Archive for October 21st, 2009

Behind the kings of the chess world, there’s a crack team of knights – or ‘seconds’, as they are called. They work day and night, and spend months together locked up, and once in a while they want to break the tension. In the team of World Champion Viswanathan Anand Coldplay is staple music, but “the guys now also listen to Tamil music.” Jaideep Unudurti reports on Outlook Business.

Viacheslav Ragozin, who passed away in 1962, was one of the trainers of Mikhail
Botvinnik. He became famous for blowing smoke into the legendary World Champion’s
face in order to steel the non-smoker for opponents who did the same. In his
Wednesday night Playchess lecture Dennis
Monokroussos shows us Ragozin at his best against Andor Lilienthal. Be there at 9 p.m. ET or 3 a.m. CEST.

The endgame Carlsen-Wang Yue, which was presented last week by GM Karsten
Mueller for ChessBase Magazine
Online, one variation ended in the
diagrammed position with two knights against two pawns. This position is won
for the knights’ side although, as is well known, two knights alone can’t
force checkmate. Pivotal for victory is on which square a remaining pawn has
to be blocked, determining the so-called Troitzky line.
Since this has led
to many requests, Karsten Mueller will explain the subject once more in
detail in the following.