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A showdown between Britain's world heavyweight kings Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury is too close to call due to their history as sparring partners.

That is the opinion of veteran American heavyweight Kevin Johnson, who went the distance with reigning WBC champion Fury in a December 2012 points loss, before suffering a second-round knockout defeat to now unified IBF, WBA and WBO beltholder Joshua two-and-a-half years later.

Fury is seen by many as the man to beat in the division, still unbeaten in 31 contests and coming off the back of a career-best demolition of feared knockout artist Deontay Wilder in February.

Joshua's stock took a considerable hit when he was stunned by Andy Ruiz Jr another former Johnson foe last June but he responded in style by closing out an emphatic points verdict in an instant rematch.

The 2012 Olympic champion was due to face Kubrat Pulev at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this month before the coronavirus pandemic laid waste to those plans, meaning talk of a long-awaited meeting between Joshua and Fury has duly ramped up.

Back in 2010, a 20-year-old Joshua sparreda 21-year-old Fury in London. In remarks far removed from more recentsmack talk, both were complimentary about the other's efforts.

Johnson is a seasoned campaigner across some of the most notable gyms in the sport and served as a sparring partner as Joshua and Fury also did for former unified champion Wladimir Klitschko.

Speaking to Stats Perform News, he explained those lessons learned underneath headguards from a decade ago will not have left either man.

"They've got history, they know each other," he explained, before pointing towards Joshua's rollercoaster win over a veteran Klitschko at Wembley three years ago.

"It won't go the way people think it will go. It's just like when Wladimir fought Anthony Joshua.

"They had history, we all had history because we all used to go to Austria and spar together. That was the central hub for all great fighters who wanted to get in with great fighters.

"AJ and Klitschko had history, Fury and AJ got history. If they never had history then I know who I would bet my money on, but they have history and they know what to look for, what to expect and what not to expect. The strengths, the weaknesses, the speed, the power they know that already.

"That's the thing about us fighters. We need each other for great sparring but then we've got to mess around and fight each other. It's a gift and a curse.

"If someone knows you and you know that person it's a game of chess. I know your moves, I know how you are, how fast you move your pieces on the board, I know how distracting this could be and you know the same about me. So how can you say who's better?

"It's the type of fight, just like Klitschko and AJ at Wembley. I was there and I couldn't bet a dollar because I knew they knew each other."

Nevertheless, there seems little doubt where Johnson's loyalties would lie if the blockbuster bout comes to pass.

After facing Fury, he became well acquainted with 'The Gypsy King' and his fighting family most notably his cousin and fellow heavyweight Hughie Fury and uncle and former trainer Peter Fury.

"The Furys are my favourite team in the whole world. Not only did they open their gym up to me, they opened their home up to me," Johnson recalled. "Those arethe most humbling stories.

"When I had the fight coming up with Anthony Joshua, Peter called me and said come on over and they'd help me out.

"We were running every morning, one hour uphill on a road in Bolton. We did everything together.

"I had Tyson Fury, I had Hughie Fury. I was sparring with everyone.

"If anybody ever says anything about Furys, they've got a problem with me."

Johnson will fight fellow former world-title challenger Mariusz Wach at a behind-closed-doors event in Poland next Friday, as boxing emerges from the COVID-19 shutdown.

Link:
Joshua v Fury is a chess match - Former foe Johnson unsure who would win British blockbuster - Yahoo Sports

Beginning June 2, Titled Tuesday will be part of the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prixas a direct path to qualify for the 2020 Speed Chess Championship. The SCC GP is presented by Gambit,where you can in classic games like Reversi, Backgammon and Oh Ship by playing with players from around the world! Over the next five months, titled players around the world will earn grand prix points each week to inch closer to one of four coveted spots in the Speed Chess Championship.

Titled Tuesdays will have a $50,000 prize fund spanning 20 weeks, and will take place every Tuesday from June 2 through October 13. As an enhancement to the existing Titled Tuesday format, the 10-round Swiss tournament will now be followed by an eight player bracket to award bonus points and cash prizes.

With $2,500 in cash prizes available every week, players will look to improve their season score, as their eight best individual performances and all bonus points will count towards the Speed Chess Championship Titled Tuesday standings. At the end of the season, the players with the four best grand prix scores will advance to the Speed Chess Championship to be hosted later this year.

