Perpetual Chess Linkfest #10- October 21, 2022

After a brief respite, the Carlsen/Niemann scandal is, unfortunately, back in the headlines. On the bright side we crowned champions in the Aimchess Rapid and the US Championships, and I have some instructive blog posts and reviews to share. Here are this week’s chess links:

Caruana and Yu win the US Champs, Duda wins Aimchess Rapid!

US Chess @USChess

Congratulations to Jennifer Yu, the new 2022 U.S. Women's Champion! #uschesschamps @STLChessClub

Jennifer Yu wins Thrilling Armageddon to Grab 2nd US Title (Carlos Alberto Colodro for Chessbase News)

Caruana won his 2nd US Championship Title (FM Nate Solon for Chess Life Online)

Fun, short trip report from French GM Maxime Lagarde on playing Two Tournies in Armenia- “Generally speaking, in my opinion, young Armenian players are now more dangerous than young Indian players.” (Chess.com News)

Duda eliminated Carlsen, and has now won the Aimchess Rapid Tournament! (Leon Watson for Chess24)

Jan-Krzysztof Duda @GM_JKDuda

Who said it was to be easy match? Thank you for being with us last week. #AimChessRapid #ChessChamps #GrupaSportowaOrlen #Zinzino @LenovoPolska

Niemann/Carlsen

Hans Niemann is suing GM Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com and GM Hikaru Nakamura for $100 million in Damages (CNN Article by Matt Foster) (Read the Complaint Here) (Peter Doggers for Chess.com)

Hans Niemann @HansMokeNiemann

My lawsuit speaks for itself

A few lawyers on Twitter graciously helped evaluate the merits of the lawsuit, here is one conclusion from it…

Akiva Cohen @AkivaMCohen

The excellent end to a terrific thread on this

Brodie Butland @BMB_Esq

Tl;dr - Niemann’s biggest challenge is proving actual malice, which will be very difficult absent uncovering convincing documents in discovery. He may be able to offer strong evidence that he didn’t cheat, but he’s unlikely to overcome the legal barriers to prove defamation. /end

Chess Improvement/Reviews

GM Gregory Serper on the Importance of Knowing Typical Opening Traps (Knowledge is Power for Chess.com)

“In my opinion, The Power of Pawns is a good introduction to pawn structures and strategic planning. It is a good companion to books such as Winning Chess Strategies, The Amateur's mind or Simple chess. (The Patzer’s Review Blog)

“I would narrow down the types of games into 4 categories and depending if your losses are in one type, this should help you study the area where you could get the most from your time studying chess. “ (TheChessCorner64 Chess.com Blog)

Chess History/Misc.

GM Judit Polgar hosted the 8th Global Chess Festival in Budapest “Full parental support has been key to the development of my talents.”- (Himank Ghosh for Chessbase India)

Why did Larsen famously lose 6-0 to Fischer in a 1971 Candidates Match? “Looking at the games from the match Fischer-Larsen I see… that LarseGM n could have drawn many games in that match, but every time he spurned that possibility in search for more, often at the expense of objectivity. (GM Alex Colovic’s Blog)

Chessable will host a “Monster Mystery Bash” with masked players. Obviously we all want to see masked Hans vs. masked Magnus! (Matthew Astle for the Chessable Blog)

Thanks for reading everyone! Have a good weekend, and please don’t forget to subscribe to /share this blog if you are finding it worthwhile. - Ben