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.

Hackney Wick Street Art

This month's featured Flickr post is the sixth to highlight chess street art (aka graffiti) in the long running Flickr series on this blog. Use the search box on the right navigation bar to find the rest.

Top: Detail from bottom.
Bottom: Core246 Graffiti, Hackney Wick © Flickr user duncan cumming under Creative Commons.

Both images carried the same description:-

Core vs Tris chess battle; Bishop takes Knight!

If there is anything familiar about the image, its title, or its description, that's because the previous street art / graffiti post, Shoreditch Street Art (May 2024; 'This is the first piece in a chess battle between Tris and Core246.'), was signed by the same photographer. And there are many more images, most having nothing to do with chess, in the album Core246 / Core247.

Gukesh Debuts in Google News

For the past few weeks I've been running a series on the early career of Gukesh Dommaraju, aka Gukesh D. The two most recent posts were:-

• Gukesh in 2018 - Age 12 (29 November 2024), and
• Gukesh in 2018 - Scores & Rating (06 December 2024)

That second post ended,

In the first event on the 2018 list, he was rated 2362; in the last event, he was rated 2466. He started the year with a CM title and ended as an IM. In a few more months, he would earn the GM title.

With a bit of luck, I discovered more info about the IM/GM titles. Along with my monthly in-depth look at Google News, last seen in World Championship Yahoos 2024 (November 2024), I receive a daily report of chess news under the title 'Google Alert - Daily Digest'. This week I ran a search for references to Gukesh in my Google Alert archive -- it goes back to 2012 -- and was pleased to find a few news articles covering the GM's early career. The earliest was:-

• 2018-03-13: Gukesh making all the right moves (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) • 'To say that 11-year-old newly-crowned International Master Gukesh breathes chess will be an understatement. Even as children of his age are busy cramming up school syllabus, Gukesh is charting his next move on the chess board. Having taken to the game in 2013, Gukesh is today one of the many prominent players to have emerged out of the city. Gukesh, who became India's latest IM at the conclusion of the 34th Open de Cappelle la Grande chess tournament in France, took to the sport in 2013.'

The first 'Gukesh in 2018' post listed the French tournament with relevant TWIC info:-

TWIC 1218 • 34th Cappelle Open 2018; Sat 3rd Mar 2018; Sat 10th Mar 2018; Cappelle la Grande; FRA; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • 7.0-2.0; 2360

The next two 'Google Alert' mentions of Gukesh were:-

• 2019-01-16: Gukesh Becomes 2nd Youngest Chess Grandmaster In History (chess.com; IM Rakesh) • 'At the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days, Indian prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju became the second youngest grandmaster in chess history. He scored his third grandmaster norm at the 17th Delhi International Chess Grandmaster Open today in New Delhi, India. Despite the recent torrid tournament schedule for Gukesh, the world record of Sergey Karjakin still narrowly stands, this time by just 17 days!', and
  
  
• 2020-04-07: Coronavirus lockdown: Teen chess wizards keep composure; stay busy with online events (deccanherald.com) • 'Young they might be but restless? Certainly not. R Praggnanandhaa, D Gukesh and P Iniyan -- the teen brigade of Indian chess is unfazed about being confined to home due to the national lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus [...]'

Then follows a pause of more than two years, undoubtedly due to the various covid-19 lockdowns in effect all over the world.

• 2022-08-05: India's teen talent shines as Chennai Olympiad breaks records (theguardian.com; Leonard Barden) • 'The standout first half Olympiad team has been India 2, with its average age of 19 and its already iconic top board Gukesh D (as he is now invariably called rather than Dommaraju Gukesh). The 16-year-old son of a surgeon and a microbiologist has come a long way from when, at 11, he incurred Nigel Short's displeasure.' [NB: for letting Short's clock run when the GM failed to punch it]

The Barden article continued,

Gukesh has been in stellar form in 2022, winning five first prizes in succession in Spain. His rating has shot past the elite 2700 mark, a feat achieved at a younger age by only Wei Yi, Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja. He has won all his seven games so far in Chennai, including his impressive win over Alexey Shirov where he encouraged the former world title challenger to launch one of his Fire on Board attacks so as to refute it by superior strategic and endgame play.

Gukesh is making a vast impression in Chennai, one that can be compared with five of the great Olympiad debuts by future world class players: Paul Keres at Warsaw 1935, Bent Larsen at Moscow 1956, Mikhail Tal at Munich 1958, Judit Polgar at Thessaloniki 1988, and Vlad Kramnik at Manila 1992.'

At every milestone in his meteoric career, Gukesh compared favorably to the greatest of the chess greats. It's little wonder that he became the youngest World Champion of all time.

December 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

What do the Chess Life issues of December 1974 and December 1999 have in common? Yes, they are obviously the next in the 'On the Cover' series last seen in November 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (November 2024). On top of that, they were both dominated by rating lists.

Left: '?' (also 'Special Yearbook Issue!')
Right: '1999... 2000... and still going strong!'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Anatoly Karpov: if he beats Korchnoi, and if Fischer and FIDE cannot resolve their differences, he will be World Champion in 1975. Match games continue [inside].

Karpov's previous cover appearance was May 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (May 2024; 'Anatoly Karpov and Tigran Petrosian, winners of their quarterfinal candidates matches.') Everyone who knows anything about modern chess history knows what happened in 1975. I suppose we'll see the story unfold in next year's 'On the Cover' posts.

The December 1974 CL&R was 108 pages. Of those, 70 were allocated to the '1975 USCF Yearbook', and of those, 52 were allocated to the rating list. The Karpov - Korchnoi match, the inspiration for the cover, was a single page, with only raw game scores for games 11-21.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

No, we will not enter into the argument as to when the millennium arrives. We do knows that the end of December 31, 1999, will usher in a new year. Appropriately, the babe (2000) is playing the decisive Rg7+ against the old man (1999). The artist, Jose Angel Pardo, of Orlando, Florida, notes "That was the winning move I played in the first game I was ever able to beat my father."

Whether you consider it to be the millennium or just the beginning of a new year, one thing is clear: Chess is still going strong. Of our 86,000 members, fully 74,000 played at least one rated game of chess between October 1998 and October 1999. We've separated the Annual Rating List from the rest of the magazine and included a few items we hope you will find useful throughout the new year. And that includes a comprehensive listing of all changes to the Official Rules of Chess, 4th Edition.

Again we see a rating list. Of the 128 pages in the December 1999 CL, 49 were allocated to the list. Interspersed throughout the list were a number of interviews by Jerry Hanken, including one with 13-year old Lawrence Trent for the World Open and another with 8-year old David Howell. The same Howell, now a GM, commentated for FIDE on the recent World Championship match between Ding Liren and Gukesh.

There was more to the 'On the Cover' introduction for the same December CL. It continued,

Transition is never easy or particularly palatable for many. The Executive Board, in closed session, passed an enigmatic resolution to terminate the contract of Michael Cavallo as our Executive Director. I say enigmatic not as a judgement as much as a statement of fact.

After four paragraphs on the same subject I still didn't have a clue why this was newsworthy for the general CL readership. There is a ton of relevant information in the rgcp archive at groups.google.com, e.g. search?q=Cavallo, but who has the time to plow through it? For a previous cover illustration by Jose Angel Pardo, see September 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (September 2024).

Working with Gukesh 'A Fascinating Journey'

In this series of monthly posts featuring a video, we've seen Youtube's ChessBase India channel (CBI) many times, most recently in The London Chess Centre on Video (October 2024). This month's video is a collaboration between CBI and Youtube's Paddy Upton channel, where it lives.

Who is Paddy Upton? Wikipedia's page Paddy Upton (wikipedia.org) informs,

Patrick Anthony Howard 'Paddy' Upton (born 5 November 1968) is a South African born cricket coach specialising as head coach in professional Twenty20 cricket, mental coach to professional athletes, sports scientist executive coach and professor of practice at Deakin University.

