Category Archives: Chess Engines

It seems like we are in for a couple of weeks of lively chess action, as the over-the-board elite tournament in Stavanger kicked off with three entertaining matchups. Magnus Carlsen did not take many risks with the black pieces against Levon Aronian in the classical game and went on to win a double-edged Armageddon decider, while Fabiano Caruana and Alireza Firouzja both won with black without needing to go to sudden death.

Talking to star commentators Judit Polgar and Vladimir Kramnik, Caruana referred to the Candidates Tournament, which is supposed to resume on November 1. Noting that Wang Hao has raised some concerns regarding the corona-related safety measures taken by FIDE, Caruana explained:

Navigating the Ruy Lopez Vol.1-3

The Ruy Lopez is one of the oldest openings which continues to enjoy high popularity from club level to the absolute world top. In this video series, American super GM Fabiano Caruana, talking to IM Oliver Reeh, presents a complete repertoire for White.

Theres pretty much constant negotiations. I cant really go into too much detail. [...] I think that FIDE is really doing their best because its such an incredibly difficult situation. [...] There are a lot of scenarios in which there are basically no good solutions, like if someone gets sick in the middle of the tournament.

For the American, the result in the event has ceased to be his main concern:

To be honest, I think we shouldve just completed the tournament when we were there. [...] But thats already in the past. I hope it happens and it goes smoothly. For me right now the main thing is not even the result, the main thing is just that it happens.

Nonetheless, the world number two managed to leave these concerns behind during his game against Aryan Tari. In the second round, Caruana will face Jan-Krzysztof Duda with the white pieces;Carlsen and Aronian will also have white, against FirouzjaandTari respectively.

Namaste!Aronian and Carlsen found a way to shake hands while keeping the social distance| Photo: Lennart Ootes

In the classical game, Carlsen had a good position out of the opening with black, but he did not go into the most critical continuation on move 15:

Instead of 15...bxc5, leading to a sharper struggle, the world champion played 15...Nxc5. When Kramnik asked him why he had chosen the more conservative alternative, Carlsen responded:

The answer is very simple its the first game in a long time. I just feel that 15...Nxc5 was one-hundred percent safe for me, and I just wanted to play a normal game.

Carlsens approach led to a safe 30-move draw. In the Armageddon decider, a complex battle ensuedwith kings castled on opposite sides. White had the initiative, but Black had the better structure. Aronian was in the drivers seat throughout the middlegame, but gave up his initiative in the heavy-piece endgame:

Master Class Vol.11: Vladimir Kramnik

This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors (Pelletier, Marin, Mller and Reeh) how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep y

Aronian went for 25.b3 here, and Black infiltrated on the kingside with 25...Qg4. As Carlsen pointed out, 25.Kb1 would have prevented this idea due to 25...Qg4 26.Qd7, while Polgar and Kramnik were analysing the more ambitious 25.h5 for the Armenian, who needed a win with the white pieces.

This slight imprecision did not give Black a better position, but it allowed the world champion to show his practical skills when both players had little time on the clock. Finally, Aronian blundered his rook on move 37 and resigned.

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

Focused world champion Magnus Carlsen | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Right out of the opening, the well-versed commentators were understandably surprised by Caruanas 13th move:

Here Black gave up a pawn with 13...Bxe3 14.fxe3 Be6 15.Qxd6 Rc8. Although this was not a novelty per se, apparently it was playedvoluntarily for the first time, as Caruana explained:

Its been played before, but I think its a novelty in the sense that people played it and it was a blunder. [...] In terms of serious games, this is a completely new idea.

The Benoni is back in business

On top level its a rarer guest but with this DVD Rustam Kasimdzhanov will turn the tables. New ways and approaches in most lines and countless improvements of official theory will show you how to play this opening at any level with success.

The American grandmaster confessed that it was Rustam Kasimdzhanovs idea, and that they had worked on it just a day before. White was a pawn up, but had trouble coordinating his pieces:

Here Caruana continued improving his pieces with 20...Nb6, but the commentators suggested the more direct 20...Rxc3, further damaging Whites pawn structure. Caruana showed how deep he had looked into this line and his general remarkable understanding when he explained why he had not gone for the exchange sac:

Its often an idea in this line, and one of the main ideas, but usually the point is that the pawns should be on h6 and h2, so after White plays h4 we can play Kh2, g5 and if Bh3, g4.

As it happened, Black slowly upped the pressure until getting a 55-move victory. Tari was not happy about his decision on move29:

29.Bf3 was naturally followed by 29...g4 and White went back with 30.Bg2 in a strange sequence. Instead, Polgar looked at 29.g4, when the white bishop will get some open diagonals to have a bigger say in the game.

World number two Fabiano Caruana | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Out of a Caro-Kann Firouzjas main weapon with black Duda decided to avoid entering a typical struggle in the opening by capturing a poisoned pawn on b7:

The Fashionable Caro-Kann Vol.1 and 2

The Caro Kann is a very tricky opening. Blacks play is based on controlling and fighting for key light squares. It is a line which was very fashionable in late 90s and early 2000s due to the successes of greats like Karpov, Anand, Dreev etc. Recently due to strong engines lot of key developments have been made and some new lines have been introduced, while others have been refuted altogether. I have analyzed the new trends carefully and found some new ideas for Black.

The Polish grandmaster had already spent over half an hour on his 15th move, and now it took him almost 15 minutes to decide on 17.Qxb7, grabbing a pawn while granting Black open lines for an attack. Carlsen gave his opinion about Dudas decision:

Practically its a terrible choice I think, especially against Alireza.

Or as Firouzja himself put it:

I will always have the initiative. This attack is endless.

The game continued 17...Nd5 18.Qa6 Rb8:

The world champion correctly pointed out that 19.dxc5 was absolutely necessary here, while after Dudas 19.Bd2 White is strategically lost.

Indeed, Firouzja kept calling the shots from that point on and even forced White to give up an exchange. The conversion was not trivial though, as at some point the engines gave a 0.00 evaluation. Nonetheless, withstanding the pressure for so long took its toll on Duda, who ended up faltering on move 46:

Blacks kingside pawns became unstoppable after 46.a5 h3 47.gxh3 e4 48.fxe4 g2 and White resigned four moves later. In the diagrammed position, the passive 46.Ng1 was necessary.

Jan-Krzysztof Duda knows there is no way to stop Blackspawns | Photo: Lennart Ootes

1-2. Caruana, Firouzja 33. Carlsen 1.54. Aronian 15-6. Duda, Tari 0

Magnus Carlsen Alireza FirouzjaFabiano Caruana Jan-Krzysztof DudaLevon Aronian Aryan Tari

Originally posted here:

Norway Chess: Caruana and Firouzja get off to a good start - Chessbase News

Geographically, the NBA of today is completely different from what it was 20 years ago. Compare the graphics of top shot locations from the 2001-2002 season to the current season there are very noticeable differences in the types of shots players are now taking. In the 01-02 season, the shots were dispersed throughout the court. Now, players are more judicious in their shot-selection, having excised most if not all mid-range shots from their repertoire.

There is no clearer sign of the influence of analytics in the NBA than the decrease in mid-range shots. The mathematical justification behind this trend is simple a three is worth more than two. Players shoot on average around 35% to 36% from the 3-point line every season. Since players will make a 3-point shot slightly more than one out of every three tries, a 3-point shot on average yields a little more than a point per shot. So, for a 2-point shot to be as mathematically effective, players would have to shoot a little better than 50% to justify taking the shot over a potential 3-pointer. However, the league average from the mid-range hovers around 40% to 45%.

Every team now knows where the most efficient shots come from and strive to create those shots. There is a certain uniformity to every teams style of play, at least in the results they try to achieve. While this trend might make the modern day offenses more efficient, some decry this push for maximum efficiency, arguing it sacrifices an element of creativity in the sport in favor of math.

These days theres such an emphasis on the 3 because its proven to be analytically correct, Gregg Popovich, the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, said. Theres no basketball anymore, theres no beauty in it.

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Similar concerns pervade across sports. In basketball, purists like Popovich lament how the game has been simplified to who takes and makes more threes. In baseball, analytics has ushered in an era of more home runs and strikeouts, prompting questions on whether the art of hitting is being lost.

