'Interspecies Friendships' and Chess

A good subtitle to that title would be 'Don't play chess with a monkey'. This month's Flickr favorite doesn't really have much to do with chess, but the board in the left photo looks indeed to be that of our favorite board game.

Left: The wounded monkey bites the hand of the prince... © Flickr user museado under Creative Commons.

The full title of the left photo said,

The wounded monkey bites the hand of the prince, his chessmate, in the presence of guests, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifth Night c. 1560

The description continued,

This painting depicts a scene from the cautionary tale the mother parrot tells her young to warn them that interspecies friendships, like theirs with the fox cubs, are a bad idea. She tells them that there once was a monkey who could play chess, and he enjoyed many games with a prince. When the prince invited dignitaries for a party, the monkey made a bad joke, the prince slapped him, and the monkey bit him in return.

At the left, food is prepared as the guests look on in astonishment. An inscription at the bottom of the page names the artist, who went on to become one of the most celebrated Indian masters at the Mughal court. • Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)

The title of the middle photo said,

The monkey slain, his blood to be used as medicine for the ailing prince he has bitten, from a Tuti-nama [etc. etc.]

The description said,

Wounded by the chess-playing monkey’s bite, the prince’s hand became increasingly infected. The only cure, his doctors said, was to apply the blood of the monkey to the wound and let it dry. Reluctantly, the prince allowed the monkey to be killed. Two men accomplish this serious work at the left.

In the right margin is written the name of the artist, the celebrated Basavana. The Tuti-nama contains the earliest known paintings by the prolific master who was instrumental in shaping the Mughal painting style over subsequent decades.

The title of the photo on the right said,

The hunter throws away the baby parrots, who pretend to be dead, and captures the mother, from a Tuti-nama [etc. etc.]

The description said,

Despite the chess-playing monkey’s grim end, the baby parrots continued to cavort with the fox cubs. One day the mother fox discovered that her cubs had been eaten by a panther. Blaming the parrots, she lured a hunter to their tree. The hunter climbed the tree and ensnared the mother parrot and her babies. The mother instructed her young to play dead, then pleaded with the hunter to take her alone, saying that since she knew the art of healing she would fetch a high price.

Lush vegetation and a stream of water painted with a soft brush indicate a fresh new stylistic vision that represents a departure from Indian and Persian styles that came before.

All three Flickr pages mention, 'This photo is in 1 album: Cleveland Museum of Art'.

Don't Burn It

All booms eventually run their course. Once covid confinement and the Netflix series have been forgotten, what to do with that wooden chess set gathering dust in the closet?

Turning a Chess Board into Wall Hooks (1:00) • '[Published on] Dec 6, 2023'

And on that melancholy note we close the book on the long-running series that started with The Sociology of Chess (November 2016). That makes more than seven years and over a hundred posts on a subject that I still don't understand.

World Chess Championship for Prisoners

This month's post in the series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016) offers a few surprises:-

• 1st surprise: There is an 'Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners'.
• 2nd surprise: The tournament is sponsored by FIDE.
• 3rd surprise: The most recent tournament was the third such event.

4th surprise: The event was broadcast online. Here is the video covering the final round.

3rd FIDE Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners - Final (2:15:47) • 'Streamed live on Oct 13, 2023'

The description explains,

The 3rd Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners will be broadcast on the FIDE Youtube channel with live commentary by WGM Almira Skripchenko, IM Michael Rahal, and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili. They will be joined by special guests – FIDE officials, government officers, members of the penitentiary administration and policymakers, who will share the best practices of introducing chess to inmates, as well as former convicts who will be talking about their own experiences and the positive impact of the game on prisoners.

At 12:40 into the video, we learn that the event is 'Running on Chess.com'. The responsible FIDE site is Chess For Freedom Project (chessforfreedom.fide.com), where there are videos for previous rounds. Under 'News' we learn:-

• 2023-10-13: Mongolia and India win Intercontinental Championship for Prisoners (ditto) • 'Teams of India and Mongolia became the champions of the third Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners, the event organized by FIDE and the Cook County (Chicago, IL, USA) Sheriff’s Office, after winning the final matches in youth and women’s sections of the biggest-ever chess event among correctional facilities.

