Issue 24 | MM Chess
It’s the 24th issue of the Mindful Masters Newsletter, the best (and only?) monthly chess newsletter you receive. I cover chess culture and relevant wisdom I've collected along the way. Please let’s welcome the newest MMChess.org students: Krishna, Liam, Rachel, Nicole, Timothy, Isabelle, Navya, Max, Ben, Isaiah, Zach, Nolan, Alex, Miles, Jia, Juan Carlos, Jeffrey, Victor, Jacob, Ammaarah, Raenan, Nate, Lucas, Ryan, Shreyas, Gabriel, Saisha, Jaden, Jason, Justin, Kingsley, Adam, and Daniel, and we'd like to welcome back John and Nazbiyke!
Student Success🏆
Every month, we’ll be highlighting some of the successes of our students. Please send me a message if you need help finding local tournaments to attend.
Congratulations to Max (and coach Marc) for winning 3rd place US Junior!
Congrats to Rapha (and his coach Yeison) for winning 1st and 3rd place!
My story🖼️
My mom grew up in the Soviet Union, and she wanted her children to do all her favorite activities in the USA: chess, language classes, memorizing poetry, and to my chagrin… ballroom dancing. I decided to stick with chess. I may have hated it in middle school, but today I own the dancefloor at weddings!
Monthly Tournament♟️
📅 This month’s tournament will take place on Wednesday, November 16th, at 6pm EST (5pm CT, 4pm MT, 3pm PT). Most of the players will be rated from 500-1800. The tournaments typically have 25-40 students, both kids & adults! The Zoom for the tournament is here, and the password is Smile.
To Play: Reply to this email, join the MM team (if you haven’t already) and press the big green button here.
To Attend The Beginner Lesson: Don’t feel ready to play? Help me find the best moves during the tournament games on the Zoom link.
Congrats to Michael (Gold), Ali (Silver), and Yoan (Bronze)! There were some big upsets and unexpected wins.
Chess News 📰
🥇Harvard sophomore Jennifer Yu wins the US Women’s Championship! Irina Krush made an illegal move with 4 seconds left on the clock, which gave Jennifer Yu an extra 2 minutes! A crazy turn of events!
🚀 Who will play against the Women’s World Champion? From late October until November 6th, the Women's Candidates Tournament is taking place in Monaco. The world's strongest ladies will compete in this elite tournament competing for their share of the €250,000 prize and the opportunity to face Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun in the championship match.
🥳 Fabiano Caruana, 30 years old, won the US Championship! He became a grandmaster at his 14 and was the youngest from Italy and the US at the time. In 2020, he played in the world championship!
👶 A 15-year-old chess prodigy defeated Wesley So, the current US champion: Christopher Yoo is rated 2563 and was with the black pieces against Wesley So, who has a 2774 rating.
👀 “My lawsuit speaks for itself,” AKA $100 million dollars: The big chess drama lives on. Hans Niemann was accused of cheating and blackmailed from major tournaments. This month a lawsuit against world champion Carlsen, chess.com, and Hikaru Nakamura, accusing them of slander, libel, and civil conspiracy for 100 million USD. We won’t be seeing the end of this!
😵 What does Hikaru, the biggest chess streamer and top 10 in the world, thinks of Hans Niemann’s case? “I'm very undecided, regardless of whether I believe he cheated or not he's playing at least at a 2650 level no matter what. He's already at that level which is very, very high. The stats will bear it out over the next 6-12 months. I really don't know.”
⚔️ How does Carlsen respond to Hans Niemann’s lawsuit: “I focus on chess” says Carlsen. But clearly, this is bothering the world champion - this month, he’s already blundered in his games twice this month!
👑 Hans Neimann’s king got decapitated in a game. It’s like chess is trying to become dramatic for no reason. His opponent simply removed the loose part of the king!
😱 World Chess Championship will be held in Jerusalem! Niemann also is going to Israel to represent the US, along with four other players from November 19 to 26. Maybe it’s in Israel because it’s a neutral country?
Fun Facts💡
👩👩👧 Where does the popularity of board games — especially chess — come from? Follow me on Twitter for more chess stories.
📈 Human and computers? Here is an interesting chart that compares human moves with computer-recommended moves in World Championships and qualifiers.
🧙♂️ José Raúl Capablanca invented a new version of chess in 1920: His main motive for developing a more difficult form of chess (with dimensions of 10x8 and adding 2 more pieces, the archbishop and the chancellor) was the possibility of "draw death."
📊 These are some stats of all Lichess titled arenas to date. If you want to see all the titled arenas on Lichess go here.
🌲 This puzzle is called the “Christmas tree.” Can you mate in 3 moves? White to move... look under the puzzle for a hint.
The first move is a rook sacrifice.