10/6/2020 Despite the ongoing corona pandemic, the organisers of the Fagernes Open in Norway decided to go ahead with their tournament, which is played live and under strict hygiene regulations. Evgeny Postny, Simen Agdestein and Frode Urkedal are the top seeds in the A-Open, which also functions as Norwegian National Championship. | Photos: Tom Eriksen, Malgorzata Kopaczek-Styczen (Tournament page)

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Due to the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic the organisers of the Fagernes Open, (4 to 11 October) had to cut back, and the field is not as strong as it would have been without the virus. A number of Grandmasters, who would have liked to come, had to cancel their trip due to travel restrictions. Nevertheless, a respectable field of more than 100 players, who start in two groups, came to Norway to play over-the-board chess again. In the A-Open, 13 Grandmasters from eight federations are taking part. The tournament also functions as Norwegian National Championship, which allows Norwegian players to get norms even if they do not play against the usually required number of foreign opponents.

The A-Open is a 9 round Swiss, the venue is the Scandic Valdres Hotel in Fagernes.

The tournament is, of course, held in close consultation with the local health authorities and under special hygiene regulations. Among other things, sufficient distance between the players had to be ensured.

Number one seed is Evgeny Postny while GM Simen Agdestein and GM Frode Urkedal are the nominally strongest Norwegian players. Urkedal and Agdestein both started with two wins, whereas Postny already had to concede a draw.

Amateur vs Master

In the first round of open tournaments strong players are often paired against weaker amateurs, and this often leads to instructive games.

Black first tried his luck on the kingside but now is looking for chances on the queenside.16...Na6 17.Nxd4 Nb4 18.Qe3 Bxe4 19.Nxe4 cxd4 20.Qxd4 Nc2 21.Qxd7+ Kf8 After 22.Rb1 Qxe5 Black could still hope, but...

22.Bg5!and Black resigned. After 22...Bxg5 23.Nxg5 Qe8 24.Rac1 Nb4 25.Qd2 a5 26.Qf4 White is two pawns up and has the much better position.

10

48 players start in the A-Open

Read more:

More than 100 players start at the Fagernes Open - Chessbase News

Chess and creating economic policies both involve strategy. As Russia continues to rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic, it will be interesting to see what moves the countrys leaders have in store and whether this can benefit Russia-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Experienced chess players can calculate positions on the board seven, ten, and even more moves ahead. It certainly takes time and practice to develop such a skill, a National Interest article surmised. Yet even the most talented player still faces a problem: you do not know how the opponent would respond. Assessing various probabilities of the opponents moves and then picking the best options for answers is a daunting task.

The article also noted that while foreign policy isnt a game, the chess analogy works here well: despite the uncertainty of unknown factors and sudden changes, most foreign governments tend to act rather predictably based on a certain policy climatethat is, most accepted views embraced by decisionmakers and their advisers. Can we predict Russias behavior judging the current policy climate in Moscow?

^MSRU data by YCharts

Per a recent Bloomberg report, Russia only recently became only the fourth country to report more than 1 million cases of Covid-19, its economy is coming through the pandemic better than most other big emerging markets. Analysts say the outlook could yet improve.

When the pandemic broke out, Russia was in pretty good shape: low inflation, low unemployment, stable banking sector, and huge reserves, Renaissance Capital Chief Economist Sofya Donets said by phone from Moscow. If there are no additional shocks, there will be a wave of forecast upgrades for Russias economy this year.

Renaissance is among the most upbeat on the outlook, forecasting a contraction of 3.3% this year and a 3.8% rebound next, the article added. Even the current Bloomberg survey, which shows a 4.8% shrinkage this year, is less than half what the government feared when the virus first hit.

For investors sensing an opportunity on Russia improving its economic standing in a post-Covid-19 environment, here are a pair of other funds to consider to get Russia exposure:

For more market trends, visit ETF Trends.

Continue reading here:

Russias Post-Covid Economic Policies Will Be a Game of Chess - ETF Trends

Even people who are not interested in baseball remember Yogi Berra as the author of so called "Yogi-isms." Indeed, his catchy phrases which mix humor and wisdom will make you smile and think. Pretty frequently they contradict to themselves. Who can forget his famous, "If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be," or "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." You cannot help but think of Yogi Berra when you read the following quote by GM Grischuk:

I don't see any drawbacks in Fischer Random chess. The only slight shortcoming is the start position, otherwise there are just advantages.