Unlike most tournament reports, the men's event received only second billing in the article:-

The team of Pune prison (India) clinched the title in the men’s tournament of the Intercontinental Online Championship for Prisoners 2023 after beating El Salvador in the final.

You might expect that the games are not the level of quality you normally find for championship events. The commentator and the video broadcaster do a good job of keeping things interesting. Congratulations to the winners and to everyone else who made it happen!

An 'Amazing Chess Club'?

You might think that in the seven years I've been running a monthly series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), there would have been several posts about chess clubs. I went back nearly five years and couldn't find a single example. This video, from ChessBase India, might well be the first.

The Most Amazing Chess Club You Will See | A Special Guided Tour (10:19) • '[Published on] Sep 17, 2023'

Where is the 'Most Amazing Chess Club' located? The description of the video informs,

Ilya Merenzon, the CEO of World Chess, gives us a special tour of the club in Berlin. Take a look around how everything in the club is designed for chess players and lovers.

Ilya Merenzon has been seen more than once on both of my main chess blogs. Here are the most recent posts:-

• 2022-10-30: World Chess IPO (Chess for All Ages)
  
  
• 2019-01-09: 2018 FIDE Congress : Whither the World Championship? (World Chess Championship)

The club, located at Unter den Linden 26-30, Berlin, has a web site at World Chess Club Berlin (worldchessclubberlin.com): 'Open from Tuesday to Sunday. [...] The club does not require a membership.'

How (Not?) To Impress the Opposite Sex

In this long series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), I was sure I had done a post on cheating. I looked two years back into the series and found nothing. So here we are.

Six months ago, in Cheating for all Ages (March 2023), I put together a summary of previous blog posts about cheating. As happens with many summaries, it soon needed to be updated, but that will have to wait for another time. The most recent post on the subject was Top Yahoos: Niemann, WRTC, and Pragg (August 2023), where the Niemann angle was the latest news in what is without a doubt the most famous scandal with roots in cheating.

Chess.com Reacts To The Craziest Emails From Cheaters (15:18) • '[Published on] Sep 5, 2023'

This particular video is both entertaining and instructive. The description said,

Chess.com's Head of Community Kassa Korley and Chief Chess Officer Danny Rensch sit down to read some of the most hilarious, and crazy requests we've received from cheaters looking to be unbanned.

What particularly struck me was the number of alleged chess cheaters who blamed their fall from grace on a misguided attempt to impress a woman. Really, guys? Do women use the same dubious tactic to impress men? I somehow doubt it.

***

Later: Not long after I wrote this post, an article related to the topic appeared: Narratives on Cheating in Online Chess (chessable.com; Alexey Root). It started,

This is a guest post written by Raul Sanchez Garcia. Raul is a lecturer on motor learning and the theory of play at the Sports Science school of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. [...] He is currently conducting a qualitative study on cheating in online chess, which he describes in this post.

The 'guest post' started,

In the wake of the pandemic, online chess has experienced a remarkable surge in popularity, welcoming diverse participants to the game. [...] Amidst this evolution, a pressing concern has arisen -- the pervasive issue of cheating.

The post seeks volunteers to participate in the study, with a mid-December deadline for participation. It ends with eight references to other academic papers relevant to the topic.

The Arab Chess Federation

After so many years of posting on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), it finally occurred to me to ask the question, 'What is the difference between a sociologist and a historian?' Google pointed me to Difference Between Sociology and History (byjusexamprep.com), where I learned,

The key difference between sociology and history is that sociology is a social science that focuses on the contemporary social environment. However, history deals with the past and examines previous societies. Sociology is an abstract field, while history is a concrete subject.

Let's consider that an introduction to the following video.

History of Arab Chess Federation (23:24) • '[Published on] Jul 27, 2023'

The description starts,

On July 27, 2023, we celebrate the 48th anniversary of the establishment of the Arab Chess Federation. The federation, currently headquartered in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, is under the esteemed leadership of President Sheikh Saud Bin Abdulaziz Al Mualla.

