Common Sense in Chess960

This post should have been made on my chess960 blog, but the last post there put that blog in hibernation: 2025 FCGST, Paris [Not!] (April 2025; 'I considered closing this blog, but since I've already tried to do that twice ... I'll just declare a pause.'). I've already featured ten or so chess960 videos on this, my main, blog, so one more won't set any new precedents.

Magnus Carlsen explains why he loves Freestyle Chess (9:39) • '[Published on] Apr 25, 2025'

The description of the video said,

Magnus Carlsen breaks down his approach to Freestyle Chess, also known as Chess 960 or Fischer Random Chess. By generating random boards and analyzing the positions, Magnus gives us an unfiltered look into his mind and how he looks at this variant of chess.

The world's top-rated chess player discusses two start positions. For the first positions (SP937 RKRBBNQN), he points out,

01:25 The b-Pawn is defended only by the King.
01:47 The Queen is far from the King.
02:14 The King is 'half-castled', making the two square advance of the a-Pawn an option.
03:17 Both Bishops are in the middle, which is probably the worst place they can be.
03:52 Both Knights are in the corner away from the King; they will probably be developed behind a Pawn.
04:41 The game will probably develop slowly.
04:52 No single first move comes to mind immediately.
05:13 Mainly consider moving a Pawn two squares: a4, c4, f4, g4 make sense.
06:39 Only the Ra1 is on the same start square as the traditional start position.

Another takeaway: Carlsen refers to Kingside and Queenside, rather than a-side and h-side. This is also my preference, where common sense wins over jargon.

The video is on Youtube channel 'Team Liquid Chess'. The channel description informs, 'Who would win, 64 squares or 1 esports team? Home to all chess content for Team Liquid, including Magnus Carlsen & Fabiano Caruana.' The site Team Liquid (liquipedia.net/chess; 'Liquipedia Chess Wiki'), further informs,

Team Liquid is an esports organization, founded in the Netherlands in 2000. Originally a StarCraft: Brood War clan, the team switched to StarCraft II during the SC2 Beta in 2010, and became one of the most successful western teams. On February 13, 2025, The Dutch organization announced their entry to the chess competitive scene.

Sounds like a winner to me, but how does chess960 fit in?

May 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover'

Continuing this blog's monthly look at American chess from 50 and 25 years ago, who was featured on the cover of CL&R/CL in the month of May? For last month's post see April 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover' (April 2025).

Left: '?'
Right: 'Bruce Pandolfini - An American Master'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Grandmaster Pal Benko, winner of the National Open. Story [inside]. Photo by Burt Hochberg.

The 'story [inside]' was titled '9th National Open' by George Koltanowski, USCF Vice-President.

This event, staged at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, was by far the most spectacular of all the National Opens. The rooms were large, airy and exceptionally well lighted. The total of 242 participants was below last year's record entry, but the battle for prizes in the various sections was no less keen.

Four players tied for lst-4th: the trophy and title of National Open Champion went to Grandmaster Pal Benko of New Jersey (S-B 35), with second place on tiebreaks going to GM Walter Browne of California (S-B 34 1/2). The other two were Alfonso Ferriz, a young player from Mexico who also won the Expert trophy, and Alex Suhobeck of California, who also won the over-50 trophy. All scored 7.1.

I've mentioned in previous 'On the Cover' posts, e.g. November 1971 & 1996 (November 2021), that Koltanowski's tournament reports were often unusual. Two of his six paragraphs on the 1975 National Open were about adjournment incidents.

GM Benko's previous appearance 'On the Cover' was November 1974 & 1999 (November 2024). That year's report (1974) on the 8th National Open, won by GM Arthur Bisguier, was covered in July 1974 & 1999 (July 2024).

Back to May 1975, the monthly CL column 'The Editor's Page - News & Views' by Burt Hochberg carried unwelcome news for U.S. chess fans. Hochberg wrote,

When April Fool's Day passed with no word from Bobby Fischer, FIDE President Euwe had no choice but to declare Anatoly Karpov the new World Champion by default. (FIDE regulations set the April 1 deadline for each player to announce his intention to play for the world title under rules established at the FIDE Extraordinary General Assembly in March.)