Considering that the initial position IS the only difference between Fischer Random (also known as Chess960) and classical chess, here we obviously see a chess version of a Yogi-ism.

As I admitted in my article written two years ago, the only reason I watch Fischer Random tournaments is Kasparov's participation there, so I couldn't possibly miss the recent Champions Showdown. However, I made one major change in the way I looked at the games. In the above mentioned article I wrote: "I want to share a trick that I used in order to follow the event. If you just skip the first 15 moves, then the games start resembling the regular chess." This year I watched the games from the very beginning. I know, it needs some explanation. My favorite writer, Sergey Dovlatov wrote in one of his best novels "A Foreign Woman."

"New York was an event for Marusya, a concert, a spectacle. It became a city only after a month or two. Gradually the chaos revealed figures, colours, sounds. The noisy marketing intersection suddenly fell apart into its constituent units: a grocery store, a cafeteria, an insurance agency, and a delicatessen."

Just as for the protagonist, an ugly initial position of Fischer Random suddenly started showing some grocery stores and delicatessen. Let me show you what I am talking about. Here is an old, little-known game by GM Bent Larsen:

The game is nice on its own, but what I like the most is the trap on move four. Can you find the reason why Black shouldn't take the g2-pawn here?

Now, when you know this trick, it will be easier to find the strong tactical idea that Kasparov missed as early as move two! It wasn't winning the game, but nevertheless it was very cute:

Here is what happened in the actual game:

Nevertheless, I was very happy when in the most anticipated game of the tournament the initial position was as close to regular chess as possible. Just the king and queen's bishop swapped places. Not surprisingly, pretty soon the game looked like a regular Queen's Gambit Accepted where Kasparov played a well-known g2-g4 thrust. Carlsen in return offered a trade of bishops.

These strategic elements happened in the following well-known game:

Just like Spassky, after the bishops' trade, Carlsen grabbed the initiative and eventually got a winning position. But then something went wrong.

In order to understand the key ideas of the resulting endgame, let's look at the iconic game Botvinnik vs. Fischer. The final trick of this game where Botvinnik had to deal with Fischer's connected passed a-and b-pawns is well known. Instead of capturing the defenseless g6-pawn, Botvinnik played h4-h5! which was an idea found by GM Geller during the analysis of the adjourned position.

But the most instructive moment of the game happened earlier. Here is Botvinnik's comment after Fischer's move 40... Kg5:

An endgame expert like Capablanca or Smyslov would immediately move his king toward d6 to protect the Nc5. After that, the pawn advance on the queen's side would quickly decide the game. - Mikhail Botvinnik

Indeed, Black has a passed pawn on the queen's side, so the king should go there to support the promotion of the pawn. Now look at the game Kasparov vs. Carlsen. The World Champion could use Botvinnik's old advice and move his king towards the queen's side pawns by 42...Kd7! Instead he allowed Kasparov to save the game by the same "magic" Botvinnikovian move h4-h5! Also notice the very precise move 45.Re5! when Kasparov cut off the black king and didn't allow him back to the queen's side.

As I wrote in my old article: Garry is the real King Midas of chess since whatever chess subject he touches, he turns into gold. He managed to accomplish the impossible task: I really enjoyed a FRC game! Do I like Chess 960 now? Well, let me put it this way. Last summer an electric car manufacturer Tesla was in a difficult financial situation. The hashtag @TSLAQ was trending on Twitter implying an unavoidable bankruptcy. But one financial analyst made a stand and upgraded his rating on Tesla from "strong sell" to just "sell." Taking his cue, I have upgraded my personal opinion on Fischer Random from "strong dislike" to just "dislike."

It would be interesting to know your opinion on Fischer Random. The main and only idea of this chess variant is to avoid opening theory. While it makes sense in super-tournaments, where top players have analyzed many opening lines to a draw, that is hardly a concern for the more than 90% of other people who enjoy chess. So, please tell us in the comments if you like or dislike Fischer Random.