Another sport where people have seemingly forsaken creative play for optimal play is chess, but in chess, these strategies are not derived by math; they are instead derived from chess engines. There are currently two types of engines that players consult. Engines like Stockfish use brute-force, relying on its computation power to analyze far more possible positions than a human could. On the other hand, engines like Leela (Lc0) learned chess the way a human would. After being given the basic rules of the game, it played itself over and over until it learned what strategies work and what strategies do not. Either way, engines have now far surpassed even the best chess players.

As there are more possibilities in chess than there are atoms in the universe, humans cannot always directly replicate the moves employed by these engines. However, engines have impacted the way people think about positional advantages, and especially about defense.

Human psychology is that if youre being attacked, you feel defensive, you feel uneasy, Stern sophomore and treasurer of the NYU Chess Club Manu Reddy said via phone. Computers dont care.

Without human emotions weighing it down, engines have shown that there are ways to maneuver out of defensive positions to punish overaggression by their opponents.

I think youre going to see less games with a lot of aggressive, sharp play because people will know far enough into the opening and neutralize that, Reddy said. They know that the computer will have said that their position is better.

The influence of engines in the sport has also prompted questions about whether this search for an optimal playstyle has drained the sport of its creativity. In basketball, math has restricted the types of offense a team can run. In chess, engines have shown that aggressive styles of play can be exploited with sound defensive play, incentivizing players to collectively adopt more defensively-oriented strategies. With an increased focus on defensive solidity and ability to plan their moves ahead using engines, players are also drawing more games than before.

But these concerns miss the mark. Analytics and computer processing might have produced these optimized principles of how to play basketball or chess, but human ingenuity is displayed in ways the teams or the chess player work to actualize those principles.

In basketball, the creativity is in how teams leverage the unique talents of their players to get good looks from the 3-point line. The Houston Rockets and the Miami Heat both ranked among the top three teams in 3-point shots taken, but their offensive philosophy could not diverge more. In their star guard James Harden, the Rockets have one of the most potent isolation scorers in NBA history. Thus, their offense is built to generate 3-pointers off of his individual brilliance. Without an individual scoring star like Harden, the Heat needed to construct a different type of offense. In Houston, everyone fits around Harden. In Miami, players work more synergistically. They run more actions that involve two or more players that work together to elevate each others skill sets. Both the Rockets and the Heat shoot a ton of threes, but those shots are not created in the same way.

Meanwhile, in chess, creativity comes not only in identifying the principles that engines employ but also in incorporating them into ones own game. Engines do not provide a rationale for their moves. It is up to each player to analyze why the engines prefer a certain move, and, as engines like Lc0 that learned chess through self-learning do not rely on conventional theories of chess, properly analyzing engine-generated moves require a willingness and ability to look at chess in a different way. Moreover, there is nothing inherently more creative about an aggressive strategy than a sound defensive one.

I think humans will be trained to become better defenders, which means that you will still get creative play, just not as much sharp, aggressive styles of play, Reddy said.

Sports are games of one-upmanship, and teams and players will always try to find a new edge against their opponents. In basketball, both teams know that their opponent is prioritizing 3-point shots over mid-rangers. So, their offense needs to beat a defensive scheme specifically designed to force teams to take mid-range shots. In chess, a shift to a more solid playstyle means players will have to be even more unrelenting about taking any positional or material advantage they have. Many sports might be experiencing an unprecedented change in how people think about the game, but that does mean there is no longer beauty in them.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Sept. 14, e-print edition. Email Kevin Ryu at [emailprotected]

Continued here:

Is Creativity Dying in Sports? - NYU Washington Square News

The number of chess moves made in the history of the royal game is incalculable. Data taken from the study of the 2015 MegaBase (a database that contains over 4.5 million games) indicates that the average number of moves per game is roughly 38. In this one database alone are over 170 million moves.

There are many databases of chess games, and most of these are solely for tournament playso they inherently and purposefully do not include the overwhelming majority of online games, much less friendly or casual games.So, how do you select the 10 best chess moves of all time?

We began in a similar fashion to how a player selects a chess move: The Chess.com staff created a long list of candidate moves. Our original list was created by scouring books, articles, and multiple expert lists. We added moves from newer games, and we researched the overlaps. Next we started cutting down the long listagain and again. Eventually, we created a strong list of candidate moves, and then the Chess.com Content team voted.

Here are the resultsthe 10 best chess moves of all time:

Coming in at number 10 is the move voted as the best of all time by ChessKid's Chief Chess Officer, FM Mike Klein (a.k.a. FunMasterMike). In the 1964 USSR Championship, GM Ratmir Kholmov had a tough-looking position against the legendary GMDavid Bronstein. Even Stockfish does not see a move that gives White the advantage after Bronstein's 17...Qe7:

With the knight on c3 attacked and Black one move away from consolidation with 18...Bb7, Kholmov needed to find something quickly. Luckily for the chess world, he found an amazing combination!

The first endgame position on this list is seen in the game between Martin Ortueta Estaban and Jose Sanz Aguado played at Madrid in 1933. Black is winning in the following position, but the path forward is unclear. Black's bishop is a tall pawn, at the moment, and Black's pawn structure is more than shattered.

In this position, Sanz uncorked an amazing rook sacrifice with 31...Rxb2!! It takes Stockfish extra time to realize that this amazing move is completely winning for Blackthe passed pawns on the c-file cannot be stopped!

IM Edward Lasker (a five-time U.S. Open Champion and friend/distant relative of former world champion Emanuel Lasker) played a famous game against George Alan Thomas in London in 1912. The legendary king hunt begins after Thomas' blunder with 10...Qe7:

Lasker has a lead in development, his minor pieces dominate the center, and Black's kingside has been weakened. In this position, Lasker found a wonderful queen sacrifice that forces checkmate in seven moves.

This bishop endgame is unique on this list as it is the only studythe position is not from a game played by two players but was composed by a problemist. According to the Harold van der Heijden Endgame Study Database IV, this study was composed by P. Heuacker in 1930 and published in Neue Freie Presse #44.

So, how did this 90-year-old study make the list for the 10 best moves of all time? Let's take a look.

At first glance, this looks like a boring and dead-equal bishop ending. It feels like Black can just move their e-pawn and forever control the queening square for White's h-pawn with their dark-squared bishop on d4. If you show this position to Stockfish, it initially agrees and shows an evaluation of all zeros (0.00).

However, it is really White to move and win. The first move isn't terribly difficult to find, but it is the fourth move that blows my mind.

A truly beautiful endgame idea that displays that there is life in even the dullest-looking positions. The simultaneous simplicity and complexity make this my favorite studyI consider it icing on the cake that it still confuses powerful engines.

Bura had the white pieces against Paric in their game played in Yugoslavia in 1982. Bura was down two pawns, and his queen and rook were both hanging:

Trading queens with 1.Rxa1 Nxd4 looks unpleasant, but what else is there? Bura shows us!

It is rare that a desperado queen sacrifice occurs on an empty squareit is even rarer when it wins!

Kicking off the top five we have a favorite move of Chess.com's Chief Chess Officer, IM Danny Rensch. In the 1949 USSR Championships, GM Efim Geller had Black against GM Salo Flohr, and they reached the following rook and pawn endgame:

Geller is up a pawn, but his rook is attacked. If he allows White to take the e5-pawn with check, then his extra pawn on a4 could fall. What spectacular move did Geller play?

GM Evgeny Vladimirov, a world-class player at his peak, was on GM Garry Kasparov's team in the 1986 world championship match against GM Anatoly Karpov. However, he should be best known for the move he played against GM Vladimir Epishin in 1987, which reached the following position after Epishin's 25.Qxb3:

Recapturing the queen seems more than logical and would be the likely move by more than 99.99999% of chess players. Stockfish gives 26.cxb3 as roughly equal, while 26.axb3 gives a nice advantage to White. However, Vladimirov had other plans, and he found the only move that wins on the spot.

It takes a lot more than guts and calculations to find and play a move like 26.Bh6!! It requires creativity and vision beyond a measurable scope. Moves like this one are why some people play chess.

