Find Peace at Home With This 10-Minute Guided Meditation

Yes, we should all be social distancing right now but that doesn't mean we can't metaphorically lean on one another for support during these times of uncertainty.

I'm finding stress relief since reaching out to Kelsey Patel, a certified reiki expert and yoga instructor. She created a guided meditation for moments when I need to catch my breath and mentally escape from the confines of my home, and it may help you out, too.

Before getting started, it's key to clean up your space and set the mood. Lighting a candle, brewing a cup of tea, and settling in among blankets and pillows does the trick for me.

By priming our environment, Patel explains that we are creating an intentional practice of slowing down and catering to ourselves.

As you embark on the meditation below, remember to be easy on yourself it's normal for your mind to wander. If this happens, though, allow yourself to readjust and find your center.

"You can do this practice at any time of the day, and do it as many times as needed to reclaim your sense of peace and calm," Patel notes.

Click here for more health and wellness stories, tips, and news.

Read more from the original source:

This 10-Minute Guided Meditation Will Help Mentally Transport You to a Happier Place - POPSUGAR

If you truly want to let go of negative energy, this cord-cutting meditation will do wonders. Take it from Bernstein, who used it personally after wanting to release her attachment to a negative message on social media.

"You might be feeling a cord attachment to news, political views, your own anger, or frustration if you're living in compromising circumstances," Bernstein explains. Whether it's a negative person, headline, or thought, this meditation works to "cut yourself off" from whatever negativity you may be experiencing.

As you close your eyes, place your palms facing upward and identify an area in your body where you may hold discomfort.

As you breathe, identify any person, story, or fearful thought that you feel attached to right now. Visualize the dark cord that's attaching you to that negative energy, whatever it looks like to you.

First, forgive yourself for being hooked, and honor that attachment. Then breathe in and welcome that intention to release the cord attachment. Place your hand on your heart, and breathe into your heart space.

Tune into this podcast to follow along with Bernstein and me in real timeso you can have the necessary tools to free yourself from this state of trauma. With all the uncertainty going on in the world, you still have the ability to control your own breath, purpose, and emotional freedom.

Read this article:

3 Meditations From Gabby Bernstein To Help Regulate The Nervous System - mindbodygreen.com

Twenty seconds isnt enough to wash our hands of some things.

For instance, on Friday, March 13th, after the count of presumptive positive COVID-19 diagnoses crossed 50 in four days and Gov. John Bel Edwards announced month-long, state-wide school closures, I combed the aisles of a store owned by Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest person in the world, wondering why the hell anybody was there right then.

The glove-handed store workers were there, re-stocking shelves, butchering meat, serving food, ringing up baskets. depending on an hourly wage to care for themselves and their families.

If they dont clock in, they dont have food if/when stock runs dry from the pandemics impact on trade (or if the government issues a mandate to close stores as chainmail that claims to be from the neighbor of a cousin of a friend of a so-called upper-level military person suggests will happen in the next 48 to 72 hours).

And I was there, creating the demand that justifies the supply of labor. The vast majority of us depend on grocery stores for access to food and potable water, and we expect stores to remain open even hope they will, in spite of the fact that in just a week, as WWL-TV reported Monday, New Orleans had become the city with the second highest per capita rate of COVID-19.

We dont yet know if or for how long stores might close or go barren. But in the event that they do, weve stocked up on out-of-season food items transported here from around the world and tap water branded by Coca-Cola and Nestle.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest person in the world is being made wealthier and more secure through the insecurity of his employees and customers in the face of a global public health crisis.

What is the outcome for people, institutions, industries, and systems that hegemonize dependence on them to the point that, only two or three generations from their inception, we cant imagine our lives without them in order to hoard power?

Louisiana history has seemingly been an experiment in answering that question: slavery, the petrochemical industry, tourism. And no matter how many happy birthdays we sing, we cant wash our hands of some things.

Every time my toddler son sings happy birthday while washing his hands, I think about the apocalypse. I grew up in a doomsday religion in which celebrating birthdays is considered devil worship that exponentially increases the likelihood of one being destroyed in the Apocalypse.

Though I left my parents religion nine years ago, I did take from it the belief that, if we have faith that there is a way of thinking and being that will make the world a better place to live for all its inhabitants, the apocalypse doesnt have to be a frightful end.

It is simply a revelation, a confirmation of things we already knew that this system is insufficient for all of us; it offers us the choice to assess the way we live and accept that changes must be made and that we do indeed have the resources necessary to make them.

Rightfully, Louisianans are currently focused on flattening the curve of COVID-19 using our head to stop the spread, as Mayor LaToya Cantrell recommended.

