Chess photos

Today I discovered some fascinating old chess photos and incredible videos on a Brazilian chess site, xeque.net. It's definitely worth a visit, even if you don't speak Portuguese.

One photo I came across was Boris Ivkov playing Tigran Petrosian in 1979, we featured their encounter at this event (albeit with colours reversed) in a recent Friday chess puzzle:




The first image that caught my eye though, was this incredible picture of what I guess must have been the Leningrad Boys Chess Team:



Without the captions, it would have made for a great quiz question.

Other highlights on the site include video coverage of Tal, Fischer, Keres and Benko at Zagreb 1959, and amazing footage of Capablanca, Alekhine, Grunfeld and others from the Moscow tournament in 1925!

Sponsoring chess players

I had lunch today with the owner of a sports management agency, and moved the conversation onto the concept of businesses sponsoring chess players (ok, more truthfully, I asked, tongue in cheek, "who was going to sponsor me to play at the British Championships").

Having initially dismissed it as a non-starter, we then decided that whilst obviously not in the same league as golfers, tennis players and footballers, chess players might nonetheless be a more attractive association for some businesses than we'd first thought.



I know that some national chess organisations have received 'philanthropic' backing from businesses, but I'm not aware of many individual players having sponsors, Luke McShane with Psion and Garry Kasparov with Intel are exceptions that come to mind.

Are you aware of any other sponsored chess players?

What's the most exciting thing chess players could do to attract sponsors, and what's our least attractive attribute?

What businesses would make the worst and best targets for chess?

Le 'blogosphere des echecs'

Le monde français throws up some interesting sites in the chess blogosphere. The latest site I've discovered there is "Echecs, cinéma, TV et DVD... léger", which translated (I had to look up léger!) means "chess, cinema, TV and DVD... lighthearted".

Anyway, it's a fun site that spots chess scenes / references on the big and little screen, and welcomes 'spots' from its readers.

Everytime I try to speak french, I'm reminded of the Fawlty Towers episode where Basil is getting increasingly 'hot under the collar' as he's teased suggestively by a french guest:

Basil: Et maintenant un peu café?
Mrs Peignoir: Ah, oui, s'il vous plait. Café au lait.
Basil: Café what?
Mrs Peignoir: Au lait.
Basil: Ah! Café... Olé!

BBC Mastergame chess series

Does anyone have the BBC Mastergame on VHS / DVD?

The Mastergame was a series of chess programmes that the BBC ran back in the late 70's / early 80's. It covered a collection of games from tournaments put on by the BBC, and included some great players such as Karpov, a young Short, Miles and Gligoric.

Highlights of the game were shown along with the Grandmasters talking about the thoughts and ideas they had during play. It was great chess TV.

I wanted some footage for a previous 'chess in the attic' post, and now, Sean Parker, over on chessforums.org is also looking for copies of the programmes.

Chess on Peep Show

Chess made it onto Peep Show, British TV's top comedy programme, tonight. You can watch the whole episode online with Channel 4's on-demand service, 4oD, although last time I checked it wasn't compatible with Apple Macs (because of the DRM scheme)... which is kind of ironic as the Peep Show guys currently do the adverts for Macs over in the UK!

Chess in the attic: December 1983 (part 2)

The lead stories in issue 2 of Chess Express back in December 1983 were Garry Kasparov finding life tough at the top against Viktor Korchnoi, and Nigel Short making history in Russia.

Kasparov was trailing Korchnoi 1-0 after 5 games of their Candidates semi final match, but the 'stop press' did reveal he had adjourned with some winning chances in game 6. As we know, Kasparov won the adjournment, went on to win the match and start his saga of duels for the World crown with Anatoly Karpov.

Short meanwhile was becoming the first Western player in modern times to win a tournament in the Soviet Union, scoring 9 out of 13 in the Baku International. Incredibly, despite the field including Mark Taimanov and a number of other grandmasters, the result was not good enough for a GM norm, and 18-year old Short remained an IM.

10 years later, Nigel Short was the man who eliminated Karpov from World Championship reckoning, and went on to play Kasparov for the title. This week, he goes back to play in Baku, birthplace of Kasparov, for the first time since 1983.

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.

Chess in the Attic 1980: Tony Miles and the Dragon

I was up in the attic (again!) looking for an old chess scoresheet when I came across a treasure I thought was lost: a 1980 Tony Miles column from the New Statesman, "The Maltese Dragon".

The column gave a detailed analysis of his game with the Sicilian Dragon against Ljubomir Ljubojevic at the Malta Olympiad. I've wanted to blog about this article for a while. It made a huge impression on me at the time and has always stuck in my mind; I was delighted to discover I still had it.

As a schoolboy, I was amazed by the complexity of the game and of the host of variations that Miles seemed to glibly trot-out (in pre-Fritz days). It was a bit like being in the first year and seeing a sixth former's maths book full of calculus: "I'd never be able to do that". Actually, thinking back to my maths A-level grade perhaps I never was able to do that.

