1.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
2.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
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The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group, the capital of the Russian SFSR was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on November 7,1917 as a sovereign state, the first Constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922 the Russian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. It was, by 1961, the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care, the effects of market policies led to the failure of many enterprises and total instability by 1990. On June 12,1990, the Congress of Peoples Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, on June 12,1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8,1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine, the agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russias independence from the USSR. On December 25,1991, following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union, on December 26,1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of Nationalities, which by that time was the only functioning house of the Supreme Soviet. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, the new Russian constitution, adopted on December 12,1993 after a constitutional crisis, abolished the Soviet system of government in its entirety. Initially, the state did not have a name and wasnt recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers, on January 25,1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3,1918, on July 10,1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, internationally, in 1920, the RSFSR was recognized as an independent state only by Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic. On December 30,1922, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the final Soviet name for the republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly the same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700
3.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
4.
Grandmaster (chess)
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The title Grandmaster is awarded to chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain, once achieved, the title is held for life. It is often abbreviated to GM, the abbreviation IGM for International Grandmaster is also sometimes used, particularly in older literature. The title of Grandmaster, along with the lesser FIDE titles of International Master, a number of women have earned the GM title, with the first two having been Nona Gaprindashvili in 1978 and Susan Polgar in 1991. Since about 2000, most of the top 10 women have held the GM title, a separate gender-segregated title, Woman Grandmaster, is also available. It is awarded to women who attain a level of skill between that of a FIDE Master and an International Master, FIDE awards separate Grandmaster titles to composers and solvers of chess problems. The International Correspondence Chess Federation awards the title of International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster, the first known use of the term grandmaster in connection with chess was in an 1838 issue of Bells Life, in which a correspondent referred to William Lewis as our past grandmaster. Lewis himself later referred to Philidor as a grandmaster, and the term was applied to a few other players. In the Ostend tournament of 1907 the term grandmaster was used, the tournament was divided into two sections, the Championship Tournament and the Masters Tournament. The Championship section was for players who had won an international tournament. Siegbert Tarrasch won the Championship section, over Carl Schlechter, Dawid Janowski, Frank Marshall, Amos Burn and these players were described as grandmasters for the purposes of the tournament. The San Sebastián 1912 tournament won by Akiba Rubinstein was a designated grandmaster event, Rubinstein won with 12½ points out of 19. Tied for second with 12 points were Aron Nimzowitsch and Rudolf Spielmann, by some accounts, in the St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament, the title Grandmaster was formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who had partially funded the tournament. The Tsar reportedly awarded the title to the five finalists, Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Siegbert Tarrasch, before 1950, the term grandmaster was sometimes informally applied to other world class players. The Fédération Internationale des Échecs was formed in Paris in 1924, in 1927, the Soviet Unions Chess Federation established the title of Grandmaster of the Soviet Union, for their own players, since at that time Soviets were not competing outside their own country. This title was abolished in 1931, after having been awarded to Boris Verlinsky, the title was brought back in 1935, and awarded to Mikhail Botvinnik, who thus became the first official Grandmaster of the USSR. Verlinsky did not get his title back, when FIDE reorganized after World War II it adopted regulations concerning the award of international titles. Titles were awarded by a resolution of the FIDE General Assembly, FIDE first awarded the Grandmaster title in 1950 to 27 players
5.
