In today's (well, tomorrow's if you're in the US, since the article is dated "Sunday" and it's still Saturday in the USA as I write this) Washington Post, there's an op-ed by Paul Hoffman about cheating in chess. Worth reading if you've ever been confused into thinking chess was a game played by ladies and gentlemen.

(Read more...)

Topics: chess

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Via Mig Greengard, writing on the current chess world championship, being played in Mexico City:

[Peter] Svidler finally decided it was Bring Your Cojones to Work Day after eight rounds of pain and a winless -2 score.

And then coffee went up my nose.

[Just in passing, for those who just play chess socially: This isn't some new scoring system where you can score negative amounts. "-2" means he's had two more losses than wins; and in this case, it means two losses, no wins and 6 draws, since Mig was writing about the round 9 game (so 3 points from 8, in normal terms).]

Topics: chess

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Last week, I mentioned that I had played in a simultaneous chess exhibition against Boris Spassky. I went and hunted out some photos from that event today. Looking at the photos around it in my photo album, it looks this must have taken place sometime around June, 1989, not 1990 as I first guessed.

There's 18-year-old me resigning to the World Champion of 1969–1972. I wasn't ever a really good chess player, so the result wasn't too surprising. There are a couple of other photos (this one and here) from the same night in my Flickr account.

[This scan is unfortunately very grainy, partly because the original is looking a bit worn at the moment, but mostly because it really suffers from the conversion to 8-bit color that the Gimp enforces. 16-bit color support in the Gimp cannot arrive fast enough for me. Yes, I know about Cine Paint, but it's a long way behind the Gimp in other features, so I don't have it built and installed. A few more crappy scans like this and I might have to change my mind, though.]

Topics: chess, photography

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From Neil Gaiman's blog today:

I travelled to the airport this morning in a car with Boris and Mrs Spassky in the back, which was odd as I'd put a reference to Fischer Vs. Spassky into the script for "Black Hole" a couple of days ago. Cultural references shouldn't travel in the same car as you.

Very amusing.

Random memory: Many years ago (1990, maybe), I met Boris Spassky. He was meant to be guest of honour at a dinner run by the Victorian Chess Association. His flight into Melbourne was delayed and he didn't get in until about 10:30. Still, he dropped his bags in his room and came down to the lobby where a few of us had hung around in the bar after the dinner upstairs. He immediately ordered a couple of bottles of wine for us all and started holding up an end of the conversation, talking about his travels, asking about recent Australian events, being generally sociable. A very friendly guy; I was impressed. The group didn't break up until 1:00 or 2:00 the next morning, from memory.

The following night, I was one of 20 people playing him in a simultaneous exhibition. I got crushed. ☹

I should try to find some photos of that event and scan them in.

Topics: chess

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Very quick update for the folks back at home...

Sitting in the hotel lounge in Gibraltar at the moment whilst the winds roar outside. Still have a week(-ish) to go in the chess tournament here. Enjoyed the rest day yesterday and took the chance to go out and explore the island a bit more, despite the cool weather.

Internet connectivity here requires selling a kidney on the black market to pay for it, so I'm surviving for a couple of weeks without email. Enjoying the Big Blue Room whilst I can.

Topics: chess, life, travel

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Returned this afternoon from a two week visit to Canberra playing in a chess tournament (the Australian Open). Didn't win (no huge surprise there), but finished near the top (three way tie for sixth). Was helped somewhat by being paired with the leader (and a good friend) in the last round: a draw guaranteed him outright first, so we made a whole five moves before he offered to split the point. Since I'd played mostly long games in all the other rounds and had drawn with the top seed the previous day, I didn't feel too stupid accepting the charity.

I'm indulging in my chess playing hobby this month. Having finished this tournament, I switch back to computer mode for a week (speaking at linux.conf.au next week) and then to leave there a day early and fly off to Gibraltar, of all places, to play in another strong open tournament.

Despite being a sport that basically involves sitting down and shuffling bits of wood around — I played on one of the top six boards for most rounds, so got to use the nice wooden pieces instead of the plastic sets on boards 7 and below — a chess tournament is surprisingly tiring. Even on the legs, since I tend to stroll around a lot during the four or five hours of each game. And all that thinking! I'm not kidding; my brain hurts.

The tournament was relatively well organised, given their limited budget. Entries were lower than in previous years, but the people competing were all pleasant (not necessarily a given) and the venue was lovely — I really like visiting Canberra. Didn't get the camera out very often, unfortunately, since I was trying to concentrate on playing and it always seemed like a hassle to have to run around snapping photos. The organisers took some photos, though, which are hidden in an odd spot on the website.

For those who might be interested, the bulletins from the event are available and you can play through the games online.

Topics: chess

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Last Sunday (October 22), there was an attempt at a world record for simultaneous chess in one location made in Mexico City. They were trying to beat the previous record of 13,500 games being played simultaneously. No idea, if they made it or not, but there is an article up at chessbase.com about it (or you can read a similar article in Spanish if you prefer).

The nice thing about these events is always watching the fun people have participating in them. I found a photoset on Flickr by one of the authors of the above article, which includes a number of shots of the event. It's not all of the simultaneous exhibition, since there were a couple of related events, included a simul by former World Champion Anatoly Karpov and a rapid play match between a few of the international and local stars.

To get a quick overview of the scale of this thing, have a look at this aerial shot. There are 64 squares of tables; most of the squares contain seven tables and most of the tables have 20 - 25 players playing one of the local masters. I also love this shot and the sequence starting here — an example of the fun people have at these things.

It's not as hard as people often suspect for a strong player to take on a couple of dozen participants. Even if you cannot remember the game from the last time around, you can usually make a snap judgement in a few seconds that isn't completely wrong; of course, the siml giver usually intentionally avoids sharp tactical battles and tries to play on general knowledge alone for just that reason (blindfold simuls, where the strong player cannot see the boards are a different story; they truly are difficult and require a lot of concentration). However, the multiple opponents does act as a bit of a leveller, so mistakes are not infrequent and it is always great publicity and fun.

Topics: chess

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