Dadaist Chess

In the previous post, What Is Dadaist Chess? (February 2025), I quoted from Wikipedia,

Dada or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War [aka WWI] and the earlier anti-art movement.

Adding that to an earlier post titled, Cubist Chess (February 2025; 'Marcel Duchamp plays cubist chess'), generates yet another view of Marcel Duchamp playing chess, shown below.

'Marcel Duchamp plays dadaist chess.'
AI Comic Factory

While those faces all look like Marcel Duchamp, where's the Dadaism? An even more fundamental question is how do you depict an 'anti-establishment / anti-art' movement? Our AI comic software is clearly struggling with the question.

One trick the software uses when lost for an appropriate image is to create a meaningless comic sequence, like the one shown in the upper left frame. Another trick is to put stuff on the wall, like the two frames on the right. Maybe the framed pictures relate to images well known to Dadaism. Then again, maybe not. What do I know?

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

More Fun Tops Eerie

First question: How much artwork has been featured in the long running series Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010)? In last month's post, A Sammarinese Artist (February 2025), I wrote, 'I almost always go for any artwork', so there must have been plenty.

Second question: How much of that artwork has featured comic books? It turns out not to be so much, because I count exactly six posts.

The title of the item pictured below was 'MORE FUN COMICS #76 CGC VG 4.0; OW; Dr. Fate chess cover! Scarce!' It sold for 'US $1,350.00 or Best Offer', where that USD number looks to be close to the real price.

The description just repeated the title. Fortunately, there are resources elsewhere, like More Fun Comics Vol 1 76 (dc.fandom.com; 'DC database'). There we learn that this particular comic was published February 1942. If we go back to a post from almost two years ago, Eerie Tops Strange (May 2023), I noted,

'Strange Adventures #35' [...] sold for US $643.93 • 'Eerie Adventures' comic [...] was considerably more than the 'Strange Adventures' comic.

It looks like we've upped the ante again. For my take on comic book prices, see the first of the six 'Top eBay Chess Items' posts featuring a comic, Batman Plays Chess with the Joker (December 2011), especially the last paragraph.

***

This month will see the 15th anniversary of 'Top eBay Chess Items by Price'. Am I looking forward to another 15 years? Hardly!

Esports Yahoos

By the guiding principle of consistency, the title of this month's Yahoos post should have echoed the title of last month's post, World Championship Yahoos 2025 1/? (January 2025), where '1/?' was supposed to mean the start of a new series of undetermined length centered on a dispute:-

The dispute is about FIDE's claim to have the exclusive right to any 'World Chess Championship'.

I should have written '1/1' or omitted the numbering completely, because the dispute evaporated as quickly as it had developed. For the nitty-gritty on its resolution, see FCPC Backs Down (February 2025; 'Freestyle Chess Players Club') on my WCC blog.

Back to this month's Yahoos post (see the footnote for an explanation of 'Yahoos'), Google News returned 101 stories, of which three were old stories from previous months. The only stories receiving special mention from Google News were three grouped under a heading titled, 'Magnus Carlsen talks about chess and life', e.g. 'World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen cannot beat his smartphone in chess'. Neither can anyone else, so what's the news? More interesting were several news stories like the following.

• 2025-02-06: Chess Makes Historic Debut At Esports World Cup 2025 With $1.5 Million Prize Pool (chess.com) • 'Chess.com and GM Magnus Carlsen have announced a major partnership with the Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF), which means that competitive chess will be featured for the first time in the 2025 Esports World Cup (EWC), the world’s largest gaming and esports festival. The prestigious event is set to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from July 31 to August 3, 2025 and the partnership means the world’s top chess players will be competing for a massive $1.5 million prize pool. It’s a significant deal for the chess world as the game for the first time will be showcased to a new generation of esports enthusiasts.'
  
  
• 2025-02-21: Carlsen wins again as he qualifies for the $1.5m Saudi Esports World Cup (theguardian.com; Leonard Barden) • 'The Norwegian world No 1 beat Hikaru Nakamura twice at the Chessable Masters despite endgame lapses'

Neither story gave any details about the future event, so let's switch to an older news item that reads like a press release.

• 2024-12-17: It’s Official: Chess is Coming to the Esports World Cup 2025 (esportsworldcup.com) • 'Chess is one of the world’s most popular and enduring strategy games. And now, with its addition to the Esports World Cup [EWC] 2025 lineup, we are settling the debate: It’s officially an esport, too! [...] Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen is joining Esports World Cup Chess as a Global Ambassador.'

