"This charming history of modern chess will not be surpassed in our time....Mr. Schonberg has given us a playful,musical,haunting account of huge,often irresponsible,unsociable animals who have devoted their lives to thinking that is pure as snow" - Kurt Vonnegut
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
A Master Description
Kurt Vonnegut's review of a chess book, "Grandmaster's of Chess," by Harold Schonberg. Mr. Vonnegut elegantly describes chess folk:
Monday, November 28, 2011
New Classroom Website Announced
Yo, Desmond had the household Skyrim tied up most of the weekend . . . so I revamped, rethought, and reinvented my classroom website. My students really liked the new look and the better perks. I fashioned an icon system for faster navigation (like the smart phone aps), stream-lined each page for faster loading, and created a much better course organization. Let me know what you think.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Chess Rage Newsletter Resurrection
Using my level 10 Resurrection spell from Skyrim, I was able to conjure up a newsletter that I used to produce. It was killed when I began putting all my websites together back in 2008 and I am now going to commit myself, my class, and my club to publishing again. I will make the newsletters available at our club website in PDF format as it is a pain to do in blogger. Here is our first official edition of the year to be released Monday at school.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Memory Chess and Exercising a Cognitive Skills
I read an article about Susan Polgar once and I remember reading that she can look at a chess board for 10 seconds and replicate where up to 32 pieces were on the board with nearly 100% accuracy. Or, some such
Sunday, November 20, 2011
5 Steps to Chess Viewer Deluxe
I discovered that Chess Viewer Deluxe opened much faster without any "Kill" page message from chrome when I created a whole new sister blog to The Chess Nut Blog. This blog page now opens faster than it did before. If I get rid of all the widgets, I bet this blog would be even faster, but it would lose its appeal. I called the new sister site, Chess Nut Games and it will house the game files so that you can view multiple games from each year. Of course I posted a link to the Chess Nut Game blog from the home page of The Chess Nut Blog called Games. You can spot this tab or button in the upper right side of the page menu. Here are some other quirks that I did my best to work out in 5 steps.
Why is this cool? Because you can display multiple games without using someone else's server to store game data, and it looks rather nice with an easy-to-use interface. Flash PGN viewers (that I have found) only show one game at a time. My favorite Flash viewer being ChessFlash PGN Viewer.
Why is this cool? Because you can display multiple games without using someone else's server to store game data, and it looks rather nice with an easy-to-use interface. Flash PGN viewers (that I have found) only show one game at a time. My favorite Flash viewer being ChessFlash PGN Viewer.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Blog Anchors and Internal Links
This is some documentation so I can remember how to create an internal link (a jump from one spot on a page to another spot on the page. The example I provide is from the States page where I jump from the "N" to "Nebraska."
Here is the code where I want to jump to:
First, you should create the document and decide where you want your internal links to go. You label these using the anchor tag (a) with the name and id attributes. The name and id attributes should be identical.
e.g. <a name="anchor1" id="anchor1">Anchor text</a>
Here is the code where I want to jump from:
Then second, you create the link to the site using the anchor tag (a) and the href attribute. You indicate the named area with a pound-sign (#).
Here is the code where I want to jump from:
Then second, you create the link to the site using the anchor tag (a) and the href attribute. You indicate the named area with a pound-sign (#).
e.g. <a href="site.html#anchor1">Anchor link</a>
The important thing is that href= (enter the page URL you want to create a jump).
(no spaces) Also, to write an example of code in a blogger post without it being interpreted use these instructions:
Replace all the < characters with & l t;(no spaces)
And all the > characters with & g t;(no spaces)
The important thing is that href= (enter the page URL you want to create a jump).
