Anna Cramling is one of the most popular chess streamers online. Courtesy Madelene Belinki
With multiple women coming forward about their disturbing experiences in the chess world, including accusations of sexual misconduct by a grandmaster, the historic game is having its own #MeToo moment.
Popular online chess streamer Anna Cramling says she’s also had uncomfortable experiences during her career in the game.
The 20-year-old, who boasts almost 400,000 subscribers on YouTube, says being a woman in chess has sometimes led to unwanted comments by men that left her feeling uncomfortable and lonely during tournaments. Alejandro Ramirez at the 2016 Pan-Ams.
US Chess Federation investigates grandmaster following accusations of sexual misconduct
“I’ve had weird experiences in the chess world ever since I was a kid,” Cramling told CNN Sport.
“From adult men complimenting me at chess tournaments, to receiving DMs from my chess opponents saying things such as ‘I couldn’t stop looking at you’ during our chess game.
“This made me feel very uncomfortable, as a chess game typically takes four or five hours, so it felt weird knowing that someone so much older than me had been thinking about me in that way for so many hours.”
As the daughter of two grandmasters – her mother, Pia, was the fifth-ever female grandmaster and her father, Juan Manuel Bellón López, a five-time Spanish champion – chess has always played an important role in Cramling’s life.
Born in Spain, Cramling said she spent a lot of time traveling with her parents to tournaments around the world and eventually decided to develop her own skills.
She says she started taking chess more seriously after moving to Sweden with her family, studying the game for up to two hours every day.
“Even if I didn’t study every day, I constantly heard about chess, I constantly saw my parents analyzing their chess games, talking about chess,” she said.
According to Chess.com, Cramling reached a peak International Chess Federation (FIDE) rating of 2175 in 2018 which qualifies her as a Woman FIDE Master – the third-highest ranking for women, behind the woman grandmaster and the woman international master.
Since 2020, however, Cramling says her focus has been more on building her social media platforms. ‘Embarrassed and guilty’
Cramling recalls the moment when an arbiter questioned her outfit during a youth tournament that she was part of when she was 15.
It was summer, she said, so like many she was wearing shorts, and had gone over to speak to some friends she knew competing in the men’s tournament.
She said a tournament official approached her and told her she was “distracting all the male players.”
“I remember going back to the women’s section of the tournament and feeling so embarrassed and guilty that I couldn’t concentrate throughout my whole game – I just wanted to leave,” she said.
“One of the main issues has been that there are so many more guys than girls that play chess, and being a woman at a chess tournament can sometimes feel lonely.
“I have sometimes played in tournaments with over 300 participants, where only five have been women.
“I think that one of the reasons so few women compete is because the environment in chess tournaments can be very hostile to them, and I know that many, many women have stories like mine, or worse.”
Despite these incidents, Cramling still has an obvious passion for the game that is visible on her online platforms.
She regularly uploads videos, such as informal matches against grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, and streams her games online.
The world of chess streaming may be relatively new, but it certainly has an audience.
In addition to her growing YouTube channel, Cramling boasts 301,000 followers on Twitch and almost 150,000 on Instagram. She says that most of the feedback she receives online is friendly.
Cramling says her presence and subsequent following have grown monthly, and she was recently nominated for Best Chess Streamer at The Streamer Awards this year.
She’s come a long way since her first video, which she says she made using her then boyfriend’s laptop.
By chance, her decision to experiment with streaming coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw the world of online chess experience a boom in popularity – online platform Chess.com said earlier this year it had more than 102 million users signed up, a 238% increase from January 2020.
Cramling says she is grateful that her knowledge and enthusiasm for chess have found an audience.
“I never thought I was going to make a living out of this,” she said. “It was so fun in the beginning, and I still think it’s really fun.
“I think that also translates into streams, people see that I’m having fun and I think that’s the most important thing.
“The moment when it starts not being fun, I think it’s really hard to make good content.” What chess must do for women
Cramling says she wants her content to serve as more than just entertainment.
According to researcher David Smerdon, only 11% of FIDE-rated players and only 2% of grandmasters – the highest chess title awarded by the sport’s governing body – are women.
Just like her mother was her role model, Cramling now wants to inspire other women to play chess, but says tournaments must do their part.
She says she wants officials to be more engaged in monitoring behavior toward women and has called on them to take charge if an issue arises.
“Chess trainers, players and especially tournament officials should all set an example to make everyone feel welcome, no matter who they are. Chess is a game for everyone,” she said.
“I hope that, through my online presence, I can contribute in showing that women have a voice in chess and inspire more women to play.
“I know that chess tournaments will not forever look this way, we just need to get more women to play.
“The more we talk about how badly some women are treated at tournaments, and the more we listen to everyone’s stories, the more we are able to make a change.”
The fourth chapter, in which the author rips FIDE a new one several times, is the best part of the book, and it is a chapter every person involved with the Royal Game should read. The chapter opens with this paragraph:
“Technically, of course, FIDE is not a word at all, but a French acronym-Federation Internationale des Echecs-and by titling this essay in the manner that I did, I have sportingly given its defenders the opportunity to launch a counter-attack by being able to point to a minor inaccuracy on my part. Because it does, of course, have defenders-everyone does. Hitler had his defenders. Pol Pot had his defenders. Vladimir Putin currently finds himself surrounded by hordes of sycophantic defenders-indeed, the current President of FIDE was one of his most loyal supporters for deacdes. But I am getting ahead of myself.”
Several paragraphs follow in which the author takes FIDE to task for holding a World Chess Championship, writing, “It could have, in short, done away with the entire antiquated “world champion” idea right from its very beginning-a notion which has done so much to emphatically hold chess back in its forward sporting progress and lies at the heart of so many of its current concerns. But it didn’t.”
I do not know about that, because things were different ‘back in the day’. Mr. Burton is writing about a time prior to when he was BORN, for crying out loud. Who knows where the Royal Game would be if there had been no World Champion. Things have changed drastically this century, so the writer may (does?) have a point about the current irrelevance of the title. But still, unless one was alive, and playing Chess at the time, one cannot imagine how the WORLD, and not just the “Chess World”, was captivated by the Fischer vs Spassky match. As many have written, “It put Chess on the map.”
The author continues, “Whatever the intentions might have been, shortly after its creation FIDE immediately plunged into the businesses of promoting Chess Olympiads and managing the chess world championships, with varying results.”
There follows a history of Chess which was interesting reading considering the writer is new to Chess and has no preconceived notions about the past. For example, the author first hits a forehand smash prior to a backhanded shot: “Max Euwe’s subsequent eight year term as president from 1970-78, meanwhile, represents the unequivocal apex of FIDE leadership-which is admittedly a bit like being the most tasteful hotel on the Las Vegas Strip-but still.”
That is followed by this: “And then things just got completely ridiculous.’ Campomanes, a former Philippine national champion, was FIDE president from 1982-1995, overseeing what was widely considered to be a period of unprecedented corruption.”
There is that word “C” word again, which seems to go hand in hand with anything written about the unctuous Campomanes.
Campo “was followed by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, FIDE president from 1995-2018 and president of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia from 1993 to 2010. Ilyumzhinov has repeatedly claimed to have been abducted by aliens (“chess comes from space,” he adamantly maintains)…”
“Finally, Ilyumzhinov’s 23 year reign was followed in 2018 by the current FIDE president, Arkady Dvorkovich, an economist…”
“Despite having placed his demonstrably ambitious fingers in many pies throughout his life, Dvorkovich never seems to have manifested any particular interest in chess.”
Can you say, “Titular figurehead?” Campo was not the only FIDE president with greasy hands… How Chess has managed to succeed while being run by kooks and criminals is anybody’s guess. Then one reads this:
“Why on earth, you might be forgiven for interjecting at this point, is the international chess community so intent on portraying itself as such an irredeemable laughing stock? In a world replete with behind the scenes horse-trading and “gentleman’s agreements” that decide who should head global organizations, how can it be that the international chess federation, of all things, stands out as one of the most cavalierly corrupt of them all, nonchalantly lurching from one buffoon-like leadership situation to the next, decade after decade?
Well, because on the whole, nobody gives a damn.”
There’s more…
“And you can’t really blame them, of course. Concern that the world chess federation is so wantonly politicized and laughably incompetent is naturally going to fall exceptionally low on the global priority list, somewhere between cultural subsidies for korfball and doctoral scholarships in the philosophy of quantum theory. And the powers that be at FIDE-i.e. the Kremlin-are all too well aware of this.”
Then he unloads the other barrel:
“More significantly for our purposes, they are also well aware of the fact that the few people who do care about such issues-i.e. chess players-will not be able to do anything about it, given that, on the whole, chess players are, as a group, the most politically hopeless of all human beings.”
Why hold back when you are on a roll?
