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There were reports that former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik is helping Ian Nepomniachtchi in his fight against Ding Liren at the 2023 World Chess Championship. While we dont know if its actually true, we can see that Nepo has been playing a lot like Kramnik in the last two Games.

Game 11 on Monday was the second consecutive game in which Nepo didnt really seem to be interested in going for a win. Mind you, this time he was playing with White. (GrandmasterPravin Thipsay has been analysing games of the World Chess Championship forThe Indian Express since the start of the event. You can also read his analysis of Game 10,Game 9,Game 8,Game 7,Game 6,Game 5,Game 4,Game 3,Game 2, andGame 1.)

That begs the question: why should he push for a win? He has a comfortable lead of one point (6-5) and there are just three games to go in this title clash. He could really become a world champion this week.

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Not pushing hard for a victory is perhaps Kramniks influence on him. The Soviet school of thought is that its more difficult to win than to draw a game, so why push for a win if you dont need to?

Kramnik wouldve told him to play it safe. Even when Kramnik defeated Garry Kasparov to win the World Championship in 2000, he had more draws than wins. He won just two games in the 16-game match and that was enough for him to triumph 8.5-6.5. The key part here is that he didnt lose a single match. Interestingly, it was the first time since 1921 that a defending champion lost his crown without winning a single game in the Championships.

Thats definitely the leaf Nepo has taken out of Kramniks book, if he has learned anything from him during these couple of weeks. Hes going to continue keeping it simple.

Thats what he did on Monday. He knew that going on the attack often exposes the defense that Ding would surely pounce on. So why should he take a risk and lose with White?

He knows that he just needs to keep it tight and even if he loses one game, the match will go into tie-breakers and I do believe that he will be much better prepared for that scenario than Ding.

It was perhaps with this thought that he chose the tried and tested Ruy Lopez Spanish opening in Game 11. But Ding knows that he has to try something out of the box in order to draw level and give himself a chance at winning. The Chinese replied with the variation he had chosen in the fifth game, showing that he had prepared something better.

Sensing that Ding was ready to play a complex game, Nepo went for a quieter option on move 8, making it clear that he was going to play something similar to Game 5, but at a much slower pace.

Ding went for a less flexible option on move 8, thereby forcing the positional course of the game. Unlike game 5, Ding placed his Queen Bishop on the correct square this time. Nepo tried to make some headway with a novelty (new move) on move 15 but Ding replied with a sharp aggressive move, trying to create initiative on the Queen side at the cost of weakening his position.

Nepo did get a slight positional advantage but on move 19, he decided to simplify matters by opening up the position. The next twenty moves were almost forced but quite simple. The players claimed a draw after a three-fold repetition of the final position.

Nepo made it clear that he is not going to go for double-edged battles as long as he is leading. And were seeing a very matured Nepo here. Hes not going to crumble as he did against five-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen in 2021. Hes prepared, and not making impulsive decisions.

Lets not forget theres a lot riding on Ding too. Being the first Grandmaster from China to compete for the World crown, theres certainly a lot of pressure on him. He has two games with White and thats what I think could be decisive. He has to go all-out in Game 12 on Wednesday if he wants a direct win or will he leave the best for last in the 14th game?

In the Candidates to qualify for this Championship, he won in the last game (finished second behind Nepo). But that was only the Candidates. Theres a lot more at stake here and he definitely cant afford to wait.

(Pravin Thipsay is an Indian Grandmaster and a recipient of the Arjuna Award)

Moves (Game 11)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.00 Be7 6.d3 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.a3 Na5

[Less flexible option.] 9.Ba2 c5 10.Nc3 Be6 11.Bg5 00 12.Bxf6 Bxf6 13.Nd5 g6 14.Qd2 Bg7 15.Ng5! [New Move.] 15c4?! 16.Nxe6 fxe6 17.Ne3 Bh6 18.Rad1 Rb8 19.dxc4?! 19Nxc4 20.Bxc4 bxc4 21.Qxd6 Qxd6 22.Rxd6 Bxe3 23.fxe3 Rxf1+ 24.Kxf1 Rxb2 25.Rxe6

Rxc2 26.Rxa6 Ra2 27.Rc6 Rxa3 28.Rxc4 Rxe3 29.Kf2 Ra3 30.Rc5 Ra2+ 31.Kf3 Ra3+ 32.Kg4 Ra2 33.Kh3 Re2 34.Rxe5 Kf7 35.Kg3 Kf6 36.Re8 Kf7 37.Re5 Kf6 38.Re8 Kf7 39.Re5

Game drawn by the rule of threefold repetition.

First published on: 24-04-2023 at 20:57 IST

Originally posted here:

Pravin Thipsay writes: Not pushing hard for win is perhaps Vladimir Kramniks influence on Nepo - The Indian Express

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Chess: Nepo stays ahead of Ding as world title match nears its finish - Financial Times

Home Chess News Events World Chess Championship 2023 Quiet draw in game 11 of the World Chess Championship

World Chess Championship 2023 (11)

Mark Crowther - Monday 24th April 2023

Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren drew the eleventh game of their WorldChampionships match by repetition in 39 moves and less than two hours of play.

