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Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Chess became a source of inspiration in the arts in literature soon after the spread of the game to the Arab World and Europe in the Middle Ages. The earliest works of art centered on the game are miniatures in medieval manuscripts, as well as poems, which were often created with the purpose of describing the rules. After chess gained popularity in the 15th and 16th centuries, many works of art related to the game were created. One of the best-known, Marco Girolamo Vida's poem Scacchia ludus, written in 1527, made such an impression on the readers that it singlehandedly inspired other authors to create poems about chess.
In the 20th century, artists created many works related to the game, sometimes taking their inspiration from the life of famous players (Vladimir Nabokov in The Defense) or well-known games (Poul Anderson in Immortal Game, John Brunner in The Squares of the City). Some authors invented new chess variants in their works, such as stealth chess in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series or Tri-Dimensional chess in the Star Trek series.
== History ==
=== 10th to 18th century ===
Palatine Chapel in the Norman Palace in Palermo you can admire the first painting of a chess game that is known to the world. The work dates from around 1143 and the artists who created the Muslim players were chosen by the Norman king of Sicily Roger II of Hauteville, who erected the church.
The earliest known reference to chess in a European text is a Medieval Latin poem, Versus de scachis. The oldest manuscript containing this poem has been given the estimated date of 997. Other early examples include miniatures accompanying books. Some of them have high artistic value. Perhaps the best known example is the 13th-century Libro de los juegos. The book contains 151 illustrations, and while most of them are centered on the board, showing problems, the players and architectural settings are different in each picture. Another early illustrated text is the Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (Latin: Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium super ludo scacchorum) which is based on the sermons of Jacopo da Cessole and was first published in 1473.
The pieces illustrating chess problems in Luca Pacioli's manuscript On the Game of Chess (Latin: De ludo scacchorum, c. 1500) are described as "futuristic even by today's standards" and may have been designed in collaboration with Leonardo da Vinci.
After chess became gradually more popular in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, especially in Spain and Italy, many artists began writing poems using chess as a theme. Chess of love (Catalan: Scachs d'amor), written by an unknown artist in the end of the 15th century, describes a game between Mars and Venus, using chess as an allegory of love. The story also serves as a pretence to describe the rules of the game. De ludo scacchorum (unrelated to the manuscript mentioned above) by Francesco Bernardino Caldogno, also created at that time, is a collection of gameplay advice, presented in poetic fashion.
One of the most influential works of chess-related art is Marco Girolamo Vida's Scaccia ludus (1527), centered on a game played between Apollo and Mercury on Mount Olympus. It is said that, because of its high artistry, the poem made a great impression on anyone who read it, including Desiderius Erasmus. It also directly inspired at least two other works. The first is Jan Kochanowski's poem Chess (c. 1565), which describes the game as a battle between two armies, while the second is William Jones' Caissa, or the game of chess (1772). The latter poem popularised the pseudo-ancient Greek dryad Caïssa to be the "goddess of chess".
=== 19th century onwards ===
Since the 19th century, artists have been creating novels and – since the 20th century – films related to chess. Sometimes, they are inspired by famous games, like John Brunner's The Squares of the City, structured after the famous match between Wilhelm Steini |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Chaturanga (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग, IAST: caturaṅga, pronounced [tɕɐtuˈɾɐŋɡɐ]) is an ancient Indian strategy board game. It is first known from India around the seventh century AD.
While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that chaturanga is the common ancestor of the board games chess, xiangqi (Chinese), janggi (Korean), shogi (Japanese), sittuyin (Burmese), makruk (Thai), ouk chatrang (Cambodian) and modern Indian chess. It was adopted as chatrang (shatranj) in Sassanid Persia, which in turn was the form of chess brought to late-medieval Europe.
Not all the rules of chaturanga are known with certainty. Chess historians suppose that the game had similar rules to those of its successor, shatranj. In particular, there is uncertainty as to the moves of the gaja (elephant).
== Etymology ==
Sanskrit caturaṅga is a bahuvrihi compound word, meaning "having four limbs or parts" and in epic poetry often meaning "army". The name comes from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. Chaturanga refers to four divisions of an army, namely elephantry, chariotry, cavalry and infantry. An ancient battle formation, akshauhini, is like the setup of chaturanga.
== History ==
=== Origin ===
The origin of chaturanga has been a puzzle for centuries. The earliest clear reference comes from north India from the Gupta Empire, dating from the sixth century AD. Banabhatta's Harsha Charitha (c. AD 625) contains the earliest reference to the name chaturanga:
Under this monarch [...], only the bees quarrelled to collect the dew; the only feet cut off were those of measurements, and only from Ashtâpada one could learn how to draw up a chaturanga, there was no cutting-off of the four limbs of condemned criminals...
According to Stewart Culin, chaturanga was first described in the Hindu text Bhavishya Purana. The Bhavishya Purana is known to include modern additions and interpolations, however, even mentioning British rule of India.
An early reference to an ancient Indian board game is sometimes attributed to Subandhu in his Vasavadatta, dated between the 5th and 7th centuries AD: The time of the rains played its game with frogs for pieces [nayadyutair] yellow and green in colour, as if mottled by lac, leapt up on the black field squares.
The colours are not those of the two camps, but mean that the frogs have two colours, yellow and green.
Chaturanga may also have much older roots, dating back 5,000 years. Archeological remains from 2000 to 3000 BC have been found from the city of Lothal (of the Indus Valley Civilisation) of pieces on a board that resemble chess. Another argument that chaturanga is much older is the fact that the chariot is the most powerful piece on the board, although chariots appear to have been obsolete in warfare for at least five or six centuries, superseded by light and heavy cavalries. The counterargument is that they remained prominent in literature and continued to be used for travel and transport, in processions, for games, and in races.
=== Spread outside India ===
While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that chaturanga is the common ancestor of the board games chess, xiangqi (Chinese), janggi (Korean), shogi (Japanese), sittuyin (Burmese), makruk (Thai), ouk chatrang (Cambodian) and modern Indian chess.
In Arabic, most of the terminology of chess is derived directly from chaturanga: Modern chess itself is called shatranj in Arabic, and the bishop is called the elephant. The Tamerlane chess was also introduced in Iran later.
The game was first introduced to the West in Thomas Hyde's De ludis orientalibus libri duo, published in 1694. Subsequently, translations of Sanskrit accounts of the game were published by Sir William Jones.
== The game ==
=== Set-up ===
Chaturanga was played on an 8×8 uncheckered board, called ashtāpada, which is also the name of a game. The board sometimes had special markings, the meaning of which a |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Larry Melvyn Evans (March 22, 1932 – November 15, 2010) was an American chess player, author, and journalist who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in 1957. He won or shared the U.S. Chess Championship five times and the U.S. Open Chess Championship four times. He wrote a long-running syndicated chess column and wrote or co-wrote more than twenty books on chess.
== Chess career ==
=== Early years ===
Evans was born on March 22, 1932, in Manhattan, the son of Bella (Shotl) and Harry Evans. His family was Jewish. He learned much about the game by playing for ten cents an hour on 42nd Street in New York City, quickly becoming a rising star. At age 14, he tied for 4th–5th place in the Marshall Chess Club championship. The next year he won it outright, becoming the youngest Marshall champion at that time. He also finished equal second in the U.S. Junior Championship, which led to an article in the September 1947 issue of Chess Review. At 16, he played in the 1948 U.S. Chess Championship, his first, tying for eighth place at 11½–7½. Evans tied with Arthur Bisguier for first place in the U.S. Junior Chess Championship of 1949. By age 18, he had won a New York State championship as well as a gold medal in the Dubrovnik 1950 Chess Olympiad. In the latter, his 90% score (eight wins and two draws) on sixth board tied with Rabar of Yugoslavia for the best result of the entire Olympiad.
=== U.S. champion ===
In 1951, Evans first won the U.S. Championship, ahead of Samuel Reshevsky, who had tied for 3rd–4th in the 1948 World Championship match-tournament. Evans won his second championship the following year by winning a title match against Herman Steiner. He won the national championship three additional times: in 1961–62, 1967–68, and 1980, the last in a tie with Walter Browne and Larry Christiansen.
=== Grandmaster ===
FIDE awarded Evans the titles of International Master (1952) and International Grandmaster (1957). In 1956 the U.S. State Department appointed him a "chess ambassador".
Evans performed well in many U.S. events during the 1960s and 1970s, but his trips abroad to international tournaments were infrequent and less successful. He won the U.S. Open Chess Championship in 1951, 1952, 1954 (he tied with Arturo Pomar but won the title on the tie-break) and tied with Walter Browne in 1971. He also won the first Lone Pine tournament in 1971.
=== Olympiad successes ===
Evans represented the U.S. in eight Chess Olympiads over a period of twenty-six years, winning gold (1950), silver (1958), and bronze (1976) medals for his play, and participating in team gold (1976) and silver (1966) medals.
=== Best international results ===
Evans' best results on foreign soil included two wins at the Canadian Open Chess Championship, 1956 in Montreal, and 1966 in Kingston, Ontario. He tied for first–second in the 1975 Portimão, Portugal International and for second–third with World Champion Tigran Petrosian, behind Jan Hein Donner, in Venice, 1967. However, Evans' first, and what ultimately proved to be his only, chance in the World Chess Championship cycle ended with a disappointing 14th place (10/23) in the 1964 Amsterdam Interzonal.