“Indeed, while I’ve long been convinced that becoming an excellent chess player is no more proof of superabundant intelligence than becoming an excellent pole vaulter, I’m beginning to suspect that chess players are somehow exceptionally disastrous to a statistically significant degree when it comes to appreciating matters of governance and social organization; and the better the chess player, on the whole, the more hopeless things are.”
“This is, I recognize, a curious sort of claim. Am I implying that those who become strong chess players are somehow a priori inclined towards such sociopolitical dysfunctionality? Or could it be that the very act of rigorously developing one’s chess skills produces a consequent inability in these domains-a sort of “inverse far transfer”?”
“I have no idea, and even less inclination to attempt to parse this particular correlation-causation conundrum. All I know is that the closer I examine the chess world, the more convinced I am that such a link exists.”
“Which brings me to Garry Kasparov.”
“By far the most dominant chess player of recent times, Kasparov’s remarkably long reign at the pinnacle of chess is second only to that of Emanuel Lasker. He is, without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest and most influential chess player in living memory, whose manifold contributions to chess, both over the board and through his extensive chess-related writings, are simply unparalleled.”
“And very much in keeping with the mooted correlation above, it turns out that his level of sociopolitical naivete and bombastic non-chess maladroitness is also unparalleled. Over the years Kasparov has vigorously portrayed himself as a knowledgeable spokesman for business leadership, historical scholarship, artificial intelligence, human rights, philanthropy, democracy and much more besides-the upshot of which goes a considerable distance towards convincing anyone with the slightest shred of genuine understanding of any of these issues that an essential requirement for elite chess dominance must be the ability to remove oneself, wholesale, from reality.”
Say what? After stickin’ and rippin’ the Royal Game to the point where there is blood all over the board (the tables, chairs, and floors) HB gives us “the bad news.” Which is:
“Nobody who is not directly competing in the Chess Olympiads knows or cares the slightest bit about them; and the world chess championships are a ridiculous anachronism that has well and truly outlived any possible value that it might have possessed. It’s very much time to grow up and move on from all of that.”
Indeed…why stop when you are on a roll?
“Let’s take the Chess Olympiads first. I have talked to enough professional chess players to know that these are unquestionably very popular events within the chess world, with many people spontaneously waxing on about the uniquely uplifting spirit of camaraderie that they’ve experienced while participating. But here’s the thing: if you want to make a living by pushing pieces of wood around a board, the only thing that matters is whether or not there are sufficient numbers of other people around who are willing to watch you do so, not how warm and fuzzy the experience makes you feel, or to what extent various self-important members of your national federation can take pleasure in schmoozing with you and your teammates.”
“This might well be, I appreciate, quite confusing to most modern-day professional players, many of whom-particularly women-have spent their lives feeling deeply beholden to the interests of their national federation. But it is long past time to wake up and smell the coffee: these federations are holding you back. Indeed, they are precisely the reason that FIDE has the “power” that it has at all.”
“So here, finally, is the good news-and to any chess-lover, from the Magnus Carlsen groupie to the would-be professional chess player, it is very good news indeed.”
“There is lots of money in chess. It has an enormously large international following and is poised to grow much, much more. And no, this is not because of Netflix or coronavirus pandemics or any of the nonsense that chess people are so often repeating to themselves, but because chess is one of the very few activities that can so easily and so naturally lend itself to modern communications technologies.”
“It’s not just that you can play chess online too-you can play backgammon online too-it’s that the rapid creation of a comprehensive online chess infrastructure has incomparably transformed the chess experience.”
There is a footnote, number 42, in which it is written: “I’m sorry to be picking so much on backgammon, and doubtless this will raise the hackles of any Pahlavi-speaking ancient Zoroastrians out there who are indignant that I am not being sufficiently respectful of its cosmological allegorical potential (which is certainly the case), but I can’t help feeling that it is a worthy point of comparison.”
The author continues: “Chess, through the internet, has come of age. It has not just “adjusted” to the new normal, or found a way to successfully harness the fruits of modern technology in order to better do what it was already doing: chess has been nothing less than comprehensively transformed by modern technology. And, needless to say, this state of affairs has absolutely nothing to do with anything that FIDE, or any national chess federation, has ever done.”
“So let me set the record straight. It is certainly true that devotees of chess have an alarming tendency to consistently make sweeping, rigidly hierarchical judgments about virtually all aspects of their fellow human beings based solely on their Elo rating, which I find particularly unpalatable. It is true, too, that they are particularly prone to confuse wishful thinking with actual evidence when it comes to anty chess-related issue, irrepressibly holding forth on how chess can cure ADHD and prevent Alzheimer’s in a way which seems to comprehensively annihilate any claim that acquiring chess competency is linked to the development of critical thinking skills. And it cannot be denied that chess players, even more than most of us, do not generally take kindly to having their flaws pointed out to them, and will reflexively resort to any criticism coming their way be promptly launching a bevy of ad hominem counter-attacks inevitably linked to the Elo rating of their perceived attacker (see above).”
“Yes, yes, yes,. But it is also most conspicuously the case that the chess world is peopled by an extremely large number of capable, passionately dedicated individuals who exhibit a deeply impressive sense of community spirit. I have never witnessed anything remotely like it.”
“You see it in the astonishing number of thoughtful, well-constructed, instructional chess videos on YouTube. (Footnote 74: In a world replete with “content creators” of every description, including thousands who post abominably-edited tutorial videos on how to edit videos, the chess word stands out as nothing less than a paragon of content excellence.) You see it in the spontaneous sharing of any and all chess-related resources. You see it on the thousands of chess newsgroups scattered throughout the internet. And you see it whenever you speak, as I have, to the many, many extremely kind and gracious people within the remarkably large and varied “chess ecosystem,” from chess teachers to chess organizers to the countless altruists using chess as an innovative means of personal empowerment and social change.”
“How such a uniquely supportive global environment could have possibly emerged from a frequently ego-destroying contest based on ancient Indian war practices is one of the world’s great mysteries. But emerge it most assuredly has.”
“Which makes it all the more exasperating when the likes of FIDE so blatantly hijack the interests of this extraordinary community while cynically purporting to serve its interests. Back in 1924, when FIDE adopted the motto Gens Una Sumus, it was likely an honest and accurate reflection of what those founders felt they were doing and on whose behalf they believed they were doing it. These days, however, it has an unquestionably Arbeit Macht Frei ring to it.”
“The key point, then, is that chess today is different-very, very different-from chess of 20 years ago. The rise of powerful, universally-available chess engines naturally represents one part of the transformation which has garnered the lion’s share of attention, but it is, in fact, a relatively minor part. By far the most dominant factor is that an extremely large and dedicated international community has emphatically embraced an entirely new communications technology that just happened to perfectly fit its needs.”
“Intriguingly, too, this has coherently played out in both a capitalist and non-for-profit context, with the rapid simultaneous development of the likes of chess.com and lichess.org. Both of these organizations, along with several more, are flourishing in the new age of chess. Both provide continually expanding, top-quality services to their loyal membership. And yet, business-wise, they are completely different: chess.com is unabashedly corporate, operating through advertising and paid subscriptions; lichess.org is unabashedly non-corporate, offering all of its content freely and with no advertising within an avowedly open-source framework while being supported through volunteer donations. In any other domain, the rivalry would be tense, cutthroat even. In the chess world, however, they exist together relatively harmoniously, with significant overlap in their international user base.”
“I have no idea to what extent the business ecosystem of online chess is a harbinger of things to come or a temporary aberration, but it is, most assuredly, quite different.”
“And the difference, I’m convinced, can be traced back to the uniqueness of the global chess community itself-and in particular its passion.”
“Passion is he vital common denominator throughout the international chess community, the secret sauce that has ripples through everyone, from the novice unexpectedly finding herself hooked on the game to the spontaneous panegyrics of the ageless Bruce Pandolfini, expounding upon the unparalleled beauty of Morphy’s “Opera Game.”
The review concludes with this: “In order to build a steady following, it’s important to create a full contextual environment for fans to follow along with the sport. If I’m a fan of major league baseball, for example, I know from the first days of spring training that the regular season consists of 162 games, and that my team has a good chance of making it to the postseason if it wins 90 of those games, while it will almost certainly make it if it wins 95. And if I’m a tennis fan, I know which tournaments count the most, both in terms of prestige and associated ranking points; and I can confidently tell you at any given moment who is the tenth best player in the world and who is #1.By following a particular sport, in other words, I’m doing much more than simply watching a ball being struck or people running around: I am entering a world.”
“Now consider chess. Suppose I want a clear sense of which players are ranked fifth and sixth in the world respectively and why. It’s far from clear.”
