China's "Mona Lisa" on Display in Hong Kong

It's Sunday, time for a little "culture" :) I found this an interesting article, particularly the mention about the last emperor of China being captured by the Soviets at the end of WWII.

New York Times

Art and Design

‘China’s Mona Lisa’ Makes a Rare Appearance in Hong Kong

By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: July 3, 2007

HONG KONG, July 2 — Politics and art don’t always mix well, but the combination has yielded a rare chance for Hong Kong residents and visitors to see what is arguably China’s most famous painting.

Trying to foster nationalistic pride in China’s heritage among Hong Kong residents, the Chinese government has sent 32 artworks here for an exhibition to mark the 10th anniversary of Britain’s return of Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997. Among them is Zhang Zeduan’s “Along the River During the Qingming Festival,” a scroll painted in the early 12th century.

“Qingming Festival” is famous partly for its involvement over centuries in palace intrigues, theft and wars, and partly for its detailed, geometrically accurate images of bridges, wine shops, sedan chairs and boats beautifully juxtaposed with flowing lines for the depiction of mountains and other natural scenery. It is routinely covered in courses on Chinese history, art and culture, across China and in the West.

“The ‘Qingming Festival’ is probably the single most widely known work in China,” said Marc F. Wilson, a Chinese specialist and the director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo.

He added that the painting was “like China’s Mona Lisa. ”

Because of its fragility, the scroll is seldom displayed, even in Beijing, and has never been lent for an overseas exhibition.

It was briefly exhibited in Shanghai in 2003, where it drew lines that snaked for a quarter-mile outside the museum, and in Shenyang, China, in 2005.

“Qingming Festival” and 15 other paintings and examples of calligraphy dating from the 6th to the 14th centuries are to remain on display through July 22. Another 16 works, dating from the 4th to the 16th centuries, will be on view from July 23 to Aug. 11.

Zheng Xinmiao, China’s vice minister of culture and the director of the Palace Museum in Beijing, described the works as “the highest grade of art ever shown” outside of China proper.

“Through all the turmoil of different dynasties, it is remarkable for these pieces to survive,” he said.

The purpose of the exhibition is clear from its title: “The Pride of China.” The Beijing government has sponsored a series of Chinese cultural events here this summer to foster Chinese identity in a population where many have seen themselves as citizens of Hong Kong first, and only secondarily as Chinese.

Yet one visitor, Ringo Lau, a 47-year-old consultant who attended the exhibition on Friday, the opening day, remarked: “I have no question I am Chinese. I don’t need this to enrich it.”

He said he had studied “Qingming Festival” and recalled that a bank branch near his boyhood home in Hong Kong displayed a large reproduction of part of the painting. Although only allowed to look at the painting itself for five minutes on Friday — guards enforce time limits for each group of visitors — he said he was satisfied.

“It’s detailed, it’s marvelous, it’s very colorful,” he said.

Like the Mona Lisa, “Qingming Festival” is to some extent famous for being famous.

The Mona Lisa became a household word partly because it was stolen from the Louvre in August 1911. The theft and subsequent sale of forgeries passed off as the real painting set off a frenzy of news coverage, as well as songs and even cabaret acts, until the original was recovered in Italy in December 1913.

“Qingming Festival” has been famous since the 14th century, when forgeries began to circulate, said Tang Hing-sun, an assistant curator of the Hong Kong Museum of Art who helped organize the exhibition here.
Forgers could pass off their copies as the original partly because the original was repeatedly stolen or misappropriated from the imperial collection, starting as early as the 1340s. It kept showing up in the hands of wealthy, influential families, from whom emperors repeatedly recovered it when they confiscated estates during disputes.

Qiu Ying, a 16th-century artist, established a reputation for painting beautiful copies of “Qingming Festival,” prompting forgers even to begin producing forgeries of his copies.

The Nationalists moved the cream of the imperial collection to Taiwan shortly before losing the civil war to the Communists in 1949. But through a quirk of history, “Qingming Festival” had been separated from the rest of the collection and stayed on the mainland.

The last emperor, Pu Yi, quietly took the painting with him when forced to leave the Forbidden City in 1924. The Japanese military later installed him as the puppet ruler of Manchuria; caught by the Soviet Army at the end of World War II, he still had the painting.

The Soviets handed over the painting to a bank in northeastern China for safekeeping. It stayed there until 1950, when it was transferred to a nearby museum and later to Beijing.

With such a convoluted history, there is the theoretical possibility that a forgery was substituted at some point. The National Palace Museum in Taipei takes pride in holding 10 ancient copies of the original “Qingming Festival” in its collection.

But art scholars agree that the Palace Museum in Beijing does indeed own the original. The style and materials of the scroll — ink on silk — are consistent with work from the 12th century, and the many chops, or seals, of its owners over the years are accurate.

“There’s no question of what it is,” said Mr. Wilson, who was not involved in producing the current exhibition.

For art lovers, the question may be whether “Qingming Festival” is being shown too frequently: this is its third exhibition in five years. The National Palace Museum in Taipei restricts the showing of comparably old paintings to 40 days at a time, followed by at least three years in storage.

The Hong Kong Museum of Art has tried to manage the crowds and protect the art by having visitors pass through a series of galleries adorned with large reproductions and texts on “Qingming Festival” before they reach the scroll itself. The heavily guarded painting is exhibited in a long, thick-sided display case in a gallery with the lights kept fairly low.

Visitors are admitted in groups and are shooed along after the five-minute viewing. Tickets must be bought in advance for specific times.

The Hong Kong Museum of Art is trying to err on the side of caution in handling the crowds, as any mishap would be a national incident in China.
“From an historic and artistic perspective, these are treasures,” said Tang Hoi-chiu, the chief curator.

"Along the River During the Qingming Festival” is at the Hong Kong Museum of Art through July 22. Information: lcsd.gov .hk/hkma. Other loans run through Aug. 11.

Where Is AF4C In It's Own Home Town?

Isn’t Seattle where America’s Foundation for Chess got it’s start??? What the heck is going on here – why aren’t these kids in a program funded by AF4C??? Did Eric Anderson run out of money??? Seattle Times July 1, 2007 Chess club teaches kids skills to play and live by By Tricia Duryee Seattle Times staff reporter Jacob Lewis, 7, watches intently as his opponent gets help from Seattle Police Officer Denise "Cookie" Bouldin at Rainier Beach Library's Urban Youth Chess Club on Saturday. Amauri Boss didn't want the chess club at Rainier Beach Library to end for the summer, so the 10-year-old wrote a letter. "The letter said I enjoy coming to the chess club, and I think that it should keep going in the summer and even next year," he said Saturday during the club's championship. Boss sent the letter to Seattle Police Officer Denise "Cookie" Bouldin, who organized the club as part of her job as a community liaison. Last year, Bouldin said, she held a basketball tournament to provide activities for South-end youths, but this year, she asked the kids what they wanted, and they said chess. "It is still a surprise to me, as well as everyone else, but I think the kids wanted people to know they aren't just about basketball," she said. Since February, Cookie's Urban Chess Club has met every Saturday for two hours. At first, only three kids showed, but soon, 15 to 25 kids — ages 5 to 16 — started attending, she said. To teach the game, Bouldin recruited volunteer David Delgado, a youth counselor and chess coach. Delgado said chess teaches the important life skill of evaluating situations before making quick decisions. "Seattle is missing chess. I grew up on the East Coast, and every city has a chess park. This city doesn't have that, and chess kept me from a lot of negative things," he said. On the final day, about 15 kids showed up. Each child received a bright yellow T-shirt and a trophy that said "Make chess not war." Anika Brown, 7, sat down to play Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, who was there to congratulate the children on completing the program. Anika was so small she had to kneel in her chair to reach some of the chess pieces, but Kerlikowske admitted defeat. "She pulled it off," he said. On the opposite side of the table, competition was just as intense. Seven-year-old Jacob Lewis told his opponent, 5-year-old Nile Hunter: "I can beat you in four moves." Anika's father, Daryl, who said all four of his kids have attended the club, said the game offers something that athletic sports don't: "It is an equalizer. It's not about size. It's about how hard you work." And Amauri got his wish: The club will resume in August. Tricia Duryee: 206-464-3283 Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

The Eight - Trois

(Page 169) The Chess Master’s Tale (As recited by Philidor) At the age of nineteen, I left France and journeyed to Holland to accompany upon the hautebois, or oboe, a young pianist, a girl who, as a child prodigy, was to perform there. Unfortunately I arrived to discover the child had died a few days earlier of smallpox. I was stranded in a foreign country with no money and now no hope of an income. To support myself, I went to the coffee houses and played chess. From the age of fourteen, I’d studied chess under the tutelage of the famous Sire de Legal, France’s best player and perhaps the finest in Europe. By eighteen I could beat him with the handicap of a Knight. As a result, as I soon discovered, I could better every player I encountered. In The Hague, during the Battle of Fontenoy, I played against the Price of Waldeck as the battle raged around us. I traveled through England, playing at Slaughter’s Coffee House in London against the best players they had to offer, including Sir Abraham Janssen and Philip Stamma, beating them all. Stamma, a Syrian possibly of Moorish ancestry, had published several books on chess. He showed these to me, as well as books written by La Bourdonnais and Marechal Saxe. Stamma thought that I, with my unique powers of play, should write a book as well. My book, published several years later, was entitled Analyse du Jeu des Eschecs. In it I proposed the theory "The pawns are the soul of chess." In effect, I showed that the pawns were not only objects to be sacrificed, but could be used strategically and positionally against the opposing player. This book created a revolution in chess.

2007 U.S. Women's Chess Championship - Airapetian

WFM Chouchanik Airapetian 2162 (FIDE)

C.A. participated in the 2007 U.S. Championship (it is not so designated and is open to qualifying players of both sexes, but I call it the "Men’s" event because that’s what it is, de facto) but did not do very well, scoring only 1.5/9.