The article also informed,

Esports World Cup 2025 Chess Format • Chess at the EWC will be played in a rapid 10+0 chess format. [...] Twelve players hoping to compete at the EWC will qualify through the Champions Chess Tour, which will host two online tour events in February and May of 2025. A final Last Chance Qualifier will take place in Riyadh to select the final four competitors.'

The following infographic, from the same article, summarized the most important info.

The headlines of other Google News stories mentioned more top players besides Carlsen: GMs Caruana, Nakamura, Nepomniachtchi, and Yu Yangyi. It's not completely clear what sets this event apart from the other online events with the same players. Maybe it's the prize fund.

Another event had even more stories than the EWC. The most recent story at the time of this post was:-

• 2025-02-26: Three-way tie sets up explosive final round at FIDE WGP Monaco (fide.com) • 'With three players -- [Kateryna] Lagno, [Aleksandra] Goryachkina, and [Batkhuyag] Munguntuul -- now sharing the lead, the final round of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix in Monte-Carlo promises a dramatic showdown. [...] The ninth and final round of the third leg in the 2024/25 Women’s Grand Prix series starts on February 27th in Monte-Carlo, Monaco.'

For the full, final crosstable, see Monaco FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2025 (theweekinchess.com).

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

What Is Dadaist Chess?

In the previous post for the series inspired by AI Comics, Cubist Chess (February 2025; 'Marcel Duchamp plays cubist chess.'), I wrote,

Cubism I understand -- at least I think I do -- Dadaism is a mystery. Let's go with what I understand. [...] Next on the agenda: dadaist.

First and foremost, what's Dadaism? In Dada (wikipedia.org), we learn,

Dada or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War [aka WWI] and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had spread to New York City and a variety of artistic centers in Europe and Asia.

To explore its relationship to chess, I'll use the same Google search technique last seen in 1992 Fischer - Spassky 'Under the Weather' (September 2022), i.e. a composite image.

Google Image search on 'chess dadaist'
[Call the rows 'A' to 'C' (from top to bottom) and number the images in each row '1' to '8' (from left to right).]

More than a third of those thumbnails show chess sets and half of those are the 'Man Ray chess set', most prominently in dead center of the composite at B4. Another third have something to with Marcel Duchamp, including his 'Portrait of Chess Players' in A6 and C2. Both artists are seen playing each other in A5.

As for his several mentions in this blog, Marcel Duchamp made a Chess Review cover appearance in November 1968 'On the Cover' (November 2018; 'Marcel Duchamp died at 81 last October 1st, in Paris. [...]') I can't imagine what 'Marcel Duchamp plays dadaist chess' ('anti-establishment art'?) will look like. We'll find out in the next post in the series.

Cubist Chess

The title of the previous post on AI Comics, Surrealist, Cubist, Dadaist Chess (February 2025; 'Marcel Duchamp plays surrealist chess'), suggests the theme of this current post. I ended that post saying,

That gives me at least two more avenues to explore -- (1) conceptual art and (2) Salvador Dali, not to overlook cubism and dadism.

Cubism I understand -- at least I think I do -- Dadaism is a mystery. Let's go with what I understand.

'Marcel Duchamp plays cubist chess.'
AI Comic Factory

So cubist means breaking up surfaces into a patchwork of smaller, rectangular pieces. A chessboard is inherently cubist; chess pieces are not. Next on the agenda: dadaist.

More Text to Art

While creating the short list for this month's Flickr Favorite post, I saw many photos similar to the one in the upper left of the composite image below. See, for example, the photo directly beneath it (leftmost image second row). When I tried to look at that family of photos together, I discovered that the photographer frequently used 'chess' as a theme. The image in the lower right looked familiar and, sure enough, I had 'faved' it sometime last year.

Upper left: Chess-esque © Flickr user Leo Reynolds under Creative Commons.
Bottom right: Chess mosaic © [same as upper left]

The descriptions of both photos were identical:-

Artwork created by Midjourney from a sequence of text.

No prizes for guessing that Midjourney (wikipedia.org), is an AI image generator. That Wikipedia page starts,

Midjourney is a generative artificial intelligence program and service created and hosted by the San Francisco-based independent research lab Midjourney, Inc. Midjourney generates images from natural language descriptions, called prompts, similar to OpenAI's DALL-E and Stability AI's Stable Diffusion. It is one of the technologies of the AI boom.

The last time we saw a Flickr chess image of this genre was No Hunk-o'-Junk Here (April 2024). Although the generator of that image wasn't explicitly identified, a piece of additional info informs,

This photo is in 1 album: AI Gen Sci-fi (Midjourney).

Midjourney again. So there we have it.

February 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover'

The leading American chess magazine -- both 50 years ago and 25 years ago -- featured the American Open. For last month's post in the series, see January 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover' (January 2025).

