Photo – Wentworth Display

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Yichen Again

This week’s Hexham Courant has a full page spread titled “Does chess deserve a Sporting Chance ?” raising the question of whether or not Chess is a sport. It also features another 4 pictures of Yichen’s simultaneous and more publicity for Tynedale Chess Club. Thanks to Joseph Tulip & the Courant.

To read the Courant article click on the following link :

Hexham Courant – Does chess deserve a sporting chance ?

This photo of Yichen is courtesy Hexham Courant – Thank You

Yichen Han Simultaneous

Many thanks to Yichen, Mike Smith, Peter Crichton, Steve Larkin, Dave Humphreys, Joseph Tulip & Andy Gessey for a fabulous morning at the Queen’s Hall. Also thanks to all who supported the event by playing Yichen

Watch this space as this post may well change as further details are added.

Yichen played 17, Won 12, Drew 3 & Lost 2.

The games he lost are now available on our GAMES page at Yichen’s games

Watch a short video of Yichen (courtesy of the Hexham Courant)

Read the Hexham Courant Full Report

How many ways, can you list, to draw a game of chess?

As a little challenge, give this a try for yourselves before reading on!

So far, I’ve counted no fewer than 7!!

1. Draw by agreement:- This can happen at any time throughout the game.
2. Draw by stalemate:- This most often occurs in endgames, but can, on rare occasions, happen in the middle game.
3. Draw by the 50-move rule:- If no pawn is moved or capture played in 50 moves, the game is a draw.
4. Draw by 3-fold repetition:- If the same position occurs, with the same player to play, three times in a game, the game is drawn.
5. Draw by perpetual check:- One side plays a series of checks that the other side can’t escape from.
6. Draw by insufficient material:- If all you have left is a knight or bishop plus king against a lone king, no checkmate is possible, and the game is drawn.
7. Draw on time:- This is the one that a lot of players forget about. If the only piece you have left is your king, then you cannot win on time!! Your opponent MUST checkmate you, within the 50-move rule, before his clock runs out, or the game is a draw.

I think that this is just about all. Unless you can add more!!

Dave Humphreys 09Dec18

Arrangements for 2018-19 season

Tynedale Chess Club will meet weekly on Thursdays from 7p.m. at the Corbridge Parish Hall, starting on Thursday September 6th. Come along to play friendly games or club championship matches.

AGM

The Club’s AGM will take place in the Dyvels at 7.00pm Thu 2 Aug 2018

Mobiles

When using this website from my mobile phone, I have had difficulty accessing both of the side menus.
To assist with this problem I have added a page called “Mobile” to the top level menu, and have included links to our fixtures page, the Northumberland Chess Association & the ECF. Further links could be added if required.

FEN STRINGS EXPLAINED

Forsyth-Edwards Notation Explained

A FEN string contains six fields or sections. The separator between fields is a space. The fields are:

Field 1
Piece placement (from white’s perspective):
Each rank of the chessboard is described, starting with rank 8 and ending with rank 1; within each rank, the contents of each square are described from the a-file to the h-file.

Following the Standard Algebraic Notation (SAN), each piece is identified by a single letter taken from the standard English names (pawn = “P”, knight = “N”, bishop = “B”, rook = “R”, queen = “Q” and king = “K”).
White pieces are designated using upper-case letters (“PNBRQK”)
Black pieces use lowercase (“pnbrqk”).
Empty squares are noted using digits 1 through 8 (the number of empty squares), and “/” separates ranks.

Field 2
Active colour:
“w” means its White’s turn to move.
“b” means its Black’s turn to move.

Field 3
Castling availability:
If neither side can castle, this is “-“. Otherwise, this has one or more letters: “K” (White can castle kingside), “Q” (White can castle queenside), “k” (Black can castle kingside), and/or “q” (Black can castle queenside).

Field 4
If an en-passant capture can be made, this shows the square that the capturing pawn will end up on. If no en passant move can be made then this field is just “-“. This field is active regardless of whether or not there is a pawn in a position to make an en passant capture.

Field 5
Halfmove clock:
This is the 50-move rule counter. It starts at ‘0‘. As soon as a move is played that is NEITHER a pawn move NOR a capture, this counter starts counting. If a pawn move and/or capture is subsequently played, the counter resets to ‘0‘.

