Mediaboss Marketing

In a statement published on its website, the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) makes a proposal for changing the world championship cycle. The main change the ACP proposes is to include open tournaments.

The association, a non-profit founded in 2003 to protectchess professionals rights,makes a comparison with tennis: "In tennis, we have the Grand Slams at the top, but also the local Futures tournaments at the bottom. The structure is clear, easy to understand and the players see the way to the top ahead of them."

Chess is described as a pyramid with the world championship match at the top, and below that the Candidates tournament,the Grand Prix tournaments, the World Cup, and the continental championshipsthe latter being the only entry point for a large majority of the players.

The ACP calls this system "elitist." The association claims that the continental championships are "not easily accessible to the lower-rated professionals, among other things because they are very expensive tournaments to play in."

The ACP likes to add another, bottom layer to the pyramid: open tournaments, describing them as "the bread and butter of the chess world." Although concrete research is not mentioned, the ACP states that many chess players "feel trapped in this 'swamp' of opens without a clear idea how to go 'upwards,' how to feel integrated in the big picture and feel part of the whole chess family. In its current state the chess world is a segregated place with the elite and the rest living in different worlds."

What the ACP proposes is to make open tournaments part of the world championship cycle, with the current ACP Tour system or a similar one serving as a point-based tournament circuit.

"At the end of the year, the top 20 of the World Open Circuit qualify for the first round of the World Cup, thus providing direct access to the world championship cycle," says the ACP. "This would ensure that chess is as meritocratic as it can be and as it should be."

The International Chess Federation, responsible for the world chess championship cycle, is reacting positively. FIDE Director GeneralEmil Sutovsky likes the idea but also notes that there are more opportunities to qualify for the World Cup than the ACP suggests:

"I like a lot the idea of Swiss events being implemented as a part of the cycle.However, I don't see how the ACP proposal addresses the problem of disproportional opportunities. Actually, FIDE made an effort last year and expanded the World Cup from 128 to 206 participants. One can qualify for it by rating, through continental championships, through numerous zonal events, and now through national championships in most of the countries as well. If we talk about the best opens, their winners would qualify for the World Cup through one of the above-mentioned paths.

"While rewarding one player who was just behind the qualifiers looks logical, it seems odd to allocate 20 spots for these purposes. In addition, it has to be said that a proposal to organize some circuit of 20 strong open events sounds untimely, as most of these events are now canceled or postponed."

"Having said that, I reiterate my opinion: big Swiss events shall be implemented one way or another to the cycle. Of course, it can happen only when normal life gets restored, and we will have a sufficient number of high-level events to call it a circuit.

"Meanwhile, FIDE is planning the Grand Swiss and Women Grand Swiss, which will be announced soon. These events help a lot to all the excellent players who are ranked between 2650 to 2750 (and 2400-2500 ladies)."

The Norwegian grandmaster Jon Ludvig Hammer, a popular chess commentator on national television, has a different opinion. He starts by saying that the ACP is "misleading" about the effects of such a tour system:

"The World Cup will rarely offer opportunities to what they call 'lower-rated professionals' because its a tournament for the very best, and as long as the World Cup remains an attractive tournament financially, the best will adapt to whatever qualification system used, including a tour."

Hammer agrees with the claim that the current state of the chess world is "a segregated place with the elite and the rest living in different worlds" but sees the bottleneck elsewhere:

"I think that separation happens at world rank 25, not the World Cup. In fact, the World Cup is the great equalizer, allowing second- and third-tier players a big payday if they perform their very best. If you are not rated in the top 100 in the world, making a living from exclusively playing will always be a challenging task, and many in that bracket wanting to be chess professionals try establishing themselves as coaches instead."

Australia's former top grandmaster, coach, and journalist Ian Rogers says the ACP proposal is likely going to be "unfair and expensive." According to Rogers, the proposal is too much focused on Europe:

"The proposal seems to have been devised by Europeans for the benefit of Europeans. Unless the ACP circuit includes an equitable number of open tournaments in Asia, the Americas, and Africa, as well as Europe, it is simply a method of tilting the odds against a non-European becoming world champion."

