"The Canada - China crisis is a game of chess, and Ottawa needs to stop playing it with checker pieces."
This is the title of an article, by Yves Tiberghien, in The Globe and Mail right now. It is available at:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...-needs-to-stop
Very clever image and headline!
-
Great Chess Quotes
May 18, 2019
Targeted Ads
The 2019 Moscow Grand Prix is on. It is a knockout tournament and Anish Giri left in the first round, having drawn with Daniil Dubov and then, having been beaten by him.
That is bad enough but then he received a tweet which said:
Dear, Anish Giri
We’re super excited to present our brand new video and interactive chess training program:
Improve Your Chess Calculation!
In this new and innovative series, GM Davorin Kuljasevic guides you through the fundamental concepts and tools that will allow your calculation skills to improve
To this, Anish replied on his twitter page:
Taking targeted ads to a new level.
__________
Very funny! This prompted dozens of replies from fans:
- Glad to see you keep your spirits! March on, soldja!
- Next you will get targeted ads from Play Magnus
- This may be your best tweet yet!
- Hilarious, …but Anish Giri you are a champ
- this one’s a riot on soo many levels!
- wishing you the best of luck in your chess development
- I’ve come to like this guy Anish. At first I thought he was just a brat but his self-deprecating humour has won me over.Leave a comment:
-
A quote from the Guardian: Barden's writings never grow stale, mate. ( a lovely touch of the English)Leave a comment:
-
At the age of 90 (almost) Master Barden still writes great chess columns. I wish him many more years of doing that! (you can quote me on that)Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
May 17, 2019
The recent history of the Sicilian
From Leonard Barden’s May 17 column in The Guardian :
“Long ago the Sicilian was a punchbag for Bobby Fischer’s Bc4, Mikhail Tal’s mazy Nd5 sacrifices and Paul Keres’s g4 attacks. There was an interlude when the solid Nc6/e6 Taimanov and the e6/a6 Kan gained ground, but then came Anatoly Karpov with his anti-Dragon and Be2 anti-Najdorf systems.
The pendulum swung again when Garry Kasparov made the Najdorf his principal reply to 1 e4 and remained faithful to it during his long career. There was another interlude when Vishy Anand demolished Sicilians, but for the present the opening is back with a vengeance.
Carlsen scares the elite with his Sveshnikov and Kalashnikov, while Vachier-Lagrave scores well with the Najdorf as his main defence. Some time in future there will be new white strategies, and the only safe prediction is that 1 e4 c5 will continue to be keenly debated.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...-playing-badly
Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
May 11, 2019
The Grand Chess Tour is on and at present is in the blitz phase at the Côte D’Ivoire.
Magnus Carlsen smashed everyone in the rapids phase and is not doing quite so well in the blitz.
In any case, Anish Giri, who likes to get a few digs in at the World Champion, still thinks it is a runaway and tweeted this today:
The good thing about all those #GrandChessTour events, is that if the rapid didn't go your way, there is always the illusion that the blitz might!#fanboy
Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
April 23, 2019
All these can be found at:
https://twitter.com/nigelshortchess?...Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Six Tweets from Nigel Short
April 23, 2019
- Just lost an online blitz game to someone who played 21 moves in 3 seconds with 98.6% accuracy. Not that I am insinuating anything, mind you...
February 24, 2019
- Whoever invented three rounds of #chess in a day deserves a special place in Hell - next to the Brexiteers.
January 29, 2019
- Vladimir Kramnik bows out after a magnificent career. His #chess has been often exquisite, and always instructive. I might add that I know exactly what he means about flagging motivation.
January 6, 2019
- I can never understand socks; one day they appear happily married, and the next, unexpectedly single.
January 1, 2019
- It is fascinating how much online cheating occurs on #chess servers. I get messages every few days informing me that one of my opponents has been caught (once 3 in a day!!) and my rating readjusted upwards. All this with no money at stake. How often does it happen in tournaments?
December 27, 2018
- A theoretical treatise on 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5! - as played by Boris Becker, @GMHikaru and now @MagnusCarlsen - is the most glaring lacuna in the vast literature of #chess. Who will order a copy, if I write it?
Leave a comment:
-
Very interesting about being a rook up. Its similar in odds - play (removing queen, removing rook, or other odds). Giving a queen can only be done with beginning tournament players at best but giving rook odds I have had success up to about 1500.Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
April 22, 2019
I never get personally involved in these chess quotes if I can help it but today, I could not help it.
Jan Gustafsson in a couple of his broadcasts last year talked about winning a game when you were a major piece up. I thought it was a joke because who couldn’t win a game if that were so? But, I decided to ask him in the Chat Room of the 2019 Grenke, Round Three Today:
My question and his answer:
Que for Jan: Jan has joked about authoring a book entitled "How to Win the Game When You are a Rook Ahead" or "How to Win the Game When You are a Queen Ahead". Which is it?
Answer: Rook! Winning, a queen up is easy!
This is one of the most underrated skills in chess, the art of winning when a rook up. Just ask Magnus. It is proven not to be simple at all to convert that extra rook, especially in the starter position.
Today, with rooks up, we saw another textbook example in this game between MVL and Arkadij Naiditsch, where Naiditsch could not convert his extra rook and had to settle for a draw because the one rook that White had left gave a lot of checks. This is why I always say that if you have two rooks and your opponent has one, you should exchange that very rook and it then it can’t give any checks and you can use your extra rook to roam freely, without worry. The book is not out yet.
