Surrealist Chess

Continuing with the weekly series on AI comics, after a brief detour for the year-end holidays last seen in Is 2025 a Dystopian Year? (December 2024), we return to aimless wandering around various topics. Here the previous post was World Class Asian Players (ditto).

This current post started with some recent news from November 2024: Magritte painting fetches record $121 million at auction (brusselstimes.com). Which painting was that? The article informed,

A painting by Belgian surrealist René Magritte was sold for a record-breaking $121.16 million (€114 million) at an auction in New York on Tuesday evening. The painting, titled L'empire des lumières ('The Empire of Light') dates back to 1954 and features a solitary lamp post illuminating a darkened street, juxtaposed with a bright blue day-lit sky. It is one of 18 versions painted by Magritte in different mediums (oil and gouache) and with slight variations.

Somewhere in the back of my head was a factoid that Magritte played chess and sometimes incorporated the game into his paintings. Sure enough, I found this from July 2022: Hidden Belgium: Greenwich Modern (brusselstimes.com; Derek Blyth). The lead sentence of the article informed,

The Surrealist painter René Magritte liked to visit the creaky old Brussels bar Le Greenwich in Rue des Chartreux. He would join the local men to play chess and try unsuccessfully to sell one of his paintings.

In the 1980s and 90s, I sometimes played chess in the Greenwich. I'll come back to that in a moment, but first let's see what AI comics have to say about Magritte.

'Rene Magritte plays surrealist chess.'
AI Comic Factory

The 'Greenwich Modern' article continued,

The café closed in 2009 to allow the Ghent architects Robbrecht & Daem to renovate the beautiful Art Nouveau interior dating from 1907. It relaunched two years later as an upmarket brasserie. The chess players were politely asked to leave.

I passed by the Greenwich some time after that and noticed that the chess sets were gone. Apparently they're back again, so next time I'm in the area I'll peek inside the café to see for myself.

An early post on this blog, Le Greenwich (July 2006), pointed to some pictures, but they are also long gone. Maybe they still live in the Internet archive.

Nice Chess Sweater

Items featured in Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010) often repeat. A couple of months ago we had More Piggybanx Chess (November 2024), where two more of the same item sold in December for somewhat less after many bids.

A couple of months before 'Piggybanx Chess' we had Ugly Chess Jacket (September 2024), with a couple of links for 'previous top eBay items in the clothing category'. There's nothing ugly about the item pictured below, titled 'Rowing Blazer Lewis Chessmen Chess Sweater'. It sold for 'US $500.00 or Best Offer', which appears to be close to the final price.

The description said,

Introducing the Lewis Chessmen Chess Sweater by Rowing Blazers [NB: 'New York' according to the label], a stylish and comfortable sweater perfect for any occasion. This sweater, made from high-quality knit fabric, is designed for men with a regular size type and comes in a classic black/white color.

While I was preparing this post, I saw the same item titled, 'Rowing Blazers Lewis Chessman Knitted Chess Sweater Size XL', where a different seller was asking for 'US $297.50 or Best Offer'. The item pictured above was described as 'New with tags: A brand-new, unused, and unworn item', but the item currently for sale was described as 'Very Good pre-owned condition, no holes'. That probably accounts for the difference in price.

Neither item has anything to do with the Lewis chess pieces, about which there have been several posts on this blog. The style of the pieces on the sweater is often used in printed diagrams of chess positions. The design undoubtedly has a name and must be in the public domain.

World Championship Yahoos 2024 (2/2)

At the end of last month's Yahoo post, World Championship Yahoos 2024 ('1/2'; November 2024; see the footnote for an explanation of Yahoos), I explained the title:-

I'm titling this post 'WCC Yahoos 2024 (1/2)', because I'm expecting another deluge of WCC Yahoos at the end next month.

I was not to be disappointed. This month I counted 93 chess stories, of which 57 were WCC stories (World Chess Championship stories, of course). What I didn't expect was to find 57 stories about the World Rapid and Blitz championships currently being played in New York City and only six stories about the Singapore event which was the subject of 100% of the November stories.

Even more surprising, of the 57 R&B stories, 44 were about Magnus Carlsen wearing jeans, then not wearing jeans. Even more surprising than that, the six stories about Gukesh and company amounted to only half of the dozen stories about NBA star Victor Wembanyama playing chess in New York City's Washington Square Park.

Where to start? How about with the old, nearly forgotten news.