At his peak in October 1968 he was rated 2631 by the United States Chess Federation.
=== Working with Bobby Fischer ===
He never entered the world championship cycle again, and concentrated his efforts on assisting his fellow American Bobby Fischer in his quest for the world title. He was Fischer's second for the Candidates matches leading up to the World Chess Championship 1972 against Boris Spassky, though not for the championship match itself, after a disagreement with Fischer.
He also wrote the introductions to Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games (1969) and urged Fischer to publish when he had initially been reluctant to do so.
== Chess journalism ==
Evans had always been interested in writing as well as playing. By the age of 18, he had already published David Bronstein's Best Games of Chess, |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Amsterdam 1956 was a chess tournament won by Vasily Smyslov. It was the Candidates Tournament for the 1957 World Chess Championship match between Smyslov and Mikhail Botvinnik.
== References == |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | The Hastings 1895 chess tournament was a round-robin tournament of chess conducted at the Brassey Institute in Hastings, England from 5 August to 2 September 1895.
Hastings 1895 was arguably the strongest tournament in history at the time it occurred. All of the top players of the generation competed. It was one of the first times such a "super-tournament" was conducted.
Harry Nelson Pillsbury, a young American unknown in Europe, was the surprise winner with 16½ out of 21 points – ahead of Mikhail Chigorin (16) and world champion Emanuel Lasker (15½). The top five finishers were invited to play in the Saint Petersburg 1895–96 chess tournament.
Following the success of the event, the Hastings tournament would become an annual feature. The organizers and players produced a Book of the Tournament, in which the participants annotated their own games. Like the Tournament, the Book too became an annual feature and was of very high instructional value.
== Tournament crosstable ==
== Notable games ==
Many of the games were of high quality and hard-fought. Here are two examples:
=== Steinitz versus von Bardeleben ===
In round ten, the position in the diagram arose after a Giuoco Piano: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Nc3 d5 8.exd5 Nxd5 9.0-0 Be6 10.Bg5 Be7 11.Bxd5! Bxd5 12.Nxd5 Qxd5 13.Bxe7 Nxe7 14.Re1 f6 15.Qe2 Qd7 16.Rac1 c6?! 17.d5! cxd5 18.Nd4 Kf7 19.Ne6 Rhc8 20.Qg4 g6 21.Ng5+ Ke8. At this point Steinitz played one of the most famous moves in history:
22. Rxe7+!!
Black cannot capture the white rook: 22...Qxe7 23.Rxc8+ Rxc8 24.Qxc8+ Qd8 25.Qxd8+, etc. and White wins with his extra piece; while 22...Kxe7 23.Re1+ Kd6 24.Qb4+ Rc5 25.Re6+! wins as well (the often-mentioned 25.Ne6 doesn't amount to much, for example 25...Rc8 26.Qf4+ Kc6 27.Qa4+ Kd6). White's replies are also limited, however, because Black is threatening mate with ...Rxc1, as well as threatening to capture White's queen and knight. In order to prevent ...Rxc1, Steinitz's rook now "thumbs its nose" at the black king: repeatedly checking right in front of the king, which cannot capture it.
22... Kf8 23. Rf7+ Kg8 24. Rg7+ Kh8 25. Rxh7+!!
This crucial move eliminates the h-pawn and allows White to bring in his queen to attack without ever allowing Black to play ...Rxc1 and mate. Bowing to the inevitable (or perhaps frustrated that even with mate in one, he could not capitalize), von Bardeleben simply left the tournament hall, letting his time run out. Steinitz demonstrated for the spectators how the game might have continued: 25...Kg8 26.Rg7+ Kh8 27.Qh4+ Kxg7 28.Qh7+ Kf8 29.Qh8+ Ke7 30.Qg7+ Ke8 31.Qg8+ Ke7 32.Qf7+ Kd8 33.Qf8+ Qe8 34.Nf7+ Kd7 35.Qd6#
This game won the first brilliancy prize in the tournament.
=== Pillsbury versus Gunsberg ===
The game was played in the last round. Pillsbury was leading the field by half a point. He had assumed that a draw would be enough, and the game therefore opened with the relatively placid Queen's Gambit Declined. Pieces were rapidly traded off the board, reaching the position in the diagram, when Pillsbury realized that Chigorin was winning his game and therefore he would have to win to take clear first.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.e3 g6 4.Nc3 Bg7 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Bd3 0-0 7.Ne5 dxc4 8.Bxc4 Nd5 9.f4 Be6 10.Qb3 b5 11.Bxd5 Bxd5 12.Nxd5 Qxd5 13.Qxd5 cxd5 14.Nd3 Nd7 15.Bd2 Rfc8 16.Ke2 e6 17.Rhc1 Bf8 18.Rxc8 Rxc8 19.Rc1 Rxc1 20.Bxc1 Bd6 21.Bd2 Kf8 22.Bb4 Ke7 23.Bc5 a6 24.b4 f6 25.g4 Bxc5 26.bxc5 Nb8 (diagram) 27.f5! g5 28.Nb4 a5 29.c6! Kd6 30.fxe6! Nxc6 31.Nxc6 Kxc6 32.e4! dxe4 33.d5+ Kd6 34.Ke3 b4 35.Kxe4 a4 36.Kd4 h5 37.gxh5 a3 38.Kc4 f5 39.h6 f4 40.h7 1–0 Black resigned.
== Notes ==
== References ==
Pickard, Sid, ed. (1995). Hastings 1895: The Centennial Edition. Pickard and Son. ISBN 1-886846-01-4.
== External links ==
Horace F. Cheshire, ed., The Hastings Chess Tournament 1895 (G.P. Putnam/Chatto & Windus, 1896)
Hastings 1895 at ChessGames.com
Steinitz vs. Von Bardeleben, Hastings 1895 at ChessGames.c |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Chess Scotland is the governing body for chess in Scotland. It was formed in 2001 with the merger of the Scottish Chess Association (SCA) and the Scottish Junior Chess Association (SJCA).
It is one of the oldest national chess associations in the world, the SCA having been founded in 1884. As the national organisation for chess, Chess Scotland is the affiliate to the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and appoints the Scottish delegate to FIDE's Council. Its international director is responsible for selecting the teams which represent Scotland at the biennial Chess Olympiad.
== Objective and functions ==
Its principal objective is to "foster and promote the game of chess throughout Scotland among players of all ages".
Its principal functions are:
to represent the interests of Scottish chess (at FIDE and elsewhere),
to select individuals and teams to represent Scotland at international chess events,
to hold national and international chess tournaments in Scotland
to promote the game of chess in Scotland
to train and appoint officials
to operate a national grading system
Chess Scotland's functions are performed by unpaid volunteers and is registered as a non-profit organisation. Its turn-over in 2009 was approximately £35,000, of which a third was provided by the Scottish Government via annual grant aid. In 2013 the Government grant ceased.
== Membership ==
Many people can play chess and a significant proportion of these have an active interest in the game (e.g., internet chess, parents/guardians of junior players, etc.). The number of players currently known to Chess Scotland is more than 5000, of whom about half are juniors. Approximately 3000 currently-active players have played sufficient games in official events (not necessarily events organized by Chess Scotland) to be assigned a national rating (grade) for their standard of play. Chess Scotland therefore serves a very wide constituency from school children to International Grandmasters. As of 17 February 2025, Chess Scotland lists the membership as c460 of which over 40 have not activated their account.
== Organisation ==
The affairs of Chess Scotland are managed by its directors and other officials who work (with other promoters, as appropriate) to fulfil the objectives of the organisation. Most of these posts are filled by election at the Annual General Meeting of Chess Scotland. Chess events are supervised by certified arbiters who must undergo written and practical competency tests administered by Chess Scotland. Chess Scotland also maintains a register of approved coaches and chaperons. All of these officials (arbiters, coaches and chaperons) are required to undergo “Disclosure” certification, under Scottish Child Protection legislation.
== Online ==
Apart from the publicity surrounding its events, Chess Scotland's activities are communicated to the general public (including children) and to its sponsors via its internet web-pages. An on-line forum promotes discussion of chess-related topics of current interest. In addition, Chess Scotland publishes a magazine which appears six times a year.
== Rating system ==
The Chess Scotland on-line rating system is important for many players, and the rating system is a source of significant revenue to Chess Scotland. Application to Chess Scotland for the recognition of an event (or player) for rating purposes brings the event (or player) within the jurisdiction of Chess Scotland.
== Commonwealth Chess Championships in Glasgow 2014 ==
Chess Scotland was successful in bidding for the 2014 Commonwealth Chess Championships and they were held in Glasgow.
== World Championship 2022 ==
For the first time, a member of Chess Scotland, IA Andy Howie, was the Deputy Chief Arbiter for a World Championship match
== Grandmasters ==
Below is a list of members who have been awarded the Grandmaster (GM) title by FIDE.
Paul Motwani
Colin McNab
Jacob Aagaard
Jonathan Rowson
John Shaw
Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant
Matthew Turner
|
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | The Slovak Chess Championship is the chess competition, which determines the best slovak chess player.
