The game of chess is almost 2,000 years old, and as technology has improved, so have our ways of playing this classic game. Chess mobile apps allow you to play online and battle powerful AI on the go. Each chess app offers unique features that separate them from the rest. This guide will list the best mobile chess games for iOS and Android and what makes them great.

Chess.com the number one free chess app in the world, and for good reason. With this app, you can play with your friends or compete against other players of similar skill levels. Online play is competitive, and you can climb the leaderboards to increase your Elo rating. This app also features chess lessons and tutorials, though you will need to pay for a premium account to access some of the more advanced lessons. You can also play against a computer and attempt to solve over 150,000 unique puzzles.

Chess for Kids is the perfect app for aspiring child chess players. Its ad-free and allows you to play online. You can also play against the computer offline, and there are plenty of puzzles to solve offline too. Chess for Kids gives parents complete control over their kids accounts and restricts chatting between players.

Chess Tiger Pro is an ad-free premium app that costs $8. If youre serious about improving your chess skills, this is the app for you. It has an incredibly powerful chess engine that displays its thinking, allowing you to understand the game better. This app also allows you to save replays and have the app analyze them, point out your mistakes, and display alternatives.

Chess Universe is a more casual version of Chess.com. It features multiple modes to play with friends, such as bullet, rapid, and blitz. This app also features daily challenges and rewards that keep you coming back. Completing these rewards allows you to level up your accounts avatar.

Dr. Wolf is a chess app that focuses primarily on coaching. The AI will give you step-by-step instructions on what to do at every point of the game. It not only tells you what moves are ideal, but it explains the reasoning behind them. With the free version, you can only have Dr. Wolf coach you for three games. After that, you will need to subscribe to the premium version.

Lichess is another online chess app that pairs you up against players of similar skill levels. It tracks your stats, analyzes your games, and gives you detailed summaries of your performance. Lichness has over 150,000 users and is available in 80 languages. What makes this app so great is its open-sourced and ad-free, so there are no premium accounts.

This app is great for players of all skill levels. Its offline only, but it has a powerful AI that automatically adjusts its strength according to yours. The AI also rates your plays and coaches you on your mistakes. The superb AI and the beautiful gameboards make this a top-notch app.

Read the original here:

Best mobile chess games for iOS and Android - Gamepur

GrandmasterAleksandr Lendermanhas a seat saved for himin the 2021 US ChessChampionship in St. Louis.

The BrooklynGMearned the coveted spot by winning the first-ever US Championship Online Qualifier, a month-long series ofprogressingeventsdesigned to offer a path to the national championship. As one of the U.S.federations highest-rated players, Lenderman wasa pre-selected participant to jointhe online qualifiers final8-playerround-robintournamentthat began Dec. 11.

Lendermancame up clutch throughtwo back-to-back,must-win games, the first over GM TimurGareyevin theseventh and final round on Fridaywhichallowed him to catch the pace of tournament leader IM ChristopherYooat the finish line.Lenderman andYootied for first place and split the top cashprizes, butplayed a final Armageddon game on Saturday to determine the seat in next yearsnational championship.

In that game,Yoowonapre-game bidding processof7 minutes and 30 seconds on his clockto command the black pieces with draw odds.That gaveLendermana full 10 minutes with the white pieces, and his secondmust-win situation in a row.

He employed a Trompowsky attack that saw quick development and left Yoos pawn structure in early tatters. Yoo appeared to have a mouse slip at 25. .. Rf8, leaving his rook open for the exchange, though the position was already looking dire and the youngster seemed to take the hiccup in stride. Lendermans endgame technique with his king and rook was national-championship level worthy.

Lenderman passedChess.comsfair-play review of the Armageddon game and has been formally invited to the 2021 US Chess Championship in St. Louis.

The first-ever online qualifier began in November as anopen Swiss event for the nations U1600 players and has progressed each weekend through a series of increasingly stronger events.Yooentered in the 2400+ Swiss qualifier and then advanced through a 23-player final Swiss, then a final knockout bracket, and ultimately the final round-robin tournament.

The reigning US Chess Cadet Champion, who played Armageddon on his 14thbirthday, was the only non-GM in the 8-player field.

