EnglishRussia Features Ivory Chess Sets

The picture blog EnglishRussia had a post featuring several ivory chess sets. Some of the 'themes' of the chess sets were Greek, Persian, Men vs. Women and a very odd one ... fingers.

It looks like all the pieces are chopped-off fingers while the rook is something else. Perhaps it represents the mechanism that chops off the digits. Can anyone shed some light on what message this chess set is trying to convey?

LCMBM Game 28 Tactic

This is a neat little tactic from Game 28 in Logical Chess Move by Move.

It reminded me of the last tactic I worked on last night at ChessTempo. I must have spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to mate or capture the queen. I kept going over the same three 'trees' over and over again thinking I was overlooking something.

It failed to occur to me to consider the tactic was directed at the rook instead of the queen or king. The lesson learned (or 'learnt' for you Brits) was keep moving down the totem pole of targets (king, queen, rook, etc.) until you find the proper tactic.

In the tactic presented here, it is fairly obvious checkmate isn't on the horizon and the queen is off the board. The one little guy sticking out is that pawn on a7. I would have considered taking the pawn, but probably would have been at a loss as to how to extract my knight after said capture. And therein lies the neatness of this tactic.

Standing Game Seek

I'm looking for anyone rated 1600-1800 on FICS to play me between the hours of 18:00 and 20:00 (FICS server time) any day of the week.

I'd prefer someone who would be willing to do a post mortem analysis either after the game or on a later day.

Additionally ...

I don't know if someone has already started this or not since I've not seen it, but I wonder what interest there is out there for starting an on-line chess club at FICS ... in other words there'd be a day(s) set aside each week (just Tuesdays or just Thursdays or both) between the hours of 16:00-20:00 (FICS time) where anyone can stop by and play a game (focus would be on standard games ... 60 5 or 45 45 or similiar). If this already is set up, let me know. If not, would you be interested in something like this?

It only takes two to start a club, so we're already half-way there!

Recent Blitz Game (and testing pgn viewer)

I know ChessFlash has been out for quite sometime, but I'm just now checking it out.

The only way it looks good on my blog is if I do the 'board only' option. If I include the move list on the side or bottom, the board is too small ... this is due to my narrow column. I wish there were an option for making the move list more narrow and the board more wide.

On a related note, I mentioned ficsgames.com a while back. I don't know the full scope of that project, but I imagine that eventually you'd be able to post a game or embed a game from that site to your blog. Right now the site is down (hardware failure).

[Event "rated blitz match"]
[Site "Free Internet Chess Server"]
[Date "2009.06.07"]
[White "ZezoJardim"]
[Black "RockyRook"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1266"]
[BlackElo "1232E"]
[ECO "C00"]
[TimeControl "120+14"]

1. e4 e6 2. f4 c5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. c3 Nge7 5. Bc4 a6 6. O-O b5 7. Bb3 Bb7 8. d3 Na5 9. Bc2 Qb6 10. a3 c4+ 11. d4 Nb3 12. Bxb3 cxb3 13. Nbd2 Ng6 14. f5 exf5 15. exf5 Ne7 16. Re1 f6 17. Qe2 O-O-O 18. Ne4 Nxf5 19. Nc5 Bxc5 20. dxc5 Qxc5+ 21. Be3 Nxe3 22. Qxe3 Qxe3+ 23. Rxe3 Rhe8 24. Rae1 Rxe3 25. Rxe3 Bxf3 26. gxf3 d5 27. Re7 d4 28. cxd4 Rxd4 29. Rxg7 Rd2 30. Rg2 Rd1+ 31. Kf2 Kd7 32. Ke3 Ke6 33. Rg7 Rb1 34. Rg2 Ke5 35. Kd3 Rc1 36. Rg7 Rc2 37. Rxh7 Rxb2 38. Kc3 Rb1 39. Rh4 a5 40. Rh5+ f5 41. Rh4 a4 42. Rb4 Rc1+ 43. Kb2 Rc2+ 44. Kb1 Rc5 45. h4 Kf6 46. h5 Kg5 47. h6 Kxh6 48. f4 Kh5 49. Rd4 Kg4 50. Kb2 Kf3 51. Rb4 Rd5 52. Kc3 Ke3 53. Kb2 Kd3 54. Kb1 Rc5 55. Kb2 Rd5 56. Kb1 Kc3 57. Kc1 Rd2 58. Rxb5 b2+ 59. Kb1 Rd1+ 60. Ka2 Ra1# {ZezoJardim checkmated} 0-1

Chess Around the Net

Here's a summary of the USCF battle going on in the courts. I read about this a few years ago and tried keeping up with it, but I got tired-head after a while. Be sure you are awake and alert before you read this article (if you want to comprehend it).

