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It will be another battle of wits on the chess board in the next seven days when the annual National Chess Champions tournament gets underway from today at the Orchid Hotels in Lekki, Lagos.

The tournament which will determine the national champion in both Men and Women categories is coming few days after the Nigeria Chess Federation (NCF) staged the African Individual Chess Championship at same venue, will see 10 players in each section do battle over board in a round-robin tournament.

In the Open section, Olanrewaju Ajibola leads the pack been the highest rated player in the section based on the last rating released in September.

Other players in the section include; FIDE Master Abdulrahaman Akintoye; FIDE Master Adebayo Adegboyega; International Master Bunmi Olape; FIDE Master Bomo Kigigha who replaced FIDE Master Chukwunonso Oragwu;International Master Oluwafemi Balogun; International Master Odion Aikhoje; FIDE Master Abimbola Osunfuyi; FIDE Master Abiola Akinseye and Candidate Master Atabor who was given a wild card entry.

In the Womens Jessica Pelomoh, Emmanuella Enomah, Toritsemuwa Ofoniwo, Woman FIDE Master Perpetual Ogbiyoyo, Ayisha Suleiman, Obiamakachukwu Agbazue, Woman Candidate Master Sandra Aramude, Woman FIDE Master Deborah Akintoye, Rosemary Amadasun and Samson Peace who secured invitation via wild entry.

Four-time participant at the World Chess Olympiad,Balogun and Ogbiyoyo are the winners of the Nigerian Championship 2021.

According to the Tournament Director, Rex Ogunaike, the online registration of participants was extended to this morning while the event proper will commence on Wednesday with a seven-round Swiss event pairing.

Other officials invited for the event are International Arbiter Eugene Akhiwu who will serve as the Chief Arbiter and IA Bode Durotoye will assist the expirenced top official.

The other officials are IA Omotayo Amisu, FA Ademola Oyebani, FA Racheal Dappa, NA Vivian Dzaayem, NA Tunde Oladejo, NA Oladapo Adeoti and NA Colins Ene.

Excerpt from:
Ajibola, Pelomoh Lead Others to National Chess Champions Title - THISDAY Newspapers

A little over a month ago, when Indias prodigy GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa defeated world chess champion Magnus Carlsen in a rapid match at the FTX Crypto Cup, You Tuber @abhiandniyu put out a message, chess is the new cricket. Prove me wrong. Carlsen responded with a four-point takedown: Cricket is played on a field with humans, chess is played on a board with wooden pieces. Cricket has a bat and a ball, chess usually doesnt. There are 22 players needed for a cricket match, while chess is only two. I cant play cricket.

His response was chortled and snickered over by the chess community but looking around us, its like cricket and chess are engaged in an intimate tussle over who owns and controls the realm of the ridiculous. Two professional sports in step with 21st century appear to have decided that the way forward can only be approached with shoe laces tied together. Honestly, you couldnt make this stuff up if you tried.

In chess, swords are drawn over Carlsens tempestuous response to teenage American Hans Niemann who broke his 53-game winning streak. World No 49 Niemann, a last-minute replacement at the Sinquefield Cup, beat world No 1 Carlsen in 31 moves. Carlsen withdrew from the $500,000 event with a mysterious tweet, featuring a Jose Mourinho video saying. If I speak I am in big trouble. Big, big trouble. Two weeks later, in an online match against Niemann, Carlsen resigned after one move and switched off his video.

Only madness has followedCarlsen has directly accused Niemann of cheating more recently than he has publicly admitted, there were suggestions of anal bead usage plus offers of naked chess. Marketing men could rub their hands at the creation of a hyper-mano-a-mano rivalry, that too featuring an American which leads everyone into a much bigger market.

But chess is plagued by online cheating and when its biggest star accuses a rival, it takes on credibility crisis levels. Chess.com, a 57-language internet chess server, news and social networking website instantly removed Niemanns account from their matches.

Except Carlsens pillars of reasoning to arrive at conclusions of cheating stood on shaky ground. They involved mind-reading and body-language. Carlsen found that Niemann wasnt tense or fully concentrating on the game. This is cheating uncovered through psychic intervention. He did say that he was limited from speaking openly without Niemanns explicit permission.

If that doesnt sound bizarre in itself, what transpired around the cricket world was virtually paranormal: cheating outrage erupted after an event which matched one of the rule-book descriptions of run out. We were told however that what was under attack was not crickets rules per se, but the games invisible Holy Book, titled the Spirit of Cricket (SOC), which sort of writes itself as it goes along.

