This post isn't an endorsement of anything mentioned below. I just liked the clip.
NM Dan Heisman on ShindigChess: Books and Puzzles (Part 1) (12:08) • 'Dan Heisman is a National Master of chess and a world renowned author of chess improvement books. In this video, he describes his 10 books and goes through his favorite puzzle.'
As for ShindigChess.com, I couldn't view it because my Adobe Flash Player isn't at the right level. Maybe I'll upgrade it later...
Whenever I start to prepare the latest edition of Top eBay Chess Items by Price, I'm usually presented with zero, one, or two candidate items. Zero items means I have to choose something that I normally wouldn't consider, when an unusual chess set always comes to the rescue; one item means the choice is obvious; and two items mean flipping a coin. Once in a while I'm presented with many items, as in last year's post titled White Christmas on Ebay. This current post is another White Christmas. Here are the candidate items I considered, but didn't use.
One choice involved six full year sets of the British Chess Magazine (BCM) from the 19th century, each set sold separately. The set for the year 1883 sold for US $177.50, the year 1885 for $610.00, 1886 for $356.79, 1887 for $685.00, 1888 for $861.00, and 1889 for $800.00; there was no auction for the year 1884. Why the big price swings? The year 1883 was missing one month, while 1886 was the only set not listed in 'very good' condition.
The seller of the BCM sets hit the jackpot once more with an item titled 'Aljechin - manuscript "Drei Schachpartien" 1921', which received 12 bids and sold for US $760. The description said, 'This item consists of the Text part 6 foliosheets (text on rectos only) and the Games part 4 folio sheets (text on both sides). All are original carbon copies June 1921. The textpart with the name Alexander Aljechin at the end is typed, but place and date ("Berlin Juni 1921") are an original in Aljechins typical handwriting pencilled under his name.' As almost everyone knows, Aljechin = Alekhine, the fourth World Champion and a prolific writer.
I also spotted seven 'Lord of the Rings' chess sets, each one selling for $600 or more. Even more curiously, I counted four different sets among the seven. How many distinct 'Lord of the Rings' sets are out there? I'd like to come back to this question in a future post.
The most expensive item I considered was a Fattorini chess clock. It received 31 bids from 12 different bidders and sold for GBP 2,250 ('approximately US $3,676.50', according to eBay). The White Christmas post also mentioned a clock by Fattorini & Sons, which sold for far less than the current clock.
Despite all of those excellent choices, I finally selected the item that offered the best visual presentation, pictured below. It sold on 'Best Offer' for US $1,100.
Its description said,
This listing is for a beautiful framed antique oil on canvas painting of a young woman playing a game of chess with an older gentleman and a younger man observing the match. The painting is beautifully hand painted with intricate details and initialed "F.B.". We believe the painting to have been painted by "Frederick Bacon Barwell, active 1855-1897. The canvas is in very good condition showing normal signs of age only with no chips or flaking.
I guess I'm just a sucker for a pretty face.
If the brains behind the Streatham & Brixton blog ever decide to expand their series on Bad Book Covers to include magazine covers, then I nominate the Winter 2011 issue of the CJA's Chess Journalist, shown here.
Yes, the CJA's flagship publication has started appearing again after the untimely death last year of its former editor, John Hillery, whose photo graced the cover of the June/Sept 2010 issue of the same magazine. Both of the latest issues are available as PDFs on the index page for the The Chess Journalist (ChessJournalism.org).
Teasing aside, the CJA has been hit hard over the past two years, starting with the death of CJA President Jerry Hanken in October 2009. It's a credit to the new interim editor that the quarterly journal has been published at all, even if he was responsible for that awful cover art -- 'Cover design by Mark N. Taylor' -- with its novel use of chess pieces as teeth. I'd say it's even worse than the Ghostly Fischer Images that I spotted last year.
When it comes to chess art, be careful what you say. One of S&B's posts, Bad book covers XVII, ruffled the publisher's feathers: NEGATIVE COMMENTS ABOUT THINKERS' PRESS INC COVERS.
[Bob Long:] I've said it many times, there are strong chess players out there who know don't know jack about business, any kind of business. And for some reason they criticize the work of others. Better check that plank in your own eye bud before you start looking for the splinter in mine.
Speaking of Thinkers' Press, does anyone know what happened to its blog (thechessmuseum.blogspot.com). The most recent post was dated 3 June 2011.
With the addition of 1969 Sarajevo - Kovacs vs Korchnoi to the page on Improve Your Chess Game, I've reached the last game of the Every Move Explained series. The only task that remains is to proofread the last three games.