Without the Internet, getting hold of the latest chess games in 1980 was a treat. Miles's column in the New Stateman (a 'socialist' weekly that my enlightened Independent School took in the Library) and Michael Stean's column in the Observer were favourites.

Here are the basic moves in pgn. The game is excellent in itself, but for full effect you need to read Miles notes and commentary. Let me know if you'd like a large format scan.

Ljubomir Ljubojevic - Tony Miles, Malta 1980
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.h4 Rc8 11.Bb3 h5 12.O-O-O Ne5 13.Bg5 Rc5 14.f4 Nc4 15.Qd3 b5 16.e5 Ng4 17.Ne4 Rc8 18.exd6 f6 19.Rhe1 exd6 20.Nxd6 Kh7 21.f5 Nxd6 22.fxg6 Kh8 23.Bf4 Ne5 24.Bxe5 fxe5 25.Nf3 e4 26.Qxd6 exf3 27.Re7 Bg4 28.Qe5 Qxd1+ 29.Kxd1 fxg2 30.Kd2 Rfd8+ 31.Bd5 Rxd5+ 0-1

You can also play through the game online.

Miles and Ljubojevic played some fantastic games, including another Dragon in 1986 to which Robert Byrne gave a tennis 'derived' commentary in the New York Times. They also hold the record for the longest number of moves a piece has been left en-prise. Unfortunately, Tony, England's first Grandmaster, died prematurely after some troubled years. Ljubomir, the "foremost player of risky moves" according to Jim Loy, now lives in Spain but keeps on attacking.

Chess in the attic, December 1983

I've been in the attic again, and this time it's December 1983; one of the most exciting months ever in the world of chess:

Earlier in the year, a 20 year old Garry Kasparov had romped through his first candidates match with Beliavsky, and seemed on an unstoppable march to the world crown.

In the semi-final matches, held that month in London, Kasparov had to face the great Viktor Korchnoi, whilst the other match remarkably brought together the hungarian Pinter Ribli and 62 year old Vassily Smyslov, some 26 years after he'd previously held the title.

With the matches in London, and Tony Miles beating World Champion Anatoly Karpov in the final of the much lamented BBC Mastergame, chess in the UK was buzzing.

To coincide with it all, a new chess newspaper was launched: Chess Express, promising news every fortnight and boasting an unbeatable array of feature columnists: Kasparov, Karpov, Nunn on endings, Speelman on the middlegame, and Keene on the openings. This was exciting and ambitious. Unfortunately too ambitious, and it folded after just 8 issues. On the bright side, it got me playing the Saemisch against the Nimzo-Indian and a few notable scalps bagged.

Kasparov versus Korchnoi was clearly the big event. They'd played once before, a monumental tussle in the Benoni at the Luzern Olympiad and, after Kasparov's victory there, it seemed that even Viktor Korchnoi would pose little trouble for Garry.

For a couple of years Kasparov had been trouncing anyone who dared to play the Queen's Indian against him; he played Petrosian's a3 system and you waited, usually not for very long, for him to tear apart your king. Only a mad-man, would dare to venture the defence, but that's just what Korchnoi did as Black in game 1:




So Korchnoi led, and for the next 4 games he held Kasparov at bay; had he held the difficult rook endgame in the 6th who knows what might have happened. After that though, Kasparov upped a gear and finished the match in style.

Chess blogs: best of the week

Two chess stories on the blogosphere caught my eye this week for wackiness: firstly there was Boylston Chess Club pointing to a plan to cover chess on the radio, If you find televised chess too interesting, and the BCM blog introducing us to chess and jazz, You got the blues?. Not on a par with Chess Boxing, but getting there.

I'm interested in what we can achieve with new media, and not so new like video, in helping us to learn, develop and even promote chess. So, it's good to see Boylston providing a guide to some of the chess video material that's becoming available on the web, Chess video goes mainstream.

Chess in the Attic: top chess players 1982 style

Yesterday I decided to discover a vast collection of lost chess manuscripts; either that, or I was tidying the attic.

Flicking through some copies of "Chess" magazine from 1982, the headlines were hardly memorable: "Miles wins British Championship at last" seemed to be the highlight. Actually, in my chess house, 1982 will always be remembered as the year before my first appearance at the Britsh (U16 in Southport) and an unusual opening gambit from Cathy Forbes.

The July rating list caught my eye though: the top 3 were predictable enough, but Robert Hübner, a German best known for walking out of tournaments, was a surprise at number 4. The actual rating points is the most interesting though, Karpov's 2700 was good enough for 1st place in 1982, but would only get him 21st place in 2007, and Hübner's 2630 would wedge him in between Azmaiparashvili and Sutovsky in 84th spot.