Left: '?'
Right: 'The Beauty of Chess'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Kim Commons, left, and Peter Biyiasas, co-winners of the American Open. Story [inside]. Photo by Carl Budd.

The 'story [inside]' by Carl Budd, 'Vice President, Santa Monica Bay Chess Club', was titled '10th American Open'. It started,

The tenth anniversary of the American Open resulted in co-champions for the first time since its inception. Kim Commons, formerly a California Champion, and Peter Biyiasas, current Champion of Canada, led the field after the eighth and final round to tie for top honors. [...]

Altogether there were 168 entries in the Championship Section. And with 300 entered in the Amateur Section, the grand total of 468 players makes this American Open the largest rated tournament ever held in California and the third largest open tournament co-sponsored by the U.S. Chess Federation. It is surpassed only by the U.S. Open in Chicago in 1973 with 778 players and the U.S. Open in New York in 1974 with 549 players.

For the previous edition of the American Open, 51 years ago, see February 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (February 2024; 'James Tarjan, winner of the American Open in California').

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Again we thank Steven Seward for his excellent work, providing us with a cover portrait of the winner of the 35th American Open, Grandmaster Eduard Gufeld. Jerry Hanken's happy recap begins on [inside] and is followed by an interview with Gufeld. Keeping with the theme of the interview, Gufeld's "Artistic Beauty in Chess" begins [inside].

That's a lot of Gufeld for one issue of CL: cover portrait, winner of the 35th American Open (four page story), interview (two pages), essay on beauty in chess (five pages). The 'On the Cover' introduction continued with a Gufeld anecdote:-

You should also note that Bobby Fischer's last sacrifice -- was Gufeld. When Fischer forfeited his match against Karpov in 1975, the Soviets were desperate to prove that Karpov was worthy of the title. Gufeld was scheduled to travel (a rarity) to Ljubljana for the Third Vidmar Memorial, a super-strong event. That's right, Eddie got bumped -- sacrificed if you please -- in order to allow Karpov to participate (Karpov won, ahead of Gligoric, Ribli, Furman, Hort, Parma, Portisch, et. al. [June 1975, Karpov: +7-0=8]).

By some unusual coincidence, the February 1975 issue of CL&R had news about the Fischer - Karpov match, so I'll come back to that story after finishing with Gufeld. The tournament report was titled 'Gufeld Tops 35th American Open' by Jerry Hanken. It started with a bit of chess history:-

A little over a year after Lyndon Johnson announced his "Great Society" and "War on Poverty" and 14 months before Super Bowl I, the American Open was born. A brainchild of Al Bisno of the Santa Monica Bay Chess Club and USCF Executive Director Ed Edmondson, this tournament became part of the original "Triple Crown" (along with the U.S. Open and National Open). The first running drew over 200 players to the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica and was won by then-super GM (twice a world championship candidate in the 50's and 60's) Pal Benko. [...]

In 1979 the American Open achieved "American Classic" status (marking the difference between a National and one run by a local organization which has drawn over 400 players three years running). And in 1989 it was awarded the "American Heritage" designation for lasting 25 consecutive years. Only one other tournament holds both these distinctions — the World Open, of course.

This information is for historical perspective in reporting on the just-completed 35th Annual American Open, held Thanksgiving weekend at the spacious LAX Sheraton Gateway.

The report then turned to a discussion of the winner.

Quite fittingly, the tournament, an eight-round Swiss, was won by a grandmaster whose career and accomplishments span the last 35 years! In a mild upset, the American Open champ of 1999, the last of the millennium, was Eduard Gufeld! I use the word "upset" because Eduard was only the ninth highest USCF-rated player in the event, and many thought that at 63 years of age he was simply too old and too outclassed to win such an event. After all, there were three GMs (Pavel Blatny, Sergey Kudrin, and Alex Yermolinsky) among those seeded ahead of him.

Since he recently settled in the Los Angeles area, Gufeld has been known as a fine teacher and lecturer, but not a great tournament player. Well, he certainly struck a blow for us old folks! Not only did he become the champion, but he won with a clear half-point advantage at 6 1/2 of 8.

I'll skip both the Gufeld interview and his essay and return to the phantom 1975 Fischer - Karpov match. Burt Hochberg described the status in his monthly column for February 1975, 'The Editor's Page - News & Views'.

The FIDE Bureau meeting in Panang, Malaysia, December 15-18 [1974], resulted in some very discouraging news. The most pressing matter was the World Championship Match for 1975: by a narrow 5-4 vote the Bureau reluctantly declined to consider changing the Regulations adopted last June by the General Assembly at Nice.

