Three New American International Masters!

Jennifer Shahade has posted a new article at Chess Life Online noting that Emory Tate, Bryan Smith and Salvijus Bercys all received their International Master titles at the FIDE meetings just concluded in Turkey. She includes sample games from each of the new IMs.

The entire list of new titles awarded can be viewed at the FIDE website.

Congratulations to our new American titled players!

Creative Manhattan Parking

The next time you're rushing to find a good parking spot for that weeklong tournament, remember this fun post from GM Susan Polgar!

16-Year-Old in the Chicago Sun-Times

Kayin Barclay
photo credit: Chess Drum
Thanks go out to the Chess Drum for pointing out the nice article at the Chicago Sun-Times regarding 16-year-old Kayin Barclay, Illinois' representative to the Denker Tournament of High School Champions the past two years.

The Sun-Times piece quotes the Chess Drum's Daaim Shabazz as saying about Kayin, "He's one of the brightest chess talents to come out of Chicago in many years."

The article's author Maudlyne Ihejirika asked the youngster what advice he might offer other kids. "I guess what I would tell other African-American kids is that anybody can learn chess if you put your mind to it. It may take a lot of hard work, but it does open doors for you."

Additional articles at the Chess Drum about Kayin, dating back to 2003, can be found here.

Addendum: Thanks to Tom Panelas for sending this link for yet more information about Kayin.

Easy Link to Instructional Posts

As regular readers are aware, we post a variety of notes in our daily blog entries. We have our regular puzzles, the occasional videos, and updates on various tournaments around the U.S. and the world. Interspersed are also a number of posts which link to helpful articles and annotated games across the internet.

To easier access these "instructional" posts, I have added an "Instructional Posts" link on the right side of this page that will quickly show you every blog post that I have labeled as such.

You can also click here for the same set of blog posts.

IM Malcolm Pein Annotates Bronstein Games

Vassily Smyslov, David Bronstein, Paul Keres and Mikhail Botvinnik(left to right)

Photo: ChessBase




IM Malcolm Pein writes of the late David Bronstein: "He leaves a legacy of hundreds of magical games and some of the finest chess literature. He can claim to have influenced all the leading players of his and subsequent generations. For a period of at least 6 years in the post war period he was, in my opinion, the strongest player in the world."

At The Week in Chess, you can find a series of articles by Pein which provide not only a history of Bronstein's chess career, but also a number of his beautiful games, annotated by Pein.

In addition, ChessBase has a nice article about Bronstein, which includes a link to a video presentation by Yasser Seirawan.

Problem # 20

In this problem, it's White to move and mate in three.

For the solution, click here.

Corus 2007

I haven't covered the big 2007 Corus tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, but for those of you who haven't read enough about Corus at other sites, here are a few places you can find all the information you might want:

• From Chess Life Online:
  • Radjabov Off to Early Lead in Wijk
    
  • Halftime at Wijk
    
  • Topalov Takes Lead
    
  • Corus Heats Up
    
  • Svidler Beats Topalov in Wijk
    
  • Corus Draw Sets Up Showdown
    
  • Three Way Tie in Corus
• From GM Susan Polgar's Blog: click here
  
• From ChessBase: click here
  
• From Mig Greengard's Daily Dirt Chess Blog: click here
  
• From the official website: click here

Video: Start of Corus Round 1

It's not exactly riveting video, but ChessVibes has put together a series of videos from the recent Corus tournament. The video below identifies a number of players from this top-ranked event. Kudos to NM Michael Aigner who provided the link to this information at the Mechanics Club Newsletter of 1-24-07.

For a number of other Corus videos, click here.

Problem # 19

White to move and win!

The solution can be found here.

Western Invitational Chess Camp

IM Levon Altounian
Robby Adamson's Western Invitational Chess Camp calls itself the "Ultimate Chess Camp for Serious Players." Players are grouped by rating into small groups, with a minimum USCF rating of 1500 required.

This coming summer instructors will include GM Yuri Shulman, GM Alejandro Ramirez, IM Levon Altounian, FM Robby Adamson and FM Danny Rensch. The camp will be held July 15-19, 2007 on the campus of the University of Arizona, in Tucson. Adamson has quite a record with his Catalina Foothills high school team, frequently capturing national titles, including first place finishes at the most recent National K-12 tournament for his 11th and 12th grade teams.