Reveal alert: SOC is actually first cousin of the Hogwarts Book of Admittance which is written by the Quill of Acceptance. Remember that? The magic Quill that sensed the arrival of children born with magic and wrote down their names in the Book well before they actually turned up for admission.

The SOC has slightly different magic powers. It spontaneously manifests itself around incidents where an old establishment feels it is being hard done by. The SOC is then ceremonially paid obeisance to, heated discussion, debate or dissing breaks out over some piffle and threats of extinction are fiercely invoked. The SOC can be read in whichever language its reader understands, but its first edition in English is the one that is most widely distributed. Depending on how the general vibe at the time, the SOC is often accompanied by a short appendix called Drawing The Line, but apparently this was not required to apparate in the most recent outbreak.

The body that officiates cricket internationally, ICC, has used its Twitter handle to turn the Deepti Sharma-Charlie Dean run out episode (because that is what it was) into a series of social media straw polls. The aim being to generate the heat, dust and noise of many millions likes, dislikes, retweets and responses.

On the other side, on Friday, chess bosses FIDE established an investigatory panel to check Carlsens claims of cheating and Niemanns confessions to online chess cheating at age 12 and 16. Their cheating detection statistical programme, developed by University of Buffalos Dr Ken Regan, PhD in complexity theory, is expected to throw light.

At first, it may seem hard to pick a winner between chess mind-reading 101 and crickets SOC evocation. But cricketsin this case, its oldest clan aka Englandsdevotion to SOC incantations has remained steadfast in the face of logic or rule amendments. That plus the refusal to recognise the difference between rules being applied and rules being bent.

On the other hand, chess numero uno thought leader Garry Kasparov called his sports entire hullaballoo hearsay and cryptic bullshit. He said while he understood the pressure Carlsen was under, walking out of a tournament was unacceptable and that the integrity of the game was paramount. Its online cheating issues notwithstanding, at least chess has a better grasp of what integrityor for that matter cheatingmeans. Try saying those words around cricket and see what happens.

In response to the chess is the new cricket claim, there should have been a fifth point of differencechess can tell the difference between black and white.

Read more:
Chess, cricket and telling black and white apart - Hindustan Times

Checkmate! concludes a chess match and separates the victor from the vanquished. Yet the ending of the chess match is not the most important part of the game. What matters most are the moves and strategies that precede the win and constitute the game.

In his essay written in 1750, The Morals of Chess, Benjamin Franklin focuses on the moves and strategies in chess that can bring about victory, defeat, or stalemate. This simple game teaches individuals many valuable lessons.

Invented around the sixth century in India, chess gradually spread throughout the world and became one of the most popular games in human history. From personal chessboards to professional chess tournaments, many people in the world play and understand the game.

Franklin praises the games simplicity, for it is engaging in itself. It can be enjoyed without gambling or feeling that anything needs to be gained from playing.

Franklin points out that chess enables us to acquire and practice skills and virtues that are beneficial. For, he says, life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it.

Chess encourages foresight. This virtue considers what present actions a player can make for the future. For example, if the pawn advances, then the bishop can move forward and take out the opposing queen.

Chess cultivates ones circumspection, for players must look at the whole board and all the pieces. Each piece possesses a different ability and affects all the other surrounding pieces. Caution is critical, for players must carefully consider their strategies before making any move. Once a piece is touched, the player must move it, and if the piece is set down, it must be left there.

Most importantly, chess encourages the habit of hoping for a favorable change, and that of persevering in the search of resources. A player may lose most of his pieces yet, through careful moves, can still win.

In their article, Still Thrills: The Drama of Chess, Gary Alan Fine and Harvey Young say that, in a double sense chess is a performance: it is a theatrical event, but it is also an imaginative performance. Theater is not only a realm of bodies, but of imaginations. Of hands and of minds.

As we play or watch chess, let us think about our journey on the worlds great stage. How we play our parts, move, imagine, and contend with conflict matters a great deal.

Chess is all about perspective, angles, logic, and thought. In life, just as in chess, we should be willing and able to explore new perspectives and strategies.

When we find ourselves in a corner or feel as if there is no hope for us, we must refocus and look at all the possibilities. Chess teaches us a great deal about life, as Mr. Franklin knew.

Read the original:
'The Morals of Chess' by Benjamin Franklin: Life Is Like a Game of Chess - The Epoch Times

HELENAThe Lewis and Clark Library in partnership with Ability Montana started a chess club for all levels, all ages, and all abilities.

