Sat. Nite Chess Thread 06-23-2012 [OregonMuse]

Sorry, I don't have much this week. Work and life sometimes get in the way.

Game of the Week

This week's famous chess game is Nimzowitch v. Tarrasch, St. Petersburg 1914. Hypermodern v. Classic. Old School v. New School. Who will win this generational shootout? Rumor has it that these two players completely despised each other, and that the winner avoided a simple finish to one that looked very much like he was grinding his opponent's face in it. I'm not going to give away the ending, but I assure you, it's spectacular.

You can play through it yourself here.

For those of you who missed it, here is the '60 Minutes' feature they did on Magnus Carlsen a while back. When I watched it, I couldn't help contrasting the young man's stability, which I think is based on his close relationship with his father, with the dysfunctional Bobby Fischer, who never knew his father. Perhaps 'dysfunctional' is not quite fair, but my point is that no matter how good Fischer was, you could tell that there was just something about him that was missing, some vital component of being human that, for him, was just not there. Which is true of a lot of people who perform at the genius level, but I don't see that with Carlsen.

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posted by Open Blogger at 06:42 PM

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