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The first thing to say about chess is that we are not all natural geniuses like Beth Harmon, the star of The Queens Gambit, who is taught the game by grumpy but lovable janitor Mr Shaibel at the age of nine and is very soon beating him.

The daughter of a maths PhD, she sees the patterns and movement in chess immediately, can visualise effortlessly being able to memorise moves and play without a board is the sign of chess mastery and sees whole games on the ceiling of her orphanage dormitory. She is a prodigy, just like world champion Bobby Fischer, on whom Walter Tevis based the novel from which the TV series is drawn. We are mere mortals. So how do we get good?

First, by loving chess. You can only get good at chess if you love the game, Fischer said. You need to be endlessly fascinated by it and see its infinite potential. Be willing to embrace the complexity; enjoy the adventure. Every game should be an education and teach us something. Losing doesnt matter. Garry Kasparov, another former world champion, likes to say you learn far more from your defeats than your victories. Eventually you will start winning, but there will be a lot of losses on the way. Play people who are better than you, and be prepared to lose. Then you will learn.

If you are a beginner, dont feel the need to set out all the pieces at once. Start with the pawns, and then add the pieces. Understand the potential of each piece the way a pair of bishops can dominate the board, how the rooks can sweep up pawns in an endgame, why the queen and a knight can work together so harmoniously. Find a good teacher your own Mr Shaibel, but without the communication issues.

Once you have established the basics, start using computers and online resources to play and to help you analyse games. lichess.org, chess.com and chess24.com are great sites for playing and learning. chessbomb.com is a brilliant resource for watching top tournaments. chessgames.com is a wonderful database of games. chesspuzzle.net is a great practice program. decodechess.com attempts to explain chess moves in laypersons language. There are also plenty of sophisticated, all-purpose programs, usually called chess engines, such as Fritz and HIARCs that, for around 50, help you deconstruct your games and take you deeply into positions. But dont let the computer do all the work. You need to engage your own brain on the analysis. And dont endlessly play against the computer. Find human opponents, either online or, when the pandemic is over, in person.

Study the games of great masters of the past. Find a player you like and follow their careers. Fischer is a great starting point his play is clear and comprehensible, and beautifully described in his famous book My 60 Memorable Games. Morphy (Harmons favourite), Alekhine, Capablanca, Tal, Korchnoi and Shirov are other legendary figures with whom the aspiring player might identify. They also have fascinating life stories, and chess is about hot human emotions as well as cold calculation. Modern grandmaster chess, which is based heavily on a deep knowledge of opening theory, is more abstruse and may be best avoided until you have acquired deep expertise. The current crop of leading grandmasters are also, if we are brutally honest, a bit lacking in personality compared with the giants of the past.

Children will often find their school has a chess club, and that club may even have links with Chess in Schools and Communities, which supplies expert tutors to schools. Provision tends to be much better at primary than secondary level, and after 11 children will probably be left to their own devices if they want to carry on playing.

If a player is really serious, she or he should join their local chess club. There is likely to be one meeting nearby, or there will be once the Covid crisis is over. At the moment, clubs are not meeting and there is very little over-the-board chess being played. Players are keeping their brains active online, where you can meet players from all over the world. That is fun, but be aware that some players are likely to be cheating using chess engines to help them, making it hard for you to assess how good your play is. And you also get some abuse online from players who want to trash-talk. You are also likely to be playing at very fast time controls so-called blitz chess and that is no way to learn to really think about chess.

If you want to start playing over-the-board tournaments (when they resume), you will need to join the chess federation in your respective country. After youve played the requisite number of official games, you will get a rating a bit like a handicap in golf and can then start being paired with players of your own strength in matches. But until then, the key is to keep enjoying chess and searching for the elusive truth in a position. If you see a good move, look for a better one. You can always dig a little deeper in the pursuit of something remarkable and counterintuitive. Beauty and truth: the essence of chess.

Stephen Moss is the author of The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess (and Life), published by Bloomsbury

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How to get good at chess - The Guardian

George Washington could have run for re-election until he died, but had he stayed put for a third term the country probably wouldnt have seen its third century nor would Lin-Manuel Miranda have written a song about it. This peaceful transfer of power was and is the radical idea at the heart of American democracy.

