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Chess is one of the earliest games thats still played religiously to this day, but have you ever wondered who the hottest chess players are in the world right now? Theyre the type of chess players that can make an average person like you and me look ridiculous at the chess table.

The game of chess originated in sixth century India with the introduction of chaturanga a game that was played on an 8-by-8 board and used pieces similar to that of chess today. Over the next 10 centuries, the game spread to Persia, the Arabs, China, Japan, and Europe.

By 1500, the modern day rules of chess started to develop and it became a fixture of everyday life by the 19th century with clubs, competitions, and tournaments happening around the world. In fact, it was 1851 in London that saw the first ever international chess tournament.

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Chess has grown mightily since that first international chess tournament in 1851 and the hottest chess players of all-time played a large role in making that happen and continuing to make it happen. Since 1886, the World Chess Championship has featured all of the best chess players.

If youre not the reigning world champion, the hottest chess players are usually the ones that reach the Grandmaster title, also known as GM. Its the highest title a chess player can receive and is a title that follows the individual throughout their entire life theyre Grandmaster for life.

There have been a lot of Grandmasters, a lot of World Champions, and a lot of talented chess players to grace the sport, but were here to talk about the hottest chess players in the world right now in 2022. With that, well need to take a look at the current FIDE player rankings.

Jan-Krzysztof Duda is a 23-year old Polish chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2750 and is currently ranked No. 15 in the world. He had a peak FIDE rating of 2760 in December of 2021 and a peak ranking of No. 12 in the world in December of 2019.

Duda earned the title of Grandmaster in 2013 at the age of 15. In 2018, he won the Polish Championship and won the Chess World Championship three years later in 2021.

Viswanathan Anand is a 52-year old Indian chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2751 and currently ranks No. 14 in the world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2817 in March 2011 and a peak ranking of No. 1 in April 2007. His mother was a chess aficionado.

Anand is the first Indian chess player to ever earn the title Grandmaster, doing so in 1988. He became the FIDE World Chess Champion in 2000 and held the title until 2002. He won it yet again in 2007 and held it for another six years until losing it in 2013. It was a legendary run.

Teimour Radjabov is a 35-year old Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2753 and is currently ranked No. 13 in the world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2793 in November of 2012 and a peak ranking of No. 4, which he achieved in July of 2012.

Radjabov was just 14 years old when he earned the title of Grandmaster at the time, he was the youngest to achieve that feat. Hes a three-time winner of the European Team Chess Championship (representing Azerbaijan) and recently won the 2020-21 Airthings Masters.

Leinier Dominguez Perez is a 38-year old Cuban-American chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2756 and is currently ranked No. 12 in the world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2768 and a peak ranking of No. 10 in the world which he achieved in May 2014.

Dominguez earned the title of Grandmaster in 2001 at the age of 18. Hes a five-time Cuban Chess Champion and three-time Capablanca Memorial. He also won the 2008 World Blitz Championship. Dominguez competed in the World Chess Championship twice (2002, 2004).

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, also known as MVL (his initials), is a 31-year old French chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2758 and is currently ranked No. 11 in the world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2819 and a peak ranking of No. 2 both in 2016.

MVL was just 14 years old when he achieved the title of Grandmaster in 2005. Hes a three-time French Chess Champion, World Junior Chess Champion, and five-time Biel Grandmaster Tournament winner. He also won the Sinquefield Cup in 2017 and most recently in 2021.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov is a 36-year old Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2771 and is currently ranked No. 10 in the world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2822 in September of 2018 and a peak ranking of No. 2 in February of 2018.

Mamedyarov learned how to play chess from his father, who also taught him how to box. Hes a two-time World Junior Champion, three-time European Team Champion, one-time World Rapid Champion in 2013, two-time Tal Memorial winner, and one-time Biel Chess Festival winner in 2018.

Ian Nepomniachtchi is a 31-year old Russian chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2773 and hes currently ranked No. 9 in the world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2792 in May 2021 and a peak ranking of No. 4 in the world, which he achieved in April of 2020.

Nepomniachtchi earned the title of Grandmaster in 2007 at the age of 17. He started playing chess at the age of four and is a two-time Russian Superfinal winner, European Individual winner, Tal Memorial winner, two-time Aeroflot Open winner, and FIDE Candidates winner.

Anish Giri is a 27-year old Russian-Dutch chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2773 and is currently ranked No. 8 in the entire world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2798 in October 2015 and a peak ranking of No. 3, which he achieved in January of 2016.

