chessnews

Support “Chess Movie”

Over the last 2 years I have been producing and directing a documentary about scholastic chess with my company Rescued Media.  Chess Movie (working title) goes inside one of the best junior high chess program in the nation, Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, New York. Many students at 318 come from difficult circumstances and 60% are from low-income families, but being part of a winning chess team gives them a unique opportunity to experience success at a young age. Justus, Patrick, Alexis, Pobo & Rochelle are 5 of 50 team members that are learning on the chessboard the skills they need to face challenges of adolescence and their working class circumstances.

In April 2009 we embarked on our first trip with the team to Nashville, Tennessee, to the USCF Super Nationals. Once we witnessed how big the scholastic chess world was, we were hooked. Over the next year we embedded ourselves with the team– at home, at school and away at tournaments — and slowly, the kids’ individual stories began to take shape.  Please view our five minute teaser for an idea of where the film is now headed. It’s our ultimate goal to secure a national television broadcast for Chess Movie and maybe even a small theatrical release. We also plan to build a strong community outreach campaign in the hopes the film will build support for scholastic chess programs in under served communities as we have witnessed firsthand the profound effect the I.S. 318 chess program has had on its students.

Right now we have a fundraising campaign underway at Kickstarter.com. Kickstarter is an online funding platform for artists to engage with their audiences and build support for their projects. Our Kickstarter campaign has been pretty successful so far, reaching our initial goal of $4,000 in just a few short weeks. But we still have 50 days to go and we need more than 4k to finish this film. When you log onto Kickstarter you will see that we are offering some really cool rewards and incentives for backers. For example a $10 donation gets you exclusive access to video updates and deleted scenes and a $55 donation secures you a “Special Thanks” credit in our film. We also offer chess-centric rewards like free memberships to WORLD CHESS LIVE and CHESS.COM but at the end of the day I hope you are most inspired to give because you love chess and are moved by the kids and their stories. We believe this film has the potential to breakdown false stereotypes about chess and present a new and fresh perspective to one of the world’s oldest and most beloved games.

The fortress breaker

It is frequently anything but easy to make the material superiority of a rook over a bishop tell when all the pawns are on one side of the board. Last month we showed you a game with reduced material in which zugzwang brought about the decision. Today we follow that with an example with more pawns, in which White has to find access to a black fortress that is hard one to storm. The siege had already lasted for over twenty moves before White turned to radical measures with 55.f5!? GM Karsten Müller demonstrates how the game was decided and what additional defensive resources Black had. CBMagazine Online.

Workshop: Kibitzing in ChessBase Light

ChessBase Light is a program you can download on the right of this newspage.
It is completely free and you have most of the functions of a full database
program. In the latest ChessBase Workshop installment Steve Lopez shows
you how you can analyse games with the standard unregistered version of CB Light, which
comes with an older but very efficient chess engine. Streaming
video.

#640 1st Only New Jersey Championship

#639 Checkmate Championship – Round 1

NM Mark Kernighan, Ken Chieu, Ari Minkov, Don Carrelli & I lead after 1 round of the 6th Checkmate CC Championship.

For more details, replays, PGN, 2nd round pairings, etc., please visit the Checkmate club’s new site.

Rijeka: Jobava, Efimenko lead, zero tolerance appeal

Currently the FIDE rules require that players must be seated at the board no later than zero seconds past the scheduled start of a game. This has led to some unpleasant situations in the past. At the 11th European Individual Championships 110 participants signed a petition to change the grace period to 30 minutes. In the tournament Baadur Jobava and Zaher Efimenko lead. Round four report.

ChessBase show: Miles vs Karpov, the clash of styles

Britain’s first ever grandmaster, the late Anthony John Miles, was not just
strong but also extremely creative. When this fiery player clashed with Anatoly
Karpov, it was pure provocation facing ice-cold strategy. In his Playchess
presentation Dennis Monokroussos shows us Karpov succeeding – next week
it will be Miles taking down his illustrious opponent. Be there at 9 p.m. ET.

