American Sophomore: history of chess

Showing posts with label history of chess. Show all posts

Sunday, October 18, 2009

From Gambit: Where was the Paul Morphy Chess Club?

WHERE WAS THE PAUL MORPHY CHESS CLUB?

Blake Pontchartrain

Hey Blake,

Ronnie Virgets wrote a wonderful column on the history of Paul Morphy. My question is: where was the Paul Morphy Chess Club? I can remember an uncle of mine speaking of it often as a place where men met for lunch, cards and cigars.

Kenny Mayer

Dear Kenny,

Virgets' story ("Chairman of the Board," News Views, May 6, 2008) about our local chess genius who died in 1884 at age 47 was excellent.

Morphy was the first great American-born chess player. He traveled to Europe in the 1850s, defeating all challengers except the English champion of the time, Howard Staunton, who refused to play him. Morphy, however, still was hailed as the chess champion of the world.

Paul Morphy Chess Club in New Orleans had several locations, the first in the Balter Building, in the block surrounded by Commercial Place, Camp Street, and St. Charles and Poydras avenues. The last was at 316 St. Charles Ave.

The club was organized in May 1928, when several chess-playing gentlemen agreed to form a new club devoted exclusively to the game. Members were solicited, and the club soon had officers and a charter. New members decided to name the club after the local chess master they so revered. The club opened its doors to members for play on June 22, 1928, Paul Morphy's birthday. There is no longer a chess club by this name in New Orleans, but there are several in America, and there's even a Paul Morphy Chess Club in Sri Lanka.

An earlier group called New Orleans Chess Club was founded in 1841, but it languished due to lack of interest. Later, many New Orleanians became interested in the game when young Paul Morphy burst on the scene. By the mid-1850s, the club sponsored weekly tournaments and membership increased rapidly. Morphy himself was elected president of the club in 1865. Earlier, when Morphy went to Europe in June 1858, the New Orleans Chess Club offered to pay his way. Morphy declined because he did not want to be considered a professional chess player.

Another famous club in the Crescent City was the New Orleans Chess, Checkers and Whist Club. This organization was founded in 1880, shortly before Morphy's death. The club first met in July in a room at 128 Gravier St. There were 27 members. It was an immediate success and membership grew rapidly. New quarters had to be found, so the group relocated to Common Street and then to a three-story building at the corner of Canal and Baronne streets.

Then disaster struck: A fire in 1890 burned the building to the ground. Lost in the fire was invaluable Morphy memorabilia. The owner of the structure agreed to rebuild, and soon the club was re-established in comfortable surroundings on the third floor. At this point, there were more than 1,100 members.

In 1920, another move brought the club to 120 Baronne St., where the men played various games in splendor. It occupied four floors in a large building, which had many rooms for games, as well as dining rooms, a billiard hall, a library and bedrooms for men who lived at the club.

It was after the death of Judge Leon Labatt - a strong supporter and member of the New Orleans Chess, Checkers and Whist Club - and a number of resignations that the members decided to form a new group: the Paul Morphy Chess Club.

Morphy retired from chess long before his death. He played absolutely no games of chess with anyone after 1869.

To read my chess novel about Paul Morphy's life, please see this link.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Chess Book of the Year, Part 3

Ronan Bennett & Daniel King
Tuesday October 13 2009
The Guardian

Gligoric-Nikolic, Novi Sad 1982. Black to play. Who stands better?

RB Our third shortlisted book for the Guardian Chess Book of the Year award is Winning Chess Middlegames by Ivan Sokolov (New in Chess, GBP 24.95). Like our first shortlisted title, Chess Strategy for Club Players by Herman Grooten, Sokolov's book focuses on the middlegame, but whereas Grooten emphasises the dynamic aspects of the game, here the stress is on pawn structure. In an introduction Michael Adams makes the point that we often learn opening lines without giving serious thought to the kind of pawn structures they create.

