Chess Jokes:Chess Nuts funny

During the recent Karpov-Kasparov world chess championships they came to an adjournment and left for their hotel.

In the lobby of the hotel several chess enthusiasts could be heard bragging, "I could beat Karpov with no problem".

"Oh yeah, I could beat both of them at the same time."

"That's nothing, I could beat both of them blindfolded!"

Finally, the hotel manager had had enough and threw them all out of the hotel.

But why?" a bystander asked.

"Because," the manager replied "I hate ..."chess nuts boasting by an open foyer!

Chess Quotes:Funny chess Quotes

"Chess is mental torture" -Kasparov

"You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas." -Stanley Kubrik

"The winner is the one who makes the next to last mistake" -Tartakower

"Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine" -Spielman

"A bad plan is better than no plan at all" -Marshall

"Two passed pawns on the sixth beat everything, up to a royal flush" -Ian Rogers

"Chess is mental torture" -Kasparov

"You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas." -Stanley Kubrik

"The winner is the one who makes the next to last mistake" -Tartakower

"Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine" -Spielman

"A bad plan is better than no plan at all" -Marshall

"Two passed pawns on the sixth beat everything, up to a royal flush" -Ian Rogers

Kasparov Talks on Fischer

he latest issue of Time Magazine has a moving tribute to the eleventh World Champion Bobby Fischer, written by Garry Kasparov, the thirteenth World Champion. Meanwhile controversy is brewing over Fischer's estate, estimated at £1 million. And Variety reports on plans for a Hollywood movie "Bobby Fischer Goes to War" directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald. Links and excerpts.

Kasparov on Fischer

Time: The Chessman, by Garry Kasparov
It is hard to say exactly when I first heard the name Bobby Fischer, but it was quite early in my life. When he was battling Boris Spassky for the world title in 1972, I was a 9-year-old club player in my native Baku in the Soviet Union. I followed the games avidly. The newspapers had extensive daily coverage of the match, although that waned as it became clear the Soviet champion was headed for defeat. Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games was one of my first chess books. (It had been translated into Russian and sold in the U.S.S.R. with no respect for copyright or royalties, infuriating its author.)

Controversy over Fischer's legacy

Times Online: Bobby Fischer, chess genius, heartless son
Unpublished letters seen by The Timesnow throw new light on the origins of Fischer’s precarious mental state and his obsession with beating Boris Spassky at the so-called match of the century in Reykjavik in 1972. He did not know who his real father was, and he deeply resented his mother for being an active communist under constant surveillance by the FBI.

Guardian: Fischer's 'widow' and nephews in legal tussle for £1m estate
As a chess mastermind Bobby Fischer was capable of executing manoeuvres as complicated as they were brutal. Now, following his death, the tussle over his million-pound estate may turn out to be just as convoluted. Last week the Reykjavik newspaper Visir reported that Fischer's estate, worth an estimated 140m Icelandic kronur (£1.07m), would go to Miyoko Watai, whom it described as Fischer's widow. But Fischer's brother-in-law Russell Targ has been in Iceland to instruct a lawyer to investigate whether Targ's two sons should be the beneficiaries. There are also confusing accounts of a daughter, now seven, whom Fischer is said to have fathered during a relationship which blossomed at country club in the Philippines. Yesterday Watai's lawyer, Arni Vilhjalmsson, said he had received an official document from Japan confirming the marriage. "It's a copy and I am waiting for the original," he said. If the document is proved authentic, Vilhjalmsson will take it to a magistrate in Iceland and ask for a private liquidation of the assets. Yesterday the Chesbase website carried a letter from John Bosnitch claiming that Fischer had married Watai in a ceremony at which he had been present: "I was the male witness to that marriage and the marriage certificate bears my name."

IceNews Daily: The complicated legacy of Bobby Fischer
Chess legend Bobby Fischer, who died on January 17th, was recently buried at a country church in Iceland during a Catholic funeral service. Though the service itself may have been peaceful, the legal wrangling over Fischer’s million dollar fortune may be about to turn nasty. Russel Targ, Fischer’s brother-in-law, has flown to Iceland in order to pursue legal investigations into the matter of inheritance which he feels should belong to his two sons. Another possible beneficiary is a seven year old girl, said to be Fischer’s daughter from a country club romance in the Philippines.