That doesnt mean its easy. Losing money is more painful to us than gaining it is pleasurable, behavioral economists have shown. This loss aversion may be doubly true when it comes to power.

President Donald Trump seems to be running out of moves on the electoral game board, but so far he has shown no inclination to give up. To make sense of the guy from Queens gambit, MarketWatch sought the advice of experts in the art and science of throwing in the towel: a chess master, boxing coach, poker player and the U.S. Monopoly champion.

Presidential politics is not a game, of course, but sports and competition can provide insight into the when and how of conceding defeat.

Bruce Pandolfini, famed chess teacher, coach and author (a consultant on Netflixs The Queens Gambit)

Chess is one of the few games in which conceding defeat is an important move; a player may announce their intention to resign, or merely topple over their king.

Top players resign because they have been beaten, outwitted, Pandolfini, 73, told MarketWatch.

You dont keep fighting when your situation is hopeless, and you have far less than a 1% chance of overturning things. Its kind of an insult to the game not to resign.

This often happens many moves before the end, when the checkmate is still in the mail.

There are people you just dont even want to play because they are such unpleasant losers. But most serious players do accept the conditions of professional play and resign in some acceptable manner.

When I was young I was playing a grandmaster and I continued in a position well after I knew I had lost I eventually did lose, Pandolfini said. The grandmaster said to me, Didnt you see that? I was a bit of a wise guy kid, though, and said, I wanted to see if you had seen it.

An unwillingness to resign is more common among young players, said Pandolfini, who has coached his share.

You wouldnt want to have a youngster give up so easily. That would signify a lack of fighting spirit, he said. You dont want to see a weakening of that resolve. Most youngsters do continue beyond the points they would resign as older, more mature players.

What possesses a player to stay in when the situation is hopeless?

Well, there are people you just dont even want to play because they are such unpleasant losers, Pandolfini said. Even in the world of serious chess. But most serious players do accept the conditions of professional play and resign in some acceptable manner.

Brian Valentine, reigning U.S. Monopoly champion and an assistant high-school principal

Playing Monopoly until the bitter end is more than most people can handle, with the exception perhaps of 12-year-old slumlords who, like pint-sized Mr. Potters, savor every moment of impoverishing their parents and siblings.

You know youve lost when you see the pitfalls of other players houses and hotels are outweighing your cash on hand and the odds of evading them with the dice, said Monopoly champ Brian Valentine, who may be the only person in America who has done more buying, selling and mortgaging of Atlantic City real estate than Trump.

In a family game, this is when its time to fold, he said. (Though others prefer to flip over the board, send dogs, hats, railroads and cash flying, in a dramatic rage-quit.)

But conceding defeat is not really an option in tournament play, Valentine said. You have to play to the end, because there is an actual time limit.

When the game seems hopeless, sometimes players get a hot hand with the dice, Valentine said. I have seen people kangaroo hopping all over the board, but this is not just a game of luck and very rarely does the evasion of having to pay a lot of money also correspond with you being able to gain money and build up simultaneously.

Trump just landed on Chance in the late stages of the game, knowing the only card left in the deck is Advance to Boardwalk. And Boardwalk has a hotel on it.

Top players know the odds, they know which Chance or Community Chest cards are still in the deck, and whether their only hope is beating the clock, Valentine said. I guess the analog in the present is whether in December when the electors vote or by January when there is an inauguration, eventually you are going to run up against the time limit.

There are some players who get erratic and unsportsmanlike in such situations, proposing absurdly lopsided deals as if they arent in a hopeless situation.

At the highest levels. though, there is a certain level of honor and dignity, he said. You have to respect the rules of the game, which have been in place for 86 years.

As for what Trumps Monopoly board looks like at the moment, Valentine considered a few scenarios before settling on this: Hes just landed on Chance in the late stages of the game, knowing the only card left in the deck is Advance to Boardwalk, he said. And Boardwalk has a hotel on it.

Asher Conniff, professional poker player

Poker at its core is a math game. Based on their cards, players calculate what percentage chance they have to win while weighing other factors like what cards could come next or what cards their opponents may have.

But poker is an emotional game, too, and reading situations based on the temperature of the room is essential.

There is a fair amount thats math, Conniff, 32, told MarketWatch. But some of it is just reading people.