Frank Marshall was known for his brilliant attacks and tactics, and the move he played in this game is definitely the best move he ever played. Marshall had Black against Stefan Levitsky at the 1912 Breslau tournament, and the following position was reached after Levitsky's 23.Rc5:

Black is winning and has several moves that can maintain the advantagebut one move is outstanding in this position for Black. Can you find it?

Marshall's 23...Qg3!! is one of those moves that gets burned into people's memories quickly. To put a queen on a square where it can be captured so many times and still win so emphatically is unforgettable.

At the number-two spot, we have the first of two unanimous picksthat's right, the entire Chess.com Content team picked this incredible move. Meier was White against Muller in 1994 and achieved the following winning position:

Many moves keep White's advantage here, and more than one increases the advantage. However, the move played in the game is by far the most spectacular. Can you find it?

This move looks like an upgraded version of Marshall's legendary move for a few reasons:

The top move on the list will come as little surprise to those who have followed chess for a long time or have seen this move beforeit is widely accepted as the single best move of all time.

This move was the second unanimous vote by the Chess.com Content team and was voted as the best move by several Chess.com content team members, including Chess.com's Director of News, Peter Doggers; Chess.com's Curriculum Director, NM Jeremy Kane; and Director of Chess.com India, IM Rakesh Kulkarni.

Those who haven't seen this move before may be surprised that the sacrifice comes in an endgame, as GM Alexei Shirov is known as one of the greatest attacking players of all time. Although GMs Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana are ranked numbers one and two in the world (as of September 2020), Shirov still has the best move of all time.

Shirov produced his brilliancy as Black against GM Veselin Topalov at Linares in 1998, and the following opposite-colored bishop endgame was reached after Topalov's 47.Kg1:

Opposite-colored bishop endgames are known to be notoriously drawish. Despite being up two pawns, Black's path to victory is not clear. If White can get their king to the center (to e3 or d4), there will be no way through.What makes this move even more amazing is that Shirov finds the only way to actually win this position.

The move Shirov played is still not considered by Stockfish, which makes it that much more deliciousOK, that's enough buttering you up. Here is Shirov's mind-bending move with annotations by GM Daniel Naroditsky:

So there you have itChess.com's top-10 best moves of all time. I hope you enjoyed taking a look at these remarkable moves. In the comments, let us know your favorite of these moves or another one if not mentioned in this list.

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The 10 Best Chess Moves Of All Time - Chess.com

Chess has a popularity for chilly logic, however Vladimir Kramnik loves the sport for its magnificence. It is a type of creation, he says. His ardour for the artistry of minds clashing over the board, buying and selling complicated however elegant provocations and counters, helped him dethrone Garry Kasparov in 2000 and spend a number of years as world champion. But Kramnik, who retired from aggressive chess final 12 months, additionally believes his beloved sport has grown much less artistic. From a report: He partly blames computer systems, whose soulless calculations have produced an unlimited library of openings and defenses that top-flight gamers know by rote. oeFor fairly plenty of video games on the best stage, half of the sport typically a full sport is performed out of reminiscence, Kramnik says. You do not even play your personal preparation; you play your laptops preparation. Wednesday, Kramnik offered some concepts for learn how to restore among the human artwork to chess, with assist from a counterintuitive supply the worlds strongest chess laptop. He teamed up with Alphabet synthetic intelligence lab DeepMind, whose researchers challenged their superhuman game-playing software program AlphaZero to be taught 9 variants of chess chosen to jolt gamers into artistic new patterns.

In 2017, AlphaZero confirmed it may train itself to roundly beat the very best laptop gamers at both chess, Go, or the Japanese sport Shogi. Kramnik says its newest outcomes reveal beguiling new vistas of chess to be explored, if persons are keen to undertake some small modifications to the established guidelines. The mission additionally showcased a extra collaborative mode for the connection between chess gamers and machines. Chess engines had been initially constructed to play in opposition to people with the purpose of defeating them, says Nenad Tomasev, a DeepMind researcher who labored on the mission. Now we see a system like AlphaZero used for artistic exploration in tandem with people reasonably than against them. Individuals have performed chess for round 1,500 years, and tweaks to the principles arent new. Nor are grumbles that computer systems have made the sport boring.

Learn extra of this story at Slashdot.

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AI Ruined Chess. Now, It's Making the Recreation Lovely Once more - editorials360.com

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) If it were any other year, this would just be entering fire season. Instead, firefighters have been out on the front lines for months, with very little relief.

With the dry fuel and hot temperatures, firefighters knew fire season would start a couple months earlier this year but with more than 29 fires burning in the state, they never imagined it would be this bad.

We keep saying that every year is going to be worse and worse and this year has definitely taken the lead as the worst fire season we have ever seen, said Fire Marshall Steve Aubert from East Contra Costa County Fire.

From the Deer Zone Fire in East Contra Costa County to the Walbridge Fire in Sonoma, resources have been stretched thin.

Aubert added, There are not enough fire resources to battle this effectively.

But with at least two good months of fire season left, weary firefighters are ready for the next fight.

I will speak for Sonoma County firefighters, they will do anything that they can to protect the community that they serve, said Deputy Fire Chief Scott Westrope with the Santa Rosa Fire Department.

For some crews on the Walbridge fire just west of Healdsburg, they initially worked 60 hours straight before they saw a break. Deputy Chief Westrope says moving forward, the goal will be to find better ways to rotate the crews.

Its a fine line to walk between pushing the equipment and people too hard and providing the help we feel like we need to provide to the community, said Westrope.

But instead of adding resources as fire season has gotten worse year after year, the COVID pandemic has tightened the budgets of city and county governments across the state.

The adage is we are doing the best we can with what we have and we just move pieces around and always try to play the chess game to protect the community the best way possible, says Westrope.

In Sonoma County, the Walbridge fire is 97 percent contained but that does not mean the firefighters are getting a rest. The Santa Rosa Fire Department has sent engines and air support to other fires in the state, helping agencies that have come to their aid in the past.

See the article here:

Early Fire Season Puts Weary Northern California Firefighters On Front Lines For Months - CBS San Francisco

By: Tech Desk | Updated: July 20, 2020 9:27:04 am There is an abundance of chess games available on Google Play Store (Source: Play Store)

There can be a million first-person shooter game like PUBG, 3D endless running games like Temple run, graphics-heavy racing games like Asphalt but Chess is still one of the most basic and interesting games around on smartphones. You dont need a high-end smartphone to run this game as they can run on almost any smartphone, not taking too much space.

If you are surfing, looking for a Chess game to download heres a list to choose from as per your needs from the abundance of versions available on Play Store.

Chess (by AI factory limited) is the highest-ranked paid chess game on Android. It has 12 playing levels from novice to expert. Apart from the usual single-player and multiplayer mode it also has a casual mode which helps you understand the game better with hints and move take backs. If you are a serious player, the pro mode is the best as it does not hold back any punches. You can also track your history which will help you improve.

The game lets you play online as well. You can choose between a wide array of 2D and 3D chess boards. You can also review your previous game. It has a 4.7 rating on Play Store. There is also a free version available which has over 1.5 million downloads.

Play Magnus is a two-dimensional chess game where your opponent will be Grand Master Magnus Carlsen. You have control over whether you want to play against a Magnus as young as five years old or a 27-year-old. The chess engine of this one is different as well as it has the same opening as Magnus depending on the age of AI-powered opponent. Features like Brain Power boost and Magnometer help you identify whether the opponent is bluffing with the next move or not. If you are new to the game, there is an option of training videos as well.

To add more to it, you have a chance to qualify to play Magnus Carlsen Live at a secret location. The app has a 4.3 rating on Play Store after over 23,000 downloads.

This version has a more minimalistic approach to the game. Despite being simpler than other versions available it lets you play in analyse mode, choose between different playing engines, adjust the playing strength. It also has different colour themes, animated moves and even a blindfold mode. Third-party engines are also configurable in this game to boost the diversity of moves of the opponents. It has a rating of 4.6 on the Play Store. The game is closing in on 16,000 downloads.

