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.]