Archive for the ‘Chess Blog’ Category
Youngest Filipino Chessmaster gets title at 7 years old!
Fide Master Alekhine Nouri
Most kids at 7 years old are watching TV or playing outside, but not youthful Chessmaster Master Alekhine Nouri. He spends his time learning about chess from books and practicing his skils.
“Our daily routine features 10 hours of training; no computer games, no TV. We only ease up on Sundays,” the chess prodigy’s father and personal coach Hamed Nouri said in Filipino.
Alekhine won the title of FIDE Chess Master only 2 years after learning the game. He is the youngest FIDE Master in the world!
Brothers in Idaho Help Each Other Become Awesome in Chess!
Two Brothers are ranked the 1st and 2nd top chess players in Idaho, which isn’t such a huge surprise. The real surprise is that one of them is only 14!
Why play chess?
Some pretty cool people have played chess. Why join their ranks?
Millions of people all over the planet play chess, but why should you learn to play chess?
Here are a few reasons that I thought of:
- Chess is an ancient game and its cool to think that chess was played by kings and queens hundreds of years ago.
- You can play chess online with people all across the world.
- Chess a workout for your brain
- You can improve your life by applying the skills that you learn in the chess.
- Chess been played on all continents on the earth for over 1500 years.
- Chess keeps kids out of trouble and gives them a positive hobby to pursue.
- Chess never becomes outdated.
- Chess is a game where age makes no difference; its fair to have a 10 year old play a 80 year old.
- Chess is FUN!
- The size of the players makes no difference in chess; a 4 foot person can play a 7 foot person and still have it be a fair game.
- You can play chess against the computer.
- You can play chess in a park outside.
- You can play chess on a rainy day inside.
- You can play chess at the beach.
- You can play chess at the pool.
- You can play chess while waiting for an airplane or a train.
- You can play chess in a restaurant.
- You can play chess at the library.
- Chess challenges your brain and makes you smarter.
- You can play chess blindfolded in you mind.
- You can play correspondence chess and mail your moves one at a time to your partner, with games that takes years.
- Chess is a fun thing to do with your friends.
- Chess is a fun thing to do with your family.
- Chess is a great way to make new friends and meet cool people.
- Chess is not expensive.
- You can play chess fast with a clock.
- You can play a slow chess game with a clock.
- You can play chess without a clock and take your time.
- You can win money in chess tournaments.
- You can listen to music while playing chess.
- You can play many games of chess at the same time.
- Chess is always challenging, you can never “beat the game.”
- You can combine chess with other sports, like chessboxing or chessrunning.
- You can play chess with people that dont speak the same language as you.
- Chess develops memory and chess players almost never get Alzheimer.
- Chess inspires and motivates people in other aspects of their lives.
- Chess allows you to use your imagination.
- Chess improves your concentration.
- Really cool people in history have played chess.
- You can get a college scholarship for playing chess.
- You can get a job for playing chess.
- There are a lot of cool movies about chess.
- Chess helps kids improve their self esteem.
- You can play chess all your life.
- You can read many books about chess.
- Chess is a way for people to learn to practice self control.
- You can travel around the world playing in chess tournaments.
- Chess can teach people the value of patience.
- Chess is a great thing to do if your snowed in.
- You can learn a lot about yourself by playing chess.
2013 Illinois Grades K-8 Chess Championship Tournament
The 2013 Illinois K-8 Kids Chess Championship is a fun tournament, but also very competitive. The top youth players in the state gather here (in Normal, Illinois this year) and play some very good chess. It is a multi day chess tournament from March 9th - 10th.
This year’s Illinois k-8 Chess Championship is taking place at the Illinois State University Bone Student Center at 100 North University Street in Normal Illinois.
For more info about this chess tournament check out the tournament listing.
Chess Classes Beginning in St. Charles
St. Charles, MIssouri 2012
CheckMatesUSA is starting chess classes in St. Charles, Missouri. Classes will be available to Private Schools, Public School, Park Districts, Community Centers (JCC & YMCA) as well as Hospitals in the St. Charles Area.
Chess Classes are focused on teaching kids life skills through the game of chess. Skills like thinking ahead, considering consequences, and patience are taught in our chess classes. Kids pick them up in a fun way and are able to apply the skills they learn in chess to their lives.
If you are interested in starting a chess class at your school or would like more information, please contact us.
Chess Engines & When should kids use it
In modern life there are a lot of computer chess engines which help chess players to prepare their games in advance, and also to avoid inaccuracies. Chess engines are much strong then humans and nowadays it is impossible to defeat them. The average rating of the modern chess engine is about 3200 meanwhile number one chess player in the world Magnus Carlsen has 2872 according to February 2013 fide chess rankings.
Yet even tho chess engines help chess players to improve their chess, it also makes them lazy and dependent on it. Young kids try to use chess engines to analyze their games, while analyzing on the board helps them to develop chess skills and improve. Top Grand Masters and the majority of coaches suggest young players to use chess engines after they go over their games. There are some positions in chess in which it is really hard to understand what is going on on the board and it takes a lot of time to find the best solution. That’s where chess engines are necessary and useful. here you can find the latest chess engines released such as: Houdini 3, Rybka 4 and variety of engines.
Back to the days chess engines were not strong enough to outplay top players. The first match between a human and computer was held in February 1996 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue. The match finished with Kasparov’s victory 4-2 losing only one game. You can find detailed information about the match here
Teen Chess Prodigy from Kampala- Phiona Mutesi
Phiona Mutesi was hungry one day when she went to a mission for food. She learned how to play chess there is not an international chess champion. Its really one of the amazing things about chess, it has no geographic or economic borders. It doesn’t require a large budget or fancy equipment, but merely the will to study, practice, and get better.