What do cricket and chess have in common? The following clip answers that question and many others.

How I'm Coaching Gukesh D for the World Chess Championship (32:13) • '[Published on] Nov 19, 2024'

The video's description said,

In this interview with @ChessBaseIndiachannel, I share my experience working with Indian chess sensation Gukesh D as he prepares for the World Chess Championship. Having worked with world-class athletes across 20+ sports, from legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Virat Kohli to the Indian Men's Hockey team at the 2024 Olympic Games. Stepping into the world of chess has been a fascinating journey.

The description continued,

In this video, I [Paddy Upton] discuss:
* Why Gukesh stands out as one of the smartest, most self-aware athletes I’ve worked with.
* How "big match temperament" enables athletes to thrive under pressure.
* The importance of focusing on the process rather than the result.
* How universal principles of mental conditioning apply across all sports.
* Lessons from life and spirituality that help athletes stay grounded and perform their best.

I've always been somewhat skeptical whenever I hear someone say, 'Chess is a sport'. After watching this video, I'm less skeptical.

Gukesh in 2018 (Scores & Rating)

In last week's post, Gukesh in 2018 - Age 12 (November 2024), about the early career of the new World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju, I neglected to record the young prodigy's score and rating for the 17 events in the list. For this current post, I corrected the oversight.

It's worth explaining why six of the events are still missing the final score. These are events where a result was reported by TWIC on two consecutive weeks (a partial result, then the complete result), and where Gukesh was listed in the first report, but not in the second. This is because his final score was less than TWIC's cutoff to limit the number of players in the report (TWIC often lists only the top players when reporting on large tournaments, especially those using Swiss pairing systems).

It's entirely possible that Gukesh played in events where he was not listed in TWIC, because he finished lower than TWIC's cutoff. In those events, he would not appear on my initial search for events where he played.

Over the 17 tournaments, he played more than 150 games. In the first event on the 2018 list, he was rated 2362; in the last event, he was rated 2466. He started the year with a CM title and ended as an IM. In a few more months, he would earn the GM title.

World Class Asian Players

The previous post in the weekly AI comics series investigated the burning question Why Are 'Comics' Rarely Funny? (November 2024). This post explores the World Championship match currently being played in Singapore, last seen on this blog in World Championship Yahoos 2024 (November 2024).

'Ding Liren and Gukesh play chess in Singapore.'
AI Comic Factory

Not very good is it? Although there are two Asian players, one of them maybe Chinese, there is nothing obviously related to Singapore. I tried a number of different styles -- Franco-Belgian, Modern American, ... -- and they all had the same flaws. Some of them showed two (probably) Chinese players in each of the four panels.

What went wrong? I suspect that the source dataset used to generate the images is older than the emergence of Gukesh as a recognizable name in chess, i.e. there are not many images of him. I also suspect that the keyword 'Singapore' might have skewed the software to over-represent Chinese players. I know the software understands the characteristics of (Asian sub-continent) Indians. See, for example, Real Chess Villages (March 2024).

For my first experiment on the name to face recognition of World Champions, see Rogues' Gallery (December 2023). There I wrote,

The following composite image is assembled from 18 times '[Name] plays chess', where '[Name]' is one of the World Champions.

In that image the likeness of Ding Liren is acceptable, if only so-so. It is better than some of the other, historical World Champions, which is not setting the bar very high. Maybe I'll come back to this in a future post, but there are other fish to fry in AI comics.

Lasker's Future Community

We don't often see books for the monthly post in the long-running series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010). The visuals are seldom attractive and the narrative is rarely compelling.

Although I had plenty of more attractive choices on this month's short list, I have a soft spot for the second World Champion. Titled, '1940 SIGNED by Emanuel LASKER INSCRIBED to Lotte JACOBI Society Chess Book RARE', the Lasker book pictured below sold for $850.00, 'Buy It Now'.

The description was written by someone who knows the item well.

'The Community of the Future' by Emanuel Lasker M.J. Bernin, Publisher. New York. 1940. 1st Edition. Signed. Inscribed.

5 1/2 x 7 3/4 inches. Hardcover. 1-295, [1] pp. Very good. Spine faded. Some wear, minor loss to spine along back gutter at the head. Internally near fine; clean, tight, unmarked. Signed/inscribed by Lasker in ink on front free endpaper’s verso: “Lotte Jacobi with kind greetings. Emanuel Lasker. June 7th, 40.” Nice and attractive.

The last book by Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941), a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognized World Chess Champion in history. In 'The Community of the Future' Lasker is proposing solutions for serious political problems, including anti-Semitism and unemployment.

Inscribed to Lotte Jacobi (1896-1990), a leading American portrait photographer and photojournalist, known for her high-contrast black-and-white portrait photography, characterized by intimate, sometimes dramatic, sometimes idiosyncratic and often definitive humanist depictions of both ordinary people in the United States and Europe and some of the most important artists, thinkers and activists of the 20th century.

For a previous eBay 'Top Item by Price' featuring a Lasker book, see Lasker's Manual Autographed (March 2017).

Gukesh in 2018 (age 12)

In the previous post on the early career of Gukesh Dommaraju, Gukesh Debuts in a WCC Cycle and in TWIC (November 2024), I listed a half-dozen tournaments played through the end of 2017. Here's the continuation of that list:-

• TWIC 1208 • Bhopal International Open; Thu 21st Dec 2017; Thu 28th Dec 2017; Bhopal; IND; 10 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1) • 8.0-2.0; 2362
• TWIC 1208[/-09] • 3rd IIFL Wealth Mumbai Op; Sat 30th Dec 2017; Sun 7th Jan 2018; Mumbai; IND; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • ? [<6.0-3.0]; 2362
• TWIC 1210[/-11] • 16th Delhi Open 2018; Tue 9th Jan 2018; Tue 16th Jan 2018; New Delhi; IND; 10 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1) • ? [<6.5-3.5]; 2354
• TWIC 1212[/-13] • 14th Moscow Open A 2018; Thu 25th Jan 2018; Mon 5th Feb 2018; Moscow; RUS; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • ? [<6.0-3.0]; 2354
• TWIC 1218 • 34th Cappelle Open 2018; Sat 3rd Mar 2018; Sat 10th Mar 2018; Cappelle la Grande; FRA; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • 7.0-2.0; 2360
• TWIC 1224 • 18th BCC Open 2018; Fri 13th Apr 2018; Sat 21st Apr 2018; Cha-Am; THA; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • 7.0-2.0; 2401
• TWIC 1229 • 3rd Kolkata GM Open 2018; Mon 14th May 2018; Tue 22nd May 2018; Kolkata; IND; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1) • 6.0-3.0; 2426
• TWIC 1229[/-30] • 11th KIIT Elite Open 2018; Fri 25th May 2018; Fri 1st Jun 2018; Bhubaneswar; IND; 10 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1) • ? [<6.5-3.5]; 2426
• TWIC 1232[/-33] • 22nd Voronezh Master Open; Tue 12th Jun 2018; Thu 21st Jun 2018; Voronezh; RUS; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • ? [<5.5-3.5]; 2431
• TWIC 1236 • 11th Paracin Summer Open; Fri 6th Jul 2018; Fri 13th Jul 2018; Paracin; SRB; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1) • 5.5-3.5; 2433
• TWIC 1238 • 29th Czech Open A 2018; Thu 12th Jul 2018; Sun 29th Jul 2018; Pardubice; CZE; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • 6.0-3.0; 2433; [see also rapid event]
• TWIC 1241[/-42] • 20th Sants Open 2018; Fri 17th Aug 2018; Sun 26th Aug 2018; Barcelona; ESP; 10 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • ? [<7.0-3.0]; 2440
• TWIC 1244 • 20th Trieste Open 2018; Sat 1st Sep 2018; Sat 8th Sep 2018; Trieste; ITA; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • 6.0-3.0; 2453
• TWIC 1246 • Anogia GM/IM-norm 2018 [NB: 5th Fischer Mem GM 2018]; Tue 11th Sep 2018; Wed 19th Sep 2018; Anogia; GRE; 10 Players.; 9 Rounds; SRR; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • 5.0-4.0 [+3-2=4]; 2453
• TWIC 1249 • 1st Gujarat Open 2018; Fri 5th Oct 2018; Fri 12th Oct 2018; Ahmedabad; IND; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1) • 7.0-2.0; 2456
• TWIC 1257 • Orbis 2 GM 2018; Mon 3rd Dec 2018; Sun 9th Dec 2018; Paracin; SRB; 10 Players; 9 Rounds; SRR Time Control: 90m+30spm(1) • 7.5-1.5 [+6-0=3]; 2466
• TWIC 1259 • Sunway Sitges Open 2018; Fri 14th Dec 2018; Sun 23rd Dec 2018; Sitges; ESP; 10 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1) • 6.5-3.5; 2466