Instead of giving you a head-on game, this chess game gives you different puzzles, situations to solve. The game lets your choose between three modes. Solve daily puzzles mode helps you solve new problems every day. Solve offline puzzle packs is something that comes preloaded with the app. The third one, Progress Mode is an interesting take as it gives you random as per your level. You can also play on different boards, see your level history and bookmark puzzles to solve again. It has a 4.5 rating on Play Store after over 54,000 downloads.

Its not just the 3d style of the game that makes it interesting but a Harry Potter Hogwart-style chess board to add a little drama in your gameplay. It will be a little nostalgic for Harry Potter fans as humanoid chess sets and graphics add another dimension to the game which the aforementioned dont possess.

It has five humanoid chess sets: Barbarian, Dwarf, Skeleton, Orcs & Spartan. There are three difficulty levels. You can also play the game online. However, if you are into the game and not into graphics, this is not the one. The Battle Chess 3D has a 3.7 rating and over 37,000 downloads.

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These are the best Chess games you can play on Android phone - The Indian Express

7/19/2020 Remembrances of his first chess books, analysis of a World Championship game, backstories from a Candidates Match and a squashed Caro-Kann are all part of the latest column by Jonathan Speelman. The former world number four confesses: Opening theory has never been my thing, and I was perhaps lucky to be active at a time when it was much less essential. | Photo: David Llada

ChessBase 15 - Mega package

Find the right combination! ChessBase 15 program + new Mega Database 2020 with 8 million games and more than 80,000 master analyses. Plus ChessBase Magazine (DVD + magazine) and CB Premium membership for 1 year!

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[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]

When I was little, I hada row of chess books on a shelf above my bed. Of course I cant remember all of them, but several are very clear.

After learning the moves of chess from my cousin on Boxing Day (December 26th) 1962, my first chess book was Chess for Children by Bott and Morrison, which gave me the basics.

My first-ever serious chess book though was Bob Wades account of the 1963 World Championship match between Mikhail Botvinnik and Tigran Petrosian. My mum bought it for me in Edgware Roadpresumably the match ran from March to May in the summer of 1963. With a distinctive dark red cover once it lost its jacket (I can see it on a shelf now) Ive enjoyed re-reading and dipping into it ever since.Some of the games especially Petrosian's epic king march in game 5 are truly memorable.

Master Class Vol.10: Mikhail Botvinnik

Our experts show, using the games of Botvinnik, how to employ specific openings successfully, which model strategies are present in specific structures, how to find tactical solutions and rules for how to bring endings to a successful conclusion

Later, I got Euwe and Kramers two-volume work on the middlegame, Bent Larsens Selected Games 1948-69and Peter Clarkes book on Mikhail Tal (which annoyingly, although I can see at least five other books on Tal, I cant at the moment bring to hand).

And a couple of years later, I beat some 200ish ECF (2200ish) player in a simultaneous display at Foyles (the famous book shop on Tottenham Court Road) and won a whole selection of books from Pergamon Press, including Vladimir Vukovics wonderful The Art of Attack in Chessand a book on Petrosian by Alberic OKelly de Galway the Belgian count who as an arbiter at some team competition in the 1970s once attempted to get the England team captain David Anderton to order myself and Jonathan Mestel to get our hair cut!

The Pergamon Tranche also included A Complete Defence to 1.P-K4,a study of the then backwater, the Petroff, by Bernard Caffery and David Hooper.Though our main opening bible in the English speaking world at that time was Modern Chess Openings.

I had the tenth edition (1965, completely revised by Larry Evans under the editorship of Walter Korn). Chess theory was then still very rudimentary compared to today, and there was a wonderfully whooly quote about the Yugoslav Attack against the Dragon which went,Black must react promptly and vigorously just how is not quite clear. I also found the 8th, 11th and 13th editions on my shelves. By the 11th (Walter Korn, 1972), defences had been found against the Yugoslav.

Opening theory has never been my thing,and I was perhaps lucky to be active at a time when it was much less essential. But of course I know lots of general information and in a few lines I was either a trail blazer (quite possibly losing track of the line later) or one of the main protagonists.

As White, these tended to be sneakily wimpy ways to try to get the advantage without having to learn the complexities of the then main lines. For instance,6.a3 in the Symmetrical English, while it wasn't of course a novelty, was new to me when I played it against Jan Timman in the Reykjavik World Cup in 1988 and has since become the main line, slightly surpassing 6.g3 innumber in recent games.

But perhaps the best known instance was against Nigel Short in our first Candidates Match.When a couple of weeks after Mikhail Gurevichintroduced it on the Russian Championship, I was lucky enough to be able to play 10.0-0-0 in the Bf4 Queen's Gambit

This had been published in a Norwegain newspaper which Marianne, my second Jonathan Tisdall's then girlfriend (and now ex-wife), had bought on the way here. And I was able to play it before Nigel or his second John Nunn were able to see it in Schachwokke.

As Black I tend to like to maintain my pawn structure,and have for many years had a love/hate relationship with the Caro-Kann or Cockroach (a mild joke the Russian for cockroach is tarakan). Its an opening which works splendidly if White gives any quarter, since your position is intrinsically sound and eventually, once youre developed, then the extra centre pawn on e6 may come to the fore.

However, if White is suitably dismissive and able to back up his or herscepticism with sufficient kinetic energy then even the cockroach may get squashed as in this game against the great Misha Tal:the only one I lost while qualifying from the SuboticaInterzonal in 1987.

The Fashionable Caro-Kann Vol.1 and 2

The Caro Kann is a very tricky opening. Blacks play is based on controlling and fighting for key light squares. It is a line which was very fashionable in late 90s and early 2000s due to the successes of greats like Karpov, Anand, Dreev etc. Recently due to strong engines lot of key developments have been made and some new lines have been introduced, while others have been refuted altogether. I have analyzed the new trends carefully and found some new ideas for Black.

The rest is here:

The Cockroach's Carapace (and other opening disasters) - Chessbase News

With last weeks long-planned, no-Olympics launch of Peacock, the Streaming Wars have reached something approaching a status quo. For the first time in what feels like all of living memory, there are no upcoming new services to speculate about. The players are all present and accounted for, and as the pandemic has sent us inside and in search of entertainment, streaming has taken on an outsized role in how we decide to spend our spare time. In other words, its the perfect time to check in on the streaming landscape, which finally feels stable enough to evaluate as a whole. Here are some takeaways from the past few months in Hollywoods digital frontier.

Peacocks debut is certainly significant for the long-term aspirations of Comcast and NBCUniversal. But the largely free, somewhat confusing service feels most significant for the era its presence effectively ends. Ever since Apple ordered what would eventually become The Morning Show in the fall of 2017, consumers and critics have been in a state of anticipation. Weve been reacting less to streaming as it is than predicting what it would eventually become. But while the opacity of streaming companies makes some speculation inevitable, our days of reading the tea leaves by way of press releases and trade reports are effectively over. Peacock was the final chess piece to show up on the board. Now, the game can begin.

Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max, Peacock, and Quibi together form the second generation of streaming services: those designed to capitalize on, and hopefully chip away at, the success of the first. Disney+, Max, and Peacock are all owned by content-rich parent companies who grew tired of leasing out libraries they could be earning profits from; Apple TV+ and Quibi used a trillion-dollar valuation and Jeffrey Katzenbergs pitching prowess, respectively, to start their own production engines from scratch. Collectively, all of these companies have claimed they can take on the more established Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, whove had time to shore up their original offerings as titles like Friends and Frasier return to their home turfs. In the back half of 2020, the noise of the second wave will start to fade, and streaming will begin to settle into some kind of equilibriumone that may well include fewer contenders.

If Peacock is an inflection point, the next few months may well bring some sort of downswing, and not just because of COVID-19-related halts on new productions. What are subscribers actually willing to pay for, or spend their time watching? After years of expansion, the pendulum is due to swing toward contraction. And theres already a prime candidate for where natural selection may start to take its toll ...

Of all the new services, Quibi assigned itself the steepest challenge. Not only were Katzenberg and his business partner Meg Whitman trying to compete with a completely clean slatethey also tried to stand out with a short-form gimmick ill-suited to a premium rendition, plus an emphasis on mobile, on the go viewing caught flat-footed by a moment when almost nobody is going anywhere. The silly name and counterintuitive pronunciation (its short for quick bites, but it rhymes with libby) were just the cherry on top.

