Everything/Anything and…Chess…"Despite the documented evidence by chess historian HJR Murray, I've always thought that chess was invented by a goddess"–George Koltanowski: from the foreword to:"Women in chess, players of the Modern Age"
I came across this beautiful art of the artist: Leonard Campbell Taylor, a British artist born in Oxford. During WW1 he was an official war artist. I couldn’t find a large, quality image as I tried to analyse the position on the board. Also, when I resized the image, I noticed the expression on the male person’s face – and I wondered: What was he thinking with that expression and who are the females? I couldn’t find details, maybe a blog reader who is more skilful then me to find info on the Net?
Click HERE to view more chess art from the site of Echecs.
I’m not a huge fan of the Royal family, but must admit, I did watch 95% of the wedding yesterday. It’s only because of William. He reminds me alot about his mum. He’s a very down-to-earth and caring person and I do hope he stays like that. I liked Kate’s dress as it’s typical my style/taste. I couldn’t let the opportunity go by to link them to chess! [of course!] My original draft-entry was about the chess players in the above painting. Well, I’m quite sure William will have a game of chess with Kate at some point, I’m sure it’s a game royals do like to play from time to time – even just for the fun of it. [as the link stated]
I have two music videos for Kate and William to wish them a happy marriage: Hold on tight -to your dream and…
…my old time favourite, Elvis! Suspicious minds…which I do hope they do not have!
Chess is an art. Chess is a science. Chess is music. Chess is a game. Chess is cool. Chess is fun. Chess is Chess! There are always people ‘arguing’ about what Chess actually is and I really find these ‘conversations’ [if you can call it a conversation] really boring. I think it’s mainly bored people on chess sites just wasting time around topics like these. The same with ‘men are better than women’ – also one of the most boring topics. Can Chess players not have more intelligent conversations in the Chess forums than these boring topics? – or is it just me in a ‘mood’.[haha]
Here’s some musical fun! Click on this link for the FUN and enjoy! The link will open in a new window and you need to use your mouse to click the rain drops and you create your own melody too.
From a document found on the US Chess_trust site, I’ve copied a few paragraphs, but once again, this is just another ‘confirmation’ of what I’ve said in many entries on my blog before. So much evidence is available – research done by many people in the past and you will find plenty of documents on my blog to support it – to prove the benefits of chess for children and their learning. These quoted paragraphs are just a tiny drop in the bucket of all the evidence available. Whilst it’s Easter Holiday, I feel to take time out to enjoy a ‘trip’ to some fine ‘art galleries’ and fine ‘music theatres’ of the ‘world’ and would like to share with you Irma Stern’s art. I’ve found you some info about Irma Stern on Wikipedia and her house [now an art gallery-museum]-link can be found near the bottom of this entry too. The three music files are some of my favourite music and it’s by Waldo de los Rios [and his orchestra] and you can read about the Toy Symphony on my blog on the link at the bottom of the entry. [copy/paste the link in your browser]. These files are not complete files – as you will notice. I hope you can hear the clock – at the start of the first file. Haydn’s ‘Clock’. [Turn the volume up if you don’t hear the clock] Lastly, I had to add a file from Mantovani and his orchestra: Elizabeth Serenade
She was born in Schweitzer-Renecke, a small town in the Transvaal, of German-Jewish parents. Her father was interned in a concentration camp by the British during the South African War because of his pro-Boer leanings.[1] Irma and her younger brother, Rudi, were thus taken to Cape Town by their mother. After the war, the family returned to Germany and constant travel. This travel would influence Irma’s work.
In 1913 Stern studied art in Germany at the Weimar Academy, in 1914 at the Levin-Funcke Studio and notably from 1917 with Max Pechstein, a founder of the Novembergruppe. Stern was associated with the German Expressionist painters of this period. She held her first exhibition in Berlin in 1919. In 1920 Stern returned to Cape Town with her family where she was first derided and dismissed as an artist before becoming an established artist by the 1940s.
In 1926 she married Dr Johannes Prinz her former tutor, who subsequently became professor of German at the University of Cape Town. They were divorced in 1934.
