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MAHWAH Most likely you're no match for 12-year-old Gary Leschinsky. His opening is pretty strong and so are the rest of his moves. You can say he's the king of his castle.

As you may have deduced from the cheap puns, Gary is a chess player. Not just any chess player, he is self-taught and within two years of playing his first game ranksnumber 15 in the United States in his age group.

Gary Leschinsky with his chess trophies(Photo: Marsha A. Stoltz)

"My mother kept talking about chess champion Garry Kasparov," Gary said."I didn't know who hewas so I looked him up on the internet.Then Ilooked up how to play."

That's it.

His father BorisLeschinsky concedes his influence was limited to playing checkers, but he's learned enough of the game to assist Gary by moving the pieces as instructed. Gary plays blindfolded to even the playing field.

"My commitment is way smaller than his," Boris Leschinsky said."We are happy to support his passion."

Gary now divides his time between a trainer, tournaments and playing online.He plays all formats, but least likes "blitz" games where each player gets three to four minutes to plot their next move.

Bernice and Mark Leschinsky look on and father Boris gives assistance to Gary and sister Barbara.(Photo: Marsha A. Stoltz)

"There's no time to think at all," Gary said."Now I play with a two-hour time control."

The middle-schooler said it's "hard to find good tournaments," but he has managed to make friends while attending nearby events that are either open to all orgeared to his age and grade.

"Your first tournament is really important because of the chess rating system," Gary said. "Everyone starts out at 100.A bad tournament would get you 101.I got 500 my first time."

Within six months, Gary's U.S. Chess Federation rating went from 500 to 1,600. As of Jan. 7, it was 2,156, only 44 points shy of national master status.Heplaced first in the New Jersey Grade 6 Championship in November.

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Gary can't explain why he has progressed so rapidly, other than a general: "I'm good at math." Alexander Stripunsky, a trainer at International Chess Academy in Glen Rock, saidit's "an ability to learn quickly."

Gary, Stripunsky said, "has always been an exceptional learner, partially because of his great work ethic, partially because of his ability to capture the essence of the process going on, the nature of the position."

Fortunately for mere mortals, Gary can't tell a good player from a bad one in the early part of a game, but it's the end game that separates the sheep from the goats, so to speak.

Gary Leschinsky plays 10 boards simultaneously during the CDI tournament in Mexico last November.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Boris Lachinsky)

"It's hard to do the end game, king safety, pawn structure is pretty important," Gary said. "Older people know better what's good and what's bad."

When not preoccupied with chess or school, Gary enjoys ping pong, running, and promoting an invention he hadpatented while he was in the third grade.

"It's called the A-Watch, short for allergy watch," Gary said."I have a lot of allergies, and this watch is designed to detect symptoms of food allergies." He said when he attends parties or hanging out with friends and doesn't know what ingredients are in foods, the watch "has a skin sensor that detects my heart rate, sweating."

The prototype is still in development, and Gary is looking for collaborators to advance his idea. But Gary presented his watch as one of seven students who addressed theLa Ciudad de las Ideas in Mexico last November. The International Festival of Brilliant Minds brings together "talented people," according to Gary, for talk and inspiration.

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"I met President Trump's first press secretary, Sean Spicer," Gary said."John Gray, who wrote 'Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars,' Harvard professor Tal Ben-Shahar, who talked about how to be happy. My favorite wasan artificial intelligence talk by David Cox from IBM."

For all that rarefied air, the sixth-grader at Ramapo Ridge Middle School can still come down to earth.

"It was pretty cool," Gary said of his trip. "I got to skip school."

Gary will be playing in the Liberty Bell Open in Philadelphia this weekend.

Marsha Stoltzis a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community,please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email:stoltz@northjersey.com Twitter:@marsha_stoltz

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Mahwah boy is a nationally ranked chess player, patented inventor. And he's only 12 - NorthJersey.com

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Letter to the editor: More people should learn to play chess - TribLIVE

Ubisofts scientists have done the unthinkable and combined the two biggest new gaming genres of the last few years. The publisher revealed today that it plans to release Might & Magic: Chess Royale for mobile and PC on January 30. As the name suggests, it mixes together elements of auto battlers (think Auto Chess) and battle royale games (PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds and Fortnite).

In Might & Magic: Chess Royale, you put together an army of units from the Might & Magic series in a fight against 99 other players. The game borrows a lot from Dota: Auto Chess, Dota Underlords, and Teamfight Tactics. Players must focus on creating powerful synergies between units. But Chess Royale drops the teams and instead has every player fighting for themselves. As in Fortnite or PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds, you want to outlast everyone else to get the victory.

