and tactical. He really thinks through every move.

It was in Mobile, Ala., at the Senior Bowl, where the Giants decided they wanted to draft Darnay Holmes.

He nearly wasnt even invited to the all-star event, according to executive director Jim Nagy, because of a rough 2019 season, which even Holmes admits was his worst year.

Holmes injured his ankle early in the season and came back too early. The result: His draft stock dropped.

Before the draft, experts questioned Holmes ability to play corner on the outside due to his size and lack of length, but most lauded his toughness and intellect. Some were focused on his 2019 tape, but the Giants liked his tape from the year before including a game where he played well against Oklahoma wide receiver Marquise Brown, a first-round pick last year which is what earned him the Senior Bowl invite.

Now, though, his ankle is fully healed. Holmes, he said, doesnt regret coming back too soon. He did it for a reason.

He did it for the team and cost himself some money, his father said. But he felt the right thing for him to do was to be out there with his brothers on the field.

That Senior Bowl invite was crucial. In a private meeting, he impressed the Giants with his high energy and football acumen, a person familiar with the session told NJ Advance Media. They liked his devotion to training through chess, too.

Since the draft, Holmes and Makowsky have been holding weekly chess sessions via Zoom, and that will continue through his rookie season.

In the NFL, everyone is super gifted, Makowsky said. I think the mental side, the ability to process rapidly, is more important. So thats really what were grinding on. Hes dedicated to training his mind with the same vigor that he trains his body.

Soon, Holmes will move across the country to North Jersey, with his girlfriend. The plan is to rent out former Giants linebacker Antonio Pierces condo. At some point, Holmes will venture into the city. Perhaps hell play chess in Central Park. Maybe, his father said, hell join him.

Eventually.

For him to take up chess, that showed me that hes matured, his father said. "One of my sayings is: We move with strategy, not emotions. So when he told me (about chess), I said: Ok, so were moving with strategy now, not emotions, huh? It was a blessing ...

It slowed the game up for him, and he thinks things out a lot more in life. Hes doing everything the right way.

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Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Zack Rosenblatt may be reached at zrosenblatt@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.

See the original post here:

This Giants rookie is mastering chess and he could be just the piece the team needs right now - NJ.com

The TD Show

This weeks The TD Show topic will be Tim Justs Top 10 TD Tips and will air at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific on Thursday, May 21 on the US Chess Twitch channel at twitch.tv/uschess.

The show will be hosted by NTD Chris Bird and this weeks guest of course will be US Chess Rulebook Editor and NTD Tim Just. Tim will be providing a list of his top 10 general tips for Tournament Directors to hopefully make you a better TD and make the experience of participating in one of your events much better for everyone.

For folks tuning in live, Twitch will provide some interaction between the show and the audience, allowing you to ask questions in real-time and well also finish each episode with some light-hearted fun in the form of trivia based on the topic discussed. However, if you cannot tune in live, each episode will be archived in the TD Videos playlist at the US Chess YouTube Channel.

Replay last weeks episode here:

The rest is here:

The TD Show Episode 4 - Tim Just's Top 10 TD Tips - uschess.org

5/24/2020 Back in the 1980s some program authors tried to avoid the problems of the horizon effect by following suspicious lines a few half moves deeper. It became ever more difficult to use the horizon trap on them. The authors were not always forthcoming about their progress, so Frederic Friedel devised a number of test positions to find out more and to find how individual programs worked.

In my previous article I told you about the horizon effect, how in early days chess programs would often try to avert impending doom by pushing the threats over their calculation horizon. It used to be fun tricking chess computers by tempting them to giving up material in order to delay the inevitable. Here are some examples:

The first position is not really serious. I have tried to simulate the experiments of the 1980s by giving the diagram engine just a tenth of a second thinking time per move but even then it plays 1...Kf2, ...Ke3, ...e4 and wins. In 1983 a number of programs tried to prevent the white a-pawn from promoting by sacrificing pawns! 1.a4 f5? (1... Kf2! 2.a5 Ke3 3.a6 e4 and Black wins easily) 2.Bxf5 g6? 3.Bxg6 e4? 4.Bxe4 d3? 5.Bxd3 c2? 6. Bxc2 b1=Q+ 7.Bxb1 and now it is White that need eleven moves to mate. Quite hilarous.

The second position is one of my favourite studies by Leonid Kubbel. If you have not seen it before I urge you to stop reading now and take a shot at solving it yourself. It looks like Black will promote his a-pawn without any difficulty the bishop cannot stop it, since the al-h8 diagonal is blocked by the black d-pawn. The position in fact looks lost for White. But there is a clear win. Let us see: 1.Bf6 a2 2.c3 a1Q (of course not 2...dxc3 3.Bxc3+) and Black wins.