“What about which tournaments I should pay the most attention to? If I follow men’s chess, the situation seems to change almost hourly, presumably depending on whatever shady backroom deal happened to be agreed upon at some mediocre, overpriced Swiss tournament, (Footnote 54: It’s true: I don’t like Switzerland. I could tell you why, but this essay is long enough already. Instead, let’s just ask why Kirill Alekseenko officially the world’s #39 player, was involved in the 2020 Candidates Tournament? The answer, I’m afraid, is simply because he’s Russian.) while if I try to follow women’s chess, it’s somehow even worse. That’s no way to run a bingo parlor, let alone a sport with such tremendous international potential.”
“So why are things so terrible? Why, notwithstanding the outstanding global penetration of a tradition-rich, highly engaging activity that is passionately endorsed by millions of dedicated and capable people-and moreover, just so happens to fit perfectly within the modern technological sporting entertainment paradigm-is there simply nothing to hang on to for the incoming fan: no program, no schedule, no context whatsoever?”
“Well, because of FIDE, of course. Rather than letting someone both appropriate and competent run things, FIDE has customarily opted to “take control” of professional chess competitions in its inimitably corrupt, antediluvian fashion, thereby ensuring the continual repulsion of any would-be professional chess fan.”
“Not so!” protest the indignant FIDEstas. “There’s a wonderful international sporting culture associated with chess: there’s the World Championship and the Olympiads, both of which we run!”
“Well, that’s exactly my point.”
Whew…was that something, or what?What can I say? The Dude has a point.
Although there is much more, far much more, such as the last four chapters: 5. Watch Her Play; 6. Far Transfer; 7. Farther Transfer; and 8. Farthest Transfer, about which to write, the fact is that I have written enough for you to have a clue about the book, and therefore must truncate the review, and let you enjoy the latter chapters.
Driven By Curiosity
Howard Burton is a documentary filmmaker and author. He is also the founder of the award-winning multimedia initiative Ideas Roadshow and the editor of 120 books that are part of the Ideas Roadshow Conversations and Collections series. Howard holds a PhD in theoretical physics and an MA in philosophy and was the Founding Director of Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He lives in France. (https://howardburton.com/)
After reading an article at Chessbase, Chess – a waste of time?, by Frederic Friedel, published 2/13/2023, an order for the book, Chessays/Travels Through The World of Chess,
along with a few others, was ordered from my Chess book go to guy, Greg Yanez, at Chess4Less (https://chess4less.com/). When the book arrived it went to the top of the list as I stopped reading any of the other books being read to concentrate on Chessays.
Yesterday I discovered an article, The Societal Impact of Chess, Part 1: Introduction (https://www.chess.com/blog/hsburton1/the-societal-impact-of-chess-part-1-introduction) and suggest you read it after reading the review because the author, and film maker, talks about “Far Transfer,” which is the title of the sixth chapter. Chapter seven is entitled, “Farther Transfer,” with “Further Transfer” being the eighth, and final, chapter. The decision was made to truncate the review for two reasons. The first is that the review was already too long, and much time had to be spent cutting out some of the review, something I will admit to being loath to do. The other reason is that the final three chapters seemed to be rather esoteric. There is so much thought provoking material in the first five chapters the review will be presented in two parts. It has taken all of my wherewithal to not lead with the second part, which begins with chapter four.
One of the best features of the book is that here we have a ‘newbie’ to the world of Chess who is willing to write openly and honestly about how he perceives the world of Chess. Each and every person who has anything to do with governing the Royal Game should read this book, and maybe, depending on the individual, read it again. Anyone with an interest in Chess will appreciate this book. Although it is good enough to at least earn some nominations for Book of the Year award, many people in the Chess world will not like what the young man has to say. Nevertheless, anyone and everyone in the Chess community should at least be apprised of his thoughts concerning the world of Chess. From my over half a century of involvement with Chess it is apparent Chessays has about as much chance of being voted an award as a snowball has in hell.
The book begins with an introduction which contains this paragraph:
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to play chess, any more than I can remember a time when I didn’t know how to read, yet for most of my youth I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to either. As a child I was always much more interested in sports: street hockey or touch football or basketball.”
After reading the opening paragraph the book was put down as I sat, looking out the glass door to the outside world filled with greenery, and reflected… “That sounds like me,” I thought. Change the “street hockey” to “boxing” and it could be me. Include Baseball and it would be this writer, who was a twenty year old adult when first playing in a USCF tournament, where all six games were lost, I am sad, but honest enough to report…
In the introduction the writer informs the reader, “It was only in university that I had my first significant exposure to chess as a sport.”
That sentence made me cringe. Chess is most definitely not a “sport”. Chess is a GAME, just like any other board GAME. Baseball, basketball, and football (as in soccer; American “football” should be called “maim ball” for obvious reasons) are SPORTS. Bridge is a game, as are backgammon and poker. Dude comes into the Chess world (for various reasons which will be mentioned momentarily), plays a little, and assumes he has obtained enough knowledge to make proclamations about what is the definition of Chess…
He continues, “So I began to read about these mysterious openings, and much more besides, that my opponents all seemed so intimately familiar with.”
One of my high school English teachers, Mrs. Simpson, once returned something I had written that was covered in red ink, with many instances of my ending a sentence with a preposition. When queried about all the red circles after class ended she said, “It appears to me that you go out of your way to defy the rules of English grammar. You have as much chance of ever becoming a writer as a snowball has in HELL!” Well, as you can imagine, that stung.
The writer continues, “And the more I read, the more astounded I became: there was an enormous, simply overwhelmingly large, literature here – with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of books devoted to one opening variation, or a series of middlegame tactics, or endgame approaches, or what have you. It was astounding.”
Yes Mr. Burton, Chess can be astounding. One of the best things about the book is that Chess is being viewed objectively by someone new to the Royal Game. It is always good to learn how ‘newbies’ think about Chess because “fresh eyes” usually bring something interesting. We learn how he came to write about Chess when reading, “Decades later, I became fascinated by “the history of ideas,” tracing the subtle, shape-shifting development of key societal concepts over different times and places. I read books by intellectual historians methodically charting the notions of “freedom” and “genius” and “civil war” and found myself increasingly intrigued by how different human societies often managed to be both so similar and so different from our own.”
“One day I was idly thumbing through Baldassare Castiglione’s The Courtier, and came across the passage where chess is singled out as representing a dangerous drain on one’s time and energies, thereby making it “a most unusual thing” where “mediocrity is more to be praised than excellence.”
“It’s a very odd experience to suddenly feel yourself in complete lock step with a character from a 1528 book devoted to courtly Renaissance culture; and it made me think. Perhaps chess, I wondered, might make for a suitable topic of the sort of “intellectual history” I was personally suited to explore – not rigorous academic scholarship, of course, but simply getting a taste of our intriguing sociocultural evolution by looking through the lens of one particularly historically-rich activity: chess.”
The reader knows where the writer is coming from. (Sorry, Mrs Simpson)
Next we learn, “By then I had somehow become “a filmmaker,” so why not make a few films about that? Hence Through the Mirror of Chess-a four-part documentary series charting chess’s fascinating tale of cultural influence from its murky origins to the modern day.”
I have not watched any of the four-part film and have no intention of doing so because it costs digits, err, money, and there is so much free Chess material why should I spend my Senior digits to watch more films about Chess? I purchased the book, not with a view toward writing a review, but after reading about it at Chessbase in an excellent article concerning a book published months ago. (https://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-a-waste-of-time).
Mr. Burton continues, “So there was that. But there was also something else. The more I read and researched the past and present worlds of chess, the more something else unexpected happened: I began to get opinions. And for me, at least, the best way to express opinions is through books.”
Or maybe a blog?!
The introduction concludes with these words: “And for those who do find themselves indignant and offended, the one way I respectfully suggest that you shouldn’t react is by launching some sort of reflexive, ad hominem salvo based on the fact that I have a pitifully low Elo rating or am not a FIDE executive, but rather by attacking the substance of my claims. I say this not because I am worried about anyone being angry with me (I am not), but because I’ve noticed that this is the sort of thing that chess players often do: viewing their entire world through the lens of a rigidly hierarchical framework so that the only voices they hear are from official members of the establishment. That is a dangerous practice for any domain, but particularly so when it come to chess, since so many of those voices conflate the interests of chess with their own self-image and are thus deeply deleterious to chess itself. Well, that’s my opinion, anyway.”
The first chapter is entitled: The Uses and Abuses of History. It begins, “Enthusiasts sometimes like to point out that one of the things that makes chess special is its exceptionally broad appeal to a wide range of different interests and inclinations.”
“Having played many other board games, such as Backgammon, Go, and Poker, I find it strange that only Chess aficionados consider Chess “special.” The idea has been promulgated to the point many, if not most, Chessplayers consider it a fait accompli. Consider this paragraph: “But however diverse these activities might be, there is one common characteristic of any self-proclaimed chess aficionado: a deep and abiding respect for “chess history” and an unquenchable pride in the game’s storied past.”