President Euwe expressed the hope that the Chess Federation of the USSR would now, in a grand gesture designed to demonstrate the sportsmanship it has so long professed, announce that Karpov would agree to the match conditions proposed by Fischer. If the Soviets do not make this gesture -- and several Bureau members consider it unlikely -- only an Extraordinary General Assembly could make any changes in the Regulations.

After more bad news involving the 1975 World Student Team Championship and the 1976 Olympiad, Hochberg returned to the title match.

Some hope remains, however, that the World Championship may yet be saved. The Chess Federations of Japan, Iran and the Philippines have called for an Extraordinary General Assembly, as provided for in FIDE statutes. For this meeting to be held -- it must be done before April 1 -- 29 of the 87 member federations must support the call.

On January 1, the bids for the Match were opened at FIDE headquarters in Amsterdam. There were only three: Mexico City $387,500; Milan $426,250; and the Philippines $5,000,000. According to FIDE regulations, the match winner gets five-eighths of the purse and the loser three-eighths. Details of the bids have been sent to Karpov and Fischer, each of whom must list the bids in order of preference and notify FIDE of their choices not later than February 17. If the two players do not agree, FIDE President Euwe will choose the site.

For the previous major development involving the 1975 match, see August 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (August 2024; 'The [1974] FIDE Congress was shaken by several controversial decisions.').

Surrealist, Cubist, Dadaist Chess

Continuing to explore the bizarre, parallel world of AI chess comics, it's been a month since the post on Surrealist Chess (January 2025; 'Rene Magritte plays surrealist chess'). Perhaps the best known chess artist is Marcel Duchamp, so let's see what the AI software thinks about him and his work.

'Marcel Duchamp plays surrealist chess.'
AI Comic Factory

While that's unmistakably Marcel Duchamp, the images aren't nearly as compelling as those in the Magritte post. What went wrong? Wikipedia, in Marcel Duchamp (wikipedia.org), says,

Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art.

There's no mention of 'surrealism' there, so maybe I got my wires crossed. The rest of Duchamp's Wikipedia page mentions variations of 'surreal' more than a dozen times. One of the first mentions says,

The [Dada] movement influenced later styles, such as the avant-garde and downtown music movements, and groups including surrealism, Nouveau réalisme, pop art, and Fluxus.

The most recent post on this blog featuring Duchamp was Conceptual Artist and Surreal Artist (March 2024). There I quoted the UK Royal Academy of Arts,

Take another look at two artistic giants: father of conceptual art Marcel Duchamp, and larger-than-life surrealist Salvador Dali.

That gives me at least two more avenues to explore -- (1) conceptual art and (2) Salvador Dali, not to overlook cubism and dadaism -- in the bizarre, parallel world of AI chess comics.

DGT Enschede NL

Of the 22 clips on this month's short list for featured video of the month, 14 were for the first leg of the 2025 FCGST (December 2024; '2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour') in Weissenhaus, Germany. Since I'll be discussing that event on my chess960 blog -- to which that FCGST link goes -- I picked another clip for this post.

A tour of the massive DGT office | World's most loved chess boards and clock brand (38:08) • '[Published on] 8 Feb 2025'

Once again, the video is from ChessBase India. The description said,

DGT is a very well known name for any professional chess player! Almost all of the top FIDE events have their chess boards and pieces used. Even the clock that is used across all FIDE events is the DGT clock. Seeing the huge scale of presence that the company has, we were of course curious about the office of DGT. Sagar [IM Shah of ChessBase India] was in the Netherlands for the Tata Steel Chess 2025. He travelled to Enschede from Wijk Aan Zee to bring you this DGT office tour.

For the previous post featuring DGT, see A Special Chess Board (September 2019).

New Players under the FIDE Flag

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this blog's annual discussion of international ratings, FIDE Rating List - January 2025 (January 2025). I ended it saying,

Last year's only followup post, Players under the FIDE Flag (January 2024), might be worth a revisit because FIDE's (FED = 'FID') percentage increase was the fourth highest [2025 over 2024].

Here are the numbers for FIDE again:-

Fed 2024 2025 Incr
FID   798 1008 26.32%

That means the list had 210 more 'FIDE' players (i.e. listed without a national federation) at the start of 2025 than at the start of 2024. The 2024 FIDE Flag post (*) also listed the total number of FIDE players for each of the last five years. Here's a continuation of the same list, adding the count for 2025:-

2023 : 394
2024 : 636
2025 : 766

Why the difference between 1008 players in the first table and 766 players in the second? It's probably because I eliminated players registered only to play on the FIDE Online Arena (FOA). I don't think it was a good idea for FIDE to mix online players with OTB players, but that decision was made some time ago.