(no spaces) Also, to write an example of code in a blogger post without it being interpreted use these instructions:
Replace all the < characters with & l t;(no spaces)
And all the > characters with & g t;(no spaces)
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Creepy Rooms and Monkey Chess at SIO
| Jeff v. Caleb in an intense game with draw offers on the table. |
Brooklyn Castle
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| from IS 318 website |
Friday, November 11, 2011
Support Veterans
Every year our high school chess club collects signatures and words of support for our troops abroad and we send our prayers along with chess boards. Please think of everyone's veterans and soldiers around the world and pray that battles could be carried out on the chess board instead of with real bullets.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Idaho Chess Icon passes away
| Glen W. Buckendorf June 19, 1929 - September 12, 2011 |
Friday, November 4, 2011
Integrating a Simul into Integrating Chess
| Olivia records a move |
| Austin likes his new opening repertoires |
Monday, October 31, 2011
Happy Halloween (Gambit)!
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| It's Halloween Knight! |
The Halloween Gambit, or Leipzig Gambit, is an aggressive gambit in chess, in which White sacrifices a knight for just one pawn. There are many different kinds of gambits, but the usual aim of a gambit is to obtain an advantageous position after giving up material as white. This gambit is related to the Four Knights Game and may transpose easily if your opponent is not cooperative. It was proven in 1888 to be an unsound opening meaning that you should not use it.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
WRHS Chess Club Beginning!
| Chess Club Starts tomorrow, afterschool, room c214, and every Thursday! |
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Armenia's Gambit or gamble?
Chess is now a compulsory subject in all Armenian schools, including the secondary level (see also News.am). This is great news as many studies have shown how chess can improve all areas of study for students that regularly engage in chess activities. It appears the Ministry of Education is pledging $1.5 million for textbooks and manuals, equipment such as boards and portable tables, and even salaries for chess teachers. The ministry indicates that chess will "foster schoolchildren's intellectual development" and improve children's critical thinking skills.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Idaho History: Western Idaho Open
courtesy of: Jeff Roland, ICA Trustee for Web Development and Maintenance
If you read the article on the 1964 Western Idaho Open (shown below), the organizers of the day were very excited about the “large turnout” of 19 players! Last year, we had 27 players at the 2010 WIO, and I plan to really promote this year’s event even better. At the PCC Centennial Open in Portland a couple weeks ago, I actually asked several players, a couple of them masters, if they would come, and they seemed positively inclined, especially as they are excited about Idaho joining Northwest Chess. And I am planning to get our ad in Northwest Chess. However, the weather will probably be the biggest hurdle. It is hard to get over those Blue Mountains!!! However, not impossible for the chess fanatic! It is ironic that the time of year most conducive to indoor activities like chess also makes it difficult to travel to play in them!
If you read the article on the 1964 Western Idaho Open (shown below), the organizers of the day were very excited about the “large turnout” of 19 players! Last year, we had 27 players at the 2010 WIO, and I plan to really promote this year’s event even better. At the PCC Centennial Open in Portland a couple weeks ago, I actually asked several players, a couple of them masters, if they would come, and they seemed positively inclined, especially as they are excited about Idaho joining Northwest Chess. And I am planning to get our ad in Northwest Chess. However, the weather will probably be the biggest hurdle. It is hard to get over those Blue Mountains!!! However, not impossible for the chess fanatic! It is ironic that the time of year most conducive to indoor activities like chess also makes it difficult to travel to play in them!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Making Chess More Popular Among High School Students
As we start a new school year, it might behoove the first spirit assemblies to not only celebrate athletes, but also recognize the chess clubbers. At our school, the assembly organizers include the chess club in their program and from feedback from the kids in the program, the appreciation and recognition is welcomed. I find that the school climate and culture is better toward chess club news and interest is also generated in the club. In fact, some schools have even replicated the Saturday Night Live skit. But, I wonder if the YouTube videos that were uploaded by schools are furthering the stigma of chess or providing a bit of tongue-and-cheek humor that hard-working chess club kids enjoy? This year, I do plan on bringing our cheerleaders into a scholastic tournament at the start to rev up the fun. Maybe I will even ask them to perform the SNL skit to the ICA Wood River Progressive tournament this October?
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
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