The caption said, 'What's your next move? Apparently these guys couldn't decide and died trying.'
Magic Kingdom - Concentrate
© Flickr user SpreadTheMagic under
Creative Commons.
Have you ever been to a Disney park? They were more likely waiting in line for the next ride.
This photo reminded me of a horror film with the same name as the title of this post. I saw it when I was six or seven years old and it gave me the heebie-jeebies -- or was it the willies? -- for days afterwards. I was afraid of falling asleep at night because the giant bird might stick its claw through my bedroom window and grab me while I was sleeping. Not too long ago, I saw a scene from the film on YouTube and wondered how the silly bird could frighten anyone. I think the movie even earned a place in cinematic history for the worst special effects ever.
The photo's description said,
19 July 1977 • Gulliver at Guildhall? • Guildhall Yard, City of London Silver Jubilee Fete continued today with a living chess tournament. The Robert Silk Chess Living Lightning tournament pieces are made up of children from three of the City's most famous schools -- Prior Weston Primary School, Arts Educational School, and the Sir John Cass Foundation School.
The players are William Hartston and John Nunn, renowned in chess circles as International Masters. The umpire is Mr. Paul Buswell of the British Chess Federation, and the giant chessboard, measuring eight meters square, has been constructed from 256 carpet tiles. The prize is a study tour to Russia. • PRESS ASSOCIATON PHOTOS
One prize, three schools, 32 children. Since the prize doesn't sound like it was intended for Hartston or Nunn, how did the organizers determine who won it? Maybe it was for the winner of the 'Living Lightning tournament'. That raises another question: how do you play lightning chess with living pieces? Something doesn't make sense here and it's probably me. Time for a vacation from blogging?
The bag pictured below isn't going to be featured in my series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price, where the most recent post was Another Alekhine Manuscript, but it still fetched US $123.50 after four bidders placed 17 bids on eBay.
The item's title was 'ANYA HINDMARCH Photo Bag "Ladies Playing Chess" EXCELLENT Condition!'. It reminded me of the lipstick used in the logo for the recent European Women's Championship, Gaziantep, Turkey. The description said,
This eye-catching shade of red, ANYA HINDMARCH handbag / tote bag is ideal for you to carry everyday. This is a classic yet stylish from Anya Hindmarch Photo Bag collection.
Condition: Pre-owned - in excellent condition; all corners and base are in good condition; no stain inside & outside; no rips or tears; no bad odors.
Details: Outer material: satin like fabric; Lining: cotton; Handles: leather; Trim: gross grain ribbon; Piping & base: patent leather; Two inner pockets, one with zip; Closure: double snap-buttons; Measurements in inches (approx): 12.5" x 9.5" x 3.5"
Website: Anya Hindmarch.
Heading down the home stretch with Been There, Done That, I added Chess Top Tens to my page on Chess for Fun.
***
Later: By coincidence (?), the day after finishing this skimpy post I received an email promoting 10 Big Brain Benefits of Playing Chess. Unlike most similar correspondence, it seemed relevant, so there it is.
My most recent post, Chess as a Compulsory Subject, introduced an initiative taking place in Armenian schools. There are also several cross-border initiatives involving 'Chess in School/Schools' (CIS). On the international level, FIDE is taking the lead and launched its website in February 2011: Website of the FIDE Chess in Schools Commission.
On the European level, the European Chess Union (ECU) is working with Garry Kasparov -- Silvio Danailov: "Reaching New Frontiers" [chess-news.ru; November 2011] -- ECU President Danailov, who was first elected in September 2010, offered a historical summary.
I had [an] election program and one of the main points there was 'Chess in Schools'. [...] I knew that Kasparov had a fund in America and that it successfully worked there; and chess nowadays is in almost every school in US. Michael Khodarkovsky is working there. They have a great experience. I contacted them and offered cooperation for creating the same project in Europe. That’s because I have some contacts in European Parliament in Brussels [Bulgarian MEP, Slavi Binev].
He agreed, we started to work and 'Kasparov Chess Foundation' was opened in Europe. He found a Belgian businessman, one of the best managers in Belgium, Jan Callewaert, who agreed to be the head of ECU in 'Chess in schools'. [Susan] Polgar and Malcolm [Pein] have also joined it -– serious people who love chess and who want to work. At the same time sponsors found 100.000 Euros for everything and this committee created a very good program which we successfully presented a month ago in Brussels in front of 150 European deputies. So, I’m very glad because I think that we've done a great job during the year.
Now there will be a written declaration of the deputies on official adoption of chess in 27 EU member countries. The European Parliament with 780 deputies has to vote for this program next year. We need 51% for approving it which means we need approximately 390 deputies to vote positively. And then chess will officially become... I mean European Parliament will make a recommendation for all 27 EU member countries to adopt chess in schools as an official (two hours per week) subject for children under the age 6-9 or 6-12.
If it's true that 'chess nowadays is in almost every school in U.S.', it's partly because extra-curricular school activities are more popular in the U.S. than they are in Europe. Whatever the reason, here are some relevant links for the European initiative.
Last December, I posted about the ongoing friction between FIDE and Kasparov: Out to Ruin FIDE? Chess politics being what it is, that conflict spilled over to the CIS programs: Official Statement by Ali Nihat Yazici, Chairman of Chess in School Commission [Fide.com; November 2011]. Like many other observers of the international chess scene, I'll be following the ensuing evolutions with considerable interest.
A few months I featured The National Sport of Azerbaijan on my Video Friday series. The description for the following clip starts, 'Armenia is a country facing many problems. Its ceasefire with neighboring Azerbaijan is rocky, and its economy is struggling. Now Armenia is hoping chess could help improve its fortunes.'
Armenia: Compulsory Chess | European Journal (6:32) • 'Armenian schools are introducing chess as a compulsory subject. The idea comes from chess Grandmaster Smbat Lputian, who founded a chess academy in Yerevan.'
It's ironic that these two chess-crazy countries can't get along with each other.
The phrase 'iron logic' is something of a cliché when applied to chess. I was reminded of this while working on the post Botvinnik's Legacy, where the phrase kept popping up in various apprecations of the sixth World Champion's style.
But what exactly does it mean? Is there some quality of 'iron logic' that makes it more logical than 'logic' alone? Even though it's often applied to reasoning that has nothing to do with chess, I searched high and low for a definition and came up empty handed. It's one of those phrases that people use without explaining what they mean. Curiously, the use of 'iron logic' is often associated with extreme opinions like 'the iron logic of mutual assured destruction' or 'the iron logic of nature'.
As for chess players, the phrase is always used to describe a particular style of play. It's less often applied to the classical players, where Capablanca gets tagged with the epithet more than Lasker and Alekhine. Petrosian is as likely as Botvinnik to get tagged and I even found the phrase on one of my pages: 1953 Zurich Candidates Tournament : Highlights. In the famous game Reshevsky - Petrosian, the future Soviet World Champion played 25...Re6, sacrificing the exchange; 'iron logic', wrote Bronstein. As for more recent players, Fischer and Karpov often exhibit 'iron logic', while of contemporary players, Carlsen gets tagged far more often than his opponents.
Botvinnik, Petrosian, Capablanca, Fischer, Karpov, Carlsen. String the names together and the connection is obvious. They were the most outstanding of the positional players. So 'iron logic' means positional play of the highest order. To test my hypothesis, I looked for 'iron logic' applied to Tal and couldn't find a single example. Magicians aren't logicians and magic isn't logical. That's why there are so few players like Tal.
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