__________
Jan’s example is from this game:
Grenke Chess Classic 2019
Round 3, Apr. 22
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime – Naiditsch, Arkadij
C67 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defence, open variation
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.h3 Ne7 10.Rd1+ Ke8 11.Nc3 Ng6 12.b3 Be7 13.Ne4 a5 14.Re1 a4 15.Bb2 Be6 16.Nd4 Nf4 17.Rad1 h5 18.h4 Nd5 19.c4 Nb4 20.a3 Na6 21.b4 c5 22.Nxe6 fxe6 23.b5 Nb8 24.f4 Rf8 25.Nf6+ gxf6 26.exf6 Bd6 27.Rxe6+ Kf7 28.Rde1 Rd8 29.g4 hxg4 30.h5 Nd7 31.Re7+ Bxe7 32.Rxe7+ Kg8 33.Rg7+ Kh8 34.f7 Rf8 35.f5 Nb6 36.Bf6 Nxc4 37.Rxg4+ Kh7 38.Rg7+ Kh6 39.Rg6+ Kh7 40.Rg7+ Kh6 41.Rg6+ Kh7 42.Rg7+ Kh6 1/2-1/2
Black’s extra rook sits on a8 for the whole game
Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
April 22, 2019
Some quotes on the book on Tal by his former wife, Sally Landau:
Nigel Short (tweet) - Enjoyed reading "Checkmate!", by Sally Landau (Elk & Ruby), about her loving and yet often tormented marriage to Mikhail Tal. It is one of the greatest privileges of my chess career to have played the maestro. He was a most charming and quick-witted genius.
Hans Ree – Tal was very unworldly. He didn't know how to put on the gas lighting if his parents were not at home. Landau writes that he once complained about a strange pain in one foot, and then she saw that he had two right shoes on all day.
The book by Sally Landau changes our image of Tal, but it enriches what we know. I found it very touching.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/04/19...vzLayfVNi9sgWM
and two quotes from the review by Armchair Warrior:
https://xpertchesslessons.wordpress....e-GEtjX8e_Ofhw
The book is replete with things like this from Yakov Damsky writing in Riga Chess, 1986. “He has a wonderful ability with language and always has a sharp wit. I remember, for example, after a lecture some tactless dude asked Tal: “Is it true you’re a morphinist?” to which Tal instantly replied: “No, I’m a chigorinets!”
___________
“Chess players talk to each other in the language of notation. I was always amazed at this. Although I understood nothing of it, I listened to them as though they were aliens, observing their emotions. If, for example, Tal, Stein and Gufeld got together, their conversation could flow along the following lines:
Gufeld: What would you say to knightdfourfsixbishopg2?
Stein: Bishopgsevenfgknightdefivecheck!
Tal: Yes but you’ve forgotten about if knightfsixintermezzoqueenheight!
Gufeld: Queeneightrookgeightwithcheckandrooktakesheight and you’re left without your mummy!
Tal: But after bishopeone you’re left without your daddy!
Stein: Bishopeone doesn’t work because of the obvious knighttakesoneecfourdekinggsevenrookasevencheck!
And this wonderful chitchat would continue endlessly, with people not “in-the-know” thinking they were in a madhouse.”
Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
April 20, 2019
Peter Leko with Jan Gustafsson is commentating on the Grenke Classic 2019.
The problem with this is that the young man he coaches, Vincent Keymer, is playing in the Masters and in the first round is up against Magnus Carlsen.
When all your sympathies and concentration are on your pupil, it is hard to talk about other things, though Peter managed it fairly well, but Jan is quite a wag.
This exchange:
Peter was saying how he enjoyed the Isle of Man Open
Jan: Is it true at the Isle of Man they have cats without tails?
Peter: I haven’t noticed.
Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
April 15, 2019
Tweet from Jonathan Rowson on April 15, 2019
Just played through Magnus Carlsen's games from #Shamkirchess where he won with 7/9 and pushed his rating to 2860. For a few years there he was merely the best of the best, but now I think he is back to being superior in historic terms; the best of the best of the best.
https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Rowson/...60644688879616
Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
April 4, 2019
Alireza Firouzja
A report yesterday stated that Firouzja of Iran finished with an impressive 19/25, to claim a spot in the 2019 Bullet Chess Championship, where he will face Hikaru Nakamura in the first round of the competition.
During that tournament, he ran into connectivity issues that appeared to affect his performance.
Nick Barton at:
https://www.chess.com/news/view/firo...s-championship
This quotable comment on that report:
randy296 wrote:
“Firouzja qualifies here despite connectivity issues (!), wins his last game at the World Team in time to catch a ridiculous flight out, plays 200 points above his rating at the World Blitz, and simply demolishes the blitz field in Manila - like a man among kids, except that he is the kid! 15 y.o..
Dunno when his slow game (now 2700) catches up with his blitz strength.
But when he does become the first Iranian World Champion, I will be the least surprised person in the room.”
Leave a comment:
-
Great Chess Quotes
April 4, 2019
In the fifth round of the Gashimov Memorial 2019 in Shamkir, Vishy Anand is tied for second place with Karjakin, ahead of Ding Liren, Navara, Grischuk, Mamedyarov etc.
He just beat Anish Giri and both were at the post mortem:
“Today, at the press conference Anand was asked why he is still playing at the highest level, while most of the players from his generation have either quit chess or are much less successful. Was it his labor, or his talent?
Before he could answer, next to him Giri whispered: "Both!"
Even an always-modest Anand could only agree there. With a big smile he reacted: "Anish nailed it!"”
Peter Doggers at chess.com
https://www.chess.com/news/view/sham...morial-round-5
Leave a comment:
Leave a comment: