CCI Biennial Meeting Lectures in St. Louis In Person and Online!

Hola! Received an email from Tom Gallegos of Chess Collectors International with an update on the arrangements made for the re-established CCI Biennial Meeting coming up soon in St. Louis.

Dear CCI Members and Friends,

We hereby announce that CCI’s 19 ^th Biennial will be what is called a “hybrid” event – part in-person, and part online.  We cordially invite you to attend, from the comfort of your own home.

PLEASE ATTEND OUR SCHEDULED WEBINARS, 9 am to noon, CDT, September 3 and 4, 2020.

It breaks our hearts that so many of our friends and fellow collectors cannot be with us in St. Louis for our meeting in September.  We’d been hoping to welcome as many as 60-80 of you on the originally scheduled date, back in May.  Now, with our September postponement date just around the corner, and the pandemic grinding on and on, it looks like the actual number of attendees will be much closer to 10.  (And we need every last one of these folks!)

With this in mind, we have decided to share as much of the conference as possible with the rest of you.  We know the morning lecture series is only part of the overall conference, but it's an important part.  These lectures, at least, can be broadcast as Zoom webinars.  Most of the lectures will also appear in our printed program (currently over 100 pages, and counting) which will be available to non-attendees shortly after the conference.  For a small donation to the club to cover costs, of course.

A few days to a week before the conference, you will receive a Webinar invite from our Zoom account.  This is not spam, though some of you may find it in your spam folders.  To register, please click on the link you will find in that invitation.  You will have complete flexibility to attend as much or as little of the talks as you wish.  The talks will hopefully also be recorded, so as to be available for posterity, just like the printed versions. They will be posted, either on our new CCI website, or possibly on YouTube.

We have a wonderful group of talks scheduled.  You will hear a great deal about the relationship between chess and pandemics; the French Enlightenment as it relates to chess history, and John McCrary of the USCF will speak about the evolution of chess rules.  We will even have Dr. George Dean presenting some of his 18 ^th century sets; and Allan Savage to enlighten us about Thomas Jefferson as a chess player, both of them speaking to you remotely.  We will also squeeze in a short business meeting on Friday.  Our latest revised schedule is as follows:

Thursday, September 3rd

09:00 – 09:15  CONFERENCE WELCOME – Tom Gallegos & Luann Woneis
09:15 – 10:15  HOW TO CHECKMATE A VIRUS (Keynote Address) – Luann Woneis
10:15 – 10:30  Fresh air break, and coffee
00:30 – 11:30  ENLIGHTENMENT – Tom Gallegos
11:30 – 12:00  CHESS MASTERWORKS OF THE 18 ^th CENTURY – Dr. George Dean

Friday, September 4th

09:00 – 10:00  THE EVOLUTION OF CHESS RULES – John McCrary
10:00 – 10:15  Fresh air break, and coffee
10:15 – 10:45  JEFFERSON AS A CHESS PLAYER – Allan Savage (online)
10:45 – 11:15  CAISSA, A POEM – Read by Tom Gallegos
11:15 – 12:00  CCI BUSINESS MEETING – Tom Gallegos & Gordon Clapp

Our timeframe for these talks is an estimate.  We will endeavor to stay on schedule, but you may find one or more sessions do not begin or end exactly on time, depending on what is happening in the room.  There will be a Q&A button for you to ask questions at the end of each speech.  The speaker will repeat your typed question, and will normally answer it verbally.

This means we will be scheduling TWO SEPARATE, 3-HOUR WEBINARS.  One for each morning, starting at 9 am.  However, you should only need to register one time, for both.  You may then attend as much or as little of the talks as you desire.

This is CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME.  If you are in another part of the country, please adjust for your time zone.  If you are in the UK, the talks will begin at 15:00 (3 pm) your time.  Most of the Continent of Europe will find the talks beginning at 16:00 (4 pm).

There is no cost to register and attend these two webinars.  If you have a reasonably up-to-date computer and an internet connection, you should be able to attend.

I’m afraid with only Luann and I running the system while also speaking, there will not be a tech support person to help if you have system issues either morning, but we will record these talks and post them later for those of you who are interested, but cannot attend the live version for whatever reason.

Luann and I have been taking a crash course in how to host webinars on Zoom, so our skills are still somewhat fresh, but we really think we can do this.  We hope the webinars will allow everyone to participate in our conference, at least to some extent.

The CHESS AUCTION at Link Auction Galleries is scheduled to take place the next day, at 10:00 am on Saturday, September 5 ^th.  That’s 16:00 (4 pm) for the UK; and 17:00 (5 pm) for most of the rest of Europe.  You will find it online at Link Auction Galleries.

The auction is one more segment of the conference that you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home.  Link has 267 lots of chess sets and other chess items ready to go.  Get ready to bid!

And ... "SEE" you in Saint Louis!

Best Regards,

Tom Gallegos and Louann Woneis
Organizers

Chess Collectors International (CCI) Biennial Meeting in St. Louis Back On

Hola,

I am terribly delinquent in posting this information, but in case you are interested in possibly attending, here is the information.  

