Archive for September 11th, 2009

Those three terms (”LEGO,” “Star Wars,” and “Chess“), strung together, form a powerful phrase for many a young boy. In fact, my six-year-old son started putting those three terms together about a year ago, and over the summer he worked on a little project of his own that he called by that very phrase. Then he realized he did not have nearly enough pieces to finish it, and that dad was not about to run out to the toy store and buy him the rest (especially after he had dismantled several expensive models that we spent hours working on in order to start his project). When he sees this picture, which I have not yet shown him, he is going to go through an emotional roller coaster. First he is going to be disappointed that someone beat him to the punch, then he is going to get excited about the prospect of buying it, and then he is going to be disappointed again to learn it is not yet for sale (thank God).

The set was designed by Brandon Griffith, who has lots more pictures of it at his Flickr page. According to the page, “This is a Star Wars: A New Hope Lego Chess set. It was built in April and May of 2009 and debuted at Star Wars Days at Legoland California.” Pretty cool.

In continuation of our Paris
Championship report we follow the successful chess career of a young Indian
grandmaster. Parimarjan Negi participated at his first tournament when he was
four, and became a grandmaster at 13, the second youngest in chess history. Now
16, his freshest victory was at the recent
Politiken Cup in Denmark. Diana Mihajlova spent a day in Paris with Parimarjan.

It was the third consecutive win for Armenia’s top grandmaster, after he had lost his first game in Bilabo. And it was the second consecutive loss for the Russian, who had won is first two games in this event. Levon Aronian vs Alexander Grischuk was definitely the game to watch in round four of the Grand Slam Final, which Aronian now leads with nine “Bilbao points”. Illustrated report.