I like history, and enjoy reading about the history of the Royal Game, but I must disagree with what was written above. After having interacted and talked with countless Chess “aficionados” the fact is that many could care less about what happened previously because they are much more concerned with what is happening now. I recall talking with an exceptional budding young player at the House of Pain who said, “Why should I study those old farts who played so weakly? I’d rather spend my time replaying current games played by today’s players who are far stronger than those from way back then.” I remember thinking, “Wow, it seems like only yesterday Bobby Fischer was revered. Now the young’uns consider him a chumpy-lumpy.” That thought was prior to my saying, “If you don’t know where you’ve been, how can you know where you are going, kid?” That brought hardy laughter from resident curmudgeon Bob Bassett, who said, after he managed to stop laughing, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I was the one howling after the young spud asked, “What does that mean?” I mention this before writing the following sentence/paragraph: “Normally, I take this characteristic indifference as my starting point to launch into a full-throated tirade against the vapidity of the media or the woeful incuriousness of our time, but in this case the situation is even worse still, because it clearly demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of self-proclaimed “chess historians” simply can’t trouble themselves to take the most obvious preliminary steps to contact actual specialists to verify essential aspects of their “theories.”
To give equal time to the other side the author again gives another sentence/paragraph: “During my investigations, I have also encountered several anti-chess historians, self-proclaimed history of games types who were so overwhelmingly antagonized by what they saw as the grossly unjustified dominance of chess in the broader games history landscape that the very idea that I was willfully engaged in producing a detailed exploration of the history of chess was enough to send them into fits of blind rage.”
Do tell…
We will conclude with the first chapter with a two sentence paragraph followed by another long sentence/paragraph: “Chess, in other words, is acknowledged to be an activity that demands highly specialized skills honed by years of dedicated effort. But history, goes the thinking, is somehow something that anyone can do.”
“So when Russian grandmaster Yuri Averbakh opted to publish his own vapid and trivialized account of the game’s past, A History of Chess: From Chaturanga to the Present Day,
his efforts were widely applauded by “the chess community” because, well, Averbakh was a personable and celebrated chess player who wrote many highly-respected books on chess theory; and, after all, you can’t have too many books on the history of chess.”
Or too many Chess books filled with “Chessays” too, I suppose…
The second chapter poses the question, (Is Chess a) Waste of Time? A good question which caused me to wonder if reading the book was going be a waste of my time… The author writes, “If chess were a far easier game-if it was like checkers or reversi or mancala or something- (there is the number 10 referring to a footnote at the bottom of the page where it is written, “This is precisely the sort of statement that will drive one of those passionate anti-chess mancala fanatics I mentioned in the previous essay right over the edge.
But then they were there already.) – things would be different indeed. Nobody devotes her life to studying backgammon.”
Whoa now, dude. First, when any writer uses “her” in lieu of “he” it grates like someone scratching the blackboard with their fingernails. When a writer, any writer, swaps “her” for “him” it appears the writer is singling out only females, as in females being the ones not devoting their lives to ‘studying backgammon’, which is ridiculous, and untrue. When Gammons first opened in the Buckhead part of Atlanta one of the top players was a woman named Kathy, from Chicago, and she had devoted her time to learning, and playing Backgammon as a professional. If, on the other hand, the writer was only being “politically correct” he was not. If one is to assume the writer used the gender specific word intentionally rather than the gender neutral “him” then he is wrong, and it can be proven by anyone typing in the words “Bill Robertie” into any search engine. This can be found at Wikipedia: “William Gerard (Bill) Robertie (born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States on July 9, 1946) is a backgammon, chess, and poker player and author. He is one of several (6 as of 2022) backgammon players to have won the World Backgammon Championship twice (in 1983 and in 1987).” Bill Robertie (https://thegammonpress.com/bill-robertie-blog/) is the refutation to the writer’s erroneous and ridiculous statement.
Turn the page and one finds, “This profound complexity is a fundamental aspect of what make chess chess.”
What makes chess chess? The game of Go, or Wei Chi, is exponentially and profoundly more complex that is Chess. Is that what makes Go Go?
“Which brings us to the intriguing case of Albert Einstein and Emanuel Lasker.
Many consider Lasker to be the most dominant chess player in history, given his 27-year reign as world champion from 1894 to 1921. He was also a mathematician, who in 1905 developed a theorem in algebraic geometry which significantly influenced no less a figure than Emmy Noether.”
1905 is an ironic date for Lasker’s most important mathematical work, because it was also Einstein’s annu mirabilis, where he published, among various other profoundly transformative ideas, his theory of special relativity-ironic, not so much because Einstein and Lasker later became friends during his time in Berlin, but because Lasker later famously contributed to the ridiculous anti-Einsteinian 1931 screed, One Hundred Authors Against Einstein.”
“Why, in Einstein’s view, hadn’t Lasker done more to achieve his wondrous human potential? Well, Einstein surmises, because of chess:
“Spinoza’s material existence and independence were based on the grinding of lenses; chess had an analogous role in Lasker’s life. But Spinoza
was granted a better fate, because his occupation left his mind free and untroubled, while on the other hand, the chess playing of a master ties him to the game, fetters his mind and shapes it to a certain extent so that his internal freedom and ease, no matter how strong he is, must inevitably be affected.”
The author continues: “What is most interesting to me about all of this is not so much that I’m convinced that Einstein was right and that the act of focusing one’s attention on the most profound conceptual issues imaginable is the most judicious use of one’s brief time on the planet (Footnote #30: “Although, of course, he was and it is.” I could hear my former English teacher, Ms. Simpson, asking, “He was ‘what’, and ‘what’ is ‘it’?”)
Chapter 3: Evolutionary Forces
The reader is informed by the writer, “Personally, I’m unconvinced that those 19th-century players were as indifferent to winning and losing as is now generally supposed, but there is no doubt that times have changed considerably: for better or worse chess is now a fully-fledged sport.”
There he goes again…
And again: “Of course, chess is far from the only activity to move from the domain of friendly, “gentlemanly” competition to cutthroat professional sport over the past 150 years or so, as juxtaposing Pierre de Coubertin’s
writings with modern-day attitudes will immediately reveal, but its distinct lack of any physical component makes it a particularly vivid measure of to what extent our sporting culture has evolved.”
And again: “Chess, in short, has emphatically made the transition from game to sport-which is the major reason, I believe that it is Fischer and not Morphy who best represents the modern archetype of the American chess player.”
“But intriguingly, many pastimes have not made this jump to the modern sporting realm. In particular, duplicate bridge, the primary target of Johan Huizinga’s over-professionalization ire, you will recall, (https://davidlabaree.com/2021/11/22/johan-huizinga-on-the-centrality-of-play/) still very much remains mired in the milieu of games, along with the likes of backgammon and Mahjong.”
“More revealing still, radically new forms of non-physical competition have recently sprouted up that are unhesitatingly viewed as sports-so much so, in fact that their very development has occasioned the creation of a new word to appropriately describe them: esports.”
“So what’s going on? What, in the modern age, distinguishes a sport from a game?”
Now the author finally comes to the crux of the matter:
“Well, I don’t pretend to know, of course, but you may recall from several pages ago that I have a theory. Here it is.”
You must read the book to read about his “theory.” Frankly, I do not know if the writer is full of excrement, but I have a theory…
After many pages devoted to explaining his ‘theory’ the reader finds this:
“When it comes to chess, the first thing to say is simply that, as previously noted, for better or worse, the Fischer worldview has unequivocally demolished the Morphy one: modern chess ticks all the contemporary sporting requirements and is no longer regarded by either its advocates or detractors as “a relaxation from the severer pursuits of life, whose battles are fought for no prize but honor.” It’s not at all certain whether or not the majority of Morphy’s contemporaries subscribed to such a characterization back in the 1850s, but it’s patently obvious that nobody believes it today.”
Do tell…
“The dust has settled, and chess is now a sport and not a game.”
At least in the author’s mind…
“A further point worth mentioning is that chess is hardly the only “old fashioned” game to make the modern sporting transition. The most obvious example is poker, which decidedly satisfies all of the above-mentioned criteria and is thus now near-universally recognized as a sport.”
Really? I asked several Chess players who also play, or have played, poker, if they thought poker could be considered a “sport.” One fellow caused me to laugh uproariously when he answered, “Sport? How the hell can anything done while sitting on one’s ass be considered a “sport?”
hit the fan this writer decided to not touch it with a pole of any length. My thinking was changed after reading something at Chess.com earlier today, a day spent reading any and everything found on the matter. Before writing readers must be informed of from where this writer is coming.
I have two sisters. It was instilled in me at a young age that they were to be protected at all costs. I was the oldest child, and as a male it was up to me to protect my sisters. One night the sister born after me came home crying because her boyfriend had run her new yellow Mustang, and her, off of the road. With Mother begging me to stay I was out of the door in a heartbeat, looking for a fight. Long story short, the culprit was located and word got around that there would be a fight at South Park. Boys and girls began piling into vehicles and heading to SP. They came from Mickey D’s and Shoney’s to park at the gravel parking lot, and on the street, as there were too many vehicles for the parking lot.