Giri earned the title of Grandmaster in 2009 at the age of 14 and a half. Hes a four-time Dutch Champion, Reggio Emillia winner, Reykjavik Open winner, London Chess Classic co-winner, and Wijk aan Zee co-winner. He also won the Third Edition of the Shenzhen Masters in 2019.

Richard Rapport is a 26-year old Hungarian chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2776 and is currently ranked No. 7 in the entire world. Both his current FIDE rating and current ranking are career-highs as he continues to climb up the leaderboards.

Rapport started learning how to play chess at just four years old at the hands of his father and earned the title of Grandmaster in 2010 at the age of 14. He won the Hungarian Chess Championship in 2017 and is the fifth-youngest chess player to be named a Grandmaster.

Wesley So is a 28-year old Filipino-American chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2778 and is currently ranked No. 6 in the entire world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2822 in February 2017 and a peak ranking of No. 2 in March 2017 just one month later.

So started competing in tournaments at the age of nine and quickly rose to dominance as a child. Hes a three-time and back-to-back reigning U.S. Chess Champion, current World Fischer Random Chess Champion, and three-time Philippine Chess Champion (before his transfer to the United States).

Fabiano Caruana is a 29-year old Italian-American chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2781 and is currently ranked No. 5 in the entire world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2844 and a peak ranking of No. 2 both of which were achieved in October of 2014.

Caruana earned the title of chess Grandmaster in 2007 at the age of 14 years (11 months, 20 days), making him the youngest Italian or American to do so at the time. Hes a four-time Italian Chess Champion, recorded a 3098 at the Sinquefield Cup in 2014, a tournament that he won.

Levon Aronian is a 39-year old Armenian-American chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2785 and is currently ranked No. 4 in the entire world. He has a peak FIDE rating of 2830 in March 2014 and a peak ranking of No. 2, which he achieved in January 2012.

Aronian earned the Grandmaster title in 2000 at the age of 17 years old and recorded the fourth-highest FIDE rating in history in 2014. Hes a two-time winner of the FIDE World Cup and three-time gold medalist at the Chess Olympiads. Hes one of Armenias greatest athletes ever.

Liren Ding is a 29-year old Chinese chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2799 and is currently ranked No. 3 in the entire world. He achieved a peak FIDE rating of 2816 in November 2018 and a peak ranking of No. 2, which he achieved in November 2021.

Ding earned the title of Grandmaster in 2009 at the age of 17. He not only became Chinas 30th Grandmaster, but hes the highest-ranking Chinese chess player ever and has won three China Chess Championships. He enjoyed a 100-game unbeaten streak, the longest streak at the time.

Alireza Firouzja is an 18-year old Iranian-French chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2804 and is currently the No. 2 ranked chess player in the entire world both of which are career-highs. He earned the title of Grandmaster in 2018 at the age of 14 years old.

Firouzja is currently the youngest chess player to ever record a 2800 rating and has been the No. 2 ranked player since December 2021. He won the FIDE Grand Swiss tourney, an individual gold at the European Team Chess Championship, and the World Blitz Chess Championship.

Magnus Carlsen is a 31-year old Norwegian chess Grandmaster. As of April 2022, he has a FIDE rating of 2864 and is currently the No. 1 ranked chess player in the world. He also has a peak FIDE rating of 2882 in May 2014 and first achieved No. 1 ranking in January of 2010.

Carlsen has been the top-ranked player since July 2011, marking the second-longest reign in chess history, and has the highest peak FIDE score of all-time. Hes widely regarded as the greatest of all-time and has been the World Champion since 2013. Will anyone dethrone him?

Some of the hottest chess players in the world today are also considered some of the greatest chess players of all-time with Magnus Carlsen being the obvious choice. Still, the sport has been around for so long that there are plenty of other greats that we didnt mention above.

For example, Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer are two names that many consider the hottest chess players ever. Others include Emanuel Lasker, Jos Ral Capablanca, Anatoly Karpov, Wilhelm Steinitz, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik, and Mikhail Tal.

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Chess has been around for centuries and variations of it have been around even longer. Dont worry, unlike other things in this world, chess isnt going anywhere anytime soon and itll continue to be one of the most competitive, yet quiet and respectable sports in the entire world.

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15 of the Hottest Chess Players Right Now - At The Buzzer

Most games that pit two players or teams against each other require one of them to make the first play. This results in a built-in asymmetry, and the question arises: Should you go first or second?

Most people instinctively want to go first, and this intuition is usually borne out. In common two-player games, such as chess or tennis, it is a real, if modest, advantage to win the toss and go first. But sometimes its to your advantage to let your opponent make the first play.

