Taping a chess documentary for the largest Italian TV network
Cuban GM Dominguez just captured the 2008 World Blitz Championship. IM Larry Kaufman drew his final round game to tie for 1st at the World Senior Championship. GM Kamsky is under a FIDE deadline pressure with his match against Topalov. The Dresden Olympiad is starting next week.
It’s Saturday Open Forum. What would you like to discuss? The forum is yours!
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
My first question:
Is Barack Obama a chess player, too? I bet he is!
okay
Yes, both Barack and Michelle Obama are chess players. Yes, they support chess.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
You know that joke?
Ther was a man who walked down a street where he suddenly saw another man playing chess with his little dog in the garden.
“Wow, what an intelligent dog!” he said.
“Intelligent?” replied the other.
“Not at all: My dog has been loosing every game…”
okay
… and thank you for your quick and nice answer to my qustion
When is Bill Goichberg’s term finished as USCF President?
I think he really stepped over the line by attacking FIDE President Kirsan over “Gata-gate” without complete USCF Board approval!
As a member of the USCF, I expect better from my leadership!
Respectfully,
Disgusted USCF Life Member (This message would be deleted at the USCF Forum, by the way.)
I was eagerly awaiting the release of ESPN’s 2008 World Chess Championship DVD, especially for its slow motion replay feature. Unfortunately, the release date has been held up due to the suspicion that Kramnik and Anand may have tested positive for steroid use, which would not have helped their thinking any, but would have allowed them to sit for hours on end – literally on end. Stay tuned.
Happy Saturday.
I cannot find any evidence, other than Susan Polgar’s say so, that Obama plays chess, let alone supports it.
The downside of chess is that it creates obsessives, and all obsessions are bad news.
In line with Web Accessibility Guidelines, could you please provide Text Equivalents for your pictures.
See for example
http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse2.htm
Thanks
To answer USCF Life Member’s question, next year
s election will be to fill positions currently held by Goichberg and Hough, as well as the vacancy created by Channing’s resignation.
I cannot find any evidence that anonymous @ 11:42 exists, other than that he posts on Susan’s blog, but that could be because I don’t know where to look and “anonymous” doesn’t wish to be known.
Susan gave evidence of Barack and Michelle’s playing and support of chess on her blog earlier this year:
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2008/02/obama-chess-background.html
As Gov. Palin recently pointed out, anonymous attacks cannot really be adequately addressed, so that’s all for now.
I quote another anonymous in Feb.08
“Whether they play now or not, both Barack and Michelle Obama are on record as saying that chess was important for them as kids. In Michelle Obama’s case, instead of letting her watch unlimited tv, her parents expected her to fill her time with books, chess and sports. In Obama’s book, he talks about bonding with his grandfather and stepfather over chess. If you listen to Obama’s speeches, he makes a big point about parents not letting their kids play unlimited video games and being a part of their lives. As the letter that Susan posted makes clear, Obama also understands the potential for chess to bring together people from different cultures and countries — all very important in our increasingly globalalized world.”
So let build aour world on this base.
okay
The letter from Barack Obama is genuine, courteous and well worded, and doesn’t amount to more support than I would expect from someone in his (then) senatorial position.
He used to play chess, I used to play chess: it doesn’t make either of us ‘a chess player’.
This rush to align with the new power in the land is rather unseemly.
The challenge posed by this last comment—to find evidence that Obama really has played chess—is quite a draw for this computer scientist who boasts of his Google fancy-search prowess. I’ve blocked out McCain and Hillary and Jennifer Shahade(!), but have founbd nothing so far. Only thing worth mentioning is this nifty mug and (in the other merchandise) chessboard allusion, here.
OK, well here’s the mother lode: Bill Wall’s list of Famous People Who Play(ed) Chess.
Lists Michelle Obama on the basis of this NY Times article (page 2) already noted by another commenter, and Barak as cited in his memoir Dreams from My Father, which we own. McCain and Palin are not listed, nor any Bushes or Clintons, but Bill O’Reilly is!
This Obama bio is by a chess fan in India, but only lists his games as “basketball and poker”. (Warning: this page is heavy on running scripts.)
Ah—Dreams from My Father is not inside-searchable at Amazon.com, but I found an illicit PDF download which I won’t link. Here are its three references to chess, using page #s from our 2004 paperback revised edition—of which only the last makes clear that he himself played chess as a child, and valued it compared to American football and skateboarding:
——————————
PP30-31: “We had lived in Indonesia for over three years by that time, the result of my mother’s marriage to an Indonesian named Lolo, another student she had met at the University of Hawaii. His name meant “crazy” in Hawaiian, which tickled Gramps to no end, but the meaning didn’t suit the man, for Lolo possessed the good manners and easy grace of his people. He was short and brown, handsome, with thick black hair and features that could have as easily been Mexican or Samoan as Indonesian; his tennis game was good, his smile uncommonly even, and his temperament imperturbable. For two years, from the time I was four until I was six, he endured endless hours of chess with Gramps and long wrestling sessions with me.”
P38: “So it was to Lolo that I turned for guidance and instruction. He didn’t talk much, but he was easy to be with. With his family and friends he introduced me as his son, but he never pressed things beyond matter-of-fact advice or pretended that our relationship was more than it was. I appreciated this distance; it implied a manly trust. And his knowledge of the world seemed inexhaustible. Not just how to change a flat tire or open in chess. He knew more elusive things, ways of managing the emotions I felt, ways to explain fate’s constant mysteries.”
P60: “The novelty of having me in the class quickly wore off for the other kids, although my sense that I didn’t belong continued to grow. The clothes that Gramps and I had chosen for me were too old-fashioned; the Indonesian sandals that had served me so well in Djakarta were dowdy. Most of my classmates had been together since kindergarten; they lived in the same neighborhoods, in split-level homes with swimming pools; their fathers coached the same Little League teams; their mothers sponsored the bake sales. Nobody played soccer or badminton or chess, and I had no idea how to throw a football in a spiral or balance on a skateboard.”
—————————-
I also found some speculation regarding Howard Stern, a noted chess teacher on ICC, and Obama. Finally, I’ll link this to give a respectful answer to this query posted on Yahoo! Answers, Is Barack Obama a chess player?.
My question is, do you recommend
the following 2 openings?
1) Orangutan (b4)
2) King’s gambit
“My question is, do you recommend
the following opening?
1) Orangutan (b4)”
Yes. If you are one.
..or is anybody a king here?
okay
just wanted to kno if judit will b playin in corus in 09