The Oracles Published 2:54 p.m. ET May 5, 2020

Being an entrepreneur is challenging. Being an entrepreneur in the age of COVID-19 is even more challenging.(Photo: The Oracles)

The world is in a crisis unlike anything most of us have ever seen, and its easy to become overwhelmed with anxiety and uncertainty. We asked these leaders and Advisors in The Oracles for their best advice to weather the storm.

Heres what they said.

As a parent of two teenagers, my best advice is we need to stay calm for our kids and lead by example. Dont go out and interact with too many people.While its important to stay connected with friends and family, Im doing that via phone, text, and email.

Stay safe and well! Gretchen Carlson, founder of the Gift of Courage Fund, named one of Time magazines 100 Most Influential People in the World, New York Times bestselling author of Be Fierce, and inspiration for the movie Bombshell.

Gretchen Carlson, founder of the Gift of Courage Fund(Photo: The Oracles)

When things seem out of control, control what you can: your time, energy, attitude, and resources. Create discipline in your schedule and be intentional about when you wake up and go to sleep.

I go to bed at 9 p.m. and get up before the sun rises, so I get eight hours of sleep. When I wake up, I write down my goals and go to the gym. I dont watch TV for more than an hour, avoid the news as much as possible, and read for self-enhancement an hour each day. Grant Cardone, founder of Cardone Capital, a $2 billion real estate empire; follow Grant on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Grant Cardone, founder of Cardone Capital.(Photo: The Oracles)

As a Navy SEAL leader, I learned to thrive in a crisis with the PBTA Tool. First, Pause and listen. Eliminate distractions and take a moment to check in with your intuition. Next, Breathe deeply to calm down and take stock of what is really going on.

These first steps will clear your mind and help you focus and tap into the powerful intelligence of your gut and heart. Then you can begin to Think better, merging that gut and heart intelligence with rational thinking for optimal results keeping in mind that your first thought is likely a conditioned reaction. The final step is to Act boldly. Dont wait for the perfect plan. Choose the most viable target and move toward it. Trust yourself, your team, and our collective entrepreneurial spirit to solve these problems. Weve done it before, and well do it again. Mark Divine, retired U.S. Navy SEAL commander, NYT & WSJ bestselling author, and founder of Unbeatable Mind and SEALFIT; follow Unbeatable Mind on Facebook and YouTube

Mark Divine, retired U.S. Navy SEAL commander.(Photo: The Oracles)

When Isaac Newton had to stay home during the Great Plague of London in 1665, he made discoveries in calculus and began understanding gravity. While the world is forever changed, our ability to be creative, stay nimble, and uncover new ideas and opportunities will leave us stronger than ever. As horrible as this is, I believe good comes from every bad situation if we look for it. For example, while our industry has come to a standstill, retailers are creatively growing e-commerce sites and forging new collaborative relationships, which creates opportunities for the future. Ashley Alderson, founder and CEO of The Boutique Hub and Boutique.Style; cancer survivor, motivational speaker, and host of Boutique Chat; connect with Ashley on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Ashley Alderson, founder and CEO of The Boutique Hub(Photo: The Oracles)

Reflect on whats important to you and reconnect with friends and family. Now is an opportunity for creativity, innovation, and new ways of thinking; so dont limit your imagination. Expand your mind with online learning resources like The Great Courses and CuriosityStream. Look around your house; pick up that guitar or paintbrush you never had time for.

If youre struggling with negativity or fear, stop focusing on yourself. Reflect on how fortunate we are and find empathy for others. Use your skills and knowledge to be a force for good. Dont get mad at the news; focus on solving problems. Then fear will fall away, and youll see more clearly. Remember: the sun is still shining, and we rise by lifting others. Tom Albert, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence expert, and founder and CEO of MeasuredRisk, a leading enterprise risk management company; connect with Tom on LinkedIn

Tom Albert, founder and CEO of MeasuredRisk(Photo: The Oracles)

Recessions separate the wheat from the chaff in business. Its much harder to sell when money is scarce. Unfortunately, many businesses will be forced to close their doors due to social distancing. But some digital businesses that could have survived will also close for a different reason: their product was weak. When their customers become choosy, they will no longer choose them.