The boy my sister had been dating was a big, hulking dude, much larger than me, but he was not the first boy to approach. That would be the older brother of one of the players on my team at the Boy’s Club. He did not like the way I coached his younger brother, and did not like me. Some of my classmates said it was the best fight they had ever seen because we were about the same size, and both knew how to fight. He went down. I was completely exhausted. I had fought in the Golden Gloves and knew my way around a ring, but still, it took all I had to knock him out.
I was breathing heavily and kneeling on one knee on the gravel parking lot when the big galoot came at me. One of my friends later said he “feared for my life.” As the big fellow approached with an excrement eating grin on his ugly mug, I waited until he got up real close and personal before jumpin’ up with a handful of gravel that was thrust it into his face… Then I kicked him in the groin, and proceeded to, as one onlooker informed my Mother, “beat the shit outta him.” It ended when the police pulled me offa the bleeding jerk. One of the cops said, “You go on home now Michael because Mary is worried about you.”
Some of you reading this may find the above reprehensible and “beyond the pale,” and you may be right…but things were different ‘back in the day’. Today one boy would be dead from a gunshot wound and the other probably spend decades behind bars, so yeah, to my thinking, things were better ‘back in the day’, at least in that respect. Back then it was instilled in me that I was to protect my sisters, and my Mother, no matter what. Women were considered the “weaker” sex. I realize things have changed greatly over the decades and women now serve in the military alongside men, but still…
My favorite librarian, Heather, was kind enough to send me a copy of an article in the Washington Post concerning the allegations against GM Ramirez. The title of the article is: Chess Bodies Failed to Act After Misconduct Allegations — Numerous women have accused U.S. grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez of sexual assault. His behavior was allegedly an open secret. The authors are Andrew Beaton and Joshua Robinson (file:///C:/Users/xpert/Downloads/ProQuestDocuments-2023-03-09.pdf)
The article begins: “When former U.S. women’s chess champion Jennifer Shahade
alleged on social media last month that she had been sexually assaulted by a grandmaster named Alejandro Ramirez, she had no idea it would set off a broad wave of additional allegations. Shahade says she was sexually assaulted twice by Ramirez, one of the most recognizable faces in U.S. chess over the past two decades. Her allegations and others in recent years were reported to top chess bodies, including the U.S. Chess Federation and the St. Louis Chess Club
which failed to act or effectively investigate when learning of them, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.”
Those words, “…the U.S. Chess Federation and the St. Louis Chess Club, which failed to act or effectively investigate when learning of them,” are a scathing indictment of any and everyone connected with both of those organizations. Every person having anything to do with either the StLCC and USCF should be ashamed.
Unfortunately, the article continues, and it gets even worse: “Then after her tweet, messages poured in. Ten other women from the chess community reached out to Shahade to say they had also been assaulted or harassed by him, according to texts and direct messages the Journal reviewed. The allegations represent a stunning turn for Ramirez, 34, who was once the second-youngest grandmaster in the world and the first from Central America to earn the title. Ramirez, born in Costa Rica, switched to representing the U.S. in 2011. He has also coached, mentored younger players and built a profile as a commentator. In interviews with the Journal, eight women accused Ramirez of wrongdoing, saying that he used his status in chess to put himself in positions of influence and make repeated unwanted sexual advances toward them since 2011. Ramirez, they said, became physically aggressive as he forcibly kissed and groped them without their consent. Three were under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged incidents, including one who said Ramirez supplied her with vodka before he coerced her into performing oral sex.“
The remainder of the Washington Post article follows with pertinent parts highlighted by this writer:
“On Monday, two days after being presented with a detailed list of the allegations against him by the Journal, Ramirez issued a press release through his attorney saying that he had resigned from his roles at the St. Louis Chess Club and as coach of the St. Louis University chess team because the investigations now being run by U.S. Chess and the club had become a “negative distraction.” Albert Watkins, Ramirez’s attorney, didn’t comment on specific allegations, saying he had been directed to respect the confidentiality of the investigative undertakings. “In this era of introspection and sensitivity to all matters ‘Me Too’ related, Ramirez remains very supportive of those who seek to raise issues of concern about anyone,” Watkins wrote in an email. Allegations about Ramirez’s conduct have been known to top chess bodies — including the U.S. Chess Federation the St. Louis Chess Club, the global hub for the game backed by billionaire Rex Sinquefield
— for several years. A lawyer for the St. Louis Chess Club wrote in a 2021 letter that it was aware of Shahade’s allegation in 2020. In 2021, the club and U.S. Chess were informed of allegations against Ramirez, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Journal. Ramirez was nonetheless tapped to coach the U.S. women’s team at the World Chess Olympiad in 2022. Ramirez is now being investigated by the U.S. Chess Federation and the St. Louis Chess Club, where he was a resident grandmaster. He was removed from coaching St. Louis University’s chess team on Feb. 16, the school said, the day after Shahade’s tweet. Ramirez was also taken off the Athletes’ Commission of FIDE, chess’s world governing body, pending the U.S. Chess probe. “The University takes matters of sexual harassment and misconduct very seriously and has robust policies and procedures in place to respond to any report it receives,” St. Louis University said in a statement. The organizations that oversee the game continued to place Ramirez in roles that often involved working closely with women, even after first learning about allegations about him. “I was concerned that there was a clear and present danger that he could have interactions with girls and women,” Shahade said of her decision to go public. St. Louis Chess Club didn’t respond to specific questions about its knowledge of the allegations. After the Journal’s inquiries, the club said in a statement that it accepted Ramirez’s resignation on Monday and that it has no further comment on this employment matter. Ramirez was the club’s highest-paid employee in 2018 and 2019, according to its tax returns. The U.S. Chess Federation referred to a statement dated Feb. 15 in which it said it was “aware that one of its employees has made serious allegations about a member of the chess community” and had opened an investigation, without naming Ramirez. Shahade, a 42-year-old women’s grandmaster, said she was sexually assaulted by Ramirez twice. In the more recent of the two incidents, in 2014, she said they were at a small gathering in St. Louis when, at a moment when no one else was around, he “slammed” her against the wall and forcibly kissed her. Shahade said she confronted Ramirez in October 2020 when he was set to serve as a commentator with her on the U.S. junior girls championship. After telling the club, she said they told her to call him and deal with the matter. A message reviewed by the Journal shows she contacted him the day of the opening ceremony, when he was among the planned commentators. Shahade said that, during a phone call, Ramirez immediately agreed to step down from the commentary role that October. She also said he later called back and apologized for his behavior with her. Videos show he didn’t serve as a commentator at the tournament. In 2020, Shahade said she also spoke with U.S. Chess officials about Ramirez’s alleged behavior. Shahade has served as the woman’s program director for U.S. Chess since 2018. In 2021, Greg Shahade, Shahade’s brother and a high-level player, contacted St. Louis Chess Club and U.S. Chess to inform them of Ramirez’s alleged behavior, according to emails reviewed by the Journal. Two months later, a letter came back from a lawyer representing the club, acknowledging that it had heard about the allegations in October 2020. The letter said they weren’t aware of any inappropriate conduct by Ramirez. It further said that the club was not the proper party to review and investigate the matters he raised.” (file:///C:/Users/xpert/Downloads/ProQuestDocuments-2023-03-09.pdf)
The Chess world has a BIG PROBLEM. How is it possible this serial lecher was able to get away with this reprehensible behavior for over a DECADE? How did he manage to keep his position at the St. Louis Chess Club during all that time? Did the allegations fall on deaf ears, or were the MEN involved unconcerned, or uncaring about what was happening? What did Rex Sinquefield know and when did he know it?
Chess has reached a point where multitudes of female players, mostly young girls, have taken up the Royal Game, which is great for Chess because their parents spend unbelievable amounts of money joining organizations, such as the United States Chess Federation, and state organizations. Chess tournaments are filled with female players these daze, most of whom drop out around puberty, only to be replaced by other girls, who pay and play until puberty hits and they, too, drop out of the world of Chess. Those who derive their income from the game must be in a state of fearful shock about now, knowing that something like this could put a stop to the golden goose. Those in charge of Chess should have gotten “in front of this” but instead decided to stay behind it, hoping it would just “go away.” If the Chess world cannot protect the women it is time for a Chess reckoning.
Life intervened yesterday and part one of what was supposed to be the only part was published in truncated form. A few moments ago the revision containing the game that was to go with the post was published. What follows was supposed to be part of that post.
The game which follows left me flummoxed. The general in charge of the white pieces simply refused to play Bd5, and the GM making decisions for the black pieces simply refused to move the knight off of the back rank.