Originally posted here:

Lenderman Wins Playoff, Will Appear in 2021 National Championship - uschess.org

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Daily Deal: The Complete Chess Bundle - Techdirt

Ben Chilwell has revealed that he and Chelsea team-mate Reece James have been bitten by the chess bug.

England defender Chilwell has admitted things are extremely tough at the moment due to the coronavirus pandemic restricting peoples movements andinteractions, andimpacting on their daily lives.

He admits to being in a fortunate position as his job as a professional footballer allows him to go to training every day and interact with friends and team-mates.

While footballers are in a fortunate position, they too are living under Covid-19 restrictions and Chilwell says he is doing different things to ensure his mind remains stimulated.

Chess is one activity that has captured Chilwells imagination. While the standard is unlikely to be on a par with Beth Harmon of The Queens Gambit, it appears the defender and fellow Chelsea star James take it pretty seriously.

"Obviously it's a very tough time at the moment," Chilwell told the Premier League's website. "I'm in a very fortunate position where I am able to come into work and see my friends and do what I enjoy, but there are a lot of people not in that position and are stuck at home with nothing to do.

"There are a few things I've found to keep myself busy [after training] ... activities that are really going to challenge your brain and keep you interested through very tough times.

"Me and Reece James play online chess against each other quite a lot. He wins a few, I win a few. We played a game on the way back from Russia in the Champions League. I think it was one game, but it took four hours - the whole flight!

"I actually asked my mum for some chess books and a chess board for Christmas! That has obviously helped me."

While there isnt another trip to Russia on the horizon for James and Chilwell to sharpen their chess games, Chelsea do travel to Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Champions League on February 23 - which should hand them the opportunity to play.

The focus this week for the pair is a trip to Premier League title contenders Leicester on Tuesday.

See the article here:

Reece James and I played chess for four hours on the way back from Russia! - Chelsea's Chilwell - Goal.com

OVER 2.1 million live views and an average of almost 70,000 viewers watching a game of chess?

Thats the kind of draw the Botez sisters command on Twitch, an online streaming platform. While Twitch is more known for hosting gaming streams (its most popular streamer is Tyler Ninja Blevins, who usually plays Fortnite and Valorant), its also become a haven of sorts for a new generation of tech-savvy, esports-influenced chess players.

Continue reading below

Today we became the chess stream with the most concurrent viewers of ALL TIME, tweeted Alexandra Botez this week. Both the World FIDE Master (WFM) and her sister Andrea hosted BlockChamps, a six-hour chess-meets-Minecraft stream that had popular streamers Pokimane and LilyPichu as guests.

Continue reading below

Recommended Videos

The chess games were also run concurrently on a Minecraft server, with 1,000 players enthusiastically logging in with their block-like characters to watch the matches.

Continue reading below

In their streams, the Botez sisters combine a funny, engaging patter (plus a healthy dose of meme culture) with a seriously beginner-friendly approach to chess. They even got to tutor Game of Thrones actor and Worlds Strongest Man Hafthor The Mountain Bjornsson.

They bring some legit chess chops to the table, too. According to FIDE, 25-year-old Alexandra is currently ranked #2020 in the world, and #169 among active players in her home federation of Canada. According to a profile by the New York Posts Kirsten Fleming, her father taught her the sport at the age of six.

Continue reading below

At eight years old, she already won a national championship. At 15, she won the US Girls National championship. Alexandra enrolled at Stanford University and became the chess clubs first female president. She attained her WFM rank in 2013.

Her 18-year-old sister Andrea does not yet boast international chess credentials.

Like many in the chess orbit, their viewership numbers got a big bump from The Queens Gambit, the immensely popular show on Netflix.

In the beginning of 2020, they only had 61,000 followers on Twitch. They now have more than 581,000. Their YouTube account, BotezLive, has 237,000 subscribers.

Continue reading below

Chess exploded on Twitch, and I was one of the top streamers. I remember being so excited, I couldnt sleep. I was so high on adrenaline, Alexandra told the New York Post.

The sisters popularity on Twitch is emblematic of a new generation of digital savvy chess players whove seized upon the tactics of esports players streams, memes, and all to pump some Gen Z energy into the ancient sport.

In fact, the Botez sisters signed on with esports organization Team Envy last December.

