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.

Read the original here:

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

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.

Go here to read the rest:

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

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAS USA Edition

View original post here:

Timur Gareyevs fantastic feats of blindfolded chess - EL PAS USA

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.

I've recently introduced a subscribe button. People will be entitled to an update of the TWICdatabase whenever they need it. If there is sufficient take up there will probably beat an email with useful additional information and I'm open to other ideas.

If you also wish to donate you can do so via PayPal at:

Send a 30 donation via Paypal and contact me via email (Email Mark Crowther - mdcrowth@btinternet.com) I'll send you an address for a ChessBase cbv file of my personalcopy of every issue of the games in one database.

My deep thanks to those who do contribute. Also thanks to those who help by sending news or games.

TWIC Sponsor(s):

Clark St James Ltd - online advertising agency eg Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads

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.

Read the original here:

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.

Read the original post:

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.

More:

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

Kevin Bordi, also known as BlitzStream, is France's most-watched chess streamer. As one of the earliest adopters of playing chess on Twitch, he has over a decade of experience creating chess content and has witnessed monumental shifts in the popularity of online chess. With 173,000 followers on Twitch and 190,000 YouTube subscribers, he is one of the biggest chess content creators outside of the English-language sphere.

We spoke to Kevin to find out more about how he got started, his famous move against GM Magnus Carlsen, the similarities between chess and poker, and more.

How long have you been streaming chess, and what made you decide to start?

I think I've been streaming on Twitch for 10 years already. I started at the very beginning, but it's so long ago that I don't remember the exact year, whether it's 2012, 2013, or 14... its very long ago and its hard to find the archives from when I started! But I started streaming right at the start of Twitch.

I started because I was watching a guy on YouTube, Jerry from ChessNetwork. He was a big inspiration for me because I liked his content. I really enjoyed watching it, and I had some time at night and I wanted to play chess. So I thought, wait, let's try to do something like what this guy is doing. And then I discovered Twitch existed and so it was possible to do it live.

That was really what made me decide to start because the thought of recording myself playing chess and then posting it on YouTube was not the thing I wanted to do... even though I liked Jerrys content. When I heard that it was possible to do it live on Twitch, I decided that sounded right. So that's how I started streaming.

How long did it take you to start getting an audience?

Strangely enough, my channel became quite popular very quickly. I think after 4-5 months I had 30 or 40 viewers, which was a lot for Twitch at the time! That really looked like a lot of viewers back then.

Then I got very lucky, and I would again say thank you to ChessNetwork, because one day I saw that he had made a post on Twitter saying something like Check out this guys stream, great channel. This was maybe six months after I started. From that time onwards, I never had less than 100 viewers on Twitch! That was really a lot at the time; it was one of the big streams that existed back then. I started with a channel in English and it was really amazing for me that the guy who inspired me to start was encouraging people to check out my channel.

Why do you call your community Sharks?

We were playing sub battles against other streamers' teams. The first five we played, we lost! And I was desperate. With all these losses, I started to play a type of character, like a sports coach. Except it was a coach who was absolutely crazy because he lost every match, you know?

So I started to find some speeches by amateur rugby coaches on the internet, of teams in like the third or fourth division, and I would deliver a speech in that character to my viewers before every sub battle. Its not the inspirational stuff youd hear on TEDx or something. Its a bit more aggressive.

One day, I found a speech by a very famous coach, who was one of the best basketball players France had; he had a crazy Olympic Games where we got a silver medal in the Olympics and he was the key player. So hes like a great man in French basketball, and he said From a dolphin, you cant make a shark. He was basically explaining why his team was losing and said he can't do anything because there are only dolphins on the court and he cant turn them into sharks. From this we kind of started a running gag, like whenever guys started to lose the game, wed say, "You can't turn a dolphin into a shark." And well, the thing started like that and it stayed.

What is the ZEvent, and can you tell the international audience more about it?

So the ZEvent is an event created by ZeratoR, who is one of the biggest French streamers. It's one of the biggestmaybe it's the biggestcharity events worldwide for Twitch. He's inviting top French streamers to gather together in a place organized specifically for the stream, and you have the top 40 or 50 French streamers there getting together to raise money for charity. This year it was for environmental protection.

