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| Posted by jstevens1 www6conf.org 11/06/2008 02:33:34 play online chess |  Subject: Two Near-Expert DrawsMessage: Bye for now. Joanne |
Chess news: The game enjoys a calmer decade -- After the turbulent 1990s, the world of chess needed a calmer period. Here are my reflections on the past decade and a few guesses about the future: Bobby Fischer, probably the most famous chess player ever, died in 2008. Fischer had not played publicly since 1992, but he grabbed attention with vile anti-American statements and a long battle to avoid extradition from Japan. He eventually won the battle, sparing chess fans and the U.S. government more embarrassment, and spent his final years in exile in Iceland. His "improved" version of the game, Fischer random chess, has attracted few adherents. Garry Kasparov, another colossal chess figure, retired in 2005. He quickly ... Chess: The worst of all your possible moves -- Oscar Wilde quipped that when a pessimist is given a choice between two evils, the pessimist chooses both. In this week’s chess position black’s king is in check and must move. The king has only one bad choice. All other choices lead toward a draw. Please play the chess pessimist and try to find black’s worst move. White has a small space advantage. This should not be enough to win, however. With the rooks on the board and an equal number of pawns the game should be drawn. If black king retreats to b7 or d7, black maintains the balance. The one choice that loses is moving the king to d5. This allows the white rook to slide over to d3, checking black. After ... Varuzhan Akobian is lucky in Las Vegas -- The North American Open, one of the Continental Chess Association's largest annual tournaments, attracted 613 chess players to Las Vegas Dec. 26 to 29. The 99-player Open section, featuring nine grandmasters, ended in a five-way tie at 5 1/2 -1 1/2 among GMs Varuzhan Akobian (Glendale), Josh Friedel (Richmond, Calif.), Victor Mikhalevski (Israel), Alexander Shabalov (Pennsylvania) and Alex Yermolinsky (South Dakota). On tiebreak, Akobian, who drew three of his rivals, received the first prize of $3,990. Southern California master David Zimbeck tied for sixth place at 5-2 despite facing higher-rated opponents in his final five games. Zimbeck drew against three grandmasters. Alexander Grischuk, ... | |