We're looking at this program as a way to kind of bring people back through the love of the game, to interact, to use this wonderful library space that we remodeled during the pandemic and a lot of people still haven't gotten to enjoy. But most importantly, it's just introducing people to a new hobby maybe, says the Lewis and Clark Library Public Information Officer, Patricia Spencer.

The chess club aims to bring any and all who are interested in chess together in order to enjoy the game. Ability Montana, formerly known as Montana Independent Living Project, is particularly interested in bringing in kids and those with disabilities to this club, but all are welcome. For example, the club has accessible chess boards that are made specifically for those with seeing impairments. The boards have differently leveled white and black squares as well as tactile pieces.

They're tactile chess boards that can be manipulated and felt through the hands without disturbing the pieces, as well. The design was pioneered decades ago and it's still strong today, says Social Support Specialist for Ability Montana, Sean Thomas Conroe.

Another addition to the club is the ability for participants to earn 3D printed chess pieces provided by the librarys 3D printers. Just by showing up to the club, participants can start building their own chess board with unique 3D-printed pieces.

I think the biggest boon to it is that it provides a source of pride for a community. It lets people know that even something as simple as what may be viewed as a game can be participated in by everybody. It brings a community together. Our elders, children, people with disabilities, and people without can all come together and enjoy a timeless game, a timeless activity, says Conroe.

The chess clubs first event begins on October 5th from 6-7 PM at the Lewis and Clark Library.

The rest is here:
A new chess club is coming to Helena - KTVH

Sisters Anna and Mariya Muzychuk are world champion chess grandmasters from Ukraine.

Only weeks ago they secured gold at the 2022 Olympiad in India, a biennial chess tournament where national teams around the world compete.

"We came, and we won, and we showed our strength," Anna Muzychuk told EUobserver on Thursday (29 September).

"We are not going to resign anywhere ... at any field," says the 32-year old, in what suggests defiance against Russia's war in Ukraine.

Russia was originally scheduled to host the Olympiad. But organisers moved it to India after Moscow's invasion. Teams from Russia and Belarus were also banned from the event.

The rift has seen some top Russian players coming out against the war, including 44 who penned an open letter to president Vladimir Putin in April.

But others, like Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin, support Putin and the war, which has so far forced millions of Ukrainians to flee and killed thousands of civilians.

Karjakin had won the Olympiad representing Ukraine in the past, before transferring allegiance to Russia. In June, Putin awarded him a 'Merit to the Fatherland' medal.

Ex-world champion in the 1970s and 80s, Anatoly Karpov, who now sits in the Russia state Duma, was also among those sanctioned by the EU after voting for the recognition of the People Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine.

But it is not the first time the Ukrainian sisters had faced nationalist-led adversities.

In 2017, Anna Muzychuk refused to defend her titles in the ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia as a protest against the treatment of women.

She gave up two world champion titles as a result. Her sister Mariya also boycotted the tournament.

Both rank as among the top 10 female players in the world.

On Thursday, they played an exhibition event in Brussels against several dozen amateur players.

Among those swiftly crushed was this reporter, who resigned in a match against Mariya after 30 moves.

But while the Muzychuks demonstrated their prowess on the chess board, the war in Ukraine and what they had to leave behind remains.

Both had fled after Russia invaded in late February, leaving behind loved ones and relatives. Neither has yet returned.

"We haven't seen them and we don't know when we will be able to see them," said Anna.

When they play chess, the war and all its horrors cannot be tuned out, she says.

"You can't get rid of thinking about what is going on," she says, rendering the concentration for the game process more tricky.

With the team scattered, the war also made it logistically difficult to train and prepare for tournaments.

"We have to do what we can do and that is what we are doing," she says.

It makes their gold medal win at the Olympiad all the more exceptional.

Thursday's chess exhibition was organised by the EU institutions' chess club, Europchess.

The club has hosted similar events in the past, but with grandmasters from EU states. The decision to extend the invitation to the Muzychuks was a mark of solidarity with Ukraine, said the club's president Johannes Bertram.

Others at the event included Thomas Weischede of the German-based foundation, the Emanuel Lasker Gesellschaft.

"This year's success of the Ukrainian woman team reminds me of the spirit of the freedom-loving Grace O'Malley," he announced, ahead of the exhibition.

Weischede gave the sisters a 6,400 bottle of Irish whiskey named after Grace O'Malley, a 16th century 'Pirate Queen' who led a successful attack against the Spanish armada. He then asked them to eventually sell it in order to establish a European chess school for girls and women in Ukraine.

"That is our proposal and our promise is that we will help you as best as we can," he said.

Read more:
Ukrainian chess prodigy: 'We are not going to resign ... anywhere' - EUobserver