Rogers adds: "The problem which the ACP fails to address, or even acknowledge, is that it was Europe's choice to abolish their zonal tournaments and require everyone but the stars to play in an enormous continental championship in order to qualify for the World Cup. Then they forced the players to pay a lot of money to play in it. So Europe should solve their own problemsnot create a new pathway which is going to benefit them above others."

Since it was founded 17 years ago, the ACP has struggled to play a significant role in the chess world. That role seemed even further diminished when in 2018 the new FIDE leadership under President Arkady Dvorkovich accepted a lot of suggestions from the ACP and installed the now-former ACP President Sutovsky as its Director General.

"The ACP is a very niche organization," says Hammer. "In order to grow to a sustainable size, theyve had to accept more people from outside the top 100 than in it. As a result, we get press releases like this, where the ACP is representing its members, but members who dont have the level needed to live as full-time chess professionals. I think they should focus on bridging the gap between number 40 and number 20 on the world rankings, rather than bridging the gap between 600 and 100.

"I think ACPs true goal is to elevate their own product, the ACP tour, which hasnt been a big success at any point since its inception in 2005, but I fail to see how that qualification method is better than the established one we already have in place."

Read the original here:
Should Open Tournaments Be Included In World Chess Championship Cycle? - Chess.com

Bruce Pandolfini is one of the most experienced chess coaches in America, having trained the likes of Fabiano Caruana, Josh Waitzkin, and many other big names. He has given thousands of training sessions and has authored more than thirty books.

Moreover, he has also been one of the main subjects of the book and film "Searching for Bobby Fischer". More recently, he worked on the webseries "The Queen's Gambit" and came up with the name for the show. His vast career in the world of the 64 squares gives us a chance to buzz him with a ton of questions. So, here's to moving on to the Q/A.

1.How did you get into chess? What were the early days like?

My mother showed me the moves at age 9, but I didnt get excited about chess until I was almost 14. I came upon the chess section in a public library. There were 32 books. I was permitted to take out no more than 6 books at a time. I took out 6, and then went back 5 more times to clean out the entire section. I stayed home for the next month and read chess books.

2.You were a solid player with a high rating, but you switched into training players. How and why did this happen?

It happened by chance. I was a television analyst for the Fischer-Spassky Match. Afterward, I had many requests for chess lessons. My schedule became quite full, and I suddenly found myself giving lessons all day long. After that, I never had any time to play. De facto, I had become a chess teacher and coach. Whats more, Im glad it all worked out that way.

3.Tell us about some of your strategies for coaching chess players.

From the beginning of my teaching, I concentrated on the endgame. I also relied on asking lots of questions to help students think more logically. My emphasis was on analysis and guiding students to make relevant decisions. When analyzing, I never let students move the pieces. Everything had to be done in the mind. If the student touched a piece, it was considered automatically wrong, even if the move was correct. To become a perfect master, one must master self-control. I believed, and still do, this method helps to instill true mastery.

4.You have worked with some prodigies like Josh Waitzkin, Caruana, and others. What was your experience working with them?

Ive been very fortunate, blessed with remarkable students. With all such wonderful talents, one quality always comes through. They all love chess. It is easy to teach when your students have a passion for learning.

5.You were one of the main subjects of the film "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and were played by the Oscar winning actor Ben Kingsley. Can you recount your experience about this film?

It was a fascinating experience - one I shall never forget. Mr. Kingsley was very friendly, and a true professional. He worked diligently to get things right. When I initially sat down with the director/screenwriter in his Hollywood office, I noticed a note from his secretary on his desk. It simply said: Spielberg called. I knew I was in another world.

6.How has your teaching chess evolved over the years? What have been some of the biggest moments and learnings from your career?

I didnt know what I was doing at first. I never thought I was entering into a lifelong profession. It just happened over time. From the start, I stressed endgame fundamentals and principles. I was greatly influenced by famous teachers like Capablanca, Tarrasch and Lasker. As far as big moments go, there have been many. Ive enjoyed every students success, and there have been many.

But there have also been abysmal lows. Each major defeat left me depressed. But then one day I had a realization. If I accepted blame for their defeats, should I accept credit for their victories? The answer is, of course not. I always try my best, but I dont play the moves, good ones or bad ones. Its as Ben Kingsley more or less says in Searching for Bobby Fischer: In the end, they are who they are.

