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Chess in The New Yorker
December 31, 2015
In the January 4, 2016 issue of The New Yorker magazine there is a description of a simul that Fabiano Caruana recently gave for the Chess Works! program for children in New Jersey.
One bit from “Your Move” by David Owen:
Caruana lived in Brooklyn between the ages of four and twelve, then moved to Madrid, Budapest, and Lugano. He now lives in Florida. On a recent Monday, he was in Jersey City, at the Liberty Science Center, where he played a chess game against twenty players even younger than he is.
See: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...enty-opponents
If you scroll down the virtual page, you will find two more articles. “The Return of the Chess Cheat” by Simon Parkin, from the April 17, 2015 issue. It starts off with this lovely (but gory) paragraph:
Accounts vary as to how exactly a chess game between King Canute the Great and one of his most trusted Viking chieftains, Earl Ulf, went down, in 1026, but certainly cheating was involved, and for at least one party the match proved fatal. In their 1851 book “The Chess Player, ” the German chess masters Bernhard Horwitz and Josef Kling tell a version of the story in which the king made a “false move” and lost one of his knights. Canute “would not have this, ” they write, and insisted that he be allowed a redo, at which suggestion Ulf “waxed angry” and overturned the board. (The match took place at a banquet; he may have been emboldened by mead.) Things escalated. The king accused Ulf of cowardice, prompting the earl to remind Canute of the assistance he had rendered him at the Helge River, when, he gibed, “the Swedes beat you like a dog.” Ulf turned on his heel and retired for the night. It was to be his last: Canute had him killed in church the next day.
______
The third article is even older, “The Prince’s Gambit” by D.T. Max from March 21, 2011, about the development of Magnus Carlsen. From that:
When Carlsen was about five, his father, who was then working as a supply manager for Exxon, brought out the chessboard. Henrik had played the game well as a young man. He wanted to teach his oldest child, Ellen, and Magnus, who is a year younger. But neither paid much attention, and Henrik grew frustrated and gave up. “I said to myself, ‘Maybe chess is not for them. It doesn’t matter—they can do something else. ’ ” During these years, Magnus was more engaged by soccer and skiing, and the family already played hearts, bridge, and Monopoly; in those contests, Ellen and Ingrid, who is three years younger than Magnus, ganged up on him.
When Magnus was almost eight, Henrik made another attempt to interest the kids in chess. Magnus liked games, and this time, he recalled, he found it “just a richer and more complicated game than any other. ” He soon beat Ellen, who quit playing. Magnus began consulting his father’s small collection of chess books. He read “Find the Plan, ” by Bent Larsen, a standard introductory text, and more advanced books, like “The Complete Dragon. ” (The title refers to a form of defense in which the pattern of pawns resembles a dragon’s tail.) He was the sort of child who studied what interested him and ignored what didn’t. School, which bored him, was quickly supplanted by chess. “During the whole third grade, I think it’s fair to say, I didn’t do my homework once, ” he recalled. At breakfast, he sat down at his own table and tested chess moves on a board. He recalled, “I found it natural—I didn’t really have the need to socialize with my family over meals. Dinner I, of course, ate with them. ”
After playing for a year, Magnus beat Henrik for the first time, in a game of “blitz chess, ” in which each player has five minutes to make all his moves. Magnus began to play in local junior competitions. Henrik picked him up after ski-jump practice and ferried him to the chess tournaments. Carlsen’s family was not unlike those American families in which the parents are careful not to tell their children that they have to excel but the children sense it anyway. Håkon Åmdal, a friend of Carlsen’s from school, says, “My impression is that Magnus chose to play chess by himself, but he has this feeling that he satisfies his dad by it. ”
In March, 2000, Henrik arranged for Magnus, now nine, to spend a few hours every week with a chess teacher, Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen, a former Norwegian junior champion. Carlsen liked Hansen’s casual style; the classes were more like spirited bull sessions. The teacher, in turn, was struck by his pupil’s gifts. “Everything I said he understood so easily, ” Hansen told me.
