Monthly Archives: June 2020

This weeks puzzle is the opening round of a national contest where Guardian readers traditionally perform strongly. You have to work out how White, playing, as usual, up the board in the diagram, can force checkmate in two moves, however Black defends.

The puzzle is the first stage of the annual Winton British Solving Championship, organised by the British Chess Problem Society. This competition is open only to British residents and entry is free. The prize fund is expected to be at least 1200, plus awards to juniors.

If you would like to take part, simply send Whites first move to Nigel Dennis, Boundary House, 230 Greys Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon, RG9 1QY. Or by email to winton@theproblemist.org.

Include your name, home address and postcode and mark your entry Guardian. If you were under 18 on 31 August 2019, please include your date of birth.

The closing date is 31 July. After that, all solvers will receive the answer and those who get it right will also be sent a postal round of eight problems, with plenty of time for solving.

The best 20-25 entries from the postal round, plus the best juniors, will be invited to the championship final in February (subject to Covid-19 restrictions). The winner there will qualify for the Great Britain team in the 2021 world solving championship, an event where GB is often a medal contender.

The starter problem, with most of the pieces in the lower half of the board, is tricky and with an unusual twist. Obvious checks and captures rarely work. It is easy to make an error, so review your answer before sending it. Good luck to all Guardian entrants.

Magnus Carlsen survived some anxious moments this week in his quarter-final match in the online Clutch International before the world champion overcame Americas top junior Jeffery Xiong. The 19-year-old Texan had a purple period in the middle of the 12-game series when he had a run of five games with two wins and three draws.

Carlsen was dominant at the start and the finish and his best two victories were imaginative attacks where the rare knight move Nh7! featured.

The event, financed by the St Louis billionaire Rex Sinquefield who has made his home city a global chess centre, has the highest prize fund yet, $265,000 (approx 207,000), for an internet tournament.

Carlsen controlled the first session of his semi-final on Thursday evening as he led Armenias Levon Aronian 6-2 without losing a game. Wesley So also led 6-2 in the all-American semi-final against the world No 2, Fabiano Caruana.

A Carlsen v So final would be far from a done deal for the world champion, as So is currently in excellent form. The semi-final is also not over yet due to the Clutch scoring system where the final two games (of six) count double on the first day and triple on the second. In his interview after the Thursday session, Aronian declared his intention to go into berserk mode for the last six games, taking extra risks to get back into the match.

Both semi-finals can be viewed live online for free with grandmaster commentary, starting at 7pm on Friday.

Continue reading here:

Chess: national solving championship opens for entries from Britain this week - The Guardian

MADISON Due to threat of the COVID-19 virus, players in Madison City Chess League or MCCL are continuing to switch their chess activity to online platforms. On Saturdays this summer, players of varying ages can engage in online tournaments.

While a number of our students played online chess before, supplementing what we did in face-to-face meetings, online chess has proven to be a great way to give our kids access to continue an extra-curricular activity they enjoyed before school closure, MCCL Executive Director Ranae Bartlett said.

The MCCL Saturday Online Chess Tournament for kindergartners through third-graders will start at 9 a.m. Players use ChessKid.com to compete in these games.

MCCL members on ChessKid are eligible to play. Contact Bartlett to add players to the tournament roster.

The tournament will involve Game 15 with four rounds. After the tournament is completed, medals will be awarded online.

Players must use a computer browser to access Live Chess. Do not use a mobile device of any kind.

To join a tournament, visit Play vs. Kid and click the tournament that you want to join. The available tournaments are displayed on the right of the window. Players can join a ChessKid tournament 15 minutes before start time. Join early so you dont miss the first round, Bartlett said.

Tournaments have various time controls and numbers of rounds. Before you join, be sure you can commit to playing for the duration. When your round is over, you can watch other games still in progress. The next round will be paired when everyone has finished playing the current round, so stay online, Bartlett said.

In addition, players in kindergarten through sixth grade can enter another tournament at 11:30 a.m. on Saturdays. The format and guidelines for this session will match the 9 a.m. session.

In other activity on Mondays, MCCL is offering two different online chess tournaments. At 6:15 p.m., the ChessKid K6 Fun Tournament will open for younger players (who formerly attended Monday night chess sessions at Madison Public Library. At 7 p.m., the ChessKid Monday Night Blitz tends to attract more middle and high school students

For more information, visit madisonchess.com, click the Events dropdown menu and then click Upcoming Events.