There's at least one important tournament missing from that list. I'll cover it in my next post in the series.

World Championship Yahoos 2024 (1/2)

For last month's Yahoos post, A Press of Yahoos (October 2024; if you're wondering, 'What means "Yahoos"'?; see the footnote), I wrote,

This month's 97 stories -- 10 of them old stories from previous months -- lacked a clear favorite.

This month's post had more than 100 stories on the World Chess Championship (WCC) that started this week in Singapore and zero old stories. How can there be more than 100 WCC stories when the footnote says 'top-100 (or so)'?

That's an easy calculation: the first page of results had 91 stories, of which 37 were not about the WCC, leaving 54 WCC stories. That first page included a header titled 'D Gukesh vs Ding Liren World Chess Championship', leading to a second page with 57 stories.

Of the 54 WCC stories, which one received top placement on the first page of results? None of them. The top story was:-

• 2024-11-28: World Chess Championship 2024: How the immediate thrill of Bullet Chess transforms the game completely (independent.co.uk) • 'Bullet chess is a faster and more frenetic version of the classical version, reformed obsessive of the game Richard Hall writes.'

Although the title says, 'World Chess Championship 2024', there's nothing in the story about the Singapore event. After bullet chess, which WCC story was on top? Same answer: None of them.

Second in the results was a section titled 'Google releases GenChess, a chess game with AI-generated pieces', with three different stories. The most relevant of those was:-

• 2024-11-27: Google’s new chess game lets you customize pieces with AI (theverge.com) • 'Google has released a new chess website that puts one fun twist on the game: it uses custom pieces that are created each time by generative AI.' • The phrase 'new chess website' led to a site that didn't work: GenChess (labs.google/genchess; 'This tool is not available to users under the age of 18 or in certain countries or regions.')

The link to the second page was here, followed by the rest of the stories, WCC or not. Of those not-WCC stories, six more were about Google's 'AI-generated pieces' and three were about a freestyle (chess960) match between GMs Carlsen and Caruana. Of the other not-WCC stories, my favorite was:-

• 2024-11-19: The Chess Revolution: Understanding The Power Of An Ancient Game In The Digital Age (chess.com; PeterDoggers) • 'My book The Chess Revolution tells the story of how chess impacted our Western culture, and how it was impacted itself by the computer and the Internet. It is for chess fans but definitely also for non-chess playing readers. I am super excited that almost two years after starting this project, the book hit book stores in October. Let me tell you more about it and the writing process.'

For the equivalent post after last year's World Championship match, see World Championship Yahoos 2023 (April 2023). I'm titling this post 'WCC Yahoos 2024 (1/2)', because I'm expecting another deluge of WCC Yahoos at the end next month.

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

Why Are 'Comics' Rarely Funny?

This being Thanksgiving week in the USA and me wanting an easy post that continues the AI comics series, please forgive me more nonsense.

'Turkeys play Thanksgiving chess'
AI Comic Factory

For the previous post in the series, see Kings of the News Cycle (November 2024).

Gukesh Debuts in a WCC Cycle and in TWIC

In a recent post, 2024 Ding Liren - Gukesh, the Players (November 2024), I promised, '[In 2022-23] I featured Ding Liren [so] I'll start a similar series for Gukesh in a few days.' And here we are.

That Ding Liren series started with one post on his rise to the World Championship and one post on his early mentions in TWIC. Here I'll combine those two ideas into a single post. The following screen capture shows Gukesh's participation in World Championship qualifying events prior to the current cycle.

Index of players (A-G), with links to the different events (m-w.com)

Along with the two Grand Swiss events ('Gr.Sw.'), Gukesh played in the 2021 World Cup; Sochi (m-w.com), where he was eliminated in the second round. My page on the qualifications to the event, (C30) Zonal Qualifiers 2020-2021 (ditto), isn't completely clear, but he qualified to the 2021 World Cup with a FIDE President wild card.

Gukesh also played in the 2023 World Cup where, according to my page (C31) Zonal Qualifiers 2022-2023 (m-w.com), he qualified on rating. Acording to Wikipedia's Chess World Cup 2023 (wikipedia.org), he was eliminated in the sixth (quarterfinal) round by Magnus Carlsen, who went on to win the event.

The first mention of Gukesh in TWIC was in 2016 when he was nine years old:-

THE WEEK IN CHESS 1109 8th February 2016 by Mark Crowther • IIFL Wealth Mumbai Open; Thu 28th Jan 2016; Fri 5th Feb 2016; Mumbai; IND; 113 Players; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1)

He was rated 2041 and finished 5.5-3.5. The second and third mentions in TWIC were nearly a year later:-

TWIC 1157 9th January 2017 • 2nd IIFL Wealth Mumbai Op; Mon 26th Dec 2016; Tue 3rd Jan 2017; Mumbai; IND; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1)

TWIC 1160 30th January 2017 • 9th Chennai Open 2017; Wed 18th Jan 2017; Wed 25th Jan 2017; Chennai; IND; 10 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1)

He was rated 2236 in both, finished 6.0-3.0 and 6.5-3.5 respectively, and was listed as a CM [Candidate Master] in the Chennai event. The next mentions in TWIC were six months later in Europe.

TWIC1186 31st July 2017 • 29th Cannes Summer Open; Mon 24th Jul 2017; Sun 30th Jul 2017; Cannes; FRA; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1)

TWIC1188 14th August 2017 • 43rd Badalona Open 2017; Wed 2nd Aug 2017; Thu 10th Aug 2017; Badalona; ESP; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m+30spm(1)

He was rated 2365 in both and finished 5.0-4.0 and 5.5-3.5 respectively. The next mention in TWIC was later in 2017 at a tournament held in Asia outside India:-

TWIC 1197 16th October 2017 • 1st Puchong Friday IM Oct; Sat 7th Oct 2017; Wed 11th Oct 2017; Puchong; MAS [Malaysia]; 10 Players; 9 Rounds; SRR [Single Round Robin]; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1)

TWIC added, 'D Gukesh won with 7/9.' He was rated 2323 and still listed as a CM. Wikipedia, in Gukesh Dommaraju (wikipedia.org; 'born 29 May 2006, also known as Gukesh D, is an Indian chess grandmaster'), mentions an earlier tournament than recorded in TWIC:-

Gukesh won the Under-9 section of the Asian School Chess Championships in 2015

Chessgames.com, in The chess games of Dommaraju Gukesh (chessgames.com), informs,

Candidate Master (2015); International Master (2018); Grandmaster (2019). Gukesh won his Candidate Master title at the Asian U9 Asian Schools Championship in 2015.