GM Aleksandar Kovacevic, rated 2489, of Serbia, began as the 122 seed out of almost 500 players in the 2023 EICC. Within the year Kovacevic will be eligible to play in Senior events. His opponent in the first round was Marius Gramb of Germany, rated only 2159, began as the 364th rated player. He was born in 1993 and will not be eligible for the Senior tournaments until 2043. On paper this should have been a walk over for the GM. Unfortunately for the GM the game was played on a board because Marius Gramb is a MCM, which is for “Male Candidate Master.” This is being done after recently seeing “WCM” and assuming, as did others with whom I was in contact, it was for “Woman Candidate Master.” If the Chess world is going to have such titles, then the least it can do is be consistent. This begs the question of why any title is prefaced with a “W”? A Chess player is either a Candidate Master or not. Using letters, like “W” only separates players according to gender. Why is this happening? The FIDE motto is Gens una sumus, Latin for “We are one Family” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE). If we are one family then why is there a sexual division and why do so many female players consider it acceptable to be segregated from male players?
In the first round of the ongoing Cambridge International Open, Henry Adams, born in 2005, sat down behind the white pieces to play the dean of British Chess, long time British number one, Grandmaster Michael Adams. Because of the huge rating disparity of almost 800 points, on paper it looked like a walk over for the now Senior eligible GM, who was born in 1971. The younger Adams sports a 1963 British Chess rating. His International FIDE rating is only 1738. Mickey Adams is rated 2757. With all the talk, including from Rex Sinquefield ((https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2023/01/05/sinquefield-chess-wagering.html), concerning the future prospects of wagering on Chess going Big Time in a Big Way in the near future, one could have gotten BIG odds on the much younger, but much less accomplished, Adams.
The following position was reached after the GM made his 23rd move:
Position after 23…Rxf4
It appears the Grandmaster offered his much lower rated opponent a draw. Put yourself into the position facing the much younger player. How would you respond? The game ended here so we know the young player has no guts and therefore, obtained little glory. The young fellow had a chance to make a name for himself in the world of Chess by possibly defeating one of, if not the best player in the history of British Chess. Instead, he wimped out…That, more than anything else, illustrates what is wrong with Chess. If this were a game of Go the young player would be forced to play on because the offer of a draw is not allowed. The youngster would have been FORCED TO GO FOR THE GLORY! So what if he had lost? At least in that event he would have learned something that may have later helped him along the Chess road.
In case you are wondering, the Stockfish program at lichess.com shows white with an advantage of an ASTOUNDING +3.4!!! !!!!
Since I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in any quick play Chess event this story failed to appear on the AWdar until this morning when it was brought to my attention. Most people involved with Chess assumed there would be major changes after the pandemic ended, and it has been interesting watching the change from my perspective, but it has not been good for the older players who seem to either have “lost something” like the “edge” they had prior to the pandemic. On the other side of the board it has been very interesting watching the much younger players, many of whom have seemed to come from nowhere to threaten the hegemony of their elders. Just the other day Chessbase published an article, Which countries have the most inflated Elo ratings? (https://en.chessbase.com/post/which-countries-have-the-most-inflated-elo-chess-players) Those of us old enough to remember a time ‘back in the day’ when the United States Chess Federation ratings were frozen for quite some time recall the “shake-out” that followed. Then there has been the ‘Rise of the Programs’. Again ‘back in the day’ we followed the moves and ideas produced by Grandmasters because, well, you know, they were GRANDMASTERS. These daze grandmasters utilize Chess programs to learn the correct way to play Chess. It must be difficult for grandmasters to wrap their minds around the fact that compared to the Chess programs, such as the Stockfish program used at Lichess.com, they have been regulated to second class status. Such is life…
The following story headlines the “TOP 10 RIGHT NOW” on the CHEAT SHEET at The Daily Beast:
Chess Grandmaster Banned From Prize Events After Racist Rant
Another day, another scandal in the cutthroat world of online chess. On Monday, Chess.com—one of the largest such platforms in the world—said that it would hit a 2578-rated Georgian grandmaster with a partial ban after he was caught spewing racist vitriol and berating staff on a tournament stream. The grandmaster, Baadur Jobava, launched into the rant last Friday after losing to Xiangyu Xu, a Chinese grandmaster,
at a qualifier for the Airthings Masters, according to Esports.gg. In footage of a conversation between Jobava and a moderator that surfaced on Reddit that day, the Georgian player can be heard saying, “This bitch fucked up. Ban all Chinese too. These motherfuckers. Not right. Call them. Not right.” (https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/10srym0/jobava_during_the_airthings_qualifiers_ban_all/) After getting off the call with the moderator, Jobava continued to rant, accusing Xu of cheating and Chess.com of failing to take action, “just sit and commentating bullshit.” In a statement to the “Global Chess Community” on Monday, a Chess.com official said that Jobava’s account would be banned “for all prize events” through the end of the year in light of his “racial and incendiary comments.”
With my first cuppa Joe this morning I did the usual surfin’ by hitting the high spots, which includes rounding up the usual suspects, such as The Week In Chess (TWIC), and Chessdom, Chessbase, Chess24, and last and least, Chess.com. It has become rare to stay at the latter for any amount of time these days, but today was an exception because our girl, Lularobs, had published an article, How To Talk To Your Kids About Chess. This turned out to be one of the funniest Chess articles ever read, and when one gets to my advanced age that is saying much. Until recently Chess had not been known for it’s frivolity, but as Bob Dylan sang:
‘Back in the day’ Chess was considered a serious game played by smart adults, mostly men. The game had gravitas. “Oh, you play Chess? You must be smart,” was often heard. Now one hears things like, “Oh, you play Chess? I’ve heard there is much CHEATING IN CHESS these days.” One of the saddest things I have ever heard about Chess was a woman, when describing todaze Chess, said, “It’s become a game for children.” My first thought was to argue with her, but upon quick reflection it was obvious she was correct.
Our girl, Lularobs, begins her post with: You may have seen the news: the Chess.com app has reached number one in popularity for free games on the App Store. I can hear your sigh from across the screen because you and I both know the gravity of the situation. This is no Flappy Bird, Temple Run, or Candy Crush situation. This is a big deal; this is chess.
I have no idea, or even a clue as to what is, “Flappy Bird, Temple Run, or Candy Crush.” This is because I am a Senior citizen who cares not what constitutes Flappy, Temple, or Candy. I will proudly admit to being “not with it,” at least when it comes to FB, TR, and/or CC.
Next comes the second paragraph: Your fears are confirmed; your child has been playing blitz throughout dinner, talking about “blunders” and “forks” (not the ones on the table), and asking if they can sign up for a “FIDE rating.” All weekend, you hear “chat, then we go here, takes, takes, takes, here, no no no chat, here, then you grab the juicer chat, it’s so obviously winning chat,” coming from their laptop. You’ve decided it can’t be put off any longer… you need to talk to your child about chess.
It may be better for the child to have a talk with his parent(s) about Chess because from my experience most parents have absolutely no clue when it comes to Chess. That goes for the majority of adults who become involved with the Royal Game because of their children because they come into the Chess world and want to “get involved,” while knowing little, if anything, about Chess. Unfortunately, from their perspective what they want coincides with what is best for their children, and possibly the children of ohter adults. When it comes to the Big Picture of what is actually best for Chess they could care less because to them their children are all that matter. When working at the Atlanta Chess & Game Center a parent actually said, “I don’t care whether or not it’s good for Chess. The only thing I’m concerned with is how it relates to my child.” There were nods all around from some of the other parents.
Miss Lula next continues under the header: Reassure Your Child
Developing an interest in chess is perfectly natural, and your child needs to know that.
My first thought was, “Know what, exactly?” How about, “Your child needs to know that developing an interest in chess is perfectly natural.” There appears to be little, if any, oversight when it comes to writing articles for this website, which is strange because it is mostly a website for children, and don’t you want your child to read something well written? Who knows, being able to construct a well written sentence later on in life may mean much more than knowing how to play the Najdorf Sicilian. Then again, maybe not, as there are now chat type thing-a-ma-jigs that will take your words, rearrange them and make you look like you know what you are doing.
Miss Lula continues: You remember your first checkmate, your first heartbreak (a loss from a completely winning position), and your first tournament. Your naive fascination for one of the oldest board games on Earth developed into a meaningful life-long relationship, through hardship and victory, and now it was time for your child to discover this wonder of life for themselves.
Was that written with tongue in cheek?
Lula continues with what is really important: When you talk to your child about chess, make sure not to confront them. Don’t make them feel shameful about their new obsession with tactics or GothamChess recap videos. Encourage them to explore chess in a healthy, informed way. Sit down across from them with a chess board and talk through tactical themes, explain your own excitement for chess, and help them to make a ChessKid or Chess.com account (depending on their age).