World Chess Championship
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The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in chess. From 1886 to 1946, the set the terms, requiring any challenger to raise a sizable stake. From 1948 to 1993, the championship was administered by FIDE, in 1993, the reigning champion broke away from FIDE, which led to the creation of the rival PCA championship. The titles were unified at the World Chess Championship 2006, other separate events and titles are the Womens World Chess Championship, the World Junior Chess Championship, and the World Senior Chess Championship. There is also a World Computer Chess Championship, which is the only event computers may participate in, the concept of a world chess champion started to emerge in the first half of the 19th century, and the phrase world champion appeared in 1845. Until 1948 world championship contests were matches arranged privately between the players, as a result, the players also had to arrange the funding, in the form of stakes provided by enthusiasts who wished to bet on one of the players. In the early 20th century this was sometimes a barrier that prevented or delayed challenges for the title, however these attempts were unsuccessful in practice, as the same issues continued to delay or prevent challenges. The first attempt by an organization to manage the world championship was in 1887–89. A system for managing regular contests for the title went into operation in 1948, under the control of FIDE, however, in that year reigning champion Kasparov and challenger Short were so dissatisfied with FIDEs arrangements for their match that they set up a break-away organization. The first match proclaimed by the players as for the championship was the match that Wilhelm Steinitz won against Johannes Zukertort in 1886. However, a line of players regarded as the strongest in the world extends back hundreds of years beyond them, and they include Ruy López de Segura around 1560, Paolo Boi and Leonardo da Cutri around 1575, Alessandro Salvio around 1600, and Gioachino Greco around 1623. At present de La Bourdonnais, like Alexander the Great, is without heir, the earliest recorded use of the term World Champion was in 1845, when Howard Staunton was described as the Chess Champion of England, or. The winner of the battle in Paris should not be proud of his special position. Although Kennedy was a member of the committee for the tournament. The 1851 London tournament was won by the German Adolf Anderssen, Anderssen has been described as the first modern chess master. Anderssen was himself defeated in an 1858 match against the American Paul Morphy. Morphy played matches against several leading players, crushing them all, soon after, Morphy offered pawn and move odds to anyone who played him. Finding no takers, he retired from chess the following year
6.
Elo rating system
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The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in competitor-versus-competitor games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor, the difference in the ratings between two players serves as a predictor of the outcome of a match. Two players with equal ratings who play against each other are expected to score a number of wins. A player whose rating is 100 points greater than their opponents is expected to score 64%, if the difference is 200 points, a players Elo rating is represented by a number which increases or decreases depending on the outcome of games between rated players. After every game, the player takes points from the losing one. The difference between the ratings of the winner and loser determines the number of points gained or lost after a game. In a series of games between a player and a low-rated player, the high-rated player is expected to score more wins. If the high-rated player wins, then only a few rating points will be taken from the low-rated player, however, if the lower rated player scores an upset win, many rating points will be transferred. The lower rated player will gain a few points from the higher rated player in the event of a draw. This means that this system is self-correcting. A player whose rating is too low should, in the run, do better than the rating system predicts. Arpad Elo was a chess player and an active participant in the United States Chess Federation from its founding in 1939. The USCF used a numerical system, devised by Kenneth Harkness, to allow members to track their individual progress in terms other than tournament wins. The Harkness system was fair, but in some circumstances gave rise to ratings which many observers considered inaccurate. On behalf of the USCF, Elo devised a new system with a sound statistical basis. Elos system replaced earlier systems of competitive rewards with a based on statistical estimation. Rating systems for many sports award points in accordance with subjective evaluations of the greatness of certain achievements, for example, winning an important golf tournament might be worth an arbitrarily chosen five times as many points as winning a lesser tournament. A statistical endeavor, by contrast, uses a model that relates the game results to underlying variables representing the ability of each player, Elos central assumption was that the chess performance of each player in each game is a normally distributed random variable
7.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
8.
Soviet people
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Soviet people or Citizens of the USSR was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Initially used as a reference to the Soviet population, it was eventually declared to be a new historical, social and international unity of people. Through the history of the Soviet Union, both doctrine and practice regarding ethnic distinctions within the Soviet population varied over time, minority national cultures were not completely abolished in the Soviet Union. By Soviet definition, national cultures were to be socialist by content and national by form, to be used to promote the official aims, the fifth record was the section of the obligatory internal passport document which stated the citizens ethnicity. The 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union finalized this definition, according to the 2010 Russian Census 27,000 Russians identified themselves as members of the Soviet people. Homo Sovieticus Melting pot New Soviet man Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality Rootless cosmopolitan Russification Zhonghua minzu, the equivalent notion in the Peoples Republic of China Yugoslavs
9.
