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Edward Laurenson. Photo / Dean Purcell

Greg Bruce meets Chess The Musical star Edward Laurenson

We met over a chess board in the living room of a beautiful modern home in Parnell. The fire was on and an extremely large cat was stretched out in front of it, asleep. Rising operatic star Edward Laurenson walked in wearing a tux, looking like a movie star, specifically the movie star Robert Pattinson, who is most famous for playing the hot, pasty vampire Edward from the Twilight films. I had known about this resemblance in advance, because when the publicist first got in touch about this story, she had attached a picture of Laurenson and another of Pattinson and the only reason I could tell them apart was because Pattinson's featured a GQ logo. In real life, the resemblance was, if anything, even more striking.

Laurenson, 33, told me there had been a point in his life, around the peak of Twilight mania, when five or six people a day were approaching him because of the resemblance. He was once denied service in a bar because they believed his ID, featuring the name Edward, was a fake. These looks presumably did not hurt his chances during casting for the upcoming New Zealand production of Chess, in which he was chosen to play the Russian, Anatoly, alongside former New Zealand Idol runner-up Michael Murphy.

The primary reason for our meeting was to talk about his role in the show and the reason for the chess board was because the publicist for the show had told me Laurenson was a chess champion with, she believed, an international ranking. I believed, wrongly as it turned out, that it would be interesting to incorporate a game of chess into this story about Chess. Not only had I never played chess, but I wasn't even sure of the correct name for the horses. I had never had much facility for games of strategy and we only had an hour. Nevertheless, we tried. He set up the pieces in a late game position from a famous match involving an American grandmaster who I'd never heard of - not Bobby Fischer or the woman from The Queen's Gambit. When he'd finished setting up, I asked which of us was in the stronger position. He told me he was.

When I mentioned to Laurenson the publicist's claims about his chess prowess, he looked shocked and afraid and told me he wasn't a very good chess player and certainly didn't have an international ranking. What he had was a rating, from playing chess online, of about 1600. Accounts of the quality of a 1600 player on chess forums vary wildly, largely depending on the arrogance of the commenter, but seem to congeal mostly around "not bad for a club player".

We made a few moves, or more specifically he made some moves and then suggested some moves for me. At one stage I tried to take his queen but he wouldn't let me because he said I could only take diagonally. He explained the rules as we went. If a pawn makes it to the other side of the board, he told me, it can become any piece it wants. "That's why people love chess," he said. "It's sort of life on a board." When asked how this lesson related to life, he said, "Hard work gets results."

From an early age, he wanted to be Freddie Mercury and to achieve that, he started working on his singing. He took classical singing lessons and soon was entering and winning competitions. A big breakthrough came when he won the Guildhall Prize from the IFAC Handa Australian Singing Competition in 2013, which gave him a scholarship that took him to London to study for a master's degree, despite the fact he didn't even have an undergraduate degree. He studied with Australian soprano Yvonne Kenny and received regular coaching from Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. He has now travelled the world performing, including at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he performed the role of Tarquinius in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, and Older Thompson in Tom Cipullo's Glory Denied, bringing him reviews like this from the San Francisco Classical Voice: "... blessed with the ability to look both handsome and unstoppably mean while singing with unflinching power."

He says the highlight of his career was performing for the Queen, who was just a metre or two away from him as he sang What a Wonderful World at London's Goodenough College, where he was studying and living, and she was the patron.

He started playing chess at intermediate school where, despite his spectacular good looks, he was, he says, a nerd. The chess club was also linked, in a way he didn't make entirely clear, to the gardening club. He said: "I think it was a sanctuary for us not necessarily rugby players to go to."

I asked how the game of chess has helped with his singing career and he said, "It's really helped with my singing career because it got me a role here in New Zealand with G and T productions."

At about this point, the cat, having left the comfort of its place in front of the fire, jumped up on my lap and from there climbed up on to the board. I heard a piece fall, but the cat was enormous and in my way, so I couldn't see what the piece was.As it moved off the board, I saw my king lying on its side. "The cat just resigned," Laurenson said.

"Oh well," I said, "You win some, you lose some," even though this was the only time I'd ever played.

Chess The Musical, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre, June 16-19.

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Chess The Musical star Edward Laurenson on singing, chess and Chess - New Zealand Herald

Outposts are valuable chessboard squares protected by a pawn and cannot be attacked by an opponents pawn. This makes them an excellent place to place a powerful piece as they cannot be dislodged easily and exert great influence and pressure on the opponents position.

