I was playing chess online today on the ICC (Internet Chess Club) and I had an interesting blitz game against Serena-Maria(WIM). Playing as white I was up a full piece at one point, but then blundered a bishop. However, I still had a formidable passed pawn and black resigned. She missed a forced draw. Can you find it?
Black to play and draw
In other chess-related news, I read Marilyn Yalom’s Birth of the Chess Queen: A History the other day in the bookstore. Yalom is apparently a Stanford prof, by the way. The book tells the story of the rise of the chess queen from being the originally the weakest piece (she originally moved like the king) to the most powerful piece on the board. Some parts of the book were interesting but it was much more a book on fem studies than on chess, so I was ultimately left disappointed. Yalom’s thesis is that the elevation of the chess queen parallels the rise of women’s status from the tenth to eighteenth centuries. I think this thesis is shot to hell by the fact that the game is just more engaging with piece movements that allow for sharper tactical positions, a facet of the issue she ignores almost completely. Facts can be so inconvenient sometimes.