Here is the original post:

Saturday online tourneys sharpen chess skills - The Madison Record - themadisonrecord.com

Russian Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin played a game ofchess against cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner on Tuesday 9th Juneto celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1st ever Space-Earth game. Thecosmonauts were 400 km above the Earth on the International Space Station, which recently welcomed NASAastronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley and their SpaceX spacecraft, whileSergey played from the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics, exactly 50 years afterthe first game was played in 1970.

The game was organised by the Moscow Museum ofCosmonautics, the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the Russian ChessFederation and broadcast live from 11:00 CEST, in English.

And in Russian:

The game ended in a fast and sharp draw, where almost all of the moves were perfectly played:

1. e4 e5 2. f3 c6 3. b5 a6 4. xc6 dxc6 5. O-O e6 6. b3 c5 7. xe5 d4 8. c4 xc4 9. bxc4 xa1 10. c3 b5 11. h5 f6 12. f3 b4 13. e5 O-O-O 14. a3 xf1+ 15. xf1 bxc3 16. exf6 cxd2 17. a8+ d7 18. d5+ c8 19. a8+ d7 20. d5+ e8 21. e4+ d7

1/2-1/2

2016 World Championship Challenger Sergey Karjakin needs nointroduction on a chess website. Cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagnerhave been on the International Space Station since April 9th, when they arrivedtogether with NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy.

They were recently joined by astronauts Douglas Hurley andRobert Behnken, whose SpaceX vehicle was the first to be launched from US soilsince the last flight of the Space Shuttle in 2011 and the first ever crewed commercial orbiting spacecraft. NASA estimated 10 million people watched the launch, with their arrival on the ISS also streamed across the world:

There are few details about the game to be played againstSergey Karjakin, except that Space plays White, but its value is symbolic, marking 50 years since thefirst such game.

Cosmonauts Andrian Nikolayev (1929-2004) and VitalySevastyanov (1935-2010) were the first humans to spend two weeks in space (NeilArmstrongs Apollo 11 flight to the moon and back a year earlier took just over8 days), with their Soyuz 9 flight ultimately lasting almost 18 days, orexactly 424 hours of weightlessness, as recorded on commemorative stamps.

The mission was in preparation for the Soviet Unions earlyspace station, with Vitaly Sevastyanov in 1986 telling the Russianchess journal 64:

When Nikolaev and I were preparing for our flight they toldus: Youre going to be flying for a long time. You need to think of how to meaningfullyspend your rest time during the hard work of the flight. What do you want totake onto the spaceship? Andrian and I were great chess enthusiasts and answered together: Chess! Unexpectedly the psychologists were wary. There are two ofyou on the flight. Itll turn out that one of you always beats the other and therecan be unnecessary negative emotions for the loser. Thats no good. Come on,we objected with one voice. On earth we play at the same level. Why should one of us always win in Space?

The psychologists gave in and chess went into space, thoughit was a special chess set designed for zero gravity by a young engineer calledMikhail Klevtsov. Magnets werent allowed (and still arent today on the ISS)due to their potential to interfere with instruments, and the pieces wereinstead kept in place but movable by a series of grooves, so they didntaccidentally fly into the mouth of a sleeping cosmonaut (Sevastyanov).

The players on the ground were General Nikolai Kamanin(1908-1982), the head of the cosmonaut training program, and cosmonaut ViktorGorbatko (1934-2017), with another cosmonaut, Valery Bykovsky (1934-2019) hostingthe broadcast:

The game lasted 6 hours, or 4 orbits of the Earth, with theplayers only able to transmit their moves while the spaceship was above theSoviet Union. You can catch some glimpses of the game in this video focussed onVitaly Sevastyanov:

The game ended in a draw, which you can replay below:

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 e5 4. xc4 exd4 5. exd4 c6 6. e3 d6 7. c3 f6 8. f3 O-O 9. O-O g4 10. h3 f5 11. h4 d7 12. f3 e7 13. g4 g6 14. ae1 h8 15. g5 eg8 16. g2 ae8 17. e3 b4 18. a3 xc3 19. bxc3 e4 20. g3 c6 21. f3 d5 22. d3 b5 23. h4 g6 24. f4 c4 25. xc4 bxc4 26. d2 xe1 27. xe1 d5 28. g5 d6 29. xd5 cxd5 30. f4 d8 31. e5+ f6 32. gxf6 xf6 33. xf6+ xf6 34. e8+ xe8 35. xf6+ g81/2-1/2

Space missed the best chance to conquer the Earth on move23:

23.g5! wins a piece, since the only move for the knight is23Nh5, but then 24.Qg4! forces 24Qxg4 25.hxg4 and after the again forced 25Ng326.Rf2 there are various ways for White to pick up the trapped knight.