Link:

The Only Problem In Fischer Random Chess - Chess.com

Six new variants, including four from the recent AlphaZero paper,are now available for all Chess.com members to try. They can be found at Chess.com/variants.

The recent scientific paper from Google's DeepMind, co-written by 14th world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik, caused quite a stir. The nine variants that were tested bythe self-learning chess engine AlphaZero were discussed widely in the chess world.

Now, four of them can be played on Chess.com. Three other variants are now available on our site as well. Here's an overview, starting with the AlphaZero ones:

This is a variant that's easy to understand and possibly closest to regular chess: castling is not allowed, and that's it. As GM Magnus Carlsen remarked this weekend, he would have answered GM Hikaru Nakamura's Bongcloud 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2(which Naka played against GM Jeffery Xiong) with 2...Ke7 and after 3.Ke1 Ke8 you have No Castling chess.

But it's safer to play the variant itself, now available on our site so that you don't run the risk of playing that Bongcloud and getting an opponent that doesn't play along and smashes you instead.

Play No Castling chess here.

This variant was called Self-capture in the DeepMind paper. It basically allows you to take your own pieces as well, in addition to your opponent's pieces. You can imagine positions where it makes sense for a rook to take the pawn in front of it because opening a line could be (much) more valuable than that pawn.

Kramnik was very enthusiastic about this variant. He wrote:"I like this variation a lot, I would even go as far as to say that to me this is simply an improved version of regular chess.... Regardless of its relatively minor effect on the openings, self-captures add aesthetically beautiful motifs in the middlegames and provides additional options and winning motifs in endgames."

Play Capture Anything here.

On Friday, September 18, Chess.com hosted a round-table discussion with GM Vladimir Kramnik, IM Danny Rensch, and researchers of DeepMind discussing their latest paper in which AlphaZero explores chess variants. Here it is for replay:

This is possibly the most complicated variant of all: pawns are not only allowed to run forward but also sideways.As Kramnik wrote, "Even after having looked at how AlphaZero plays Pawnside chess, the principles of play remain somewhat mysteriousit is not entirely clear what each side should aim for. The patterns are very different, and this makes many moves visually appear very strange, as they would be mistakes in classical chess."

Play Sideways Pawns here.

Torpedo speeds up the game as here pawns can move by one or twosquares anywhere on the board. (In standard chess, only in the starting position are they allowed to move two squares.) Interestingly, en passant canconsequently happen anywhereon the board. But the biggest difference is that games become more tacticalcompared to standard chess. Watch those pawns.

Play Torpedo here.

Besides the four variants tested by AlphaZero, three other variants have been made available this week as well. Fog of War, also known as Dark Chess, has been the most popular so far. It is a variant where the main novelty is lack of information:you can only see the squares where your pieces or pawns can move and attack.

Play Fog of War here.

If you want to remove any information (instead of the board itself, which you'll need to play), you can try Blindfold chess. In addition to being a fun challenge, this could be a good way to train your visualization skills.

Playing blindfold chess has such a rich history that there's a separate Wikipedia page on it as well as a page in our Terms section. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Melody Amber tournament had top grandmasters play blindfold chess behind a laptop for which special software was created. If the tournament were to be re-instated, they could just log into Chess.com.

Play Blindfold chess here.

Last but not least, Chess.com has added the variant Chaturanga. Speaking of history, this ancient Indian board game is in fact considered to be a common ancestor to chess.

So what are the rules? Well, for starters, the pieces have different names. The king is Raja, the queenFerz, the rook Ratha, the bishop Alfil, the knight Ashva, and the pawnBhata.The Ferz is much weaker is it can only move one square diagonally.The Alfil jumps two squares diagonally. Other than that, the pawns can only move one square and castling does not exist.

Play Chaturanga chess here.

This is not all. As some of Chess.com's programmers go pretty wild about variants, they are now working on a project called Custom variants, where members can mix and match rules to make their own variant.

That would be perfect for GM Levon Aronian, who already came up with something. He recently stated that he would like to try Capture Anything but limit captures to the heavy pieces. Soon, he might be able to create Aronian Chess on Chess.com.