Oops - I see the registration form was supposed to be submitted by July 31, 2020 - but if you are interested I would recommend you contact CCI directly about registration.

June 17, 2020 

Dear CCI Members, Friends and Associates, 

As the economy, and indeed, civilization itself, slowly begin to reopen following the coronavirus pandemic of the past few months, I am pleased to announce that we will now go ahead with our postponement date, and hold CCI's 19th Biennial Congress in St. Louis from September 2 - 6, 2020, as planned. 

This has not been an easy decision. Far from it. Nor is it a final decision. New cases of COVID-19 are beginning to spike in some of the states that are reopening too quickly. There is still no vaccine in sight, though treatments have improved somewhat. And problems with things like PPE and testing have become much less acute since we were forced to postpone back in March. The recent civil unrest across the country in response to the tragic killing of George Floyd and other incidents of police brutality seems to be calming down. And who knows what other disasters may await us in the near future? 

Our meeting could still be canceled due to circumstances beyond our control. Rest assured that we will not attempt to hold the meeting in contravention of any duly authorized public health directives. If widespread lockdowns and stay-at-home orders return, particularly to the state of Missouri and the city of St. Louis, we would surely be forced to cancel the meeting completely, probably for the duration of this year. Short of that, however, we will be going forward with the meeting. There is no real "certainty" to be found, but we simply believe it is time for someone to strike a note of optimism, and reclaim the right to make plans about our futures. St. Louis is reopening in phases. By July 20th, businesses and restaurants there will not have any capacity limitations, as long as physical distancing can be maintained. Mask-wearing is strongly encouraged in the city (and required for most employees in public areas). 

We have already been in contact with many of you about our meeting. And we've heard every opinion under the sun, ranging from, we MUST cancel the meeting altogether, to we MUST hold the meeting, if at all possible. And every opinion in between. It has been interesting: Some of our older members have said they will not travel at all this year, period. But just as many of our OLDEST members have said that if the meeting is delayed until 2021 or 2022 (as many have urged), they fear they just may not live long enough to see it happen. They say they want to attend a meeting THIS year, and the virus be damned. It is for these members that we feel we must proceed with the meeting. However, you will note many important changes: It will probably be a much smaller gathering than we had originally planned. Quite a few of you have said you would not chose to travel so soon after the pandemic. And many European members may still have travel bans in place preventing them from attending, even if they wanted to. At this point, we think a meeting of even 15 - 20 people would be a great success. (Of course, if the meeting turns out to be larger, we will welcome you all!) 

We are getting a lot of help and encouragement from the hotel, the auction house, and the World Chess Hall of Fame (WCHOF), among others, that this small, yet historic meeting should take place. But the pandemic is not exactly over, and it will not simply be business as usual. There will be, as they say, a "new normal" with which we must all cooperate. There will be masks and hand sanitizer provided for all our conference attendees. We are hoping to create a chess-themed mask, in honor of this unprecedented meeting, guaranteed to become the most unique chess collectible to appear in many a year. The wearing of masks will be encouraged to the extent it is practical, but not required. There may even be disposable gloves available at certain times. We will be practicing physical distancing to the extent possible and practical for the various events. We will have temperature guns available, which we may use to take attendees temperatures at registration and various other times. Feel free to grab one and take OUR temperatures as well, if the spirit moves you. Temperature-taking will not be required, nor forced on anyone who objects. 

We will NOT ask attendees to sign any sort of liability waiver. However, we do emphasize that this meeting is being held for the benefit of persons who voluntarily CHOOSE to attend, and we therefore do ask that you take some personal responsibility for your own attendance. CCI is not a deep-pockets organization anyway, and as a practical matter it would be extremely difficult to recover damages for an allegation that you contracted COVID-19 by attending our meeting, given the standard of proof that courts require. (I am not an attorney, however, and this may not be construed as legal advice.) Our common goal is to hold this meeting without ANYONE becoming sick as a result, and we therefore plan to take any and all reasonable measures to protect the health and safety of our attendees. 

Here's what's still ON about the meeting:

HOTEL: The Chase Park Plaza has said they will work with us, and not hold us to the room minimums we had previously negotiated. They understand our meeting is likely to be much smaller than originally planned. We should still be able to have some sort of gala dinner there, though it may be a reduced and somewhat muted affair, with physical distancing measures in place. 

NOTE: If you previously made a hotel reservation for the May meeting, it has NOT been cancelled, unless YOU cancelled it. All such reservations have simply been moved to the September dates. The hotel is expecting you. If you have NOT yet made your reservation, please contact Kelly Toal at ChiChi Travel, at telephone 314-678-0500. ChiChi Travel is our exclusive booking agent for the Chase Park Plaza, our official conference hotel.  Only they can ensure that you receive our special Chess rate of $159 per night, which applies whether you wish to sleep 1, 2, 3 or even 4 people to a room. 