Continue reading below

The Botez sisters are the most entertaining creators in chess right now, and theyve played a major role in popularizing the game on Twitch, said Andrew Peterman, chief content officer at Envy Gaming, in a statement on Chess.com. Signing Alexandra and Andrea to launch our new Envy creator network is about much more than chess, however. Its about giving people access to the personalities that represent the future of entertainment.

They are, surprisingly, not the most popular FIDE ranked streamer on the platform.

In terms of follower count, they are dwarfed on Twitch by Hikaru "GMHikaru" Nakamura, a FIDE Grandmaster who has more than 857,000 followers.

Read more:

Who are the Botez Sisters, one of chess's most popular streamers? - Sports Interactive Network Philippines

Video games are weird. I dont just mean in the traditional hey look at this wacky nonsense over here way either. The development of games and entire genres can be just as crazy as the games that come from them. Nowhere is this more true than with modding. A mod of a game can become a new mode. That mode can become a new game. Then that game can become a genre. In the case of MOBAs however, that genre became a powerhouse. Auto Chess MOBAis the next step in the development ouroboros.

For those unaware, this all really started withWarcraft 3. While it may be hard for some of you to believe, there was a time whenWarcraftwasnt an MMO. All joking aside, whenWarcraft 3 came out, just like withStarcraft before it, the modding scene was huge. One such mod of the game had players controlling one single hero instead of an army of grunts, and facing off against another players group of heroes. Sound familiar? Well this mod became known as Defense of the Ancients, orDotA.

Flash forward a few years and DotAis its own franchise, while Riot Games has the equally popular League of Legends franchise. Even Blizzard tried to jump on the MOBA bandwagon with Heroes of the Storm, although it achieved far less success than its contemporaries. Modders werent content to stop there though, no way. Soon enough a new game type emerged from DotA 2 calledDotA Auto Chess. In this game mode, players place their heroes on predetermined paths and have them fight automatically like a hybrid of Poker and Chess.

Thus was the birth of the autobattler. Shortly after, the games industry did what the games industry does best, and a plethora of imitators emerged. Riot Games came out with Teamfight Tactics, Valve created DotA Underlord, and Blizzard even added a autobattler type mode to its TCGHearthstone. Well, the team who originally created DotA Auto Chess went out to make its own version of the game, but unattached to the DotA franchise. Thus,Auto Chess was brought into the world. This brings us full circle to now. Publisher Dragonest and developer Drodo Studio, the creators of Auto Chess, have announced a MOBA based on Auto Chess, the aptly titledAuto Chess MOBA.

A game based on a game based on a mod based on a game based on a mod. Confused yet? Well, all you need to know is that all of the heroes in Auto Chess MOBAwill be completely free, the game will have no paid rune system, and will feature a day and night cycle as well as destructible objects. There is no word yet on when exactly this game will drop, but you can keep an eye on the Auto ChessTwitter page as more updates become available. If you want to see where it all (kinda) started, you can get Auto Chess right now via the Epic Games Store.

Continued here:

Auto Chess MOBA is a new MOBA based on Auto Chess - PC Invasion

A longtime tradition in my family is fully underway: chess by mail.

There's a chessboard on our dining room table. It's been there for months. This board mimics the one that's on the coffee table at my parent's house. These two separate chessboards are the same game, connected through mail.

It all started when my dad was telling stories of how his dad would play multiple games of chess this way. Recently, my wife and dad started a chess game via snail mail. My family really gets into picking the right postcard for the upcoming chess move. You jot your note, add your chess move like, "b8 to a6," slap a stamp on it, raise the flag on your mailbox, and wait for your opponent's return move to arrive in your mailbox. It's a fun way of keeping in touch while supporting our postal service.

1. Contact someone you want to start a chess game with.

2. Make sure you both have chessboards and all the pieces.

3. Study up on chess if need be and learn all the move notations. There's plenty of how-to's online to get you going.

4. Get some postcards and stamps. We love getting antique postcards from thrift shops.

Chess Viewing to Get You Going

The Queen's Gambit (streaming now on Netflix) Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) Magnus (2016) Brooklyn Castle (2012) Queen of Katwe (2016)

View post:

Here's How to Play Chess by Mail, and What Movies to Watch to Get Your Game Going - Willamette Week

GM Wesley So defeated GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda in a Speed Chess Championship match that was tight in the beginning and tight in the end, but it was a tour de force by So in the middle. With the exception of World Champion Magnus Carlsen and GM Hikaru Nakamura, So is the most accomplished player in Speed Chess Championship history, and with this victory, he has advanced to the semifinals where he will face the winner of the match between Nakamura and GM Vladimir Fedoseev.

