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10/18/2020 Star columnist Jon Speelman explores the exchange sacrifice. Speelman shares five illustrative examples to explain in which conditions giving up a rook for a minor piece is a good trade. As a general rule and in fact (almost all?) of the time you need other pieces on the board for an exchange sacrifice to work. | Pictured: Mikhail Tal and Tigran Petrosian following a post-mortem analysis at the 1961 European Team Championship in Oberhausen | Photo: Gerhard Hund

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[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]

During the Norway tournament, I streamed commentarya couple of times myself at twitch.tv/jonspeelman, but mainly listened to the official commentaryby Vladimir Kramnik and Judit Polgar.

Both were very interesting, and Kramnik in particular has a chess aesthetic which I very much like. In his prime a powerhouse positional player with superb endgame technique, he started life much more tactically and his instinct is to sacrifice for the initiative whenever possible, especially the exchange: an approach which, after defence seemed to triumph under traditional chess engines, has been given a new lease of life by Alpha Zero.

So I thought today that Id look at some nice exchange sacrifices, but first a moment from Norway where I was actually a tad disappointed by a winning sacrifice.

At the end of a beautiful positional game, which has been annotated here in Game of the Week, Carlsen finished off with the powerful

42.Re8!

and after

42...Qxe8 43.Qh6+ Kg8 44.Qxg6+ Kh8 45.Nf6

Tari resigned

Of course, I would have played Re8 myself in a game if Id seen it, but I was hoping from an aesthetic perspective that Carlsen would complete this real masterclass and masterpiece with a nice zugzwang.

You start with c4 to prevent 42.f3 c4, creating some very slight confusion and then it goes:

42.c4 Kg8 43.f3

And for example: 43...Qd7 44.Qh6 Qe6 45.Kg3 fxe4 (45...Rg7 46.Nf6+ Kf7 47.Qh8 Qe7 48.Kg2) 46.dxe4 Rf4 47.Nxf4 exf4+ 48.Kxf4 Qf7+ 49.Kg3 Qg7 50.Qxg7+ Kxg7 51.Rxf8

Black can also try43...Rh7

and here after 44.Rxf8+ Kg7

as the engine pointed out to me, its best to use the Re8 trick:

45.Qxh7+! (45.Rf6 is much messier) 45...Kxh7 46.Re8!

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The black queen is trapped.

For todays examples I used my memory and the ChessBase search mask when I couldnt track down a game exactly. For instance,for the first one byBotvinnik [pictured], I set him as Black with 0-1, disabled ignoring colours, and put Rd4 e5 c5 on the board which turned out to identify the single game I wanted a hole in 1!I also asked my stream on Thursday for any examples, and one of my stalwarts, a Scottish Frenchman, found me Reshevsky v Petrosian (I couldnt remember offhand who Petrosians opponent was) and drew my attention to the beautiful double exchange sacrifice by Erwin L'Ami from Wijk aan Zee B.

Before the games themselves, which are in chronological order,it might be worthwhile to consider what makes an exchange sacrifice successful. Whole books have been written on this and Im certainly not going to be able to go into serious detail. But a couple of points:

The need for extra pieces applies particularly to endgames. For instance,this diagram should definitely be lost for Black:

Its far from trivial, but as a general schema the white king should be able to advance right into Blacks guts and then White can do things with his pawns. Something like get Ke7 and Rf6, then g4 exchanging pawns if Black has played ...h5. Play f5, move the rook, play f6+, and arrange to play Rxf7.

But if you add a pair of rooks then it becomes enormously difficult. And indeed I really dont know whether God would beat God.

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

Master Class Vol.11: Vladimir Kramnik

This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors (Pelletier, Marin, Mller and Reeh) how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep y

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When 3 is greater than 5 - Chessbase News

Amid a pandemic, a presidential election and the nationwide protests advocating for black lives, the Rev. Al Sharpton is asking for every American to rise up.

This is not about whether or not Joe Biden turns you on or Donald Trumps turns you off, this is about the direction the country is going in. Its not just about an election; its about a direction, said the civil rights activist on Mondays edition of Closer Look, speaking about his new book, Rise Up: Confronting a Country at the Crossroads.

Sharpton, who leads the National Action Network, talked with show host Rose Scott about the book that encourages readers to make the U.S. a more equal, fair and just society by taking action in their communities.

Everybody should read Rise Up, particularly those of us that dont feel theres any hope, he said.

During Sharptons candid conversation with Scott, he spoke about several topics that are discussed in the book, including his friendship with Shirley Chisholm, discovering his lifes calling, fighting for civil and human rights issues through an intersectional movement, police violence, and giving the eulogy at George Fyolds funeral.

Guest:

Rev. Al Sharpton, civil rights activist, talk show host and founder of the National Action Network

To listen to the full conversation, please click the audio player above.

