Mediaboss Marketing

Thanks to the hitNetflixseries, many casual viewers are just learning about The Queen's Gambit, but they're just catching up to what chess aficionados have known for centuries. Before it was the title of a spellbinding drama series, the Queen's Gambit was the name for a common opening strategy in chess.

The opening was and is popular for a reason. Once you've successfully made that first pawn sacrifice, you've opened the door to an arsenal of moves that can have your opponent on the ropes within minutes. And if you're on the receiving end of the gambit? Let's just say you'd better be familiar with your options, as they tend to narrow quickly if you don't act.

That's why learning the Queen's Gambit is one of the most essential keys to mastering the game of chess. And there's no quicker way to learn it than with the Learn to Master the Queen's Gambit Course Bundle, which boasts some of the best advice on the strategy from chess masters worldwide.

Whether you're playing white or black, you'll find a wealth of knowledge in these three comprehensive courses. Start by takingGrandmaster Marian Petrov's insightful breakdown of tactics following the Gambit (otherwise known as 1.d4). His walkthrough includes options for the Gambit's acceptance or decline, incorporating popular defenses such as the Slav, Benoni, or King's Indian. Then move on to a mastermind course with IM Milovan Ratkovic, who tells you how to counter this ancient strategy with some very modern moves.

You'll even go beyond the Gambit, thanks to Ratkovic's bonus course on the Slav Defense. Taken all together, you'll have the benefit of decades of chess experience, all distilled into a bundle you can finish in just over a day.

Want to start moving up the ranks today? PCMag readers can get theLearn to Master the Queen's Gambit Course Bundle for $29.9990% off the $327 MSRP.

Prices are subject to change.

Read this article:
Watch Your Chess Ranking Skyrocket With This $30 Boot Camp - PCMag.com

Generations of American players have contributed significantly to the game of chess. As they have inspired schools of thought, developed creative approaches for all phases of the game, and achieved brilliant wins while enduring difficult losses, they have influenced players around the world.

Looking at the body of work that U.S. players have created, its important to recognize how their gifts to the game of chess have enriched us all:

A foremost gift to the world chess scene is the play of Paul Morphy, who contributed significantly to the Romantic School, which emphasized quick, tactical moves. With his dazzling tactical and offensive play, Morphy is considered the first modern player. Named after him, the Morphy Defense of the Ruy Lopez continues to be the most popular variant of that opening. Considered by many to be an unofficial world champion, he played quickly and was hard to beat.

In the book My Great Predecessors, GM Garry Kasparov describes Morphy as the "forefather of modern chess" because his play was the next, more mature stage in the development of chess. The Opera Game, which Morphy played in 1858, is illustrative of his attacking genius.

His play was the next, more mature stage in the development of chess.GM Garry Kasparov, about Morphy

Several years after Morphy had played the Opera Game, a new generation of players began to reject the Romantic concept that attack was more worthy than defense. Although positional play was not a new notion, it did not become widely accepted until advanced by the Classical School with their ideas of defense-based chess. During this era, Harry Pillsbury and Frank Marshall rose to the top of world chess.

Pillsbury won the star-studded 1895 Hastings tournament. His superior performance at Hastings (+15 -3 =3) helped to popularize the Queens Gambit, which he played against Siegbert Tarrasch, a world-class player known for his defense against that opening. Pillsburys win is characteristic of Classical thinking.

Equally noted for his Classical style, Marshall is one of several American players who advanced opening theory considerably. Several opening variations, such as the Marshall Defense to the Queens Gambit, are named after him as a result. Prominent among them is the Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez that he had played before 1918, but that year was when his well-known game with Jose Capablanca was played. Although Capablancas defensive genius guided him to a win, Marshalls opening became extremely popular.

Other openings named for Americans are just as significant, including these examples:

King's Gambit Accepted, Fischer's Defense.

Gambits, special openings in which players sacrifice material to achieve advantages later, also have been inspired by American players and have been named after them as this brief list illustrates:

In addition to the players who contributed to the facets of the game just discussed, GM Rueben Fine was particularly instrumental in advancing chess theory. Inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 1986, the charter class, Fine was one of the 17 players first awarded the grandmaster title by FIDE in 1950.

A prolific author, his books on the opening, middlegame, and endgame of chess are unsurpassed by any others. He was the first world-class player to edit the definitive Modern Chess Openings when he edited the sixth edition. One of the strongest players in the world from the mid-1930s until he retired from competitions in 1951, Fine continued his successful career writing about chess theory for many more years.