More than two months after its April launch, the Wall Street Journal published a report outlining Quibis many troubles, both in overall performance and behind the scenes, followed soon by a similar tell-all at Vulture. In both accounts, Katzenberg and Whitman were characterized as two 60-somethings trying to cater to a demographic they didnt understand as their brainchild burned through cash and lost executives like its head of brand marketing. Katzenberg has tried in vain to shift blame onto the pandemic, while some reports have indicated more than 90 percent of free trial users have opted not to sign on for a paid subscription. And while all publicity is good publicity, most of Quibis publicity consists of viral tweets dunking on loopy concepts like a woman has a golden arm.

The idea of a snappier streaming service that toys with the bounds of traditional TV has its defenders, including myself. But nearly four months in, it seems unlikely Quibi will be able to channel that potential into a sustainable businessas opposed to an outlet like YouTube, which has its own homegrown community of creators. If Quibi does sputter out, itll take floods of investor money with it, after everyone from Alibaba to Disney bought into Katzenbergs track record because of his past ventures like Dreamworks. At least well always have the memes.

In happier but equally symbolic news, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced last week that chief content officer Ted Sarandos, widely viewed as the Hollywood counterpart to Hastingss base in Silicon Valley, would share his title and join the companys board of directors. While a company as big as Netflix having co-CEOs is exceedingly rare, the promotion also cements what outside observers have long known to be the case: Netflix is no longer a tech company with a satellite business in entertainment. Its a tech and media company, one whose original productions play an increasing role in its success. Sarandoss ascent may not change much about Netflix, but it reflects a seismic change in the kinds of companies that now shape the industry, with form and function more intertwined than ever. Our platforms and what we watch on them are now one and the same.

Actual theaters may still be dark, but theater is adapting, if only at its upper tiers. July 4 weekend was dominated by the streaming release of Hamiltonor rather, a version of the Broadway smash starring the original cast and filmed without an audience. Disneys $75 million investment appears to have paid off in the form of a meaningful uptick in new subscribersadult theater fans are a distinct demographic from the families with kids who powered Disney+s first few months (though Lin-Manuel Mirandas contributions to Moana may have trained a new generation of fans).

The success of Mirandas translation to screen naturally leads to questions about its potential replication. Just as stand-up comedy specials are live performances filmed and repackaged for home viewing, could stage plays and musicals enjoy a second life outside their venues four walls? (Netflix tried something similar with its 2019 release of Kerry Washington in American Son.) Such distribution could democratize an art form thats historically limited to those who can afford tickets and travel to a theater, and could draw an untapped market to new services.

Of course, theater-as-streaming is hardly that simple. Hamilton is a once-in-a-generation hit with a massive cultural footprint. Celebrities and politicians routinely stopped by the original Broadway run, where tickets ran into the thousands; the soundtrack alone has sold millions of copies. A built-in audience makes the expense of a professional directing job worth the start-up costs, but almost every other Broadway show operates on much thinner margins; its doubtful theres equal demand for, say, Keri Russell and Adam Driver in a revival of Burn This. In the space between popular sensations and niche adult dramas, however, theres uncharted territory for other content-hungry streamers to explore. And without a path back to Broadway in sight, theater may have to get unorthodox in order to survive.

Last and least, as always, are the self-released statistics selectively offered by streamers to gauge their own success. Andy Sambergs charming Palm Springs is Hulus most talked-about original film; Tom Hanks vehicle Greyhound earned an audience commensurate with a summer theatrical box office big hit on Apple TV+; 40 million people watched Never Have I Ever and Space Force in their first four weeks of release, a term Netflix defines as taking in just two minutes of a single episode. (The company used to tally views in terms of completing 70 percent or more of a single episode, then further lowered the threshold for its metrics.)

These data points mean little on their own, but they start to take on more meaning in context. Palm Springs was a record-setting Sundance acquisition Hulu wants to show was worth the investment, financially as well as creatively. Hulu holds an Outstanding Drama Series Emmy for The Handmaids Tale, but its not yet as established in features, which a streaming-friendly romantic comedy could help to fix. Apple wants to prove itself as a venue for upcoming releases with the likes of Martin Scorsese and Sofia Coppola, whose pivots to streaming will be less last-minute than Greyhounds. Over at Netflix, meanwhile, a full list of its pseudo-ratings reveals some surprising disparities: The ubiquitous Love Is Blind, for instance, was far less widely watched at 30 million views than the magnificently dumb Too Hot to Handle, at 51 million.

The asterisks on these figures remain firmly in place, though its still interesting to see exactly how many eyeballs a supersized meme like Tiger King amounts to (64 million, at least for those first two minutes). Streaming is far from transparent, but with the peacocks coming home to roost, its worth seeing what major players count as a successand how they try to claim it.

Continue reading here:

Welcome to the Status Quo of the Streaming Wars - The Ringer

On July 4, the day the United States of America celebrates its independence, let's take a look at the best chess players in American history.

The United States has long produced top chess talent, with some of the game's finest players, authors, and theoreticians calling the U.S. home.

In recent years, the U.S. has been a force on the international chess scene, and its "big three" grandmasters are staples at the world's top tournaments. The United States had a world-championship contender in 2018, with GMFabiano Caruana coming up just short against the world champion, GMMagnus Carlsen.

Caruana obviously makes the list of the best-ever U.S. players, but where does he rank? And who is ahead of him?

There are many ways to make a "best-of-all-time" list. Your selections will be different from mine. I am using peak playing strength as my primary metric, not overall career achievement because I am most interested in the best possible chess produced by each American on this list.

8. GMGata Kamsky

Peak rating: 2763

Kamsky is a true chess prodigy. He became a strong grandmaster at age 16 and reached his peak in the 1990s. His career pinnacle was in the 1996 FIDE world championship bracket, where he made the finals but dropped the championship match against the reigning FIDE world champion, GMAnatoly Karpov.

Kamsky was born in the Soviet Union but moved to the United States early in his career. Kamsky won the U.S. chess championship five times (1991, 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2014), cementing his status as an American chess legend.

Here is a 22-year-old Kamsky beating the super-GM Nigel Short in 26 moves.

7. GMLeinier Dominguez Perez

Peak rating: 2768

Even with much recent success, Dominguez Perez remains an underrated American chess talent.

Dominguez Perez officially became an American chess player less than two years ago, in December 2018, when he transferred federations to the United States. Before that, he was the five-time Cuban chess champion.

His career peak was likely his sole first place in the 2013 FIDE Grand Prix leg in Greece, finishing ahead of 11 other super-GMs, including three others on this list.

Dominguez Perez's attacking prowess was on full display in 2014 when he practically wiped future-compatriot GMWesley So's kingside off the board in this brutal miniature.

6. Paul Morphy

Peak rating: 2811 (estimated by Edo)

It's not a stretch to call Paul Morphy the father of American chess.

A true prodigy, Morphy was not just a chess force at an early age. His game was also about 100 years ahead of its time in terms of style and even tactical strength.

GM Bobby Fischer called Morphy "the most accurate player who ever lived," which should tell you something because many chess fans give that title instead to Fischer.

Morphy's game peaked quite early, and the apex was his European tour in 1858 at age 21. Morphy pretty much destroyed every strong player the European continent could throw at him, and by the time he returned to the United States, he was recognized as the unofficial world champion.

Morphy retired from competitive chess a year later to begin his law practice, never returning to the game before his death at age 47.

Morphy is the author of arguably the most famous chess game ever played, an exhibition against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard at an opera house in Paris. If you're going to show a chess beginner one game, use this one.

5. GMHikaru Nakamura

Peak rating: 2816

Hikaru Nakamura, while quite a formidable traditional chess force, is truly a chess player of the modern age.

Nakamura has made his mark as unquestionably the best American blitz chess player ever, and also the best American online chess player ever. Since most chess games in 2020 are both played online and at fast time controls, these are fairly important arenas.

Nakamura has also established a tremendous following on the live-streaming site Twitch and was called "the grandmaster who got Twitch hooked on chess" by Wired magazine. On Chess.com, Nakamura has won the two most recent editions of the Speed Chess Championship (2018-2019).

Of course, Nakamura has enjoyed solid over-the-board success as well, winning the U.S. championship five times.

