Media comments on chess

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Peter D Williams
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Peter D Williams » Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:47 pm

JustinHorton wrote:It would also have come to your attention had you glanced a little up the thread...
I see no other posts on mince pies :wink:
when you are successful many losers bark at you.

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JustinHorton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Jan 13, 2014 4:26 pm

More on that Atlético-Barcelona game:

And while chess might not be exciting it can be compelling. Besides, if this was chess it was Kasparov v Karpov stuck on fast-forward with both men staring darkly, meanly at his opponent, determined not just to take his pawn, but to smash it into submission.
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

Simon Spivack
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Simon Spivack » Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:27 pm

JustinHorton wrote:Or listen (worthwhile if only to hear the pronunciation of Alekhine).
A good rule of thumb on such matters is to check Edward Winter's website first. On page http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter21.html there is CN 4284:
Below is a reference to Alekhine from page 184 of Grandmasters of Chess by Harold C. Schonberg (Philadelphia and New York, 1973):

‘It infuriated him when his name was pronounced Al-OKCH-in. That was a Jewish pronunciation; the correct pronunciation was Al-YEKCH-in.’

What evidence exists that any particular pronunciation of his name infuriated Alekhine? An ipse dixit by Schonberg hardly suffices.
This naturally leads to http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter103.html, item 7974:
In response to the question at the end of C.N. 4289, Vitaly A. Komissaruk (Kasan, Russian Federation) quotes from page 177 of Lev Lubimov’s book На чужбине (‘In Exile’), published in Moscow in 1963 and reprinted in Tashkent in 1965: ... He liked to point out his descent from a noble family and insisted on pronouncing his last name without the dots above the “e”. For instance, when anybody asked on the telephone for “A.A. Alëkhin” he would always reply, “Such a person does not exist; there is Alekhin”.
Incidentally, "Kazan" would be a more common spelling than "Kasan". When transliterating foreign words, I tend to avoid a solitary letter "s", because of the ambiguity in pronunciation. This is why, for instance, I prefer, when writing "Лариса" in English, "Larissa" to "Larisa", the singleton in the latter could lead to an incorrect sounding of "z" by a native English speaker.

Simply quoting Winter does not absolve one of the responsibility of thinking for oneself. Going further, it is highly likely that Schonberg's evidence came from Kmoch. One can find it at ChessCafé, the link is http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch05.pdf. The germane part reads:
While reading those articles, I remembered that Alekhine used to get angry if his name was pronounced Al-YOH-khin, the way Russians sometimes pronounced it. The correct Russian pronunciation, he said, was Al-YEH-khin, explaining that the name was derived from that of a tree (‘alyesha’) that grew abundantly near one of his family’s estates. “Al-YOH-khin,” he claimed, was a Yiddish distortion of his name, like Trotsky for Troitsky or Feigl for the German Vogel. But strangely, no one whom I ever heard pronounce the name Al-YOH-khin was Jewish. One was a friendly elderly gentleman named (I believe) Tereshchenko. A Russian émigré like Alekhine, he had been named to the position of Alekhine’s second in the 1929 match against Bogolyubov mainly to please the world champion. He immediately antagonized Alekhine by addressing him as “Gospodin [Mr.] Alyokhin.”
Note that Kmoch, for obvious reasons, was very unsympathetic towards Alekhine.

As an aside, it is a racing certainty that the "Dr B" mentioned by Kmoch was Bohatirchuk.

I have been in touch with Bernard Cafferty. No dictionary of his gives Alekhine's name as deriving from that of a tree. Alekhine is known for not being the most dependable of sources. Bernard has looked up SLOVAR' SOVREMMENNYKH RUSSKIKH FAMILII (Dictionary of Contemporary Russian Family Names), a 670 page reference book that was published in 2001. He has also looked up the four volume Dal. In brief, he confirms that the pronunciation is as given by Kmoch. This is in contravention to how most Russians today would pronounce the name. The subtlety, if one can call it that, is that Stalin largely succeeded in extirpating the intelligentsia. In crude terms, with few exceptions, anyone with a posh accent and pronunciation was for the high jump in the 1920s and '30s.

Bernard went further, he recalls a conversation he had at Wijk in the 1970s with the German IM and jurist H. Lehmann. Lehmann was a young man during the Nazi period. One time he personally witnessed Alekhine indignantly rejecting the "yo" version.

Note, also from Bernard, that Saburov, Alekhine's modern biographer, stated on pages 7-8 that he, Saburov, had spoken to members of the Prokhorov (the maiden name of Alekhine's mother) family. They all used ALYEkhin.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:36 pm

And thanks to the Daily Mail for this...

