Double Fantasy

侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) – Dinara Mergenovna Dordzhieva-Wagner

8th Online Women's Speed Chess Championship Main Event; Round of 16 match game 5; time control: 5 minutes plus 1 second per move; chess.com, July 13, 2026

Sicilian Defence B86

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6 7. Bb3 Nbd7 8. Qe2 Nc5 9. Bg5 Be7 10. f4 h6 11. Bxf6 Bxf6 12. 0-0-0 Qc7 13. g4 b5 14. Rhe1 b4? (14. ... Bd7)

15. Nd5! Nxb3+ 16. axb3 Qa5 17. Nxf6+ gxf6 18. Kb1 Bd7

19. Nf5! White boldly sacrificed both Knights, so as to fulfil the aims of late Serbian tactician Dragoljub Velimirović.
19. ... exf5 20. exf5+ Kd8 21. Qe7+ Kc8 22. Rxd6 Ra7 23. Red1 Rd8 24. Qxf6 Rc7 25. Rxa6 Qc5 26. Ra8+ Kb7 27. Qa6# 1–0.

侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) defeated Wagner 13½ – 2½ and advances to the quarterfinals! Screenshot from the live stream.

To be sure, Edna, it is a way like another to wait for the setting sun without ever waiting for it

吃過路兵 (En passant)

Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán), her mother 王茜 (Wáng Qiàn), and their loyal squire Jamie Kenmure, enjoy their time and absorb all the sea and sun of Port Vila, Vanuatu, Oceania, early days of July. Photos: Sean Su.

Circle of fifths

On Top of the World

Solfège

One at a time

Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) delighted her fans with a guest appearances on the Gold Coast Open and a Q&A interview, moderated by her cavalier servant Jamie Kenmure, at Broadbeach Cultural Centre in Mermaid Waters, City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, Friday, July 10, 2026. Photos: Gardiner Chess.

Fama crescit eundo

A King’s Incognito

The story of the visit incognito of dethroned World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer in West Berlin in 1978, so as it appeared in BSV-Mitteilungsblatt, Volume 58, Issue 2, March/April 2008, pp. 14-15. It also reproduced the fateful picture — originally published in the Berliner Morgenpost of the time — that costed Alfred Seppelt the excommunication by Fischer.

Photo taken by Bobby Fischer’s mother at the Brandenburg Gate in 1978. (From the photo archive of Alfred Seppelt, left in the picture).

Of course, Edna, your approbation is — to say it with Honoré de Balzac — “the only reward which one ought to seek in an intimacy with a superior mind”

Artwork © Jose-Ramiro

Sea Cucumber Stories

The queen of chess, a very tanned 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán), graced with her presence the participants at the 4th tournament of the Vanuatu Chess Club in Port Vila, Vanuatu, Oceania, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. Photos: Sean Su.

美人魚 (The Little Mermaid)

Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) will make a guest appearance on the Gold Coast Open at Broadbeach Cultural Centre in Mermaid Waters, City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, Friday, July 10, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM.

Edmund Dulac, The Little Mermaid — The Prince Asked Who She Was, 1911. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Planet of the Apes

A way out

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 6, 2026

Often, amid widespread awareness that we are living in the end of a culture, the need — or hope — for a new beginning arises, that is, that after the collapse of a long tradition, a new and more alive one will sooner or later come into being. Against this naive expectation, one must remember that we don’t need a new beginning, but a way out. Assuming that a new beginning were possible, then everything would start again as before, possibly with different ideas and projects, but still within the frontiers of a historical age and tradition somehow homogeneous with the previous one. After the collapse of the history of the West, the last thing we may want is a new historical age; rather, we want to put an end to ages, to get out once and for all, and not simply to start again. Get out where? We can’t say it, but this is good. Our silence is more precious than chatters about the characters of an improbable future, which betray its solidarity with the past by repeating old-fashioned formulas such as “new or post- or transhumanism”. As the monkey in A Report to an Academy, which has become something radically other, says: “I didn’t want freedom, only a way out”.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Friedensreich Hundertwasser, 626 The Way to You, 1966. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Laplap

Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) will make a guest appearance at the 4th tournament of the Vanuatu Chess Club in Port Vila, Vanuatu, Oceania, Tuesday, July 7, 2026, 6:00 PM.

侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) enjoys her tropical vacation. Photo: Sean Su.

The Year of Living Gratefully

Every time I see my friend 林丽丽 (Lín Lìlì) again, I can’t help but feel that time has passed me by.

