English Chess Forum

Fairly difficult Times crossword today. 26 ac; “There’s a surprise, seeing hotel amidst castles (3)”

Oho?

Aha?

Oho indeed. Never seen that reference to castles before, and the whole crossword feels like the work of a new setter.

The New Yorker on girls playing chess.

I found the video wouldn't load on my phone: if you have the same problem it can be viewed here.

A surprising mention today on BBC World News TV's "What Happened on this Day" - Karpov plays 10 games of chess simultaneously in 1977, with a very brief clip of the event. I assume it was the Karpov v England Juniors simul, but the clip was too brief for me to try to identify any of the players.

Edit - I got the title slightly wrong - "This Week in History", so I've now seen it again and it was the Karpov v England Juniors simul. It's available online here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-rad ... -16-august.

Former undisputed heavyweight champion, Lennox Lewis is having a rematch with his final boxing opponent, and former champion, Vitali Klitschko ...but in a chess match! Lewis and both Klitschko brothers were quite famous for enjoying chess during their boxing careers. I suspect Vitali is a stronger chess player than Lewis. I wonder how they are preparing for the match?

http://www.worldboxingnews.net/20180814 ... -explained

Perhaps they are punching the clock?

Ian Thompson wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 13, 2018 7:24 pm

A surprising mention today on BBC World News TV's "What Happened on this Day" - Karpov plays 10 games of chess simultaneously in 1977, with a very brief clip of the event. I assume it was the Karpov v England Juniors simul, but the clip was too brief for me to try to identify any of the players.

Edit - I got the title slightly wrong - "This Week in History", so I've now seen it again and it was the Karpov v England Juniors simul. It's available online here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-rad ... -16-august.

You can see Julian Hodgson, David Cummings, Nick Benjamin and Nicholas Ivell on the left hand side.

Matt Bridgeman wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:07 pm

Former undisputed heavyweight champion, Lennox Lewis is having a rematch with his final boxing opponent, and former champion, Vitali Klitschko ...but in a chess match! Lewis and both Klitschko brothers were quite famous for enjoying chess during their boxing careers. I suspect Vitali is a stronger chess player than Lewis. I wonder how they are preparing for the match?

http://www.worldboxingnews.net/20180814 ... -explained

I am pretty sure Lewis is better at chess than either Klitschko. There was a published game Lewis vs Daniel Lawson where Lewis lost but played like a weakish club player. While Klitschkos conferring played a blindfolded German female junior and I recall their moves were much lower standard.

It was Elizabeth Paehtz, who I now an IM I think. 2001, so it will depend if they've improved at all in the meantime.

A curious production ..entitled Alexander Alekhine .
The story of a young deaf girl and her chess playing grandfather set in rural Mongolia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AetjvAR8l-Q

Bob Kane wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 27, 2018 2:05 pm

Geoff, The Chess players
Thats MY review from Edinburgh fringe last year and YOUR comments
Bob

At this year's Fringe I saw "The Marilyn Conspiracy", a play set in Marilyn Monroe’s apartment in the hours immediately following her death, with the cast, of whom all have some connection with the star, trying to establish what really happened, and what they should say to the police.

At the start the cast troop on stage carrying props which they add to the set (which is Marilyn’s living room). For some reason, one of these props is a small chess board and pieces – it doesn’t feature in the plot. At least I don’t think it does - obviously I spent much of the production trying to see if the board was set up correctly. My suspicion is that there were a couple of pieces missing, possibly the queens. Certainly I found the board's presence a distraction.

Admin, feel free to move to an Edinburgh Festival thread...

An Athenaeum CC member who reads my columns sent me the item below. Could be interesting. How much of the chess club filming will survive into the actual programme ?

Athenaeum Chess Club on TV next Tuesday 4 September at 9.00 p.m on BBC 4
The BBC came to the Athenaeum Chess Club a couple of months ago. They were doing a programme on
Artificial Intelligence.
They brought a computer that Alan Turing used in 1948, and one of our members Olivia Smith, beat the computer a few times.
The BBC spent the entire evening with us, filming members playing chess with each other. The programme is being televised on Tuesday 4th September at 9.00 p.m on BBC 4.
The programme is called “ The Joy of AI”.

David Llada just posted the following tweet, which i thought was pretty funny take on the current Nike campaign. Unfortunately I dont know how to post it.

https://twitter.com/davidllada/status/1 ... 6849967116