A Schizophrenic Yahoo

In April I paused my two other chess blogs...

• It's Later Than You Think [WCCB]
• 2025 FCGST, Paris [C960]

...and now it's time to do the same here. As I've always said, 'The first rule of chess is to have fun!'. When it's no longer so much fun, it's time to move on...

***

On the left is the composite image I originally created for this post. It shows the talking points I intended to develop for the post.

For an explanation of the data, see the previous Yahoos post: Language, Math, Music, and Yahoos (April 2025).

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.]

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!'

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.]

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.]

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.]

World Championship Yahoos 2024 (2/2)

At the end of last month's Yahoo post, World Championship Yahoos 2024 ('1/2'; November 2024; see the footnote for an explanation of Yahoos), I explained the title:-

I'm titling this post 'WCC Yahoos 2024 (1/2)', because I'm expecting another deluge of WCC Yahoos at the end next month.

I was not to be disappointed. This month I counted 93 chess stories, of which 57 were WCC stories (World Chess Championship stories, of course). What I didn't expect was to find 57 stories about the World Rapid and Blitz championships currently being played in New York City and only six stories about the Singapore event which was the subject of 100% of the November stories.

Even more surprising, of the 57 R&B stories, 44 were about Magnus Carlsen wearing jeans, then not wearing jeans. Even more surprising than that, the six stories about Gukesh and company amounted to only half of the dozen stories about NBA star Victor Wembanyama playing chess in New York City's Washington Square Park.

Where to start? How about with the old, nearly forgotten news.

• 2024-12-27: The Drama and Suffering of the World Chess Championship (thenation.com; J.C. Hallman) • 'A dispatch from the pivotal Game 11 in Singapore that helped make Gukesh Dommaraju an 18-year-old chess champion.' • 'J.C. Hallman is the author of [...] The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World’s Oldest Game.'

Now let's have some jeans stories ... from both sides. The problem with 43 of anything is choosing the right one(s).

• 2024-12-28: FIDE statement regarding Magnus Carlsen’s dress code breach (fide.com) • 'FIDE regulations for the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships, including the dress code, are designed to ensure professionalism and fairness for all participants. Today, Mr. Magnus Carlsen breached the dress code by wearing jeans, which are explicitly prohibited under long-standing regulations for this event.'
  
  
• 2024-12-30: Magnus Carlsen Makes U-Turn, Confirms World Blitz Participation With Jeans Approval (chess.com; TarjeiJS, bona fide 'FOM', a 'Friend of Magnus') • 'GM Magnus Carlsen has made a sensational U-turn and confirmed that he will participate in the 2024 FIDE World Blitz Championship in New York. The seven-time World Blitz Champion has now received the green light to play with jeans.'

Meanwhile there was a tournament taking place. How was that going?

• 2024-12-27: FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships 2024: Carlsen struggles on first day... (espn.com.au) • 'The 2024 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship began with quite an upset as Magnus Carlsen, the World No 1 and defending World Rapid champion, was stunned by 18-year-old GM Denis Lazavik and managed just 2.5 points out of 5.'

Carlsen is known to be a sore loser and he quit the next day. Remember the events leading up to Steamin' Niemann (November 2022)? I'm sure this will all settle down by next month's Yahoos post.

Meanwhile let's move on to the chess playing 'NBA star'. The dozen stories about him started near the top of Google News with a special section and its own headline, 'Spurs center Victor Wembanyama plays chess with fans in NYC'. For manifest reasons, I'm not going to link to a sample story. Let's look instead at a story that doesn't fall into any of the categories already discussed.

• 2024-12-31: Vladimir Kramnik is worse than dirt: Daniel Naroditsky • 'Cheating, in my mind, is probably the worst crime a chess player can commit, says Naroditsky.'

That story appeared twice on the Google list, both from Indian sources. After all the positive press that chess has received over the past five years, it's curious that world class chess players are using their new-found status to struggle with dress codes and to call each other names.