While this isnt a direct spinoff of Ubisofts Might & Magic Heroes strategy games, fans of those games will recognize many of the units. And some knowledge should transfer from one game to the other.

Ubisoft has already begun testing Might & Magic: Chess Royale in a soft launch. This has enabled the games designers to work on optimizations.

One of the big goals is to create relatively short matches. Ubisoft claims that you can lose quick or win quick with game sessions that last 10 minutes. That could help distinguish it from the auto battler crowd. Dota Underlords and Teamfight Tactics can have 30-minute matches or longer.

But Ubisoft is definitely chasing the trends. And thats going to make it challenging to find an audience. Teamfight Tactics and Dota Underlords are already major hits with millions of players.

Of course, that doesnt mean Chess Royale doesnt have a chance. Fortnite and then Apex Legends proved that new games could come along and thrive in the battle royale space. Maybe Chess Royale will do the same for autobattlers.

Continued here:
Might & Magic: Chess Royale is an auto battle royale from Ubisoft - VentureBeat

The Rolling Stones No.2, the second album from the then young British R&B band, remains a special one for Mick Jagger and co because it was partly recorded at the famous Chess Studios. The studios were regarded as the home of Chicago blues and the place where The Rolling Stones heroes, such as Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry, had cut much of the music that had inspired them in the first place.

Listen to The Rolling Stones No.2 on Apple Music and Spotify.

Bass guitarist Bill Wyman said he could still remember his bandmates looks of disbelief when Waters came out to help them with their bags. Nothing sensational happened at Chess except the music. For those two days, the Stones were finally true blues artists, said their producer Andrew Loog Oldham, who was only 20 when the first tracks were recorded at Chess, in June 1964.

We thought wed died and gone to heaven, said Keith Richards, who played electric and acoustic guitar on an album that featured nine covers and three originals he had co-written with singer Jagger.

The blues stars were gentlemen and so interested in what we were doing you figure youre gonna walk in and theyd think, Snooty little English guys and a couple of hit records. Not at all. I got the chance to sit around with Muddy Waters and Bobby Womack, and they just wanted to share ideas. And you were expecting, Oh, English kids making money out of me, and it could well have happened. But they wanted to know how we were doing it, and why we wanted to do it.

Though the covers they recorded were homages as with a take on Waters I Cant Be Satisfied, a song he first recorded in 1948 the Chess musicians were pleased to get royalties from the versions by the young English musicians. One of the songs The Rolling Stones cut was Pain In My Heart (originally called Ruler Of My Heart for the Irma Thomas version), which was written by New Orleansgreat Allen Toussaint. When speaking to this writer in 2011, Toussaint described how he felt about the Stones covering his compositions: I was so glad when the Stones recorded my songs, he said with a laugh. I knew they would know how to roll my song all the way to the bank.

The selection of covers on The Rolling Stones No.2 was strong. On Down Home Girl, written by Jerry Leiber, Jagger plays some fine bluesy harmonica and Brian Jonesdelivers a powerful guitar lick. Time Is On My Side, written by Jerry Ragovoy, has always been associated with the Stones but was, in fact, a cover of a version by Irma Thomas and jazz trombonist Kai Winding.

There is a five-minute version of Solomon Burkes crowd-pleaser Everybody Needs Somebody To Love, while a gentle version of Under The Boardwalk contrasts with a pulsating cut of Don Rayes Down The Road Apiece. Jagger and Richards wrote three songs that went on the album What A Shame, Grown Up Wrong and Off The Hook and they all show the promise of the songwriting prowess that their future collaborations delivered.

The Rolling Stones No.2 was released by Decca Recordsin the UK on 15 January 1965 and, within two weeks, had toppled The Beatles to reach No.1 on the UK album charts, a position it held for nine weeks. Some of the songs from the album had already appeared on a US-released album, 12 x 5 Grown Up Wrong, Under The Boardwalk and Susie Q, along with an earlier version of Time Is On My Side, which featured Ian Stewart, one of the original founders of the Stones, playing organ on the intro.

The same cover art was used for the two separate albums, both taken in the same photo session by a rising star called David Bailey. I knew Mick before he was in the Stones, Bailey later recalled. He was just a bloke I met because he was going out with my girlfriends sister, Chrissie Shrimpton. His moody photograph of the young musicians has become an iconic work of art in itself.

