Kasparov in South Africa

World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov is visiting South Africa!! Kasparov was the top rated player for 21 years.  He will be playing some chess on the 12th November. Pres Zuma has recently launched the MOVES FOR LIFE Chess development programme. From the link:

Kasparov comes from Moscow to South Africa on 12 November to form a joint venture with Tshwane/Pretoria based chess educational project Moves for Life (MFL).

13th Chess World Champion, Garry Kasparov, has announced that he wishes to link his Kasparov Chess Foundation to MFL to take the successful MFL formula to other African countries.

He has added that he plans to work with MFL to make Johannesburg the chess capital of Africa

Kasparov stated:. “I was greatly inspired by the words of President Zuma last October, when he spoke so movingly on the many benefits of chess for children – and of his remarkable connection to my beloved game. I am happy to join him and the South African Moves for Life programme in a commitment to bringing chess to schools across the country and for turning Johannesburg into the continental capital for chess.”

Kasparov will be visiting South Africa as the guest of MFL from the 12th – 15th November to promote the Kasparov Chess Foundation link up with the Moves for Life programme.

The Moves for Life programme was launched by President Zuma last year and has since expanded to over 50 schools around the country, resulting in measurable improvement in maths and science performance amongst children

Watu Kobese, Moves for Life trustee and one of South Afriva’s top chess players Operations says: “The game of chess impacts positively on Maths, Science and comprehension abilities while also imparting valuable life skills to children. In learning to play chess, children are mastering a wide range of skills such as pattern recognition, classifying information, reasoning by analogy, following principles, calculating possible sequences of events and critical thinking — which in fact helps with all their academic subjects,”

President Jacob Zuma, is clear that there is a place for chess in South Africa’s education system. When President Zuma launched the MFL initiative in 2010, he highlighted the benefits of chess saying, “We want to convince parents and teachers that chess is one of the most powerful tools available to strengthen and enhance a child’s mind.”

Moves for Life is now training over 6000 children per week and has trained more than 200 educators in 2011 both to teach chess in schools and also as an extra-curricular activity.. According to Kasparov, “The Moves for Life programme is already doing a wonderful job and we expect to cooperate and aid them in developing both their chess and sponsorship efforts. To promote our activities, chess in the media, and to inspire the grassroots, I will personally donate my time, to train South Africa’s most promising young players as well as the country’s elite teams, as I have done in the United States with great success.

The mission of the Kasparov Chess Foundation: Africa will be to bring the many educational benefits of chess to children throughout Africa by providing a complete chess curriculum with associated enrichment programs. The foundation promotes the playing of chess as a cognitive learning tool in classes and in after-school programmes for primary and high schools. The Moves for Life programme has both the South African experience as well as the material developed uniquely for the African situation. Through collaboration both KCF and MFL will be able to optimise all available resources and reach their respective goals.

“Chess is an individual sport, but promoting chess is not. With your support, Johannesburg will take a prominent place alongside New York, Brussels and Sao Paulo,” says Kasparov.

In June this year the Kasparov Chess Foundation launched its European leg, based in Brussels. The Foundation has ambitious plans to develop a programme for the entire European Union. On September 20th, the Kasparov Chess Foundation Europe presented its proposal at the Headquarters of the European Union.

Update: Saturday 12/11/2011
 Was really disappointed when reading on CHESSA’s site about MFL, Kasparov, etc. I agree, MFL is a PRIVATE company and HERE is Dr Kemm,  one of the 5 trustees of MFL and hopefully he will do something to get CHESSA also involved in this important visit – a visit our Chess players look forward to.  This is a visit that happens only ONCE in a life time and Chess South Africa is not even fully involved! MFL: You CAN do something about it.

Update [again] – Saturday 19/11/2011

If you are interested to read Mickey’s reaction as a MFL-trustee – you can read his comments in the comments box. It’s sad to know that MFL actually contacted CHESSA and that CHESSA asked MFL to cancel Kasparov’s visit. I think CHESSA needs to ‘grow up’ and show that they are there for the Chess community in South Africa and that they are serious about developing Chess in South Africa. CHESSA’s article is misleading the general public about their role in Kasparov’s visit. CHESSA is obviously not thinking about their international image.

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The Lady and The Lord

Lord Nelson – Image: Wikipedia

Lady Emma Hamilton – Image: Encyclopedia.com

Lord Nelson had a love affair and he was a hero ‘at sea’, but was a really a hero in his personal life. How many people really do know about this scandal? I only got to know about it when I read about Lady Emma! Lord Nelson was – apparently – also a chess player.

A poem from Lady Emma to Lord Nelson – from here:

gutenberg.org/cache/epub/15437/pg15437.txt

EMMA TO NELSON.

  I think, I have not lost my heart;
    Since I, with truth, can swear,
  At every moment of my life,
    I feel my Nelson there!

  If, from thine Emma's breast, her heart
    Were stolen or flown away;
  Where! where! should she my Nelson's love
    Record, each happy day?

  If, from thine Emma's breast, her heart
    Were stolen or flown away;
  Where! where! should she engrave, my Love!
    Each tender word you say?

  Where! where! should Emma treasure up
    Her Nelson's smiles and sighs?
  Where mark, with joy, each secret look
    Of love, from Nelson's eyes?