• 2024-12-27: The Drama and Suffering of the World Chess Championship (thenation.com; J.C. Hallman) • 'A dispatch from the pivotal Game 11 in Singapore that helped make Gukesh Dommaraju an 18-year-old chess champion.' • 'J.C. Hallman is the author of [...] The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World’s Oldest Game.'

Now let's have some jeans stories ... from both sides. The problem with 43 of anything is choosing the right one(s).

• 2024-12-28: FIDE statement regarding Magnus Carlsen’s dress code breach (fide.com) • 'FIDE regulations for the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships, including the dress code, are designed to ensure professionalism and fairness for all participants. Today, Mr. Magnus Carlsen breached the dress code by wearing jeans, which are explicitly prohibited under long-standing regulations for this event.'
  
  
• 2024-12-30: Magnus Carlsen Makes U-Turn, Confirms World Blitz Participation With Jeans Approval (chess.com; TarjeiJS, bona fide 'FOM', a 'Friend of Magnus') • 'GM Magnus Carlsen has made a sensational U-turn and confirmed that he will participate in the 2024 FIDE World Blitz Championship in New York. The seven-time World Blitz Champion has now received the green light to play with jeans.'

Meanwhile there was a tournament taking place. How was that going?

• 2024-12-27: FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships 2024: Carlsen struggles on first day... (espn.com.au) • 'The 2024 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship began with quite an upset as Magnus Carlsen, the World No 1 and defending World Rapid champion, was stunned by 18-year-old GM Denis Lazavik and managed just 2.5 points out of 5.'

Carlsen is known to be a sore loser and he quit the next day. Remember the events leading up to Steamin' Niemann (November 2022)? I'm sure this will all settle down by next month's Yahoos post.

Meanwhile let's move on to the chess playing 'NBA star'. The dozen stories about him started near the top of Google News with a special section and its own headline, 'Spurs center Victor Wembanyama plays chess with fans in NYC'. For manifest reasons, I'm not going to link to a sample story. Let's look instead at a story that doesn't fall into any of the categories already discussed.

• 2024-12-31: Vladimir Kramnik is worse than dirt: Daniel Naroditsky • 'Cheating, in my mind, is probably the worst crime a chess player can commit, says Naroditsky.'

That story appeared twice on the Google list, both from Indian sources. After all the positive press that chess has received over the past five years, it's curious that world class chess players are using their new-found status to struggle with dress codes and to call each other names.

[Yahoos (mainstream news stories about chess) are derived from Google News top-100 (or so) stories from the past month.]

***

One detail that I hadn't noticed while preparing previous Yahoo posts is shown below. Mark Crowther's The Week in Chess (TWIC) was granted a prominent seat at the table (see upper right).

e.g. World Rapid & Blitz Championship 2024
(theweekinchess.com)

Is 2025 a Dystopian Year?

A week after this blog's Christmas post, Inside Santa's Workshop (December 2024), let's follow up with a New Year's post. Maybe 'double down' is a better description of this post than 'follow up'.

'2025 plays chess.'
AI Comic Factory

Last year's New Year AI image, Father Time and the New Year Baby (January 2024), was filled with bearded old men, clocks, and babies. This year's image has a dystopian look to it. The two panels on the left show futuristic cities, while the bottom-right panel shows Big Brother watching two men play chess.

As for the top-right panel, the player on the left shows a younger version of the player on the right. Is the player maybe GM Ken Rogoff? See 'At the Center of AI Research' (August 2023) and follow the links for before/after images of the genial GM.

Gukesh's Influences in Winning the Crown

Following last week's post Globetrotting Gukesh (December 2024; Photo: 'Gukesh and parents the day after the closing ceremony'), in this short series on the career of the newly crowned World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju, I'll end the series (for now at least) by taking direction from a post on my main blog, 2024 Gukesh - Ding Liren, Closing Ceremony (December 2024; with link to find original photos). There I fulfilled a promise from a previous post, writing,

I hope to have at least one more post with photos from the official albums on Flickr. [...] There are many good photos available, but I picked four for this current post.

It turns out that of the 'many good photos available', some are directly applicable to this current series that looks at his career. Let's call these four photos 'influences'.

Photos: FIDE

Top to bottom, left to right (photographer/notes in parentheses):-
TL: Game 4: Anand makes the first move (Maria Emelianova)
TR: Paddy Upton, Gukesh, Westbridge's Sandeep Singhal (Maria Emelianova; 'A', 'C')
BL: Gukesh with parents (Maria Emelianova; 'B')
BR: Gukesh with trophy (Eng Chin An)

Notes:-

• 'A'; see also Working with Gukesh 'A Fascinating Journey' (December 2024), for a related post about Paddy Upton.
• 'B'; see also the 'Globetrotting Gukesh' post referenced above.
• 'C'; see also Gukesh win historic, India will dominate chess for many years like Russia: WestBridge Capital's Sandeep Singhal (moneycontrol.com; April 2024) • 'Sandeep Singhal and Viswanathan Anand together set up the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy four years ago, which is today a fountainhead of chess talent in India. WestBridge is also Gukesh’s sponsor.'