My community raised like 118,000 euros for charity, which is really a lot by French standards! All together, the 50 or so streamers in the event raised something like 10 or 11 million. Its one of my favorite events. The energy there is very positive and its nice to raise money for charity to help other people, so it was really very cool.

How about the B Cup?

The B Cup is another special event. It was the first edition last year in December. The event is played on the internet, but to get in the tournament you need to play from a certain place; in this case, we played from the biggest e-sports location in France, next to the Louvre. So we gathered together like 120 people to play in the tournament on Chess.com. Its the first event of this kind, where people meet together in one place to play online chess.

Our goal, our big dream, would be to organize more in the future. Were going to organize the next B-Cup on June 17 as the second edition, but our dream would be to make it an international event one day and to create international online events, like having people from Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, everywhere, all meeting in an e-sports place and having a worldwide tournament. Not just from home, but playing from actual places so the chess community can gather together and really spend time in one location. Its not like the usual chess tournament where you cant speak! It was a lot of fun to have people in one place, sometimes screaming that they lost their queen or things like that.

Around the world, were seeing young people pick up chess and a general mainstreaming of chess as a hobby. How have you seen chess grow in France in recent years?

I know chess is getting bigger all over the world. I see it from the stats, I see it from events, and a lot of other metrics. In France as wellbut I cant say much about that! I just see it from these metrics. I see there are more people playing chess, but I cant say I have a concrete example of something that made me feel like there are so many people playing chess nowadays. I would say we had a very big buzz in France during the Candidates tournament with GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave playing very well; its definitely getting bigger, but maybe less than the big boom were seeing in other countries right now.

You have your own bot on Chess.com. How do you feel like your bot compares to your real-life playing style?

My bot definitely plays differently than me! Its more of an homage to my Grob against Magnus, which is a move that kind of made me famous. So its playing a lot of unsound openings, which is not something I do much of.

Im very bad at openings for my level at least, and so Im always finding myself in difficult positions, but I usually try to play quiet and technical positions if I can, trying to get to the endgame and simplify but my bot is going crazy!

I would say my bot is definitely a tribute to the Grob against Carlsen, which is probably my best chess memory, so I like that the bot is set up like that, but I wouldnt say it plays like me. I havent played a match against it, so I don't know if the bot is stronger than me what I can say, and this is a message for Danny, is that I could beat his bot. So if Danny wants to give mine a try, lets see!

Youre a titled chess player and obviously have lots of over-the-board experience - but is it true that you learned how to play chess on a Game Boy?

Yes, totally true. My dad had a game, I think it was called Chessmaster, and I had a few games on the Game Boy like Mario and things like that... but my dad had the chess game. I really wanted to play this game, I dont know why but I wanted to, so I put the game in the Game Boy many times and tried to learn by playing. I was moving the pieces and learning step-by-step how they move to be able to play a game.

My dad said it was too complicated because I was six years old and said itd be more fun to play Mario, but I wasnt stopping, and really wanted to know how to play this game! One night my dad decided to teach me the rules so that I could play against the Game Boy. Then I had chess at school, and eventually, I went to the chess club after that. Thats how I started to become really serious about chess, but at first, I was really just fascinated by this game on the Game Boy.

Youre also a tennis fan. If you could pick any tennis player to join you on stream, who would it be, and why?

I would pick Gael Monfils. I know him a bit, and he has a very nice Twitch channel as well. He doesnt have many streams in English unfortunately, but his streams are amazing and hes really cool. He has such good energy and explains the game really well. For sure I'd pick him.

And then Im hesitating between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer Federer is such a great attacking player. I had a debate not long ago with a friendobjectively Djokovic has achieved more than Federer, but people put Federer in front because of his playing style, which is so immaculate and clean. But I really think that Djokovic might even be a class above... his movement on the court, his vision, and his defense are crazy good. But I would pick Federer anyway because you just cant pick anyone else, hes a legend.

For a while you were a professional poker player. Many pro chess players are also big poker fans. What do you think the overlap between poker and chess is? What are some of the similarities that draw so many people into both games?

I cant say I love poker, honestly, but I do love earning money! One of the reasons chess players love poker is that its a game, like chess, and when you play chess you feel like you might have an edge on a simpler game. At least at the time, it was seen that way. By now poker has become more difficult as people are getting stronger and stronger, like at chess.

