Media comments on chess

Discuss anything you like about chess related matters in this forum.
Stewart Reuben
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Stewart Reuben » Sun Aug 16, 2020 6:20 pm

Chess Quotes: Art and Love
contributed by David Turner again from Australia

”If one thinks of strategy as a block of marble, then tactics are the chisel with which a master operates, in creating works of chess art.”
Tigran Petrosian

“Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a picture post card”
Max Euwe

“The good thing in chess is that very often the best moves are the most beautiful ones. The beauty of logic.”
Boris Gelfand

“Combinations…are the poetry of the game. They represent to chess what melody is to music.”
Reuben Fine

“Chess, like love, is infectious at any age.”
Salo Flohr

“I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess, just as I would pity the man who has remained ignorant of love.”
Siegbert Tarrasch


David Turner [email protected]

LawrenceCooper
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by LawrenceCooper » Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:20 pm

"An early goal stops these games from developing into a chess match" Ian Darke on BT Sport during the Sevilla-Man U semi-final.

Tim Spanton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Tim Spanton » Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:26 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:
Sun Aug 16, 2020 6:14 pm
Chess Poem
by Bob Cowley Also in AC Newsletter

Chess
pieces dance
in changing patterns;
drama, intrigue and mystery
for those who know

Good chess players
can their clarity
at the board
pierce life's fogs
away from it?
they wonder also

Veteran chess
too old to play well?
the abyss looms -
but wait;
a lucky escape
and maybe persistence
can still find treasure
E J Thribb would be embarrassed

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JustinHorton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:07 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:
Sun Aug 16, 2020 6:20 pm
Chess Quotes: Art and Love
I can't see how this constitutes "chess in the media".
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

David Sedgwick
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by David Sedgwick » Mon Aug 17, 2020 1:46 pm

JustinHorton wrote:
Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:07 pm
Stewart Reuben wrote:
Sun Aug 16, 2020 6:20 pm
Chess Quotes: Art and Love
I can't see how this constitutes "chess in the media".
No thread on this Forum has ever been known to go off topic, of course.

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JustinHorton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Aug 17, 2020 2:03 pm

And not unusually, they are ushered back onto the path
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

Matt Fletcher
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Matt Fletcher » Tue Aug 18, 2020 9:37 am

Don’t know if anyone else has watched the “Cracking the Cryptic” videos during lockdown - it’s a couple of crossword and Sudoku experts solving puzzles, I find it (surprisingly?) watchable.

Their latest is entitled “The puzzle that Carlsen and Nakamura haven’t solved (yet)” (link) and it’s a Sudoku with chess rules.

These are that any 1s in the grid are kings, 2s are rooks, 3s are bishops, 4s are knights - and no king can be placed in check ie the king can’t go in line with a rook or a bishop unless there’s another piece blocking the path. There are some Sudoku rules as well that are explained in the video. It’s actually quite an approachable puzzle (at least, I managed to solve it!)

There have been various Sudoku variants they’ve looked at that use chess rules (eg numbers can’t be a knight’s move away from the same number in the grid) but I think this one’s the most chessy they’ve done.
Last edited by Matt Fletcher on Tue Aug 18, 2020 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Alan Walton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Alan Walton » Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:31 pm

Just seen a repeat of the Antiques Roadshow on Yesterday and there was a late 19th century chess clock shown

From Wigan chess club he mentioned that he posted it here on the Forum and somebody here offered £50, it was valued at £1,000

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Tue Aug 18, 2020 2:07 pm

"Don’t know if anyone else has watched the “Cracking the Cryptic” videos during lockdown - it’s a couple of crossword and Sudoku experts solving puzzles, I find it (surprisingly?) watchable."

Yes - me too. And this puzzle was more "approachable" than some of the others.

Matt Fletcher
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Matt Fletcher » Tue Aug 18, 2020 4:40 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Tue Aug 18, 2020 2:07 pm
Yes - me too. And this puzzle was more "approachable" than some of the others.
Indeed - I find that if their video is 20 minutes or less I can usually solve the puzzle (thought not in 20 minutes!) - if it’s more than half an hour there’s usually no chance, though I have managed a couple of the harder ones.

This one is genuinely do-able (possibly especially for chessers who are likely to get the chess logic more easily).

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Tue Aug 18, 2020 10:38 pm

"Indeed - I find that if their video is 20 minutes or less I can usually solve the puzzle (thought not in 20 minutes!) - if it’s more than half an hour there’s usually no chance, though I have managed a couple of the harder ones."

Yes! Also, some are too weird for me to attempt.

"This one is genuinely do-able (possibly especially for chessers who are likely to get the chess logic more easily)."

Yes, I realised the thermo/little killer was important, but then got all the 1s fairly quickly, having used colour to show where 1s could not go, then carried on with the chess.

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John Clarke
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by John Clarke » Wed Aug 19, 2020 12:57 am

Matt Fletcher wrote:
Tue Aug 18, 2020 9:37 am
Don’t know if anyone else has watched the “Cracking the Cryptic” videos during lockdown - it’s a couple of crossword and Sudoku experts solving puzzles, I find it (surprisingly?) watchable.
Yes, I stumbled across that channel a few weeks ago. Been trying ever since to get my head around the Empty Rectangle technique. Haven't tried that chess-related puzzle yet - still too busy trying to solve their "little competition" one here (long since done by others, but I'm determined to get it out unaided).
"The chess-board is the world ..... the player on the other side is hidden from us ..... he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."
(He doesn't let you resign and start again, either.)

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed Aug 19, 2020 7:15 pm

Pentamind documentary available free on Youtube for the next week or so - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpXHJpxQRJ0

Justin will be pleased to see a couple of his heroes in the first 5 minutes! I've only watched about 8 minutes so far...

You can search Youtube for MIndsports Olympiad 2020 to see various events chess and non-chessfrom this year.

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JustinHorton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by JustinHorton » Fri Aug 21, 2020 9:17 am

John Lanchester's diary in the latest London Review of Books is probably paywalled, but if you can't read it, it includes the statement that Go is
several orders of magnitude more complicated than chess.
Is that right?
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Fri Aug 21, 2020 11:11 am

"several orders of magnitude more complicated than chess.

Is that right?"

Luckily, a good Go player (and mathematician) just walked into the room! The answer is "Yes". I got a rapid explanation, which I'll try to summarize. Although a computer has beaten the World Champion heavily, it hasn't really done much on opening theory etc. Apparently at Go, you can't repeat positions, so if an opponent makes a capture, you can't just recapture in the same place, so you have to threaten something elsewhere first. As may be obvious, I have never played Go, so I may have misunderstood. I guess as the board has 361 points, instead of 64 squares, that increases the possibilities somewhat as well.