While its crucial to cut unnecessary expenses to bring in cash flow, dont cut your product development. Now more than ever, you must make it your No. 1 goal to be the best in your market. Sarah Chrisp, founder of Wholesale Ted, one of the largest (over 350,000 subscribers) online educational resources teaching entrepreneurs how to create, grow, and scale successful online stores; started her first online store at 16 years old; follow Sarah on YouTube

Sarah Chrisp, founder of Wholesale Ted(Photo: The Oracles)

Instead of panicking, control the things you can control. I had to travel, but Im careful and hope for the best. Prioritize your spending and conserve where you can. Lean on your mentors and talk to people who are smarter than you. If you have a problem, leverage your network. For example, my friends in the restaurant business didnt offer delivery; so we built them an app and launched a marketing campaign. Theres innovation happening everywhere. Craig Handley, co-founder of ListenTrust and author of Hired to Quit, Inspired to Stay; connect with Craig on LinkedIn

Craig Handley, co-founder of ListenTrust(Photo: The Oracles)

In the face of such uncertainty and anxiety, a leaders first job is to provide clarity from the front lines with steadiness and frequency even if its just sharing that you have no updates. No one has all the answers, but by tapping into your teams collective knowledge, you can determine the best move forward and create a sense of control.

This situation is changing how we live and work, which is challenging for everyone. Be compassionate and honest with your team. Let them pause to feel emotions and handle what they need to. Everything takes more effort during a crisis, so be mindful of your teams energy. Theyll need it when we return to the new business as usual. Michael OBrien, executive business coach, author of Shift: Creating Better Tomorrows, and founder of Peloton Coaching and Consulting and The Pace Line Leadership Academy; connect with Michael on Facebook and LinkedIn

Michael OBrien, executive business coach.(Photo: The Oracles)

9. Celebrate your wins.

As a leader, Im transparent about what Im thinking and how well continue moving forward. First, we level with our team about the situation and expectations, acknowledging that it will take time to get used to this. Were still adhering to basic policies and protocols and expect everyone to check in regularly, manage their time wisely, and deliver the same stellar work.

Were also making the best of this. Were celebrating our employees accomplishments and offering virtual team-building activities and spaces exclusively to talk about whats happening. Our #viralwins channel invites everyone to brainstorm ways to turn this situation into new opportunities. Luke Freiler, CEO and co-founder of Centercode, a Customer Validation solutions provider that helps hundreds of enterprises and high-growth tech companies bring dynamic and delightful products to market; connect with Luke on LinkedIn

Luke Freiler, CEO and co-founder of Centercode.(Photo: The Oracles)

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How to weather the Coronavirus storm: 9 business leaders share their best advice - USA TODAY

The black-and-white board beckons and strategy-building await! But no fancy (or plain) chess set is needed. We've got everything you need right here. Choose the theme that most appeals to you. The computer will set up the board, keep track of all the pieces, and generally make the whole production portable. You can play anywhere totally for free! Try to beat the computer or go up against a live person, either in the room with you or somewhere across the internet. Against a human or machine, the game will force you to expand your mind and sharpen your strategy and critical-thinking skills. That's right, chess makes you smarter. Other benefits include: improved concentration, memory, abstract reasoning, and creative problem solving. Chess teaches you to prioritize and focus on the important things while tuning out distractions. It can also make you more sharper and more Zen. Attack and defend simultaneously while working toward a bigger and better strategy during each match. It's time to become a mastermind and boost your brain with the thinking man's (or woman's) favorite game!

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Play Chess Online for Free - Against the Computer or with ...

Our chess games are fun to play and easy to learn. You can challenge the computer in a game of traditional chess, or try your turn at one of our variations. Choose your ideal set of pieces, pick a color, and start your strategy! A true master spends hours honing their craft. Our levels play realistically and have smart AI, which will react to your gameplay and present you with a unique challenge. Our collection can also accommodate beginners, providing simpler gameplay and easier variations.

Many different graphic styles are included in our chess games. If you prefer basic 2D graphics, you can play with standard, overheard views. Or, move your knights, bishops, and rooks in stunning 3D. Our Flash-based chess adventures provide vivid colors and pristine graphics. You can enjoy smooth gameplay and quick AI, and even play multiple games at once! For an even more unique challenge, try the Totally Spies adventure. In this variation, you can control live characters and trap your enemies on a custom board.

