My Chess Blog

Rest day - 2: "Suspended moments"! A rest day here, and the rest of the world, elsewhere, is assembled in a ground or glued to their television sets, to see a tiny man walking with his bat for the last time…perhaps!  History beckons India  on two counts: one, a significant closure - where a supreme artist and his art departs; and the other, a significant disclosure - where the artists and their art is lifting the game to another level! Today, we shall see some defining moments in chess. Before that, let us ask ourselves a couple of fundamental questions: What is art? and Is art created for ’now’ or for posterity? For me, the act of creation is always in present, but, the life that is infused into creation by the artist, outlive the artist and transcend time! The art will be loved and appreciated, hundreds why even thousands of years after. There is a primary responsibility for art and artist: that is to enshrine the uniqueness of its/his time for appreciation in poster...

A game which had lots of moments but no momentum yet! A draw... true, but it was not yet another draw! Both the players strolled jointly in a park in Afganistan - and that they managed to emerge unscathed not stumbling upon the innumerable land mines itself was a miracle! If Vishy was inventive and daring in his pawn sacrifices; Magnus was equally inventive and daring in its acceptance and returning back to the base station without an injury! As the nature hides and reserves some of its best secrets from ordinary human perception, so does chess: many of its beautiful variations lay hidden in the moves that are brushed aside! It is like "well left" in cricket, where a batsman leaves a dangerous ball to go past his bat to the wicket keeper! Come some other day to me, we shall masticate this game in solitude. Perhaps, I may reveal and revel in variations, in the true spirit of a chess player. But my friend, you need to bite the forbidden apple to know that beauty lies in hiding...

Did Kasparov's presence made game-3 energetic?…or so was one question from a press man, huh… Made me wonder how Garry would have 'answered' a similar question when he was playing Karpov!? Shame, I am yet to see a vibrant question  which would pull out a magical revelation into the game that is being played. You have two brilliant minds fighting it out on 64 squares and all that the media could salvage was such trivial questions, barring one or two occasions when somebody discussed chess.  Come on, let us discuss chess guys! Forget FIDE and politics; chess players and chess lovers would love to get drowned in the beauty of the play. Let the officials and politicians do their business on their den - these are serious business hours and the business here is CHESS! No offence meant to the Chess genius from Baku or the FIDE officials.  Coming to Game - 3, still no sign of first blood. The expected storm is just sending the outer clouds to the shore, no rains y...

I suspect a storm brewing - a premonition caused by the uneasy calmness of the moves in the preceding two games. As the players catch up some breath and tranquility on their first rest day, we shall look at 'a certain aspect ' which is the heartthrob of any art form. "Harmony" (of-course!) Certain things in life are indescribable: time, beauty, happiness……to list a few! "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." - Saint Augustine And for Beauty, your perception of what is beauty and mine may be divergent. Ask anyone who says something is beautiful to describe qualitatively what they mean by that expression? They will fall appallingly short of any aesthetic description. Coming to my pet topic- harmony! I will leave here some open ended questions for you to probe, before proceeding with some examples from Chess: 1) Can anything that is beautiful can be called a harmony? 2) Can anything t...

1) e4 c6; 2) d4 d5; 3) Nc3 dxe4; 4) Nxe4 Bf5; 5) Ng3 Bg6; 6) h4 h5; 7) Nf3 e6; 8) Ne5 Bh7; This position is 110 years old! That is chess for you! It evolves, re-evolves, sometimes certain lines get abandoned and gets buried, som eone at a latter date may dust it out from the grave and give it a fresh lease of life! 9) Bd3 Bxd3; 10) Qxd3 Nd7; 11) f4  We need to travel a century to reach 11. f4 - it took 100 years for someone to think that this move is playable! Sports history records that it took 56 years for man to break the 10 seconds barrier in 100 meters sprint. Because, man always longs for becoming, the "being" gets obscured and grossly limited. Always men are grossly limited in their thinking in the current, they are trained to look for comparison with the past and a hope for the future! The moon was found only in poetry till half a decade back! Proust said, "Nothing really happens as we hope it will, nor as we fear it will!" When someth...

Chinese philosopher Chuan Tzu dreamt that he was a butterfly, and on walking up, he did not know whether he was a man who had had a dream he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who was now dreaming he was a man! We are in no better state than  Chuan Tzu..., whatever it may be, the first move on board and a pinch on our forearm dispel the doubt - it is real!! 1...d5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.d4 c6 5.0-0 Nf6 6.b3 0-0 7.Bb2 Bf5 8.c4 Nbd7 9.Nc3 dxc4 10.bxc4 Nb6 11.c5 Nc4 12.Bc1 Nd5 13.Qb3 Just thirteen moves are made, we have already reached the end in this first game of this greatest sporting spectacle happening in our cricket mad country. The black knight and white queen have started playing an endless hide and seek game, in the corner of the board! The game-1 is more satisfying for black than for white. I especially like the harmonious moves and placement of black pieces. Vishy post the queries making Magnus to answer. The match has begun and begun well. Each an...