Few people could have realized that the forfeit signalled the beginning of the end of the great Fischer boom which had started in 1971/-72. Two more articles in the same CL&R issue were also about Fischer: 'The Mind of Bobby Fischer' by Fischer biographer Frank Brady and 'Hochberg vs. Darrach', by CL&R editor Burt Hochberg.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Getting an exclusive interview is always exciting -- a challenge to live up to. As a photojournalist, I wanted the images of Bruce Pandolfini to be as exclusive as his words. After photographing him at Washington Square Park and at the famous Capablanca table in the Marshall Chess Club, I still wanted something more. When I suggested a formal black and white portrait to Bruce, he quickly agreed. The result is this month's cover.

Technical Information:
* Nikon F100, 28-105 mm
* f11 @ 125, T-Max100
[...]

And you thought chess notation was confusing! - Brian Killigrew

The first of two articles involving Pandolfini was 'An Interview with Fred Waitzkin' by Bruce Pandolfini. The editor introduced the three pages saying,

Yes, there is life beyond chess, often referred to as "the real world." Fred Waitzkin flutters between both worlds, much like the time shifts in The Last Marlin. Bruce Pandolfini caught Fred on the cusp, so to speak, and the result is a fascinating interview.

Pandolfini prefaced the interview saying,

Readers of Chess Life are quite familiar with Fred Waitzkin's insightful writings on the world of chess. In addition to his penetrating pieces written for The New York Times Magazine, New York, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated, Fred has given us two moving and unforgettable narratives. Searching for Bobby Fischer (1988, Random House) is a poignant account of the relationship of Fred to his gifted son Joshua as the two of them experienced the vicissitudes of the scholastic chess scene.

It was later adapted by Paramount Pictures (1993) into an inspiring film of the same title, and the book and film have subsequently drawn legions into the chess world. Then Fred wrote Mortal Games (1993, G.P. Putnam's Sons), which portrays the expanding universe of Garry Kasparov through the machinations of welt politik and top tier chess.

The second article was 'Profiles in Chess: Bruce Pandolfini - An American Master'. The four pages were bylined 'Interview and Photography by Brian Killigrew'. He started,

There is something about Bruce Pandolfini that makes people want to be around him. Call it the Pandolfini mystique. Kids flock to him at tournaments. Adults constantly come up to him and whisper things like: "Is the King's Indian good against I. d4?:' walking away from Bruce as if they have just received some ancient secret.

Starting in April 2023, Killigrew has been mentioned in many 'On the Cover' posts, most recently January 1975 & 2000 (January 2025). Pandolfini has been mentioned in a handful of posts, mostly in relation to his involvement in scholastic chess.

'WOW!' Capablanca Signed Letters

In this long running series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010; already 15 years and still chugging along), autographed items pop up frequently. Autographs by World Champions, where the previous post was Lasker's Future Community (December 2024; book '1940 signed by Emanuel Lasker'), are particularly sought after. For this post I noticed four similar items, pictured below.

The item in the top left was titled, 'WOW! Letter 1903 Chess Legend Jose Raul Capablanca AUTOGRAPH SIGNED'. It sold for '$1,599.99 or Best Offer', which was around $1500. The other three items appear to have sold for their asking price.

The titles of those three items were nearly identical to the top left 'Letter 1903', i.e. 'Letter 1904', 'Letter 1898', and 'Letter 1908'. All four letters sold in April, within a span of three weeks.

What were the letters about? Only the buyers can answer that question. The descriptions of the four items were just copies of their titles, adding no other information.

For a previous auction from another seller -- 'Signed by famous actor and chess player Jose R Capablanca' -- see Not a Coincidence (August 2019). A few years ago I corresponded with a collector of chess autographs. He signed off the conversation saying,

Of course I can't guarantee that all my chess autographs are genuine, but I mostly buy from people I think I can trust. Besides, who would try to sell fake chess autographs? There is much more money to be made with movie stars, musicians and sportsheroes.

I would compare collecting autographs to hunting wild mushrooms. If you don't know what you're doing (and I don't) you risk getting a belly ache. For more about the subject, see ChessAutographs.com (May 2016).