== History ==
1993 - today - championships of Slovakia
for Czechoslovak championship see Czechoslovak Chess Championship
== Men's winners ==
=== In Slovakia, part of Czechoslovakia ===
=== In independent Slovakia ===
== Women's winners ==
== References == |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | A chess opening book is a book on chess openings. This is by far the most common type of literature on chess. These books describe many major lines, like the Sicilian Defence, Ruy Lopez, and Queen's Gambit, as well as many minor variations of the main lines.
== Types ==
There are several types of opening manuals:
Manuals dealing with one specific opening - Often these manuals have highly optimistic titles, like Black to Play and Win with 1...g6 (Andrew Soltis), but some are more modest: Starting out: the King's Indian (Joe Gallagher). In general, these books are the most accessible to the general reader, and cover the most material for individual opening systems (though some also cover openings in general).
Manuals giving a system or repertoire - These manuals discuss two or more opening systems, often related by similar tactical themes, pawn structures, or strategic aims. The aim is generally to get the player to the middle game with a playable position without too much trouble, no matter what the opposing player does.
Manuals giving general opening advice and guidance - Possibly the most famous example of this type of manual (in English) is Reuben Fine's The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings. This type of book does not analyze any opening system to much depth, but teaches the ideas that will help its reader understand opening play.
Encyclopedic manuals that aim to be comprehensive - These manuals, from the five volume Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO) to the single volume works like Nunn's Chess Openings (NCO) and Modern Chess Openings (MCO) by Nick de Firmian and Walter Korn aim to cover as many opening systems as possible at the expense of understanding the ideas behind the opening. Usually, at the end of a sequence of moves provided in a theory table, the reader is told that one side stands slightly better than the other. However no information is given on what that assessment is based on or how to proceed in the game. Historically, the prototype for this style of opening book was the German Handbuch des Schachspiels (also known as the "Bilguer Handbuch"), first published in 1843, which pioneered the use of theory tables. It remained a standard reference work until the emergence of MCO in the early twentieth century.
DVD demonstrating the openings - These DVDs are the modern idea of describing the main ideas and themes of the openings. Those are explained by strong masters, using video to explain as a teacher performs the principles.
== General chess opening books ==
These books cover a wide variety of chess openings. They are in English, except that the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings has minimal text but instead uses universal symbols to annotate moves and ideas that can be understood in many languages (see Punctuation (chess)).
How to Play the Opening in Chess. 1993. Raymond Keene and David Levy. ISBN 0-8050-2937-0.
The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, five volumes, Chess Informant, Belgrade.
Batsford Chess Openings 2. 1989, 1994. Garry Kasparov and Raymond Keene. New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-3409-9.
Nunn's Chess Openings. 1999. John Nunn (Editor), Graham Burgess, John Emms, & Joe Gallagher. ISBN 1-85744-221-0.
Modern Chess Openings, 15th edition (MCO-15). 2008. Nick de Firmian. ISBN 978-0-8129-3682-7.
Fundamental Chess Openings, Paul van der Sterren, 2009, Gambit, ISBN 978-1-906454-13-5.
Mastering the Chess Openings, four volumes, John Watson, 2007, Gambit.
Chess Opening Essentials, four volumes, Stefan Djuric, Dimitri Komarov, & Claudio Pantaleoni, 2008, New in Chess.
== See also ==
Modern Chess Openings
Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings
List of chess books
List of chess openings
Chess endgame literature
== References == |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | David Martínez Martin is a Spanish chess player and coach of several Spanish players including David Anton Guijarro and Sabrina Vega. He was also director of chess24 chess platform in Spanish, and well known Spanish chess streamer and chess commentator.
== Chess career ==
In June 2024, he organized the "Clash of Claims" event in Madrid, which was a match between former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and grandmaster José Martínez Alcántara.
In October 2024, he partnered with grandmaster Pepe Cuenca in the Team Chess Battle, where they made it to the finals and defeated Eric Rosen and Nemo Zhou to win the entire event.
He is the coach of grandmaster David Antón Guijarro, Sabrina Vega (8 times Woman Spanish Chess Champion) and the Spanish women's team. He also works as Chess.com's international partnerships manager.
In the 2024 Chess Olympic Games, he was the captain of the Spanish Absolute Team.
== References ==
== External links ==
David Martinez rating card at FIDE |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | The Chess Master (Chinese: 棋王; pinyin: Qíwáng; lit. 'Chess King'), is a 1984 novella by Chinese writer Ah Cheng. It features characters who are part of the Down to the Countryside Movement, which occurred after the Cultural Revolution. Written from the point of view of an unnamed narrator, it describes the titular character, Wang Yisheng, and what drives him to play xiangqi, also known as Chinese chess.
In 1988, it was adapted into a film called Chess King.
== Plot ==
The story takes place in China during the Down to the Countryside Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The unnamed narrator and the xiangqi player Wang Yisheng are two young intellectuals among many sent to work on farms in the mountains. During the train ride to the mountains, Wang and his friend talk about how he learned to play xiangqi and how he evolved his current strategy. Wang tells his friend that his family was very poor, and his mother disapproved of his habit. However, Wang was very devoted to xiangqi. One day, while gathering garbage to sell, Wang met an old xiangqi master. Using the principles of Daoism, the old man taught Wang everything he knew about xiangqi. Wang also tells his friend about how his mother made him a set out of discarded toothbrush handles before she died because she knew how much he loved the game. The two friends then head to different farms.
A couple of months later, Wang Yisheng visits the narrator in the mountains. One of the narrator's friends at the farm, Legballs, happens to be a good xiangqi player. Legballs is very impressed with Wang's ability, and the two become good friends.
Later, there is a local festival with a xiangqi tournament. The narrator, Legballs, and their friends all attend. Wang Yisheng arrives too late to enter the official tournament, but he challenges the winners to an unofficial match after it is over. He ends up playing nine people at once without any boards in front of him (effectively playing blind), and beats most of them easily. The final match ends in a draw, with Wang Yisheng having played against an old man who is too fragile to leave the house, and had to send his moves via messenger. Wang Yisheng bursts into tears after the match, lamenting his dead mother. The old man leaves his house to praise him personally.
== Reception ==
"The Chess Master" and Ah Cheng's other novellas were popular with many sectors of Chinese society, and well regarded by critics and scholars.
== English translations ==
The novella has been translated into English twice. One translation is a bilingual edition translated by W.J.F. Jenner and published in 2005 by The Chinese University Press; the other is by Bonnie S. McDougall and published by New Directions Publishing.
== Adaptations ==
Chess King, a 1988 Chinese film
King of Chess, a 1991 Hong Kong film
== Notes ==
== References == |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | The Chess Federation of Canada or CFC (French name: Fédération canadienne des échecs) is Canada's national chess organization. Canadian Chess Association, founded in 1872, was replaced in 1932 by the Canadian Chess Federation (CCF), which for the first time included representation from all major cities in Canada. In 1945 the name was changed to avoid confusion with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. The CFC organizes tournaments and publishes national ratings. The highest rated player in Canada is Evgeny Bareev of Toronto.
== Activities ==
From 1974 to 2008 the CFC published a bi-monthly magazine called Chess Canada. Its former titles were En Passant and CFC Bulletin. The magazine reported on the latest important tournaments in Canada, especially those with Grandmaster-strength players, including many game scores. The magazine also printed the top ratings of several age groups and top overall in Canada. Chess Canada also posted notices of upcoming tournaments across Canada. It has since been replaced with an online magazine, which contains many of the same functions. The editor is John Upper.
The CFC organizes the Canadian Open every July. The first Canadian Open was held in Montreal in 1956 and saw the participation of Bobby Fischer. In recent years, the tournament has increased in prestige, becoming a part of the ACP Tour in 2007.[1] Previous editions attracted Boris Spassky, Paul Keres, Bent Larsen, Ljubomir Ljubojević, Alexei Shirov, Vasily Ivanchuk and Nigel Short. The Canadian Youth Chess Championships are usually held just prior to the Canadian Open at the same location.
The CFC organizes a national championship every one or two years. As Canada is a FIDE Zone, many players earn their International Master or FIDE Master title in the Canadian Chess Championship. In addition, the CFC runs the Canadian Women's and Canadian Junior Championship. It also sends men's and women's teams to Chess Olympiads held every other year.
== Ratings system ==
The CFC uses the Elo rating system. CFC ratings for a player tend to be around fifty points higher than United States Chess Federation ratings and ninety points higher than FIDE ratings.
== CFC Titles ==
The CFC awards National Master titles to players who perform at a high level. They are awarded to players with a published, non-provisional CFC rating of 2200, and (at any point) three "norms", which are performances of 2300, comprising at least five games each. The other option is getting a non-provisional CFC rating of 2300 at any point.
List of CFC titled players
== Current Champions ==
as of 2023
Canadian Open Champion: Alexei Shirov
Canadian Champion: Nikolay Noritsyn
Women's Champion: Svitlana Demchenko
Junior Champion: Johnathan Han
Youth Champion U18: Tymur Keleberda
== See also ==
Chess in Canada
Canadian chess periodicals
Manitoba Chess Association
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | A bitboard is a specialized bit array data structure commonly used in computer systems that play board games, where each bit corresponds to a game board space or piece. This allows parallel bitwise operations to set or query the game state, or determine moves or plays in the game.