A brilliant chess tactician, GM Samuel Reshevsky was a remarkable player who was also superb at positional play and defeated seven world champions. He was a serious contender for the world championship from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960. (Read about Reshevskys prime years here.)

About a loss to Reshevsky in the 14th round of the 1948 World Chess Championship, a quintuple round-robin, eventual winner GM Mikhail Botvinnik writes in his book Achieving the Aim: An unpleasant defeatI had just been arguing that Reshevsky was not dangerous and now this. Reshevsky may become world champion, I said, but this would indicate that nowadays there are not strong players in the world."

Reshevsky may become world champion, but this would indicate that nowadays there are not strong players in the world.

GM Mikhail Botvinnik

Several years later, in the 1955 U.S.S.R. vs. U.S. team match, Reshevsky again faced Botvinnik, still the reigning world champion, four times. They drew three gamesand Reshevsky won the fourth (game below) for a positive score, which must have given him sweet satisfaction.

Beth Harmon in the miniseries The Queens Gambit remarked: Chess isnt always competitive. Chess can also be beautiful. However, during the Cold War, beauty was not always on display at a tournament. During the global competition between the West and the Eastern Bloc, the rivalrynot limited to weaponry and military alliancesextended to chess as well. As Benko once remarked: In the Soviets' view, chess was not merely an art or a science or even a sport; it was what it had been invented to simulate: war.

In the Soviets' view, chess was not merely an art or a science or even a sport; it was what it had been invented to simulate: war.GM Pal Benko

No one was as indispensable as Fischer, who also made numerous contributions to opening theory, for ending the Soviet grasp on world chess championships. When Botvinnik won the 1948 championship, his reign began the era of Soviet domination of world chess that lasted more than 20 years without interruption. For that championship, the U.S. delegation consisted of one personReshevsky (at the last moment, IM Lodewijk Prins, later a Dutch champion and an honorary GM, was permitted as Reshevskys second). In contrast, the Soviets had a contingent of about 21 that included players, their seconds, family members, chess officials, and a physician.

The rise of Fischer to become the 11th world chess champion was more than inspirational. The Game of The Century, which he played when just 13, is unsurpassed in instructional value for how it shows the power of harmonious pieces in materially imbalanced positions. As the youngest GM (at that time) and the youngest candidate for the world championship, the world knew that he would achieve great results.

In the 1972 championship match publicized as a Cold War confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Fischer succeeded in defeating GM Boris Spassky. Fischers victory did more than end Soviet domination; it launched a chess craze unrivaled until the chess boom spawned by The Queen's Gambit.In addition to his remarkable games, his other eternal gifts include his books and other contributions to chess literature, the process to add time increments after each move (that he patented in 1989), and inventing the variant of Fischer Random Chess (also known as Chess960).

Following in the footsteps of their predecessors, a new generation of Americans is now inspiring chess players at home and abroad. The 2016 and 2018 U.S. Olympiad teams finished first and tied for first respectively. Of the top-10 players in the world, two are Americans. (GM Fabiano Caruana, playing in the soon-to-be-resumed 2020-21 FIDE Candidates, is number two, and GM Wesley So is number eight.) Two others (GMs Leinier Dominguez Perez and Hikaru Nakamura) are in the top 20. Their play has increased the interest in time controls of bullet, blitz, and rapid as well as in variants such as Chess960.

American players are also propelling the worldwide boom in chess with their entertaining streaming channels, participation in events such as Pogchamps, and affiliations with esports organizations. Leading the way is Nakamura who has more than 1 million followers on Twitch and over 900,000 on YouTube(as of April 2021). In addition to promoting chess, his streaming channel has raised more than $1 million for the humanitarian agency CARE.

Nakamura has also coached players competing in Pogchamps and provided commentary during the games. About this series of Chess.com tournaments featuring streaming personalities, he said: Pogchamps is doing a tremendous job of promoting chess (Pogchamps 3 drew over 375,000 concurrent viewers at its peak). Nakamura, GM Andrew Tang, and the Botez sisters (WFM Alexandra and Andrea)signed by TSM, Cloud9, and Envy Gaming respectively, all elite esports organizationsare also early leaders in showing how to broaden the appeal of chess through these activities.

Pogchamps is doing a tremendous job of promoting chess.GM Hikaru Nakamura

The continuous contributions by successive generations of preeminent American chess players have significantly shaped how we understand and play the game today, and their gifts have enriched the world chess community. They leave a remarkable legacy that will continue to inspire us.

