In the great tradition of herd journalism, The Wall Street Journal has followed this blog and covered a story that we brought you more than two years ago. It appears that The Great Thompson Street Chess Feud, the long-simmering conflict between two neighboring Greenwich Village chess shops, continues despite a change of ownership in one of them.
Where can I get one of those “I [heart] Chess” buttons?
It was two years ago today, on an uncommonly warm afternoon during a post-Christmas visit to my native New York City, that I played the game below with Simon, one of the regular chess players in Washington Square Park. I didn’t realize at the time that he was homeless, though knowing the chess scene in the park it doesn’t surprise me.
As for the game, I played badly. I wouldn’t say Simon played a strong game, though he certainly played better than I did and deserved to win. I think you’ll agree that when I resigned on move 40 the game was lost.
I don’t know where Simon is today or whether he’s still homeless. I hope he’s well. He was a nice guy, and I enjoyed our game.
In “stunning reversal of fortune,” losers are heroes in tiebreaks
Congratulations to the New York Knights, who have defeated the Miami Sharks to win the 2009 U.S. Chess League Championship. Last night's regulation match ended in a draw. As the USCL site reports:
We have been remiss, I must admit, here at the Knights of Castle Kimbark, at covering the fairly exciting post-season action in the USCL, and as it happens I don't have time to redress that neglect at the moment with a lengthy post (all the usual excuses), but go to the USCL site to see all the playoff games.“For the fourth year in a row the USCL Finals came down to a blitz tiebreaker. Two players lost during regulation, GM Giorgi Kacheishvili and IM Alejandro Moreno Roman. In a stunning reversal of fortune, both of these players were heros in the blitz tiebreaker. Moreno Roman knocked off everyone on New York's team except for Kacheishvili. Kacheishvili then turned around and did the exact same thing to Miami, finishing things off by defeating GM Julio Becerra with the black pieces.”
(Cross-postd from Chicago Blaze blog)
The Chicago Blaze became the latest victims of the Queens Pioneers’ rolling juggernaut last night, falling to the formidable
It was the worst defeat yet for
For the Blaze, the only bright spots were boards three and four, where IM-elect Mehmed Pasalic and IM Angelo Young, both undefeated this year, drew their opponents.
You can’t win ‘em all, of course, and the defeat followed a few weeks of mostly solid performances for the new Blaze team, which had raised its record to 4-3 after last week. That record now falls back to an even .500, and we hang on dearly to our playoff hopes. The last two matches of the regular season, against
The Pioneers are an impressive team and deserve their success. To get where they are they have had to overcome obstacles, such as an undistinguished record last year, their first, and what has to be the most ill-conceived name and logo in the league. (Trust me, I was born and raised in
On the bright side, Blaze Manager Glenn Panner gave the team’s non-player personnel—all of whom very much need chess improvement—an enjoyable lesson in the Scotch Game using Charousek vs Von Popiel (Budapest, 1896) and Bruce Pandolfini’s Chess Life column on the game from August 2006 (USCF membership required).
Many thanks to Maret Thorpe for serving as tournament director last night for the second time this year. Here are the games:
2. IM Alex Lenderman (QNS) vs IM Emory Tate (CHC) 1-0
Feuding Village Rivals Struggle as Equipment Biz Move to Net
Have you ever been to a chess shop, a place where you not only buy chess equipment, but actually see it, fondle it, and make sure it’s what you want before you pay for it? Where you can frolic amid shelves, even aisles, of gorgeous chess sets, admiring the ones you could never afford, and drooling a bit perhaps before moving on? Where the proprietor actually plays chess, knows the game, and will kibitz with you whether you buy anything or not?
If you live in Chicago, you may never have set foot in such a place, for there isn’t a single chess shop in the city. There are more chess shops on one block of Greenwich Village, in fact, than in all of Cook County, Illinois. As far as I know, the only chess store in our entire area is out in Elmhurst; Thompson Street between 3rd and Bleecker in New York has twice that many.
But for how long? According to the New York Observer, the neighboring Village Chess Shop and Chess Forum, mainstays of the city’s chess scene for years, as much for their perpetual feud as for the equipment they supply to local woodpushers, are struggling to survive.
“We are en route to vanishing,” said Chess Forum’s Imad Khachan, and the reason is simple: the Internet. With chess supplies as for other commodities, online retailers enjoy low overhead and can sell for less. The last time I was in the Village Chess Shop, a regular set of plastic tournament pieces cost about twice what it cost at Wholesalechess.com.
So once again we face the question of what the Internet is doing to chess, and is it good or is it bad or is it some of both? The Internet adds efficiency to commerce, lifts out costs, and reduces prices. All good. But something is lost. The kind of culture that thrives around the commerce of Thompson Street, the Shakespeare talk and all the rest, is a stranger to electronic commerce. Nu?
Where besides the Village do bricks-and-mortar chess stores survive? There’s the American Chess Store in Austin and Your Move in Massapequa. Where else?