Irma Stern travelled extensively in Europe and explored Southern Africa, Zanzibar and the Congo region. These trips provided a wide range of subject matter for her paintings and gave her opportunities to acquire and assemble an eclectic collection of artifacts for her home. Stern was to travel extensively in her lifetime: in 1930 to Madeira, in 1937 and 1938 to Dakar, Senegal, 1939 Zanzibar, 1942 Congo, 1945 Zanzibar, 1946 Central Africa, 1952 Madeira, 1955 Congo, 1960 Spain and 1963 France. Stern travelled extensively in South Africa, for example in 1926 to Swaziland and Pondoland, in 1933 to Namaqaland, in 1936 generally, and in 1941 to the Eastern Cape. In 1931 she visited Madeira and Dakar, Senegal, in 1937 and 1938. Irma Stern refused to either travel or exhibit in Germany during the period 1933 – 1945. Instead, she undertook several exotic journeys into Africa; going to Zanzibar twice in 1939 and 1945 and then planned three trips to the Congo region in 1942, 1946 and 1955. These expeditions resulted in a wealth of artistic creativity and energy as well as the publication of two illustrated journals; Congo published in 1943 and Zanzibar in 1948.
Almost one hundred solo exhibitions were held during her lifetime both in South Africa and Europe: including Germany, France, Italy and England. Although accepted in Europe, her work was unappreciated at first in South Africa where critics derided her early exhibitionsin the 1920s with reviews titled “Art of Miss Irma Stern – Ugliness as a cult”.
The Irma Stern Museum was established in 1971 and is the house the artist lived in for almost four decades. She moved into The Firs in Rondebosch in 1927 and lived there until her death. Several of the rooms are furnished as she arranged them while upstairs there is a commercial gallery used by contemporary South African artists.
On the 8th of May 2000, one of her works sold at Sotheby’s South Africa in Johannesburg for an all time record of R1.7 million.[2] This record was soon broken, however, and in March 2007 Stern’s work was sold for R6.6 million.[3] Stern’s Gladioli was sold for an all-time high of R13.3 million in October 2010[4], but was then followed by the sale of Bahora Girl for R26.7 million later that month[5] – both were also records for sales of South African art at the time.
Quote from the Chess document, you can find it at the end of the entry. It is a PDF document and will open in a new window.
Chess clearly is a problem-solving tool, an “ideal way to study decision-making and problemsolving because it is a closed system with clearly defined rules” (Horgan, 1988). When faced with a problem, the first step is to “analyze [it] in a preliminary and impressionistic way: sizing up the problem” (Horgan, 1988, p. 3), possibly looking for patterns or similarity to previous experiences. “Similarity judgements may involve high levels of abstract reasoning” (Horgan, 1988, p. 3)
When faced with a problem, the first step is to “analyze [it] in a preliminary and impressionistic way: sizing up the problem” (Horgan, 1988, p. 3), possibly looking for patterns or similarity to previous experiences. “Similarity judgements may involve high levels of abstract reasoning” (Horgan, 1988, p. 3). As in mathematics, which might be defined as the study of patterns, pattern recognition in chess is of prime importance in problem solving. After recognizing similarity and pattern, a global strategy can be developed to solve the problem. This involves generating alternatives, a creative process. A good chess player, like a good problem solver, has “acquired a vast number of interrelated schemata” (Horgan, 1988, p. 3), allowing for good alternatives to quickly and easily come to mind. These alternatives must then be evaluated, using a process of calculation known as decision tree analysis, where the chess player/problem solver is calculating the desirability of future events based on the alternative being analyzed. Horgan (1988) found that “the calculation may go several to eight or ten moves ahead. This stage requires serious concentration and memory abilities…[or]…visual imagery” (p.4).
The mathematics curriculum in New Brunswick, Canada, is a text series called “Challenging Mathematics” which uses chess to teach logic from grades 2 to 7. Using this curriculum, the average problem-solving score of pupils in the province increased from 62% to 81%.
Click on the following link Why Chessto read more to convince yourself why Chess is so important for children to develop their thinking/reasoning skills at a young age.
