As a chess player who has grown up and played almost exclusively in the United States since the 1970s, it has always been my impression that chess is thought to be more widely recognized in European cultures than in my home country, and perhaps in most other parts of the world, too. I personally experienced the sudden surge in interest in chess nationally in 1972 as a teenager, when Bobby Fischer became world champion. In recent years, such surges have swept India as Vishy Anand became world champ, and now sweep Norway as Magnus Carlsen inspires national pride.
I’m happy to report on some appearances by Magnus here in the US that indicate the extent that the new world champion is working to further popularize chess far beyond his native land. This week, he is appearing for two days at what is probably the world’s largest hi-tech trade show in the world, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, in association with a Nordic hi-tech firm:
www.facebook.com/events/552791
And next week, Magnus is presenting in California’s Silicon Valley, as described here in LM Dana Mackenzie’s blog:
http://www.danamackenzie.com/b
Equally significant is who is presenting Magnus to the public – one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs, chess master and PayPal founder Peter Thiel – and the venue – the Computer History Museum, which features a permanent gallery on the history of chess and computing.
Magnus is, of course, becoming a major figure among sportsmen worldwide – something only achieved by perhaps three or four grandmasters at most in modern times. But he is also doing a great deal to promote the role of chess as an educational tool, working with the leading US chess foundation to promote use of their First Move Chess curriculum in 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. I, too, have been working to assist with this in more modest ways, and am very excited to see his leadership in this area. I will have more info to share on this in the next week.
As a service aimed at helping our subscribers improve your understanding of chess, as well as your enjoyment, I would like to make a few remarks about the way we label each lecture as being “beginner,” “intermediate,” or “advanced.”
In reality, there are things to be learned from every lecture, for every level of player, regardless of the main level for which the lecture is primarily aimed.
GM Yasser Seirawan first put an explanation of this into words for me, in the mid-1980s, as he spent several years creating his “Pro Chess Video Chess Mentor” video series for an experienced publisher of training videos. In every lecture, there are points of information which viewers are “ready to learn”, while some points can be taken for granted (such as when an advanced player pays no attention to the fact that in the Scotch Game, of course the number of attacks and defenses are equal when White plays 3.d4), and other points may be so “advanced” that we are not ready to really focus on them yet – but if we come back and watch the same video after improving further, we can feel like we are hearing this advanced comment for the very first time, because now we are “ready” to hear it.
This week we have lectures on strategy, openings and tactics. All of these lectures are intermediate – but in keeping with the above, please note that Friday’s description mentions information aimed at beginners, too. Whether such things are mentioned or not, though, they are almost always there.
The world chess championship is underway in Chennai, India, and lecturer LM Dana Mackenzie has written a somewhat tongue-in-cheek blog post looking forward 25 years to a potential future world champion: http://www.danamackenzie.com/blog/?p=2620
Seriously, though, Dana honors one of his most successful former students, longtime ChessLecture.com member Elizabeth Spiegel (née Vicary), who herself is one of the United States’ most successful scholastic chess coaches ever, on the birth of her newest student. Congratulations, Elizabeth! (And watch out, Magnus?!)
For members who coach, or who wish to encourage their own or other children, there is a great documentary about the success of the inner-city Brooklyn (New York, US) kids who Elizabeth coaches, called Brooklyn Castle. Here is a great description from PBS, which showed the movie on national TV in the US last month: http://www.pbs.org/pov/brooklyncastle/. At one point, the junior high team even wins the US scholastic national championship for *high schools*.