Interested in trying out the new variants? Find them at Chess.com/variants.

See also:

View post:

AlphaZero (And Other!) Chess Variants Now Available For Everyone - Chess.com

1: Introduction | 2: India| 3: China| 4: Egypt| 5:Myths, legends| 6: Cultural syncretism

At this point of the investigations on the origin of chess there are things we know, things wesuppose we know and thingsthat we ignore. Lets list them one by one:

We know that the game arose in the Orient.

We know that there are only three theories that present valid sources to support their stance onthe original source of the game: the one that locates the origin in India; the one that focuses onChina, and that of cultural syncretism.

We know that a variant of proto-chess entered Persia in the sixth century AD coming from a region of India.

We suppose thatthis game was chaturanga, in its two-player modality, which was taken to Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Empire.

We know that the first precise mentions to a variant of proto-chess, coming from diverse literary sources, appear inthe fourthcentury AD, the first of which refers tothe Chinese xiang-qi and the second one to chaturanga.

We know that bothxiang-qi andchaturanga had their respective transformation processes.

We know that there are two previous games that were born in these cultures, which had been recorded in literary works since ancient times: the Chinese liubo and the Indian ashtpada.

We suppose thatxiang-qi if it came exclusively from theChinese culture could have been conceived fromliubo.

We suppose that chaturanga if it came exclusively from the Indian culture could have been conceived from ashtpada or chaturaji.

We ignore the sequence in which chaturaji and chaturangacame to be(although the predominant theory is that the latter came first), or even if chaturaji is a mere position of chaturanga.

We know that a version ofxiang-qi has survived to the present day (it is currently played in China and, at least, also in Vietnam) while chaturanga disappeared as a practice at some distant moment in time.

We ignore under whichprecise circumstanceschaturangaabandoned the use of dice.

We ignore whether the evolutionary process ofchaturanga went from the four-player version to the two-player one or the other way around.

We suppose thata synthesis of several previous games was generated on the Silk Route, appearing a new prototype thatlater turned into chess.

We ignore if, at the end of that process, only one game arose or, if on the contrary, both chaturanga andxiang-qiappeared simultaneously.

We suppose that the games that were part of the process of cultural syncretism wereliubo, ashtpada and the Greek petteia, andpossiblythe process took place underthe influence of an old astrolabe of Babylonian origin.

We suppose that this symbiosis occurred in a period of time between the second century BC andthe third century AD.

We suppose that the process took place ina vast region occupied successively by the Kingdom of Bactria and the Kushn Empire

We know that the oldest archaeological findings of pieces that were used insome variant of proto-chess which correlate perfectly with the geographical zones linked to the Silk Route existed approximately in the sixth century AD.

We suppose that in the future other important archaeological elements will be discovered that, depending on theirlocation, characteristics and antiquity, will strengthen our knowledge regarding thismatter.

We know that it is necessary to deepen the analysis with regard to the theory of games, establishing greater precision and causal relationships between the various variants of proto-chess and linked practices namelyashtpada,chaturanga,chaturaji,liubo,xiang-qi, petteiaand others.

We know that there is much yet to be investigatedon the origin of chess.

We suppose thatwe will eventually find an answerthat, without becoming an absolute certainty, at least will allowus to find a majorconsensus, thus establishing a uniform explanatory paradigm on the origin of chess.

Master Class Vol.9: Paul Morphy

Learn about one of the greatest geniuses in the history of chess! Paul Morphy's career (1837-1884) lasted only a few years and yet he managed to defeat the best chess players of his time.

Statuettes probably from the first to the second century of the Christian era representing two players disputing a game of liubo. | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Chess might be the product of a cooperative process and we would prefer it to be this way, to show that Humanity has the capacity to bevirtuous at times (although it is known that it usually favours quarrels, often bloody, between people who seem to forget that they come from a common origin). The game could also have been an invention/creation/discovery of a single culture. Anyway, there is only one thing that is entirely certain: as Borges correctly pointed out, chess comes from the East.

In that sense, we have presented the different protohistoric versions regarding the origins of thegame, focusing onthat geographical space (India, China, Persia and other undetermined spots within the Silk Road), with physical or literary records that refer to a few centuries before and after the arrival of Christ.