One of the most interesting things about the game is that itwas commentated on widely by the best Soviet chess players. David Bronsteinwrote in the Izvestia newspaper:

That game will undoubtedly go down in the annals of the 1000year long history of chess as the game that spread the sphere of influence ofthis wise game beyond our planet. Everyone can understand the emotion withwhich I look over the moves sent from space. The first Space Earth game isvery interesting to play over on a board. From the moves its easy to see thatboth sides love sharp, puzzling situations and show no lack of courage andinvention in creating them. And the fact that neither side managed to win bearswitness to the skill of the players not only in attack but also in defence.

Later that year on the 24th November 1970 the cosmonautsvisited Moscows Central Chess Club for an evening featuring World ChampionBoris Spassky, former World Champions Mikhail Botvinnik and Tigran Petrosian aswell as other top players.

It was right in the middle of the Palma deMallorca Interzonal that would mark a sea change in chess, with Bobby Fischer going on to win by a huge 3.5 point margin. Of the six players who qualified for WorldChampionship Candidates Matches only Efim Geller and Mark Taimanov representedthe USSR, with Fischer, Bent Larsen, Robert Huebner and Wolfgang Uhlmann taking the remaining places. Alexander Kotov, best known now for his Think Like a Grandmaster book,referred to that as he tried to look 40 years ahead, i.e. to 2010, that evening:

Im sure that then well have not an Interzonal but an InterplanetaryTournament. And the grey-haired, now ex-World Champion, Boris Spassky, will comeout with a big article where as a journalist hell criticise the organisers thatfor some reason they allocated two places to weak players from Jupiter,reducing by two the representation of the lunar base And chess fans, gatheringin an even more luxurious club to assess the outcome of the Interplanetary Tournamentwill of course recall the first game played in space that opened a new era forthe ancient game.

Back then it was hard to imagine that the last men to travelto the Moon would have done so just two years later in 1972, with no Sovietcosmonaut ever standing on the Moon.

3-time World Chess Champion MikhailBotvinnik also referred to the Interzonal Tournament while talking about thehead of the cosmonaut training program:

36 years ago I saw Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin for the firsttime, if Im not mistaken, in the Grand Peterhof Palace not far from Leningrad,when the ChelyuskinHeroes were being honoured there. Back then we were both very young andboth could have become cosmonauts. Now, of course, Im no longer fit for that.

I look on General Kamanin with great envy. Although werethe same age hes taken great care of himself and is in charge of ourcosmonauts. Besides that, Ive already stopped playing chess myself, whileKamanin, as we just got to see, still continues to perform well in events.

From the stories of Andrian Nikolaev and Vitaly Sevastyanovit became clear to us what difficulties a man faces in space. The first isphysical weightlessness, which can be compared to what the participants in theInterzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca feel, when theres only a rest dayonce in every 9 days. The second difficulty is, if we can put it like this,intellectual weightlessness.

When a man finds himself on the Earth in everyday life hesconstantly confronted by the solution of complex problems or, to put it anotherway, inexact problems. Its not so simple to cross a street, to decide how tospend an evening to go to the cinema, theatre or find a more frivolousactivity. But on a spaceship a man has none of that and he can forget how tosolve complex, inexact problems. And here chess comes to the rescue becausechess is a typical complex, inexact problem. After all, its long been knownthat people playing chess drift and find the correct decisions withdifficulty.

I by no means want to suggest that cosmonauts should bepicked from among chess players. On the contrary, I think that if ourgrandmasters will play the way theyve played at the start of the InterzonalTournament in Palma de Mallorca (not counting, of course, Geller), then wellneed to find chess reserves from among the cosmonauts

Of course since 1970 chess has been played in space, with someastronauts having had plenty of time as they spent hundreds of days on Mir and now the International SpaceStation. The US Chess Federation in particular organised anEarthvs. Space matchgiving the chance for kids to take on astronauts. Chess always makes for good photo opportunities!

Tuesday's game will be a memorablecelebration of some of the early pioneers of space flight.

Link:

Karjakin vs. Cosmonauts | Earth vs. Space 50th anniversary chess game - chess24

The first-ever Chess.com PogChamps kicked off Friday, with fans across the world tuning in to watch their favorite Twitch streamers clash on the chessboard. Opening day action saw Group A kick off in earnest, with Fuslie and Voyboy both notching wins. Hutch's win to round out the action teased Group B's much-anticipated matchup between Yassuo and xQc, set to start Saturdayat 2 p.m. Pacific Time (23:00 CEST) on Chess.com/tvandTwitch.tv/Chess.The day's broadcast will begin at 11:45 a.m. PDT (20:45 p.m. CEST).

