Seven Portieljes

This blog's most recent post about 'Top eBay Chess Items', The Kitten Theme, featured a painting by Gerard Portielje (Belgian, 1856-1929) and noted,

A search on 'chess Portielje' brings up two other works by the same artist.

Afterwards I noticed another painting and started to wonder how many different chess paintings there are by Portielje. Using the following image as a starting point...

Google image search on 'chess Portielje'

...I numbered the rows from top to bottom as 1 to 3 with the paintings from left to right in each row identified as A, B, etc.. The 'Kitten Theme' painting (first row, second from the left) is thereby identified as 1B.

That identification scheme reveals the following pairs of chess paintings: 1A & 1C are the same, 1D & 2B ditto (although certain details like the cabinet on the right of the painting are not identical), 1E & 1F ditto; plus two unpaired paintings: 2A and 2F.

2C and 3C show the same painting, but it's not a chess scene. The other Google images are either not by Portielje or not about chess.

That makes six different paintings on the first Google search page. I found a seventh on the second search page, which leads to valsur 274753.html - Valerij SURKOV, showing four Portielje images (among many others by other artists): 1A/1C, 1D, 2B, plus the new painting.

I wouldn't be surprised to find more.

***

Later: I found a second Valerij SURKOV collection of chess paintings: valsur 337769.html - Valerij SURKOV. This page also has four Portielje images -- 2A, *, 1E/1F, and 2F -- where '*' is a painting not identified above. Change the title of this post to 'Eight Portieljes'!

I also searched my collection of ~10.000 chess images (most of them from eBay) for Portielje. In addition to 'Kitten Theme' (1B), I found several variations of 1E/1F, the best of which had the accompanying text:-

The title is 'The Chess Players'. This print was issued by the Denver Post, December 7, 1902 (printed in the lower left corner). [...] This was printed by the American Colortype Company as a supplement to the Denver Post newspaper.

Another variation mentioned, 'Originally this print appeared as a supplement to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE on 2/2/1902'.

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February 1966 'On the Cover'

Fifty years ago, chess photo credits were more haphazard than they are today. I imagine the photo on the left was taken during the 1963 Piatigorsky Cup in Los Angeles.

The issue of Chess Life had only 20 pages with surprisingly little content. Five of the pages showed only crosstables and game scores for non-U.S. tournaments.

Left: World Champion Petrosian
Right: 'WHAT AGAIN! (Photo by Robert Parent)'

Chess Life

Tigran Petrosian, who won the world chess championship by defeating Mikhail Botvinnik in 1963 by a score of 12.5-9.5, will defend his title against Boris Spassky in a 24-game match that will begin on April 11.

Chess Review

Robert J. Fischer stretched his record for winning the United States Championship to seven straight times at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York city, December 12 to 30, 1965. As this tournament, directed by E.T.McCormick, was also the U.S. Zonal tournament, Fischer, along with Robert Byrne and Samuel Reshevsky who tied for second place, qualified to compete in the Interzonal Tournament later this year...

On my zonal pages, World Chess Championship Zonals, I've adopted the practice of numbering the World Championship cycles. The events mentioned here would have been in cycles no.6 and no.7.

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Instructional Videos : Caruana

The three previous videos in this series on the players in the forthcoming 2016 Candidates tournament (see the previous post Instructional Videos : Aronianand follow the links back) have all shown analysis from recent editions of the Corus/Tata Wijk aan Zee tournaments. The current video is from the 2016 Tata event that finished yesterday. GM Caruana finished tied for 2nd/3rd, one point behind GM Carlsen. In this clip Caruana discusses his game with host GM Seirawan.

Tata Steel Tournament 2016 ! Fabiano Caruana Post Game Analysis After Round 2 (22:05) • 'American GM Fabiano Caruana giving analysis of his game against World Champion Magnus Carlsen, Wijk Aan Zee 2016.'

Which do I prefer : the click of wooden pieces on a wooden demo board as in the Aronian discussion or the click of a mouse as in the Caruana discussion? It's hard to say.