The site's earliest games are one from each of two 2016 events: the 2016 IIFL Mumbai Open and the '9th Mayors Cup Open (2016), Mumbai IND, rd 8, Jun-07'.

November 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

For the second month in a row, after October 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (October 2024), top U.S. tournaments dominated the covers of American chess magazines both 50 and 25 years ago. Artwork was also a recurring theme.

Left: '?'
Right: 'Knights, one and all...'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Pal Benko (left) and Vlastimil Hort, co-winners of the U.S. Open. Story and games [inside]. Photos by Burt Hochberg.

'Story and games [inside]' came after three articles on the 1975 World Championship. The first article was about the Karpov - Korchnoi match, the final match of that cycle's Candidate matches; see 1973-75 Candidates Matches (m-w.com), for a record of all the matches that took place during that cycle. The final match became a de-facto title match when Fischer forfeited his title in 1975. The introduction to the article said,

The Finals match in the 1974 Candidates series began in Moscow September 10. Aften ten games, the score was Karpov 2, Korchnoi 0. To win the match a player must score five victories or be in the lead after 24 games; if the score is even after 24 games, a coin toss (or other chance drawing) will decide the contest. Here are the first ten games.

The second article was the monthly column 'The Editor's Page - News & Views' by Burt Hochberg. It started,

World Champion Bobby Fischer, defending the match rules he favors, comments: "The whole idea is to make sure the players draw blood by winning games, and the spectators get their money's worth." The accuracy of his judgment is borne out by the current Karpov-Korchnoi match in Moscow, in which after 14 games the score remains 2-0 in Karpov's favor.

The third article was the monthly column 'Larry Evans on Chess', subtitled, 'The World Champion Speaks'. It started with a letter from Bobby Fischer and continued for two pages. The whole Fischer forfeit saga deserves to be documented from the USCF's point of view as recorded in the pages of Chess Life. Has this ever been done?

Only after the three articles on the World Championship do we find 'The U.S. Open: An Interesting Disappointment' by Burt Hochberg. It immediately took a dark tone, starting,

In this scientific age of ours, we are obsessed with numbers. Record-breaking is becoming a common concern of our daily lives. In chess, the establishment of records, to the point of pointlessness, already occupies the thoughts of a great many intelligent people.

After a few more paragraphs, Hochberg revealed the reason for the 'Disappointment'.

If we are convinced that record-making and record-breaking are legitimate concerns because of their incentive value, then we must also take it upon ourselves to explain why a standing record was not broken -- or even met -- despite every expectation that it would be far exceeded. To descend from the metaphysical to the specific: why did the 1973 U.S. Open in Chicago (a city of about 3.5 million) attract almost 50% more entries than the 1974 U.S. Open in New York (a city of about 8 million)?

A second article, 'New York's U.S. Open' by Bill Goichberg, explained the circumstances for the disappointment. It started,

After 35 years. the U.S. Open was finally held in New York. It was not an event I will fondly remember. Not only were entries far below what most people expected, but the out-of-town turnout was particularly poor. The host hotel had been guaranteed 100 sleeping rooms, and when the actual count proved to be far lower, we were socked with a whopping rental charge of $5,000.

Heavy financial losses were suffered by both USCF and the co-sponsoring Continental Chess Association. jeopardizing the latter's nationwide tournament promotion program. CCA has been losing money for the past year, and will have to cut back in many areas unless attendance suddenly recovers or enough voluntary donors can be found.

Chess historians accept that the 1970s Fischer boom started in 1972, but when did it end? It appears that 1973-74 was the start of a long slide to pre-1972 levels.

What happened to our two cover GMs? They each won $1.675 (which would be more than $10.000 today). Benko was last seen in October 1969 'On the Cover' (October 2019), although his compositions made the cover in both the January 1970 & 1995 (January 2020) and January 1972 & 1997 (January 2022) 'On the Cover'. Hort was last seen in June 1969 'On the Cover' (June 2019).

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Dragons or dragon-slayers, depending on your outlook. But they all wind up being Knights of the 64 squares. Huzzah! Huzzah! for our new Interplay champions Boris Gulko, Marcel Martinez, and Anjelina Belakovskaia, and for Gregory Serper (World Open), Alex Yermolinsky (U.S. Open), and Andrei Zaremba and Steven Winer (Denker champions).

And it is that time of year. The call for nominations for the Hall of Fame appears on page 23.

The cover design is by Patrick Kelly of Grand Rapids Michigan.

The first five players were also named in last month's 'On the Cover' introduction for 1999. They were the winners of four tournaments reported inside the November 1999 issue (Gulko and Belakovskaia won their respective sections of the U.S. Championship). Did the Chess Life editors have some trouble deciding what story to feature?

Since the U.S. Open was the featured tournament in the 1974 CL and was also the first of the four tournaments covered in the 1999 CL, let's continue with it here. The article '1999 U.S. Open: The Big Bang' by GM Edmar Mednis started,

The 100th Annual U.S. Open Championship at the luxurious Sands Regency Hotel Casino in Reno was held August 10-19, 1999. It started with a bang and never let up. At the welcoming ceremony in the evening of August 9, the participants were treated to an exhibition by Buckeroo Beau, the reigning world bullwhip champion and award-winning gun slinger and trick roper. For those having quieter interests there was Christa Lynn Jones, the reigning Miss Reno Rodeo. Some 80 people enjoyed the action and sumptuous Western-style barbecue.

How about the bang from the $63,300 prize fund unconditionally guaranteed by the Sands Regency? Truly a record -- just compare with the $22,000 of the 1998 Open! And the bang from the $10,000 first prize and the many bangs from the total of 61 cash prizes.

Bang, bang, bang, bang... The four bangs in that excerpt were followed by six more bangs in the rest of the paragraph. Anyone feel like banging their head against the wall?

The Hochberg report on the 1974 U.S. Open mentioned that there were 549 players. The Mednis report on the 1999 U.S. Open mentioned,

The 338 players at the start did a lot of banging and it became even louder when the busy-persons joined the action at the start of Round 5, bringing the total up to 485.

If 549 players were a disappointment, what can be said about 338/485 players exactly 25 years later? And what happened 25 years after that ... in 2024?

Kings of the News Cycle

First Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in Election Special 2024 (November 2024), then Elon Musk beat a troll in Elon Musk Goes Trolling (ditto). The two billionaires are slated to square off in a high stakes contest for the Championship of the One-Percenters.

'Donald Trump and Elon Musk play chess'
AI Comic Factory

If the match is tied after two games, the winner will be decided by a hotdog eating contest. Musk has an edge in the chess games because of his experience on his high school team; Trump has an edge in the tiebreak because of his appetite for winning.

Not the Official World Championship Set

Not even close.

Artisanal chess board... © Flickr user wistreize under Creative Commons.

The title of the photo, which was also the description, continued,

...with a fantastic hand, Arcana Festival, Morges, Switzerland 2024.

The 'business cards' to the right of the board say, 'Seb's Customs, Artiste Sculpteur'. I found a site at Seb's Customs (sebscustoms.jimdofree.com).

For more about the event, see The Swiss Festival of Fantasy and Wonder (arcanafestival.ch; 'Thank you for this crazy 4th edition!'). For the official set mentioned in the title of this post, see Official World Chess Pieces (worldchess.com).

Elon Musk Goes Trolling

According to the recent post, Where Was I? (November 2024), Mondays could be for a new series on AI comics. Sounds good to me, but on what theme?

While I was preparing that post, I browsed bookmarks that had accumulated since I cut back on blogging almost six months ago. One in particular caught my attention: Elon Musk criticizes chess... again! (chessbase.com; Albert Silver):-

In what is now a recurring theme, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, once again took to his now owned Twitter/X to rain hell and fire on the royal game, complaining once more about its many shortcomings, with comments such as "suddenly vaporize the opponent's king with lasers from space", and its inability to compete with the complexity of reality.