Of those 766 FIDE players in 2025, 130 appear to be new FIDE players (766 - 636 in 2024). When I searched for the *names* of new FIDE players in 2025, I found 124. The difference of six players isn't trivial, but I decided to ignore it for now. The 124 new FIDE players in 2025 were listed under the following federations in 2024:-

Fed : Ct
RUS : 114
BLR : 8
FID : 1 [family name changed for a woman; marriage?]
WLS : 1

The table shows clearly that that most of the new FIDE players were from the two federations -- Russia and Belarus -- which have been restricted by FIDE as a consequence of the war in Ukraine. I looked at the rating records of a handful of those players (ratings.fide.com) and discovered that their games were played in Russia and Belarus.

Of the more than 40.000 players on the 2025 list marked with federation RUS or BLR, about 2% also played games in the period covered by the rating list that I used. I don't know why some players are marked 'FID', but most players aren't. Maybe it has something to do with FOA.

(*) Players under the FIDE Flag (January 2024)

Breaking the 3800 Barrier

This is post no.3800 on this blog, meaning that it's time for another 'Breaking the Barrier' post. The previous post, Breaking the 3700 Barrier (February 2024), was a little more than a year ago. At that time I noted,

We have one engine [rated] over 3800 (Stockfish 16), 15 engines over 3700, and (not shown) 11 engines over 3600. [...] See you a year from now for the '3800 Barrier'.

The chart below shows the current ratings of the top engines as calculated by the same source.

CCRL Blitz Rating List (Feb 2025)
(computerchess.org.uk/ccrl)

Now we have two engines rated over 3800 (Stockfish 17 and Torch v2), 29 engines over 3700 (not all shown), and 14 engines over 3600. If I keep posting to this blog at the current frequency, I'll be able to do 'Breaking the 3900 Barrier' in a year. Given that Stockfish, the top engine (rated 3817), has only increased 11 points since last year, I don't expect to see any engines over 3900 anytime soon.

Human players have reached a so-far insurmountable barrier of 2900. Are engines facing a similar barrier of 3900?

Playing Chess with Money

One of the insights from my recent explorations into AI Comics was that people's likenesses are best rendered using the '3D Render' style. Consider the images produced for the recent post Color the Proteins (January 2025; 'Demis Hassabis plays chess ...').

Another insight was that AI Comics are perfectly happy to create images of inanimate objects playing chess. Consider the following images inspired by the world of economics and finance.

'Kenneth Rogoff plays chess with money.'
AI Comic Factory

Now I don't know what you think, but I think those are pretty good likenesses of one of the most famous GMs who became much better known in a real world profession (is there another?). Photos of {GM/Dr./Professor} Rogoff have appeared many times on this blog.

The earliest appearance was Kenny Rogoff as You've Never Seen Him (February 2012). Note the contrast between the photo of young Rogoff in that post and an older Rogoff in Wesley So & Kenneth Rogoff (February 2015). Since there are many more photos of the older Rogoff on the web, it's those photos that have been used as the base for the composite image shown above.

As for 'plays chess with money', the only frame where money is obvious is the lower left. The round thing behind the board looks to be based on the seals you find on U.S. dollar paper bills.

***

Later: I received a message from A.L. saying, 'In the upper right frame, he appears to be tossing a gold coin.' It took me a few minutes to see it, but yes indeed, there is a gold coin near the center of the upper right frame. I missed it before because it is nearly the same color as Professor Rogoff's tie.

A Sammarinese Artist

Several months ago, in Incarcerated, Self-taught, and Legally Blind (July 2024), I wrote,

When there are several choices on the short list for a new month's edition of Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), I almost always go for any artwork.

Here's that link again -- Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010) -- and here's another example of artwork, one of two I had on the short list. The item pictured below was titled 'Nicoletta Ceccoli Limited Edition Print FOR YOUR EYES ONLY Signed by the Artist!'. It sold for 'US $375.00 or Best Offer', and as far as I can tell that US$ amount was the final selling price.

The description said,

Released in 2014
Signed by the Artist Nicoletta Ceccoli!
Unframed dimensions: 19 x 20"
Edition Number: 78/100
Edition size: 100 + 10 Artist Proofs (AP)
Medium: Archival Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Paper 308 g/m

Short Bio: Nicoletta Ceccoli was born in San Marino Italy and graduated from the Institute of Art in Urbino. Her paintings are beautiful and intriguing, consistently striking a delicate balance between disturbing and enchanting. At first glance, her work masquerades as youthful and innocent but a darker narrative inevitably unfolds.