She’s an underdog in the Women’s Championship, being one of the lower-rated players, but she’s a fighter, and I expect we’ll see some exciting games from C.A.

I got the following biographical information from the USCF website:

Chouchanik (b. April 20, 1975) originates from Leninakan, Armenia and learned the royal game from her mother at the age of seven. A talented youngster, she earned a place at the Armenian national team and eventually represented Armenia during the Women's Interzonal tournament, a qualification tournament for the Women's World Championship, in Georgia,1993.

Arapetian came to the U.S. in August, 1994. Chouchanik lives in Burbank, California with her husband, a former member of the Armenian national volleyball team. Among her hobbies are swimming, tennis, and shopping.

A longer biography on C.A. can be found at this Chessbase article (written by Duif) from October 2, 2005, along with several photographs of C.A. and her husband, Ararat Agaian.

In the 2005 Championships C.A. finished with 3.5 points (54th out of 64 players), winning $2,400 for her performance.

You can find some of C.A.’s games here.

Friday Night Miscellany

Hola Darlings! Man oh man, it is HOT and HUMID out there. Yech! After bussing it from downtown (where I work) and trekking a half mile from the bus stop to the supermarket, and then lugging home 16 pounds of groceries (I have it down to an art - I can carry eight pounds in bags dangling from each hand) and walking the mile home, I am pooped! And sweaty - double yech! I am very girly when it comes to sweat - I hate it, even though it is designed to cool one off. I just get drippy and my make-up starts to run, I don't get any cooler. So tonight I'm just winging it while I sit front and center next to the cooling vent and slowly decompress (and dry off). I'm taking the night almost-off! I wanted to mention first off about Susan Polgar's appearance and involvement with the 2007 Canadian Youth Championship. All those great photographs she's had posted at her blog makes me want to visit Ottawa. My significant other is a Canadian and a few years ago we talked about taking a road tour to Ottawa, I think I'll resurrect the subject :) It looks like a lovely city. I think it's just great that Susan Polgar has made herself so accessible to the young chess players, as well as giving lectures and simuls and signing autographs and advice - whew! The CYC is just the latest in a string of events that she has been involved in. The woman is a whirlwind! I may not always agree with her views or some of her actions, but I do admire her and have a great deal of respect for her, both for her accomplishments (which are myriad) and for her personal integrity. Although I do not know her personally and have never met her, I also find her to be a warm woman, and a committed and caring and passionate woman. Those qualities come through in her posts and photographs. She'd be someone really nice to get a hug from if you needed one, and someone you could always rely upon to cover your back in battle - er, just everyday life. Moving on - I received the July edition of Chess Life Magazine in the mail today. I've just been flipping through it here and there. It's fabulous that the cover this month is of Jesse Krai, who at age 34 recently earned his third and final GM norm. WAY TO GO JESSE! He is also, as the cover by-line reads, the first American-born person in TEN FRICKING YEARS to earn a GM title. Well, it doesn't exactly say that - but that's the point it makes! Okay - I'm a little emotional over the subject, I'll admit. We have 300 million people in the USA and at least some of them have been BORN here - why aren't we producing more GMs (of both sexes)? (Darlings - that was a rhetorical question...) Just skimming through Jennifer Shahade's interview with Jesse on page 25, he was pleased to note "that I could still do well with the ladies and ride my bike around!" (even though he was "materially poor"). Well yes of course, darling! Some women prefer guys with great legs, and biking gives a man great legs. My own main man bikes all over Montreal and environs and has really great legs :) (Gee, maybe I shouldn't write that, he may get embarrassed - oh, what the heck). Back on page 8, in an article about the Fairfield Knights chess team of Fairfield High School in Ohio - I noted only one girl in the photograph of a group of "fans" that includes nine bare-chested teenaged boys who have no business going shirtless because they just don't have the physiques for it :) She was fully dressed, by the way, and quite cute, too. Alas, what kind of role-models do those shirtless boys - who painted letters on their under-developed chests spelling out "CHECK MATE" - have? They are only emulating what they see on television during football season - grown men who should know better parade around half-naked and painted in NFL stadiums all across the land. LOL and blech! I'd really rather not see all those shots of gelantinous blobs of men who need bras, serious diets and liposuction. Now here's a thought - if a baby was hungry and needed milk, could a man with such breasts nurse, do you think? With a blanket thrown over the offending boob, of course! We wouldn't want to offend anyone's sensibilities, after all... You know, I'm sure I read a story somewhere - perhaps the National Inquirer? - about just such a man who, under dire circumstances, nursed an infant from his man boobs. Hmmm... Getting back to that article on page 8 of Chess Life - the article was "signed" by one Jonathan Hilton and he has a sense of humor, yippee! He actually led off the article with a "cheer" regarding Bobby Fischer that was performed at one time or other on Saturday Night Live. I don't recall ever seeing the cheer performed but just reading the words - and being familiar with the zanies who have populated the show over the years - I was laughing out loud "seeing" it performed in my mind's eye. This introduction caught my attention and I read the rest of the article to find it very interesting - and well done. Okay - one more entry while my bubble bath is filling up - I'll go back and read the entire article later on but I have to mention the ending to the "All Girls' National Again a Success" article on pages 36-37 by Betsy Dynako which ends "If you looked at the sea of chess players studying moves while in dresses and pigtails, many with stuffed animals at their side, it may lead you to believe that the players are weak. Most boys would consider those "girly" things a sign of weakness, ..." Well, the only photograph of the event in the article shows NO girls with pigtails and they are wearing teeshirts (probably with jeans or shorts). As for the stuffed animals "on the side," if it's good enough for Judith Polgar, it's good enough for me, darlings!

Could this be Xi Wang Mu - Queen Mother of the West?

Xi Wang Mu (Hsi Wang Mu) is the Queen Mother of the West, the Chinese Daoist goddess of immortality. Many legends have been written about Xi Wang Mu; in some, she hands out beautiful ripe peaches to worthy mortals who, when they eat the fruit, attain the gift of everlasting life. In some legends, Xi Wang Mu started out her life as a mortal woman who achieved everlasting life by mastering a series of tests; in still older legends, Xi Wang Mu was a goddess or the instrument of the primary Chinese mother goddess who inflicted terror and vengence on men, a fearsome creature who is part woman, part tiger. Xi Wang Mu shares many characteristics with other goddesses during the ancient times, including the Egyptian goddesses Isis and Hathor, the Assyrian goddess Astarte (Ashtoroth or Ashtoreth) and the Babylonian goddess Inanna.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties in particular (220 BCE - 206 BCE and 206 BCE - 220 CE), the Goddess Xi Wang Mu became closely identified with the board game liubo (literally "six sticks"). Liubo was first mentioned in events in the Shang dynasty (1600-1028 BCE), some six to twelve centuries after the invention of Weiqi ("Go"), but it died out from popular by the 5th century CE.

Some authors have suggested that liubo was an ancestor of Xiangqi - Chinese Chess; others see no connection, and others still say the evidence is insufficient to say either way.

When I saw this photograph, I was reminded of certain depictions of Xi Wang Mu, one of her titles of whom is "Queen of the Heavens." Here is the story of the photograph:

July 3, 2007
Metaphysical China: Buddha/Mary calling?

Some odd news from the nation's favourite English paper today:

A human-shaped shadow in the middle of a rainbow halo appears on Zushan Mountain after a heavy rainfall in Qinhuangdao, North China's Heibei Province, July 1, 2007. The vision, which many tourists believed to be the Buddha, stayed for more than an hour. Meanwhile, it seems a revered shrine in Henan that has attracted 40,000 pilgrims annually on news of Marian apparitions may be torn down for "illegal religious activity". Hmm.

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There is a scientific explanation for the phenomenon called "brocken spectre." But I think I prefer my explanation - it's a manifestation of the Goddess...

Sounds Like a Chess Politician to Me...

(Background: This is a story of the aftermath of what is called an 'eminent domain' proceeding, where a governmental authority condemns land for a public use, paying just compensation based on market value to the property owner. You'll see once you start reading the article that Mr. Biddy - I'm not making that name up - sounds an awful lot like one or more chess politicians we all know and don't love...) It was all a chess game Letters Article Launched: 07/05/2007 03:01:43 AM EDT Thursday, July 5 for Mr. Biddy My wife will look at me and ask how you can be so naive. A perfect example would be: Early on in the TAM transfer station debate, to use a Select Board member's strategy, I was told by someone. Mr. Biddy had stated to TAM that for a million dollars he would go away, I thought, how ridiculous. The town of Shaftsbury embarked upon the single biggest issue since the mining of Hale Mountain. The Select Board, Zoning Board, Planning Board and Solid Waste Committee spent thousands of hours looking at this project. Not really sure how many hours were spent by the Shaftsbury Committee for Responsible Growth. Right in the middle of the debate was Mr. Biddy. After all, Mr. Biddy had his entire life on the line. His home was going to have this impact. A building that Mr. Biddy himself wrote to the listers was falling down around him. People on the boards were very professional in not asking Mr. Biddy where he really was living. Mr. Biddy was more often than not a very sarcastic participant. I was included among those who were insulted by Mr. Biddy. I am amazed to this day that Mr. Trevor Mance didn't file a defamation of character (suit) against him. As a result of Mr. Biddy's actions, our own Select Board (some members) questioned the integrity of our own DRB. People who were trying to do the best they could under the law. I should also mention the time spent by the Act 250 Committee and state people who were called upon. In the meantime Shaftsbury taxpayers continued to pour money into the legal fray brought on by Mr. Biddy. Why am I bringing this all up now? The transfer station is up and running. The Selectman and TAM have been working out some of the kinks of the transfer station. It bothers me that this was all a method for Mr. Biddy to end up with $290,000. As Mr. Biddy stated, "It's all a chess game." I must say that I have spent a week vacillating between anger and sadness for lack of a better word. I started the process by having a townwide meeting. I stood before everyone and said there would be a process. Even if you didn't like the process or agree with the outcome, everyone had the opportunity to speak. In the meantime Mr. Biddy was expounding on moral issues, environmental issues and our world's future. In reality it was all about $290,000. Mr. Biddy did win the chess game. Unfortunately, the losers in the game are our friends and family here in Shaftsbury. If Mr. Biddy has any integrity left, let's see if he pays back the taxpayers of Shaftsbury. WYNN METCALFE

2007 U.S. Women's Chess Championship - Baginskaite

(Baginskaite defeated Nakamura during the 2006 U.S. Chess Championships, photo right).

