Snippet from "Drugs, Chess, Books, or Gambling: How to Fight Boredom in Prison

Read this snippet from this article via /r/chess

Also popular and widely played enough to form a ranked community is chess. Its stars are known throughout the system; I played occasionally for years and never won. The true enthusiasts devote their being to the game, reading books, trading strategies, and easily spending eight hours a day at play in the yard, even in the depths of winter. Most have waterproof sets made of plastic, as the rain doesn't stop them. I've also seen chess sets carved from soap or molded out of spit and cardboard. In solitary confinement, men play chess against each other by screaming; both parties have boards made of paper and ink, and instead of the complicated official system (E2 to E4 and so forth), they have the squares numbered from 1 to 64. It's torture to hear the numbers yelled through the night.

Friday Chess Around the Net

i discovered a chess player who has taken up a challenge: complete all 3914 lessons on chess mentor within one year.  but not only has he set out on this challenge, he's vowed to donate $2600 to an anti-charity.  this little knight errant quest has a bit more teeth to it than your normal quest.  you can follow this guy's quest on his blog: chess challenge.

you may have heard about the new inductees to the national toy hall of fame.  after all these years, the game of chess was inducted.  the other toy that was inducted this week ... rubber duck.  talk about the opposite ends of the toy spectrum!

gareev is up to 15 now.  he's slowly working his way up to 50 to beat the world record.

oh ... and there is some sort of big chess championship going on: link to site.  go matt damon!

Friday Chess Around the Net

GM Timur Gareev plays 10 inmates blindfolded.  I've seen this guy in person at a couple of tournaments.  He seems odder than your average odd GM.  If you look at the pictures of him playing the inmates, you'll see him wearing an outfit that is really odd.  Also, in one of the pictures, he's facing the players.  Why not just turn him around?

Negative Space Chess Set - even more unplayable than your normal artistic unplayable chess set.

Friday Chess Around the Net

Link: one review of Computer Chess

Link: this is an interesting read ... I'll classify this under WTF? A Game of Chess: The Intimacy of Antagonism

Link: a crime scene to turn into a chess park?

Link: another chess movie Pawn Sacrifice.  This article has an interesting opinion; especially this line which piqued my interest, "expect this [movie] to take more of a Rocky path, with most of the film focused on Fischer in the time leading up to his big showdown with Spassky."

Picture: not sure where this picture is from, but I really like it.

Chess Around the Net: "Computer Chess"

I want to see the fake-u-mentary Computer Chess.

Quote: "The actors have to walk a fine line between playing it straight while getting as close as possible to absurd."

YouTube search results

Direct link to film site

Rocket Chess

hat tip to chesshouse ... follow the link to see a couple of pictures.

Chess Around the Net

I haven't done this in a long time ...

Surf n Chess Club
"An avid chess player, Neely had read dozens of studies on the positive effects of chess on learning and wanted to introduce it to his students.

There was one hurdle.

"A 'chess club' is something for eight or nine bright nerds," Neely said. "I wanted something more than that. I wanted something cool for the kids."

So Neely, also a longtime surfer, decided to jazz up the game with Beach Boys tunes and a beach party atmosphere. There was also one hard and fast rule: Students had to shake hands with their opponents to wish them good luck before each game. His students became known at chess tournaments for being the most polite."

Fischer Spassky Board

Bridge (not Chess) in School
"Chess is still the game of choice among educators, but bridge is catching on at a growing number of schools, community leagues and recreational centers across the nation, many of which see the card game as offering similar mental benefits to those of chess, but with a social component."

A Different Kind of Talking Chess Set
Not sure I would pay even $19.99 for this ... interesting.

Chess Around the Net

Here are two articles discussing the benefits of kids playing chess.  The cut-off age is 12-years-old.  After that, you might as well play checkers :-)

Brain over pawn: Childhood chess studies have benefits beyond the board
The benefits of playing chess for children

This is an interesting read: True past of Oregon man emerging from federal probe.  This 'avid' chess player isn't who he says he is.  There's only the one mention of chess in the article, but it's still a interesting read.  There are lots of other articles about this same case as well - 495 according to google.

Playing and improving at chess means happiness.  Read this inspiring article (which notes chess in a list) that talks about how to be truly happy: The Secret to Happiness.  This same article also talks about flow.

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.

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."

Chess Around the Net

Iran vs. United States

When it comes to dealing with Iran, the country's parliamentary speaker said the United States would be better served taking up chess than continuing to box, the country's official news agency reported Saturday.

"The United States needs to play on a chess set (with Iran) instead of playing in a boxing ring," IRNA quoted Ali Larijani as telling a group of visiting reporters in Tehran Saturday.

