Evolution in Modern Ideas in Chess

I see the book by Richard Réti has been published in a new edition. I kind of like the motif in the cover of the book. It is maybe not very polished, but it is a nice idea anyway. In the end, I supposed the Darwinian idea of evolution can apply to chess ideas, as the fittest of them survive while the unfit are discarded and pass to the bin of the history.

Working hard

I came across this picture in flickr, and I loved it. It reminds me of my boss a lot. He always says that working hard always pays off in the long term, but for sure he is thinking that he will be beneficiary of our tolling in the short or middle term. I would say the small piece is a Bishop rather than a pawn. No doubt the big figure is a King. Maybe Hugh does not know a lot about chess, as only pawns are entitled to metamorphose change after arriving to the eight file, and even with that, the only piece they cannot become is the King. Anyway, I love the image.

King of the Clinic

What's going on in the Irish Baltic Clinic? Is that a chess King? I think so. This reinforces the Western European cliché. Chess as Russian or Eastern European stuff.

What's the relationship between chess and health?. Not totally sure, but no matter which field you are into, being the King is best. Sorry about the shaky quality. Mobile phone camera, you know.

Spassky - Fischer, 1972 . Logo

One of the logos for the match of the century. Its design is very 1970s. An idealized world and a black and white king. The winner of this match would be considered the king of the chess world. So many things have been said about it that I feel lazy to elaborate.

Sensual chess

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Two Knights against a Pawn.

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A nice diagram that helps to understand a quite difficult ending.

It is quite well known that two Knights cannot defeat a bare King. It would be possible, should the weak side play terribly (there are mate positions indeed, but they are always avoidable).

All of this may change if the weak side has a single pawn. Then, the strong side (in our diagram, the White) can force a stalemate position with one Knight plus the King and then, ride the other Knight to the checkmate while the weak side moves its sad pawn.

I find it difficult to force the opposite King into the corner with only one Knight and the eventual support of the other, but it can be done. It has been studied by Cheron and others.

The green squares are the ones in which the pawn can be placed so that the ending can be won.

I took the picture somewhere in the Chessbase page. The original url is not available anymore.

Weird chess teacher

An unidentified chess piece kind of teaches chess.

The weird facts about the mural chessboard are the following:

- The square in the right corner is not light as it should be
- There are two black Kings on the board
- All the 4 pieces in the chessboard occupy more than one square

Regarding our teacher. Is it a black or a white piece? Hard to tell, his skin is Caucasian but I would rather say he's black.

Which piece it is? I would say a pawn.

I do not like the yellow background.

Echecs - Championnat de France (1925)

Here we have a nice poster for the French national chess championship played in 1925.
The event took place in the beautiful city of Ni ce between September 2 and 11.
The picture is somehow monochromatic but it goes with the cubist aesthetics so in vogue at the time.
As in a painting by George Braque or Juan Gris, a group of cubes (tridimensional squares?) flow over the background, the silhouette of a King.
I did some research in Wikipedia and it seems the champion that year was Robert Crépaux, who had also won the title the previous year in Strasbourg and would make it again in Paris in 1941. One of those inconnus we are indebted with.

Spanish radio station ad on a newspaper (2006).

This is a double-page ad I scanned somehow (you can see the line). Funny that a radio station advertises itself in a newspaper, you may say. The reason may be that Cadena SER belongs to PRISA, a media group that contains, among others, the influential "El País" newspaper and television channels such as "Canal +" and "Cuatro".

There is no other reference to the game of chess, apart from the image. In which there is a huge black King (which supposedly represents SER) and three small pawns, one of them fallen. In a way, we could say this is a Freudian image. The fact that the winner is the Black side draws my attention as it breaks a convention, the white-black contrast as a representation of the good-evil dichotomy.

For the sake of completeness, I include the text even if it has nothing to do with chess.

Gana la radio. Gana la Ser.
4.896.000 oyentes diarios.
[...] en 2006 la SER es la radio más escuchada de España. Así lo confirman los datos oficiales del Estudio General de Medios (EGM) correspondientes al primer trimestre del año. La radio gana en oyentes y la SER vuelve a ganar. a Enhorabuena a nuestros competidores y a los 4.896.000 oyentes que hacen que la SER esté siempre un paso por delante. Pase lo que pase.

The radio wins. SER wins.
4,896,000 daily listeners.
[...] in 2006, SER is the most listened radio Station in Spain. The official data of the Media General Study (EGM) confirm so. There are more radio listeners than ever and SER wins again. Congratulations to our competitors and to those 4,896,000 listeners of ours that make SER to be, always, one step ahead. No matter what happens.

On the right side, close to the faraway pawn, you will see the logo of "Cadena SER". On the bottom you can see the logo of the Quixote year (which was actually 2005), and the reference to the EGM.

Sand chessmen

Another misterious picture. This is a sand giant chessboard. It is well protected from the wind. We can imagine the sea in the background. All the types of pieces can be seen. It seems that all of them are white. At least I see three white bishops and knights.

Where did this happen? If you've got any clue please write it in the comments.