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Anand and Kramnik - An Awaited Match-up

I just wanted to drop a line about the current match-up in Championship Chess. Two masters of the chess set, former Champion Vladimir Kramnik  has been granted the right to regain his title against current champion Viswanathan Anand. It is scheduled as a 12 game match that began on October 14, in Bonn, Germany.

 People have been waiting for the match between Anand and Kramnik for months now, and 5 games into the series, there is no one that has been disappointed. Many experts in chess circles believe that Kramnik was going to be able to handle Anand and that he would be able to emerge the World Champion.

 After the first 5 matches, many are surprised to see that Anand has an impressive lead of 3.5 - 1.5. What is even more impressive is that both of his outright victories have come when he was playing black. As a matter of fact, 2 of the last 3 matches have been decided with Anand playing Black to victory.

 The series is certainly not over yet, and I know that no one is prepared to count Kramnik out. But I have to ask, was anyone expecting Anand to have 2 point lead after 5 matches?

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Tags: Chess News, Chess Opinion by BraRoeChess
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A Little Strategy on the Chess Set Never Hurts

You can’t just waltz into a chess game and wing it.  Well, most people can’t, anyway.  It’s good to go in with a strategy for how you plan to overcome your opponent’s ability in front of a chess board.  You may even want to go in with a few different strategies since there a few different parts of the game.

The opening, middle game and endgame are three very different parts of the game and must each be handled accordingly.  The opening usually last around twenty moves and is meant to set yourself up for the next phase of play.  The middle game can a bit longer to quite a bit longer and is the part of the game where most of your pieces are lost as well as your opponent’s pieces.  This is the part of the game where strategy can be of the utmost importance because you want to be in good shape for the endgame.  That is the stage of the game where most of the pieces are gone and opponents try to finish each other by taking the king.

When developing a strategy for winning the game, it is important to be able to alter and adapt as things don’t quite go the way you thought they would at the beginning.  Remember, your opponent will be coming in with his or her own strategy to counter yours.  You’ll both be trying to keep your kings safe while at the same time exploiting each other weaknesses.  So keep your king safe and remember that just because your opponent may have more pieces on the board, doesn’t mean you are losing and should get discouraged!

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Tags: Chess Opinion by BraRoeChess
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Mixed Feelings on the World’s Most Expensive Chess Set

I recently checked out the world’s most expensive chess set.  It’s quite the site to behold and possibly covet.  Valued at almost nine million dollars, it would make quite the addition to any chess enthusiast’s collection.  No other chess set screams “luxury” quite like a chess set that has been made of gold and platinum and then highlighted with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and pearls.  If chess has a decadent side then this is surely it.  This gives me mixed feelings.

Is a chess set supposed to be so over the top?  Should it be simple yet beautiful and not be the center-piece of the room?  I would have to wonder if there is really any point in spending millions of dollars for just one board game.  Any chess set will due if you truly play the game to play the game.  One might argue that such a chess set brings a flashiness to chess that does not have any place in the world of chess.  The game starts to lose its meaning when we go for love of the look over love of the game.

Then again, maybe this is just the perfect tribute to chess.  This board could be seen as the most expensive homage to chess ever to be constructed.  Maybe instead of trying to be flashy and stylish, someone decided to glorify the game with some of the most precious materials in the world the way no one has ever done before.

So, I walk away from seeing the world’s most expensive chess set wondering what the motives were behind such a set and whether they were worth it.

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Tags: Chess Sets, Chess News, Chess Opinion by BraRoeChess
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No Substitute for a Staunton Chess Set

To me there is no other chess I would rather play with than the Staunton chess set.  It is a classic and its design embodies the game of chess.  I’ve seen quite a few chess sets, with their different designs and styles of chess pieces, and always I come back to the Staunton.  How could I not?

For over one hundred and fifty years the Staunton chess set has been the favorite of anyone who is familiar with the game of chess. There’s reason most chess clubs and tournaments use the Staunton chess set.  It has a wonderfully classic design and a utility to its design that makes the pieces easy to handle.

Though Howard Staunton himself did not design the chess set, it was named after him for good reason.  In the middle of the eighteen hundreds, chess was becoming an increasingly popular past-time and he was seen to be the strongest of the competitive chess players at that time.  He loved the design of the chess set so much that he publicly endorsed it and when as far as speaking out against other chess designs for their inferior utility of design.  He was right in his opinion of other chess sets.  What other design has been so time-honored and long-enduring?

Fancy designs and novelty chess sets will never take the place of the Staunton chess set for me. The crown of the king, the beautifully carved equine head of the knight, and the fantastic battlement-like rooks will always be my chess pieces of choice.

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Tags: Chess Sets, Chess Opinion by BraRoeChess
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Move After Move of Chess Set

You might look at a chess board and think that there aren’t all that many moves you can make on such a small board.  You have sixteen pieces to work with and sixty-four squares to move them around on.  So, it looks like a lot of moves are possible, but not a ton.

 

Games can end up being extremely short.  A player can forfeit before a move has even been made.  A game of zero moves.  The next shortest possible game would be a two move blunder resulting in what is called a Fool’s Mate.  There are only eight variations that can result in this checkmate and it almost never occurs, even during practice.

 

Games can the opposite direction, too.  The longest recorded game resulted in a draw after two hundred and sixty-nine moves of battle on the chess board.  That’s quite a different scenario than the Fools mate or a forfeit.  A came can go either way depending on your strategy and skill level as opposed to your opponent’s.

 

So now its easy to think of chess as a game that can last a scant two moves or a game that can last a couple of hundred moves lasting hours and hours.  So, you might be extra surprised to find out that the number of legal moves in a game of chess is somewhere around ten to the forty-third power.  Wrap your mind around that figure.

 

With that number in mind, there’s no reason to lock yourself into the same strategy over and over when your playing chess because there are many, many variations to try and no reason not to do a little experimenting to see what works for you the next time you sit down to that chess board.

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Tags: Chess Boards, Chess Opinion by BraRoeChess
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