Language, Math, Music, and Yahoos

Last month's Yahoos post, Yahoo Sources Are Back! (March 2025), marked a new era in the Yahoo series. As I wrote then,

If you're not sure what Yahoos are, see the footnote. The problem at the time was that we could no longer see from where all the Yahoos hailed. [...] Now we've come full circle. Google News has restored the names of all sources and I can create a small chart like the first one shown below.

This month's equivalent chart shows five sources accounting for 61 of the 100 stories returned by Google News. Once again Chess.com was the top source, with five times the number of stories attributed to runner-up ChessBase.

The second chart on the left counts the number of stories attributed to specific Chess.com writers. The same two names top the list for the second straight month while last month's third name has disappeared. The only other non-Chess.com writer to have more than one story was Carlos Alberto Colodro of Chessbase.

Each time I prepare a post about Yahoos, I have the same challenge: Which of the 100 or so stories should I feature in the post?

This month, two stories stood above the rest because they were published by well known non-chess sources. The first was:-

• 2025-04-27: The Botez Sisters Are Already Chess Icons. Now They’re Ready to Go Beyond the Board (rollingstone.com) • 'The sibling streamers are gearing up to commentate the sixth amateur PogChamps tournament, but that's not all they have in store.'

What else do 'they have in store'?

(Alexandra:) We just partnered with Freestyle Chess. They’re trying to bring this new format that randomizes the starting position of the pieces, and a lot of top players really like this, because engines [chess computer models] have taken a lot of the creativity away from tournaments -- people just prepare the first moves with an engine.

So whenever we go there, we film with all the top players, and we spend the weeks leading up to it crafting good thumbnails, titles, story lines and ways to try to show the players beyond just playing chess with them.

On top of this significant mention, there were at least a half-dozen other stories on Freestyle chess (aka chess960, aka Fischer Random). I should cover these on my blog dedicated to the subject (see the right sidebar), but it's currently hibernating.

The second attention grabbing story from a non-chess source was:-

• 2025-04-23: Exposed: The links between world chess and Russia's war machine (politico.eu; 'By Daria Meshcheriakova; Illustration by Natalia Delgado') • 'Here's how Vladimir Putin uses the iconic strategy game to his advantage.'

It starts,

For more than 1,000 years, chess has been synonymous with war. Now, Vladimir Putin is combining the ancient game with modern skulduggery as he tries to win an all-too-real 21st century conflict.

The geopolitical strategy of the Soviets and Russians has been deeply entwined with knights, rooks, kings and queens for so long that it’s difficult to tell where sport ends and real battle begins.

That last sentence doesn't make much sense -- 'sport ends and real battle begins' when real people start dying -- but the article still offers valuable insights. For example, following is an excerpt that summarizes the end of Soviet/Russian influence in chess:-

The Soviet dominance of the world championship, with eight winners spanning several decades, was testament to the state’s investment. However, the collapse of the USSR in 1991 dismantled much of the infrastructure that had sustained this control. Clubs were privatized, top players emigrated and funding dwindled, marking a decline in Russia’s once-unquestioned supremacy.

One other Yahoo topic is worth noting, but only because it accounted for six separate stories. Here's one:-

• 2025-04-22: Duolingo adds chess to educational offers. Here's what to know about new, free course (usatoday.com) • 'The new course is Duolingo's first since its music and math courses were released in 2023.'

Since I'm certainly not the only person with an obvious question, let's tackle it here.

What is Duolingo? • Duolingo is a language-learning mobile app that uses game-like lessons to teach more than 40 languages, mathematics and music. The app, available on Apple and Android devices, launched in 2011.

Chess, like music, like love, hath the power to pop up in all sorts of unexpected places. What will next month's Yahoos bring?

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

Phun with Photos

In the previous post for the monthly featured Flickr photo, Enhanced Chess Art (March 2025), I asked and answered,

Why put 'photos' in inverted commas (' ')? Because I didn't understand how they were done.

That could just as easily apply to this month's 'photo', shown below. At first glance it certainly could be a photo, but the first clue to the contrary was the unnatural arrangement of the pieces on an 8x7 board.