In our February Insights puzzle, we presented four disparate situations in which, counterintuitively, the obligation to move is a serious and often decisive disadvantage. In chess, this is known as zugzwang a German word meaning move compulsion. Lets see how the strange magic of zugzwang is realized in each of our four scenarios.

The position on the chessboard below was reached in the second game of the World Championship Candidates match in 1971 between the American grandmaster Bobby Fischer playing white, and the Soviet grandmaster Mark Taimanov playing black. It is blacks turn to move, but unfortunately black is in zugzwang, and will lose. Our task was to explain how.

If we compare the minor pieces, white has a bishop and black has a knight. Neither of these pieces is enough to force victory. But white also has a pawn that can advance to the top of the board and become a queen. If that happens, white easily wins. So blacks task is clear: Taimanov has to capture the white pawn, even if it means sacrificing his knight to do so. That will lead to a draw, which is the best black can do here.

At first, it might seem like blacks knight is in a good position to capture whites pawn. The knight is protected by blacks king and controls the h7 square, which the white pawn must pass through before it can be promoted.

Alas, now the move compulsion of zugzwang rears its ugly head. For while Taimanov would have been content to keep his knight on g5, he is in the unfortunate position of having to move either his king or the knight. If he moves his king, it can no longer protect the knight, and the knight perishes, leaving the pawn free to advance. If, on the other hand, he moves the knight to the only safe square, f3, and white then pushes his pawn to h6, its true black can move the knight back to g5 on the subsequent move. This prevents Fischer from immediately advancing his pawn to h7. But now white can pull out the secret weapon of zugzwang in chess: He can make a waiting move, sliding his king over to g6. Again, black must move, and now Taimanov has truly run out of viable options.

If black moves his king, his knight falls. If he moves his knight to f3, whites pawn advances to h7 and its game over. (If he moves his knight anywhere else, whites bishop or king will capture it and its also game over.) This is the power of zugzwang in a nutshell.

Needless to say, Fischer won the game. He then trapped Taimanov in an even more complicated zugzwang in game 4 and ultimately swept the matches 6-0. Fischer went on to crush two other leading grandmasters before beating the Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky in 1972 to become world champion, in what was dubbed the match of the century.

Several readers described solutions to this problem.

In this variation of the ancient game Nim, two players, A and B, play a subtraction game in which B gets to pick a starting number, from which each player in turn subtracts a small number until they hit zero. During each turn, a player must subtract at least 1, up to a maximum of 1 more than the tens digit of the current number. Thus, if the current number is between 90 and 99, they can subtract any number up to and including 10; if its 80 to 89, they can subtract 1 to 9, and so on. Finally, when the remaining number is between 1 and 9, they can only subtract 1 each turn. A goes first, and B gets to choose a starting number between 90 and 99. The player stuck making the last subtraction loses.

Question: What starting number should B choose? Can you list the entire zugzwang ladder?

This puzzle was solved by readers Seth Cohen and sunil nandella. I can do no better than to quote Seth Cohens excellent explanation:

For Puzzle 2, start at the bottom. If A is on 1, A loses. Likewise, since in the single digits they can only subtract 1, A loses on 3, 5, 7, and 9 (adding 2 each time). But A doesnt lose on 11, because at 11, A can subtract 2 and give the losing 9 to B. A does lose on 12, however. A loses on 15 and 18 as well (adding 3 each time). Now, as we jump into the 20s, we cant add 3 anymore, because at 21, A can subtract 3 and give the losing 18 to B. We must add 4: 22, 26. As we jump into the 30s, we have to add 5: 31, 36. To the 40s, add 6: 42, 48. And on and on: every time we move into a higher decade, we have to add 1 more to continue to the zugzwang ladder. The whole zugzwang ladder, from top to bottom: 93, 82, 72, 63, 55, 48, 42, 36, 31, 26, 22, 18, 15, 12, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1.

Sim is a game between two players lets call them Red and Blue. The game is played on the figure shown, which consists of six points, each of which is shown joined to every other by black lines (called edges ingraph theory). Each player in turn colors a single edge red or blue per their name. If a players move causes any three of the points to be joined by edges of the same color, the player loses.

Question: Can you describe the shortest possible game of Sim that results in a position of reciprocal zugzwang (whichever player moves next loses)? List the moves made in the game in sequence.

Here is a Sim position in which the reciprocal zugzwang position is reached in nine moves.

A move order that could generate this position is AB, BE, AC, CE, AD, DE, AF, FE, AE. That leaves six remaining uncolored edges: BC, BD, BF, CD, CF and DF. Coloring any of them either red or blue forces a triangle to have all edges of the same color, as shown in the following table.