All I can say is 'amen' to this op-ed regarding on-line chess ... especially the part where he states, "I sit here now, musing over a game in which I had three days to respond to my opponent’s move, responded instead in three minutes and impatience has cost me the game.
There is truly no fool like an old fool."

I should have done this for my Eagle Scout Project.

The Rook

I just finished reading The Chess Artist by J.C. Hallman. Although a bit longish, I enjoyed it. The excursion Hallman and his compadre (Glenn Umstead) took to Kalmykia seemed to take up the entire book ... or maybe the book just dragged on during that part. But the parts I enjoyed most were the chapters about the history of chess and how the pieces came to be today as well as all the other chess adventures Hallman and Glenn took (click here to see a picture of the two).

After I finished the book this morning, I went back and re-read the chapter on the Rook. It was a fascinating discovery about myself.

"The rook's movement and its strength relative to the other pieces has
generally suggested the mechanical, vehicles or articles of war. Most often, the rook is infrastructure. As a line piece that can access all the squares of the board - moving in straight line on either ranks of files and capturing along its path - the rook combines the abstract potentials

of the knight and the bishop. Before the piece came to be represented by the figure of a crenelated castle tower, a depiction that appeared between 1524 and 1550, the rook was often portrayed as a two-headed shape. Early carvings of both bishops and knights were upright figures with some kind of aslant protuberance; early rooks had two such projections. In ornate sets it was a knight with two horse heads instead of one."

Hallman later notes in the same chapter that some family coat of arms associated with the word rook retain the two projections. (Rookwood to the left, Rochette to the right and Rochlitz at the top)

He goes on to describe how the rook started as a chariot or ship. In Arabia, rukh mean "chariot" while in Sanskrit roka meant "ship." Once the game arrived in Europe, different countries tried different names. In Germany marchio or "lord of the marches" described the piece, while in England it was known as duke. "A fifteenth-century morality listed rooks as judges for three reasons: a rook cannot play until a way is opened for it; a rook is in danger when on the same color as the king; and a rook loses power when it is 'in the King's palace' (i.e. not yet castled)." But the Europeans did not fully understand the definition of the piece and deferred to the Italian word rocca which meant "fortress." And this is how we have our modern-day rook which looks like a castle fortress.

What I Learned About Myself and the Rook

First of all, what I was fascinated about was learning the rook had a two-headed projection which was carried into family coat of arms. When I did a search on the Rochlitz coat of arms, I was shocked to see the resemblance between that coat of arms and the little icon I created for this blog. Both sport a mirror-R and are black and yellow. Is there some subliminal context of the rook concept that I picked up through the years of playing chess? It's a bit freaky seeing this connection.

Another aspect was the idea that rooks are associated with mechanical vehicles or articles of war and are usually associated with infrastructure. Maybe I'm thinking about this too much, but my entire career has been in infrastructure groups within our IT (i.e. mechanical) company. Also, I partly chose the handle Rocky, which comes from Rocky Balboa (the fictional boxer), because he seems blue-coller-like. To bring this back to infrastructure ... anything to do with infrastructure is very much blue-coller-like .... there's lots of work and it can be menial, but it is vital to the existence of the group/company/nation.

And lastly ... the relation to ships. Over the last few months, I've been becoming a big fan of the old tall-ship, sea-battle paintings that many others have a fixation with (click here to see an example of what I'm referring to which also happens to by favorite painting of this kind). And so when I learned the rook was also associated with ships, the hairs on my arms seemed to stand up.

Anyway, like I said, I may be thinking about this a bit much, but to say the least, it is very enlightening.

Sources

Rookwood and Rochette Coat of Arms: House of Names

Rochlitz Coat of Arms: Wikipedia Commons

Chess Around the Net

This guy takes building a chess engine in a backwards direction. Very cool ... check it out.

I'm a big JoePa fan. I found this recent quote from him:

“In checkers, every checker can do the same thing,” he said. “Chess, the king can do one thing, the pawn can do another thing, the whole bit. Football and coaching is (determining) who's the pawn? Who's the king? So you can put them all together. ... I don't have any reservations about playing a freshman. ... When I say to a kid, 'Hey, get ready to get knocked on your rear end,' I also tell him, 'Learn. Learn why you got knocked on your rear end, so when you come out to practice the next day, they're not going to knock you on your rear end the same way. And you've got a chance to knock him on his rear end.' There's no hard-and-fast rules. We've got a bunch of kids coming in, we're going to work our butts off to see how good they can be, and how much we can help them be good. We've got to put the combination together that gives us the best chess board.” (Source: http://pennstate.scout.com/2/867965.html)


And from this Chessbase report, check out this guy's hair:
Chess, band and math nerds in California breathed a big sigh of relief after a judge there decided that "drug testing of students taking part in competitive, nonathletic activities ... is an unjustified invasion of privacy."