How to watch?The games of the Speed Chess Championship Main Event are played on the Chess.com live server. They are also available on our platform for watching live games at Chess.com/events and on our apps under "Watch." Expert commentary can be enjoyed at Chess.com/tv.

So and Duda had played one previous Speed Chess Championship match in 2018, and So won convincingly, 20-7. Two years later, Duda is a considerably more accomplished player and no longer a junior. Would his performance against the reigning U.S. champion be superior this time around?

In general, yes, Duda performed much better. The final score of 16-10 was certainly closer, and Duda even leaped out to an early lead of 2.5-0.5. He ultimately drew the 5|1 time control (4-4) and won the 1|1 time control 5-4, but in the 3|1 time control, So was simply untouchable. He won 7 games and drew only two for a point total of 8-1. After the match, commentator GM Robert Hess said that So was "the best player in the entire world in the 3|1 time control." Given that So has defeated both Carlsen and Nakamura in this time control, Hess has good supporting evidence for this bold claim.

The high-water mark in the match for Duda came after games two and three when Duda first won an excellent game two in a smooth and convincing fashion.

He then defended a dangerous attack in game three with accurate play.

So's first win came in game four when he won an instructive endgame thanks to his dominant knight. So has consistently shown himself to be one of the most accurate and unperturbable blitz chess players in the world. He's incredibly hard to tilt, and if his opponent starts tilting, things can quickly go downhill.

Duda scored the next full point in an opposite-colored bishops endgame where the outside passed pawn on the a-file gave him excellent chances. So then won game seven below in a remarkable time scramble before collecting a full point with a nice attack in game eight to close out the 5|1 time control in a 4-4 tie.

Amazingly, Duda was only able to draw the third and fourth games in the 3|1 time control. So won all other games, and his win in the fifth game was a real blitz chess masterpiece. He sacrificed a piece early and carried the pressure through to the endgame where his rook tied down Duda's forces. When Duda missed the chance to give the piece back and achieve balance in the rook endgame, So pushed his pawns forward on the kingside and Duda's extra knight could only spectate.

As the match advanced to 1|1, Duda was almost mathematically out of contention, but he did start well with a victory. After the two grandmasters exchanged a series of victories, Duda's consecutive wins in games five and six gave him the edge in the time control, and he ultimately won it 5-4. The most insane moment came when Duda hung his queen in the second game, but So missed the opportunity to take it!

In fact, the final game was declared a draw as after time ran out, the server temporarily went offline due to high traffic to play the newly released Beth Harmon bots. As this game did not affect the match outcome, the players agreed to adjudication of the game rather than wait for the match to be restored after a server restart.

All Games

The 2020 Speed Chess Championship Main Event is a knockout tournament among 16 of the best grandmasters in the world who will play for a $100,000 prize fund, double the amount of last year. The tournament will run November 1-December 13, 2020 on Chess.com. Each individual match will feature 90 minutes of 5+1 blitz, 60 minutes of 3+1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1+1 bullet chess.

See also:

The rest is here:

So Defeats Duda With Incredible 3|1 Performance In Speed Chess - Chess.com

Last week Barry Martin, along with Patrick Hughes, one of the worlds top chess playing artists, asked me to identify the most significant happenings in the chess world over the past ten years. Barry and Patrick used to meet in the final of the Chelsea Arts Club Championship and Barry writes an excellent monthly column in Kensington, Westminster and Chelsea Today(KWC). The point of the question was to celebrate ten years ofKWCand ten years of Barrys column, many of which have been gathered together in the anthology,Chess, Problems, Play and Personalities(Filament Publishing).

Of those significant developments, which define the contemporary chess scene, I have already covered the phenomenon of the new Netflix chess-based TV series,Queens Gambit, in last weeks column. The combination of brilliance and beauty, exemplified in the persona of the chess champion heroine, Beth Harmon, has proved irresistible to record-breaking audiences around the world. Sales of chess sets alone, a key indicator of a new-found enthusiasm, have soared by 300 per cent since Beth first appeared on our screens.

