More from Theo Slade

As I've said, I asked Theo Slade to write for us. It turns out he's already writing for BCM and the CFCC. That's good! I care more about decent content than I do where it gets published. I'm particularly interested in the writing about the local chess scene, as I suspect that could help generate, or at least maintain, local interest.

Theo's first article for BCM from Florida concerned his culture shock adjusting to American chess culture. His articles for BCM since then have been more about the international scene. But I'm happy to report that Theo wrote up a lengthy report about his three tournaments in July, two in Philadelphia and one here in Orlando. You can find that article here, kind of hidden on the CFCC's Games page. Recommended, especially if you're likely to play local Class A or Expert players. Consider it a scouting report!

A real throwback!

World Junior Championship, 1953. F Olafsson vs J Penrose. Photo: Arinbjörn Gudmundsson. Courtesy Gunnar Finnlaugsson pic.twitter.com/JLcw9XH5VU

— Lars Grahn (@larsgrahn) August 22, 2016

Coming soon, a special three part series of lectures!

Topic: How to become a Class B player!

2017 United States Amateur Team South Announcement

Jon Haskel has sent out the following information via email:

Mark your calendars for the 2017 U.S. Amateur Team Championship South that will be taking place in Kissimmee, Florida, February 17 to February 19. The Hotel is just minutes from Disney, Universal, etc. The average daytime high in February is in the mid-seventies.

The special Hotel rate is $75 per night. The Hotel has waived its normal $15 resort fee, so guests will have free high speed Internet, unlimited use of the fitness facility, outdoor pool with fresh towels, free parking, and free daily newspaper. A full breakfast buffet will be available for only $6 per person.

More details will follow soon.

Many of you no doubt received the email, so this is for those that haven't. Please pass the information along to anyone that might be interested. In the future look to the Boca Raton Chess Club's website or Facebook page for more information. We will also post additional information here as it becomes available

Congratulations to Jon Haskel for winning the bid, and thanks for putting together the bid in the first place. It is most appreciated.

Theo Slade's second article.

As mentioned a few posts back, Theo Slade writes for BCM, and also posts the articles on the Central Florida Chess Club website. His second article to appear at the CFCC was on the Candidates Tournament from a few months ago. Theo analyzes the magnificent round nine encounter Giri-Caruana. If you haven't seen that one yet, definitely check it out.

It's Sabotage!

From Lars Grahn:

Olympiad 1988. USSR Gold. Makarychev(?), Yusupov, Beliavsky, Karpov, Ivanchuk, and Kasparov. Photo: Lars Grahn pic.twitter.com/9rQTarBct2

— Lars Grahn (@larsgrahn) August 18, 2016

Check out Chuky's 'stache! Gives me an idea for what we could do for the next USATS. Clearly Paul would have to play the part of Sir Stewart Wallace....

Chessplayer's head explodes!

An oldie but a goodie from the Weekly World News:

How To Tell If Your Head's About To Blow Up

From the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS, May 24, 1994

MOSCOW -- Doctors are blaming a rare electrical imbalance in the brain for the bizarre death of a chess player whose head literally exploded in the middle of a championship game!

No one else was hurt in the fatal explosion but four players and three officials at the Moscow Candidate Masters' Chess Championships were sprayed with blood and brain matter when Nikolai Titov's head suddenly blew apart. Experts say he suffered from a condition called Hyper-Cerebral Electrosis or HCE.

"He was deep in concentration with his eyes focused on the board," says Titov's opponent, Vladimir Dobrynin. "All of a sudden his hands flew to his temples and he screamed in pain. Everyone looked up from their games, startled by the noise. Then, as if someone had put a bomb in his cranium, his head popped like a firecracker." 

Unfortunately, I can't find the story on the WWN website (the tabloid ceased paper publication many years ago before returning in digital format), so you'll have to read the rest at this archive on an MIT (!!) website. The article is well worth reading, as it does include a list of questions to help you identify if you have HCE. I highly recommend reading the whole article - it can save your life! It has certainly saved mine, as it helped me identify as a young man that I too suffered from HCE, and my head hasn't (literally) exploded in the 22 years since I was diagnosed. People, modern medicine WORKS.

"Tempus fugit..."

That was Nigel Short's twitter reaction to this tweet by Lars Grahn:

Thessaloniki Olympiad 1988. England Silver. Speelman, Nunn, Chandler, Mestel, Watson, and Short. Photo: Lars Grahn pic.twitter.com/NGdjuC2WRy

— Lars Grahn (@larsgrahn) August 17, 2016

He's not wrong!

Articles by Theo Slade

I recently asked Theo Slade if he'd like to write for our blog. But it turns out he has been a regular contributor to British Chess Magazine for a few years now! I knew about one article he had written, but didn't know about the others. So he's already writing a fair amount.

