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Zaniac's afterschool 'chess club' teaches kids moves of the game, gets them off screens

MARCH 23, 2023 - NEVER STOP LEARNING: Students who take part in Zaniac's afterschool chess club in Biltmore Park are learning the moves of the game while engaging their brains without screen. They also get help with homework while they're there. (Photo credit: WLOS staff)

At Zaniac in Biltmore Park, there's an afterschool program where you could say the kids have "all the right moves."

Moves and counter-moves, that is.

The children taking part in the program participated in a few games of chess.

Although instructors at Zaniac usually teach students about coding or the many other things one can do on a computer, this particular activity teaches them about chess and what they can learn from playing the game.

IMMACULATA CATHOLIC SCHOOL CELEBRATES $3.6 MILLION RENOVATION

"It's good for the kids to get off of the computers for a while and engage and use their brains for puzzles or chess," said Oliver Porter, instructor. "You have to make decisions under pressure; you have to make sure you make the right move."

"What I like about chess is it's like a competition because you have to see who wins and what it's like," said Sydney, who likes to play chess. "You have to really think about it."

The Zaniac students meet five days a week after school.

They also get help with their homework in addition to using the computers and doing experiments.

See the original post here:
Zaniac's afterschool 'chess club' teaches kids moves of the game, gets them off screens - WLOS

You can now play chess against some of the strongest women players in history! Head over to our Play Computer page to challenge GMs Judit Polgar, Hou Yifan, Anna Muzychuk, and Irina Krush.

These new bots will be in the Top Players section of the Play Computer page and will be a permanent fixture on Chess.com. However, there's no time like Women's History Month to celebrate these legendary players!

Below you can learn more about each new bot.

Playing strength: 2502.

Irina Krush is the strongest woman in the United States and an eight-time U.S. women's national champion. Can you survive against this fierce opponent?

Playing strength: 2606.

Anna Muzychuk is a Ukrainian grandmaster and a former Women's World Blitz and Rapid Champion. Are you fast enough to defeat this legend of the 64 squares?

Playing strength: 2686.

Hou Yifan is the second highest-rated woman in history, a four-time Women's World Champion, and a full-time college professor. Do you have what it takes to defeat her?

Playing strength: 2735

Judit Polgar was once the youngest grandmaster in history and eventually reached a super grandmaster peak rating of 2735, making her the highest-rated woman in history.

Don't forget to go to our Play Computer page and play against the Women's History Month bots, Hikaru, and more! And click here to download the new bot avatars in full resolution.

Originally posted here:
Play Against The Best Women Chess Players In History - Chess.com

Mistakes are an integral part of the game of chess: everyone makes them, even supercomputers! Yet, you should be able to avoid certain kinds of blunders easily. For instance, when you start in chess and learn about Scholar's Mate, then there is no excuse if you still get checkmated this way. You can blunder your queen in the very beginning or get checkmated on move 12, but you still shouldn't get checkmated in four moves by the Scholar's Mate!

To put this concept a different way, if you are asked what's 27 times 72 and make a mistake, it is understandable. However, if you are asked to multiply 4 by 7 and make a mistake there, it is inexcusable since you are supposed to know a multiplication table by heart.

Just like a multiplication table, there are some chess concepts any player should know by heart. For instance, when as a little kid, I signed up for a chess club in our local Pioneer Palace, they needed to determine what group I would belong to. So, they gave me just one position.

I didn't know anything about this kind of endgame and naturally didn't find the only winning move 1.Ke3, so I was promptly sent to a beginner's group. Indeed, only a beginner wouldn't know this kind of endgame by heart. By the way, if you are not sure how to play this endgame, you can practice it here.

After I joined our chess club, I learned that in this basic king and pawn endgame, it is all about the opposition, and if the defender wins the opposition they should be able to make a draw. Nevertheless, when I played a friendly game against my clubmate, it unexpectedly failed me!

I ran to our coach, yelling that my friend had just "refuted" opposition. The coach smiled and explained that if the king reaches the sixth rank for White or the third rank for Black and he is ahead of a pawn, then the opposition becomes irrelevant, and the pawn will promote. I remembered this lesson for my whole life. Many years later, I saw something similar in The Batsford Chess Encyclopedia by Nathan Divinsky. Here is a position from the book.

The book says: "if it is Black's move, then White has the opposition, and if Black moves his king then White will advance his king and be able to queen his d-pawn. However, Black can play 1...h3, and now he has the opposition. Black can then keep the opposition and draw the game."

If the author of the book played my friend who "refuted" the opposition, he would know that Black is completely lost regardless of whose move it is. As a matter of fact, both pawns on the h-file are irrelevant since White wins even if we remove them! Of course, mistakes like this are inexcusable since it is truly the ABCs of chess and you should know it by heart.