There are quite exact records of many specific episodes, such as the time when one of the versions of the game entered Ctesiphon from India, which happened exactly in the sixth century AD. From that moment on, everything is quite clear, in terms of the diffusionof chess; before this event, however, everything is much less clear.

In this context of uncertainty, there are conflicting theses on the origin of chess, some of which have empirical support while others can only be recognized as myths or legends. All of them, with the inevitable omissions born out ofthe vastness of the analytical field, were compiled in this work.

After all, there are mainly three possibilities with a high degree of truthfulness and verisimilitude: two of them correspond to particular cultures those that consider that chess comes from the Indian chaturanga or the Chinese xiang-qi; the third possibility, on the other hand, recognizes the existence of a syncretic civilizing effort, postulating a confluence of practices from different civilizations.

Beyond the validity of this trio of hypotheses, which are often each seen as independent efforts, we believe that an effort can be made to integrate theperspectives.

All the theories present elements that can be interconnected, in their complementarity, leaving aside, or perhaps reinterpreting, the divergences between them. The fact that the different variants of proto-chess have emerged in a wide but interconnected geographical space, and that this has happened in temporal synchrony, gives strong clues to a fact that we believe is incontrovertible: we are in the presence of a single family of games, with interconnected processes of evolution, which have yet to be fully discerned.

By extending the analysis, it would be possible to trace not only the interrelationship of the various proto-chess variants but also their origins in even older games. We could even go back to the Egyptian senet and, reconstructing the sequence from there on, arrive at chess as it was redefined in medieval Europe.

Under these conditions, it would be possible to work no longer from univocal, fragmented perspectives, but rather by proposing a holistic theory, integrating the evidence of each singular hypothesis, in such a way as to construct a unique, all-encompassingexplanation.

Thus, instead of giving pre-eminence tochaturanga or xiang-qi aninitial prototypes, it could be believed that at least one game appeared on the Silk Road from which these were derived, either concomitantly or sequentially. Therefore, in that case, the formerwould not derive from ashtpada and the latter from liubo rather,these earliergames, probably together with the Greek petteiaandwith the contribution of an ancient Babylonian astrolabe, produced a variant ofproto-chess via cultural syncretism. This game, from then on, would expand through different routes, to the East and to the West.

So there are very interesting lines of exploration still to be developed. Although the possibility of testimonials appearing from ancient manuscripts on the subject is increasingly remote (although not entirely impossible), therecould appear new archaeological findings that provide newclues, particularly inregard to the dating of games vestiges, which couldbetter establishinterrelationships and sequential information about thesepractices.

It is also possible, and indeed necessary, to continue to deepen structural analyses, based on the intrinsic characteristics and aetiology of the various games, in order to determine more precisely their correlation according to historical, geographical and cultural variables. This question is central to the design of the common evolutionary tree discussed above.

In any case, it is necessary to deepen the understanding of the practices that would have served as inputs of the proto-chess petteia, liubo, ashtpada so that it will be possible to evaluate with more certainty, from the study of their particularities, the degree in which they could have had an effect in the subsequent modalities:xiang-qi andchaturanga.

Master Class Vol.4: Jos Ral Capablanca

He was a child prodigy and he is surrounded by legends. In his best times he was considered to be unbeatable and by many he was reckoned to be the greatest chess talent of all time: Jose Raul Capablanca, born 1888 in Havana.

A senet board that may correspond to the 14th century B.C.

In short, where did chess originate and under what circumstances?

We could simply reproducesome well-knownlegendary stories, such as the ones thatattribute the invention of the game toSissa the Wiseor the queen of Lanka or even to the battle in which asovereign lost one of her sons in confrontation with his brother.

We could focusondivinities, on the esoteric worldor onfictional literature.

We could, without analysing the whole, but observing only the parts, attribute the creation of the game to Indians, Chinese or other culture.

We could say, so as not to be mistaken, although falling into an obvious imprecision which we can only admit in poetry that chess appeared at a distant moment in time somewhere in the East.

What I said at the beginning. The restless Humanitywants to know everything. We will never be satisfied with simple and insufficient explanations; and less so with inaccurate ones.