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

***

One detail that I hadn't noticed while preparing previous Yahoo posts is shown below. Mark Crowther's The Week in Chess (TWIC) was granted a prominent seat at the table (see upper right).

e.g. World Rapid & Blitz Championship 2024
(theweekinchess.com)

World Championship Yahoos 2024 (1/2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Press of Yahoos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Historic Olympiad Yahoos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DNA Yahoos

Just like last month's Yahoos post, Missing Yahoos (July 2024; see the footnote for an explanation of Yahoos), this month had 99 stories returned by Google News. Of those, 25 were old stories from previous months, compared to 10 old stories returned for the July post. Is Google struggling to find chess stories?

The most frequent topic was the Sinquefield Cup with 11 stories. For example, the last story was:-

• 2024-08-29: Undefeated Firouzja Wins Sinquefield Cup And $100k Prize (chess.com; JackRodgers) • 'GM Alireza Firouzja was crowned as the winner of the 2024 Sinquefield Cup and the Grand Chess Tour on Wednesday after securing a draw with GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and finishing on 6/9.'

The Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2024 (theweekinchess.com; 14 Aug - 25 Aug) had four stories. None of them were about the final results, which is why I used that TWIC link.

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

The opponents in the forthcoming match for the World Championship, Ding Liren vs. Gukesh, and the opponents in the most reported game of all time, Carlsen vs. Niemann also received mentions. The most reported of the more colorful stories was:-

• 2024-08-17: Chess Player Suspended After Allegedly Poisoning Her Rival (chess.com; TarjeiJS) • 'A chess player has been suspended by the Russian Chess Federation and is reportedly facing time in jail after she allegedly tried to poison her rival at the chessboard during a tournament. Amina Abakarova, a 40-year-old chess coach from Makhachkala in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, is accused of trying to poison her rival, 30-year-old Umayganat Osmanova.'
  
  
• 2024-08-24: The cheaters, geniuses and creeps of the world of chess (thespectator.com; Luke McShane; 'Nothing says you’re a criminal mastermind like knowing the King’s Indian Attack') • 'Amina Abakarova, a forty-year-old chess player from Russia, supposedly tried to poison a younger rival at the Dagestan Chess Championship this month. Camera footage seems to show her furtively applying a substance to one side of a chess board before the start of the game. Her opponent later became unwell and a Russian news agency claimed that the substance contained mercury.'

Since I dislike closing this post with such a dismal chess story, let's have something more upbeat. This story is behind a paywall, but is intriguing enough to mention it:-

• 2024-08-23: DNA computer can play chess and solve sudoku puzzles (newscientist.com) • 'Computers made from DNA have previously only been able to store information or perform computations on it - now a new device can do both'

Aren't we all 'computers made from DNA'? More research needed...

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

Missing Yahoos

In last month's Yahoos post, Money Makes the Yahoos Go Round (June 2024), I noted,

This month there was no single story that Google News flagged as dominant.

Copy that for the month of July. Of the 99 stories returned by Google News, four were about chess960, but I've already covered that story on my chess960 blog in the post The Magnus Merry-Go-Round (July 2024), e.g.

• 2024-07-25: $12 Million Raised For 'Revolutionary' Freestyle Series Of Tournaments (chess.com; PeterDoggers)

Instead of going there again, let's look instead at a couple of Chess.com stories on a much darker theme by another top chess writer. I doubt that the Google News AI bots would make the connection, but both stories go a long way to explain why there aren't more women in chess.

• 2024-07-18: Top International Arbiter Banned For Sexual Harassment During Major Tournaments (chess.com; TarjeiJS) • 'International chess arbiter Arild Rimestad from Denmark has been given a two-year ban by the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission (EDC) following multiple reports of sexual harassment against a female FIDE employee. In its decision dated July 13, the EDC has ruled that Rimestad cannot act as an arbiter or participate in any FIDE events for two years, with one year suspended for three years, contingent on no further violations. It's a significant ruling by the EDC, as it seems to be the first time the panel has decided on a sexual harassment-related case.'
  
  
• 2024-07-20: Jennifer Shahade Files Lawsuit Against US Chess For Misconduct And Retaliation (ditto) • 'Two-time U.S. Women's Chess Champion WGM Jennifer Shahade has filed a major lawsuit against US Chess, its president Randy Bauer, and chess writer Peter Tamburro, alleging defamation, retaliation, and discrimination after her public allegations of sexual misconduct.'

