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My Best
Chess! |
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Chess is Fun!
(Mouseover the cartoons for my caption)
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" Castling is for wimps! "
Battle cry of the Brixham Chess Club. |
It’s always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men.’ Savielly Tartakower. |
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Chessword No. 1
You’ll need to draw on your knowledge of the game to answer some of the clues in this puzzle.
I'll accept no responsibility if you damage your screen by writing on it!
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| CLUES ACROSS
1 Deliberately lose material. (abbrev.)
3 Sounds a friendly way to end the game.
5 Give your pieces some elbow room by gaining this.
9 Intense unhappiness (after losing?)
10 You need to watch this to avoid losing on the clock.
11 (and 15 down) Bent’s surname.
12 Play with this and you’ll exhibit style and vigour.
13 Turn on the spot.
16 Scholar’s mate. White plays how many moves?
17 Resembling a sheep.
21 Adjust to different conditions.
22 A game of heroic proportions.
26 To walk in a swaggering, pompous manner.
27 Continent where the game of chess evolved.
28 Spanish river.
30 Sounds like some photographs of royalty.
31 Blundered.
32 Polite rep?
33 Leave it out.
34 Devious. |
CLUES DOWN
1 Country which has given its name to Black’s counter - attacking 1 …c5.
2 The third game of Fischer and Spassky’s 1972 world title match was played in a room where there wasn’t one of these.
3 A player who has exceptional skill.
4 ‘Play any opening as long as it has a bad enough reputation'. Born in Russia 1887; died 1956. Which grandmaster said that?
6 He died in 1795. He had a deep understanding of the art of pawn play. Who was he?
7 He failed twice to wrest the world title from Steinitz. Died 1908. Founding father of Russian chess. Who was he?
8 This can take a bruising when you play chess.
14 A sudden mental aberration.
15 See 11 across.
18 He took the world championship from Botvinnik in 1960 and lost it in the return match the following year.
19 Normally a defensive manoeuvre.
20 Did he hide from the visitor from the States?
23 For example, the Muzio.
24 They are intended to indicate playing strength.
25 Nineteenth century chess genius who beat the best in Europe and died, twenty years later, having never played again.
29 To choose.
Click here when you want the solution. |
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‘To free your game, take off some of your adversary’s men,
if possible for nothing.’
Captain Bertin
‘The Noble Game of Chess’ (1735) |
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As Basil Fawlty might have said,
‘Captain Bertin from Torquay; specialist subject,
the b*##$+*g obvious!’ | |
'Not all artists may be chess players -
but all chess players are artists.'
Marcel Duchamp |
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White to mate in half a move!
You can have some fun with this one down at the club...but be prepared to run when you tell them the answer!
Click here for the solution. |
DID YOU KNOW?
For more than 500 years chess players’ moves were determined by rolling dice. |
How far we've come!
Browsing through the shelves of a second-hand book shop I found 'The Complete Book of Chess' by Horowitz and Rothenberg. (The copy I bought was printed in 1971).
In the chapter entitled The Future of Chess they refer to 'Chess playing robots' and say,
'...in the absence of a fantastic superspeed electronic brain, the chess championship of the world
is likely to be retained by humans for centuries to come.' |
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I recently tried to make sense out of the following rules of the game:-
You may find it hard to believe but I've faithfully copied the following extracts from the printed instructions on the back of a chess set I know is currently on sale in England.
(I know because a friend with a sense of humour bought the set for me!) I shudder to think how many kids are put off learning to play chess because they were bought this set by well-meaning relatives.
Any typos you spot are theirs not mine!
CHESS
Lots are drawn to establish who has the red chessmen and, thus, who can move first. This player is then allowed the 16 red chess pieces and the other paver the 16 black chess pieces. (The pieces in the set were transparent plastic and purple.)
The board is positioned so that each paver has a dark corner square on his left. (Ok, except the board pictured on the box...yes you guessed it.) The rooks are positioned on the two corner squares to the left and right, next to these come the two knights, one on the left and one on the right. Next to these the two bishops and, in the centre, the queen and king.
The rooks move only on the ranks and files any distance, and the bison only on the diagonals.