AUCTION: Link Auction Galleries is continuing to hold auctions this summer as scheduled. They are still planning to hold ours on Saturday, September 5th. Previews are in-person, but all bidding is online only. They will make an exception to this for our group, so if you attend the meeting, you will be able to bid in person at Link, if desired. They are planning to add a second online bidding platform for maximum internet exposure. CCI members who don't attend the meeting will still be able to participate in the auction, at least, from the comfort of their own homes. Link is currently holding roughly 300 lots of chess sets and other chess items, primarily from the Sarisohn collection, with additions from the Raphaelli and Gallegos collections. They are still able to take more items, if any of you wish to consign.  

WORLD CHESS HALL OF FAME: The WCHOF is currently closed to the public until further notice, but our latest information is that they are considering a reopening date sometime in July. Our museum exhibition, "Dare to Know: Chess in the Age of Reason" is almost completely set up, but still awaiting several world-class sets from the Dean collection which were held up due to the pandemic. They should arrive and be installed in plenty of time for our meeting. In the unlikely event that the WCHOF does not reopen to the public by the time of our meeting, they have said they would give our group a private tour of this historic exhibition. 

GATEWAY ARCH MUSEUM: This should be fully reopened, and our excursion there should not be impacted in any way.

Here is what we DON'T KNOW about the meeting: 

WHITHERWARD CONCERT: This was not held on May 27th, as all events at the WCHOF were cancelled. We doubt this will be rescheduled for our Labor Day weekend meeting, but we will let you know if it is. 

RIVERBOAT CRUISE: The Gateway Arch riverboat cruises are slowly beginning to reopen. We have a signed contract with them, and had already made a deposit when the pandemic hit. However, we have not yet been able to make contact with them to confirm our reservation. 

CHESS MARKET AND SIMUL: We will hold these events if at all possible, but at the moment we are still working out the details, and cannot guarantee that they will occur. Both events would have to be held in a new, physically distanced format. 

SPEAKERS: Several of our scheduled speakers have had to drop out, and we are currently in the process of scheduling replacements. There should still be a full slate of talks (probably to be given from behind a sheet of plexiglass), but they will be on a somewhat different group of topics. If you agreed to give a talk and still plan to attend, we still want you on the schedule. One of the talks we are now planning will be entitled, "How to Checkmate a Virus: Lessons from the Enlightenment." 

Hope to see you all in St. Louis, or as many of you as possible! 

Best Wishes, 

Tom Gallegos and Luann Woneis, Organizers

Pretty Darn Cool Ancient Viking Board Game Piece Discovered

(Originally written on April 6, 2020 and somehow, it ended up in my "Drafts" and did not get publish - until now.  JN)

I'm very delinquent reporting this discovery, but now that I'm essentially grounded at home base for who knows how long during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that, of course under our MAGA orange-faced Cheerleader in Chief has projected the USA into the top world position for most infected citizens and on track to outpace every other country in deaths attributed to COVID-19, I'm going to be doing some catch-up because there's only so much yard work a girl can do in a day.  Besides, it's going to be raining for the next four days straight.  Blech!

Take a look at this beautiful gaming piece!

Hnefatafl gaming piece discovered from an archaeological dig trench dated
to the 8th or 9th centuries CE at Lindisfarne, United Kingdom.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/06/boardgame-piece-first-viking-raid-found-lindisfarne-archaeology

A Timely Reminder of the Lessons of History: Katherine Neville's August 1, 2020 Newsletter

I hope you are all staying safe during this extremely trying time in our country, in the world, and in our history.  May the Hand of the Goddess Shelter you from all harm.

Dealing with one crisis is bad enough; trying to deal with three is - existential.  We are facing a world health crisis in the form of the insidious COVID-19 pandemic, a world economic crisis that has resulted from the killer pandemic (although the current recession in the United States actually started during the last two quarters of 2019 under the auspices of Donald J. Trump, before the novel coronavirus pandemic was a "thing."  Whatever Trump touches dies*).  The third crisis is, perhaps, even more destructive in the United States particularly, than the first, because it threatens not only the lives of Americans, but the life of our very country: a crisis in the form of battle fronts in a variety of forms against the forces of Trump's Fascism.

Katherine Neville has not been a prolific writer of novels in her lifetime, but a couple of the novels she has written had a tremendous impact on my life - in ways I could not foresee at the time I read them.  Indeed, the seeds for the synthesis of what would eventually become Goddesschess were planted years before in the form of Katherine Neville's novel "The Eight."  It was first published in January 1989 and I purchased my paperback edition in early 1990 for $5.95.

Image from Wikipedia.

Seems an eon ago in more ways than one. I don't remember the exact circumstances in which I decided to buy the book, perhaps it was this tagline on the back cover "A feminist answer to Raiders of the Lost Ark."  The Washington Post Book World.  And the symbol on the front cover - a sort of "figure 8" laying on its side.  For some reason, it struck me - maybe because for many years back in the 1960s when I was a teenager I watched "Ben Casey," a television medical drama that every week's intro started out with a hand holding a piece of chalk writing on a chalkboard and describing the symbols as a male hand drew them:  Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity. That sort of "sideways 8" was the symbol for "infinity."  