There was one strange footnote to this Stones classic. Oldham wrote the sleevenotes for the back cover and, for a laugh, he made an ill-advised joke about fans mugging blind men for the cash to buy the record. The secretary of the Bournemouth Blind Aid Association complained, and Lord Conesford asked the Director Of Public Prosecutions to rule on whether the album cover constituted a deliberate incitement to criminal action. Wisely, the matter ended there. Oldham said he was thrilled by the uproar.

What is for certain is that The Rolling Stones No.2 both demonstrated how eclectic the early Stones were and also indicated that the boys who hero-worshipped the blues stars of Chicago would carve out their own special place in blues and rocknroll history.

The Rolling Stones No.2 can be bought here.

Listen to the best of The Rolling Stones on Apple Music and Spotify.

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The Rolling Stones No.2: Mick And Keiths Love Letter To Chess Records - uDiscover Music

Levon Aronian: You dont play chess to have fun. You play chess to crush your opponent.

A high-spirited Aronian attended the South African Junior Chess Championship (SAJCC) Jan. 3-8 in the city of Ekurhuleni. More than 2,700 youths competed in a record-breaking team event and had the opportunity to meet Aronian, who was a guest star in many side events hosted during the competition.

Freestyle blitz in Joubert Park:

Following in the footsteps of Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So, who attended the SAJCC in 2018 and 2019respectively, Aronian spent a morning in Johannesburg in the iconic Joubert Park, the lair of Africas best chess hustlers. After warming up against the juniors of the Hyenas Chess Club, Levon took on some local masters, including the South African champion Johannes Mabusela.

In an attempt to stop Levons perfect streak, the grandmasters wife Arianne Caoili joined the crowd amid cheers and local music. Only the youthful Simphiwe Buthelezi managed to score against the Armenian superstar, and won a dramatic game thanks to a blunder by the overworked opponent.

Chess is my 9-to-5:

Another surprise for Aronian came from an inspired local veteran, who managed to beat the GM in a draining eight-hour-long simul on 107 boards the following day. The national master pulled off a mate-in-four in a complicated position, after a strenuous fight from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I have never faced so many opponents in a simul, admitted Aronian before making the first move. Whats more, the exhibition had no rating cap and a few players rated between 1800 and 2200 showed up.

In an interview with Chess.com, Aronian commented: Every time Im playing a simul, people say 'this guy is good, this guy is bad, pay attention to this one'but I actually dont like that. I like the randomness and I like the fact that I have to put up an effort.

Aronian also met some of the best players in southern Africa in a master class and Q&A. He described his path to success to players and coaches and shared with them some suggestions on how to train a future champion.

A bughouse walkover:

Aronian joined forces with his wife to wipe out the competition in a carnival-themed bughouse tournament. Slick chess hustlers and go-getting youth in costume were no challenge for the world authority in bughouse, who also sported a sensational Joker costume.

We love playing every kind of game partnering with my wife," said Aronian, "because we love being a team generally, in every sport. If only the level was a little bit higher, we could have had some competition.

A day with a super-GM:

Along with being an unmatchable bughouse specialist, Levon turned out to be an outstanding athlete, or at least thats the rumor in the South African U10 circuit!

Uncle Lev is better at soccer than at chess, claimed Caleb and Judah Levitan, two of the most promising South African youth and the best "springboks" in last years World Youth. We managed to snatch a draw with him in the simul, but he gave us no chance on the soccer field.

The two boys showed the Armenian guest the beauty of South Africa and forced him to add a Mandela shirt to his wardrobe.

It was a great emotion to meet Aronian, said Lindiwe Kololo, an intellectually-disabled player who made the ceremonial first move against the GM. Chess taught me that if you really want to achieve something, you will. Now that I've met one of the best players in the world, I want to play international tournaments with opponents from all over the world.

On another note:

Levon Aronian's visit to South Africa was a unique experience for many aspiring GMs, and an opportunity for the country to promote chess in local news and national broadcasts. The tournament has few equals worldwide in terms of participation, despite the gap that still exists between the quality of chess in the continent and global standards.

However, South African chess has experienced a political crisis for the past few months, resulting in the coexistence of two national federations. The Chessa crisis has precedents in Gabon and Kenya and has hindered the organization of international tournaments in the country, as well as the participation of some players in the 2019 African Youth Chess Championship.

A severe restructuring of the federation will possibly have a more effective impact on local chess players than the visit of an incredible role model like Aronian. In the margins of the SAJCC, Chessa is expected to find a quick solution to months of uncertainty and court cases. This will certainly help South African chess to move forward, and players to be competitive internationally.

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Aronian In South Africa: 'Chess Is The Purpose Of My Life' - Chess.com