________
Good writing from The New Yorker
December 31, 2015
In the January 4, 2016 issue of The New Yorker magazine there is a description of a simul that Fabiano Caruana recently gave for the Chess Works! program for children in New Jersey.
One bit from “Your Move” by David Owen:
Caruana lived in Brooklyn between the ages of four and twelve, then moved to Madrid, Budapest, and Lugano. He now lives in Florida. On a recent Monday, he was in Jersey City, at the Liberty Science Center, where he played a chess game against twenty players even younger than he is.
See: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...enty-opponents
If you scroll down the virtual page, you will find two more articles. “The Return of the Chess Cheat” by Simon Parkin, from the April 17, 2015 issue. It starts off with this lovely (but gory) paragraph:
Accounts vary as to how exactly a chess game between King Canute the Great and one of his most trusted Viking chieftains, Earl Ulf, went down, in 1026, but certainly cheating was involved, and for at least one party the match proved fatal. In their 1851 book “The Chess Player, ” the German chess masters Bernhard Horwitz and Josef Kling tell a version of the story in which the king made a “false move” and lost one of his knights. Canute “would not have this, ” they write, and insisted that he be allowed a redo, at which suggestion Ulf “waxed angry” and overturned the board. (The match took place at a banquet; he may have been emboldened by mead.) Things escalated. The king accused Ulf of cowardice, prompting the earl to remind Canute of the assistance he had rendered him at the Helge River, when, he gibed, “the Swedes beat you like a dog.” Ulf turned on his heel and retired for the night. It was to be his last: Canute had him killed in church the next day.
______
The third article is even older, “The Prince’s Gambit” by D.T. Max from March 21, 2011, about the development of Magnus Carlsen. From that:
When Carlsen was about five, his father, who was then working as a supply manager for Exxon, brought out the chessboard. Henrik had played the game well as a young man. He wanted to teach his oldest child, Ellen, and Magnus, who is a year younger. But neither paid much attention, and Henrik grew frustrated and gave up. “I said to myself, ‘Maybe chess is not for them. It doesn’t matter—they can do something else. ’ ” During these years, Magnus was more engaged by soccer and skiing, and the family already played hearts, bridge, and Monopoly; in those contests, Ellen and Ingrid, who is three years younger than Magnus, ganged up on him.
When Magnus was almost eight, Henrik made another attempt to interest the kids in chess. Magnus liked games, and this time, he recalled, he found it “just a richer and more complicated game than any other. ” He soon beat Ellen, who quit playing. Magnus began consulting his father’s small collection of chess books. He read “Find the Plan, ” by Bent Larsen, a standard introductory text, and more advanced books, like “The Complete Dragon. ” (The title refers to a form of defense in which the pattern of pawns resembles a dragon’s tail.) He was the sort of child who studied what interested him and ignored what didn’t. School, which bored him, was quickly supplanted by chess. “During the whole third grade, I think it’s fair to say, I didn’t do my homework once, ” he recalled. At breakfast, he sat down at his own table and tested chess moves on a board. He recalled, “I found it natural—I didn’t really have the need to socialize with my family over meals. Dinner I, of course, ate with them. ”
After playing for a year, Magnus beat Henrik for the first time, in a game of “blitz chess, ” in which each player has five minutes to make all his moves. Magnus began to play in local junior competitions. Henrik picked him up after ski-jump practice and ferried him to the chess tournaments. Carlsen’s family was not unlike those American families in which the parents are careful not to tell their children that they have to excel but the children sense it anyway. Håkon Åmdal, a friend of Carlsen’s from school, says, “My impression is that Magnus chose to play chess by himself, but he has this feeling that he satisfies his dad by it. ”
In March, 2000, Henrik arranged for Magnus, now nine, to spend a few hours every week with a chess teacher, Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen, a former Norwegian junior champion. Carlsen liked Hansen’s casual style; the classes were more like spirited bull sessions. The teacher, in turn, was struck by his pupil’s gifts. “Everything I said he understood so easily, ” Hansen told me.
________
Good writing from The New Yorker
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