Tatooine to join FIDE?

There are so many things to this story I am not sure where to start. Playing chess at a games convention (Dragon Con) might not seem that special, but dressed as a Jawa (from Star Wars) starts to make it interesting. Doing it to raise money for charity is quite nice as well, but the real kicker for me is fitting chess into the Star Wars universe.
The player concerned, Stephen Eisenhauer, might have difficulty getting into a regular chess tournament dressed as he is (Anti-Cheating regs would be the most obvious impediment), but the fact that he has formed the Tatooine Planetary Chess Federation might grant him a special exemption (on cultural grounds). And having formed an extra-terrestrial chess federation he should go the whole way and apply to join FIDE. I am sure he will find a receptive ear in FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who has had previous experiences dealing with off world visitors. If anything, Kirsan may approve the membership simply as an 'I told you so' to his critics.

2015 World Cup Day 2 - Illingworth Out

IM Max Illingworth's visit to Baku for the 2015 World Cup has ended quickly, eliminated by GM Pentala Harikrishna in the first round. Although the game went past 70 moves, Illingworth was on the backfoot from move 15, where an exchange sacrifice didn't give him enough play. Harikrishna neutralised any threats and nursed his advantage all the way to a 2-0 victory. the game ended in a draw. The match score of 1.5-0.5 put Harikrishna through to the second round
While the round is still in progress, top seed Veselin Topalov has gone through to the second round with a 2-0 win. He has been joined by Svidler, Aronian and Caruana (amongst others), while a few high profile day 1 losers (including Wang Hao and Moiseenko) bounced back to tie the match with day 2 wins.

(** Update: At the time of the original posting the live coverage had the result as a win for Harikrishna, although I note that this has now changed)

2015 World Cup - Day 1

The 2015 World Cup in Baku has started with a few small surprises, but nothing too dramatic. The top seeds either won their games, or at least drew, although some draws seemed harder than others. Anish Giri played 158 moves against Arthur Ssegwanyi, trying to convert a pawn advantage in a rook ending, but determined defence saw the game end with just kings on the board.
Leinier Dominguez Perez was the highest seeded player to lose, being beaten by Federico Perez Ponsa on board 18. Hrant Melkumyan also had a good start, beating the higher rated Gata Kamsky on board 47.
For Australian fans, Max Illingworth started his game against Pentala Harikrishna well, and even had a slight advantage in the middle game. His passed a pawns were dangerous, and eventually he was able to win a piece for them. Unfortunately the extra pawns that Harikrishna had in return proved to be more dangerous and Illingworth was unable to stop them charging down the board.
Tonight is the second half of the round one matches, with any tied matches going into playoffs tomorrow. I suspect higher seeded players already ahead will be happy to draw, although the other matches should remain competitive.


Illingworth,Max (2517) - Harikrishna,Pentala (2737) [A15]
FIDE World Cup 2015 Baku AZE (1.14), 13.09.2015

A modern immortal game

While not an expression that is used that often, an 'immortal' game (as opposed to "The Immortal Game), is a game where a player sacrifices a queen and two rooks to checkmate their opponent. As a further refinement, the rooks should be captured on their starting squares, although I may have mis-remembered that part.
Doing a quick search of my database I found a few examples of this motif, some which occurred quite recently. The last example I could find is from 2006, and is shown below. The other cool thing about this game is that not only did Black sacrifice most of his army, he executed a mate with the lowliest member, the humble pawn.


Yaremko,Nazar (2297) - Recuero Guerra,David (2396) [B56]
EU-ch U16 Herceg Novi (8), 18.09.2006

2015 World Cup

The 2015 World Cup begins in Baku on Friday, with 128 players aiming to qualify for the Candidates Tournament, and pocket some prize money at the same time. The event has attracted a very strong field, with Veselin Topalov seeded No 1, Hikaru Nakamura at 2 and the recent Sinquefield Cup winner Lev Aronian seeded no 9(!). The Oceania representative, IM Max Illingworth (AUS) is in the bottom half of the pairings, and plays Pentala Harikrishna (14 seed) in the first round.
Play starts at 3pm Baku time which is a fairly pleasant 8pm Canberra time. The official website is http://www.bakuworldcup2015.com/ and you should be able to get live coverage from there.

If you plan to cheat

If you are planning to cheat at chess using a computer you should at least try and be clever about it. The latest cheating controversy involves a player in the Imperia Chess Festival, who seemed to be playing extraordinarily well for some one with a 1600-ish rating. This in and of itself is not proof of cheating, although the Chief Arbiter did the sensible thing and investigated the player concerned.
After a scan with a metal detector, it was discovered that the player, Arcangelo Riccicardi, had a camera in the pendant around his neck, and was receiving assistance from a confederate who was replying in morse code to a receiver hidden under his armpit. Some of the tell tale signs, according to the arbiter, was that he never left the board (as most players do), and he blinked when he was trying to decipher the messages.
Of course the player was expelled from the event, and an investigation is underway. Probably the most interesting thing about this case (to me anyway) was that the method of detection was more akin to how a casino would spot a card counter, rather than through any chess related detection. Of course the good results were a tip off, but it was the amateurish approach that seemed to give the game away.

Python Chess 0.11

If you are looking for a customisable chess interface, or just want to try and see how it works under the hood, then the latest release of Python Chess might be useful. It is a fully configured chess interface, written entirely in python, and even includes support for interfacing with uci chess engines. (NB It is not an engine itself).
The author of the program, Niklas Fiekas, indicates in his documentation it is not intended to be a fast running interface system, but clearly he has put in a significant amount of work in getting the features right. It is even up to date with the latest changes to the Laws of Chess, automatically finding draws by the 75 move rule, and 5 fold repetitions.
You can download the code from the pypi page or skip across to his github page to browse the code online.