Read the original:
What America Taught The World About Chess - Chess.com

The European Parliamentary Friendship Online Chess Tournament will take place on Friday 16 April 2021, starting from 15.30 CET, on the online playing platform Tornelo.

The event is a 7 round Swiss tournament with a time control of 10 min + 2 seconds per player. The event will be played as individual Championship, but the cumulative results of the best three players of each national Parliament or EU Parliament, will decide the team standings.

The event is open to all members of the Parliaments of the European countries and to members of the European Union Parliament.

Registration closed on 11 April.

The FIDE has published a list of 30 participants. It is headed by GM Loek van Wely (Dutch Parliament) and GM Viktor Bologan (Moldovan Parliament). The list also includes the name of Vaclav Klaus, who has held all the high offices in the Czech Republic during his political career and is an avid chess lover.

Read this article:
Two grandmasters will play in the "European Parliamentary Friendship Online Chess Tournament" - Chessbase News

Are you a worrier? Do you imagine nightmare scenarios and then get worked up and anxious about them? Does your mind get caught in a horrible spiral of catastrophizing over even the smallest of things? Worrying, particularly imagining the worst case scenario, seems to be a natural part of being human and comes easily to a lot of us. It's awful, perhaps even dangerous, when we do it.

But, there might just be an ancient wisdom that can help. It involves reframing this attitude for the better, and it comes from Stoicism. It's called "premeditation," and it could be the most useful trick we can learn.

Broadly speaking, Stoicism is the philosophy of choosing your judgments. Stoics believe that there is nothing about the universe that can be called good or bad, valuable or valueless, in itself. It's we who add these values to things. As Shakespeare's Hamlet says, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Our minds color the things we encounter as being "good" or "bad," and given that we control our minds, we therefore have control over all of our negative feelings.

Put another way, Stoicism maintains that there's a gap between our experience of an event and our judgment of it. For instance, if someone calls you a smelly goat, you have an opportunity, however small and hard it might be, to pause and ask yourself, "How will I judge this?" What's more, you can even ask, "How will I respond?" We have power over which thoughts we entertain and the final say on our actions. Today, Stoicism has influenced and finds modern expression in the hugely effective "cognitive behavioral therapy."

Helping you practice StoicismCredit: Robyn Beck via Getty Images

One of the principal fathers of ancient Stoicism was the Roman statesmen, Seneca, who argued that the unexpected and unforeseen blows of life are the hardest to take control over. The shock of a misfortune can strip away the power we have to choose our reaction. For instance, being burglarized feels so horrible because we had felt so safe at home. A stomach ache, out of the blue, is harder than a stitch thirty minutes into a run. A sudden bang makes us jump, but a firework makes us smile. Fell swoops hurt more than known hardships.

So, how can we resolve this? Seneca suggests a Stoic technique called "premeditatio malorum" or "premeditation." At the start of every day, we ought to take time to indulge our anxious and catastrophizing mind. We should "rehearse in the mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck." We should meditate on the worst things that could happen: your partner will leave you, your boss will fire you, your house will burn down. Maybe, even, you'll die.

This might sound depressing, but the important thing is that we do not stop there.

The Stoic also rehearses how they will react to these things as they come up. For instance, another Stoic (and Roman Emperor) Marcus Aurelius asks us to imagine all the mean, rude, selfish, and boorish people we'll come across today. Then, in our heads, we script how we'll respond when we meet them. We can shrug off their meanness, smile at their rudeness, and refuse to be "implicated in what is degrading." Thus prepared, we take control again of our reactions and behavior.

The Stoics cast themselves into the darkest and most desperate of conditions but then realize that they can and will endure. With premeditation, the Stoic is prepared and has the mental vigor necessary to take the blow on the chin and say, "Yep, l can deal with this."

Seneca wrote: "In times of peace, the soldier carries out maneuvers." This is also true of premeditation, which acts as the war room or training ground. The agonizing cut of the unexpected is blunted by preparedness. We can prepare the mind for whatever trials may come, in just the same way we can prepare the body for some endurance activity. The world can throw nothing as bad as that which our minds have already imagined.

Stoicism teaches us to embrace our worrying mind but to embrace it as a kind of inoculation. With a frown over breakfast, try to spend five minutes of your day deliberately catastrophizing. Get your anti-anxiety battle plan ready and then face the world.