Ms. Baginskaite will be playing in the 2007 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship. She has a current rating of 2328(FIDE). Here is some background information on CB:
Biography from the old portion of the USCF website and from new portion of USCF website:

WGM Camilla Baginskaite was born in Vilnius, Lithuania on April 24, 1967 and learned to play chess from her father when she was about eight years old. Baginskaite finished third in the World Championships for Girls under 20 in 1987 and a year later Camilla won the event — a remarkable accomplishment considering it was only her second international tournament and her first outside the USSR. This victory earned her the international master (IM) title.

• She played first board for the Lithuanian women's team in three Olympiads (Manila, Moscow, Yerevan). In 1997, Camilla moved to the United States.
  
• Camilla is married to GM Alex Yermolinsky and they have a son named Edward.
  
• In 2000, CB won the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship title after defeating Elina Groberman in a play-off round.
  
• CB was NOT one of the members of the victorious U.S. Women’s Olympiad Team that won a Silver Medal for the USA at the 2004 Olympiad – our first ever Women’s Team Medal. She has, however, been a mainstay on our Women’s Olympiad teams, having played on the 2006 Team, which finished in 4th place in Turin, Italy (3.0/5), the 2002 team (5.5/11), and the 2000 team (5.5/10).
  

Some chess games of CB can be found here. Good luck to her in the upcoming championship!

Celebrate the 4th of July, Independence Day!

Today is Independence Day – July 4th. As it does every year on this day, my local newspaper published the full text of the Declaration of Independence. I’m really getting sappy and sentimental in my old age, darlings! Reading it over my morning coffee brought tears to my eyes. This is going to sound more like a paeon to Thanksgiving Day than July 4th, but it’s suitable to think about all the wonderful things that being a citizen of this country affords me.

I am FREE to worship as I please – or not - with no one holding a figurative (or literal) gun to my head to make me practice a particular religion. I am FREE to work in my chosen profession, to have a fulfilling career, and make a decent living at it. I have not been deprived of my right to seek an education, decent housing, vote or work simply because I am a woman. I have not been sexually mutilated simply because I am a woman. I have a loving, healthy family and great friends all around me, and a wonderful man who – despite all warnings to the contrary, loves me very much - and we’re all busy seeking our own particular paths to happiness and fulfillment – being FREE to do so! I have a nice home that I had built just for myself and paid for out of my own wages, and a beautiful yard that I designed and labored over and continue to work on – my gardens are a joy, this is my own little piece of Paradise. Despite unceasing reports of violent crime in the USA I do not own a gun, I have never taken a class in self-defense, and I do not fear to walk down the streets, take public transportation or to go about my daily routine.

I have as much clean water as I need – just by turning the taps, to drink, cook with and to bathe in; I have an excess abundance of foods and products to choose from at the supermarket, I can afford to eat meat and fresh vegetables and drink milk every day, if I wish. I have access to the best medical care in the world and I don’t worry about how I’m going to pay for it. If I want some new clothes or new shoes or a new crock pot, I go out and buy them – no problem – there are thousands of choices I can make just by travelling to the mall a mile away. Or I can simply order things online! It’s hot and muggy here today; with the flick of a switch I turn on central air conditioning and have cool dry air to comfort me; in the winter with the flick of a switch, I have heat.

I am FREE to argue as much or as little (or not at all) as I want about politics, religion, the price of gasoline and property taxes and public education, and I have no fear that I will be thrown in jail because of the views I express (despite George W. Bush’s best efforts and, thank goddess, he’ll be out of office soon).

Well, I could go on and on – but I think you get the point! I am one LUCKY woman. I could have been born in Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan, or Ghana. But I was born and raised in the USA – and I have a wonderful life in no small part just because of that fact!

I will never forget one night in Amsterdam, at the end of November, 2001, where I was attending a symposium of chess historians. We had a gala dinner evening and I chatted with attendees to my right, and to my left, and across the table too (we Americans have such bad manners, but they seemed to like me anyway). As the long meal progressed and as more drinks and beer were consumed, conversation loosened. The very nice gentleman to my right, who was a director at the Max Euwe Centrum where the symposium was being held, said I must be very very rich! I said no, not at all, I’m just a middle class person. But, he said, you must be rich, you own your own home – a big home. No, I said, it’s not so big, just about 1,600 square feet. He said, that is a BIG house, and you have three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a driveway and a garage big enough to hold two cars, and a big yard. Well, I said, it’s not all that big, it’s much smaller than average, actually, but I like it. And, he said, you live there all by yourself, shaking his head in disbelief. Yes, I said, that’s correct. You have no idea, he said, how rich you are. But, I said, you have a house too. Yes, he said, I do. It is a townhouse, with houses on either side, that go on block after block. There is no land, you see, for such gardens as you describe. And we do not have a garage, because we do not own a car, although some of the houses have put garages into the basements. But most people will not do that, only the very rich can afford to do that and one has to give up so much living space. Just for a car, no no. Only the very wealthy who own homes out in the country, have such a house and land as you describe, and most of them are not new, but are old, very old. And, until they died a few years ago, our parents shared the house with us, we could not have afforded to buy it otherwise.

Well, I said, I guess I am rich.

The Eight - Deux

(page 168) "Montglane, did you say?" said Philidor, lowering his voice as they reached the club entry. "My dear David, as a chess player, I can assure you I know a good deal of the history of Montglane Abbey. Don’t you know the story?" "Yes, yes," said David, trying to control his irritation. "All a lot of mystical poppycock. The Montglane Service does not exist, and I’m surprised you should give credence to such a thing." "Give credence?" Philidor took David’s arm as they stepped out onto the blazing hot pavement. "My friend, I know it exists. And a great deal more. Well over forty years ago, perhaps before you were even born, I was a visitor at the court of Frederick the Great in Prussia. Whilst there, I made the acquaintance of two great men of such powers of perception as I shall never forget. One, you will have heard of – the great mathematician, Leonhard Euler. The other, as great in his own way, was the aged father of Frederick’s young court musician. But this musty old genius has been fated, I’m afraid, to a legacy buried in dust. Though no one in Europe has heard of him since, his music, which he performed for us one evening at the king’s request, was the finest I’ve heard in all my years. His name was Johann Sebastian Bach." "I’ve not heard the name," David admitted, "but what do Euler and this musician have to do with the legendary chess service?" "I shall tell you," Philidor said, smiling, "only if you agree to introduce me to these wards of yours. Perhaps we’ll get to the bottom of the mystery I’ve spent a lifetime trying to unravel!" (Page 169) David agreed, and the great chess master accompanied him on foot through the deceptively quiet streets along the Seine and across the Pont Royal toward his studio. The air was still; no leaf stirred on any tree. Heat rose in waves from the baking pavement, and even the leaden waters of the Seine coursed silently beside them as they walked. They could not know that twenty blocks away, in the heart of the Cordeliers, a bloodthirsty mob was battering down the doors of l’Abbaye Prison. And Valentine was inside. In the still, warm silence of that late afternoon, as the two men walked together, Philidor began his tale… Here's the first excerpt from The Eight, by Katherine Neville. Once you read this novel, you will know forever the connection between the game of chess and the Goddess...

"Living Goddess" Fired!

Nepali "living goddess" fired after U.S. visit

Tue Jul 3, 2:11 AM ET

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A 10-year-old Nepali girl worshipped as a living goddess, or Kumari, has lost her "divine" status for defying tradition and visiting the United States.

Sajani Shakya was installed at the age of two as the Kumari of the ancient town of Bhaktapur, near the capital Kathmandu, where she was revered by Hindus and Buddhists alike in deeply religious Nepal.

But a recent trip to the United States to promote a British-made documentary exploring Nepal's traditions and contemporary political turmoil has upset local religious leaders.

"It is wrong and against the tradition for her to go on a foreign tour without any permission," the chief of a trust that manages the affairs of Bhaktapur's Kumari tradition, Jai Prasad Regmi, told Reuters on Tuesday.

"This is impure in our tradition. We will search for a new Kumari and install her as the living goddess," Regmi said.

Bhaktapur's is one of several Kumaris in the Kathmandu valley, home to 1.5 million people. The most important lives in a 15th century temple in Kathmandu's ancient Durbar Square.

Living goddesses are chosen from the Buddhist Shakya family after a tough selection process.

They are required to stay in temples blessing devotees until reaching puberty, after which they rejoin their family and lead a normal life.

"We are discussing whether or not to pay Sajani monthly pension. We are positive on this," Regmi said.

While other living goddesses get a monthly pension of $17 (8 pounds) each after retirement, Kathmandu's gets about $50 a month.

Nepal's Supreme Court last year ordered the government to submit a detailed report on whether the Kumari tradition violated the children's human rights. Officials say the study is underway.

Blast from the Past - Donaldson and Akhmilovskaya Elope

The New York Times
American Chess Captain Weds a Soviet Champion
AP Published: November 27, 1988

LEAD: The captain of the American Olympic chess team secretly married a Soviet woman ranked second among the world's woman chess players and left with her for the United States today.