Its origins date back nearly 50 years, precisely on July 27, 1975, when it was founded in Damascus, Syria by seven national federations, its founding members. On this day, we would like to share this movie that delves into the history of the Arab Chess Federation. [more++]

The video is in Arabic, subtitled in English. Early in the clip, the narrator says, 'He who does not have a past has neither a present nor a future.'

Wikipedia has a page Arab Chess Federation (wikipedia.org), flagged as a stub. The corresponding Arabic page also looks like a stub. A transcript of the video's subtitles would make a useful addition for further study.

Gotham Gets Gaga

This latest post on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), echoes this month's featured video Gotham Gets Giddy (July 2023), including the title. That's not really fair, because the entire clip is a reasoned summary of the current chess boom by one of its main beneficiaries.

Chess is surging in popularity among all ages. Here's why. (7:19) • '[Published on] Jul 2, 2023'

The description of the video explains,

Chess is a centuries-old game that’s enjoying new popularity with young people. The renewed interest has created demand for more online content, and international chess master and commentator Levy Rozman is one of those providing it. He joins John Yang for our Weekend Spotlight to discuss the game’s big boom.

IM Rozman uses the opportunity to promote his forthcoming book, 'How to Win at Chess: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners and Beyond'. The book's Amazon page, How to Win at Chess: Rozman, Levy, says,

Levy Rozman, more popularly known as GothamChess, is an online chess streamer who earned the International Master title in 2018. A former scholastic chess coach, he is passionate about chess accessibility, and has donated $100,000 in scholarship funds for chess programs in education. He currently boasts the biggest chess channel on YouTube, where he focuses on creating fun and educational content.

Why 'Gaga'? Why not!

The Sociology of Memes

In all the years that I've been running the series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), I've never mentioned memes. So here we go.

Google Image search on 'chess memes'

The last time I used the 'Google Image search' trick was Election Special 2022 (November 2022). At that time I had three rows of image thumbnails. Now I have two. Why the difference? Here's the election image...

Google Image search on 'chess trump biden'

...Looks like the thumbnails are taller now. Of the 13 thumbnails for 'chess memes', 11 are from Chess.com. Why am I not surprised?

Yes, It's Not About Chess

Is this song about chess? In all the years that I've been posting about The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), I haven't asked that question. Let's first have a listen.

Yes - I've Seen All Good People: Your Move / All Good People (6:55) • '[Published on] Apr 29, 2014'

The song's lyrics are in the video's description, copied here with a few corrections suggested by other sources:-

I've seen all good people turn their heads each day so satisfied I'm on my way [sung twice]

Take a straight and stronger course to the corner of your life
Make the white queen run so fast she hasn't got time to make you a wife

'Cause it's time is time in time with your time and
Its news is captured... for the queen to use!

Move me on to any black square
Use me anytime you want
Just remember that the goal
Is for us all to capture all we want

Don't surround yourself with yourself
Move on back two squares
Send an instant comment [karma] to me
Initial it with loving care

'Cause it's time is time in time with your time and
It's news is captured... for the queen to use!

Someone, not a chess player, once asked me the question, 'Is this song about chess?', and I said, 'No'. In retrospect, I'm not sure. Some of the references are to chess -- 'white queen', 'captured'/'capture', 'black square', 'back two squares' -- but they don't make much sense in the context of a real chess game.

There's a web page for just about everything, and a page for a discussion about this song is Yes - I've Seen All Good People: Your Move/All Good People Lyrics (songmeanings.com). One of the comments says,

There are references to chess, but the song is probably more about a life situation using metaphors with chess

I would agree with that. For more about the song, plus links to related topics, see I've Seen All Good People (wikipedia.org). The page informs,

The almost 7-minute song is in two parts; the first, titled "Your Move", was released as a single in 1971 which peaked at number 40 in the US, which helped the group build momentum. The second part is entitled "All Good People".