Jonny Thomson teaches philosophy in Oxford. He runs a popular Instagram account called Mini Philosophy (@philosophyminis). His first book is Mini Philosophy: A Small Book of Big Ideas.

The rest is here:
Brain-controlled chess is here - Big Think

Sexism has always been rampant in the chess community. Bobby Fischer, arguably one of the greatest chess players of all time, once remarked that women are "terrible chess players" and suggested that they busy themselves with domestic affairs. Former world champion Garry Kasparov has stated, "there is real chess and womens chess." He later recanted this message after Grandmaster Judit Polgar beat him in 2002, becoming the first woman to ever beat a world champion. Fischer and Kasparov are not the only grandmasters (or chess players, for that matter) to make these sorts of comments. And, unlike Kasparov, most dont rescind their opinions. Such sexist remarks and ideologies would be seen as incredibly outdated and unacceptable elsewhere. Yet, in the chess world, these misogynistic attitudes seem to be mainstream.

Brought on by the virality of the Netflix series The Queens Gambit, there has been a recent rise in discussion over the gender gap in chess. It seems that while no articles deny the presence of a gender gap, the reasoning behind this gap largely varies. Some have (in a very misogynistic manner) suggested that there are biological differences between the way womens brains and mens brains are wired, therefore contributing to men performing better in chess a game that requires intellect and critical thinking. This suggestion is just false; there is no evidence that supports an innate difference in the way womens and mens brains function. Some suggest that the lack of representation for women amongst grandmasters is due to the lack of participation of women in chess. This suggestion may partially explain the situation; as of January 2020, the percent of rated female players is about 15.6%, and only 37 of the 1,600+ international grandmasters are women. Others presume that sociological factors, like stereotyping and the undermining of womens abilities, have contributed to the widening of this gap. This presumption may be true; in fact, according to some psychological studies, the presence of differences in performance levels between men and women is the result of "increasingly traditional gender-role attitudes." Many suppose that the gap is a result of some combination of all three. At the end of the day, the gender gap in chess doesnt exist because of only lack of participation by women or only sociocultural elements. Rather, this gender gap is a result of various complex and highly nuanced factors that would require a whole different article (or even a lifetime of academic work) to fully address.

Attractive fiction: Beth Harmon after beating the World Champion in the successful series The Queen's Gambit | Photo: Netflix

Still, the point of the matter is that there is a gender gap in chess, and there have been extensive debates seeking to explain the differences between men and women as a method of explaining this gap. As a result, the chess community has become incredibly divided; the few women that are involved in chess have discriminatory experiences and feel at a disadvantage in succeeding within the chess world, and many men feel at a disadvantage as they may lack the opportunity women chess players have in accessing attractive womens tournaments and receiving subsequent prize money.

Addressing Concerns in Conversations Around The Gender Gap in Chess

From the perspective of an academic whose research focus involves gender-based issues, the discussions around the gender gap in chess have been very alarming. First and foremost, the frequency and quantity of sexist discourse are worrying. For the purposes of clarification, I use Audre Lordes definition of sexism as "the belief in the inherent superiority of one sex over the other and thereby the right to dominance." Sexist comments are incredibly prevalent in chess articles discussing the gender gap. In one recent article from Chess24, one commenter stated, "On the same lines, since [the] brain is also a part of [the] body, I am saying that calculating or analytical ability of a man's brain is higher than that of woman's brain and hence, on an average, men will perform better." While there were certainly reassuring replies that countered this misogyny, there were also many replies that supported this statement, showing the continued prevalence of sexism within discussions surrounding gender in chess.

Secondly, many discussions about the gender gap in chess tend to assert the narrative that because men and women are theoretically equal, it is the fault of women for not putting in the effort to participate and excel in chess. For instance, in a recent ChessBase article, one commenter wrote, "If there are suddenly 10 million more women playing chess, you cannot simply assume they are going to be better than Judit Polgar. That is not how it works. You have to put [the effort] in it. How you do depends on how much you are willing to put into it, not on gender or race or geography or anything like that. It's as simple as that." The assertion of such a narrative is incredibly damaging because it refuses to recognize the differences in the social, cultural, systemic treatment of men and women, thus resulting in misnaming of differences and the failure to recognize and examine the institutional oppressions at play.