The Chess players: Shakespeare and Ben Johnson playing chess-
Image: Wikipedia The Chess Players attributed to Karel van Mander. This was identified in 1916 as an image of Ben Jonson and Shakespeare playing chess. Most scholars consider this to be pure speculation, but the claim was revived in 2004 by Jeffrey Netto, who argued that the chess game symbolises “the well known professional rivalry between these figures in terms of a battle of wits”.
Even Shakespeare (1564-1616) incorporated a well known, though minor, chess scene in The Tempest.
Image: http://sbchess.sinfree.net
The Tempest: Act Five, Scene One(Ferdinand and Miranda)
The entrance of the Cell opens, and discovers Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess. Miranda: Sweet lord, you play me false. Ferdinand: No, my dearest love, I would not for the world. Miranda: Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, And I would call it fair play
Miranda and Ferdinand are lovers whose fathers are sworn enemies. Their love, represented in a devious game of chess in the final scene, restores harmony between the two families.[Source:sbchess.sinfree.net]
Sports and pastimes of the English:[see the next paragraph and the source link] – I think it is even today the case… – due to the weather…chess is a favourite indoor game, that’s why so many people in the UK play chess online. Comparing to our counterparts in the Southern hemisphere, you would get the opposite.
DANCING AND CHESS PLAY.–Dancing was certainly an ancient and favourite pastime with the women of this country: the maidens even in a state of servitude claimed, as it were by established privilege, the license to indulge themselves in this exercise on holidays and public festivals; when it was usually performed in the presence of their masters and mistresses.
In the middle ages, dice, chess, and afterwards tables, and cards, with other sedentary games of chance and skill, were reckoned among the female amusements; and the ladies also frequently joined with the men in such pastimes, as we find it expressly declared in the metrical romance of Ipomydom. The passage alluded to runs thus: “When they had dyned, as I you saye,
Lordes and ladyes yede to to playe;
Some to tables, and some to chesse,
With other gamys more or lesse.”
In another poem, by Gower, a lover asks his mistress, when she is tired of “dancing and caroling,” if she was willing to “play at chesse, or on the dyes to cast a chaunce.” Forrest, speaking in praise of Catharine of Arragon, first wife of Henry VIII., says, that when she was young, “With stoole and with needyl she was not to seeke,
And other practiseings for ladyes meete;
To pastyme at tables, tick tack or gleeke,
Cardis and dyce”–etc. Source
Like my previous entry of yesterday, I was again playing around with [Adobe]Fireworks and used quite a few images from the web to put this one together, that’s why I call it Patches. You will see again I’ve used Samuel Bak’s art in this creation, but also another classic piece of art [in this post at the bottom]. Also, I’ve found Mark Twain’s letters online and if you are ready with your magnifying glass, you can even see a tiny piece from one of his letters in this image. In the next image, I’ve put together bits and pieces from a few of his letters. You can download his lettes in PDF.
I’ve been playing around with [adobe]Fireworks and edited/created this top image…I deleted the woman’s corset in the image, replaced it with these chess pieces from the chess art of Samuel Bak – [see more of his art on my Chess Humour-page] and I added the sort-of-border. Original image here …the link will open in a new window.
Cornelis de Man of Delft, The Chess Players, c. 1670, Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest – Source:mentalblog
We all know by looking at evidence like art, poems, photos etc. we can tell what happened in the past. Do I have to say more… See this video if you want me to explain more… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WLGMC9B6zw
This early drawing has a surreal quality created by the larger-than-life chess pieces and study of a face, surrounding the young man playing chess. In his later work Warhol would continue to play with scale, enlarging objects and people to increase their iconic status. The colour in this image was possibly completed at one of Warhol’s colouring parties, hosted at the fashionable Serendipity 3 café after it opened in 1954. He would encourage his friends – some of whom would have helped him create the original illustrations – to colour the works with an inventiveness that adds to their whimsical nature. This process looks forward to the production methods of Warhol’s legendary studio, the Factory, in the 1960s.
Art of Warhol here. The link will open in a new window.
David Howell
ENG
2613
The 8th Player in this tournament is David Howell
Cream of world chess to play in new London tournament.
