World's Oldest Chess Club to Celebrate 200 Years
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A frequently updated blog for the Kenilworth Chess Club
Labels: amateur chess
I have posted A Black Fianchetto System in the Open Games, Part One, which is the first of a projected seven-part series on a classical way of playing against 1.e4 with 1...e5 and an eventual g6. Where a fianchetto system is not so successful is against lines where White can play an early f4, such as the Vienna, the Bishop's Opening, and the King's Gambit. But we will examine an alternative system against these lines where the Bishop is often developed to b4.
In this first of a planned seven-part series, we examine lines where White plays c3 followed by d4, striving to establish a classical center. This is one of the best places to begin our discussion because it helps us see the g6 system as a potential tabiya that can work across various opening lines that are typically treated quite separately in the opening manuals.
In subsequent articles, we will look at:
Labels: opening analysis
A heavily symbolic allegory of faith and doubt set in plague-ridden medieval Sweden, this seminal movie was the height of midcentury existentialist chic and ground zero for the cinephile golden age. It gave the cultural intelligentsia permission to take film seriously.
"The Seventh Seal" has since fallen victim to changing tastes and to its own popularity. (If anything, it is now more middlebrow emblem than highbrow badge of honor.) And it is precisely its unabashed seriousness, once so seductive, that has contributed to its somewhat diminished reputation.
Many of the film's images have passed into cinematic immortality, none more so than the recurring motif of a brooding knight locked in a mortal chess game with Death, assuming the form of a cowled, white-faced ghoul, and the final hilltop danse macabre, led by the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper. But the hooded figure of Death also has proved spoofable, popping up in such places as Bergman mega-fan Woody Allen's "Love and Death," Monty Python skits and "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey."
It might not be possible to liberate "The Seventh Seal," reissued in a new two-disc edition this week by the Criterion Collection in both standard definition and Blu-ray, from the historical baggage that surrounds it. But first-time viewers, and those revisiting it after many years, might be surprised to find a movie that feels at once dated and timeless: Its deadly earnest sensibility harks back to another era, but its stark iconographic power is undimmed, stubbornly resistant to parody. Read the rest online>
Labels: chess cinema
Labels: opening analysis
Labels: chess and music
Labels: annotated game, grand prix attack

Labels: book review, chess history

Labels: french, opening analysis
Labels: amateur chess
Madman Genius will chronicle the bizarre and tragic life of an American hero turned outlaw, chess champion Bobby Fischer. Fischer's rise and fall echoed the demise of the Cold War World Order; without the black and white of the chessboard reflected in the 'real' world, Fischer, arguably the greatest chess player of all time, went insane. Novelistic in its story-telling, the film will chronicle the spectacular rise and fall of an American icon.Fischer's story continues to fascinate us and I am sure that there will be a string of future films about him. However, it appears we will still have to wait for this incredible true story to receive the cinematic rendering that it deserves.
Labels: bobby fischer, chess cinema

9. Best Chess Website: Open to news sites, “blogs,” state websites, and so on. Special award given to the best example of each type of website.I'll be entering a few of my favorite blogs, so let me know if you plan on submitting yourself.
Labels: CJA Awards
Labels: check it out, chess on television

Labels: amateur chess

Labels: book review, opening analysis
Labels: chess cinema
Labels: annotated game, opening analysis