04 February 2012

Second Looks

Here are a few topics that I've already mentioned in past posts. Dennis Steele, the admin at ChessManiac.com, wrote to tell me,
Just wanted to let you know that ChessManiac.com now offers chess960 and vote chess. We also allow Chess960 Vote Chess games. That is a twist. Not sure if anyone else offers this or not.

The site is listed in the right column under 'Correspondence (Turnbased) Chess960' online play. The original announcement, including an audio clip of Fischer describing his invention, can be found at Chess960 now available online at ChessManiac.com. Another page, Chess Maniac Community Raises $8100 for upgrades, mentions that chess960 was added by popular demand. Vote chess, too.

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Chessvibes.com just announced its annual Vote for the YB Novelty of the Year 2011. What's that got to do with chess960? Two years ago I used the 2009 NOTY contest as a discussion point in Fischer: 'The *Old* Chess Is Dead'. You can find the report on the 2010 contest on Chessvibes' Anand wins Yearbook Novelty award of 2010.

I'd like to piggyback on the 2011 NOTY to run my own contest. Guess on which move the winning 2011 novelty was played and win a one year subscription to this Chess960 FRC blog. Second place gets a two year subscription. Yes, it's an old joke, but so are chess opening novelties on move 23. To get the ball rolling, I vote that the winning novelty will occur on move 15. The six candidate games have already been shortlisted on the Chessvibes announcement, so no peeking!

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Finally, two Schemingmind.com chess960 events finished recently: preliminary groups for Chess960 League - Season Five and 2010 Chess960 Dropout Tournament. I played in both, know them well, and will feature a game or two from each event in a future post.

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