Trump has nothing to lose. The party may have something to lose, and even thats debatable. Its what we call a free roll. He might as well try to win and if he loses he just kind of goes home. Hes not betting anything.

Conniff, who has been playing poker professionally for eight years, said that knowing when to get out can sometimes be the best skill a player could have.

One of the truest sayings in poker is, If you cant spot the fish, youre the fish.

A poker player deemed a fish is somebody who is not a seasoned player and who will likely have lost when the game is over.

So is Trump a fish in the 2020 election poker game? Not exactly, according to Conniff.

One of the great differences here is that he has nothing to lose. The party may have something to lose, and even thats debatable. Its what we call a free roll, Conniff explained. He might as well try to win and if he loses he just kind of goes home. Hes not betting anything.

Ryan OLeary, boxing coach, former member of the board of directors for USA Boxing, former New York national team and New York Golden Gloves coach

Boxing is one of the few major sports where the participants have an opportunity to end the match prematurely. Knowing when a fighter has taken enough of a beating, or when he or she has no opportunity to win is something that is a top concern for boxing coaches.

Sometimes my boxer gets pissed at me, and sometimes they understand, OLeary, 48, told MarketWatch. But either way my job is to make sure they come out of there safe.

If he knows his fighter is taking a beating and can no longer win the fight, OLeary will not hesitate to make a move.

Its time for [Trump] to just throw in the towel; he doesnt have a punchers chance.

I will always stop a fight if I feel like my boxer is not in it.

Assessing whether a fighter still has a chance can be difficult. One reason for that is what OLeary calls the punchers chance.

I had a guy, he was outboxed in the first two rounds, completely outclassed, but the kid he was fighting had no punch at all, he wasnt hurting my guy. My guy was getting outboxed, and I was pretty sure he was going to continue to get outboxed. But my guy was a hard puncher, so he had a punchers chance. If he landed the right punch at the right time, he probably could have taken out this prospect. We lost practically every round, but he was in the fight the whole time.

When asked whether or not Trump still has a punchers chance in the 2020 election fight, OLeary said: Do I think he can pull this out? Theres no way at this point. Its time for him to just throw in the towel; he doesnt have a punchers chance. Hes defeated now.

Link:
Will Trump quit? A chess master, pro poker player, boxing coach and Monopoly champ on the art of throwing in the towel - MarketWatch

Chess in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed greatly, but in Dulles, Virginia, last month, they took precautions and played the old-school way.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S., some of the earliest high-profile changes in American life came in the realm of sports: In quick succession in March, the NBA and NHL suspended their seasons, while MLB delayed the start of their year, eventually playing a severely truncated season.

Though chess isnt as high in the American consciousness as those sports, the pandemic shut the game down even more completely. With rooms full of people sitting and playing, opponents and neighboring games a couple feet from each other, for hours, it was obvious that tournament chess couldnt continue.

It still mostly doesnt, but last month, in Dulles, Virginia, the first face-to-face tournament in the D.C. area since March was played, as about 130 players competed in the U.S. Class Championship.

Organizer Anand Dommalpati told WTOP that the field was about half what the U.S. Class generally draws, but that I didnt even expect this much, considering the scary situation. But I think all the players are very cooperative, and theyre all following the protocols.

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Dommalpati considered the risks each player had to sign a waiver. But the appeal of the game outweighed the other factors, including for his teenage daughter, a tournament player whose interest in chess got him into organizing tournaments in the first place.

He said his daughter was getting tired of playing online, just because they sit at the computer screen for a long time. And she was OK during the summer, but once school started, theyre already on the screen for six hours, seven hours.

Then comes homework, which is several more hours. Then she gets tired of screen time. She said, No; I dont want to play online chess its just so boring. I think that made me think, OK, now its an opportunity.

Masks were required; spectators were banned. Boards were placed much farther apart than usual. After each game, players paused to wipe off the pieces.

Dommalpati and his staff sprayed each board and set, and the hotel staff came through and cleaned the room after all games were finished in each round.

Players had to leave the hotel after their games, unless they were guests of the hotel, in which case they had to go to their rooms.

At one point, a rules dispute broke out, and chief tournament director Rudy Abate, of Henderson, North Carolina, had to break up a group of players who had gravitated toward the argument. Still, he agreed, the players are very cooperative.