And, yes, there's a video restricted to the single: Yes - Your Move - single version (youtube.com), with other relevant comments. Chess is well represented in visual art, but not so well in music. What other examples are there?

World Championship Social Media 2023

The last time this blog's long running series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016) coincided with a World Championship match was World Championship Social Media 2021 (November 2021). In that post I documented six social media accounts operated by FIDE. Nearly 18 months later, the official site FIDE World Championship 2023, Astana (worldchampionship.fide.com), lists four accounts in the following order:-

• FIDE chess - YouTube
• FIDE (@fide_chess) • Instagram
• International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) / Twitter
• International Chess Federation | Lausanne | Facebook

All four were present and accounted for in 2021, with a small change to the YouTube URL. The two accounts no longer listed on the official FIDE site are Flickr and VK.com. The Flickr photos are all marked 'All rights reserved' and VK.com is a Russian language site, so most of us can live without them. I've already mentioned the Youtube channel in 2023 Nepo - Ding, Opening Press Conference (April 2023), where I wrote,

I'm watching the first game on the same Youtube channel that provided this video -- FIDE chess (youtube.com) -- and during the first hour of the game the production was less than impressive: [list of problems]

I continued watching the games on the same channel and am happy to issue a correction to that statement. After the intial teething problems, the broadcasts have been smooth and nearly faultless. GM Irina Krush is a refreshing change from the women commentators whose main contribution is to giggle throughout the broadcast. Former World Champion Vishy Anand was a fountain of first-hand chess knowledge and history during the first four games where he presided. His replacement, GM Daniil Dubov, does not have the same experience and too often interrupts his partner with 'Yes, but...', but, yes, he knows his chess and his analyses are worthy of the occasion.

The main drawback to the FIDE broadcasts is the chat stream. There are some notable exceptions to the many cringeworthy comments, but how to eliminate the dross? Better might be a small group of knowledegable people who have been identified and vetted beforehand. Online anonymity does not make for intelligent dialog.

'All rights reserved'

International Chess Federation (FIDE)’s albums | Flickr

Downstreamer Yahoos

Before I get to this month's Yahoos (see the footnote for an explanation of 'Yahoos'), let's look at the March stats. Numbers always tell their own story.

For this current post, Google News returned 99 chess stories, of which nine sources had two or more stories. These are shown in the chart on the left.

Those nine sources accounted for 53 stories, leaving 46 sources with a single story. As always, Chess.com accounted for far more stories than any other source.

Two other perennial leaders, Chessbase.com and the Guardian, accounted for three stories each. In last month's Schizophrenic Yahoos (March 2023), I noted,

Starting more than a year ago, Google has consistently returned a small selection of stories that are more than a month old. [...] In February 2023, the 'Old Yahoos' were gone. Will this continue next month?

This month being already next month, the answer is 'No'. The 'Old Yahoos' are gone and I won't mention them again unless they reappear.

As so often happens, the chess story that dominated the news this month wasn't about the game itself; it was about relationships between top players. Since I already discussed it a few days ago in The Dark Side of Women's Chess (March 2023; Wall Street Journal: 'How Sexual Assault Allegations Against a U.S. Chess Grandmaster Went Unaddressed for Years'), I'll just mention some of the downstream stories that resulted from that main story. The most revealing of them appeared today:-

• 2023-03-30: Being a woman in chess can feel 'lonely' says streamer Anna Cramling, as the game grapples with harsh truths (cnn.com) • 'With multiple women coming forward about their disturbing experiences in the chess world, including accusations of sexual misconduct by a grandmaster, the historic game is having its own #MeToo moment.'

Before I delve a little deeper into the subject, I have to attend to a priority responsibility. It's been raining for more than 24 hours and the family dog hasn't had his 'daily' walk since two days ago. The rain has diminished and he keeps looking at me sadly with his big soft eyes, asking 'When?' Bye for now...

