Greenpoint Chess and Go Club

"I am still a victim of Chess. It has all the beauty of art and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position"

—Marcel Duchamp

Dansend op Schaakbord | Edgard Heirman | source

Since last week's puzzle was a bit too easy, this beaut was provided by Greg to keep y'all sharp.

White to move and draw

Add a comment to this post with your solution. I'll buy a beer for the first person to correctly solve the problem next Tuesday, during our regular session at Matchless.

Hobbs Gambit

While studying Bird's Opening (and discussing variations), I ran across this offbeat one, which immediately made me think of Greg. I don't think I'd play it, though, and I doubt he would either, but here it is regardless:

Another aggressive (but much rarer) response is 1. … g5?!, the Hobbs Gambit, with play usually continuing 2. fxg5 h6, a sort of mirror-image Benko Gambit. White can simply return the pawn with 3. g6, leaving Black with a weakened king-side after 3. … fxg6. A variant is the Hobbs-Zilbermints Gambit, 1. … h6 intending 2. … g5; against this, White does well with 2. e4 g5 3. d4!

Source: Wikipedia

Related tags: birds, benko-gambit, gambits, hobbs-gambit

via the New York City Chess Meetup:

Come out for a game [or two or three] of chess!!!

Thursday, June 21st at 7pm at Fat Cat, New York City's MOST FULLY-EQUIPPED GAMING CENTER! They sell drinks [coffee, alcohol, etc] and light snacks.

It's only $1 per person to play chess and if you want to take a break and partake in other activities, there are plenty of other options.

Please note that it's free admission before 7:30 and $3 thereafter.

"Named New York's best pool hall by New York magazine, Fat Cat offers a wide variety of gaming entertainment choices, including billiards, ping pong, shuffleboard, foosball, chess & checkers, backgammon, scrabble, and more.

Fat Cat's enormous space is equipped with 12 pool tables, 7 ping pong tables, 3 shuffleboard tables, 3 foosball machines, and enough chess (with time clocks), checkers, backgammon, and scrabble sets to satisfy a crowd.

→ RSVP

Thursday, 21 June 2007 | 7pm
Fat Cat
75 Christopher at 7th Avenue
New York, NY 10014
212.675.6056
$1 per person

While searching for the Village Chess Shop's address the other day, I found this charming article by Steve Zeitlin on New York's epicenter of chess, the West Village. As much as I enjoyed reading it, though, I couldn't help but think that maybe the epicenter of New York chess is about to leave Manhattan and move east into Brooklyn. One of us should write an article on the endless [and epic] games occurring at Eat and Matchless…

Flushed with victory after the world championships in 1972 (a championship that presaged nothing less that the American victory in the Cold War) Grand Master Bobby Fischer, who many consider the greatest chess player of all time, declared that he would use his fame and celebrity to promote the art of chess. In an extravagant moment, he promised to build a house in the shape of a chess piece: a castle (rook) with a spiral staircase. Then, for reasons that every chess player speculates freely upon, but which only he himself knows, Bobby Fischer disappeared from view and never kept any of those promises. But his image of a magnificent castle in the shape of a chess piece with a winding staircase is an apt metaphor for chess in New York, where he began as a child playing in the parks. His victories made New York City an epicenter for chess in the Americas. The current epicenter of chess in the City spans a small geographic area of the West Village, beginning at the fifteen concrete tables set in the southwest corner of Washington Square Park. From there, it's a short walk to the two "warring chess clubs"—the Chess Forum and the Village Chess Shop on Thompson Street—and then up to the lofty recesses set aside for the most serious players, Marshall"s Chess Club on West 10th Street.

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Black to move and win in two moves

Add a comment to this post with your solution. I'll buy a beer for the first person to correctly solve the problem next Tuesday, during our regular session at Matchless.

DiagTransfer screenshot

What every chess blogger is looking for, right? A free, easy-to-use piece of chess diagramming software that produces attractive diagrams. While I haven't made an exhaustive sweep of the field, based on cost, usability, and output, I recommend DiagTransfer, freeware for Windows 2000/Windows XP by Alain Blaisot.