Fischer on the Big Screen

Variety: Macdonald to direct 'Bobby Fischer'
Universal and Working Title partners Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have tapped Kevin Macdonald to direct "Bobby Fischer Goes to War." The drama about the upstart chess whiz's triumph over Boris Spassky in the World Chess Championship in 1972 is scripted by Shawn Slovo, based on the book by David Edmonds and John Eidinow. Bevan and Fellner will produce. Macdonald won an Oscar for the documentary "One Day in September" before making his scripted directing debut on "The Last King of Scotland."

Cinema Blend: Bobby Fischer Heading Back To The Big Screen
Variety is reporting that Kevin Macdonald will direct Bobby Fischer Goes to War, a drama about the American chess champion. Fischer was a teenage sensation when he became a chess grandmaster at the age of 15. His huge accomplishment though, came in 1972 when he defeated Russian chess champion Boris Spassky. Of course, later in life Fischer became known as an eccentric and an anti-Semite. Macdonald's movie will apparently focus only on the match against Spassky. Fischer is a fascinating American figure, a hero for many years who later completely shunned his country. Given that the main character in Macdonald's Last King of Scotland was a murderous dictator, he's proven he can take on controversial but fascinating figures. I'm excited to see what he can do with this highly unusual story.

General articles

Daily Star: Talking about Lebanon with Bobby Fischer
Julie Flint remembers the Match of the Century: "Reykjavik in 1972 was my first big reporting assignment, for The Associated Press. I went for three days and stayed for three months". In 1992 she went to Belgrade to meet Fischer (with the help of Svetozar Gligoric), at 2 a.m., and was grilled about her reporting from Lebanon. "In the 1980s and early 1990s, I had been reporting from Beirut for ABC radio – and Bobby had been listening. He quoted myself to me. Why had I said this? What did I mean by that? Why was I out of breath when I said such-and-such (because I was recording, live, as I ran down a street in Mar Mikhael under Lebanese Army tank-fire in February 1984). Why were the Israelis so 'bloodthirsty'? 'Israelis' was not the word he used."

Kasparov's Wrong Move

Kasparov Last Game

Watch the Kasparov Last Game

Kasparov Funny AD

Kasparov Funny Ad

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born April 13, 1963, in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR; now Azerbaijan) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer and political activist. Kasparov is a candidate for the Russian presidential race of 2008.
Kasparov became the youngest ever World Chess Champion in 1985. He held the official FIDE world title until 1993. In 1993, a dispute with FIDE led Kasparov to set up a rival organisation, the Professional Chess Association. He continued to hold the "Classical" World Chess Championship until his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik in 2000.

Kasparov's ratings achievements include being rated world #1 according to Elo rating almost continuously from 1986 until his retirement in 2005 and holding the all time highest rating of 2851. He also holds records for consecutive tournament victories and Chess Oscars.

Kasparov announced his retirement from professional chess on March 10, 2005, choosing instead to devote his time to politics and writing. He formed the United Civil Front, and joined as a member of The Other Russia, a coalition opposing the elected government of Vladimir Putin.

On September 30, 2007, Kasparov entered the Russian Presidential race, receiving 379 out of 498 votes at a congress held in Moscow by opposition coalition, The Other Russia.


Early career

Garry Kasparov was born Garri Weinstein [1] (Russian: Гарри Вайнштейн) in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR to an Armenian mother and a Jewish father. He first began the serious study of chess after he came across a chess problem set up by his parents and proposed a solution.[2] His father died when he was seven years old. At the age of twelve, he adopted his mother's Armenian surname, Kasparyan, modifying it to a more Russified version, Kasparov.

From the age of seven, Kasparov attended the Young Pioneer Palace and, at the age of ten, he began training at Mikhail Botvinnik's chess school under noted coach Vladimir Makogonov. Makogonov helped develop Kasparov's positional skills and taught him to play the Caro-Kann Defence and the Tartakower System of the Queen's Gambit Declined.[3] Kasparov won the Soviet Junior Championship in Tbilisi in 1976, scoring 7 points out of 9, at the age of 13. He repeated the feat the following year, winning with a score of 8.5 out of 9. He was being trained by Alexander Sakharov during this time.