Players that win at least one of the twenty Titled Tuesday events but fail to finish in the top four will receive an automatic invite to a special qualification event, which will award one spot to the Speed Chess Championship this fall.

As a Fair Play measure, all competitors in this event are required to have their full legal name in their Chess.com profile. Anonymous titled player accounts or accounts found to be using a fake name will not be eligible to win prizes or earn points during the event.

All players are to abide by all rules and site policies found at Chess.com/agreement and cooperate fully with Chess.com's fair play detection team. Participants should be prepared to join a ZOOM call for proctoring at the arbiter's discretion.

You can find quick links to important event information below:

Like Titled Tuesday, Chess.com will offer special cash prizes for streamers every week during the event.For tips on how to stream your games and the best ways to get more viewers, see these articles:

Identification Requirements and Fair Play:

If your account is further convicted of fair-play violations, your account will be closed and you will be subject to Chess.com's private proceedings. You can find here more information on Chess.com's Fair Play and Cheat Detection methods.

Format:

Speed Chess Championship Titled Tuesday:

Chess.com reserves the right to shift an event's start time should it conflict with another event.

Titled Tuesday Post-Tournament Bracket:

An example of the KO bracket format can be found below:

Tournament information and details regarding the special qualification event will be released later this summer as the end of the Speed Chess Championship Titled Tuesday approaches.

This qualifier will see one top Titled Tuesday performer qualify directly into the Speed Chess Championship due to their clutch performance finishing first in one of the 20 Titled Tuesday events.

All players must identify themselves in their Chess.com profile to win prizes. This must be done before the first round starts.See further requirements above.

Cash prizes are distributed among the top eight players, pending participation in the Titled Tuesday Post-Tournament Bracket.

Leaderboard Points

Points will be awarded to the top finishers each week. All players who finish in the top 20 during each Titled Tuesday (including players tied for 20th place) will earn points based on their score out of ten rounds. With each win being worth one point, and each draw being worth half a point, this means a player cannot earn more than 10 points in any given Titled Tuesday.

The top eight players that advance to the post-tournament bracket can earn additional points on top of what they earned in Titled Tuesday. Players earn two points for reaching the quarterfinals, four points for reaching the semifinals, eight points for finishing second place, and 12 points for winning the event.

Throughout the season, a player's Titled Tuesday grand prix score is comprised of a combination of select Titled Tuesday performances and post-tournament bracket points. Each player's eight best Titled Tuesday performances will be added together for their Swiss grand prix score. All additional points earned during the post-tournament bracket will be added to each player's Titled Tuesday score to determine their total Titled Tuesday grand prix points.

This means that while a player's final score can only include eight Titled Tuesday performances, they can earn additional post-tournament bracket points from more than eight events.

Tune into this Tuesday's all-new Titled Tuesday onChess.com/tvbeginning this upcoming Tuesday, June 2 at 10 am PT.

Gambit is the best place to get rated playing your favorite classic games! Check out Gambit.com and play reversi, backgammon, oh ship and more today.

Follow this link:
Titled Tuesday Is Now The Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix - Chess.com

Teacher Chalkboard

from Professional Educators of Tennessee

By JC Bowman,

Executive Director

In chess, each player begins the game with the same 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The most powerful chess piece is the queen, and the least powerful piece is the pawn. The object is to capture your opponents king. To reach this objective, a players pieces are used to attack and capture your opponents pieces, while at the same time supporting your own pieces and protecting your king.

Politics and public policy are like chess. Unlike chess, politics is not a polite and gentle game. In fact, politics is a blood sport in many circles, where victors vanquish their foes. It isnt as if this is some current phenomena either; Yale University historian Joanne B. Freeman writes in her book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, that 19th-century House and Senate members were a rough crowd. Freeman states they were frequently drunk, often armed, and quick to take offense and political disagreements regularly turned physical.

It could be reasoned that today is mild in comparison, but I am also not certain we are far from the actions of our ancestors; we have simply traded weapons for keyboards. It is worth remembering that you cannot make friends of your enemies by making enemies of your friends. Too often politicians do not understand their own base of support and lose their followers. It may be from clinging too long to wrong ideas, or not engaging directly with people who may share similar ideas but offer differing approaches to solutions.