Field 6
Fullmove counter:
This counts the number of complete moves played. At the start of a game, it is set to 1, where it is waiting for move 1 to be played. White makes a move and, as soon as black replies, it increments to 2, showing that move 1 has been completed and  it is now waiting for move 2 to be played.

Example 1:

Here is the FEN string for the start of a game of chess.

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq – 0 1

Field 1:- rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR
Field 2:- w
Field 3:- KQkq
Field 4:- ‘-’
Field 5:- 0
Field 6:- 1

Field 1:-
Going rank by rank starting with the 8th rank we have
rnbqkbnr – These are Black’s pieces:- rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook
pppppppp – These are Black’s pawns
8/8/8/8/ – These are the 4, empty ranks of 8 squares each.
PPPPPPPP – These are White’s pawns.
RNBQKBNR – These are White’s pieces:- Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King, Bishop, Knight, Rook

Field 2:-
w – It is White’s turn to play

Field 3:-
K – White can castle kingside at some time.
Q – White can castle queenside at some time
k – Black can castle kingside at some time.
q- Black can castle queenside at some time.

Field 4
‘-’ – No en-passant move can be played in the position

Field 5
‘0‘ – This is the 50-move rule counter. No pawn moves or captures have yet been played, so this is set to 0.

Field 6
‘1‘ – This is the move counter. It starts at 1, showing that it is waiting for the first, complete move to be played. It is increased by one after each of Black’s moves.

Example 2:
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1

Here, white has opened the game with 1.e4. Field 1 shows this move. The part of the field that looks like /4P3/ shows that, along the 4th rank, there are 4 empty squares, a white pawn, then 3 empty squares. If this pawn could be taken en-passant, then e3 would be the square that the capturing pawn would end up on, as shown by the ‘e3‘ in field 4. Remember that this field is active whether or not there is a black pawn that can actually make an en-passant capture in the position.

Black now replies with the Sicilian Defence and plays 1…c5, producing the following FEN string:-

rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq c6 0 2

Field 1 shows that, along the 5th rank there are now 2 empty squares, a black pawn, then 5 empty squares.

Field 4 shows that, if this pawn could be taken en-passant, the square that the capturing pawn would end up on is c6.

Field 5 shows that, since a pawn move has been made, so there is no need to start the 50-move rule count. This number is still 0.

Field 6 shows that one, complete move has been played, and we are now waiting for move 2.

White now continues with 2.Nf3 giving the following FEN string,

rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq – 1 2

Field 1 shows that, in addition to the previous moves, there are now 5 empty squares, a white knight, then 2 empty squares along the third rank.

Field 4 shows that no en-passant capture is now possible, hence, ‘-’

Field 5 shows that, since white’s last move was not a pawn move or capture, the 50-move rule count has started.

So there we have it. Not too difficult to get your head around.

 

10 Interesting Facts about Chess [Ref:- ChessWorld, Yuri Markushin]

1. The estimated number of electrons in the universe is 10^79. The number of possible chess moves is 10^120.
2. The longest game of chess that is theoretically possible is 5,949 moves.
3. The longest time for castlling to take place was the match between Bobotsor v Irkov played in 1966 where white played 46.0-0
4. As late as 1561, castling consisted of two moves. You had to play R-KB1 first, then K-KN1 on the next move.
5. The word Checkmate derives from the Persian ‘Shah Mat’ meaning ‘the king is dead’.
6. The longest chess problem, white to play and mate in 290 moves, is credited to Otto Blathy (1860-1939)
7. The police in Cleveland, Ohio, raided a chess tournament in 1973. They arrested the
tournament director and confiscated the chess sets. The charge was illegal gambling [ cash prizes were being played for] and possession of gambling devices [ the chess sets]
8. The famous Knights Tour, where a knight is placed on an empty board and has to move so that is lands on every square once only, has over 122 million solutions.
9. The longest, official, chess game lasted for 269 moves. It was played in Belgrade, in 1989, between I.Nikolic and Arsovic. In ended in …………..a draw!
10. From the starting position, there are 8 different ways to mate in two moves and 355 ways to mate in 3 moves.

Fixtures for 2017-18

The new season is upon us, and this years fixtures are available from the link on the left hand side.