Further information is available at the camp's website.

Chess at Trivia Night

Saturday evening, I attended a Trivia Night fundraiser for my wife's school. Each table of eight people competed as a team, against all of the other table-teams.

I wasn't really able to contribute too much to the team until the one chess-related question came up. The question was: "What game utilizes the Sicilian Defense and Evans Gambit?" The rest of the table was stumped until I filled them in.

I did notice, though, that about 30 of the 41 teams did get the question right. I think the "Gambit" term may have given it away. Now if they asked what game involves zugzwang and x-ray attacks, the results might have been different ...

Unconventional Chess Mom

In this 7-minute Dexter Lab cartoon, Dexter's mother is just a bit too enthusiastic. Surely no real chess parents act this way.

GM Nigel Davies' Secret Training Technique

In this archived article from GM Nigel Davies, he instructs us to learn not only from our defeats, but from our wins as well. Davies writes:

"I think that there's often just as much to be learned from our wins as from our losses. We make good and bad moves in all our games, regardless of the result, and it's these that we should be trying to learn from and improve."

Davies also notes the psychological effect of an over-emphasis on one's losses: "The problem with studying losses is that it can erode your self-esteem. After going over every tiny mistake and berating yourself for being such a terrible player, a loss can teach you that you're a loser. And going over lots of losses will magnify the effect, reducing you to a quivering jelly."

As a result, Davies advises players to focus on their best games in order to build a positive self-image, what he calls his "secret training technique."

"When I go through these games," he says, "I learn that I'm a winner and not a miserable loser. I relive every glorious moment, delighting in my handiwork. This makes me feel more confident when I next come to play."

For the entire article, click here.

More Animal Chess!

Chess proves to be absolutely irresistible to this little kitten!

Words from the World Series MVP

Listening this evening to KTRS Radio here in St. Louis, I heard an interview with 2006 World Series Most Valuable Player David Eckstein, of the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals.

Eckstein is not the most physically imposing athlete you'll come across. He stands 5'6" and weighs 170 pounds (after a large meal). Not surprisingly, he was frequently told he was too small, that he wasn't good enough to play baseball. Coming out of high school, no college offered him a baseball scholarship.


Not to be deterred, Eckstein attended the University of Florida, without a scholarship, and was a "walk-on" player for the school. The rest is history. He has played in two All-Star games, and won two World Series rings (the first was with Anaheim in 2002, his second season in the majors).

During the radio interview, an 11-year-old boy asked Eckstein if he had any advice for youngsters like himself. The MVP told him to remember three things:

1. Have fun playing the game.
   
2. Always give 100%.
   
3. Believe in yourself, even if no one else does.

Know anything else this advice might apply to?

Top Ten U.S. Juniors in Detail

In an insightful article at Chess Life Online, IM Greg Shahade profiles each of the top ten juniors from the December 2006 USCF rating list. He is blunt in his appraisals, identifying which players he feels are likely to continue developing and which are in danger of stagnating. Greg writes:

"What would be considered a success for our juniors? Any American player that achieves the GM title should be extremely proud. Very few young American players in the past decade have been able to earn the GM title--The good news is that there are a multitude of players on this list whom I believe will earn the title and help to end our relative drought. The bad news is that while most of these players have the potential to be a Grandmaster, they are very unlikely to be one of the top players in the world."

He covers the following players, in what is expected to be a bi-monthly column at Chess Life Online:

1. GM Hikaru Nakamura
   
2. IM Josh Friedel
   
3. IM Lev Milman
   
4. FM Salvijus Bercys
   
5. FM Robert Hess
   
6. IM-elect John Bartholomew
   
7. IM Alex Lenderman
   
8. FM Igor Schneider
   
9. FM Joel Banawa
   
10. NM Mackenzie Molner

In his "Others to Watch" segment, Shahade also discusses the highly talented players FM Ray Robson, Marc Tyler Arnold and WFM Tatev Abrahamyan.

GM Larry Christensen Annotates

The "Skittles Room" at ChessCafe is where you'll find articles reproduced from the ChessCafe archives and this week there's a nicely annotated game from GM Larry Christensen. The GM writes in a clear and entertaining voice - get out your board and watch the pieces fly!

