Media comments on chess

[Stewart Reuben]

I doubt he is playing FIDE Rated chess.
But when implants into the brain become common, that may prove to be the end of competitive chess.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Hopefully they won't become commonplace in the lifetimes of most of us, then.

[Peter Hornsby]

Another chess-themed advert shown on British TV recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO8N94rXGrs

[Nick Burrows]

Bobby Fischer appears in the chorus of this song: https://youtu.be/aB16fJpoj-I?si=tfoqIgoFLNeOrIIO

[Roland Kensdale]

2 links from a recent article by Leonard Barden.

Spassky's son (also Boris), who doesn't play seriously, talking about his father. He looks a lot like his father, with his glasses there is also a resemblance to David McCallum.The elephant in the room is the acrimonious breakup of his parents' marriage. Spassky has only met his granchildren once, when they were very young. Spassky senior is now confined to bed.
https://youtu.be/U5LkzrfquVY?si=p0Y-TGv8aoj4NNw8

Secondly a long interview with Spassky from 2016 which I hadn't seen before. Among his papers which he couldn't retrieve from his wife is a manuscript on his match with Korchnoi in Belgrade.
https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/ ... -interview

[Stewart Reuben]

Kleinwort Benson took a number of us to see CHESS - TH MUSICAL shortly after i opened.
Lev Alburt and Genadi Sosonko were in the group. They were quite scathing about the plot line of the Russian player returning to Russia. 'Nobody would ever do that once having left'.'
Of course, Boris did precisely that in his later life.
Of course Boris did return. I last saw Boris (the father) in Gibraltar.

[Derek Sinclair]

Wonder how long it will be till they can implant a chess computer into your head. That will end the game unless they can check for implants.

Suppose it might be something that is visible similar to headphones etc..

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Neighbours" today featured chess again. Paul Robinson was expertly setting up the board 9 the knights were facing inwards, not justly randomly positioned), as he talked to another character, the camera shot changed, but now the black pieces were on his side of the board, when previously he had the white pieces.

[Kevin Thurlow]

BBC reports on an unusually timed Honours List, one recipient being

"Knight Bachelor
• Dr Demis Hassabis CBE FRS FREng FRSA; CEO and Co-Founder of
DeepMind. For Services to Artificial Intelligence."

[Neill Cooper]

Lisa Lane was the subject of an obituary in Radio 4's Last Word today, including an interveiw with Jennifer Shahade.

[Geoff Chandler]

A really good article about Lisa Lane here; https://slate.com/culture/2024/03/women ... -lane.html

When the 1966 U.S. women’s championship in New York offered a prize pool of $600—compared with $6,000 for the men’s version—Lane organized Queen’s Pawn [a chess club she ran] regulars to picket the event. The demonstrators, all men, carried signs reading, “What Good’s a King Without a Queen?”..."None of the other women players supported Lane’s campaign, which they viewed as unseemly."

“The greatest enemies of women in chess are not men but other women,” she told the Times in 1972."

She married Neil Hickey in 1969 and they were still together in 2022. He passed away on the 27th March a month after Lisa.

[Neill Cooper]

BBC reports on an unusually timed Honours List, one recipient being

"Knight Bachelor
• Dr Demis Hassabis CBE FRS FREng FRSA; CEO and Co-Founder of
DeepMind. For Services to Artificial Intelligence."

And an extended interveiw with Demis on this morning's Today programe (starting at 1:37:45) in which chess gets a few mentions, and there is particular reference to Barnet Knights.

[Stewart Reuben]

I forgot to mention that chess came up on Sunday when the snooker final was being played, rather slowly - but well.
'They are playing it rather like a game of chess - but with balls.'

I wonder how often that comment has been made!

[Kevin Thurlow]

Perhaps a bit different... 6 m 45 s in to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT0-HX2GVSk

Nice to know 1.c4 is the opening of choice.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I forgot to mention that chess came up on Sunday when the snooker final was being played, rather slowly - but well.
'They are playing it rather like a game of chess - but with balls.'

I wonder how often that comment has been made!

And as Jonathan Levitt pointed out in KingPin, if snooker is chess with balls, then chess would logically be the untested game of snooker without balls.