Each painting is rife with symbolism that sparks the viewer's imagination and inspires a deeper level of consideration. Ceccoli's work has been exhibited worldwide including solo exhibitions in the US, Italy and France. The artist works in seclusion deep within the Italian countryside.

Re 'rife with symbolism', 'sparks the viewer's imagination', and 'inspires a deeper level of consideration', I don't get it here. Maybe I'm just too close to the subject of chess. For more about the artist, see Nicoletta Ceccoli (wikipedia.org; 'Nicoletta Ceccoli (born 1973) is a Sammarinese artist who is known for her richly detailed, dreamlike work.').

World Championship Yahoos 2025 (1/?)

That title is an obscure reference to last month's Yahoos post, World Championship Yahoos 2024 ('2/2'; December 2024), which was largely about the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championships in New York City. I'll come back to that event in a moment.

First let's have some stats. This month's Yahoos post (see the footnote for an explanation of Yahoos) had 104 stories, of which one was an older post from mid-December. Those 104 stories were supplemented by two additional pages: 'Magnus Carlsen on Freestyle chess controversy' with 25 stories, and 'Gukesh beats Mendonca to lead Tata Steel Masters' with 57 stories.

I'll call those additional pages Freestyle stories and Tata stories, making a total of 104+25+57=186 stories. Of the 104 stories, 44 were also about freestyle and Tata, leaving 60 stories about other topics.

I'm covering the freestyle saga on my chess960 blog, because 'freestyle' is one of numerous aliases for chess960. The most recent post on that blog was A Freestyle Fight (January 2025), where the last link to a story was:-

2025-01-22: FIDE Slams Freestyle Chess For Creating 'Unavoidable Divisions,' Threatens Legal Action (chess.com; TarjeiJS)

The dispute is about FIDE's claim to have the exclusive right to any 'World Chess Championship'. I'll refer to January's Google News when I bring that blog up-to-date next month. As for the many Tata stories, one of the most recent was:-

• 2025-01-29: Gukesh wins again in round 10 of the Tata Steel Masters but so do Abdusattorov and Praggnanandhaa (theweekinchess.com)

After rd.10 there remained three rounds to be played. I'd like to say that next month's Yahoos post should have the final result, but I know better. Google News is top-heavy on recent news, usually from the last few days. Case in point: this month there was not a single story on the '2024 World Rapid and Blitz' tournament. I had to refer to my Google News alerts (I receive one combined alert per day) to be able to mention,

• 2025-01-01: Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi Agree To Share World Blitz Title, Ju Wins Women's (chess.com; JackRodgers)

That agreement to share was controversial, as it was not in accordance to the rules of the event. Of the 60 stories about other topics, three were grouped into a headline 'Nodirbek Yakubboev refuses handshake with Indian GM Vaishali', with three more on the same incident scattered around the results. For example,

• 2025-01-27: Explained: Why Uzbekistan's Nodirbek Yakubboev refused to shake hands with R Vaishali at Tata Steel Chess tournament (firstpost.com)

The only 'other' story I found compelling enough to mention appeared twice in the news. As with many of the top stories this month, it doesn't shine a favorable light on chess:-

• 2025-01-29: FIDE extends ban and revokes title of Andrejs Strebkovs over harassment of female players (chessbase.com)

In last month's post '2024 WCC (2/2)', I observed,

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.

This month we have an emerging fight between the world's best player and FIDE, two top players inventing their own rule to decide a major FIDE tournament, a male player refusing to shake hands with a female player, and a serious case of sexual harassment. What will next month bring?

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

Chess Graffiti

In Chess Guy Likes to Talk (January 2025), I wrote,

For the third time in less than a year, the monthly featured Flickr post contains two keywords: Shoreditch graffiti.

While working on that post I discovered a new resource, an example of which is shown in the following image.

Online Graffiti Generator - Graffiti Empire
graffiti-empire.com

That example was constructed using the first offered 'font' plus the default 'style'. I cropped signatures to the left and right of the main image. The white stars/sparkles appear to be placed at random; the rest is repeatable.

What else could I use it for? Beats me, but maybe I'll think of something.

FIDE Rating List - January 2025

This is the tenth consecutive year that I'm following a cookie-cutter approach to look at FIDE ratings for the new year. Following is the step-by-step checklist...

1) Identify last year's post: FIDE Rating List - January 2024 (January 2024).

2) Identify the source of the FIDE data: FIDE Ratings Download:-

STANDARD
TXT format (12 Jan 2025, Sz: 10.81 MB)

3) Compare some basic counts over the past few years. Going back to the start of 2020 gives pre-covid 19 as a reference point. This year I've added counts to show the increase (and one decrease) in the total and inactive counts.