The captain of the American Olympic chess team secretly married a Soviet woman ranked second among the world's woman chess players and left with her for the United States today. John Donaldson, 31 years old, and Yelena Akhmilovskaya, 32, were wed in this Greek port during a major tournament Friday, according to American players.

''It's a real love match - a marriage, not a defection,'' said Inna Izrailov, a Soviet who plays for the American women's team.

The couple's elopement deprived the United States men's team of its captain at a crucial stage in the Olympiad, a biannual world team championship that began in Salonika earlier this month. With three rounds remaining, the men's team is fourth.

''We really do mind losing our team captain, but we couldn't think of a finer reason why we should,'' said Yasser Sierawan of Seattle, America's top player and Mr. Donaldson's closest friend.

Mr. Sierawan said the couple hoped that Ms. Akhmilovskaya's daughter would eventually be allowed to join them in the United States. The 7-year-old girl is staying with her grandmother in the Soviet Union. Mr. Donaldson, an international master also from Seattle, and Ms. Akmilovskaya met three years ago at a world championship event in Havana.

The loss of Ms. Akhmilovskaya, a women's grandmaster, may make a bigger difference in the women's championship. The Soviets are slightly ahead of Hungary, whose remarkable three sisters - including Judit Polgar, the highest-ranked 12-year-old player ever - threatens to break three decades of Soviet domination.

Mr. Donaldson and Ms. Akmilovskaya were married in a civil ceremony at City Hall here, then returned to the playing hall to watch the United States women's team hold the Soviets to a draw.

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The rest, as they say, is history. Here are some excerpts from Cathy Forbes' book "The Polgar Sisters: Training or Genius?", covering the events at the Thessaloniki Olympiad in 1988:

"In the event, the sisters [Polgars] did not disappoint, although the event was far from being a one-sided affair. Thessaloniki 1988 was the strongest and most dramatic women's Olyumpiad ever. It soon developed into a two-filly race between Hungary and the Soviets in which the lead fluctuated and outside events had a strong impact on the chess.

"The first of these was news of the tragic death of Bela Perenyi, euphemistically described as a 'close friend' of third board Ildiko Madl. This had a depressing effect on the Hungarian camp; Madl had to be rested for a few rounds, Sofia Polgar was in poor form and after en rounds Hungary was one and a half points behind the Soviets. Despite the absence of Gaprindashvili (who had scored 10/10 in the previous Olymmpiad in Dubai) it looked as though the experience of the Soviet team would tell in their favour. After all, their board two, world title challenger Elena Akhmilovskaya, was doing splendidly for them with 8 1-2/9...

"Round 11 - no Akhmilovskaya! The biggest story evr to hit an Olympiad broke. The Soviet board two had married the American team captian, IM John Donaldson, eloped with him, and defected to the United States! "

This extraordinary event was a major blow to Soviet hopes of the gold medal. Had Akhmilovskaya delayed her romantic flight for a few more rounds, it is more than possible that 'Polgaria' would have been trounced. As it was, news had leaked out of the Donaldsons' wedding in Greece and John and Elena feared her departure would be obstructed by the Soviet authorities if they got word of what had happened. Therefore both felt compelled to leave their teams in the lurch.

"Now the Hungarians seized their chance, drawing level with the Soviet Union by the end of the penultimate round. So all depended on the fourteenth and final round of matches. In a tense and nail-biting situation the Soviets could only manage a draw against the surprising Dutch team. Hungary, however, was not having things all its own way against Sweden. Judith won, taking her personal score to 11 1-2/13, but Madl could only draw. Susan was struggling, a pawn down, against Pia Cramling and it looked as though calculators would be required to work out the tie-break. In the event Susan fought back to hold the draw and so Hungary came home by half a point."

Ghosts of Chessplayers Past

Larry Evans' column this week from the Sun-Sentinel.com is too good to pass up! Ghosts of chess players past Posted July 1 2007 "I asked Viktor Korchnoi if he thought he had really played against the ghost of Geza Maroczy. 'Well, you can never be sure,' he said. But my impression was he thought there was a good chance that he had." — Dutch grandmaster Hans Ree Is there chess after death? A weird experiment to substantiate reincarnation was devised in 1985 by Dr. Wolfgang Eisenbeiss at the Swiss Institute of Parapsychology. A game between Korchnoi and the spirit of Maroczy slogged on by mail for eight years. The conduit for White's moves was Robert Rollins, a medium who claimed Maroczy's spirit guided his hand on paper, a technique known as automatic writing. "Maroczy was actually able to enter my body and move my arm. I can't play chess and never even liked the game, but when he plays through me I'm one of the best in the world. It's eerie," alleged Rollins. I'm reminded of that old saw about a guy who was in jail for striking a happy medium. The game took so long because the medium moved only when the spirit moved him. This great hokum was reported in The National Enquirer decades ago and was revived last year in a lead article for the British journal of Psychical Research. The authors claimed that private details provided by Maroczy through automatic writing were confirmed by research to be 94 percent accurate. Maroczy died at age 81 in 1951. He was one of the world's best players in his heyday at the turn of the 20th century. Hungary issued a stamp in his honor in 1974. "Maroczy plays in an outmoded style that nobody uses today, but he's tough," said Korchnoi. Yet White had little hope after botching the opening. The real Maroczy faced the Winawer Variation four times, choosing 4 exd5 twice and 4 Nge2 twice instead of the uncharacteristic 4 e5. Correct was 12 Ng5! Nxe5 13 f4 Rxg5 14 fxg5 N5g6 15 h4. And 14 Ng5! was far stronger than entering an inferior and tedious endgame in this ghostly encounter. Larry Evans is a five-time U.S. chess champion and nationally syndicated chess writer. Write to him at P.O. Box 1182, Reno, NV 89504.

An Inca in Norway

Archaeological mysteries intrigue me. One of the biggest mysteries in chess archaeology, for instance, is how the Venafro chess pieces discovered in 1932 (made out of bone and carved in the Islamic style), dated to the 9th century CE, ended up in a Roman era grave?

And how did the body of an Inca end up in a grave in Norway dated to about 1000 CE? Here is the article:

The Norway Post
June 26, 2007

Archaeological sensation in Oestfold
Norwegian arhaeologists are puzzled by a find which indicates an Inca Indian died and was buried in the Oestfold city of Sarpsborg 1000 years ago.

The remains of two elderly men and a baby were discovered during work in a garden, and one of the skulls indicates that the man was an Inca Indian.

- There is a genetic flaw in the neck, which is believed to be limited to the Incas in Peru, says arahaeologist Mona Beate Buckholm.

The Norway Post suggests that maybe the Vikings travelled even more widely than hitherto believed? Why could not the Viking settlers in New Foundland have strayed further down the coast on one of their fishing trips?

Meanwhile, more digging will be made in Sarpsborg, in an attempt to try to find an answer to the puzzle, NRK reports.
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Here is another article on the subject with a bit more information:

Viking Age Inca Indian Found in Norwegian Burial Ground?
Monday, 25 June 2007 Written by Alexander G. Rubio

It has long been known that Viking explorers, traders, and settlers made their way across the North Atlantic, first to the North Sea Islands, then to Iceland and Greenland, and even to the Newfoundland area of North America. But the accepted narrative is that the forays into the American continent proper were brief, and their contact with the native peoples there was nasty, brutish, and short.

But a 1000 year old skeleton found in a burial ground in Norway shows traits usually only found in Inca Indians.
...

[T]he Norwegians, seafarers by nature, due to their long coastline and lack of farmland, struck out across the North Sea, to the North of England, Scotland, Ireland, and to the islands in the north Atlantic, and eventually North America. We know that they encountered natives on their voyages there. But how they could have come across a South American Indian, or how he made his way to the north east coastal regions of Canada, would seem to defy imagination.

Archaeologists working on the conservation of the ruins of the old St. Nicolas church at Borgarsyssel in the Norwegian city of Sarpsborg came across some skeletal remains by accident, as they were removing some rose bushes. "As we pulled out the rose bushes, bones just poured out," archaeologist at Borgarsyssel Museum, Mona Beate Buckholm told Norwegian Public Broadcasting NRK.

It turned out to be the remains of two older men and an infant. And it was the skull of one of the men that puzzled the forensic archaeologists. "A particular bone at the back of the head was not fused. This is an inherited trait found almost exclusively among the Incas of Peru," Buckholm added.

To this day, no other example of this trait has been found in Norway. "While it is tempting to speculate, seeing as St. Nicolas is the patron saint of sailors, it's hard to imagine a Peruvian making his way here at the time. This is quite puzzling."

As one would almost expect with such a maritime culture, there have been finds in the past of people from far off lands ending up in ancient Scandinavia. One such example was the recent DNA evidence that one of the women buried in the royal tomb at Oseberg, one of the most famous Viking Age finds of all time, turned out to be of Black Sea origin. But this would be on another scale entirely. If, and this is still a massive if at this time, further tests and excavations could turn up corroborating evidence for an American link, and the find turns out to not be another Piltdown Man, or simply a very anomalous individual, it would be a sensational discovery, turning established views on pre-Columbian contacts between Europe and the Americas on their head. Right now though, that is speculation more fit for Hollywood movies than science journals.