Read the original:
Rev. Al Sharpton Discusses New Book, 'Rise Up: Confronting A Country At The Crossroads' | 90.1 FM WABE - WABE 90.1 FM

Twitch is giving its platform to race and equality by hosting a wide range of important public figures, including Rev. Al Sharpton and Arnold Schwarze

Even though it feels like a lifetime ago in the lead up to the November election, protests against police brutality and for racial equality have never stopped since the beginning of 2020. They merely intensified and sharpened in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor's murders at the hands of police. On top of that, the Covid-19 pandemic is putting into sharp relief the racial divide in America and abroad.

This issue has gotten so big that even Twitch is weighing in. After the controversy that hit Twitch earlier this summer for posting a Black Lives Matter video where the hosts lacked the very diversity they were trying to promote, Twitch is now hosting a diverse group of celebrities, business executives, academics, and politicians, including former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Reverend Al Sharpton, as they discuss what can be done about racism in America.

All weekend long, the ATTN: Twitch account will broadcast Unfinished Business: Race and Equity in America. This "live summit takeover" will run from now until Sunday, October 18th, with programming beginning from noon to 4:00 PM PST (3:00 to 7:00 PM EST).

Subjects for these panels and interviews will be wide-ranging and include "race, policing, education, environmental justice, voting rights, healthcare, and the economy, with a specific aimtoward young people--hence, the summit being broadcast on Twitch.

RELATED: One True King - New Organization Founded By Twitch Streamers Asmongold, Mizkif, And Esfand

I dont believe in summits where we all talk just to hear ourselves talk - I want our summit to focus on concrete policies that we can enact now, to create a new era of civil rights. As someone who owes this country everything, I cant stand that a Black kid born in Minneapolis doesnt have the same opportunity as a white bodybuilder born in Thal, Austria, said Governor Schwarzenegger in a prepared statement. It is time for change to finish the job our founding fathers started.

You can take a look at the full schedule of panels and discussion over on the ATTN: channel here. Governor Schwarzenegger headlines both the Friday and Sunday interviews, but youll also get some other big names like Soledad OBrien, Usher, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson, and Congressman Will Hurd.

Unfinished Business: Race and Equity in America is on Twitch from now until Sunday at 4 PM PST.

Source: Twitch

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Actually a collective of 6 hamsters piloting a human-shaped robot, Sean hails from Toronto, Canada. Passionate about gaming from a young age, those hamsters would probably have taken over the world by now if they didn't vastly prefer playing and writing about video games instead.The hamsters are so far into their long-con that they've managed to acquire a bachelor's degree from the University of Waterloo and used that to convince the fine editors at TheGamer that they can write "gud werds," when in reality they just have a very sophisticated spellchecker program installed in the robot's central processing unit.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger And Rev. Al Sharpton Are Taking Over Twitch To Talk About Race And Equity - TheGamer

On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Reverend Al Sharpton legendary civil rights icon, former presidential candidate and author of Rise Up: Confronting a Country at the Crossroads. He discusses the 2020 presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden; the BlackLivesMatter movement that has swept the world since the death of George Floyd; the battle within the Democratic Party between the progressives and the right wing; why he believes Biden is the best choice for America despite a record marred by the crime bill, Obama-era foreign policy, and neoliberal economics; his former friendship with Trump; apathy among African Americans that things can really change; the Republican Partys pimping of the Democratic Partys deficiencies, and more.

FOLLOWGoing Undergroundhttps://www.youtube.com/user/GoingUndergroundRTGoing Underground on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/Underground_RTAfshin Rattansi on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/AfshinRattansi

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Reverend Al Sharpton: Democratic Party must defeat the 'latte liberals'! (E934) - RT

[Race/Related is available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.]

MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. My family moved to Mount Vernon, N.Y., when I was 6. Our new home was several blocks from one of the citys most recognizable buildings, Grace Baptist Church. Its gargantuan edifice, made of white brick and looming stained glass windows, was where I was baptized only a few months before our move, and it is the only church home I have ever known.

While the cathedral choir sang during Sunday services, I usually busied myself with reading the church programs. For 132 years, Grace Baptist congregants had been telling their founding story the same way: In 1888, five Negro Baptist women, with great faith and courage, founded Grace Baptist Mission in Mount Vernon, New York. I read that line every Sunday, waiting week after week for someone to update it with the womens names.

Their names never appeared.

And so last year, as I was beginning graduate school and in search of a subject for my thesis, I took it upon myself to discover their identities.

Grace Baptist is a powerful and influential church. Its congregation has supported the political careers of many of its pastors and has welcomed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson to its pulpit. It hosted Hillary Clinton on her campaign trail in 2016. Ruby Dee, Earl Graves Sr., Heavy D, Ossie Davis and a long list of other African-American cultural icons have walked on the red carpeting of its sanctuary.