Therefore, whichever player has to move next (in this case, the blue player) will be in zugzwang, and will lose. To understand how we reached this position, consider the quadrilateral formed by the four points ABCE. It has two contiguous red edges, AB and AC, and two contiguous blue edges, BE and CE. So whatever color the edge BC (the diagonal of the quadrilateral) is colored, it will complete a triangle of the same color. You can think of such a set of four points with a missing edge as a single zugzwang unit. There are six such units in this position, each dooming one of the six uncolored edges.

Blue reached this situation early in the game because of imperfect play. As I mentioned in the puzzle column, a winning strategy is always available to the second player in Sim, no matter what the first player does. The strategy is to avoid creating zugzwang quadrilaterals except two that leave a common edge uncolored. There are exactly 6 choose 2 (or 15) edges in the diagram, so the 15th (last) move will always fall to the first player. Ramsey theory tells us that with six points there will be a minimum of two triangles with edges of all the same color. With perfect play, the second player should be able to put off the creation of unicolored triangles until the last move. This will trap the first player into forming two unicolored triangles with the last edge.

Reader sunil nandella described and drew the position of such a perfectly played game in which the reciprocal zugzwang situation takes place on move 15, causing the first player to lose by unavoidably producing the two requisite unicolored triangles. The two zugzwang quadrilaterals in nandellas solution are BCEF and ABDE, which both have BE as the last uncolored edge.

Two players, A and B, share a pizza. A gets to choose the first slice, and B gets to cut the pizza. B must cut the pizza into wedge-shaped radial slices, making any number of slices which dont all need to be the same size. A can pick any first slice. After that B and A each take a slice in turn, always choosing one of the two slices that border the open part of the pizza. Both A and B do their best to get as much of the pizza as possible.

Questions:

Before I describe the solutions, lets go over some heuristic ideas that can lead us to the answers. As Jack Latta pointed out, B can never get a larger portion of the pizza if there are an even number of slices. To understand why, lets assume the pizza has eight slices, numbered 1 through 8. Now the pizza can be conceptually divided into two portions: the odd-numbered slices O (slices 1, 3, 5, 7) and the even-numbered slices E (slices 2, 4, 6, 8). Player A can ensure that he gets either E or O, whichever one is larger. If O is the larger portion, A can start with slice 1, leaving B to pick slice 2 or 8; A can then continue to pick the odd-numbered slice that is exposed (either 3 or 7 next turn) no matter which slice B picks. This always leaves B with even-numbered options. Conversely, if E is larger, A can win by getting all of the even-numbered slices. If both portions are exactly the same, A can pick odd or even, still denying B a larger part of the pizza. So the pizza we seek must have an odd number of slices.

Again, the concept of zugzwang ladders (which Ill refer to as z-ladders) comes into play. As I described in the puzzle, if you have a linear row of an odd number of slices with alternating sizes 1 and 3, the player going first must open the ladder, ceding all the larger pieces to the second player, who will therefore win.

The difficulty is that, with a round pizza, A can pick a large piece first. What happens to the z-ladder then? Lets consider what happens when a pizza consists of a single seven-slice z-ladder 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1 as shown in the figure below, which has slice numbers in gray and sizes in brown.

Its useful to distinguish between slice 4, which we will call the middle slice, and slices 2 and 6, which are side slices. If A takes the large middle slice 4, then we are left with two joined z-ladders of slice sizes 1, 3, 1 (slice numbers 1-3 and 5-7). B is obliged to open one of them (she gets to decide which) by taking slice 3 or 5, ceding another large piece to A. After the opened ladder is exhausted, it is As turn and he is obliged to open the last ladder, ceding the last large piece to B. So in this scenario, A gets two large slices, and B gets one. If, on the other hand, A goes for one of the large side slices (slice 2 or 6), then we are left with a five-slice z-ladder and a single small piece, which B can take, forcing A to open the five-slice ladder and give two large slices to B. In the case of a five-slice z-ladder pizza, both large slices are side slices, and A and B each get one large piece.

We dont have a solution yet, but we have gleaned several insights that will lead us there. These are:

Insight 1: The pizza must have an odd number of pieces.

Insight 2: One z-ladder wont work. Based on insight 1, and the fact that z-ladders have an odd number of slices, we would need at least three z-ladders strung together.

Insight 3: You can look at the big slices only. B must get more of them.

Insight 4: While A has the advantage of taking the first large slice in a z-ladder, he needs to take the middle large slice, or his advantage is lost. If there is no middle large slice (as in a five- or nine-slice z-ladder with two and four large slices, respectively), the large slices are shared.

