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Iceland approves Bobby Fishcer residency TOKYO -- Iceland has approved a residency permit for former chess champion Bobby Fischer, who is being detained by Japanese immigration authorities, an Iceland embassy official said Thursday. The United States wants him back so they can prosecute him for playing chess in Yugoslavia in 1992 violating U.S. Sanctions. The U.S. is putting pressure on Iceland not to provide him with sanctuary. Iceland has told the U.S. to take their pawn and shove it. I hope he makes it to Iceland, he is disturbed, he is a genius, and for his chess accomplishments he should be a hero not a criminal. I think I'll just listen to the Lazy Susan's song about a chess hero of mine....

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Posted by Norm at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Posted by Norm at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"World chess champion Gary Kasparov is writing a six-volume series on fellow masters of the game. He's also a columnist with The Wall Street Journal. He speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about Bobby Fischer and other greats of the game." Have a listen here...

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Posted by Chris Jenson at 2:06 PM | Permalink

Bobby Fischer was recently detained in Japan. Here is a thoughtful article on Bobby Fishcer and his chess by Gary Kasparov. Kasparov is working on a six volume series (These books are very well done and I recommend them highly) on the games of great players, and is currently working on Fischer. Despite his short stay at the top there is little to debate about the chess of Bobby Fischer. He changed the game in a way that hadn't been seen since the late 19th century. The gap between Mr. Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest ever. He singlehandedly revitalized a game that had been stagnating under the control of the Communists of the Soviet sports hierarchy. [snip] Despite the ugliness of his decline, Bobby Fischer deserves to be remembered for the great things he did for chess and for his immortal games. I would prefer to focus on not letting his personal tragedy become a tragedy for chess....

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Posted by Norm at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Something in the way she moves Author on women's issues takes a look at chess and the position of the queen It was one of the oddest coups d'etat in history, and nobody knows exactly how, or when, or why it happened. For centuries, the king was dominant. Then the queen surpassed him and has ruled the field ever since. It's a flat and bloodless field: 64 squares on a small board, two contestants with 16 pieces each. The battle is chess, and cultural historian Marilyn Yalom set out with her new book, "Birth of the Chess Queen," to solve a mystery: How was it that sometime between the years 990 and 1497 the feminine monarch replaced the king as the center of power?...

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Posted by Norm at 4:06 PM | Permalink

Well the FIDE World Chess Championship is underway. We have an early upset. English Super-Grandmaster Nigel Short was upset by Polish Grandmaster Michal Krasenkow. I was watching Short play this morning on ICC. The members bantered about the game as it was played. Usually their comments are pretty stupid, but occasionally they are amusing. Member 1: Hey, does anybody know how tall Short is? Member 2: He is quite tall. Short is tall. Member 3: Anyone know how short Tal is? Member 2: Tal was short. Member 1: So, Short is tall and Tal was short! Ha ha ha!...

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Posted by Chris Jenson at 3:26 PM | Permalink

The following game is from a mysterious Russian called Genrikh Chepukaitis. He never became a grandmaster but he was known to be able to beat anybody at blitz chess. The annotations are from Chepukaitis himself and are almost as entertaining as the game. For more of his games check out the original ChessCafe article this is taken from. If you would like to play through the game on a chess board here is the link. White Genrikh Chepukaitis Black Strong Computer Result 1-0 ECO A45 Let me invite you to the board as I defend some of my ideas. The following game was played against a computer, a strong program, one of the major ones. 1 d4 Nf6 2 Bg5 . . . Here comes my favorite bishop-kamikaze in the only opening I employ with White, the only opening I know. Generally one should not care about the "objective" value of the opening. There are only openings one knows and those one does not. The former are good, and the latter are bad. Black to move 2 . . . Ne4 3 Bh4 g5 4 f3 gxh4 5 fxe4 e5 6 e3 Qg5! This plan was Boleslavky's suggestion with the...

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Posted by Chris Jenson at 10:18 AM | Permalink