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A new Junior Club!

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A new Junior Club!
At long last, there is another junior chess club in Suffolk.   Martlesham Junior Chess Club held their first meeting last Saturday, when 12 children turned up.
This is the brainchild of Dagne Ciuksyte, who is assisted by Graham Moore.   With two strong players available to coach the children, there are high hopes for this new club.

To assist this start-up, Bury Knights JCC has provided six boards and sets for their use.   These were handed over recently to Graham Moore - see photo left.

Dagne and Graham are hoping that there will be as many as 17 attending next Saturday.

The club meets at the Scout Headquarters on Martlesham Heath (IP5 3PL), from 14.00 to 15.30 every Saturday.   For more information, contact Dagne on 07574 936810 or email her.




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Suffolk Cup & Plate semi-finals

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Suffolk Cup & Plate semi-finals
The draw has been made for the semi-finals of the Cup and Plate competition, as follows:

Cup:

Manningtree A v Felixstowe A   (to be played 2 March)
Sudbury v Ipswich B   (to be played 7 March)

Plate:

Saxmundham B v Ipswich F   (to be played 23 February)
Bury St Edmunds D v Manningtree B   (to be played 25 February)

If there are any clashes with these dates, please notify David Green, the Competitions Secretary, immediately.





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January 1966 'On the Cover'

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January 1966 'On the Cover'
We start a new year of American chess magazines from 50 years ago with echoes of the previous year. The January 1965 'On the Cover'also highlighted Chess Life's 'See you at the NATIONAL OPEN!' -- for that initial event the cover girl was named. The same magazine, for its December 1965 'On the Cover', showed Pal Benko as 'First American Open Champion'.


Left: 'See you at the NATIONAL OPEN!'
Right: 'Winner of American Open at Santa Monica'

Chess Life (two page ad)

Announcing the Great Second Annual
NATIONAL OPEN
THE STARDUST HOTEL, LAS VEGAS
FEBRUARY 27 - MARCH 4, 1966
$4,600 IN CASH PRIZES
Biggest Ever in an 8-Round Swiss!

Chess Review

ON THE COVER:The Mission Bay Open at the Steiner Chess Group of San Diego, which drew 30 participants and about 100 spectators, was won, not surprisingly, by grandmaster Pal Benko of San Diego with a 5-0 sweep. [...] Benko later won the American Open.

The equivalent CL ad for the 1965 National Open had announced '$4,500 IN CASH PRIZES!'. The 1966 event offered early-bird hotel rooms at the Stardust for $8 single and $10 double.

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Chess Engine Summary

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Chess Engine Summary
For the last three months of Mondays I've been running a series on chess engines. It started with a long video overviewing basic engine concepts.

Then I looked at some technical aspects introduced in the video. These were areas which were largely new to me.

By coincidence, the Thoresen (or 'Top') Chess Engines Competition (TCEC) was running at the same time. Stockfish, the star of the video, was playing Komodo, another super-engine in the final match ('superfinal').

After 100 games Komodo emerged with a convincing victory. I spent a few weeks looking at specific games that promised insights into the engines' play.

Where do we go from here? I haven't decided yet, but I'll certainly come back to chess engines at some time in the future.

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Bak to Basics

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Bak to Basics
How is it possible that after nearly 200 posts in this blog's eBay category, including dozens of artists, I've never featured a work by one of the best known chess artists of our time? This current edition of Top eBay Chess Items by Pricegives me the chance to rectify that. Good thing, too, because just like last year's post-Christmas eBay auction, Chess Stone Lithograph, there was little else to choose from.

The item below, titled 'Samuel Bak b.1933 (Israeli) Chess oil on canvas Lot 69', subtitled 'Part of a live auction event on Sunday, Dec 20', sold for US $3600 after five bids on a starting price of $3000. As with other eBay live auctions (last seen on this blog in Chess Charcoal Drawing), there is no information on the number of distinct bidders.

The description added somewhat cursorily,

Samuel Bak; b.1933 (Israeli); Chess; oil on canvas; H:33 W:24 cm.; signed lower right • Seller's estimate: USD 3500 - 4000

A page titled Chess in the Art of Samuel Bak(chgs.umn.edu: 'Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies - University of Minnesota'), subtitled 'A Question of Survival', informs,

Bak's paintings of battlefields of chess pieces and chessboards seem to describe our world today. The terminology of battle – sacrifice, foot soldiers, construct lines of defense, destroy the enemies, command centers and leaders is represented in these works.

In the dozens of Bak's paintings displayed on that page, the blue Pawn from our eBay auction does not appear. The auctioneer's catalog page Israeli & International Fine Art Auction, offered by Matsart Auctioneers & Appraisers, Tel Aviv, Israel, shows four works by Bak. The only work featuring chess sold for the lowest amount among the four. Someone got a bargain.

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