Playing chess keeps you fit! // This is an AI image... © Flickr user Günter Hentschel under Creative Commons.

The second clue was in the title: 'This is an AI image'. So how was it created? Here the first clue was the start of the description; it said,

ChatGPT generated this image based on a text description that I had entered.

The second clue was a tag that said, 'Luminar Neo'. What's that? Wikipedia to the rescue in Luminar Neo (wikipedia.org):-

Luminar Neo is a photo editing software application developed by Skylum (formerly Macphun) available for Windows and macOS. [It] was released in February 2022. It works as a standalone application and as a plugin for Adobe and Apple products.

Macphun? Thus arose the title of this post.

April 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover'

In last month's look at U.S. chess magazines from 50 and 25 years ago, March 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover' (March 2025), we saw a non-American player on the left (GM Robert Huebner) and an American player on the right (George Koltanowski, the 'Dean of American Chess'). This month the pattern continues, with a pair of Soviet players on the left and a quartet of American teams on the right. Was U.S. chess more attentive to international chess 50 years ago?

Left: '?'
Right: 'The Teams! A 30-year Odyssey • Upcoming Scholastic Nationals!'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Winners of the 1974 USSR Championship -- Mikhail Tal (left) and Alexander Belyavsky. See [inside] for the story by Paul Keres. Photos by TASS from Sovfoto.

The story '[inside]' was the 'Keres Annotates...' column, titled 'USSR Championship, Leningrad 1974'. It started,

The USSR chess organization, with its 35 grandmasters, has the ability to put together a very strong group for its national championships. As an example, the 1973 USSR Championship, with all the leading grandmasters competing, was one of the strongest tournaments ever held in the Soviet Union.

With this in mind, the 1974 Championship was probably a little disappointing. Most of the leading grandmasters were unable to take part for various reasons and were replaced by other players, while the number of participants was reduced from 18 to 16. Despite this fact, it was quite interesting to see experienced grandmasters such as Tal, Polugaevsky, Vasiukov and Taimanov fight their younger rivals, many of whom had splendid records in last year's tournament, and to see just how good the young players are in really strong competition.

The tournament was a hard fight from the very first round. One is used to seeing grandmasters like Tal and Polugaevsky leading the field, but this time they did not have it so easy, being severely pressed by Belyavsky, Vaganian, Romanishin, Alburt, Dvoretsky, and other young stars, most of whom are not very well known in international chess. And when we look at the final crosstable, we see that the young players came out very well in this tough test against their experienced "examiners."

It's noteworthy that, besides Keres, the other authors of feature articles in the same issue were Pal Benko, Laszlo Szabo, Lubosh Kavalek, Svetozar Gligoric, and Edmar Mednis. All had roots in Eastern European countries.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Thank you, Ed Edmondson. If you were convinced that an idea was good, you ran with it. And 30 years ago, the idea of an amateur team championship, as presented by Denis Barry, sounded good. No bids, no committee approval. You just filled your station wagon with books and equipment and drove out to the VFW Hall in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and ran a concession for the 17 teams that played in that first event. Your faith and Denis' enthusiasm grew "The Teams" to over 100 teams, playing in Atlantic City.

Ed is gone. Denis is still around, kicking up dust here and there. But they left a legacy and a framework that will last forever. Hire a good staff, put the players first, chess for fun and chess for blood, in equal proportions. Steve Doyle (who celebrated 25 years of being associated with the event) operates within that framework and has built the USATE into a 200+ team event. Friday's snow and ice storm had almost no effect, and more than 920 players took part in the 30th Anniversary of the U.S. Amateur Team Championship (East). Worthy of a cover? You betcha. And a special report in our annual yearbook section.

The related article was 'Turning the Big 3-0 Was Totally Brutal at the U.S. Amateur Team East' by Al Lawrence. The mysterious title referred to the winning team, Total Brutality, a 'three-master team'. The report on the event started,

Over the telephone from St. Louis, my brother Leo was having a hard time with what would take place at the U.S. Amateur Team East Chess Championship. "Team chess," he said, "wouldn't that be like four-man diamond cutting?" After a few forced chuckles, I said "No, it's more like having four brothers backing each other up in a schoolyard scrap." From our old days on South Chicago's playgrounds -- in an era when fights were barehanded and forgotten as soon as the shiner faded -- he understood the point.