Outposts are chessboard squares on the opposite players side that cant be attacked by their pawns (because they were either captured or pushed too far) and are protected by your pawn. This makes them a fantastic beachhead for your pieces. The white knight represents an outpost in the example below:

If the square isnt protected by your pawn but cant be attacked by an opponents pawn, it is an unprotected outpost. If it is in front of the opponents pawn, it is known as a sheltered outpost, otherwise, it is a slightly weaker, unsheltered outpost, according to popularchessterms.

Likeisolated pawns, outposts can be a permanent structural weakness on the board and can persist into the endgame. Usually, an isolated pawn on the board often indicates an outpost or two to take advantage of.

Be mindful of your pawn moves. You should always look out for potential outposts because moving a pawn is a permanent decision, and as the saying goes, pawns cant move backward. Once an outpost is established, either by accident or after some planning and trading, it is time to use it.

The knight is the best piece for taking advantage of an outpost. This is because ofits unique, L-shaped movement, making it easier to maneuver to the desired square even when the position is crowded. Its ability to jump over other pieces makes it extra threatening once it has occupied the key square. Strong pieces on an outpost dont need to immediately win material to become valuable; instead, they seriously constrict your opponent and provide a spatial advantage. Keep it there until a devastating tactical sequence arises.

If your opponent is trying to use an outpost, you should undermine it by attacking the pawn protecting the square. Once it is taken care of, you can try to extract the piece sitting there and alleviate the pressure on your position.

Originally posted here:
What is an outpost in chess? - Dot Esports

Further cast joining Hadley Fraser and Samantha Barks in Chess at Theatre Royal Drury Lane has been revealed as the concert adds a second date.

The show sold out its initial date on 1 August, and has now added a new performance a day later. Set to appear will be Joel Harper-Jackson as Freddie (Cock, Kinky Boots), Frances Mayli McCann (Bonnie and Clyde, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour) as Svetlana and Ako Mitchell (Caroline Or Change, The Color Purple) as The Arbiter.

The ensemble will be made up of Joseph Craig, Darius J James, Aoife Kenny, Jessica Lee, Nick Len, Natasha May-Thomas, Alice Readie, Stuart Rouse, Phoebe Samuel-Gray, Grant Thresh and Libby Watts, with more to be announced.

Tim Rice, Benny Andersson and Bjrn Ulvaeus' (of ABBA fame) Chess is to be directed and choreographed by Nick Winston, with associate direction and choreography by Alexzandra Sarmiento, musical direction by Freddie Tapner, design by Ruth Sutcliffe, lighting by Ben Cracknell, lighting programming by Chris Winn, sound design by Tom Marshall and video projection design by Duncan McLean with casting by Harry Blumenau. The piece follows two men who sing about a rivalry over the famous board game, and those caught up in their feud.

It joins a season of concerts including Kinky Boots and new musical Treason.

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Further Chess cast and additional Theatre Royal Drury Lane performance announced - WhatsOnStage.com

As we look back in gratitude to the Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I turn my attention to the Queen in chess and her antecedents. When the original version of Muslim chess, Shatranj, underwent its Renaissance transformation, around 1475, the main change was in the powers of the Queen. Formerly known as the Vizier, or Prime Minister, the new Queen advanced from being a waddling cripple , permitted only a one square diagonal move in each direction, to the most powerful unit on the board, capable even of delivering checkmate in just two moves. Admittedly this was only possible against dismally weak opening play by White, namely 1 f4 e6 2 g4 Qh4 checkmate. Nevertheless, when compared with the old style chess, where any form of initial contact took around ten moves, this rapid denouement astounded and impressed the chess enthusiasts of the day.

It has variously been speculated that the new powers of the Queen owed something to the example of powerful late 16th-century female rulers, such as Queen Elizabeth I of England, Marie de Medici in France, or Margaret of Parma, Vice Regent of the Spanish Netherlands on behalf of her brother, Philip II. Sadly this attractively romantic fable does not hold up, since the dates do not fit. The new chess was well established long before the times of these celebrated female potentates.

Far more likely is it that the new Queen represented the introduction of distance weapons on the battlefield, such as the great cannon of the Hungarian engineer Urban, famously used by Sultan Mehmet the Victorious to demolish the ramparts of Constantinople in 1453. If chess is a game representing real warfare, then such a game, lacking a piece possessed of long distance firepower, would have seemed hopelessly outdated. Hence the need for a piece with the vast powers conferred on the new style of Queen.