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CHESS GAMES Online - Play Free Chess Games on Poki

Here is a chance to play chess online against a basic chess computer. This computer chess program was written to run in flash, but it still gives a decent game. This is a free game, uses a 3d chess board and needs no download. Could it be the best free online chess program out there?

If you want a tougher game then try some of the other computer chess engine download links on this site. Almost any UCI chess engine from Jim Abletts page will give an incredibly strong game, or you could download the Crafty chess computer which is also available with its own graphical user interface.

To play chess you must both install flash and then enable it your browser.

For example, in Chrome, after flash installation click on settings -> advanced and scroll down to content settings click this and then enable flash there.

You must complete BOTH downloading flash and enabling it in your browser for the chess game to work and be visible!

If after performing both actions the game still does not appear, then hard refresh your browser cache (control-F5 on Chrome).

FlashChess can also be downloaded to play on the desktop of your computer.

It is available from http://www.flashchess3.com/download.html

If this easy chess game is too easy for you, or you just fancy a change, why not try our new onlinecomputer chess program?

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Chess Online Against Computer

CHENNAI: Rest of the World (RoW) beat India 2.5-1.5 in the second round of the online Nations Cup team event on Tuesday. While former world champion Viswanathan Anand, P Harikrishna and Koneru Humpy drew their games against Teimour Radjabov, Alireza Firouzja and Mariya Muychuk respectively, B Adhiban had an off day as he went down to Jorge Cori. Earlier, India began their campaign with a 2-2 draw against USA. The FIDE-rated event saw five-time former world champion Anand draw with Hikaru Nakamura in 41 moves on board 1 of the event. India went ahead when current world rapid champion Koneru Humpy defeated Anna Zatonskih in 42 moves. USA were on the verge of defeat against India, but a victory by Fabiano Caruana over Vidit Gujrathi put a tie on the scoreboard and saved the match for them. The Caruana-Vidit clash went down to the wire as it lasted 119 moves. On the strong show, Caruana said, "It was a 50-50 for most of the match. Playing chess online for about 25 minutes is very tough indeed." As far as his team's chances in the event was concerned, Caruana said, "We might be slight underdogs and I feel China is a well-rounded and a solid team. I really hope that we go all the way." After the conclusion of the opening day, China was topping the points table with 4 points followed by USA and RoW on 3 and 2 respectively. India were placed 4th along with Russia and Europe with 1 point to their name.

Go here to see the original:

Nations Cup online chess: India lose to Rest of the World - Times of India

"So what?" you will probably think, "Chess has nothing to do with ancient trade!" And if you thought that, you would be completely wrong! For more than a thousand years, the 7,000-kilometre route running from Europe, through the Middle East and Central Asia to China was the information super highway of its age, serving as the conduit not only for goods but also for the transmission of knowledge, ideas and culture between East and West both ways. Although the economic significance of the Silk Road was limited due to the long distance, its cultural impact was of great significance.

As merchants, artisans, and missionaries travelled along the trade routes, they brought with them new products, ideas, technologies and culture. And the game of chess was an inseparable part of that cultural exchange. Actually, all theories on the history of chess agree that the game originated in one of the countries of the Road, in either China, India or Persia.

Chess was played everywhere, in royal palaces and merchants' shops, in bazaars and even on the streets. But the most popular places to play chess were "caravansarays", large buildings, generally surrounding a court, where a caravan (a group of travellers journeying together on camels) could rest at night. These relay stations were constructed all along the Silk Road and were found throughout the Muslim lands of the Near and Middle East and North Africa.

The Shah-Abbasi Caravansary in Karaj, Iran | Photo and description Wiki

They were located along main trade routes of the Road at intervals of a day's journey for a camel caravan. Many were in desolate surroundings but others were at the gates of towns or within the towns. These structures offered facilities for the essential needs of the people and the camels of a caravan: a well for water, a place for the animals to rest, a sheltered area for the unloaded baggage, rooms for sleeping, kitchen and of course entertainment facilities, including chess. Chess was mainly a means of entertainment for travelling merchants, but surprisingly, it was also a nice source of income for some local nimble guys.