A holistic theory about the origin of chess can perhaps help explain the steps that were taken for the emergence of the most influential and metaphorical game ever conceived.

In any case, we believe we are closer to discovering the key that will allow us to determine the initiating moment when the game appeared. And, from that, determine with much greater certainty how the whole sequence of subsequent diffusion took place.

For now, it might be better not to knoweverything yet.

Thus, there is a powerful incentive to further research this topic.

In this way, a suggestive and primordial mystery continues to haunt us: when did the magical and millenary game of chess appeared on Earth.

Excerpt from:

On the origins of chess (7/7) - Chessbase News

Lichess (Lichess.org) started as a simple tech experiment and grew into the second most popular chess website on the internet, second only to Chess.com. According to Alexa, Lichess is currently one of the 1,150 most visited websites globally. Lichess is entirely free for users, has no advertisements, and is open-source, meaning the code is publicly accessible.

1. Lichess.org will always be free.

2. It will never contain advertisements.

3. It will always be open source.

Over the past ten years, Lichess has evolved to push the boundaries of online chess. On a 2017 podcast episode of The Perpetual Chess Podcast hosted by Ben Johnson, Thibault Duplessis, the founder of Lichess, talked about how Lichess has evolved through the years. Duplessis was a twenty-four-year-old coder at the time and described himself as an average chess player. Duplessis decided to use chess as a vehicle to show the abilities of open source for real-time communication. Early improvements were just for Duplessis technical pleasure.

Lichess attracted an enthusiastic community that would cause the site to expand rapidly. Coders, developers, and players were all attracted by the core principles of Lichess. Having no advertisements is a point of emphasis for Duplessis. He describes advertisements as pollutants that make people stupid.

Duplessis said, I want to interact with people, not just consumers. I want them to be contributors if possible.

By contributors, Duplessis means with their time and energy, but the site does rely on donations from users who become patrons. I have been a Lichess user for almost four years, but only recently decided to become a paying supporter. It wasnt easy to find the donation page, which is by design.

The site is maintained and developed by people who want to work on it. They work on the site out of passion, not for money, which Duplessis says brings out peoples best work. Lichess has been translated into over ninety languages and was the first chess site to have features that support players with blindness.

Duplessis proudly touted that The bus factor for Lichess was up to four people. The site is not wholly reliant on Duplessis to continue. It would take a bus to hit him and three other of the top developers for Lichess to fail.

The Lichess community is welcoming, and it is an excellent place to play chess for all levels of skill and experience. The site, behind its founder, Thibault Duplessis, remains true to its core principles of being completely open-source, staying free to users, and having no advertisements. This fidelity has caused the Lichess community to grow because it does not answer to anyone. The passion of the contributors and players continues to keep Lichess on the cutting edge. May the next ten years of Lichess be as successful and inspiring as the first.

View original post here:

Ten Years of Chess Innovation. How Lichess grew from a simple tech | by Samuel Sullivan | SUPERJUMP | Sep, 2020 - Medium

TheMechanics Institute will gather the top U16 players in the country for the 2020 U.S. Cadet National Championship onChess.comthis weekend, Sept. 25-27.

TheCadet Championship is aneight-player invitational event comprised of the six highest USCF-rated players under the age of 16, the 2020K-8Barber Champion, and an organizer wildcard.Considering the accessibility to players who do not have the obstacle of travel for this online event, this may be one of the strongest fields ever assembled in the championships history, anda lot of action is expected.Here is the field for this year:

IM Justin Wang 2540

IM Christopher Yoo 2540

IM Andrew Zhang Hong 2533

FM Robert Shlyakhtenko 2459 (Barber Champion)

IM Arthur Guo 2446

FM Maximillian Lu 2431

FM Christopher Shen 2424

NM Ruiyang Yan 2242 (Organizer Wildcard)

The tournament will be round-robin format with seven rounds, with one gameto beplayed on Friday, three gamesonSaturday, and thefinalthree rounds on Sunday. All games will be played with a time control of G/70 +10.No playoff will happen inthe event of afirst-placetie, but instead tiebreak scores will determine the prize distribution.

