INTRO: Hello to all my fellow chess lovers. I hope you are all doing well and trying to approach life like you do chess, with a plan and a lot of thought. Bobby Fischer said: Chess is war over a board, the object, to crush your opponent’s mind and will. We know that life is often like an obstacle course, so make a plan and then crush it. With that said, I feel like the last chess letter was an improvement on the first but we are still working out some kinks. To explain I will give a brief bio...My name is David and I am doing thirty years for first degree murder. I come from a broken home like most of the incarcerated but it was because of poverty that I was introduced to chess! My father had spent the little money he made on drugs, prostitutes or both one Christmas, so could only afford to get me a deck of playing cards and a one dollar chess set. Unfortunately, while I was a quick study at the Royal Game my parents were much more focused on their addictions than my chess ambition and I didn't start playing a lot until I was in the juvenile prison system and didn't start studying chess until I was 8 years in on my adult sentence. My chess addiction started five years ago when an older native guy showed up on the tier asking if anyone was good at chess...being "the best" I smugly said "yeah me" and he proceeded to absolutely destroy me...blindfolded, and I didn't beat him in a game for months, unless slapping pieces off the board counts?:-) I began buying every chess book he recommended and more he didn't. I pretty much locked myself in my cell and studied chess at least seven hours a day. I slept with a chess board taped to the lower bunk so that I could play my own blindfolded games and started recording my games. I played chess in my dreams and would lose focus in the visit in room with my wife if a game of chess was being played nearby. I started winning my own blindfold games and for better or for worst I'm the guy to beat now:-) I stay humble by knowing that compared to the professionals I'm just a wood pusher but still work hard to improve my craft and rating and hope to hit 2350 in the next few years. So now I try to write this newsletter...and while I have a lot of ideas and my own methods of study it is hard to put on paper, especially with no internet access. So I try to make it as easy on my wife as possible by picking things that are easy to find and helpful to all level of players. I hope to do this for many years and make more and more improvements. The first thing I want to be able to do is consistently answer questions you guys/gals might have. Hopefully starting this letter. Now on to the chess. 1. Famous Player: Jose Raul Capablanca José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (19 November 1888 – 8 March 1942) was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. A chess prodigy, he is considered by many as one of the greatest players of all time, widely renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play. Born in Havana, he beat Cuban champion Juan Corzo in a match two days before his thirteenth birthday on 17 November 1901. His victory over Frank Marshall in a match in 1909 earned him an invitation to the 1911 San Sebastian tournament, which he won ahead of players such as Akiba Rubinstein, Aron Nimzowitsch and Siegbert Tarrasch. During the next several years, Capablanca had a strong series of tournament results. After several unsuccessful attempts to arrange a match with the then world champion Emanuel Lasker, Capablanca finally won the title from Lasker in 1921. Capablanca was undefeated for eight years from 10 February 1916 to 21 March 1924, a period which included the world championship match with Lasker. Capablanca lost the title in 1927 to Alexander Alekhine, who had never beaten Capablanca before the match. Following unsuccessful attempts to arrange a return match over many years, relations between them became bitter. Capablanca continued his excellent tournament results in this period but withdrew from serious chess in 1931. He made a comeback in 1934, with some good results, but also showed symptoms of high blood pressure. He died in 1942 of "a cerebral hemorrhage provoked by hypertension". Capablanca excelled in simple positions and endgames; Bobby Fischer described him as possessing a "real light touch". He could play tactical chess when necessary, and had good defensive technique. He wrote several chess books during his career, of which Chess Fundamentals was regarded by Mikhail Botvinnik as the best chess book ever 1 written. Capablanca preferred not to present detailed analysis but focused on critical moments in a game. His style of chess was influential in the play of future world champions Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov. 2.Famous Capablanca game Juan Corzo vs Jose Raul Capablanca (1901) 3. Chess News...Gary Kasparov comes out of retirement? Chess Legend Garry Kasparov Is Coming Out Of Retirement To Compete In St. Louis Tournament – Forbes.com Twelve years ago, Grandmaster Garry Kasparov announced that he was retiring from the professional chess scene after winning the 2005 Linares Chess Tournament. Now he's back. The 54-year-old chess legend will be competing at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis in the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz Competition from August 14-19 this year. Kasparov has been keeping himself busy in the past 12 years, learning about artificial intelligence, getting arrested for protesting against Vladimir Putin, and criticizing the Trump Administration's close ties to the Russian government ("Vladimir Putin is a strong leader in the same way arsenic is a strong drink," he tweeted to then-governor Mike Pence in 2016). But the desire to get back into professional competition never fully left him. "With a player like Garry, you can tell he has the itch to play," said Tony Rich, Executive Director of the St. Louis Chess Club. "So it really didn’t take a whole lot of convincing." Ten players will compete for a total purse of $150,000 in the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz Competition, part of the international Grand Chess Tour circuit which features some of the best players in the world. It takes place immediately following another Grand Chess Tour event, the annual Sinquefield Cup, a $300,000 event that will also be held in Saint Louis. There will be several players participating in both events. "Being the newest addition to the Grand Chess Tour, we wanted to take the opportunity of the Rapid and Blitz Competition to highlight the growth of the Tour," Rich told Forbes. "What better way to get that out there than by including the greatest chess player who ever lived?" "I told him, 'Garry, you understand it’s rated so there’s some pride and ego on the line, right?' He said, 'Absolutely.' He was ready to play," Rich continued. Grandmaster chess legend Garry Kasparov, right, competes against Grandmaster and 2016 Sinquefield Cup Champion Wesley So, right, during the Sinquefield Cup Chess Tournament's Ultimate Moves exhibition match (Nick Schnelle/AP Images for Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis)[+] Since his retirement in 2005, Kasparov has kept himself busy. Although he hasn't been playing in professional tournaments, he has played in a number of high-profile exhibition matches. He's also been a tireless advocate for chess, helping to promote the game in a number of ways (including helping the Grand Chess Tour get off the ground.) Kasparov is famous for his 1997 loss to IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. As a "type of therapy" over that loss, he just published a book on the subject of artificial intelligence, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins. It's a book, Kasparov said in a post on Medium, that ultimately made him optimistic about the future. "I make it clear in Deep Thinking that my loss to Deep Blue was also a victory for humans — its creators and everyone who benefits from our technological leaps. That is, everyone," Kasparov wrote. "This is always the case in the big picture, and why the book rejects the ‘man vs machine’ competition storyline. The machines work for us, after all. The last third of the book is about the bright future of our lives with intelligent machines, if we are ambitious enough to embrace it." Prisoner Express 127 Anabel Taylor Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 2 Kasparov has also been deeply involved in politics in his native Russia. He's been arrested and detained several times for his activism against the leadership of Vladimir Putin over the years. He's also written a book about the dangers of Putin's global ambitions. (You can also read an interview he gave Forbes warning about Putin back in 2007.) "Playing in St. Louis is special, not least because it is a way to say thanks for what the Sinquefield family has done to promote the game there and worldwide, especially in education," Kasparov said. "Thanks to the Sinquefields, St. Louis has become the global chess capital and the atmosphere Despite this return to a competitive tournament, Kasparov doesn't plan to leave his writing and political activism behind to pursue chess on a full-time basis.