Sokolov arranges his material into four different types of pawn structure: doubled pawns; isolated pawns; parallel hanging pawns in the centre; and pawn majority in the centre, further dividing these into subgroups. He then analyses the structures with reference to the opening. Chapter 1, for example, deals with doubled pawns arising mainly from the Nimzo. Chapter 2, on isolated pawns, looks predominantly at lines in the Queen's Gambit Declined. The essential point - but one often overlooked - is that from the opening we should be able to anticipate the structure of the middlegame.

The diagram position arose out of a Nimzo (H?bner Variation), with the characteristic doubled pawns on c3 and c4. White has tried to exploit the semi-open b-file to create threats against the enemy king. His rooks are doubled, the bishop is on b5, and the queen lurks on a3. On the other wing, Black's pawns are advancing, supported by the rooks. Who stands better?

Fritz assesses the position as roughly equal. But Sokolov is unequivocal: "A sorry sight. On the queenside White is not able to create a single threat, while on the other side of the board the battle is lost." The computer is wrong. White is dead lost. After Black's simple defensive expedient 1...Na6-b8, the game continued 2 Nf1 g4 3 f4 exf4 4 Bxf4 Ng6 5 Rf2 h4 and the pawns quickly smashed the white king's position.

guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2009

Friday, October 2, 2009

Karpov-Kasparov, KK2 16th match game, 1985

Ronan Bennett
Thursday November 13 2008
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/nov/13/chess-karpov-kasparov

Karpov-Kasparov, KK2 16th match game, 1985. Black to play and win.

Four titles made it to our chess book of the year shortlist: 100 Endgames You Must Know by Jesus de la Villa; Forcing Chess Moves by Charles Hertan; From London to Elista by Evgeny Bareev and Ilya Levitov; and Modern Chess: Part 2 Kasparov vs Karpov 1975-1985 by Garry Kasparov. Once again we drafted in Guardian chess club stalwarts Sean Ingle and Stephen Moss to help with the judging.

We all admired 100 Endgames for its clarity and practical value but, in Ingle's estimation, it lacked pizzazz (which, to be fair, is asking a lot of a manual on endgames). Forcing Chess Moves, which has featured in this column several times, was also well liked, but in the end it was also considered a little too much like a workbook.

From London to Elista is definitely a book rather than a manual, and Bareev's contributions are particularly impressive. But even this fine book has to give way to our winner ? Modern Chess: Part 2. As Moss observed: "Kasparov had a monumental career and with this series of books he is creating a monument to it." Some will balk at the ?30 price, but the great games, detailed analysis, compelling narrative and the insights into the psychological and political dimension to the struggle over the board make it an outstanding contribution to chess literature.

This week's position is from the brilliant 16th match game of Kasparov and Karpov's second titanic encounter. Kasparov's play is, interestingly, more like Karpov's in that it is positional and tight. On move 16, he succeeds in planting a knight on d3, dominating Karpov's position. Move by move, Kasparov gradually restricts his great opponent, bringing him in the middlegame to virtual zugzwang, quite an achievement with so many pieces on the board. On move 34, to get rid of the terrible knight, Karpov is forced to give up his queen for three minor pieces ? not a terrible exchange in strictly material terms, except that Black now played 37...Rc1, and after 38 Nb2 Qf2 39 Nd2 Rxd1+ 40 Nxd1 Re1+ Karpov resigned because of 41 Nf1 Rxf1 42 Bxf1 Qxf1 mate.

guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2009

Monday, September 14, 2009

Chess on film - the history of chess in movies!

Chess on Film

By Dylan Loeb McClain

As one of the oldest and most ubiquitous of games, chess has appeared in movies almost since people started making them. While there have been some movies where the game played a central role, even advancing the plot, the game is usually a bit player.

When chess appears in films or on television, it often gives the actors something to do while they talk, and the subtext seems to be that their characters must be intelligent if they can play the game. Of course, it is a proxy for strategy and conflict, so it appears in advertising, sometimes in surprising places, as in this recent advertisement for the National Basketball Association playoffs.