Nepomniachtchi again played 1.e4 and the Ruy Lopez followed, no Berlin andwith 6.d3. The line of the Closed Ruy Lopez that was played is fairly topical.14.Qd2 was rare and 14...Bg7 was new. Commentators wondered if black mightat least be under pressure, 15...c4!? seemed like a bold way of going aboutthings, 18...Rb8 was the best computer continuation. 19.dxc4 *19.Qe2 the way to keep the pressure)quickly led to liquidation of most of the pieces and a drawn Rook and Pawn endgame, Nepomniachtchi thought he might get a symbolic advantage, as it was he didn't get eventhat.

Is the hardest part of the match behind Nepomniachtchi? "You've got to be kidding!" There is a rest day tomorrow, Ding will probably have to come out swinging.

Score Nepomniachtchi 6 Ding 5. Best of 14 games.

Rest day Tuesday 25th April.

Game 12 Ding vs Nepomniachtchi 10am BST Wednesday 26th April.

Download the PGN from this page

vs

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Quiet draw in game 11 of the World Chess Championship - The Week in Chess

Published 1:54 pm Monday, April 24, 2023

By JOYANNA LOVE | Managing Editor

Chess enthusiasts in Chilton County now have a new place to meet with those who share a similar interest through the Chilton-Clanton Public Librarys chess club.

Luke Smitherman, who is 11 years old, started the club as a way to share his enjoyment of chess with others.

I just walked in one day with a chess board and asked, Luke said of how he approached library leadership with his idea.

He said the club gives an opportunity that the community did not have previously.

The number of people who like chess and wanted to come out has been surprising.

It is a real common interest that is often looked over, Luke said.

The club meets each week on Tuesday from 3-5 p.m.

I think it has gone pretty great, Luke said, commenting that attendance has been consistent.

Some bring their own chess sets. Others use the ones provided. The setup is casual with everyone staying for however long they want to within the scheduled time.

He said he has enjoyed seeing the community come together.

As the chess club continues, he would like to see more people participate and to see each attendee increase their skill.

Luke said he can also discuss tips and strategy pointers to attendees who are interested.

I am considered either a really strong intermediate player or a light advanced player, Luke said.

He said beginners often think just about the next move, rather than thinking about moving their pieces to where they will be most beneficial long-term in the game.

He became interested in chess after a family friend taught him how to play at age 4.

Ive just liked it ever since, Luke said.

He said he tends to analyze things and like logic, and chess provides a good outlet for that.

Originally posted here:

Student starts community chess club - The Clanton Advertiser - Clanton Advertiser

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A small chess team from Detroit scored a big win this past weekend, taking second place in a national chess tournament.

The University Prep Science and Math Middle School chess team came to play at the Middle School National Championships in Texas this past weekend with determination, heart, and a message that anyone can play chess.

"This was a big deal. This was the national championships. So you had teams coming from all across the country to compete, and it's the biggest stage in the whole United States," coach Joshua Posthuma said.

Posthuma said he's "incredibly proud" of his team.

The students are from Detroit, making up an all-Black, co-ed chess team; nine boys and three girls.

"Chess helps you think more. It helps you strategize about what you're going to do," Mason Davis said.

Mason started chess in 3rd grade. Now in 8th, he's holding his own in these major tournaments.

"It was very exciting to just try different things, play different people, and to just get better at the game," he said.

Hannah Hendrix is one of three girls on the team, all thanks to a friend.

"She started to play chess in 3rd grade. So I joined with her, and we both kind of stuck to it," Hannah said.

Hannah hopes, by playing, she's encouraging other women and girls to take up the game.

"I think it is a sport that anybody could really play," she said. "The majority of the people I played were guys. I played one female out of seven rounds, and that's actually kind of crazy."

It was also exhilarating as University Prep took home 2nd place out of 38 other teams in the nation for their category.

"I am proud of myself, but I am more so proud of my team," Mason said.

They're a team with a winning record, and an important message.

"We're saying girls and boys both can play chess. People from any background, of any gender, or any ethnicity can all be champions," Posthuma said.

Marie Saavedra joined the CBS2 Chicago news team in October 2020 as an anchor. She grew up in Evanston and is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism.

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Detroit middle school chess team takes 2nd in national tournament - CBS News

A blindfolded grandmaster rides an exercise bike as he plays 15 games of chess simultaneously for 15 hours straight, memorizing the positions of a total of 480 pieces. To the astonishment of everyone watching, he wins 14 matches and draws one. His name is Timur Gareyev, he is 35, and he has a mental capacity that pushes the limits of human possibility.

But the feat that he pulled off in Saturdays exhibition in Astana, the Kazakhstani capital, pales in comparison to the world record he set in Las Vegas in 2016. In Nevada, Gareyev contested 48 matches (1,536 pieces) over a period of 19 hours, registering 35 wins, seven draws and six defeats. And he believes it is a record he can beat.

