Thursday, October 16, 2014

Guardiola on Chess


Former Barcelona football club coach Pep Guardiola had this to say about chess:

The process of picking a line-up is a bit like sitting in front of your chess pieces. You’ve no idea how similar the two things are.

You can read more about his observations on chess here

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

End of Chess in New York Times?


Is it really the end of the chess column in the New York Times? Many people certainly thought so when this appeared at the foot of the 11 October edition.

Then again, perhaps not.

As quoted by Poynter, a spokesperson for the NYT said, "We are considering eliminating the chess column in order to keep freelance costs in line. A final decision for the column (on all platforms) has not been made yet.”

However, just to be sure that chess doesn't get the cut from the NYT's pages, you could take the pro-active approach and write to the paper's exec editor. The email addy is executive-editor@nytimes.com.

Monday, October 06, 2014

Evelyn Koshnitsky, 1915-2014


Such is the world today that the first thing I log on to is my social media feed. And one of the first tidbits I read this morning was a status update from a friend with the very sad news that Evelyn Koshnitsky has passed away, aged 99. Actually, it looks like the first news of this is via Kevin Bonham over on ChessChat.

I did not know Mrs Koshnitsky deeply, but I certainly knew of her reputation and the immense good she did for Australian chess over the decades.

Cathy Chua has a brief mention specifically of Evelyn Koshnitsky in an old post:

Evelyn Koshnitsky has made her life’s work the promotion of chess among the young and her special passion has been to get girls to play. First in Sydney and then in Adelaide from the early 1960s when the couple moved there she cajoled, begged and bullied support. Manpower, money, venues – she is an expert at getting what she wants from parents, schools, government, business – whoever might have something of use.