A second vital element has been the creation of the AlphaZero chess-playing engine, with its amazing abilities, including an almost vertical learning curve, resulting in the strongest chess-playing entity the world has ever seen. The science has primarily been the work of Demis Hassabis, rewarded with the CBE for his efforts, and a $400 million sale to Google of his company, Deep Mind. The achievements of Demis, and the brilliantly paradoxical strategies and tactics of AlphaZero, were likewise already covered in my column Arise Sir Demis The games were contested against the most powerful available commercial chess programme, called Stockfish itself many times stronger than the IBM Deep Blue programme which defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997.

The 1993 World Title Challenger, the British Grandmaster Nigel Short,described the AlphaZero games as being of such beauty that he felt he was in the presence of God. Demis himself explained that his self-taught programme, which had already mastered the quasi-infinite complexities of the oriental games of Shogi (Japanese Chess) and Go, was the key to understanding intelligence.

This week I turn to the third most decisive development of the past ten years, the meteoric rise and lasting domination of the Norwegian World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen is the culmination of a line of champions which stretches back into the 18th century, yet he is also a uniquely talented representative of the modern era. Magnus has attained the highest ever chess rating ever recorded, outclassing even the mighty Garry Kasparov. Magnus wins virtually every competition which he enters, and has adapted seamlessly to the current coronavirus crisis, which has obliged chess to migrate online to a huge extent. Magnus has prudently avoided the damage to his reputation occasioned by suffering defeats against chess computers, a fate which overtook both Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik.Finally, Magnus has leveraged all the opportunities afforded by his title of World Chess Champion, adapting perfectly to the modern environment, even to the extent of floating his online chess company, Play Magnus, for $85 million dollars, while simultaneously earning a fortune as a trendy ambassador for the fashion line G-Star Raw, often appearing alongside Hollywood superstar, Liv Tyler.

The title of World Chess Champion dates to no later than 1886, when Wilhelm Steinitz defeated Johannes Zukertort in a gladiatorial contest, specifically designed to resolve the question of who was the strongest player in the world after Paul Morphys death in 1884, though Steinitz had claimed that status since 1866. Less clear is whether the great predecessors of Steinitz also merited that proud title. Part of the difficulty of authentication is lack of evidence of important contests and gaps in the record.

The story begins in the 18th century, when the French chess expertFranois-Andr Danican Philidorwon an important match in 1747 against the erudite Philip Stamma, translator of oriental languages to the court of King George II. Sadly, none of those games has survived. Following Philidor, who died in 1795, there comes a hiatus, until the brief flourishing of La Bourdonnais during the 1830s. After this, there is a further gap in the record until the 1840s, when French heir to the Philidor tradition, Saint-Amant, was overthrown in Paris, the epicentre of European chess life at that time, by the English champion Howard Staunton.

Fortunately, from Staunton onwards, there is a relatively unbroken line of succession, with each champion being dethroned by the next in line. The exceptions are the trinity of Morphy, Fischer (who simply downed tools), and Alekhine who died in office, thus permanently preserving their hallowed nimbus of invincibility.

Also worthy of mention are various champions who have won the FID title (FID is the International Chess Federation, the governing body of chess competitions), without gaining universal recognition from the global chess community. These include Max Euwe, Efim Bogolyubov, Vesselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand. A common outcome is that such FID champions have gone on to contest matches against the universally recognised laureate, and in two such cases (Euwe and Anand) have emerged victorious to become undisputed champions themselves.

The most recent world championship match, staged in London 2018, was run entirely under the auspices of FID, the authority of which is now universally accepted under the reliable new Presidency of Russian Arkady Dvorkovich, and his English Vice President, Nigel Short.

The first great player who could be considered a World Champion was Philidor, whodominatedthe chess scene of his day. The term World Champion was not used when describing him, with commentators preferring to employ such metaphors as wielding the sceptre. There is also the problem that very few of Philidors games on level terms have survived, his reputation largely being constructed on his blindfold simultaneous displays, which so electrified London chess enthusiasts. Philidor was able to conduct three games blindfold at once, a feat that led to a letter of admonishment from the French encyclopaedist, Denis Diderot, warning Philidor that such exploits might lead to brain damage.