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

***

Later, much later: Three weeks later, to be exact. I started several times to finish this post, but gave up each time. The only other story worth mentioning is another angle on the 'Dark Side of Women's Chess':-

• 2023-03-13: Shahade Tweet Motivates Ellen Carlsen To Report Harassment (chess.com; TarjeiJS) • 'Ellen Carlsen, GM Magnus Carlsen's older sister, says WGM Jennifer Shahade's allegations against Alejandro Ramirez led to her report an incident where she says she was harassed by a chess player as a minor.'

There were some other stories this month involving women's chess, but they were not on this topic. What will next month bring?

The Dark Side of Women's Chess

In this video GM Nakamura reads the Wall Street Journal article, How Sexual Assault Allegations Against a U.S. Chess Grandmaster Went Unaddressed for Years (wsj.com). The article was subtitled,

Numerous women have accused elite player and coach Alejandro Ramirez of misconduct. Two bodies that run chess in the U.S. allegedly knew of accusations for several years.

It started,

When former U.S. women’s chess champion Jennifer Shahade alleged on social media last month that she had been sexually assaulted by a prominent grandmaster named Alejandro Ramirez, she had no idea it would set off a broad wave of additional allegations.

Kudos to WGM Jennifer Shahade for bringing the allegations to light. Kudos to Hikaru Nakamura for using his high-profile streaming platform to inform the broader chess public.

Horrifying Chess Scandal (23:07) • '[Published on] Mar 7, 2023'

This isn't the first time we've seen this sort of behavior in the series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016). See also The Dilemma of Women's Chess (July 2020). On that post, Kevin Spraggett commented,

Sexism, discrimination and FIDE's "laissez-faire" attitude towards female empowerment allow for volumes to be written about what is wrong with chess, in particular, and modern society in general.

I'm not sure what GM Spraggett meant by that comment. Are there more stories like the allegations against GM Ramirez waiting in the wings?

For another serious discussion of the latest story, this one by top players GM Fabiano Caruana and GM Cristian Chirila, see Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Alejandro Ramirez (youtube.com; C-Squared Podcast #026). At one time Ramirez worked for Caruana.

The title of this post echoes the title of an earlier post The Dark Side of Scholastic Chess (October 2014). I ended that post saying, 'Sexual predators are often cunning people'. I could have added that it's too easy to pretend that nothing is happening.

'Purposeful' Chess Talk

For this month's post on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), I had a couple of recent, related videos on my short list. How were they related? They were both about the current wave of the game's popularity. Let's take the longer video first.

Why More People Don't Play Chess (24:31) • '[Published on] Feb 5, 2023'

The video's description said,

Thank you for dropping by for a more casual, laid back, chess talk type of video where I discuss why more people don't play chess, my personal opinions and reasons. I also give sound advice to all of you folks, that will hopefully be helpful to not only get you back on track of playing chess but also keep you on track!

In a nutshell, more people don't play chess because they don't like losing. Judging by the quality of the comments, the videomaker (channel 'Al Su Chess') has a keen group of followers. He says, 'I find it humbling that people find my channel purposeful'.

The second video was Review: Why I stopped playing Chess.com (youtube.com; channel 'CatGoneCrazy'). Here the description said,

This is a video review of Chess.com the website and app for playing and learning chess.

I noted two points worth repeating. Neither explains why he stopped playing:-

3:45 - 'I'm a professional games journalist.'
5:55 - 'Chess.com Review Score: 5/5'

The two videos haven't yet received 1000 views, but to paraphrase last month's sociology post, Not a Squeaking Wheel (January 2023), popularity isn't always an indicator of quality. Nor is it an indicator of purpose.

Not a Squeaking Wheel

While it's true that in the mechanical world the squeaking wheel gets the oil and in the online world the loudest 'influencers' get the most views, it's often their softer-spoken brethren who end up making the biggest difference. That's this month's thought to introduce the latest post in this blog's long-running series about The Sociology of Chess (November 2016).

How Playing Chess Benefits Your Social Skills - Chess4Life Spotlight Podcast (23:07) • '[Published on] Dec 30, 2022'

The description of this video said,

Judit Sztaray has been around chess most of her life, but it wasn't until her daughters' interest in chess grew that it became an integral part of her life. Although she says she's not a strong chess player, that doesn't stop her from actively participating in chess events like the Pan-Am and using the game for its benefits.