"RULES OF CHESS

In chess, the king is the most important piece on the board.

Capturing the king, "checkmate", will end the game.

Players can move their other pieces in set moves across the board to trap the king, "check".

Both kings start on the back row of the board next to the queen and flanked by bishops.

The king can only move one square in any direction on the board.

A king cannot move onto a space where another piece is already.

The king can make a special move in conjunction with a Rook, called a Castling, which allows it to move two squares and jump over another piece on the board in special circumstances
.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2qNLhsFEv
"

Gerry_Jepps
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Gerry_Jepps » Tue Jan 14, 2014 2:35 pm

It must be true - you read it in the Daily Mail http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

LawrenceCooper
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by LawrenceCooper » Wed Jan 15, 2014 3:18 pm

David Howell will be Simon Mayo Drivetime on Radio 2 later today. The programme starts at 17:05.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/david-ho ... drivetime/

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Stewart Reuben » Thu Jan 16, 2014 12:22 pm

In chess, the king is the most important piece on the board.


Capturing the king, "checkmate", will end the game.


Players can move their other pieces in set moves across the board to trap the king, "check".


Both kings start on the back row of the board next to the queen and flanked by bishops.


The king can only move one square in any direction on the board.


A king cannot move onto a space where another piece is already.


The king can make a special move in conjunction with a Rook, called a Castling, which allows it to move two squares and jump over another piece on the board in special circumstances.
.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2qYylKRw3
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Were I in England instead of Tenerife, I would probably write to The Dail Mail with corrections to the above. But using a Spansih keyboard is fraught with problems. But anybody can correct this mess. That would be worthwhile if they published it.

Brendan O'Gorman
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Brendan O'Gorman » Thu Jan 16, 2014 12:40 pm

People don't actually read newspapers, they get into them every morning like a hot bath. McLuhan

Geoff Chandler
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Geoff Chandler » Thu Jan 16, 2014 12:50 pm

According to this rule:

"A king cannot move onto a space where another piece is already. "



This is Checkmate.

Phil Neatherway
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Phil Neatherway » Thu Jan 16, 2014 2:02 pm

I wonder how the Daily Mail would explain the en passant rule.

PeterFarr
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by PeterFarr » Thu Jan 16, 2014 3:19 pm

Phil Neatherway wrote:I wonder how the Daily Mail would explain the en passant rule.
They'd call it un-English and blame it on the EU. Or Roumanian immigrant benefit claimants. Or gay single parents. Or all three.

Paul McKeown
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Paul McKeown » Thu Jan 16, 2014 7:15 pm

@Peter Farr - :lol:

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Stewart Reuben » Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:35 pm

Some people will go to any lengths to get chess into the media

http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/two ... st/xiexrry

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Thu Jan 23, 2014 2:07 pm

I just received this exciting email:-

(note that 23.000 is what we would probably call 23,000 and ISO would call 23 000)

"we are professional filmmakers who are producing a chess documentary as a crowdfunding film project. We think you might be interested to learn more about that project:

SUPPORTERS WANTED FOR A CHESS FILM PROJECT

Berlin based filmmaker Dennis Siebold is planning a full-length documentary film about oddities in the chess world. The essayistic documentary film will be about a variety of curiosities in the world of chess and show a lot of entertaining interrelations between chess, art, science, metaphysics and philosophy. There is a trailer which can be viewed on youtube:

http://youtu.be/_-rmSxbL7U4


DESTRUCTION OF TIME is a crowdfunding film project, chess enthusiasts from all over the world who are interested in backing this project can do so on the crowdfunding platform STARTNEXT. There are different rewards for supporters, most of them implicate a name credit in the final film. Even a Co-Producer´s credit in the title sequence can be booked:

www.startnext.de/en/zerstoerung-von-zeit

If the funding goal of 23.000 € gets reached, the film will be produced and the rewards will be shipped. If the initiative fails, all the money will be sent back to the supporters by the crowdfunding platform.

The film team is not only looking for financial support but also for suggestions for more subjects about chess related oddities which could be included in the film. Ideas can be posted on the website wall or sent to [email protected].

Further informations about the project can be found on the official film website:

www.destruction-of-time.com"

Martin Crichton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Martin Crichton » Thu Jan 23, 2014 6:04 pm

wow £23,000 to make a movie...big spenders

the cynic in me says scam all over but looking forward to hearing the feedback from those that will be parting with their cash :)
Member of "the strongest amateur chess club in London" (Cavendish)

my views are not representative of any clubs or organisations.

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