Problem # 18

In this problem from www.wtharvey.com, it's White to move and win.

For the solution, click here.

Keene on Chess: Viktor Korchnoi

In his latest article at Chessville, GM Raymond Keene writes about GM Viktor Korchnoi's exploits in various world championship cycles against the likes of Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov, among others, and includes an annotated game against Fischer from the 1962 Curacao Candidates Tournament. Keene writes:

"Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi is one of the giants of 20th and 21st century chess, contesting three matches that determined the destination of the world championship and winning games against no fewer than eight world champions: Botvinnik, Tal, Smyslov, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov. (His lifetime score against Tal, for example, was an overwhelming 13 wins with 6 losses and 29 draws.) He additionally registered plus scores against Petrosian and Spassky and was level with Botvinik and Fischer...He remains the world’s oldest active Grandmaster in 2006, still with a super-GM rating of 2610."

14 Annotated Karpov Games

The Best of Chess Informant - Anatoly Karpov is the title of the latest column by Zdenko Krnic at ChessCafe. Some 1600 of Karpov's games have appeared in the pages of Informant, and 14 of them received accolades as the best game of the Informant volumes in which they appeared.

This column includes each of these 14 games, with annotations, many by Karpov himself. Krnic quotes Karpov's coach Semen Furman, who describes the former world champion as having a "Natural gift for subtle positional feeling, masterly endgame play and technically accurate conduct of the game."

Teaching Chess to 10-Year-Olds

Michael Goeller
Michael Goeller writes an excellent chess blog known as The Kenilworthian, and he has an informative series of posts about a group of kids he has been tutoring at chess. Michael explains some of the ups and downs of working with kids who sometimes don't quite have the rules straight, and describes how he motivates them to learn while having fun.

You can find Part V of his series here. The previous four posts are referenced in the article, with links for the inquisitive reader.

College Senior Stars at Basketball and Chess

The starting guard for the University of Alabama women’s basketball team has found considerable success both on the basketball court and at the chess board. In a January 21, 2007 article in the Tuscaloosa News by sportswriter Tommy Deas, the dual career of college senior Kate Mastin is profiled.

"I have a bunch of trophies for chess," she is quoted as saying, "like my whole closet shelf." This year Kate has found another basketball-chess player in freshman guard Nikki Davis, which has sparked a new rivalry. "She thought she was the only one who knew how to play chess," Kate commented. "I took her queen like the third move."

Post Index

With over 150 posts and an assortment of other information available here at the Scholastic Chess Gateway, I thought it was time to organize things a bit. Here are some easy links if you'd like to read/review some of the information at this site:

• 2006 National Chess Congress
  
• 2006 National K-12/Collegiate
  
• 2006 National Youth Action
  
• 2006 North American Open
  
• 2006 Pan American Championship
  
• 2007 National Elementary Championship
  
• 2007 National High School Championship
  
• 2007 National Junior High School Championship
  
• All America Team
  
• Chess Instruction
  
• Chess Videos
  
• College Chess
  
• Find a Chess Club
  
• Negi-Lahno Match 2006
  
• Puzzles
  
• St. Louis Ice Storm 2007
  
• Start a Chess Club
  
• U.S. Chess School
  
• World Junior Championship
  
• World Youth Chess Championship
  

In addition, don't forget to check out our "Important Links" on the right side of the page. You'll find countless links to great chess sites as well as helpful information, such as lists of the current top junior players in the U.S. as well as worldwide, and a quick link to the USCF member rating page to easily look up your (or anyone else's!) rating.

Also, don't overlook our "Links to Great Downloads" over there on the right side of the page. You'll find links to thousands of downloadable games and to hundreds of annotated games. If you're looking for a stack of chess puzzles, see the link above, and we've got some great chess videos (link also above) for a pleasant change of pace.

Kortchnoi is defeated by a cow in a chess game (TV ad)

Chess Grandmaster Viktor Kortchnnoi is defeated by a cow named Lovely in a chess game (TV ad).

New USCF Rating Supplement Online!