No game quite captures the modern, fun, and online-friendly nature of Nakamura's style like his thorough trolling of the computer engine Crafty back in 2007, when Crafty was one of the world's strongest engines and Nakamura was just 20 years old.

4. GMWesley So

Peak rating: 2822

Wesley So transferred to the United States federation six years ago, and since then he has established himself as one of the world's best players.

So is 26 years old and it's reasonable to think that his chess peak is just getting started. So's style of play is precise and safe, rarely getting himself into trouble. This less-risky approach has been cited (mostly unfairly) as evidence that So is not an exciting chess player.

That argument went right out the window last November when So destroyed the classical world chess champion, Carlsen, in the finals of the first FIDE world Fischer random chess championship. So ran up the score, winning the match 13.5-2.5, putting to rest any doubts of his brilliance and creativity.

In this famous game against the top Chinese GM Ding Liren, So answers any lingering questions you might have about whether three pieces are better than a queen.

3. GMFabiano Caruana

Peak rating: 2844

Caruana is currently at the top of his career and sits just 28 rating points behind Carlsen on the live list. Caruana and Carlsen are the only players above 2800. The pair fought a close battle in the 2018 world chess championship, with Carlsen needing the tiebreaks to retain his title.

Caruana is still in contention for the next world championship whenever that process resumes, with the American one game off the lead of the 2020 candidates' tournament at the time of its postponement halfway through the schedule.

Caruana's chess highlight reel is too extensive to fully appreciate in this space. He won the U.S. chess championship on his first try in 2016, and he was the four-time Italian chess champion before transferring to the U.S. federation.

Why pick a draw for Caruana's showcase game, when all the other players get wins?

This game against Carlsen in the 2018 world chess championship represents the peak of chess on two levels. On the surface, you have the tremendous underdog Caruana outplaying and pressuring the world champion Carlsen, who was lucky to escape with the draw and maintain an even match.

On a deeper level, there is a beautiful and inscrutable endgame lurking in this game that astounded everyone who analyzed it. The chess super-computer "Sesse" found a forced checkmate for Caruana in 30 moves in real-time, as millions watched the game around the world. The legendary former world champion GMGarry Kasparov said no human could ever spot the win. Yet it was in there, on the board as surely the 64 squares themselves.

I still get goosebumps playing over this endgame.

2. GM Bobby Fischer

Peak rating: 2785

Bobby Fischer stands as the most legendary U.S. chess player ever and is universally considered one of the three greatest world champions, along with Carlsen and Kasparov.

Fischer was responsible for a renaissance in American chess in the 1970s as he racked up ridiculous winning streaks on his way to the world title over GMBoris Spassky in 1972. Fischer elevated the game of chess to geopolitical philosophy, representing American individualism against the Soviet chess machine.

The most striking aspect of Fischer's chess was how far ahead he was of his competition. His peak rating of 2785, earned before the considerable rating inflation in the 50 years since would place him near the top of the chess world even today.

Computer studies have confirmed Fischer's strength and accuracy as other-worldly for his time. His style was universal, elegant and above all, accurate. His fierce competitive spirit is something the computer engines can't measure; Fischer had one of the strongest wills to win in chess history.

Fischer's career was cut short by disagreements with chess organizers along with mental and physical health problems. Nonetheless, in the short time he spent at the top of the game, he changed it forever with the millions of American players he inspired.

Almost as a side note, Fischer invented Fischer random chess (chess 960), which is considered one of the most creative chess variants. Fischer also held a patent for a chess clock with an increment, which is the preferred time control today of many players.

The below game, one of the most famous in chess history, shows the stunning chess clarity possessed by Fischer even as young as age 13 when he eviscerated a leading American chess master, Donald Byrne.

1. AlphaZero

Peak rating: 3500+

I can already see the objections in the comment section. But the headline in this article said "chess players," not chess humans, and I am a big fan of non-human chess.

AlphaZero is an artificial intelligence project that plays chess. Given just the rules of the game, AlphaZero taught itself to play chess to superhuman levels in mere hours using machine-learning techniques.

It stormed onto the chess scene in late 2017 when its operators released the results of a 100-game match with Stockfish, the traditional champion chess engine.

AlphaZero plays chess differently from most computers, possessing an almost-intuitive understanding of the game and handling many positions in a beautiful, human-like manner. Of course, AlphaZero is stronger than any human, but if you played through its games you'd think it had a distinct personality. Maybe it does.

AlphaZero inspired a whole wave of neural-network chess engines, including the international open-source project Lc0, which currently sits second behind Stockfish on the computer ratings list. The machine-learning approach pioneered by AlphaZero transformed the scientific basis of computer chess, and it will be the neural-network engines that evolve the game to its next levels, wherever that may be.

Is AlphaZero American? AlphaZero runs on American TPUs. The project's inventor, the AI company DeepMind, is headquartered in the United Kingdom, but the company has been owned by an American corporation (Google/Alphabet) since before there was an AlphaZero.

If George Washington was born a British subject but can still be considered a founding father of the United States, we can extend that same leeway to AlphaZero, especially on the American day of independence from Great Britain.

Of course, there are many other American chess engines, most of them far stronger than the human players on this list, but here they are collectively represented by the intrepid AlphaZero, which changed computer chess forever.

I'll never forget where I was when I saw this game by AlphaZero against the reigning top computer engine Stockfish, and if you care about the evolution of chess, you might not either.

Who do you think are the top chess players in American history? Let us know in the comments.

Here is the original post:

Who Are The 8 Best U.S. Chess Players Ever? - Chess.com

It was a month ago when Kerry Tharp's phone rang. The area code was a familiar one: 386, as in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The man known throughout the racing world as "The Commander" is in his fifth year as president of Darlington Raceway, NASCAR's old-school equivalent to Fenway Park or Lambeau Field and a facility that, as of last fall, is owned by the sanctioning body itself. Before that, Tharp spent more than a decade in NASCAR's communications department. So, when the phone rings from 386 and NASCAR headquarters in Daytona Beach, Tharp has always known it is never an unimportant call.

But this one was the biggest he has ever answered.

"They said, 'Could Darlington be ready to host a Cup Series race on May 17?'" Tharp recalls. "I said, 'Well, I don't seem to have anything on my calendar for that day -- or anything on my calendar for any other day, either. So yeah, let's do it.'"

The Commander laughs as he tells the story, then quickly cuts those chuckles short.

"For a month I had been just like everyone else in the United States," he said. "I was at home, on my couch, doing whatever I could around the house and wondering when we were going to get sports back. But as soon as I got that phone call, I called the Darlington Raceway staff and said, 'See you back in the office tomorrow morning. We've got a few weeks to do a few months' worth of work.'"

2 Related

On Sunday at Darlington, NASCAR will return to the racetrack for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic forced it to pack up and abandon Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 13, as teams were preparing their cars for the weekend's first practice session ahead of what was supposed to be the season's fifth race.

Now that fifth race will be run two months later and at an entirely different racetrack. It will be held with no fans in the grandstand and no laps having been turned in practice or qualifying. Teams will do their work in unusually small groups, restricted to 16 crew members, including the driver. Big organizations routinely have three times that many people on their credential rosters, from mechanics and engine tuners to team owners and family members.

Those crew members will be the subject of a health screening prior to entering the racetrack, a check of temperature and vital signs, to be compared with health notes already supplied to on-site medical teams. As one Darlington Raceway official described it, "It'll look like the TSA airport screening line, but with thermometers." Anyone showing signs of fever or other symptoms, or exhibiting in-person deviations from the paperwork provided, will be sent for "heavy screening" by physicians in the newly erected medical center.

When they go to work inside the track, they will be subject to random light screenings throughout the day and thermal cameras will monitor their temperatures as they work. There will not be COVID-19 testing as of yet, in part because the tests take days to process and because NASCAR has said it does not want to take tests away from the general public.

Anyone who does not comply with these new unprecedented safety measures and rules -- say, a refusal to wear a mask -- will be ejected from the garage and hit with massive fines. In the garage, there will also be no tolerance for handshakes or hugging it out with friends. There will be no contact with anyone outside of one's group, every team confined to designated work areas and walking to those areas via precisely marked footpaths.