Bits in the same bitboard relate to each other by the rules of the game, often forming a game position when taken together. Other bitboards are commonly used as masks to transform or answer queries about positions. Bitboards are applicable to any game whose progress is represented by the state of, or presence of pieces on, discrete spaces of a gameboard, by mapping of the space states to bits in the data structure. Bitboards are a more efficient alternative board representation to the traditional mailbox representation, where each piece or space on the board is an array element.
Bitboards are especially effective when the associated bits of various related states on the board fit into a single word or double word of the CPU architecture, so that single bitwise operators like AND and OR can be used to build or query game states.
Among the computer game implementations that use bitboards are chess, checkers, othello and word games. The scheme was first employed in checkers programs in the 1950s, and since the mid-1970s has been the de facto standard for game board representation in computer automatons.
== Description ==
A bitboard, a specialized bit field, is a format that packs multiple related boolean variables into the same machine word, typically representing a position on a board game, or state of a game. Each bit represents a space; when the bit is positive, a property of that space is true. Bitboards allow the computer to answer some questions about game state with one bitwise operation. For example, if a chess program wants to know if the white player has any pawns in the center of the board (center four squares) it can just compare a bitboard for the player's pawns with one for the center of the board using a bitwise AND operation. If there are no center pawns then the result will be all zero bits (i.e. equal to zero). Multiple bitboards may represent different properties of spaces over the board, and special or temporary bitboards (like temporary variables) may represent local properties or hold intermediate collated results.
The efficacy of bitboards is augmented by two other properties of the implementation. First, bitboards are fast to incrementally update, such as flipping the bits at the source and destination positions in a bitboard for piece location when a piece is moved. Second, bitmaps representing static properties like all spaces attacked by each piece type for every position on a chessboard can be pre-collated and stored in a table, so that answering a question like "what are the legal moves of a knight on space e4?" can be answered by a single memory fetch.
Bitfield implementations take advantage of the presence of fullword (32-bit or 64-bit) bitwise logical operations like AND, OR, NOT and others on modern CPU architectures in order to be efficient. Bitboards may not be effective on earlier 8- and 16-bit minicomputer and microprocessor architectures.
== Implementation issues ==
As a result of necessary compression and encoding of the contents of massive tables and the probability of transcription or encoding errors, bitboard programs are tedious for software developers to either write or debug. Auxiliary generative methods not part of the application are usually required to build the tables.
=== Processor use ===
==== Pros ====
Bitboard representations use parallel bitwise operations available on nearly all CPUs that complete in one cycle and are fully pipelined and cached etc. Nearly all CPUs have AND, OR, NOR, and XOR.
Furthermore, modern CPUs have instruction pipelines that queue instructions for execution. A processor with multiple execution units can perform more than one instruction per cycle if mo |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the Candidates Tournament. Since 2005, the Chess World Cup has filled a similar role.
== Zonal tournaments ==
In the first year of the cycle, every FIDE member nation would hold a national championship, with the top players qualifying for the Zonal tournament. The world was divided into distinct zones, with the Soviet Union, the United States and Canada each being designated a zone, thus qualifiers from these three zones went directly to the Interzonal. Smaller countries would be grouped into a zone with many countries. For example, all of South America and Central America combined originally formed one zone.
== Interzonal tournaments ==
The top players in each Zonal tournament would meet in the Interzonal tournament, which would typically have between 20 and 24 players. The top finishers (e.g., the top six in 1958) would qualify for the Candidates Tournament, which would take place the following year. They would be joined in the Candidates by the loser of the previous candidates' final and the loser of the previous world championship match. The winner of the Candidates tournament would play a 24-game match with the World Champion the following year, and need to win outright to gain the title.
For instance, in the World Chess Championship 1963 cycle, nine different Zonals were played. Each qualified between one and four players for the Interzonal, depending on the strength of the region, with 23 players qualifying for the Interzonal. The Interzonal was played in January to March 1962, with the top six players qualifying for the Candidates. They were joined by Mikhail Tal (loser of the 1961 match for the championship with Mikhail Botvinnik), and Paul Keres, who had finished second at the 1959 Candidates tournament. Those eight played a quadruple round-robin in the Candidates tournament in May and June 1962. The winner was Tigran Petrosian, who then played Botvinnik in a match for the championship in 1963.
Thus, Interzonal tournaments were held approximately every three years from 1948 until 1993 (1948, 1952, 1955, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1990, and 1993). However, by 1972 the system was becoming unwieldy. The number of top-level players had grown, with the increasing popularization of chess, and the cost of staging these events had become too great. It had become impractical to put all of the top players into a round robin tournament, so in 1973 the system was changed to two Interzonals (with the first three in each qualifying for the Candidates). In 1982 it changed again to three Interzonal tournaments, where the top two players qualified from each. Further increases in the number of qualifiers led to the Interzonal being staged as a single Swiss system tournament in 1990 and 1993.
The last FIDE Interzonal was in 1993. The short-lived Professional Chess Association also held one Interzonal, in 1993.
== Chess World Cup ==
The system was dropped altogether from the mid-1990s, being replaced by a series of short, knockout-style matches among qualifiers. From 1998 to 2004, these tournaments were for the FIDE World Championship.
Since 2005, the Chess World Cup has filled a somewhat similar role to the Interzonal. As with the Interzonals, players qualify via zonal tournaments, although some leading players are seeded directly into the World Cup. The winner (and sometimes also the runner-up) qualifies for the Candidates Tournament. (In contrast to the Interzonal, from which six or more players would qualify).
== See also ==
See Candidates Tournament for a table of Interzonal, Candidates and World Championship results since 1948.
== References ==
== External links ==
Mark Weeks' World Chess Championship Index |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | In chess, opposition (or direct opposition) is a situation in which two kings are two squares apart on the same rank or file. Since kings cannot move adjacent to each other, each king prevents the other's advance, creating a mutual blockade. In this situation, the player not having to move is said to have the opposition. It is a special type of zugzwang and most often occurs in endgames with only kings and pawns. The side with the move may have to move their king away, potentially allowing the opposing king access to important squares. Taking the opposition is a means to an end, normally to force the opponent's king to move to a weaker position, and is not always the best thing to do.
There are extensions of direct opposition, such as diagonal opposition and distant opposition, which can be conducive to reaching direct opposition. All three types may be referred to simply as opposition if the type is unambiguous in context.
== Direct opposition ==
Direct opposition is a position in which the kings are on the same rank or file and are separated by one square. When the term opposition is used, it normally refers to direct opposition.
In this diagram, the player whose turn it is not to move has the opposition. If it is Black's turn to move, White has the opposition and wins. (See King and pawn versus king endgame.) If it were White's turn to move, Black would have the opposition and the position would be a draw.
In order to ensure correct play in situations like in the diagram, it may be helpful to remember that each time the pawn steps forward, it must be without giving check. If the pawn checks the opponent's king, the opposition will be lost and the game drawn.
=== Example ===
In the game Svetozar Gligorić–Bobby Fischer, 1959, Black can draw by keeping the white king from getting to any of the key squares (marked by dots). This is accomplished by not allowing White to get the opposition, and seizing the opposition if the white king advances.
57... Kb8!
This waiting move is the only move to draw. (In the actual game the players agreed to a draw at this point.) Other moves allow White to get the opposition and then get to a key square. If the white king gets to a key square, White wins. For example 57...Kb7? 58.Kb5, then the black king moves and the white king gets to a key square and then wins by forcing promotion of the pawn.
58. Kc5 Kc7
59. Kb5 Kb7
60. Ka5 Ka7
and Black draws. In this sequence, any other moves by Black lose.
== Diagonal opposition ==
Opposition along a diagonal is called diagonal opposition. Sometimes diagonal opposition is used to achieve direct opposition. An example is the position in the first diagram, with Black to move. White has the direct opposition in this position, but it does him no good because his king cannot attack the black pawn after the black king moves away. White needs to achieve direct opposition closer to the pawn.
1... Kf8 2. Kd6
and White has the diagonal opposition (second diagram).
2... Ke8 3. Ke6
White now has direct opposition on a useful square, and White wins:
3... Kf8 4. Kd7 Kg8 5. Ke7 Kh8 6. f6 gxf6 7. Kf7
7.Kxf6 also wins for White.
== Distant opposition ==
Distant opposition is a position in which the kings are on the same rank or file but are separated by more than one square. If there are an odd number of squares between the kings, the player not having the move has the (distant) opposition. As with diagonal opposition, it is often converted to direct opposition, as in the diagram:
1. Ke2
White takes the distant opposition.
1... Ke7 2. Ke3 Ke6 3. Ke4
Taking the direct opposition; and now Black must step aside.
3... Kd6
If 3...Kf6 then White plays the corresponding 4.Kf4!
4. Kd4!
4.Kf5 would lead to both pawns queening.
4... Kc6
4...Ke6 5.Kc5 and White is way ahead in the queening race.
5. Ke5
and White has a choice of which pawn he wins, using the created passed pawn as an outside passed pawn unless he can promote it directly.
Black can be tricky and |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Computer Chess is a 2013 independent comedy-drama film written and directed by Andrew Bujalski. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, and subsequently screened at such festivals as South by Southwest and the Maryland Film Festival.