The February 2007 Rating Supplements from the USCF are available now. Here are some of the highlights:

Top 21 Under Age 21:

1 Nakamura, Hikaru 19 NY USA 2748
2 Friedel, Joshua E 20 NH USA 2529
3 Milman, Lev 19 NY USA 2513
4 Tcherepanov, Andrei V 20 MI 2493
5 Bercys, Salvijus 17 NY USA 2491
6 Bartholomew, John D 20 MN USA 2476
7 Lenderman, Alex 17 NY USA 2471
8 Hess, Robert L 15 NY USA 2441
9 Ludwig, Daniel J 16 FL USA 2400
10 Gulamali, Kazim 18 GA USA 2397
11 Schneider, Igor 18 NY USA 2393
12 Banawa, Joel Cholo B 17 CA USA 2385
13 Molner, Mackenzie S 18 NJ USA 2373
14 Zaikov, Oleg N 19 OR USA 2368
15 Cheng, Xiao 17 GA USA 2348
16 Kleiman, Jake 20 TN USA 2344
17 Kiewra, Keaton 19 NE USA 2342
18 Liu, Elliott 17 CA USA 2341
19 Arnold, Marc Tyler 14 NY USA 2333
20 Critelli, James 16 CT USA 2319
21 Robson, Ray S 12 FL USA 2316

Top 21 Girls Under 21:

1 Abrahamyan, Tatev 18 CA USA 2277
2 Tuvshintugs, Batchimeg 20 CA USA 2257
3 Ross, Laura R 18 NY USA 2251
4 Melekhina, Alisa 15 PA USA 2165
5 Zenyuk, Iryna 20 NY USA 2153
6 Eynullayeva, Roza 19 MA USA 2133
7 West, Vanessa A 18 CA USA 2073
8 Itkis, Hana 18 NJ USA 2072
9 Marshall, Abby 15 VA 2051
10 Nikolova, Ettie 17 VA USA 2032
11 Livschitz, Louiza 15 CA 1975
12 Matyszewska, Magdalena 17 MI 1969
13 Jamison, Courtney 15 TX USA 1967
14 Kats, Elina 17 NY 1951
15 Kerr, Julia K 16 NY 1941
16 Parrilla, Medina 15 NY USA 1934
17 Dai, Yang 13 VA USA 1920
18 Mcvay, Karsten A 14 NJ USA 1917
19 Datta, Anjali 14 TX 1914
20 Maffeo, Nicole 15 NY 1888
21 Katz, Alanna 19 NY 1877

Problem # 17

It's White to move and mate in two, in this puzzle courtesy of www.wtharvey.com.

Stumped? You can check out the solution here.

Latest Novice Nook Column at ChessCafe

Dan Heisman's excellent Novice Nook column this month reviews appropriate strategies for trading pieces and/or pawns when ahead in material. If you're rated under 1800, be sure to read it at ChessCafe.

Chess: Not Just For Humans!

Talk about pawn-grabbing! Enjoy the video:

David MacEnulty Honored as 2007 Chess Educator of the Year

The January 2007 Chess Life magazine features an article highlighting the Volunteer of the Month (Harold Stenzel) and the 2007 Chess Educator of the Year (David MacEnulty).

MacEnulty, longtime chess teacher in New York City and the inspiration for the 2005 A&E movie Knights of the South Bronx, was selected by the University of Texas-Dallas (UTD) for the award. He will be presented the award in a ceremony open to the public on Feb. 27, 2007 on the UTD Campus.

Those of you who have seen Knights of the South Bronx know that it was very well done. I have pleaded with A&E to bring the movie out on DVD or to play it again, but so far, to no avail. Nevertheless, you can see a great TV interview of both Ted Danson (who played MacEnulty in the film) and MacEnulty himself here.

Interesting Chess Life Articles

If you haven't already seen these articles, you might want to take a look at these two offerings from the latest (January 2007) Chess Life magazine:

• Olin Chism wrote about the recent ICC match between the University of Texas-Dallas and the University of Belgrade in his article Serbs Successfully Challenge UTD. He provides interesting insider details about the events, includes an annotated game in which a UTD player comes back from a lost position to win, and offers helpful information about available chess scholarships.
  
  
• How to Win Won Positions is GM Lev Alburt's column in which he takes a game submitted by a reader and adds his own thoughts to the reader's annotations. In one interesting exchange, the submitter writes about a given position, "Black can't do anything to protect himself." Alburt responds that such an attitude "is dangerous and will soon be proven wrong. In a won position, don't relax. Search for the best move!"