The path that NASCAR has traveled during the 65 days between Atlanta and Darlington has been anything but precise, a constantly redrawn road map that, even here on the eve of stock car racing's return, remains written in pencil, ready to react to anything that goes right or wrong at Darlington.

"The conversations and decisions that have been made during this time are no different than the decisions that have to be made by everyone right now, in every corner of society," said Eric Nyquist, NASCAR senior vice president and chief communications officer. "The news and what we know about the virus and the pandemic, it all seems to change on an hourly basis, especially during those critical first days after Atlanta. So, we have always had to be willing to react to that. And that flexibility won't stop when racing starts at Darlington. Far from it."

Those critical first days Nyquist speaks of were spent by the highest-ranking members of NASCAR's management team hunkered down in an expansive meeting space in the sanctioning body's HQ facility, located across the street from Daytona International Speedway. They have been in that room nearly nonstop over the past two months, but in the beginning, it was a strange juxtaposition, to say the least.

Only one month earlier, the racetrack across the street had hosted thousands of people as they watched Denny Hamlin win the Daytona 500 and Ryan Newman survive one of the most frightening crashes in the 62-year history of the Great American Race. Now the track, and the highways around it, were silent, as NASCAR's brass, led by president Steve Phelps, took their seats in the meeting space -- so spread apart via social distancing some had to raise their voices to deliver their talking points from one side of the room to the other.

NASCAR also was on every pandemic-related conference call that involved America's major sports leagues, including those conducted by the White House.

Over the past three weeks, ESPN.com talked with people from every corner of NASCAR, from the sanctioning body and competitors to racetrack executives and crew members, to see how they have prepared for the sport's return.

Auto racing was widely considered a leading candidate to become the first sport to return, thanks to the lack of physical contact between competitors and an already existing emphasis on safety. It is the only sport in which competitors -- drivers and pit crews -- have long plied their trades on Sunday afternoons wearing gloves, face coverings and helmets.

Because of the dangerous nature of auto racing, NASCAR's file of medical experts was already extensive. Those contacts drove NASCAR toward Dr. Celine Gounder, clinical assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Gounder has been on the coronavirus front lines at New York City's Bellevue Hospital Center and on the executive committee of the NYC COVID-19 Rapid Response Coalition.

"This physician had been on the ground with Ebola. What was beneficial was to have access to info that put us a few weeks ahead in terms of how we needed to respond," said John Bobo, NASCAR vice president of racing operations. "We also talked with local health care providers of where we're going, and we get buy-in from those folks. As we talked to emergency room physicians in different cities, we got a better understanding of how the virus was reacting. We were trying to find a lot of different data points.

Ryan McGee explains why this could be another turning-point moment for NASCAR, and gives host Mina Kimes and other casual racing fans one good reason to love the sport. Listen to ESPN Daily

"We wanted to go into a community that was not in crisis. We must have an advanced life support helicopter on hand, and we always have to work closely with health care providers. We treasure our local relationships with health care providers, and we always tour trauma centers before and after races. So, we relied upon relationships we already had."

Every bit of that data gathering was done with the express goal of returning as soon as possible, wherever and whenever it made the most sense. When NASCAR's list of postponed events grew from three (Atlanta, Homestead-Miami and Texas Motor Speedway in March) to eight (adding Bristol, Richmond, Talladega in April and Dover and Martinsville in early May), the target date for the sport's return became May 24, with the traditional Memorial Day weekend "crown jewel" event, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

"The attraction to Charlotte was pretty obvious once we realized that the schedule changes were going to slide into April and looking toward May," said Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer. "It's home. Most teams can drive there in minutes, so there's no air travel and no hotel rooms. It's also the same type of racetrack [a 1.5-mile intermediate oval vs. two-plus-mile superspeedways, winding road courses or half-mile short tracks] as the races we had to postpone at Atlanta, Homestead and Texas, so race teams should have the inventory of cars and engines for that type of racetrack ready to go."

1:02

Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson explains what it will be like showing up to race at Darlington without practicing and shares how simulations on iRacing have helped him get a feel for the track.

Even as the idea of a Charlotte return started to make the rounds, it did not deter government officials, particularly state governors, from lobbying NASCAR to pick a facility in their state to be the sure-to-be-ballyhooed comeback track. The leader of that charge was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was in contact with Phelps nearly the instant that the Atlanta event had been shuttered, assuring NASCAR it could continue to do its work in Daytona and also looking for some assurance that his state's racetracks -- Homestead-Miami and Daytona -- would still host their scheduled events, whether it be sooner or later than originally scheduled.

At one point or another, NASCAR talked to the leaders from each of the 23 states that host one of NASCAR's national series events, all with varying calendars and policies when it comes to both "return to work" and "stay at home." When asked to describe the experience, Bobo speaks of three-dimensional chess.

"This is like 18 boards," he said. "We're dealing with a tremendous number of governor's offices in a variety of states. We're looking at trends, and we know things are dynamic in communities. We have to work with our TV partners and other vendors, how are they doing and what can they do?"

For example, Toyota's race teams -- including Joe Gibbs Racing, current powerhouse of the sport -- receive their engines from Toyota Racing Development. Unlike Ford and Chevy, who build their engines in North Carolina, TRD ships them to race teams from a factory in Costa Mesa, California, where work restrictions and stay-at-home measures are still much tighter. Were they going to be able to get engines to their teams? Thankfully, enough had been delivered before the shutdown, and as of Tuesday, the TRD office in California was opening back up.

Making the restart even more difficult is the fluidity that comes with the global pandemic.

"Can Goodyear provide tires? Can we get fuel? It's incredibly complicated," Bodo said. "We're on version 65, maybe version 70, of the plan. We do have pivot plans. Frankly, there's been days of the week where things have changed by the hour."

Not surprisingly, the governor's office that NASCAR talked with most was that of Roy Cooper of North Carolina. The majority of NASCAR teams, drivers and suppliers are located in the Charlotte area, as are a pair of NASCAR's secondary headquarters, its Research and Development Center in Concord and the NASCAR Tower in Uptown Charlotte, home to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

On April 23, Cooper designated NASCAR race shops as essential businesses, meaning that race teams could go back to work in small numbers and employing social distancing rules. But Cooper also has been among the most methodical of Southern governors when it comes to reopening plans, moving a little slower than others in the region, particularly his border neighbors in South Carolina.

That's how Darlington came into play, some 3 months ahead of its traditional Labor Day weekend race date. With sponsors, broadcast partner Fox and team owners all pushing NASCAR to get back to the track sooner than later, the weekend prior to the Charlotte return began to look more and more attractive.

Working with Dr. Gounder, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Charlotte Motor Speedway executives and local health officials already partnered with the racetrack, NASCAR submitted a lengthy "How we're going to do this" plan to Cooper in late April. He sent it back with additional suggestions and changes from North Carolina state health officials. That same plan, but with a Darlington twist, was sent to South Carolina's governor, Henry McMaster, a longtime NASCAR fan and perhaps second only to DeSantis in his constant contact with NASCAR officials to try to bring the sport back in his state. It too was approved.

On April 30, NASCAR officially announced its plans to return on May 17, kicking off seven events in 11 days at Darlington and then Charlotte Motor Speedway, four of those being Cup Series races.

"Here's how fluid this whole thing was," Tharp said. "It wasn't until a few days after we'd agreed to the first race back that we found out we would also have a second Cup race four days later. And I found about the Xfinity Series race that we're going to run in between those Cup races on a conference call right before the schedule announcement went out. I'm not complaining at all. We will host as much racing as they want. But that's how much all of this changes that fast."

It has only moved faster in the weeks since.

NASCAR teams received the list of rules and regulations for Darlington shortly before they were announced to the public.

No fans.

Team rosters will be 16 people, including the driver.

Cloth face masks are required. Anyone who does not wear one will be removed from the facility immediately and face up to $50,000 in fines.

Teams' work areas in the garage will be spread out to comply with social distancing guidelines, as will be the spotters, who normally are shoulder to shoulder atop the press box/tower.

Competitors' motor homes will be allowed in the racetrack infield, but instead of occupying one enclosed area, they will be spread out throughout the infield.