Elizabeth Vicary on Chess, Girls and Genius

Jen Shahade has an excellent piece at Chess Life Online in which she interviewed Elizabeth Vicary. The interview focuses on Elizabeth's Masters of Education thesis: "Encouraging Middle School Girls' Success and Involvement in Chess." Shahade and Vicary have a revealing give and take during the interview and the respect and affection they have for each other is obvious, but to their credit they don't spare themselves answering some hard questions. Elizabeth Vicary will be playing in the upcoming U.S. Women's Chess Championship. You can find some of her games at chessgames.com. There is some information about Vicary's chess coaching, etc. in an article by Steve Goldbert at Chess Cafe. She's going to have a tough row to hoe - in the 2006 U.S. Chess Championship, she finished tied for 25-30th place with 3.5 points in Group A, but did not face any of the women who will be competing for the 2007 title in Stillwater. The Chablis and Glickman article that Vicary talks about in her interview is summarized in this article at Goddesschess.

The Eight and Kasparov

Of all the places to find "The Eight" - here at the India Times, in an article about cricket!

Impossible is nothing

TIMES NEWS NETWORK / Siddhartha Mishra

Every number has a story. And so with 15,000. For a cricketer still flush with the achievement of crossing that unprecedented and seemingly non-repeatable run-milestone in ODIs, that number is perhaps the worst measure imaginable for Sachin Tendulkar, blessed - yet ironically, cursed - as he is to turn everything he touches into a record-breaking statistic.

And yet, there is no escaping the eternal truth of sport. Sport is all about numbers. It is the numbers on scoreboards and clocks that define victory and defeat. When legacies are mulled over, a simplistic gauging of skill is insufficient. Eventually, in that great filing cabinet called history, it is certain numbers that symbolise achievements and heights once deemed unattainable.

Subsequent to May 6, 1954, when Roger Bannister ran the mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds, thus becoming the first human to run the distance in under 4 minutes, the record was broken eight times over the next 12 years. But it was that man, that moment which defied a human limit, a psychological barrier.

A record establishes what a human being can do, what we can do. Each time a new bench-mark is established, one person's 'superhuman' achievement redefines what it means to be a human being. The instant a new record is set, that level of performance becomes the next mark on the sand. And with it grows our addiction to the thrill of seeing the word 'possible' redefined.

It is said that records are made to be broken. Possible. Most of the time.

With due respect to the human capacity for constantly-higher levels of sporting achievement, and while making allowances for changes in rules, conditions, or equipment that extend the scope for record-breaking, it would be logical to assume that every athletic activity has a limit. Unlike the cow in the nursery rhyme, man will never jump over the moon.

And indeed, certain numbers tell more than a story: they threaten to defy the test of time. 99.94, 100, 555... the numbers defining the likes of Donald Bradman, Wilt Chamberlain and Jahangir Khan tread so far into uncharted territory that even the most cynical are forced to be converts as their legend grows.

And yet. And yet... as immortal as certain achievements are, everything in sport is short-lived. Bar irony.

Cut to November 10, 1985. Rhona Petrosyan, widow of chess legend Tigran Petrosyan, told Garry Kasparov: "Garry, I am sorry for you." A stunned Kasparov who, just the previous day, had won the world title to become the youngest-ever chess champion in history at the age of 22, queried: "And what is there to feel sorry about?" Petrosyan replied: "I am sorry for you, Garry, because the best day of your life is already over." [Emphasis added]

Because, in sport, a record is never important in itself. Its significance lies in what it says about the performer - and about ourselves. And when a number, no matter how larger-than-life, does not say something about ourselves, its real story is lost in translation.

Because perfection does not end with Nadia Comaneci's 10.0 scores at the Montreal Olympics in 1976; it is only found in infinite possibilities. Infinity, of course, is not a number but a symbol.

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Darlings, the symbol this article is talking about - the symbol that means "infinity" is an "eight" laying on its side. Eight is the number of the Goddess. Eight is the number of Chess. Chess is the game of the Goddess.

A Human Chess Game

From "The Statesman.com" BORDER PATROL A human chess game plays out on border in South Texas In tangled thornscrub on Rio Grande's banks, Border Patrol is vigilant, but so are the illegal crossers. By Juan Castillo AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Saturday, June 30, 2007 HIDALGO — The Rio Grande twists and turns so severely in South Texas that it takes more than 320 miles to travel from Falcon Dam near Roma to Boca Chica Beach on the Gulf Coast — by straight shot, a distance of about 150 miles. The river courses through snarly thickets of mesquite, huisaches, hackberry trees, cat claw, cactus and reeds. This thornscrub jungle is the front line in the battle to stem the flow of illegal immigration in the Rio Grande Valley. "Most of our apprehensions are here," Camilo Garcia, a Border Patrol spokesman, said of a roughly five-mile stretch along the steep riverbanks, just below the international bridges and the bustling port of entry. To the south, about a hundred yards away, the sprawling city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, crackles with symbiotic energy. Those who successfully navigate the river change into dry clothes in the brush and then wait for the right time to sprint to a nearby strip shopping center, where they can blend in with the crowds. The Border Patrol and the National Guard are vigilant, with an array of technology on their side. At night, stadiumlike lights flood a field between the riverbank and the strip mall. In a booth high in the sky, Guard troops monitor a display screen capturing infrared images from cameras that sense body heat. On the ground, sensors record movement. "We just try to deter them," Garcia said. Another agent, S. De Los Rios, scours the riverbanks, looking for fresh signs that someone might be hiding. De Los Rios says illegal crossers have scouts positioned on both the U.S. and Mexican sides and on the international bridge. They watch the Border Patrol's movements to time their crossings. Garcia says it's not uncommon for smugglers to send two groups from points far apart, hoping that while Border Patrol agents respond to one, the other will make it safely across. "It's like a big chess game out here," Garcia said. Asked if agents sometimes feel outnumbered, he said: "Yeah, but what are you going to do?"

The Cherubim

I've always been fascinated by the biblical accounts of the Ark of the Covenant and the gold "Cherubim" that guarded it. It's popularly believed that the Ark, along with all the other Treasures of Solomon's Temple were taken by the Babylonians in 586 BCE when Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Some of the Temple "implements" were restored to the Jews when the were sent back to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem by - I believe it was Darius - in about 537 BCE, but there was no mention of the Ark of the Covenant and/or the Cherubim being among those Temple implements. Graham Hancock has theorized that the Ark was removed from the Temple a long time before its destruction, perhaps due to the apostasy of the Jewish kings, and that the Ark could be hidden in a church in Axum, Ethiopia. Now, Dr. Sean Kingsley has a new theory about the Cherubim that used to guard the Ark of the Covenant. According to the Catholic Encylopedia, "the Jews at the time of Christ had completely forgotten the appearance of the Temple cherubim. Josephus (Antiq., VIII, 3) says that no one knows or even can guess what form they had." This obviously means that there were no Cherubim present in the reconstructed Temple at the time of Jesus or at the time of the Temple's destruction in 70 CE by the Romans. The latest issue of Minerva magazine features new research by archaeologist and explorer Dr Sean Kingsley, who believes he has found evidence not only for the survival of replicas of the cherubim in Jerusalem in the Roman period, but also what they originally looked like... According to Dr. Kingsley, in the sixth century AD the ancient historian John Malalas was sifting through the municipal archives in the city of Antioch in southern Turkey for material for his book, the Chronicle, when he chanced upon a centuries-old wrinkled report about the fate of Jerusalem's Cherubim. Malalas tells us that after pulling down a local synagogue in AD 70 and replacing it with a new theatre inscribed Ex Praeda Iudaea, 'From the Spoils of Judaea', the emperor Vespasian "built in Antioch the Great, outside the city gate, what are known as the Cherubim, for he fixed there the bronze Cherubim, which Titus his son had found fixed to the temple of Solomon. When he destroyed the temple, he removed them from there and brought them to Antioch with the Seraphim, celebrating a triumph for the victory of the Jews that had taken place during his reign." "This was no tall story invented by John Malalas to spice up his Chronicle", confirms Dr Kingsley. "In fact, the area where the Cherubim were set up over the gates became so famous that the Temple statues lent their name to the entire city district. And there they stayed for over five hundred years. So the Life of St Simeon Stylites, who died in AD 597, describes how the saint saw a vision of Jesus Christ 'at the old wall called that of the Cherubim' and during a later visitation by the devil 'there arose from the so-called Cherubim. a great cry, and weeping and much lamentation'. The co-existence of references to the Cherubim district in different sources proves John Malalas was reporting fact not fiction." Based on the prophet Ezekiel's biblical description of the 'divine presence', accompanied by hybrid guardians incorporating calf's feet, wings, and composite faces of a human, lion, ox and eagle, Dr Kingsley visualises the cherubim as sphinx-like winged creatures with a human head: "Sculpted ivories of the First Temple period excavated at Samaria in Palestine and Arslan Tash in Syria capture the exact confused form described by the prophet Ezekiel. The lion's body is inspired by the sphinx and the human head also wears an Egyptian headdress. However, the graceful wings are purely Near Eastern in inspiration, drawing on the tradition of winged animals like the demon Pazuzu and the Akkadian lion-demoness Lamashtu, which were so popular from Iraq to Palestine in the second and first millennium BC." ...Dr. Kingsley has identified two images which most closely resemble the physical form of the Temple Cherubim in the first century AD: a statue of a rearing woman with outstretched wings and sphinx-like lion body excavated in a bath-house at Ephesus in Turkey in 1896, and a sphinx-like cherub sculpted on to a basalt disc dug up in a house at Antioch itself and now in the Hatay Archaeological Museum. From the Daily Grail (posted June 28, 2007) So - was Josephus full of baloney about no Cherubim being in the Second Temple?

