Media comments on chess

[Simon Brown]

From today's Times...

"Grandmaster Manu Tuilagi and Henry Slade have all the right moves

Slade, left, and Tuilagi have formed a solid partnership on and off the pitch

“When you attack you have to go all in,” Manu Tuilagi said yesterday. “As soon as you let your foot off the gas you’ll be losing.”
This is not Tuilagi talking about his approach to rugby, though. This is how he plays chess and he acknowledges that his tactical approach to his latest passion is based very much on his approach to rugby union. He says he even attacks more if his chess side is the white team — like England.

There is a growing group of chess players currently in the England squad. Tuilagi says that Jonny May is “the grandmaster” and that George Kruis is the worst. Henry Slade says that Tuilagi has approached his chess with the obsessiveness that he tends to bring to his passions. “Once he starts something,” Slade says, “he wants to be really good at it and he has put a lot of hours into it.”
Indeed, Slade says that Tuilagi is so good that they won’t play together any more. “He kills me at chess,” Slade said. “I have only played him a couple of times and it has lasted about 30 seconds each time. It was a rude awakening.”

While Slade doesn’t believe he belongs on the same chess board as Tuilagi, the two have become an increasingly strong partnership on the rugby field and they clearly enjoy the fact that the one brings out the best in the other."

[JustinHorton]

Also see

[JustinHorton]

"Partida de ajedrez" football commentary klaxon, on this occasion the second leg of the Copa del Rey semi-final (Granada v Athletic).

[Geoff Chandler]

From today's online Metro. Daughter (centre girl in bottom right picture) now has her own train.



What has this to with Chess. (proud Dad is a chess player!)

Well it's a Chess in the Media thread, and Kelly, due to her dad thinking it was another false alarm so delayed in calling an ambulance,
was born in what is now the analysis room of the Edinburgh Chess Club... I was live in caretaker there for 7-8 years.

Born in a chess club. With that pedigree you would think she would have been a chess player.
I put her off the game, I did not want her marrying a geeky chess player.

Was not allowed a chess name, Capablanca Chandler sounded cool. Mrs C. picked Kelly from Kelly of the first Charlie's Angels T.V. series.

[Andy Stoker]

Excellent - was she driving the train?
Alva Chandler would have worked

[JustinHorton]

In London on Tuesday evening? Maybe see The Orphanage at the Barbican.

[Stewart Reuben]

Justin - thank you for the alert.

My problem is that I am getting frightened of travelling by underground because of coronavirus. Goig by taxi would be expensive.
The same applies to the London Chess League.

[David Robertson]

Main cartoon in the Times today is a play on the chess scene from Bergman's The Seventh Seal with BoJo enquiring of Death, "have you disinfected the pieces?"

Sorry, but I don't know how to present the cartoon here

[Reg Clucas]

Sorry, but I don't know how to present the cartoon here

Right-click the image, save it to your computer, then use the 'Attachments' tab when creating your post, using the 'Place inline' option. (The method may be different if using a tablet or phone!)

[Angus French]

Main cartoon in the Times today is a play on the chess scene from Bergman's The Seventh Seal with BoJo enquiring of Death, "have you disinfected the pieces?"

Sorry, but I don't know how to present the cartoon here

https://twitter.com/mortenmorland/statu ... 5636723712

[JustinHorton]

[Stewart Reuben]

TV ad for 'Compare the Market.com' had two meerkats, one playing chess.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I have now read "The KGB Plays Chess". Gulko mentions in the foreword that Tal told Korchnoi that KGB would have killed him if he had won the match in 1978. Korchnoi wrote about it at a later date and Alexander Roshal (editor of 64, and according to the book, a KGB agent) said Tal was joking. Korchnoi repeats the Tal conversation in the afterword to the book.
In the main body of the book, Popov and Felshtinsky say that USSR recruited Campomanes into the KGB (when he was second in charge at FIDE), in return of which they would ensure he became President. This was to help Karpov apparently. Slightly unlikely (in my view) KGB agents were allegedly Gufeld, Vaganian and Romanishin. Apparently, they also recruited Samaranch, the Olympics chief. P & F don't mention the Korchnoi death threat in their section of the book.

Anyway, that's what the book says - I'd be grateful if the KGB-loving trolls would recognise that I only read the book, I didn't write it.

[JustinHorton]

I have now read "The KGB Plays Chess".

Out of interest, is it extensively sourced and footnoted?

[Matt Mackenzie]

I have now read "The KGB Plays Chess". Gulko mentions in the foreword that Tal told Korchnoi that KGB would have killed him if he had won the match in 1978. Korchnoi wrote about it at a later date and Alexander Roshal (editor of 64, and according to the book, a KGB agent) said Tal was joking. Korchnoi repeats the Tal conversation in the afterword to the book.
In the main body of the book, Popov and Felshtinsky say that USSR recruited Campomanes into the KGB (when he was second in charge at FIDE), in return of which they would ensure he became President. This was to help Karpov apparently. Slightly unlikely (in my view) KGB agents were allegedly Gufeld, Vaganian and Romanishin. Apparently, they also recruited Samaranch, the Olympics chief. P & F don't mention the Korchnoi death threat in their section of the book.

Anyway, that's what the book says - I'd be grateful if the KGB-loving trolls would recognise that I only read the book, I didn't write it.

Yeah, very constructive there

Gufeld has been widely rumoured as a KGB agent, actually (though he denied it until the day he died)

First time I've heard it about the other two. Antoshin almost certainly was though, probably Bondarevsky as well.