As tournament chessplayers, we're normally lone operators. In more jet-age terms, we sit in a room full of would-be top guns whose weekend happiness is a net-sum war game. For every ace exhilarated to see black smoke pouring out of his counterpart's engines, there's a wounded pilot spinning miserably down in flames. Strangers, friends, roommates -- all morph into hoped-for airplane silhouettes painted below the cockpit glass, plusses on the wall chart.

After the one-page introduction to the USATE, the story continued on the first page and across the outer column of the next 12 pages of the '2000 USCF Yearbook - Our Heritage'. A footnote to the story informed,

The U.S. Amateur Team East Championship is one of over 25 national title events co-sponsored by the USCF and participating affiliates. Al Lawrence, president of OutExcel! Corp., is the author of eight books on a variety of subjects.

A common thread united the April editions of the two magazines. Just as with the March 1975 edition of CL&R, Burt Hochberg's April 1975 column 'Editor's Page - News & Views' carried news of the ill-fated 1975 Fischer - Karpov World Championship title match. The April 2000 edition of CL carried opinions on the controversies surrounding the World Championship in 2000: Who was the real World Champion?

Dojo Talks Doggers

According to my records, I've had Youtube's ChessDojo channel on the short list for monthly featured video a total of 16 times since 2021. After four years the channel finally gets the recognition it deserves.

The Chess Revolution w/ Peter Doggers | Dojo Talks (1:00:31) • '[Published on] Apr 3, 2025'

The description said,

IM Kostya Kavutskiy, IM David Pruess, and GM Jesse Kraai talk about the book The Chess Revolution with guest journalist Peter Doggers on today's episode of Dojo Talks, the ChessDojo podcast!

For an earlier post mentioning the same book, see World Championship Yahoos 2024 (November 2024). There I highlighted an introduction to the book by Doggers and quoted him saying,

2024-11-19: The Chess Revolution: Understanding The Power Of An Ancient Game In The Digital Age (chess.com; PeterDoggers) [...] 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.'

The book is currently no.16 on Amazon's list of best sellers for chess, just behind 'Dinosaur Bingo' (?!). No.1 on the list is currently 'Check & Mate' by Ali Hazelwood: 'Life's moving pieces bring rival chess players together in a match for the heart.' I'm sure I would enjoy the Doggers book more than the Hazelwood book.

Beating a Dead Horse?

As announced in a post on my World Championship blog, It's Later Than You Think (April 2025), I've temporarily suspended posting on that blog. The reason I gave was,

Since I'm not seeing an easy fix to the technical problems, I'll skip posting to [the WCC] blog until I get my affairs in order.

For the same reason, I'm going to suspend the Monday series on this blog. Since the beginning of the year it has been mostly been used for exploring AI comics, last seen in The Most Conceptual of the Conceptualists (March 2025). I have a big stockpile of AIC images to use, but I'll close with this one...

'Dead horse plays chess.'
AI Comic Factory

Pocket Money

In the long running series (more than 15 years) about Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), I've never flagged a no-brainer. If there was ever a candidate for 'no-brainer', this is it.

The item below was titled 'Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen's #JeansGate Jeans'. It sold for US $36.100 after 94 bids from 22 bidders. The price doubled in the last minute of bidding as two bidders slugged it out for possession of the jeans.

In the photo from the auction shown above, apparently from the '#JeansGate' incident, I've added a small inset showing the auction item. The description of the item started with an explanation of #JeansGate:-

On December 27th, 2024, Five-Time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen was unpaired in the 9th round of FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships in New York City after refusing to change out of a pair of jeans in the playing hall. This interaction, both his refusal and interaction with the arbiter in the room, was dubbed by the chess community as #JeansGate and set the world on fire, gaining hundreds of millions of social media and mainstream news impressions in the week following.

