Mike Surtees is the 2014 British Senior Chess Champion!!

We are happy to report that Mike Surtees is the 2014 British Senior Chess Champion!!
http://www.britishchesschampionships.co.uk/2014/Senior/SMWSite/

7 Surprising Health Benefits of Playing Chess

7 Surprising Health Benefits of Playing Chess

More on the "Chess-Steps Method"

 At this web page 

 we read that specific books are recommended for players having a target rating. For instance:

• Step 4 Workbook & Manual suit players having an USCF rating up to 1750
• Step 6 Workbook & Manual are recommended for players USCF rated up to 2100

Somewhere I read that Fide Ratings are about 100 elo points lower than USCF ratings. I have wondered if these indications were really correct or if they were a vague guess only. So I made a research on the Internet in order to find  if other chess players, besides me, had published any report of their own success/ratio in solving the Chess-Steps Workbooks.

Unfortunately I found only one.
This is the link:
http://chesstrainerphaedrus.blogspot.nl/2009/12/step-6-and-stoyko-exercises.html
There we can read what follows:

5 december 2009 - Step 6 and Stoyko exercises

At the moment I use two training methods. The first is step 6 of the steps method. I already did this book once (over a period of more than a year) and had an overall succes rate of about 85%.
At first I thought it would be best to concentrate on the exercises I failed to solve. But when I started to pick up the book I noticed that I didn't remember most of the (1300) positions. For this reason I decided to go through the book again. Not surprisingly my succes rate is now about 95%, and I also solve them a lot faster than I did the first time. I consider this work to be largely a kind of maintenance of acquired patterns. (...)

 In another post written on 25 February 2009:
http://chesstrainerphaedrus.blogspot.nl/2009_02_01_archive.html
the author states that :
"(...) I think that for a player of my strength (2050+), (...)
so, that player had a Candidate Master rating at the time he was solving the Chess Steps 6th Workbook.

As my own final success rate of Step 4 is about 95% (my current FIDE rating is 1780), in absence of additional data, for the very limited info/reports in my hands, I suppose that the rating indications provided at http://www.chess-steps.com/index.php may be accurate.
If any reader has gone through the chess-steps workbook and he/she would like to share his/her success ratio, please send an email at ricettario@fastwebnet.it so I will be able to update this post. Thanks.

1.e4 a6!? 2.d4 h6!? tournament game between FIDE rated players above 2.250

A Creepy Crawly game in a Women's Int. Tournament game between the two winners:

see also this link

Two GMs play a 1.g4 game in a rapid event

Godena - Montilli, Bergamo (IT) July 2013

A former post discussed Vincenzo Montilli's chess:
http://theamazingchessworld.blogspot.it/2013/01/vincenzo-montillis-games-played-in.html
We are happy to report that in July 2013 Montilli drew a game with GM Godena:

 http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/3474851

[Event "12th Bergamo Open"]
[Site "Bergamo ITA"]
[Round "2.6"]
[Date "2013.7.19"]
[White "Godena, Michele"]
[Black "Montilli, Vincenzo"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Be2 e6 7.O-O cxd4 8.cxd4 Be7 9.Nc3 Qd6 10.Nb5 Qd8 11.Bf4 Nd5 12.Bg3 a6 13.Nc3 O-O 14.Rc1 Qa5 15.Qb3 Rd8 16.Rfd1 Qb4 17.Qc2 Bf6 18.a3 Qa5 19.Ne4 Be7 20.Bc4 Nf6 21.Nc3 b5 22.d5 bxc4 23.dxc6 Rxd1+ 24.Rxd1 Qb6 25.Nd4 Nh5 26.Na4 Qa7 27.Qxc4 Nxg3 28.hxg3 e5 29.Nf3 Be6 30.Qe4 f6 31.b4 Rc8 32.Nc3 Bf8 33.Nd4 Qf7 34.Nxe6 Qxe6 35.g4 Qxc6 36.Nd5 Qc2 37.Rd3 Qc1+ 38.Kh2 Qh6+ 39.Rh3 Qg6 40.Qxg6 hxg6 41.Rc3 Rxc3 42.Nxc3 Kf7 43.b5 axb5 44.Nxb5 Ke6 45.Kg3 Kd7 46.Kf3 Kc6 47.a4 f5 48.Nc3 Bb4 49.Ne2 Kd5 50.Ng3 e4+ 51.Ke2  1/2-1/2

The Luzhin Defence

 The Luzhin defence  Wikipedia

The movie trailer

Yesterday I wanted to see a movie related to the chess world. So I proposed to my wife to see the movie in subject. She agreed (BTW she has no interest at all in chess) and she liked it a lot. So did I.