That second story takes us back to a previous post on this blog, The Dark Side of Women's Chess (March 2023; 'GM Nakamura reads the Wall Street Journal article, How Sexual Assault Allegations Against a U.S. Chess Grandmaster Went Unaddressed for Years (wsj.com)', i.e. GM Alejandro Ramirez). For more about WGM Shahade's complaint, see Jennifer Shahade Files Complaint Against US Chess (jenshahade.substack.com). It starts,

As a victim and whistleblower, I am fighting back against campaigns to silence me and retaliate against me for speaking up about sexual violence in chess.

Tamburro's contribution to the dark side was his article Due Process, Part II (uschess.org; PDF) in the American Chess Magazine, February 2024. Shortly thereafter, US Chess promoted the article with US Chess Executive Board Statement about American Chess Magazine Article "Due Process, Part II" (uschess.org). Its statement started,

The previously undisclosed details that Pete Tamburro’s new American Chess Magazine piece presents are accurate; we affirm that the facts relative to US Chess are supported by the record of written evidence.

The last time we saw Tamburro on this blog, we didn't actually see him. The follow-up to 2023 CJA Awards - Part 2 (August 2023), should have been 'Part 3', where I would have listed the winners in my favorite categories. When Tamburro won the 'Chess Journalist of the Year' for the second time, it brought back unpleasant memories of the first time, some 20 years earlier. Rather than relive those memories, I decided to drop coverage of the CJA.

The CJA's pay-to-play business model guarantees that first-string journalists who decline to pay invariably lose out to second-stringers. Both Chess.com journalists mentioned above, PeterDoggers and TarjeiJS, neither of whom has ever won a journalist of the year award, are far more deserving than Tamburro.

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

Money Makes the Yahoos Go Round

The past two monthly Yahoo posts -- see the footnote for an explanation of Yahoos -- started,

Of the [1st-COUNT] chess stories returned by Google News for the month of [MONTH], [2nd-COUNT] were about '[HEADLINE]'

To fill in the blanks, see last month's post An Indian-Norwegian Yahoo (May 2024). This month there was no single story that Google News flagged as dominant. Having said that, of the 100 chess stories returned for the month of June by our favorite news source, 12 stories were about the Cairns Cup. For example,

• 2024-06-23: Tan Draws With Kosteniuk, Wins Cairns Cup (chess.com; JackRodgers) • 'GM Tan Zhongyi was crowned as the winner and will receive the $50,000 first prize after a quick draw with GM Alexandra Kosteniuk secured her a 6/9 score in the final round of the Cairns Cup 2024 on Saturday. GM Anna Muzychuk finished on a high note by defeating IM Alice Lee and claimed $40,000 for outright second while draws on the remaining boards led to a four-way tie for third.'

Two other interesting stories (although I freely admit that what is interesting for me is not necessarily interesting for the great majority of the chess world) appeared multiple times in Google News, both with three mentions each. To pick a single mention, the first story was:-

• 2024-06-25: World Champ Magnus Carlsen’s Fantasy Chess Startup Raises $3 Million (forbes.com) • 'Norway-based Fantasy Chess has raised pre-seed funding without a product from investors SNO Ventures, Coatue and funds led by billionaires Yuri Milner and Peter Thiel.'

The second story was:-

• 2024-06-18: Chessify wins the World Corporate Chess Championship (worldcorporate.fide.com) • 'The San Francisco company emerged as victors after defeating the Delaware-based ChessMood team in the finals. Third place went to another U.S. company – the global quantitative trading firm SIG, while the European team UBS ended up in fourth place.'

That World Corporate story continued,

The last day of the World Corporate Championship, organized by FIDE and presented by Freedom Holding, opened with a surprising announcement by FIDE that the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championship will be held in New York at the end of December.

And that paragraph deserves a follow-up; ditto for the fantasy chess story. TBD?

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

An Indian-Norwegian Yahoo

Last month's Yahoos post, Candidate Yahoos (April 2024), started:-

Of the 99 chess stories returned by Google News for the month of April, 27 were about the just concluded Candidates tournament.

