Media comments on chess

[Stewart Reuben]

31 May during the French Open John McEnroe was commentating.

This is like a chess match at the later stages of a tennis match. The player can choose to try to win the current game, but then the opponent will be on serve in the next game. Or he can let this game go and thus be on serve hopefully for the last game.
I have paraphrased this.

[NickFaulks]

That tennis conundrum is well known, but the chess analogy is almost non-existent.

[LawrenceCooper]

That tennis conundrum is well known, but the chess analogy is almost non-existent.

Being white or black is sometimes compared to having or receiving serve but I suspect far more by chess than tennis players.

[Stewart Reuben]

Tennis is the physical sport most like chess.
But we so seldom have knockouts, that John McEnroe's analogy really is irrelevant. Also, of course, having the serve is much more valuable in high level tennis, than having white in chess.
Still, it is good to know that others think of us.

[Geoff Chandler]

Tennis is the physical sport most like chess.

Perhaps table tennis is closer to chess because it is primarily played indoors and both current world champions are Chinese. China has held the table tennis title since 2005. (most club chess pieces are made of plastic and so is the table tennis ball.)

"Chess in shorts: The thrill of table tennis" a headline in a 2008 independent.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/gen ... 94888.html

[IM Jack Rudd]

If I were making a sporting comparison, I'd say that having white in chess is an advantage of about the level of being at home in football.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Is there any advantage to breaking off (is that what it is called?) in snooker? That is the sport I think has some parallels with chess, in the sense of strategising and thinking ahead. But only to a degree.

[Mick Norris]

I think recently the top players seem to think that's a disadvantage, given the number of times they break off, their opponent pots a long red and clears up

[Stewart Reuben]

Mick is quite correct. I was quite surprised when I found out it used to be that it was thought advantageous to break off first.
Of course, snooker and chess are quite different. The former does not have alternate moves, whereas tennis and table-tennis do.
I understand it is a disadvantage to move first in draughts, played to OUR rules. That game is virtually played out.
I fear chess is heading that way - thought not in my lifetime.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I fear chess is heading that way - thought not in my lifetime.

Maybe not in most current people's lifetime either - though I do now accept there is a chance it might happen eventually.

[Simon Rogers]

BBC2 8pm to 9pm Friday 2nd June 2023
Gardeners' World
There was a segment close to the start of the programme where Toby Buckland visited Mount Ephraim Gardens in Kent.
He mentioned at the start of the piece about "Chessboard Bishop ferns" the rest of the item was about the rose displays at the gardens.

[Reg Clucas]

If I were making a sporting comparison, I'd say that having white in chess is an advantage of about the level of being at home in football.

The advantage is quite a bit greater in football.

[Geoff Chandler]

I happened to be looking up Patrick Moore at wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore
It mentions; 'The jacket notes to his book "Suns, Myths and Men" (1968) said his hobbies included "chess, which he plays with a peculiar leg-spin, and cricket."

I think that was a attempt at trying to correct what it said on the cover of Patrick's 'Space in the Sixties' (1963). It reads. "...his hobbies included "chess, which he plays with a peculiar leg-spin, and music" (sic, no mention at all of cricket.)

I've always enjoyed reading his books. I love how he sometimes goes off at a tangent. In one book 'Can you Speak Venusian?' he is discussing the theory of Atlantis when he declares that it obvious to any scholar that Shakespeare did not write any of his plays!

[Tim Spanton]

"A chess game - exactly what it is."
Robbie Savage on Fiorentina v West Ham

[NickFaulks]

"A chess game - exactly what it is."
Robbie Savage on Fiorentina v West Ham

I'm not following the game, but presumably it's boring.