Not Mainstream Stories 2020-01

Another month drawing to an end, another month without any chess stories being flagged by Yahoo news as a proxy for the mainstream press. Last month I had Under the FIDE Flag, and this month I short listed three stories for a possible post. I couldn't decide on one alone, so I'll mention all three.

The first 'story' was more of a theme than a story. Like the 'FIDE Flag' post, it involved Iran.

• 2020-01-15: Iranian Chess Official Fears Going Home Over Hijab Images (nytimes.com) • 'Shohreh Bayat said she was afraid of returning to Iran after an image of her at a chess tournament abroad seemed to show her not wearing a hijab.'
  
  
• 2020-01-28: Hijab Limits Women, Says Iranian Chess Master Sacked From National Team (radiofarda.com) • 'The Iranian female chess grandmaster Mitra Hejazipour who was sacked from the national team for boldly removing her headscarf (hijab) during the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow, has said that hijab is "limitation" not "protection" as official regime propaganda claims.'

The second story was about a well known chess publisher and former chess blogger: Chess Museum (2009-2011) and Chess Toast (2011-2013).

• 2020-01-11: Prolific chess author slain (chessbase.com) • 'Chess author and publisher Bob Long has reportedly been murdered in his home in Davenport, Iowa, USA, according to local news media. ChessBase author IM Andrew Martin was a long-time friend and sent this reflection.'

The third story wasn't really about chess, but built on a theme that has been weighing heavily with the chess community for the last two years.

• 2020-01-28: Can AlphaZero Leap From Go & Chess to Quantum Computing? (medium.com) • 'A new study suggests DeepMind’s amazing game-playing algorithm AlphaZero could help unlock the power and potential of quantum computing.'

All three stories are worthy of a follow-up post, but given my track record with follow-ups, I wouldn't advise anyone to bet on it.