But whenever we get to the here-on-out, will the decisions we make be based on the hope that a pandemic doesnt happen again? Or will they be based on the reality that it can, with the understanding that no one should be in such desperate positions as some of us are now in?

It is considered normal, in the world in which we live, for us to demand that others put themselves at risk in service to our chosen dependencies, for people to be so financially insecure that they have to gamble their life chances for the possibility of survival.

As I ration water, oatmeal, honey, and cranberries for my toddlers breakfast, its hard to believe Mardi Gras the finale to a season of excess was just a few Tuesdays ago. COVID-19s ingress into Louisiana coincides with the Lenten season, the 40-day fast that follows Carnival, a meditation on purpose and our commitment to a path that will make life better for all who come after us.

Per Christian mythology, Jesus is led after his baptism by spirit to the wilderness where, over the course of 40 days, he faces the Devil who tempts him three times. Jesus turns down opportunities to demonstrate his power by turning a stone into bread, to prove his importance by jumping off the cliff with the expectation that the angels will catch him, to rule the world in exchange for worshipping the Devil.

Jesus confirms his commitment to his purpose: to sacrifice his perfect life to absolve the sin humanity inherited from Adam.

In the 10 days since the novel coronavirus first reared its head in New Orleans, 347 people in Louisiana have been given positive diagnoses of COVID-19, 231 of them in New Orleans. Six people have died in Orleans Parish, one in Jefferson Parish and one in St. James Parish.

This Lent, were being asked to make collective sacrifices for the health of the world, now and beyond the moment of crisis. Unlike Jesus, were not martyrs who have left the comforts of heaven, but necessary parts of a bio-social ecology that is increasingly debilitated by the maldistribution of resources and life chances.

What will we relinquish out of commitment to humanity, and who will we put behind us once COVIDs curve has been made flat, once we return to work (for those of us with such job security) and send the kids back to school?

It can feel overwhelming, impossible even, to imagine a society in which no one has to submit to the will of another to survive.

But just because you cant wash your hands of everything, doesnt mean you stop trying.

Lydia Y. Nichols is a writer native to New Orleans. Her critical and personal essays about race and the environment in visual art, film, and literature have been published in 64 Parishes, Bayou Brief, The Lens, Pelican Bomb, and Tribes Magazine and on her blog at ModernMaroon.com.

The Opinion section is a community forum. Views expressed are not necessarily those of The Lens or its staff. To propose an idea for a column, contact Engagement Editor Tom Wright at twright@thelensnola.org.

See the article here:

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: a Lenten meditation on COVID-19 in New Orleans - The Lens

During its three years of existence in Prague, the Tibet Open House has served to connect east and west via language classes, Buddhist teachings, exhibitions, and other events.

Due to the current movement restriction put in place by the Czech government, the culture space has had to postpone a number of its courses and events, many of them devoted to bringing Tibetan culture history, tradition, art, philosophy and religion to the Czech capital.

This week the organization has announced that it will continue its efforts online by offering mindfulness and meditation with the Residential Lama of Open Tibet House, Geshe Yeshi Gawa.

Born in eastern Tibet, Geshe Yeshi Gawa studied in the Loseling monastery in southern India and later in Dharamsala. From Monday, March 23 (6 pm) he will be offering online courses in meditation and mantra recitation.

The sessions are intended for the general public, not just Buddhist practitioners, according to the Tibet Open House website. Geshela has chosen the topics very sensitively and up to date. We hope those will help you and your loved ones.

The classes are free and in English and will take place over Zoom daily through March 26. The Tibet Open House was established by the Linhart foundation and personally blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2016. From tomorrow, two daily sessions will take place at 10 am and 6 pm.

Also read: Czech military plane returns with 150,000 rapid coronavirus testing kits from China

According to the invitation, the Green Tara mantra will be recited as part of one online course, as recommended by His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the current days.

A spokesperson for the organization said that it may continue with the classes but will wait and see the outcome of the current quarantine situation in the Czech Republic.

For more information about the classes and the Tibet Open House space see here.

Read more from the original source:

Prague-based Tibetan monk hosting free online meditation and mindfulness sessions this week - Prague, Czech Republic - Expats.cz

On late afternoons, after his work was done, the modernist poet, novelist, religious omnivore, and occasional playwright Jean Toomer observed a ritual that he called deserving time. Much of the latter half of his life was spent in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia, on his property, Mill House. On the grounds, alongside his family, Toomer housed a revolving retinue of devotees who came to learn his home-brewed adaptation of the spiritualist George Gurdjieffs mystical practices; the students also performed manual labor, a classicand, for Toomer, quite convenientaspect of Gurdjieffs Work. At four oclock, when the teacher had finished his writing and his charges had finished with their chores, theyd gather in the main house, where adults made drinks and children had cookies and ginger ale.