This works for me because the first post in the previous AI comics series was Elon Musk and Squirrels (December 2023). The Chessbase.com page opined,

When those 'jokes' (attacks) become sequential and unprovoked, the term to describe them is 'trolling'.

And voila! There was my theme.

'Elon Musk plays chess with a troll.'
AI Comic Factory

The same Chessbase.com page had a photo, 'Elon Musk with his High School's "A" chess team'. There are 11 players in the photo. I'm guessing that the future King Croesus wasn't playing first board.

Carlsen, Ding Liren, Nakamura on WCC 2024

'Take Take Take'? Where have I heard that in reference to chess before? It turns out that it was just a few weeks ago in A Press of Yahoos (October 2024). There I quoted a press report,

2024-10-25: After 20 years at the top of chess, Magnus Carlsen is making his next move (apnews.com; Mark Lewis) • 'Offering a new way to interact with the game, Carlsen on Friday launched his application, Take Take Take, which will follow live games and players, explaining matches in an accessible way that, Carlsen says, is sometimes missing from streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch. "It will be a chiller vibe," he says.'

A clip from the app's Youtube channel made it to the short list for this month's featured video.

The World Chess Champion Opens Up About His Struggles (35:39) • '[Published on] Nov 4, 2024'

The channel's home page informs,

'Your front row seat to the world of chess. Download the app!' • 'Joined [Youtube] Sep 30, 2024'

The hosts of the clip are Kaja Snare and David Howell. In a post on an earlier title match, 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, we saw them mentioned together in A Trio of World Championship Video Makers (December 2021). One of the many teams for the three video makers was:-

Chess24.com: Live commentary by GM David Howell, IM Jovanka Houska, and Norwegian journalist Kaja Snare.

As luck would have it, the featured 'Take Take Take' video received critical analysis on GMHikaru's Youtube channel:-

• 2024-11-06: World Championship Chess Predictions!?!?

GMs Carlsen, Ding Liren, and Nakamura (among many others) all provide expert commentary on the background for the forthcoming 2024 Ding Liren - Gukesh title match. There is much to be gleaned from the two videos.

Election Special 2024

Today is election day in the USA. As with past elections, let's go slightly off-topic to immortalize the day.

'Donald Trump and Kamala Harris play chess in the Oval Office'
AI Comic Factory

For previous posts in the same direction, see:-

• 2016-11-08: Election Special
• 2022-11-08: Election Special 2022

While some pundits are calling the Presidential race as close as can be, we know better, because of:-

• 2022-10-16: Donald Trump, Chess Master

What's Trump's secret? He plays by rules known only to himself and he never admits a loss.

Where Was I?

Over the last six months my blogging has dropped to minimum activity -- five posts a month on this blog, one post a month on my chess960 blog, and nothing at all on my World Championship blog (WCCB). I would like to improve that.

Starting in April, external factors having nothing to do with chess took over my free time, but they have now subsided considerably. It's time to increase the frequency of posts.

Recent posts on this current blog are a continuation of ongoing series that I've been doing for many years. Two shorter term series were interrupted and could be restarted:-

• 2024-04-22: Vikings as AI Stereotypes [Monday series; AI comics]
• 2024-04-19: CFAA's CMP : Blogs [Friday series; Google's CMP, i.e. 'Consent Management Platform']

The last post on my WCCB blog was:-

• 2024-06-12: Toronto Candidates - Wrapup

With a new World Championship match to start at the end of the month, it's high time to reactivate the blog. On top of that I have more than five months of bookmarks to wade through. Consider this post a checkpoint to measure future progress.

More Piggybanx Chess

I've been posting about the series Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), for so long -- 15 years next March -- that I can barely remember all the different bits and pieces of info behind each post. Consider the following item.

Titled 'Piggybanx 1/1 Chess Piece Matte Variation Moneky D. Luffy', it sold for 'US $2,000.00 or Best Offer'. It was higher in the list of sold items than another chess item that sold for $1826 after 35 bids, so we can accept that the real price was higher than that.

'Piggybanx'. Where have we seen that before on this blog? It turns out that I featured another item earlier this year, A Goat Says, 'It's Chess Not Checkers' (February 2024), where I wrote,

The best items featured on 'Top eBay Chess Items by Price' are those that lead to other avenues of inquiry: 'What is this?' and 'What is that?'

And, yes, that item was also Piggybanx. For this current post I'll show both the front and the back of the Piggybanx card.

Since the item's description simply repeated its title, let's record the 'Item specifics' for posterity:-

Unit of Sale : Single Piece
Signed : Yes
Title : piggybanx 1/1 chess piece
Material : Glass
Framing : Framed
Subject : Anime, Art, Card
Type : Card
Year of Production : 2024
Original/Licensed Reproduction : Original
Style : 3D, Abstract, Art Nouveau
Theme : Art
Country/Region of Manufacture : United States

The first question that comes to mind is the name in the title, 'Moneky D. Luffy'. Is that first name a typo? Yessiree, Bob, it is. According to the Wikipedia page Monkey D. Luffy (wikipedia.org),

Monkey D. Luffy, also known as "Straw Hat" Luffy, is a fictional character and the protagonist in the Japanese manga series One Piece created by Eiichiro Oda. Luffy made his debut as a young boy who acquires the properties of rubber after accidentally eating one of the Devil Fruits that belonged to "Red Hair" Shanks.

The second question that comes to mind is how chess fits into our narrative. Repeating the relevant portions of the item specifics gives:-

'Title : piggybanx 1/1 chess piece'
'Unit of Sale : Single Piece'

That didn't help at all. I failed to answer the second question, but I didn't try very hard. Maybe I'll come back to it some other time.

The third question that comes to mind is why the item is worth $2000. I could probably spend an inordinate amount of time and never find an answer. It's just the way it is.

A Press of Yahoos

Last month's Yahoos post, Historic Olympiad Yahoos (September 2024; see the footnote below for an explanation of Yahoos), had a single subject as the most important chess topic of the month:-

The 100 stories total for September had the first nine under a heading that proclaimed, 'India win historic double gold at Chess Olympiad'. I counted another 18 stories about the Olympiad for a total of 27, plus a few more stories lacking the word 'Olympiad' in the title.

This month's 97 stories -- 10 of them old stories from previous months -- lacked a clear favorite. Eight of the 97 stories were about the 9LX Champions Showdown, which I'll cover in a future post on my chess960 blog; see the link on the right navigation bar.

Another six stories were about the forthcoming World Championship match, which starts next month. I could cover these on my blog dedicated to the subject, but I haven't done much with it in the last six months. I'll include one not-so-typical story here:-

• 2024-10-30: Experience the thrill of FIDE World Chess Championship live in Singapore! (fide.com) • 'Join us in Singapore for the World Chess Championship and witness chess history in the making! Take advantage of specially curated travel packages, each combining exclusive access to the title match with unique attractions, and save up to 30% off.'

A couple of paragraphs at the end of that page explain, 'About the FIDE World Championship Match', but nowhere are the dates given (25 Nov. to 13 Dec.). Another six stories were about a match between a many time competitor for the Women's World Championship and a popular streamer:-

• 2024-10-21: Chess Legend Pia Cramling To Face Off With Levy Rozman In Battle Of Generations (chess.com; TarjeiJS) • 'Get ready for an exciting event between two generations, as Swedish chess legend GM Pia Cramling goes head-to-head against the Internet's chess teacher IM Levy Rozman in a six-day over-the-board event in Stockholm.'