A similar example of an inexcusable mistake happened recently in a very high-level game. You know that I follow games played by Uzbek players. Therefore, I couldn't miss the following encounter, which was extremely important for the final outcome of the FIDE World Team Chess Championship.

At first glance, the game looks rather boring: the players quickly traded most of their pieces and entered a drawish endgame. Nevertheless, there was a very important moment that could change the outcome of the game instantly. It happened in the king and pawn endgame, can you spot it? If it is a difficult task for you, let me give you a hint. There is a well-known pattern, familiar to most experienced players. It happened in many games, so let me show you just three of them played by grandmasters.

Now I hope this pattern becomes as clear for you as a multiplication table, and you should be able to easily find an answer to the question about the first game.

It is amazing that two strong grandmasters misplayed a simple endgame so badly. You can argue that when they entered the pawn endgame, both players had less than 10 minutes on their clock. To me, it is not a good excuse. Would you be able to answer 4x7 in five seconds? There you are! It is all about knowledge! I think it is an enormous psychological pressure (the fate of the World Team Championship was being decided!) that made both players forget their 'chess multiplication table.' But I hope that you, my dear readers, will never make this mistake in your games!

See more here:
Never Make These Mistakes! - Chess.com

3 hours ago

Image source, UK Parliament

Ukraine Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko takes the ceremonial second move

Knights and bishops took over a corner of Parliament as two grandmasters faced off for the first UK-Ukraine Solidarity Chess Match.

Michael Adams, the UK's number one chess player took on reigning Ukrainian champion, Andrei Volokitin, in an eight-minute "blitz" game.

The game ended in a diplomatic draw.

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle organised the game to champion Parliament's support for Ukraine as it fights an invasion by Russian forces.

Sir Lindsay made the ceremonial opening move - d2 to d4, the Queen's Pawn. Ukraine's Ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, replied with Knight f6.

At the same time, a series of 12 matches pitting MPs against peers resulted in a House of Commons triumph by a score of 8.5 - 3.5.

Conservative transport minister Jesse Norman, Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, the SNP's Chris Stephens, Conservatives John Baron and Tobias Ellwood played for the Commons.

Labour's Lord Robert Winston, Plaid Cymru's Lord Dafydd Wigley and Crossbencher Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe were among those who took part for the Lords.

Image source, UK Parliament

Rachel Reeves, a former junior champion, beat former Met Police Commissioner Lord Horgan-Howe

Sir Lindsay said he was "honoured to host the first challenge match in Speaker's House between leading players of two close allies".

"Parliament and the UK are giving support to Ukraine in every way we can, as it battles against this illegal invasion by Russia. Enabling important cultural and sporting activities is another way of championing that,' he said.

"Chess is also a wonderful game of strategy that crosses boundaries of language, age, sex, culture and disability - which makes it the perfect sport for Grandmasters of two friendly nations, or even parliamentarians, to play."

Mr Adams and Mr Volokitin will now compete in best of eight games as part of the UK-Ukraine Solidarity Chess Match, which carries a 38,000 prize.

The remaining games will be split between Ukrainian Embassy and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Canary Wharf.

The event was organised by organised by the charity Chess in Schools and Ms Reeves, a junior chess champion. It was supported by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ukraine.

Chess has been played in Parliament for more than 150 years, with a special Chess Room located next to the MPs' dining room.

A Lords vs Commons match was last played in 2016 and won by the MPs.

Link:
Ukraine takes on UK in solidarity chess tournament - BBC

Coming up Saturday, March 25 at the Holiday Inn in Rapid City, the South Dakota Scholastic Chess Championship will be hosted by the Rapid City Chess Club. The competition is an opportunity for kids in Kindergarten-12th Grade to compete for the state championship for their age groups.

The tournament will begin at 9 a.m. and end at 5:30 p.m., and an award ceremony is scheduled to follow.

They can be serious because you know, youre competing for for a title, said Paul Freidel, Chess Coach & Tournament Director. So the actual tournament hall is going to be very quiet. Theres going to be a lot of extreme concentration on the part of the kids. And then outside of that, I mean, lets be clear, weve got a bunch of kids here. They like to have fun, they can sometimes get a little noisy typically in whats called the Skittles Room, thats the room where all the kids hang out in between games, and sometimes youll see a lot of spontaneous chess games or Bughouse games or card games even.

Registration for the South Dakota Scholastic Chess Championship is open and you can register here.

Each side gets 40 minutes for their game. So the games could take up to, say, an hour and a half in total, Freidel explained. And then it goes from, that first rounds at nine, and I believe, again, awards is right around 5:30. Even if youre not sure if youre up to winning the championship, its a great event to participate in. So even if youre a beginner, Id highly recommend coming out, spend a day, play, some kids hopefully learn a few things along the way.

Originally posted here:
Test your chess skills at the South Dakota Scholastic Chess ... - Newscenter1.tv