Media comments on chess

[JustinHorton]

Today's Time Out magazine mentions a chess event in the Things to Do section.

It appears from the MSO website that this event has been running for several years.

2012

[David Gilbert]

One of my Club members alerted me to this a few weeks ago. Well he plays chess and he can swim, so he was thinking of entering. No clocks needed, it’s how long you can hold your breath. As the Justin Townes Earle lyric goes “I'm not drowning, I'm just seeing how long I can stay down”.

[Roger de Coverly]

Kirsan seems to be responding to an interview by Kasparov not yet widely published or at least not in English. It didn't seem to be at the Ukrainian site cited even in Russian or Ukrainian.

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... parov.html

[Clive Blackburn]

Bored with standard chess?

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive ... y/superhot

It might appeal to video game fanatics i suppose.

[NickFaulks]

Kirsan seems to be responding to an interview by Kasparov not yet widely published or at least not in English. It didn't seem to be at the Ukrainian site cited even in Russian or Ukrainian.

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... parov.html

I wonder whether Kasparov's diatribes are better just ignored.

[David Robertson]

Rafael Behr in today's Guardian outlining issues with the Labour leadership candidates, especially Andy Burnham

Burnham has calibrated his position accordingly, praising Corbyn’s role and leaving open the option of including him in the shadow cabinet. Labour MPs presume this is a tactical feint. Backers of rival candidates view it with disdain. They fear Burnham’s leadership would be compromised by the same debt to an intransigent left that Miliband incurred to win the crown, and which caused him endless strife. “Has he never played chess?” asks one despairing shadow cabinet minister. “Can he not see more than one move ahead?”

This is the full piece for those interested

[Matt Mackenzie]

Its media "Westminster bubble" hacks like Behr who can't really see more than one move ahead, arguably.....

[John McKenna]

Matt, I like your pithy reply.

I tend to agree that it's debatable, however.

David Robertson was right to draw attention to the article because, as one who is interested, I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

There's a Labour leadership debate on LBC Radio at about 19:00 hrs. on tomorrow, Wed.

Includes Jeremy Corbyn, two moppets & a muppet - I put it that way because I've heard people saying it's 3 plus an extremist.

I may have more to say, at a later date.

Right now, though, I have promises to keep and moves to go before I sleep.

[Ian Kingston]

There is a still from the new James Bond movie, Spectre, in which the following position can be seen:

1k1r4/pQ4pp/6q1/8/1P6/P3PBP1/2R4P/1K6 b - - 0 1

The e-pawn might be on d4 - it's hard to be sure - but it doesn't matter. What seems to be the same position can also be seen in the trailer (at 0:48), although it's partially obscured.

Full marks for getting the board the right way round and for having a plausible position.

[Stewart Reuben]

There was a political cartoon in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 29 July.
It depicted a chessboard 8 squares wide by and indeterminate number, more than 8 long.
In the foreground is a black knight labelled ISIL next to a white knight labelled KURDS. Further way on the board there are pieces labelled such as UK, Saudi, Iraq, Assad, USA, Iran.

[JustinHorton]

Specifically this

[JustinHorton]

"It's like playing chess. Him against you. His mind. Make him work it out."

Geoffrey Boycott.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Oh dear:

"What a day Alastair Cook has had. Not so long ago, his captaincy was the stuff of ridicule but he's been like Napoleon and Garry Kasparov all rolled into one out there today."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/32809888

I have a vague memory of Fischer-Spassky being referenced earlier in the summer in another of the Ashes Tests, but can't find that now. Might have been the Tour de France or some other sporting event.

[Andrew Zigmond]

I'm not sure this is a media comment as such but BBC News 24 currently have a brief filler section called The Week In History which shows significant events from the equivalent week in previous years. This week's segment includes World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov playing ten matches simultaneously in 1977 (presumably meaning a ten board simultaneous display). It seems strange for the BBC to highlight this as a ten board simul is hardly that spectacular and there have been far more significant moments in chess history, never mind history in general. To make it even stranger 1977 was already covered earlier in the montage with the funeral of Elvis Presley.

[Roger de Coverly]

This week's segment includes World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov playing ten matches simultaneously in 1977 (presumably meaning a ten board simultaneous display). It seems strange for the BBC to highlight this as a ten board simul is hardly that spectacular and there have been far more significant moments in chess history, never mind history in general.

I think it would have been a clock simul against 10 of England's top juniors sponsored by Lloyds Bank. If so it's an echo of Leonard Barden's original publicity coup mentioned in this post
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... pov#p15096 in which he notes

So the 1977 launch event , a clock simul Karpov v England juniors, made some newspaper front pages and later we began the Lloyds Bank Masters with a blitz game between a star GM and a child. I also got Lloyds Bank chess stories in local papers via the Press Association. The result was that at the peak there were around 700 Lloyds Bank chess press mentions a year, far more than all the bank's other sponsorships combined.