Postny wins Nancy Chess Festival Group A

168 players took part in the biggest chess festival of closed tournaments in France, with seventeen groups, from the A Group (ten players, average 2526 Elo) all the way to the last group with an average Elo of about 1300. Israeli GM Evgeny Postny won first place with 6.0/9. The venue, the “Conseil General”, is normally reserved for local government meetings. IM Christophe Philippe reports.

The political chess game

We long ago abandoned the practice of sending our readers to every article
or international news report that contains the word “chess”. But when
a Euronews story contains video footage of a world class grandmaster (Boris
Gelfand) playing the Deputy Prime Minister of his country (Natan Sharansky),
who is assisted by the current PM (Benjamin Netanyahu), we make
an exception.

Help from ChessBase Magazine

After three rounds in the European Championship Dieter-Liviu Nisipeanu was in the lead. The Romanian GM scored three consecutive wins, including one against Dimitri
Reindermann. Perhaps he was helped in his efforts by an article in ChessBase
Magazine, because in
CBM 132
his compatriot Mihail Marin examined in detail a variation of the Alekhine
Defence, which then was up for discussion in the game. The Dutch player chose a
line which our author had rejected and received the ultimate punishment for
doing so. Marin has provided a few notes on the game, and a thorough analysis
will follow in CBM 136. Here is
Nisipeanu –
Reindermann

Moving from Blogger FTP to WordPress, Part 1

• FTP Publishing on Blogger to WordPress: Migration Guide by Ravi
• Migrating from Blogger to WordPress (FTP Blogs) by Ben Frain
  Be sure to check the comments area here, which suggests it may actually be easier than he says.
• Move from Blogger to WordPress without Losing GoogleRank by Jason Fitzpatrick at Lifehacker
• Migrate Your Blog from Blogger to WordPress with All the Google Juice by Amit Agarwal at Digital Inspiration
• Move from Blogger to WordPress and Maintain Permalinks and Traffic by Arpit Jacob

These seem pretty helpful, but I get the sense that WordPress may be working behind the scenes to make the process even easier.  Just wish they would do more to announce what they are up to.  Seems like a great opportunity for them to gain customers.  I have backed up our site and started experimenting with The Center Square blog to see how this will go.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress and welcome reader advice.

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11th European Individual Championships in Rijeka

This event is taking place from March 6th to 18th 2010 in Rijeka, Croatia. Top players include Almasi, Bacrot, Movsesian, Navara, Vallejo, Motylev, Adams, Tomashevsky, Alekseev, Baadur, Naiditsch, Akopian, Volokitin, Bologan and Caruana. After two rounds 34 players have perfect scores, in the women’s section it is 17. The venue is spectacular: see if you can read its name from space.

Edward Winter’s Chess Explorations (37)

At the New York, 1889 tournament a master lost a game by forfeit after only
eight moves because he was, in the words of a newspaper report, ‘laboring
under excitement’. The Editor of Chess
Notes looks at three great players with reputations for heavy dependency
on alcohol, examining how they have been treated by
contemporaries and subsequent writers.

#638 Kenilworth Trio Eliminated From GSCL Race

All 3 Kenilworth entries were knocked-out of Garden State Chess League contention this week.

First, the Kortchnois were eliminated by a forfeit loss to West Orange. Then, last night, the Kramniks were dispatched by Hamilton 2.5-1.5 and the Karpovs (who had beaten Sparta 3-1) were done-in by tiebreaks.

The season, at least for the KCC teams, wraps-up on April 1st with the Kramniks playing the Karpovs & the Kortchnois trying to be spoilers against Hamilton.

Can you guess who this (future) grandmaster is?

