Chess - One of a part of my life.

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Hi puys,After wandering in PG for Two years, I have seen dedicated threads for Cricket, Football, Tennis etc. Its time for me to open a thread for a more indigenous sport/war -Chess.* ** History:-*As they say, the rumour is true. Chess w…

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Hi puys,

After wandering in PG for Two years, I have seen dedicated threads for Cricket, Football, Tennis etc. Its time for me to open a thread for a more indigenous sport/war -Chess.

History:-
As they say, the rumour is true. Chess was born in India , during the Gupta empire in 6th Century A.D. Later it went to Persia, Western Europe, West Asia and North African Countries.

Chess - Chariot, Horses, Elephant, Soldiers + king and Queen.

In modern day terms,

Chariot = Bishop (B), Horses=Knights (N), Elephant=Rook (R), Soldiers =Pawns (P).

14th century A.D saw the birth of modern chess. Power of Queen and bishop were increased."en passant" and "Castling - older form" were introduced. later modern form of castling was introduced. Greco was one of first modern chess player/ author, who analysed and published a book in chess. The book went down for 100+editions. He explored king pawn openings thoroughly.

Note: Chess is the only sport for which most number of books are written.

The most played, interesting and fancy looking line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 was introduced by him aka "guacco piano". Then on due course of time the game saw several legends exploring the opening moves/maneuvers. The birth of modern opening systems happened. In the mean time, modern castling rules were introduced.

London Chess tourney 1851 - First famous Chess tourney to happen, won by adolf anderson. His one of the game is the "immortal game". Coz it paved a chess revolution. Watch it.
"The Immortal game"
.

Paul Morphy was a US player and extremely talented. He beat every single guy in chess arena. at one point every one feared playing against him. Stauntaoun refused to play against him. he then offered a pawn/a move odd to the opponent and there there was no takers. Hence he retired abruptly. Truly,his game were "magical" , as magical as messi's dribble, and Federer's back hand.
1886 saw the first official chess champ - William steineitz. Though he lost his crown to Lasker in 1894, he gave the introduction to "exploiting the weakness concept" and "Not to create weakness concept". Emanuel Lasker dominated the game for 27 years, longest for any world champ. Then Alekhine became the new champ. Alongside, birth of FIDE happened in 1924 in Paris. Women Chess saw new heights.


Alekhine was defeated by Max Euwe and then the converse happened . alekhine died as a world Champion, the Only person to die as a champ. Then came the Russian dominance. Mikhail Botvinik, Vassily Symislov, Mikail Tal, Borris Spassky. Everyone is a legend and played fine games. Then came a hero from US, who mastered all the Russians single handedly, Robert James Fisher. ( May be a product of cold war )
Fisher is one of the greatest chess players till now. Introduced Chess 960. The number 960 has a meaning that will be covered in upcoming posts. Fisher refused to comply with FIDE rules and Then Karpov got Title from Fischer by default, Kasparov arrived, The computer chess born, Kramink got the better of Kasparov. Then Anand brought the chess back to India from Russia.

Note: The world Championship should not be confused with world cup. Chess has both. Peter Svidler of Russia is the current world cup winner and Anand is the champ.

( I finished the later part of history on a quick note. Because, I believe, i will be writing about it in most of the following posts in this thread. )

Upcoming posts- Most important Things you should know about chess, Notations, ELO points, Titles. Famous tournaments in the past, present and future, Current Happenings. Interesting games, Fundamentals of playing the game, and of course debates.

See u then, With lots of love ,
-albiesriram

Chess.com handles of respective Puys:-
albiesriram - albiesriram , sram1047
@banu2312 - Thebluehatter
@abhaypatil - abhay_2188
@economst - economst
@Omkarp - The_RealJuggernaut
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#2 Most important things one should know about chess: Part -I

- Chess is the national game of Russia and has every rights to become national game of our nation.

- International Chess authority is FIDE.

- William Strenitz (US)was the First World Champ and Emanuel Lasker(Germany) was the longest running World champ.

- Current world chess champion is Anand and women's chess champion is Anna Ushenina (Ukraine). Current Rapid chess champion is Sergey Karjakin(Russia), and Blitz chess champion is Magnus Carlsen(Norway). Current women's rapid chess champion is Antoneta Stefanova (Bulgaria), and women's blits champion is Valentina gunina (Russia) .

- Russia has the largest number of GMs, IMs viz. Ukraine is second in the list.

- Computers or engines are unbeatable when they play against humans. rating of strongest computer depends on processor and thinking time etc.
eg. Houdini, Hiarcs, Rybka etc. ( All are owned by Chessbase. The largest chess corporate)

- Chess has various formats. Classical, Rapid, blitz, Blindfolded, Simultaneous exhibitions aka simuls, problem solving and many more.

- Highest rated chess player ever is Magnus Carlsen of Norway ,rated at 2872!. Highest rated female chess player ever is Judit Polgar(Hungary) rated at 2735. ( Unless specified the rating denotes classical time control rating). Highest rated chess engine ever is Houdini 3. 3351.