7.Apart from being a trainer, you are also a prolific writer. Can you talk about your writing journey, sharing with us some tips?

I am not a natural writer. Ive always had to work hard at my writing. Now, I had a great deal of help. My mother was an editor for Simon & Schuster, Random House, and such. She would show me how to edit pieces practically every day. One thing I learned from her is to just get it down.

That is, write what youre trying to say, without getting fancy. You can refine it afterward. Writers are apt to obsess over each sentence, right from the start. Going about it that way, spending a good deal of time over every nuance, often gets nowhere. The other thing I picked up from her is to use simple language and short sentences.

Long sentences can be troublesome to read. One-syllable words tend to be more effective than multi-syllable words. But good writing also has creative variation. Sometimes, the unexpected is just what a piece might need. Finally, for my own writing, I always like to close (if I can) with a pithy line at the end that kind of summarizes the entire piece.

8.Recently, you were the chess consultant for the drama series "The Queen's Gambit" along with the former World Champion and number one player Garry Kasparov. Can you tell us about your role and experience working on this series?

My involvement with the project goes back 38 years. That is, I was the Random House consultant on the original novel. I first saw the manuscript in 1982. The final title, The Queens Gambit, comes from me. I was hired by Netflix in 2018 to be a script consultant for the series and to create all the chess positions. I was also responsible for training the actors.

Originally, I came up with 92 positions to correspond to critical script situations. Garry Kasparov provided cardinal advice on 6-8 of those key positions, devising ingeniously brilliant variations and novelties.

Moreover, he provided the director with an insiders view of chess in Russia. But there were also two very gifted chess experts from Germany who helped immeasurably. Iepe Rubingh (who sadly passed away this past year) and John Paul Atkinson. They were both incredible.

The final game was developed by Kasparov. But because of cinematic necessity, I had to change the ending with minutes to go before filming, and those changes are what the viewer sees on screen. Of course, we had to get the chess as correct as possible. But the series is fiction. Its drama. So, the most important thing was to make sure the chess enhanced the storyline and did not impair the narratives flow. More than anything, we wanted the actors to look like real chess players, and I think they do. Anya-Taylor Joy is brilliant. Director/screenwriter Scott Frank is masterful. I think they, along with the entire cast and crew, did a fantastic job.

9.What can you say about the current online chess model? How have you been adapting to the virtual world?

There are obvious drawbacks to online chess and competition, but there are positives as well. During these difficult days, it has granted aficionados chances to play regularly and stray sharp. It seems that untold new players are being drawn to the game every week. The software is getting better and better.

I can only imagine what Bobby Fischer would have done if he had had access to all these programs and possibilities. For me, I still give lessons online. There are advantages, indeed, because you can look at material more quickly and see more examples over a given time frame. But I do feel something is lost at the same time, at least on the human level. Nevertheless, the future of chess remains quite bright.

10.What advice could you give to the readers?

The best way to improve at chess is to play and be challenged regularly. While playing, I believe you should give it your all. Too many of us take training lightly, playing practice games too casually. Students should practice and train for real, always giving their very best. I will leave the readers this final piece of advice. Play as if the future of humanity depends on your efforts. In fact, it does.

See more here:
From the 64 squares to Hollywood: In conversation with chess coach Bruce Pandolfini - Sportskeeda

Anya Taylor-Joy plays Beth in the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit. Phil Bray/Netflix hide caption

Anya Taylor-Joy plays Beth in the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit.

The Netflix series The Queen's Gambit follows a chess prodigy named Beth, played Anya Taylor-Joy, from her childhood in an orphanage through her spectacular career in chess. She learns in a basement from a custodian and grows into a champion.

This year's Tiny Desk Contest winner is Linda Diaz, a musician who, as it turns out, is also a chess expert who had a successful professional career in chess for much of her life. We figured there was no one better to talk to about chess, challenges and what the series does and doesn't get right. Below are some excerpts from the conversation; you can listen to the whole thing below. Her bottom line: "I loved it. I watched the whole thing in two days."

This interview is edited for length and clarity.

