THE CHESS EXCHANGE ✵The Newsletter of NYC Scholastic Tournament Chess ✵ Vol. 1 • Number 3 • April 2010 Newstand Price: $3.95 Published by P laying Chess Your Whole Enjoying Chess at Any Age L ife: C hess is one of those few activities that can be l earned and enjoyed at any age. It can stay w ith us our whole life, as a hobby to learn f rom and have fun with. Many of our regular T ri-State Chess tournament players and w inners have started chess at a very young age. S ome are as young as 3 or 4 years old. Many of the greatest players of all time like Bobby F ischer or Gary Kasparov were child prodigies or kids that showed an ability or talent to learn a difficult sport, game or skill, and became a dvanced players at a very young age. One of t he most famous chess prodigies was Sam R eshevsky who learned chess when he was 4 ------------ Continued on page 6 ------------ Sam Reshevsky 1920, Age 9 Tri-S tate Chess & Kasparov: Presi dent of Tri-State Chess Meets former World Champion Gary Kasparov It isn't every day that you get to hang out with one of the greatest chess players of all time. But that's exactly what Tri-State Chess Prez Mark Kurtzman was doing at the The 44th Annual Greater New York Team and Individual Chess Championship two months ago. Tri-State Chess joined forces with the Kasparov Chess Foundation to provide Kasparov's latest books which he signed at our country's oldest USCF rated scholastic chess tournament held at the New Yorker Hotel. Kasparov is not just a former world champion but is regarded by many as Mark Kurtzman & Kasparov the greatest chess player OF ALL TIME. Part of the reason was his exceptional rise to the top of the chess world at C O N T E N T S such a young age and his keeping of the world PLAYING CHESS YOUR WHOLE LIFE pg. 1 championship title and highest chess ranking for so TRI-STATE CHESS & KASPAROV pg. 1 many years. Chess players that play in United FISCHER RANDOM CHESS pg. 2 States Chess Federation and FIDE (the worldwide LOOKOUT! STALEMATE AHEAD pg. 2 chess association) are rated on a scale of 0 to about CHESS & CELEBRITIES pg. 3 THE FRIED LIVER ATTACK pg. 4 2900 with higher numbers assigned to better PUZZLERS pg. 7 players. Kasparov has had the #1 rating in the CLASSIFIEDS pg. 8 world longer than any other player TOURNAMENT & GRAND PRIX RESULTS pg. 9 ------------ Continued on page 4 ------------ -2- DIAGRAM 1 Fischer Random Chess: How Bobby Changed the Game to Help Beginners THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF DIFFERENT STARTING POSITIONS FOR FISCHER RANDOM CHESS IS 960! The game, created by Bobby Fischer, uses a special setup where both white and black pawns are setup like a regular game but white's other pieces are randomly placed on rank 1 with the king placed somewhere between the rooks and bishops are placed on opposite-colored squares. Black then imitates exactly where white's pieces were placed and the game begins with normal chess rules and white's first move. A typical game setup is shown on the right in Diagram 1. ONE Possible Start in FISCHER The "randomness" of setting the white pieces can be done RANDOM CHESS with complex rolling of dice or with a high-end chess clock. The clock, shown below, known as the DGT 960, LOOKOUT! Possible Draw: is sold by Tri-State Chess at their concessions and store. How to Avoid Stalemate When You are Ahead in the Endgame When you are "ahead" in a chess game, especially during a tournament, it is exciting to think you might win. But be careful! The challenge now is to stay ahead and win the game by checkmating your opponent. Even if you work hard and come to the endgame with a queen and king and your opponent just has a king WARNING!! the game is not over. If DGT 960 you are not careful, all your sweat and hard work spent creating an advantage in material could be ---------------------Continued on page 6-------------------- lost if you allow a stalemate to occur. THE CHESS EXCHANGE A stalemate is a tie or a "draw," and is usually a mistake made by the player who is just about to ©2010 Tri-State Chess win! About 20%, yes 1 out of every five Publisher: Mark Kurtzman beginner section games played in our [email protected] tournaments end this way. How can you avoid this from happening? Simple…make sure there Editor in Chief: Daniel Taubenblat is a free square for your opponents king to move [email protected] to each time you complete your move. Or…you can move your pieces closer and closer to the The CHESS EXCHANGE publishes quarterly. enemy king each time being sure to give a check Single copies are available by mail for $3.95 + $1.00 in the process. If the move you play is with postage/delivery. One year subscriptions are $17.95 check, it can never be a stalemate position. This including postage & delivery. way you can guarantee a checkmate every time For ad rates contact Mark Kurtzman: and make sure your hard work pays off by 䗮m [email protected] winning.