Even with only three games scheduled for the event's opening day, Chess.com's official broadcast peaked at 52,000 concurrent viewers, making it the most-watched English stream on all of Twitch.

Make sure to tune into Chess.com's official Day 2 coverage of the 2020 Chess.com PogChamps at 12 p.m. Pacific Time on Chess.com/tv.

With Voyboy a clear top-seed and only two players advancing to the championship bracket from Group A, the match between fuslie and erobb was seen as a key pairing to determine the outcome of the group. Fuslie launched a kingside attack from the London System early, and it only took one blunder from Tyler1's brother to decide the game:

Fuslie attributed much of her success to her lessons with GM Hikaru Nakamura, where her opening preparation had paid off with the full three points.

Widely regarded as the tournament favorite, Voyboy showed his conversion technique against Fortnite star NateHill. Despite being a significant rating underdog, NateHill proved his work on the chessboard was paying off, both with a solid opening choice and stubborn middlegame defense.

With both Fuslie and Voyboy winning, both players share a Group A lead. The group leaders will face each other, while NateHill and erobb will fight for survival on June 8.

Group A Standings

The final match of the day featured Hutch and moistCr1tikal in Group B's opening fixture. While Hutch was nervous heading into the game, he was able to capitalize on a middlegame blunder which would prove to seal moistCritikal's fate.

While the loss is a setback for moistCr1tikal, his versatile approach and his ability to see things in different ways may prove to be a unique advantage down the stretch. With xQc and Yassuo playing tomorrow, Hutch is in clear first in Group B.

Hutch's next match will be against Yassuo on June 8 at 3 p.m. Pacific Time, while moistCr1tikal faces xQc on June 9, an opponent who he vowed to beat in his post-game interview.

Group B Standings

Two of the most followed streamers on Twitch, xQc and yasssuo will clash Saturday at 2 p.m. Pacific Time on Chess.com/TV. Both players have actively been working on their chess over the past few weeks, and this clash could prove critical in deciding which players advance to the championship bracket.

Having just signed with Team Liquid earlier this week, SlikeR will be making his debut for Team Liquid on the chessboard. Known for his on stream antics and his skill in CS:GO, SlikeR will take on his rival NymN tomorrow at 12 p.m. Pacific Time on Chess.com/tv.

These two are frequent rivals on stream, having played five times already on Chess.com. SlikeR currently leads NymN in their personal matches with three wins, one loss, and one draw.

Still deciding who to root for in the first-ever Chess.com PogChamps? Here's a quick sampler of each streamer:

Make sure to tune in to Chess.com's official Day 2 coverage of the 2020 Chess.com PogChamps at 12 p.m. Pacific Time on Chess.com/tv.

Link:

Chess.com PogChamps: Fuslie, Voyboy, and Hutch Star With Wins On Opening Day - Chess.com

An Indian charity tournament held June 4-7 on Chess.com raised just over$7500 for the state of West Bengal, India, which was paralyzed by the Cyclone Amphan a couple of weeks ago. This event was a joint effort by Chess.com and Samay Raina, one of India's leading stand-up comedians.

The tournament was held in four categories on the Chess.com live server and was broadcast live on Raina's YouTube channel and on ChessTV. More than 2,000 users played across four days making this event a great success.

Guest appearances during the live show included GM Vidit Gujrathi, GM Adhiban Baskaran, Tanmay Bhat, Biswa Kalyan Rath, Raftaar, Abhishek Upmanyu, WFM Alexandra Botez, Vaibhav Sethia, and many more. The commentators included Samay Raina (host), IM Sagar Shah, and IM Rakesh Kulkarni (yours truly).

Here's the full show from day two for replay:

To participate in the event, users had to donate a minimum of $1.50 (INR 110 approx). A player could play on all four event days if their rating allowed. The rating groups were divided into four categories: 0-800, 0-1400, 0-1800 and one open to everyone on the final day.

There was an overwhelming response by Chess.com users throughout the globe with more than 2,000 players taking part across four days. On each event day, the players played a three-hour arena. Then, the top-four headed for a knockout to determine the top-four standings. The top four of every event won diamond memberships in prizes.

More importantly, $7,500 was collected by Chess.com donations and some more via other platforms and raised for the people affected by the Cyclone Amphan in West Bengal.

