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The chess piece statue outside of Morrissey Hall is by far one of the most loved attractions on campus. Sitting outside the home of SLUs very own chess team, it has a giant chess board with spots nearby to sit and play the game.

Not only is it a favorite for those currently attending SLU, but it also manages to capture the attention of all visiting families and potential students. I remember visiting SLU with my family and seeing the chess piece. We all thought it was really cool, said Tara Burke, sophomore.

Recently, many students and faculty alike have noticed construction being done on the chess piece. Then, the chess piece disappeared completely, with caution tape surrounding the vacant area. This has left many SLU members wondering: What is going on with the chess piece?

Initially, there was speculation that the chess piece was vandalized. One student, sophomore Kara Bruns, reported that she had noticed when the piece was still on campus that there seemed to be a large dent towards the top of the piece. She added, I wish I did some personal investigating while it was still there.

These concerns were put to rest by Bradley Storr, a SLU Construction Supervisor, who spoke with the University News about the current situation with the chess piece. It turns out that earlier in the fall semester, water infiltrated the finish of the chess piece and inflicted damage to the interior of the piece. Later on, there was a storm that caused the top of the chess piece to shift, making it unsafe for staff and students to walk past.

The chess piece has since been moved to a SLU warehouse for further assessment and planning. An estimated time of arrival back to campus is not currently known.

We want to make sure that it is solid and safe to return to its pedestal, said Storr.

More here:
What's Going On With The Chess Piece? - The University News

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Theres so much going on in the markets, that its hard to know where to start and what to look for. On the red side of the ledger, its clear that the headwinds are gathering. House Democrats are still rejecting the $1.8 trillion coronavirus aid and stimulus package put forth by the White House, saying that President Trumps proposal does not go far enough. The House Dems are pushing their own $2.2 trillion stimulus. At the same time, both Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson have paused their coronavirus vaccine programs, after the latter company reported an adverse event in early trials. This has more than just investors worried, as most hopes for a return to normal hang on development of a working vaccine for the novel virus.And earnings season is kicking off. Over the next several weeks, well see Q3 results from every publicly traded company, and investors will watch those results eagerly. The consensus is, that earnings will be down year-over-year somewhere between 20% and 30%. With this in mind, weve used theTipRanks databaseto pull up three dividend stocks yielding 6% or more. Thats not all they offer, however. Each of these stocks has a Strong Buy rating, and considerable upside potential.Philip Morris (PM)First on the list is tobacco company Philip Morris. The sin stocks, makers of tobacco and alcohol products, have long been known for their good dividends. PM has taken a different tack in recent year, with a turn toward smokeless tobacco products, marketed as cleaner and less dangerous for users health.One sign of this is the companys partnership with Altria to launch and market iQOS, a heated smokeless tobacco product that will allow users to get nicotine without the pollutants from tobacco smoke. PM has plowed over $6 billion into the product. Given the regulatory challenges and PR surrounding vaping products, PM believes that smokeless heated tobacco will prove to be the stronger alternative, with greater potential for growth.No matter what, for the moment PMs core product remains Marlboro cigarettes. The iconic brand remains a best seller, despite the long-term trend of public opinion turning against cigarettes.As for the dividend, PM has been, and remains, a true champ. The company has raised its dividend payment every year since 2008, and has reliably paid out ever quarter. Even corona couldnt derail that; PM kept up its $1.17 quarterly payment through 2020, and its most recent dividend, paid out earlier this month, saw an increase to $1.20 per common share. This annualizes to $4.80, and gives a yield of 6%.Covering PM for Piper Sandler, analyst Michael Lavery likes the move to smokeless products, writing, We remain bullish on PM's strong long-term outlook, and we believe recent iQOS momentum throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been impressive. iQOS has had strong user growth and improving profitability, and store re-openings could further help drive adoption by new users.Lavery rates PM shares an Overweight (i.e. Buy), and his $98 price target implies a one-year upside of 24%. (To watch Laverys track record, click here)Overall, the Strong Buy consensus rating on PM is based on 9 reviews, breaking 8 to 1 in Buy versus Hold. The shares are priced at $79.10 and their $93.56 average price target suggests an 18% upside potential. (See PM stock analysis on TipRanks)Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son (NTB)Butterfield is a small-cap banking firm based in Bermuda and providing a full range of services to customers on the island and on the Caymans, the Bahamas, and the Channel Islands, as well as Singapore, Switzerland, and the UK. Butterfields services include personal and business loans, savings accounts and credit cards, mortgages, insurance, and wealth management.Butterfield saw revenues and earnings slide in the first half of this year, in line with the general pattern of banking services globally the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic put a damper on business, and bankers felt the hit. Earnings in the last quarter of 2019 were 87 cents per share, and by 2Q20 were down to 67 cents. While a significant drop, that was still 21% better than the expectations. At the top line, revenues are down to $121 million. NTB reports Q3 earnings later this month, and the forecast is for 63 cents EPS. Along with beating earnings forecasts, Butterfield has been paying out a strong dividend this year. By the second quarter, the dividend payment was up to 44 cents per common share, making the yield a robust 7%. When the current low interest rate regime is considered the US Fed has set rates near zero, and Treasury bonds are yielding below 1% NTBs payment looks even better.Raymond James Donald Worthington, 4-star analyst with Raymond James, writes of Butterfield, robust capital levels [provide] more than sufficient loss absorption capacity in our view for whatever credit issues may arise. Its fee income stability has proven valuable given the impacts of declining rates on NII, where the bank has actively managed expenses to help support earnings. We continue to believe its dividend is safe for now given its low-risk loan portfolio, robust capital levels, and our forecast for a sub-100% dividend payout even under our stressed outlook.These comments support the analysts Outperform (i.e. Buy) rating, and his $29 price target suggests a 15% upside for the coming year. (To watch Worthingtons track record, click here)Overall, NTB has 4 recent reviews, which include 3 Buys and a single Hold, making the analyst consensus rating a Strong Buy. This stock has a $29 average price target, matching Worthingtons. (See NTB stock analysis on TipRanks)Enviva (EVA)Last on our list is an energy company, Enviva. This company holds an interesting niche in an essential sector, producing green energy. Specifically, Enviva is a manufacturer of processed biomass fuel, a wood pellet derivative sold to power generation plants. The fuel is cleaner burning than coal an important point in todays political climate and is made from recycled waste (woodchips and sawdust) from the lumber industry. The companys production facilities are located in the American Southeast, while its main customers are in the UK and mainland Europe.The economic shutdowns imposed during the corona pandemic reduced demand for power, and Envivas revenues fell in 1H20, mainly due to that reduced demand. Earnings remained positive, however, and the EPS outlook for Q3 predicts a surge back to 45 cents in line with the strong earnings seen in the second half of 2019.Enviva has shown a consistent commitment to paying out its dividend, and in last quarter the August payment the company raised the payment from 68 cents per common share to 77 cents. This brought the annualized value of the dividend to $3.08 per share, and makes the yield 7.3%. Even better, Enviva has been paying out regular dividends for the past 5 years.Covering this stock for Raymond James is analyst Pavel Molchanov, who rates EVA as Outperform (i.e. Buy) and sets a $44 price target. Recent share appreciation has brought the stock close to that target.Backing his stance, Molchanov writes, Enviva benefits from an increasingly broad customer base, and there is high-visibility growth via dropdowns. In the context of the power sector's massive coal retirements including (as of September 2020) 34 countries and 33 subnational jurisdictions with mandatory coal phase-outs (To watch Molchanovs track record, click here.)Envivas Strong Buy consensus rating is based on 4 Buys and 1 Hold. Its share price, which has gained in recent sessions, is $42.60, and as mentioned, it has closed in on the $44.80 average price target. (See EVA stock analysis at TipRanks)To find good ideas for dividend stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