Often chess is included in a film because it is a favorite past time of one of the principals making the movie, as for example in the films of Stanley Kubrick, who loved the game and sometimes popped into the Marshall Chess Club on West 10th Street in Manhattan.

Now an Italian man named Lucio Etruscus has put together four compilations of clips from films and television shows in which chess appeared. The compilations are set to music and can be found here, here, here and here.

Chess also seems to be fertile ground for people who want to try their hands at animation. There are quite a few animated clips on YouTube that use chess pieces, but this one is particularly remarkable.

14 Comments

1. May 23, 2009 10:32 am Link

Interesting entry, I enjoyed the four "Chess Rhapsodies" with some of my favorites: "Searching for Bobby Fischer", "The Luzhin Defence", etc. But I didn't see one, "2001: A Space Odyssey" with HAL beating the human crew member. Here is the game:

http://www.chess.com/article/view/2001-a-chess-space-odyssey

As an amateur animator, I also enjoyed the claymation. Here's another modern show with a chess sequence, "The Wire" (caution, some bad language):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HUlTKvDUI

"The King stay the King" - D'Angelo
— Steve Kennedy
2. May 23, 2009 6:26 pm Link

can anyone shed any light on two questions of chess and movie history? the character james bond was created by ian fleming. long after fleming died in 1964, it became widely known that during the second world war he was a very successful british intelligence operative who was well aware of the breaking of the german enigma codes by british codebreakers building on the efforts of the poles. this was one of the most important allied secrets during the war. fleming worked with the codebreakers and conceived operation ruthless. this was a plan to obtain an enigma machine that was not actually carried out for technical reasons, but very likely contributed to the plot for the movie U-571. it is surely no coincidence that a number of james bond plots revolve around equipment for breaking codes.

the british codebreakers included cho'd(hugh) alexander, harry golombek, stuart milner-barry and many other chess players. alexander was a legend in british intelligence and after WW II he headed their codebreaking unit for decades. it is widely believed that he was not allowed to play chess in eastern europe because of fears that the russians would kidnap him.

some years ago i read in an earlier edition of david kahn's codebreakers that while playing in a tournament somewhere alexander learnt that bronstein was also a codebreaker. bronstein was spelt differently in kahn's influential book, but i have to believe that he meant david bronstein.

which gets us to my questions of chess and movie history. in the 1963 bond movie 'from russia with love' one of the villains is the GM kronsteen, smashing a hapless opponent in a tournament game. this is a miniscule part of one of the clips referred to above, but can also be seen here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoGFj_NH36c&feature=PlayList&p=34572FC90076E847&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12

it turns out that kronsteen's win is based on spassky-bronstein, USSR championship 1960.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1034110&kpage=4

my questions:
- was david bronstein a codebreaker for the soviets?
- was the spassky-bronstein game chosen with this knowledge, with the loser on the opposite side of alexander?
— L
3. May 24, 2009 4:22 am Link

"The Seventh Seal," by Ingmar Bergman (1957) has scenes of Max von Sydow playing against the Grim Reaper.
— Dan
4. May 24, 2009 9:50 am Link

One of Satyajit Ray's film is titled `Chess-Players'. Its two protagonists are chess-addicts, who do not realise that British are playing another game of chess, to acquire the north-Indian state of Awadh.
— Kapil
5. May 24, 2009 11:17 am Link

chess the "game" is for retards…chess is actually a simple BINARY SCHEMATIC which shows in 3 dimensions the formation of numbers and letters.
because of the limitations of a 2 dimensional surface, the flat board 99% of people miss the realization that chess is far more than a "game"which it is not.

here is the equation…
wave pulse by the square root of N to the 6thpwr denoting the movement of an electron in PI around a line of concentric force,56 radians persecond.
for math purposes the line of concentric force is shown down the middle.
here are some clues for you..the king moves one space each direction thus making a mathamatical arc of 180 degrees…the queen moves any number of spaces any direction….
in engineering male is sending female is recieving since the electron moves in PI the line of concentric force is a receiving force thus the female or queen can appear ANYWHERE within PI potentIally..hence any number of spaces any direction……………………………………

ever READ ABOUT a so called CHAKRA this equation explains it and the origin of chess/the SQUARE OF MERCURY

an old cathode ray tube uses the same basic equation to produce an electron beam
.
CHESS IS TV…………………………………..
— judge alan
6. May 24, 2009 11:32 am Link

