Mediaboss Marketing

A chess club in Elephant and Castle is buzzing with people of all ages coming from across the capital to play.

London Chess Club, which is free to attend and play, started ten years ago as just eight men at a cafe in the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre.

Open to all ages and levels, now around 50 people come on Sundays and just a bit less during the week. One of the organisers, Harry, said it has become one of the most popular in London.

Before starting at the club he told us most of the players hadnt played a real person before.

Lots of people play online. But when they come here its sociable. They can chat, have some food its very casual.

Harry explained that they noticed a surge in numbers after lockdown partly because of a Netflix series that got people inspired.

After the Queens Gambit aired, it really took off, he said.

Thirty-one-year-old Ruth, who is a civil servant, explained that she joined in February, never having played before.

I only started learning when I watched the series. Its not really something anyone I know does.

But someone told me that there are more chess strategies than there are stars in the sky. And that makes me want to come back.

She said her church is just around the corner, so she comes to learn and play afterwards.

Theyve been teaching me here. I lose most of the time right now but I really like learning it.

On a typical Sunday, players are spread out across the whole food hall. Most are playing chess but some different games are going on, like a man who comes to teach a four-player version to anyone who wants to learn.

Jim, another organiser, has started teaching Go which was invented in ancient China and is believed to be the oldest board game continuously played to this day. It is mostly played in East Asian countries.

Jims latest student, Jun, is from Hong Kong and has just graduated from the London School of Economics.

I was looking for people who play Go in London as its difficult to find here, Jun said. Im learning at the moment I play chess too but this is different.

He said he first found the group when he was looking for people to play in person. I was mostly playing online.

For chess, you have to maintain focus.

Even though its not a physical sport, you really do need to stay healthy, and workout or get a good nights sleep because if not, your focus is really off. its like taking a test.

Theres so many ways to play and you have to be ready for it.

An accessible game for all, the organisers added that it is rare to see people playing a game where age is no indication of who will win.

A young member, Luca who is in year 10, told us he gets the train from North London most Sundays to come and play. He said he first learned to play with his dad when he was around seven. It makes me think and I get excited when I win, he added.

London Chess Club meets every Tuesdayevening from 7 pm and Sunday from 10:30 to 4 pm at Mercato Metropolitano in Elephant and Castle.

Continued here:
How this chess club in Elephant brought people of all different walks ... - Southwark News

The Nigeria National Chess Championship (NCC) is the biggest and most important chess event in Nigeria. It is the determinant of the Nigeria National Chess Champion and the Nigeria National Womens Chess Champion.

Hundreds of players and thousands of visitors participate in this annual chess event which runs for eight days.

Orchid-Lekki Chess Club (OLCC) hosts the Nigeria National Chess Championship on behalf of the Nigeria Chess Federation (NCF). In the last three years, the quality and influence of the Nigeria National Chess Championship has improved and grown significantly, leading to faster development of the sport in Nigeria.

The championship has unveiled young talents and provided hints on the future possibilities of chess in Nigeria. The 2023 edition of the Nigeria National Chess Championship is scheduled for October 2 to October 9, 2023, at Orchid Hotel, Lekki, Lagos.

The championship will feature an Elite Invitational Section where 24 of the best chess players in Nigeria will compete for the Nigeria National Chess Champion and Nigeria National Womens Chess Champion titles.

The winners of these titles will represent Nigeria at the 2024 Africa Individual Chess Championship (AICC). The 24 players in this section went through a rigorous selection and qualification process which includes a Nigeria National Chess Championship Qualifiers Tournament, to be able to compete in this final stage.

Nigeria National Chess Championship 2023 will also have an Open Section which will accommodate players in every category including beginners and masters. Rank and file players and any member of the public can register to participate in the Open Section where they can test their mettle against other players of their playing strength.

The Open Section will also have a vibrant Junior Category that will cater to Under-20, Under-14, and Under-10 players. Hundreds of school

children are expected to participate in this category.