Korchnoi, the elder stateman of the top 4 in 1982, but still active 25 years on, remains within 6 rating points of his 1982 figure.

Rating inflation has been talked about many times before: Rob from Tennessee uses it to argue that Paul Morphy is the greatest player of all time, although according to Wikipedia he doesn't come close.

Here's Morphy turning on the style at the Opera:

Sending the queen home

Last week in the search for heroic chess failures, I wrote about the difficulty spotting 'backwards moves', and mentioned Bronstein enthusing about a position where the White queen returned to d1 to deliver the knockout blow.

Malcolm Pein picks up on the same subject today in The Daily Telegraph: when to beat a retreat. This time it's the Black queen returning to d8, and Magnus Carlsen failing to find the stunning finish in his rapid game against Leko from the Melody Amber tournament.

Sophie hopes to make checkmates in Europe

You can check out the Hexham Courant newspaper's coverage of Sophie online: "Sophie hopes to make checkmates in Europe"

Sophie's on board for Europe

"Sophie's on board for Europe" was the front page headline in the Morpeth Herald yesterday. Look out for more chess in today's Hexham Courant, with features on Sophie and also on Jack Bradshaw, the new county U15 champion.

It also transpires that Sophie was already a movie star: Cluedo. Happy viewing!

Chess Tales in the bdaily

The bdaily, a North East business newsletter, ran a Chess Tales story today: NE schoolgirl in bid for European chess glory.

Chess on TV: an apology

Apologies to those who waited patiently to watch the feature on ITV Tyne Tees tonight; they had a delay completing the piece.

On the bright side, the reporter assures me that the finished story looks fantastic and that they are hoping to air it on either Thursday or Friday evening this week.

The 'film' set at Matfen Hall

Yesterday was a long day with radio first thing, TV and Newspaper in the afternoon, and a league match to play in the evening. Everything went really well though.

The BBC Radio Newcastle interview ran all morning as a main news headline "local schoolgirl dusts off her knights for European battle", we'll try and get a podcast to download.

In the afternoon the Morpeth Herald sent a photographer who met up with us at Matfen Hall and grabbed a few pictures, but the highlight had to be the 3-hour TV shoot with Alastair and Ben Chapman from ITV Tyne Tees. Looking at the footage on the monitor, our small news piece was shaping up like a work of film art: low angles, close ups, rotating boards, dwindling candles in a darkened library (very "Tales of the Unexpected"). The guys are editing the piece this morning, and hopefully it should air on the 6pm news this evening. If ITV are kind to us, we'll get a copy to play from the blog.

The library restaurant at Matfen looked great for the piece, and thanks are due to David Hunter and the staff there who were incredibly helpful.

Ok, I wasn't being entirely truthful before, of course the highlight wasn't the TV shoot, it was my game of chess against Dave Weldon in the evening. Unfortunately for Dave, I seem to save my one good game / season for our encounters:

Roger Coathup - Dave Weldon, Hexham 20th March 2007
1 d4 Nf6; 2 c4 e6; 3 Nc3 d5; 4 cd ed; 5 Bg5 Be7; 6 e3 Nbd7; 7 Bd3 Nf8; 8 Nge2 Ne6; 9 Bh4 0-0; 10 0-0 c6; 11 Qc2 g6; 12 f3 Nh5; 13 Bf2 f5; 14 Rad1 Bh4; 15 g3 Bg5; 16 e4 fe; 17 fe de; 18 Ne4 Bh6; 19 Bc4 Kh8; 20 d5 cd; 21 Bd5 Qe7; 22 Qc4 Bg7; 23 N2c3 Ng5; 24 Bc5 Rf1+; 25 Rf1 Qe5; 26 Ng5 Qg5; 27 Ne4 Qe5; 28 Rf8+ Bf8; 29 Bd4 1-0

We'd turned up for the match a man short (my mistake!), but fortunately John Morton, David Henderson and Paul Dargan also delivered to keep our slim title hopes alive.

ITV News Stills

Chess in the media

One of the things that struck me most when visiting South America was the status accorded to chess. Not only was the game played in the streets and parks, but the tournaments and players were given lots of column inches, often even front page, in the daily newspapers.

In the UK, commentators like Malcolm Pein in the Daily Telegraph do a sterling job, but are limited to small pieces buried deep in the paper. It seems that this is the case in the States as well, witness the recent pleading to save chess from Susan Polgar, ground-breaking player turned lobbyist and chess businesswoman, in her blog.

So, we're going to enjoy riding our wave of publicity at Chess Tales (TV, Radio and now Newspaper) and hope it's not our last. On the other hand, we might just all emigrate to Peru.

Talking European chess on BBC Radio

Just a quick snippet to let you know you can hear Sophie talking about the upcoming European Chess Championships on BBC Radio Newcastle tomorrow morning. She's due to be on air at 7.20am.