When and where do you think first chess "professionals" came into this world? I guess the first thing that came to your mind is Caf La Regence or the likes in London or Madrid. But again, to explore that, we will have to go back to Caravansaray era. There is a lot of historical evidence that caravansarays and other public places of that time were also gambling places. There were lots of games played for stakes, chess being one of the most popular. And caravansarays were most favourite places of "chess professionals" because there were always many rich merchants, an easy prey for them. These professionals had developed whole strategic systems, scenarios of luring those rich lamebrains into a game.

Imagine a situation: a caravan arrives at caravansaray, guests are welcomed and taken to their rooms, baggage unloaded from camels and put into warehouses, camels are given hay and water, dinner is ready for guests? Now what? Of course, a merchant who has slept all the way through from the previous caravansaray will now look for some fun. As he walks around, looking at the architecture and the artwork of the building, or listening to the nightingale sing in the cage, he is invited to have a game of chess by a homely, humble person who in no way looks like a chess expert. Let's call him the hunter and the merchant the victim, because this is very much like hunting indeed!

Like every novice who has beaten another novice several times, our victim considers himself the greatest player of all times. He is used to play for small stakes with his friends and mates. So the game starts, and starts the play, too! The hunter lets the victim take pleasure of the game for a while, makes simple mistakes, "blunders", builds simple mating positions for the opponent which the latter "finds" with a great effort.

This goes on until our hero "wins" three or four games in a row. While this is going on, the room is filled with amazed spectators and the victim is drowned in compliments about what a clever guy he is and what a strong player that he finds these combinations.

Now it's time to perform the second act of the play. The hunter wins the next game "by pure accident" and is so glad and happy. The victim believes he is incomparably stronger and just lost the last game by accident. He now loudly announces it's his debt of honour to offer a stake! The hunter pretends to be so afraid to play with this strong player, and only agrees to play for a very small stake, the fee for the dinner for example. Guess who wins this one. Of course the victim. Next game they play for accommodation fee. A portion of cannabis in hookah. Gradually the stakes rise, the hunter loses game after game, and is so "excited" and "heated up".

Finally, after having lost all his possessions, he "takes the last chance" and wagers his golden ring, his "great grandfather's only legacy" which is, by the way, worth about two hundred times all the previous stakes put together. Of course, he is "very lucky" in this game as the victim blunders a rook and a knight. But he still believes he is much stronger and next time he arrives at the same caravansaray, he will be very happy to play a rematch and this will happen over and over again, until he realizes what a silly child he has been!

As we said above, chess, or its variations like shatranj, was played everywhere, even in royal palaces, and even there they played it for stakes. This is mentioned many times in the folklore of the Silk Road nations.

You may have read the famous and fascinating Legend of Dilaram, which dates back to about VII century. The story is about a Padishah, who loses his entire kingdom, including his harem, in shatranj against a foreign prince. He is only left with his favourite wife whom he calls Dilaram (the name is Persian and comes from the words dil = soul, and aram = ease, rest). He makes a final desperate decision and wagers his wife against everything he had lost in the previous games (may ladies forgive me, but women were treated just like their husbands' possessions in the medieval Orient). However, this decisive game, too, goes very badly for him and he eventually finds himself in a position where his rival can checkmate him on the very next move.

If you decide to solve this simple problem, bear in mind that they were playing shatranj, which has the same rules as modern chess with only two differences: the queen can move only one square in any direction and bishops move only two squares along diagonals, they can also jump over pieces.

His wife was watching the game from behind a parda the curtain dividing the room into men's and women's sections. In desperation she started to sing (forgive me for my rough translation from Uzbek): Oh my Lord, don't give up your soul's ease, give up your two Noblemen (Rooks), attack and wound your enemy with your Elephant (Bishop) and soldier (pawn) and let the Knight kill him. The padishah understood what she meant: Dilaram had found a brilliant winning combination, put it into a song and sang it to him. He executed the moves of the song and won the game.