"I'm delighted with the response from the users and appreciate their generous contribution. I also hope they enjoyed playing it," said Raina, the instigator behind the event."Raising money was our main intention but it was great to see everyone come together and play for a noble cause. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did."

Originally posted here:

Charity Event Raises Over $7,500 For West Bengal, India - Chess.com

The TD Show

This weeks The TD Show topic will be Starting Games: The Clock and will air at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific on Thursday, June 11 on the US Chess Twitch channel at twitch.tv/uschess.

The show will be hosted by NTD Chris Bird and this weeks guest will be NTD Bob Messenger. We will discuss the various rules surrounding setting your clock at the beginning of the game such as which type of clock takes priority, who gets to choose which clock is used and where to put it, what do you do if one or both players are late and how does this affect the previous issues and who is responsible for setting the clock. Please note that we will not actually be setting clocks and running through how to set the various models!

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.

Schedule for upcoming The TD Show episodes:

June 18 Touch Move with NTD Harold StenzelJune 25 Tie-Breaks (non monetary) with NTD Enrique HuertaJuly 2 Determination and Completion of move with ANTD Steve LampkinJuly 9 Spectators with NTD Tom BrownscombeJuly 16 Scoresheets with ANTD Alan HodgeJuly 23 50-move Rule with NTD Mike ReganJuly 30 Player Conduct Behavior with NTD Mike HoffpauirAugust 6 Player Conduct Using Additional Resources with ANTD Jim Hodina

Replay last weeks episode here:

See the rest here:

The TD Show Episode 7 - Starting Games: The Clock - uschess.org

The World Stars Sharjah Online international chess tournament which opens on Friday boasts of a strong line-up.

Among the six players competing in the double round-robin event is Indias No. 2 player P. Harikrishna.

He is also the second seed in the tournament, behind World No. 11 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan.

World No. 28 Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland, former FIDE World champion Rustam Kasimdzanov of Uzbekistan, Egyptian Bassem Amin and Salem Saleh of UAE are also in the fray.

With an average FIDE rating of 2709, it is a pretty strong tournament. It should be an excellent event and I am really looking forward to it, Harikrishna told The Hindu over phone from Prague, where he has been living for the past couple of years, along with his Serbian wife Nadezda Stojanovic.

I have been playing online for the last couple of decades and it was on the Internet Chess Club which is co-hosting the Sharjah tournament that I began my foray into digital chess, he said. You cannot compare that to the feeling of playing a game inside a tournament hall, and I miss that experience.

It may be a while before he could play a game of chess physically.

But I am told there is a tournament coming up here in Prague next month, he said. And I think some other European countries would also have tournaments before long.

The World No. 26 said the situation had improved considerably in the Czech Republic. The state of emergency has been lifted and small gatherings up to 200 people are now allowed, he said. You still have to wear a mask when you go out.

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Harikrishna excited about taking part in strong Sharjah event - The Hindu

Turkish sculpture Necati Korkmaz makes tiny works of art, most of which can only be fully appreciated with a magnifying glass. His latest effort is a chess set smaller than a thumbtack. The board is 9 millimeters square and the pieces, around 1.5-3 millimeters in size, are moved with tiny sticks. Korkmaz hopes to be recognized by Guinness World Records; the current record holder is US artist Ara Ghazaryan with his 15.3 millimeters square set. From Anadolu Agency:

Necati Korkmaz told Anadolu Agency that he worked around six hours every day in the last six months to finish his tiny chess set.

From time to time, I was very tired but it is a great pleasure to see the work of art finished, Kormaz said.

I prepared a really usable micro chess set.

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From 1967 through the 1980s, Emory Douglas was the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, the revolutionary social justice and political organization founded in Oakland, California. Douglas was the art director, designer, and primary artist for The Black Panther Newsletter and created the iconic Black Panther flyers, handouts, and posters. His work is []

Lost a window to the riot, didnt lose an opportunity, writes Memphis resident Tagawat on r/Memphis. (Thanks, Jeff Cross!)

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For those looking to launch a career as a web developer, there are a lot of decisions to make. Which programming languages do you use? Do you have the background you need? How do you turn your skills into an actual profitable business? With the average software developer raking in more than $100,000 a year, []

Its hard to not get a kick out of space-efficient tools. Compacted into their smallest forms, they often look very simple and unassuming. Yet often once theyre unfurled and seen in their full quasi-Transformers glory, you cant help but be amazed. At some point, everyone needs to see in the dark, which means its all []

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Sculptor creates the world's tiniest chess set, the size of a thumbtack - Boing Boing