The placid hour wasnt only for idle fun. Toomera brutally intense, relentlessly abstract, comically vain man who took every quotidian moment as an opportunity to philosophizewould ask probing, pointed questions, turning conversation into a kind of Socratic extension of his teaching. (In 1937, he tried to sell a book of dialogues with one young student. Talks with Peter was rejected by several publishers.) Later in his life, deserving time devolved into a grandiose cover for Toomers encroaching alcoholism. Ive been working very hard, he wrote in a teasing letter to his wife, Marjorie Content. Dont you think Im deserving? Dont you think I might stop at that tavern and put my head in just to see if they have any beer?

During these virus-haunted days of padding around the house, anxiously taking in news and visiting my friends via video chat, I keep thinking about Toomers afternoon ceremony. A Sabbath atmosphere not unlike the one at Mill House has sprung up between my wife and me: we sit around reading and cooking and listening to music, contemplating work more than doing it, calling our moms, pushing each other fruitlessly to extrapolate on figures (testings and infections, hospitalizations and deaths) that neither of us fully understands. Cocktail hour starts a bit earlier than usual, and ends a bit later.

One of the little tortures of the moment is the sudden disappearance of live theatre, and the thought of all the plays that had been scheduled to open, some of which, barring an economic or logistical miracle, will go all but unseen by large audiences. Ive tried to console myself by turning to plays that have seldomsometimes neverbeen seen, but which I love nonetheless. Some are intentional closet plays, meant for reading rather than seeing; others are simply interesting attempts, still waiting for their turn onstage.

One such strange but promising specimen is Toomers odd, keening 1935 play A Drama of the Southwest, written, Im sure, between many deserving times but never completed. Id love to see it staged someday, perhaps clipped into a one-act and presented on a bill with Toomers other little-known plays. He was an earnest dramatist; the knotty contradictions of his life and his ideas seemed to rhyme with the dialectical possibilities of playwriting. Still, his attempts at having his plays produced were failuresas were many literary endeavors after his classic 1923 work, Cane, a quilt of poems, prose, and drama set in black Georgia.

Two versions of the manuscript of A Drama of the Southwest were skillfully collaged in a 2016 critical edition by the scholar Carolyn Dekker. In her introductory essay, Dekker presents the Toomer who, having firmly abandoned his identification with the Harlem Renaissance, black Americans, and the South, continued to rove the country, yearning to find a locale fit to birth what he imagined as a new race in America. The play, which is semi-autobiographical, chronicles his attempt to manage this trick among the cacti and adobe houses at the Taos art colony, in New Mexico.

Tom Elliot, the plays leading man, is not unlike Toomer: cruel, curious, nave, self-involved, cluelessly sexist, an essentialist obsessed with racial and regional admixture, a vague but expansive theorizer even when the moment calls for concision. He and his wife, Grace, have arrived in Taos, where theyve rented a house. Theyve been to New Mexico before, magnetized by its small but vibrant artistic scene; theyve come to visit with friends and to frack spiritual energies from a land that, to them, feels fresh. Tom and Grace are mirror images of Toomer and Content, who were acquainted with the scene in Taos thanks, in part, to their friendship with the wealthy arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan (a fellow Gurdjieff disciple who fell rapturously in thrall to Toomers high talking) and with Georgia OKeeffe.

The play is a test of that groups guiding, if often unspoken, principle: that, owing to a places intrinsic, elemental featuresblue sky, red mud, brown folksit might work as a symbol of the American future and as an enabler for art. This was familiar territory for Toomer. Cane ends with a play called Kabnis, which portrays a Northern teacher who has come southward, to Georgia, his tourism the outer sign of an inner quest. Where Kabnis is poetic and mysterious, in places hard to follow at all except by rhythm and deftly enjambed nighttime images, A Drama of the Southwest is unsubtle in its study of oppositions.

Before Tom and Grace show up in Taos, after a lush stage description that works better as a guide to Toomers psyche than as an inducement to set design (try staging this: Then silence again... and life becomes existence again . .. and existence, focused for a time in a group of singing men, expands to the mountain and the close stars), we meet a pair of Taos locals named BuckterT. Fact and Ubeam Riseling. They sit on a roof and talk about all those art colonists descending on their corner of the country. Riselingwhom Toomer describes, cryptically, as being above artis rhapsodic about the visitors; Fact, a butcher who is below art, is more cynical. Through their patter, Toomers own unmistakable voice is sometimes awkwardly audible:

UBEAM: The spirit of the Indian still lives in and dominates this land. Disappearing elsewhere, it is vital here, vital like these hills.... To this little cluster of earth-built houses the entire world comes.