Lula is not finished, at least with this part: If your child becomes comfortable with talking to you about chess, then you’re already doing great. If you don’t have this conversation, then your child might end up doing nothing more than playing ultrabullet and grunting disdainfully at you whenever you mention “Chessable” or “studying.” Even worse, your child might end up quitting chess altogether and playing checkers.
What is wrong with playing checkers? Well, from the perspective of Chess.com, everything is wrong because there is no Chess.com account for checkers! If you are an adult reading this then I urge you to give some serious thought to making your child aware of the Great Game of Go (https://www.usgo.org/) because we live in a boom and bust society and Chess currently happens to be in a “boom” period. From over half a century in Chess my perspective says it is inevitable that Chess will eventually, sooner or later, devolve into the “bust” part of the equation. Just sayin’…
The next phase is: Speaking About Chess Respectfully
I will respectfully publish only the picture, with caption:
Unfortunately, Chess.com will not allow the picture to load.
For some reason I feel compelled to put what follows after the above picture because it cracked me up…
Show your child how to report unkind behavior from their opponents instead of returning the negativity, and don’t worry… I won’t tell them about the trash talk between you and your friends when you’re playing blitz at the bar on the weekend.
When reading the next header: Introduce Them to Chess in a Safe Way, I wondered if sometime in the past I had read almost the same sentence: Introduce Them to Sex in a Safe Way.
Miss Lula continues: It can be easy for kids today to be drawn into “KILLER OPENING TRAPS THAT WIN IN 5 MOVES!” when what they need are solid foundations and opening principles to nurture their chess development. After all, skipping to the Tennison Gambit: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Variation when they haven’t yet learned “knights before bishops!” or “control the center, castle and connect your rooks” is a dangerous game, and will more often than not end in disappointment.
Over fifty years in Chess and this was the first time learning of the Tennison Gambit: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Variation. If you go to Chess.com and read the article, you, too, can learn what constitutes the above gambit.
There is more before a video:
Chess content creators are awesome, and you enjoy them yourself, so don’t withhold fun chess content from your kids. Instead, show them rating-appropriate content. The landscape has changed since we were kids, and now all your favorite content creators are making beginner-friendly videos and courses. These are great for your kids, and healthy ways to engage in fun chess content without being peer-pressured into all the latest opening gambits and traps just because their friends are trying them.
I could not help but wonder if I am a “Chess content creator” and, if so, am I awesome, or what?!
The next section is titled: Practicing Safe Chess
It can be hard to know when to stop when it comes to chess. It could be a three-hour bullet chess binge late at night or “just one more game” when there’s still homework to be done. Your child must learn when to stop.
I know that’s right! Then again, what does a parent say when the child says, “But Daddy, can I just do it until I need glasses?” Maybe the parent should give some serious consideration to informing the child about what is a condom. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that Tennison Gambit: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Variation all over me!
Then there is: The Issue of Elo
Ratings and Elo are huge talking points among chess-playing adolescents, and such discussions can, unfortunately, devolve into competitive comparisons such as “my blitz rating is 1300” and “oh, well my peak rapid rating is 1450.” These my horse is bigger than your horse discussions are commonplace among individuals whose prefrontal cortices are not fully developed, and while they should grow out of this in time, if such behavior goes unchecked, it may become entrenched.
As children grow up, they form all sorts of attachments, whether these be to people, TikTok dances, or chess openings. A devastating loss in their pet line of the Sicilian Defense: Hyperaccelerated Dragon Variation at such a formative stage in their chess could mark the end of an era, and a lot of heartache. “I’m not playing this opening ever again!”, “It was my favorite opening!” or “I can’t believe it would let me down!” are all sentiments you may be hearing after a five-hour classical game that didn’t go your child’s way.
I am here to inform you that if you play Chess, you will inevitably suffer some form of heartburn that will break your heart…
This part concludes with this admonition from Miss Lularobs: If you want your child to stay honest and open with you about the chess openings and strategies they are using, then this is when they need you to support them the most. Let them know that you’re on their side, even if they hung their queen with an hour on the clock.
The article ends with: To Conclude
Ultimately, when it comes to their child discovering chess, every parent knows they’re in for a bumpy ride. There will be highs: the excitement of the World Chess Championship, seeing your child’s eyes light up when their favorite streamer takes part in PogChamps, and your child’s first classical FIDE-rated win. But, you know, there will also be lows: rating fluctuations, schoolyard teasing about the London System, and seeing Danny Rensch in a giant pawn costume. (If you go to Chess.com one can click onto a link in which Danny Rensch is actually dressed in some lime green thing that does sorta resemble a huge pawn, which is kinda appropriate for Danny Rensch, if you come to think about it…)
I don’t know about the part concerning “…the excitement of the World Chess Championship.” The two players contesting the upcoming WCC, which only found a venue recently, are not the best Chess players on the planet. One of the players melted down against World Chess Champ Magnus Carlsen during the last WCC, and the other just played miserably in the first ‘Major” tournament of the year. The excitement for the upcoming WCC in the Chess world is most definitely NOT at a fever pitch. The so-called “World Chess Championship” has been turned into some kind of sick joke. What do you expect when the body overseeing Chess in the world, FIDE, is controlled by the Russians, who are currently perpetuating genocide against their neighbors in Ukraine.
Miss Lula concludes with: We may not have all been afforded such a supportive start to chess. I mean, playing Chessmaster alone and getting one weekly after-school session on ladder mates might have been the extent of your developmental support during your period of chess discovery, but we can do better by our kids and provide support for them in improving at chess, being respectful towards other players, and perhaps one day even beating Mittens.
After being acquired by Chess.com the website chess24.com stopped publishing new articles so I stopped surfin’ over to the website. Today I surfed to chess24.com and was surprised to find an excellent article by Colin McGourty, Top arbiter sidelined over “Women, Life, Freedom” T-shirt (https://chess24.com/en/read/news/top-arbiter-sidelined-over-women-life-freedom-t-shirt).
It is a long and detailed article in which the author basically rips FIDE, and especially the Prez of FIDE, the nefarious Russian quisling, Arkady Dvorkovich, a new one. This writer salutes Mr. McGourty!
“Shohreh Bayat, who was forced to leave Iran in early 2020 after a scandal over wearing the hijab, has revealed she was personally asked by FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich to stop wearing a T-shirt with the message “Women Life Freedom” at the Fischer Random World Championship in Iceland. She did, but only to wear the Ukrainian colours instead, and since appears to have fallen out of favour with FIDE.”
“Shohreh Bayat is a FIDE Women’s Master and early on in her chess career decided to become an arbiter as well. Perhaps the pinnacle of her new career came when she worked as the Chief Arbiter at the Ju Wenjun vs. Aleksandra Goryachkina Women’s World Championship match in early 2020, but it was a success overshadowed by non-chess drama.”
“Shohreh switched to the English Chess Federation and continued to work as one of the world’s top arbiters. Then in October last year she was Deputy Chief Arbiter for the World Fischer Random Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland, just as women’s rights in Iran had suddenly become centre stage again. Two young women had died in mid-September, with women across the country protesting by taking huge risks to remove their hijabs.”
“It was natural that Shohreh would show her support, as she did by wearing a T-shirt with the message “Women Life Freedom”. She performed her duties without issue and, in what FIDE had billed as the Year of Women in Chess, this could have been positive all round — an illustration that women can take top roles in chess and support their fellow women. Her appearance, if anything, brought extra positive publicity to the event, and it broke no rules — there was no dress code for arbiters.”
“Alas, that’s not how FIDE approached the issue. FIDE’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer David Llada says he was first to raise the topic with Shohreh and describes “doing activism” in her role as “inappropriate and unprofessional”.
“That brings us to the real issue — Dvorkovich personally contacting Bayat to ask her not to wear the T-shirt.”
“Arkady is said to have accused Shohreh of mixing sports and politics, but there are two obvious responses. One is that in this case it was less “politics” than an appeal for basic human rights, something FIDE’s own Charter requires the organisation to promote.”
At this point GM Peter Heine Nielsen, long time second for World Chess Champ Magnus Calsen, weighs in via twitter:
“The @FIDE_chess charter specifies that we shall strive to promote the protection of human rights.
It means we have an active duty to promote protection of human rights.”
The article continues:
“The other was that it was clear hypocrisy, since Arkady Dvorkovich remaining FIDE President is the single most political statement made by the organisation.”
“Dvorkovich was a high-ranking Kremlin official for the decade from 2008-18, serving as adviser to Dmitry Medvedev and then as Deputy Prime Minister, including in 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine for the first time. Arkady has never expressed regrets about that decision, instead repeating Russian propaganda when asked about the topic by the BBC and other news organisations.”
“For chess, Dvorkovich, who organised the 2018 World Cup in Russia, ensured there was a steady flow of Russian money into the game. That meant a lack of genuine commercial sponsorship was no issue, but also came at the cost of FIDE’s events being used for what has been termed “sportswashing”.