Insight 5: When there are two z-ladders left, the one who goes next has the advantage of deciding which ladder to open, forcing the other player to open the last one. In a pizza with an odd number of pieces, the player who has this key choice will always be B. This insight is golden!

Reader witzar came up with a brilliant 21-slice solution consisting of three z-ladders of lengths 5, 7 and 9 slices that illustrate these insights nicely. The pizza has nine large slices, and the ladders have two, three and four large slices, respectively. In the figure below, the three z-ladders are shown bounded by different colors.

In what follows, note that because A takes the first slice and the players alternate thereafter, A always goes on odd-numbered turns and B on even-numbered ones.

If A takes his first large slice from the five-slice z-ladder, the two players split the two large slices and then B can open the seven-slice ladder on turn 6, giving A three large slices, while B gets the four large slices of the final nine-slice ladder, which A is forced to open on turn 13. B wins with five large slices against As four.

If As first slice is the large middle slice of the seven-slice ladder, A gets two of that ladders three large slices. B then opens the five-slice ladder on turn 8, ceding its two large slices to A while again grabbing all of the nine-slice ladders large slices as before, A is forced to open this ladder on turn 13. B wins again with five large slices to As four.

If As first slice is one of the large central slices of the nine-slice ladder, A and B will share the four large slices of this ladder equally, each getting two. This happens because on turn 5, A is obliged to open the 5-slice piece thats left of this ladder to B. Then, as before, B opens the smaller five-slice ladder after the first ladder is done, this time on turn 10. She then gets all of the large slices in the last seven-slice ladder, which A is forced to open on turn 15. Once again, B gets five large slices to As four.

Note that if A goes for a small slice on his first turn, he merely gives B large slices of the first z-ladder right away, without changing the strategic advantage that B has when there are two z-ladders left. As results end up being as bad as, or worse than, the above cases. The same thing happens if A doesnt continue all the way to the end of a ladder but jumps to an unopened one. In short, A is in zugzwang from the beginning and has no way to win.

Its clear that 5/9 is the largest fraction of such a pizza that B can obtain if only the large slices matter. This assumes that the small slices are really tiny, the large slices are very much more than three times the small ones, and A plays optimally. Thus five-ninths is the answer to our second question.

It turns out that the smallest number of slices allowing B to win is 15, which is the answer to our first question. This pizza consists of three zugzwang ladders of five slices each, with two types of large slices: large (l) and extra-large (L). A general template for slice sizes in this pizza is: s, l, s, l, s, s, L, s, L, s, s, l, s, L, s, where s stands for the small slices (shown in the figure with the three five-slice z-ladders marked). Possible sizes of the 15 slices for an actual such pizza could be: 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 1, 6, 1, 6, 1, 1, 3, 1, 6, 1. You can play with such a pizza and verify that B gets the larger portion no matter which slice A picks first by ensuring that she will obtain the large or extra-large slices of the weightier of the other two z-ladders at the end.

With such a pizza, B will get either two extra-large L slices and one l slice or one L and three l slices, depending on what A does on turn 3. The optimal ratio between l and L takes place when both of Bs possible takings above are equal, i.e., 2L + l = L + 3l, or L = 2l. The maximum portion size for B is (2L + l)/(3L + 3l), which is 5/9, as before. It turns out that no arrangement of slices will allow B to get more than five-ninths of the pizza, assuming best play by A.

You can pad the above 15-slice pizza with an even number of additional small slices between any of the z-ladders, so the above solution can be generalized to pizzas with any odd number of slices above 15. So, the answer to our third question is that B cannot win if the pizza has an even number of slices, or an odd number of slices less than 15.

This problem was popularized by the Dartmouth mathematician and gourmet puzzle master Peter Winkler. A formal treatment of this and other pizza-sharing problems is available here.

Congratulations to witzar on the brilliant solution to this difficult pizza zugzwang problem, and for earning this months Insights prize. Thank you to all who contributed.

See you soon for new insights.

Correction: April 9, 2022This puzzle solution previously referred to a 15-slice pizza as having 21 slices. The error has been corrected.

Read the original post:
The Secrets of Zugzwang in Chess, Math and Pizzas - Quanta Magazine

With Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine ragingon, Svitlana Demchenko pauses to think about how she'll handle her next Russian opponent.

"I think it depends on the person not every Russian player has such strong opinions," saidthe 18-year-old Ottawa chess player, who holds the woman international master title and is one of Canada's highest-ranked competitors.