Here’s another puzzle from our early-pictures scrapbook: who is the child in this photo? He was a boy prodigy, who at the sensational age of nineteen became the youngest grandmaster in the world. He has beaten twelve world champions. He lives in Europe and unlike his compatriots speaks flawless English. In our report we provide you with a few more or less helpful clues.

The World Champion at work…

… the German chess fans had the pleasure of watching at the last Bundesliga weekend in Heidelberg, when Vishy Anand’s club OSG Baden-Baden had to acknowledge their first defeat of the season versus title contender Werder Bremen. This is his white game from Sunday. How would you assess the situation after 23…Qxe5?
A) White is in trouble since the bishop f7 can’t move;
B) this piece can be unpinned, but Black has no problems whatsoever;
C) White wins by force.

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

Richárd Rapport – grandmaster at thirteen

Actually at thirteen years and eleven months, but still according to our calculations the fifth youngest player in history to gain the title. Richárd did it in spite of a last-round loss to chess legend Lajos Portisch, who is almost 60 years older than the lad. The tournament was held in Hungary and was won by Alexander Beliavsky. Congratulations to the new GM.

Werden Bremen catches Baden-Baden in the Bundesliga

The German Bundesliga is the strongest team championship in the world. Just look at the names: Anand, Svidler, Gashimov, Mamedayrov, Shirov, Adams (playing on board six!). In round ten the champions OSG Baden-Baden faced the ambitious team of Werder Bremen, who snatched a surprise victory to catch the leaders on match points. There are four rounds left to play. Report and games.

Werder Bremen catches Baden-Baden in the Bundesliga

The German Bundesliga is the strongest team championship in the world. Just look at the names: Anand, Svidler, Gashimov, Mamedayrov, Shirov, Adams (playing on board six!). In round ten the champions OSG Baden-Baden faced the ambitious team of Werder Bremen, who snatched a surprise victory to catch the leaders on match points. There are four rounds left to play. Report and games.

A rook which is full of tricks

OK, the analysis of last week’s endgame set you a pretty hard task. But
since
you are really up to speed on this material, there is an equally hard one
for you
this week. After 72…Rb4+ White had an important decision to take in the
game Romanov-Vescovi:

should he move his king aside to g5, in order to advance his h-pawn as
quickly
as possible, or is perhaps 73.Kh3 the better choice?

Work out both variations but be warned. There are all sorts of

hidden tricks!

A rook full of tricks

Okay, the analysis of last week’s endgame set you a pretty hard task. But
since
you are really up to speed on this material, there is an equally hard one
for you
this week.

After 72…Rb4+ (diagram) White had an important decision to take in the
game Romanov-Vescovi:
should he move his king aside to g5, in order to advance his h-pawn as
quickly
as possible, or is perhaps 73.Kh3 the better choice?

Work out both variations – but be warned: there are all sorts of

hidden tricks!

ChessBase show: Sokolov, Speelman, and the Icelandic Gambit

When former multiple world championship candidates collide what can you expect?
The fun Icelandic Gambit, that’s what. It goes 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.c4 e6 and
is not entirely sound. But as Dennis Monokroussos explains in his Playchess
presentation, if it worked against a player who was once #3 in the world, it
could also work in your local club. 9 p.m. ET Wednesday night.

Chess legend Bent Larsen turns 75

An all-time great of chess, Bent Larsen, was born on March 4th, 1935. He is the greatest chess player of Denmark, and the strongest ever Scandinavian (before Magnus Carlsen). As a world top ten GM he beat many legendary world champions and was greatly feared by the Soviet chess hegemony. Today Bent turns 75. We have some remarkable contemporary and historical pictures.

Goals met – Kasparov and Carlsen’s new strategy

The cooperation between Garry Kasparov, arguably the greatest chess player in history, and Magnus Carlsen, one of its greatest talents, began early last year. The results came faster than anyone had expected: Magnus was number one in the last two world rankings. Now the work between the two takes a new direction, with Magnus making all career decisions on his own. Press release.