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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
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Richard Rapport’s loss to Pavel Eljanov cost Hungary their only match defeat in Reykjavik, but it would be hard to hold it against him.
The 19-year-old had become the forgotten prodigy - despite starting the year at 2716 he fell out of the Top 100 by sinking to 2649 on the September rating list. Now after five wins and a 2828 performance in the Euro Teams he’s back up where he belongs, with a 2715.2 rating putting him at world no. 33. The only player younger and higher-rated is a certain Wei Yi.
Peter Svidler also gave Simon Williams the answer the English grandmaster was hoping for to a question about how the team would celebrate:
There will probably be some imbibing of liquids at some point.
Never one to shrink from telling it just as it is, FIDE has published a list of the ten member countries in arrears.
I wonder how many of us could accurately place all ten on an outline map of the world? I know where Sao Tome is (off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea) because in the old modem days a PC computer virus once dialed a long distance telephone call there, for which I was charged. Have no idea where the Comoros are and I always mix up Bahrain and Bhutan.
The final of the 1st FIDE World Online Women Blitz Championship is scheduled to take place on November 26th, in the club “Circolo Canottieri Aniene” in Rome, Italy. The players will be seated on a round table, with computer screens in front of them. No real chessboards will be used. The tournament is an 18 round, double round robin, with 3m+2s time control and starts at 16:00 CET.
Olimpiu Urcan comments on this:
If all the players have to fly to Rome, you can't call it an "online" event. It's like driving all the way to Macy's just to do e-shopping.
The final of the 1st FIDE World Online Women Blitz Championship is scheduled to take place on November 26th, in the club “Circolo Canottieri Aniene” in Rome, Italy. The players will be seated on a round table, with computer screens in front of them. No real chessboards will be used. The tournament is an 18 round, double round robin, with 3m+2s time control and starts at 16:00 CET.
Olimpiu Urcan comments on this:
If all the players have to fly to Rome, you can't call it an "online" event. It's like driving all the way to Macy's just to do e-shopping.
Is that for real? I have to think pretty hard in order to remember about a dumber plan for a chess event.
To be fair, my impression is that they played online up to this point and now all the ladies are brought together to play on computers in the same room so the organizers can see there is no cheating.
If anyone has more information on this – let her step forward.
"Half the variations calculated in a tournament game turn out to be completely superfluous. Unfortunately, nobody knows in advance which half." :) [GM Jan Timman, 1951--. Timman is the strongest Dutch player since GM Max Euwe, who became World Champion 1935-37.]
"Just for you, Bryon, I'll offer a nickel off!" :) Organizer / Deputy Arbiter Frank Dixon, speaking to competitor IM Bryon Nickoloff, in advance of the 1992 Canadian Zonal Championship in Kingston. The entry fee for the event was $100 (fully refundable at the finish, for each competitor who completed the event), and I was offering Nick a bargain price of $99.95, or a 'Nickel Off' the regular rate! He didn't think my joke was that funny, having probably heard it before a few times!
"I may yet be forced to admit that the Winawer is sound. But I doubt it! The defense is anti-positional and weakens the K-side." :)
(GM Robert J. Fischer, 1943-2008, World Champion 1972-75. The quote is from his book "My 60 Memorable Games", which ranks very highly among the greatest chess books of all time. Fischer struggled against the Winawer French (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4). He never played the Black side of it in a tournament game. A widely-published loss in the variation to the then obscure Yugoslav Master Vlado Kovacevic (who later became a GM) at Rovinj-Zagreb 1970 attracted worldwide attention. Fischer still won the tournament comfortably.
But his last serious published game against the line came in game 1 of his 1971 Candidates' semi-final match against GM Bent Larsen, in Denver. This was a spectacular, risky tactical game, won by Fischer, and that set the stage for a 6-0 sweep of Larsen!)
Anish Giri scored the only win in Round 1 of the London Chess Classic 2015, saying his unlikely victory over Veselin Topalov reminded him of when he was a kid, “surviving with cheap tricks and zero understanding”.