First place will collect $7,000 in prizes,including a $6,000 collegiate scholarshipjointly supported by US Chess and Dewain Barber. Barber, the Dean of Scholastic Chess in the U.S., has also made available one-year US Chess membership extensions for each of the participants.

Fair play in the event is a top priority for both the organizer and US Chess.Players will be monitored live,where every player will have two cameras on them, andgameswillalso be analyzed by grandmasters, chess.com experts and Dr. Ken Reganfrom the University of Buffalo. Directing the eventwill be NTD JohnMcCumiskey, who will oversee the overall decisions and executions.

The Mechanics Institute will provide live commentary of the action every day through itsTwitch channel.Main commentators will be the Institutes grandmaster-in-residence and three-time U.S. Champion GM Nick deFirmian, along withMechanics legend FM Paul Whiteheadand chessdirector Abel Talamantez.Special guest commentatorsare expectedthroughout the weekend, including2018 US Champion GM Sam Shankland, two-time US champion GM Patrick Wolff,as well asformer Mechanicschessdirector andcaptain of the US Olympic Team IM John Donaldson.

Event schedule is as follows:

Virtual Opening Ceremony -Friday, Sep 25: 3PM PT / 6ET

Round 1 - Friday, Sep 25: 4PM PT / 7 ET

Round 2- Saturday, Sep 26: 9AM PT / 12ET

Round 3- Saturday, Sep 26: 1PM PT / 4ET

Round 4- Saturday, Sep 26: 4PM PT / 7 ET

Round 5- Sunday, Sep 26: 9AM PT / 12ET

Round 6- Sunday, Sep 26: 1PM PT / 4ET

Round 7- Sunday, Sep 26: 4PM PT / 7 ET

Thisyears eventmarks the 20thanniversary sinceit was last hosted by theMechanics Institute. In 2000, Donaldson directed theCadet Championship fora field thatincluded current GM Josh Friedel and IM Daniel Fernandez. It is a great honor and prestige for the Institute to be able to organize this event in this special year.

For more information, visit the event page.

Here is the original post:

Mechanics' to Host U.S. Cadet National Championship this Weekend - uschess.org

9/22/2020 When was the first time in your life you played chess? Most probably at the age of six to eight years? Whatever the answer is, we have an adorable quiz about young titled chess masters for you. If chess is a big part in your life, which isn't a bad thing at all, you should be able to guess at least seven out of twelve correctly. Here is your challenge!

The young talents you are about to see have grown into exceptional chess players. You have surely seen all of their faces in their adult state, but rarely how they looked like as a children. If you think of some outstandingdetails of their faces, e.g. the haircut, eye colour, lips, jaw structure or even the ears, you might be able to tell who is who.

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Fritz and Chesster - Part 2

Jump into chess action, move by move, to rescue Chesster from deep within King Blacks castle. Join Fritz and Bianca in a thrilling chess adventure as they enter rooms of the castle, where each challenge will help you sharpen skills and prepare for the ultimate showdown.

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Fritz and Chesster - Part 3 Chess for winners

This unforgettable chess adventure is designed to advance young chess players skills, move by move. Discover mini-games, brain-twisters and more at every attraction. Pick up chess tips and skills as you ride in bumper cars and the Ferris wheel. Polish up your chess strategy and tactics, opening, middle game and endgame and use what youve learned to win. Youll have lots of fun while you learn more about the serious business of playing and winning chess!

Maybe interesting to add, that we have a special software made for kids to learning chess in a playful and fun way. It has been awarded with the "German Computer Games Award"

Read more here:

Guess the child prodigy - Chessbase News

The Blitz Tournament of the Americas, organizedby theMechanics Institute in partnership withKmadaChess and Chess SinFronteras, was held onChess.com onSaturday, Aug. 15. The free eventaimed toshowcase the talents of titled men and women players from across the Americas,bringing our diverse communities together andbuilding new partnerships.

Through these collaborative partnerships and word of mouth,the 9-round open Blitz (G/3+2) battleregistered 91 playersand represented15 different countries,including 9 Grandmasters, 13 International Mastersand 20 titled women.