BUCKFACT: Comes and goes as fast as it can.... And why? Whats to be seen here? One bank, one newspaper, grocery and drug stores like you can see anywhere, an armory, a baseball field, a fish hatchery, bad roads, the plaza, and a dump heap. Why should anyone come all this way to get dust in his eyes? As for me, it means a job.

Read more:
Jean Toomers Odd, Keening A Drama of the Southwest - The New Yorker

THE Covid-19 pandemic is World War III in a different sense. Instead of soldiers, doctors and other medical personnel are all fighting against a common enemy now with personal protective equipment (PPE) as our armour and medical treatment as our weapons.

Over the past few weeks, Covid-19 cases have steadily increased in Malaysia. When the existing manpower could not continue to cope with the workload, major hospitals had to seek floating medical officers as back-up support teams in the front line of this battle.

Floating medical officers refer to those who have completed housemanship but are currently in limbo, waiting for their next posting and confirmation on whether they will continue as contract or permanent medical officers.

Many of us readily accepted the call of duty to play the crucial role as pawns on the front line of this pandemic. With our leave frozen until further notice and our next posting put on hold, we are still doing our best to serve the public despite the creeping fatigue and dangers of being infected with the coronavirus.

We obeyed orders as a pawn, hoping that when we advanced to the other side of the board, we would be promoted to higher ranks, be it knight, rook, or bishop not necessarily a queen yet. We just want to be on the same rank as other permanent medical officers.

But no, life isnt like a game of chess. It was revealed last week that no one from the latest batch of housemen (May 2017) have been offered a permanent post and all would remain on contract basis. In fact, this will be the last two years contract offered.

This means that the employment of a whole generation of medical officers will be terminated after the end of another two years.

Our performance during the two years of housemanship did not matter anymore, contrary to what we were told previously. All will be sacrificed come May 2022.

The worst news is that despite being required to work with the same responsibilities as permanent medical officers (UD44), we are not even given the contract medical officer grade (UD43) that was already agreed upon by the previous Cabinet last year.

All contract medical officers are stagnant on the same house officer grade (UD41).

Even though we feel cheated and demotivated now, we continue working every day to fight the Covid-19 war.

We are not turning our back despite being treated like we are dispensable, non-critical and sacrificial pawns.

This is because we know that we are better than the circumstances surrounding us and we do not want the worst to befall our nation.

We will fight till we win this war against Covid-19 together, but the demotivation we feel now is akin to putting a lighted candle in a vacuum.

We will burn out, and this makes us burn out even faster.

On a final note, eventually the strategists might be playing a game of chess without pawns.

Remember that pawns are the pieces that can advance on the board, and if you sacrifice all your armies, you will end up fighting a losing battle alone.

DEMOTIVATED AUDREY

Kuching

The rest is here:

Game of chess with no pawns - The Star Online

Ian Nepomniachtchi squeezed out a win against Wang Hao in Round 5 to become the first player to take the sole lead in the 2020 Candidates Tournament. The other games were drawn, but not without a real fight. Alekseenko-MVL was a spectacular Najdorf where Kirills 48-move think midgame proved to be time well spent, while Anish Giri missed a great chance to beat Fabiano Caruana. Ding Liren-Grischuk was quieter than the post-game press conference where Alexander called for the tournament to be halted due to the coronavirus situation.

You can replay all the games from the 2020 Candidates Tournament using the selector below click a result to open the game with computer analysis:

15-year-old Indian star Nihal Sarin joined whats become the regular team of Jan, Lawrence and a certain Magnus Carlsen for Round 5, and you can rewatch the show below:

And here's a recap of the day's play from 2-time Canadian Chess Champion Pascal Charbonneau:

It was an important day on the chessboard in Round 5. Ian Nepomniachtchi became the first player to take the sole lead, and with 9 rounds to go, the length of an average supertournament, that could be significant. Historically the leaders after Round 5 have won these 14-round Candidates Tournaments!

A decisive result in Giri-Caruana could have made or broken the players tournaments, but in the post-game interviews it was the clear the players thoughts are on more than chess. It seems a very long time ago that Teimour Radjabov withdrew over coronavirus fears, but if wed known 17 days ago how the world would look now its hard to imagine the tournament would not have been postponed, as he requested.