Being unfamiliar with the word sent me first to the dictionary, and then another, before inputing the word into DuckDuckGo search engine where the most succinct definition was found: “The term sportswashing is used when a country organizes, sponsors or takes ownership of high-profile sporting events, where the purpose is to divert attention from matters worthy of criticism; such as human rights violations or crimes against humanity.” (https://www.nhc.no/en/sportswashing-what-is-it-and-why-should-you-care/)
At this point GM Peter Heine Nielsen
again weighs in with a tweet: “I just don’t get it: A t-shirt with a slogan promoting human rights is unacceptable and making chess political. But having Putin greet al the players of an online tournament he has nothing to do with, and having a panorama view of the Kremlin is not political ?”
“Dvorkovich sits on the Honorary Board of the Russian Chess Federation alongside the likes of Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov, Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, and numerous sanctioned oligarchs. Exactly a week before February 24th, 2022, when some kind of attack looked inevitable, Arkady Dvorkovich handed out the prizes at a tournament for the Russian armed forces.”
Arkady Dvorkovich posed with the winners | photo: Russian Chess Federation
“The full-scale invasion that followed meant the government Arkady Dvorkovich had served for a decade had led his country and Ukraine to utter catastrophe.”
“Calls for Arkady’s resignation were immediate, but he stayed in place, giving an interview to Mother Jones (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/chess-grandmasters-putin-russia-ukraine-war/) where he commented, “my thoughts are with Ukrainian civilians”. Any benefit from that interview, however, was immediately wiped out by his statement a day later as Head of the Skolkovo Foundation. He talked about a peace “with no place for Nazism”, a clear nod to Russian propaganda against Ukraine.”
“Dvorkovich, who stepped down as head of Skolkovo before it was placed on the US sanctions list for supporting the Russian arms industry, has never renounced that statement, and also resisted all calls to resign. Some of his supporters claimed there was no need for resignation as his term was coming to an end, but Arkady then announced he would again put himself forward as a candidate for President. He faced no well-funded opposition and won comfortably.”
“So for Dvorkovich to lecture Shohreh Bayat about not mixing chess and politics would have been extreme, even if it not for the specific Iranian angle. At the time of the tournament, Iran had become one of Russia’s few military allies, providing drones to attack Ukrainian cities. Arkady intervening to suppress criticism of the Iranian regime could hardly provide worse optics for the game of chess.”
“Shohreh told chess24:
Since I wore those shirts, they removed (not re-elected) me from the Arbiters Commission. Then they appointed a Delegate of the Iranian Chess Federation as the Secretary of the FIDE Women's Commission and offered me to work under her (my oppressor federation) in the Women's Commission.
Meanwhile, they call me inappropriate and unprofessional for supporting Human Rights while they are silent about Iran keeping refusing to play against Israel due to political reasons.
I think everything is clear.
“Her case has been taken up by many prominent activists, including Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.”
“Shohreh’s response in Reykjavik was fitting. She didn’t wear the “Women Life Freedom” T-shirt again, but instead came proudly dressed in Ukrainian colours.”
Shohreh Bayat in blue and yellow as Hikaru Nakamura went on to win his 1st official world title | photo: Lennart Ootes
It should be obvious from the above that the President of FIDE, Arkady Dvorkovich, is a metastasizing CANCER inside the body of FIDE. The hypocritical Russian scalawag needs to be removed by any means necessary.
It is long past time for the weaselly Dvork to go. Russia has committed genocide and war crimes in their futile attempt to subjugate their next door neighbor, the independent nation of Ukraine. THE PRESIDENT OF FIDE IS GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES because he is a part of the ruling class of criminals in charge of their beloved MOTHER FORKIN’ RUSSIA!
The United States Chess Federation should have already left FIDE, but there is not one person involved with USCF with the cojones to take the needed step. Each and every official of the USCF needs to take a good, long look into the mirror and ask him or herself some serious questions, questions that should have been ASKED and ANSWERED long ago. FIDE is being led by a WAR CRIMINAL. The USCF is part of FIDE and therefore complicit in what has happened to Ukraine. First Ukraine, then possibly US! For the good of the Royal Game this RUSSIAN cretin must step down and hand the reins of FIDE to former World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand.
Chess.com has been under the gun recently for the way the people who make decisions at the website have handled the long running and ongoing problem with cheating. Two day ago, Nov 8, 2022, Chess.com published the results of what they call their Fair Play Survey Results (https://www.chess.com/blog/CHESScom/fair-play-survey-results?page=4).
This is found at Chess.com:
“Ensuring fair play and protecting the integrity of the game is a priority for Chess.com. We believe that our members should have a voice in how we handle cheating in chess, and in an effort to understand the community’s sentiments better, we shared a fair play survey with three groups: members, titled players, and top players (the top 100 players overall as well as the top 20 women players by FIDE rating). We received 11,383 member responses, 166 titled-player responses, and 61 responses from top players.
Perhaps the most immediate insight is that on many important questions, the community is very divided. Cheating in chess is a complex problem, and there are no easy answers. We have tried to identify some useful insights from the responses and have shared them below. The full survey results are included here, and we welcome further comments and insights.”
The problem was illustrated immediately with the first few comments:
Duckfest
Around 11-12k respondents? Considering the player base on chess.com one could argue cheating is not as big a concern as the heated discussions on the forum would have you believe.
The next commentator hit the nail on the head:
Arullu
Well bearing in mind how many people are on this site the sample size is not indicative of much. It is just far too small a percentage of overall membership to draw any valid conclusions from. It is still useful but you should not draw any definitive conclusions from it. My two cents worth…
Duckfest wrote:
Maybe I could have phrased it better. I’m not questioning the validity of the sample size. The data for sure will be useful.
What I meant is that if members were concerned about cheating more people would have filled in the survey. The data shows most members don’t care enough to complete a 5 minute survey. That is assuming all members have been invited to respond. (https://www.chess.com/blog/CHESScom/fair-play-survey-results?page=4)
Because of having spent far too much time pouring over the Baseball numbers with Sabermetrics this writer knows far more than the average human when it comes to sample size. After perusing the article this writer knew immediately it was so flawed as to be worthless. Although I am not the most “mathy” kinda guy, a lifetime of analyzing Baseball statistics, with more hours spent at “The reason for the internet,” Baseball Reference, or more commonly, “B-Ref”, (https://www.baseball-reference.com/) than you would believe or even imagine, I do know about sample size. For example, a rookie begins the season with a MLB team and during the first week of the season rips the cover offa the ball, and the announcers have all but given him a berth in the Hall of Fame. Then he goes zero for the second week because the MLB pitchers learn he cannot hit the curve ball, so they give him a steady diet of curve balls he cannot hit, until he is relegated to the minor leagues. Here is an article concerning sample size for your amusement (https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/17659/baseball-therapy-its-a-small-sample-size-after-all/).
In an email exchange with one former Baseball player who also knows and understands sample size, who also happens to play Chess, both over the board and at Chess.com, this was received:
“I was one of the 166 titled players who responded to this survey. That’s a small sample size, no matter how you look at it.”
One of the many problems with the Chess.com article is that “titled player” is not defined. For example, I was under the impression that a “titled player” was a player who had received a “title” from FIDE. Years ago a “titled” player was someone with at least an International Master title, but that changed when FIDE, in its wisdom, foisted the “FM” (FIDE Master) title on the Chess world. With the rise of female participation in Chess tournaments there are now FIDE titles beginning with a “W”, as in WGM, which is a “Woman Grandmaster.” This is not to be confused with being a “Grandmaster,” because a “WGM” is less than a real “Grandmaster.” Hence the “W”. Confused? It is really far more complicated than that to the extent it has become comical. An example would be the recent US Chess Championships, where there were a plethora of different titles showing after the names of the female participants. One female student wanted to know if the “f” after the name of some of the female players at The Week In Chess was for “female.” I had to be honest and inform the young one that I had no idea, but did mention it could be for “FIDE Master.” She said, “Then it should be a “FM”, right?” What could I say? Teachers do not have all the answers. Is an “Expert” a titled player? The “Expert” class is the first class with a crooked number and begins at 2000 rating points, but it is not considered a “title,” yet it is considered a major step on the road to Master, and even with rating inflation, is still a goal for many players.
Foisting an immediately discredited explanation upon the Chess world by Chess.com surely is an indication of something amiss at the website. The people at Chess.com should know about limited sample size and the worthlessness of publishing such a flawed study. Nevertheless I will cut them some slack because it could be they are completely ignorant of sample size and meant well when depositing such a load of crap. The article shows Chess.com is in damage control mode and will continue to do whatever it takes to cover their collective asses. Then again, when there are so many firing salvos at you maybe it is best to “duck and cover.”
Armchair Warrior 