Link:
Boston Artisan Launches App to Revolutionize the Game of Chess - Yahoo Finance

Levon Aronian, Boris Gelfand and Peter Leko are among the active players who have made it into the Top 50 players of all time. The exciting part begins when Jan Gustafsson and Peter Heine Nielsen begin ranking their picks for the Top 20 best players!

In a video series for chess24, Magnus Carlsen seconds Jan Gustafsson and Peter Heine Nielsen took on the impossible task of ranking The Top 50 Greatest Players of All Time.

The series is available for free for Premium members as the duo gradually reveal their Hall of Fame, discussing each and every player on the list and ranking them among the greats.

Get40% off Premium-membershipwith the code NORWAY40

Since we left off with #46 Gata Kamsky in our previous article, the grandmasters have now made it to number 23, Akiba Rubinstein.

Among the active players who made the list are Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand and Levon Aronian.

About Aronian, Peter Heine said:

He is someone by strength who very much belongs to the world hall of fame. It was Kasparov who said that the chess world is just a more beautiful place when Aronian plays better. In a sporting sense, he has managed everything like winning tournaments and world cups, but when it really comes down to the world championship cycle, he hasn't quite made it.

The Armenian number 1 is among many who apparently have strong opinions on who belongs in the hall of fame.

The series has received widespread feedback on social media and in the comments, which is likely to increase when we get to the top spots.

Peter Heine Nielsen said they are pleased with the feedback from fans received so far.

We are very happy with how the series has been received. Both towards the level of interest, but also the more critical parts. We very much hoped for debate and are pleased to see the interest in historical figures as well as how knowledgable people are.

The series also drew some criticism by an author who questioned using Chessmetrics ratings as the basis of the list.

On this, Peter commented:

The Dane can't promise fans any surprises for the next 20 on the list.

Top 20 by logic probaby will have few surprises of who the players are, but their ranking most likely will! Very much looking forward to more debate!

Here is the list so far:

See also:

Go here to see the original:
Countdown to the Greatest Player of All Time - chess24

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a lot of peoples interests online, whether thats playing Dungeons & Dragons over Zoom or taking virtual workout classes. But at least one of these interests, online chess, dates back at least 1,000 years. Why is playing chess online so popular?