Solution: 1.Rh8+ Kxh8 2.Bf5+ Rh2 3.Rxh2+ Kg8 4.Rh8+ Kxh8 5.g7+ Kg8 6.Nh6 mate.

This story is also a clear proof of two things important from the chess point of view: one is that even in that medieval era, when women's rights were so strongly limited, they played chess. Another is that players of that time, too, observed certain chess etiquette. Dilaram did not directly tell her husband the solution she found but hinted at it through a song.

But at no time should you think that chess was only a game for gambling. Nowadays some people like to call chess an art or a science. But back in the Medieval Orient it was much more an art than it is now! Moreover, chess was an entire philosophy. The greatest oriental poets, almost all without exception, wrote at least some lines about chess, some of them devoted entire poems in which they explained, for example, the course of a battle, or padishah's policy in chess terms. Oriental poetry in general is so specific that it has always been very difficult even for professional native-speakers to translate it into western languages. However, I will try to explain you a very philosophical thought of Alisher Navoi, the greatest Uzbek poet of all times, which he expressed in just two lines:

Shoh yonin farzin kabi aylar maqom etmish netong, Rostravlar arsadin gar tutsalar ruhdek yiroq.

Straight-goers like the Rook are always moved to the brink The sly and artful Queen takes her warm place right next to King. (This is just my rough translation from Old Uzbek)

This is an allusion to moves of Rook and Queen and their place in the initial position. The philosophy here is that straight, honest people don't achieve much in this life and are always given less than they deserve, and sly, unpredictable people who can go any direction, (i.e. betray) are always at the top of society.

The Silk Road no longer exists as a trade route, modern hotels have replaced exotic caravansarays and powerful trucks have replaced camels. Modern sites along the course of the Silk Road have become important tourist destinations. These sites include Uzbekistan's exotic and ancient metropolises of Samarqand, Bukhara, Khiva, Kokand and Tashkent, with their artistic and architectural treasures. However, one important part of that medieval culture the chess culture is still remaining in all those historical centres of Uzbekistan.

If you ever happen to go to Uzbekistan and want to play chess, find a "Chayhana" (chay = tea, hana = room) a traditional teahouse, a public place where people come to talk, drink tea, etc. The picture is of atraditional Uzbek chayhana.

Sometimes they meet to discuss business, to exchange useful information and the news of the day. But mostly they just like to chat and tell stories, and of course, play chess. In any chayhana, there are always several chess sets and players of different levels. As you enter the chayhana, the first thing you see is the chayhanchi a very friendly looking old man who looks after the chayhana and makes tea. He welcomes you in an orientally hospitable fashion, offers you a seat and a piala (traditional cup) of tea.

A pre-warmed china pot is filled with dry green tea, then a quarter of the pot volume is filled with boiling water, after that the teapot is put on a hot oven (avoid open fire!) for about two minutes. Then boiling water is poured into the teapot until it is full by half, afterwards the pot is covered with a thick cover. After 2-3 minutes the pot is bathed with boiling water, then three quarters of the volume are filled with boiling water, the tea is left for another couple of minutes and the pot is filled almost up to the top. Traditionally, tea is poured into piala and back to the teapot three times before serving.

You can join different groups of people sitting on Suri a traditional wooden bed for sitting, usually for 4-6 people. One group will be playing backgammon, another group loudly discussing news of the day, and several groups, of course, will be peacefully playing chess. As soon as you come up to any of the companies, you will be grated in a traditional fashoin "Assalom aleykum". If you decide to join a group playing chess, you can just play it for fun with one of many amateurs, or, if you are a considerably stronger player, you can play for a stake.

It is uncommon and usually considered impolite to openly play for money. The usual stake here is ordering Uzbek pilav (or "plov") for the whole company. This meal is really delicious, and indeed it's the pride of Uzbek cuisine. Each chayhana, and even each family has its own recipe of pilav, slightly different from others. In Uzbek culture it is considered shameful for men not to know how to cook pilav, and believe me, every man has his own little secret of cooking it.