"I do not know how I would feel. I'm a bit conflicted."

Born in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv,Demchenkohas friends and relativesthere who've been sleeping in bomb shelters at night. Between those worriesand her university studies, chessisn't her biggest priority at the moment.

Nonetheless, the war, now more than a month old,is reverberating far beyond Ukraine's bordersand the world of chess is no exception.

Tournaments have been relocated. One top Russian player has been suspended for supporting Putin, while others are unable to play due to travel restrictions. There have been calls for the Russian head of governing bodyFIDEto resign,even though he's spoken out against the conflict.

Russia's ties to chess run long and deep, with players such as Garry Kasparov, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov and Mikhail Botvinnik dominating the game's landscape for the better part of a century.

The country has twice as many grandmasters as any other, according to a 2021 post on chess.com, the most popular online chess site. Tens of thousandsplay the game recreationally.

So when Putin's forces invaded Ukraine in Marchit sent shock waves through the game's top levels, according to Victor Plotkin, the FIDErepresentative from theChess Federation of Canada(CFC).

The invasion prompted the CFC to both condemn Russia's "evil and illegal" actions and applaud the courage of the Ukrainian people. The federation also declared that, for now, no Canadians would compete in official events on Russian soil.

While dozens of top Russian playershave decried Putin's actions, some have stayed loyal including Sergey Karjakin, one of the world's best.

Before the war, Karjakin had qualified for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, an eight-person round-robin to determine who'lltake on Norwegian chess superstar Magnus Carlsen for the title of world champion in early 2023.

But after his comments, FIDE gaveKarjakin a six-month suspension, almost certainly meaning he won't be able to compete.

"I believe it's right, but it's a very strong decision by FIDE," Plotkin said. "It means that right at the top, Russia does have a problem."

The suspension of Karjakin, who was a win away from becoming world champion in 2016, isn't the only big development.

Several players have called for the head of FIDEArkady Dvorkovichto step down. That's because of Dvorkovich's close ties to the Kremlin he previously served as Russia's deputy prime minister.

Despite that fact many believe,political ties aside, he's done a good job in the role.

The 2022 Chess Olympiad, which draws teams of players from countries around the globe, has been relocated from Moscow to Chennai, India. International sanctions, meanwhile, are cutting into the sport's fundingas many Russian companies were sponsoring top-level tournaments, saidCFC president Vlad Drkulec.

Plotkin and Drkulec sayfor the moment, the war's effects are mostly being felt at thehighestlevels, ones that Canadian grandmasters tend not to reach. (As of FIDE's April 2022 rankings, Canada hadnoplayers in thetop 100.)

Nor is the chess board turning into a venue for political disagreements, said Drkulec, at least not among Canadian players of Russian and Ukrainian heritage.

"In Canada, I don't know anyone that's supportive of what [Putin's] doing there. And it just seems insane, really. He just seems to be wanting to break everything," he said.

"He's just like a petulant child, getting revenge right now."

Amidst all that uncertainty, the growingworld of online chesshas stepped upto help out the Ukrainian people.

Shortly after the invasion, U.S.grandmaster Hikaru Nakamuraone of the highest-profile online players, with more than 1.4 million followers on online gaming platform Twitch streamed chess-related content for 12 straight hours in a fundraiserthat brought in morethan $100,000 for humanitarian relief efforts.

"I think as a streamer, there should be a social implication that you should be doing something to help," said University of Toronto student Qiyu Zhou, who holds the woman grandmaster title andstreams chess and other e-sports to thousands of followers on her own Twitch channel.

Zhou took part in Nakamura's fundraiser, and has also hosted her own. Aside from "one or two trolls," her streams have been largely free of any political back-and-forths, she said.

The game'sinternational profile, Zhou added, makes online chess an ideal venue for raising money during the conflict.

"Chess players are definitely more in tune [with the war]than a lot of other streamers, just because we have friends in Ukraine, friends in Russia," Zhou said.

"I'm not faulting anybody for that, but I feel like as a whole, chess players did a really good job with fundraising."

As for Demchenko, shesaidwhile some onlinegames might be "more heated" than before, she'sseen an overwhelming amount of support for Ukrainian chess players and the prevailing sentiment is that almost everyone wants to help.

"The situation is just very scary and worrisome," Demchenko said. "I'm just in disbelief that this could even happen."

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How Russia's invasion of Ukraine is sending shock waves through the chess world - CBC.ca

In some games, you win or lose, but in a new game developed for students that uses the laws of quantum physics, you can win every time. So explains Spiros Michalakis, outreach manager for Caltech's Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, or IQIM. For the past two years, Michalakis has been helping to develop various games, events, and activities across the globe for the first-ever World Quantum Day, April 14.