Traditionally, historical opinion has located the origins of chess in Northern India around the year AD 600. H.J.R.Murrays monumental survey of the sources ( A History of Chess, Oxford University Press, 1913)argues that the manuscript references dating from the early 7th century refer to chess as chaturanga , a term meaning divided into four, which was also, as Murray pointed out, the regular epic name for the army at an early date in Sanskrit. The fourfold division of the Indian army into elephants, chariots, cavalry and infantry can be dated as early as the fourth century BC according to Murray. In his social history, Chess: The History of a Game , Richard Eales, while endorsing Murrays basic premise on the origins of chess, also emphasises the fact that before AD 800 documentary evidence shrinks to a few ambiguous fragments.

What is certain is that from India the game swept outwards to both East and West. By AD 800 the Chinese version, in which a central river divides the twoforces,was already inexistence. Through Korea the game reached Japan, where it is still played under the guise of Shogi, where captured pieces, like mercenaries, change sides. In the West the game travelled through Persia to the Arabic world. The earliest European references indicatethat chess was known in western and central Europe by thebeginningof the 11th century.

In this initial phase, it was during the caliphate of Baghdad and the Abbasid dynasty that the game truly flourished. The city of Baghdad, founded in AD 762 by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur, was once the world capital of chess. In the ninth and tenth centuries AD Baghdad was to Shatranj (the old Arabic form of chess) what Moscow used to be to the modern game. Baghdad was the epicentre of the Muslim Golden Age of science and wisdom, a cultured flourishing metropolis, packed with grandmasters and chess theoreticians who had produced volume after volume of critical positions and opening theory. Is it possible that a colony of grandmasters could havearisen in isolation without a widespread and lengthy tradition of chess playing, perhaps in rural areas, a kind of epic, local but widespread chess tradition? However, surely the sophistication of chess knowledge displayed in Baghdad indicates that the ancestry of chess is, in fact, considerably more ancient than the earliest Indian references of the seventh century. The question arises especially since grandmasters were prevalent in Baghdad not long after the foundation of the city.

The mostrenownedgrandmaster in Baghdad was as-Suli (c.AD 880-946). Just like the recent world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, he came from an area bordering the Caspian Sea and also, like Kasparov, he travelled from a far-flung outpost of empire to seek his fortune in a capital city. In Baghdad, as-Suli became the chess favourite of caliph al-Muktafi. In AD 940 as-Suli made an indiscreet comment and had to flee Baghdad.He later died in poverty in Basra.

Thefollowing study demonstrates as-Suli s remarkable genius. Theposition occurs in a chess manuscript written in AD 1140, which was found in a library in Constantinople (now Istanbul). Tragically, much of the wealth of chess lore accumulated in Baghdad itself would have been destroyed when Genghis Khan s grandson, Hulagu, annihilated that mighty centre of learning and civilisation in 1258 AD.

It is a puzzle cited by as-Suli, who said of it this is very old, yet neither al-Adli (a previous chess genius) noranyoneelse has said whether it is drawn or can be won. Nor has any one interpreted it because of its difficulty. There is no one on earth who has solved it unless he was taught it by me.

As-Suli did not supply a solution and in a sense this was a challenge to the world, as with Fermat s Last Theorem, which no one had succeeded in cracking for a millennium. The variations that I now demonstrate were reconstructed by Grandmaster Yuri Averbakh and, bar a few later computer finesses,constitute the only satisfactory solution to the as-Suli Two Queens puzzle. Remember that in the ancient version of chess, the queens could only move one square diagonally in any direction, and capturing your opponent s last piece counted as victory, even if an actual checkmate was no longer possible.

If it is White s move in this position he wins very quickly, as follows: 1. Ka2 Kd3 (Black s defence is always a counter-attack against the white queen whenever the white king sets off to hunt down the black queen)2. Qb4 Kc4 3. Qa3 and White wins, since Black s queen is cornered, while White s queen is immune. However, in the diagram, it is Black s move, and it is this factor which causes the extreme difficulty of the solution.

