Hello all -
This is John Michael's Dad again. It is 12:44 AM Friday morning in Caldas Novas, Brazil. I have been wrestling with computer and Internet issues for the last 2 hours in an attempt to get online, so I will not be able to upload pictures on this post. Will try to get more pictures up tomorrow morning (technical issues permitting).
Wednesday and Thursday were relaxing days - hanging out by the pool, going on water slides, playing ping-pong, visiting the water park across the street from our hotel, and just generally relaxing. Good weather - 88 and sunny yesterday and today, and just one quick rain shower yesterday. We are definitely starting to shift into tournament mode. The teams have been arriving at our hotel from countries far and wide over the last few days - some teams even arrived as late as 7:00 PM tonight. We have seen teams from South Africa, China, Bolivia, Peru, and several other countries that escape memory right now. The United States coaches held a team meeting for the entire delegation this evening to go over the rules/procedures of the tournament. There are some differences between United States USCF tournaments and international FIDE tournaments. The coaches are great - 10 in all. The coaches have divided the players up - each coach is going to work with 6 players. The coaches will be holding individual preperation sessions for 30 minutes each day with each player to prepare them for their game that day. At this level of chess, there is a fair amount of time spent preparing for each individual opponent. The coaches will look up their opponents games from the past and help the players devise particular openings based on what their opponent is most likely to play. Pretty high tech stuff - lot of computer analysis involved in preparing for games each day. After each game, the players will do a "post mortem" with one of the U.S. coaches. The coach will review the game they just played, analyzing areas that can be improved for the next game. The coaches are going to be very busy, and the players are going to be working with very accomplished Grandmasters.
John Michael was very excited to find out tonight that his coach will be GM Joel Benjamin during this tournament! For those of you that follow chess, Joel needs no introduction. Among his many accomplishments, Joel is a 3 time U.S. Chess Champion, and was hired as the official Grandmaster consultant by IBM to help with the Deep Blue chess computer that defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. It is kind of like a Little League baseball player playing in the Little League World Series where his individual coach is Derek Jeter, and he has the ability to consult with 9 other Yankees players that are coaching the rest of his team! It is such a fantastic opportunity for John Michael to be able to spend this amount of time with Joel and the rest of the United States coaches. He will literally be getting counsel over the next 9 days from some of the most accomplished chess players in the world!
The competition is definitely going to be fierce. From meeting other parents from the United States and from other countries, it is clear that chess is much more of a huge deal in most (if not all) of these other countries. Some countries offer large cash prizes to players that win their division (up to $20,000 in some cases we have heard). A player from another country that wins this tournament can literally launch a career out of this event, and improve their families social status (entry to private schools, luxury housing for the family, etc.). In other countries, Grandmasters are superstars - every bit as popular as sports figures and entertainers are in the United States.
John Michael is ready to do battle - not intimidated in the least. He is very relaxed and confident - looking forward to seeing him battle with the best in the world!
Opening ceremony is Friday at 3:00 PM Brazil time (3 hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast) - first round is scheduled to start at 4:00 PM. Will hopefully be able to post results after each round, although the Internet has been very slow since the influx of all the teams.
Talk to you all soon!
Mr. Burke
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Arrived safely in Brazil
Hello all -
This is John Michael's Dad. We arrived safely in Brazil on Monday morning. Long journey to get here. Flight Sunday afternoon from Newark to Atlanta, followed by a 2 hour layover in Atlanta. Flight Sunday evening/Monday morning from Atlanta to Brasilia International Airport (8 hour flight). Arrived in Brasilia 9:00 AM local time Monday morning (3 hours ahead of the East Coast), and then took a harrowing 4 hour van ride from the airport to our hotel. Michele and I think that our van driver was trying out for the Nascar circuit! We are literally in the middle of nowhere - we drove for 4 hours through a very deserted part of Brazil. Lot of poverty outside of the major cities in Brazil. The main road we took to Brazil was the only paved road in sight - we found out that only 6% of the roads are actually paved in Brazil (compared to 59% in the United States). The hotel is nice - lots of pools and water slides. Room is small but functional. No American TV stations. No English of any kind here - we literally cannot communicate with 95% of the people that are here. Some hotel workers speak limited English, but not very many. We traveled with 2 other families from Atlanta - great people. They both have sons playing in the tournament - one is playing in the U18 section, and one is playing in the U12 section. Weather is nice - mid 80s, with stretches of rain each day for a couple of hours in the afternoon. John Michael has been having a great time - he has been playing chess with the boys he met, and played ping-pong this morning with some Brazilian kids! Food has been good - lots of meat, rice and fruit. Going to take a trip to state park with a waterfall on Wednesday. Met a couple of the United States coaches today (there are 10 U.S. coaches in total that will be here). Getting settled in and having fun before John Michael's tournament begins on Friday! Some pictures below. Will post again in a couple of days. Thanks for all your prayers and support!
Mr. Burke
==================Here are some pictures:
John Michael and Eric Rosen (fellow US team member) reading "Portuguese for Dummies" at the Atlanta airport.
John Michael and Eric getting in a game of blitz while waiting to board plane in Atlanta.
The Burkes in the middle of 4 hour van ride to hotel - we stopped for lunch.
This is what it looked like for the majority of our van ride to the hotel.
John Michael and Eric playing ping pong with a couple of Brazilian kids.
John Michael and Eric playing "blindfold chess" while the adults shopped in a local town mall. Blindfold chess is when you play a game of chess without a board and pieces - you just say the moves to each other. They actually played 4 entire games while we walked back and forth to town and did some shopping. Pretty amazing to watch!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Leaving for Brazil!