"The art of a chess player consists in his ability to ignite a magical fire from the dull and senseless initial position." :)
[GM David Bronstein, 1924-2006. He was twice Soviet champion (1948, 1949), victor in two Interzonals (1948, 1955), drew the 1951 World Championship match with holder GM Mikhail Botvinnik, was four times a member of gold-medal winning Soviet Olympiad teams (1952, 1954, 1956, 1958), several times champion of Moscow, winner of the 1995 Hastings Challengers at age 70, and one of the greatest chess writers in history. The quote is from his final book "Secret Notes", with co-author Sergei Voronkov, which was published in 2007, just after Bronstein's death. In every facet of his chess, Bronstein lived up to the essence of this quote!]
"Mistrust is the most necessary characteristic for the chess player." :) [Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch, 1862-1934, one of the world's top players from the late 1890s into the 1920s.]
I have a fondness for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ science fiction. It is pure escapism.
From The Chessmen of Mars (1922):
Shea had just beaten me at chess as usual, and, also as usual, I had gleaned what questionable satisfaction I might by twitting him with this indication of failing mentality by calling his attention for the nth time to that theory propounded by certain scientists, which is based upon the assertion that phenomenal chess players are always found to be from the ranks of children under twelve, adults over seventy-two or the mentally defective – a theory that is lightly ignored upon those rare occasions that I win.
When I was around seven years old, my first coach imbued me with an appreciation for the psychological side of chess. "Chess is played on and off the board," he would sagely proclaim, words that made little sense to me then, but that ring true many years later. To support his point, he told me the story of a Ukrainian master named Shkolya. Mr. Shkolya was a skilled player, but he supplemented his strength through a little psychological trick that was singlehandedly responsible for many of his victories.
The trick went like this. Whenever Shkolya set a trap or threatened his opponent's piece, he would intently focus his eyes on a square on the opposite flank. His surprised opponent would inevitably follow suit, and spend a long time trying to figure out what Shkolya was so concerned about. Having found nothing, he will forget all about checking for traps or threats, and will nonchalantly make the most natural move. Flushed with the success of his ploy, Shkolya would exploit his opponent's negligence and win the game.
See the article linked above for Naroditsky’s first test of the Shkolya Method.
The Times of London has an obituary for Tim Jones.
Tim Jones, Times journalist, was born on October 14, 1943. He died of a heart attack on December 4, 2015, aged 72
As a newsman on The Times for 42 years, he covered the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland; reported events in his native Wales; and, as a skilful chess player himself, he chronicled one of the greatest contests in the history of the game.
In 1972, after lobbying the news desk, Jones was given his dream assignment: to accompany the chess correspondent covering the world championship battle between the Russian Boris Spassky and the American Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik. Jones was among the first journalists to realise the news potential of the story, which took off when the unpredictable Fischer delayed his arrival. “The stage is set but the demon king is missing,” began Jones’s front-page report. When Fischer did arrive, Jones attempted to interview him only to be told, “Shove off, jerk”. Nonetheless, he eventually managed to get a signed programme from the American; he treasured it for the rest of his life.
Back in London, he took on the renowned Times columnist Bernard Levin in a chess game at Levin’s home as part of an annual inhouse competition. During the game — which Jones won — he broke the leg of a Chippendale chair, then a wine glass and finally one of the antique carved pieces. Afterwards, a furious Levin told him that perhaps he should bring an axe next time they played.
Despite ailing health, he continued playing chess with the Bourne End club in Berkshire. Always good company, he was the chief promoter of a regular gathering of Times staff past and present. The day before he died, he was in attendance at one such gathering, with his customary glass of red wine in hand, roaring with laughter as he regaled friends with an amusing story he had spotted in The Times diary that morning.
"Fischer's both strong and weak point is that he remains true to himself, and plays the same way regardless of his partners or any external factor." :)
[World champion GM Mikhail Botvinnik, commenting on the 16-year-old Bobby Fischer, immediately following the 1959 Candidates tournament in Yugoslavia.]
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