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Saying that the lockdown didn't turn us all into chess enthusiasts at some point would be an understatement. While the Netflix originalThe Queen's Gambitmade us believe that we all have been a prodigy all along after a stunning win over that six-year-old cousin, online chess tournaments helped us make new friends and keep in touch with the old ones (along with other games such as Ludo, Among Us and Skribbl, of course).

Well, if you could relate to the aforementioned stuff, then you definitely had been watching Samay Raina's streams on YouTube. From chess to gaming and random pranks, this stand-up comic surely has kept us all entertained during the two years of lockdown while we were drinking our Dalgona coffee in some dark corner of the house. His streams playing chess proves it that something as "sophisticated" as a game of chess can be funny and an absolute delight to follow!

We picked up some of the best moments and streams of Raina for you, so read on!

1. When he and his followers ended up crashing a chess website

Samay had invited his followers to an online game of chess. Simple, right? But when 3000 of the people turned up, the whole website crashed globally!

2. The hilarious invitations to random people for playing chess

The streams where Samay tries to convince random people to play a game of chess with him will leave you in splits!

3. When he and other stand-up comics played with the Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand

Can you imagine Viswanathan Anand playing an online chess game, instead of sitting in front of other international players? Well if you can't, watch this video right away!

Also Read:How Zerodha's Nikhil Kamath Hacked A Chess Game To Beat Grandmaster Vishwanathan

4. When he prank called chess grandmasters unapologetically like a pro!

These prank videos about Samay playing along with his fellow players will leave you wanting more!

5. Chess battles and pep talks

Apart from Raina himself playing chess with people, one can also find various battle streams on his YouTube channel. While he leads one team, other chess streamers go with another, and the battle begins! Samay's pep talks to his team will motivate you to work today, I swear.

6. When he couldn't resist singing to his heart's content, butchering our fav songs on the way

And then we couldn't resist laughing to our heart's content. Well, seems like Samay likes butchering songs and corrupting their lyrics as much as he likes chess, so here's to more funny content!

7. A game with Tanmay Bhatt

Many a times, you can find comedian and co-founder of All India Bakchod Tanmay Bhatt in his streams, which are as fun to watch as these two comics themselves!

8. When he played Antakshari with other chess players

If his streams weren't enough, Raina brought another refreshing stream where he along with others played the game of (not-so)melodies: antakshari!

9. The game of chess with BB ki Vines

Yes. A full stream with Bhuvan Bam, the star comedian. Naam hi kaafi hai.

Here's to chess making our lockdown bearable: check and mate!

See the rest here:
9 Of The Best Moments From Samay Raina's Streams That Left Us In Splits - ScoopWhoop

Fifteen times is the charm for GM Nikita Vitiugov, who won his first national title at the 2021 Russian Championship Superfinals, scoring 7/11 to take clear first place over GM Maxim Matlakov. After three third-place finishes and a playoff loss to GM Peter Svidler in 2017, the St. Petersburg native had a lot to celebrate, including (as he told Etery Kublashvili in an interview for ruchess.ru) the recent birth of his son!

Vitiugov won three games to go along with eight draws in Ufa. Here is perhaps the most impressive of those victories.

This years Open Superfinal included a woman for the first time. GM Aleksandra Goryachkina finished with a reputable 4 points, although the 23-year-old could have bettered her debut with a bit more technical precision. Her second-round win over longtime Russian national team trainer GM Alexander Motylev is an excellent example of how to play against two weaknesses.

GM Valentina Gunina took top honors in the Womens Superfinal with 8/11. Her victory was assured only after her final round battle with IM Polina Shuvalova, one of Russias most promising talents. With just a half-point separating the two, Gunina had to overcome an opening misstep to complicate and eventually wrangle the necessary draw.

For more games from the Superfinal, visit our Lichess Study. To replay the live video coverage from Ufa, check out the Russian Chess Federation YouTube channel.

2021 Russian Championship SuperfinalOctober 9-20, 2021 | Ufa, Russia

Open Superfinal:

1: GM Nikita Vitiugov, 7/11. 2: GM Maxim Matlakov, 6. 3-5: GMs Andrey Esipenko, Dmitry Andreikin, Vladimir Fedoseev, 6. 6-8: GMs Pavel Ponkratov, Alexander Motlyev, Kirill Alekseenko, 5. 9: GM Alexandr Predke, 5. 10-11: GMs Aleksandra Goryachkina, Aleksandr Rakhmanov, 4. 12: GM Maksim Chigaev, 4.

Womens Superfinal:

1: GM Valentina Gunina, 8/11. 2-3: IMs Evgenija Ovod, Polina Shuvalova, 7. 4: IM Alina Kashlinskaya, 6. 5-6: WGMs Natalija Pogonina, Leya Garifullina, 6. 7: IM Alisa Galliamova, 5. 8: GM Olga Girya, 4. 9: IM Marina Guseva, 4. 10-12: IM Alina Bivol, WGM Daria Voit, IM Anastasia Bodnaruk, 3.

The rest is here:
Vitiugov and Gunina win 2021 Russian Championship Superfinals | US Chess.org - uschess.org

Geopolitical tensions have risen dramatically in Northern Europe. The root cause is energy, or rather the lack of it, and the refugees forced up against the Belarusian-Polish border are just expendable extras in a confrontation masterminded by Russias Vladimir Putin.

A functioning Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will isolate Ukraine and give Russia effective control over Western Europe, whose political elite have aided Putins plans through their panicked attempts to save the planet by unilaterally ditching fossil fuels. Neither Putin nor Chinas Xi Jinping attended COP26. Northern Europe will have a difficult winter on several fronts.