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The Kitten Theme

I'm not sure when the evolution took place, but here on Top eBay Chess Items by Price, live auctions have become the standard method of selling artwork on eBay. The latest example, pictured below, was titled 'GÉRARD JOZEF PORTIELJE, (BELGIAN 1856-1929), CHESS MATCH Lot 185', and subtitled, 'Part of a live auction event on Tuesday, Jan 26'.

The title of the live auction was 'European Art & Old Masters offered by Freeman's, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA'. This chess painting sold for US $7500 after 15 bids, attracting more interest than some of the works by better known artists.

The description said,

Seller's Estimate: USD 2,000 - 4,000 • GÉRARD JOZEF PORTIELJE (Belgian 1856-1929); CHESS MATCH; Signed and located 'Gerard Portielje Antwerp' bottom right, oil on canvas; 18 1/4 x 23 in. (46.4 x 58.4cm); Provenance: Private Collection, New Jersey.

Condition Report: The relined canvas with visible surface craquelure; in fair overall condition with some areas that are difficult to accurately 'read' under u.v. light due to pigments used and varnish inconsistencies. There are some restored areas, including in background at left, center left, center and center right, and to parts of tablecloth.

A few common devices appear in the painting. The fellow on the left is sleeping, presumably after a few drinks from the bottle on the table; the fellow on the right, deep in concentration, is oblivious to his partner's condition; and kittens are playing with chess pieces on the floor. A search on 'chess Portielje' brings up two other works by the same artist.

In contrast to the live auction in the previous 'Top eBay Chess Items' post, Something Smells Fishy, this one looks normal.

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Tata 2016 in Pictures

For the third year running, a January Flickr Friday features the annual Tata tournament, held at Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. Two years ago we had Knights of the Rijks (Museum), and last year saw 'Nice Jacket!'. This year I couldn't find any single photo that I preferred over the others, so I decided on a composite.

Center photo:Magnus Carlsen v Shakhryar Mamedyarov© Flickr user Frans Peeters under Creative Commons.

For the complete set of all photos, see Search: tatasteel chess tournament 2016. Note that many (all?) of the photos can be reused for noncommercial purposes. Thanks, Frans Peeters!

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Thousands of Comments

Even before the most recent Video Friday post, No Comment-- about a video titled 'Saudi Arabia king (sic) Grand Mufti bans chess, says forbidden in Islam' -- I had already spotted a related Yahoo article. Its introduction is shown below.

Twitter erupts after Saudi cleric says chess is forbidden

The Grand Mufti and the Saudi cleric are one-and-the-same, but what exactly is a Grand Mufti?

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia is the most senior and most influential Muslim religious and legal authority in Saudi Arabia. The holder of the position is appointed by the King. The Grand Mufti is the head of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas. • Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia[Wikipedia]

One reason I like Yahoo articles (last seen earlier this month in Hunk-o'-Junk Chess) is their comment section. A few years ago we had Mainstream Comments on Magnusand The Graffiti Wall - Is Chess a Sport?(both December 2013), and the 'Chess Is Forbidden' theme promised to be another trove of mainstream wisdom. Indeed, the number of comments swelled from around 500 when I first noted the Yahoo article to over 2300 when I started preparing this post.

Unfortunately, most of the comments that I read showed the same sort of intolerance for Islam that the Grand Mufti showed for chess. I'll continue to scroll through them as I watch the final rounds of the 2016 Tata tournament, but don't expect a follow-up on this subject.

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FIDE's 'Not Rated' Players

Two weeks ago, when I first looked at the FIDE Rating List - January 2016, I noted,

The main download page, FIDE Download Rating List, offers six different lists:-
* Full list of players (not rated included)
* STANDARD rating list
[...]
Last year I decided to stick with the 'STANDARD rating list' and this year I'm doing the same. Some day I might look at the 'full list', but I don't have the time or the interest for that now.

I haven't found the time to take a proper look at the full list, but I have found the interest, so I downloaded it (Thanks again, FIDE!) into a database. The first thing I noticed was the size of the list. It has 560.640 players, while the STANDARD rating list has 231.238 players. How do those >300.000 unrated players break down by federation? The following table shows the federations with the largest number of 'not rated' players.