You love badass games. So do we. Let's play together.

Chess is a deceptively simple gameeasy to learn, but hard to master, as one adage goeswhere each player has 16 pieces. These are eight pawns, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and a king and queen. The board has 64 squares, like a checkerboard, and is easy to refer to using a classic grid notation system used in maps and even the game Battleship: A, B, C, ... along one axis and 1, 2, 3, ... along the other.

What this all means is that in order to play a game of chess online, you can work with two players who each have a complete chess set and send moves in word form. Even for the pawns, which are identical, players say knights pawn, bishops pawn, and so forth. That means the earliest online chess players were able to do the same thing: noting moves using grid notation and relative terms for their pieces.

Many of the most masterful chess games require very few moves, compared with how amateurs tend to play. High-level chess players think many steps ahead and can often telescope what their opponents will decide to do. And since each piece has a restriction, like pawns that can only move one square unless its their first move and take other pieces only diagonally, chess is a popular subject for study by game theorists, statisticians, combinatoricians, and more.

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The mathematical nature of the moves has made chess a popular thing to program, and chess-playing artificial intelligence has advanced beyond human players in key ways. A computer first beat a human in 1996, and after a few high-profile incidents, chess tournaments are kept very secure to prevent any kind of computer-aided cheating. Chess engines can run in tandem and give insights as viewers watch major chess matches online.

For a long time, people playing chess online in predecessor systems like bulletin boards could exchange short strings of characters that indicated their moves. You can do this with just lettersK for king, Q for queen, and so forthwith N for knight, since K is already in use.

But online chess players, at least, have had another option since at least 1995, when documentation from Unicode confirms the chess pieces were part of the character set likely from the very first version of Unicode. Like card suits, logic and math notation, and certain map and public safety symbols, the people who designed computer fonts knew users were likely to need these special characters to put into newspaper chess columns, for example, or for the actual printing of maps without separate typesetting.

Today, that means almost any online chess arena can introduce full notation with all pieces represented in their real grid. That means games can be pretty low-techno one needs plug-ins or rendered artwork, and exchanging moves is only a few technical steps past sending them back and forth in emails or even the mail. And when much of online chess takes the form of speed matches played in 3 or even 1 minute (!), the less technical overhead, the better.

If you want to wade into online chess, check out Chess.com for both games and a ton of lessons and help as you get started. The Free Internet Chess Server dates back decades, with browser games and an option to download their app. And Lichess, which is "just" 10 years old, is an open-source chess platform that hosts a million games a day.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

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Chess Online: How to Play and Win Chess | Chess Tips & Strategies - Popular Mechanics

In a recent meeting at the St. Louis Chess Club, a key question was asked: When can we return to over-the-board tournaments? Chess players, always eager to test their mettle in competition, have made do with online play, but there is nothing quite like planning your attack while sitting across from your opponent.

Following CDC guidelines and state and local requirements is a must. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of all members of our community. With that in mind, we decided to test the waters, as long as our tournaments have no more than eight competitors and the event concludes in under two hours. The club recruited its first field of eight participants for the Secret Action Quads, the online edition of the longstanding Friday Action Quads.

For the first time since March, the clocks began to run at the St. Louis Chess Club. As the name would imply, quads are tournaments in which players are divided into groups of four. To keep the pace lively, players had a little over 20 minutes to finish each round. Our eight players were ready for battle.

In a contentious fight in the first quad, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo and his opponent, Michael Pugachev, each had five seconds left. Orlando, with just a bishop and knight on the board, was helplessly trying to deliver the toughest checkmate in chess. Pugachev was keeping his king out of the corner and doing his best to force a draw but unfortunately ran out of time and lost the game. He quickly quipped, Do you even know how to checkmate with a bishop and knight? Orlando just smiled and said, "Guess we'll never know, but I'll gladly take the win on time. Orlando went on to sweep the competition and take first place that evening.

In the second quad, STLCC staff member Tracee Stewart dominated the competition. Tracee has been a regular host of weekly free chess lessons available on the STLChessClub Twitch and STLChessClubYouTube Channel during the pandemic. She gave a warm welcome to the visitor Bruce Brodly with an astounding checkmate. Tracee essayed an opening novelty on Ben Simon, the clubs videographer and producer, and capped off the wonderful night by defeating Michael Pugachevs mother, Lucy, who was making her tournament debut. Tracee also won $36 and a slew of rating points.

While it was a little tough to gauge your opponent through a mask and a Plexiglas barrier, it was refreshing to play a human eye-to-eye instead of across the internet void. Win or lose, everyone went home happy and enjoyed the camaraderie that live chess brings to the table.

For more information about upcoming programs and events (both in person and online) at the St. Louis Chess Club, please visit - saintlouischessclub.org/events.

Mike Kummer is an International Arbiter and assistant manager at the St. Louis Chess Club. He has worked at the Chess Club since its grand opening in 2008.

Read more:
On Chess: Returning To Over The Board Chess Tournaments - St. Louis Public Radio