To the layman, simultaneous chess exhibitions are mind-boggling enough when the player can see what is happening on the boards in front of them. On Saturday, for example, the Spanish town of Azkoitia, located in the countrys northern Basque region, witnessed the celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the world record established by Spaniard Jos Luis Larraaga, who took on 605 opponents for almost 32 hours, managing 535 wins, 42 draws and 28 defeats. In 1985, the German-Czech player Vlastimil Hort bettered that mark by playing 636 matches simultaneously.

The common denominator in these exploits, whether the player is blindfolded or not, is their ability to recognize patterns. When the likes of Larraaga and Hort leave behind one board and arrive at the next, they need only a matter of seconds to assess who has the advantage; how their opponents most recent move seeks to hurt them; and what the two or three most logical responses are. That comes down not only to the hundreds of matches that remain in their conscious memory, but also the thousands of clashes that are stored up in their subconscious. In other words, the chess-playing intuition that they have built up.

However, it all becomes much more difficult when players cannot see what is happening. Indeed, it can be harmful to their health. In the Soviet Union, which enjoyed almost total domination of the chess world for over half of the 20th century, coaches tended to prohibit blindfolded multi-opponent exhibitions. And they had very good reasons for this: several players at the center of major feats have taken months before their brains have returned to normal working order. When Gareyev beat the world record seven years ago, he was unable to sleep for days.

This is why the Uzbeki-American player, who lives in the United States, places great importance on aspects of his exhibition routine that dont directly relate to the game itself. The main reason why I ride an exercise bike during the events is to highlight the fact that high-level chess requires you to be in good physical shape, Gareyev tells EL PAS. I also feel that the exercise gives me more energy to cope with the mental strain [probably because it causes his body to produce dopamine]. And I wont deny, either, that its eye-catching and makes the photos all the more striking. During the exhibition in Astana, he was frequently seen drinking water and green tea. When he broke the world record, he ate small quantities of watermelon marinated in lemon, avocado, coconut oil, green leaves and spicy chiles. During his career, he has been known to go parachuting and mountaineering, do daily yoga sessions and run marathons.

In addition to having powerful photographic and logical memories, Gareyev uses sophisticated mental-organization techniques during his exhibitions. He imagines every board is a room inside a palace, each decorated in a different style. He also varies his tactics from board to board, to reduce the risk of confusing his matches. If he is the white player on boards 1, 3, 5 and 7, his first move will be different on every one of them; he then repeats his first move from board 1 on board 9, his first move from board 3 on board 11, and so on. He can easily distinguish between the matches, as they are not being played on boards that are close together. As the black player, he takes different defensive approaches on boards 2, 4, 6 and 8, etc.

With nothing but good intentions, the organizers in Astana arranged for a referee to call out Gareyevs opponents moves. In even more demanding exhibitions, however, he asks for this to be done differently: Its important that each player Im facing announces their own move, because the voice of every opponent allows me to identify them with their board; that really helps.

A fascination with blindfolded chess was already in evidence in the ninth century, shortly after the Moors had brought the game to southern Spain, when the chess master Said Jubain would turn his back to the boards as he took on four opponents at once, with a slave calling out the moves. In the 16th century, the first unofficial world champion, Spains Ruy Lpez de Segura, would wow onlookers with similar feats in the court of Philip II. Two hundred years later, the Frenchman Franois-Andr Danican Philidor did likewise in the Caf de la Rgence in Paris.

The American Harry Pillsbury (1872-1906) made blindfolded simultaneous chess harder still, when he took part in a memorable exhibition against 12 high-quality opponents in New York. Before beginning, Pillsbury was read a list of 30 complicated words, with each assigned a random number. The words included antiphlogistine, periosteum, takadiastase, plasmon, threlkeld and streptococcus. After completing his chess matches with a record of eight wins, two draws and two defeats, he repeated every word several times, in a number of different orders. Considered one of chesss great flawed geniuses, he died of syphilis at 38.

A case tinged by tragedy is that of Miguel Najdorf (1910-1997), one of the most charismatic chess players in history. Having traveled from Poland to Buenos Aires to compete in the Chess Olympiad in 1939, Najdorf, who was Jewish, opted to remain in Argentina in the wake of Hitlers invasion of his native country. Unaware of whether his relatives in Poland had survived (they had not), he decided to take part in chess-playing feats that would gain significant media attention, in the hope that his family would learn of his whereabouts. Najdorf twice broke the record for blindfolded simultaneous chess: in 1943, he accrued 36 wins, one draw and three defeats against 40 opponents in the Argentinian city of Rosario; and in 1947, he won 39, drew four and lost two when he contested 45 matches at the same time in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Gareyev wants to raise his unprecedented total of 48 matches to 55. And he wants to do so in style: Im not going to settle for beating the record in the same circumstances as in 2016, when I had to be the organizer and pretty much the sponsor all by myself. This time, it would be at a big festival of chess and memory games, where the public would have a great time. And he adds that he is really enjoying the World Chess Championship between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, who are due to play Game 12 of their best-of-14 title clash on Wednesday, with the Russian 6-5 ahead. Its a really exciting match-up, Gareyev says.