As part of these efforts, Michalakis and others are developing lessons for middle school and high school students that teach the principles of quantum science. The initiative, called QuanTime, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and includes a host of additional partners. Five new classroom lessons will launch as part of World Quantum Day; Caltech helped develop two of them together with its partners Quantum Realm Games, Google, and Western Illinois University.

One of the lessons, titled Zeros and Ones, involves a game in which teams of students assign 1s and 0s to a grid based on a recreational math concept known as a magic square. This particular game is designed such that students have about a 90 percent chance of winning, but as they continue to play, their probability of winning every round goes down exponentially. However, the game takes a turn for the better when principles of quantum physics are invoked, such as superposition and entanglement. For example, in the quantum phase of the game, students can place a 0 or 1 into a state of superposition, which means that squares on the grid can contain both 0 and 1 at the same time. By using their "quantum powers," the students can now win the game every time.

"We are learnifying gaming, not gamifying learning," says Michalakis, who is the U.S. ambassador for World Quantum Day. Michalakis explains that the goal of the lessons is to give students a sense of the surprising behaviors of quantum, or subatomic, particles, which lie at the root of many future technologies, including quantum computers.

"We are trying to entice the future quantum workforce," says Michalakis. "Quantum computers were once science fiction, but they are being developed now and involve not just quantum physics but math, computer science, engineering, chemistry, and other fields." The field as a whole is called quantum information science and engineering, or QISE.

The other lesson, developed by Caltech and its partners Quantum Realm Games and Google, involves quantum chess. Quantum chess was conceived by Quantum Realm Games founder Chris Cantwell during weekly meetings with Michalakis at Caltech beginning in 2014. The game was featured in a video produced by IQIM in 2016 starring Stephen Hawking and Paul Rudd, and, later, in 2019, Cantwell partnered with Google to run the game on Google's prototype quantum computer.

Quantum chess resembles classic chess, but like the Zeros and Ones lesson, it incorporates the quantum weirdness of superposition and entanglement to give players more options. For example, players can decide to split their kings into a state of superposition, such that one king piece exists on two squares at once. If one player tries to capture their opponent's superposed king on one of the two squares, then there is only a 50 percent chance the king is actually there.

"We wanted to give people a way to interact with quantum physics outside of a lab, so the game is built on top of a true quantum simulation," says Cantwell. "This makes it possible for players to experience things like entanglement and interference, not just probability. I always felt that meaningful educational experiences could be built on top of quantum chess. It is cool to see that happening!"

The quantum chess puzzles for kids help them "build intuition about quantum physics," says Ricardo Olenewa, who leads quantum education for Google. "People learn best by doing things with their hands. Our puzzles give them a chance to imagine the quantum rules of nature in a physical reality."

All five of the new QuanTime lessons, which were piloted in November 2021 with the help of 20 teachers, are available at the official QuanTime website hosted by the national Q-12 Education Partnership. More information about World Quantum Day, including how to participate, is online at the initiative's website.

"Quantum underlies all of space and time, so really every day, throughout the universe, should be dedicated to quantum physics," says Michalakis. "Our knowledge is at a place now where we can really harness the power of the quantum world to transform society."

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Quantum in the Classroom - Caltech

Every day, even at 86, Manuel Aaron gets up from the living room in his Chennai apartment, crosses a corridor, often barefoot, to another flat on the same floor. Here, there are rows of tables and chairs, chess boards and notation books, where every evening 40 children come to be trained by him. After all, Aaron is Indias first International Master (IM) and a nine-time national champion, an inspiration for generations of Indian chess players to follow. I think it is this teaching that is keeping me alive, Aaron says, breaking into a smile.

The Tal Chess club, named after Mikail Tal, a Soviet-time world champion and Aarons hero as he grew up, began in the year 1972, under the shadow of the Cold War. It opened its doors at the Soviet Cultural Centre in Chennais bustling Nungambakkam.

Everything came from Moscow at that timethe chess sets, chess books and clocks. And we could use the place for free. I just had to manage the chess club, says Aaron. Chennai had no other places,other than the YMCA, which barely had infrastructure, where enthusiasts could go and play, and there was thus a steady stream of students. Among them was a certain Vishwanathan Anand.

There is now interest in chess in Chennai afresh, for the city is set to host the 2022 Chess Olympiad, after it was shifted, ironically, out of Russia under the shadow of another conflict, this time with Ukraine.

