ChessUpdated.com   Chess World in Synthesis

Schedule for the 2008 SP National Invitational for Girls

(More info is available here: http://polgargirls.blogspot.com/2008/07/important-info-for-spni.html)

July 26
6:00pm: “Warm-Up” Quads (G/30) at Lubbock Room of the STU building

July 27
1:30pm–2:30pm: Opening Ceremony
3:00pm–6:30pm: Round 1 of SPNI

July 28
1:30pm–5:00pm: Round 2 of SPNI and round 1 of Parents/Friends Open
7:00pm: SPNI Chess Puzzle Solving Championship
7:30pm: Free chess lecture by Susan

July 29
1:30pm–5:00pm: Round 3 of SPNI and round 2 of Parents/Friends Open
7:00pm: SPNI Blitz Championship

July 30
1:30pm–5:00pm: Round 4 of SPNI and round 3 of Parents/Friends Open
7:00pm: SPNI Bughouse Championship

July 31
1:30pm–5:00pm: Round 5 of SPNI and final round of Parents/Friends Open

August 1
10:00am–1:30pm: Round 6 of SPNI
2:30pm: Closing Ceremony

Source: Susan Polgar Blog

Source: United States Chess Federation http://main.uschess.org/index2.php?option=com_rss&feed=RSS2.0&no_html=1
Elizabeth Vicary reviews her favorite chess books for summer beach reading and gives thoughts on how to get the most value from your tactical training.

SPICE and the SPF are doing a chess training course for teachers in Region 17 in Texas today. Region 17 is big! It serves 59 school districts in the West Texas area with a wide variety of educational support services.

Lubbock is one of the school disctricts and it has around 55 schools. More teachers immediately signed up than we have space for. Therefore, we have to add additional classes in the near future to accomodate everyone. Our goal is to introduce chess to every school in the area.

The curriculum which we use to train teachers to teach chess in the schools is the same as what has been distributed. Nearly 60,000 FREE SPF / SPICE Curriculum / Training Guide were sent out to teachers, parents, chess organizations and clubs in over 95 countries in the past 2 years. It is completely FREE.

The curriculumn / training guide is divided into 30 chapters, one per week, to fit the school year. It can serve as the main base and small modifications can be made to fit your school guidelines.

My dream is to be able to introduce chess to as many children as possible. If you have not gotten your copy yet, please click here to register for your FREE account on www.ChessDiscussion.com then click here to download your FREE copy. This is the same guide which I personally used to teach many students including my own children.

If you have any suggestion, please feel free to email me.

Source: Susan Polgar Blog

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BCC-Weblog

Rex Sinquefield’s Chess Mecca in the CWE
Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 05:50:42 PM

As promised, the über-rich libertarian political activist and philanthropist Rex Sinquefield has created a beauty of a chess club.
BMEzine.com Shannon Larratt

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, located in the heart of the heart of the Central West End, opens to the public tonight. At a media preview/schmoozefest last night, I contemplated plunking down for the annual membership, just to escape the sticky St. Louis summer in this cool, futuristic world.

The décor is black and white — what else? — with accents of fashionable chartreuse. Plasma TV sets play in the lobby’s huge display window overlooking Maryland Avenue. The basement is equipped with a lounge and classroom, where even the hard-backed chairs get a touch of class: mahogany-color hardwood with a contrasting motif of a king’s piece on their backs. Another plasma TV monitor will relay the moves being made by tournament players on the second floor. There, a cluster of freshly matted and framed photographs of famous chess players, mid-think, adorn one wall. A door opens into an even more lavish setting, the board room. Here the chess tables and pieces are handmade by St. James craftsman Nate Cohen. The chairs are high wingbacks, set on zebra-striped and fur rugs. Six plasma screens show close-ups of disembodied hands moving pieces through historic chess matches. It’s the work of video installation artist Diana Thater.

The million-plus digs are a little surreal, especially when you start talking to the chess aficionados in attendance. Ten-year-olds Joshua Wiedner and Christopher Haberstroh keep gazing around They didn’t hesitate to start a game at one of the tables in the lobby, but this room has a museum quality. “It’s a really cool place,” Haberstroh finally concludes.
Cesareo Rodriguez, a Class A player from Belleville, is taking the tour with his wife Meiko. Rodriguez wears gold-rimmed glasses in a vertical egg shape, which give him the look of a quirky comic-book villain. Rodriguez is drawn to the club for the competition, not the swank. “I beat the U.S. champion when I was seventeen,” he notes. (Granted, Rodriguez’s victory over then-champion Larry Christiansen occurred during a 30-player simultaneous exhibition, but he won lifetime bragging rights and a 16-piece bucket of Church’s fried chicken.)

Hearing that story, I wonder whether the long-standing, somewhat grittier Delmar Loop chess (more info here) games will migrate to 4657 Maryland Avenue. The chess club does offer sidewalk tables.
I’m told Sinquefield — who serves on the boards of the Missouri Botanical Garden, Missouri History Museum, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis Symphony and Saint Louis University (his alma mater) — is sharpening his game with lessons from an international champion, but I don’t learn much else about his personal experience.

He asks that I arrange an interview at a later date with his public relations consultant, Laura Slay. Sporting an electric-blue knit shirt, Sinquefield makes a short speech, which reveals his mischievous personality. Tongue in cheek, he says the club will bring “cultural uplifting” to a neighborhood that is so otherwise lacking. “Probably it’s going to be known as ‘The St. Louis Chess Club: Where egos are shattered on a daily basis,’” he says, grinning.

