Ian Mangion maintained his 1.5 point lead over NM Mark Kernighan. TD Greg Tomkovich moved into 3rd place. Max Sherer climbed 3 spots & stands 4th.
I have uploaded a replay page & zipped PGN file with 4 annotated games (including those of Stoyko, Sherer & Sokolosky) from last week’s Garden State Chess League finales.
This week, Spiegel Online published an interview with Henry Kissinger (see “Obama Is Like a Chess Master“) that featured the following headline-grabbing exchange:
SPIEGEL: Do you think it was helpful for Obama to deliver a speech to the Islamic world in Cairo? Or has he created a lot of illusions about what politics can deliver?
Kissinger: Obama is like a chess player who is playing simultaneous chess and has opened his game with an unusual opening. Now he’s got to play his hand as he plays his various counterparts. We haven’t gotten beyond the opening game move yet. I have no quarrel with the opening move.
As I noted in “Obama as Chess Master,” the association of Obama with chess in the discourse of international relations contrasts sharply with the more primitive games (such as poker and Monopoly) associated with his predecessor. US foreign policy no longer seems driven by ideological brinksmanship but instead seems guided by objective and intelligent strategic maneuvering. The White House no longer hides its cards, but instead makes its moves openly on the world stage for all to see. Kissinger is clearly troping on the chess vs. poker theme I have been following for several years, and he elevates the praise of Obama implied by the “chess master” metaphor by pointing out that the President is “playing simultaneous chess” and trying out “an unusual opening.” Kissinger, of course, is famous among chess players for having made an 11th hour call to Bobby Fischer that got him to participate in the 1972 World Championship match in Iceland. Even if he opened his conversation with Fischer by saying, “This is one of the worst chess players in the world speaking to the best,” Kissinger is surely regarded as a master of strategic maneuvering and a brilliant chess player on the world stage. So this is high praise indeed for Obama.
That Obama met with opposition leader and former chess World Champion Garry Kasparov during his recent visit to Moscow is still more evidence of the objective and complex type of game he is playing. As ChessBase points out, he is the first president since Bill Clinton to meet the Russian opposition leader during a state visit.
Losing a must-win position owing to a tactical
blunder can make you feel really sick. That is why calculation is a core ability
in chess and why Daniel King finally covers it in the latest DVD of his
Powerplay series. It is vol. 10 now but the DVDs just keep getting better and
better, says Michael Jeffreys.
Buy Powerplay 10
- Calculation now or read this review.
Normally knowing your enemy is an advantage. Not so in chess games between the sexes. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology Dr Anne Maass (et al.) pitted male and female players against each other via the Internet. Women showed a 50% performance decline when they were aware that they were playing a male opponent. Very thought-provoking!
The Basque seaside town of San Sebastián, famous for its intense cultural life and international festivals of film and jazz, is paying host to a category 18 event, with ten GMs averaging 2682 – amongst them the legendary 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov and two former FIDE world champions. After two rounds US GM Hikaru Nakamura leads. Pictorial report by WGM Anastasiya Karlovich.