Aarons rise

Aaron was born in December 1935 in Toungoo, a British colony in Burma, after his parents, originally from Thoothukudi, migrated there due to poverty. By 1941, Aaron was back in Madras, already interested in chess, having watched his parents play. He taught himself chess, his natural affinity for the game making it easier. Most of the players of my generation never had a coach. It was Tamil that I found difficult, Aaron said.

Learning about chess was not easy as Aaron grew up. When he was an undergraduate B Sc student in Allahabad, he couldnt afford to buy the 6th edition of the Modern Chess Opening, which cost 16, until his older sister bought it for him. Decades later, Aaron founded Chess Mate in 1982, a monthly magazine. Now run by his son Arvind Aaron, the latest edition has on its cover the 16-year-old Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa and his stunning win against world champion Magnus Carlsen.

In 1955, after college, when Aaron came back to Madras, he had thought he would be an engineer. Because everyone thought if you became an engineer, life would be good, Aaron says.

There was pressure from the family too. His father often asked him what chess would feed him. But Aaron was steadfast. But it did feed me. I got a job at the Indian Bank only because of chess, he adds. Aaron moved around a lot with his siblings and lived with different relatives. We had a very hard life. It taught me patience, I learnt to remain calm under pressure, he says. It also made him one of the finest defensive players. No matter how good you are as an attacking player, it cannot save you if you do not know how to defend.

His childhood influenced him intensely to be number one. I didnt aspire to be a Grandmaster, but I wanted to be the number 1 in whatever I did. All my life, everywhere at home or in school I had only been number two or three.

In 1961, Aaron became Indias first IM after winning titles that made him the number 1 in Asia. The following year, he was also the first chess player to receive the Arjuna Award in 1962. It was in Germanys Olympiad in 1960 where USSR won and he played against his idol Tal in a blitz match conducted a day after the tournament. To Aarons glee, he drew against the mighty Tal.

In 1971, Russia sent Grandmaster Alexey Suetin to train Indian players for a month in Pune. Suetin wanted the players to show him games in which they had lost. And most of them had lost to me, says Aaron, who was also being trained at the camp. Suetin advised Aaron to change his opening move from d4 (a queens pawn opening) to e4 (the more widely played and traditional kings pawn opening). Aaron followed the advice and in the next national championship, won the title with two rounds to spare.

Anand & Aaron

In 2012 after Vishwanathan Anand beat Boris Gelfand at the World Championship held in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked him where he had trained. When Anand replied that it was at the Tal Club in Chennais Soviet Centre, Putin remarked that Anand was a problem they had brought upon themselves, Aaron says.

Anand was such a nuisance, says Aaron. He used to constantly ask questions and he would never let me finish my class. But he always asked relevant questions. I knew this boy was going to be someone great. Aaron also taught chess using foreign literature, which he translated from Russian, German and rarely French. Anand poked holes in that too, he says.

While he was coaching, Aaron also became secretary of the Tamil Nadu Chess Association (TNCA) for two stints in the 1970s and 90s. It gave him a more formal role to promote, improve and professionalise chess across the state. Spasky and Anand fuelled a spurt in chess, he says. It gave birth to more clubs, and in the 90s, Chennai had tournaments almost every weekend, and the competition was tight. 36% of 66 GMs in India as of 2020 are from Tamil Nadu. Most of the unemployed chess players started academies. There is a value for chess here and more opportunities, says Aaron.

In a sense, Aaron says, life has come full circle for him, with Chennai hosting the Chess Olympiad, which is also the first such in India since the tournaments inception in 1929.

I used to think India couldnt conduct the Olympiad because we have so many uncertainties, natural disasters. We have basic problems in electricity, water shortage.

But now that the Olympiad is here, there is another aspect Aaron feels about strongly.

Do you see whats happening to the Muslims in our country? Arent they our people too? Aaron says.

Divya Chandrababu is an award-winning political and human rights journalist based in Chennai, India. Divya is presently Assistant Editor of the Hindustan Times where she covers Tamil Nadu & Puducherry. She started her career as a broadcast journalist at NDTV-Hindu where she anchored and wrote prime time news bulletins. Later, she covered politics, development, mental health, child and disability rights for The Times of India. Divya has been a journalism fellow for several programs including the Asia Journalism Fellowship at Singapore and the KAS Media Asia- The Caravan for narrative journalism. Divya has a master's in politics and international studies from the University of Warwick, UK. As an independent journalist Divya has written for Indian and foreign publications on domestic and international affairs....view detail

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Teaching chess keeps me alive: Indias first IM Aaron continues tryst with 64 squares - Hindustan Times