Did I write 'I'll end the series (for now at least)'? I doubt that I'll be able to stay away for long.

Inside Santa's Workshop

After the previous post in the (wannabe) weekly AI comics series, World Class Asian Players (December 2024), I took a break from the series for a few weeks. Reason? Laziness.

Now we're in the year-end holiday period where, although sloth is acceptable, I'll try harder. Reason? I can't do much less than I'm already doing.

This week it's Christmas. Next week it's New Year's. After that, we'll see.

'Christmas elves play chess.'
AI Comic Factory

A year ago I was just starting to experiment with the AI Comic software as a tool for illustrating the blog; see Foxy Christmas Chess (December 2023). Next year, who knows? How about a full-length 'Chess Christmas Comics'? For that I'll need a story.

Globetrotting Gukesh

While preparing a previous post, Gukesh in 2018 - Age 12 (November 2024), in this short series on Gukesh Dommaraju, I spotted a problem with the raw data:-

[Earlier] I listed a half-dozen tournaments played through the end of 2017. Here's the continuation of that list [with 17 events]. There's at least one important tournament missing from that list. I'll cover it in my next post in the series.

One of the most striking aspects of the 2018 list is that only six of the 17 events were played in India. Most of the others were played in Europe. Anyone who travels farther than the local supermarket knows that travel can be expensive. How did young Gukesh manage to travel so much?

With that question in the back of my mind, I found the following article by Johannes Fischer published shortly after the two 2024 Candidates Tournaments: Dommaraju Gukesh and Tan Zhongyi celebrate their birthdays (chessbase.com; May 2024). It said,

Gukesh's father was a surgeon and his mother a microbiologist. Gukesh took up chess at the age of 5 and quickly achieved success, whereupon his parents did all they could to support their son's career. His father even gave up his job as a surgeon to accompany Gukesh to tournaments. The parents also take their son out of school to give him more time to concentrate on chess.

The hard work and dedication paid off. In 2018, Gukesh became U12 World Champion and just one year later, in 2019, at the age of 12 years, seven months and 17 days, he secured the title of Grandmaster. At the time, he was the second youngest grandmaster of all time behind Sergey Karjakin and is regarded as one of the world's greatest talents.

Gukesh as 'U12 World Champion' is confirmed by World Cadet Chess Championships 2018 finished in Spain (old.fide.com). There we learn,

The World Cadet Chess Championships 2018 were held in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, from 3rd of November to 15th of November 2018. The Championships were held for the age groups U08, U10 and U12, Girls and Open. A record number of 851 participants from 86 federations took part in the Championships. [...] 'U12 Open: 1. Gukesh D IND 10.0'

TWIC reported on the 'World Youth Championship' (TWIC1252: U18, U16, U14)...

The World Youth Championship took place in Porto Carras 20th to 30th October 2018.

...but not on the later 'World Cadet Championship' (U12, U10, U08). [NB: While I was preparing this post, the Wikipedia page World Youth Chess Championship (wikipedia.org), was vandalized to replace Gukesh's name by another name for both 2018 and 2020.]

Fast forward to the current year. After the Candidates tournament, where Gukesh earned the right to play for the World Championship as challenger, another Chessbase article, The dream becomes a reality: Gukesh’s victory in a historic event (chessbase.com; April 2024), posited,

The importance of a strong support system • To be successful in anything, one needs to have a great support system. D Gukesh was surrounded by his father Dr. Rajini Kanth, his second Grzegorz Gajewski, and Westbridge Capital sponsor Sandeep Singhal. [plus photo of all four]

Note the spelling 'Rajini Kanth', in two words. I've seen the same in one word, 'Rajinikanth' [-jini-], as well as 'Rajnikanth' [-jni-]. The single word 'Rajinikanth' appears to be the preferred spelling.

2024 FIDE World Championship - Singapore

'Gukesh and parents' (the day after the closing ceremony)
Photo: FIDE / Maria Emelianova

Fans of Magnus Carlsen will remember the role his father Henrik played when the young future World Champion was climbing to the top. While there is no guarantee that parental support will ensure future success, lack of that support might well hinder it.