Chess
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Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Chess is played by millions of people worldwide, both amateurs and professionals, each player begins the game with 16 pieces, one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently, with the most powerful being the queen, the objective is to checkmate the opponents king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. To this end, a players pieces are used to attack and capture the opponents pieces, in addition to checkmate, the game can be won by voluntary resignation by the opponent, which typically occurs when too much material is lost, or if checkmate appears unavoidable. A game may result in a draw in several ways. Chess is believed to have originated in India, some time before the 7th century, chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of the Eastern strategy games xiangqi, janggi and shogi. The pieces took on their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century, the first generally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886. Since 1948, the World Championship has been controlled by FIDE, the international governing body. There is also a Correspondence Chess World Championship and a World Computer Chess Championship, online chess has opened amateur and professional competition to a wide and varied group of players. There are also many variants, with different rules, different pieces. FIDE awards titles to skilled players, the highest of which is grandmaster, many national chess organizations also have a title system. However, these are not recognised by FIDE, the term master may refer to a formal title or may be used more loosely for any skilled player. Until recently, chess was a sport of the International Olympic Committee. Chess was included in the 2006 and 2010 Asian Games, since the 1990s, computer analysis has contributed significantly to chess theory, particularly in the endgame. The computer IBM Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997, the rise of strong computer programs that can be run on hand-held devices has led to increasing concerns about cheating during tournaments. The official rules of chess are maintained by FIDE, chesss international governing body, along with information on official chess tournaments, the rules are described in the FIDE Handbook, Laws of Chess section. Chess is played on a board of eight rows and eight columns. The colors of the 64 squares alternate and are referred to as light, the chessboard is placed with a light square at the right-hand end of the rank nearest to each player
10.
Candidates Tournament
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The Candidates Tournament is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chesss international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The winner of the Candidates earns the right to a match for the World Championship against the incumbent World Champion, the last FIDE World Chess Candidates tournament took place in Moscow, Russia from 10 to 30 of March,2016. The number of players in the tournament varied over the years, most of these qualified from Interzonal tournaments, though some gained direct entry without having to play the Interzonal. The first Interzonal/Candidates World Championship cycle began in 1948, before 1965, the tournament was organized in a round-robin format. From 1965 on, the tournament was played as knockout matches, in 1995–1996, the defending FIDE champion also entered the Candidates, in the semi-finals, so the winner was the FIDE world champion. FIDE discontinued the Candidates Tournaments after 1996, though they have returned in a different form for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007. During its 1993 to 2006 split from FIDE, the Classical World Championship also held three Candidates Tournaments under a different sponsor and a different format each time, in one of these cases no title match eventuated, under disputed circumstances. The tables below show the qualifiers and results for all interzonal, Candidates, players shown bracketed in italics qualified for the Candidates or were seeded in the Candidates, but did not play. Players shown in italics with an asterisk were excluded from the Candidates by a rule limiting the number of players from one country, players listed after players in italics only qualified due to the non-participation of the bracketed players. After 1996, interzonals ceased to exist, but FIDE continued to organize qualifying zonal tournaments, after the reunification of the FIDE and classical titles, the Chess World Cup and FIDE Grand Prix series were introduced as qualification for the Candidates Tournament
11.
Chess Olympiad
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The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation, the use of the name Chess Olympiad for FIDEs team championship is of historical origin and implies no connection with the Olympic Games. For the 1924 Olympics an attempt was made to chess in the Olympic Games. While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad also took place in Paris, FIDE was formed on Sunday, July 20,1924, the closing day of the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad. FIDE organised the first Official Olympiad in 1927 which took place in London, the Olympiads were occasionally held annually and at irregular intervals until World War II, since 1950 they have been held regularly every two years. Chess is not recognized as a sport by the International Olympic Committee, the tests were first introduced in 2002 under significant controversy, with the widespread belief that it was impossible to dope in chess. Research carried out by the Dutch chess federation failed to find a single performance-enhancing substance for chess. Players such as Artur Yusupov, Jan Timman and Robert Hübner either refused to play for their team or to participate in events such as the Chess Olympiad where drug tests were administered. All 802 tests administered at the 2002 Olympiad came back negative, however, in the 36th Chess Olympiad in 2004, two players refused to provide urine samples and had their scores cancelled. Four years later, Vassily Ivanchuk was not penalized for skipping a drug test at the 38th Chess Olympiad in 2008, in 2010, a FIDE official commented that due to the work of the FIDE Medical Commission, the tests were now considered routine. In November 2015, FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced they are working with WADA to define, each FIDE recognized chess association can enter a team into the Olympiad. Each team is made of up to five players, four regular players, initially each team played all other teams but as the event grew over the years this became impossible. At first team seeding took place before the competition, later certain drawbacks were recognized with seeding and in 1976 a Swiss tournament system was adopted. The trophy for the team in the open section is the Hamilton-Russell Cup. The cup is kept by the team until the next event. The trophy for the womens team is known as the Vera Menchik Cup in honor of the first Womens World Chess Champion. The 2010 Olympiad was held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, the 2012 Olympiad was held in Istanbul, Turkey, the 2014 Olympiad was in Tromsø, Norway. The 2016 Olympiad was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in addition to competition, each Olympiad also gives opportunities for associated cultural activities
12.