Count by federation of players with:
'S' = standard rating
'R' = rapid rating
'B' = blitz rating
'<>' = no rating

The counts of standard rating don't quite match the counts in the previous post -- they are a generally a little higher -- but I didn't download the lists at the same time. The difference isn't enough to bother me.

To double-check my results, I looked at the USA players with 'no rating'. None of the 8336 players were marked inactive and a few of them had CM/WCM titles. About 30 had FIDE Online Arena (FOA) titles. Many of the players had FIDE IDs that looked unusual to me.

Why is FIDE interested in keeping track of so many additional players? That is a question for which I have no answer unless it's something to do with FOA.

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Instructional Videos : Aronian

In last week's Instructional Videos : Anand, I decided to take the eight participants in the 2016 Candidates Tournamentin alphabetical order, so after GM Anand we have GM Aronian. It's a happy coincidence that the 2016 Tata Steel tournament is being played as I write this.

Tata Steel Chess 2012 - Analysis - Levon Aronian shows his win against Giri round 10 (17:10) • 'Uploaded on Jan 25, 2012'

The wooden demo board isn't as convenient as an electronic demo board, but I can live with its deficiencies. To follow the complete game, see Anish Giri vs Levon Aronian; Tata Steel 2012(chessgames.com).

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FIDE's CIS Chairman O'Connell

Earlier this month Chessdom.com posted an Interview with CIS Commission Chairman Kevin O'Connell, a good read for anyone interested in the Chess in School movement. It lists O'Connell's accomplishments, then opens with some historical background.

I was one of the founders of the Commission in 1984. Despite the hard work and financial support of founding chairman Nicola Palladino, few of the initial goals were achieved. It seems that the time was not quite right, with too much emphasis on chess development and not enough on using chess to help children develop educational and life skills.

Since 2010 we have refocused on using chess for education, for absolute beginners, mainly in the age range 4-12. The appearance of chess players from these programs (about 5% of those in CiS programs go on to play some sort of competitive chess, joining chess clubs and their national federation) is a happy by-product, but not the principal objective. This is in contrast to the previous focus (and current TRG – Trainers’ Commission – focus) on developing chess players, coaches and trainers.

There's much more, including a discussion of the materials I included in Chess Curriculum - Summary(December 2015).

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No Comment

Saudi Arabia king Grand Mufti bans chess, says forbidden in Islam (1:14) • 'The highest official of Saudi Arabia Grand Mufti has banned chess in the country quoting that playing chess is forbidden in Islam. he said it is a waste of time, promotes gambling and causes hatred among players. Grand mufti Abdul Aziz bin-Abdullah issued the fatwa ahead of a major chess tournament in Mecca tomorrow.'

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Still There After All These Years

What's the first thing everyone does when they get a new rating list? They look up their own name. That's exactly what I did when I downloaded the FIDE Rating List - January 2016, even though my rating history can be summed up in three bullets.

• 'The last time I played a rated FIDE game was at the 1990 Paris Open in Paris, France.' (Where I Play, May 2006)
• In 1998, 'I took a hit for 30 rating points even though I hadn't played a FIDE event in years.' (The Other M.Weeks, May 2006)
• 'FIDE IDs were introduced in the [rating] data for 1999. For example, I was assigned FIDE ID 2003740, even though I hadn't played a FIDE event since 1990.' (FIDE Struggles with the Growing Popularity of Ratings, June 2008)

Seventeen years later I'm still on the FIDE Rating List. I wonder which player holds the record for being on the list the longest without having played?

I was reminded of all this while preparing the last post of 2015, More Rummaging, when I found the photo shown below. While not from the 1990 Paris Open, it does show the 1989 Paris Open, where I also played. There are even a couple of players in the photo that might be me. Then again, they might be someone else.

Europe Echecs, June 1989 p.10

My purpose in writing this isn't to rattle on about my long gone, active playing days. It's an introduction to the photographer listed beneath the photo, Catherine Jaeg. I'll come back to her in another post.

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Hunk-o'-Junk Chess

Don't you just love Yahoo articles that have something to do with chess? Just last month we had Propaganda Is Awesomeand a few days ago I noted 22 Ingenious Ways To Repurpose Old Junk. The third of the 22 ways was:-

(5/44) Before: Random Pipe Fittings • An old pile of rusted pipe ends and fittings destined for the junk pile.