Fortunately for us, his articles are available even if you don't subscribe to British chess periodicals. In recent months he has allowed the Central Florida Chess Club to post his articles on their website. Here's the first one, Culture Shock, which many of is at the club have already seen. This covers some of the differences between English and Florida chess cultures. (Yes, it's really US chess culture, but each of the bigger states will have their own particular culture.)

One of the big points is that in the USA we use delay time controls instead of incremental time controls. This is something I wonder about myself. Increments were first proposed to a wider audience by Bobby Fischer. (Off the top of my head I can't remember if anyone else suggested the idea earlier.) As far as I know, we're the only major chess country who prefers delay to increments, and I just don't understand it. Increments have been popular online since the days of ICS, and that got its start at Carnegie-Mellon University. So why USCF tournaments prefer delay really baffles me.

Regardless, you can read Theo's article there, as well as play through the game he annotates. I recommend it, and I will link to the other articles in coming days, or readers can find them on the CFCC website. Enjoy!

Ben Franklin on Chess

A long time ago, Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay on the morals of chess, creatively titled "The Morals of Chess". The link provides some context and commentary. One thing in particular I'd like to point out:

4. If your adversary is long in playing, you ought not to hurry him, or express any uneasiness at his delay. You should not sing, nor whistle, nor look at your watch, nor take up a book to read, nor make a tapping with your feet on the floor, or with your fingers on the table, nor do anything that may disturb his attention. For all these things displease. And they do not show your skill in playing, but your craftiness or your rudeness.

We are fortunate to live in a time when this piece of advice is largely irrelevant. I'm thinking Franklin would have been much pleased with the advent of chess clocks, though I have no idea what he'd think of speed chess.

Clermont's Olympians

Clermont has at lest three Olympians this year, two Americans and one Trinidadian.

Machel Cedenio is a sprinter from Trinidad and Tobago, who specializes in the 400M sprint. I just saw him qualify for the Semi-Finals in that event by winning his preliminary heat. (I'm watching on tape delay.) He trains in Clermont with Tori Bowie, an American woman who will be competing in the 200M sprint and perhaps other track & field events. I had no idea Clermont had any track & field Olympians who train in Clermont!

But I did know about the third. James McTigue, of our club, will be competing in the Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan in September. This will mark at least his second appearance as a member of the US Virgin Islands team. He previously competed in the 1990 Novi Sad Chess Olympiad in what was then Yugoslavia, and is now Serbia.

Best of luck to all three of you!

Weebles wobble, but can they play chess?

Yes they can! Via David Llada's & Nerd 360 Graus New's Facebook pages, I give you Wobble Chess.

Here's the video from the Facebook post.


And here's another short video with a little more about the design.


And just in case you're wondering, you can buy this set for a mere $249.95 from Amazon. It looks like it has two inch squares. Personally I like the design quite a bit, though I think the metal bottoms of the pieces would ding up the board. Should Garry or Paul buy a set, I'd love to give it a go!

23rd Space Coast Open Second Place Brilliancy Prize [Corrected]

[Notes have been corrected somewhat for spelling and grammar, and a few additional notes have been made. Plus, it's now published with the fancy ChessBase viewer.]

In the new edition of Florida CHESS, the FCA's quarterly magazine, the three 'brilliancy prize'* games from the 23rd Space Coast Open are reproduced. The first and third place games are provided with notes, but not the second place game. That seems wrong to me, so I've made an attempt at providing an analysis of the game. With all due apologies to Mr. Andretta and Mr. Dawley, here is my effort. 

(The game can be replayed either at the link above, or below the fold within the webpage. Does anyone have an opinion on which they prefer?)

* I agree with Paul Leggett that these would be more properly called 'best game' prizes. 'Brilliancy' is a lot to live up to!

You had one job.

So Agon/FIDE announced the site of the next World Championship Match, and naturally they released a bunch of promotional material. Chess.com has a nice write up. They also posted the following picture and caption.

Makes me all like

Krogius on Spassky's preparations for the 1972 match with Fischer

One of the blogs over on Chess.com has a lengthy collection of excerpts from Nikolai Krogius about Boris Spassky's preparations for the match with Fischer. Krogius was one of Spassky's coaches at the time, and was also later his biographer. The quotes actually come from the biography, if I understand correctly. In any event, if you haven't read them before, they might prove interesting. Here's the link.

Hat tip: Brian Karen, via Dennis Monokroussus of The Chess Mind

One particular bit I'd like to point out. From Krogius:

As was agreed beforehand, I brought the data about the reasons of Fischer's and Spassky's losses and about peculiarities of their playing in important games I studied in Saratov. Interestingly enough, several years later I read an interesting book by grandmaster E. Mednis, How to Beat Bobby Fischer, published in the United States in 1974. Fischer's lost games were analyzed in the book. When reading Mednis' work, I would often encounter evaluations and reasonings similar to my own. So, in essence, Mednis and I did the same work independently. Sadly, my work didn't attract Spassky's attention and is now gathering dust in archives.

It would be interesting to compare Krogius's work to that of Mednis - and then to re-evaluate all of it with appropriate programs!