And the tag line appealed.  I was and remain a feminist.  I was born and raised a feminist from two bloodlines of families with generation after generation of strong, tough women. They had to be, in order to go through what their lives were and to survive.  Women who didn't take NO for an answer, women who were never afraid to go toe to toe with anybody, women who were strong, tough, fighters when necessary.  Women who were pioneers and helped settle our country; women who sought out education, including the first college-graduates in our respective family lines.  It was the women who led the charge, and the men in our family, including my father and his father before him, who encouraged their daughters to go for it all.  

Now yellowed with age and with permanently dog-earred pages and scribbled inked notes in margins here and there, I have read my beloved copy of this novel a few times and parts of its I have read over and over many times.  And like watching a favorite movie over and over again, each time, I gain some new insight.

Many of Neville's fans are devotees and she maintains a popular website, issuing periodic newsletters.  I think this August 1, 2020 newsletter is especially relevant to our time and what we in the United States in particular are going through right now.  Maybe you won't agree, or maybe you will gain some new fresh insight, who knows?  Katherine Neville's Lammas New Letter, August 1, 2020.

*From the non-fiction best seller "Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever," by Rick Wilson.  Wilson is one of the co-founders of The Lincoln Project, which has the uncanny ability to get under Donald J. Trump's skin and truly killer sensibilities when it comes to making gut punches in the Project's political ads.

WIM Arianne Caioli Dead at 33 (1986 - 2020)

Sad news.  I remember many years ago reading about two chessplayers who got into a fistfight over her at a FIDE event.

Not accredited.  Photo found at Public Radio of Armenia website.
Caioli and her husband GM Levon Aronian.

Caioli was married to GM Levon Aronian in 2017.  She died in hospital on March 30, 2020 two weeks after being involved in a serious car crash.

Articles:

New York Times, "Arianne Caoili, Chess Master, is Dead at 33," by Dylan Loeb McClain, April 2, 2020.

Asbarez.com, "Chess Champ Levon Aronian's Wife Died Two Weeks After Crash," by Asbarez Staff, March 31, 2020.

St. Louis Chess Club (video at Youtube), "2019 Croatia Grand Chess Tour: WIM Arianne Caioli Interview," by GM Maurice Ashley, July 6, 2019. 

Southwest Chess Club Events Going Online!!!!

Hola darlings!  I hope you are all staying safe from the nasty novel coronavirus pandemic that is currently making it's way slowly (and in some places, not so slowly) into our Heartland.  Most of  you are too young to remember Kojak (performed so brilliantly by the actor Telly Savalas).  His rep line (for the more mature among us, his catchphrase) was "Who loves ya, baby?"  SOUTHWEST CHESS CLUB, that's who! 

The Heartland loves our CHESS, yes, Yes, YES!  And so, my dear adopted chess club is taking the action online, whoo whoo!  Spiff up your games, darlings, and join in the fun.  Chess people are the best people, and you won't ever find a nicer group anywhere but online with the Southwest Chess Club!

Details:

The Southwest Chess Club will be hosting online events, starting this Thursday.

This Thursday at 7:00 pm we will hold a 2-round, Game/30 minutes (with 5-second increment) event.

                                                  DETAILS:

(1)  if you are already a Chess.com member, then join the online SWCC club by clicking: 

                   https://www.chess.com/club/southwest-chess-club

(2)  if you aren't a Chess.com member yet, they offer free/basic membership (and other premium memberships).  To sign up for a basic (free) membership, go to:

                   https://www.chess.com/register

              and, then join the SWCC Club on Chess.com

(3)  Here is how you join the tournament on Thursday evening:

      You must have completed the above steps before the start time (7:00 pm).

      Then, there are three different ways to get into the tournament:

           * Click this direct link to the tournament:
                 https://www.chess.com/live#t=1174202

                                   or

           * Go to:  Connect > Clubs > Southwest Chess Club                                                   https://www.chess.com/club/southwest-chess-club

                                  or

            * Go to:  Play > Live >  Tournaments                                                                             (then choosing "Upcoming" or "In Progress")

                   (you choose "upcoming" if it's before 7:00 pm, or "in progress" if you arrive late)

(4)   Once you get to the tournament you must click on the "Join" button (link).

Now you are in the "playing hall".  Again, you should do this before the designated start time.  At the start time (or shortly thereafter) the site will create pairings and players will be thrust into their games.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please email allenbecker@wi.rr.com if you have suggestions for future events.  We will have "Action" events (Game/20, for example) and "Blitz" (Game 3 with 4-second increment, e.g.).  Your input is welcome.  Also, if anyone would like to help out (becoming an "Admin" so you can help run these events) let Allen Becker know.

If you run into any snags on Thursday night, feel free to email Allen, or text/call:  414-807-0269

WHOA! Is St. Corona Taking Revenge Upon the Italians...

