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Entries categorized as ‘chess’
New Poll Feature
December 18, 2008 · No Comments
Categories: Polls · chess
Tagged: chess, Polls, Suffern Chess Club
Celebrity Chess Players (part 1)
December 12, 2008 · No Comments
Chess is a great game that provides enjoyment to professionals and amateurs from all walks of life. Many people who take more than a causal interest in the game begin to learn the names of the great players - Fisher, Kasparov, Anand, Nakamura, Polgar and many others.
However it is also entertaining to learn that there are many celebrities out there who are also fascinated with the game. In this post we will explore two examples, Humphrey Bogart and Howard Stern!
Humphrey Bogart was a lifelong chess enthusiast who used to hustle people for dimes and quarters in New York City parks and at Coney Island. He insisted that a scene with him playing chess should be included in Casablanca. Off screen, he was a certified USCF tournament director and actively participated in the Hollywood Chess Club. He was supposedly a very strong player, probably expert class and was able to draw 6 time US Champ, GM Samuel Reshevesky during a simul.
The game below, which can be found in its entirety with some other transcripts of his games on www.chessgames.com is a contest between him and his wife Lauren Bacall. The game starts off as a Ruy Lopez, then moves out of the book …
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 (above diagram) … g6 4. d3 d5 5. exd5 Qxd5 6. c4 Bb4+ 7. Nc3 Bxc3+ 8. bxc3 Qd6 9. a4 Bd7 10. Ba3 Qf6 11. Qe2 Nge7 (diagram).
At this point, Bogart secures the advantage, with a little help from his wife - 12. Bxe7 Qxe7 13. Bxc6 Bxc6 14. Nxe5 Bxg2 15. Rg1 Bh3 16. Rg3 Be6 17. d4 c6 18. d5 cxd5 19. cxd5 Bxd5 and Bogart went on to win a piece and the game. The rest of the transcript is … 20. c4 Be6 21. Re3 f6 22. Nd3 Kf7 23. Nf4 Rae8 24. Nxe6 Qb4+ 25. Kf1 Re7 26. Re1 Rhe8 27. Nd8+ Kf8 28. Rxe7 Rxe7 29. Qxe7+ Qxe7 30.
Rxe7 Kxe7 31. Nxb7 1-0
Howard Stern is best known as the polarizing radio figure who loves to push the boundaries of humor by discussing politically incorrect topics and/or conducting outrageous interviews.
It turns out, behind the scenes he is an avid chess player and student of the game! Back in 2006, he began discussing his interest in chess on his radio show and even had Susan Polgar on for a serious interview.
In October 2008 the New York Times wrote a piece about his recent marriage to Beth Ostrosky and his obsession with chess. The article mentions that he is a frequent player on the Internet Chess Club and has also worked with a chess coach in order to bring his rating up to about 1600. A visit to his my space page lists chess as his 2nd most important interest (behind making love to his wife)!
The game below is one of two featured in the NY Times article. In this game, he employs the offbeat Budapest Defense to dispatch with an unsuspecting opponent:
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. d5 Bc5 4. h3 (diagram)
and now tactics come into play after … Bf2! 5. Kf2 Ne4 6. Kf3 Qh4 7. g4 f5 8. gf Rf8 9. Ke3 Rf5 10. Nf3 Qf4 11. Kd3 Nf2 and white resigns.
Stay tuned for future articles on famous chess players. If you are hungry for more, go to the Fun Stuff / Trivia page for a quiz on other chess playing celebrities.
Categories: Analysis · Trivia · chess
Tagged: Celebrities, chess, Chess Analysis, Games, Howard Stern, Humphrey Bogart
Upcoming Schedule / Thanksgiving Swiss
November 8, 2008 · No Comments
As we approach the holiday season, I’d like to remind everybody of the few days that the club will not be meeting between today and the end of the year. The club will NOT meet on the following days:
- 11/19/08 - closed
- 12/17/08 - closed
- 12/24/08* (No rated play - but we will have “skittles with Fred” so feel free to come out if you wish)
- 12/31/08 - closed
Now the good news - we do meet just about every Wednesday during the year. In fact, the “Thanksgiving Swiss” is currently underway. Feel free to pay a visit if you want to come out next week for Round 2.
Categories: Club Info · Tournaments · chess
Tagged: chess, Events, Suffern, Winter Schedule
Anand Remains The Champ / New Links
November 1, 2008 · No Comments
Check out our news section for a new article on the results of the recent world championship in Bonn Germany.
On another note, we have also added The House of Staunton as a new link in our chess resources section. Click here
Categories: chess
Tagged: chess, Anand, Staunton, Championship
Grandmaster Links - Update
October 14, 2008 · No Comments
We have added a new website to the GrandMaster section. Alexandra Kosteniuk, the “Chess Queen” is much more than just another pretty face. She is an international Grandmaster and the Women’s World Champion.