Here is how I cook plov (for a company of eight people):

700 gr. of lamb (preferably fatless), 350 gr. of lamb fat (preferably from the tail of local sheep), 250 gr of onions 1 kg of carrot (chopped into long thin pieces), 1 kg of rice, a pinch of cumin

First the cast-iron pot (which we call kazan) is heated on a moderate fire. Then the lamb fat, chopped into pieces of about two grams, is put into the pot and allowed to melt until it begins to turn brown. Then the pieces of fat are completely removed from kazan and the oil is allowed to heat up until a slight white smoke appears. Now the meat, also cut into pieces, is fried for about 5-7 minutes, until it starts to become darker in colour and softer. Then the roughly chopped onions are added and fried. You should stir the whole contents in order to avoid burning, at 1-1.5 minute intervals. When the onions become slightly brown, the carrot is added and fried until it completely loses its hardness. Then you add 1.5 litres of water and allow to boil for about 20 minutes. Add salt. At the very beginning of the process you should wash the rice and put it in cold water. Now you wash it once more and put into kazan, the water completely covering it. After adding the rice, to avoid burning, you should regularly penetrate it with you ladle to allow water run down as it tends to always go up. By the time the rice is boiled enough, the water will have almost disappeared. It is now time to sprinkle the plov with cumin and cover it with a plate, leaving some space open along the edges to allow extra water evaporate. You should reduce the fire to a minimum. In 20 minutes you may enjoy your cookery masterpiece!

Note that correct choice of rice is crucial for making a successful plov. The genuine Uzbek plov is made of rice called Devzira (literally Genie's earrings), which will unfortunately be unavailable to you unless you are in Uzbekistan.

At the end, I want to tell you a funny story I recently witnessed at one of those chayhanas. Two old men were playing chess, for a serious stake I suppose. One of them accidentally touched his pawn. He suddenly realized that if he moved that pawn he would immediately lose a piece, but he was of course required to follow the touch-move rule. He suddenly cried out "Hey, chayhanchi! Why there's always no teaspoon here!? I need a teaspoon but there isn't one! Why should I have to stir my tea with a chess piece!?" And he stirred his tea with the pawn with clearly artificial indignation. But his opponent did not find a word to object and the game went on! In fact, he had no reason to stir his tea because we don't use sugar for green tea!

Originally hailing from Uzbekistan, in 2013 I turned a brand new chapter in my life: I moved to America. First I lived in Pennsylvania, just outside Philly, for a couple of years. Then the corporate pursuit took me to beautiful New Hampshire, where I still live a life of a (self-proclaimed) decent chess player, wicked carnivore and coffee addict. I absolutely love New Hampshire, its people, its nature, and its accent. I run chess classes at schools my pet project that I love more than anything else I do. So, instead of a prolix autobiography, let me tell you a truly New Hampshire story.

I landed at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport on a beautiful November day -- autumns in New England are unbelievable. No sooner than I check into the hotel, my new manager called me and, among other things, said, "I left yaw khakis at the reception." I was a little taken aback, to say the least, and asked, "Excuse me, my what?"

His answer didn't change much, "Khakis, I left them for you at the reception." What khakis? What color? What size? Why? But the receptionist handed me an envelope with... Two car keys! That was the local pronunciation: kaah kees that I heard as "khakis". That's how New Hampshirites, or a Granite Staters, speak. They eat lobstah for dinnah, then they paahk theyah caah and go to the baah. I have made numerous cultural adaptations to local life, but I still haven't adopted the accent.

And sorry for my hair: baabah shops are closed for coronavirus quarantine. If you're in or around NH, hit me up through jbegmatov@gmail.com, and meet up for a game or two.

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Chess in the Caravansaray - Chessbase News

The May edition of Cover Stories with Chess Life is now live! This monthly podcast, hosted by Senior Director of Strategic Communication Daniel Lucas, goes in depth and behind the scenes of each months Chess Life cover story. This months guest is GM Francesco Rambaldi, who contributed annotations to our May Chess Life cover story on the Cairns Cup. We talk to him about the Cairns Cup, growing up playing chess in France and Italy, his current status as a member of the Saint Louis University chess team, and his new book, The Caro-Kann Revisited A Dynamic Repertoire for Black.

Image Credit: GFHund via wikimedia

Dont miss your chance at winning a $50 gift certificate to USCFSales.com! Send in your question to [emailprotected], and if your question is selected as the Best Question, you will win the gift certificate. Send in your questions now about anything involving Chess Life that strikes your fancy.

