Chess reading for the week – March 22

Here are some interesting chess posts for the week:

From Chessvibes.com : Open letter: “Please store and publish games including times”
I personally support this idea. It would nice to study master games knowing what was “home-cooked” and what came out of the grey matter.
“For instance the recent played game Ivanchuk-Svidler in the 3rd round of the London Candidates: Ivanchuk ran out of time at an early stage in the game and although his position wasn’t lost, he eventually lost on time. Who would recall these circumstances when reenact the game from a database that doesn’t provide clock time information? Technically it should be possible”

From chess-news.ru : Hikaru Nakamura’s Open Letter Vis-a-Vis the Grand Prix Series
Open letter sent by the manager of GM Hikaru Nakamura.
“It is with great disappointment that the chess world has recently learned, indirectly, that Agon is unable to fulfill its obligations in finding the funding for the Lisbon leg of the Grand Prix. Whether or not the funding has been found for further stages of the Grand Prix is ​​unclear as well.”

From chess-news.ru : Andrew Paulson: “I Found It Particularly Absurd That the Player Would Publish an Open Letter”
Paulson’s theory over using the outrageous red color pieces is frankly absurd. Also has his comments about the above open letter from GM Nakamura.
“Historically, chess pieces were made of ivory and coral – traditionally they were red and white. So from a purely historical point of view we can say there’s some justification here. Making the pieces red was necessary in order to make them stand out from black and white; my feeling at the moment is that on the tablets, on decent computers they’re perfectly readable as long as the screen has a good resolution.”

From polygon.com : Ex-convict creates chess-based puzzle game to teach children to make better choices
“I’m trying to spark the idea into anyone else who comes from my circumstances that they can do anything they put their mind to,” Brown said. “If you disguise learning with fun, a child will return for more.
Brown was arrested in 1999 after robbing two men of $110 and their driver’s licenses, and began serving his 10-year sentence the following year. During that time he focused on playing chess to keep himself out of conflict with the guards and other inmates. While in solitary confinement, he and other prisoners would draw chess boards on the floor and call out moves between cells in order to play. Two years before he was released, Brown sent his mother detailed blueprints of what eventually would become Chess King.”

From The Indian Express: India back in reckoning to host World Chess Championship
Take this news with a tspoon of salt. Going by past history, it can cause severe heart break if you are an Indian chess fan.
“The WCC final was one of the topics on the agenda when FIDE vice president Ali Nihat Yazici met Singh earlier this year. Yazici also confirmed the possibility. “The main subjects (of discussion with the minister) as you may guess were CIS (FIDE’s Chess in Schools program) in India and the World Championship match. For me it looks like India may host the next World Chess Championship match between WCC GM Anand and his challenger. Let’s wait and see,” he said.”

 Magnus on why he comes 10-15mins early for the round: “Honestly, I’m just dead nervous about the zero tolerance rule.”

Historical video of World Microprocessor Chess Championship, 1985

Recently somebody posted a video of the WMCC held in 1985! (link at the bottom of the page)

This video is of the World Microcomputer Chess Championship (WMCC) held in the World Trade Center, Amsterdam, 1985! Overall 16 teams participated and it was won by Mephisto! In fact, Mephisto had 3 versions running in that tournament and they took the first 3 spots! (The programs were written in Assembly language!!!)

Mephisto was designed by Richard Lang (yup the same guy who later designed Chess Genius)
Mephisto was running on a 16-bit Motorola 68000 microprocessor (back in those days, my company Motorola made microprocessors! Now it is a “software company”, having outsourced the manufacturing  unit to Flextronics)

On the rest day, the Dutch GM Gennadi Sosonko (2550) gave a 31 board simul including 10 computers! The simul lasted a whooping 8 hours and he scored 25.5 – 5.5

An interesting position

Blitz Monster Y – Turbostar K
Position after 61. Kc1

In this position, Turbostar played 61… Rb6? and the game ended in a draw after some moves.

Instead 61… Rxb7!! (Engines like Critter find this move and the winning line in a few seconds! ) 62. Rxb7 f2 63. Rb4+ Kf5

 64. Rb5+ Ke6 (64… Kg6?? 65. h5+ and White wins) 65. Rb6+ Kf7 66. Rb7+ Kg6

and the Black pawn cannot be stopped from Queening.

Tournament Crosstable (Top 5)

Rank Program Country Hardware Score Games SOS SoDOS Title
1 Mephisto Amsterdam 1 flag GBR 68020 (32 bit, std. freq.) 8.0 8 29.0 29.00 Champ!
2 Mephisto Amsterdam 3 flag GBR 68000 (16 bit) 7.0 8 27.5 24.50
3 Mephisto Amsterdam 2 flag GBR 68000 (16 bit) 7.0 8 27.5 24.25
4 Princhess 6 flag SWE 6502 (8 bit) 4.5 8 35.0 12.50
5 Blitz Monster Y flag USA 6502 (8 bit) 4.0 8 36.0 14.00

source: http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/round.php?tournament=63

PGN download


More details and pics

Video (in German) – also features Susan Polgar in the end!

Source : Ed Schroder mentioned about these videos on his site and on talkchess.com.