Magritte as Chess Artist

As this series on AI comics slides into the second quarter of the year, let's go back to the post that started it off at the beginning of the first quarter: Surrealist Chess (January 2025). There I wrote,

Somewhere in the back of my head was a factoid that Magritte played chess and sometimes incorporated the game into his paintings.

From that post I determined that he was indeed a chess player. Now I'm sure that he was also a chess artist.

Google Image search on 'chess magritte'

The thumbnail in the lower left of the composite image was the first example of Magritte's artwork that led me to believe he was interested in chess as a subject for his art. It shows a rider on a horse and is titled 'The Lost Jockey'. For other examples, see The Lost Jockey (Le jockey perdu) 1926 Collage by Rene Magritte (renemagritte.org).

Yahoo Sources Are Back!

It's been more than a year since we bid a not-so-fond adieu to the Yahoos in RIP Yahoos (January 2024). As I explained at the time,

After three years the Google Yahoos also ran out of steam: Yahoos Set a New Low (December 2023; 'So many problems, so little time.'). It's time to let them sleep in peace.

If you're not sure what Yahoos are, see the footnote. The problem at the time was that we could no longer see from where all the Yahoos hailed. The first sign of trouble appeared in Missing Yahoos (November 2023). There I explained,

For the first time in the Yahoo series, Google News stopped including the names of all sources in its list of top stories, identifying those sources only with an icon, often unreadable.

Now we've come full circle. Google News has restored the names of all sources and I can create a small chart like the first one shown below.

The chart shows only four sources that had more than two stories each, where the 'Missing Yahoos' post had eight such sources. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's first have some basic stats.

For the current month, Google offered 99 chess stories. Of those, 52 stories were from those four sources with more than two stories, meaning that 47 sources had a single story.

As we saw in every other previous post that counted the number of stories for each source, Chess.com topped the list. This month the world's top chess site had more than ten times as many stories as no.2 on the list, FIDE.

I don't remember exactly when Google started mentioning the writer's name for some stories, but it began as a trickle and has since become a flood. The second chart above shows the number of stories by eight Chess.com writers, many of whom have been mentioned before on this blog.

Only one other writer had more than two stories: Leonard Barden with one story for the Financial Times and one for The Guardian. Of the 56 stories not from Chess.com, 30 had no writer listed for the story, so along with Barden, 24 writers had their byline attached to a story.

At this point I should start listing chess stories that I found particularly interesting, but I'm running out of time for this post. Let's have one of Barden's stories, both of which were on the same topic.

• 2025-03-21: BBC Two chess show keeps 710,000 viewers despite rocky opening week (theguardian.com; Leonard Barden) • 'Chess Masters: The Endgame received some negative reviews for its 10 March debut, watched by 890,000, but fears of a second-week meltdown proved overblown'

Maybe I'll come back to this post with more stories for March, but lately my track record for follow-ups hasn't been very good. Can old leopards brighten their spots?

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

The Most Conceptual of the Conceptualists

In last week's post, The Most Surreal of the Surrealists (March 2025), I wrote,

I once explored conceptual art in a post mysteriously titled (... drum roll ...), Chess in Conceptual Art (March 2017). Maybe it's time to turn the subject over to AI comics.

Unfortunately, the AI software doesn't seem to have 'conceptual' in its vocabulary. The half-dozen examples it created had nothing to do with anything except the royal game itself. Then I remembered a trick used in Color the Proteins (January 2025), i.e. 'Demis Hassabis plays chess with a green protein.' While 'protein' is a noun, 'conceptual' is an adjective. Can you color an adjective? I tried coloring it both green and red, and here's a sample of what I got.

'Marcel Duchamp plays red conceptual chess.'
AI Comic Factory

Can you color an adjective? No, you can't. The software applies the adjective to one of the nouns, which are Marcel Duchamp and chess. Next post: Get as far away from this nonsense as I can.

The Most Surreal of the Surrealists

The previous post, MW Plays Chess -or- Call Me Clueless (March 2025) was an experiment in name recognition. What does our AI comic software do when it doesn't know who or what the subject is? I concluded,

The experiment yields more questions than answers. The next post in the series will return to subjects having greater name recognition.

We've already had a couple of posts about surrealist chess. The previous post was Surrealist, Cubist, Dadaist Chess (February 2025; 'Marcel Duchamp plays surrealist chess.'). The best known surrealist artist is undoubtedly Salvador Dali.

'Dali plays surrealist chess.'
AI Comic Factory

It turns out that we've already seen both artists in a non-comic setting a year ago in Conceptual Artist and Surreal Artist (March 2024; 'Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dali playing chess') I once explored conceptual art in a post mysteriously titled (... drum roll ...), Chess in Conceptual Art (March 2017). Maybe it's time to turn the subject over to AI comics.

Enhanced Chess Art

The top row of the following composite image shows three 'photos' that were on my short list for this month's featured Flickr photo. When I checked for other chess photos by the same photographer, I found the 'photo' on the bottom row, which I had already added to my favorites a year ago. Which one to use for this post? I decided to use them all.

Top: 'Two Old Friends Playing Chess' (three views)

Bottom: Afternoon Chess © Flickr user Tom McSparron
under Creative Commons.