(6/44) After: Steampunk Chess Set • With a bit of rust remover to make them shine, you can transform your old fittings into a steampunk chess set. Source: 9 Bizarrely Beautiful DIY Chess Sets

Better understood in photos as...

...The 'Source:' in the 'After:' photo wasn't actually linked to anything, but with the usual search engine magic I found 9 Bizarrely Beautiful DIY Chess Sets(pinterest.com), which references an article from Popular Mechanicssupplemented with dozens of other examples.

Now that I've documented that bit of Yahoo for posterity, I can move on to the other 19 'ways to repurpose old junk'. Nice word there -- repurpose.

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Instructional Videos : Anand

Continuing with this short series of instructional videos by each of the eight participants in the forthcoming Moscow Candidates Tournament, in what order should I take them? After the previous clip from the player they hope to challenge -- Instructional Videos : Carlsen-- I could take them in order of current rating (which in many people's mind is equivalent to ranking) or I could take them in alphabetical order (as listed in the Carlsen post).

Taking them in alphabetical order puts GM Viswanathan Anand next. This is doubly appropriate since he was the previous World Champion and battled Magnus Carlsen in the last two title bouts: 2013 Chennai (India)and 2014 Sochi (Russia).

Anand shows his win against Wang Hao (8:57) • 'A smooth victory for Viswanathan Anand got the World Champion into shared first place after four rounds at the 2011 Tata Steel Chess Tournament.'

The video by Chessvibes.com is similar in style to the Carlsen video. To follow the complete game, see Viswanathan Anand vs Wang Hao; 2011 Tata Steel(chessgames.com).

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Something Smells Fishy

This series on Top eBay Chess Items by Priceisn't just about pricey chess auctions. It's also about eBay. Since the annual post-Christmas drought -- also seen in Bak to Basics-- continues, I looked into an unusual item that caught my attention, pictured below.

Three times the same item, titled 'James C. Christensen - The Chess Match', sold at live auction (as did 'Bak to Basics') during a two month time span? That's definitely unusual.

The description for the first item -- Nov 8, $2,960.00 -- said,

Hand Signed - Extra Large Canvas Edition - Image Size: 72"w X 48"h. Limited Edition Of: 40

The description for the second item -- Jan 9, $2,950.00 -- said the same, followed by a long, long paragraph (*) that started,

There Are 1,327 Named Openings And Variations To A Match In The Oxford Companion To Chess, But How Can A Player Remember Any Of Them When The Days Spectators Include A Pair Of Dragons?

The third item -- Jan 14, $2,950.00 -- went missing. Its auction detail page said only,

We had trouble finding some information about this item. Please come back to try again in a few minutes.

And the message persisted. What does all this mean? It means that something smells fishy.

(*) The same text -- with normal word capitalization, the grammatically correct "when the day’s spectators", and properly formatted in multiple paragraphs -- can be found at James C. Christensen - The Chess Match(greenwichworkshop.com), along with prices for the different editions. The most expensive is 'MUSEUMEDITION CANVAS; Image size: 72"w x 48"h.; Limited Edition of: 40; $2,950.00'.

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U.S. Chess Hall of Fame

The endless Video Friday series returns after a one month hiatus with a photo from the World Chess Hall of Fame(worldchesshof.org) St.Louis, Missouri. The wall appears to be decorated with plaques honoring inductees into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame.

Chess Hall of Fame© Flickr user Nick Normal under Creative Commons.

For the complete set of HOF photos from the same photographer, see World Chess Hall of Fame. (NB: There are a few photos there that aren't typical chess material and aren't really suitable 'For All Ages'!)

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Fischer - Keres, 1962 Curacao

I wanted to use this photo for the recent post on the Paul Keres Centenary, but decided against it because it shows more than Keres. It's still a great photo

I found it on eBay a few years ago (August 2013 to be exact), where the description said,

7" x 5" black and white photograph of Fischer during a match, signed on the reverse: "Here I am playing Paul Keres of the USSR in Curacao, Dutch West Indies. Yours truly, Robert Fischer." There is a vertical fold.