Wikipedia: George Goodwin Kilburne (1839-1924); 'an English genre painter specialising in accurately drawn interiors with figures'.
George Goodwin Kilburne - A Game of Chess (1888) © Flickr user Cea under Creative Commons.
The Flickr image is part of a set titled 'Art Mirrors Art'. Note the round mirror above the chess table.
Wonder of wonders! Before the bidding period had even closed, About.com's chess guide announced the award of the venue for next year's World Championship match to India.
Anand-Gelfand Match to be Held in Chennai
Despite a comment on the post that questioned the validity of the information, the About.com news has been unchanged for three full days, so the guide either doesn't know or doesn't care.
The 2012 World Chess Championship will be held in Chennai, giving something of a home-field advantage to reigning champion Viswanathan Anand. It is the first time a championship match will be held in India, though the country has previously hosted Candidates and semi-final matches before. The match is still scheduled to take place in April or May of next year.
As a former chess guide at About.com, I both know and care, and it always pains me to see this sort of misinformation posted on chess news sites. How could such a mistake occur? By misreading a sloppy post at Chessbase.com -- Breaking news: World Championship 2012 in Chennai. The Chessbase post, dated 13 July 2011, is a copy of a press release issued by the Chennai organizers, who give the definite impression that the FIDE decision has already been made.
The selection of venue would normally be announced on Fide.com before being available elsewhere, but all we have so far is a passing mention in the latest episode of that interminably boring series on the comings and goings of the FIDE President: Visit to India.
India nominates Chennai to host the Anand-Gelfand match. This was announced yesterday afternoon in Chennai by the FIDE President and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu State Mme J. Jayalalithaa. It is known that Chennai is planning to spend for a match 200 million rupees (approximately $ 4.5 million). It should be noted that by now FIDE has already received a bid from the Russian Chess Federation.
The bidding procedure was announced at the end of March -- FIDE World Championship Match 2012 - Bidding procedure and Regulations -- including the deadline, 'the bidding process will close on 30 June 2011', and the further stipulation that 'FIDE will inform the bidding parties of the results within 20 days after the deadline. The final contract with the successful bidder shall be signed within 10 days afterwards.' The deadline was later extended -- 2nd Quarter FIDE Presidential Board Meeting at Al Ain, UAE -- 'The closing dates for bids for the World Championship Match 2012 and the Women’s World Championship Match 2011 were extended to July 31st and June 15th respectively.' There has still been no news on the women’s match.
In case you're confused by the About.com statement that '[India] has previously hosted candidates and semi-final matches', the semifinal and final matches of the 1994-96 FIDE Candidates Matches were held in Sanghi Nagar, and rounds 1-6 of the 2000 FIDE Knockout Matches took place in New Delhi. The final match, round 7, was held in Tehran, where Anand defeated Shirov for his first World Championship title.
While I expect that the 2012 match will indeed be held in India, I would certainly not be disappointed to have it awarded to Russia. It's heartening to see two of the four 'BRIC' countries in the bidding. Given the increased chess activity in China, all we need now is a sign of chess life in Brazil.
By Jove, I think I've got it! One of my ongoing headaches with correspondence chess is juggling games with different time controls. Since I use my email inbox to manage my correspondence games, I've configured the different services to send me an email each time an opponent moves, including the last move. I treat the messages more-or-less in order; the oldest messages get tackled first. When I've had enough of looking at a particular game, I move on to the next email, and repeat the process until I've looked at all my games. Then I again start with the oldest message, cycling through the games once more.
The problem with this procedure is that different correspondent chess servers use different time increments. On a server that adds one day per move, games proceed at a faster pace than on a server that adds four days per move. That means the messages for games played at one move per day arrive more often and are usually near the end of the queue. But those are exactly the games that require higher priority, because I have only one day (on average) to study them.
The solution is to cycle through all of the fast games and then cycle through all of the slow games. In other words, I treat the fast games (1-2 days per move) as one pool, and the slow games (3+ days per move) as another pool. The decisions on -- (1) how much time to take for a particular move and (2) whether I'm ready to move in a particular game -- are taken separately for each pool. Furthermore, if my time for correspondence chess happens to be limited, I spend it on the fast games.
The upshot of this is that my time for reflection is used more efficiently and there is less 'panic' (for lack of a better word) during those periods when I have a lot of games to consider. Why didn't I think of this when I started playing on the faster servers?
Posts
All Comments