London Chess Centre is proud to announce a world-class chess tournament to be held in London in December, 2009. The event will be an elite eight-player all-play-all in the most prestigious tournament in the capital since former world champion Anatoly Karpov won the Phillips and Drew Masters in 1984.
Since then, despite London hosting three world title contests, there has not been a tournament in which England’s leading players could lock horns with the world’s best on home soil. The December 09 tournament will be the first in a series of events designed to reinvigorate UK chess and promote the game and its undoubted educational benefits in schools and communities.
The tournament will be FIDE Category 19 with an average FIDE rating of 2700 and a minimum prize fund of €100,000. The eight players will comprise of three English and five world-class Grandmasters from abroad. Included in the prize fund will be a €10,000 Brilliant Game award along with separate prizes for each victory with the White and Black pieces. Matches will be covered live online where fans will be able to vote for Game of the Day.
The tournament has applied for membership of the prestigious annual Grand Slam of Chess which culminates in Bilbao and boasts a €400,000 prize fund.
The games will be under Classical Chess time control; 40 moves in two hours, 20 in the subsequent hour then an additional 15 minutes plus an increment of 30 seconds a move until the end of the game. The tournament will further benefit from the use of Sofia Rules which disallow early draws. Players will receive three points for a win and one for a draw.
Click on the image for a larger view for the Olympia Conference Centre at spot marked as A.
Contact Malcolm Pein (IM) Director London Chess Centre:
Chess Centre: 020 7388 2404 (London)
New London tournament to be in the Olympia Conference Centre.
I am delighted to announce that the London Chess Classic 2009 will be staged at one of London’s most prestigious venues; the Olympia Conference Centre. Olympia will provide excellent facilities including a 400 seat soundproof auditorium, two commentary rooms and multimedia presentation. There will be ample space for Open, weekend and Speed Chess tournaments plus junior training which will run alongside the main event from December 8th-15th inclusive.
The London Chess Classic 2009 will be the highest level tournament in London for 25 years and will be the first in a series of events designed to increase enthusiasm for chess in the UK and promote the game and its undoubted educational benefits in schools and communities. It is also our objective to bring the world championship to London in the Olympic year 2012.
England’s four leading Grandmasters; Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Luke McShane and David Howell will be pitched against a world class field that includes a former world champion Vladimir Kramnik and 18 year old Magnus Carlsen ranked world number three and widely seen a future holder of the world crown. One of China’s finest players; Ni Hua and the US Champion Hikaru Nakamura, complete the field.
Spectators will be treated to live commentary on the games from Grandmasters and will be able to play tournament or informal games all day. Ticket information will be available in September. For those who cannot attend there be will live coverage and commentary on the games on the internet.
Contact Malcolm Pein (IM) Director London Chess Centre:
Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get a chance to meet some of the Grandmasters in London – if I’m lucky! Meanwhile, the Scots want their Chessmen back! THE BRITISH Museum has put a set of elaborately carved chess figures at the heart of a new gallery despite demands that they be returned to Scotland.
The 82 Lewis Chessmen, which are between 800 and 900 years old and made from walrus and whale ivory, were seen in a Harry Potter film and inspired the children’s TV series Noggin The Nog.
Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, wants them repatriated to Edinburgh to be reunited with the rest of the set discovered on the Outer Hebrides in the early 19th century.
Just as the Greek government wants the Elgin Marbles in London to be returned to Athens, Mr Salmond claims it is “unacceptable” for the British Museum to have 82 of the figures while the other 11 are in the National Museum of Scotland.
Spoken by great men:"Give me 20 divisions of American soldiers and I will breach Europe. Give me 15 consisting of Englishmen and I will advance to the borders of Berlin. Give me two divisions of those marvellous fighting Boers and I will remove Germany from the face of the earth." - Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, Commander of the Allied Forces during WW2.
"The Americans fight for a free world, the English mostly for honour, glory and medals, the French and Canadians decide too late that they have to participate. The Italians are too scared to fight, the Russians have no choice. The Germans for their Fatherland. The Boers? Those sons of Bitches fight for the hell of it." American General, George 'Guts and Glory' Patton.
Chessalee 