Chess problem
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A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that White is to move first, a person who creates such problems is known as a composer. There is a deal of specialized jargon used in connection with chess problems. The term chess problem is not sharply defined, there is no clear demarcation between chess compositions on the one hand and puzzles or tactical exercises on the other, in practice, however, the distinction is very clear. There are common characteristics shared by compositions in the section of chess magazines, in specialist chess problem magazines. There is a stipulation, that is, a goal to be achieved, for example. There is a theme that the problem has been composed to illustrate, the problem exhibits economy in its construction, no greater force is employed than that required to render the problem sound. Problems are experienced not only as puzzles but as objects of beauty and this is closely related to the fact that problems are organised to exhibit clear ideas in as economical a manner as possible. Problems can be contrasted with tactical puzzles often found in columns or magazines in which the task is to find the best move or sequence of moves from a given position. Such puzzles are often taken from games, or at least have positions which look as if they could have arisen during a game. Most such puzzles fail to exhibit the above features, there are various different types of chess problems, Directmates, White to move first and checkmate Black within a specified number of moves against any defence. These are often referred to as mate in n, where n is the number of moves within which mate must be delivered. In composing and solving competitions, directmates are further broken down into three classes, Two-movers, White to move and checkmate Black in two moves against any defence, three-movers, White to move and checkmate Black in no more than three moves against any defence. More-movers, White to move and checkmate Black in n moves against any defence, helpmates, Black to move first cooperates with White to get Blacks own king mated in a specified number of moves. Selfmates, White moves first and forces Black to checkmate White, helpselfmates, White to move first cooperates with Black to get a position of selfmate in one move. Reflexmates, a form of selfmate with the stipulation that each side must give mate if it is able to do so. Seriesmovers, one makes a series of moves without reply to achieve a stipulated aim. Check may not be given except on the last move, a seriesmover may take various forms, Seriesmate, a directmate with White playing a series of moves without reply to checkmate Black
13.
Mikhail Chigorin
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Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin was a leading Russian chess player. He played two World Championship matches against Wilhelm Steinitz, losing both times, Chigorin was born in Gatchina but moved to nearby Saint Petersburg some time later. His father worked in the Okhtensk gunpowder works, Chigorins parents died young and Chigorin entered the Gatchinsk Orphans Institute at the age of 10. Once smitten with the game, he terminated his employment and started life as a chess professional, in 1876, he started a chess magazine, Chess Sheet, which he edited until 1881. He played a series of matches with established masters Emanuel Schiffers and Semyon Alapin and it was not long after that he was regarded as the best player in the city and possibly the whole of Russia. His first international tournament was Berlin 1881, where he was third with Szymon Winawer, behind Johannes Zukertort. This event included 17 master competitors, at the great London tournament of 1883, he finished fourth behind Zukertort, Wilhelm Steinitz and Blackburne. The 14 competitors in this round robin event included practically all of the best chessplayers in the world. At the very strong tournament of New York 1889 he was equal first with Max Weiss, following this great success he challenged the world champion Steinitz for a match with the World Championship at stake. The World Championship match was played at Havana in 1889, a second World Championship match was played also at Havana in 1892, but he narrowly lost 12½–10½. His overall record against Steinitz was very close and he also played a much publicised telegraph match against Steinitz in 1890, devised to settle a theoretical argument. Chigorin had the advantage of choosing the openings in advance from a list supplied by Steinitz. Towards the end of the century, his standing at home and abroad continued to rise and his reputation as a match player too, continued to grow. He drew an 1893 match with Siegbert Tarrasch in Saint Petersburg and in his lifetime, maintained a narrow plus score against Tarrasch and he had a strong plus score against Richard Teichmann, but a poor record versus David Janowski. Most of his losses to Janowski occurred late in Chigorins life, all of the greatest players of the time participated in the event and Chigorins outstanding result included winning his individual encounter with tournament victor, Harry Nelson Pillsbury. Pillsbury had great respect for Chigorins ability and for good reason, in other major competitions, he was joint winner at Budapest 1896, and beat Rudolf Charousek in the playoff. At Cologne in 1898, he was second with Charousek. His 7th-place finish at London 1899 was disappointing in comparison, at Monte Carlo 1901, he placed equal third after Janowski and Carl Schlecter
14.
