"I am Chaotic and Lazy" is Magnus Carlsen's headlining self-description in a recent Der Spiegel interview reprinted by ChessBase. It is a remarkable interview, most for the self-deprecating comments of the World Number One and for the insight into his own quite level-headed attitude toward the game. One exchange amused me:
Carlsen: What is important is that I have a life beyond chess.
SPIEGEL: Why?
Carlsen: Chess should not become an obsession. Otherwise there’s a danger that you will slide off into a parallel world, that you lose your sense of reality, get lost in the infinite cosmos of the game. You become crazy. I make sure that I have enough time between tournaments to go home in order to do other things. I like hiking and skiing, and I play football in a club.
SPIEGEL: Do you have a favourite club?
Carlsen: Real Madrid, the royals.
SPIEGEL: Many football players use music to get in the mood before a game. Do you do that too before sitting down in front of the board?
Carlsen: Oh, yes. If I am feeling gloomy before a game, I listen to gloomy music.
SPIEGEL: Such as?
Carlsen: You probably won’t know it, a song by Lil Jon. A silly rap song, but it does me good, I loosen up. I listen to music on the Internet, but don`t download any songs. It’s all totally legal. Many people may find that boring, but I think it is important.
I am sure many will speculate about the song that inspires the best chess player in the world, if only to add it to their own playlists.... Perhaps it's Give It All U Got?
On March 20th and 21st, the Dean Of Chess Academy (3150 U.S. Route 22 West in Branchburg, NJ) will be hosting the First "Only New Jersey" Championship (see USCF for official details). You can enter online at http://entryfeesrus.com or by mail, sending checks (payable to NJSCF) to Ken Thomas, 115 West Moore Street, Hackettstown, NJ 07840-2233 or by making an on-site cash payment from 8:00-9:45 a.m. on Saturday 3/20. Due to space limitations, only the first 100 paid entries (total, regardless of section) will get to play. The Masters-Experts (rated 2000 or higher) is a 4 Round Swiss, 40 moves/120, SD/60, $70 entry (half price for former NJ State champs). Prizes : $500-300-200-100 (for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th), $100 to Top Expert, plus trophies to 1st, 2nd, 3rd & Top Expert. Rounds : Saturday 3/20 @ 10 a.m. & 4:30 p.m., Sunday 3/21 @ 9 a.m. & 4 p.m. Entries so far include current NJ champ Dean Ippolito, former champ Steve Stoyko, Jim West, and Anna Matlin.
Class A-B (For those rated 1600-1999) and Class C (For those U1600 & unrated) are 5 Round Swisses, G/100, with $65 entry fee. Rounds at Saturday 3/20 @ 10 a.m., 2 p.m. & 6 p.m., Sunday 3/21 @ 11 a.m. & 3 p.m.
For more information, contact Ken (the Tournament Director), at acn@goes.com or (908)763-6468.
Katie Dellamaggiore, an independent documentary filmmaker from Brooklyn, is raising money for her Chess Movie, about the award-winning I.S. 318 team. Visit her "Kickstarter" page to learn more about the project and to pledge your support. Though they have already met their minimum goal of raising $4,000, they definitely need a lot more than that to finish this important documentary, which I think could do for scholastic chess what Mad Hot Ballroom did for kids' ballroom dancing. Here is Katie's appeal:
Over the last 2 years I have been producing and directing a documentary about scholastic chess with my company Rescued Media. Chess Movie (working title) goes inside one of the best junior high chess program in the nation, Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, New York. Many students at 318 come from difficult circumstances and 60% are from low-income families, but being part of a winning chess team gives them a unique opportunity to experience success at a young age. Justus, Patrick, Alexis, Pobo & Rochelle are 5 of 50 team members that are learning on the chessboard the skills they need to face challenges of adolescence and their working class circumstances.
In April 2009 we embarked on our first trip with the team to Nashville, Tennessee, to the USCF Super Nationals. Once we witnessed how big the scholastic chess world was, we were hooked. Over the next year we embedded ourselves with the team-- at home, at school and away at tournaments -- and slowly, the kids' individual stories began to take shape. Please view our five minute teaser for an idea of where the film is now headed. It’s our ultimate goal to secure a national television broadcast for Chess Movie and maybe even a small theatrical release. We also plan to build a strong community outreach campaign in the hopes the film will build support for scholastic chess programs in under served communities as we have witnessed firsthand the profound effect the I.S. 318 chess program has had on its students.
Right now we have a fundraising campaign underway at Kickstarter.com. Kickstarter is an online funding platform for artists to engage with their audiences and build support for their projects. Our Kickstarter campaign has been pretty successful so far, reaching our initial goal of $4,000 in just a few short weeks. But we still have 50 days to go and we need more than 4k to finish this film. When you log onto Kickstarter you will see that we are offering some really cool rewards and incentives for backers. For example a $10 donation gets you exclusive access to video updates and deleted scenes and a $55 donation secures you a "Special Thanks" credit in our film. We also offer chess-centric rewards like free memberships to WORLD CHESS LIVE and CHESS.COM but at the end of the day I hope you are most inspired to give because you love chess and are moved by the kids and their stories. We believe this film has the potential to breakdown false stereotypes about chess and present a new and fresh perspective to one of the world's oldest and most beloved games.
Life was easy when I set up this blog (and others) way back in May 2005 using Blogger's friendly FTP service. Then in January 22 of this year, Blogger announced that they are shutting down FTP access in March -- since pushed back to May 1, 2010 -- and had set up a blog and some migration tools to help users shift to other Blogger-supported methods. It's good to know that switching to a simple blogging method would be easy and painless -- but I don't trust Blogger now and want to maintain some of our traffic. So I have decided to switch over to WordPress (which I've been admiring for a while anyway) and see if I can continue to maintain the same web addresses for our blogs. Some things may change -- such as the RSS feeds (from what I have read) and certainly the blogging interface -- but I hope to pull off the switch with a minimum of downtime and no change to our link structure (fingers crossed). Here are some guides I have been reading on the subject, in case you are in the same boat:
These seem pretty helpful, but I get the sense that WordPress may be working behind the scenes to make the process even easier. Just wish they would do more to announce what they are up to. Seems like a great opportunity for them to gain customers. I have backed up our site and started experimenting with The Center Square blog to see how this will go. I'll keep you posted on my progress and welcome reader advice.