1 Kd5 (if 1 Kd3 then 2. Qb4 and 3. Ka2 will win. If Black plays any other move at the start then 2. Ka2 wins at once) 2. Kb4 Kd6 3. Kc4 (not 3. Qd2 Ke5 4. Kc3 Ke4 5. Kc2 Kf3 6. Kb1 Ke2 7. Qc1 Kd1) 3 Ke6 (plausible, but incorrect would be 3 Ke5 4. Qb4 Kd6 5. Kc3 Kc6 6. Kb3 Kb5 7. Qc3 Ke5 8. Kc2 Kc4 9. Qd2 and White wins since he will quickly trap the black queen with his own king, while the black king cannot make contact with the white queen) 4. Kd4 (if 4. Qb4 Black defends with 4 Kd7!! 5. Kb3 Kc6 6. Ka2 Kb5 or if 6. Kc3 Kd6 also with a draw. Black is defending by using the method of corresponding squares, generally regarded as a modern invention. The point is, for example, that if White s king is on b3 Black s should be on c6, or if White s king is on c3, Black s should be on d6) 4 Kf6 5. Kd5 Kf7 6. Ke5 Kg7 7. Ke6 Kg8 8. Kf6 Kh8

The black king has been forced to h8, the furthest extremity of the board. By playing 9. Kg6 White wins the battle for the corresponding squares. For Black, the chessboard has become too small. The square that corresponds to g6 is i9, but it does not exist on the chessboard.

9. Kg6 Kg8 10. Qd2 Kf8 (if Black plays 10 Qb2 to free his queen from its prison on a1 then the white queen on d2 is well out of range of the Black king on f8) 11. Qc1 Ke7 12. Kf5 Kd6 13. Ke4 Kc5 14. Kd3 Kb4 black queen is lost.

The solution to this endgame study is amazing. Both kings run from one corner to the other and then back again. It is a creation of genius. Is there any modern endgame study which contains such an advanced idea?

The appalling complexity and filigree subtlety of this wonderful endgame which as-Suli solved in the early tenth century make it difficult for me to believe that the game of chess was invented as late as AD 600. As-Suli himself calls this a very old problem and mentions that al-Adli, who died some 30-40 years before as-Suli s birth, was already aware of it, yet unable to solve it. Could such sophistication in a game, given the limitation of civilised life at that time, especially the lack of printing, have arisen so quickly?

Our knowledge about the origins of chess is limited, as Eales emphasised, by the lack of documentary evidence. TheArticle is now the appropriate forum in which to appeal to Arabic and other scholars to search archives across the world for example In Cairo, where there may be much untapped original material for manuscript sources which can illuminate the dark age of the early history of chess.We close with some illuminationfrommore modern history. Modern chess, in fact, must have received a tremendous boost from the sheer absence of competing information about Shatranj, a direct result of Hulagu s Armageddon in Baghdad.

Thematically, we startwith an ironic disasterfrom Yuri Averbakh himself. The Fons et Origo of the as-Suli two queens solution, falls victim to one of the most celebrated queen sacrifices of all time!

In the next, from a previous century, Adolf Anderssens The Evergreen demonstrates his fondness for delivering checkmate with a bishop on e7.

Returning to the twentieth century, the then world champion Tigran V. Petrosian executes a devastating intervention with the white Queen against the leading theoretician Ludek Pachman, followed by a repeat performance with black Queen ( Filip v Petrosian, Erevan 1965).

Another world champion, the great Mikhail Taloverwhelms the top Hungarian grandmaster Lajos Portisch, in a game where the White queen s influence is felt over the entire board.

Finally, weconclude byreturningto the nineteenth century for Adolf Anderssens Immortal Game featuring a stunning queen sacrifice, again with Be7 being the coup de grace.

Raymond Keenes latest book Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus, containing some of his best pieces from TheArticle, is now available from Blackwells .

We are the only publication thats committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one thats needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.

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Long live the Queen - TheArticle

LAKE SAWA, Iraq -- Hussam al-Aqouli remembers the exact spot along southern Iraqs Lake Sawa where his two daughters once dipped their feet into clear waters. Now he stands there two years on and the barren earth cracks beneath him.

This year, for the first time in its centuries-long history, the lake dried up. A combination of mismanagement by local investors, government neglect and climate change has ground down its azure shores to chunks of salt.

Lake Sawa is only the latest casualty in this broad country-wide struggle with water shortages that experts say is induced by climate change, including record low rainfall and back-to-back drought. The stress on water resources is driving up competition for the precious resource among businessmen, farmers and herders, with the poorest Iraqis counting among the worst hit amid the disaster.

This lake was known as the pearl of the south, said al-Aqouli, 35, a native of the nearby city of Samawa, looking out onto the dry cavernous emptiness. Now it is our tragedy.