The position the players are analyzing is around move 40 of the game Robert James Fischer vs Paul Keres; Curacao Candidates 1962(chessgames.com). Keres won that game.

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FIDE Rating List - January 2016

It's that time of year time again, when I download the January edition of the FIDE rating list, load it into a database, and do some simple queries. Last year I did a series of nine posts, starting with FIDE Rating Lists Restored(January 2015) and ending with Into the Melting Pot(February 2015; including a summary of the other posts).

Through the years, the FIDE rating lists (FRL) have become more complicated. The main download page, FIDE Download Rating List, offers six different lists (the following bullets are copied from that page):-

• Full list of players (not rated included) STD, RPD, BLZ combined
• FIDE rating list in old format (not rated included - only Standard rating)
• Full list of players LEGACY format (not rated included with only over the board titles) STD, RPD, BLZ combined
• STANDARD rating list
• RAPID rating list
• BLITZ rating list

Last year I decided to stick with the 'STANDARD rating list' and this year I'm doing the same. Some day I might look at the 'full list', but I don't have the time or the interest for that now.

In 2015, the FRL listed 197.590 players, of which 82.407 were marked inactive; in 2016, the FRL has 231.238 names, of which 96.535 are marked inactive. The following chart shows which of the 180 federations had the largest increase in the number of players, whether active or inactive.

FIDE Rating Lists: Jan 2015 & Jan 2016

Left: Increase in players; Right: New federations

The four federations on the right did not appear on the 2015 list. They should be merged into my table of FIDE Country and Federation Codes, but I'll save that task for another day.

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Instructional Videos : Carlsen

The 2016 Candidates Tournament(Moscow, 10-30 March) starts in two months, which gives me just enough time to run a weekly video series featuring the eight participants: Anand, Aronian, Caruana, Giri, Karjakin, Nakamura, Svidler, and Topalov. I'll be looking for clips that show the players explaining one of their own games. Let's start with a presentation by the man they hope to challenge, World Champion Carlsen.

Carlsen Smeets 10 rd Corus 2009 (14:25) • 'Published on Nov 29, 2012'

I recall that this was first published by Chessvibes.com around the time of the 2009 Corus tournament, but I couldn't find the original version. For the full game, see Magnus Carlsen vs Jan Smeets; Corus 2009on Chessgames.com.

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London Chess Conference 2015

For the third year running -- last year's post was London Chess and Education Conference 2014(January 2015) -- I'll use this blog's 'Chess in School' series to feature a video from the recent London Chess Conference, held in conjunction with the London Chess Classic 2015. At the beginning of the clip, Malcolm Pein introduces himself as

Chief Executive of 'Chess in Schools and Communities', a U.K. charity that organizes, hosts, and facilitates the conference.

IM Pein goes on to explain, 'This year we're going to look at projects that use chess not just as a development tool for children but also as a positive force that impacts both the individual and society as a whole'.

London Chess Conference 2015 Opening Session extract (5:20) • 'Opening session introduction by Conference Director John Foley introducing Chess Festival Director Malcolm Pein.'

For more videos from the same Youtube channel, see London Chess Conference, 'Presentations and interviews from the London Chess Conference 2015: Chess and Society held at the Hilton Olympia'. For another video on the same conference, see KVDC London Chess Conference 2015 workshop impressions, which leads to a different Youtube channel highlighting other conference sessions. For more about the conference itself, see London Chess Conference - Making Chess Work for Society(londonchessconference.com).

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Chess Kids in Somerset

After the previous Video Friday post, Nakamura on the Grand Chess Tour, I took a short break for the Christmas holiday. There was plenty to choose from in the intervening month, including more from the 'London Chess Classic' (aka 'Grand Chess Tour'), but this next clip was my favorite.

Chess Kids: Checks & Balances (7:28) • 'Short film about a day long kids' chess tournament.'

The filmmaker, Gabriel Gilson, added,

Something about chess fits perfectly in to the childhood tendency for obsession. I wanted to explore how the children think about chess and how parents and children cope with the competitive pressure you get even at a small local tournament like this.

Other, non-chess clips on the same Youtube channel feature Bath, UK.

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