Archive for November 22nd, 2009

Paper Chess by Kell Black would make the perfect holiday gift for a crafty chess-playing friend or teen. There have been a couple interviews (see “APSU Artist Releases Book of Paper Chess Pieces” and “APSU Professor Engineers Paper Chess Set for Ivy Press in England“) with designer Black, an art professor at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, who talks about how he fell in love with paper foldouts when he built a paper medieval village with his father at the age of five. The difficulty with chess (as Stean and Emms will tell you) is keeping it simple:

“Any designer, any artist, any musician will tell you it’s always easy to add stuff,” [Black] said. “What’s really hard is to take away, to make it as simple as possible. That’s the challenge and that’s what made it so fun.”

For those looking for more of a challenge, there is a nice instruction set available online for making a “Birdbase Chess Set” (PDF) by Joseph Wu, who has also produced a YouTube video showing you how he can make it in 30 seconds (so long as you speed up the video tape!)

… versus an attack in the g- and f-file was featured in the following game, where after
30…f4 31.Qxg5 Rxg5 the queens were exchanged, but Black now was able to put the double threat 32…fxe3 and …f3 in the balance. What is your comment on this situation?
A) The passed pawns are not advanced far enough yet, so Black wins; 
B) with best play a positional draw is the logical consequence;
C) White remains victorious.
The solution is here,
but first ponder over it with a  larger version of the diagram.

Ruslan Ponomariov, who picked up from his compatriot Ivanchuk and played in an anti-viral mask, was only able to draw against Essam El Gindy of Egypt, while Alexander Grischuk did the same against Indian IM Jha Sriram. Those were two of the handful of surprises on day one of the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Illustrated report with games and results.