Anna Burtasova asked whether the players try to avoid news and social media during the event, with Fabi explaining that would take too much discipline nowadays. Giri interrupted:

You might have to, because at some point there might be a message like you have to go to that place otherwise we all die, so you really have to follow, because if you dont it might be really, really bad simply. I think with stakes this high its more important to follow the news than to focus on the event.

A question on the difficult life of a constantly traveling chess professional provoked nostalgia:

I think the coming few months are going to be easier when it comes to traveling. In general, those were the good days we travelled and got to see different places. It was good. You could get out of the house. It was nice. I enjoyed it!

Travel was of course on Fabianos mind too:

I have a situation where Im usually away from home for three months at a time, but now Im not actually sure Ill have anywhere to return to at the end of this tournament. I might be stranded somewhere, and Im not exactly sure where, because the US State Department said that American citizens have to come back to the US or wont be able to come back if they dont come back right now. Im not exactly sure, but Im not really thinking about it now - where Ill have to go at the end of this event.

When Anna tried to reassure the players on getting back home, Giri responded with what is essentially no joke:

I have faith in the private jet of FIDE, that we will fly all players to their houses. Thats my only hope!

Private transportation arranged by FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich or the tournament organisers may well be the best hope for many of the players to return home, though there are restrictions everywhere.

The most dramatic intervention on the virus, however, came from Alexander Grischuk, who has never shied away from speaking his mind.

He was asked about his form:

My form is terrible. I dont want to play at all because of this situation. When it was the beginning I did not have a clear opinion but now already for several days I have a very clear opinion that it should be stopped, this tournament. The whole atmosphere is very hostile. Everyone is with masks, the security and so on. For me its very difficult, I just dont want to play, I dont want to be here and actually considering this Im quite happy with my result, but overall its no coincidence that everything else is stopped. We are the only ones left playing, the only major sport event in the world, and I think it should be stopped and postponed.

He went on to clarify:

Im not talking about myself, Im talking in general, of course. Im not saying it should be stopped because I dont want to play that is not what Im trying to say. Im just saying in general, and also Botvinnik was commenting on this, that if you make two players play while standing its completely unsure that the same one will win who would win while playing seated.

Ding Liren has suffered more than most from the situation around the virus, finding himself in lockdown in China before having to spend 14 days in quarantine near Moscow before traveling to Yekaterinburg. Its understandable he wants to be able to open his hotel window!

My form is much better compared to the first two days. Since I moved to a new hotel I get some fresh air and life became more beautiful after that.

What is certain is that the Candidates has been a godsend for many chess fans around the world who are currently on lockdown:

But now lets get to the days chess:

Of all Anish Giris misses in the 2016 Candidates Tournament in Moscow perhaps the most crazy was his game with White against Fabiano Caruana, where he had no less than four extra pawns but failed to go on to win. This game in Yekaterinburg didnt reach quite such legendary status, but it was close.

Fabiano repeated the Slav Defence hed played against Ding Liren, and Giri was ready. Caruana admitted he had to improvise after 10.Qc2 came as a surprise, with Giri commenting, I think Fabiano wanted to be clever with 13Qb8 but then after 14.h4 there is no real point to it. Although the computer was showing equality at this point Magnus explained that something had gone badly wrong:

Events developed fast, with Carlsen enjoying the change in the structure that followed:

He soon commented, he's just showing superior understanding... of chess, of life, of everything! and it was more or less genuine praise of how Anish had handled the position, since the Dutch no. 1 was building up a very significant advantage.

The first hints this might not be Giris day appeared on move 25:

26.f5! was a powerful move, but both here and for a few more moves Giri resisted (playing 26.Bd3), with Magnus commenting, "He doesn't want f5 g5 at all - our boy is not about taking those chances!"

He did eventually play it, however, and it was only 33.Re2?! that finally spoilt what was still a very promising position:

Again Magnus was enjoying himself as he described that as showing, a little too much class (33...Rxh4? 34.Qc6! wins) while here Fabiano really did show class to find the resource 33d4!, suddenly threatening Nd5-c3+. After 34.Re5 Black was also just in time with 34Ng4!, though Anish thought he still had a win until 35.Rc5 Ne3 36.Rc8+ Rxc8 37.Qxc8+ Ke7 38.Rc1:

The threat of Rc7+ means White would be winning here if not for the backwards move 38Nd5! that Anish had missed. After that there was nothing better than to take a draw after 39.Re1+ Ne3 40.Rc1 Nd5 and repeating the position. Fabiano admitted it had been a lucky break.