Below are the schedules for the sections /

categories and the championship as a whole:

Opening Ceremony: October 2 (11 am)

Blitz Tournament: October 2 (From 4 pm)

Elite Invitational Section: October 3 October 9 (from 9 am daily)

Junior Category: October 3 October 4 (From 9 am daily)

Open Section: October 5 October 9 (From 9 am daily)

Closing Ceremony October 9 (4 pm)

Nigerias minister of sports development, Mr John Enoh, will be the special guest of honour at the championships opening ceremony.

A highlight of this years opening ceremony will be a session to induct seven distinguished Nigerian chess personalities and two organizations into the newly inaugurated Nigeria Chess Hall of Fame. This new development in Nigerian chess is set to celebrate and honour important contributors to the development of the sport in Nigeria.

Another notable event included in this years championship is a FIDE Chess in Education Teachers Course organised for teachers in Lagos State. This course which will take place between October 2 and October 5, will help participants develop the skills necessary to inculcate chess in education.

The course will be facilitated by Women International Master Anzel Laubscher from South Africa.

The 2023 Nigeria National Chess Championship is shaping up to be a most exciting chess event and a foundation for the rapid development of the mind sport in the country.

Here is the original post:
National Chess Championship Set To Begin In Lagos Next Week - Leadership News

By IM Kostya Kavutskiy

Check out the full replay of live coverage from the day here. The event features Chess 960 (aka Fischer Random), a chess variant where the starting position of the pieces is randomized along the first rank. The tournament format is a 10-player round-robin, with a time control of 20 minutes per side plus a 5-second increment added every move.

Going into the final day Sevian and Aronian were tied for the lead with 4/6. While Aronian could only manage to draw against So, Sevian was able to defeat Kasparov, after the former World Champion overstepped the time limit while trying to defend a pawn down.

Also winning was Caruana, who defeated Xiong from the black side in nice positional style:

Xiong - Caruana: final position after 32...Ng5 0-1

Navigating the Ruy Lopez Vol.1-3

The Ruy Lopez is one of the oldest openings which continues to enjoy high popularity from club level to the absolute world top. In this video series, American super GM Fabiano Caruana, talking to IM Oliver Reeh, presents a complete repertoire for White.

Two wins by Fabiano Caruana would give him a clear shot at first in the final round | Photo: Crystal Fuller

In the penultimate round Sevian drew with Xiong, maintaining his lead but allowing others a chance to reach him. Aronian, just a half-point behind Sevian, lost to Caruana after flagging in a difficult position, leaving Caruana in second place going into the final round.

Also winning to enter the tie for second was Shankland, who refuted a faulty Greek Gift sacrifice from Kasparov to win his second straight game as well:

Shankland - Kasparov: after 22.Nf4 Black was forced to resign, as h5 is falling next

Sam Shankland | Photo: Crystal Fuller

The final round featured the crucial match Caruana-Sevian, with Caruana needing to win in order to overtake first place. A sharp battle ensued, with the critical moment occurring when Sevian went all-out for an attack, finding a stunning bishop sacrifice in order to get his heavy pieces in front of Whites king. Caruana was simply unable to defend the position and Sevian clinched tournament victory as he was soon to deliver mate.

Caruana-Sevian: 18...Bxb2!! was a stunner, with the idea 19.Kxb2 Rgg6!-+, lifting the second rook in order to hunt down Whites king

Shankland would go on to draw against Xiong, leaving him in second place with 6/9, while Aronian and So both managed to win their final games, as So converted an extra pawn in the endgame against Robson while Aronian took down Nakamura thanks to a vicious counterattack on the queenside.