  Then, do not rob me of my heart,
    Unless you first forsake it;
  And, then, so wretched it would be,
    Despair alone will take it.

Born Emma Lyon, she became the mistress of Charles Greville, then of Sir William Hamilton , ambassador to Naples, whom she married (1791). She gained enormous influence with Neapolitan Queen Marie Caroline. Her intimacy with Nelson began in 1798, and after returning to Englandwith him, she bore him a daughter, Horatia, in 1801

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar

Nelson’s affair with Emma Hamilton was the biggest scandal of the age. Their actual liaison lasted only six years, but it transformed their lives, their respective positions in society, and the public’s perception of them both.

Horatio Nelson first met Lady Hamilton on 12 September 1793. He was a 35-year-old post captain and she was the 28-year-old wife of Sir William Hamilton, the British Envoy to Naples. Emma was a great beauty and a celebrated artists’ model, and she was also famous across Europe for performing ‘attitudes’, which were performances in which she moved quickly from one dramatic pose to another.

Mired in retirement in Norfolk for the previous five years, Nelson had hardly seen a woman since he had returned to sea six months before their meeting, and he was impressed by Lady Hamilton. He wrote to his wife Fanny that Emma was a ‘young woman of amiable manners who does honour to the station to which she is raised’.

Although the newspaper-reading public savoured every detail about Nelson and Lady Hamilton, others condemned their relationship and some friends and colleagues refused to visit them. Most aristocrats and rich men kept mistresses, and many, like the Duke of Wellington, humiliated their wives by flaunting courtesans in public. Nelson, however, was the first high-profile man to actually leave his wife and many were scandalised by his actions.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/nelson_emma_01.shtml

Six Wood Relics Related to Admiral Lord Nelson – you can see a turned chess piece to the right on this photo.
Image: http://ephemera.ning.com/photo/six-wood-relics-related-to

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European Team Chess Championships

I will be following some of the teams, but unfortunately time for blogging games not good now, what a shame as I would have loved to blog Ivanchuk’s games. The following link will bring you the results of the Open section as well as the Women’s section.

http://euro2011.chessdom.com/results-etcc-2011/

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Beautiful

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/6372332

Wow, this unusual perfume set is – oh so – beautiful! – and cute. I would love to have a set of these bottles, so please, Dan/Eugene/Awmyth, if you read here, hear my call! [hehe]

An unusual “Mary Chess” glass perfume bottle chess set is expected to sell for £2,000 – 3,000. During the 1930s Mary Chess became synonymous with fine women’s perfume, and a series of popular scents were bottled in glass chess pieces.

Read more HERE on the link which will open in a new window.

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Patterns of thinking

I had to take these pictures today. I’m travelling on a small road and saw this tiny road with these beautiful Autumn colours. Children in my class are busy completing their Autumn poems. I’ve decided we have to finish our Poetry-unit with some Autumn poems – at least – as these colours are just too amazing to let it go past without ‘noticing’. Those following my class blog, will be able to read their poems too. I was searching for something on thought patterns when I came across this article. Maybe my brain preferred to ignore the irrelevant detail and wanted to focus on the relevant detail  – Autumn colours!

Eduard de Bono, an expert in creativity, says that the human brain can only deal with so much data at a time. It is constantly filtering out irrelevant information so that it can focus on what is important at the moment.

For example, he suggests to imagine yourself standing at the side of a
road waiting for the opportunity to cross. Consider the enormous amount of data that you are receiving: the smell of a nearby barbecue, the wind blowing gently from your left, the varying shades of blue in the clear sky, the sounds of birds, children, cars, trucks and music. Multiply these observations a thousandfold because when we “see” a car, our brain is actually perceiving thousands of tiny bits of information that allow us to discern shape, color, speed, etc. Had we never seen anything like a car before, we would need to study it, perhaps touch it, smell it and listen to it, to figure out what it was. If we were to take in all these tiny pieces of data without the ability to organize it into useful patterns, we would never cross the street. By the time we had recognized a lull in the traffic, so much time would have passed that it would once again be dangerous to cross. According to de Bono, our brains develop patterns of thinking that help us disregard irrelevant information and focus instead on what is important at the time. We recognize the lull in traffic because our mind is not preoccupied with the hundreds of different hues of green in the trees across the street. In fact, if asked later, we may not even remember the trees.

De Bono argues that this selectivity is both the benefit of and the downside to patterns of thinking. Our brains ignore information determined to be irrelevant when, in fact, it may be highly relevant. When this happens, we need to be jarred out of our pattern of thinking so that we can create new patterns that include additional data. So when we run into problems that require creative solutions, we are stumped. We can study the data over and over, but will not find a creative idea there. Creativity occurs when, by accident or design, we find ourselves confronting something outside of our pattern of thinking and recognize its importance to the problem at hand.

This is the “Eureka” moment of inspiration when we see something that had been there all along but was hidden by our pattern of thinking. At that point, logic helps us apply the inspiration to solve the problem. But, de Bono says, we should not conclude that logic led to the creative insight. Instead, logic helps us understand the creative insight.

Source: http://www.aca.org/fileupload/177/prasannak/commentary_dec_web.pdf

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