This was a spectacular Najdorf, but there was more than a hint of dj vu. One move quicker (Bg5 instead of Bg5-e3 and h5 instead of h6-h5), the players reached the same position as in the first playoff game of the Carlsen-MVL Grand Chess Tour semi-final in London last year:

In that game Maxime played Bf8, but soon realised that Bg5! Qc7 Rh4! would have been winning for Magnus. The World Champion missed that, got a winning position anyway but then went on to lose!

The reason Maxime had gone for that bishop move instead of his intended g6 was that he suddenly realised it was losing to Rxg6 fxg6 Nxe6, but computers immediately spot that things arent so simple, and in Yekaterinburg we saw 16g6! 17.Rxg6! Rxc3!

And here Kirill sank into a 48-minute think. Jan and Lawrence felt this was a horrible situation for Kirill to find himself in, pondering a crazy position over the board while his opponent was clearly in home preparation, but Magnus insisted, he's rather just enjoying calculating all the lines. Kirill explained afterwards that his preparation consisted of the knowledge that Rxg6 was a good move, but that he only saw that Rxc3 was coming at the board.

The long think paid off as he found the crisp continuation 18.Nxe6! Qc8 19.Ng7+! Kf8 20.Rh6! Rxh6 21.Bxh6 Rxc2! 22.Nf5+ Ke8 23.Nxe7 Kxe7 24.Qh4+ f6 25.Bf4:

25Rxb2+! 26.Kxb2 Na4+ 27.Kb1 Nc3+ 28.Ka1 Nxd1

Kirill had 7 minutes to his opponents over one hour at this point and sensibly chose to force a draw by perpetual check after 29.Qh7+.

It was the second day in a row that Maxime had seen his opponent spend almost an hour on a move when just out of preparation, with the French no. 1 joking:

I just wanted to add, if my next opponents another time think for like 50 minutes Im going to have to ask the arbiters to bring some board games to the rest room!

Kirill began to apologise, but Maxime intervened:

At least you had a reason after Rxc3! Sasha (Grischuk) really had no reason for that yesterday.

Alexander Grischuk described his draw against Ding Liren in Round 5 as a very good game, but not a very interesting one. Ding varied from the line of the Anti-Marshall he lost to MVL in Round 2 with 9d5 instead of 9d6, but still found himself outprepared and had to find some good moves to hold.

That brings us to the days one decisive game:

Ian Nepomniachtchi took a long break from chess after a crazy schedule last year, pulling out of Wijk aan Zee at the last moment, and so far that seems to have paid off. In Round 5 he unleashed a novelty on Wang Hao, playing 13.h4 in a position where, for instance, Vishy Anand had played Ne3 against Yu Yangyi in Norway Chess last year:

Ian already identified it as a mistake that Wang Hao replied 13Nc7 14.Ng5 Bxg5!? (14g6! seems a better try), since White got a nagging advantage in the simplified position that followed. It became a full-blown AlphaZero approach when the pawn reached h6, allowing Nepo to push his c-pawn to c4:

The position looks relatively quiet, but after 29Nxc4?? 30.Nxc4 Qxc4 here 31.Qh2! (not e.g. 31.Qg3? Qc1+ and the h-pawn falls) wins on the spot due to the threat of mate against the black king. Our Russian commentators were full of praise for Nepos grasp of such positions, where fine technique is woven from the brilliant calculation of short variations. As former Russian team coach Evgeny Bareev put it, you realise that in a minute (and he doesnt spend longer on a move) he sees more than youll see in the next life!

After 29Kg8 30.Qh2 Boris Gelfand already felt it would be extremely difficult for Wang Hao to handle the impending infiltration of the white queen, and so it proved, though it turns out there was a chance to hold after 30Kf7 31.c5 Nb5 32.Qb8:

32Nxd4! was the move, and although after the game Nepo still didnt believe you can play like this it seems that after 33.Qxb7+ Qe7 34.Qxa6 Qe4! there's nothing White can do to stop a draw by perpetual check.

Wang Hao agreed it was very hard to play like that, however, and in the game he went for 32Qd7? 33.Qh8 Ke6 34.f4 Nxd4 35.Qg8+ Qf7 36.Qc8+ Qd7 37.Qg8+ Qf7 and was here hit by the move hed missed 38.Qd8!

38Nb5 can be met by 39.a4, so theres nothing better than losing a piece to 38Qd7 39.f5+! gxf5 40.gxf5+ Nxf5 41.Qxd7+ Kxd7 42.Nxf5. It was still a puzzle, however, that after 42Ke6 43.Ne3 Wang Hao simply threw in the towel:

Black has a lot of pawns and an active king, so maybe there are still chances of holding? Often in such cases the win is obvious to grandmasters, but in this case even World Champion Magnus Carlsen wasnt so sure! We're assuming there's a way, but resignation seems premature.