- Anyone can get a International chess rating regardless of age and qualifications .
Alan Alda (actor) 1400 rating
Humphrey Bogart 1900 rating
Nicholas Cage (actor) 1500 rating
Fidel Castro (dictator) 1900 rating
Charlie Chaplin (actor) 1400 rating
Ray Charles (musician) 1600 rating
Che Guevara (revolutionary) 1950 rating
Ted Danson (actor) 1400 rating
Peter Falk (actor) 1400 rating
Al Jolson (musician) 1600 rating
Henry Kissinger (politician) 1400 rating
Vladimir Lenin (Russian dictator) 1900 rating
David Letterman (talk show) 1100 rating
Jerry Matthers (the Beaver) 1400 rating
George Pataki (NY Governor) 1100 rating
Arnold Schwarzenenegger 1500 rating
Jimmy Stewart (actor) 1300 rating
John Wayne (actor) 1200 rating

- Arch rivals of the past:-
Adolf andersan (Germany)- Paul Morphy(US)
Steinitz(US) - lasker(Germany)
Alexander Alekhine (Russia) -Max Euwe. (Dutch)
Fischer (US) Vs Mikhail Tal and compatriot Russians.( USSR)
Kasparov (USSR)Vs Karpov (USSR)
Nigel Short (England) Vs Judit Polgar(Hungary)
Karpov (USSR) Vs Korchnoi(USSR)

- Arch rivals of the present:-
Kramnik (Russia) vs Topalov (Bulgaria)
Anand (India) vs Aronian (Armenia)
Magnus carlsen(Norway) vs Hikaru Nakamura.(US)
Hikaru Nakamura (US) vs Gata kamsky(US)
Hou Yifan (china) vs Koneru Humpy (India) and many more.

- Veterans of the game.

- Borris Spassky. Former world champ. USSR
- Viktor Korchnoi. Paralyzed at home. . USSR. A world championship contender.
- Yuri Averbakh of USSR. Nicely poised to write couple of books. (91).

- Best trainer in the world- Mark Dvoretsky of USSR., A great author too.

- Famous Chess tourneys.

World championship
World cup
Chess olympiad
London chess classics
Tal memorial (Russia)
Wijk aan zee aka Tata steel chess tour. (Netherlands)
Gibraltar chess festival.(UK)
Linares (discontinued)
Biel Chess festival
Kings tourney.
Candidates tours. and many more.

That brought to the end of the post.

Next post:
Most important things one should know about chess: Part -II (The Indian scenario )

See u then, With lots of love ,
-albiesriram

P.S. Most of the data that i used here are dynamic and can change with time. Hockey is not the national game of India , according to our govt. . I regret if the first point disturbs any hockey fans.
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Great Man..No words for you efforts..Also add the country name with the players name if possible ..


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How many players crossed the 2800 mark ?

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Garry Kasparov. Vaselin Topalov (Bulgaria) , Anand, Kramnik (Russia), , Magnus carlsen (Norway), Levon aronian(Armenia) in the chronological order.

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can you write about the formats of chess!!

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can you write about the formats of chess!!

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Great thread! :thumbsup: @albiesriram can I add some of my analyses too?

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@banu2312 : please share your analysis as well
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@FSOG said:
can you write about the formats of chess!!
Sure i will write. I am preparing next post now. I will append the formats with the next post. if u wish.
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I have come across several traps and tricks, both while playing and also on youtube, and have made a list of some of these in detail. I am going to try and post a few of them here. 😃

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1. Lasker Trap :


Lasker Trap is named after Emanuel Lasker. Basically this trap was invented by Lasker to nullify and confuse the queen's gambit played by white after the d4(white) and d5(black) move.


So after white plays his queen's gambit, black avoids it and plays e5. It's a great move, and lot of time white will not be ready to see such a counter attack and play a bad move. So play can resume from here when the d4 pawn capturing e5, and black is going to respond by advancing d5 pawn to d4. Now the mistake from white is going to be pawn to e3. he will obviously think that black is going to capture the pawn on e3 and hence he can exchange the queen and prevent black from castling. But that is not going to happen. Black is going to continue with the Lasker trap and that is moving the bishop to b4 and checking the white king. White is going to bring his bishop and prevent the check as well as challenge the bishop checking the king. Now the pawn on d4 will capture the pawn on e3. The bishop sitting in front the queen cannot capture the pawn as it is preventing the check from black's bishop. So from here, White can do even bigger mistake to capture the unsupported Bishop attacking the king thinking that he can gain more material advantage, but he's going to be mistakenly wrong. The e3 pawn of black in response will continue to capture f2 pawn, thus making a check by pawn and also threatening the knight on g1. Now here, white king cannot simply take this pawn by his king because then the queen will be unprotected and black's queen can easily capture it. So white will have to sacrifice its knight and move its king to e2. From here, I will play my own variation (Other than what's been said in the youtube videos you'll probably come across). I will move my bishop to g4, check the king and produce a fork where by avoiding the check, white exposes his queen and completing the fork, black wins the white king.


It's a really good trap. I have often seen people come up with the queen's gambit without even knowing how to use the extra space gained. So if facing a beginner player using the queen's gambit, one can always use this trap.
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@banu2312 said:
I have come across several traps and tricks, both while playing and also on youtube,

Great work!