Photos from the 2006 Pan American Tournament

Jim Stallings, Chess Program Director of the University of Texas-Dallas, kindly sent the following photos from the 2006 Pan American tournament, taken by USCF Scholastic Director Jerry Nash:

More From the U.S. Chess School Session 3

Gary Robson was kind enough to pass along this link to the AmericanChess.net newsletter from Daniel Rensch that describes the recent U.S. Chess School session in detail. Some new photos also appear.

Be Careful About Grabbing Pawns

In this game from his famous My System book, Aron Nimzowitsch demonstrates the pitfalls of pawn-hunting when your development is not adequate. In the following game, Nimzowitsch is White and after his opponent has played 9...Qxg2, Nimzowitsch states "Stealing a pawn. The consequences are disastrous." Indeed, the game is over by move 18.

St. Louis Ice Storm - Part 3

St. Louis Ice Storm - Part 2

St. Louis Ice Storm

Global warming took the weekend off. Here's what our neighborhood looks like:

Problem # 16

It's White to play and mate in four. Good luck!

For the solution, click here.

Will There Be a 2007 U.S. Chess Championship?

Without providing any specific details, the USCF has posted an announcement that states:

"By mutual decision of USCF and the American Foundation for Chess (AF4c), the 2007 US Championship will not be sponsored by AF4C."

The post also notes that "The 2007 US Championship is now open for bidding. Further details will be posted as soon as possible. We know the chess public is anxious to know more."

A subsequent post requests bids for sponsorship of the championship. To date, I have not seen any official statements either from the USCF or from the AF4C office which identify the specific reason(s) for this decision.

However, there is no shortage of opinions on the subject. GM Susan Polgar has multiple relevant posts at her primary blog and also at her new U.S. Chess Discussion blog. In addition, Mig Greengard has an extensive post at his Daily Dirt Chess Blog.

More information will be presented as it becomes available.

This is not a political blog, but I'll leave you with this - there will be an important election in June for four seats on the USCF Executive Board. Voting is open to all USCF members. Use your vote wisely.

U.S. Chess School Coverage at Chess Life Online

FM Danny Rensch, who has helped provide information for this blog, has written an informative article about the recent U.S. Chess School session, which he and his family hosted in the Phoenix area.

In the article, Danny explains what IM Greg Shahade and GM Gregory Kaidanov hope to accomplish with the U.S. Chess School and he describes the intense analysis that went on. The primary focus was on identifying and learning from the mistakes in each player's games. "You could definitely say that we were all critical of each other’s weaknesses," Danny states, "but we also provided support when we recognized each player’s individual strengths." He adds that he could "almost feel everyone in the room improving by the hour."

The entertaining piece ends with photographs of the participants and even a few caricatures by budding artist IM Robert Hungaski. You can find additional information at the U.S. Chess School site, although as of this writing it has not been updated yet.

Roll Up USB Chess Set

Please don't set up your board this way!
I'm not sure that it offers an advantage over present chess software or online chess sites, but I came across this TechDigest note about a rollup chess board that comes with a USB attachment to connect with your computer. The post claims that:

"The roll-up chess set connects to your PC, and has sensors in each of the board squares which let the companion application know what pieces you're moving where. You can play against the computer, and it records your game and gives hints on demand. Or you can just play a friend, and have the program record it for posterity."

A look at the photo above (reproduced from the TechDigest post) will show that the board is set up wrong and the moves played aren't exactly from a standard opening!

Checkmate With Two Bishops

It's possible that you might never actually encounter it in a real game, but if you're left with a king and two bishops against a lone king, could you checkmate your opponent? Do you know the basic checkmate pattern and strategy to accomplish this?

It might be instructive to take a few minutes and set up a board and pieces to see if you can do this, and if so, how quickly. Don't forget to watch for stalemate, three-fold position repetition, and you must mate your opponent within 50 moves (hopefully a lot less!) to avoid the 50-move rule (a draw can be claimed if no pawn moves or captures have taken place for 50 moves).

If you need a little help, check out Mark Lowery's Exciting World of Chess or the Chess Kids Academy. In addition, an excellent one-page pdf file from www.rockfordchess.org explaining the two-bishop mate can be found here.