Alexander Alekhine
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Alexander Aleksandrovich Alekhine was a Russian and French chess player and the fourth World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players ever, by the age of 22, Alekhine was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played, in 1921, Alekhine left Soviet Russia and emigrated to France, which he represented after 1925. In 1927, he became the fourth World Chess Champion by defeating José Raúl Capablanca, in the early 1930s, Alekhine dominated tournament play and won two top-class tournaments by large margins. He also played first board for France in five Chess Olympiads, Alekhine offered Capablanca a rematch on the same demanding terms that Capablanca had set for him, and negotiations dragged on for years without making much progress. Meanwhile, Alekhine defended his title with ease against Efim Bogoljubov in 1929 and 1934 and he was defeated by Max Euwe in 1935, but regained his crown in the 1937 rematch. His tournament record, however, remained uneven, and rising stars like Paul Keres, Reuben Fine. Negotiations for a match with Keres or Botvinnik were halted by the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939. Negotiations with Botvinnik for a title match were proceeding in 1946 when Alekhine died in Portugal. Alekhine is the only World Chess Champion to have died while holding the title, Alekhine is known for his fierce and imaginative attacking style, combined with great positional and endgame skill. He also composed endgame studies. Alekhine was born into a family in Moscow, Russia. His father, Alexander Ivanovich Alekhin, was a landowner and Privy Councilor to the conservative legislative Fourth Duma and his mother, Anisya Ivanovna Alekhina, was the daughter of a rich industrialist. Alekhine was first introduced to chess by his mother, a brother, Alexei. Alekhines first known game was from a chess tournament that began on December 3,1902. He participated in several tournaments, sponsored by the chess magazine Shakhmatnoe Obozrenie. In 1907, Alekhine played his first over-the-board tournament, the Moscow chess clubs Spring Tournament, later that year, he tied for 11th–13th in the clubs Autumn Tournament, his older brother, Alexei, tied for 4th–6th place. In 1908, Alexander won the clubs Spring Tournament, at the age of 15, in 1909, he won the All-Russian Amateur Tournament in Saint Petersburg
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Jean Dufresne
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Jean Dufresne was a German chess player and chess composer. He was a student of Adolf Anderssen, to whom he lost the Evergreen game in 1852, Dufresne was born and died in Berlin. The son of a wealthy Jewish businessman, he attended law school but was forced to abandon his studies when his father ran into financial difficulties, in a letter to Paul Dirac at the end of 1929, Werner Heisenberg deemed Dufresnes handbook the best book about theory of Chess. He also wrote a book on Paul Morphy. His grave is located in the Jewish Cemetery Berlin-Weißensee, Dufresne took first in the Berliner Schachgesellschaft in 1853 and won an 1854 match against Carl Mayet, a member of the Berlin Pleiades. Although he had a record against Anderssen, he had a plus record against Daniel Harrwitz
16.