Incognito, Ergo Sum

Where are the righteous

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 3, 2026

Who are the righteous? What does it mean to be righteous? It is, to be sure, not a quality of a subject, an attribute of this or that man, this or that woman. Justice — Benjamin wrote — is a state of the world, a dimension of being, not of will or intention. Things are just, Spinoza said, when you see them not at a certain time or at a certain place, but when you see them in God. This is why justice is something you can never have, but only contemplate. And yet, when you see things as they are in God, being the flower of that flower, being the smile of that smile, being the innocent of that innocent, then you feel a need you cannot escape, a need that neither demands nor commands you anything, but that acts within you beyond any will or intention — that’s how it is, and there’s nothing else to do. I will never forget the words of a young woman who was part of a resistance organisation in a Nazi-occupied country. She was arrested and tortured but confessed nothing. When she was liberated, her comrades wanted to celebrate her as a hero, telling her that if she had been able to stand torture it was because of the strength of her political convictions, her loyalty to the cause, and similar nonsense. But she shook her head and just said: no, I did it because I liked it, on a whim. She saw justice, she felt a need that overwhelmed her on all sides, but she never thought for a single moment that she was righteous, that justice could belong to her. If she had only believed in the just cause, but had not seen justice, she would have succumbed to torture and confessed.
This is why, according to Jewish tradition, the righteous, the tzadikim, are hidden in the world — hidden above all from themselves. And this is why there is something paradoxical in wanting to reward the righteous, as it were the other side of that justice that consists in punishing the guilty. Just as punishment can never come from justice, but only from law, neither reward nor recognition belong to justice. The righteous one recognised and rewarded, the no longer hidden tzadik, is no longer a righteous one.
The mystery of law, i.e. the mistery of guilt and punishment, must not be confused with the mystery of justice. For this reason it is perhaps well that the guilty be punished, but it is not equally sure that the righteous should be rewarded. They wander the world unrecognised until the end of times and, as legend has it, only in this way do they save the world.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Joan Miró, The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers (from the Constellation series), 1941. Courtesy of WikiArt.

All World’s a Home

People and tourists

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 1, 2026

The word tourist first appeared in Italian in 1837 (tourism only in 1907). The etymology is clear: the tour (the grand tour) is the educational travel that European aristocrats and intellectuals took starting from the 18th century, especially in Italy, to learn about its art history, ways of life and culture. As often happens, what was initially exclusive to an elite, has over time turned into a mass phenomenon.
It is significant that its antecedent is certainly the pilgrimages that believers took to visit the sacred sites of their religion: tourists, like pilgrims, are peregrini, i.e., according to the Latin meaning of the term, strangers on earth. Tourism is the sign of an epochal shift in the relation between people and the land they inhabit: wherever they are, they are extranei, foreigners (extra), especially in the very city where they live. I perfectly remember the astonishment with which, many years ago already, when I lived in Venice, I realised it was no longer possible to distinguish Venetians from tourists.
But it’s not just the relationship of citizens with their city that has changed; the city itself has changed altogether: people have become tourists, i.e. foreigners, to the same extent that the land they inhabit (or rather, they once inhaibited) is now extranea and peregrina. If one reads, as I have recently, Joseph Roth’s extraordinary description of Marseille in the autumn of 1925, with its dense, adventurous alleys, where all ages of history were crowded, lively, in an area of just a few kilometers and no one was a stranger, it’s difficult to escape the bitter, implacable observation that cities no longer exist today: tourism was able to destroy them, because they already ceased to be alive. Overtourism doesn’t come from outside; it began within us, within familiar districts and neighbourhoods, which we are no longer capable of inhabiting. To inhabit is an intensive form of the verb to have (habeo) and signifies a certain way of dwelling and living, of having habits and customs. And if ethos in Greek designates the habitual dwelling place, then inhabitation is the primordial form of ethics. Having become tourists, having lost the ability to inhabit, being peregrini and strangers everywhere, then compels us to imagine from scratch a possible ethics, to reinvent the ability to inhabit from top to bottom. It is certainly not an easy task, but it perhaps offers us the only way out of tourism, to make our land and our cities habitable again.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Dan Witz, Lotus Lounge big, 2010. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Temptation Island

Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) and her cavalier servant Jamie Kenmure pose for souvenir pictures, after conclusion of her visit to Solomon Islands, in Honiara, Oceania, Tuesday, June 30, 2026. Photocollage: Solomon Islands Chess Federation.

By a Thread

Lyudmila Vladimirovna Rudenko – Clarice Benini
8th Women’s World Chess Championship; Moscow, January 12, 1950
Queen’s Gambit Accepted D24

Comments and puctuation by Grandmaster Max Euwe, Moskou 1949. Wereldkampioenschap Schaken Dames, Oosterbaan & Le Cointre N.V., Goes, 1950, pp. 76-77.