Holy Hathor!  My partner in Goddesschess since about forever - Georgia a/k/a Isis a/k/a my honorary Sis, sent me this article on - you guess it - SAINT CORONA.  She's got her own portrait in the pantheon of Catholic saints (Corona, not Isis):

Source: Article from Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, March 18, 2020

Some very interesting references below.  For instance, Corona's name in Latin means "crown," and of course we know that the corona virus was named for it's "crownlike" shape.  One of the footnotes below indicates that the Greeks call her Stefania or Stephana, for "crown," as well.  Is there more to this story than meets the eye?

Issued by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Michigan on March 18, 2020 at their website (who KNEW!):

SAINT CORONA, PATRONESS OF PANDEMICS, PRAY FOR US!

It’s incredible but it’s seemingly true – there is a Saint Corona and she is one of the patrons of pandemics. Saint Corona, pray for us!

Saint Corona is thought to have lived in 2nd century Syria under Roman occupation. She was only 15-years-old when she professed her Christian Faith during the persecution of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

According to legend, Saint Corona was arrested and tied by her feet to the tops of two palm trees which were bent to the ground. When the palms were let loose she was torn apart.

It is reported that Saint Corona is especially venerated in Austria and Bavaria as the patron saint against epidemics. Her mortal remains are now housed in the city of Anzu in northern Italy, the epicenter of the recent outbreak of Coronavirus in Europe. Her feast day is May 14.

Source: Gloria.TV More at: https://gloria.tv/post/Lk7WSGqUS6Dz292AELsUmP4mM

Okay, so after thinking about this for about 2 seconds, I headed to Google to find out more about this mysterious goddess, er, saint, I'd never heard of.  Interesting, very interesting, mostly for what the article DIDN'T say, as opposed to what it DID say:

First of all, darlings, there were TWO saints - you guessed it - the female AND a male.  And not just any male, mind you, this male happened to be a friend of Corona's husband.  Or maybe they were actually married.  Or - who knows? 

From the Wikipedia article on Saints Victor and Corona (why does HE get top billing?  SEXIST!)

Saints Victor and Corona are two Christian martyrs. Most sources state that they were killed in Roman Syria during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (170s AD). However, various hagiographical texts disagree about the site of their martyrdom, with some stating that it was Damascus, while Coptic sources state that it was Antioch. Some Western sources state that Alexandria or Sicily was their place of martyrdom. They also disagree about the date of their martyrdom. They may have been martyred during the reign of Antoninus, Diocletian, while the Roman Martyrology states that it was in the third century when they met their death.^[1] Saint Corona was popular in folk treasure magic, being called upon by a treasure hunter to bring treasure, and then sent away through a similarly elaborate ritual.^[2]

Their legend states that Victor was a Roman soldier of Italian ancestry, serving in the city of Damascus in Roman Syria during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius. He was tortured - including having his eyes gouged out.

While he was suffering from these tortures, the sixteen-year-old spouse of one of his brothers-in-arms, named Corona,^[3] comforted and encouraged him. For this, she was arrested and interrogated. According to the passio of Corona, which is considered largely fictional, Corona was bound to two bent palm trees and torn apart as the trunks were released.

Victor was beheaded in Damascus in 160 AD.

Other sources state that they were husband and wife.^[4]

Victor and Corona's memorial day is 24 November (11 November in the Orthodox church calendar). Their feast day is 14 May. Outside the town of Feltre on the slopes of Mount Miesna is the church of SS. Vittore e Corona, erected by the Crusaders from Feltre after the First Crusade.

Corona is especially venerated in Austria and eastern Bavaria. She is invoked in connection with superstitions involving money, such as gambling or treasure hunting.^[5]

Otto III, around AD 1000, brought Corona's relics to Aachen.

Notes

1. ^ Santi Vittore e Corona
2. ^ Dillinger, Johannes (2011). Magical Treasure Hunting in Europe and North America. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 89–90. ISBN 0230000045.
3. ^ Also known as Stefania, Stephana, a Greek translation of her Latin name, meaning "crown"
4. ^ Saint Patrick's Church: Saints of May 14
5. ^ St. Victor and Corona, Catholic Online, 2020. Retrieved 17 March 2020.

What instantly jumped out was that NOWHERE in the Wikipedia information presented on either saint is there anything having to do with pandemics or miraculous healings of the sick and turning away of disease.  Instead, Corona is connected to TREASURE HUNTING and "superstitions involving money, such as gambling."  SAY WHAT?  So, the Roman Catholic Church condones people praying to a Saint for help in treasure hunting and gambling.  Hmmm....

Darlings - I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!  And not a word about poor eyeless Saint Victor.  What does he do - hit Corona up for money when he's broke?

Another article stated that Corona's remains were located in in a basilica in the city of Anzu, Italy, since the 9th century (agrees with the Diocese of Lansing article above).  Note that Anzu is located in northern Italy, the same area where COVID-19 first spread like a wildfire in the country.  Anzu's location is noted by the star logo within the white circle in the map, below.  You can see it's location vis a vis Verona, Padua, and Venice.  