On the appearance of Beth's first chess teacher, the custodian at her orphanage

A lot of children's first experiences start with a mentor. So their parents, or their older siblings, or a coach. And I think that is what Beth had, even though it wasn't necessarily called that by name. That was her first coach. Sometimes, especially for young girls who are discouraged from playing chess, I think it really does take someone seeing something in you and motivating you to work harder and be your best. That definitely happened to me at a young age. I had a good disposition to play chess, is what my coaches said. I was really quiet, and I could sit for a long period of time. And I was six years old, so that was a big deal. I was the worst chess player on the chess team, like until fourth grade, from kindergarten to fourth grade, which is a long time. And they were like, "Stick with it, keep her in the game." And then in fourth grade, I just blossomed. I won City's. I got second in State, and then I won SuperNationals, all in a row, and that launched my whole chess career. And that just took people really believing in me and motivating me. So, yeah, I think it's incredibly realistic. I really did relate to that relationship that she had with her coach, the custodian.

On being a young woman playing elite chess

In terms of the show and Beth's experience, a lot of that was similar to me, and even worse in some ways. I think the show definitely gets it right that she's critiqued for having these traits about her that men have and are praised for. She plays a Sicilian [defense]; I also used to play the Sicilian. She's an intuitive thinker; I also am an intuitive thinker. And she's really aggressive. And I was also an aggressive player. And so it comes off as "you're impatient," and really it's that you're creative and you're naturally gifted. And so I really saw that in her. I had a lot of people say, you know, you need to study your openings, study your end game, you need to do X, Y, Z, which I probably should have also done. But I did have these gifts that really took specific people to nurture those gifts.

I definitely have a lot of guy friends, obviously from chess. However, my experience was just being completely sexualized, not really respected as a person, even if I was respected as a player in some ways. I was oftentimes the youngest person in a lot of these rooms. I would travel internationally and grown adult men, sometimes with intentions, sometimes just out of ignorance, not knowing how old I was, depending on the age, would just be incredibly inappropriate to me in many ways. Like make me feel stupid, make me feel small, emotionally manipulate me. And I think a lot of women have this same experience. And so it was cool on the show to see Beth be very smart, very on it, having friends who are kind of looking out for her.

On Beth's issues with mental health and addiction to prescription medications

There are all these lines that kind of glorify it in the show, like "genius and madness go hand in hand." But I really believe that's true. You know, people whose brains think differently are often wired a little bit differently. And they're often if you're very emotional, then you're susceptible to certain things, or if you're obsessed with a game, you usually have an addictive personality to go along with it. So, yeah, substance abuse was really common in chess. Especially because a lot of the culture, it being so male-dominated, and also [alcohol] being so much of a lot of individual countries' cultures. Drinking is huge in some tournaments; you can even drink at the board when you're younger and you're around adults who can drink and have, and it's not really an issue. Alcoholism is a big issue for chess players. But also a lot of chess players are on prescribed substances for whatever reason. And so it's really easy to fall into addiction that way. You're playing eight-hour games and then waking up in the morning and doing the same thing. So some people it's just like, you know, self-medication.

On Beth's visions of the chess board on the ceiling

I think it's different for everybody. I'm an audio learner, definitely, but a lot of chess players are visual, especially because one of the biggest aspects of chess is space and time and then your position and things. So any chess player that's going to be on any kind of expert professional level has to be able to visualize the board. But for me, I guess it's second nature. It's kind of like translating. For me it feels like, I'm bilingual in Spanish, you know, I'm thinking something in English. Maybe that's my primary language, but then it's easily translated in Spanish. That's kind of the way that it feels with chess for me. Like, OK, I'm sitting and looking at a position, and I see all of these permutations. And the thing that I visualize isn't a totally different, you know, on-the-ceiling board that comes and speaks to me or anything. But it is a similar concept. I just don't think it's so visually apparent to me because it's like second nature.

On the scenes of fans closely following tournaments in real time

You know, there's live streaming chess and there's a whole Twitch world now. But back then, those scenes of the little boy running out to the crowd outside to tell them what moves she played? And then there's the demonstration board? That's all real. I used to play in tournaments in other countries. ... When I'd be done with my game, I would go and watch the super amazing chess players. But you can't stand next to the world champion. You can't just go up behind his game in the way that you can go behind your friend's game. So they would have giant demonstration boards. ... And then they would have them on a projector outside of the room for people to watch. And then you can comment in real time.

