It will be a casual chess night from 4pm until you want to go home, or Santa's lovely elfette - Sydney - tells us to.
Last meeting held our 2021 Club Speed Chess Championship! We had twelve attendees and ten entries in the tournament. Here are the results:
1st - James K.
2nd / 3rd - tie - Ken T. and Vince V.
4th / 5th - tie - Charlie S. and Sam T.
That's enough. If your humble scribe completes the list, everyone will know where he finished. His chess ego is bruised enough already! But fun was had by all!
On tap for some time soon in the New Year will be our 2022 Fischer Random or 960 Club Championship. For those of you who have never played this variation of chess, you are in for a treat.
How it is played is the pieces are randomly placed behind the pawns, so all opening theory you may know is out the window! You are actually playing 'middle game' chess from the first move. And it leads to some crazy positions with tactics possible all over the place.
Ok, that was chess speak. In plain English, the games are wild and a lot of fun!
For a more detailed description of 'Random' chess, just search for it in our blog search box. Or of course, on-line.
Now for a nice debate topic. How would you build the perfect chess player?
Well, first thing we have to do is eliminate two players. Because all you would have to do really is clone our club's two current champions - Paul M. and James K.! So, we must ignore the obvious!
One famous chess writer, who has been referenced before on this site, Irving Chernev, said the chess player would need ten attributes. I will list these and put his selection first (produced in 1933) and your humble scribe's second (produced in 2021). The only rule it seems is that you cannot use the same chess player twice.
Now we have some fine chess minds in this club and it would be nice to see their list in the comment section. Hope all our readers will chime in! Here we go;
The patience of Steinitz or Smyslov
The accuracy of Capablanca or Anand
The brilliancy of Alekhine or Fischer
The attacking skills of Spielmann or Tal
The defensive genius of Maroczy or Petrosian
The combinative skill of Anderssen or Spassky
The endgame technique of Lasker or Karpov
The will to win of Bogoljubow or Kasparov
The imagination of Reti or Kramnik
The confidence of Tchigorin or Carlsen
Making my list was much tougher than I thought! Where is Morphy, Caruana, Nepomanchi, Botvinnik, Euwe, Ding, So, Aronian, Korchnoi, Larsen, etc?
At any rate, studying the games of any of these players will leave you amazed at their talent!
Cannot wait to see some lists formed in the comment section!