When traditional activities had to shut down in person, many of them moved online. In some ways, chess was perfectly suited for that transition. Many people play online already, and the game doesnt lose much in translation: You cant face a split-fingered fastball online, but a virtual Knight moving from c6 to d4 makes you think as hard as a wooden one.

Indeed, online-only enterprises such as the PRO Chess League and the Magnus Grand Prix (organized by Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen) have stepped into the gap. The U.S. Championship, as well as the Olympiad (the world team championship), were played online.

Chess-related livestreams on platforms such as Twitch have garnered millions of fans, and made substantial money for talented streamers, such as former U.S. Champion Hikaru Nakamura.

It raises the question: The longer the pandemic goes on, and the more players get used to playing online, will they come back to over-the-board chess? Will chess become a video game, albeit a high-class one?

Its possible, Abate said. Dommalpati added that he knows of players who have only played online.

But for most of the players and officials at the U.S. Class, the real-world game was here to stay.

Michael Hoffpauir, the president of the U.S. Chess Federation and the executive secretary and treasurer of the Virginia Chess Federation, said the pandemic, and the move online, has definitely changed the nature of the game.

Hes not worried that online chess will supplant the old-school game. For one thing, while technological vigilance is better than ever, it cant be known for sure whether your opponent on the other end of the internet is consulting with a world-class computer program to come up with their moves.

You have a camp who enjoy the online chess because they can continue to compete, Hoffpauir said. But theres another segment who just have gotten some sour taste because of cheating incidents in online tournaments. Those types of incidents definitely spoil the reputation of online play.

Hoffpauir added that live chess has an element the virtual game cant touch: The social interaction its just not the same as playing over the board.

He added, Its just a different experience over the board. When youre sweating because you just [lost] a piece, or youre in a bad position, or your Kings defense is compromised, you sweat, and your opponent can see it and feel it.

Chess is, in its own quiet, possibly weird way, a very social game, but at the U.S. Class, so much of that social quality seemed lost to the safety measures. All that was left was the game itself.

Still, the question arises: Given the risks of the coronavirus, is chess that important?

Yeah, Abate said, it is.

The players surely agreed. Virginias Jennifer Yu, 18, won the 2019 U.S. Womens Championship and played in the U.S. Class the day after finishing fourth in this years online womens event.

She wrote for Chess Life that playing in a mask made only an insignificant difference. After years of leaning on my hand, however, I was more worried about touching my face. But I broke the habit early by sitting on my hands!

The big adjustment, she wrote, was playing with three-dimensional pieces again, and simply being around so many people at once both completely commonplace happenings that had become strange very quickly.

Shelev Oberoi, 14, of Texas, came to Dulles for the chance to play stronger players than hes used to, and told WTOP that he hoped the people who were introduced to chess online will return to go to a tournament in person.

He added that the appeal was hard to explain, but its just the feeling of the board versus the screen.

And while 6-year-old Tariq Yue, of Pennsylvania, started playing online, and has played about 30 online tournaments, he was hooked on the face-to-face game in only his second over-the-board tournament.

You look at the pieces differently, Yue said. You see them differently.

Originally posted here:
For the love of the game: Tournament chess returns to Virginia, pandemic or not - WTOP

Pat Musitano was a brash, loud mob boss, but his funeral was so low key it went almost entirely unnoticed after he was murdered by a gunman in a Burlington parking lot this summer in the midst of the global pandemic.

When his associate, Joseph Catroppa, was shot dead outside a hotel in Cancun, Mexico, in September, his funeral service in Woodbridge was also a private, quiet affair, marked publicly by only an online announcement.

Such discreet online mourning is part of the new realities of life and death for local and international organized criminals during the COVID-19 crisis.

Meanwhile, experts say the smartest organized criminals are now rebounding and even expanding after their initial pandemic scare.

Crime tends to be a first-mover, sussing out new opportunities whenever a crisis like COVID-19 arises, Misha Glenny, a fellow at the Berggruen Institute think tank, writes on his blog. They are very entrepreneurial.

The bad news is the surge of online activity during lockdown has multiplied the opportunities for the ever-growing cyber criminal fraternity, he continues.