A third batch of articles, with five stories, was about an important national tournament, the American championship:-

• 2024-10-29: Class acts: Caruana, Yip defend chess titles at U.S. national championships (washingtontimes.com; David R. Sands) • 'U.S. national champion GM Fabiano Caruana and U.S. women’s national titleholder IM Carissa Yip successfully defended their crowns at the national championship tournaments that ended last week at the Chess Club of St. Louis. It was the fourth open American title belt for Caruana, the country’s highest-rated player, and the third for Yip.'

I also noted a total of seven stories about Magnus Carlsen. These could all have been on the same angle, but the titles weren't obviously related and I didn't take the time to read them all. Here's one that had caught my interest even before I started the Yahoo list for October:-

• 2024-10-25: After 20 years at the top of chess, Magnus Carlsen is making his next move (apnews.com; Mark Lewis) • 'Offering a new way to interact with the game, Carlsen on Friday launched his application, Take Take Take, which will follow live games and players, explaining matches in an accessible way that, Carlsen says, is sometimes missing from streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch. "It will be a chiller vibe," he says.'

Hardly a month rolls by without another example of chess players behaving badly. The following stories, both from the same Chess.com journalist, each appeared twice:-

• 2024-10-21: Shevchenko Given 75-Day Ban Amid Cheating Investigation, Misses European Club Cup (chess.com; TarjeiJS) • '[FIDE] has handed GM Kirill Shevchenko a temporary 75-day suspension following last weekend's expulsion from the Spanish Team Chess Championship, where two locked phones were found in a bathroom.'
  
  
• 2024-10-21: Christopher Yoo Issues Apology After Strike: 'Very Sad For What I Did' (chess.com; TarjeiJS) • '17-year-old GM Christopher Yoo expresses deep remorse following his expulsion from the 2024 U.S Chess Championship where he struck a videographer.'

With so many disparate chess topics, I needed a collective noun to group them together. I went looking for a word in one of my favorite reference books, a thesaurus, where -- after throng, multitude, horde, ..., crowd -- I found the perfect word. What was that word? See the title of this post.

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

Don't Burn the King

In our monthly featured Flickr photo, sometimes we see giant chess pieces occurring naturally in nature (I know that sentence is redundant, but how to rewrite it?). For example:-

• Chess in the Sky (September 2017)
• Chess on Orion's Belt (December 2022)

And sometimes we see giant chess pieces constructed in natural surroundings. Consider the following from 2024 Burning Man.

The King by David Posner from Charlottesville, VA © Flickr user Duncan Rawlinson - Duncan.co under Creative Commons.

The description of the photo explained,

The King is a geometrically shaped, octagonal King Chess Piece of monumental scale. The King is designed to express the shortcomings and follies of contemporary power dynamics and gender roles. We want the citizens of BRC [Black Rock City, Nevada] to first be inspired by the scale and construction of the piece.

Then, as they explore and inhabit the spaces, we hope to invoke thought and discussion around the roles we play and the ways we participate in contemporary patriarchy. We believe that these roles are damaging to all people, and we aim to create an approachable platform for that idea to be shared.

Need more info? Just follow the link on the Flickr page to The King Burns (thekingburns.weebly.com). The home page shows a giant hand made of smoke about to grab the giant King.

The London Chess Centre on Video

Just a few weeks ago, in a post titled Historic Olympiad Yahoos (September 2024), I noted,

The 100 stories total for September had the first nine under a heading that proclaimed, 'India win historic double gold at Chess Olympiad'. I counted another 18 stories about the Olympiad for a total of 27, plus a few more stories lacking the word 'Olympiad' in the title.

As confirmation of that note, this month's short list for the featured monthly video had a third of its clips from the ChessBase India channel, a resource that currently has over two million subscribers. Although most of the clips were about the Olympiad, I chose to use one of the two that had nothing to do with that historic event. Why? Because I like the subject and have a lot of respect for owner IM Malcolm Pein.

A Unique Chess Store For Chess Lovers In London | Chess & Bridge London (4:27) • '[Published on] Oct 12, 2024'

The description explained,

Chess & Bridge - The London Chess Centre located at 44 Baker Street, London is a store dedicated to the chess and bridge lovers. Here is a short video where you can enjoy the different chess sets and accessories and also you can choose from a huge collection of books.

For more about the store, see its web site Chess and Bridge Online Shop (chess.co.uk).

October 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

For last month's post, September 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (September 2024), we saw four Americans who were newly minted IMs 50 years ago and the logo for a controversial type of FIDE World Championship played 25 years ago. This month we see the leading American GM of 50 years ago, but the FIDE event has disappeared.

Left: '?'
Right: 'Serper Grabs World Open Title'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

U.S. Champion Walter Browne, who after winning his title went on to win the Pan-American Championship in Winnipeg, Canada. The U.S. Championship story is [inside]. Photo by Burt Hochberg.

There was more about GM Browne on 'The Editor's Page - News & Views' by Burt Hochberg. This was a regular column in those days.

Walter Browne continues onward and upward. Following his crisp U.S. Championship victory, the American grandmaster went after the Pan-American Individual Championship in Winnipeg, Canada. Though he expected to win it, his dominance of the field was reminiscent of Fischer's performances in tournaments of equivalent strength: Walter gave up only three draws in fifteen games, winning the other twelve. Starting with the World Open in July and including the U.S. Championship and the Winnipeg tournament, Browne has played 37 games without a loss, and this record no doubt stretches further back.

His sudden prominence has not gone unnoticed by the media. The September 2 issue of Newsweek, for instance, devoted two thirds of a page to Browne, reacting to the public's increased awareness of chess since the onset of the Fischer era. The public needs heroes, and so do the media. Walter's youth, his confidence, his lifestyle, his looks -- all fit the public's idea of the dynamic modern sports figure. And since media interest is good for chess, we say more power to him.

This was the first of Browne's six American championship titles. In the same issue he authored a report titled 'The U.S. Championship, by Walter Browne, U.S. Champion'. The five page article, half of which were raw game scores, started,

After the poorly-organized Olympics at Nice (construction noises at the hotel began at 6:00 A.M.), I was looking forward to the excellent conditions normally surrounding a U.S. Championship. Unfortunately, however, on first sight of the playing room I noticed that the players would be quite cramped, while the lighting was very dim.

It was also clear that there was no analysis room, so after the games the players had to sit on the floor outside the playing room. Near the end of the tournament, Bisguier and Evans came up with a table and chairs. Obviously, they had a lot of influence!

The opening ceremony went smoothly. Evans chose No. 1 and I had to play Black against John Grefe in the first round. After the ceremony we all adjourned to a fine Yugoslav restaurant which provided lively entertainment.

The tournament report was a game-by-game description of Browne's progress through the event. For example, 'In the ninth round against Bisguier, I played one of the best games of my life.' That game is available online: Walter Browne vs Arthur Bisguier; United States Championship (1974), Chicago, IL USA, rd 9, Jul-25 (chessgames.com; '"Browne Bagging It", game of the day Oct-07-2006'). For Browne's previous cover appearance, see July 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (July 2024; 'On the right is GM Walter Browne, winner of the 4th Statham Tournament in Lone Pine, Cal.').

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Congratulations to Alexander Khalifman for winning FIDE's Knockout World Championship, which ended August 29th. And kudos go out to Alex Yermolinsky for his tiebreak victory in the 100th U.S. Open, held at the Sands Regency in Reno, Nevada. Marcel Martinez won the Junior Invitational, hosted by the Mechanic's Institute of San Francisco. And while Boris Gulko, Yasser Seirawan, Gregory Serper and Alex Yermolinsky battle it out in the finals of the Interplay U.S. Championship, we congratulate Anjelina Belakovskaia for winning the Interplay U.S. Woman's Championship in Salt Lake City. Stories will follow next month.