It is not alligator to capture your opponent. If the king is threatened check must be given (the player must saucier check). The opponent is then iodide to protect his long by moving the king to another square or moving one of his own pieces between is and the threatening piece or capturing the opposing attacker. If he is unable to make any of the above moves, the king is said to be checkmated and the game ends in favor of the opponent.
We must stall mention one pecuniary: casing. Cashing is a company move of the king and one rook (formally called castle) that may be made. if at all. only once per game. It is legal if if neither the king or the rook has yet moved. If all the squares between them on the rank are vacant and no adverse piece commands two squares nearest the king on the side on which casting is to be earned cut and if the king is not in check.
Ok - so if it was written by a well-meaning person whose first language wasn't English then I applaud the effort. I certainly wouldn't be able to write the rules of chess in any language other than my own. But couldn't someone somewhere along the production and distribution lines have checked that it made sense before producing thousands of them?
(If you got here via Chess Articles/Why Can't They Get It Right? - here's a link back.) |
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Such old-world charm…..
During a lightning tournament in Berlin, Aaron Nimzowitsch leapt onto his chair and yelled across the hall:
‘Why must I lose to this idiot?!’ |
Chesse-play is a good and wittie exercise for the
mind of some kind of men, and fit for such
melancholy persons as are idle and have impertinent
thoughts, or troubled with cares, nothing better to
distract their minde and alter their meditations;
invented (some say) by the General of an army in a
famine to keepe his soldiers from mutiny.
But if it proceed from overmuch study, in such a case
it may doe more harme than good; it is a game too
troublesome for some men's braines, too full of
anxiety, all out as bad as study; and besides it is a
testy cholericke game and very offensive to him that
loseth the mate.
Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 1626 |
Poems about chess are rare indeed.
This one is by A. A. Milne (1882 - 1956), the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh.
He was born in England and studied Mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge University.
It was written long before he saw the horrors of the First World War trenches
and at a time I always picture as though through a soft-focus lens; relaxed, hot summer days of blazers, boaters and punts.
Here's the poem - with Milne's own semi-apologetic preface: -
(The author cannot lay claim to any technical knowledge of chess, but he fancies that
he understands the spirit of the game. He feels that, after the many poems on the Boat Race,
a few bracing lines on the Inter-University Chess Match would be a welcome change.)
The Ballad of Edward Bray
This is the ballad of Edward Bray,
Captain of Catherine's, Cambridge Blue -
Oh, no one ever had just his way
Of huffing a bishop with KB2.
The day breaks fine, and the evening brings
A worthy foe in the Oxford man -
A great finesser with pawns and things,
But quick in the loose when the game began.
The board was set, and the rivals tossed,
But Fortune (alas!) was Oxford's friend.
'Tail' cried Edward, and Edward lost:
So Oxford played from the fireplace end.
We hold our breath, for the game's begun -
Oh, who so gallant as Edward Bray!
He's taken a bishop from KQ1
And ruffed it just in the Cambridge way!
Then Oxford castles his QBKnight
(He follows the old, old Oxford groove;
Though never a gambit saw the light
That's able to cope with Edward's move.)
The game went on, and the game was fast,
Oh, Oxford huffed and his King was crowned,
The exchange was lost, and a pawn was passed,
And under the table a knight was found!
Then Oxford chuckled; but Edward swore,
A horrible, horrible oath swore he;
And landed him one on the QB4,
And followed it up with an RQ3.
Time was called; with an air of pride
Up to his feet rose Edward Bray.
'Marker, what of the score?' he cried,
'What of the battle I've won this day?'
The score was counted; and Bray had won
By two in honours, and four by tricks,
And half of a bishop that came undone,
And all of a bishop on KQ6.
Then here's to Chess: and a cheer again
For the man who fought on an April day
With never a thought of sordid gain!
England's proud of you, Edward Bray! |
Why do golfers spend hours practising their putting?
Because, typically, putts account for half the shots played in a round of golf.
Here's a thought to remember: -
'Pawn endings are to chess what putting is to golf.' Purdy
And here's one to forget: - 'Given a Geometric Symbol Positive or a combination of Geometric Symbols Positive which is coincident with the Objective Plane; then, if the Prime Tactical Factor can be posted at the Point of Command, the adverse King may be checkmated.' Franklin K. Young
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Lots more chess fun to be added soon.
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