Incidentally, here's one solution for the position above, courtesy of Fritz 9:

1. Kd3 Kf4 2. Bd5 Ke5 3. Bb3 Kf5 4. Bd4 Kf4 5. Bd5 Kf5 6. Ke3 Kg4 7. Ke4 Kg5 8. Be6 Kg6 9. Kf4 Kh5 10. Bf7+ Kh4 11. Bf2+ Kh3 12. Kf3 Kh2 13. Be6 Kh1 14. Bc5 Kh2 15. Bd7 Kh1 16. Kf2 Kh2 17. Bd6+ Kh1 18. Bc6# 1-0

American Youth Adventures at the World Championships

Aviv Friedman, the talented and resourceful coach who frequently accompanies U.S. teams when they compete abroad, has written a nice article at the USCF Chess Life magazine site. He covers both the World Junior Championships and the World Youth Chess Championships, both from this past October, and annotates a number of games by U.S. players.

Prominent American players Elliot Liu and Tatev Abrahamyan have both described Aviv as a virtual life-saver at more than one tournament!

Spring 2007 National Championships

It's not too early to begin planning for the upcoming spring national chess championships. The links below take you to the relevant USCF site for more information. The schedule is as follows:

• 2007 Burt Lerner National Elementary (K-6) Championship, May 11-13, 2007, Nashville, TN
  
  
• 2007 National Junior High School (K-9) Championship, March 30-April 1, 2007, Sacramento, CA
  
  
• 2007 National High School (K-12) Championship, April 13-15, 2007, Kansas City, MO

How to Offer a Draw

Do you remember the scene in Searching for Bobby Fischer in which little Josh Waitzkin offers his opponent a draw by quietly extending his arm for a handshake? See the Ask GM Joel column at Chess Life Online to learn why this should NOT be done.

Do you want to offer a draw? After you make your move and hit the clock, just ask your opponent "Do you want to call it a draw?"

Remember, when a draw is offered, the other player doesn't have to accept or decline immediately. His or her clock is running, and can take as much time as the clock allows to either accept the draw offer or make a move on the board. Of course, if a move is made, this means that the draw offer has been declined and is no longer "on the table."

U.S. Chess School - More Info

GM Gregory Kaidanov
FM Danny Rensch

I asked Danny Rensch how this latest U.S. Chess School session differed from the earlier groups. "The first session had more players, so the variety of topics covered had to fit more styles. This session was smaller which meant more individual attention." He added, though, that "Both sessions were very helpful...The U.S. Chess School has tremendous potential and it will help this country's ability to turn out top world players."

GM Gregory Kaidanov again was the instructor, at no charge to the players, with food and housing provided to the students, also at no charge. Danny's wife was kept busy cooking meals for all the participants!

IM Robert Hungaski
FM Ray Robson

More Photos From the U.S. Chess School

Latest Scholastic Chess Column Now Online

My January Scholastic Chess ChessCafe column is now online. In it, I review a number of year-end tournaments, with coverage to continue next month.

You'll also find an interesting column called The Kibitzer, by Tim Harding. Whereas many writers will have a "year in review" column either at the end of a year or the start of the next, Tim annually uses his January column to look at the chess world a century earlier. So this column takes his readers back to 1907!

U.S. Chess School - A Great Resource

GM Gregory Kaidanov (L) and FM Daniel Rensch
The U.S. Chess School, brainchild of IM Greg Shahade, opened its doors to its first class of students in January 2006. You can read more about it in my "Inside the U.S. Chess School" report at ChessCafe. The second session of the school took place last April, and the most recent group got together in the Phoenix area from January 1-8, 2007.

Participants in this round included:

• IM Josh Friedel (USCF 2535)
  
• FM Danny Rensch (USCF 2429)
  
• IM Robert Hungaski (USCF 2210)
  
• Xiao Cheng (USCF 2317)
  
• FM Ray Robson (USCF 2254)
  
• Elliot Liu (USCF 2301)

Quite an impressive bunch! WFM Tatev Abrahamyan was scheduled to appear as well, but unfortunately could not do so due to the ultimately fatal stroke her father suffered recently.

Danny Rensch and his family opened their homes to the players and instruction took place at the American Chess Events site in Mesa, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. You can find a bit more information here.

We'll have more reports and more photos shortly!

