Mediaboss Marketing

Armed with two premier tight ends in Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely, the Ravens want to get them on the field more at the same time in 2024.

How they do they do it? Likely wants to make it easier by blurring the lines.

During minicamp, Likely said he's focused on learning all of the receiving positions in Year 2 of Todd Monken's offense.

"It's being a chess piece, being anywhere 'Monk' needs me to be in this offense whether it's in the slot, in-line, in the backfield, split out wide by myself," Likely said. "The more you know, the more you can stay on the field."

In the eight games after he stepped in for the injured Andrews, Likely caught 25 passes for 372 yards and six touchdowns. What the Ravens would love to figure out is how to get that kind of production even when Andrews is on the field.

Likely's usage over the full course of the season was fairly evenly split between in-line (270 snaps) and in the slot (252 snaps). He had 35 snaps out wide and nine in the backfield. Andrews was used far more in the slot (341 snaps) last season, and saw more snaps out wide (65) than in-line (62).

The Ravens used "12" personnel (two wide receivers, two tight ends, one running back), 11.1% of the time last year, which ranked 27th in the NFL, per SumerSports. The league-wide average was 19.2%. Asked if he's campaigning Monken for more "12" personnel, Likely laughed.

"They watch film. They see it," he said. "It's an emphasis for them to try to see what we can do on the field together and harp on the little things so we can get on the field together and make the most of it."

The rest is here:
Isaiah Likely Is Focused on Becoming a 'Chess Piece' in Ravens Offense - BaltimoreRavens.com

Trey Norman is getting ready to turn some heads in the Love Island villa! Hes entering as a new bombshell and hopes to ruffle some feathers as the chess player has his eye on all the ladies.

After the wild heart rate challenge, Love Island brought a whole new twist as Trey asked Jess out for a date. Hes more than just a bombshell though, as hes proved hes super smart on the outside.

Trey Norman, who describes himself as a geeky and academic person, is the new bombshell in the villa. Entering with fellow newbie, Jessy Potts, hes a 24-year-old commercial insurance broker from Doncaster.

Hes on the lookout for someone who backs your dreams and ambitions, adding that loyalty is also a big one for me, two years after securing his masters in 2022 at the University of Birmingham.

The islander was nominated as Sports Person of The Year back then, having become the Mens Football president in 2021, and fronted an anti knife crime campaign across the university and the city.

Tress is a chess player with some serious brains. He is currently working as an SME Account handler and executive at One Call Commercial, with aspirations to become qualified.

Something that a lot of women like that they wouldnt expect from me but Im a bit of a geek and academic. Ive got a First Class Economics Degree and have completed my masters as well, he said.

The bombshell added, I also play chess and was in the chess club at University. Treys LinkedIn account also states that hes a recipient of DEANS Award for representing the student voice at university.

Trey has his eyes on all of the ladies! Although he asked Jess out for his initial date, Trey believes all of the girls are beautiful and describes himself as someone that goes after what they want.

He revealed, Im not afraid to articulate my feelings. Im going to the Villato find the girl of my dreams so it may ruffle feathers with the boys. Trey also isnt scared to step on any toes.

When asked what he wants the other islanders to know, Trey said, Im not a people pleaser. Im going in to find a connection so will be going after what I want from the get go.

WATCH LOVE ISLAND ON ITV2 EVERY DAY AT 9 PM

Related Topics

Read more from the original source:
'Geeky and academic' chess player has his eye on 'all of the girls' on Love Island - Reality Tidbit

The Superbet Chess Classic Romania, the second leg of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour, started on Wednesday in Bucharest with wins for GMs Gukesh Dommaraju and Fabiano Caruana. In his first classical game since winning the Candidates, Gukesh defeated wildcard GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac. Caruana was in trouble vs. GM Alireza Firouzja but managed to turn things around.

The first day of the tournament, held in the Grand Hotel Bucharest for a $350,000 prize fund, saw draws in the games Nodirbek Abdusattorov vs. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs. Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Anish Giri vs. Wesley So.