It is Bujalski's second black-and-white film, and was shot with analog video cameras. It is more improvisatory than his previous films, with only an eight-page treatment for a script. Bujalski also cast nonprofessional actors who were knowledgeable in computer technology.
== Plot summary ==
In 1980, an annual gathering of teams of idiosyncratic nerds compete in an undistinguished California hotel to see which of their computer programs can best the others at computer chess. A grandmaster (Gerald Peary) presides as master of ceremonies with a videographer and microphone in tow. Clunky, primitive personal computers are carted from room to room. Bad haircuts, dorky shirts, "birth control glasses", and other social impedimenta are ubiquitous. Bull sessions on the dystopian possibilities of artificial intelligence are pursued. The Pentagon's interest in the goings-on is intimated. The only female geek (Robin Schwartz) in attendance is repeatedly hailed and “welcomed” by the MC.
Simultaneously at the same hotel, a human potential movement group (the “seekers”) has occasional run-ins with the geeks, generating awkward and humorous moments. A painfully shy young computer programmer (Patrick Riester) attracts the interest of a swinging older couple (Cyndi Williams and Chris Doubek). The twin threads of “spiritual” exploration and cybernetic innovation imply an unspoken and implicit hidden connection. In a startling scene, a prostitute — apparently solicited by the young programmer — reveals herself to be infinitely more than expected.
== Cast ==
Patrick Riester as Peter Bishton
Wiley Wiggins as Martin Beuscher
Myles Paige as Michael Papageorge
Robin Schwartz as Shelly Flintic
Gerald Peary as Pat Henderson
Gordon Kindlmann as Tom Schoesser
== Reception ==
The movie has an approval rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "With its delightfully retro production design, Computer Chess is an inventive, intelligent, and humorous comedy that celebrates the eccentricity and uniqueness of its subject." In The Village Voice, Aaron Hillis wrote that it was "the funniest, headiest, most playfully eccentric American indie of the year." Mike D'Angelo of The A.V. Club raved that the film was "the year’s most singular and adventurous movie to date, to the point where it feels not so much original—a word that conveys a strong sense of craft—as it does “isolated,” as in a mutant strain of a virus. What's more, it's fun, generating pleasure not from canned jokes or clichéd plot twists but simply from a sense of unhindered freedom."
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
Computer Chess at IMDb
Computer Chess at Rotten Tomatoes
Interview with the director at Motherboard |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | The Singapore Chess Federation (Abbreviation: SCF) is the principal authority over all chess events in Singapore. SCF was founded in 1949 by Lim Kok Ann. The Federation is affiliated to the world governing body, International Chess Federation (FIDE), and is part of the ASEAN Chess Confederation and the Asian Chess Federation.
Its promotion of the game has caused participation in its youth and interschool events, among others, to jump from 517 in 1999 to over 1200 in 2004. As a result, Singapore has one of the highest number of chess players in schools per capita in Asia.
The current president is International Master Hsu Li Yang. The current vice president is Grandmaster Wong Meng Kong.
== See also ==
Singaporean Chess Championship
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Initiative in a chess position belongs to the player who can make threats that cannot be ignored, thus putting the opponent in the position of having to spend turns responding to threats rather than creating new threats. A player with the initiative will often seek to maneuver their pieces into more and more advantageous positions as they launch successive attacks. The player who lacks the initiative may seek to regain it through counterattack.
== Discussion ==
Due to moving first, White starts the game with the initiative, but it can be lost in the opening by accepting a gambit. Players can also lose initiative by making unnecessary moves that allow the opponent to gain tempo, such as superfluous "preventive" (prophylactic) moves intended to guard against certain actions by the opponent, that nonetheless require no specific response by them. The concept of tempo is closely tied to initiative, as players can acquire the initiative or buttress it by gaining a tempo.
The initiative is important in all phases of the game, but more important in the endgame than in the middlegame and more important in the middlegame than in the opening. Having the initiative puts the opponent on the defensive.
Grandmaster Larry Evans considers four elements of chess: pawn structure, force (material), space (controlling the center and piece mobility), and time. Time is measured in tempi. Having a time advantage is having the initiative. The initiative should be kept as long as possible and only given up for another advantage.
== See also ==
First move advantage in chess
Tempo (chess)
Sente
== References ==
Bibliography
Capablanca, José; de Firmian, Nick (2006), Chess Fundamentals (Completely Revised and Updated for the 21st Century), Random House, ISBN 0-8129-3681-7
Euwe, Max; Meiden, Walter (1966), The Road to Chess Mastery, McKay, pp. xxii–xxiv, ISBN 0-679-14525-7
Evans, Larry (1958), New Ideas in Chess, Pitman (1984 Dover edition), ISBN 0-486-28305-4 {{citation}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Hooper, David; Whyld, Kenneth (1996) [First pub. 1992], The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280049-3
== Further reading ==
Euwe, Max; Kramer, Hans (1994), The Middlegame: Book Two: Dynamic & Subjective Features, Hays, pp. 13–48, ISBN 1-880673-96-7 |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | In chess, and particularly in endgame studies, domination occurs when a player controls all movement squares of an enemy piece.
== Examples ==
This position occurred in the game Beliavsky–Korchnoi, György Marx Memorial, 2004. White blundered with 38.Kh2? allowing 38...Qd3 – this dominates the knight: despite having six squares available to it, its capture cannot be avoided. b2, d2, a5 and e5 are guarded by the black bishop, d6 by the black queen, and b6 by the pawn. Additionally, there is no way for the white queen to safely defend it, as every square she could defend it from is guarded by the black queen.
The example here is a study by Henri Rinck first published in La Stratégie in 1920. It is White to play and win. Normally, Black would be able to sacrifice his rook for the white bishop, leaving a drawn position (sacrificing it for a knight would be no good, since it is possible to force mate with bishop and knight), but in this case it turns out that the rook is dominated, and its capture cannot be avoided despite its freedom of movement. The first move of the solution is 1.Nd2, after which all rook moves allow it to be captured or immediately lost to a knight fork (1...Re7 2.Nd5+; 1...Re3 2.Nd5+; 1...Rd4 2.Ne6+; 1...Rb4 2.Nd5+) apart from one: 1...Re5. After 2.Nc4 the situation is similar: only 2...Re4 and 2...Rf5 avoid immediate loss of the rook. Whichever Black plays, White continues with 3.Nd6 when only 3...Re5 avoids immediate loss. 4.Bf3 leaves Black completely helpless: once again, all moves allow capture of the rook or a knight fork except 4...Ra5, when after 5.Ne6+ Ke5 6.Nc4+ the rook is finally won. At all stages the rook had wide freedom of movement, and twice it had the maximum number of fourteen squares available to it, yet it could not be saved; it was dominated.
== Further reading ==
Genrikh Kasparyan, Domination in 2545 Endgame Studies
== References ==
== External links ==
Several examples of domination from Kasparyan's book |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Descriptive notation is a chess notation system based on abbreviated natural language. Its distinctive features are that it refers to files by the piece that occupies the back rank square in the starting position and that it describes each square two ways depending on whether it is from White or Black's point of view. It was common in English, Spanish and French chess literature until about 1980. In most other languages, the more concise algebraic notation was in use. Since 1981, FIDE no longer recognizes descriptive notation for the purposes of dispute resolution, and algebraic notation is now the accepted international standard.
== Description ==
=== Nomenclature ===
With the exception of the knight, each piece is abbreviated as the first letter of its name: K for king, Q for queen, R for rook, B for bishop, and P for pawn. As knight begins with the same letter as king, it is abbreviated as either N or Kt, the first being the modern convention. In 1944, Chess Review received many letters debating the change from Kt to N.
Each square has two names, depending on the viewpoint of White or Black. Each file is given a name corresponding to the piece that occupies the first rank at the start of the game. Thus, in English descriptive notation the queen's file is named "Q" and the king's file is named "K". Since there are two each of the remaining pieces on the first rank, it is necessary to distinguish between them. The pieces on the queen's side of the board (to White's left; to Black's right) are named with respect to the queen, i.e. "queen's rook", "queen's knight" and "queen's bishop"; and have the shortened names "QR", "QN" and "QB", respectively. Similarly, the pieces on the king's side (White's right; Black's left) are named with respect to the king, i.e. "king's rook", "king's knight" and "king's bishop"; and have the shortened names "KR", "KN" and "KB". The rank is given a number, ranging from 1 to 8, with rank 1 being closest to the player. In 19th century chess literature the first rank is usually called simply the "[piece]'s square", so "K1" ("King One") is called "King's square" (K. Sq.). Some players omitted both the "1" and the "sq", so "Rook to King 1" was written R–K.
This method of naming the squares means that each square has one name from White's point of view and another from Black's. For a full diagram of the board using this naming method, see the image above.
When recording a move by White, the naming from White's point of view is used; when recording a move by Black, the naming from Black's point of view is used.
Spanish descriptive notation uses a similar system, with a few differences:
The initials to identify the pieces are taken from the equivalent Spanish words: R = rey (king), D = dama (queen, lit. 'lady'), T = torre (rook), C = caballo (knight), A = alfil (bishop, lit. 'war elephant') and P = peón (pawn). The files are named after the initials of the pieces on the first rank, with those on the queen's side being suffixed by the letter "D", and those on the king's side suffixed by the letter "R". From White's left to right along the first rank this yields: TD, CD, AD, D, R, AR, CR, TR.