For some, the new opportunities lie in a new division of police resources, weakened enemies, legitimate business failures and sloppy online security.

For Mississauga mobster Vincenzo (Jimmy) De Maria, 66, the global pandemic meant he could present a viable argument to immigration authorities that he is too frail to be deported to Italy. De Maria, who was convicted of a 1981 second-degree murder over a drug debt, has had his deportation hearing indefinitely postponed after he argued he wasnt well enough for pandemic travel.

Experts agree the COVID-19 crisis has hit different facets of underworld life at varying degrees of intensity. Heres how:

Drugs

Immediately after the pandemic hit last March, illegal drugs became the toilet paper of the underworld meaning cocaine, heroin and other narcotics were the target of panic buying and hoarding.

Then things calmed down.

Luis Horacio Najera, a GTA academic who covered the cocaine trade as a reporter in Ciudad de Juarez, Mexico, said the pandemic hasnt hit all drug cartels equally.

Some are struggling to survive while others have sniffed out chances to finally overtake their rivals and diversify their interests.

There could be some visionaries among the cartels that could try to take advantage of the pandemic and its effects to push for new markets, Najera said in an online interview.

Investing money on legitimate business as medical supplies may be a good opportunity to clean some cash, Najera said.

As the pandemic pressed on, local criminals realized that addicts and more casual users werent going anywhere and that fentanyl, marijuana and methamphetamine can be produced locally while cocaine could still be smuggled into the country. They just had to do a little better job improving their supply chains and delivery, just like legions of legitimate businesses.

Internationally, drones, submersibles and tunnels became increasingly popular for smuggling during the pandemic.

Canadians were sometimes on the producing end in the illegal drug business in the pandemic underworld.

Investigators with the York Regional Police announced that a three-month operation this summer by its Organized Crime Bureau Guns, Gangs and Drug Enforcement Unit netted approximately $150 million dollars worth of illegal cannabis.

The pot haul was made after officers executed 15 search warrants throughout York Region, including Markham, King, Stouffville and East Gwillimbury, resulting in 37 arrests and 67 charges.

Much of that pot was destined for the American market, police said.

Gambling

There has been plenty of wagering on high-level chess, but its not because gamblers are worked up by the Netflix hit The Queens Gambit, a professor who studies sports gambling said.

If youre addicted to sports gambling, youll bet on anything, Declan Hill, an associate professor at the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Science, University of New Haven, Conn., said in an interview.

Match-fixing and gambling is exploding during this time, Hill said.

After shutdowns and schedule shrinking hit many major sports leagues, gamblers showed they were eager to drop bets on virtually anything, including chess, Hill said.

The closure of government-run casinos also created an opening for lavish, spa-like illegal betting palaces to thrive.

One of those new venues in Markham a gated, guarded 20,000-square-foot Markham mansion on Decourcy Court near Warden Avenue and Major MacKenzie Drive, according to York Regional Police, who shut it down last month.

Its invitation-only policy meant criminals could mingle and conduct business without the interference of undercover police agents.

Loansharking

Pope Francis announced in July he was praying for people who during this time of the pandemic, trade at the expense of the needy and profit from the needs of others, like the Mafia, usurers and others.

May the Lord touch their hearts and convert them, the Pope said.

The Pontiffs comments came as small businesses throughout the world are suffering from the pandemic.

Many criminals who had invested heavily in businesses like restaurants and property-rental saw their customers stay home and their tenants suddenly become unable to pay their rents.

After an initial scare, opportunities presented themselves for organized criminals with deep pockets and plenty of liquid cash to become hidden partners in previously legitimate businesses.

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Things are particularly promising for organized criminals with plenty of liquid cash and connections to lawyers, accountants and financial advisers, professor Anna Sergi of the University of Essex said in an email interview.

Even without the business advice, some (organized crime groups) can approach certain businesses directly, but this tends to happen where places are smaller and communities tighter, Sergi said.

Businesses that are smaller (like cash businesses, restaurants, industry-specific businesses affected by the pandemic, such as hospitality and the like) are more at risk, but bigger industries might also be needing influx of cash to get back on their feet, Sergi said, pointing to construction businesses whose work decreases because real estate might be in distress.

