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hosted by Chess Queen™ & 12th Women's World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
Monday, October 29, 2012
Street Chess Video - Creative Editing!
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hi everyone,
Here's a neat chess video to brighten up your Monday. It's street chess and actually shot with an iPhone. Don't miss the audience, the surroundings and, of course, don't miss the acoustics. Have fun with chess and share it with us.
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hi everyone,
Only a chess lover would know what the yelling at a street chess board truly means! We found this interesting anecdote in an article on the Wollongong Crown Street Mall chessboard by Justin Huntsdale.
Dapto's Oscar Murtzin visits the iconic Crown Street Mall chess board for a game several times per week. (Justin Huntsdale - ABC local)
He says the barber, who has a shop right behind where the chessboard is placed, once had to threaten to call the police if the yelling didn't stop. That's hilarious, but then what would the barber know. Here is the complete article. It looks like a serious and exclusive mens-only club, but you'll be pleased to see it's not all black and white when you meet one of the regular characters around the Crown Street Mall's mysterious giant chess board.
If you walk through Wollongong's Crown Street Mall on just about any given day, you've probably seen the serious business of men playing a giant game of chess. There are also a number of chairs and tables where other groups play cards.
Each morning a trolley of chess pieces and cardboard (to sit on) gets wheeled out from under the Mall's amphitheatre for a day's play. Men stand around in the brisk winter morning air with their fists tucked into their jackets, carefully watching a game of chess transpire. As the day moves on, and particularly during popular times on weekends things get a bit rowdy as a chess game hots up.
One day it got so rowdy the barber whose shop backs on to the chess board said he'd call the police if the yelling continued. The group is full of different nationalities, and most are retirees who meet to keep their brains active, enjoy a social outing and to get some fresh air.
I thought it was an exclusive club that never wanted to be disturbed. But then I met Oscar Murtzin from Dapto, who was only too happy to talk about his favourite hobby. "I like to meet the people here, I join a couple of games of chess and the time passes very quickly too," he said.
"Nearly every second day I'd come here - I come to the mall because I have something to get but I do it quickly so I can come back here."
Community Chess Initiative in Chichester, Thanks to a Street Magician
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hi everyone,
We wonder if similar chess initiatives could be launched across the world in all the cities! We wonder how many cities already have such chess programmes. Street chess would probably never lose its appeal or go out of fashion no matter how many computer programmes raid the chess world!
This time a street magician came up with the idea. Community chess launched in North Street last week, when the Chichester Business Improvement Initiative (BID) came together with sponsor Patisserie Valerie, and a street magician who came up with the idea.
The free chess games, outside the Butter Market, are available to all, and has proved popular since its launch on Tuesday.
The scheme was piloted for five days previously, and is already a social hub in the city. City Centre Manager Kim Long was approached by street entertainer and magician, Nick Stein with the idea and together with Patisserie Valerie they have worked to put it into place. Mr Stein noticed many other countries play board games outdoors, so wanted to bring the idea to Chichester.
He said: “I’ve played chess since I was a child and having seen free chess available in cities throughout the world, I was convinced it would work here. “I have always loved chess but have few opportunities to play anyone. This is a great way to keep playing and to meet new people.”
Anyone can sit down and play a game of chess, and there is an opportunity to play speed chess, where Mr Stein will challenge chess champions to a one-minute game, where the player gets a minute each overall to complete all their moves.
The chess games will be a permanent feature, and run from Monday to Saturday, at 10am-1pm, weather permitting. There are talks of moving the games into the Butter Market at Patisserie Valerie if the weather is bad. The scheme is part of the BID initiative, tasked with delivering a series of improvements to the city centre over the next five years. Mrs Long could see the benefits of the scheme and said: “This is just the sort of thing BID is here for, to draw more crowds and custom to Chichester city centre businesses.
“I was thrilled when Nick approached me, as it’s such a simple idea, with such a big impact. “The pilot ran over four days last week and saw 215 games take place.” Patisserie Valerie voiced an interest in the city centre initiative, so Mrs Long offered them the opportunity of sponsoring the chess equipment and providing refreshments to players.
Helene Bailey, store manager of Chichester’s Patisserie Valerie, comments: “I am delighted we are able to support such a great scheme. “As a national company, we are always on the lookout for ways to get involved with the towns in which our cafés are based.
“We know that no two locations or the people in them are the same and as the store manager of the Chichester branch, I have a personal interest in ways in which we can support our city centre.
“I think the Community Chess Programme is a fabulous example of this and a brilliant way of inspiring people to get involved with local events.” The chess sets will be available for free games outside the Butter Market on North Street on sunny days, overseen by Nick Stein who is happy to take on challengers.