Make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify!

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May Cover Stories with Chess Life: GM Francesco Rambaldi - uschess.org

Theyve left. Theyve all left a man wearing protective face mask rests at an empty chess table at Tasmajdan park in Belgrade, Serbia, last week. Photograph: Andrej Cukic/EPA

The Chess Player

Theyve left. Theyve all left. The pigeon feeders have left. The old men on the benches have left. The white-gloved ladies with the Great Danes have left. The lovers who thought about coming have left. The man in the three-piece suit has left. The man who was a three-piece band has left. The man on the milkcrate with the bible has left. Even the birds have left. Now the trees are thinking about leaving too. And the grass is trying to turn itself in. Of course the buses no longer pass. And the children no longer ask. The air wants to go and is in discussions. The clouds are trying to steer clear. The sky is reaching for its hands. Even the moon sees whats going on. But the stars remain in the dark. As does the chess player. Who sits with all his pieces In position.

Howard Altmann published his Selected Poems, Enquanto uma Fina Neve Cai / As a Light Snow Keeps Falling, last year, a bilingual, Portuguese/English edition with translations by the Portuguese poet Eugnia de Vasconcellos. The Chess Player appears in it, and was first published in 2005, in Who Collects the Days, Altmanns debut collection.

Obviously, it predates the Covid-19 pandemic by a number of years. At the same time, the poem may illuminate, and be illuminated by, current events. It also tunes in to an ancient and universal human experience: the daily fading of light into dusk, when the mood may slip into melancholy and uncertainty. The hushed emptiness that descends on the park in the poem is almost naturalistic at first, but the widespread movement of desertion soon gathers foreboding through repetition. Its as if all ages and all species had silently agreed to emigrate.

The Chess Players was a film written and directed by Satyajit Ray in 1977, based on Munshi Premchands short story of the same name. Two chess-mad noblemen, Mir and Mirza, are so obsessed with their game that they refuse to notice the turmoil of the British incursions seething around them, not to mention the disintegration of their marriages. Despite these catastrophes, Rays touch in the film is light, as is Altmanns in the poem. The images his statements evoke are sometimes surreal, and sometimes presented in a whimsical manner. They may be backlit by a pun (The lovers who thought about coming have left) or trip us on a gently comic letdown (The man in the three-piece suit has left. / The man who was a three-piece band has left.) The line, The sky is reaching for its hands, is particularly effective. Perhaps hands suggests a clock, and the desire of the sky to seize hold of time and make it move faster. Or the hands may be potentially the monstrous hands of a killer. Nothing terrible actually happens in the poems foreground, but the threat level rises as the moon becomes unusually sharp-eyed, the stars unusually ignorant and dim.

The rhythm slows right down at the end of the poem, with full stops insisting on a painfully weighty pause for thought at the ends of lines: But the stars remain in the dark. / As does the chess-player. / Who sits with all his pieces / In position.

Only now do we learn that no game is in progress: in fact, the player has no visible opponent. The solitary figure sits at the untouched board in the dark. It raises the question as to whether the poems hidden subject is war. From a war gamers site, I learned that the name chess is derived from the Sanskrit chaturanga which can be translated as four arms, referring to the four divisions of the Indian army elephants, cavalry, chariots and infantry. In this regard, chess is very much a war game that simulates what we would now call the combined arms operations of the ancient world.

Perhaps we should abandon the image of an al-fresco chessboard altogether? The single player may be planning moves of a more desperate kind, moves that might include the assassination of some leader, or the pushing of the nuclear button. He may have gone crazy and got trapped in a ferment of fantastic plans too complex and entangled ever to be accomplished. The pieces, whatever they represent, are in position but, perhaps fortunately, will never move forward.

So reading the poem now, we might also be reminded of a stalemate of statistics, strategies and models. Earlier on, weve been cheerfully told, Of course the buses no longer pass. / And the children no longer ask. The lightness of tone and rhetorical patterning, and the faint stumble in the end-rhyme (pass and ask), seem to show the effects of an effortless severance of intellectual curiosity and lively physical action. Perhaps all the players in the park are obedient pieces being moved around a board or taken and scattered in some master game? Perhaps even the chess player is a pawn.