Basilica Santuario dei Ss. Vittore e Corona, Anzu, Italy
Source:  Trip Advisor

An article at Aleteia alluded to Corona's connection to pandemics: "Several readers have asked us about St. Corona being a patron saint to invoke against epidemics. This can be verified in various German-language sources, as this particular aspect of devotion to her is most common in Austria and Bavaria."

Here's another interesting article on Corona, in which a Catholic priest says that Corona was the sister-in-law of Victor.  

After I read the Diocese of Lansing article and found this reference to Corona's connection to epidemics, I couldn't help but wonder if, in the mysterious ways of the universe, in all its irony, there was somehow a connection between the events now unfolding in Italy and the events that unfolded over a thousand years ago at the hands of the Roman Empire in a distant foreign land.  It is no secret that outside of China Italy has been the hardest hit country by COVID-19.  

That being said, I'm going to keep my eye on May 14th this year, the "Feast Day" for Corona and Victor.  Who knows, maybe something miraculous will happen.  We sure could use it.

Chess Collectors International Biennial Congress in St. Louis Postponed to September 2020

Here is the communique in full, received this evening:

Dear CCI Members, and other Chess Friends,

It has been a difficult decision, but with Coronavirus-related closures and travel restrictions worsening by the day, I'm afraid we must bow to the inevitable, and postpone CCI's 19th Biennial Congress (currently scheduled for May 27-31) until September 2-6, 2020.

This new date is provisional, of course.  If the pandemic is not over by that time, obviously we might have to postpone it further, or even cancel it altogether.  We should know more as events continue to unfold over the spring and summer.  But this new date has several advantages.  It is Labor Day weekend here in the States (Labor Day itself is actually on the 7th), a holiday that should help boost our USA attendance, to say the least.  The heat of summer will have broken, but for parents of small children, school will not yet have started.  We have just received word from the Chase Park Plaza that the room rate will remain the same, making our luxury hotel a real bargain over the holiday weekend.

Later in September does not work for us, as we have other collecting conferences to attend (assuming things have returned to a state of normalcy by that time).  Luann and I can’t very well organize a meeting that we ourselves would be unable to attend.

Some have suggested holding the meeting in November or even next year, but again, we start running into conflicts with other societies, and we are having a hard time imagining that the pandemic will still be raging in September.  If it is, we will all have much bigger problems than attending a CCI meeting.

One further significant advantage of Labor Day weekend is that the WCHOF museum exhibition, “Dare to Know:  Chess in the Age of Reason” will still be running.  It is not possible to delay the meeting until next year and still expect to see this exhibition.  Remember, we will have an Enlightenment theme for this meeting.  So many of our planned activities and lectures revolve around this theme that if the meeting must be postponed until next year, we might as well not have it at all.  This particular exhibition has always been central to our planning of this particular meeting.  They are joined at the hip.

At this point, the WCHOF is moving forward with work on "Dare to Know" with help from Luann and me, who are loaning a large part of our personal collection to be put on display.  However, the planned opening date of April 8th is currently in limbo, since the WCHOF has just closed its galleries to the public until further notice.  I don’t believe they are planning to open a show in a closed gallery, with no one there to view it, but we will just have to wait and see how this all plays out.  For now, just keep in mind that the meeting Luann and I have been planning has always, and will always, revolve around “Dare to Know” (which will cover the years from roughly 1700 through 1830).  Without this exhibition, we really don’t have a meeting to offer you.

This is not just any ordinary museum exhibition.  In addition to sets, boards, books and other artifacts from our own collection, other contributors to "Dare to Know" are scheduled to include the following:

Collection of Dr. George and Vivian Dean

Collection of Dr. Thomas Thomsen

Collection of Jon Crumiller

Collection of Phil Brykman

Collection of António Horta-Osório

Collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia

If all goes according to plan, there will be antique chess sets of truly global importance in this exhibition, particularly those from the Dean collection, many of which have never been exhibited before, anywhere.  The Library Company of Philadelphia is sending us the last known remnants of Wolfgang von Kempelen's Turk, the legendary chess automaton which debuted at the court of Empress Maria Theresa in 1770, and was destroyed in a museum fire in 1854.  The world-shaking Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert will be there (a set of the true first editions, 35 vols. published 1751-1780), along with a genuine Encyclopédie chess set to go with it.  And much, much more.

Assuming this Coronavirus pandemic does not result in the end of the world as we know it, we are bound and determined to present this historic exhibition to you at our earliest opportunity, which right now looks like it should be in early September.

Therefore, we hope you can keep your travel plans flexible and join us in St. Louis over Labor Day weekend.  For obvious reasons, our registration deadline (currently March 31) is hereby extended to the end of July.  If you have already registered for the May meeting and paid your fees, and you absolutely cannot attend the Labor Day postponement, just let us know, and we will have our Treasurer Bill Fordney issue you a full refund.  (If the meeting becomes impossible to hold at all due to global events, everyone who registered and paid fees will receive a full refund.)

As we are using a BCC format to comply with European privacy rules, may I please ask the following:

WEBMASTERS:  Please post this to CCI and all other related websites (GSM, Goddesschess, CH&LS, etc.).