It is interesting to note that Philidor was the first great apostle of pawn power in chess. According to Philidor, pawns determined the structure of the game, they were in fact the soul of chess not mere cannon fodder, whose sole task was to make way for the power of the pieces. In this respect his chess teachings paralleled the rise of the masses embodied in the French Revolution of 1789.

France was the dominant chess nation at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the next player after Philidorwho couldbe considered an early world champion was the 19th-century French master Louis-Charles Mah de La Bourdonnais. La Bourdonnais claim to fame rests primarily on his mammoth series of matches against Alexander McDonnell, contested in London in 1834. This represented the finest corpus of games ever created up to that time and numerous generations of chess devotees learned their basic chess strategies and tactics from these ingenious and well contested battles. Both protagonists appear to have become mentally exhausted by their efforts and died shortly after their epic series.

In the panoply of proto-champions, Howard Staunton, the Victorian polymath, Shakespearean scholar, and assiduous chronicler of the English schools system, is the only English player who could legitimately be considered as world champion. In a series of matches between 1843 and 1846, Staunton defeated the French master Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, followed closely by victories against the German master Bernhard Horwitz and Daniel Harrwitz, originally from Poland. Stauntons match against Saint-Amant was the first contest at the highest level that closely resembled the template for modern World Championship competitions. The chess pieces in regular use for important competitions, including the2018 Londoncontest between Carlsen and his challenger, Fabiano Caruana, are named the Staunton pattern, after Howard Staunton.

The German master Adolf Anderssen seized the sceptre from Howard Staunton when he decisively defeated the English champion in the very first international tournament in London 1851. Anderssen was one of that select group, which includes Mikhail Botvinnik and Viswanathan Anand, who initially assumed the accolade of supreme chess master from a tournament rather than a match. The London event was in fact put together by Staunton, who thereby created a perfect pretext for losing out to Anderssen in their knockout match, it being notoriously difficult to compete in an event, whilst simultaneously organising it.

Anderssen can claim to be one of the supreme tacticians of all time. Three of his wins are of imperishable beauty. On their own they would justify anyones devotion to chess. They are his Immortal Game against Kieseritsky (played at Simpsons-in-the-Strand, not the tournament) of London, 1851; his Evergreen game against the pseudonymous Dufresne (in reality the German player E. S. Freund) of Berlin 1856, and his majestic sacrificial masterpiece against Zukertort of Breslau 1869.

Paul Morphy was the American meteor who took the world by storm over thetwo momentous, whirlwind years of 1857 and 1858. His grand tour of Europe culminated in a match victory against Adolf Anderssen, after which Morphy was universally acknowledged as the worlds greatest player. Thereafter Morphy issued a challenge to anyone in the world to take him on at odds (Morphy starting the game with a pawn handicap) but no one accepted. At this point the meteor had burnt itself out and Morphy, tragically, retired from chess, a curious forerunner of Bobby Fischers behaviour following his famous 1972 World Championship victory against Boris Spassky.

Morphy understood the principles of chess better than anyone who came before him. Anderssens tactical brilliance sprang like Athene from the head of Zeus, without necessarily having grown from regular organic pre-conditions. Morphy, on the other hand, constructed his positions along sound strategic and positional lines, before unleashing his devastating arsenal of tactical weaponry.On Morphys retirement, Anderssen resumed the position of world leadership which had belonged so fleetingly to the first great genius of American chess. Anderssen lost a match in 1866 toWilhelm Steinitz, the first player who could definitively be describedas an official World Champion. The previous wielders of the sceptre, Philidor, La Bourdonnais, Staunton, Anderssen and Morphy, were all, at the time, acknowledged as the leading chess practitioner of their day, but it is less clear that the title world champion had been universally accepted. Steinitz, on the other hand, insisted on this description and he himself dated his tenure from his 1866 match victory, also in London, against Anderssen. Steinitzs pre-eminence wasconfirmed 20 years later when he demolished Johannes Zukertort in their 1886 match in the US, which was specifically described as a World Championship contest.

Thus far I have described the early years of the World Championship and now I return to Magnus Carlsens defence of his title, which he has held since 2013. The 2018 Championship match in London was fought out between the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the highest ever rated chess grandmaster, and the previously unexpected challenger, Fabiano Caruana, who had been considered somewhat vulnerable and fragile.