Wang Yue

Does anyone else giggle upon reading this gentleman's name?

Just say it a few times ... Wang Yue. I think news reports should start using headlines like "Yue wangs Ivanchuk"

(photo from chesscenter.com)

Another Post from Half Sigma About Chess

WoW nerdier than chess?

Interesting post and lots of interesting comments.

I'm not sure what World of Warcraft is all about. I assume it is like Quake only far more massive and many more players.

As for the status on my move ... the packers and movers will be here Monday and we should be in our new home May 1. I'll have TV and Internet on May 5. So sometime towards the end of May I'll be back to solving tactics, playing on FICS and (maybe) regularly blogging.

Moving Along

I'm still chugging along at ChessTempo and I'm getting close to finishing Logical Chess Move by Move. I've not had much time to play, but that will all change here in the next few months.

I've been transferred to a new job. For the next two to three months I'll be caught up in work transition and relocating, so chess will take a backburner for a little while. But once we get settled in, I'll be on a normal work schedule (as opposed to shift work - hallelujah!) and I'll be able to more regularly play chess (via the 45 45 tournament). Also, I'd like to actually join a real live chess club, once we settle in to our new home, and play there once a week or so.

In the mean time, I'll continue to hang out at ChessTempo (almost up to 5000 tactics) and try to finish Logical Chess.

(not) Memorizing the Board

Reading through my feeder this morning, I saw two big bloggers blog about the (roughly) same topic - board visulization.

Tempo blogged about some other player's method for memorizing the board. Then he tried to solve a Polgar brick puzzle by looking at a blank board. He was just curious. In the comments he sums up the same sentiment BDK has with regard to memorizing the board:

board vision in itself is only interesting if you want to play without a board. Which I don't. In a real game there is a real board, so there is no need for perfectboard vision. (allthough it is fun in itself)

Which brings me to the next blogger who blogged about this topic. BDK blogged about the uselessness of memorzing the color of squares which he thinks is even more useless than memorzing the board.

I'm probably never going to memorize the board proactively. If I memorize it as a result of looking at the board so much, so be it, but I'm not going to take the time to memorize it. I think at my level, there are far too many other tasks I can focus on right now that will give me a better ROI than memorizing squares.

Chess Game Fight Gear

Here's a good chuckle: chessgamefightgear.com

Be sure to check out the "logo booty shorts" under the shop section.

Let's just say I didn't find any links to chess clubs when I went to this site.

Eli Stein Chess Life Cartoons

I'm sure you've seen at least one of Eli Stein's cartoons. He has a blog where he is posting tons of his old cartoons. He has a category called Chess Life. I think some of them are pretty clever.

FICS Chats

I found this little blurb funny.

Blakeos(2): since the server crash, I am no longer labeled as an abuser, is there a way to fix this?
MarcdCool(2): you still want to be an abuser?

Tactics

I did about 20 tactics tonight ... just to warm up before playing ... didn't really help.

Play

I played a handful of games tonight. I won two blitz and one standard game. I lost four blitz and two standard games. I also chatted a bit with a couple of people on FICS including dk. I saw Robert log on, but he was playing when I was seeking and vice versa. All said and done, I was on FICS for a solid 4 hours this morning from 11:30pm to 3:30am.

It was fun ... I mean, I really enjoyed myself ... just playing. I know I suck, but I played some good games and some really crappy games. Sometimes I don't mind losing if the game is brilliant. There are a lot of games where I am just in awe that the other player is seeing the stuff he is seeing. It is like he all of the sudden reaches behind himself and monkeys start flying out of his butt. I just have to shake my head and smile in awe.

Silver

Tactics

I gave in and bought a $20 (silver) subscription to ChessTempo. I really like the site and the extra features seem worth the price.

I continue to work on tactics every day. I was able to get in 60 today. A couple of days ago I was up to 1888 on blitz. But that has gone back down to around 1850. My percentage correct continues to creep up. I've been keeping track of all my chess related stats ... and back on Feb 16 my percentage was 57.33%. Today it is up to 57.63%

Logical Chess

I have about seven games left to read. I'm going over them pretty quickly and picking up stuff here and there.

Play

I didn't get a chance to get any games in tonight or the last few nights. By the time I get some other things done and then after I work on tactics and Logical Chess, my brain isn't so fresh, so I end up not playing. I think tomorrow night I will warm up with a few tactics and then dive right into play. I need to play more longish games and avoid the blitz stuff.

Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur

I seem to have forgotten about this book: Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur by Max Euwe and Walter Meiden. I came across a review of this book while blog surfing the other day (reading Abend's Chess who wrote about a game in said book). Judging from the reader reviews at Amazon, it seems like a very useful book. A lot of reviewers compared it to Chernev's Logical Chess, which is what I'm reading now.

hisbestfriend gave some advice when reading the book ... he said he used Fritz to analyze the game while going over the game. He seemed to find a lot of problems with the games, but was convinced he learned more by going through the process of using Fritz while reading the book rather than simply reading the book - read his posts linked below.

I'm considering getting and reading this book.

Links:
CM vs. CA on google books (limited view)
SquirrelChess reviews the book
A Chessbase file of the games in the book (because it's written in descriptive notation)
hisbestfriend wrote a little about the book and some more and some more, still more
BDK says "wonderful book" tempted to give it an A, but gave it a B on his 100 chess book reviews (part 5) ... great book review series by the way.
Takchess offers two cents

Rules for Rooks

Tactics

I worked on a few the last couple of nights. Tonight I didn't have time to get to ChessTempo.

Logical Chess

I finished the Queen's Pawn Opening section of the book tonight by going over game 23. The rooks proved to be extremely valuable in this game. White failed to develop his rooks while Black followed these rules and won:

"In the opening, shift the rooks toward the centre, on files likely to be opened."

"In the middlegame, seize the open files and command them with your rooks."

"In the ending, post your rooks on the seventh rank. Doubled rooks on the seventh rank are almost irresistible in mating attacks. If there is little material left on the board, the seventh rank is a convenient means of manoeuvring a rook behind enemy pawns."

The next section is entitled "The Chess Master Explains his Ideas." According to Chernev, these next games demonstrate "the three great principles that Capablanca advocated and himself utilized so successfully:

1) in the opening, rapid and efficient development;
2) in the middlegame, coordination of pieces;
3) in the ending, accurate and time-saving play."

When I read that, I thought of chessloser's recent post about how if you just play chess as it was meant to be played, you're going be in a good position to win.

Play

I've been playing blitz. I played 3 last night. We need to get a 15 30 time control tournament going again. That will force me to start playing slower games more often. Any takers?

GameBot on FICS

Tactics

I did a few tonight. I also tried my hand (again after a very long time) in standard mode. I lasted two problems. For some reason, the standard mode drives me insane. I can think and think and calculate and calculate for a long, long time. Eventually I either have it nailed down (or I think I do) and I proceed with my moves. Obviously the ones I correctly get give me great satisfaction, but the ones I miss drive me absolutely nuts. It is very taxing. But I see the benefit of it ... the practice in that calculation. With blitz, it is practically a gut reaction. I train my one-second vision of the board and once I get a feel for it, I generally know the plan of action. If I miss, no big deal.

Anyway ... both have their virtues, which is why I'm planning on working in both modes from now on.

Logical Chess

Game 22 was a thrilla. I learned about the Pillsbury Attack.

Play

I played three blitz games on FICS tonight. I should have won all three, but I lost the first and won the other two. The 2nd game went over 70 moves because I stupidly missed a mate in three on move 24.

GameBot on FICS

And lastly ... have you heard about this nifty database? WOW! It has only been around since October 2008, but it contains every game, except bughouse and non-registered user games, that has ever been played on FICS since October 2008. That makes standard/tournament play much more difficult. There were always ways to go get your opponents' games before a tourney, but this little DB gives you a lot more games to study. Go check it out: http://www.ficsgames.com/

You can also add links to previously played games. Here is the game I played tonight that I should have had a mate in 3 on move 24.

#4000

I just hit 4000 blitz tactics completed on ChessTempo.

Rating: 1850.2 (RD: 34.63)(Best Active Rating: 2098 Worst Active Rating: 1729)
Active Rank: 291/722 ( Better than:59.7% Best Active: 84 Worst Active: 410)
Problems Done: 4000 (Correct: 2293 Failed: 1707)
Percentage correct: 57.33%

Of course that is a mere drop compared to the top blitz guy on the site. He's completed over 54,000 tactics!!

Castling: One Giant Leap for Civilization

Tactics

It was an average day. I'm 148 problems from hitting the 4000 mark.

Logical Chess

I read through game 21 (about the Colle System). This is what Chernev said after White castled: "This remarkable coup, by means of which the king is spirited away to safety while the rook magically appears on the scene, is probably the most significant contribution to civilization since the invention of the wheel."

Now that is a hot sports opinion!

Play

I didn't feel much like playing a longish game, so I played a couple of blitz games. I lost to a player I played a few days ago. Then I posted another seek. Three people accepted, but aborted before a move was made. 15 minutes later, someone finally accepted my seek. I did my best to play the Colle. He ended up putting his bishop on f5 which I didn't know what to do with. So I improvised. Eventually I traded my knight for his white bishop and then I got my bishops directly in the center bearing down on his queenside castled king. I won with a checkmate.