2025: >486K players; >292K marked inactive [+46K +27K]
2024: >440K players; >265K marked inactive [+35K +12K]
2023: >405K players; >253K marked inactive [+28K +25K]
2022: >377K players; >228K marked inactive [+15K +54K]
2021: >362K players; >174K marked inactive [+8K -7K]
2020: >354K players; >181K marked inactive
[...]

4) Analyze changes in players per federation. The top chart lists new federations in 2025 (BIZ = Belize; GRL = Greenland; NCL = New Caledonia; NON = Gareyev, Timur and Ramirez, Alejandro; VAN = Vanuatu).

The lower charts show federations with the largest increase in number of players (left) and the largest percentage increase (right; for federations with at least 100 players at the start of 2024; NB: TKM = Turkmenistan, NAM = Namibia)

5) Identify ideas for a followup post. Last year's only followup post, Players under the FIDE Flag (January 2024), might be worth a revisit because FIDE's (FED = 'FID') percentage increase was the fourth highest on the right column. Another idea would be to summarize all of the posts I've done through the years on different rating topics. That might be a long list, but I've lost track.

Color the Proteins

Let's combine a recent video post, The Noblest Prize (January 2025):-

Nobel lecture with the Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2024 Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind, London, UK. [...] "for protein structure prediction"

with a derivative of that post, Proteins Play Chess (January 2025):-

I started to wonder if proteins play chess. It turns out they do, at least according to AI comics.

I constructed a series of test images using the phrase 'Demis Hassabis plays chess with a protein'. While the likenesses of Dr. Hassabis were very good, at least by my standards, the proteins were missing. Maybe, I thought, the proteins will be visible if I color them. Sure enough, it worked.

'Demis Hassabis plays chess with a green protein.'
AI Comic Factory

It turns out the proteins were there all along in my test images, but I didn't recognize them, because they were represented by chess pieces. In the 'Proteins Play Chess' post I noted that proteins were often depicted with 'pointy protusions' on their heads. Here we see the same in the lower left frame. QED?

Chess Guy Likes to Talk

For the third time in less than a year, the monthly featured Flickr post contains two keywords: Shoreditch graffiti [street art]. The previous post was last month's Hackney Wick Street Art (December 2024).

Festive Hair © Flickr user Maureen Barlin [Mabacam] under Creative Commons.

The description said only,

Streetart in Shoreditch, E.London. • Artist: Renatto Ribeiro

I imagine that many people who walk past that part of the sidewalk see the woman's head and the Christmas tree decorations before they see the chess sets, if they see them at all. The sign behind the board on the right says, 'Chess 4 Fun FREE'. A comment to the photo from Loco Steve says, 'The chess guy is pretty interesting and likes to talk. He's from Syria.'

January 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover'

At the end of the old millennium, 25 years ago, the right side of last month's post, December 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (December 2024), announced,

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.

At the start of the new millennium, also 25 years ago, it was business as usual.

Left: '?'
Right: 'Holiday in Harlem!'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Vlastimil Jansa of Czechoslovakia, winner on tiebreak of the Atlantic Open in New York City, Nov. 28-Dec. 1. See the brief report [inside] and the full story next month. Photo by Nigel Eddis.

The 'brief report' said,

In N.Y., the Atlantic Open had 348 players; winners were Jansa, Matanovic, Bisguier, Zuckerman and Balmazi, with Jansa first on tiebreaks. GM Damjanovic withdrew when he realized that he and the swiss system were incompatible.

As for 'the full story next month', I climbed into my time machine to dive into the next 3-4 issues of CL&R, but came up empty-handed. Maybe something will surface in the next few 'On the Cover' posts. The January 1975 issue of CL&R also contained the 'FIDE International Rating List' with the following details:-

Closed 31 Oct. 1974; effective 1 Jan. 1975; provided by Arpad Elo

The 85 players rated 2500 or higher were also listed in descending order of rating. At the top of the list were:-

No.1 Fischer 2780
No.2 Karpov 2705
No.3 Korchnoi 2665
No.4-6 Petrosian, Polugaevsky, Tal 2645

After the American and five Soviets, the nationalities of the other players were given. The full counts of the nationalities were USA 8, USSR 36, and Other 41. Pachman was listed as 'Stateless'.

GM Jansa was listed in a block of players at no.36-41 rated 2540: Balashov, Gheorghiu, Jansa, Kholmov, Pfleger, and Schmid. His nationality was given as 'Czechoslavakia', where he was the third (of three) from that country after Hort and Smejkal. For an overview of his career, see Vlastimil Jansa (wikipedia.org; 'born 27 November 1942, is a Czech chess player [...] Grandmaster, in 1974').