The dash, which in English descriptive notation symbolizes the word "to", is omitted.
The numerical rank is identified before the file, e.g. "4R" is equivalent to "K4" (e4 in algebraic notation).
In Spanish descriptive notation the Sicilian Defence (1. P–K4 P–QB4 in English) would be written 1. P4R P4AD (peón al cuatro del rey, peón al cuatro del alfil de la dama). This is also the method used in French descriptive notation.
=== Notation for moves ===
Each move is notated by a sequence of characters that is structured based on the move's type. Special indicators are added to the end of the sequence if relevant.
Non-capturing move: A move without capture is notated by the piece's name, a hyphen and the destination square, e.g. N–QB3 (knight to queen's bishop 3) and P–QN4 (pawn to queen's knight 4).
Capture: A ca |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | PogChamps is a series of online amateur chess tournaments hosted by Chess.com. Players in the tournament are internet personalities, primarily Twitch streamers. The first four PogChamps tournaments took place over the course of two weeks, while the fifth iteration lasted four weeks. The first and second PogChamps had prize pools of $50,000 each, and later editions had prize pools of $100,000 each.
== Tournament history ==
The first PogChamps tournament was announced in late May 2020 by Chess.com. The games were played in the 10+5 Rapid Time control and all 16 players were streamers on Twitch. Running from June 5–19, the tournament was won by League of Legends streamer Voyboy. Coaching and commentary was provided primarily by Grandmaster (GM) Hikaru Nakamura and Woman FIDE Master (WFM) Alexandra Botez.
PogChamps 2 was announced on July 20, 2020 and was played from August 21 through September 6. Some players returned from the first tournament, while others, such as David Pakman and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, played in the tournament for the first time. PogChamps 2's lineup included some players who were not primarily Twitch streamers. This event featured a slightly different format, with two game matches in the group stage. Coaches included previously mentioned Nakamura and Botez, as well as GM Daniel Naroditsky, Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Qiyu Zhou, International Master (IM) Anna Rudolf and IM Levy Rozman. The tournament was ultimately won by World of Warcraft and Hearthstone streamer Hafu (itshafu).
PogChamps 3 was announced on January 11, 2021 and was played from February 14 through February 28. Notable contestants for the third event include streamers xQc (marking his third time participating), Ludwig and MoistCr1tikal (marking their second times participating), as well as Myth, Pokimane, and Neekolul; YouTubers MrBeast and Michelle Khare, rapper Logic, actor Rainn Wilson and poker player Daniel Negreanu. In the announcement article, Chess.com noted how previous PogChamps tournaments, as well as other external events such as the success of The Queen's Gambit on Netflix, had led to a dramatic increase in the number of site registrations and daily games played, allowing them to gain several sponsorships for the third iteration of the series, which in turn led to an increased prize pool of $100,000. The tournament was won by French streamer Sardoche.
PogChamps 4 was announced in a video via Chess.com's official Twitter account on July 6, 2021 to be played beginning on August 29. Sponsored by cryptocurrency marketplace Coinbase, the fourth iteration of the tournament has a $100,000 prize pool, with Chess.com matching up to $100,000 additionally for charity. In a Chess.com stream of the FIDE World Cup, Daniel Naroditsky confirmed that previous PogChamps participants MrBeast and Ludwig will return. This information was further corroborated by an article announcing that in addition to MrBeast and Ludwig returning, notable Spanish streamer Rubius would return as well for the fourth iteration of the event. The tournament was won by Dutch streamer Fundy.
PogChamps 5 was announced on June 29, 2023 from a Chess.com announcement video on YouTube. The event began on July 26. For the first time, the event featured over-the-board play. Only the finals were over-the-board, which were held as best of four matches in Los Angeles on August 18. Voice actor and streamer CDawgVA won the tournament.
PogChamps 6 was announced on March 20, 2025 during a Chess.com broadcast. The event was played from April 29 to May 2, and was won by English international footballer Eberechi Eze.
== Reception ==
Chess.com claimed that viewership for the first tournament exceeded its "ambitious estimates." Trent Murray of The Esports Observer commented that the number of hours of chess watched on Twitch increased in June 2020, the month in which the first PogChamps took place. Viewership increased especially after video of Cr1TiKaL checkmating xQc within 6 moves went v |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Sega Chess (also known as Master Chess) is a 1991 chess video game developed by Probe Software and published by Sega for the Master System.
== Gameplay ==
The game can be viewed from overhead or in a pseudo 3D mode. There are nine skill levels: beginner to grandmaster. Resigning is not included in the game. Sampled speech option is included which is useful for people with visual impairment. Features that help new players include a hint system, the ability to undo moves, swapping sides at any time and forcing the computer to make its move prematurely. In Adaptive mode, the computer will decide its move in the time it takes the player to complete a turn. Problem mode places a specific chess problem for the player to solve. For the hardest challenge, in Infinite mode the computer will take as long as it needs to make its move.
== Reception ==
Mean Machines concluded: "A decent, if expensive, game which is best recommended to chess fans who have no-one to play against." Sega Force praised the difficulty curve and summarized: "Against competition, a brilliant adaptation of an ancient game". Sega Power said: "If you can't play it, it won't teach you, but lonely chess players will absolutely love this version." Video Games praised the graphics and controls. Games-X said: "Sega Chess is everything a chess buff could possibly want on the Master System, and offers an enjoyable game to players at all skill levels."
== References ==
== External links ==
Sega Chess at MobyGames
Sega Chess can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Following are the official winners of the national Brazilian Chess Championships from 1927 to date.
The 1998 championship was held 9–19 December in Itabirito, Minas Gerais State.
The field of sixteen played a series of two-game single-elimination matches to determine the finalists.
Rafael Leitão defeated Giovanni Vescovi in the four-game final match, winning the first game and drawing the remaining three.
== Winners ==
== References ==
http://www.brasilbase.pro.br/
https://web.archive.org/web/20071010145931/http://www.hiperchess.com.br/galerias/Brasileiro.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20071010145847/http://www.hiperchess.com.br/galerias/Brasileiro_Feminino.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20041217105328/http://www.wsc.jor.br/xadrez/feminino_br.htm
1995 Crosstable from chess.gr Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
2007 from TWIC
Freiberger, Igor (30 December 2008), André Diamant wins Brazilian Championship 2008, chessbase.com, retrieved 2009-01-02 |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | The Queen's Gambit is the chess opening that starts with the moves:
1. d4 d5
2. c4
It is one of the oldest openings and is still commonly played today. It is traditionally described as a gambit because White appears to sacrifice the c-pawn; however, this could be considered a misnomer as Black cannot retain the pawn without incurring a disadvantage.
== History ==
The Queen's Gambit is one of the oldest known openings in chess. It was mentioned in the Göttingen manuscript of 1490 and was later analyzed by Gioachino Greco in the 17th century. In the 18th century, it was recommended by Philipp Stamma of Aleppo and is sometimes known as the Aleppo Gambit in his honor. During the early period of modern chess, queen pawn openings were not in fashion, and the Queen's Gambit did not become commonplace until the 1873 tournament in Vienna.
As Wilhelm Steinitz and Siegbert Tarrasch developed chess theory and increased the appreciation of positional play, the Queen's Gambit grew more popular, reaching its zenith in the 1920s and 1930s, and it was played in all but 2 of 34 games in the 1927 World Championship match between José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine.
After the resumption of international chess activity following World War II, it was less frequently seen as many players moved away from symmetrical openings, tending to use an Indian Defence to combat queen pawn openings; however, it is still frequently played.
== Overview ==
With 2.c4, White threatens to exchange a wing pawn (the c-pawn) for a center pawn (Black's d-pawn) in order to dominate the center with e2–e4. Black cannot hold the pawn, for example: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 b5? (Black tries to guard their pawn but should pursue development with 3...Nf6 or 3...e5) 4.a4 c6? 5.axb5 cxb5?? 6.Qf3! winning a piece.
The Queen's Gambit is divided into two major categories based on Black's response: the Queen's Gambit Accepted (QGA) and the Queen's Gambit Declined (QGD). In the QGA, Black plays 2...dxc4, temporarily giving up the center to obtain freer development. In the QGD, Black usually plays to hold d5. Frequently Black will be cramped, but Black aims to exchange pieces and use pawn breaks at c5 and e5 to free Black's game.
== Variations ==
Technically, any Black response other than 2...dxc4 (or another line with an early ...dxc4 that transposes into the QGA) is a Queen's Gambit Declined, but the Slav, Albin Countergambit, and Chigorin Defense are generally treated separately. There are so many QGD lines after 2...e6 that many of them are distinctive enough to warrant separate treatment. The Orthodox Defense and the Tarrasch Defense are two important examples. (See Queen's Gambit Declined for more.)
After 1.d4 d5 2.c4:
2...e6 – Queen's Gambit Declined or QGD (ECO D30–D69). This is the main line, with many variations.
2...dxc4 – Queen's Gambit Accepted or QGA (D20–D29). Less popular than the Queen's Gambit Declined, it nevertheless has a solid reputation.
2...c6 – Slav Defense (D10–D19). This is a solid response, although many variations are very tactical. If Black plays both ...c6 and ...e6 (in either order), the opening takes characteristics of both the Slav and the Orthodox Defense and is classified as a Semi-Slav Defense.
