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Highlights Former world junior girls' champion Soumya Swaminathan has pulled out of the Asian Team Chess Championship, to be held in Iran Swaminathan cited the Islamic country's "compulsory headscarf" rule as violation of her personal rights In 2016, Indian shooter Heena Sidhu had withdrawn from a meet in Iran citing the same reason PUNE: Woman Grandmaster and former world junior girls' champion Soumya Swaminathan has pulled out of the Asian Team Chess Championship, to be held in Hamadan, Iran, from July 26 to August 4, calling the Islamic country's "compulsory headscarf" rule violative of her personal rights. "I do not...

Assange just tweeted a picture of a chess board. And that's an expert at chess, but it looks like the black player has one or two moves remaining. What's happening?

Ukrainian Anna Muzychuk pulled out of the the King Salman World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship in Riyadh when the tournament’s organizers told her that she would need to wear an abaya, a full-length robe women must wear when they go out in Saudi Arabia. “In a few days I am going to lose two World Champion titles — one by one,” the 27-year-old Muzychuk wrote on Facebook on Saturday. “Just because I decided not to go to Saudi Arabia. Not to play by someone’s rules, not to wear abaya, not to be accompanied getting outside and altogether not to...

Will robots one day destroy us? It’s a question that increasingly preoccupies many of our most brilliant scientists and tech entrepreneurs. ... ...This year, a leading Oxford academic, Professor Michael Wooldridge, warned MPs that AI could go ‘rogue’, that machines might become so complex that the engineers who create them will no longer understand them or be able to predict how they function. ...The same sort of computer mind that can conjure up new chess moves might easily decide that the most efficient way to streamline the health service would be to get rid of the vulnerable and needy. ...And...

This is just a vanity but I've been likening this political game like a chess game. Trumps methodically taking out major progressive/liberal/DNC pieces and the Democrats keep pushing pawns ahead to try and protect them. Right now the Progressives strength seems to be King, Knight, Bishop and 3 pawns to Trump's king, 2 rooks and 2 bishops. and 2 pawns. We're reaching the end game here and it looks like Trump has mate in 4 against the Dems. Trump's going to shut Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. I hope it's over her flirtations when looking for campaign donations ... wouldn't that be...

Trumpers, who are most critical of Mueller’s investigation, normally (correctly, I’d say) see Trump as brilliant, playing 3D chess... Fast forward to the investigation. Mueller hires, supposedly, a bunch of biased lawyers (some of whom, it turns out, specialize in financial transactions—which was never, ever mentioned in the original “charges” against Trump). So in addition to the fact that Trump was told on multiple occasions he was not a target, it also appears that the types of lawyers Mueller hired were looking at something entirely different than “Russian collusion.” it had to look like Sessions was incompetent. Trump provided “Cheese...

A chess coach in Malaysia demanded an apology after organizers humiliated one of his players, a 12-year-old girl, over the dress she was wearing, ultimately leading the young girl to back out of the tournament voluntarily

A 12-year-old chess champion in Malaysia was forced to withdraw from a youth tournament in the country after tournament organizers deemed her knee-length dress too "seductive," the girl's coach said. The tournament director of the National Scholastic Chess Championship held April 14-16 made the call personally, the coach noted, after finding the dress to be "temptation."

One American champion is voicing her opposition to “women’s oppression” by boycotting the women’s world chess championship in Iran rather than bow to Iranian demands that she wear a hijab, or headscarf. “By participating, I would be forced to submit to forms of oppression designed specifically for women,” Nazí Paikidze insisted. “It sets the wrong example, particularly for young girls interested in chess.” Paikidze, the current U.S. chess champion, could be competing for up to $100,000 in prize money. However, she has refused to attend the event. “I will NOT wear a hijab and support women’s oppression,” she said. “Even...