The St. Louis area has a long tradition of chess in schools, but Sinquefield laments that scholastic chess doesn’t get enough media attention. The club will lend supplies and volunteers to city schools that want to expand chess programs or start new ones.

Sinquefield acknowledges that there’s been no “rigorous, scientific study” of the purported benefits of chess, but he’ll take care of that, too: The club is sponsoring a five-year study of chess and schoolchildren. “It would be shocking if they didn’t show huge discipline and cognitive improvements in children, even if they only stayed in it a few years,” he predicts.

Tony Rich, a chess player who left his job doing tech support at a major law firm to become the club’s executive director, tells me that Mike Podgursky, a University of Missouri economics professor who directs the Show-Me Institute (a libertarian think tank underwritten by Sinquefield), and SLU educational studies professor Michael Grady, are to design and conduct the study.

-Kathleen McLaughlin

White to move. What is the best move for White?

5R2/3r2kp/3Pq1p1/p1p1r3/2p1P3/P1P2Q2/7P/5R1K w - - 0 1

Source: Susan Polgar Blog

White to move. What is the best move for White?

r3r1k1/1p2qppp/1B4n1/3R2n1/p7/P1P5/1PQ4P/2KR1B2 w - - 0 1

Source: Susan Polgar Blog

White to move. What is the best move for White?

r2q2k1/1p3rpp/2nbp3/p1p5/4BP2/P3B1P1/5R1P/R2Q3K w - - 0 1

Source: Susan Polgar Blog

Archaeologists find 600-year-old chess piece in northwest Russia
14:51
18/ 07/ 2008

VELIKY NOVGOROD, July 18 (RIA Novosti) - Archaeologists in northwest Russia have discovered a chess piece dating back to the late 14th century, a spokesman for local archaeologists said on Friday.

“The king, around several centimeters tall, is made of solid wood, possibly of juniper,” the spokesman said.

The excavations are being carried out at the site of the Palace of Facets, in the Novgorod Kremlin in Veliky Novgorod. The palace is believed to be the oldest in Russia.

According to the city chronicles, chess as a competitive game emerged in Veliky Novgorod, the foremost historic city in northwest Russia, in the 13th century, but was banned in 1286 by the church.

However, besides the king, archeologists in the region have found a total of 82 chess pieces dating back to at least the 14th century, showing that the game remained popular among the local population despite the church ban.

In late May, archaeologists in the ancient city uncovered a number of medieval baby bottles. Medieval Slavs made feeding bottles by attaching leather bags to the wider part of a cow’s horn. The babies drank milk from holes made in the tip of the horns.

The first historical mention of Veliky Novgorod was in 859 AD. City chronicles say that by 862 AD it was already a stop on the trading route between the Baltics and Byzantium.

The city will celebrate its 1150th anniversary in 2009.

Source: http://en.rian.ru

Source: Susan Polgar Blog

Bill Wall’s Wonderful World of Chess
by Bill Wall
Chess Around the World - and Beyond
www.chessville.com

Afghanistan - Chess was forbidden in Afghanistan for 15 years during the reign of the Taliban. Afghanistan joined FIDE in 1984, but was later temporarily excluded from FIDE for non-payment. It issued a chess stamp in 1989. The country has one master and 6 other players as members of FIDE.

Ahmerst, Massachusetts - Home of the college chess team that was the winner of the first intercollegiate chess match, in 1859. The event was actually an intercollegiate baseball and chess match simultaneously as part of a single event. Amherst College played Williams College as the “trial of the mind as well as the muscle.” Amherst won both events and was heralded as “Athletic and Academic Champions.” We now have chess boxing.

Antarctica - In the 1950s, a scientist at a Soviet research station (Vostok) lost a chess game with a fellow scientist, then got so mad he killed his opponent with an axe. After the incident, the Soviets banned chess at their Antarctic stations.

Atlantic Ocean - In 1902, the first chess match between players on different ships at see occurred in the Atlantic Ocean. Passengers on the American liner Philadelphia played passengers from the Cunard liner Campania, 70 miles away. The moves were broadcast by wireless operators aboard the ships. The match was not concluded since the radio was required for navigational uses.

Baden-Baden, Germany - In 1870, Germany held its first international tournament in Baden-Baden. The event was also the first tournament interrupted by war (Franco-Prussian war). First place was 3,000 francs. The tournament was the first to introduce chess clocks (20 moves an hour), but the players had the option of using hour glasses. Adolf Anderssen won the event with 11 points. In 1925, Baden-Baden was the site of the first international tournament in Germany after World War II. Alexander Alekhine won that event with 16 points.

Berlin, Germany - Site of the 2008 world chess boxing championship, won by mathematics student Nikolai Sazhin over 37-year-old German policeman, Frank Stoldt. Berlin is home to the world’s biggest chess boxing club, with over 40 members.

Bonn, Germany - Site of the Chess World Championship 2008 between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik. The match will begin on October 14, 2008

Here is the full article.

Source: Susan Polgar Blog

Rybka 3.0 – Not just the strongest chess program in the world18.07.2008 – Developed by IM Vasik Rajlich, Rybka is the shooting star amongst chess programs. It won the 2007 world championship and leads easily in all computer rating lists. Now it is available in the drastically improved version 3.0 and under the ChessBase-Fritz interface. It includes exciting new analysis functions you will not find in other programs.

www.chessbase.com

Source: Susan Polgar Blog