Within minutes of downloading and installing the program, I was able to produce a good-looking diagram and save it as either .png or .jpg [both web-suitable formats]. While this was my primary reason for getting the program, I was also interested in its ability to "tranfer" diagrams "by setting the DiagTransfer window in semi-transparent mode and resizing a board on the diagram to be copied. At this point, you have only to trace the pieces—no need to remember piece locations!"

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Our blog now features a combined chess feed built using Pipes. We're currently aggregating Gambit and The Kenilworthian, but if anyone reads another chess blog that must be part of our combined feed, please leave a comment. Thanks!

The New York Go Center is trying something a little different for their June handicap tournament. While top players vie for Ing Masters points upstairs, the Center will conduct a "self-paired" tournament in the main playing area.

In a self-paired tournament, the TD will pair the first round. As players finish, they will consult a posted list of other available players and either play a game with any player within range or add their names to the list. AGA rules and Fischer timing [18/15] will be used in this tournament; the entry fee is $15. Register by 10 AM to be guaranteed a prize.

The self-paired format is perfect for players who are new to the tournament scene; you're expected to keep things moving and get at least four games in, but at your own pace. Between games, have a look at the "big time" upstairs, watch Board 1 on KGS in the lounge, enjoy the garden, browse the bookstore, or read something from the library.

10 June 2007
New York Go Center
$15

This review of Michael Weinreb's book, The Kings of New York:
A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team, was originally published by the New York Times on 4 March 2007 and is authored by James Kaplan.

Approximately one million years ago, when I was in my early teens, I briefly dipped a toe into the world of competitive chess. Much of the action in those days (the mid-1960s) took place in the old Henry Hudson Hotel on West 57th Street: I sharply remember the deep hush in the second-floor ballroom on tournament Sundays, the long tables lined with green-and-cream-squared oilcloth boards, the soft ticking of a hundred chess clocks amid the miasma of deep thought. On the walls of the Manhattan Chess Club, also in the hotel, hung black-and-white glossies of visiting greats: Reshevsky. Denker. And, of course, with his plaid shirt buttoned to the neck, his long haughty nose and basilisk stare, the boy genius Bobby Fischer.

Fischer was my ideal, the towering prodigy who at 13 had destroyed one of America's top players in a match called "The Game of the Century." He was brilliant and merciless, withering in his scorn for lesser players (which meant all other players), whom he called "weakies"—also known as "patzers" or "fish." (Soon enough, I would discover that far, far down the chess food chain, one of the fish, or rather minnows, was me.)

Chess was an exclusively masculine world, and largely adolescent. Fischer's boyhood style—call it nerd-macho—still set the tone when I played: shirts buttoned all the way up were in evidence, as were eyeglasses repaired with Scotch tape. Yet rather than haplessness or distraction, the quality most characteristic of chess nerds was ferocity. However awkwardly they might navigate the outside world, over the board they were killers.

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If you're interested in Go, The New York Go Center is interested in you! Please take a moment to visit their new online database and plug yourself in. Tell them about yourself and if you would like to help them build a viable community of players at "the crossroads of the Go world.".

Supposedly this Squidoo lens "keeps track of all the chess blogs out there," but it seems pretty short for such an ambitious goal [it does mention the Kenilworthian, though].

I just added a comment requesting that our humble blog be added to their illustrious list, but, in the meantime, check out Takchess Chess Improvement, where a Novice chessplayer works to get better at chess using an improvement program based upon the methods of Michael de la Maza and the teachings of Dan Heisman.

Thanks, Greg, for telling me about this amazing chess blog—you're right, it's replete with well-written, reasoned, and extensive analysis. And, of course, the first post I see on my first visit is about a new French site dedicated to the Nimzovich. Any possibility you'd care to translate?

Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria won the M-Tel Masters for the third time [3/3] by beating Krishnan Sasikiran of India in the last round. Final standings of M-Tel: Topalov, 5.5; Sasikiran, Kamsky, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, 5; Adams, 4.5. Games from the tournament can be replayed here at the tournament's Web site.

→ read more

Gambit, the New York Times chess blog, was started on 13 May 2007 to coincide with the United States Chess Championship in Stillwater, Oklahoma. It will cover tournaments and events, trends, and developments.

→ read Gambit

Double elimination tournament. Experience, prizes, and bragging rights. Top three winners will choose from either $100 cash, Embora services, or dinner for two at Soule restaurant. Registration fee is $13. Register soon, because space is limited. Register at 718.857.4360.