How about 1.Bf6 a2 2.c4+. That doesn't work either: 2...Kxc4 3.d3+ Kxd3 and the a-pawn promotes without problems. What if we play 1.c4+ right away? After 1...Kxc4 2.d3+ Kxd3? 3.Nc6 threatens a fork and allowing 4.Bf6 with a draw) Black will promote and win. But Black can play 2...Kd5! with smooth promotion.

Then how about knight moves? 1.Nd7 a2 2.Nb6+ Kc6/e6 wins quickly. 1.Nc6 looks interesting because of the fork threatened on b4, but what happens after 1...Kxc6 2.Bf6 Kd5? So things look bleak do you still believe White can win?

In 1983 I gave the Kubel study to one of the best table-top computers. It started with 1.Kb5 and soon switched to 1.c4. After an hour it began considering 1.Bf6. Half an hour later it became restless and kept switching between 1.Le7, 1.Kb5 and 1.Se7. Obviously it had realized the full seriousness of the situation. But then it suddenly switched to 1.Sc6. That was interesting it was considering sacrificing a knight. Had the computer actually found the very clever solution to the Kubbel study? 1.Nc6! Kxc6 2.Bf6 Kd5 3.d3!! a2 4.c4, Kc5 (the a-pawn will queen, but:) 5.Kb7! alQ and 6.Le7#!

I was deeply impressed: did the machine really see the mate threat at eleven ply? Computers at the time could not look that deep. However, one of my readers, Dr. Timm Deeg, proved, by moving the wK and wN around, that the computer hadnt an inkling why 1.Nc6 worked. It was the horizon effect! The computer was simply pushing the promotion (bad for White) beyond its search horizon. Letting it work on the Kubble study for a full night made the computer switch back to 1.Kb5 (losing).

So this time, coincidentally, the horizon effect helped the program, which played the right moves (after an hour and a half) for the wrong reasons. Today, any program will find 1.Nc6 in a second or two, then go down 30-40 ply and announce mate in 16-40 moves. My how times have changed!

So we have poked fun enough on ancient computers and programs. Let's turn our attention to later generations. In the new century (millennium!) we saw puzzles which could be used to fool certain programs, while others could find the solution with a little help.

Study number three, by Matous, is something you can experiment with. Until recently many programs were in general content with 1.Qd6+ Kg8 2.gxh7+ Kh8 3.Bxa5, which hardly yields more than a draw. There is, however, a very clear and forced win with a dramatic second move that is thrilling to see. Can you and your Fritz, Stockfish, or whatever, work it out?

"Send us an insoluble study," we told our readers, back in 2009. We wanted to know if there are positions which our silicon friends cannot solve. The puzzles must be elegant and the solutions readily comprehensible to humans. But they should cause a major headache (CPU-ache?) to computers.

The Hasek study was sent to us by Manuel Rodriguez from the Dominican Republic. "Some time ago I left Deep Rybka 3.0, dual core 2.0 GHZ with 3 GB RAM to analyse it for 36 consecutive hours," he wrote. "Rybka didn't find anything. I haven't tried the Monte Carlo function yet maybe that will produce the correct first move?!"

That was over ten years ago. Can our readers solve this puzzle with modern-day computers (100 times faster) and chess engines (brute force or AI)? It is still a genuine challenge for our electronic friends but for humans as well. The best way for the latter to handle this kind of position is to play the position out against a computer and find a way to hold a draw. It will tear you to pieces if you do not play precisely, play the correct and only strategy to hold a draw. The computer may not realise that it can never win the position, but you as a human will.

I look forward to comparing results. I will post them here in the coming week.

Originally posted here:

Darkness on the Horizon (2) - Chessbase News

THIS years winners of the Marie Curie Bridge Tournament hail from the Isle of Wight a first.

Alexis Dogilewski and Anne Grevatt, of Bembridge, beat off strong competition from more than 2,000 players nationwide to win the tournament.

Island bridge winner, Alexis Dogilewski.

The tournament is played annually throughout the winter months, starting in September and finishing in March.

The aim of the event which has run for more than 25 years is to raise funds for Marie Curie and has amassed more than 1million for the cancer charity.

Anne Grevatt, who won the annual Marie Curie Bridge Tournament.

The tournament, which offers rubber bridge and Chicago, sees players divided into groups of six couples, with each pair up against the other pairs in a round-robin group format, with all games played at home.

With such a healthy number of players on the Island, organisers encourage more to take part in the next one.

