Blog

Art. 10 – 18 jan. 2023

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Playing chess online

Firstly we have to say that the pandemic has taken away or transformed almost all the chess manifestations that we were used to (i.e:Aeroflot of Moscow, the London Chess Classics, the Grenke of Karlsruhe, the Biel tournament, the Dortmund tournament, the Open of Gibraltar, the Bilbao tournament, the Leon tournament, the Linares tournament, the Memorial Tal, the Gashimov Memorial…).

Secondly, pandemia has also accelerated the creation of online tournaments. Playable from anywhere in the world and at any time without the need to travel and go to the hotel. It is understandable that the very young believe this is the way you play chess.

In addition, the disappearance, we hope temporary, of Russia and China with the world organizational scenario. The one ban on the demonstrations for the war he triggered. The other grappling with the re-establishment of the pandemic outbreak. They had to leave the scene to India, to the USA (especially for online chess) and to a fragmented Europe. Moreover, open large spaces to the new Asian realities, from the rich Arab countries to the ex-Soviet Asian republics.

But then the experience teaches us that the desire to try their hand against a human in the long run convinces everyone, or almost all, to enroll in a circle like the ARONA CHESS CLUB one or a tournament. And then a new era begins, the real one, made of tension, psychology, …

and now we want to show you the 4 best sites to play chess

chess.com

The first site to play chess online is definitely chess.com. In reality, this option is also the most populated, considering that the portal has more than twenty million registered users. Well yes, in this case the registration is a must, but you can also authenticate you using Facebook or Google. Once access, you can challenge other players around the world. Chess.com is also available as an app for Android and iOS, both on mobile phones and on tablets.

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Lichess.org

The second site is Lichess.org. It is certainly not populated as Chess.com, but it still has more than one million games per day. Moreover, it does not require any form of recording if you want to do only one game. Instead, it will be necessary to access the site in the event that you want to record your progress, scores and all the games you have carried out against other users. In this case, however, everything will always be free.

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chess.org

is very similar, in its management, to Chess.com
It is the most suitable site for all those who simply want to play a random game, without too many complications. In fact, it always allows you to play against other online players, completely free of charge and does not require any kind of registration. The portal is quite immediate: connect, click on “Play Now” and play against other online players.

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chess24.com

is in fourth place in terms of gaming experience. But it is certainly the first for direct streaming, commented by GMs, of the best known international tournaments.
The chess website is available in different languages (English, Spanish, German, ..)
It is not possible to play correspondence games. The longest time control available is 60 minutes with an increase of 30 seconds per move. However, Chess24 offers various fantastic tournaments to participate in. Especially themed tournaments opening are extremely useful for improving your chess opening skills.

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Try them and decide what you like best and, if you want, leave me your comment below. Good fun!!!

Thank you

First RAPID tournament program

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October 2022 – Rapid 15′ – 7 rounds

The FIRST RAPID tourney (15’-7 rounds) is starting on October, 7th 2022 at 17.00 – The first 4 rounds will be played. All players will be present at least 15 minutes before.

VENUE: Hotel Andorra 10, Av. Antonio Dominguez – 38650 – Playa de Las Americas – Tenerife

14 October 2022 – The remaining 3 rounds will be played from 17.00 and immediately after the final cerimony will immediately take place.

Wanna have a look at pairings and results? ok, you can, clicking here

Here are the statistics of the nations present:

No.FEDFederaciónCantidad
1ENGEngland1
2ESPSpain21
3GERGermany1
4ITAItaly4
5RUSRussia1
6SLOSlovenia2
Statistics

The tournament is free for all ARONA CHESS CLUB members, and it is also free for GM, WGM, IM and WIM FIDE title holders. 10,00€ for non-members

Sign up now!! Simply sending an e-mail to: arona_chess_club@gmx.com with your data: name, surname, date of birth (in order to definy eligibility to awards) and nationality.

Payments are accepted at the club headquarters until Friday, October 7 (and October 14th) from 4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

And what about the AWARDS ? … obviously they are are fully aligned to our club goals.

T-shirt (front)
T-shirt (back)
Siam Park
Siam Park

FIRST PLACE: Cup + the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt + moreover a special paid dinner (drinks not included) for two at the “Linares” restaurant in Los Cristianos (or, in conclusion, €60 in cash).

Furthermore, the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt is created just for this tournament by Argelia Bello H., one of the best Canarian creative graphic designer.

SECOND PLACE: Medal + the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt + moreover a special paid dinner (drinks not included) for two at the “Linares” restaurant in Los Cristianos (or €30 in cash).