Round two starts Thursday, June 27, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 17:30 p.m. IST.

Superbet Chess Classic Romania Round 1 Results

Superbet Chess Classic Romania Standings After Round 1

We have arrived at the second leg of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour, a month and a half after GM Magnus Carlsen's grandiose victory at the Superbet Rapid and Blitz in Warsaw, Poland where the Norwegian star overtook GM Wei Yi on the final day thanks to a 10-game winning streak.

Alongside six wildcards, that rapid and blitz event in Warsaw had only four of the full Grand Chess Tour participantsAbdusattorov, Giri, Gukesh and Praggnanandhaawho were joined with five more in Bucharest: Caruana, Firouzja, Nepomniachtchi, So and Vachier-Lagrave. Deac, back to being the Romanian number-one now that GM Richard Rapport is poised to play for Hungary again, is the wildcard in this tournament.

The first round was on Wednesday, but the day before, the players were already involved in some activities. Besides giving interviews for the tournament broadcast they also played simuls against local chess fans, which is always a nice idea. GM Viswanathan Anand was involved as well:

The organizers of the Superbet tournaments continue to value on-site spectators in a world that's increasingly shifting to online. It is clear that cities like Warsaw and Bucharest, and also Zagreb as another location for the Grand Chess Tour, still have many chess fans, just like some decades ago when several major events were taking place in Eastern Europe, then still linked to the Soviet Union. GCT ambassador GM Garry Kasparov noted in a recent interview:

Considering the overall development of chess and the other GCT host citiesWarsaw and ZagrebEastern Europe has now recovered its place in the world of chess, which was lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now it is clearly the most vibrant part of the chess world in Europe. In contrast, Western Europe has very little left of the activities that were thriving when I was playing some 20-25 years ago. Now we have the Bucharest-Warsaw-Zagreb orb, and maybe a few more cities could join. If I lived in Bucharest, knowing that every year I could watch and meet the world's top players live, I would be delighted.

... Eastern Europe has now recovered its place in the world of chess, which was lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Garry Kasparov

Gukesh-Deac 1-0

Gukesh turned 18 a month ago and played his first classical game since he won the Candidates. He won a somewhat topsy-turvy game against Deac, who played strongly and kept up with his opponent's level of play for long. In fact, the 22-year-old Romanian player was close to winning for a brief moment, something that players and analysts missed.

As the game went beyond move 30, with a rather complicated middlegame position on the board, the clock started to play a role and continued to do so after move 40. The Tour is using a new time control this year for its classical events: 120 minutes for the whole game, with a 30-second increment per move. It was also used at the recent Cairns Cup.

It means that as soon as a player gets into serious time trouble, there's no way out of it anymore (and a visit to the restroom will have to wait until after the game.) And it showed: with 35 seconds left on his clock, Deac blundered his position to shambles, but as soon as Gukesh went under a minute, he allowed a tactic that would have led to a draw. As Deac missed it, Gukesh ended up winning convincingly after all.

Firouzja-Caruana 0-1

Caruana is defending his title from last year in Romania, and started his campaign wellunlike what he did in his game. Firouzja, who came to Bucharest with back-to-back online victories in the Champions Chess Tour (beating Carlsen twice) and the Bullet Chess Championship (beating GM Hikaru Nakamura twice), was simply much better out of the opening.

The game started with a London System with 2.Bf4, apparently once dubbed the "Lazy Tromp" by the English GM Mark Hebden. Caruana didn't feel like repeating the sharp continuation from their game at Norway Chess last month and instead chose to "freestyle" with 2...b6!?, a Queen's Indian type of setup.

Firouzja's 3.c4 meant he was ready to play against a Queen's Indian with his bishop on f4, but Caruana then switched to a more King's Indian type of structure with 4...d6 and 5...g6. That allowed his opponent to grab space in the center, and soon Caruana was looking at a "disgusting" position, as he called it afterward.