Over-the-wall pit crew members will use face screens or neck socks in addition to their normal gear of firesuits, helmets and gloves.

Teams must closely monitor the health of their employees before, during and after each event, including filling out medical forms that will be reviewed by medical personnel prior to track admission during a prerace screening that will include temperature checks.

There will be random temperature checks of everyone working in the garage area. Anyone determined to be symptomatic will be checked via an outside care center. If they are determined to be a potential virus threat, they will be replaced with another crew member.

Everyone is required to maintain a contact tracing log, manually and then via digital logging. If a worker shows symptoms, that person and those he was in contact with will need to self-isolate.

Teams already had the Darlington-Charlotte schedule in hand before it was made public, as well as a tentative schedule through the middle of summer. Now, with the health regulations in place, they could get back to work.

"I have literally not left my house since this whole thing started," said Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Chad Knaus, who currently oversees the cars of William Byron but won 83 races and seven Cup Series titles calling the shots for Jimmie Johnson.

Knaus is a notorious workaholic, known to sleep in his office at the height of his success with Johnson. But for two months, he has had to balance that work from home, alongside his 20-month-old son and his wife, who is expecting another child this summer.

"We have two distinctly separate groups working on our race cars," Knaus said. "There have been people at the race shop for a couple of weeks, preparing the cars for Darlington, Charlotte and beyond, but I will not see them unless it's on video. I am with the group who does not go to the shop but will go to the racetrack."

The shop team will load two race cars -- a primary and a backup -- into the team's 18-wheel mobile HQ. The team's truck driver will arrive, entering through a door where he sees no one else, and make the 105-mile drive to Darlington on Saturday. Normally, the 40 team trucks are packed into a small space, fitted together tighter than Tetris blocks. At Darlington they will be spread out. After scrubbing down every flat surface in the hauler's work areas, the hauler driver will take on his Sunday pit crew duties with the road crew having had no contact with the shop crew.

Because of the close proximity of the track, no one will be spending the night, especially not the race car drivers -- but they will have their motor coaches on site, where they live with their families during non-pandemic weekends. On Sunday, the drivers will be alone in those RVs, purposely isolated and waiting to be called to their cars for the green flag. Those motor coaches will be wheeled into the racetrack on Saturday and spread throughout the spectator-free infield. The rigs then with get a deep clean before the racers move in the following day.

"I will be totally on my own," said Johnson, reminding that, like any other athletes, racers have a support system of people, from PR reps to agents to cooks. "I am in charge of my gear, hydration system and nutrition. That includes my primary stuff and backups. Fire suits, shoes, gloves, ear molds, helmets, head and neck restraints, and so on. When the race is over, I'm responsible for cleaning and sanitizing everything for the next race.

"When they tell me it's time to get to the race car, I will head out. And I will absolutely be following whatever direction they tell me to walk."

On Tuesday night, Tharp was in the Darlington Raceway infield helping to ensure that Johnson and everyone else is clear on where to walk. NASCAR and track operation officials have been laying down what feels like miles of red tape, marking off workspace borders for teams in the garage, walkways that connect those workspaces to the teams' big rig and even who can use which bathroom. Spotter spacing and parking spaces also are being marked.

Outside the racetrack, a medical screening area is being constructed where there normally would be hospitality tents and tailgaters. Everyone who arrives will be asked for their ID so the medical questionnaires they have previously filled out can be called up on a tablet computer by a medical professional. There, outside their vehicles, each person entering the track must appear on a roster turned in by their team, and then they will receive an on-the-spot medical screening.

And while there will not be COVID-19 testing as of yet, the possibility of future testing is on the table should the need arise. There is concern about someone who comes up symptomatic having passed it on to others. It happened in the F1 paddock during that same March weekend the Atlanta race was canceled. It happened last weekend in UFC. That's why the NASCAR contact logs will be kept. And it's yet another reason why the overall plan continues to be written in pencil. If there's an outbreak that starts to push toward a lack of control, the plug on the season can and will be pulled again.

"I relate it to my military days," said Tom Bryant, NASCAR's senior racing communications director, who has worked closely with Bobo on at-track logistics. Bryant served 20 years in the Army, including special operations and multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan. "You've done your mission brief, you've checked your weapons and you're waiting on the pickup -- and the 'what-ifs' start to race through your mind. You need to trust your team of people who have worked together to build this comprehensive plan that has been reviewed by a number of experts and trust that the talented people you work with will be able to perform.

"I'm not sleeping well, but I have a lot of faith in our team, and we have a very solid group of professionals who are ready to face things and make decisions."

Also located outside the track is a new "outfield medical center" set up in addition to the regular infield medical center, which will remain reserved for race-related medical situations (post-crash examinations, etc.). The outfield center is where anyone who shows any signs of illness will be sent for further examination.

Patrolling those areas -- as well as every parking lot and gate of Darlington Raceway -- will be dozens of law enforcement officers, from the Darlington County Sheriff's Office, South Carolina Highway Patrol and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, the state's investigative law enforcement agency. They will be on the lookout for anyone who tries to find their way into the racetrack or tries to turn Sunday's race into a protest opportunity or worse.

Darlington Raceway officials already have learned of large gatherings planned in the immediate area of the track, which they have politely worked to discourage. On Wednesday, a local man was arrested for calling the racetrack and leaving threatening messages, explained in the Darlington County Sheriff's arrest warrant as: "describing a possible explosive device and the results it may create to further his cause."

While the police presence might appear larger than normal, every other group will be much smaller. During a full race weekend that involves all three NASCAR national series -- Cup, Xfinity and Trucks -- there can be as many as 3,700 credentialed personnel in the racetrack infield, including competitors, NASCAR employees, track workers, support industry personnel and media members. On Sunday, that number will be less than 900.

The press box will have only four occupants, working as pool reporters for the media not in attendance. Motor Racing Network also will use a small team of radio personnel, made up only of those who live in the Carolinas and can make the drive. Fox will be working with a crew half the normal size to broadcast the race, utilizing only one reporter on pit road and moving production work such as replays and graphics to its studios in Charlotte. That's also where the broadcast booth will be, with Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon watching on monitors from separate studios, as they have throughout the network's broadcasting of iRacing over the past two months.

It would be naive to believe that the surprising success of eNASCAR broadcasts (roughly 1 million viewers per week) hasn't fed into NASCAR's desire to get back to the live track as soon as possible. Phelps has never disputed that. Much of the motivation behind all of the phone conversations, the politics, the education on pandemics and the laying out of the rules that will be so heavily enforced at Darlington and Charlotte has been to be the only live sport on television on Sunday afternoons for the foreseeable future.

If one were to receive a commission for every time the name of the 1979 Daytona 500 has been invoked over the past few weeks, he or she would not have to go back to work. That's when CBS aired its first live, flag-to-flag coverage of NASCAR's biggest race, on a Sunday when nothing else was on and much of the East Coast was socked in by a snowstorm. Those people stuck in their homes were gifted with perhaps the greatest finish in the history of motorsports, when Richard Petty held off Darrell Waltrip and A.J. Foyt, as Cale Yarborough had a fistfight with the Alabama Gang after crashing out of the lead on the final lap. NASCAR's three decades of growth started that day.

These days, it has been stuck in neutral. But now, so is the American sports-viewing public. Check that ... so is the entirety of sports, period. They will all be watching on Sunday to see if the road back to normal does indeed run through Darlington, South Carolina.

"I have no idea how it's going to feel when the green flag finally waves because this has been so different getting there," Knaus said. "I really hope that when we get some laps in, we have settled in, and it'll be like, 'OK, this feels normal.' If it does, it'll be the first time something has felt normal in a really long time. And that's really all anyone wants right now, isn't it?"

Tharp agreed.

"I've heard from a lot of people who work in a lot of different sports," said Tharp, who before joining NASCAR spent 20 years as the media relations director for the South Carolina Gamecocks, working with the likes of Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier. "They all want to see if all of this we are doing to make this race happen works. They are all hoping that it does.

"We make this work, and we will, then sports are back. And other sports can hopefully take what we learn from this and they can get back soon too."

ESPN feature producer Tracy Wholf contributed to this report.

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With new rules and a new normal, NASCAR set to return this weekend - ESPN