Archive for January 28th, 2010

In chess we grapple with honesty, deceitfulness, bravery, aggression, fear, beauty, and creativity. Chess is an activity in which we deploy almost all our available cognitive resources; making it an ideal laboratory for investigation into the workings of the mind. That is the subject of a new book by an Argentinian biologist. Guess who reviewed it and guess whose 25-year-old photos we found.

Want to go to Moscow to play in the FIDE World Blitz qualifier in February?
Meet top international players over the board? With all expenses paid? You can
take a crack by participating in the Internet qualifiers on Playchess.com.
Thursday night at 20:00h CET (2 p.m. NY, 22:00h Moscow) is the last of six preliminaries.
What you need and how you can join is described
here.

Ten rounds have been played, three to go, with Thursday the rest day. That
give us a chance to catch up on the somewhat neglected lower groups. After our
recent Group B
pictorial we turn our attention to Group C, where six players are 20 years
old, five younger and three older. Dutch photographer Frits Agterdenbos has
sent us information and pictures for another lovely close-up gallery.

Seeing all these superstars at the Corus Tournament 2010, one can easily forget that also the C-group provides a wealth of highly interesting chess. For example this game, where White after Black’s last move 23…Bg7-f6 had to parry the attack on his queen. The strike
24.Rxf5 in your opinion leads to what?
A) advantage for White;
B) balanced play;
C) advantage for Black.

The solution is here,
but first ponder over it with a  larger version of the diagram.