Caruana originated from Italy but became an American citizen. With energy and vigour, he decimated his rivals amongthe top ten Grandmasters. In order toqualify,the winner had to exhibit strength, agility, power, alertness, incredible persistence, stamina, and the power of the will to win.From this shark pool, Fabiano became the number one contender, and number two ranked player in the world. Throughout all the complications of selecting the challenger to the World Chess Champion, the pairing was ideal: a battle between the two best in the world fighting for the world title.

The implication is thatchess at this exalted level is a sport, both mentalandphysical an appropriately termed Mind Sport. As the Championship was in process a wonderful flash of confirmatory news emerged from the media: Magnus Carlsen was nominated, in Norway, to win the Sports Personality of the Year. This Championship had emerged as a realBattle of the Titans. Magnus had now won four world title bouts, twice versus Anand and once each against Karjakin and Caruana. The latter two ended with the tie-breaks, at which Magnus excels. On this occasion, Magnus praised Fabiano, as being his most difficult opponent of the three.

Magnus has secured his tenure as World Champion until at least 2021. He will then have held the title for 8 years thus moves into an equal category of championship longevity with such greats as Capablanca, Petrosian, Kramnik and Anand, ahead of Euwe, Smyslov, Tal, Spassky and Fischer. Only Steinitz, Lasker, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Karpov and Kasparov held the title for significantly longer periods. In the modern world, where everything has speeded up, can Carlsen go on to outperform all these titans?

If his ambition had seemed to wane during the classical phase of the London contest, it certainly flared up, as Carlsens predator instincts flashed on for the tiebreak.Like the Terminator, Magnus would be back.In every boxing match and in every tennis set, each minute encapsulates a real battle. Every move in chess is the same. The draws were magnificent mini-battles in every one of the often 65+ moves over the duration of as much as six hours of non-stop sport. And then it came down to speed.Only in the speed play-off did Carlsen finally overcome the onslaught of Caruana, with the World Champion taking the accelerated shoot out by three wins to zero.

I have tried to distil the quintessential elements of Magnus success. Remember that, in Latin Magnus was a title meaning Great, as in Alexander Magnus (Alexander the Great), or Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great), Julius Caesars senatorial rival, as noted in ShakespearesJulius Caesar, Act I, Scene One:

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome.

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climbd up to walks and battlements,

To towrs and windows, yea, to chimney tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The live long day, with patient expectation.

To see Great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

I have reduced the formula to seven memorable M principles for Magnus:

Motivation

Mobilisation

Momentum

Material

Masquerade

Massacre

Mate

And this weeks game exemplifies these key ingredients of a Magnus triumph. The game was the decisive win which clinched Magnus World Title defence against the former World Champion, The Tiger of Madras: Viswanathan Anand.

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The art of chess: a brief history of the World Championship - TheArticle

Written by Shashank Nair | New Delhi | Updated: November 22, 2020 1:30:25 pm Koneru Humpy started her chess journey at the age of six. (File)

Koneru Humpy has yet to watch The Queens Gambit. She has been receiving numerous phone calls about the Netflix mini-series but has not got around to having a look at the show that has put forth questions on womens chess and the treatment meted out to it over the years. But despite not having watched the series, Humpy is all too familiar with its premise a young woman participating in a male-dominated arena, starting to change the power dynamics by winning, and the change in equations not taken too kindly.

The girl from Andhra Pradesh started her chess journey at the age of six and when she became the youngest woman Grandmaster in the world (at that time) at the age of 15, she was marked for greatness. But by winning open tournaments and becoming a force in chess, Humpy also disturbed the status quo which resulted in several insinuations on her credentials.

At 15, I became a GM but until then, the concept of gender barriers didnt really occur to me. I became a GM on the European circuit. In those days, we had very few international tournaments in India. To get exposure, my father took me on a trip to Europe for a few months and I would be playing continuously over there. I won a title and came back to India, Humpy told The Indian Express as she recounted the beginning of a turbulent phase in her career.

It was only when she started winning that the critics came out of the woodwork, and what they had to say was not very charitable. At that time, even though I was a GM, I wasnt performing in a stable manner. Its quite normal at that age to have highs and lows. Some of my peers started criticising me by saying that I didnt have the standard of a GM because I hadnt proven myself in India and that I had played in weaker tournaments in Europe to become a GM, said Humpy.