The post-game press conference didn't solve that mystery, but there was a lot of analysis of the game:

In any case, that victory in a clash of the co-leaders was huge, since it leaves Ian Nepomniachtchi in sole first place on 3.5/5, with MVL now in sole second on 3/5:

In Round 6 Nepomniachtchi has a chance to make a real statement with the white pieces against Ding Liren, while MVL is Black against Wang Hao. Fabiano Caruana is likely to try and makes things complex and time-consuming with Black against Alexander Grischuk. Our English commentary team will again feature Nihal Sarin, while Swedish no. 1 Nils Grandelius will be joining for the first time!

Follow all the games with live commentary in 9 languages on chess24 from 12:00 CET!

See also:

View original post here:

Candidates 2020, 5: Nepo takes the lead - chess24

File photo of Viswanathan Anand. (Getty Images)

I had come to Germany in February to play in the Chess Bundesliga for my team OSG Baden-Baden but the matches got cancelled because of the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak. Before returning to India, I decided to voluntarily isolate myself for some days, as a precaution and to be socially distant, in my apartment near Frankfurt. But by then the travel restrictions (by the Indian government) were in place, so it made sense to follow them rather than put yourself as well as your family at risk.

This is a very unusual experience for me as I am doing something like this for the first time in my life. I do keep in touch with my family and have a video chat with my son Akhil and wife Aruna daily. We try to get some happiness in these difficult times by talking to each other. I have been playing chess with Akhil too. Aruna tells me to as a dad!

ALSO READ:Coronavirus pandemic:Postponement an option for Tokyo Olympics - IOC

Basically I am staying in the apartment most of the time. To keep myself fit and engaged, I do a lot of exercises at home, like yoga and stretching. Plus, once in a day I go out for a short walk just down the block to get some fresh air. I avoid going to places where people congregate. If I need to buy a few things, then I visit the nearby grocery store but for the rest of the time, I stay indoors.

There are no problems in getting basic things here. Basic necessities are exempted from the shutdown, pharmacies are open, and people are trying to order in rather than going out to restaurants.

ALSO READ: Will take each day as it comes with the hope that this virus is wiped out

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted my playing schedule, as the Bundesliga (chess) matches last weekend got cancelled. We are all waiting for the news of how the future of this tournament will shape up depending on the result of this outbreak. Even other tournaments are suspended or cancelled, so we will have to wait till things are in control to think of the chess circuit.

One thing that keeps me busy in the evenings is the online commentary for a chess website that I am doing for the Candidates tournament that is currently going on in Ekaterinburg, Russia. I am connecting with people from the website from Germany for commentary on the games. This is a new experience for me as its the first time that I am commentating at this scale (most other times, I have been involved as a participant).

As far as returning to India is concerned, we are following the travel advisories right now and based on what the government of India and Germany say, we will go with that. As of now, flights have been cancelled till March 28, so we will have to see post that what the scenario is.

This is a global issue and one thing that is very crucial in this is that no cure has been found for this virus. So all we can do is follow the advisories issued by the government and implement social distancing as much as possible. My wife always reminds me to keep indoors as much as possible and wash my hands at regular intervalsgenerally asking me to follow the dos and donts. Everybody has to follow what the authorities are saying so that we dont contribute in the spread of the outbreak. Lets all be safe and healthy.

As told to B Shrikant

Read more from the original source:

In times of coronavirus: Chess wizard Anand talks about life in lockdown in Germany - Hindustan Times

How to deal with a pandemic? The medievalAvignon Pope Clement VI allegedly surrounded himself with huge fires and retreated, splendidly isolated, to a throne in the centre of his great hall. Nobody (apart from those delivering nourishment) was permitted to approach him. As a historical fact, Pope Clement did indeed survive the Black Death of 1348. This wasin part due to the fact that, as it happens, in spite of the hit and miss nature of the Papal defences, and total lack of medicinal solutions, plague-bearing fleas really were deterred by the heat radiating from the flames.

In literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethes epic Faust also engages at one moment with the helplessness of medicine when confronted by a tenacious disease, for which there is no known cure. The scene is the medieval university town of Wittenberg where the eponymous Faust, the revered doctor, is lionised by the locals for his efforts in suppressing the plague. Yet he knows that his remedies were useless at best and positively harmful at worst.