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Timur Gareyevs fantastic feats of blindfolded chess - EL PAS USA

The latest episode of "Impact x Nightline" takes a look at the ongoing scandal in the chess community. "Checkmate: The Great Chess Scandal" is now streaming on Hulu.

September 4, 2022: the third round of the Sinquefield Cup, one of the country's pre-eminent chess tournaments, is underway.

On one side of the board sits Magnus Carlsen: the 32-year old Norwegian is the reigning 5-time World Chess Champion, the top rated chess player in the world, and is widely considered the heir apparent to the title of greatest chess player of all time.

In the chess world, he's seen as a model champion, whose publicly engaged persona and entrepreneurial spirit led to his company, Play Magnus, being sold to Chess.com the largest chess website in the world for just under $83 million.

"He has this aura around him that makes other grandmasters sometimes intimidated to play him," Alexandra Botez, a high ranking chess player and streamer, told "Impact x Nightline."

Magnus Carlsen is the five-time reigning World Chess champion.

ABC News

On the other side of the board sits Hans Neimann: the 19-year old American teen titan vaulted up the chess rankings with his stellar play during the pandemic, becoming a Chess Grandmaster in 2021.

Buttressed by his reputation as the "bad boy of chess", Hans is known within the chess community for his boisterous personality, captivating interviews, and extensive trash talking during chess games.

Hans Niemann has become a rising star in the world chess world.

ABC News

"I played him when he was 9 or 10 years oldI remember he just completely crushed me," Levy Rozman, a longtime chess player and YouTube host, told "Impact x Nightline.

"He was the most brash-talking kid," Max Dlugy, a chess Grandmaster and coach in New York City, said of Niemann.

What would happen, then, if this brash-talking teenager were to defeat the world champion in a high stakes tournament? The greatest scandal in recent chess history.

The saga capped off when the two squared off for the first time in August in Miami during the FTX Crypto Cup.

The two grandmasters were scheduled to play each other in a best-of-four series.

Carlsen was and is the highest rated player in the world, while Niemann was the lowest rated player in the tournament. Unexpectedly, Niemann won the first match.

"Hans yesterday was a terrible day for you, and today you start out with a masterpiece, how would you summarize it?" Sverre Krogh Sundb asked Niemann in a post game interview.

"Chess speaks for itself," he responded.

Carlsen went on to win the final three games and Niemann finished last in the tournament.

Two weeks later, Carlsen and Niemann would go head to head once again at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis. The tournament is considered to be one of the most consequential chess tournaments in the United States, and is closed to in-person public viewing.

In a few hours, Niemann defeated Carlsen in their sole match.

"I think he's just so demoralized because he's losing to such an idiot like me. You know, it must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me, I feel bad for him" Niemann said in an interview with the St. Louis Chess Club after the match.

Carlsen had a 53-game classical unbeaten streak for nearly a year prior to their match.

Al Lawrence, the managing director of U.S. Chess Trust, who was one of the few people allowed into the tournament hall to watch the match, told "Impact" that Carlsen did not take the loss well.

"[Carlsen] stormed out that evening, changed hotels [and] went home to Norway," he said.

Al Lawrence, the managing director of U.S. Chess Trust, speaks with ABC News' Trevor Ault.

ABC News

The next day, Carlsen withdrew from the tournament and tweeted a video of the then-Chelsea football coach Jose Mourinho saying after a surprise defeat in 2014, "If I speak, I am in big trouble."

Many chess observers said Carlsen's tweet heavily inferred that Niemann cheated in the match. The tweet went viral and began to fuel wild conspiracies, including one that was re-tweeted and later deleted by Elon Musk, that alleged wireless anal beads were used to give Niemann signals on how to beat his opponent.

Niemann addressed the rumors with the St. Louis Chess Club and said he didn't cheat in his match against Carlsen. However, he did admit he cheated twice in online matches when he was 12 and 16.

Chess.com, the online platform where Niemann played, ended up suspending him from their site, where he played several online matches, and uninvited him from their $1 million global championship.

"We have shared detailed evidence with him concerning our decision, including information that contradicts his statements regarding the amount and seriousness of his cheating on Chess.com," the company wrote in a statement at the time.

Niemann and Carlsen would go up against each other two weeks later in a tournament held by Chess 24, a subsidiary of chess.com, but Carlsen resigned after one move in protest.

Carlsen declined to say why he resigned from the match in an interview, stating, "People can draw their own conclusion."

He added, "I have to say I am very impressed by Niemann's play and I think his mentor Maxim Dlugy must have been doing a great job."

Chess grandmaster Maxim Dlugy mentored Hans Niemann.

ABC News

Some in the chess community saw the reference to Dlugy as another insinuation of Niemann's cheating.

Dlugy told "Impact" that he coached Niemann when he was 11 years old, and remains a mentor although he believes Niemann would consider him more of a friend.