Chess, which was invented in India, has been intrinsic to the country's literature as well as films for a very long time. One of the most compelling examples of the game as a literary device as well as a movie theme is "The Chess Players" or 'Shatranj ke Khlidai' based on the book by the great Hindi writer Munshi Premchand and made into a film by the redoubtable Satyajit Ray.

The game here is both a metaphor as well as an actual act of apathy and indifference by the two players in the face of the British confiscation of a a major king's domain.
— Mayank Chhaya
7. May 24, 2009 3:05 pm Link

I forgot to mention a good resource, the book "Chess in the Movies" by Bob Basalla. Wtih over 2000 movies summarized in about 400 pages of small print, it is pretty much the "Oxford Companion to Chess", except for movies. An example of what you can find is "Chess Fever", a 1925 Soviet silent comedy about the 1925 International Chess Tournament in Moscow. I haven't seen it yet, but with a star turn by Capablanca himself, it sounds pretty funny.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015673/

Amazon has it as part of a three movie collection of Soviet silent films.
— Steve Kennedy
8. May 25, 2009 5:35 am Link

see this, one of the best animations using 'chess' - my favourite!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgg9Dn2ahlM
— frodolk
9. May 25, 2009 2:57 pm Link

if you've ever tried to write a film script by yourself, it is very much like playing chess against yourself…
— eve shebang
10. May 28, 2009 10:11 am Link

Thanks for quoted me! It's an honor for me that my little videos are cited here ;-) Greetings from Italy!
— Lucio Etruscus
11. June 4, 2009 10:17 am Link

Another great chess video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0U-WnfPhWU
— Catbus
12. August 24, 2009 2:51 pm Link

I do not know if this is in Etruscus's collection, but a novella in which chess was absolutely central is Schachnovelle by Arnold Zweig, which has been translated into English as The Royal Game. This book was the basis of the 1960 movie Schachnovelle (German title), Brainwashed (English title), with Kurt Juergens and Claire Bloom.
— Steve W
13. September 2, 2009 7:21 pm Link

I really liked your article on how chess is used in the movies and also in advertisement. I love the game of chess, since the day my great grandmother taught me how to play. I have a blog on collectible chess set, if you would like to read it and give me your opinion on it. "collectiblechesssets.blogspot.com"
thank you on agreat article
— brian conn
14. September 7, 2009 9:26 pm Link

I really liked your article on how chess is used in the movies and also in advertisement. I love the game of chess, since the day my great grandmother taught me how to play. I have a blog on collectible chess set, if you would like to read it and give me your opinion on it. "collectiblechesssets.blogspot.com"
thank you on agreat article…
— Asner

About Gambit

In its 1,500-year history, chess has imbedded itself in the world's culture and vocabulary. Ideas, terms and images from the game have long been used as proxies for intelligence and complexity. But chess is more than a diversion. Thousands worldwide play professionally or earn a living by teaching it to children. The Internet has transformed the game, making it easy for players anywhere to find an opponent day or night. Chess computers, originally developed to test the bounds of artificial intelligence, now play better than grandmasters. This blog will cover tournaments and events, trends and developments. Reader comments and questions will be more than welcome.

Chess of the Times

They're No Fun to Learn, but Endgames Lead to Wins

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

Serious players must master basic endgames. Figuring them out during a game is difficult, if not impossible.

Age Showdown Where Players Are Considered 'Older' at 33

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

At the NH Hoteles tournament's generational battle, the older team won for the first time in four tries, but three of its members were in their 30s.

200 Years of Charging Knights and Kings in Check in Zurich

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

This month, Schachgesellschaft commemorated its anniversary with a series of events including two open tournaments and a round-robin, rapid chess competition.