Judit Polgar, the best women player in history | Photo: Budapest Chess Festival

Thirdly, it seems that so much of the discussions around the gender gap in chess revolve around the need for scientific, mathematical proof the backing of quantitative data. Qualitative analyses are typically not used or seen as a weakness to an argument, thus devaluing any sort of non-numerical data. As a result, observations and narratives by women in chess are not seen as useful or valuable to these discussions. Not only does this invalidate the discrimination experienced by women, but the dismissal of qualitative data and analyses is just bad research and bad analyses (trust me, as an academic, I know this to be true). Womens experiences in chess can be incredibly different from that of mens and that of one anothers. This is not a hard concept to grasp, yet many seem to have difficulty grappling with it.

Lastly, it should also be noted that an overwhelming amount of the voices that contribute to explanations and analyses over the chess gender gap are men. Like the chess community and the world of top chess players, mens opinions and voices have overwhelmingly (and ironically) dominated a discussion involving gender inclusivity and equality in chess. There needs to be a diversification of voices within such discourse as it will lead to the recognition and broader education of varied experiences and opinions. For the sake of those underrepresented in the chess community and the chess world as a whole, the voices of minorities must be heard and respected. Currently, the chess world is incredibly divided. Not only is there an exclusion of lower-rated players and a sense of elitism in top-level chess, but there is an exclusion of minorities, especially women.

As a Taiwanese-American woman, I am asserting my voice in this conversation of the gender gap in chess. Reading these articles and scanning through the comments sections, there are so many questions that should be considered. What if were examining and labeling and analyzing these differences in all the wrong ways? What would happen if there was a proposition to make the chess community more inclusive rather than exclusive, more united rather than divided? What can we do as individuals and as a whole to make the chess world a more inclusive space?

We, as chess players and chess admirers, must begin to acknowledge differences in the systemic treatment of men and women. We need to embrace the differences in our individual and demographic experiences. We must work towards unity, but not homogeneity. Through this recognition and mutual respect, we can liberate ourselves from this tyranny of sexism and misogyny, of elitism and exclusion. The survival of chess and the sustainability of the chess community depend on the move towards inclusion and acceptance.

Working Towards Inclusivity, Together

Addressing and diminishing sexism and elitism in chess seems like a long, arduous, and painstaking process to achieve what may be deemed as vague and unattainable. But, there are several steps that can be taken to make the chess community more welcoming to people of all backgrounds. The following actions can be taken as individual beings, and as a whole community:

1. Acknowledge and celebrate differences:

Through the recognition of our differences, we can begin to identify the distortions, the systemic oppressions, the institutional forces that drive us to make certain choices, think certain ways, act on certain things. We shouldnt use our differences to separate ourselves from one another, but we should certainly use differences to understand what systems we as individuals play into.

Differences should also be celebrated. It is through our differing experiences, opinions, and ways of thinking that we find nurture a sort of creativity and diversity. We may not always understand or relate to one another, but we can and should learn to respect and celebrate differences.

2. Be willing to learn from one another and from our own mistakes:

We should stay open-minded and always willing to engage in conversation with one another. We dont have to agree with each other, but we can certainly learn from what others have to say, and we can grow to respect each other.

In the words of academic feminist Audre Lorde, "We are not perfect, but we are stronger and wiser than the sum of our errors." We cannot expect one another and ourselves to be saints. We are human beings, and we make mistakes. But, what is truly important is that we reflect upon the mistakes we make and put in the effort to do and be better. We must strive to grow.

3. Legitimize experiences as a form of knowledge:

Individual experiences are completely legitimate, and quantitative data isnt needed to validate the experiences of the discriminated and oppressed. This is not to invalidate the use of quantitative data when suitable, numerical data and quantitative analyses should certainly be applied. But, qualitative data and analyses are also valid. Both forms are reliable and can be used.

4. Move towards solidarity and unity:

Support women chess players and respect their skills and experiences. Strive to dedicate as much attention to women chess players and we do to chess players who are men. Perhaps titles for women chess players are not needed, but giving women a space to grow and feel supported through womens tournaments is an important starting point. Understand that unity doesnt mean homogeneity, and solidarity doesnt mean only standing by one group. We can be unified and different. We can stand in solidarity with minority chess players while continuing to support others.

Closing the gender gap in chess is a struggle, and abolishing sexism in the chess community is just as, if not more, difficult. But, as the world progresses towards a brighter future, the chess community must strive to progress, as well. Together and as individuals, we can endeavor to learn and grow. Already quoted so many times in this article, I leave you again with the words of Audre Lorde:

"What we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future with the particular strengths of our individual identities."

See the original post here:
Addressing Sexism in Chess: A Guide to Making Chess More Inclusive - Chessbase News