Now, GM Carlsen is looking to bring that piece of chess history to auction in support of an impactful cause - Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS). The jeans that Magnus wore that day, certified and authenticated by Chess.com and the World #1 himself, are up for auction with all proceeds of the sale going to support youth mentorship at chess clinics, community events, and beyond, to build connection, belonging, and enrich the lives of young people through the game.

The description continued,

About the jeans:-
Brand: Corneliani
Color: Blue
Size: 32
Inseam: 28 inches
Waist: 18 inches (measured across)
Condition: Worn by Magnus Carlsen

The jeans come with a signed certificate of authenticity from GM Magnus Carlsen.

For another mention of the jeans incident on this blog, see World Championship Yahoos 2024 (December 2024). I don't see that the incident qualifies for 'Gate' status (e.g. 'Watergate'), but chess players live in their own world.

The seller was listed as 'matchfireauctions3b'. The auction description carried a long explanation that started with:-

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who is Matchfire?
A: The selling party has retained Matchfire (The Matchfire Group) to manage this auction. Matchfire provides a comprehensive auction management service focused on creating successful high-value, high-profile promotional auctions for charities, nonprofit organizations and top brand companies. Matchfire is a promotional agency which helps define client brand promotional strategy through auctions, delivers creative design, and manages operations of feature online auctions for maximum visibility of well-known brands, media companies, charities, nonprofits, public relations firms and advertising agencies.

Q: Is Bidder Pre-Qualification necessary to participate in this auction?
A: All bidding activity below $5,000 does not need to be pre-qualified. Fixed price listings do not require prequalification.

Bidding above $5,000 must be Pre-Qualified. Click here to fill out the secure Bidder Pre-Qualification form. In order to help ensure a smooth and successful auction experience, Matchfire will be performing Bidder Pre-Qualification for this auction. Fixed price listings do not require prequalification.

What did one pair of jeans say to the other? 'You’re looking a little worn out today!'

Magritte as Chess Artist

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

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

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

Google Image search on 'chess magritte'

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

Yahoo Sources Are Back!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Most Conceptual of the Conceptualists

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

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

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

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

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

The Most Surreal of the Surrealists

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

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

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

'Dali plays surrealist chess.'
AI Comic Factory

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

Enhanced Chess Art

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

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

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

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

2_1920x1920_U_100_Original ratio

and a single tag that said,

Web Sharp Pro: Original ratio

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now I understand how the 'photos' were done.

March 1975 & 2000 'On the Cover'

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

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

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

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

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

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

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

MW Plays Chess -or- Call Me Clueless

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

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

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

'Mark Weeks plays chess.'
AI Comic Factory

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

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

Quantum Chess Theory

Quantum chess is one of those intriguing ideas that appear on the CFAA radar every so often. The last time it featured as video of the month was Quantum Chess and AI (September 2020). Here's a more down-to-earth angle.

How Does Quantum Chess Work? (5:57) • '[Published on] Feb 15, 2025'

The description said,

Today, I show a new update to chess! This game features quantum chess with superposition, entanglement, and the observer effect! [...] It's a combination of chess in Ohio, Minecraft Block Battles in Chess, Anarchy Chess, ChatGPT Chess, Top Chess, Gotham Chess, Chess 2, 5D Chess, Open World Chess, and more! If you enjoy the chess memes YouTube shorts, like and subscribe!

That's all very nice, but I didn't understand the video, even after watching it twice. The missing bit in that description ('[...]') pointed to quantumrealmgames.com/play. Why not just go there and play for myself?

That also turned out to be easier said than done, because the site slowed my oldest PC -- the same PC that I use to write these blog posts -- to a crawl. It happened twice, on two different days, so I'm guessing that my PC and the site are not compatible.

For my next attempt, I'll publish this post, access the site from my newest PC, and add any fresh observations to the post. In the meantime, here are the 'HOW TO PLAY' basic instructions as copied from that Quantum Realm Games site.

Standard Move • Select the piece you want to move, then click the target square.

Split Move • Select the piece you want to move, then hold-click the first target, drag to the second, and release.

Merge Move • Hold-click the first piece, drag to the second piece, and release. Then select merge target.

Back in a jiffy...

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?