Update, it's Sunday morning, and I'm getting ready to leave for the World Youth in Brazil. Throughout the following 2 weeks, I'll be giving updates, posting pictures, and every day, I'll post my tournament game from that day along with my annotations. First game is on Friday, Nov. 17. If you're interested in following the tournament online, you can visit the tournament website at www.wycc2011.com. If you click on "tournament information", you will be able to see standings and results.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The History of Chess, part 2
After LaBourdonnais and McDonnell died, the best were now Howard Staunton and Pierre Charles de Saint-Amant. A match in 1843 formed between them in 1843, which Saint-Amant won with 3 wins, 2 losses, and 1 draw. Staunton was winning by 1 going into the final 2 games, but then miracles occurred.
Disheartened, Staunton was blown off the board as white in the next game and thus lost this very tough match.
Of course, Staunton challenged Saint-Amant to a rematch, which was accepted. 6 months later, it took place. The conditions were:the first to win 11 games. After 8 games he had 7 wins and only 1 draw! He had won many pretty games on the way.
The 2 players alternated wins in the next 6 games, and Staunton was a win away with the score 10-3. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Saint-Amant won 3 of the next 5 games (the other 2 were draws)! Here is an example, the 20th game.
Staunton's fans were getting nervous, as the score was now 10-6. Luckily, Staunton saved the best game of his career for a good time, the 21st game.
Thus Staunton won the match and left no doubt that he was #1.
That's it for part 2! Part 3 coming soon!
Disheartened, Staunton was blown off the board as white in the next game and thus lost this very tough match.
Of course, Staunton challenged Saint-Amant to a rematch, which was accepted. 6 months later, it took place. The conditions were:the first to win 11 games. After 8 games he had 7 wins and only 1 draw! He had won many pretty games on the way.
The 2 players alternated wins in the next 6 games, and Staunton was a win away with the score 10-3. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Saint-Amant won 3 of the next 5 games (the other 2 were draws)! Here is an example, the 20th game.
Staunton's fans were getting nervous, as the score was now 10-6. Luckily, Staunton saved the best game of his career for a good time, the 21st game.
Thus Staunton won the match and left no doubt that he was #1.
That's it for part 2! Part 3 coming soon!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
The History of Chess, part 1
I'm going to be writing a few articles about the history of chess, here is part 1.
Back in the 1600s, people played like you probably played when you were a novice. You brought out the queen immediately, always liked to give checks, etc. This was known as the "Italian School". It was all inspired by Gioacchino Greco (1600-1634), who was the leading attacking of those days. Here is a sample of his play.
At this time, no one was able to defend and the attacker always won, leading people to believe that this was the correct way to play. This changed only in the mid - 1700s, when Francois - Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795) took up the game. He beat the leading player Stamma in a match in 1747, and was known as the world #1.
He went on to publish a manual, which contained certain, general principles to play by. He was the first to do this. He was the first to make a positional plan based on pawns. He said to put pawns in front, and pieces in back, giving this position as an example.
He countered the Italian School by saying that you should never start an attack until the pawns are supported. This was a significant step in chess understanding, but no one else could understand Philidor, as he was simply too far ahead of his time. Because of this, people kept playing in the Italian style.
Philidor died in 1795, and there was no world #1 for a while. In the 1820s, the candidates were Alexander Louis Deschapelles and William Lewis. Their students, Louis Charles de la Bourdonnais and Alexander McDonnell, were then the leaders after the other 2 passed their prime. They played a series of 6 matches, which was won by a combined score by La Bourdonnais with 45 wins, 27 draws, and 13 draws. The 16th game was the most famous of the match.
An amazing finish! La Bourdonnais showed that he was clearly the strongest player in the world. Unfortunately, both players died within 6 years after the match, so yet again there was no strongest player in the world.
That's it for part 1! Part 2 coming out soon!
Back in the 1600s, people played like you probably played when you were a novice. You brought out the queen immediately, always liked to give checks, etc. This was known as the "Italian School". It was all inspired by Gioacchino Greco (1600-1634), who was the leading attacking of those days. Here is a sample of his play.
At this time, no one was able to defend and the attacker always won, leading people to believe that this was the correct way to play. This changed only in the mid - 1700s, when Francois - Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795) took up the game. He beat the leading player Stamma in a match in 1747, and was known as the world #1.
He went on to publish a manual, which contained certain, general principles to play by. He was the first to do this. He was the first to make a positional plan based on pawns. He said to put pawns in front, and pieces in back, giving this position as an example.
He countered the Italian School by saying that you should never start an attack until the pawns are supported. This was a significant step in chess understanding, but no one else could understand Philidor, as he was simply too far ahead of his time. Because of this, people kept playing in the Italian style.
Philidor died in 1795, and there was no world #1 for a while. In the 1820s, the candidates were Alexander Louis Deschapelles and William Lewis. Their students, Louis Charles de la Bourdonnais and Alexander McDonnell, were then the leaders after the other 2 passed their prime. They played a series of 6 matches, which was won by a combined score by La Bourdonnais with 45 wins, 27 draws, and 13 draws. The 16th game was the most famous of the match.
An amazing finish! La Bourdonnais showed that he was clearly the strongest player in the world. Unfortunately, both players died within 6 years after the match, so yet again there was no strongest player in the world.
That's it for part 1! Part 2 coming out soon!
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Sunday, December 26, 2010
8th Best Move
Hello-
Change of plans. As the moves get better, I will do only one move per video. Here is the 8th best move. Hope you like it!
Change of plans. As the moves get better, I will do only one move per video. Here is the 8th best move. Hope you like it!
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