One of my ambitions has been to create a modern English version of both parts of Faust, which would normally take about nine hours to perform. My aim was to abbreviate andparaphrase, so this is how I conveyed the moral dilemma of Fausts treatment of the plague:

These peasants flock to praise mewith one breath,

Because they think I cured them of their ills.

They have no concept that the Plague Black Death

Did farless damage than my bogus pills.

A century and a half after Goethe wrote his Faust, another European artist of world stature again wrestled with the problem of the impotence of medicine in the face of raging pestilence. Ingmar Bergmans film The Seventh Seal (pictured) depicts the return to his native Sweden, of the Knight Antonius Block from the traumatic experience of the Crusades. In part inspired by Drers iconic masterpiece Ritter, Tod und Teufel (Knight, Death and the Devil), The Seventh Seal solves the problem of confronting the plague, by the desperate remedy of resorting to a game of chess against Death itself.

Block was memorably portrayed by the eminent Swedish actor Max von Sydow, celebrated also for his role as the eponymous Exorcist, not to mention King Osric the Usurper in Conan the Barbarian and Emperor Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon. Von Sydow coincidentally died at a vast age earlier this month. Von Sydow always looked much older than his years and was, therefore, a perfect choice to embody the Scandinavian paladin, bearing the woes of the world on his shoulders.

The returning Knight discovers a blasted realm, villages deserted, so-called witches burnt in pointless expiation, propitiatory self-flagellation, ignored by an unresponsive cosmos and meanwhile, figuratively, the Devil is dancing wildly on the beach.

Amid the widespread collapse of the social order,under the unrelenting pressure of the Black Death, Antonius Block rescues a young family through the ingenious, if extreme, expedient of distracting the attention of Death by challenging the Grim Reaper to a game of chess. As Deaths attention is diverted by his inevitablevictory in the game, the young family makes their escape from the otherwise universal carnage. They are the only survivors.

I have attempted at great length to reconstruct the chess positions from the film, but I have reached the conclusion that the pieces are strewn on the board, more or less at random. The positions only make sense to the players themselves.

However, in its place here is a brilliant victory by the outstanding British chess exponent Joseph Henry Blackburne, victor or co-victor at such illustrious tournaments as Vienna 1873 and Berlin 1881. So deadly an opponent was Blackburne that he earned himself the soubriquet, The Black Death. This weeks game helps to explain why.

As I write, the Candidates Tournament to decide the challenger to World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen is under way in Ekaterinburg, the site of the slaughter of the Russian Imperial family during the Russian Revolution. This is one of the few sporting events to proceed during the Coronavirus crisis, but as a precaution, the customary pre game handshake has been suspended and all competitors will be tested twice a day for the virus.

Paradoxically, I expect some brilliant games to be played in Ekaterinburg, since the presence of the plague appears to be no bar to creativity. Sir Isaac Newton developed his theory of gravity while self-isolating during an outbreak, while Shakespeare used similar seclusion to write King Lear.

Read more:

Chess: The Black Death - TheArticle

Given that chess is an indoor sport, the Candidates tournament is on in Russia even though sporting events around the world have been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. But, contrary to general belief, not all chess players, confined indoors, can continue working on their game on the computer.

Ask World rapid champion Koneru Humpy, for instance. You cannot afford any sort of distractions when training. And, this is different. A lockdown where everyone is forced to stay at home. Since I have to take care of my 30-month-old Ahana, it is not easy to spare time for chess, she told The Hindu from Vijayawada. Our normal daily schedule meant dropping her at my parents home and carry on the training. Now, since she cannot go out due to precautionary measures, it is a 24x7 job for Anvesh Dasari [her husband] and me, she said.

Though this is not the first time I have had to take such a long break (the last one being when she was pregnant), this is different. There is uncertainty with whats is happening around the world and in our country, the 32-year-old Humpy said.

The Candidates tournament notwithstanding, chess too is badly affected as Europe has been the hub of the activity with many Indians featuring in the leagues there, especially in Spain.

With Italy being the worst-hit, Humpy is not sure if the FIDE Womens Grand Prix Series scheduled there in May will be held.

Though there is no official communication, given the grim scenario, it seems unlikely that it will be on, the World No. 2 said.

The other major events lined up for her are the Olympiad in August in Moscow and the World knock-out championship for women in Belarus in September.

About these two events we can be optimistic as things might improve by then given the measures being taken by the Governments here and elsewhere. Humpy appealed to every citizen to be responsible and follow the guidelines of maintaining social distancing.

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Chess | Koneru Humpy on the difficulties of training in the times of COVID-19 lockdown - The Hindu