Photo composition © FionasImagination (@fionasimagination)
Thursday, April 14, 2022
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
The September Queen
After nearly three years of negotiations, the 中国棋院杭州分院 (Hángzhōu Branch of China Qí-Yuàn) finally recruited four-time Women’s World Chess Champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) into their forces, which already relied on China’s number one, 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén). Nonetheless, the “marriage” acquires a particular meaning in view of the 19th Asian Games, scheduled to be held in 杭州 (Hángzhōu), 浙江省 (Zhèjiāng province), China on September 10–25, 2022, where chess, after a lapse of 12 years, will again be one of the featured disciplines. Interviewed by phone, 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán), who kindly made time in her busy schedule as a teacher at 深圳大学 (Shēnzhèn University), expressed her satisfaction, accompanied by the hope of being able to do well in her new home: “There are still many uncertain factors. For example, the scheduled women’s qualifiers have been postponed due to changes in the epidemic prevention and control policy, but I personally have great expectations as to my successful participation in the Asian Games”, she said.
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
A Spell is Cast
Russian Grandmaster Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin — the banned man — also commented on the eventual switch of the Chess Federation of Russia from the European Chess Union to the Asian Chess Federation. “That’s a great idea! I feel positive about it, and I think it’s right. I welcome such a decision. The European Chess Union is treating us quite badly, so such a measure is justified. It is very important not to hold on to Europe, because our allies are not in Europe, but in other countries”, Karjakin told Metaratings. “I don’t think there are fewer prospects in Asia than in Europe. There are also a lot of chess countries in Asia. In Europe, we are allowed to play only on individual terms and under a neutral flag. With such an attitude, I think, it is better not to play than play under such conditions”. |
Nowhere Somewhere
Russian Grandmaster Alexander Igorevich Grischuk commented on the news that the Supervisory Board of Chess Federation of Russia will submit to a vote the switch of the Chess Federation of Russia from the European Chess Union to the Asian Chess Federation. “That is a quite inevitable outcome, everything points in that direction. It is clear that chess in Europe is on a slightly higher level than in Asia, but nowadays, China, India and Uzbekistan are in the élite group. Twenty years ago there was much difference of class, now it is not that much. On the other hand we need to be somewhere where we are allowed to play and compete”, Grischuk said, as quoted by Metaratings. “Surely some will think about changing sporting nationality. Well, that is a personal matter for each individual — as for me, I’m not going to change sporting nationality”. |
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俄国际象棋联合会 (Федерация шахмат России)
“A meeting of the Supervisory Board of Chess Federation of Russia is to be held on Tuesday”, Albert Azarapetovich Stepanyan — one of its members — told Матч ТВ (Match TV) on Monday. The issue on the agenda (to be submitted to a vote) is a big one: that is, to switch the membership of Chess Federation of Russia from the European Chess Union to the Asian Chess Federation. “The initiative comes from the Chess Federation of Russia, namely from its President Andrey Vasilievich Filatov”, Stepanyan said. |
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