But in the past, it was seen as a slightly easier game and you felt you had an edge because you were already good at a game that involved deep calculation. And so it was a good way to make money! I think many chess players love poker for that reason; they can play a game, and they can feel like they may be better than others... which is often an illusion by the way since a lot of chess players are losing money at poker!

Also, poker is the kind of game where everybody thinks they are winning for some reason; I think all those things together are why chess players often love to play poker.

We often see a majestic dog on your social media. Can you tell us more about them?

My dog is called Misha, shes a little girl! A little Shiba. Every time I finish my stream we go to take a walk together; shes like my closest partner after my wife and my kid. Shes definitely part of my family. Im always very happy when she comes up to see me on the stream. Sometimes shell come up and ask me for some pats or a head massage when Im live on stream if Im streaming a bit late.

Do you have any advice for people who are thinking of starting to stream or create chess content?

Its very simple: just enjoy it, enjoy what you do and the content you make. Make it for fun, for your own pleasure. Be authentic, be yourself, and enjoy the content youre making.

The internet is full of inspirational people who say to follow your dream and your passion and everything will work out well, chess is my passion and streaming is my passion, but at some point, you also need to have some luck. Earlier I mentioned that I was inspired by ChessNetwork; this guy is the reason I started, and he helped me out a lot with the tweet he made. People who succeed in stuff are also a bit lucky sometimes, you know?

I always feel that its a bit unfair to say that if you follow your dreams and work a lot it just works out; sometimes it doesnt. Behind success is always some part of destiny, of luck, or whatever you want to call it, so just enjoy what you are doing. At the end of the day, the most important thing is just to be happy. If it works out, great, if it doesnt work out but you had a lot of fun and enjoyed making the content, then thats already a success in its own way.

Catch BlitzStream live on his Twitch channel, or follow his content on YouTube, Discord, Instagram, Twitter, and his official website. Want to see your favorite streamer here? Let us know in the comments. A special mention goes to @HasteCeler for nominating BlitzStream in the very first comment someone ever left on this series!

Previous Streamer of the Month articles:

See the article here:

Chess.com Streamer of the Month: BlitzStream - Chess.com

As a chess dilettante, I love to keep track of the game when Masters are battling over the 64 squares. So, for the past two weeks, there have been no missing reports of the ding-dong duel between Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi at the World Chess Championship. In fact, it all began just before the championship started, when the five-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen mouse-slipped to lose an online Armageddon face-off against his old rival Hikaru Nakamura.

Here are some terms related to the mind game that I have encountered over the past few days. Not an exhaustive list, it will still help those who are inclined to decipher the game in black and white.

Mouse slip is a common error committed by a player when an online match is on. It occurs when the player clicks the wrong square to move a piece and either loses it or goes into a weak position as the result. This is exactly what happened with Carlsen in his last match, as the World Champion erroneously put his queen just by the side of Nepomniachtchis king with the latter sending it off the board.

An Armageddon clash is similar to regular chess but black has draw odds, meaning if the match is drawn then the player with black pieces wins but black starts with less time on the clock than white. It is resorted to when the two players are locked in an indecisive battle for a long time. It is a type of speed chess where the players play against time constraints. Other speed chess formats are rapid, blitz and bullet with different time controls. Chess time controls refer to how much time each player receives to complete a game. They can be simple or complex.

In general English, Armageddon is used figuratively to mean a crucial conflict or battle and is derived from Hebrew Har Megiddon (Mount of Megiddo), a location of the final battle between good and evil, as mentioned in the Bible. The word could stand either for the place where this battle will be held or for the battle itself.

Flagging is the act of winning or drawing a game on time. Usually used in blitz and bullet games, a player in a losing position may resort to superficial checks to make his rival run out of time on the clock. So, the player who was in a stronger position but lost due to flagging by the rival could say he has been dirty flagged.

As a move, castling or castle is the only time a player can move two specific pieces simultaneously. The king moves over two squares in either direction and the rook occupies the square on the other side of the king. However, a player cannot castle while in check, or when the king has moved from its original square and also when the kings travel path is controlled by an enemy piece. The term indicates that the king on the board has a well-defended position.

An interesting term, in meaning and etymology, is gambit. It is an opening when a player offers to give up a piece, usually a pawn, in favour of a positional advantage. It comes from an Italian expression related to wrestling dare, il gambetto (to put a leg forward in order to trip someone). It was applied to chess openings by Spanish priest Ruy Lopez in the 16th century who traced it to the Italian word but the Spanish form was gambit. In general usage, the word retains the flavour and meaning. For example, The new tax concessions by the government are clearly an election gambit.