One of those benefits of chess is the social aspects of the game. Elliott Neff and Judit Sztaray discuss how big of an impact playing chess can make on communities and building friendships with people.

This month was the second time a video from Youtube's Chess4Life channel made the short list for the month's featured video, but lost out to an entity ranked higher in the chess pecking order. The first such video was:-

• 2022-09-08: How Chess Can Make You A Successful Business Owner With Jim Egerton - Chess4Life Spotlight (youtube.com)

It lost out first to featured video Chess Players with Class (September 2022; 'How Vishy [Anand] is changing the Landscape of Chess in India'), and later to sociology video 'The Root of All Evil'? (ditto; 'Who Has Won The Most Money In Chess History?'). For more about the objectives behind the Youtube channel, see Chess4life | Chess Academy and Club Licensing (chess4life.com).

Not the Dickens Christmas Story

Q: What happens when the monthly post about The Sociology of Chess (November 2016) falls on Christmas Day? A: We use whatever we can find.

The Santa character, played by a White Rook, looks like Homer Simpson. The devil character, played by a Black Pawn, looks like a cute bug.

A Chess Story: The game between Santa and the Devil (6:24) • '[Published on] Dec 22, 2015'

The description said,

Christmas is in danger. Santa Claus must play a game of chess against the Devil to save it. Mexico 2015.

It's not really a Christmas story. The Santa character might just as well be the Easter bunny, fighting for the right to deliver Easter candy to the children of the world.

0:50 'Santa axed the Devil about his reason for being in the North Pole'.

I axed what the devil am I going to do with this? It would be interesting to know the origin of the story -- this video -or- something earlier. Maybe the best thing to do is just to stop here.

Merry Christmas to one and all! And please drive safely.

***

For last year's Christmas post, see Merry Christmas 2021! (December 2021; 'Fifteen years of Christmas blog posts with a chess theme...').

Top Players Talk Top Chess

Podcasts have become an important component in understanding The Sociology of Chess (November 2016). Earlier this year in the series we had Women in Chess Podcasts (April 2022) and here we have top players talking about top-level chess.

C-Squared Podcast #10 | Global Chess Championship, Fischer Random & more with Vidit & Ganguly (44:29) • 'Streamed live on Nov 11, 2022'

'C-Squared' stands for the surnames of the two hosts, GM Fabiano Caruana and Romanian GM Cristian Chirila. The video's description wasn't much longer than its title and said,

After a busy week of chess, commentary, and more, we reunite in St. Louis immediately after the Fall Chess Classic to discuss LIVE.

For more about that tournament, see 2022 Fall Chess Classic (uschesschamps.com). The page explains,

The 2022 Fall Chess Classic is the third installment of the Chess Classics featuring international chess professionals. The Fall Chess Classic is comprised of two, 10-player Round Robin tournaments. Over the course of 10 days, these competitors will battle for more than $36,000 in prize money and gain valuable experience in top-level events.

The two Indian GMs -- Surya Shekhar Ganguly (seated second from the left) and Santosh Gujrathi Vidit (third) -- played in the A-section, while host Chirila (fourth, operating the equipment) played in the B-section. The discussion starts with the Fall Classic, then moves to the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz 2022 (fide.com), travel requirements, and more. At about 10:00, discussion of the Chess.com Global Championship 2022 (chess.com) kicks in, then at 25:40 moves to the Fischer Random (Chess960) World Championship. I've recently posted about both events on my other blogs:-

• 2022-11-16: Chess.com Global Championship (WCCB)
• 2022-11-26: 2022 FWFRCC Finals - Live (C960) • FWFRCC = FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship

Even though I was more than a little familiar with both events, I learned much more from the podcast. I'll be watching for further episodes on the channel C-Squared Podcast (youtube.com).