They were reproached for not signing a letter asking to declare war on everything and everyone. They just asked why everything and everyone, but authority shouted, “Either you sign this letter or...”. And yet, Ukrainian Grandmasters Anna Olehivna Muzychuk and Mariya Olehivna Muzychuk are proving to their detractors that culture, peace, and intellectual and artistic creativity may conquer more hearts than any armies and mercenaries. “We managed to flee to safety in Spain, but our parents, grandparents, and all our friends are still in Ukraine. It is obvious that we cannot save the dead, but we can help all people who need our help and that’s why we are here today”, says Anna Olehivna Muzychuk. Here, where a willing community encourages them to fundraise through their chess catechism on behalf of their people. Today, in Valencia, they held a charity gala at Mercado de Colón (Columbus Market) with a 50-board simultaneous exhibition in the afternoon (Mariya Olehivna Muzychuk being pictured above), and an evening “solidarity dinner” given by chef Ricard Camarena at his BAR X. Photo: Francesc Fort. |
Monday, April 11, 2022
Sunday, April 10, 2022
The King’s Dragon
丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) – 韦奕 (Wéi Yì)
2022 “Welcome to the Asian Games” Chess Grandmaster Showdown; match game 6; 杭州 (Hángzhōu), April 10, 2022
Catalan Opening E06
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 Be7 5. Nf3 0-0 6. 0-0 dxc4 7. Qc2 a6 8. a4 Bd7 9. Qxc4 Bc6 10. Bg5 Nbd7 11. Rd1. Varying from 11. Nc3 h6 12. Bxf6 Nxf6 13. a5 Bd6 14. Rfe1 Bd5 15. Qa4 Bxf3 16. Bxf3 c6 17. Nd1 e5 18. dxe5 Bxe5 19. Qb3 Qc7 20. Ne3 Rad8 21. Red1 Bd4 22. Nc4 Bc5 23. Kg2 Rfe8 24. e3 g6 25. h4 h5 26. Rac1 Qe7 27. Rc3 Rxd1 28. Qxd1 Rd8 29. Rd3 Rxd3 30. Qxd3 Ne8 ½ : ½ 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) – 韦奕 (Wéi Yì), ibidem, match game 4. 11. ... a5 12. Nbd2 h6 13. Bxf6 Nxf6 14. Rac1. Very interesting is 14. Qd3 Bb4
15. e4 Qe7 16. Ne5 Bd7 17. Ndc4 Rfd8 18. Qe3 Be8 19. h4 Nd7 20. Nxd7 Bxd7 21. e5
Rab8 22. Be4 Be8 23. Qf3 f5 24. exf6 Qxf6 25. Qe3 Bg6 26. Rd3 Bf5 27. Rc1 c6 28.
Rc2 Rd7 29. Ne5 Rd6 30. Nc4 Rd7 31. Ne5 Rd6 32. Kg2 Rbd8 33. f3 Bxe4 34. fxe4
Qxe5?! (a speculative hazard) 35. dxe5 Rxd3 36. Qa7! with an unbalanced endgame in which White should be better, Caruana – Shankland, 65th U.S. Chess Championship, Saint Louis 2021. 14. ... Qe8!? This is probably new, but nothing new with regard to the assessment of the line. Likewise 14. ... Bb4 15. Ne5 Bxg2 16. Kxg2 c6 17. Qd3 Qe7 18. Ndc4 Rad8 19. Qf3 Nd5 20. Nd3 Nf6 21. e3 Rfe8 22. h4⩲ is a tad better for White, Cheparinov – Sarin, 1st Trophée CapÉchecs Online, europe-echecs.com, October 25, 2020, Semifinal match game 1 (time control: 10 minutes plus 3 seconds per move). 15. b3 Rc8 16. Ne5 Bxg2 17. Kxg2 c5 18. Ndf3 Bd6 19. h4 cxd4 20. Qxd4 Rxc1 21. Rxc1 Qb8 22. Rc4 Rd8
23. e4! 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) himself then called this “the turning point” — not the best move in an absolute sense, but a most powerful one psychologically. 23. ... Ne8? This loses time and position. Better is 23. ... Bb4! 24. Qb6 Rc8 with good chances for equality. 24. h5 Nf6 25. Qb6 Nxh5 26. Qxa5 Nf6
27. Nxf7! Kxf7 28. e5 Nd5 29. exd6 Qxd6 30. Qe1 Kg8 31. Qe4 Re8 32. b4 Nb6 33. Rd4 Nd5 34. Ne5 Rf8 35. a5
35. ... Rf5? (⌓ 35. ... Nc3 36. Qe3 Nd5 37. Qe2±) 36. Nd3 Qe7 37. Nc5 Kf7 38. Rd2 b6
39. Nd3? 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) indulges in an uncommonly (for him) hesitant fuzzy solution — and which could cost him the win. Best was 39. Rxd5! Rxd5 40. axb6 with a won ending. 39. ... Qb7? But 韦奕 (Wéi Yì) immediately returns the favour. 39. ... bxa5 40. bxa5 Qd6! would have offered some resistance. 40. Re2 Rf6 41. axb6 Qa8 1 : 0.