Morton Blackwell summarizes political conflict this way: To succeed inside a political party, one must cultivate an ability to sit still and remain polite while foolish people speak nonsense.

That is probably easier said than done.

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius had two rules in dealing with differing opinions: The first rule was to keep an untroubled spirit. The second was to look things in the face and know them for what they are. In other words, dont be bothered by opposing ideas and keep to your principles. We are all shaken by circumstances and frightened by challenges. No person, no organization, nor any political party has all the answers.

I would argue that civility actually matters in politics.

Ravi Zacharias nailed this issue when he said: respect for the right of another to be wrong does not mean that the wrong is right.

We need more statesmanship in our world. Statesmanship is not just playing the game of politics well, but making that very game possible.

Wendell Coats describes statesmanship as an activity directed toward securing the conditions for politics to occur, as the basis for agreement about general courses of action, and for moderate reconciliation of differences among fellow citizens.

The same is true in public policy we must account for differing opinions.

Good policy is intertwined with good politics. Never personalize the issue. Instead of screaming at each other from opposite sides of the political spectrum, imagine policies focused on helping those it is designed to help. When it comes to dealing with COVID-19 Pandemic issues, taking a long-range view, as we have on other policy issues, will require years of fiscal discipline, policy prudence, and deep community engagement. In education policy, we have to maintain funding for public education, which gives impetus to our economy. It is good policy, as well as good politics.

Choose your battles carefully in politics, and fight for what really matters. Not every issue or personnel matter is important; however, it is true personnel is policy, because the people you place in leadership roles make decisions that either support or hurt your agenda. While we should strive to have a diversified group of people to help build consensus, it does not serve the public to have a contentious leader in charge of an area that makes you lose ground in policy areas, or with your political base. Every problem in politics or public policy requires your time, energy, and political capital.

Sally Percy, writing in Forbes Magazine, asks a very thoughtful question leaders must always ask: Is this your battle to fight?

In discussing chess, Rudolph Spielmann writes about the goal: Play the opening like a book, the middlegame like a magician, and the endgame like a machine.

Chess is a journey of pain, sacrifices, determination, and triumph. It can be argued that it mirrors the public policy process. Just like politics, you may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win.

JC Bowman is executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Nashville.

Original post:
Playing chess with public policy | Schools - Overton County News

The prodigy, whose family fled Boko Haram, is climbing the ranks amid an internet chess boom

Jun 5th 2020

THERE ARE plenty of reasons why Tanitoluwa Adewumi captured the worlds attention in March 2019 after winning the New York State chess championship in his age group. Nine-year-old Tani was living in a Manhattan homeless shelter. And he was a refugee. Tanis family had fled northern Nigeria and sought asylum in America in 2017 after being threatened by Boko Haram, a jihadist group. Oh, one more thing: when Tani took home the state championship trophy, he had been playing for only a year. It is little wonder his inspiring story is already the subject of three books (the first was published on April 14th) and a film.

But the story doesnt end there. Tani is getting better. Chess players are ranked by the United States Chess Federation and the World Chess Federation using the Elo system. Named after Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor and chess enthusiast, Elo ratings are based on a players performance in matches, and the skill level of their opponents, according to a mathematical formula. A beginner typically scores 800, an average player 1500 and a professional 2200. Grandmasters score above 2500. After his win a year ago, Tani was rated at 1587, or 20th among eight-year-olds in America. Today he is rated at 2059, number three among players his age, and on track to be number one. In the past year, his rating has increased twice as fast as that of the two peers above him (see chart).

Tanis following could grow in the coming months. With conventional sport cancelled, chess, which can be played online, has enjoyed a boost in popularity. Chess.com, a website devoted to the sport, has seen its traffic more than double in the past few months. On Twitch, a video-streaming platform where users watch each other play video games, Hikaru Nakamura, an American super-grandmaster with a rating of 2,827, regularly draws audiences in the tens of thousands. His channel, where he competes against other grandmasters, has seen a 900% increase in viewers since February.