The SA summer promises to be little better, with last weeks Eskom outages and concerted chorus for the removal of CEO Andr de Ruyter. Cable theft, suspected power station sabotage and multiple fires in KwaZulu-Natals rail and port infrastructure in the aftermath of the July insurrection, look more like destabilisation than just incompetence or mindless violence.

Could the Kremlins chess master be playing a similar game with SA? Former president Jacob Zuma has always had close Russian ties and the failed nuclear deal was a severe blow to Putins African plans. The two Davids, Mahlobo and Mabusa, have made pilgrimages to Moscow under various pretexts and are still in positions of political influence.

Was the intelligence fiasco behind Julys riots solely due to administrative malfunction, or a concerted effort to ensure Ramaphosa did not get wind of the preparations? Are the internal ANC struggles between the radical economic transformation and CR17 factions more sinister than just the contortions of a geriatric organisation?

Could agreement to construct at least some of the eight promised nuclear reactors suddenly make many of Eskoms problems disappear?I hope not, for while I back De Ruyter in a business sense, it is difficult to see how he could prevail if a geopolitical aspect was also involved, especially as Ramaphosa already appears to have been effectively neutered.

James Cunningham, Camps Bay

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Send your letter by email to letters@businesslive.co.za. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.

Original post:
LETTER: Zuma, Kremlin chess and nuclear power - Business Day

Throughout our entire lives, we keep looking for the best. The best colleges, best workplaces, best vacation spots, etc. The list is endless. Of course, in our chess universe we also follow this same trend and search for the best games and best players of all time.

I wonder, why is no one looking for the worst? [Ed. Note: We are sometimes!] Well, there is no point to search for the worst chess player since he is well known. At least, it is if we trust U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1972, who called GM Bobby Fischer and introduced himself as "the worst chess player in the world... calling the best player in the world".

But what about the worst chess game ever played? You might wonder why we would even need to look for such a horrible game. Well, besides the obvious human curiosity, there is a clear utility such a game might provide. Say you are a beginning chess player: Which game would you rather prefer to analyze, one by two super GMs played with nearly 100% accuracy, or the following game, which I saw as a kid in one of my first chess books?

I don't know about you, but I smiled when I saw this game for the first time. Meanwhile, the near-perfect game played by two super-GMs would have just bored me at that time. Besides, learning that outrageous game, where Black got checkmated in just three moves, assured that I would never lose a game the same way, as happened in the Chess Olympiad not so long ago:

So, what criteria should we use to determine the worst game ever played? If it is just educational value that demonstrates what you should never do in chess, then the following "game" would be close to the top of my list of worst ever:

To be fair, these horrible king moves didn't lead to excessive damage (most of us would still lose to GM Magnus Carlsen even after he plays 2. Ke2??). Should we then consider the degree of damage caused by a bad move? If so, not many games can compete with such ultimate blunders as the following well-known examples.

We are all guilty of saying something like "I just played the worst game in the whole history of chess" after losing an especially painful game. GM Tigran Petrosian probably thought the same way after he made an outrageous blunder in a very important tournament.

I just don't think it is fair to call a game 'the worst ever" based on a single blunder, no matter how bad it was. For example, the Petrosian game above is actually an excellent example of constricting an opponent. As a matter of fact, if not for the tragic blunder, it would have been added to Petrosian's collection of positional masterpieces.

It is obvious that in order to be considered "the worst ever," a game should be played consistently badly, from beginning to end. Take the following game, for example:

When one of the world's best grandmasters performs like an amateur player, we know that the game is very bad. By the way, my apologies to amateur playersI know that many of you can play better than that!

Yet even games where truly bad moves were played from beginning to end might not always be good material for our contest. Take, for example, the following notorious game:

It is a well-known fact that this game was played under protest, as was this infamous contest:

And I don't even want to know what kind of events forced two masters to produce the following recent gem:

As you can see, it is not easy to determine the worst chess game ever played. Therefore, when IM Ali Mortazavi tweeted that he would like to nominate the worst game of chess I was quite skeptical. However, upon looking at the game, I think he has a valid point. Judge for yourself:

While blunders are an integral part of bullet chess, here it was a bit too much. Six consecutive blunders of checkmate in one within three moves, by players rated above 2400 must be the world record. Seven blunders like this in a game that lasted just 15 moves is also a tough record to beat!

So, is this indeed the worst game ever played or do you, my dear readers, have your own nominations? Let us know in the comments below!

Read more:
The Worst Chess Game Ever - Chess.com

We are happy to announce the 2021-2022 Bughouse World Championship! The beloved variant championship starts on November 8 and will extend through January 2022. The strongest bughouse players in the world will come together to fight for their piece of the $5,000 prize fund. With an open and a U2000 section, the event is sure to be entertaining for players of all levels!

Bughouse has always been one of the favorite and most popular chess variants in the world. Already a tradition in over-the-board tournaments, the variant also took the internet by storm after it became available on Chess.com. Since then, many elite players and streamers have enjoyed playing bughouse online, including incredibly strong GMs like Hikaru Nakamura and Yasser Seirawan.

The event is being organized by bughouse expert Chuck Moulton and members of the bughouse community on Chess,com. Moulton will be providing commentary throughout the event. He is a known streamer in the chess variants community and has vast experience in bughouse. Make sure you tune in to his Twitch channel as well as Chess.com's events channel to enjoy the live broadcast of the event!

You can fill out the official sign-up form below until November 5 if you want to jump in on the bughouse action. For more information about the event, check out Moulton's guide here.

Read the original:
Announcing The 2021 Bughouse World Championship - Chess.com