Perpetual Chess Linkfest #17, December 23, 2022
The Chess.com/Play Magnus merger is complete and a new cheating scandal is born, plus links to some fun puzzles, a book review, and some chess improvement related posts
Happy Holiday season everyone! It was a relatively quiet week over the chessboard, but we still have plenty of links for you covering chess news, chess improvement and more. Minor programming note, I will be travelling over the holidays, so the linkfest is listed as “questionable” for next week, but rest assured I will be following the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz, and will be back in 2023 if not next week. Let’s get to the links:
Magnus and Hikaru
In case you missed it, Leonard Barden helps catch you up on the Magnus vs. Hikaru match. (The Guardian)
And “TheChessCorner” shares a couple of the brilliant tactics puzzles from the match (Chess.com Blog)
We will likely to get to see plenty more of Magnus vs. Hikaru, as the Chess.com/PlayMagnus Merger is now Complete! (Chess.com News)
Reviews and Chess Improvement Related Blogs
Colin Purdon reviews The Exchange Sacrifice According to Petrosian. “This is a very interesting and enjoyable book.” (British Chess News)
Not sure if a 13 year old rated 2000+ truly understands chess plateaus, but its nice to see kids like Roger S share their chess journeys! “In my opinion, the most important skill needed to get over the 2000 barrier is the ability to get a better position and slowly hold onto it until you make the final push or your opponent makes another mistake.” (Chess.com Blog)
FM Nate Solon had some fun with the ChatAI bot. It looks like the bot is not quite ready to start writing his blog. (Zwischenzug Blog)
German FM Jakob Pfreundt is going to blog about his IM Title pursuit! Good luck to Jakob. “I believe that, with a structured training routine (paired with regular OTB play of course), it should be possible to make some further progress.” (LiChess Blog)
Sunway Sitges + A New Cheating Scandal
GM Kirill Alekseenko won Sunway Sitges in impressive fashion! (Carlos Alberto Colodro for Chessbase News)
A Belgian IM was Expelled from a Tournament for Refusing a Body Scan. Interesting Details in this Story (Peter Doggers for Chess.com)
Chess Biz
Chess was the 5th most watched activity in the Sports” category on Twitch in 2022! (Roman Markov for Streams Charts)
Among chess fans, I have seen mixed reviews for the recent Chess Boxing Event organized by Streamer Ludwig, but it was Massively Popular in terms of # of Viewers (Miles Klee for Rolling Stone Magazine)
Speaking of Massively Popular, the Indefatigable and Indispensable IM Sagar Shah recently passed 1 million subs on Chessbase India! (Arvind Subramanian for The India Forum) (h/t The Chess Mind Blog)
Thanks for reading everyone! Happy Holidays- Ben