For more details and entry forms, telephone Diana Thompson on 01371-872246 or email dianathompson113@btinternet.com

Chess player, John Wrench, playing an online league match in lockdown.

The IW Chess Club has switched to an online format of the West Midlands Area League since the C-19 outbreak.

The Island team beat Worcester 2 by 3-1 to move to the top of Division 2.

A chess match online in progress for the Isle of Wight Chess Club.

See the rest here:

Isle of Wight bridge and chess success - Isle of Wight County Press

Weve installed ChessBase 15 (in part one), and weve activated and updated it (in part two). You may not believe me, but thats the tricky part over with. Now youre ready to use ChessBase 15.

Off you go then, lets meet back here when youre a Grandmaster

No seriously, what next? Well that is a very good question, and genuinely the only daunting part of using ChessBase 15. When you have a piece of software so sophisticatedthat top Grandmasters use it every day, where do beginners and improving players start?

This week well look at the layout of ChessBase 15, and how you navigate to the features you want.

First look

When you first load up Chessbase after installation and activation, you should get a prompt asking you to login to your ChessBase account

While its not necessary (you can click on no thanks), it is useful to log in with your ChessBase account. This allows you to access playchess.com, the database update service, the database cloud, the engine cloud and even Fritz-Online. If you dont yet have a ChessBase account, you can click create new account.

[Depending on how you bought your copy of ChessBase 15, it will include at least three months Premium membership for your ChessBase account. A ChessBase Premium Account means access to the entire ChessBase ecosystem]

Main screen

Your main ChessBase screen should look something like this (your databases will be different of course!)

If youre familiar with recent versions of Chessbase, you should be able to navigate pretty easily. The design is the familiar ribbon design that has been standard with ChessBase programs for over a decade now. And standard in programs like Microsoft Office since 2007.

The ribbon groups related functions, and uses icons and descriptive text to make locating those functions and features a whole lot more intuitive than the old cascading menu system used in the early days!

If you hold your mouse cursor over any of these function icons, youll get a text popup (called a tooltip) that will give you more detail about that feature.

Along the ribbon, each bunch of features are arranged into tabs: Home; Report; Maintenance; Cloud; View; and Help. Clicking on any of these tabs will open up new sections of the ribbon, with related functions and features.

To the left of the tabs is the File menu.

This menu is used to change the program options and start important program functions (like the program activation and updates that we looked at previously).

The folder window on the left shows a selection of folders and locations on your computers which are important for the management of your databases and chess information.

Most of the time, youll probably want to select My databases, as this is the main screen that shows all of the chess databases on your computer together in one place. [It is important to note that your databases are not actually stored in My Databases, but they do appear here as shortcuts it is essentially your database homepage]

You can click on the plus symbol (to the left of the folders) to reveal the contents of that drive or folder.

If you click on the drive or folder itself, the databases it contains are shown in the window on the right.

The window on the right is called the database window. Here youll see all the different chess databases that ChessBase 15 is aware of on your computer.

You can change how these databases appear by using any of the buttons at the bottom of that window (Details; Tile; Small Icons etc)

When you click on any of those databases, you will get a sneak peak of the contents of that database in the Database Preview Window.

And clicking on any of the games in that list will bring it up in the board preview window.

Finally, bottom left, youll have buttons that will allow you to access the online features of playchess.com and the online game update service.

You can activate or deactivate any of these individual elements by checking or unchecking the boxes in the View! tab

You can also reposition or resize any of these windows by moving your mouse cursor onto a horizontal or vertical separation bar. It will turn into a resize cursor.

You can now press and hold down the left mouse button to resize the window. ChessBase will adjust the other elements correspondingly.

You can alter the layout by clicking on the title bar of a window, and move it by moving the mouse while holding down the mouse button.

There are several arrow buttons in the window which are displayed every time you move the window and want to dock it (lock it into place). You can use these buttons to position a window exactly.

To dock a window, move the mouse over the coloured area of an arrow button while holding down the mouse button. This gives you a preview of the new window position.

The preview shows the exact position the window will be placed in blue. When you release the mouse button the window will be docked there.A window can also be dropped anywhere on the screen without docking it.

Conclusion

The more you work with ChessBase 15, the easier and more uncomplicated you will find it. It can appear daunting at first, but in reality, the functions and features of ChessBase 15 are simple and easy to access and use. It will soon become second nature. And though we cant guarantee that ChessBase will ACTUALLY make you a grandmaster, theres a reason its the go to chess program for beginners and Grandmasters alike!

Until next time, stay safe, and have fun.

Read more here:

Getting the most out of ChessBase 15: a step-by-step guide #3 Layout - Chessbase News