The Eight

Excerpts from "The Eight" by Katherine Neville in 1988 (eat your heart out, Dan Brown): (Page 143-paperback edition): Nim went to the woodpile stacked against the fireplace wall and broke up a bed of kindling, swiftly piling heavy logs on top. After a few minutes the room glowed warmly with an inner light. I pulled off my boots and curled up on a sofa as Nim uncorked some sherry. He handed me a glass and poured another for himself, taking a seat beside me. After I'd peeled off my coat, he tipped his glass toward mine. "To the Montglane Service and the many adventures it will bring you," he said, smiling, and took a sip. "Yum. This is delicious," I said. "It's an amontillado," he replied, swirling it in his glass. "People have been bricked into walls still breathing, for sherries inferior to this one." "I hope that's not the sort of adventure you're planning for me," I told him. "I really have to go to work tomorrow morning." [Spoken like a true JanXena...] (Page 145): Nim had located his jacket draped over a chair and pulled out the cocktail napkin from the fortune-teller. He looked at Llewellyn's printing on the napkin for a very long time. Then, handing it to me, he got up to stir the fire. "What do you notice that is unusual about this poem? he asked. I looked at it but didn't see anything odd. "Of course you know that the fourth day of the fourth month is my birthday," I said. Nim noddded soberly from the hearth. The firelight turned his hair a brilliant reddish gold. "The fortune-teller warned me not to tell anyone about that," I added. "As usual, you kept your word at all cost," Nim observed wrily, throwing a few more logs on the fire. He went over to a table in the corner and pulled out some paper and a pen, returning to sit beside me. "Take a look at this," he said. Printing in neat block letters on the paper, he copied out the poem into separate lines. Previously it had been scrambled across the napkin. Now it read: Just as these lines that merge to form a key Are as chess squares; when month and day are four; Don't risk another chance to move to mate. One game is real and one's a metaphor. Untold times this wisdom's come too late. Battle of white has raged on endlessly. Everywhere Black will strive to seal his fate. Continue a search for thirty-three and three. Veiled forever is the secret door. "What do you see here?" said Nim, studying me as I studied his printed version of the poem. I wasn't certain what he was driving at. "Look at the structure of the poem itself," he said a little impatiently. "You've a mathematical mind, try to put it to some use." [Patience, Mister, patience!] I looked at the poem again, and then I saw it. "The rhyming pattern is unusual," I said proudly. Nim's eyebrows went up, and he snatched the paper away from me. He looked at it a moment and started to laugh. "So it is," he said, handing it back to me. "I hadn't noticed that myself. Here, take the pen and write down what it is." [Spoken like a true male chauvenist - always the boss, even when he's not...] I did so, and wrote: "Key-Four-Mate (A-B-C), Metaphor-Late-Endlessly (B-C-A), Fate-Three Door (C-A-B). "So, the rhyming pattern is like so," said Nim, copying it below my writing on the paper. "Now I want you to apply numbers instead of letters and add them up." I did so beside where he'd printed the letters, and it looked like this: ABC 123 BCA 231 CAB 312 666 "That was the number of the Beast in the Apocalypse: 666!" I said. "So it was," said Nim. "And if you add the rows horizontally, you'll find they add to the same number. And that, my dear, is known as a 'magic square.' Another mathematical game. Some of those Knight's Tours that Ben Franklin developed had secret magic squares hidden within them. You've quite a knack for this. Found one your first time out that I hadn't seen myself." [The truth comes out - he's disgruntled because she saw something he didn't, tsk tsk]. "You didn't see it? I said, rather pleased with myself. "But then, what was it you wanted me to find?" I studied the paper as if searching for a hidden rabbit in a drawing from a child's magazine, expecting it to pop out at me sideways or upside down. "Draw a line separating the last two sentences from the first seven," said Nim, and as I was drawing the line he added, "Now look at the first letter of each sentence." I traced my eye slowly down the page, but as I moved toward the bottom a horrible chill had started to come over me, despite the warm and cheery fire. "What's wrong?" Nim said, looking at me strangely. I stared at the paper, speechless. Then I picked up the pen and wrote what I saw. "J-A-D-O-U-B-E/C-V," said the paper, as if speaking to me. "Indeed," Nim was saying as I sat, frozen, beside him. "J'adoube, the French chess term meaning I touch, I adjust. That is what a player speaks when he is about to adjust one of his pieces during a game. Followed by the letters 'C.V.,' which are your initials. It suggests that this fortune-teller was sending you a mesage of some sort. She wants to get in touch with you, perhaps. I realize...what on earth is making you look so dreadful?" he said. "You don't understand," I told him, my voice limp with fear. "J'adoube...was the last word that Fiske said in public. Just before he died." [Cue spooky music...ooooohhhhwhhhooooooohhhhoooooo...]

Blast from the Past - Judit Polgar - Batumi

Chess By Robert Byrne January 16, 2000 Polgar, Just One of the Boys,Hems In a Russian's Queen Terms that no longer have any application sometimes persist in a vacuous afterlife. One such is the locution ''men's tournament,'' when what is really meant is ''not exclusively for women,'' or ''open to both sexes.'' It would be reasonable to call such a competition an ''open tournament,'' but few sponsors make the effort to reach this level of verbal precision. In the European Teams Championship in Batumi, Georgia, we get the anomalous report that the best result on Board 2 of the ''Men's Tournament'' was achieved by Judit Polgar of Hungary. You can take my word for it that Judit Polgar, a grandmaster, is a woman, the strongest in the history of the game. Her score of 6�-2� and her gold medal were also not in dispute. She gave a taste of her skill in her third round game with the grandmaster Sergei Volkov of Russia. The capture with 4...de defines the Burn Variation of the French Defense. Black relinquishes his main center pawn, thus avoiding a cramped position, but after 5 Ne4, White has an advantage in space. After 5...Be7, a retreat with 6 Ng3 would lack punch, and 6 Nf6 Bf6 7 Bf6 Qf6 would oversimplify and create too many chances for a draw. The favored method is 6 Bf6, when 6...Bf6 7 Nf3 gives Black problems arranging a counterattack on the white center, and the best continuation, the recapture with 6...gf, leaves Black with doubled f pawns. After 9 Qe2, Volkov disdained the stodgy, defensive 9...c6, to be followed by 10...Qc7 and 11...Nbd7, in favor of Qd5, by which he prevented Polgar from castling queenside, the more potent of her two options. No sooner had Polgar taken the first step of a mating attack with 12 a4! than Volkov erred with 12...f5? and found after 13 Nc3! that his queen, cut off from h5, was in trouble. He should have defended by 12...a5. After 13 Nc3, he became rattled and blundered again, this time with 13...Qa5? instead of doing the best he could with 13...Qd6. However, that could not be expected to save him from 14 a5 Kb8 15 ab ab 16 Ra7! Bc6 17 Rea1, threatening the quietly crushing 18 Bb5! or 18 Nb5! Polgar's 15 c3 threatened to win material with 16 b4, thus forcing Volkov to loosen his king position with 15...c5. After 16 g3!, her king knight was released to do deadly damage. If 16...f4, then 17 Nd2 fg 18 hg Bd5 19 Bc4 Bc4 19 Nc4 Qa6 20 Ne5 Qb7 21 Nf7 Nf8 22 Nd8 Kd8 23 Rad1 will win easily. Volkov judged that 16...a6 17 Nd2! ab 18 ab Qa1 19 Ra1 cd 20 cd Bd6 would let him put up maximum resistance. After 22 Qc2, Volkov should have tried 22...Kb8, which would offer more resistance than losing a pawn by 22...Nf6? 23 Nb6 Kb8 24 Qc5. After 27 Ra4, Volkov had no defense against 28 Qa7 Kc8 29 Rc4, so he gave up.

The Queen Who Became King

No, this isn't about Judit Polgar, although come to think of it, perhaps there is a slight resemblance... :) Queen/Pharaoh Hatshepsut has been in the news a lot recently, with Supreme Antiquities Director of Egypt Zahi Hawass saying that the Queen's mummy has been positively identified by virtue of a tooth, although DNA testing is also underway. The Smithsonian online magazine featured an extension article about Hatsepsut in September, 2006, and it's fascinating. A lot of things that we were taught about this female Pharaoh were colored through the eyes of 19th century white male historians who were HORRIFIED that this Queen allegedly usurped the throne of the young Thutmose III. And, it turns out, a lot of those things were WRONG! Hmmm, a familiar theme... Here's the link to the Hatsepsut article - it's too lengthy to reproduce here.

2007 U.S. Women's Chess Championship - Final Line-Up

USCF posted a story with the final line-up for the 2007 Women's Championship to be held in Stillwater, OK next month, along with a link to a dedicated website for the Championship. I really like the idea of having a website just for the event - there was no separate website for the "Men's" event. 2006 Women's championship Zatonskih will be competing, so the final field is: Player USCF Rating FIDE Rating Krush, Irina (WGM, IM) 2497 2479 Zatonskih, Anna (WGM, IM) 2491 2462 Baginskaite, Camilla (WGM) 2361 2328 Rohonyan, Katerine (WGM) 2304 2332 Tuvshintugs, Batchimeg (WIM) 2275 2236 Abrahamyan, Tatev (WFM) 2258 2237 Battsetseg, Tsagaan (WIM) 2234 2241 Melekhina, Alisa (WFM) 2168 2104 Airapetian, Chouchanik (WFM) 2157 2162 Vicary, Elizabeth (WFM) 2155 2148 Prior posts on the Championship may be found here, here and here. Thanks to Frank K. Berry for bearing most of the expense for this Championship and for being a big fan and supporter of women's chess. We need more people like you, Mr. Berry. Everyone please read Mr. Berry's website (I assume it is sponsored by him, it doesn't appear to be the work of USCF) and please read here for my scintilating commentary when the Championship begins :)

Prison Chess 2

As a follow-up to Prison Chess, what should I find tonight but an article about Karpov playing chess with Russian inmates! Karpov to play online chess with prisoners Posted online: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 0000 hours IST MOSCOW, JUN 26: Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov will play online chess with inmates of the Russian prisons on Wednesday. Russian agency Novosti on Tuesday reported that the prison inmates would be able to log on to Karpov's website and play online chess with him. The Federal Prisons office feels the exercise will help them check about the welfare of the inmates. "This online chess tournament would also give us a unique opportunity to test the integrated automated information system for the welfare of the prison inmates," the office said. ******************************************************************************* Well, I guess I'm just an old Democrat reactionary after all -- what the **** - an opportunity to test "the integrated automated information system for the welfare of the prison inmates?" Do they have microphones in the urinals?

