Sophie and the World Champion

This is Sophie Seeber preparing for her round 3 game at the European Chess Championships. Her opponent is Mariam Danelia, the World U12 Chess Champion.

Thanks to Peter Sowray for the picture.

The battle of Chess Tales

We battled to the wire tonight, but my pressure in the ending eventually told when Martin short of time missed the chance to draw.

The team won 4-0; so we are through to the next round of the knockout.

Gloves off at Chess Tales

It's "gloves off" today in the Chess Tales Studio:

Tonight my team (Tynemouth) are taking on Forest Hall in the first round of the summer chess knockout, and top board for the opposition will be fellow Chess Tales' contributor Martin Seeber.

Wish us both luck, and a fair fight with no biting, gouging or punches below the belt.

Friday chess puzzle #2: Asztalos-Ban

This week's chess puzzle is from Asztalos vs Ban, Budapest 1956.




It's White to play and the question is: with best play is this position won, drawn or lost? And, give me the first 3 moves of your solution.

Answers by email to Roger AT 21Thoughts DOT com (solution will appear on Wednesday)

I sourced the position from 1960 book: "The Delights of Chess" by Assiac. Assiac was the name of Heinrich Fraenkel's long running chess column in the New Statesman. The book brings together and expands on all of his best columns, and includes such intriguing chapter titles as "Is this proper Marxism?" and "Dostoyevsky has nothing to do with it". The New Statesman is the same journal that Tony Miles wrote for.

Chess on the big screen: Queen of Cactus Cove

Queen of Cactus Cove is an award-winning short movie about Billie, a girl with aspirations to be a national chess champion. Their chess adviser certainly knows the game better than most; check out the King's Indian vs. King's Gambit cracks, the pain of a bad loss, and some 'true-ish to life' chess and tournament sequences.

It came out last year and has mainly been shown on the festival circuit. The full movie (22 minutes) is now available to watch online at the Independent Film Channel's Media Lab.

From the sublime to the ridiculous next. I suspect many of you will have already have encountered the hilariously awful "Chess Now", which apparently airs on Manhattan Neighbourhood Network TV. For those who haven't, here's episode 1 (warning contains some offensive material). YouTube has 3 more episodes and an interview with the 'brains' behind the show.

Thursday teaser #2: sex is like chess

The latest episode of which TV show featured the quote:

"Sex is like chess; when you are playing with an inferior competitor your game suffers"

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Pasadena 1983: Going, going, gone

My first "Chess in the Attic" post talked about the Korchnoi - Kasparov Candidates semi final match in London in 1983; Garry's most difficult hurdle (with the exception of Karpov himself) en route to the World crown.

Originally the match had been scheduled to take place in Pasadena (California), but to the surprise of most of the chess world was cancelled at the last minute. Jack le Moine has posted an interesting article from Stephen Jones on the behind the scenes shenanigans in Pasadena, how a group of 4 chess enthusiasts nearly lost an awful lot of money, underhand organisations (not FIDE this time!), and the difficulty in getting corporate and TV interest in chess.