Good prep pays off! Shankland chose the right player to analyse with | Photo: Lennart Ootes

So scored 2/3 to sneak into the tie for second | Photo: Lennart Ootes

A second-place finish for Levon Aronian as well | Photo: Lennart Ootes

See more here:
Sevian beats Kasparov and Caruana to win Chess 9LX tournament - ChessBase

The original Pragmatic Sanction was an edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, on 19 April 1713. It ended that the Habsburg monarchy, the extensive territories of which included the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, could be inherited by a daughter undivided. Division would have irrevocably weakened the Empire, whose proud, if enigmatic motto, was AEIOU. Not just a mnemonic for the vowels, but actually standing for the orgulous assertion: Alle Erde Ist sterreich Untertan (the whole world is subject to Austria). That daughter turned out to be the Empress Maria Theresa, who did eventually succeed, but only after the (with hindsight inevitable) War of the Austrian Succession.

And what of the chess succession, now that Magnus Carlsen has renounced his world title and elected to transform himself into the king over the water?

One of my recurring nightmares used to be that the teenage Indian Grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (born 10 August 2005) would qualify for a world title match against Ian Nepomniachtchi. That would create such a tongue twister as to make it almost impossible to report on the contest for lay persons. The chess correspondent would be obliged to resort to the somewhat disrespectful abbreviations Pragg and Nepo.

Availing myself of the aforementioned abbreviated escape route, Pragg qualified as an International Master at the age of 10, the youngest at the time to do so, and as a Grandmaster at the age of 12, the second-youngest at the time. On 22 February 2022, aged 16, he became the youngest player to defeat the then world champion Magnus Carlsen, when he beat the Norwegian in a rapidplay game at the Airthings Masters Tournament.

A bald statistical narrative of the prodigys subsequent triumphs reveals the rapid upwards curve of his meteoric career. In July 2019, Pragg won the Xtracon Chess Open in Denmark, scoring 8/10 points (+70=3). On 12 October 2019, he took gold in the World Youth Championships Under-18 section with a score of 9/11. In December 2019, he graduated as the second-youngest person to achieve a rating of 2600. He accomplished this feat when aged only 14 years, 3 months and 24 days, about the same age when (as the Jurassic period gave way to the Cretaceous) I was persuading the Committee of the Battersea Chess club to permit a 14 year old to actually enter the club championship.

In April 2021, Pragg went on to win the Polgar Challenge, the first leg (out of four) of the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour, a rapid online event organized by Julius Baer Group and chess24.com for young talents. He scored 15.5/19, 1.5 points ahead of the next best placed competitors. This win helped him qualify for the next Meltwater Champions Chess Tour on 24 April 2021, where he finished in 10th place with a score of 7/15 (+4-5=6). This included wins against the leading grandmasters Teimour Radjabov, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Sergey Karjakin (who still retains the record of becoming the youngest grandmaster) and Johan-Sebastian Christiansen. Pragg drew against the still regnant World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

On 20 February 2022, Pragg distinguished himself as only the third Indian player (after Anand and Harikrishna) to win a game against Carlsen (see below) in any time format, in the online Airthings Masters rapid tournament of the Champions Chess Tour. At the Chessable Masters tournament later that year, he defeated Carlsen once again, his second win over him in 3 months, and advanced to the finals. He also defeated Carlsen no fewer than three times in the FTX Crypto Cup 2022, finishing second behind Carlsen in the final standings.

And for his latest trick In the recently concluded FID Chess World Cup 2023, held in Baku, the former home town of Garry Kasparov, 18-year-old Pragg emerged as the worlds youngest player ever to have reached the Chess World Cup final. Pragg had defeated the former challengers Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana in tie-breaks in the semi-final. His match in the final against the now former World Champion Magnus Carlsen resulted in a defeat in the rapid tie-breaks. This was sufficient, nevertheless, to secure Pragg an honourable second place, as well as confirmed qualification for the 2024 Candidates Tournament to determine the challenger for the new World Champion Ding Liren.