The Lady, the Canadian and the Viking

By Frank “Boy” Pestaño Chessmoso (From the Cebu Sun-Star online - Philippines) A LADY member? So what’s the fuzz all about? A lady chess player is not something extraordinary. There are probably hundreds of professional women out there who play chess. However, in all my years of involvement in the game, I have observed that women are very shy and are afraid to compete against men. The Cebu Executives and Professionals Chess Association (Cepca) was established in June 1990 and there has never been a lady member. That is 17 long years! And to think that we had a peak of more than 130 members in the early 90s. True, we have women who sometimes play in our tournaments, but they only play as invited guests. Noteworthy among the lot was Therese Gonzales, who was able to win a monthly title, not with her charms, which she has plenty of, but with her true chess talent. This brave young lady is 29-year-old Marylou Pagarigan, who is presently connected with Cebu International School as a teacher in computer science and information technology. She learned to play the game when she was six years old and has been quite active in competing in big tournaments. She was the best female player in the Cagayan leg of the Shell Active Chess Championship in 1996 and competed in the Palarong Pambansa games in Cebu (1994), Pangasinan (1995, board 2 champion), Socsargen (1996), Naga (1997) and in Bacolod (1998). She also joined the Philippine National Women’s Championship in Iligan City in 1995, the National LGUlympics in Iloilo in 1998 and the Far East Bank’s regional tournaments from 1995-97 in Iligan City. She joined our monthly tournament last Sunday, when she won over another new member, Harry Doyle and drew with Surigao’s Manie Yuson, another potential new member, who played as a guest for the meantime. Yuson had expressed her intention to upgrade to full member soon. Doyle is a Canadian, who obviously enjoyed the exercise and who has a lively sense of humor. He wrote in the information sheet, “My name is Harry Doyle and I lived in the East Coast of Canada on the Atlantic Ocean. The big cities of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver produce our best players. In 2000, I suffered a stroke and was advised by my doctor from the Philippines to play an hour of chess everyday. Seven years later, all the symptoms of the stroke are gone. My chess, however, has not improved much, but I do have fun. I am happily married to a Filipina who gave me a beautiful son, Joseph, who is now seven.” Another new member is a Viking from Demark, Per Stentejerg-Hansen. Hansen is the strongest foreigner to ever become a member of Cepca. He has an Elo rating of 2240 and that should make him a National Master. Not surprisingly, he won the tournament, the first foreigner to do so. Hansen defeated the great Bent Larsen in 1996 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Larsen was obviously on the decline as he was one of the best players in the 1960’s and ’70s and was once called the strongest player never to become a world champion. To beat the great Larsen, who visited Cebu I think in 1973, is certainly a great achievement. Hansen is married to Crispina Limpot from Baclayon, Bohol since 1994 and they have two daughters aged nine and 11 years old. He is an accountant by profession. He wrote, “Chess helps me find new friends. It is a game about fight and strict analysis and it is nice to relax with.” Another new member is Randy Cabuncal, 27, who is connected with Fast Logistics Corporation. Cabuncal was a board one varsity player of the University of San Carlos Boys High School. Here are the results of last Sunday’s June tournament at five rounds; first placer, Hansen (4.5), second and third placers, Mandy Baria (4.0) and Joe Atillo (4.0), fourth and fifth placers, Ramon Pangilinan and Maggie Dionson (3.5). ********************************************************************************* Well, for goddess' sake, the least he could have done was give Marylou Pagarigan's score too!

The Tomb of Firuzan (Abu-lolo) in Kashan Destroyed

A horrible thing has occurred in Iran. To the Iranian people, who are rightly proud of their past (pre-Islamic) and their culture's contributions to the world, this is probably akin to the world's loss of the Bamiyan Buddhas blown up by the barbarian Taliban. CAIS (The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies) issued a press release today: Mohammad-Ali E. from Isfahan LONDON, (CAIS) -- The tomb of Firuzan commonly known as Emāmādeh Abu-lolo (or Abu Lulu) in Kashahn, Isfahan province is being destroyed by the order of the Islamic Regime. A large crowd of Iranians have gathered outside the governor's office on Tuesday, June 26th, to voice their objection regarding the destruction of the Iranian heritage, and a shrine which was one of the symbols of Iranian resistance against the Arab invaders in 7th century CE, and to some, a Shia and a revered Sufi. Umar al-Khattab, the second Moslem Caliph was put to death by Firuzan in 645 CE. It is said that Firuzan was a POW captured after the fall of Ctesiphon in what is today known as Iraq, and sold as a slave. A parvenu Arab leader called Mughira ibn Shu’ba bought him and took him to Medina in Arabia for slavery work. Most probably Firuzan was a Zoroastrian (by some accounts he was a priest), as the majority of Iranian were at the time of Arab occupation of Iran in 7th century. “His [Firuzan] action was in response to atrocities that were committed by Arab-Muslim invaders in Iran, which resulted in massacre, rape, looting of our country – we Iranians never forgot nor forgive their crimes against us”, said one of the protestors. Some Arab, as well as committed Muslim historians, in order to undermine Firuzan’s bravery and heroism have claimed (ultimately all derived from Ibn Shihab account) that he murdered Umar, and an argument over the tax levy. During the Safavid era and the rise of Shia Islam to power, the dynasty named him Bābā Shojā ul-Din (the one who is brave in the cause of religion) and claimed that he was a devout Shia and a martyr. Another angry protester said: "they say he is not buried here - or some say he wasn't Muslim at all - so what? - as far as we concern this edifice represents him, our faith and resistance against the uncivilised invaders" - and another one added: "if Abu Lolo was an Arab, they would have erect a golden dome on top of his shrine, rather than destroying it - but no, no - they destroy his shrine, just because he was an Iranian - a noble Iranian - this is an insult to Iranian nation". Mohammad Salim Al'awa, the Secretary-General of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), who believes God have "created women for pregnancy and childbirth" purposes speaking to Al-Arabiat New-agency said: "the request for its destruction was delivered to Iran by a group of Arab representatives a few months ago, after the Doha assembly at the beginning of the year. At the assembly a large number of Sunni scholars asked Iran for the destruction of the tomb". "Imagine the Germans asking Britain to destroy the graves of the brains behind the British plan to kill Hitler [Operation Foxley] during WWII, sine it is considered an insult to Protestants - would the British accept that? - the murder of Omar by Firuz[an] wasn't to do with religion, it was simply removing a despot and a tyrant from the face of the earth - as the British wanted to do the same with Hitler", said N. one of the protestors outside the governor's office in Kashan. Firuzan mausoleum located on the road from Kashan to Fins consisted of a courtyard, porch and conical dome decorated with turquoise coloured tiles, and painted ceilings. The Original date of it's construction is unknown, but in second-half of fourteen century it was fully restored and a new tombstone was placed over his grave. There are what I believe to be "before" and "after" photos of the tomb at CAIS.

The 2006 Women's World Chess Championship

I was curious about what’s going on, if anything, with respect to the Women’s World Chess Championship. The "other" event that no one calls the "men’s" championship has been so much in the chess news lately, what with FIDE doing yet another change of the rules or whatever so that Topalov will be able to play – well someone – it’s all very confusing to me, even after I read through the posts at the Daily Dirt on the subject. So the guys who are playing in Mexico City in a few months now are basically just playing for a check and not the right to play – well – whoever? Something like that. The Mexico City sponsors should pull their money out and tell FIDE to go shove it while also taking them to Court for breach of contract. But that won’t ever happen, folks, too much money’s already changed hands for that! FIDE has a Women’s World Chess Championship listed on its 2008 calendar but no dates or venue have been penciled in yet – perhaps sponsorship is a problem, or perhaps 2008 will be the year FIDE pulls the plug on the separate Women’s Championship once and for all. I seem to have contracted amnesia when it comes to who the current Women’s World Chess Champion is! The last one I remember is Stefanova, but the actual Champion is Xu Yuhua of China, who won the event in Ekaterinburg in 2006 – yes you’re going WHO? Thing is, through April, 2007 she hasn’t played a single FIDE rated game since she won the Championship! I didn’t remember who she was/is either! Not a good sign. I dug up some old gossip at Mig’s Daily Dirt to the effect of press reports that she was pregnant during the 2006 event and she was 30 at the time. Subsequent reports confirmed the birth of a son on August 23, 2006. Certainly 31-32 isn’t old for a chessplayer (Judit Polgar is the same age), but perhaps the demands of motherhood and the fact that she’s won the Championship once may mean that personal inclination and the possibility that the Chinese government wants the women’s crown to pass to a younger player (such as 13 year old Hou Yifan) may be coinciding. My guess is that Xu won’t be defending her title, although how one can defend in a knock-out event is beyond me!!! Unless she starts playing soon and training real hard (or is already doing so behind the scenes), it doesn't seem likely she'd be in chessly shape to compete. I wonder if she made any money through endorsements at home in China? Xu WON the 2007 China Laureus Award for best "non-Olympic" sportsperson title on May 12, 2007 at the Chinese Laureus Sports Awards held in Changsha, Hunan Province. The article incorrectly states that she has won several world chess championships; she has only won one title, that in 2006. However, she won the Women's World Cup in 2000 and 2002, so perhaps that is what was meant. Mark Weeks has a website entirely devoted to the world chess championships (regular and women’s). Here is a list of women’s champions: 2006 Ekaterinburg (Xu Yuhua 1st) 2004 Elista (Stefanova 1st) 2001 Moscow (Zhu Chen 1st) 2000 New Delhi (Xie Jun 1st) 1995-99 Kishinev Groningen Xie Jun - Z.Polgar (forfeit) 1993-96 Jakarta Tilburg Z.Polgar - Xie Jun 1991-93 Subotica Shanghai Xie Jun - Ioseliani 1990-91 Azov Borzomi Xie Jun - Chiburdanidze 1987-88 Smederevska Palanka Chaltubo Chiburdanidze - Ioseliani 1985-86 Havana Malmo Chiburdanidze - Akhmilovskaya 1982-84 Bad Kissingen Matches Chiburdanidze - Levitina 1979-81 Alicante Matches Chiburdanidze - Alexandria 1976-78 Roosendaal Matches Chiburdanidze - Gaprindashvili 1973-75 Menorca Matches Gaprindashvili - Alexandria 1971-72 Ohrid Matches Gaprindashvili - Kushnir 1967-69 Subotica Gaprindashvili - Kushnir 1964-65 Sukhumi Gaprindashvili - Kushnir 1961-62 Vrnjacka Banja Gaprindashvili - Bikova 1959-60 Plovdiv Bikova - Zvorikina 1958 Bikova - Rubtsova 1955-56 Moscow Moscow (3 players; Rubtsova 1st) 1952-53 Moscow Bikova - Rudenko 1949/50 Moscow (Rudenko 1st) 1939 Buenos Aires Menchik 1st 1937 Stockholm Menchik 1st 1937 Semmering Menchik - Graf 1935 Warsaw Menchik 1st 1934 Rotterdam Menchik - Graf 1933 Folkestone Menchik 1st 1931 Prague Menchik 1st 1930 Hamburg Menchik 1st 1927 London Menchik 1st

