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.

Karpov - Kasparov, Valencia 2009

We are almost there. In a few days, Karpov and Kasparov will be playing again. This rivalry that takes us to the eighties when some of us learned to love chess. The event will take place in Valencia, Spain, a city which is advertising itself as the cradle of modern chess.

This nice poster by JM Arce reminds me of the design and style of the seventies, rather than the eighties. I own a few books which show a similar frontpage fashion. For more info on the match, see www.matchkarpovkasparov.com .

Giant chess set in Portage, New Zealand

As you can see for the exuberant vegetation, this is paradise on earth: New Zealand.
Portage is a beutiful place in the Marlborough Sounds, in the North coast of the South Island of New Zealand. There is a small port for recreational boats and a hotel. It seemed to me that the chess set belongs to the hotel. New Zealand... I wish I were there.

Checkmate to your sight problems

A friend sent me this fine example of chess-related advertising. "Check mate to your sight problems" reads the ad on the window shop. There is also a real chess set beside it. Funny that the chessmen aren't glasses or contact lenses or similar. It is just chess in all its purity. Well spotted.

Chess in Christchurch

In Christchurch, New Zealand, in the very main square of the city, they have a king-size chessboard, as in many other cities. They put away the pieces just beside it. You can see how nice the place where they put them away is, with big letters refering to our game

Star Trek chess

Here we have a lovely picture sent by skeptic. It is taken from the legendary tv series "Star Trek" and features the Star Trek Chess. You can see the chessmen perched on that strange metal tree, which draws your attention immediately, and then you can't help wondering how the game can possibly be played.

There are several sites on the net in which you can get the rules. Also the setis available in ebay and other sale spots. If the trekkies could develop a whole language, no wonder they could create a set of rules for his special chess.

* The rules at chessvariants.com
* Some more images related to Star Trek Chess

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.