Dlugy was also himself previously twice removed from Chess.com for cheating. In one instance, Dlugy said it was unintentional, and the other he has denied completely.

Dlugy refuted allegations that he helped Niemann cheat in the St. Louis match and told "Impact" he was in the Poconos when it happened.

"It's unfortunate that this is how paranoia works," he said. [Carlsen] is using this kind of very -- very stretched imagination to portray me as a potential accomplice to Hans, which I wouldn't even know what I was supposed to do in this case.

Carlsen would soon cut through the insinuation, and released a very direct statement on the entire saga, writing in part, "I believe that Niemann has cheated more - and more recently - than he publicly admitted...I am not willing to play chess with Niemann."

Ken Regan, a professor of computer sciences at SUNY Buffalo a current chess International Master, was tasked by the governing body of chess FIDE to investigate the cheating claims in the match.

Regan, who watched the match, said his analysis showed that Niemann didn't cheat in the match or other over-the-board matches.

Ken Regan speaks with ABC News' Trevor Ault.

ABC News

"The main thing is I think that there was some illusion caused by Niemann's known past record, because it is known that he had cheated online, and unfortunately chess players are as susceptible to cognitive illusions as everyone else," he told "Impact."

On Oct. 4, Chess.com released a 72-page report that alleged: "Hans has likely cheated in more than 100 online chess games, including several prize money events."

The company added, "while his performance in some of these matches may seem to be within the realm of some statistical possibility, the probability of any single player performing this well across this many games is incredibly low."

The report did state there was no concrete evidence that Niemann cheated against Carlsen, or in any in-person games.

Niemann has denied the allegations and continued to play in other tournaments.

Danny Rensch, the chief chess officer of Chess.com, told "Impact" that he and other officials from the site weighed through all of the facts before making their decision.

"When we felt we were releasing that report, we actually felt that in many ways we were providing truth to the fact Hans hasn't cheated over-the-board. At least there's no evidence to suggest that," he said.

Danny Rensch and Erik Allebest speak with ABC News' Trevor Ault.

ABC News

Erik Allebest, who co-created the current version of Chess.com in 2007, told "Impact" that Carlsen, who is an ambassador for the site, had nothing to do with their decision. Carlsen's company, "Play Magnus," was sold to Chess.com in an $83 million deal.

"Magnus Carlsen losing a game is great for the drama of chess. It just is. It's great for the story, it's great for the game," Allebest said.

Niemann, however, took issue against Chess.com, Carlsen and chess streamer Hikaru Nakumara in late October, he filed a $100 million lawsuit for a slew of reasons among them libel, slander, and antitrust violations, and claiming that he was blacklisted from the chess community

As of April, the lawsuit is ongoing.

Carlsen's attorneys and Niemann's attorneys declined to comment to "Impact" about the lawsuit. Nakamura didn't respond to requests for comment.

Allebest and Rensch said they were surprised by the lawsuit but contend they didn't defame Niemann.

"It's, like, very far away from what happened," Allebest said.

"I don't believe that Hans' chess career is anything but just starting and continuing to take off and positive," Rensch added.

The attorneys for the Chess.com defendants refuted the other charges in their motions to dismiss the suit.

Rozman said that whatever happens in this feud, he doesn't think the chess world will be satisfied with an answer.

"I've sort of decided that there are no winners," he said.

Hans Niemann plays a match at the World Rapid and Blitz Championships as Magnus Carlsen watches other matches from behind.

ABC News

Regan said that he hopes that the grandmasters and the community can put this saga behind them.

"I'm actually going to draw on my philosophical religious background and say I hope it ends with a mutual apology, repentance and forgiveness because I think they both overstepped in certain ways," he said.

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Cheating allegations, a $100 million lawsuit, and false rumors ... - ABC News

The Week in Chess 1485

TWIC Home

My thanks to Olexandr Prohorov, Holger Lieske,Ehud Lahav, Simon McNamara, Luca Sivelli,Patricia Llaneza Vega, Nicolas Brunner, Anders Hansen,Hugh Brodie, Paulo Rocha, Gert Ligterinkand everyone else who helped with this issue.

We will have a new World Chess Champion this time next week.Ian Nepomniachtchi won game 7 to take the lead again andDing Liren had strong chances to win game 8 but that was drawnas were games 9-11. Nepomniachtchi leads by a point with justthree games and a potential tie-break left. Nepomniachtchiis favourite but things could get very tense indeed.

Hope you enjoy this issue.

Mark

The first issue of TWIC was produced on September 17th 1994.I rely on advertising and donations to be able to keep going.If TWIC is important and useful to you please consider giving a donation.

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The World Chess Championship takes place 7th April (opening ceremony) to 1st May 2023. The match is between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren. The current World Champion Magnus Carlsen announced in July last year he would not be defending his title, he seems to have more or less made up his mind two years ago dismantling his team after beating Nepomniachtchi. The match is held in Astana, Kazakhstan over 14 games, two days on, one off with a single game in round 7 to switch the order of the colours. The games start at 10am BST each day, game one Sunday 9th April, Nepomniachtchi has white. The players are closely matched being two and three in the world and Nepomniachtchi narrowly leading +3 -2 =8 head to head.