Whereas commentatorGM Yasser Seirawan had called it "dodgy," Caruana was more critical on himself: "It was much worse than dodgy. I thought I was, like, close to lost. I wasnt sure. I dont know what I was doing."

It was much worse than dodgy. I thought I was, like, close to lost. Fabiano Caruana

Caruana couldn't understand why Firouzja didnt block the queenside with 17.a4 followed by castling queenside and Rdg1, when White can attack and Black cannot. "Maybe its not so easy to break through, but its probably winning in the long run," said Caruana.

Firouzja had another chance to go for the same setup if he had taken on g5 with his knight with check. Taking with the bishop allowed Caruana to break with 18b5 and get counterplay. Firouzja soon lost his advantage and then got outplayed in the remainder.

In our Game of the Day, GM Dejan Bojkov provides a detailed analysis in his annotations:

Three draws

The first game to finish was MVL-Nepomniachtchi. The Russian GM was fine with a draw as he played the Petroff while the French GM tried but failed to shoot holes in that opening. He entered a different alley than what Nakamura and Praggnanandhaa had tried against the same opponent in the Candidates, but Nepomniachtchi remembered everything. From start to finish, all the moves were part of both players' preparation and the first 20 or so were blitzed out on the board.

Nepomniachtchi took about four minutes on move 22 to double check everything, as he had to play an important queen move there, and then took some more time on move 24. He spent about 50 minutes in total vs. 41 for MVL. Afterward, the Frenchman thought his approach was quite logical since it's Black who can go wrong at several moments. But Nepo was up to the task once again.

Not long after, Giri and So also called it a day. These players had an old line of the Catalan on the board where the Dutchman might have been confused a little by So's unusual 11th move. The American GM continued in solid style, as he is known for, and Giri didn't find a way to get much play.

Abdusattorov, too, failed to get anything in the opening against Praggnanandhaa, who went for a Moller Defense in the Ruy Lopez (5...Bc5, played before ...b5). By move 20 the game looked completely equal, but somehow Pragg ended up with an extra pawn, which was of little value.

Note that the three draws all ended with a move repetition, because in this tournament draw offers are not allowed during the entire game.

The 2024 Superbet Chess Classic Romania is the second leg of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour. The event is a 10-player round-robin with classical time control (120 minutes for the entire game, plus a 30-second increment per move). The tournament runs June 26-July 5 and features a $350,000 prize fund.

Read more here:
Caruana, Gukesh Score In Opening Round Superbet Chess Classic Romania - Chess.com

When the International Chess Federation created the inaugural list of grandmasters, the games highest title, in 1950, there were 27. Today, there are more than 1,850.

There are too many grandmasters, said Nigel Short, the director for chess development at the federation, the games governing body, who himself is a grandmaster. Mr. Short, who is English, said that when he is in Germany, which has almost 100 grandmasters, To call me grandmaster adds nothing. They are two a penny.

Mr. Short, 59, pointed out that the high number of grandmasters is a relatively recent phenomenon. When he was a rising junior player in the late 1970s, there were only about 100 of them in the world.

To become one is technically not easy. A player must at least once achieve an Elo rating, the system used to rank players, of more than 2,500 less than one percent of players ever do that. A player must also achieve a norm, a performance equivalent to playing at the level of a player rated 2,600, in at least three tournaments.

But not all grandmasters are created equal. Magnus Carlsen, the former world champion, who has been ranked No. 1 in the world almost continuously since 2009, is one. So is Jacob Aagaard, a coach and trainer. The difference between them is their ratings: Mr. Carlsens is 2,830, while Mr. Aagaards is 2,426.