Why not do both ... literally.

source: Yahoo! News

Deadly Chess Game

Two friends drinking. They play some chess. An argument erupts. One of them pulls out his sword! The other one dies.

This story sounds vaguely familiar.

source: The Mercury News

Phantom Chess

A lot of "computerized" chess sets seem gimicky, but this one actually seems pretty cool. The pieces move by themselves. I guess you "enter" your move and the electro-magnetic piece moves.

Excalibur Chess makes this set.

It sells for about $100 at Amazon.

Source: Proidee

Chess Picture of the Week

Chess-Master: A two-year-old in serious thought.

Chess Around the Net

I haven't done this in a while, but I managed to find some interesting stuff.

This New York Times article reports that American astronaut Greg Chamitoff is playing a game of chess against Mission Control. It also talks a bit about the first chess game played in space (by the Russians of course).

In this Washington Post article, the author relates how he used a chess class as a "crash-protection device" for his GPA. Read the full article for a useful tip in earning a higher GPA by taking a chess class.

Bored with chess? If you're good enough, you can always try rogue financial trading like Matthew Piper ... read more.

First there was chess-boxing. Now we have chess-marathon-running. David Levans, age 69, is determined to play six games of chess using his mobile phone while running a marathon! Read the article here.

In this eulogy, one of the stories described how government officials thought two-time Georgia chess champion A.C. Davis was a spy because he kept sending and receiving mysterious postcards!

Chess Around the Net

In this article, the author discusses the beginning of on-line addictions ... namely chess and web surfing. With regard to playing chess he says,

If I was on a roll then I couldn’t stop. And if I was losing, I’d have to keep playing until I started winning again. I’d have intermittent breaks for “meet­ings” with people who thought they were my co-workers. I’d keep playing until midnight, 1am, 2am, all night sometimes, and stumble home just to change clothes. It was ugly and I was scared.

Scared because the truth finally hit me. It was never going away. It’s not as if this internet chess club was a temporary thing. This was here for ever and it was only going to get worse.

Finally, a friend of mine helped wean me off the online chess server. He showed me a piece of software called Mosaic, which could download and format images and text off the internet. Also audio, but only if you wanted to wait two hours for a download. The worldwide web was just starting and there were maybe a few hundred websites at the time.

He continues,

During this period, I would take the occasional bathroom break from my
chess games and I’d see another guy wandering the halls around midnight or so. He told me he was working on something that could read text and catalogue it and he was testing it out by retrieving pages from the few websites there were. He was hoping for government funding so he could work on his little hobby during the day.

“Yeah, right,” I thought to myself as I locked my office door behind me for another session of one-minute chess. “Good luck with that.”

He went back to his computer, which was named lycos.cs.cmu.edu and eventually became the computer for the search engine he created, Lycos. It helped his net worth top 9 figures by 1997.

He eventually relates his story to being "one click away from internet fortune."

This is quite a cool chess picture ... it's literally cool.

A landscaping idea for my backyard.

Chess Around the Net

Intense Focus

When I'm in a chess game, I can usually block out everything else that is going on. My wife or kids might call me, but most of the time I don't hear them. My wife can carry on a whole conversation while I'm playing chess and then ask me a question ... the answer she will get is the deer-in-the-headlights-look on my face. But when I'm done with a game, my attention to family matters and otherwise returns.

Apparently this blogger forgot to return to reality after playing a blindfold game.

Years ago I played a relatively good blindfold game on the computer, then
got in my car to go somewhere and immediately ran a red light. Mentally I
was still busy analyzing the game instead of watching the road…

Most Expensive Chess Set

I'm sure many have seen this, but I thought I'd include it ... here's an article on a chess set worth $9.8 million.

The Blog Bet

I enjoyed the events of The Bet ... see here and here. Because of that bet, I found some new, interesting blogs! Thanks DG and Mark!

Pictures

I wonder if this man's heart is racing.

Here's a totally scripted chess-shot. Wrong set up. And there's NO WAY the bishop arrived at that position. Plus, it's NOT checkmate.

This shot could be the icon for the Knights Errant ... if these knights aren't errant, then I don't know what is.

Chess Around the Net

Playing chess in Iraq.

Chess and drugs? ... this would be a good picture for a caption contest over at the Boylston CC blog.

"Hip Hop, Chess and Martial Arts Finally Unite in Real Time"

An MBA program that requires a chess class ... very cool. Susan Polgar posted this on her blog today too.

For those of us here in the Dallas area ... UTD starts its ChessFest today.

The Eve of the Battle ... very cool picture of chess pieces making plans.