Grace Baptist and its current pastor, the Rev. Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, lead by example in the predominantly Black city, building affordable housing, feeding the poor and working as advocates for Black lives.

And yet for more than a century, the churchs founders have been known only as formerly enslaved Negro women. I was deeply committed to changing that.

I spent 122 days looking for them, ready to uproot a lesson about Black womanhood that I had internalized that Black women are often relegated to the subtext of history. The road to understanding and conquering my fears of erasure directly paralleled my journey to find these womens names. I wanted to name them to prove to myself and future generations that these consequential Black women would not be forgotten.

Black women would guide me through months of research. Church mothers were among my first calls for information. A deacon, Mary Dolberry, helped me operate the microfilm machines in the periodical section of the Mount Vernon Public Library and introduced me to the history room.

A genealogist at the church, Debbie Daniels, helped me understand how these womens names could disappear from their own story. Ms. Daniels taught me American history through census data and demographics, where Black history is at its most treacherous.

She told me stories of the erasure in her own family ancestry. For generations, her family would tell their children that they were descended from Sally Hemings, a woman who had been enslaved on former President Thomas Jeffersons Monticello plantation. After a genealogical search into her family, she discovered they were really descendants of Hemingss older sister, Mary, the first of the Hemings children to be free.

Black women have always had to traverse the tough terrain of racism and sexism. Few saw the value of recording the activities of Black people or women. And back in the 1880s, illiteracy could have also made it hard for the five women and their community to write down their stories.

I also had to leave room for the possibility of oral tradition. Maybe these women didnt exist at all.

Fortunately, I was in the period of American history in which Black people were not just listed as numbers and property. There was a chance for me to find evidence of their lives in Mount Vernon through the 1880 census.

It was in the beginning stages of my archival research that I discovered the first mention of these women. In the 1903 clerk book from First Baptist Church in Mount Vernon were the names of white congregation members who undertook the Grace Baptist Mission. Five colored women were responsible for asking for their help, and they were allowed to hold their Sunday school in the annex of the Womens Christian Temperance Unions meeting space, Willard Hall. The president of this temperance union was a member of First Baptist Churchs congregation.

First Baptist Church and Grace Baptist Church had a tumultuous relationship. The white congregants locked the doors of the chapel when the Mission was behind on the rent that First Baptist illegally charged. There were physical conflicts between their pastors and deacons and a few notices in the local newspapers that warned against directly donating to the members of Grace Baptist Mission during its early days.

Halfway through my search, I had working sociological and demographic portraits of who I was looking for: I knew the five women were established in the community, were married and probably in their 30s, give or take a few years. They also were likely to have been active in social organizations to have captured the attention of white community activists.

In an article from 1894, a journalist from the local newspaper, The Daily Argus, reported that the colored mission laid the cornerstone of its new chapels foundation. The early members of Grace Baptist placed copies of their city papers and church documents in the hollow center of this cornerstone. I was sure the names of the five women were among these artifacts.

Grace Baptists original building, built in 1894, still stands. Its a small white portable chapel that survived a 1939 furnace fire, right before Grace Baptist moved into its current monumental location.

Since 1941, the chapel has been remodeled and occupied by two more churches, Unity Baptist Tabernacle and White Rock Baptist Church. It was disassembled and moved to a new location in the city in 1968 when the Mount Vernon Housing Authority wanted the land for an affordable housing project. White Rock still occupies the chapel sanctuary, only a 10-minute walk from Grace Baptist.

White Rocks pastor and I briefly spoke about opening the cornerstone before the coronavirus crisis that began last spring forced us all into quarantine. But with the uncertainty of a new pandemic, we were wary of being at the church and bringing people in to help gain access to it.

In the end after parsing through century-old newspaper articles, census reports, journals of handwritten meeting notes, maps and city directories I finally had their names: Emily Waller, Matilda Brooks, Helen Claiborne, Sahar Bennett and Elizabeth Benson. They were between 25 and 40 years old when they founded the church. Ms. Waller and Ms. Benson were neighbors, and the only Black families on their block.

I havent found their descendants, but Im certain they are out there. Locating them and talking to them about their heritage is my next goal. And while their names have not yet been added to the church bulletin because we havent returned to in-person services since the pandemic began, soon, their names will be printed for all congregants to see.

In a year that has brought us a pandemic and national conversations about race and racism, I am proud to have identified the five pivotal women, to shed some light on a legacy that wont be lost to history.

[Read about the search for the five women in Ms. Pilgrims thesis and website.]

Read the original:
The Long, Worthwhile Search for the Five Black Women of Grace Baptist Church - The New York Times