English Chess Forum

JustinHorton wrote:I thought the world's longest-running soap opera involved chess federations in the North-West.

Litigation Street?

Tonight's "The Unbelievable Truth" on Radio 4 had a short lecture by Marcus Brigstocke on "Board Games". Chess featured prominently.

Found a link to the Nemi comic strip:

http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/03/nemi-cart ... 8379/27-7/

How many chess cartoons are there? Has there ever been a chess cartoon in a non-chess publications was wasn't one of the following:
# Very old people playing for a long time ... beard growing over the board or similar
# Players very engrossed in the game - building collapses around them, or similar
# Very young person beats an old person, who threatens physical reprisals
# One or both players resort(s) to extra-curricular reinforcements - clubs, ground-to-air missiles etc (as Nemi)
# One or both players regards chess as more important that anything else in life ("Wake up dear, I have just lost you at chess to Mr Smith here")
# One or both players wrongly think it's the other person's move ("But I moved last Tuesday")

I'd like to think so

Mick Norris wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25908379

I missed Matthew's follow-up comment, and never followed the link, so only just realised this article about a multi-million pound deal involving an AI company founded by Demis Hassabis had been pointed out by Mick. There is a follow-up article here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25927797

"Why has Google bought an AI company?"
BBC News - 28 January 2014

There were cartoons some in my book 'The Chess Scene'.
e.g. two players, one female with substantial décolletage obscuring part of the board. The arbiter has a book open in his hands saying, 'I can't find anything in the Laws against it'.
e.g. Nurse looking at a row of babies. 'We've been told to keep a look out for any chess prodigies.'

A cartoon in Punch. No caption. A man is going into a chess event wearing a football scarf and carrying a rattle.

There was a whole page in Punch in 1986 of chess cartoons at the time of the World Championship.
This is written in Gibraltar.

BREAKING NEWS
BBC1 6.30pm local London news. There will be a piece on DEMIS HASSABIS. He used to be about 2300 but hasn't played much this century. He has just sold his company for £400 million.

I have been interviewed on Skype. If included, I expect about 30 seconds. BBC1 reception here is poor. So if somebody could record it and send it to me I would be grateful. This is not just vanity. I have the world's biggest collection of chess on TV in English and am often used as a source.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: about a multi-million pound deal involving an AI company founded by Demis Hassabis

From his academic period comes this:-
http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?v ... 81kl-MbHgC

Note the name, Dharshan Kumaran, of one of the co-authors.

It is fascinating that two chessplayers, whom we may think of as lost to chess, nonetheless have clearly benefited from their early chess training and worked together on a scientific study of the brain. Leontxo Garcia and I were just talking about the demonstrative value of chess and his book that he recently wrote on the subject.

Stewart Reuben wrote: I have been interviewed on Skype. If included, I expect about 30 seconds.

Stewart was indeed included. The feature included something perhaps not generally known that he was home-schooled but neglected to note that in his gap year or years, he was involved in the design and programming of a best selling "classic" computer game of the period, namely "Theme Park".

Roger >but neglected to note that in his gap year or years, he was involved in the design and programming of a best selling "classic" computer game of the period, namely "Theme Park".<

That was cut out of my interview as were other matters. The computer game in his gap year made Demis a millionaire.
The piece was done well. I presume Demis declined to be interviewed, or wasn't available, or they couldn't find him. I hadn't realised until after the interview that he had done a PhD. and had worked on it with Dharshan Kumaran.

They even wanted to include a game. I told them this was unrealistic, but pointed them in the direction of Chessbase. They were unable to master the technology. The work took some hours and they did not do what they promised, to state that I was speaking from The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival.

But the most amusing story is nothing to do with this one.
The curtain-raiser for one Lloyds Bank Masters was a game on a giant chess set between 5 year old George Hassabis and Orest Popovych, USA FM. George won! There was a media frenzy. It ruined Orest's tournament. George did a TV interview.
But he also did a radio one. They asked him to say, 'I'm George Hassabis and I'm the best chessplayer in the world.' He refused. They pursued the matter and eventually he relented, provided nobody in the studio could see him. So everybody had to crouch behind their desk. George spotted one person and exclaimed, 'I can see you!' Then he said it.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: about a multi-million pound deal involving an AI company founded by Demis Hassabis

From his academic period comes this:-
http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?v ... 81kl-MbHgC

Note the name, Dharshan Kumaran, of one of the co-authors.

I remember Demis Hassabis as a chess junior from North London. Aware that he made a fortune inventing video games.
Extraordinary that he should meet up with a retired grandmaster, in the field of medical science.

Cartoons...

I have one, possibly originally in "Punch", showing a prisoner manacled to the wall, playing chess with his toes. His opponent, a burly jailer with a long whip, is looking up at him and saying, "You're not very bright, are you?"

Andy Stoker wrote:How many chess cartoons are there? Has there ever been a chess cartoon in a non-chess publications was wasn't one of the following:
# Very old people playing for a long time ... beard growing over the board or similar
# Players very engrossed in the game - building collapses around them, or similar
# Very young person beats an old person, who threatens physical reprisals
# One or both players resort(s) to extra-curricular reinforcements - clubs, ground-to-air missiles etc (as Nemi)
# One or both players regards chess as more important that anything else in life ("Wake up dear, I have just lost you at chess to Mr Smith here")
# One or both players wrongly think it's the other person's move ("But I moved last Tuesday")

I'd like to think so

Only remotely relevant thing I can recall for now that didn't come into any of those categories was in the jokes section of a comic in the mid-60s. A boy was pictured playing his dog, and the speech bubbles went something like:

Admiring adult spectator: "My, what a clever dog!"
Boy: "Clever nothing - he hasn't won a game yet!"

The game depicted was actually draughts, but could just as easily have been chess.

Olympic yachtsman Sir Ben Ainslie on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs today (repeated from 26th January)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/de ... y/7e86b65f

"Playing chess on water is how a lot of people describe it"

So chess is like sailing on a table?