Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hi everyone,
A fun prize chess puzzle contest is coming soon, but ONLY for subscribers of the Chess Queen™ newsletter.
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Quest Software Chess Video Contest for $2500 - Try it!
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012 Hi everyone,
We found this real cute chess video and continue our series of posting commercials featuring chess from around the world. One other cool thing - there's a contest at the end of this video!
1. Roberto Alvares, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2. Jan Kalendovsky, Brno, The Czech Republic
3. Michal Holes, The Czech Republic
They will receive one year subscription to the New In Chess magazine. How cool. Congratulations to them.
The solutions are shown below.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The contest was done in cooperation with New In Chess. It consisted of three parts: a trivia question, a chess study and a chess problem.
These were the tasks:
TRIVIA
He predicted the opponent and the outcome with these words: "It will by Short and it will be short." He also likes the movies Casablanca, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Godfather. Who is this grandmaster?
ANSWER: Garry Kasparov
One of Kasparov's favorite movies, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was screened on June 20 at New York's Bryant Park in front of 10,500 moviegoers. The film director Milos Forman opened the evening.
STUDY
White plays and wins
SOLUTION:
The position is from the game Healy,John - Kaas,E.,
Simultaneous display, Simpson's, 2009
1.Ne5! The only way to win! The white knight doesn't allow the black king the pick up the h-pawn. Black is in zugzwang: any king's move allows 2.h7 and white queens.
Other moves don't win, for example: 1.Nf4 Kf7 2.Kb2 Kg8 followed by 3...Kh7, draws;
1.Kb2 Kg6 draws as well.
The puzzle is from John Healy's book Coffeehouse Chess Tactics. The author of the powerful autobiography The Grass Arena pays a tribute to chess, a game that changed his life.
PROBLEM
White plays and mates in three moves
SOLUTION:
Karl Behting's splendid three-mover was published in the Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1893.
The Latvian chess composer was a strong master who participated in the first chess olympiad in Paris in 1924. He also devoted lot of time analyzing the Latvian gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5). The composition begins with a remarkable bishop sacrifice, a quiet introduction to beautiful mates.
Or 1...f3 2.Qh2+ Kxg4 3.Qh4 mate;
or 1...Kxg4 2.Rh3 f3 (2...Kg5 3.Qg7 mate) 3.Qh4 mate;
or 1...Kf2 2.Qa7+ Kg3 3.Qg1 mate.
BONUS PUZZLE
White plays and can force a win. Can you find how?
SOLUTION:
1.Rc7! Rxc7 2.Bxc7 Kxh6 (2...Bg6 3.Kg7 followed by 4.h7, wins.) 3.Bf4+ Kg6 4.Bc1 f4 5.Bxf4Zugzwang. White wins the black bishop and the game. The puzzle is from Mihai Suba's masterpieceDynamic Chess Strategy.
Chess blog for latest chess news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011
Hi everyone,
Here's a contest you'd surely like to know details of. It ends at 3:00pm, Wednesday 4 May 2011 UTC.
This contest, sponsored by professional services firm Deloitte, will find the most accurate system to predict chess outcomes, and FIDE will also bring a top finisher to Athens to present their system!
The datasets for this contest include real historical data provided by the world chess federation (FIDE). Contest participants will train their rating systems using a training dataset of over 1.84 million game results for more than 54,000 chess players across a recent eleven year period. Participants then use their method to predict the outcome of a further 100,000 games played among those same players during the following three months. Contest entries will be scored automatically by the website, based on the accuracy of their predictions. Two entries per day can be submitted by each team, and prizes will be determined according to each team's best-scoring single submission.
The contest's sponsor, Deloitte Australia, has provided the $10,000 prize to be awarded to the team that submits the most accurate predictions. Deloitte is a preeminent provider of analytics globally and helps companies capture, manage and analyze their data as part of their overall business strategy.
You can find more details at the official website here.
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Best chess wishes to you! Alexandra Kosteniuk
12th Women's World Chess Champion
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