Players are invited to make a donation to support chess clubs in schools, the first recipient being The Academy in Selsey.
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hi everyone,
Here is the latest chess video we have received from a friend. It is about chess lovers playing the game in the centre of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Enjoy! If you have a chess video to share, don't forget to share it with us too.
Chess on the streets as motif for economic downturn
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hello everyone,
Here is a touching story about chess has become more popular on the street as economic downturn has taken its toll. The feature appears in 9news.com from Colorado.
Chess provides refuge for economic downtrodden
DENVER - Down on the 16th Street Mall, there's a place where anybody can be king. And, if you ask them about the kingdom, they say someone's been making the wrong moves. "We're beggars and it hurts," said Alex Maxwell, a homeless man. "There are a lot of people that come down here. A lot of them are homeless."
Near the corner of 16th Avenue and Arapahoe Street, there are tables set up for people to play chess. Maxwell says he plays and adds that it gives people a break from their daily woes.
"When you see people come down here and play chess, they're on common ground," said Maxwell. "It shows how intellectual a lot of people are."
If you watch the games, there's sophisticated strategy at play.
"You can't just sit there and look at those pieces and decide in one or two minutes how you're gonna move," said Dionne Gilbert, a newspaper distributor who watches the chess matches frequently. "It's highly strategic, but it also takes an awful lot of deep thinking."
Steve Kelly is unemployed and plays chess on the mall all the time. He says the chess board provides a good analogy as to what's wrong with America's economy.
"You've got the fully employed economy using everything," said Kelly. "You get the unemployed economy without anything to do battle with."
If life is like a game of chess, then many of the people playing down here are like pawns already taken off the game board. Kelly says the answer is get people back on the board.
"You put everybody back to work and then the economy is fine," said Kelly.
Until then, they'll have their little corner of chess to ease.
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hello everyone,
The most fascinating part about chess is that the passion for the game need not be witnessed in a chess tournament alone. The sheer joy of a chess game defies the paradigms of space and time really. So, here are two nice chess photos picked up from San Francisco Citizen. Can you just sit back and imagine what kind of people have played chess here? And, how a million different personality, cultural, and individual differences are bound by just one golden thread - that of chess!
Chess players at Justin Herman Plaza and Market Street in San Francisco.
Chess news and chess trivia blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010
Hello Everyone,
The charm of street chess is never going to end. Well! The charm of chess is never going to end. So, do read this really sweet article about Market Street in San Francisco.
It’s not often that a 93-year-old, a trapeze artist, a kid from the Sunnydale projects and a DJ from a gentlemen’s club can find something in common.
In San Francisco, that something is chess. The Mechanics’ Institute is the oldest chess club in the nation. Reporter Sam Harnett is a chess enthusiast himself, but it’s been quite awhile since he last played. So he went out to rekindle his spirit for the game by talking with the city’s chess-obsessed, both on the streets and in the Mechanics’ club, for this segment of Meet Your Neighbors.
SAM HARNETT: There are ten chess games running out here at the corner of Market Street and Mason. It doesn’t take a chess master to see who the regulars are.
I’m watching a Latino guy in a wheelchair destroy a college kid. He’s showing him how he’s losing on the chessboard, and he’s right. That blocked bishop is useless. But that’s easy to say from up here. When you are sitting down, it’s a whole ‘nother chess game.
The competition is stiff, the five-minute-a-side speed format unforgiving and the game completely absorbing. That’s what draws people out here to play, but they also eat, smoke, socialize and gamble.
JORGE LOPEZ: You don’t want to play me man?
HARNETT: No, no.
LOPEZ: Come on, just one dollar, it’ll be fun.
HARNETT: Alright, sure.
I’ve been spotted – or fished as they like to say here. It’s normally $5 a game, but the man in the wheelchair thinks I am an easy catch, so he reels me in for a dollar game. Before I can sit down, I have to pay John Powell. He’s in charge out here.
POWELL: So each individual player gives me one dollar for one hour. However many games you can get in that hour that’s up to you.
Powell learned how to play chess hanging around the tables. Now he comes everyday to make a living.
POWELL: Well yeah, I do sustain myself in modest … very modest means, you know, because right now chess is a luxury. The way we do it out here is a luxury.
There’s nothing luxurious about these games. The tables and plastic chairs are worn, the stretch of street is dominated by empty storefronts and strip clubs, and the players range from quirky to rag-tag. But even so, people of all kinds come to play chess here.
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12th Women's World Chess Champion
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