Comparisons with Judit Polgar seemed to always find their way into conversations and the womens chess circuit, which has historically been seen as inferior to the mens game, hoped that Humpy would bridge the gap between the two worlds. She could cope with the pressure of those expectations. But she wasnt prepared for the attack on her credentials.

This was a period when I was really mentally disturbed. Being a sportsperson, handling a win or a loss at a tournament was quite normal from childhood. But this kind of criticism was very new to me. It was a tough phase. I was down in many tournaments and suffered for six months to a year. It was then that my father and I came to the conclusion that I needed to play in Indian circuit tournaments, Humpy said, explaining her decision to take part in the National B in 2013 even though she could be a part of the National A in an attempt to quell any doubts about her deserving the GM status.

This then led to further grumbling. If she participated in the A category, she was deemed to be not good enough and her GM rating was said to have been awarded through some sleight of hand. If she participated in the National B set-up, it was decried as her taking an easy way out. There was no winning this battle of perception, but when Humpy finished second in the National B set-up, by her own admission, she felt like that quashed any doubts over her qualifications.

Humpys chess journey is replete with tales of men intentionally, or unintentionally, providing a platform for disrespect. Some of the stories range from outrightly wanting to defeat her (Even though there were some weaker players than me comparatively, being a woman, they tried harder to beat me) to unintentionally disrespecting her (Once I played an international tournament and had a disastrous performance in the event. Afterwards, I got a best womens prize). But despite the lack of respect, if there is one opinion of hers that has shock value, its her belief that men simply are better than women at chess.

ELO ratings seem to suggest the same especially when comparing the top male player in the world (Magnus Carlsen: 2862) and the top female player (Hou Yifan: 2658). Psychological journals and ex-players have attributed it to many factors, chief among them being the difference in mindset between men and women.

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According to FIDE, theres an 84-16 ratio of male to female registered chess players. In total, there are 1,683 GMs who are men and 37 who are women.

The highest ELO rating ever achieved by a woman is 2735 by Polgar herself. She was, at one point, the eighth-best chess player in the world.

In 2002, Koneru Humpy became the youngest woman GM at the age of 15 years, one month and 27 days. Current womens world No. 1 Hou Yifan broke that record in 2008.

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When asked what she felt was the difference between how the two genders play the sport, the reigning womens world rapid champion offered an interesting take. I have seen male players display a wider repertoire of moves. They shift between openings quite often and are quite aggressive in their style of play. When it comes to women, there are many top players who have limited opening moves, but the preparation behind those moves is deeper. A game between a woman and a woman is very different to a game between a man and a woman because psychologically men intend to try to make a point in that match. So, the game tends to become wilder.

For an across-the-board raise in ELO ratings for women, the 33-year-old believes that chess tournaments exclusively for women must cease to be a regular fixture because separate tournaments for both genders make it difficult for women to cope with the mens circuit. There should only be open tournaments so that women have to play with men and improve their game.

But Humpy acknowledges the problem such a system will bring, as an already skewered monetary gap might become even wider. The prize money for men is quite higher. Its tournaments like the World Championship and Candidates that help women professionals survive financially. Once they take off these tournaments, professionally itll be very difficult to survive with the mens circuit only. I think it makes sense for them to keep a special financial prize for women even in open tournaments.

Even before the Queens Gambit was made, plenty of pioneers in the world of chess have spoken out about why women arent at the top of the game, none more so than Judit Polgar, considered the greatest woman player of all time. In an interview with The Guardian last year, the Hungarian spoke on a wide variety of issues related to chess and women.

Polgar on needing to compete against men: Playing only among women would not have helped my development, as since I was 13, I was the clear number one among them. I needed to compete with the other leading (male) Grandmasters of my time.

Polgar on why coaching women needs a fresh perspective: Girls in chess are not treated the same way as boys. Coaches and officials are guided by potential successes in girls competitions, which are comparatively easier to achieve. Parents tend to follow what the experts advise.

Polgar on Nigel Shorts comments on womens chess inferiority: Shorts conclusion does not stand up to scrutiny, and the burden of proof is with him. Even if women do think and compete differently, we can attain the same achievements as men: be it in science, art or chess.

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Humpys Gambit: How Koneru disturbed the male-dominated status quo in chess - The Indian Express