On chess and music

The more I talk about chess and the more I talk about music, I'm realizing that I think of them the same way. ... When I write a song, I'm like: That was right. There was no other way to write it. There was no other option. I'm one hundred percent sure that that's the way it was. And it's kind of the same way of being an intuitive chess player. So I learned a lot from chess, as I said, about the intentionality that you need to succeed in something that you love. And I'm really lucky to have been naturally gifted at chess and naturally gifted as a musician. So both chess and music are things that you can get better at just by practicing. But I learned from chess that even if you are the cream of the crop, whatever, you can't get by without practicing and keeping your mind sharp. And it's all so much muscle memory. And the same thing is true, especially of being a singer. It's muscle memory.

Continue reading here:
We Talk 'Queen's Gambit' With Chess Expert And Tiny Desk Winner Linda Diaz - NPR

Mr. Robinson died suddenly on Oct. 13 at age 43, his family said, declining to say more than that he died of natural causes. His death dealt a blow to the citys chess community, where he had remained a fixture and role model, having taught at Mott Hall, a middle school in Harlem (where he won another national championship, as assistant coach, in 1999), and later at Chess NYC, which offers private chess instruction, and at Success Academy, a network of charter schools.

I wish we had more Charus, said Debbie Eastburn, the chief executive of Chess in the Schools, a city nonprofit, for whom Mr. Robinson also taught.

Mr. Robinson is survived by his two sisters, Stacey and Aisha.

The early 90s success of the Rooks, composed of Black, Latino and Asian students, changed chess in New York City. Until then, scholastic chess had been dominated by mostly white players from elite schools such as Dalton, Hunter College High School and Trinity.

There was no clear evidence that chess could be an inner-city sport, said Jerald Times, a self-taught master who is now the chess director at Success Academy. So when these kids showed up, these Raging Rooks, on the front page of The New York Times, it transformed the landscape of how we see inner-city chess.

As many as 90 percent of participants at national tournaments were white at that time, Mr. Times estimated. The proportion of minorities has grown fourfold since, he said, to 40 percent, because of the example of the Raging Rooks and an I.B.M.-funded research study, the Margulies Report, that tied reading performance to playing chess.

Originally posted here:
A Star of the Raging Rooks, He Helped Change the Face of N.Y.C. Chess - The New York Times

Despite the efforts to make the chess scenes believable, there are still areas in which the series comes up short. The most apparent is in how fast the players move during the tournaments. As one tournament director tells Beth before a competition in Cincinnati, each player has two hours to make 40 moves, which was, and still is, a standard time control for such games. But in every match, Beth and her opponents make each of their moves after taking only a few seconds to think about them. At such a tempo, they would finish their games in minutes, not hours. The speed is understandable for filmmaking because watching players sit at a board for hours, barely moving, is not riveting. But it is also not accurate.

Nor is having competitors talk during some of the games. Other than offering a draw essentially agreeing that the match ends in a tie players do not speak to each other during matches. It is not only considered bad sportsmanship, it is also against the rules. But several times, as in Beths game against Harry in Episode 2, in which she gloats near the end, and in her game against a young Russian prodigy in Mexico City in Episode 4, Beth and her opponents engage in verbal exchanges. The dialogue makes the games more understandable and spices up the drama, but once again, it is not true to life.

Though The Queens Gambit is a work of fiction and the characters that appear in it never existed, there are passing references to players who did, among them the world champions Jos Ral Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik and Boris Spassky.

There is also a curious moment when Harry compares Beth to Paul Morphy, an American, who played that famous game at the Paris Opera in 1858 and who is widely considered the greatest player of the 19th century. The comparison seems like a misdirection. Despite her self-destructive tendencies, Beth does not resemble Morphy. She is closer to a female version of another champion: Bobby Fischer.

That may not be accidental. Walter Tevis, who wrote the 1983 novel on which the series is based, was a passionate and knowledgeable amateur player. In making the protagonist a woman playing a game that had long been dominated by men and which continues to be today, though no one knows the reason Tevis may have been expressing a hope that one day there might be true equality of the sexes over the board.

Read the original here:
Im a Chess Expert. Heres What The Queens Gambit Gets Right - The New York Times