Whether Tani will one day join the ranks of the chess elite is hard to say. His dream is to become the worlds youngest grandmaster. But to achieve that status he must score three strong finishes in ultra-competitive tournaments, which were limited even before the pandemic. The current record-holder, Sergey Karjakin, a super-grandmaster widely considered among the best in the world, reached the milestone at 12 years and 7 months. To compete with the best, players need grit as well as talent; they study intensely, memorising opening-move orders and end-game sequences. But one year after his tournament win, Tani has not strayed from his path: from homeless refugee to master of the game of kings.

The rest is here:
A nine-year-old aims to be the youngest chess grandmaster ever - The Economist

New England Patriots, Devin McCourty, Patrick Chung (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)

The New England Patriots experienced a good amount of loss on the defensive side of the ball during 2020 free agency. The turnover in personnel combined with limited salary cap space to sign replacements has many wondering how the team will move forward for the upcoming season.

In particular, the team lost two starting linebackers in Kyle Van Noy and Jamie Collins and has yet to replace them. However, if you look closer at the teams roster and the moves they have made, their path forward seems clear. The Patriots are planning to utilize their safeties as their new chess pieces on defense.

The Patriots core group of safeties begins with Devin McCourty and Patrick Chung. Both are experienced veterans who have been with the team for ten seasons and have won three Super Bowl championships. They both often serve as additional coaches on the field due to their years of experience in the Patriots defensive system.

The team also is bringing back Terrence Brooks, who mainly appeared on special teams but played in spots during the 2019 regular season. His added familiarity with the system should help provide depth at safety.

McCourty plays a deep free safety role for the team and Chung often plays a hybrid safety linebacker role. Chungs role, in particular, is how the team can overcome the loss of their linebackers during the offseason.

He often plays closer to the line of scrimmage and can hold up against the run while also covering running backs and tight ends in pass coverage. He was injured quite a bit last season and Brooks often played in his place to mixed reviews. Chung was recently given an extension so his roster spot should be secure, but the team brought in some reinforcements in case he struggles with injuries again in 2020.

Adrian Phillips was signed after eight seasons with the Los Angeles Chargers. Like Chung, he has shown the versatility in his career to play the hybrid linebacker/safety role while also playing up on the line of scrimmage in his career. He provides insurance for Chung while also potentially providing an added wrinkle of both being on the field at the same time against some of the mobile quarterbacks the team will be facing during the season.

The team also drafted Kyle Dugger in the second round of the 2020 NFL draft. Dugger was the teams first pick of the draft and he is the future of the safety position for the Patriots.

Even as a rookie, Dugger offers more size than both Chung and Phillips and, depending on his understanding of the defense, he could become the true wildcard of the defense. He could truly be the hybrid linebacker the team utilizes at all times with his size while also having the speed to play the deep field if necessary.

The team will still utilize McCourty in the deep half of the field for coverage and he has the ability to play receivers one-on-one when called upon due to his experience as a cornerback. Similar to this, the team has asked second-year corner Joejuan Williams to learn the safety position and concepts this offseason in an effort to get him on the field more.

Williams is the tallest secondary player on the team, and his length could be helpful against taller receivers and even tight ends. If he can show an ability to adapt to safety and play the run, he could be utilized as an added weapon against teams who prefer to use spread formations to create offensive mismatches.

The Patriots will be playing multiple mobile quarterbacks this season including Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilsonand Kyler Murray. They also will see Patrick Mahomes during the season. Jackson and Watson in particular offered questions the team could not answer during matchups last season.

It is possible Bill Belichick will utilize his safeties to provide the answers during this seasons matchups. Wilson and Murray are similar and if you have players capable of chasing them down while also able to cover their quicker and faster players down the field, you may have the answers to this test.

All of these teams like to utilize their quarterbacks ability to break the pocket and make big plays down the field. The team may be able to help contain receivers and quarterbacks with this group of extra defensive backs while also still holding up against the running game.

Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots have always looked for an edge with personnel other teams may be missing. They have long valued positional versatility so teams are unsure of what they are going to do on any given play. This season with the linebacker situation unsettled it appears the value will be at the safety position.

It also seems like this is a response to all of the mobile quarterbacks they will be facing during the upcoming season. Belichick often makes some of his personnel decisions with the upcoming schedule in mind. This may not be the plan forever, but he will use it to counteract the freelancing he will see during 2020. It will be exciting to see how it works out.

See the original post:
New England Patriots: Safeties will be chess pieces in 2020 - NFL Spin Zone