䗮 Below, see a cool stalemate puzzle: White has to allow black to be able to make a legal move. Otherwise black is stalemated and -3- C hess & Celebrities: Fa mous People Who Have Pl ayed Chess So metimes when we are playing a tough gam e we think only about how easy it would be for Kramnik or Ka sparov or other world champions. We stud y the great names of chess like M orphy, Alekhine, Lasker and Bo tvinnik and ask "What would Bobby Fis cher do in this situation?" Yet chess ha s also been played by people who are no t chess pros. In fact, chess is enjoyed by many who are not great at chess at all! It i s played and enjoyed by people not fam ous for how they play chess but who were famous for other reasons. Many stars, celebrities, scientists, politicians and athletes continue to become involved wi th chess. On this page we put together some photos of chess players who are and were famous for other reasons. Try to match each nam e to a photo. You will be amazed that so many famous stars, musicians, athletes, sci entists, and politicians play or have played chess.䗮 {L OOK for the Chess Players ID Ch allenge solutions on page 9} CHESS PLAYERS ID CHALLENGE DIRECTIONS Place the number in the small square in each 1. Nicholas Cage 8. David Oistrakh photo by choosing from 2. Madonna 9. Kobe Bryant the 14 names below. ID 3. Michele Obama 10. Julia Roberts and name the chess 4. Charlie Chaplin 11. Benjamin Franklin player in each photo. 5. Albert Einstein 12. Ben Affleck 6. Barack Obama 13. David Letterman 7. Bill Gates 14. Chris Rock -4- T ri-State Chess & Kasparov (----Continued From Page 1----)' and had the highest rating in the world continuously from 1986 to 2005, over a nineteen year period. In the 1999-2000 FIDE ra tings lists he achieved the highest rating ever of 2851. B orn in 1963 (he is still only 47!), his father was Jewish and his mother Armenian. Gary's original name was Gary Weinstein but after his father died when he was seven, he took on his mother's la st name Kasparyan and changed it to Kasparov. H e was a true chess "prodigy" or child genius, training when he w as 7 at the Young Pioneer Palace in Baku and, at 10 at Mikhail B otvinnik's chess school under the famous coach Vladimir M akogonov. By the time he was 17 he became a Grandmaster, tw ice tied for first place at the USSR Chess championships and w hen he was 21 became the highest rated player in the world (2710) the youngest ever to do that. At 22, he became the yo ungest ever world champion after playing a famous match Kasparov at age 11 with Anatoly Karpov, also of the former USSR. In 2005 after having coached Valdimir Kramnik who went on to become world champion and Magnus Carlsen, the y oungest number one ranked player, Kasparov retired from chess. Since then he has been active in Russian politics a nd has been writing a series of books about great games of the past called "My Great Predecessors". This was the book series he was signing at the NY Team & Individual championship as he just introduced his separate volume on Bobby Fischer. W hen asked about meeting with Kasparov, Mr. Kurtzman said: " It was very exciting being in the presence of such a n awesome chess legend! We look forward to more visits by Gary in the future…” 䗮 T he Fried Liver Attack W e all learn what not to do in the opening…Don’t move the f pawn…Don’t move your queen early, etc. But what about something we can do, to start off with a quick attack? Well, there is no sure fire method of de stroying your opponent in just a few moves, but there is a highly successful attack that can be launched early called the Fried Liver Attack! A B C D E F G H T he attack is based upon sacrificing on the weak 8 8 poi nt in black’s position (the f7 square) early on to 7 7 draw the black king into the center.