Why put 'photos' in inverted commas (' ')? Because I didn't understand how they were done. The photo in the middle of the top row had no description other than

2_1920x1920_U_100_Original ratio

and a single tag that said,

Web Sharp Pro: Original ratio

The phrase 'Original ratio' is self-explanatory, so the only actionable info in those two strings is 'Web Sharp Pro'. This leads to Web Sharp PRO panel by Greg Benz (exchange.adobe.com), where a comment to the page informs,

WSP is a plugin that goes way beyond just cropping and sharpening in certain aspect ratios -- which it does powerfully, and well. The developer, Greg Benz, is also using it to keep folks abreast of the rapidly changing HDR landscape and leverage HDR for social media posts.

A Google search on 'HDR social media' gives the first result under the heading 'AI Overview'. It starts,

Instagram and Threads now support HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos, enhancing visual content with a wider range of colors and dynamic range, especially on HDR-capable displays. This means users can share more realistic and vibrant images, particularly those captured with smartphone cameras. Here's a breakdown of HDR on social media: [...] • Generative AI is experimental

As for the photographer responsible for the four photos, a search on 'Tom McSparron' leads to Tom and Lorraine McSparron (fineartamerica.com). There we learn,

After retiring from 'Corporate America', we both needed something new to keep us busy & entertained. We both decided on photography as that new hobby. Most of our pictures are from different parts of Colorado and the surrounding states, as we travel. Tom enjoys working in Photoshop to take a digital image from a photography to an enhanced art image.

Now I understand how the 'photos' were done.

March 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover'

Last month's post about American chess 50 and 25 years ago, February 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover' (February 2025), was all about the American Open. This month's post, somewhat more diverse, is a mixture of American and international chess.

Left: '?'
Right: 'George Koltanowski 1903-2000'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Robert Huebner, winner of the Houston International, with his trophy which, as Lynne Babcock writes, is "custom made, gold plated and does everything a chess trophy should -- nothing." Photo by Fred Bunch. Story [inside].

The 'Story [inside]' was titled 'Another USCF Success: The Houston International 1974' by Edmar Mednis. It started,

The Houston International Chess Tournament, fourth in the series of international events organized and sponsored by the USCF, was by far the most successful one for American chess, and it ended 1974 on a number of truly positive notes.

The first seven paragraphs of the report were about the organization of the tournament and its norm possibilities for American players seeking a FIDE title. It then continued,

And now back to us, the players -- the absolute requirement for any tournament. West German GM Robert Huebner was the clear favorite and fulfilled the high expectations by finishing first. Some of the wins did not come easily, yet his high class usually showed through. Yugoslav GM Aleksandar Matanovic is known the world over as editor-in-chief of the Informants and the new Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. At Houston he also demonstrated his fine playing ability. He was the only one never to have a dubious position and deservedly finished undefeated and in second place. My third place and GM result [by Mednis] was fashioned in a rather steady way [...]

Huebner died at the beginning of 2025. See Wikipedia's Robert Huebner (wikipedia.org; '6 November 1948 – 5 January 2025'), for his biography.

For the last year or so, we've been tracking the monthly CL column 'The Editor's Page - News & Views' by Burt Hochberg, as it provided a monthly summary of the evolving situation about a 'match that never was', i.e. 1975 Fischer forfeits to Karpov (m-w.com). In March we learned a number of details about the organization of the forthcoming match, e.g.

John Prentice, Deputy President of FIDE, announced in Amsterdam on February 17 that President Euwe's choice for the site of the 1975 World Championship Match was Manila. [...]

There is far too much detail in the report for this post and the topic would be more appropriate for my WCC blog.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

George Koltanowski, the Dean of American Chess, had thousands of favorite chess stories, and everyone he met, left with a favorite story about George. I invite you to share your reminiscences about this great ambassador for chess with other Chess Life readers. That way, as we continue to promote the game to which he devoted his life, we can add to the legacy he left behind. George could charm the feathers off a jaybird, if that's what it took to get a chess program started, or to secure a donation or a sponsor. And we definitely want others to benefit from his expertise.

Send your thoughts to the USCF, in care of the Editor, or use our e-mail address: cleditor@uschess.org.

We wish to thank the San Francisco Chronicle and photographer Chris Stewart for providing our cover this month. It was taken in May of 1999. You can check out Steve Rubenstein's tribute to George Koltanowski at www.sfgate.com.

A two page appreciation by CL Assistant Editor Peter Kurzdorfer and Editor Glenn Petersen gave more details about Koltanowski's career. I'm sure we'll be seeing more about 'the Dean of American Chess' in future 'On the Cover' posts. The 'Dean' was also featured on the right side of November 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover' (November 2021).

MW Plays Chess -or- Call Me Clueless

In the previous post in this series, Dadaist Chess (March 2025), I ended with an observation and a promise:-

Like the [AI comic] software, I'm clearly struggling here, so I'd better end this post now. • Next post in the series: Call me clueless.

Let's try an experiment. What does the software display when it has absolutely no idea what its designated subject look like? Since there are no photos of me on the web, other than the one at the top of the navigation column on the right, I'm the perfect subject and the experiment can continue. Even that photo dates back to 2008, so it won't help much.

'Mark Weeks plays chess.'
AI Comic Factory

The white haired fellow in the lower right frame is not far from reality, but the other three frames are pure fiction. And what's that attempt to spell my name in the upper left? After all, I gave the correct spelling in the prompt. Then there's 'CHAISS MES' underneath my name. If that's supposed to be 'CHESS MESS', it makes a least a little sense.

The experiment yields more questions than answers. The next post in the series will return to subjects having greater name recognition.