One of the minor irritations of being a chess fan is that when chess is mentioned in the mainstream media, it is usually because a chess player did something odd, not something brilliant. Recent mainstream chess stories include a player losing on purpose to protest pairings, and Kirsan resigning/not resigning, though at least that is less toxic than some of Kirsan’s previous headlines.
Over the weekend, chessboxing made some headlines in the UK as a UKIP Member of the European Parliament (no political comments thanks!) Jonathan Arnott made a highly unsuccessful debut. There is a Quality Chess connection, as Andrew was at the bout as a spectator, and Mr Arnott is in the same 4ncl squad as Colin (though usually in the second team, while Colin is of course in the first team).
The basic idea of chessboxing is that two players/fighters play chess for a while, then box for a while, then back to the chess game, and so on. Checkmate or knockout ends the contest.
You can see a video of the boxing part of the Arnott bout here, though it might be best avoided if you like proper boxing. The chess part was not pretty either, but from Arnott’s opponent.
[pgn]
[White “Toby White”]
[Black “Jonathan Arnott”]
1.e4 e6 2.Bc4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Bb3 Nf6 5.d3 c6 6.Nf3 Bd6 7.Bg5 O-O 8.O-O Bg4 9.Bxf6 Qxf6 10.h3 Bxf3 11.Qxf3 Qxb2 12.Nd2 Qe5 13.g3 Qe6 14.Rae1
Qxh3 15.Qh1 Qxh1+[/pgn]
One undoubted plus of the chessboxing event was that Mr Arnott was raising money for a Spinal Muscular Atrophy charity (link to donation site). So full credit to Mr Arnott for that.
So what do you think about chessboxing? Fascinating hybrid sport? Piece of nonsense for two people who are no good at either sport?
From the 31st of March, I will once again represent Scotland as a member of FIDE. This is not only to do my bit for keeping up the FIDE finances, but due to the continued interest in chess shown by both of my daughters. I am no longer an active player, so the shift is entirely optical. I will not become less Danish and I hope my connection to Danish chess will remain undiminished.
I have been highly critical of recent priorities by the Danish Federation and have felt that they were not only unfair, but also going to end up with an entirely different effect than desired. The main problem was the lack of debate and interaction with the highest-rated players. The goals were to a great degree shared by all, but the lack of understanding of what it takes to develop great players did not hold the Federation back. They clearly believe that removing obstacles for kids will make them stronger chess players. Even without the rude behaviour towards Danish grandmasters, this is a bad decision.
In that connection, I cancelled some unpaid work I was going to do with young players in Denmark; I simply felt sick of the whole thing and needed to get out of all commitments for a while.
My decision to change Federation however was taken a long time ago and has simply been delayed. It has nothing to do with anything else than my personal circumstances and desire to commit to the place I have called home for 13 years now. I am sure I will work together with the Danish Federation in the future and I have no intention of playing any chess tournaments, including Olympiads or other team events for Scotland, at the moment.
Last week’s poll question was ‘Who will win the 2017 US Championship?’ As expected, the Big Three collected almost all the votes. Wesley So was top, getting over half the vote, with Caruana on 30% and Nakamura on a surprisingly low 10%. The games start a couple of days from now, so we shall see.
I will take a break from asking poll questions this week to announce that four of Jacob’s Grandmaster Preparation books – Calculation, Attack & Defence, Endgame Play and Strategic Play – are now available on Forward Chess. The remaining two books in the series – Positional Play and Thinking Inside the Box – will appear on FC in due course. So if you prefer ebooks to physical books (they do take up less room) then now is your chance to catch up on Jacob’s series.
Jacob is of course on his Asian tour, and we will keep you updated on where he is and what he is up to.
Last week’s poll asked ‘Has your rating gone up or down since a year ago?’ The ‘almost unchanged’ answer was unsurprisingly most common, but when you add up the other answers you see 87 gained significantly, while 79 went down significantly. And the big gainers (up over 80 points) are an impressive 10% of the vote (I know it says 9% below, but that’s because the poll software decided to round 9.963% down to 9%). So not bad at all, especially as I suspect that many blog readers here are not young kids who might expect their ratings to increase naturally.
But compare the real results on rating changes with a poll question from the start of 2016: ‘Do you think your rating will go up or down in 2016?’ The optimists vastly outnumbered the pessimists.
Next week the US Championship starts in its now traditional location in St Louis. With 3 of the top 6 players in the world competing – So, Caruana and Nakamura – I find the US Championship the most interesting national championship in the world. The strength in depth is also there, with Kamsky, Robson, Shankland, Onischuk and Xiong in the 12-player event. If So has a ridiculously brilliant tournament he could challenge Carlsen’s World Number 1 position, as the gap is 16 Elo points. But my question is: Who will win the 2017 US Championship?
In this weeks vlog, the experienced Greek GM Stelios Halkias talks a bit about his favourite Quality Chess books and gives to our viewers practical advice on various aspects of chess. It is the kind of things that led Stelios to perform over 2700 elo in the latest Baku Olympiad. He then goes on to show us one of his favourite positions from this Olympiad and gives us a tactical puzzle to solve which the great Nigel Short failed to do when shown!
Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard is going to India to promote his Grandmaster Preparation series in March/April. His tour will give lectures and training seminars in Mumbai (26-27 March), Ahmadabad (28-29 March), New Delhi (30-31 March), Kolkata (2-3 April) and Chennai (4-5 April).
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