Cute, But Remember, It's a Knight

"I got him with my horse, I got him with my horse!," cries the excited young player in this cute video. He might not know a King's Indian from an American Indian, but at least he's excited about chess!

Chess Jokes

GM Susan Polgar entertains us with the following light humor:

"What's the difference between highway construction workers and tournament chess players? Chess players move once in a while!"
Additional chess jokes are found in her archived posts here. One of the better entries (slightly paraphrased):

A Russian had been a prisoner in a Russian gulag back in 1972. He said all the prisoners were listening to the world championship match every day over a radio. One day when the match was all tied the guards discovered the radio and took it from the prisoners.

After about 2 weeks of not knowing what had happened in the Fischer-Spassky match, a new prisoner arrived. Everyone immediately asked him what happened in the World Chess Championship Match and he said "I lost."

I Want Chess, Mom, Not Cheese!

The mother in this video is trying to teach her son to say "cheese" but he seems to be more interested in saying "chess!" Watch out for this kid at the National K-12 in a couple of years!

Great Game Collections

In Bruce Pandolfini's December 2006 ChessCafe column, he suggests reviewing "100 games or more of every world champion and every great non-world champion (Tarrasch, Rubinstein, Nimzovitch, Keres, Korchnoi, and so on)."

Chessville has made this easy for you. Go to this page to download hundreds of games from any of dozens of great players, from Adams to Zukertort. You can review games from the greatest players from past generations or from some of the top players today.

Or perhaps you're more interested in studying a specific opening? Check out this page from Chessville to download games from top players organized by the opening.

Thank you, Chessville, for this tremendous resource!

For other extensive and helpful downloads, see our new Links to Great Downloads! link on the right side of the page.

Blog Tripping at About:Chess

The extensive About:Chess website by Mark Weeks has a new post titled Blog Tripping in December. Our Scholastic Chess Gateway earns two mentions, one for our 2006 National K-12/Collegiate coverage, and for our index of fun chess videos.

Take a look at Mark's site. You could spend hours navigating his numerous articles and links.

U.S. Chess School Holds Third Session in Phoenix

IM Greg Shahade's U.S. Chess School just completed its third session, in Phoenix, Arizona. Watch the United States Chess Federation website for details, which should be forthcoming within the next few days, Greg reports.

Addendum: The father of phenom Ray Robson points out that some introductory information is also available at the American Chess Events website. Ray was again one of the participants and his father noted that "This session differed from the others in that it was much more advanced. The players analyzed games and positions as a group, with partners, and individually. They discussed theory and worked on openings together."

The U.S. Chess School is a wonderful resource for America's top young players. We'll have more reports as they become available.

Heavily Annotated Topalov-Kasparov Game

GM Yasser Seirawanphoto credit: ChessBase
GM Yasser Seirawan's latest ChessCafe column is out, featuring an extensively annotated game between Topalov and Kasparov dating back to 1996. You'll want to get out your board and pieces for this one!

Chess Coach Pleads Guilty to Sexual Assault

It's disturbing to report, but hiding such cases will, I fear, only contribute to more of them. In a story reported at GM Susan Polgar's blog, chess author and coach Robert Snyder of Fort Collins, Colorado pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault on a child and one count of unlawful sexual contact.

In the www.coloradoan.com article referenced in Polgar's blog, reporter Sara Reed writes that "Under the terms of the plea agreement, Snyder will serve two years in the Larimer County Detention Center for the unlawful sexual contact charge and will spend the rest of his life on sex offender intensive supervised probation... Under the terms of his probation, Snyder has to register as a sex offender, cannot have any contact with individuals under the age of 18, cannot have access to the Internet and will continue to have his passport held by the court."

The vast majority of teachers and chess coaches, of course, are decent individuals. This isn't much consolation, however, if you're the one or your child is the one affected by one of the bad apples. Kids and parents, just take reasonable precaution and report suspicious activity.

16-Year Old Becomes the UK's Youngest GM

ChessBase reports that David Howell, at age 16 years, one month has become the youngest grandmaster in UK history, after finishing with a score of 7/9 in the Stockholm Rilton Cup tournament.

The photo below, also from ChessBase, shows the 11-year-old David playing Vladimir Kramnik to a draw in March 2002:

Problem # 15

It's White to play and win, forcing Black to either lose his Queen or face checkmate.

You can find the solution here.