Two hours to execute a chess player

Way back in one of the early Star Wars movies when C3PO was beating Chewbacca at chess he was warned of the danger of winning against something that could tear your arms off. It could have been worse: This week in Ohio a man was executed for killing his opponent in a chess game. The following report, dated May 26, comes from Novinite, the Bulgarian on-line news service.

The execution of a prisoner for killing a fellow cell mate over a chess game took two hours as his executioners struggled to find a vein in his arm for the lethal injections, reports said Friday.

Christopher Newton, 37, was said to have joked with prison workers and even had a toilet break, the Indianapolis Star reported.

The delay in carrying out the execution was the longest since Ohio reintroduced capital punishment in 1999, the report said.

"Yes, boy I could sure go for some beef stew and a chicken bone. That's it," Newton said in his final brief statement before he died at 11:53 am (1553 GMT) Thursday.

It is believed Newton's weight, at just over 102 kilograms, was a contributing factor in the difficulties in administering the death penalty. Executions normally take 20 minutes, the newspaper said.

Shabalov wins US Championships

GM Alexander Shabalov defeated Sergey Kudrin in the final round to win a clear first in the Frank K Berry 2007 US Championships.

"In the last round game Sergey surprised me with 2...Nc6!, which totally killed all my preparation versus Dragon or 2...g6. But I couldn't remember a single game of his after 3.Bb5. Does it matter that I'm not playing it? No! So the resulting position was very much in the spirit of pet variation 1.e4 c5 2. Na3 and I did the grinding!"

Alexander Shabalov (born September 12, 1967) . He is of Latvian origin, and like his fellow Latvians Alexei Shirov and Mikhail Tal he is known for courting complications even at the cost of objective soundness. Currently, Alexander Shabalov regularly lectures chess players of all ages at the store that he runs in a Pittsburgh Pennsylvania mall.
He is the multiple winner of the US Championships.
winner in the following years 2007,2004,2003,2000(with Joel Benjamin/Yasser Seirawan) and 1993 (with Alex Yermolinsky)

You can view Games of US Champonship 07 here

Recluse Bobby still fighting his battles

Bobby Fischer is in the news again and surprise! he still thinks somebody is out to take advantage of his good nature.

Andy Soltis, writing in the New York Post on May 13 has this to say:

QUOTE
May 13, 2007 -- CHESS IT'S been two years since Bobby Fischer last made headlines, when he won a battle of wills with Japan and was freed from prison to start a new life in Iceland.

But the reclusive Fischer, who turned 64 last month, hasn't gone underground again.

Last week "The RJF Campaign," an Icelandic organization representing him, complained that a policeman who protected Fischer during the 1972 world championship match and befriended him is helping to make an unauthorized documentary.
UNQUOTE

Here's a link to the rest of the article: http://www.nypost.com/seven/05132007/entertainment/recluse_bobby_still_fighting_his_battles_entertainment_andy_soltis.htm

(The links aren't working properly today. You could try clicking on the links tag at the foot of this post or simply by copying the URL to your browser.)

Wesley So youngest RP junior champion

GM-CANDIDATE Wesley So made chess history by becoming the youngest-ever champion in the 2007 (Philippines) National Junior Chess Championship which came to a fitting end at the Marketplace Shopping Center in Mandaluyong City.

Wesley scored 8.5 points to finish a full point ahead of his nearest rival.

Read about this young player's latest accomplishments at the Journal Online by clicking this link: http://www.journal.com.ph/index.php?issue=2007-05-11&sec=7&aid=17839

(If the link doesn't work copy and paste it into your browser to read the story.)

Club Rapid Championship

The Rooty Hill rapid championship was abbreviated this year when Round 2 was interrupted by a fire alarm and the club had to be evacuated. As a result Round 2 was incomplete and Round 3 was never played.

Since six Round 2 games had been finished the others were all treated as draws and, after the second night's play, only five rounds were played instead of the usual six.


The winner and 2007 Rapid Champion was Tony Bouchaaya with 5/5 ahead of Rick Carballo on 4 with Hans Muller, Ron Kite and Peter Cassettari equal third on 3.5.

Chess with a punch...

I haven't tried it myself, and I don't think I'm likely to in the near future, but Chess Boxing is growing in popularity. It started in Europe a few years ago and is trying to find a toehold in the USA. Here's a story by David Whitley from the Orlando Sentinal:

CHESS BOXING MAKES FOR STRANGE RINGFELLOWS -- Published May 12, 2007

Just when you think you've seen it all, the World Chess Boxing Association appears.

There it was last week on an ESPN report. Two guys were slugging it out like Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. The bell rang, they took off their gloves and a chess table was rushed into the ring. Suddenly they were Fischer and Spassky.

Whitley explains how the sport works then applies it to combinations of other sports and games.

It's a fun article and worth reading. You can find it here: www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/local/orl-whitley120

SIO on ChessBase

There's an interesting report on the Sydney International Open on ChessBase with lots of touristy pix of Sydney and lots of player photographs. You can find it here: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3831

Fischer-Spassky BBC Documentary

Following is an excerpt from Mark Weeks's About Chess newsletter for April 30:

The BBC documentary on the 1972 match between World Champion Boris Spassky and challenger Bobby Fischer has been available on the Web for some time. It features interviews with both Fischer and Spassky, plus other chess luminaries having inside knowledge of the match: Robert Byrne, Larry Evans, Nikolai Krogius, and many others.

If you haven't seen it, the full video is available on Google Video:Fischer vs Spassky Documentary (36:36).

Or you can see it split into four parts on YouTube:
Documentary Fischer vs Spassky: Part 1 (5:11), Part 2 (10:19), Part 3 (10:13), Part 4 (10:50).

Mark's article is available in full at http://chess.about.com/?r=94 where you may also subscribe to his newsletter. (It's a freebie.) And, just in case you're not familiar with the About site they have information, newsletters and forums on almost anything you can imagine.