...“Playing chess is worse than gambling and eating pork … People who play chess are more prone to lying than others. People who play chess may not say the shahada [declaration of Islamic belief] while they are dying,” he said... “People who play chess are cursed … You should count your prayer beads instead…” Whatever, you better start counting your Death Beads, hammerhead! Trump/Pence = MAGA

President-elect Donald Trump has decided that his administration will not pursue criminal investigations related to former rival Hillary Clinton’s private email server or her family foundation, his campaign manager said Tuesday. Trump’s apparent decison, conveyed by campaign manager Kellyanne Conway in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,’’ would be an extraordinary break with political and legal protocol, which holds that the Attorney General and FBI makes decisions on whether to conduct investigations and file charges, free of pressure from the president. During his campaign, Trump had issued incendiary calls for a special prosecutor to re-open the FBI’s closed investigation of...

Phil Chess, who co-founded the Chicago-based music label Chess, which brought American blues, soul and early rock music to an international audience and influenced generations of musicians including the Rolling Stones, died Oct. 19 at his home in Tucson. He was 95.

As one of the most successful women to ever play the male-dominated game of chess, Nazi Paikidze is used to having her moves watched closely. Her latest has drawn international attention: Paikidze announced last week that she will boycott February’s Women's World Chess Championship in Iran because the players will have to wear hijabs. Paikidze’s decision will deprive the tournament of one of the game’s brightest stars and biggest draws — the U.S. champion who once told a magazine she would “do everything I can to help more girls get into chess.”

After years of playing with pawns and bishops, the reigning queen of US chess finds herself in the biggest stalemate of her career. Nazi Paikidze, 22, shook up the chess world over the weekend when the US women’s champion announced she’s boycotting the Women’s World Chess Championship in Iran in February instead of complying with the country’s law that women cover up with a hijab. The Russian-born star, who now lives in Las Vegas, told The Post she won’t budge unless FIDE — the world chess federation — moves the competition to a “no-conflict” zone or makes wearing the hijab...

Grandmasters have accused FIDE of disregarding sexual discrimination by selecting a place that would require the competitors to wear hijabs. Meanwhile, FIDE's Commission for Women's Chess has urged participants to accept the hijab regulations in respect of "cultural differences." American Grandmaster Susan Polgar, chairman of Fide's Commission for Women's Chess, has said the players need to respect 'cultural differences'.

The 2017 World Chess Championships will be held in Tehran, and Iran has told Fide (the chess governing body) that all female participants must wear a hijab. Fide’s Commission for Women’s Chess submitted to Iran’s demand without question, instructing all participants to respect “cultural differences” and follow the rules. Needless to say, the Grandmasters are outraged. Many have flat out refused to attend the 64-player tournament scheduled for February 2017. “This violates all what sports means,” argues Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Carla Heredia. “Sports should be free of discrimination by sex, religion, and sexual orientation.” Chairwoman Susan Polgar of Fide’s Commission...

The best female chess players in the world have stated that they will boycott next year's World Championship in Iran, after being told they must wear a hijab if they wish to participate. Many of these players have harshly criticized the World Chess Federation, after it was decided that the World Championship would take place specifically in Iran. The protests were mostly regarding the Iranian requirement that women cover their faces with a hijab during the chess competition. American champions also expressed concern over whether the female participants would be safe in the Islamist country. "It's really frustrating that I...

The best-ranked female chess player in the United States has said she would rather sacrifice her career than submit to demands to wear a hijab at the next world championship. Nazi Paikidze, the reigning US Women’s Chess Champion, swore to boycott the 2017 contest, which is being held in Iran and will have an enforced Islamic dress code.

If there were a contest for the most stupid idea in politics, my choice would be the assumption that people would be evenly or randomly distributed in incomes, institutions, occupations or awards, in the absence of somebody doing somebody wrong. Political crusades, bureaucratic empires and lucrative personal careers as grievance mongers have been built on the foundation of that assumption, which is almost never tested against any facts. A recent article in the New York Times saw as a problem the fact that females are greatly under-represented among the highest rated chess players. Innumerable articles, TV stories and political outcries...

He was one of the truly great chess players, a legend. He played in three matches that produced the World Champion, but in each case lost to Anatoly Karpov. It made him the strongest player never to have won the title. In 1976 he defected from the Soviet Union and took up residence in Switzerland, where he continued to be active into his eighties in spite of a stroke. Now he has gone and leaves a grieving chess community.