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Holiday in Harlem! That's the most appropriate way of describing the all-day celebration of the opening of the HEAF (Harlem Educational Activities Fund) Harlem Chess Center. The city closed 119th Street and pawns were pushed not only by off-duty, gold-shielded sergeants, but by the likes of Wynton Marsalis, GM Maurice Ashley, New York Congressman Charles B. Rangel, and NYC Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern. The story begins [inside], but it does not end there. • Cover photo by Brian Killigrew

That was the first of six paragraphs introducing the issue, each paragraph covering a separate topic. The Ashley / Harlem story continued in more than three pages and 18 color, captioned photos.

Maurice Ashley is not one to rest on his laurels. Having completed his goal of becoming a grandmaster, Maurice turned his attention to another passion of his: opening a world-class chess center for kids in Harlem.

On September 25, his passion became a reality as the Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF) held a grand opening for its Harlem Chess Center (HCC) and announced to the world that chess in the inner city is here to stay.

Chess took over Harlem, as 119th Street was closed to traffic and chess games lined the street. The playground of PS190 was turned into a chess-playing area and a large stage was erected for the ceremonial speeches and the great entertainment to come by special guest star Wynton Marsalis and his band.

After the opening speech by HEAF president and Police Atheletic League Board of Directors vice-president Dan Rose, Maurice Ashley spoke to the crowd about wanting to give back to a community that has given him so much. "The center will be wonderful for the community" said Maurice, "My hope is that the idea will not be limited to Harlem, but that it will spread all over the city and eventually, the country." His words were greeted by an enthusiastic audience, filled by people who know how much chess can help a young persons' development.

The only info I could find about the fate of the chess center was on Maurice Ashley (heroic.us). It informed,

From 1991 to 1997 Ashley was the chess director of the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, Inc., where he led teams to three scholastic national championships -- three of his players also won the individual national championships for their age groups. [...] After earning his International Grandmaster title in 1999, Ashley returned to coaching and community action by becoming the first director of the Harlem Chess Center (closed in 2002 due to lack of funds).

Starting 2013, there is evience of a website in harlemchesscenter.org (archive.org).

Proteins Play Chess

A week ago, in Surrealist Chess (January 2025), I wrote,

Continuing with the weekly series on AI comics [...] we return to aimless wandering around various topics.

After that post about Magritte, I intended to continue with another artist known for an interest in chess, but I got sidetracked by yesterday's post, The Noblest Prize (January 2025). It featured a video about the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024, awarded:-

half jointly to Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind, London, UK and John Jumper, Google DeepMind, London, UK "for protein structure prediction".

That amounts to a 25% share for our favorite chess-playing DeepMind employee. While I was working on the post, I started to wonder if proteins play chess. It turns out they do, at least according to AI comics.

'Proteins play chess.'
AI Comic Factory

In all frames except the upper left, there is a protein-like humanoid or molecule visible in the image. In the bottom right frame, the central, green 'protein' has a pointy protusion on its head. That was a common element of the half-dozen (or so) composite panels that I created.

Even in the upper left frame, there is a rectangular head in the center of the upper left quadrant of the frame -- white face looking to the right, green eye, red hat (or hair) -- with a pointy protusion that is topped by a yellowish Pawn. Is that our missing protein player?

The Noblest Prize

Although we've seen Demis Hassabis on this blog almost a dozen times, it's been a few years since the last time -- Beyond AlphaZero (September 2019) -- and even then it was just in passing. What has the chess player turned entrepreneur been doing since then?

Accelerating scientific discovery with AI (29:01) • '[Published on] Dec 16, 2024'

The description of the video says,

Nobel lecture with the Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2024 Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind, London, UK. Introduction by Johan Aaqvist, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. From: The Nobel Lectures 2024, 2024-12-08.

The description then points to a press release from early October: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024: They cracked the code for proteins' amazing structures (kva.se; 'The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences'). It starts,

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 with one half to David Baker, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA "for computational protein design" and the other half jointly to Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind, London, UK and John Jumper, Google DeepMind, London, UK "for protein structure prediction".

That introduction is followed by an explanation of the science involved:-

The diversity of life testifies to proteins’ amazing capacity as chemical tools. They control and drive all the chemi­cal reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signal substances, antibodies and the building blocks of different tissues.

[More, much more] Follow the downloads...

Surrealist Chess

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Rene Magritte plays surrealist chess.'
AI Comic Factory

The 'Greenwich Modern' article continued,

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

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

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

Nice Chess Sweater

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

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

The description said,

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

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

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