The II Sunway Formentera Open takes place 18th to 28th April 2023.

The Satty Zhuldyz Rapid and BLitz takes place in Astana 20th to 25th April 2023.

The French Junior Championships take place 23rd to 30th April 2023.

The Portuguese Women's Championship takes place 22nd to 25th April 2023.

The Russian Junior Championships take place 19th to 27th April 2023.I had a really good look but couldn't find any games.

The Caissa Hotel Yasemin Group takes place 22nd to 27th April 2023.

The Polish Chess Championship took place 11th to 21st April 2023. The Open was a knockout and the women's event an all-play-all.Bartosz Socko beat Radoslaw Wojtaszek 2.5-1.5 in the final.Michalina Rudzinska won the women's event with 6/9.

The Kazakhstan vs World Women's Match took place 17th to 19th April 2023.The World won the rapid 34.5-29.5 and blitz 38.5-25.5.

The Mitropa Cup took place 11th to 19th April 2023. France won both open and women's events.

The Vezerkepzo Easter tournaments took place 13th to 21st April 2023.Kaido Kulaots won the GM event on tie-break from Sahaj Grover. There wasa Vezerkepzo Easter IM won by Jakub Pulpan with 6.5/9. There was a secondApril IM event won by Bence Leszko with 7/9.

The Sahibkiran Amir Temur Cup took place 14th to 21st April 2023.Alisher Suleymenov won with 7/9.

The Third Saturday Djenovici IM IV took place 15th to 23rd April 2023.Dusan Rajkovic won with 6.5/9.

The 11th LUCOPEN returned after a long break 15th to 21st April 2023.Momchil Nikolov edged out Vladyslav Larkin and Radoslav Dimitrov on tie-breakafter all scored 7/9. I couldn't find any games.

The 2nd Mikis Theodorakis took place 17th to 23rd April 2023.Johan-Sebastian Christiansen edged out Dimitris Alexakis and Elina Danielian on tie-breakafter all scored 7.5/9. I couldn't find any games.

The ITT Chess Martelli Young Talents took place 13th to 21st April 2023.Joaquin Fiorito won with 7/9.

The SonFlow Cup took place 21st to 23rd April 2023. There were a few 6 player round robins. The strongest two are reported below.

The Caissa Hotel Kadife Group took place 15th to 20th April 2023.

The Pobeskydi Chess Festival took place 6th to 10th April 2023.Petr Gnojek won the IM event with 6.5/9. Jakub Suliborski won the Talents Open with 7.5/9.Some additional talents games now available.

The Dimitrovgrad Spring Vacation IM took place 11th to 16th April 2023. It was a Schiller team event.Just to point out that I had to make a correction late last week. I have a drop down list of venues and their countries,this Dimitrovgrad event was in Serbia, not the one in Bulgaria.

Volodymyr Sakun won the Kyiv Blitz Marathon 22nd to 23rd April 2023.

The Excelsior April Open took place 21st to 23rd Aprkil 2023.Nikolay Noritsyn and Bator Sambuev won with 4.5/5.The live file left a bit to be desired. Will wait and see ifanother emerges.

The 1000GM Bay Area Schev April took place 21st to 23rd April.

The II Menorca Open took place 11th to 16th April 2023. There was a 10 way tie on 7/9 with D Gukesh taking first on tie-break.The round 6 game Solodovnichenko - Niemann was clearly not right so a fix by using the live coverage has been tried. I did changeit early last week but I give this single game again.

Titled Tuesday Blitz now has two sections called early and late.The 18th April events Tuan Minh Le won the early and MVL won the late.

The 10th round of the Belgian Interclubs was last weekend and the games are now available. Final round on the 30th.

Pinggau-Friedberg won the Austrian Mitte League which finished last weekend.Mayrhofen/Zillertal won the West and SG Mistelbach/Altlichtenwarth the East thatfinished this weekend.

The Catalan League finished last weekend. Colon Sabadell beat Barcelona in the final to take the title.The relegation issues are also finished. The file I have has most of the matches but not quite all.

The Tuxera Aquaprofit NSK won the Hungarian League that had its final two rounds this weekend.

The Lithuanian League had its final 4 rounds this weekend.Vilniaus MRU-ROSK Consulting won the title.

The final round of the Dutch League was this weekend. Amevo Apeldoorn 1 won the title.

The Swiss Team Championship takes place 16th April to 15th October 2023. Round 1 games now available.

The IBCA European Teams takes place 20th to 29th April 2023.I'll round up all the games together next week.

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The Week in Chess 1485 - The Week in Chess

A mysterious participant in the women's section of the Kenya Open Chess Championship in Nairobi, Kenya was exposed as a male impostor and removed from the tournament. The player, whose identity was not made public, admitted to the cheating and said it was motivated by financial problems. He has now been banned for three years from playing official games in Kenya.