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. c4 dxc4 4. Nc3. An unusual development move in this variant, but not a bad one.
4. ... a6 5. a4. Now that the Knight is on c3, White prevents the advance ... b7-b5 so as not to render the Knight unstable.
5. ... Bf5 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4 Bb4 8. 0-0 0-0 9. Qe2. The game has taken on the character of a mainstream Slav, but with a difference: there is a Black Pawn on a6 rather than c6. The objective remains the same: White advances e3-e4 and then tries to secure a King attack founded on the acquired positional superiority.
9. ... Bg4 10. Rd1 Nbd7 11. e4 Nb6 12. Bb3 h6. Prevents Bc1-g5 and gives the light-squared Bishop a retreat square on h7.
13. h3 Bh5 14. g4 Bg6 15. Ne5 Bh7 16. f3. g4-g5 was to be considered either now or later.
16. ... Qe7. White has assumed an aggressive stance, but Black has various means of defence at her disposal, as the the presence of the h7-Bishop in particular confers sufficient stability to the Kingside.
17. Be3 Rfd8 18. Nd3 Ba5 19. Rac1 Nbd7 20. Qg2 Kh8 21. Ne2 Bb6 22. Qf2 Rac8. Mutual strengthening and consolidation.
23. Nc5 Bxc5 24. dxc5 Ne5 25. Nd4 c6 26. Bf4 Nfd7 27. Qg3 Qf6 28. h4. Here the advance 28. g5 offered more prospects. White should have opened up the position to increase the power of the two Bishops, whereas the move in the text actually allows for a closure, which benefits the Black Knights.
28. ... g5! Very correctly played. White has now to limit herself to defence.
29. hxg5 hxg5 30. Be3 Nf8 31. Rd2 Nfg6 32. Bd1 Rd7 33. Be2 Rcd8 34. Rcd1 Qe7 35. b4 a5! The Black Queen also wishes to join the attack.
36. bxa5 Qxc5 37. Kf2. Now that the Bishop is defended, the threat of Nd4xe6 becomes a reality.
37. ... Nf4? Black plays recklessly. The quiet 37. ... Qe7 would preserve to Black all her chances.
38. Nxe6! Rxd2. Black’s combination is beautiful, but ultimately leads to nothing.
39. Rxd2. Of course not 39. Bxc5 or 39. Nxc5 because of 39. ... Rxe2+ and 40. ... Rd8xd1# mate.
39. ... Rxd2 40. Bxc5 fxe6. Not 40. ... Rxe2+ 41. Kf1 and White wins after both 41. ... fxe6 42. Bd4 and 41. ... Rg2 42. Qe1.
41. Kf1! A strong defensive move (41. ... Rxe2 42. Bd4).
41. ... Kg7! Black constantly breathes new life into the position. Once the King can defend the e5-Knight, Black will take on e2, thereby gaining decisive material superiority (Rook and two minor pieces for the Queen).
42. Be3 Rxe2 43. Bxf4 gxf4 44. Qxf4

44. ... Re1+(!). The combinatorial pitch of the battle. White thinks she will win, because two Black pieces are en prise and Black thinks she can save herself with a surprising combination.
45. Kg2. 45. Kxe1? then 45. ... Nd3+.
45. ... Nf7. Black achìeved her goal of Rook and two minor pieces for the Queen, but now an unpleasant surprise awaited her.
Also, it should be noted that 45. ... Nc4 would not be sufficient because of 46. Qc7+ Kf6 47. Qxb7 and the White passed Pawn advances (47. ... Nxa5 48. Qb4).
46. Qd2! A beautiful denouement. The White Rook is suddenly trapped.
46. ... Rb1 47. Qc2 Ra1. On 47. ... Rb4 or 47. ... Re1 definitely 48. Qc3+.
48. Qb2+ e5 49. Qxa1 Kf6 50. Qb2 Nd6 51. Qb4 1–0. A beautiful and lively game.

The World Online

Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) will be the guest star on chess.com’s 8th Online Women's Speed Chess Championship, set to take place July 6–31, 2026, featuring a $75,000 prize fund. For further details and information, click here.

Solomon’s Temple

Four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) plays fifteen opponents simultaneously at Palm Sugar Art Gallery in Honiara, Solomon Islands, Oceania, on Tuesday, June 30, 2026. Photocollage: Solomon Islands Chess Federation.

Oh, Edna, it would be like saying that egg coffee and tiramisu are the same thing

Artwork © ElvisPresleyFan3577

High Tea with the Queen

Four-time Women’s World Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) will give a public talk accompanied by a simultaneous exhibition for the sake of her fans and admirers at Palm Sugar Art Gallery in Honiara, Solomon Islands, Oceania, on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM. Video: Solomon Islands Chess Federation.

Australia and Oceania

Today four-time Women’s World Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) landed amidst swarms of admirers and even worshippers at Honiara International Airport for a scheduled visit at Solomon Islands Chess Federation in Honiara, Oceania. She was accompanied by International Arbiter and Deputy President of Oceania Chess Confederation Jamie Kenmure.

A royal welcome for the queen of chess in Oceania. Photos: Solomon Islands Chess Federation.

Oases