World Chess IPO

Once again we return to the long-running series The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), last seen in 'The Root of All Evil'? (September 2022). In that post I wrote,

This is the second post in a row to deal with the so-called 'root of all evil'.

By some weird twist of fate -- evil fate? -- we now have the third post in a row. The story appeared on my most recent Yahoos post, Chess960 Mania (October 2022), where 'Yahoos' is a keyword meaning 'mainstream news stories about chess'.

If you're not familiar with IPOs, you're probably not an investor in stock markets. Wikipedia, in Initial public offering (wikipedia.org), defines an IPO as follows:-

An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment banks, who also arrange for the shares to be listed on one or more stock exchanges. Through this process, colloquially known as floating, or going public, a privately held company is transformed into a public company.

You can win big or you can lose big. If you're with the private company going public, you usually win big, at least in the short term. All others pay cash.

World Chess gearing up for IPO (8:52) • '[Published on] Oct 27, 2022'

The description of the video starts,

World Chess PLC chief executive Ilya Melenzon speaks to Proactive about his plans to list the company on the London Stock Exchange later this year. The initial public offer, of which a slice is open to retail investors via the PrimaryBid platform, is intended to raise up to Euro 8 mln for the company.

Now here I had a problem. The fellow doing all the talking on the video is Ilya Merenzon, not Melenzon. The first time we saw Merenzon on this blog was Carlsen - Anand II : Rumblings (November 2014; 'Who was that fellow sitting to the right of the match stakeholders? Introduced as "the organizer of the tournament, Ilya Merenzon"...').

Did Mr. Ilya change his name or are we witnessing a lack of due diligence? A page related to the video, World Chess gearing up for IPO (proactiveinvestors.com) starts, 'World Chess PLC chief executive Ilya Melenzon...' and the only references on the web to 'Melenzon' are related to the IPO. Looks like 'Proactive Investors' weren't so proactive when it came to World Chess (aka Worldchess).

Nitpicking aside, I'm always looking for ways to speculate on chess. I signed up with 'Proactive' for future info on the Worldchess IPO and will follow up on this blog.

'The Root of All Evil'?

In this blog's long-running monthly series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), this is the second post in a row to deal with the so-called 'root of all evil'. Last month we had Was Fischer Avaricious? (August 2022).

Who Has Won The Most Money In Chess History? (2:45) • '[Published on] Aug 25, 2022'

The description said,

The highest-earning chess players throughout history. We collected data from 1851 to now and here are the results! How do Kasparov, Carlsen, Fischer, Anand and Hikaru compare in this chess timeline of prizewinners?

The description linked to a related article: Who Is The Biggest Prizewinner In Chess History? (chess.com; Nathaniel Green). Unlike too many comments to a typical Chess.com article, some here are spot on.

'Should add Naka Twitch' and 'xQc should be in list', but later 'Nakamura is a streamer, not a chess player, so this is a meaningless comparison.'

'Did you include any of the matches versus computers that were played by Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand? Did you include the top level rapid and blitz tournaments? Did you include the Melody Amber tournaments?'

And on an unrelated, but topical point: 'Kasparov accused the computer of cheating. Funny. At that time, dishonesty meant tips from people. Now it's the other way around.'

The last time I featured a similar video in a post (also in the series 'Sociology of Chess') was Top Tweeters (August 2020). I called it the 'time travel bar chart technique'. Watch what happens starting 1:30 into the clip.

Was Fischer Avaricious?

There's no question about it: World Championship chess needs more cartoons. That's this month's theme in the ongoing series on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016). The closest thing I could find to a cartoon in the series was Chess Strategy Woodcut (March 2017), and that was a serious drawing, not satire.

A recent Fischer Friday post, Bags of Loot (August 2022), featured an excellent example of how poor was Fischer's public image just before the 1972 match. The post explained,

A remnant of that general lack of sympathy [for Fischer] are the political cartoons of the day. Often appearing on a newspaper's editorial page, often accompanied by an unsympathetic editorial, the cartoons ridiculed Fischer mercilessly.