Skip ahead one month and we get similar:-

Of the 101 chess stories returned by Google News for the month of May, 28 were about...

Were about what exactly? The lead section, with nine related stories, was titled 'R Praggnanandhaa defeats Magnus Carlsen in classical format'. Add to that more on the same game mixed in with other chess news and we get 24 Pragg-Carlsen stories. Add another four stories on related topics and we get 28 total.

In other words, one game in May received more attention from Google News than the most important tournament of the year received in April. Here's a typical story from Pragg's home country India:-

• 2024-05-30: Praggnanandhaa beats Magnus Carlsen: ‘His opening was provocative, he wanted to fight... I didn’t mind at all’ (indianexpress.com) • '18-year-old Praggnanandhaa defeats Magnus Carlsen for the first time in classical chess, that too at World No 1’s home in Norway to take sole lead in open section at Norway Chess tournament.'

To follow the game, see Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa vs Magnus Carlsen; 12th Norway Chess (2024), Stavanger NOR, rd 3, May 29 (chessgames.com). I've played this line ('Sicilian Defense: Kan. Modern Variation') many times with both colors and I don't know what's 'provocative' about it. Maybe I'll find out by the time the June Yahoos are available.

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

Candidate Yahoos

This month's Yahoos post (see footnote) is going to be short. I'm leaving on vacation and must catch a plane in a few hours. Of the 99 chess stories returned by Google News for the month of April, 27 were about the just concluded Candidates tournament (CT; for the latest post on my World Championship blog, see Toronto Candidates - Third Week; April 2024).

The first three of those CT stories were grouped under a header titled 'Gukesh at world chess championships'. The first of those three stories was:-

• 2024-04-24: Dommaraju Gukesh Wins The Candidates’ Tournament (nytimes.com; Dylan Loeb McClain) • Alternately titled: 'The Next Winner of the World Chess Championship Could Be the Youngest Ever'; Subtitled: 'Dommaraju Gukesh, a 17-year-old grandmaster from India, is the youngest player ever to win the Candidates Tournament.' • 'Dommaraju Gukesh, a 17-year-old Indian grandmaster, made history on Sunday: He won the Candidates Tournament in Toronto, held to select the challenger for the World Chess Championship in the classical time control. With that achievement, he became the youngest player ever to qualify for the title match.'

I admit: this isn't much of a post, but I'll try to make up for it when I return from vacation. For the previous Yahoos post, see Real Yahoos (Sort Of) Spotted Again (March 2024).

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

Playing Chess with Your Brain (*)

While I was preparing last month's Yahoos post, Real Yahoos (Sort Of) Spotted Again (March 2024; 'Yahoos = mainstream news stories about chess'), the top story -- which was not mentioned in the post -- would have been the Neuralink news. What's Neuralink? The following video, from Youtube's Guardian News channel, explains.

'Like using the force': Neuralink patient demonstrates how he plays chess using brain-chip (1:32) • '[Published on] Mar 21, 2024'

The video's description said,

Noland Arbaugh, a 29-year-old quadriplegic who has a Neuralink brain-chip, demonstrates during a livestream how he is able to control his laptop cursor with his mind to play chess. Arbaugh received the implant in January, after the startup founded by Elon Musk was granted federal approval to test the device in humans. Following the approval from regulators, Reuters reported that US Food and Drug Administration inspectors found problems with recordkeeping and quality controls for animal experiments at the company.

I don't know why that last sentence was added, because it wasn't mentioned in the clip. User beware?

(*) Irony intended.

Real Yahoos (Sort Of) Spotted Again

Last month we fretted that Yahoo Zombies Want Chess (February 2024). This month they got what they wanted. For the first time since How Many for Carlsen? For Niemann? (December 2022), Yahoo.com delivered chess Yahoos ... two of them ... on consecutive days ... just after the zombies post.

Top: 'Is the United States overestimating China’s power? • Most Americans see China as the biggest threat to the US. But away from headline economic figures, China has a slew of challenges.'
Bottom: 'Speed chess, Soul Cycle, and push-up contests: Saturday Night Live parodies Joe Biden's age • The SNL skit also pokes fun at Biden allies and their claims of extreme abilities. "Behind closed doors, Joe is incredible!"'