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Nice work :)

Didn't know chess has the largest no. of books written on it.
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@Messy_19 said:
Nice workDidn't know chess has the largest no. of books written on it.
I read it from a famous author on his introduction to his work.
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#3 Most important things one should know about chess: Part -II (An Indian Scenario)

Authority : AICF

- India saw a rise in chess after the efforts of Manuel aaron, India's first international master IM (1961). It took 17 years for India to produce second IM, V.Ravi.

- India's first Grand Master is Vishy Anand. 1988, ( Finished final norm in sivakasi GM open after narrowly missing out in the final round of Manila Chess olympiad 1987).

Note:
First player to secure a GM norm is Praveen Thipsay. GM norm should not be confused with GM title. One should secure three norms to become a GM . He is also the oldest GM in our country.

- India owns 29 GMs, 76 IMs and 219 titled chess players* .
( For understanding GM> IM>FM> CM where FM stands for Fide master and CM stands for Candidates Master.**)

- Top 10 players *
1 Anand, Viswanathan 2780
2 Harikrishna, P. 2705
3 Sasikiran, Krishnan 2677
4 Negi, Parimarjan 2638
5 Ganguly, Surya Shekhar 2626
6 Gupta, Abhijeet 2612
7 Koneru, Humpy 2597
8 Sandipan, Chanda 2590
9 Panchanathan, Magesh Chandran 2579
10 Lalith, Babu M.R. 2559

- Top 10 Women players *

1 Koneru, Humpy 2597
2 Harika, Dronavalli 2514
3 Tania, Sachdev 2397
4 Gomes, Mary Ann 2394
5 Karavade, Eesha 2391
6 Vijayalakshmi, Subbaraman 2365
7 Mohota, Nisha 2327
8 Padmini, Rout 2307
9 Soumya, Swaminathan 2291
10 Meenakshi Subbaraman 2249


- India has seen three players crossing the 2700 rating mark, Anand, Sasikiran, Pentala Harikrishna.

- Anand is currently 6th in rating list and Humpy is third in Women's rating list.*

- TamilNadu has maximium number of GMs and IMs.(13) &(22) *

- Manuel Aaron has won maximum number of national championships. and youngest player to win national championship is G.Aakash from chennai (2012).

- India's youngest GM n IM is Parimarajan Negi from Delhi.

- Surya shekar Ganguly is the only player beat Kramnik after Anand, in classical time control.

- Abhijeet Gupta (Rajastan) and Tania Sachdev (Delhi)won Silver and Bronze medals respectively in 2012 chess olympiad at Turkey.

- While India finished 35th in open category , it finished 4th in Women's category in 2012 olympiad.

Famous Chess meets in India:-

-Air Authority of chess championship is the strongest chess tournament in terms of average rating of the players. Orissa GM open, Chennai GM open, Kolkata GM open, Delhi parsvnath GM open are other regular tourneys. Apart from these, India regularly hosts commonwealth chess championship.

Titles:-

- Vishy Anand is the current World Champion and Koneru Humpy is the Women's world champioship contender 2013. Various titles are being held by the juniors as well. While Harika Dronavalli reached Semi finals of World women chess championship.

Notable Chess magazines from India: Chessmate by Manuel Aoron, AICF chronicle.

I think i have included as many details i can. If I have missed anything I will be updating the post. With that I would like to conclude the post.

Next post: Various formats in Chess

See u then, With lots of love ,
-albiesriram

* Dynamic data
** Women's titles not included.
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@albiesriram : What are the three GM norms ? Does a player need to qualify all the three norms or just a single norm to attain GM title ?
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2. Smith-Morra Gambit :

This gambit is a response to black's answer of Sicilian defense to white's king's pawn move(e4). personally, I've always hated Sicilian defense. For a person like me, who more or less always plays e4 and gets a Sicilian in response, this gambit can be a good answer to it. The Smith-Morra gambit takes black out of any thoughts he developed of playing about, with his Sicilian defense.

So in response to white's e4, black goes into Sicilian and plays c5. And from here, white's going to play d4, and after black captures on d4 from c5, white is going to offer up another pawn on c3. And after black captures the pawn on c3, white is going to recapture the pawn with his knight on c3. This is the Smith-Morra Gambit. White has given up two pawns while black has given only one pawn. But also, white has one center pawn developed and a knight supporting it and at the same time developed nicely and guarding the central part.
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@albiesriram : What are the three GM norms ? Does a player need to qualify all the three norms or just a single norm to attain GM title ?
Norms are little complicated to explain. There are several rules concerning the completion of a norm. In order to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, a player must achieve three or more grandmaster norms in events covering a minimum of 27 games. Norms can only be gained in tournaments that fulfill FIDE's strict criteria; for instance, an International Arbiter must be officiating and the entry must include at least three GM titled players from different countries playing over a minimum of nine rounds, with no less than 120 minutes thinking time per round. There are a number of other more minor stipulations.The 'norm' seeker must achieve a tournament performance rating (TPR) of at least 2600 to qualify.

One should earn three or more norms to get the title.