The player had registered under the name Millicent Awuor for the women's section of the Kenya Open, which is currently underway. He raised suspicion when he won two games in a row, including a win against the former national champion Gloria Jumba (rated 1487), before losing to the Ugandan top player Ampaira Shakira (rated 1702).

To keep his identity hidden, he was wearing a niqab each day which left only his glasses and eyes visible.After the end of his games, he wouldn't talk to anyone. When registering for the tournament, the player "never uttered a word" and "simply wrote on a paper his name," according to organizer and Kenyan Chess Federation President Benard Wanjala.

Chief arbiter Antony Kionga told Chess.com that the staff initially was cautious to interfere, as they were taking into account the possibility that they were dealing with an orthodox Muslim woman. However, as the tournament went underway, both players and arbiters noticed that the person in question had an odd walking style and was wearing shoes commonly used by men.

After the fourth round, Kionga decided to take the player to a private room, where he asked for an identification document. The player, a university student, then admitted to his wrongdoing. "The reason was due to financial needs but I deeply regret my action and [am] ready to accept all consequences," he wrote in a letter.

Thanks to exceptional sponsorship, this year's Kenya Open tournament has a total prize fund of $42,000. There are 10 prizes in the women's section, which has a first prize of 500,000 Kenyan Shillings ($3,815). The open section, where the first prize is one million Kenyan Shillings ($7,630), attracted seven international grandmasters.

The impostor player, who has an international classical rating close to 1500 and a blitz rating close to 1750, has been expelled from the tournament and the points that he scored were reversed and awarded to his opponents.

The National Disciplinary Committee imposed a ban on the player from all events held or sanctioned by Chess Kenya for a period of three years starting from April 20, 2023.

The Kenya Open Chess Championship has attracted almost 450 players from 22 federations. The tournament takes place April 6-10, 2023, at the Sarit Expo Center in Nairobi, Kenya.

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3-Year Ban For Kenyan Player Who Pretended To Be A Woman To ... - Chess.com

The Vizier's Gambit just doesn't have the same ring to it. FILMCRAFT/WONDERFUL FILMS/NETFLIX/Alamy

A game of chess is like a Chinese newspaper: a set of symbols that can be understood by people who speak different languages. In the Chinese example, Mandarin and Cantonese speakers can read and understand the same text, even though they use different words for the same concepts.

Chess, too, is perfectly intelligible by participants who share no other communication skills. But scratch the surface and the standardized game reveals a multitude of linguistic particularities. One players pawn is anothers farmer. What you may call a bishop, somebody else knows as an elephant. Or a fool.

Chess took a millennium to conquer the known world. It first emerged in India in the early 7th century as chaturanga, finally reaching Iceland as skk around 1600 A.D. See Big Think's Strange Maps piece for an itinerary of the game and an overview of its various names across the world.

As it moved west toward Europefirst passing through the Persian and Arab cultural filtersthe game maintained its board, pieces, and most of its rules. Yet it also underwent some subtle and not-so-subtle tweaks. In a sense, the symbolic representation of an Indian battlefield turned into a sublimated form of medieval tournament.

Not only the game itself, but some pieces also assumed different identities as they entered new cultural spaces. Others, however, stubbornly clung to their origin stories. Some of those differences have interesting histories. But intriguingly, other differences remain shrouded in mystery.

The notion of the pawn as a foot soldier is fairly consistent throughout the history of chess, with the Indo-European root for foot echoing all the way from the original Sanskrit padati, via the Latin pedester to modern French pion (and imported into modern Turkish as piyon) and English pawn.

Other terms are available: In old French, pawns were called garons (boys). Additionally, pion is sometimes said to derive from espion (spy).

Interestingly, the Spanish term peon also means farmer, which is the term used across a number of Germanic languages and a few others (e.g. bonde in Danish, kmet in Slovenian)no doubt because in times of war, farmers were the most obvious source of cannon fodder.

From the very beginning of chaturanga, this pieceoriginally called asva, Sanskrit for horsehas firmly maintained its equine association. Of course, this is likely because it is the only piece that is able to jump over the heads of the other pieces. As the map shows, the variation in nomenclature is fairly limited: The piece is either named after the animal (e.g., cavallo in Spanish), its rider (e.g., riddari in Icelandic), or the movement it makes (e.g., springare in Swedish).

Because of this proximity in meaning, and the fact that the piece is usually styled like a horse, adjacent concepts are often used interchangeably. In Hungarian, for instance, the official term is huszr (knight), but the piece is also colloquially called l (horse). Similarly, in Czech the piece is a jezdec (rider) but often simply a kun (horse).

In the earliest versions of the game, this was a chariotratha in Sanskrit, rukh in Persian. Yet in many languages across Europe, this piece is known as a tower or a castle. How did that happen?

One theory is that the Arabs transmitted the Persian term rukh almost unchanged to Europe, where it turned into old Italian roc or rocco. Thats virtually identical to rocca, the old Italian term for fortress, which association in turn gave rise to alternate names for the piece: torre (tower) and castello (castle).