Prison Chess

Some players are so desperate to play in a local rated tournament they will do just about anything - even go to prison :) Inmate, cellmate, checkmate! (The Barre Montpelier Times Argus) June 25, 2007 By Wilson Ring Associated Press NEWPORT — When a doctor, a lawyer, a software tester and three other people were buzzed through the heavy metal doors into the Northern State Correctional Facility one day recently, they weren't there to serve sentences. They were there for the competition — in chess. In a four-hour tournament recognized by the U.S. Chess Federation, the six civilians and 10 inmates from the prison chess club squared off in an event welcomed by players from outside and in. "One of the coolest things about this, is to play a rated game around here, I'd have to go to Foxwoods (the Connecticut casino) or Boston," said Bob Sassaman, of Calais, a veteran tournament chess player. While it's not uncommon for inmates to pass their time playing chess, what makes quality tournament chess in prisons is the influence of players from the outside. "Whether it's a prison club or regular club, they draw a variety of players. They don't differ much," said Joan Dubois, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee-based U.S. Chess Federation. "They will have their good players and their bad. The problem in a prison is you do not draw in outside people, the pool of players gets stagnant. They really need to play against new blood." And that's what the tournaments at the Newport prison accomplish. The prison chess club was formed in January by Bill Storz, a chess buff who teaches at the Northern State branch of the Community High School of Vermont, an education system run by the Vermont Department of Corrections. It held one tournament in April and another on June 15. "What you get out of it is what you put into it," said Storz, who founded the club as an extracurricular activity for the students. "I help guys pick up on some of the life lessons: ... Thinking through a sequence of events, what are the possible outcomes? If I do this for short-term benefit, without thinking of long term results, what really is the benefit of that?" Inmate Rick Doner, 32, of Rutland, said he and others play on their own, even when the club isn't meeting on Friday afternoons." The competition in here is actually better than I thought it was going to be," said Doner, who is serving 1-to-10 for grand larceny. The U.S. Chess Federation lists seven affiliated clubs in prisons, from Maryland to Massachusetts. (The Northern State club isn't on the list because it's listed through its connection to the school rather than the prison). In New Hampshire, inmates at the men's prison in Concord have a chess club, Corrections Department spokesman Jeff Lyons said. They play among themselves, not against outsiders. At Northern State, games are played in a small room in the school section of the prison, with the only sound coming from clicks when players hit their time clocks. Some games move quickly and are over within a handful of moves and a few minutes. Others take longer, the pieces staying on the board as each player maneuvers for advantage. Charles Aronowitz, a retired attorney from Montreal who teaches chess in an elementary school and has played in both of the tournaments at the Newport prison, finished second in April and 12th in the June 15 tournament. "These guys have improved in only two months," said Aronowitz. The top-rated player in the event was Newport urologist Armando Lopez, an "expert" under the chess federation's rating system. Not that the rating guaranteed a win; he lost in the title match to Sassaman, a software tester with a "B" rating. The prison's top-rated player, Al Hennessey, 28, of Burlington, who's serving a 2-to-10-year sentence for burglary, won the first tournament held at the Newport prison, in April. He finished fifth in the most recent one, and he says he looks forward to playing in more. He says he spends a good deal of his time studying chess strategy. "I have a lot more time on my hands," he said. On the Web:Community High School of Vermont: http://www.chsvt.k12.vt.us/ U.S. Chess Federation: http://www.uschess.org/ Hmmmm, there is something about this that really bothers me. I don't think the USCF should be promoting chess among convicted criminals. I don't have a problem with people in jail playing chess - but I wonder - if the benefits of chess are as touted by the scholastic people and assuming these criminals don't have atrophied brains - is chess teaching them how to be better criminals in the future, when they have served their time and/or get out on parole??? You know - learning how to plan ahead, foresee consequences, and execute both short-term tactics and long-term strategy? One might also wonder what might happen if, say, a jailed pedophile learns chess inside and - under the auspices of these USCF authorized tournaments, learns about the popularity of scholastic chess either through chatting with outside chessplayers and/or being exposed to USCF's magazines and promotional materials; and after he gets out, he becomes a "volunteer" at a local scholastic chess outreach program or involved in a grade school chess club. Well, maybe I'm just being paranoid. Maybe.

2004 U.S. Women's Olympiad Chess Team in Budapest?

BUDAPEST, June 22 (Xinhua) -- After a 10-year interval, the chess Olympic champion Polgar sisters - Zsuzsa, Zsofia and Judit -will once again play together in a simultaneous chess exhibition in Budapest on Sunday, local media reported.

Judit agreed to play 34 games while her elder sisters will meet 33 opponents each in the Corinthia Grand Hotel, starting at 1500 hours local time.

Meanwhile, members of the U.S. Olympic team, for which Zsuzsa played in the last Olympics, will play 30-minute rapid games with young Hungarian talents during the meet.

The Polgar trio triumphed in two chess Olympics, winning in Thessaloniki in 1988 and in Novi Sad two years later. Each of the three has two children, with Zsuzsa living in the United states, Zsofia in Canada and Judit in Budapest.

Judit is way out ahead in first place on the women's world ranking list and is 13th on the men's global list.
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This was interesting, not because of the simul by the Polgars in Budapest (Susan Polgar posted photographs of the event on her blog, the sisters looked very glamorous and quite lovely, the shot above is my favorite, they all look absolutely spectacular), but the mention of the U.S. Olympic team that Susan Polgar played on in the last Olympics - meaning the 2004 Olympics as she did not play on the 2006 Team - is playing 30 minute games with Hungarian children.

Okay - so does this mean that Jennifer Shahade, Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih are in Budapest? Anna Zatonskih who may not play in the upcoming U.S. Women’s Chess Championship because she had a baby in March? Did Judit arrange for Aquaprofit to fly the ladies over for such an event? I sure haven’t seen any publicity about it – maybe this is a mistake???

Alisa Melekhina and "The Eight"

It’s all Katherine Neville’s fault that I ever got involved in the old message board at the Art Bell website (long defunct, but we saved all of our posts from there and call it "The Weave", stored at Goddesschess) – all because of her book "The Eight," which I have read twice and now feel a hankering to read yet again, it’s that good of a story.

I don’t want to give too much away – I recommend you read it for yourselves, darlings – it’s a great read, on many levels. I was first struck by the fact that the main "heroes" in the story are two women! They are amply supported by male characters but – that’s the point – the men are helpful and romantic interests – but they are subsidiary, usually the role reserved for females in novels – except romance novels written mainly by and for female readers, but this ain’t no romance story. It’s a rip-roaring adventure with a mystery that grabs you by the throat right from the beginning of the story, and I sure as hell didn’t figure it out until the very end when it was like WOW – WHAT AN ENDING! And it revolves around a chess set – the mythic Charlemagne chess set, rumored to have been a gift to him from the powerful and learned Muslim ruler ar-Rashid. Fascinating stuff – lots of history and lots of adventure and action, more twists and turns and surprises than you can shake a stick at. Neville wrote a female character, Catherine "Cat" Velis, the equivalent of Indiana Jones.

It’s probably not going too far to say that Katherine Neville’s novel literally changed my life in ways I could not have foreseen when I first settled down to read the book. I should not have been surprised then, when I started to do research on Alisa Melekhina, that – sure as shooting – "The Eight" showed up!

At 15, Alisa is the youngest player in the upcoming U.S. Women’s Chess Championship, and I wanted to learn more about her. I learned that Alisa and her parents emigrated to this country when she was just a few months old; that Alisa is a dancer, a writer and published author as well as a chessplayer, and that she is an all around great young lady. And this is one of the things that showed up in my Google search:

Alisa and The Eight
by Steve Goldberg
columnnist, "Scholastic Chess"
February, 2005

It's part of a larger story about youthful "Chess Queens"

You can also read the full story here. And if you’re interested in learning more about Katherine Neville and her writing, check out her website.

Long live The Eight and good luck to Alisa in the upcoming Championship.