Our main feature this month is on the World Open, won by Gregory Serper, after a tiebreak session of quick play games. Steven Seward of Cleveland, Ohio, again provided the artwork for this month's cover. He enjoys doing portraits, and, judging by your letters, you enjoy his work.

This marks the third time we've seen artwork by Seward of Ohio. The previous cover was January 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (January 2024; 'We again called on portraitist Steven Seward of Cleveland, Ohio, to work his magic for our cover.')

The 'main feature' of the issue was a three page report, 'Serper Breaks Log Jam at World Open' by Jerry Hanken. The author was a regular contributor of reports on top-level U.S. chess events of that period. It started,

The 27th Annual World Open, held over the Independence Day weekend, was one of the most exciting and interesting of this great series of tournaments. This was the 15th in a row held at the elegant Adams Mark Hotel in the upscale City Line area of Philadelphia. With adjustments for re-entries in the lower sections (they're not allowed in the Open), the total was 1,470 players, a significant increase of 36 over last year's. The prize fund was increased by $10,000, making the prizes even deeper than last year's.

As it is every year, the World Open was by far the largest U.S. non-scholastic open in attendance and prizes. With the New York Open taking a sabbatical this year, the 30 grandmasters who graced the Open section was again by far the largest number in any U.S. tournament. (Of course, I am not counting the FIDE Las Vegas extravaganza.)

"So who won the shooting match, Hanken? Don't keep us in suspense!" Ah, as Bill Shakespeare said, "Thereby hangs a tale!" In a word, it was Gregory Serper, a very likeable and genial ex-Soviet player who now lives in Cleveland, Ohio (GM City USA, with Yermolinsky, Goldin, and Lein also making the lakeside big town home), who hopes soon to be a U.S. citizen.

GM Serper is today a regular contributor to Chess.com. For an index of his writings, see Gserper's Articles (chess.com).

So what about the news on the FIDE Championship? It was confined to 'Alexander Khalifman Is FIDE World Chess Champion' by Peter Kurzdorfer and started,

Who would've thunk it? The FIDE Knockout World Chess Championship in Las Vegas produced the biggest upset in all world championship history!

Russian Grandmaster Alexander Khalifman, while certainly a very good player. has never been ranked at the very top among world-class grandmasters. He was seeded 36th in the knockout championship, even though top-10 GMs Kasparov, Anand, Morozevich, and Karpov were not competing. Nevertheless, he fought his way through the tournament, winning all seven matches by knocking out grandmasters Dibyendu Barua, Gata Kamsky, Karen Asrian, Boris Gelfand, Judit Polgar, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, and Vladimir Akopian.

The two-column report by CL Assistant Editor Kurzdorfer was the eighth feature in that month's magazine, sandwiched between 'Six Tie for First at North Bay [Ontario, Canada] International' and '1999 U.S. Blind Champion'. The Jerry Hanken report on the World Open was the fifth feature after 'U.S. Amateur Playoffs', 'Pan-Am Promo', 'CJA Awards', and '1999 U.S. Amateur Championships'.

We can only speculate on the reason for the low profile of the FIDE event in CL. Was it because of the bad showing by the U.S. players, all of whom were eliminated no later than the second of the seven rounds? Or was it because of bad blood between USCF, as the American federation was known at that time, and FIDE? I'm guessing it was both.

Wikipedia to Trading Cards to eBay

At the beginning of every month, in preparation for the monthly post on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), I prepare a short list of top items sold in the previous month. The items on the short list often repeat previous posts in the series. For example, this month I had on the short list (listed from least expensive to most expensive):-

• A chess watch, similar to the watch shown in Skeleton, Marriage, Chess Watch (October 2016).
• A bronze of cats playing chess, reminiscent of Cold Painted Cats (December 2022).
• A dollhouse, the third such post after Another Dollhouse Chess Table (October 2016).

At the top and bottom of that list I could have added a couple of paintings by Ukrainian artists. Normally I like artwork as the basis for an eBay post, but neither of the paintings inspired me.

Instead of those choices I picked an item titled, '2023 The Chess 16 cards lot'. It sold for US $850.00 'Buy It Now', along with the mentions 'Other people bought this. [one] has already sold' and 'Condition: Used'. Only the first card in the series, pictured below, was shown in the auction.

The description of the auction said,

List of cards:
#2 Emanuel Lasker
#3 Jose Raul Capablanca
[...]
#12 Anatoly Karpov
#13 Garry Kasparov

These were followed by #14 through #17: Kramnik, Anand, Carlsen, and Ding Liren. Any casual fan of chess history will recognize the World Champions, where the post-Kasparov names are those generally accepted by public opinion (apologies to Alexander Khalifman and the other FIDE Champions who aren't on the list).

Where's '#1 Wilhelm Steinitz', who is shown on the card? Although the title of the auction says, '16 cards', '#17 Ding Liren' appears to have been added afterwards, since his name was listed using a different font. I bet that the set includes '17 cards'.

The back of the Steinitz card says, '(c) 2023 The History of Chess. All rights reserved'. The text of the card starts,

Wilhelm Steinitz was a Bohemian-Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first World Chess Champion.

It doesn't take much sleuth work to discover that the text on the card is copied verbatim from the Wikipedia page Wilhelm Steinitz (wikipedia.org). The image on the front of the card is also the same as Steinitz's likeness on the Wikipedia page.

It turns out that all of the individual cards in the card set are available from the eBay seller's store. Some of the cards have the same color as the featured Steinitz card; these each sell for '$49.00 Buy It Now + $29.00 shipping from United States'. Other cards are colored in gray; these sell for '$99.00 Buy It Now + $29.00 [etc. etc.]'. There are a couple of other Karpov cards, both with 'RC Rookie Chess RARE' in their titles, selling for $499.00 each plus shipping. I've seen both cards on eBay, selling for a small percentage of that price. It's hard to imagine that anyone would be gullible enough to pay that sort of money for those cards, but who knows?

Historic Olympiad Yahoos

In last month's Yahoos post -- see the footnote for a definition of Yahoos -- titled DNA Yahoos (August 2024), the stats revealed a possible new trend:-

This month had 99 stories returned by Google News. Of those, 25 were old stories from previous months, compared to 10 old stories returned for the July post. Is Google struggling to find chess stories?

The September stats were 100 stories total including 14 stories from previous months. Later in the August post I noted,

The 2024 Olympiad also had four stories, two of which were the same. Since the event didn't finish in August, I'll save any discussion for next month.

The 100 stories total for September had the first nine under a heading that proclaimed, 'India win historic double gold at Chess Olympiad'. I counted another 18 stories about the Olympiad for a total of 27, plus a few more stories lacking the word 'Olympiad' in the title.

I would like to use the FIDE story to represent the Yahoos, but it's structured oddly so I need a different FIDE report to set the stage. Here are both reports:-

• 2024-09-22: India triumphs at 45th Chess Olympiad, winning both Open and Women’s competitions (fide.com)
• 2024-09-23: Triumphant moments: Celebrating the winners of 45th Chess Olympiad (ditto) • 'In the open section, the bronze medal went to Uzbekistan, and the silver medals were awarded to team USA. The winners of the 45th Chess Olympiad, Team India, received the gold medals and the Hamilton-Russell Cup, the original Olympiad trophy created in 1927 and named after its donor, British attorney and chess sponsor Frederick Gustavus Hamilton-Russell. [...] In the women’s section, the bronze medal was awarded to team USA, while the silver medal went to team Kazakhstan.'

That wasn't the only important news to emerge from the Olympiad. Consider the latest fallout from the war in Ukraine:-

• 2024-09-23: World Chess Body Upholds Ban On Players From Russia, Belarus • 'The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has upheld a ban on Russian and Belarusian players imposed over Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, prompting an angry response from the Kremlin chiding FIDE for bowing to Western pressure.'

