BOTW: 2016.09.21

John Upper's picture
Submitted by John Upper on Wed, 09/21/2016 - 09:59

"Play Live Challenge"
Sept 22, 2016.

Canadian Isaac Wiebe (in sunglasses, above) will be one of 11 players facing World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a clock simul, Thursday, Sept 22, 2016 in New Jersey.

Each year, Play Magnus, the official company of Magnus Carlsen, organizes an event called the "Play Live Challenge". This involves sending lucky winners from the Play Magnus app to New York City to play Magnus Carlsen simultaneously for a once-in-a-lifetime chess experience. 

The games between Magnus Carlsen and the eleven chosen winners will take place at the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey on Thursday, September 22nd, 2016, at noon, Eastern Time. It will be a clock simul, with each player having 30 minutes for the game.

One Canadian will be playing in the simul match: Isaac Wiebe, from Winnipeg. He writes:

"Play Magnus is a very unique training tool which I enjoy using. Whenever I am trying out a new opening, I will run a variation by Play Magnus first, to make sure I know the opening theory especially well.... I cannot wait to meet the greatest player of my generation, Magnus Carlsen. It is an honour to win the Play Magnus Live Challenge." 

You can follow the games live via the VG TV site starting at 11:30 am. Studio guests will include Fabiano Caruana and Paul Hoffman:

Live Games
http://direkte.vg.no/studio/play-live-challenge

http://www.vgtv.no/#!/live/131681/direkte-magnus-carlsens-play-live-challenge

  

2016 WYCC 
Sept 20 - Oct 4, 2016
Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia 

11 round swiss, Open and girls sections, three age groups: U14, U16, U18.

The traditional WYCC has been split into two tournaments, and this is the older half. The World Cadet Chess Championship will be Oct. 18-31, 2016 in Batumi, Georgia, and will cover the younger half: U8, U10 and U12.

Schedule: 

  • Sept 22: Round 1, 15:00 local (6am EST)
  • One game per day 
  • Sept 27: rest day; 
  • Oct 3: last round, 11:00 local (2am EST) 

Canadian Team:  

homepage
http://wy2016.fide.com/

(incomplete) Canadian Results
http://www.chess-results.com/tnr239745.aspx?lan=1&art=25&fedb=CAN&flag=30&wi=821

facebook
https://www.facebook.com/chesshmao/

Live Games
http://wy2016.fide.com/live-games/

 

 10th Tal Memorial
Sept. 26 - Oct 6, 2016
Moscow

10-player RR featuring 8 of the world's top 21 players: #4 Kramnik, #5 Aronian, #8 Anand, #11 Mamedyarov, #12 Giri,  #17 Li Chao, #18 Svidler, #19 Gelfand, #21 Nepomniachtchi and #27 Tomashevsky.

Live Games 
https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tal-memorial-2016#live
http://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2016-mikhail-tal-memorial

No dedicated Homepage yet, but here is the Russian Chess Federation page
http://ruchess.ru/en/championship/detail/2016/tal_memorial_2016/

 The Rookie, by Stephen Moss

Middle-aged writer at the Guardian, whose job description is "ritual humiliation", spends three years playing and interviewing chess players from Moscow to New York to Wijk aan Zee while trying to go from class B up to expert. His book about it is: The Rookie: An odyssey through chess (and life).

 From the Amazon summary:   

    • "often he is beaten by precocious 10-year-olds and finds it hard to resist the urge to punch them."
    • "He looks for spiritual fulfilment in the game, but mostly finds mental torture." 

SPOILER:

Spoiler: Highlight to view
He doesn't get much better, at chess or anything else. 

So is this in any way a how-to-improve-your-chess book? Maybe. Dominic Lawson says:

"it is precisely because it is all too difficult for Moss to realise his ambition to become an expert-standard chess player that his book is so engrossing. There are countless volumes that recount the narrators’ onward and upwards march to pre-eminence. This is a book about learning to accept one’s own mediocrity... Since mediocrity is the space the vast majority of us occupy, The Rookie is actually a life lesson much more relevant than all of those self-help books of fatuous and unrealistic optimism."

Here is a link to his essay-length version of his book:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/sep/14/truth-beauty-and-annihilation-a-life-in-chess?CMP=share_btn_fb

PDF excerpt from the September 2015 issue of British Chess Magazine, with brief interview with Stephen Moss, and an essay by his coach/mentor John Saunders on their work together:
https://t.co/A2QMibXCIZ

Dominic Lawson review:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-3780631/Forget-self-help-manuals-need-chess-man-devoted-three-years-playing-board-game-mediocre-it.html 

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