NEWSLETTERS:  Jim and Duncan, please publish this in the next issues of The Chess Collector and CCI-USA.

MICHAEL WILTSHIRE:  Please forward this on to the European membership.  (You have my previous list of who these have already gone to.)

Please stay tuned for further updates as they occur.  And thank you for your patience and understanding during this difficult time.  Stay safe and stay healthy!

Best Wishes,

Tom Gallegos &

Luann Woneis,

Organizers

CHESS COLLECTORS INTERNATIONAL

We Have a Coronavirus of Cheating in Chess. Geez Louise!

From The New York Times.

Think Cheating in Baseball is Bad?  Try Chess

Smartphones, buzzers, even yogurt - chess has nearly seen it all in both live and online tournaments.  And just as in baseball, technology only makes it harder to root out.

By David Waldstein
March 15, 2019

Until the sports world ground to a halt last week over the coronavirus outbreak, perhaps the biggest issue looming over professional sports in the United States was the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal. The revelations of their scheme led Major League Baseball’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, to deliver a stern warning to all 30 club owners that there was a “culture of cheating” in the game.

But baseball’s malfeasance — sign-stealing or otherwise — has nothing on chess. At prestigious live tournaments and among thousands of others playing daily online, cheating is a scourge.

Whether it’s a secret buzzer planted in a shoe, a smartphone smuggled into the bathroom, a particular flavor of yogurt delivered at a key moment — or just online players using computerized chess programs — chess has perhaps more cheating than any other game in the world.

"Of course it is a problem,” said Leinier Domínguez, the Cuban-born player currently ranked No. 1 in the United States. “Because with all the advances in technology, it’s always a possibility. People have more chances and opportunities to do this sort of thing."

In both chess and baseball, both real and rumored instances of cheating have been around for decades, but an explosion in technology and data over the past 10 to 15 years has made the problem much harder to curb for both.

The Astros’ scheme, which helped propel them to the 2017 World Series title, involved illegally deciphering the signs of opposing catchers via a live video feed and then banging on a trash can to signal the next pitch to the batter. M.L.B. is now grappling with how to prevent similar electronic-based schemes in the future.

In chess, players at live tournaments are now required to leave their phones behind and pass through metal detectors before entering the playing area. Some have even been asked to remove clothing and been searched. And some tournaments now put players behind one-way mirrors to limit visual communication.

But, like the Astros, many chess players still try.

Just last year, a grandmaster named Igors Rausis was caught examining a smartphone in a bathroom stall at a tournament in France. In 2015, Gaioz Nigalidze of Georgia was barred for three years by FIDE, chess’s global governing body, and had his grandmaster status revoked for the same offense.

FIDE’s anti-cheating commission has recently stepped up its efforts to combat the problem. The group met last month and resolved to give financial support to national federations that need it to help them root out cheating, and will share detection techniques with online chess platforms. They are currently investigating 20 cases.

"The cheaters have been winning for a long time,” Arkady Dvorkovich, the president of FIDE, said in a telephone interview from Moscow. “But in the last few months we showed our determination to fight it and I think people realize it is serious.’"

In 2013, Borislav Ivanov, a young player from Bulgaria, was essentially forced into retirement after he refused to take off his shoes to be searched for an electronic device that might be used to transmit signals to him. A device was never found — Ivanov reportedly refused to remove his shoes because, he claimed, his socks were too smelly — but he retired shortly after the tournament.

Nemesis Strikes Trump - and We All Suffer

Hola darlings!  I hope you are all safe and secure and paying more attention to the directives of the CDC and your own doctors than anyone else.  We are living in "interesting times," as the ancient apocryphal Chinese curse stated.  

As you know, I am a lifelong student of history, particularly ancient history, and have long been enamored with and enraptured by the Great Goddess herself.  She has taken on many different forms throughout her eternal life, one of them being a particularly frightening aspect to those who are abusers of one of the Great Mother's principles of Justice (Justice, as a concept, is itself embodied as a mighty Goddess wearing a blindfold, holding scales in one hand and wielding a sword in the other to strike down the unrighteous and unjust).

From Wikipedia's entry under "Nemesis:"

In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis, also called Rhamnousia or Rhamnusua ("the goddess of Rhamnous"), is the goddess who enacts retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods.)

Lo and behold, that "woman" I have long been predicting would be the one to take Trump down since his stolen election in 2016 is now making her presence known in a particularly agonizing and costly way.  (I generally try to keep politics out of Goddesschess, but I wield my sword of opinions on  numerous topics primarily political on several different websites and comment boards that have no relation to Goddesschess.  

Over the next several months as we tick down to an election in November - we will, each and every one of us, be a forced audience to just how cruel retribution toward the excessive hubris and mental instability of one man who dared to think he was above everyone, including the Great Goddess herself, can be.  Sadly, it will envelope and destroy the lives of many who do not deserve to die.  Every death from COVID-19 that occurs in the United States, I lay at the feet of Donald J. Trump himself.