In 1978 Kasparov participated in the Sokolsky Memorial tournament in Minsk. He had been invited as an exception but took first place and became a chess master. Kasparov has repeatedly said that this event was a turning point in his life, and that it convinced him to choose chess as his career. "I will remember the Sokolsky Memorial as long as I live", he wrote. He has also said that after the victory, he thought he had a very good shot at the World Championship.[4]

He first qualified for the Soviet Championship at age 15 in 1978, the youngest ever player at that level. He won the 64-player Swiss system tournament at Daugavpils over tiebreak from Igor V. Ivanov, to capture the sole qualifying place.

Kasparov rose quickly through the FIDE rankings. Starting with an oversight by the USSR Chess Federation, Garry Kasparov participated in a Grandmaster tournament in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia, in 1979 while still unrated (the federation thought it was a junior tournament). He won this high-class tournament, emerging from it with a provisional rating of 2595, enough to catapult him into the top group of chess players (at the time, no 3 in the World, ex-champion Spassky had 2630, while World Champion Karpov 2690-2700). The next year, 1980, he won the World Junior Chess Championship in Dortmund, West Germany. Later that year, he made his debut as second reserve for the Soviet Union at the Chess Olympiad at La Valletta, Malta, and became a Grandmaster.

[edit] Towards the top

While still a teenager, Kasparov twice tied for first place in the USSR Chess Championship, in 1980-81, and 1981-82. His first win in a superclass-level international tournament was scored at Bugojno 1982. He earned a place in the 1982 Moscow Interzonal tournament, which he won, to qualify for the Candidates Tournament (http://www.chessmetrics.com, the Garry Kasparov player file). At age 19, he was the youngest Candidate since Bobby Fischer, who was 15 when he qualified in 1958. At this stage, he was already the #2-rated player in the world, trailing only World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov on the January 1983 list.

Kasparov's first (quarter-final) Candidates match was against Alexander Beliavsky, whom Kasparov defeated 6-3 (4 wins, 1 loss).[5] Politics threatened Kasparov's semi-final against Viktor Korchnoi, which was scheduled to be played in Pasadena, California. Korchnoi had defected from the Soviet Union in 1976, and was at that time the strongest active non-Soviet player. Various political manoeuvres prevented Kasparov from playing Korchnoi, and Kasparov forfeited the match. This was resolved by Korchnoi's allowing the match to be replayed in London, with the match (along with the match Vasily Smyslov vs. Zoltan Ribli) put together on short notice by Raymond Keene. Kasparov lost the first game, but came back to win the match 7-4 (4 wins, 1 loss). The Candidates' final was against the resurgent former world champion Vasily Smyslov. Kasparov won 8.5-5.5 (4 wins, no losses), in a match played at Vilnius, 1984, thus winning the Candidates and qualifying to play Anatoly Karpov for the World Championship. In 1984 Kasparov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and was elected to the Central Committee of Komsomol.

[edit] 1984 World Championship

The 1984 World Championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov had its fair share of ups and downs, as well as the most controversial finish to a competitive match ever. Karpov started off in very good form, and after nine games Kasparov found himself 4-0 down in a "first to six wins" match. Fellow players predicted a 6-0 whitewash of Kasparov within 18 games.

Kasparov dug in, with inspiration from a Russian poet before each game, and battled with Karpov to seventeen successive draws. Karpov duly won the next decisive game, #27, before Kasparov fought back with another series of draws until game 32, Kasparov's first-ever win against the World Champion. Fourteen further successive draws followed, through game 46; the previous record length for a world title match had been 34 games, the Jose Capablanca vs Alexander Alekhine match from 1927.

At this point Karpov, twelve years older than Kasparov, was close to exhaustion, and not looking like the player who started the match. Kasparov won games 47 and 48 to bring the scores to 5-3 in Karpov's favour. Then the match was ended without result by Florencio Campomanes, the President of FIDE, and a new match was announced to start a few months later.