“In today’s game, the turning point was the Pawn advance e2-e4”, 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) said afterwards. “韦奕 (Wéi Yì) did not duly appreciate it — for if he had handled it properly, he would have achieved something near equality. Objectively, it wasn’t the strongest move, but nevertheless it put 韦奕 (Wéi Yì) under psychological pressure, which caused him to go wrong later”. Photo: sohu.com. |
No Where, Now Here
You Are Big in Love You are big in love. And bold. My every step is timid. I’ll cause you no harm, and can hardly do you any good. Seems you are leading me off the beaten path through a forest. Now we’re up to our waist in wild flowers. I don’t even know what they are, these flowers. My previous training is of no help here. I’m uncertain what to do or how. You’re tired. You ask to be carried in my arms. You are already in my arms. Ahead of us stretches all that is pure, early, young, and what bids us journey on. How quiet you are! As you breathe, your high bosom raises your dress. “Do you see? What a blue sky! Can you tell what birds sing in the forest? Well, what are you waiting for? Well? Carry me then!” And where shall I carry you? Yevgeny Aleksándrovich Yevtushenko, 1955 English translation by George Reavey |
Untitled #8, from the series Languor. Photo: Donavon Smallwood.
Saturday, April 9, 2022
Random Words
Despite the war, and despite being defunded by state and federal governments, even this year the Total Dictation program, which was inaugurated at Novosibirsk State University in 2004 with the aim to promote literacy worldwide, succeeded in seeing the light of day today, Saturday, April 9, 2022. The Director of the Total Dictation Foundation, Olga Alexandrovna Rebkovets, must content herself with having involved 500 cities in Russia and 40 countries in the world — nothing comparable to the 6 continents and 76 countries that participated in 2019, before the pandemic. Yet, curiously enough, FIDE President Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich also took part in the 2019 edition, and some still recall him breaking into a fresh laugh over the fact that the reader in charge of dictation is called “the dictator”.
As for this year’s edition, Marina Lvovna Stepnova was the featured writer and, reportedly, the dictation was about a nineteenth-century teenage boy waiting for his first love.
As for this year’s edition, Marina Lvovna Stepnova was the featured writer and, reportedly, the dictation was about a nineteenth-century teenage boy waiting for his first love.
Vincent van Gogh, Letter From Vincent van Gogh to Willemien van Gogh with sketch of Woman Reading a Novel (verso), ca. November 12, 1888. Courtesy of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. |
Friday, April 8, 2022
擲硬幣 (Подбрасывание монеты)
It was reported to TASS by the press office of FIDE that Russian Grandmaster Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin’s appeal petition shall be considered within two weeks — day more, day less. Depending upon its outcome, it will be either Karjakin or Chinese Grandmaster 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) that leaves. |
Actually Factually
In a talk show interview on Rete 4, Under-Secretary of the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for the security of the Republic, Franco Gabrielli, gave his impression on the Bucha killings (as far as it is known so far): “Doubtless it was a massacre, but we have to be very cautious about responsibilities. In such cases, one needs to strip away self-confidence and Manichaeism”. Such words, coming from a high-profile official, do suggest one should be careful not to jump to hasty conclusions. “Also because if there are situations that can be represented in different ways, the damage to the credibility of a narrative may be devastating”, Gabrielli says. “Let’s stick to facts, let’s stick to satellite analysis, let’s stick to eyewitness accounts, always bearing in mind that wars bring with them forms of degeneration and mystification. I’m always suspicious of easy, simple answers to complex problems”, especially when such answers are dictated by “prejudice in favour of one rather than another”. |
Postface
Writing also on behalf of her sister, Anna Olehivna Muzychuk clarified why they did not sign the open letter issued by the Lviv Regional Chess Federation — thus partially correcting what its Deputy President Nazar Bogdanovich Firman stated. They apparently did not like the absence of dialectical debate as to the letter’s actual effects and its impact, which is to say that “Either you sign this letter or...” is not a kind way of inclusiveness. Indeed, most of Muzychuk’s clarifications, particularly on war matters, sound quite redundant as her (i.e., their) identity, belonging and loyalty cannot be seriously doubted by anyone, except maybe for warmongers in need of enemies. Not unsurprisingly, the only point on which they were not sure concerned the moral right to exclude or not to exclude all those people who, regardless of their nationality, had opposed war. And indeed, Muzychuk’s perplexity was more than legitimate, if nothing else, because she herself, about a month ago or so, appealed directly to Russian and Belarusian people to stand against war.