Italian anti-Mafia magistrate Nicola Gratteri told the Global Initiative against Organized Crime in October that the pandemic creates an opportunity for organized crime because the usurers from the Ndrangheta initially come in with offers of low interest rates, because their end goal is to take over the business, via usury, and use it to launder their illicit proceeds.

Gratteri grimly added that the Ndrangheta lenders arent as worried about collateral as legitimate financial institutions because: Their collateral is the borrowers life.

Fraud

Criminals quickly cashed in on fact that cyberspace was suddenly central to work, education, health and entertainment after the COVID-19 outbreak.

Due to the pandemic, many Canadians are spending more time at home, Lisanne Roy Beauchamp of the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said in an email. As a result, fraudsters have upped their attempts to contact potential victims by phone and online.

By the end of March, there were already reports of bogus medicines and hand gels on the market. There have recently been reports of a flood of fake COVID-19 negative test results, allowing tourists to travel without receiving proper medical clearances. Some of those falsified results were downloadable for storage on mobile phones.

Hacking is also up exponentially. Experts urge people to keep their operating systems up to date, install anti-virus and anti-malware programs, avoid using the same password twice, use password generators and refrain from keeping sensitive data on the internet.

The public is also urged to avoid clicking links or opening attachments if anything seems unusual.

Working from home means leaving secure office networks to sharing home servers with children and teenagers, who werent always so security conscious.

The lesson from all this is crystal clear, Glenny says. If youve never taken computer security seriously, make time during the lockdown to get up to speed and quickly.

Human trafficking

The pandemic has made it even tougher to fight human trafficking globally and in Canada, experts say.

Sexual exploitation including webcam sex trafficking has shot up during the pandemic, feeding off poverty, isolation and desperation, Valiant Richey of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said in an email.

COVID has exacerbated trends we were already seeing before the pandemic, and made them even more urgent, said Richey, the OSCE Special Representative for Combating and Trafficking in Human Beings.

It is harder to cross borders now, as many are in fact closed or carefully monitored, but trafficking and exploitation do not need to cross a border to take place, said Richey, whose organization fights human trafficking in 57 nations, from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

Canada isnt immune to this global phenomenon, Richey said, as most human trafficking is domestic.

Canada, like many countries in the OSCE region, has domestic human trafficking, Richey said.

Lockdown measures and movement restrictions have also contributed to a surge in online child exploitation through webcams, Richey said.

Richey said the number of reports of online child sexual exploitation have tripled globally since the pandemic began.

We are talking about hundreds of millions of pictures and videos exchanged on common social media platforms, Richey said. Much more robust efforts need to be taken to prevent this criminal conduct which can have cause long-term trauma to victims.

Read the original:
Loansharking, fake test results and betting on chess: How organized crime has learned to thrive in the COVID-19 pandemic - Toronto Star

Darien native Jasmine Su has been finding her joy in the game of chess ever since she was seven years old.

My dad introduced this game to me and Ive been hooked since, said Jasmine Su. And now at the age of 10, shes not only making moves on the board but in the rankings, as shes been named one of the top players in her age bracket in the country by the U.S. Chess Federation.

I feel really happy and I did a lot of training at home and played in a lot of tournaments to get it, Su said. I think its really fun because it doesnt matter about your age or gender or heritage or what language you speak. One time I was playing a 78-year-old gentlemen.

But although many in-person tournaments have been canceled due to the coronavirus, it hasnt stopped the 10-year-old from advancing her game.

I have chess coaches and they teach me how to improve my chess and I also learn from books. I do training and problems to train my brain and thats how I work my skills, Su said.

Jan van de Mortel is the president of the Connecticut State Chess Association and he said the online chess community has actually been booming as a result of the pandemic. He said he's excited for so many to experience the benefits that come from the game.

Chess is extremely good for childrens development. You learn to play with a strict set of rules which you have to stick by, said the 40-year chess veteran.

He goes on to explain the unique bond that comes from playing the game.

Chess immediately breaks down barriers, breaks the ice, and two people of completely different cultures, ages backgrounds can sit down and play a game of chess. They may not even speak the same language, but they can play chess and they start to create a bond and these relationships can last for a long time," van de Mortel said.

Originally posted here:
10-Year-Old Darien Native Becomes Nationally Recognized Chess Player - NBC Connecticut