At nine she stepped foot into the US-based Sports Outreach ministry to get some free porridge and began her journey to chess stardom. At this point she had dropped out of school and was selling corn on the streets.
“We were evicted out of our house because we couldn’t afford that money. So when I heard that, I was like, ‘maybe I can also get there to know about chess and then I get a cup of porridge’, because I was hungry [at] that time,” she explained.
Many people in Uganda have the impression that chess is a man’s sport. Phiona Mutesi proved them wrong, showing from the beginning that she is a chess prodigy. She talks about how growing up in the slums has had a unique and positive effect on her chess game.
“I very much believe that having gone through all they go through right from childhood, figuring out how to survive on a daily basis, they do easily identify themselves with the board because when they come to play, they have still to face challenges,” Katende noted. “Devise moves, think what will be the next step, what will come after that. Which I think somehow makes them understand it better.”
The kids in Uganda don’t have chess computers and books to study from. They learn from playing each other and trying to find the best moves in any given position. They play on used chess sets and the rest of their chess equipment is far from new. This makes their style of chess playing very unique. She talks about it when she says:
“No combinations, no memorizing lines, nothing whatsoever. It’s always, think at the situation and devise the best move. Many people actually lose games to these children, simply because of that, I believe,” said Katende. “Because they expect them to play certain lines, and they don’t. They end up playing their own game.”
This is very different than how most other chess players achieve such great heights in the game. They use a lot of help from their predecessors. They study books that other chess players have written and use computers that chess players and programmers have designed to analyze their games.
Best of luck to you Phiona, I look forward to seeing your further success! ESPN also did a special on her!
How to Play Chess Like an Animal
How to Play Chess like an Animal
Ever want to play chess like a gorilla? A bird? A wolf? Guess what! You can! There’s a chess opening called the Orangutan. It starts 1. b4 for white. It’s a nontraditional opening with an animal name. The Bird is another chess opening with an animal name (although it is actually just named after a man named bird.) It starts 1. f4. It is also a fairly nontraditional opening although it is played quite often at high levels of tournament chess. There are many chess openings named after animals.
Five time Colorado state chess champion, life-master Brian Wall and I are the co-authors of a colorful, illustrated children’s chess book called How to Play Chess Like an Animal. Animal chess openings are fun for kids to learn. We got the idea to write this book when we were both teaching chess in after school chess programs in Denver, Colorado. Brian used to get the kids all excited about chess by teaching them to play the Elephant Gambit. First he would tell these young kindergardeners and first graders to get up and swing their arm like an elephant trunk. Then he would teach them to make a sound like an elephant. Then he would teach them the Elephant Gambit. To see more about chess animal openings you can click on the link. Meanwhile, keep playing chess and don’t forget to have fun!
Carla Heredia Serrano from Ecuador win the PanAmerican Women’s Chess Championship -
My good friend Carla Heredia Serrano won the Panamerican Women’s Chess Championship which took place at the end of November in 2012. She played a dominating performance, going undefeated!
This is really cool for a few reasons. Carla now becomes a Women’s Grandmaster! This is the highest rank that a female chess player can achieve and she’s only 21! A full time student at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, she found time to study chess while keeping up great grades.
Carla is an inspiration to girls everywhere! She speaks three languages (Spanish, English, and German) and is studying to be a sports psychologist while traveling the world playing chess. She is from Ecuador and has traveled to over thirty countries including India, Hungary, Poland, Cuba, and Turkey.
I got to ask Carla a few questions about chess:
George: What is your favorite part of traveling for chess?
Carla: I love to get to know other cultures.I had the amazing opportunity to go sightseeing in so many countries. Chess has in life for 14 years and is more than a competitive sport to me. It has taught me to overcome barriers and perseverance in the face of many challenges.
3 vs. 3 Pawn Promotion Problem
When just learning how to play chess, it is important to begin to understand how to use multiple chess pieces together in combination. This doesn’t always mean different types of pieces and even with just pawns on the board a chess player can often calculate to find the best one. This is one of my favorite examples because it is simple enough that someone who just knows how to move pawns can solve it, but its complicated enough to show a beginners the beauty of using pieces together in combination.
Here we go: Imagine you have this position set up:
As you can see, both teams have only three pawns. and in this puzzle it is whites goal is to get to the other side with one pawn. How do you do this?
Give it a try first, the answer is below.
So how do we solve this problem? One important aspect is to look ahead into all the option, now just the obvious.
Lets start with the f5 pawn. If you move this pawn forward, how can black block white’s advance?
Black can just move his pawn to g6 from g7 and white cant do anything. So this doesn’t work. Lets move on.
If we move the g5 pawn to g6, is there any way to win?
The first thing to notice is that black must capture the pawn, or the pawn will capture on either h7 or f7. After black moves his h7 pawn to capture g6, can you find what white should do?
If white captures back, nothing good comes from it. Both pawns end up stuck. Look below:
So what does white do? Well, are you ready? Try it yourself first?
White should move his f5 pawn to f6. Check out the chess position below.
If black captures the pawn on f6, whites pawn on h5 has a clean file that it can get to the other side without problem. If black captures the pawn on h5, the white pawn on f6 will capture on g7 and get to the other side to win.
Hope you enjoy Dr. Connolly!
Checkmates USA | Creative Services by D1MA