Sunday, 27 May 2007
1:30–5 pm
Embora Fitness and Movement Studio
900 Fulton St, Brooklyn [map]

After last night, I'm happy to say we're finally the Greenpoint Chess and Go Club. While Greg and I played Chess, Rae and Jackee played Go and a fine evening was had by all.

Rae and Jackee appeared fairly matched, but my game was even more amateurish than usual and Greg spent the night trouncing me. Game after game, he smashed my openings, denied my castle, and scythed my pieces. It was straight brutal, sir.

I think it's time to hit the MCO…

The Brooklyn Speed Chess Meetup plays five-minute blitz every Friday at 7 pm. Everyone is welcome, but bring a board and clock if you have one. Membership is $1/per week—join the group for the location.
→ more info

It appears that the New York City Chess Meetup Group hasn't met since March. However (when/if they play again) everyone is welcome on all levels—novice, intermediate or advanced. The most important thing is to enjoy the games, learn something new, and hopefully meet nice people.
→ more info

[in homage to this week's opening, the Queen's Gambit]

At the end of the 15^th century, the rules underwent a sudden sea change. The queen transformed from the weakest piece on the board to the strongest [consequently modern chess was referred to as "Queen"s Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess".]! At the same time, the bishop became the long-range piece that it is today. These changes quickened the game's pace. The battle was intensified. Mistakes were harshly punished, tabiyas [midgame starting positions to speed up the game] were no longer necessary, and violent checkmates were executed much more often than before. The inventor of these changes is unknown; probably the new rules were not thought up by an individual, but came about from collective experimentation. These new rules were standardized by the 16^th century advent of mass production and the printing press. The faster paced game was more suitable for organized play, chess notation, codified rules, and strategy books.

source :: USCF Chess History

another one from Crystalpunk:

[Wilfried] just found one of the first books on Go published in the west. It is called Go and Go-Moku, the Oriental Board Games, was written by Edward Lasker and first published in 1937. Dover Press keeps it in print. The preface contains enough fascinating bits for me to type and quote it here: it explains how Go reached the west, it discusses its reception here, it shows that the "wisdom" around Go was introduced to the west together with the actual game, and even gives a glimpse of how the West thought about the East at that time. …

Excerpts from the preface to Go and Go-Moku, Preface to First Edition:

I learned to play Go in 1907 while studying at the University of Berlin, where I has occasion to watch Japanese students in their leisure hours engage in the game with astounding perseverance and passion. At first I scoffed at their claim that Go was comparable in depth to our game of Chess. On second thought, however, I realized that my Occidental pride was quite unfounded, because chess, after all, was also an Oriental game. I studied Go without prejudice and actually became one of its ardent apostles.

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after a long hiatus, i recently returned to Crystalpunk [formerly social fiction] to learn the latest about psychogeography—to my surprise i discovered chess and go instead!

A hand colored engraving by Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the famous "Gibson Girl." Title is "The Greatest Game in the World: His Move." It depicts a young couple facing each other across a chess board, too wrapped up in the romance of the moment to concentrate on the game. [Obviously Mr. Gibson wasn't a chess player, because no true player would ever be too wrapped up by a lover to concentrate on the game!] From Prints Old & Rare.

via Crystalpunk

The Queen's Gambit is one of the oldest known chess openings, as Lucena wrote about it in 1497 and it is mentioned in the earlier Göttingen manuscript. During the early period of modern chess, queen pawn openings were not in fashion, and the Queen's Gambit did not become common until the 1873 tournament in Vienna. As Steinitz and Tarrasch developed chess theory and increased the appreciation of positional play, the Queen's Gambit grew more popular. It reached its peak popularity in the 1920s and 1930s and was played in 32 out of 34 games in the 1934 World Chess Championship. Since then Black has increasingly moved away from symmetrical openings, tending to use the Indian defences to combat queen pawn openings. The Queen's Gambit is still frequently played, however, and it remains an important part of many grandmasters' opening repertoires.

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ChessGames.com has 2,357 Scotch Games in their database spanning the years 1770 through 2007. White wins 35.5% of the time, Black wins 28.9% of the time, and it's a draw 35.6% of the time [hence the Scotch's reputation as drawish?]. As an opening, it appears to have peaked in popularity during the 1870s.