Musings on chess, and lesser things
Posts on chess
The internet has finally returned to the hotel and playing venue, much to the relief of a thousand frustrated chessites. So much to report, so little time… The men’s team drew 2-2 with an understrength Norwegian outfit. There were two decisive games: Max eskewed a draw and eventually lost, while in a somewhat ironic twist, …
Istanbul: Hot, raining. Olympiad hotel: Crowded, buzzing, excited. It’s day one of the World Chess Olympiad, and the Aussie team is just about to head to the playing hall for round one. I’m being rested today against Namibia, so hopefully I’ll have time to write something a little more substantial as I watch the opening …
A friend introduced me to the Doghouse Diaries webcomic, and I just couldn’t help but repost. Original site is here: http://thedoghousediaries.com/4477 The author’s postscript: OK wait, before you send me hate mail for my potentially inaccurate portrayal of an Aussie playing chess, let me just say I’ve never actually played chess with an Aussie, so I’m …
Chessbase has started a little online debate thanks to King-Ming Tiong’s comparison between chess and the deliberate losing by some of the teams in the Olympic badminton. Unfortunately, as often happens in online chess forums, the debate has really missed the mark, focussing solely on ‘grandmaster draws’ and pointing out (rightly) that badminton doesn’t have …
I’ve delayed wrapping up the report of the Curaçao chess festival because I’ve been without internet on a tiny little Caribbean island called Bonaire, swimming with turtles, windsurfing – you know, the usual post-chess comedown. More on that later. Given the division of interests from visitors to davidsmerdon.com, you’ll find most of the non-chess shenanigans (and …
Two thirds of the way through the tournament, Robbie and I are locked in a two horse race for the title, and the pairings really are starting to become bizarre. (By the way, the tournament website is http://www.curacaochess.net/ ) The two of us have taken to a serious, no-nonsense schedule every day: lazy breakfasts, tourist …
With only 14 players in the main section of the 9-round Open, the pairings are going to get weird really soon. The top two seeds met already in round three, with my roommate Robbie and I slugging it out in a real coffeehouse classic. On move five I found myself faced with the white side …
The host team of the chess Olympiad is traditionally allowed to field a couple of extra teams (originally this was aimed to prevent a bye in case of an odd number of teams, but these days it’s a more general right). For instance, in 2010, hosts Russia fielded a phenomenal second team that was seeded …
We’re still a couple of months away, and already the first drama for the 2012 Chess Olympiad has begun. And it promises to be a real doozy. The Turkish Chess Federation has written an open letter refusing the applications of arbiters from a bunch of countries, on the basis that these federations have in the …
After 12 games at classical time controls, Gelfand and Anand are all square at six games a piece. The tiebreaks kick off in a little over two hours: four rapid games, followed by (if necessary) blitz matches and potentially even an ‘Armageddon’ blitz finish. And in a few hours’ time, we’ll have a World Chess …