Continue reading here:

Poem of the week: The Chess Player by Howard Altmann - The Guardian

5/3/2020 So I am being pressured to publish a book, a collection of articles that have, in the last twenty years, appeared on our news page especially those describing encounters with famous players. And the ones that showed entertaining puzzles and games. They were very nice on a computer monitor, where you can replay and analyse everything but transfering them onto very thin slices of tree? Nobody fetches a chessboard and pieces to replay moves anymore. Ahh, but there's a solution to this problem. Let me show you. And please help me evaluate this approach.

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As I said in the first part of this article: I believe that chess books and magazines represent a colossal waste. Less than ten percent of all readers play through the games they contain those who do are called grandmaster, or IMs, and they do it in their heads they read chess books like adventure novels. The rest of us try to follow the first few moves, if they are part of our openings repertoire, and then jump to the diagrams, where we replay a few moves that follow in our mind. The rest is usually ignored.

So just a small percentage of non-professional chess players actually read chess books. Hand on your heart: when was the last time you set up the chess board and pieces and replayed a game from a book or a magazine?

The irony is that you probably have the ultimate replay right there in your pocket, or on the living room table: your smart phone or tablet. On it the moves are executed on a graphic chessboard, and you can even have an engine running in the background, ready to answer every what-if and why-not question that might occur to you.

But how do you get the moves of the game, printed on paper, into your electronic device? Scanning the page and using intelligent OCR is not a practical solution. Also downloading a file and then searching in a database for the game you see on the page is cumbersome. You need to get it in one quick and easy action. And that is possible using a QR code. This is a kind of barcode (QR stands for "quick response") in matrix form, which the camera of your smartphone or tablet can pick up quickly and effectively. And an app, one of a dozen you can get for free in the Apple or Google stores, will immediately execute the instructions contained in the QR matrix.

I am not the first person to think about the possibility of using this in chess books. As I told you in the first part of this article: my good friend Prof. Christian Hesse used the system in 2015, in his (German language) book Damenopfer. There, for the first time I believe, you could scan a QR image printed next to each diagram or at the start of a game, and then replay it on your electronic device. This takes a second or two. After that you have the game, moves, and the entire analysis on your mobile phone or tablet, and can replay them right there, in your garden, on a train or plane, anywhere. You read the stories in the book and replay the games on your electronic device. I showed some examples in my previous article.

So how I can I use this tool in my books? I have been experimenting with converting past articles printable text. After trying Microsoft Word and Libre Office I hit upon Google Drive, which has a word processor that appears to exactly fulfill my needs. So the process is copy and paste a text from articles, update and format them nicely, and then export the file, which is stored in the cloud, e.g. to PDF. Works very nicely. Google's word processor does not have all the functions of the dedicated packages, but it has all the essential ones, and they have been optimised for ease of use.

The articles I convert often have positions or games. I always have them in PGN or ChessBase in fact they are usually embedded in the JavaScript replayer on the news page and can be downloaded with a click from there. Take for example my recent article "The game that shook the world." At the bottom is a replayer with the annotated game. Clicking on the diskette icon downloads the PGN and, in my setup, loads it into ChessBase 15.

Now comes the decisive part: I go to the File menu and click "Publish this game". ChessBase 15 offers to produce a One Click Publication, with the replayer. It gives the URL, embed code for the player (so you can add it to a blog article), and social media buttons (to post on Facebook, Twitter or email to a friend). Here is what the page it generates looks like. That is definitely a page you can link to.

If you follow the URL given, on your mobile phone or tablet, this is what you get. You shold try it out: scan the following QR code (use a barcode or QR scanner as described below) and see what it looks like on your device.

As you can see on the photo the tablet produces the full player, where you can start an engine (fan icon) that will help you to analyse. There is even a "!" icon (on the right side of the engine display) that shows you the threat in any position, which is incredibly useful in the case of unclear moves (I use it all the time).

For the technically savvy there is another option: "Create an HTML file" and upload it to your server. In that case you use

Who is the chess player on Mars? – Chessbase News

Posted: at 5:46 pm