She also has a nice website that has a variety of content for the aspiring chess player. As noted in this month’s Chess Life, The Chess Journalists of America and the Cramer Committee voted this as the place for the best video podcast. Check out the Free Chess Video Podcast link on her site, or go there directly by clicking this link: www.chesskillertips.com
(note: you may need to adjust your firewall to see the instructional videos)
Categories: Blogs · chess
Tagged: Blogs, chess, Chess Tips, Grandmasters, Kosteniuk, Women's Chess
News: Mind Games / Super Grandmasters
October 5, 2008 · No Comments
The news section has also been updated with new items. Take a trip to this section of our site to learn more about The World Mind Games, Super Grandmasters and the chess prodigies in Cuba.
Categories: News · chess
Tagged: Chess News, China, News
Site Updates are Hard Labor
October 4, 2008 · No Comments
We’ve added some new content to a couple of sections of the site. First off is a new Grandmaster link to Alexander Onischuk’s website. You can find this link on the right side of this page in the Grandmaster Section.
Second is new content for the analysis page. The Hard Labor swiss recently came to a close with a hard fought match between Roger Pedersen and Howard Kushner. This match had a lot of material that is instructive for players of all levels. In light of this, we have posted three positions from the game as well as a full transcript and analysis.
Categories: chess
Tagged: Grandmasters, Tournaments, Updates
ICA Fall 2008 Championship
September 16, 2008 · No Comments
The Internet Chess Academy is having their Fall 2008 Championship on October 12, 2008. All players over 1400 are welcome to enter the tournament.
The tournament will be held in Hackensack, NJ. The format is a 4 round Swiss System, Game 60. Entry fee is $40 if you pre-enter by October 8. The fee is $45 if you choose to enter on the day of event.
For more details, click the link to ICA and go to the tournaments section.
Categories: Tournaments · chess
Tagged: chess, chess tournaments, Hackensack, New Jersey
Chess Library (Thoughts on Self-Improvement)
September 16, 2008 · No Comments
Over the 10 years or so that I have been playing chess in a club setting, I have found that the road to improvement is full of ups and downs, detours, and potholes! There are few quick fixes that will suddenly make your rating improve drastically.
One of the best methods to improve your game is to take time to do regular post-mortems on all of your matches. This can take many forms including: reviewing the game with your opponent, discussing the match with a chess-playing friend, or self-study combined with running the game through a chess engine.
- Glowing Piece
Another helpful step is to put together your own chess library. A good library should include be well rounded and include volumes on openings, middlegames, endings and tactics. I have found that general study of chess strategy and tactics was a good way to get started. Once you have a good grasp of these areas, you can move on to purchasing books on specific openings. After that it can be very helpful to purchase a beginning endgame book so you learn one of the hardest things - “how to win won games”.
That said, the following is a sampling of books that are in my collection.
Winning Chess Openings - Yasser Seirawan
This book is part of the “winning chess” series by Yasser Seirawan. I highly recommend all of the books in the series, but I will say that this volume is one that I come back to again and again. The strength of the book is that it covers just about every major opening that you are likely to come across during your matches and explains the basic principles in great detail. I have experimented with a few ideas from this book and once I found a few that I liked, I purchased specific books that went into more detail on those openings.
Winning Chess Endings - Yasser Seirawan
Similar to Winning Chess Openings, this volume focuses on the basics of endgame play. Common pawn and rook endings are major features as well as an explanation of key nuggets such as the “in the square” rule and the Luciena and Philador positions.
MCO-14 (Modern Chess Openings) - Nick deFirman
A comprehensive volume of all openings and key variations. This book has since been updated with more recent material. Of course, you can also buy many computer programs with the same information - but many times I have found this to be a useful dictionary to look up the decision trees (and counters against) openings and defences that I have not seen before.
Reassess Your Chess Workbook - Jeremy Silman
If you have a hard time seeing your own mistakes, this is the book for you. It contains a number of exercises that are designed to enlighten students about common mistakes and how to overcome them. Silman’s writing style can be somewhat sarcastic, but if you can get past the occasional insult against all of us “patzers”, you can pick up some great tips on strategic planning.
Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual - Mark Dvoretsky
This one is for serious players who have already read a beginning endgame book. The content is very dense and contains a pleathora of information on a number of endings. I’ve been looking this one over for a few months now and have only gotten to page 35! However, if you are willing to hang in there and plow through the material, it is sure to provide the information needed to turn “losses into draws” and “draws into victories”.
Categories: Books · chess
Tagged: Books, Chess Books, Self Improvement
Suffern Skittles Chess Video
August 10, 2008 · No Comments
We are always striving to add new content to our site. As such, we are exploring the possibilities of WordPress video capabilities.
The video below was recorded during the winter of 2007. It contains a snippet of a skittles game being played as other players were milling about waiting for the pairings to be posted for that week’s matches.
If you get to the club 15-20 minutes before 8 p.m., there is always time for some 5 minute speed chess before the real matched get underway!
Categories: Skittles · Video · chess
Tagged: Suffern Chess Club, Skittles, Chess Video