Emanuel Lasker
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Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years. In his prime Lasker was one of the most dominant champions and his contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a psychological approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a flexible approach than his contemporaries. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them and he published chess magazines and five chess books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods. Lasker made contributions to the development of other games and he was a first-class contract bridge player and wrote about bridge and other games, including Go and his own invention, Lasca. His books about games presented a problem that is considered notable in the mathematical analysis of card games. Lasker was also a mathematician who was known for his contributions to commutative algebra. On the other hand, his works and a drama that he co-authored received little attention. Emanuel Lasker was born on December 24,1868 at Berlinchen in Neumark, at the age of eleven he was sent to Berlin to study mathematics, where he lived with his brother Berthold, eight years his senior, who taught him how to play chess. According to the website Chessmetrics, Berthold was among the top ten players in the early 1890s. To supplement their income Emanuel Lasker played chess and card games for small stakes, Lasker shot up through the chess rankings in 1889, when he won the Café Kaiserhofs annual Winter tournament 1888/89 and the Hauptturnier A at the sixth DSB Congress held in Breslau. Winning the Hauptturnier earned Lasker the title of master, the candidates were divided into two groups of ten. The top four in each group competed in a final, Lasker won his section, with 2½ points more than his nearest rival. However, scores were reset to 0 for the final, with two rounds to go, Lasker trailed the leader, Viennese amateur von Feierfeil, by 1½ points. Lasker won both of his games, while von Feierfeil lost in the penultimate round and drew in the last round. The two players were now tied, Lasker won a playoff and garnered the master title. This enabled him to play in tournaments and thus launched his chess career. Lasker finished second in a tournament at Amsterdam, ahead of some well-known masters
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Aron Nimzowitsch
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Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born, Danish leading chess master and a very influential chess writer. He was the foremost figure amongst the hypermoderns, born in part of the Russian Empire, the Jewish German-speaking Nimzowitsch came from a wealthy family, where he learned chess from his father, who was a merchant. In 1904, he travelled to Berlin to study philosophy, but set aside his studies soon and he won his first international tournament at Munich 1906. Then, he tied for first with Alexander Alekhine at St. Petersburg 1913/14, during the 1917 Russian Revolution, Nimzowitsch was in the Baltic war zone. He escaped being drafted into one of the armies by feigning madness and he then escaped to Berlin, and gave his first name as Arnold, possibly to avoid anti-Semitic persecution. Nimzowitsch eventually moved to Copenhagen in 1922, which coincided with his rise to the world chess elite, in Copenhagen, he twice won the Nordic Chess Championship, in 1924 and 1934. He obtained Danish citizenship and lived in Denmark until his death in 1935, the height of Nimzowitschs career was the late 1920s and early 1930s. Chessmetrics places him as the third best player in the world from 1927 to 1931, behind Alexander Alekhine, Nimzowitsch never beat Capablanca, but fared better against Alekhine. He even beat Alekhine with the pieces, in their short 1914 match at St. Petersburg. One of Nimzowitschs most famous games is his celebrated immortal zugzwang game against Sämisch at Copenhagen 1923, another game on this theme is his win over Paul Johner at Dresden 1926. When in form, Nimzowitsch was very dangerous with the black pieces, Nimzowitsch is considered one of the most important players and writers in chess history. His works influenced other players, including Savielly Tartakower, Milan Vidmar, Richard Réti, Akiba Rubinstein, Bent Larsen and Tigran Petrosian. Mein System is considered to be one of the most influential books of all time. Nimzowitschs chess theories, when first propounded flew in the face of widely held orthodoxies enunciated by the dominant theorist of the era, Siegbert Tarrasch, and his disciples. Tarraschs rigid generalizations drew on the work of Wilhelm Steinitz. Notable in his system were concepts such as overprotection of pieces and pawns under attack, control of the center by pieces instead of pawns, blockading of opposing pieces and he was also a leading exponent of the fianchetto development of bishops. Perhaps most importantly, he formulated the terminology still in use for various complex chess strategies, others had used these ideas in practice, but he was the first to present them systematically as a lexicon of themes accompanied by extensive taxonomical observations. A great and profound chess thinker second only to Steinitz, and his works – Die Blockade, My System, GM Robert Byrne called him perhaps the most brilliant theoretician and teacher in the history of the game
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Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