For the nitty-gritty details, see the corresponding stories:-

• 2024-03-01: Is the United States overestimating China’s power? (yahoo.com; The Conversation) • 'Which country is the greatest threat to the United States? The answer, according to a large proportion of Americans, is clear: China.' • The story is headed by a large version of the stock photo shown in the Yahoo thumbnail, a red chess King decorated with the Chinese flag towering over a map of the Arctic ocean (the large version also shows Alaska and Canada).
• 2024-03-03: Speed chess, Soul Cycle, and push-up contests: Saturday Night Live parodies Joe Biden's age (ditto; USA Today) • 'Soul Cycle, speed chess and a push-up contest are just a day in the life of Joe Biden in the latest "Saturday Night Live" parody of his age, which added a new wrinkle to the bit - making fun of his supporters' denials that age is an issue.'

The second story didn't include a video of the scene. That means it's time to go rummaging around Youtube. Watch this space.

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

***

Later: Re 'The second story didn't include a video of the scene. That means it's time to go rummaging around Youtube. Watch this space.', I came up empty-handed on Youtube. It seems the SNL library has been moved to PeacockTV.com, where I get the message:-

For other international audiences: Peacock is not yet available in your territory.

The best reference I could find was:-

• 2024-03-03: 'SNL' lampoons Biden's 'behind closed doors' energy (cnn.com) • 'The cold open of "Saturday Night Live" featured Democrats describing the outrageous amounts of energy President Biden exhibits behind closed doors.'

Even if it were 'available in [my] territory', I already have enough subscription streaming services. Watch this space some more?

Yahoo Zombies Want Chess

I ended last month's Yahoos post, RIP Yahoos (January 2024), saying,

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.

But what if they don't want to sleep in peace?

'Zombies play chess.'
AI Comic Factory

Looks like I better rethink the whole thing.

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

RIP Yahoos

The series of posts centered on the Yahoo family began inauspiciously with Chess and Peanuts (April 2008; Yahoo article 'Writing for Peanuts'). They continued irregularly whenever a Yahoo.com news feed highlighted a story that had something to do with chess.

Starting with October Yahoos (October 2017), the Yahoos appeared monthly through A Yahoo Backstory (December 2020). Those were wonderful days for the Yahoos -- Covid and Netflix ensured a steady stream of mainstream chess stories.

As was inevitable, the stories inspired by Covid and Netflix dried up. The Yahoos morphed into A Database of Yahoos (January 2021), based on common criteria:-

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

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.

Yahoos Set a New Low

So many problems, so little time. In last month's Yahoos post, Missing Yahoos (November 2023; see the footnote below for an explanation of 'Yahoos'), I wrote,

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. I had to add the names of many sources manually. [...] If this continues -- which it probably will -- I'll have to abandon the monthly Yahoo post.

Once again, this time for the month of December, the text names of many news sources were missing. I decided to quantify this.

The chart on the left is similar to those seen in past posts for the Yahoos series. The difference is that it counts the number of stories by all sources, not just sources with two or more stories. The numbers in the left column total to 99, which is the number of chess stories returned by Google News this month.

Of those 99 stories, 74 lacked the text name of the source of the story. Assuming that ˜30 of the stories were from Chess.com, that leaves 44 stories requiring further research to determine the source.

At this point I might have taken a deep breath and done the research, but there was a further complication. At the top of Google's list was a group of stories wuth the group headline 'Chinese chess champion stripped of title after cheating'. Chinese chess? No, I'm not interested. I'm sure it's a great game, but it's not the object of this blog.

On top of that, the stories were as disgusting as you'll find. Sample headline: 'Chinese chess champ banned for year after pooping in bathtub; rumoured to have used anal beads'. I counted all such stories and came to 27. That's 27 stories out of 99 ready to be flushed. The Google AI news bots obviously need toilet training.

The reference to 'anal beads' takes us back to a recurring story involving Western chess. It was last seen in the Yahoo series a few months ago: This Month Features a Bottom Yahoo (September 2023).

Of the other 72 stories, some were worth exploring. I might come back to these another time, but then again, I might not.

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