2...e5 – Albin Countergambit (D08–D09), a sharp attempt by Black to gain the initiative. It is uncommon in top-level chess but can be a dangerous weapon in club play.
2...Nc6 – Chigorin Defense (D07) The Chigorin Defense takes the game away from the normal positional channels of the QGD and has been favored by Alexander Morozevich at the top level; it appears to be playable for Black.
2...Bf5!? – Baltic Defense (D06), an offbeat but playable line.
2...c5 – Symmetrical Defense (D06). This is rarely played; although it has not been definitely refuted, the play seems to favor White.
2...Nf6?! – Marshall Defense (D06), named after Frank Marshall, who first devised the move, he briefly played it in the 1920s before abandoning it.
2...g6?! – Alekhin |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Cyber Chess is a chess-playing computer program developed by William Tunstall-Pedoe. It was written for the Acorn Archimedes and published commercially by The Fourth Dimension.
== Development ==
Evaluation of moves was tuned by use of a genetic algorithm.
== Gameplay ==
The game provides play against another human or the computer (at various levels of difficulty). Saved games and graphics export as vector Drawfiles are supported.
== Reception ==
In Acorn User's games review of 1993/94, Cyber Chess was listed number 55 in the Best 100 Games. The game was well received by the magazines Acorn Computing and Archimedes World, but the retail price of £35 was criticised by The Icon Bar in an article about the marketing of RISC OS games.
== References == |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | In chess, a grotesque is a problem or endgame study which features a particularly unlikely or impossible initial position, especially one in which White fights with a very small force against a much larger black army. Grotesques are generally intended to be humorous.
== Examples ==
=== Ottó Bláthy ===
A particularly extreme example by Ottó Bláthy is illustrated in the adjacent diagram. In the initial position Black has all sixteen pieces remaining and White has just a single pawn on its starting square, yet it is White who will deliver checkmate.
This position in Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) is: 8/8/8/2p5/1pp5/brpp4/qpprpK1P/1nkbn3 w - - 0 1
The solution is:
1.Kxe1 Qa1 2.h3!! Qa2 3.h4 Qa1 4.h5 Qa2 5.h6 Qa1 6.h7 Qa2 7.h8=N! Qa1 8.Nf7 Qa2 9.Nd8 Qa1 10.Ne6 Qa2 11.Nxc5 Qa1 12.Ne4 Qa2 13.Nd6 Qa1 14.Nxc4 Qa2 15.Na5 Qa1 16.Nxb3#
The fact that the black queen must be on a1 rather than a2 when White plays Nxb3 explains why 2.h4? does not work. Similarly, if the white knight takes a more direct route to the b3-square with 8.Ng6 Qa2 9.Ne5 Qa1 10.Nxc4? Qa2 11.Na5, Black can lose a move with 11...c4! 12.Nxc4 Qa1 13.Na5 Qa2 and there is no mate. By the same token, there are several alternatives to 8.Nf7 and 12.Ne4, as long as the knight arrives on time for 11.Nxc5 and 14.Nxc4 respectively. This kind of precise timing is quite a common feature in this type of problem.
=== Tigran Gorgiev ===
The composer most closely associated with the grotesque is probably Tigran Gorgiev; here is one of his examples.
This position in Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) is : 8/8/4N3/4Q3/1pp5/1p3N2/bpqp1p2/nrkrbK2 w - - 0 1
This time, White is to play and draw. This is achieved by sacrificing most of his already small force to compel Black to repeat moves:
1. Nf4 Qd3+
Otherwise 2.Ne2+ leads to mate.
2. Nxd3+ cxd3 3. Qc3+ bxc3 4. Ne5 Kc2 5. Nc4 Kc1 6. Ne5
and Black has nothing more than a draw by repetition. Note that only the squares c4 and e5 will do for the white knight; if, for example, 4.Nd4 then 4...Nc2 allows Black to free himself (this is not possible with the knight on e5 because of Nxd3#); and if, for example, 5.Nc6 then Black can free himself with 5...Rbc1 or 5...Rdc1 (not possible with the knight on c4 because of Na3# and Ne3# respectively).
== Moremover ==
Similar play to that found in grotesques such as these may also be found in very long moremovers (problems with the stipulation "White to play and checkmate Black in no more than n moves", where n is very high, sometimes over 100), known as longmovers, of which Ottó Bláthy was also a notable composer.
To the right is a kind of problem quite closely related to these kinds of grotesques: this time it is White who has a clear material advantage, but it is difficult to make anything of it because of the locked pawn chain.
This position in Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) is : 8/8/8/1k3p2/p1p1pPp1/PpPpP1Pp/1P1P3P/QNK2NRR w - - 0 1
At first glance it seems there is nothing to be done—on moves like Rg2, White cannot make progress unless Black captures—but White does have one plan: to play Qa2 at an appropriate moment in order to threaten Qxb3. Doing this immediately does not work (Black simply promotes on a1 and it is Black who wins by ...Qa2–b3–c2 mate), but there is a way. With the knights locked in place and the king unable to leave the back rank except for f2, White must carefully shuffle the king and rooks around each other until the queen receives enough support for a sacrificial breakthrough:
1. Kd1 Kb6 2. Ke1 Kb5 3. Rg2 Kb6 4. Re2 Kb5 5. Kf2 Kb6 6. Re1 Kb5 7. Rg1 Kb6 8. Rg2 Kb5 9. Rc1 Kb6 10. Ke1 Kb5 11. Re2 Kb6 12. Kd1 Kb5 13. Re1 Kb6 14. Rc2 Kb5 15. Kc1 Kb6 16. Qa2!! bxa2 17. b4! a1=Q 18. Rb2 Kb5 19. Rd1 Qxb2+ (if 19...Ka6 then 20.b5+ Kb6 21.Re1 Ka7 22.b6+ Kb7 23.Rd1 Ka8 24.b7+ Kb8 25.Re1 Kc7 26.b8=Q+) 20. Kxb2 Kb6 21. Rc1 Kb5 22. Rc2 dxc2 (if 22...Kb6 then 23.Kc1 Kb5 24.Rb2 Kb6 25.Kd1 Ka6 26.b5+ Ka7 27.b6+ Kb7 28.Kc1 Ka8 29.b7+ Kb8 25.Kd1 Kc7 26.b8=Q+) 23. Kxc2 Kc6 24. d3 exd3+ |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | The 42nd Chess Olympiad (Azerbaijani: 42-ci Şahmat Olimpiadası; also known as the Baku Chess Olympiad), organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and comprising an open and women's tournaments, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, was an international team chess event held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 1 to 14 September 2016. It was the first time that the Chess Olympiad had been hosted in Azerbaijan, the birthplace of former world champion Garry Kasparov; however, Azerbaijan had previously hosted strong tournaments, including the annual Shamkir Chess super-tournament in memory of Vugar Gashimov (1986–2014) and the Chess World Cup 2015.
The total number of participants was 1,587, with 894 in the Open and 693 in the Women's event. The number of registered teams was 180 from 175 countries in the Open section and 142 from 138 countries in the Women's section. Both sections set team participation records. Eritrea, Kosovo, and South Sudan competed in the tournament for the first time. The venue of the Chess Olympiad was the Baku Crystal Hall. The Chief Arbiter of the event was Azerbaijan's International Arbiter Faiq Hasanov.
The United States won the gold medal in the Open event for the first time since 1976 and for the sixth time overall, while China won their fifth gold medal in the Women's event and the first since 1994 after winning the silver medal in the last three Olympiads. Ukrainian player Andrei Volokitin, who played as a reserve player, was the best individual player in the Open event with 81⁄2 out of 9 points (eight wins and one draw), with a performance rating of 2992. Russian Valentina Gunina, playing on board two, was the best individual player in the Women's event with 8 out of 10 points (seven wins, two draws and one loss), with a performance rating of 2643.
== Bidding process ==
The bidding procedure for the 42nd Chess Olympiad and the FIDE Congress in connection with a possible bid for the Chess World Cup 2015 was opened in December 2011. Each city interested to host the event had to submit their bid to FIDE by 31 May 2012. The bids were to guarantee that all necessary provisions in accordance with the Olympiad Regulations of the FIDE Handbook would be covered by the organiser, including articles 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 pertaining to the organising committee, finances, and provision of amenities and stipends, respectively. Three cities submitted bids to host the event: Albena, Tallinn and Baku.