Another theory is that Persian war chariots were so heavily armored that they resembled small, mobile fortificationshence the link between rukh and castles.

A third idea is that the people-carriers on the backs of elephants in India, called a howdah and used in war to attack opponents, was often represented as a fortified castle tower in chess pieces from 16th- and 17th-century Europe. The elephant eventually disappeared, while the (Persian) name stuck.

With a good old-fashioned siege in mind, it is not such a big leap from castles and towers to cannon, which is what the piece is called throughout the Balkans.

What is more puzzling is that the rook is called ship (or boat) in some other languages, including Russian (ladj) and Armenian (navak). Could there have been a translation mishap? Rukh is Persian for chariot, while roka is Sanskrit for boat (but no early chess piece was ever called roka). Or is this because Arab rooks often were V-shaped, like a ships bow? Or because the piece moves in a straight line, like a ship?

Nobody knows for sure. However, ancient Indian chess sets visualized this piece as an elephant. And indeed, in Hindi and several other Asian languages, the piece is still called elephant.

No chess piece elicits a wider range of epithets across Europe than the bishop. It starts as another elephant, except that this piece was actually called elephant in Sanskrit (hasti) and in Persian (pil). That was Arabized as al-fil, which was Latinized as alphilus.

In French, that became fil, fol, and finally fou, which means fool or jester. That term was the result of a chain of whispers, which was then faithfully translated into Romanian. Another whisper changed alphilus, which means nothing in Italian, into alfiere, which means standard bearer in Italian.

The wide range of this pieces movements explains terms such as runner (e.g., Lufer in German), hunter (e.g., lovac in Serbian), gunner (e.g., strelec in Slovak), and spear (oda in Estonian). The Russians are among those who have maintained the original elephant, called slon in Russian. But in the past, it has also been called a durak (fool, probably a loan from the French) and an offizer.

Officer and/or nobleman is a rather generic term. A notable alternative to the official Bulgarian term ofitser (officer) is fritz, derived from the nickname for German troops during World War IIa relatively recent innovation, probably helped by the fact that it sounds similar to the official term.

Apart from English, only a few other languages call this piece the bishop: Icelandic, Faroese, Irish, and Portuguese. Why? Nobody really knows. The miter-shaped appearance came after the name. The term does have some pedigree: The Lewis chessmen, carved from walrus ivory in the 12th century, already have the bishops dressed in recognizably ecclesiastical garb.

While it may seem logical that the king has a queen by his side, thats not how things started out. In the Indian original, this piece was the kings counselor (mantri in Sanskrit). The Arabs used wazir (vizier, i.e., the rulers minister/secretary), which was Latinized to farzia, which became the French vierge (virgin).

That was an intriguing mistranslation because, in large parts of Europe, the trend was to feminize the kings companion. A manuscript from around the year 1000 contains the first mention of the piece with the name regina (queen), possibly a Byzantine innovation. In the 14th century, reine (queen) replaced vierge on the French chessboard, and a century later, reine herself was replaced by dame (lady). This may have been a borrowing from the game of checkers.

Why did the kings counsel become his consort? Three (possibly complementary) theories circulate: the religious cult of the Virgin Mary, the literary trope of courtly love, and the relative importance of queens in medieval politics. What is clear, however, is that the piece not only acquired a new, female identity but also greater powers. The mantri could only move one square diagonally, whereas the modern queen combines the straight-line moves of the rook with the diagonal ones of the bishop.

While the piece is called lady or queen in most European languages, Russian and other Slavic languages retain versions of ferz, the Persian term for counselor. Polish uses hetman, a high military rank from Eastern European history. Russian (and other Slavic languages) also variously use(d) koroleva (queen), korolevna (princess), tsaritsa( emperors wife), kral (queen), dama (lady), and baba(old woman).

Mysteriously, Estonian calls the piece lipp (flag).

Uniquely, the games central piece has maintained its original title throughout Europe. In the Indian game, it was called rajah, Sanskrit for king. The Persian equivalent shah gave rise to the name of the game itself in many other languages (e.g., checs in French or skk in Icelandic).

As is well known, checkmate derives from the Persian for The king is deadalthough, when playing against an actual king, a more prudent phrase was used: The king has retired.

This pieces kingly status is a constant throughout the map, from korl in Russian and Knig in German to erregea in Basque and teyrn in Welsh (although the latter word, related to tyrant, is a less common Welsh term for king than brenin). In Yiddish, the king can be called kinig or meylekh, two words that mean the same, but derive from German and Hebrew, respectively. In Russian, alternate names include tsar (emperor) and kniaz (prince).

However, in Asian versions of the game, this central piece has a slightly different status: a general in Chinese and Korean and a prince in Mongolian.

The king can only go one square in any direction, but in the 13th century, he was permitted one leap per game. This eventually evolved into the combination move called castling, which involves a rook. The king moves about his castle, so to speak.

This article originally appeared on Big Think, home of the brightest minds and biggest ideas of all time. Sign up for Big Thinks newsletter.

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How Did the Chess Pieces Get Their Names? - Atlas Obscura