Between the capital Baghdad and the oil-rich heartland of Basra, Muthanna is among Iraqs poorest provinces. The number of those living under the poverty line in the province is almost three times the national average.

Desert expanses dominate the landscape with a narrow ribbon of farmland along the Euphrates River in the north. Economic development was hindered by the countrys turbulent history, neglect by the Baath party regime since the 1980s, then later by wars and sanctions.

Locals call the area surrounding Lake Sawa atshan or simply thirsty in Arabic.

Formed over limestone rock and studded with gypsum formations, the lake has no inlet or outlet and the source of its waters had mystified experts for centuries, fueling fantastical folklore and religious tales that locals recite as historical fact.

Al-Aqouli spent his childhood frequenting the lake with his family. He hoped he could do the same when he started a family, he said. Instead he spends his days on social media writing long blog posts and urging Iraqis to take action. Often, he feels hopeless.

The lake rises 5 meters (16 feet) above sea level and is about 4.5 kilometers (3 miles) long and 1.8 kilometers (1 mile) wide.

Lake Sawa appears in some old Islamic texts. It is said the lake miraculously formed on the day the Prophet Muhammad was born in 570 A.D. Thousands of religious tourists visited the site annually to submerge themselves in its holy waters, which they believe are blessed by God.

The lakes rich mineral deposits are also considered a cure by some for skin diseases prevalent in historically neglected Muthanna.

Locals say the drying up of the waters of Lake Sawa presages the return of the Imam al-Mahdi, a revered figure in Shiite Islam and a descendent of the prophet.

It means the end of days is near, said al-Aqouli, in jest.

For environmentalists, the doomsday predictions may not be far off.

Studies have shown the lake is fed by underground water sources through a system of cracks and fissures. It can also receive rainwater from surrounding valleys and heavy rainfall in past years has caused flash floods.

The degradation of the water began over 10 years ago, but this summer was the first time we lost the entire wetland, said Laith Ali al-Obeidi, an environmental activist in southern Iraq.

Experts said the lake has not dried up for good but its disappearance this year is a concerning consequence of the thousands of illegal wells dug by businessmen in nearby cement factories and manufacturing zones, a result of drought and decreasing waters along the nearby Euphrates.

By early June, some water began to reappear because farmers, done with the harvest season, stopped diverting underground water.

Mounds of salt line the road to the river in Muthanna province and are overseen by enterprising locals who extract it by diverting groundwater and digging wells. The salt is used as a raw material in various industries in the area.

Mortadha Ali, 45, is involved in the salt business in Muthanna. He blames years of government neglect in the province for the disappearance of Lake Sawa. They should provide people with jobs, so they arent obliged to dig wells to make a living, he said.

Enforcing the closure of illegal wells and additional protective measures would have reversed Lake Sawa's decline, said Aoun Diab, an adviser to the Water Resources Ministry. But these would have directly affected the economic interests of provincial officials.

This has disrupted a delicate and interdependent ecosystem sustained by the rare desert oasis.

Species of fish, unfit for human consumption, were food for various vulnerable migratory birds that sojourned along its banks. With the fish gone, the birds too will have to reroute their seasonal passage or perish, said al-Obeidi.

And the future is poised to bring more hardship, with alarming predictions of more water stress. The Water Resources Ministry has said water levels decreased by 60% compared to last year in 2022.

Lake Sawa is a case study for climate change in Iraq, al-Obeidi said. This is the future.

But the lake is also a ghost of its former illustrious past.

The only body of water near to the city of Samawah, the area boasted thousands of tourists a year. Their waste water bottles, soda cans and abandoned flip flops remain along the dried up shores as an ode to what the impoverished area has lost.

Holiday installations built decades ago stand half-finished. Most were looted after the Gulf War in the 1990s and then after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

In 2014, Lake Sawa was named a Ramsar site, an international designation for important wetlands, gaining recognition as a rare area in need of protection. A large billboard marking the occasion overlooks the site. Local authorities hoped this would boost tourism and government resources to resume development of the area. Plans were drafted to pave roads and walkways around the lake, as well as electricity lines and water projects.

Ultimately, these failed to transpire.

The hot air was heavy as al-Aqouli took one last look of the lake before leaving.

Believe me, it was beautiful, he said.

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Iraq's 'pearl of the south' Lake Sawa dry amid water crisis - ABC News