Although Pragg succumbed to Carlsen in the Baku Final, the Indian teenager has Future World Champion indelibly inscribed on the Sibylline prophecies of his future destiny. Perhaps, in years to come, when the Magnus star has faded, Pragg may seize the world title and restore the traditional situation whereby the incumbent world champion and the world number one are identical. By renouncing his champions title, yet still continuing to notch up victory after victory, Carlsen has devalued the title to the point where it is practically worthless. The chess world now awaits a new Praggmatic Sanction, the triumph of Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, to restore the succession of the world championship to its accustomed lustre.

And now, that afore-mentioned game from the Airthings Masters Tournament:

Magnus Carlsen vs. Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa

And as an extra, a video link to the always excellent Agdamators column on YouTube, featuring a game from my youth, back in the Cretaceous Period, against Fielder from the Battersea Club championship.

Raymond Keenes book Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus, containing some of his best pieces fromTheArticle, is now available from Blackwells . Meanwhile, Rays206th book, Chess in the Year of the King, with a forewordby TheArticle contributor Patrick Heren, and written in collaboration with former Reuters chess correspondent, Adam Black, has just appeared and is also available from the same source or from Amazon

Continued here:
Praggmatic Sanction: the ascent of an Indian chess prodigy - TheArticle

FPS Chess is, as its name suggests, chess, with a first-person twist. Then again, the title also raises a good question: is chess already played in first person? When we sit down to a match, are we assuming the role of a general, surveying the carved pastures of war? Or are we narrators at a third-person remove, telling the story of each piece, as it slides toward ruin or triumph?

The crux of FPS Chess, which released last year on Steam, and which you can download free of charge, is simple. Seated in a warm study (bookshelf, crackling hearth, model train humming over a prairie of carpet), you play a match against someone online: a friend or a stranger. No character sits opposite you, and both your pieces and your opponent's move of their own accord, hopping where you point. Though, it must be said, no actual pointing is done. Unlike Inscryption - another game about a game, which enfolded you in wood and warm darkness but had nastiness on the cards-no hands reach out.

Every time a piece attempts a capture, we cut to first person for the ensuing bout. Battle is joined on the board and off, tumbling from the table onto the chairs and shelves, into the fire, even onto the carriages of the train. At this point, one might presume that any connection to real chess has wobbled off the rails; in truth, it has merely taken an unexpected track. FPS Chess encases the ancient game in the mechanics of the hero shooter, changing the patterns of its play; and in so doing it varnishes the pieces with character, lending their gestures a sharp, familiar purpose. Look at the bishops, brandishing Holy Hand Grenades and gliding, on borrowed wings, into battle. And watch the queen, wielding a Gatling gun and hurling pieces with regal telepathy. Pick a fight with her, and you feel as you did at the approach of a Big Sister, in BioShock 2. The world cracks and panic floods in.

FPS Chess pays homage to its inspiration by breaking its rules. Thus, it joins the ranks of variations that have hovered at the margins of chess throughout history. Think of Chess960, dreamed up by Bobby Fischer, which randomises the placement of pieces, in an effort to drag players out of the dusty realms of theoryA and into a domain of pure and unhinged creativity. Dunsany's chess, meanwhile, arms Black with a traditional setup but equips White with a battalion of thirty-two pawns. Its creator, Lord Dunsany, fought in the First World War, so perhaps it's little wonder that he bequeathed us an asymmetric horde mode. Chess may have arrived, early in the eighth century, in remarkably recognisable form, and it may not have been lavished with many patches or any substantial post-launch content. But with a modding community like this, who cares?

These variants may cease to be chess, but they never cease to be about chess. In mocking its rules, they tease out fresh meaning. They remind us that to lampoon is, fundamentally, an act of love, and they press the game through the obsessed prism of their makers. Hence the enduring image of FPS Chess, the one we see at the end of each confrontation: the defeated piece cracked, and crumbling into powdery shards. You relish the theatre, you appreciate the way the antique game has been toyed with and broken up, if only for a brief moment, but you know that the next move awaits, and the one after. The game underneath is untouched, standing firm even as it falls to pieces.

Original post:
FPS Chess joins the ranks of rulebreakers teasing new meaning from the game - Eurogamer.net