Close to the center of the story was/is a Russian national doing a high-wire political balancing act:-

FIDE President and former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who has sought to avoid criticism in both Russia and the West.

Of the other chess stories from Google News, none were particularly compelling, so I'll close this month's post with a reference to the previous Olympiad Yahoo, Olympiad, Business, and Political Yahoos (August 2022). The main event, 'Open' is the current jargon, was won by Uzbekistan.

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

A Knight and Two Berserkers

The missing subtitle 'Everybody Loves the Lewis Pieces' recalls the recent post Everybody Loves Morphy (June 2024). Our previous Flickr post featuring the dour little warriors was The Lewis Pieces at Church (May 2023; 'Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford, Ireland').

Lewis Chessmen © Flickr user Hornbeam Arts under Creative Commons.

The Flickr description said only,

In the early Welsh story "The Dream of Rhonabwy", Arthur is seen playing a game similar to chess.

The famous pieces even have their own Wikipedia page, Game pieces of the Lewis chessmen hoard (wikipedia.org). The page informs,

The style of carving, particularly that on the thrones of the seated figures, suggests they are Scandinavian in origin, most likely from Trondheim, the medieval capital of Norway until 1217. The types of piece are similar to those in modern chess -- the chessmen are the earliest found that have figures in clerical dress (bishops).

The Rooks are represented as warriors which came to be called "warders" at an early stage after they were discovered. Four of the warders are shown biting their shields -- these have been identified as the berserkers of the Norse sagas. Christian and pagan influences are both present in the designs.

So technically speaking, the two pieces behind the Knight in our Flickr photo aren't berserkers, because they're not biting their shields. Maybe their teeth fell out during previous bites.

As for the dream referenced in the photo description, Wikipedia offers another page, The Dream of Rhonabwy (wikipedia.org; Welsh). Here the 'chess' game is identified as gwyddbwyll, a name that could easily be extraterrestrial in origin, but is in fact 'a Celtic board game similar to Roman ludus latrunculorum'. That reminds me of The Circular Chess Boards of the Druids (April 2024). There we learned,

(Q:) What exactly is a Druid? (A:) 'A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures.'

So Druids played gwyddbwyll and were probably experts at it.

***

Later: A few weeks after the date on the post, I noticed in Key decisions from the 2024 FIDE General Assembly (chessbase.com) another Lewis reference:-

Gunnar Bjornsson, president of the Icelandic Chess Federation, presented the application from the Greenlandic Chess Federation, which applied to become an Affiliated Member of FIDE. "Chess, while very new in its organized form, has a surprisingly long connection to Greenland. The famous Lewis chessmen, a collection of medieval chess pieces, have been definitively proven to be crafted from walrus tusks of Greenlandic origin," read in the application.

This squares with the Wikipedia page on the Lewis pieces, which says, 'Material: Walrus ivory and whale tooth'.

US Chess on Video

With less than 100 views and zero comments after three weeks on Youtube, this video might be the least popular chess clip that I've ever selected for a monthly featured video post. So why feature it? Because I liked the inside look at the US Chess federation.

US Chess Federation Staff Forum Friday August 2 2024 (5:57) • '[Published on] Aug 19, 2024'

The description said,

US Chess is the official, not-for-profit US membership organization for chess players and chess supporters of all ages and strengths, from beginners to Grandmasters. Find out more at uschess.org

That was followed by around a dozen links to various aspects of US Chess, four of which were under the header 'Women in Chess'. At the end of the video, the staff forum morphs into a membership meeeting which has also been recorded for posterity:-

• 2024-08-14: Membership Meeeting August 2, 2024

If you like this sort of thing -- I appreciate that it's not for everyone -- don't miss:-

• 2024-08-19: 2024 US Chess Delegates Meeting [undated]

Nearly nine hours long, it even has a transcript. For more about the venue, see What to Expect at the 124th Annual U.S. Open (uschess.org; JJ Lang). It starts,

The 124th Annual U.S. Open Chess Championship begins Saturday, July 27 at the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel in Norfolk, Virginia. Here is a primer of what to expect and how to follow all the action!

For more about the meetings, scroll to the bottom of that page to find 'Meet, Mingle, Delegate'. Even though online chess gets most of the attention and the players, US Chess is alive and well.

September 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

This month's 'On the Cover' features two unique, historical chess events in the USA. Fifty years ago, four up and coming American players received the IM title at the 1974 FIDE Congress. Twenty-five years ago, a controversial World Championship tournament was held at Las Vegas, aka 'Sin City'. For last month's 'On the Cover', see August 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (August 2024).

Left: 'Mednis/Soltis/Rogoff/Tarjan'
Right: 'FIDE World Championship; Caesar's hosts the BEST!'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Our four new International Masters: Edmar Mednis (top left); Andrew Soltis (top right); Kenneth Rogoff (bottom left); James Tarjan (bottom right). Photos by Burt Hochberg.

A story inside, 'FIDE Titles' by Arpad E. Elo, Secretary, [FIDE] Qualification Committee, started,

After a drought of several years, four U.S. players were awarded the International Master title by the FIDE Congress at Nice: Edmar Mednis, Kenneth Rogoff, Andrew Soltis and James Tarjan. These, plus a Cuban IM and a Correspondence Master, were all the Western Hemisphere could claim of the 63 titles approved by the Qualification Committee.

All four American players went on to become grandmasters -- Mednis (b.1937; GM 1980), Rogoff (b.1953; GM 1978), Soltis (b.1947; GM 1980), Tarjan (b.1952; GM 1976) -- and all but Soltis played in World Championship Interzonals: Rogoff in the 1976-78 cycle, Mednis and Tarjan in the 1979-81 cycle; see FIDE Events 1948-1990 (m-w.com) for links. Coincidentally, all four had six-letter family names. The Arpad Elo article continued,

Among the interesting new title holders is a Woman Master of whom the USSR players are exceptionally proud, Maya Chiburdanidze, just thirteen years old!

Four years later Chiburdanidze won a match against the reigning Women's World Champion -- see 1978 Chiburdanidze - Gaprindashvili Title Match (m-w.com) -- who had held the title since 1962. When Chiburdanidze lost the title in 1991, it would mark nearly 30 years of an uninterrupted reign by Georgian women players.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

By the time you receive this issue, the Second FIDE Knockout World Championship will be history. We were able to report the results of the first two rounds. Unfortunately, that was all that was needed to determine the fates of our nine participants. [...] Jose Angel Pardo put together the artwork for Chess Life in Adobe Photoshop. He holds a BA in Fine Arts from Jersey State College.

For more about the cover teaser, 'Caesar's hosts the BEST!', see two previous posts on my World Chess Championship blog:-

• Who Goes to Caesars Palace to Play Chess? (April 2009)
• Playing Chess at Caesars Palace (ditto)

A few months ago we saw the same paragraph about cover artist Pardo in July 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (July 2024). An article inside the September issue, 'Americans at Las Vegas' by Brian Killigrew, started,

The FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament has given chess fans a great deal to be excited about. One month of top-level chess, one hundred players, and speed games where one mistake can cost you a match. The format is exciting, if not controversial.

Do the short matches really prove who is the best? Should speed chess determine the winner of the world championship? And is the winner really the world champ if he hasn't beaten Kasparov -- or, for that matter, Karpov?

These are a few of the questions I posed to the players representing the United States at the tournament. While they were all excited to be part of it, their feelings about the format were mixed. But they all agreed on some points. The players said that it wasn't fair when Karpov was seeded directly into the finals last year, and they also showed a great deal of respect for their first round opponents.

The first (Groningen / Lausanne) and second (Las Vegas) FIDE World Championship Knockout events are documented on my index page for the World Chess Championship (m-w.com). There would be a total of five title events using the knockout format, which never escaped the 'exciting, if not controversial' criticism.