He was ridiculed for being avaricious, for being impossibly demanding, and for being an unlikely symbol of the post-WWII cold war between the USA and the USSR. Avaricious? On top of 'Bags of Loot', consider the following two cartoons.

Left: Check... or Cash? (newspapers.com); DM (or DN?); Detroit Free Press; Detroit, Michigan; 16 July 1972
Right: $-$-$... (ditto); Lurie; The Honolulu Advertiser; Honolulu, Hawaii; 12 July 1972
>>> 'Clipped by BobbyFischer' <<<

The irony here is that many observers have speculated that money wasn't all that important to Fischer. What was important? From Edmonds and Eidinow, 'Bobby Fischer Goes to War' (HarperCollins, 2004, p.29):-

Cash itself was about status and again about control and domination: if he was offered five, he wanted ten; if he was offered twenty, he wanted fifty. Perhaps his unwillingness even to put his signature on a contract stemmed from the same need; an agreement took his control away. Somehow, the actual amounts were immaterial.

This isn't the first post in the 'Sociology of Chess' series to focus on chess as a potentially lucrative profession. Last year we had Is It Only About Money? (March 2021). There I noted,

The description of the CNBC 'Make It' video says, "Alexandra Botez, 25, is a professional Twitch streamer who makes six figures playing chess online. She and her sister Andrea Botez, 18, have over 650,000 followers and are signed with Team Envy, a global esports and entertainment company."

More recently, in last month's Yahoos post Candidate and Olympiad Yahoos (July 2022), one of the articles I featured was:-

2022-06-29: Hikaru Nakamura: Meet the world’s wealthiest chess player (elpais.com; Leontxo García) • 'The 34-year-old American has spent half his life in the game's most elite circles, but it is online streaming that has made him a millionaire'

Later, on his popular Twitch stream, GM Nakamura read and commented on the El Pais article. It's classic Nakamura.

Meet the World's Wealthiest Chess Player (15:58) • '[Published on] Jul 25, 2022'

The description of the video says,

Hikaru reads and reacts to an El Pais article Meet the World's Wealthiest Chess Player published on June 29, 2022 by Leontxo Garcia.

How much of a connection can we make between Fischer's 'Bags of Loot' and the success of today's streamers? Not much, probably. After 1975, Fischer disappeared from the chess scene. Between 1972 and 2022 were five World Championship matches between Karpov and Kasparov. The two Soviet stars had much to do with raising the financial stakes at the highest level of chess. No one called them avaricious.

FIDE's Social Initiatives 2022

Every new release of material from the FIDE Social Commission becomes a natural choice for this blog's monthly post on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016). In the past two years I've used:-

• FIDE's Social Commission 2020 (January 2021), and
• FIDE's Social Initiatives 2021 (January 2022).

The following video expands on the concepts introduced in those earlier posts.

FIDE Conference on the Social Chess Initiatives in FIDE Member Countries (4:46:50) • 'Streamed live on Jul 2, 2022'

After repeating the title...

FIDE Madrid Candidates • Chess Conference 2022 • Official Side Event of the Candidates Tournament

...the conference starts at around 22:00 into the video. It carries the following description:-

We will exchange experiences and showcase how national chess federations and chess enthusiasts worldwide help people, build community and make changes for the better with the help of chess. Representatives from all continents will participate. One of the program's highlights is the round table for one of FIDE's most important social projects, the INFINITE Chess, which aims to enhance knowledge and awareness about chess for children with ASD.

The introduction is made by Anastasia Sorokina, 'FIDE Vice-President, leader of the FIDE INFINITE Chess Project', and Dana Reizniece-Ozola, 'FIDE Managing Director'. At about 33:30 the same video used in my January 2022 post is shown. For information on the different speakers, see FIDE Madrid Candidates Chess Conference (candidates.fide.com).

Long ago I discussed ASD in Chess and Autism (April 2009; 'April is National Autism Awareness Month'). Although I intended that post to be the first of an annual series, I failed to achieve the goal. For more about the 'Infinite Chess Project', see Chess for children with ASD: Practical materials for teachers and parents (November 2021).