The final decision was made at the 83rd FIDE Congress in September 2012 in Istanbul. Out of the three bidding cities, the applications of Albena and Tallinn were not accepted as they both failed to make presentations before the voting. Thereafter, discussions started about Baku's nomination and two concerns were raised. The first was the protest by the Armenian representatives against holding the Olympiad in Azerbaijan, who stated that the Armenian chess players would find it difficult to play in Baku, since the two nations were in armed conflict. The second concern was related to the difficulties that the participants may have in obtaining a visa to enter the country. In his speech during the congress, Azerbaijani Minister of Youth and Sports Azad Rahimov said that Armenian sportsmen had already visited Azerbaijan and participated in competitions, where they were provided with security guarantees that had been met, and no incident was ever recorded. He also mentioned the victory of Russian Armenian boxer Misha Aloyan in the 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships held in Baku as an example that Armenians can not only participate but also win. With regard to the visa issue, Rahimov mentioned the positive experience with the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, where all participants received their visas on arrival at the airport without any problem. He also added that the Armenian sportsmen will also get visas easily. The next speaker was FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who suggested that the |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | The World Rapid Chess Championship 2024 was the 2024 edition of the annual World Rapid Chess Championship held by FIDE to determine the world champions in chess played under rapid time controls. The tournament was held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City from 26 to 28 December 2024, using a Swiss system with 13 rounds for the open tournament and 11 rounds for the women's tournament. Players eligible to participate in the open tournament had to either be rated at least 2550 Elo in a FIDE rating list during 2024, or be a reigning national champion. The time control was 15 minutes per player with a 10-second per-move increment. Since 2012, FIDE has held the World Rapid and Blitz Championships at a joint tournament.
== Prize Fund ==
The prize fund for both the open and women's tournaments is shown below. In case of a tie all prize money is divided equally between players with the same score.
== Results ==
The top 20 players in the open division were:
The top 20 players in the women's division were:
== Withdrawal of Magnus Carlsen ==
Following round six of the tournament, defending champion Magnus Carlsen was warned and fined for wearing jeans, which violated the dress code. He refused to change his attire, which prompted the organizers to not pair him for round nine. He had scored 5/8 in the first eight rounds. Instead of continuing the next day, Carlsen decided to withdraw from the tournament, and also announced he would not participate in the World Blitz Chess Championship. FIDE released a statement that the "decision was made impartially and applies equally to all players", noting that participant Ian Nepomniachtchi was fined for wearing a sport shoes, and then complied with the rules by changing into approved attire. Carlsen responded in an interview with Levy Rozman, "I am pretty tired of FIDE, so I want no more of this". However, on 29 December, after FIDE altered the dress code to allow jeans, Carlsen reversed his decision and announced that he would take part in the World Blitz Chess Championship after all.
== References == |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Quality Chess UK Ltd (known as Quality Chess) is a chess publishing company, founded in 2004 by International Master Ari Ziegler, Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard and Grandmaster John Shaw. The company is based in Glasgow.
In 2024 it was announced that Quality Chess bought New in Chess and Popular Chess.
The company focuses on quality of publications rather than quantity of books. In 2005, the book Learn from the Legends: Chess Champions at Their Best by Grandmaster Mihail Marin won the ChessCafe.com "Book of the Year" award. In 2007 San Luis 2005: How Chess Found Its Champion by Alik Gershon and Igor Nor won the English Chess Federation's "Book of the Year 2007" award. Aagaard's Attacking Manual 1 & 2 won the 2010 English Chess Federation book of the year prize.
== Published books ==
Marin, Mihail (2004). Learn from the Legends: Chess Champions at Their Best. Quality Chess. ISBN 91-975243-2-8.
Rogozenko, Dorian (2005). Sveshnikov Reloaded. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-91-975243-5-3;
Aagaard, Jacob (2006). Practical Chess Defence. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-91-975244-4-5.
Gershon, Alik; Nor, Igor (2006). San Luis 2005: How Chess Found Its Champion. Quality Chess. ISBN 91-976005-2-0.
Marin, Mihail (2007). A Spanish Opening Repertoire for Black. Quality Chess. ISBN 91-976005-0-4.
Marin, Mihail (2007). Beating the Open Games. Quality Chess. ISBN 91-976004-3-1.
Vigorito, David (2007). Challenging the Nimzo-Indian. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-91-976005-5-2.
Vigorito, David (2007). Play the Semi-Slav. Quality Chess. ISBN 91-85779-01-6.
Nimzowitsch, Aron (2007). My System, ISBN 978-1-907982-14-9.
Aagaard, Jacob (2008). The Attacking Manual: Basic Principles. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-91-976004-0-8.
Marin, Mihail; Garrett, Yuri (2009). Reggio Emilia 2007/2008. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-32-9.
Karolyi, Tibor; Aplin, Nick (2009). Genius in the Background. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-37-4.
Brunello, Sabino (2009). Attacking the Spanish. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-1-76.
Aagaard, Jacob (2010).The Attacking Manual 2: Technique and Praxis. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-91-976004-1-5.
Boris Avrukh (2010) Grandmaster Repertoire 2 - 1.d4 volume 2. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-33-6.
Boris Alterman (2010) The Alterman Gambit - White Gambits. Quality Chess. Guide ISBN 978-1-906552-53-4.
Milos Pavlovic (2010) The Cutting Edge 1 - The Open Sicilian. Quality Chess. 1 ISBN 978-1-906552-57-2.
Alexey Suetin (2010) Soviet Chess Strategy. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-20-6.
Lars Schandorff(2010) Grandmaster Repertoire 7 - The Caro-Kann. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-56-5.
John Shaw (2010) The Quality Chess Puzzle Book. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1906552121.
Ľubomír Ftáčnik (2010) Grandmaster Repertoire 6 - The Sicilian Defence. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-08-4.
Artur Yusupov (2010) Boost your Chess 2 - Beyond the Basics. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-43-5.
Mihail Marin (2010) Grandmaster Repertoire 4 - The English Opening vol. 2. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-38-1.
Mihail Marin (2010) Grandmaster Repertoire 5 - The English Opening vol. 3. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-59-6.
Christian Bauer (2010) Play the Scandinavian. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-55-8.
Artur Yusupov (2011) Boost your Chess 3 - Mastery. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-44-2.
Milos Pavlovic (2011) The Cutting Edge 2 - Sicilian Najdorf 6.Be3. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-58-9.
Jacob Aagaard & John Shaw (editors) (2011) Experts on the Anti-Sicilian. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-80-0.
Vladimir Popov (2011) Chess Lessons. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-82-4.
Tibor Károlyi (2011) Karpov's Strategic Wins 2 - The Prime Years. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-42-8.
Tibor Károlyi (2011) Karpov's Strategic Wins 1 - The Making of a Champion. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-41-1.
Arkadij Naiditsch (2011) Chess Evolution. Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-907982-06-4.
Boris Avrukh (2011) Grandmaster Repertoire 8 - The Grunfeld Defence . Quality Chess. ISBN 978-1-906552-75-6.
Va |
Volowan/wikipedia_few_stem_4kchar | Howard Staunton (April 1810 – 22 June 1874) was an English chess master who is generally regarded as the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant. He promoted a chess set of clearly distinguishable pieces of standardised shape – the Staunton pattern promulgated by Nathaniel Cooke – that is still the style required for competitions. He was the principal organiser of the first international chess tournament in 1851, which made England the world's leading chess centre and caused Adolf Anderssen to be recognised as the world's strongest player.
From 1840 onwards he became a leading chess commentator, and won matches against top players of the 1840s. In 1847 he entered a parallel career as a Shakespearean scholar. Ill health and his two writing careers led him to give up competitive chess after 1851. In 1858 attempts were made to organise a match between Staunton and Paul Morphy, but it never came about. It was alleged by British Chess Association president Lord Lyttelton that Staunton misled Morphy while trying to avoid the match; it is also possible Staunton overestimated his chances of getting physically fit and of making time available for a match.
Modern commentators consider Staunton's understanding of positional play to have been far ahead of his contemporaries. Although not a rampant attacking player, he attacked when his preparations were complete. His chess articles and books were widely read and encouraged the development of chess in the United Kingdom, and his Chess-Players' Handbook (1847) was a reference for decades. The chess openings the English Opening and Staunton Gambit were named for his advocacy of them. Staunton has been a controversial figure since his own time, and his chess writings could be spiteful. On the other hand, he maintained good working relationships with several strong players and influential chess enthusiasts, and demonstrated excellent management skills.
== Life ==
Most information about Staunton's early life is based on claims he made. In the 1861 and 1871 English census, he claimed he was born in Keswick, Cumberland, located within the Lake District, which he listed as his birthplace in the 1851 census. In 1849, he listed William Staunton as his father on his marriage registration. Record of his birth or baptism has never been found.
The chess historian H. J. R. Murray summarised the information that he gleaned from various sources: Staunton was born in 1810, reputedly the natural son (meaning illegitimately born) of Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle; he was neglected in youth, receiving little or no education; although he spent some time in Oxford, he was never a member of the university; when he came of age he inherited a few thousand pounds, which he soon squandered; in later life Staunton often used to tell how he had once played Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice, with the famous English actor Edmund Kean playing Shylock.
=== 1836–1842, first steps in chess ===
In 1836, Staunton came to London, where he took out a subscription for William Greenwood Walker's Games at Chess, actually played in London, by the late Alexander McDonnell Esq. Staunton was apparently twenty-six when he took a serious interest in chess. He said that at that time the strongest players he saw in London, Saint-Amant and George Walker, could easily have given him rook odds.
In 1838 he played many games with Captain Evans, inventor of the Evans Gambit, and also lost a match against the German chess writer Aaron Alexandre. He had improved sufficiently by 1840 to win a match against the German master H.W. Popert, a slow, cautious player with great defensive skill.
From May to December 1840 Staunton edited a chess column for the New Court Gazette. He then became chess editor of the magazine British Miscellany, and his chess column developed into a separate magazine, the Chess Player's Chronicle, which Staunton owned and edit |
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