The termination of the match was a matter of some controversy. At the press conference at which he announced his decision, Campomanes cited the health of the two players, which had been put under strain by the length of the match, despite the fact that both Karpov and Kasparov stated that they would prefer the match to continue. Karpov had lost 10 kg (22 lb) over the course of the match and had been hospitalized several times. Kasparov, however, was in excellent health and extremely resentful of Campomanes' decision, asking him why he was abandoning the match if both players wanted to continue. It would appear that Kasparov, who had won the last two games before the suspension, felt the same way as some commentators — that he was now the favourite to win the match despite his 5-3 deficit. He appeared to be physically stronger than his opponent, and in the later games seemed to have been playing the better chess.

The match became the first, and so far only, world championship match to be abandoned without result. Kasparov's relations with Campomanes and FIDE were greatly strained, and the feud between the two would eventually come to a head in 1993 with Kasparov's complete break-away from FIDE.


World Champion
The second Karpov-Kasparov match in 1985 was organized in Moscow as the best of 24 games, where the first player to 12.5 points would claim the title, with the scores from the terminated match NOT carrying over. However, in the event of a 12-12 draw, the title would remain with Karpov as the reigning champion. Kasparov secured the title at the age of 22 by a score of 13-11. This broke the existing record of youngest World Champion, held for over twenty years by Mikhail Tal, who was 23 when he defeated Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960. Kasparov's win as Black in the 16th game has been recognized as one of the all-time masterpieces in chess history.

At the time, the FIDE rules granted a defeated champion an automatic right of rematch. Another match between Kasparov and Karpov duly took place in 1986, hosted jointly in the cities of London and Leningrad, with each city hosting 12 games. At one point, Kasparov opened a three-point lead in the match, and looked to be well on his way to a decisive match victory. However, Karpov battled back by winning three consecutive games to level the score late in the match. At this point, Kasparov dismissed one of his seconds, Grandmaster Evgeny Vladimirov, accusing him of selling his opening preparation to the Karpov team (as described in Kasparov's autobiography Unlimited Challenge, chapter: Stab in the Back). Kasparov scored one further win in the match and kept his title by a final score of 12.5-11.5.

A fourth match for the world title took place between Kasparov and Karpov 1987 in Seville, as Karpov had qualified through the Candidates' Matches to once again become the official challenger. This match was very close, with neither player holding more than a one-point lead at any point in the match. Kasparov was down one point in the final game, needing a win to hold his title. A long tense game ensued in which Karpov blundered away a pawn just before the first time-control, and Kasparov eventually won a long ending. Kasparov retained his title as the match was drawn by a score of 12-12. (All this meant that Kasparov had to play Karpov 4 times in a match in the period 1984-1987, a fact unprecedented in chess history. Matches organised by FIDE took place every three years since 1948, and only Botvinnik had had a right for a rematch before Karpov.)

Kasparov showed his media savvy by appearing in an interview with the American Playboy magazine, which was published in November 1989. He is the only World Chess champion with this distinction.

A fifth match between Kasparov and Karpov was held in New York and Lyon in 1990, with each city hosting 12 games. Once again, the result was a close one with Kasparov winning by a margin of 12.5-11.5.


Chess ratings achievements
* Kasparov holds the record for the longest time as the #1 rated player.
* Kasparov had the highest Elo rating in the world continuously from 1986 to 2005. The only exception is that Kramnik equaled him in the January 1996 FIDE ratings list.[33] (He was also briefly ejected from the list following his split from FIDE in 1993, but during that time he headed the rating list of the rival PCA). At the time of his retirement, he was still ranked #1 in the world, with a rating of 2812. His rating has fallen inactive since the January 2006 rating list.[34]
* According to the alternative Chessmetrics calculations, Kasparov was the highest rated player in the world continuously from February 1985 until October 2004.[35] He also holds the highest all-time average rating over a 2 (2877) to 20 (2856) year period and is second to only Bobby Fischer's (2881 vs 2879) over a one-year period.
* In January 1990 Kasparov achieved the (then) highest FIDE rating ever, passing 2800 and breaking Bobby Fischer's old record of 2785 rating. He has held the record for the highest rating ever achieved, ever since. On the July 1999 FIDE rating list Kasparov reached a 2851 Elo rating, the highest rating ever achieved.[36]