Dominium

Dominium is a pizza franchise with a nice chess logo. Above is the Dominium shop at Talbot st. Dublin. The cuessboard is unusually large (17 x 9) and it qualifies for our "dark-square-on-right-corner" tag. The Knight is neither white nor black, but red.

Kotor chess club (sign)

I took this shot in Montenegro, in the beutiful town of Kotor. It is a sign beside the entrance of the local chess club. It says "Kotor chess club" (Шах Клуб Котор). I could peek inside and indeed all the chess clubs in the world are very similar.

What I like about it is that the town can be recognized thanks to the logo. The main gate through the walls within it. Actually there is a steep mountain behind the town. Ther Rook is invented or at least exaggerated. I would say the Knight is the most typical chess piece and that its mission here is representing chess as a tower is a quite more ambiguous element.

Grünfeld in Cologne

I had not post much in the last days, as I've been in holidays. I enjoyed a nice trip visiting several German cities, Köln - Cologne, among them.

I came accross a beer garden whose name must be familiar to chess fans. Grünfeld is German for "green field" (or even the more appropiate "green square"), but for the chess player it evokes the Grünfeld Defence, a sequence 1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5, a favourite of Kasparov in the beginning of the 1990s.

Indeed Grünfeld or Gruenfeld is quite a normal-sounding German name and I would not have taken the picture if a nice Black Knight had not been there. By the way, you can see me in the reflection

History Knight

The silhouette of a Knight made from letters. In bold, years and names of countries. Indeed it is interesting to have a look to what is written.

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.

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.