The term increment is the specified amount of time added to players main time each time they make a move provided their time has not run out before they completed their move. It is also called Fischer after Bobby Fischer, the first native-American who won the World Championship, who patented this time method.

Then there is pawn promotion, a crucial move in endgame, when a pawn after reaching the last rank (the numbered row) can convert itself into one of the four higher pieces queen, rook, bishop or knight.

A player finds himself in a Zugzwang (comes from German) situation, when he is compelled to move and each one of his possible moves weakens his position. This too typically happens during an endgame.

In a few days, we will know who will wear the most coveted chess crown, Liren or Nepo. The World Championship so far has been exceptionally engaging with both going for the kill in every match and rightly so. Probably they remember what Mikhail Tal, the Magician from Riga, once said: If you wait on luck to turn up, life becomes very boring.

Wordly Wise is a weekly column by Amitabh Ranjan published every Saturday in the Explained section. Please tweet your feedback to @ieexplained

First published on: 22-04-2023 at 15:08 IST

Continued here:

In chess season, putting Armageddon, gambit, mouse-slip in black and white - The Indian Express

Titled Tuesday on April 18 featured several storylines beyond GM Tuan Minh Le winning the early event and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave winning the late event. GM Igor Kovalenko, who has been on the front lines in Ukraine's attempt to fight off Russia's invasion, finished in third place in the early tournament. Then, in the late tournament, Vachier-Lagrave outlasted an eight-way scrum on nine points, including GM Magnus Carlsen in second and GM Alireza Firouzja in third, to claim victory.

506 players contested the early tournament, and Le was perfect through nine rounds, reaching 9/9 with this performance:

The bid at perfection ended in round 10, however, with a loss to eventual second-place finisher GM Abhijeet Gupta.

However, after Gupta agreed to a draw with GM Artem Timofeev after one move in the last round, Le was still in prime position to win the event outright, and he beat IM Renato Terry to do just that.

But the highlight of the tournament was Kovalenko.

Yes, it's true, he beat Nakamura on the way. With Black, and despite bad pawns early.

(Full final standings here.)

Le won $1,000 for his first Titled Tuesday victory of 2023 after two the year before. Gupta won $750 in second place. Kovalenko won $350 in third place. Nakamura finished fourth for $200, Timofeev fifth for $100, and GM Olga Girya was the highest-scoring woman in the tournament with 7.5/11, earning $100.

Vachier-Lagrave jumped out to the late lead among 409 competitorsa group that included five former world number-twos or better in Nakamura, Carlsen, GM Fabiano Caruana, Firouzja, and GM Vladimir Kramnikby scoring 8.5/9 to begin the event, then held on despite only scoring 0.5/2 at the end of the tournament.

Vachier-Lagrave's early dominance culminated with a four-game win streak against Firouzja, GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac, Caruana, and Nakamura.

However, that run could not survive an encounter with Carlsen.

Suddenly, four playersVachier-Lagrave, Carlsen, Firouzja, and GM David Paravyanhad 8.5 points. Carlsen vs. Firouzja, of course, was the anticipated world championship matchup that did not happen in 2023, so for now we settle for their highly combative draw here:

Vachier-Lagrave also drew with Paravyan, leaving the seven players on eight points with a chance to catch up. Four of them did: GMs Christopher Yoo, Aram Hakobyan, Dmitry Andreikin, and Raunak Sadhwani. It was enough for Yoo and Hakobyan to join the top five, while in the 8.5 group only Paravyan was unfortunate enough to drop out of the paid positions.

April 18 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Vachier-Lagrave won the $1,000 first place prize. Carlsen won $750 in second place and Firouzja $350 in third place, Yoo scored $200 in fourth and Hakobyan $100 in fifth. GM Alexandra Kosteniuk won the $100 women's prize for the third time this year, scoring 6.5/11.

Titled Tuesday is a weekly 11-round Swiss tournament for titled players that Chess.com holds twice every Tuesday. The start times are 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time/17:00 Central European and 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time/23:00 Central European.

See more here:

Ukrainian Surprise In Early Titled Tuesday, Eight-Way Tie In Late - Chess.com