The Renaissance Festival including Combat Chess.

Chess Around the Net

Over the last few evenings of doing tactics and playing chess, I noticed that I do really well at the beginning ... I'm confident, sure, determined. And then as the tactics roll by, I begin to mentally break down. I notice my thinking isn't so clear.

Today I read an interesting article about the "hardcore sport" of chess. One participant in a recent high school chess tournament said the following,

"You know that feeling you get after you run for a really long time, and you're just so tired and can't even stand? That's how I feel after a meet like this, except it's my mind and my head. I have to do so much thinking."

I think just as in physical sports, we have to build up our endurance ... our mental endurance in chess.

Here is a post with some pictures of the "Charlemagne" Chess set ... very interesting.

Wow ... what an entry!

Cast-iron chess clock.

Chess Around the Net

Prisoners of war in WWII received smuggled mini chess sets. Each set had tools to escape the POW camp ... very interesting! One is up for auction. Read here for more.

These kids get up early every day to play chess at 7:00am. I wonder if blunders are more prevalent in the morning than the evening?

I don't watch Dancing with the Stars, but for what it's worth, a chess player was a finalist on the show ... until she was accused of taking lessons and being a professional dancer.

Chess Around the Net

Read this enjoyable article about The Wonders of Chess.

Play chess, improve in math:

students in the [chess] club improved their math scores on the Connecticut Mastery Test by 30 percent between fifth and sixth grade.

Be good to your kids if you want them to be good chess players,

Chess is not merely a brain game. It is also a game of neurons against
neurons. Obviously neurons with superior dendritic connections and complex networks would win. For building a superior neuronal network there are three requirements - a happy childhood, the right brain stimulating stimuli and a genetic endowment of excellent genes. A happy childhood depends on loving, caring and understanding parents.

A little more backgroud for the previous link.

My wife bought some of these the other day ... I had no idea they existed. Not only do they have chess symbols on them, but they are very delicious! Pepperidge Farm has some good stuff!

Chess Around the Net

"Deep" Kasparov runs on 23 watts,

Q: Let me try to ask the question differently, then. If our brains are
computers, how are they different from the computer that's sitting on my desk?
A: Ahh, that's a great question. So, how does my brain, as adapted
biological computer, differ from the thing that sits beside my desk? Let's think about the time Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, played the chess-playing machine called Deep Blue. In 1996, Kasparov beat Deep Blue quite soundly, but in 1997 Deep Blue eked out a victory, 3.5 to 2.5 in a match. One big difference between Kasparov and the computer is that he remained warm to the touch. This is a guy who can play chess better than anyone, and he can also read books, write poetry and have political opinions. Deep Blue, on the other hand, was a one-ton device with an enormous amount of air conditioning blowing on it, and 256 specialized chess-playing computer chips. If you turned off the air conditioning to Deep Blue it would burst into flames. To my mind, the most amazing thing is that Kasparov could even play that computer. What it means is that Garry Kasparov's brain is freakishly efficient, it's running on about 23 watts while Deep Blue doesn't know how to use energy that efficiently. So, one of the problems that biological computers have solved is how to take in energy and turn it almost into, magically, freakishly efficient computation.

I'm still trying to find a picture of the chess piece.

George Condo has painted the monarch in nine surreal images, including one with carrots sticking out of her ears and another where she's shaped like a chess piece.

Mmm, Pumpkin Chess Bars

A homeless man who used to play chess (Randy Dolinger - 1971) is running for a spot on the city council in Ashland, Oregon.

And while I compare him to his homeless peers, I should add that Randy's
intellect is on a par with many college graduates I have known as well. It
surprised me to find out he was a child prodigy. His favorite focus was chess. It was a game he would master on a par with the great Bobby Fisher. I found his name on a list of champions in North Carolina. In 1971, Randy was great.

Chess Around the Net (Articles About Greatness)

To learn how to achieve greatness in chess, read this.

Another similiar article related to greatness.

Here is an example of complicating the complex.

Interesting blog about chess and business.

Do you think this is a good idea to keep your kids or students from losing interest in chess?

Even then losing the game continuously (and that too by good players who don't make mistakes so often) makes some of us get bored. So, how to carry on the motivation to try forever with out quitting? My dad had the great timeless answer for it. In the middle of the game, he used to just exchange the sides. He takes my king's army which is in a very weak position and I am offered his powerful strong one. It’s Very Simple. Hey, it's also not an easy task to be in the strong side. I used to lose all my army before winning the game. But gradually it made me to learn how to play the winning game and finally the game itself.

Mmmm, chocolate chess pie.