The tournament wasstreamed"> by the Mechanics Instituteon Twitch, as well as several other streamersfromparticipating countries, including WIM Ivette Garcia Morales and GM Josh Friedel.It was a phenomenal event in its simplicity of message and the strength of the participating players: When it comes to efforts to unite people through chess, chess players are generous with their time and come out in full force.

CubanGM Juan Carlos Obregon Rivero won with a score of 8/9.GM Conrad Holt took second place with a score of 7.5/9,whileIM Andrew Hong and FM Kyron Griffithtied for thirdwith 7/9.CubanWGM Lisandra Teresa Ordaz Valdesfinished asthe topfemalewith 6/9, andPerusAnn Lindsay Chumpitaz Carbajalalso posted an excellent performancewith 5.5/9.

Threeplayers remained with perfect scoresafter three rounds,includingObregon Rivero,ColumbianGM Andres Gallegoand two-time U.S. Champion GM Patrick Wolff. Wolff is a Mechanics Institute Trustee who is not an active chess player, but hedefinitely showedhe has the fire and skill to match up against some of the very best. He faced off against Holt in roundfourand delivered this win against a very strong blitz player.

Obregon Riverobeat Wolffin roundfive,setting up this round 6 matchupwithGallegabetween the onlytwoplayers leftunbeaten.

Afterhis loss to Wolff,Holt went on a tear with three consecutive victories, setting upthiseighth-roundmatchupwith Obregon Rivero.

Heading into the final round, Obregon Rivero needed only adrawto win the event, though hehadto get passedyoung phenom IM ChristopherYoo, whoseamazing tactical abilityin blitzcould posea danger to any player in the world. But the GM closed the show like a champion, taking the final roundand winning in clear first place.

Girl power wasdefinitely presentin this event, as women and girls made up more than 20% of the field.Here is a nice win fromValdesagainst IM Abhimanyu Mishra.

The Blitz Tournament of the Americas showed how passion and love for the game can bring out the best in people. Players came out not for prizes or titles, but for competition, for the opportunity to play new players and make new connections. It wasan event people could follow from their homes and enjoy, knowing that it was all done in the spirit of giving.

We would like to thank the teamsfromKmadaChess andChess SinFronterasfor their collaboration and partnership for this historic free event, as well asall the players for being generous with their time, all the streamers who helped promote the event, and the chess community at-large for rallying together during the pandemic to keep chess going.

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Blitz Tournament of the Americas: Bringing Cultures and Communities Together Through Chess - uschess.org

The event, featuring 75 players from 15 countries, will begin Thursday and end Saturday, two days before the birthday of the Premier

South Asian Chess Council, in collaboration with Golden Sporting Club and Canadian University of Bangladesh, is going to organize Joytu Sheikh Hasina International Online Chess Tournament to mark the 74th birthday of the Bangladesh Prime Minister.

The three-day event, featuring 75 participants from 15 countries, will begin Thursday and end Saturday, two days before the birthday of the Premier.

Bangladesh Chess Federation will be providing technical and logistic support.

A total of 12 Grandmasters confirmed their participation so far.

Three Bangladeshi GMs out of five Ziaur Rahman, Enamul Hossain Razib and Reefat bin Sattar will be taking part, while Niaz Murshed and Abdullah al Rakib have been ruled out due to health and personal reasons.

BCF general secretary Syed Shahabuddin Shamim informed that this will be the first international chess competition of such format hosted by Bangladesh.

He said, Some clubs arranged online tournaments before but this is different. Here neutral pairings of the participants will be ensured. Three international arbiters, one each from Bangladesh, Iran and Philippines will conduct the games.

Shamim also said Indian GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly is enlisted as the top-ranked player of the event.

Along with 49 from the host country, other participants are from Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Maldives, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.

BCF and South Asian Chess Federation president IGP Benazir Ahmed will inaugurate the event from the CUB premises via zoom.

To reveal the details, a press conference was held at Hotel Westin in Dhaka Tuesday in the presence of Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat, chairman of CUB, and BCF vice president.

Prize money $6,000 will be distributed to the winners while the top three Bangladesh performers will get $1,500 as special prize.

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Int'l online chess event to mark 74th birthday of PM Hasina - Dhaka Tribune