As part of a chess program on television an extract from Kotov's book 'The White and the Black' was shown. The scene depicts Alekhin giving a simultaneous display against 30 German officers of the General staff in occupied Prague in 1943. The last game to finish is against Obersturbannfuhrer Spak. 'I resign', declares the German officer
The Devon U14 Team does battle each year against other teams from the West of England and South Wales. I have been providing a bit of feedback on their games over the while, and the collected comments are below. They're a sort of battle manual for junior chess, and I hope everyone will find something to help their chess here. There is a list of topics underneath and a list of tips at the back of most booklets. If you read a tip and don't understand it, look up the position in the booklet. Any questions?
Well done! We won the Eustis U14 cup for the first time since 2006, and
did so with a thumping score.
The Welsh were very sporting to spread their considerable strength over
two teams (Glamorgan and Gwent) so we stood a much better chance this
year, but I was enormously pleased with the eventual score (23½/30) and
the style of our victory. I think our boards 2,3 and 4 were outgraded
in every game, and yet over 9 games the dropped just one point between
them - fantastic results!
Exeter Juniors 3-1 Torquay Boys Friday 2nd May 2014
Edmund Kelly (B) 1-0 Yul Lee (W)
Taylor Finch 1-0 Alex Lee
Leif Hafstad 1-0 Ben Sturt
Codie Finch 0-1 Jakub Kubiak
The home side scored a quick win when Taylor Finch picked
up the black Queen using an ancient trap in the French Defence, but the visitors equalised soon after when Jakub Kubiak's threat to the enemy King was ignored.
Leif Hafstad was never in trouble with his own French Defence, and was
happy to collect one pawn after another in a game where White
never looked comfortable.
I hope your school runs a Chess Challenge competition this Spring, and I hope you qualify! But if one of those things is not true, there is always the...
The replacement of pieces in Exchange Chess reminds me of the game of
Japanese Chess, properly called Shogi, the generals' game. The flat
pieces are marked with kanji characters that are confusing for most people
brought up with the Roman alphabet, but I do own a German-made version
of the game which uses pieces marked with their powers of movement. http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/portable-shogi-set
Players in secondary schools can struggle to practise. Your computer or smartphone can be a sparring partner, but that's not the same as playing real people. You can play online but the behaviour and language of some adults is pretty terrible.
The U14s were mad keen to play Exchange Chess all day, and lobbied for a competition...
DB Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants calls this Tandem Chess or
Double Bughouse Chess, but I've only ever heard it called Exchange Chess
in the UK. The game is played with competing teams of two players, and
captured pieces are recycled with 'drops', so the play remains in the
middlegame.
Thanks to everyone who came to the U14 training day, and special thanks
to Tim and Sally for their support.
Whether or not you
were there, you might find it useful to have a look at the links below.
I hope you will find everything we showed you on the day and a few more
things that we didn't have time for. The page below has links to all
the computer software I showed you, too.