中医学 (Traditional Chinese medicine)
Although being stuck in a dystopian lockdown since March 28, 上海 (Shànghǎi), China’s most cosmopolitan city of 26 million people, keeps hitting new records of cases, thus revealing the dramatic failure of government’s so-called “zero-COVID” strategy. The shortage of food and medical supplies is causing desperation and much suffering for people and animals alike, to whom are denied even the most urgent forms of access to life outside the perimeters of their own cages. Laboratory data and economic evaluations indicate that a “rethink” is called for, but political analysts expect it to be after the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party set for next autumn, and only when 习近平 (Xí Jìnpíng) will be reappointed to another five-year term as President of the People’s Republic of China. Photo: 香港01 (HK01). |
Thursday, April 7, 2022
People
People No people are uninteresting. Their fate is like the chronicle of planets. Nothing in them is not particular, and planet is dissimilar from planet. And if a man lived in obscurity making his friends in that obscurity obscurity is not uninteresting To each his world is private, and in that world one excellent minute. And in that world one tragic minute. These are private. In any man who dies there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. It goes with him. They are left books and bridges, and painted canvas and machinery. Whose fate is to survive. But what has gone is also not nothing: by the rule of the game something has gone. Not people die but worlds die in them. Whom we knew as faulty, the earth’s creatures. Of whom, essentially, what did we know? Brother of a brother? Friend of friends? Lover of lover? We who knew our fathers in everything, in nothing. They perish. They cannot be brought back. The secret worlds are not regenerated. And every time again and again I make my lament against destruction. Yevgeny Aleksándrovich Yevtushenko English translation by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi |
Step by Step, Siena, Italy, April 5, 2022. Photo: Stefano Marmino.
A Journey to Samarkand
The Lviv Regional Chess Federation announced the expulsion from its membership of Anna Olehivna Muzychuk and Mariya Olehivna Muzychuk (pictured above, courtesy of Ayuntamiento de Torrelavega) since they refused to sign an open letter addressed to the Ukrainian Chess Federation pleading for the unconditional exclusion of all Belarusian and Russian people from all levels of participation and from all posts in FIDE and all its subsidiary bodies and chess-related activities. The letter also pleaded for the immediate dismissal of Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich from FIDE Presidency on the basis of his contiguity to Russian high politics. “Members of the Presidium, famous chess Grandmasters Anna Olehivna Muzyichuk and Mariya Olehivna Muzychuk did not sign nor support this letter. In this regard, and in accordance with the decision of the Presidium of April 4, 2022, the Lviv Regional Chess Federation terminates cooperation with them and starts the procedure of their expulsion from the Presidium and membership in the Federation”, Deputy President of the Lviv Regional Chess Federation Nazar Bogdanovich Firman said. It should be noted that Muzychuk sisters, who had to fled the country after the outbreak of the war, are concretely engaged in constant fundraising and humanitarian efforts to help their countrypeople. Next Monday, April 11, 2022 from 6 to 11 P.M., in collaboration with El Secreto de la Filantropía Foundation and the chess community in Valencia, they will hold a charity gala at Mercado de Colón (Columbus Market). The day’s program will consist of a 50-board simultaneous exhibition (25 boards for each sister) and a final “solidarity dinner” given by chef Ricard Camarena at his BAR X. For further details and information, click here. |
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