Mr. Aagaard, 50, explained that he stopped playing professionally 15 years ago, shortly after he became a grandmaster. Though he still competes occasionally, he plays more for enjoyment and does not worry as much as he once did about whether he wins or loses, he said.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

See the original post here:
Are There Too Many Chess Grandmasters? - The New York Times

GMs Awonder Liang and Denis Lazavik won Titled Tuesday on June 25, and several more players locked up a spot in the 2024 Speed Chess Championship after their highly successful Titled Tuesday performances this year to date: GMs Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Alexey Sarana,Tuan Minh Le, Jose Martinez, Alexander Grischuk, and Hans Niemann. They will join nine invited players, and one additional qualifier to be determined, for the SCC.

Liang won outright over second-place Grischuk, while Lazavik neededtiebreaks to outlast Niemann and GM Magnus Carlsen.

With 724 players in the early field, three jumped out to a 6/6 start, but Liang wasn't part of that group. Only one of them, GM Anton Korobov, won in the seventh round. Liang didn't join the lead until the next round, when he beat GM Mustafa Yilmaz while Korobov only made a draw.

They showed down in the ninth round, where Liang took control. In an opposite-sides castling affair, Liang's king appeared to be less safe, but Korobov never broke through and eventually the tide turned.

Liang's resulting sole lead didn't last after his draw in the 10th round with GM Arjun Erigaisi, allowing Le to join Liang atop the leaderboard.

The winner of Liang-Le in the final round would thus claim the whole tournament. After a tense early middlegame, Liang broke through tactically in the center and kingside, and afterward converted easily.

Five players entered the round on 8.5 points, giving them a chance to jump Le. Only one of them did, which was Grischuk after he checkmated Carlsen in rare fashion. Revenge for Carlsen's win in the fourth round of the 2013 Candidates Tournament? Okay, probably not. Just a good win to secure second place in a Titled Tuesday.

Meanwhile, eight players tied for third on nine points. Of the three with the best tiebreaksArjun, GM Fabiano Caruana, and Sarananone of them actually won in the final round, all making draws there instead.

June 25 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Liang won $1,000 while Grischuk earned $750. Arjun took home $350, with $200 going to Caruana and $100 to Sarana. WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova won the $100 women's prize, scoring 7.5 points.

Unlike in the early tournament, the winner of the late tournament was also the last perfect player. After winning his first seven games, Lazavik coasted to victory with three draws in his last four contests, completing an undefeated performance to win the late tournament for a second straight week.

Lazavik's only win in his last four games came against GM Pranav Venkatesh in round 10...

The win didn't quite allow Lazavik to break free, as Niemann also won in the round. Niemann stormed back from a fourth-round loss against the great GM Alexei Shirov by winning his sixth straight game, this one against GM David Anton.

Lazavik and Niemann played the "Berlin Draw" in the 11th round, securing a share of first. One player joined them: Carlsen, who got a taste of his own medicine (in terms of silly openings) when FM Artin Ashraf began their game with the moves 1.a4 and 2.a5, but also got the last laugh with a victory.

While tiebreaks were setting the podium, they also helped Anton finish fourth as he recovered from his setback by winning in the final round, while GM Andrew Hong took fifth.

June 25 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Lazavik earned $1,000 for first place while Niemann managed $750 and Carlsen $350. Anton won $200 and Hong $100 to round out the top five. IM Bibisara Assaubayeva scored eight points to win the $100 women's prize in the 21st overall place.

With the SCC qualification stage complete, attention now returns to the yearlong standings. The top women's scores are even closer now than last week, with a mere six points between first and fifth as IM Polina Shuvalova is now in fourth. Le took over fifth in the open standings from GM Dmitry Andreikin.

Juniors: GM Denis Lazavik (179.0 points)

Seniors: GM Gata Kamsky (167.0 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (113.5 points)

The Titled Cup fantasy game Chess Prophet continues as well. Current standings can be found here. (Login required.)

Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly tournament for titled players, with two tournaments held each Tuesday. The first tournament begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time, and the second at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time/23:00 Central European/2:30 Indian Standard Time (next day).

Excerpt from:
Titled Tuesday June 25, 2024 - Chess.com