This is an opinion piece published in The New York Times, by Bret Stephens, March 13, 2020:

Trump Meets Nemesis, Punisher of Hubris
A virus exposes the folly of what a President's base believes.

The word “nemesis” is too often misused. We tend to think of it as meaning a powerful, nefarious, but ultimately conquerable enemy: Vader; Voldemort; the Wicked Witch of the West. But the original Nemesis was not a villain. She was a goddess — an implacable agent of justice who gives the arrogant, insolent and wicked what they deserve.

As a matter of public health, nobody should ever suggest that the novel coronavirus represents any form of justice, divine or otherwise. It’s a virus that must be stopped.

As a matter of politics, however, it’s hard to think of a mechanism so uniquely well-suited for exposing the hubris, ignorance, prejudice, mendacity and catastrophic self-regard of the president who is supposed to lead us through this crisis.

A few points to mention.

Alternative facts. In recent days, conservative pundits appear to have been scandalized by the suggestion that the coronavirus is Donald Trump’s Chernobyl. They miss the point, which is not that the virus is a nuclear furnace. It’s that the same absence of trust that pervaded the relationship between the Soviet regime and its people also pervades the relationship between much of America and its president.

A leader who cannot be believed will not be followed, even, or especially, in periods of emergency. If Trump’s supporters now wonder why Americans won’t rally around the president as they did around George W. Bush after 9/11, there’s the answer.

America First. Trump didn’t fail to insert his favorite catchphrase into his speech on Wednesday. As usual, it managed to combine jingoism with bad policy. Instead of boasting, he could have learned from South Korea how to test better. Instead of trying to talk down the threat, he could have learned from Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to speak about it far more honestly. Instead of offering rosy guesses of what the ultimate case fatality rate might be, he could have learned from Germany’s Angela Merkel to teach Americans some sobering math. [Note from me:  For those of you who may not have heard, Chancellor Merkel told the German people in an address to the nation to prepare for an infection rate of between 60% to 70% of the entire population.]

Putting America First — a slogan — first, means putting Americans — real ones — last.  [Note from me:  Some may not want to believe this and argue vehemently otherwise, but it was disgusting privilege that people like Representative Gaetz and Representative Meadows, as well as Senator Lindsey Graham were all able to get COVID-19 tested even though they exhibited NO symptoms of the disease, while countless average Americans, obviously sick, have been refused testing because they do not meet restricted protocols coupled with the shameful shortage of tests that DID NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN!  The severe shortage of test kits can be traced directly to decisions made by Trump, and nobody else.]

Build the wall. “The virus remains low-risk domestically because of the containment actions taken by this administration since the first of the year.” So said a White House spokesman late last month, following the president’s monomaniacal belief that there’s hardly a problem in America that can’t be fixed by building a wall, shutting a port, booting a migrant, imposing a tariff, or blaming a foreigner — right down to a “foreign virus.”

Except that containment turned out to have dwindling returns once the virus moved beyond China, squandering time and resources while creating a false sense of geographic immunity. Had the White House abandoned its ideological obsession a month ago and instead urged or mandated social distancing from the start, we’d be in a better place now.  [Note from me:  Nothing like bragging about closing the barn door after all the animals already ran out!]

Drain the swamp. The administration’s other core belief is that America is in the evil grip of the “administrative state.” But while it’s one thing to pare federal bloat and curb bureaucratic overreach, what we have now is a White House that can’t distinguish between muscle and fat, essential government and excess.

Hence the disconnect between the president’s airy promise that the coronavirus test is available to all who need it, and the sobering reality that kits are in critically low supply. Hence also the astonishing congressional testimony this week by the White House’s acting budget director that he’s sticking to his proposal to slash the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of broader cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services.  [Note from me:  It appears the Trump regime's reasoning is something like this:  Let the old folks and the sickies DIE already.  We'll save on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  Voila - our budget problems are fixed.  Hey - how about another tax cut for the top one percent!]

Very stable genius. Millions of Trump’s supporters aren’t blind to the president’s clownishness and ignorance. But they’ve been relatively indifferent to both, because they find the first entertaining and the second irrelevant to his overall performance. Who cares what a president knows about epidemiology, so long as the markets are up?

They care now. The coronavirus has exposed the falsehood of so many notions Trump’s base holds about the presidency: that experts are unnecessary; that hunches are a substitute for knowledge; that competence in administration is overrated; that every criticism is a hoax; and that everything that happens in Washington is B.S. Above all, it has devastated the conceit that having an epic narcissist in the White House is a riskless proposition at a time of extreme risk.

Will Trump’s declaration of a national emergency change this? 

Maybe, and the president has a belated opportunity to demonstrate seriousness he has lacked so far. But nobody should forget that such seriousness would only be a function of political expediency. Should coronavirus recede in warmer weather, you can depend on Trump to declare his premature victory — not warn that winter is coming.

It should not have had to take a deadly virus to expose this presidency for what it is. But it’s fitting that it has. A man who thinks he can twist every truth to suit his needs has at last discovered that he cannot twist the truths of nature and of one of nature’s gods. Her name remains Nemesis.