19.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and World Chess Champion for most of 1948 to 1963. He was also a pioneer of computer chess, Botvinnik was the first world-class player to develop within the Soviet Union, putting him under political pressure but also giving him considerable influence within Soviet chess. From time to time he was accused of using that influence to his own advantage and his famous pupils include World Champions Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik. Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was born on August 17,1911, in what was then Kuokkala, Vyborg Governorate, Grand Duchy of Finland, as a result, Mikhail Botvinnik grew up in Saint Petersburgs Nevsky Prospekt. His father forbade the speaking of Yiddish at home, and Mikhail, Mikhail Botvinnik later said, I am a Jew by blood, Russian by culture, Soviet by upbringing. On his religious views, Botvinnik called himself an atheist, in 1920, his mother became ill and his father left the family, but maintained contact with the children, even after his second marriage, to a Russian woman. At about the time, Mikhail started reading newspapers. In autumn 1923, at the age of twelve, Mikhail Botvinnik was taught chess by a friend of his older brother, using a home-made set. Botvinnik won his first two organized by the Assembly. To test the strength of Soviet chess masters, Krylenko organized the Moscow 1925 chess tournament, on a rest day during the event, world champion José Raúl Capablanca gave a simultaneous exhibition in Leningrad. Botvinnik was selected as one of his opponents, and won their game, in 1926, he reached the final stage of the Leningrad championship. Later that year, he was selected for Leningrads team in a match against Stockholm, held in Sweden, on his return, he entertained his schoolmates with a vivid account of the rough sea journey back to Russia. Botvinnik was commissioned to annotate two games from the match, and the fact that his analyses were to be published made him aware of the need for objectivity, in December 1926, he became a candidate member of his schools Komsomol branch. Around this time his mother became concerned about his physique, and as a result he started a program of daily exercise. When Botvinnik finished the school curriculum, he was below the age for the entrance examinations for higher education. While waiting, he qualified for his first USSR Championship final stage in 1927 as the youngest player ever at that time, tied for fifth place, after an appeal by a local chess official, he was admitted in 1928 to Leningrad Universitys Mathematics Department. In January 1929, Botvinnik played for Leningrad in the student team chess championship against Moscow, as a result, he had to do a whole years work in five months, and failed one of the examinations. Early in the year he placed joint third in the semi-final stage of the USSR Championship
20.
Paul Keres
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Paul Keres was an Estonian chess grandmaster and chess writer. He was among the top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. Keres narrowly missed a chance at a championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a match against champion Alexander Alekhine. After the war Keres was runner-up in the Candidates Tournament on four consecutive occasions, due to these and other strong results, many chess historians consider Keres one of the greatest players in history, and the strongest player never to become world champion. He was nicknamed Paul the Second, The Eternal Second and The Crown Prince of Chess, Keres, along with Viktor Korchnoi and Alexander Beliavsky, defeated nine undisputed world champions—more than anyone else in history. Paul Keres was born in Narva, Keres first learned about chess from his father and his older brother Harald. With the scarcity of chess literature in his town, he learned about chess notation from the chess puzzles in the daily newspaper. In his early days, he was known for a brilliant, Keres was a three-time Estonian schoolboy champion, in 1930,1932, and 1933. His playing matured after playing correspondence chess extensively while in high school and he probably played about 500 correspondence games, and at one stage had 150 correspondence games going simultaneously. In 1935, he won the Internationaler Fernschachbund international correspondence chess championship, from 1937 to 1941 he studied mathematics at the University of Tartu, and competed in several interuniversity matches. Keres achieved a good result at the age of 17 in a Master tournament at Tallinn 1933 with 5/7, tied 3rd–4th, half a point behind joint winners Paul Felix Schmidt. Keres became champion of Estonia for the first time in 1935 and he tied for first with Gunnar Friedemann in the tournament, then defeated him in the playoff match. In April 1935, Keres defeated Feliks Kibbermann, one of Tartus leading masters, in a training match, Keres played on top board for Estonia in the 6th Chess Olympiad at Warsaw 1935, and was regarded as the new star, admired for his dashing style. His success there gave him the confidence to venture onto the international circuit, at Helsinki 1935, he placed 2nd behind Paulin Frydman with 6½/8. He won at Tallinn 1936 with 9/10, Keres first major international success against top-level competition came at Bad Nauheim 1936, where he tied for first with Alexander Alekhine at 6½/9. He struggled at Dresden 1936, placing only 8–9th with, Keres recovered at Zandvoort 1936 with a shared 3rd–4th place. He then defended his Estonian title in 1936 by drawing a match against Paul Felix Schmidt with