3RD PLACE – Medal + the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt
4TH PLACE – Medal + the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt
5TH PLACE – Medal + the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt
6TH PLACE – Medal + the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt

FIRST PLACE UNDER 12 – Medal + a free entrance to Siam Park, the first water park in the world + moreover the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt

2ND UNDER12 – Medal + exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt
3RD UNDER12 – Medal + exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt

FIRST PLACE OVER 60 – Medal + a special dinner (drinks not included) at the “Linares” restaurant in Los Cristianos (or €30.00) + finally the exclusive ARONA CHESS CLUB t-shirt

Those born in 2010 and later are considered in the under 12 category. While veterans (over 60 years old) will be those born in 1962 and before.

Obviously, awards cannot be combined with each other.

Finally and most importantly, surprise awards will be there for all participants!!

For further information, please contact us

Art. 3 – April 3, 2022

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Come on girls! It’s time to show who you are!

Elizabeth Harmon

After Queen’s Gambit became one of the most watched series on Netflix, viewed by around 62 million people, chess is known to have benefited from a great deal of publicity and a new surge of interest. Perhaps even greater than that achieved by the exploits of famous Grand Masters and chess world champions.
‘The Queen’s Gambit’ tells the battle of women for equality starting from the world of chess. But in reality female champions – like Judit Polgar – are rare and sexism in this discipline is maximum. Some time ago even the great champion Garry Kasparov even declared that chess “would not be in the female nature“. But is it really true?

There are those who have made a historical reflection recalling that women played chess as much as men until the beginning of the seventeenth century. At that time, the rules of chess changed as the Queen and Bishop acquired much more meaning and power.
Chess went from a pleasant game between gentlemen and women to a competitive and ruthless sport practiced mainly in pubs and cafes, and therefore considered an unseemly activity for women. For the next 300 years, society continually sent the message “Chess is not for women“.

We are convinced that today the reason there are no women among the top players is because there are hardly any girls who sign up to start playing chess. So, in order to change this, we invite all girls and women to join our club. Fun, happiness and good training for everyone! It would be nice to be able to discover over time a local champion able to compete with everyone on a world level.

And now let us see how the question of Beth Harmon’s existence has also emerged online.

Beth may be a fictional character, but there is a lot of speculation as to who Beth Harmon might be in real life. Talking about Beth’s character, the novelist Walter Tevis who wrote the book The Queen’s Gambit, stated that Beth was a tribute to brainy women like his daughter, Julie, and aunt (who gave him his first chess as a present when he was seven).

It seems that the author was inspired by Vera Menchik. But who was Vera?

Vera plays chess

She was born in 1906 in Moscow into a wealthy family of mill owners. However, during the Russian Revolution (1917-23), her family’s mill was confiscated and her family had to share the house with other people. Eventually, her family was forced to give up ownership of their home. Vera had to change schools against her will. In times of turmoil, she found solace in chess, a game that her father had taught her when she was nine years old. To top that, her parents divorced that left her shaken as she immigrated with her mother and with her sister, Olga, to England. She joined a local chess club in England, where she challenged the best men players of that time. Soon, she gained fame by winning in local and regional matches at national and international matches. In 1927 she won the Women’s World Chess Championship, a tournament that had taken place for the first time. She also defeated many of the best males of her era, including world champion Max Euwe (twice!), As well as Sammy Reshevsky, Jacques Mieses and Lajos Steiner. Hastings 1930-1, Euwe lost only one game in the entire event – to Menchik. At the height of the Second World War, and a year after her husband’s death, she died at the hands of war while playing in a chess tournament.

Who are the 3 best female players actually in the world ?

Grand Master Hou Yfan – China
Grand Master Goryachkina, Aleksandra – Russia
Grand Master Ju Wenjun – China

… and the three strongest girls?

Jiner Zhu – China – 20 y.o
Olga Badelka – Russia – 20 y.o
Assaubayeva, Bibisara – Kazakhstan – 18 y.o

Art. 2 – 31 March 2022

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Our dream: that our club can develop a champion like him!

GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa

Quintuple world chess champion, 31-year-old Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, who has held the title since 2013, was defeated at the Aithings Masters by Indian prodigy, 16-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. The other element of novelty contained in this news concerns the growing practice of online chess tournaments, one of the direct consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. A practice, that of chess on the Internet, which Carlsen himself called a “revolution”.

It is no coincidence that the exploit of the one who has been nicknamed ‘Pragg’ was made right online, in one of the most followed fast tournaments in the world, making him the youngest player to have defeated the almost invincible Norwegian. The great Indian chess master, born on 10 August 2005 in Chennai (South), took home the victory with a queen’s gambit in the Tarrasch variant after 39 moves.

His greatest ambition is to take the place of the one who inspired him: 52-year-old Viswanathan Anand – 16th in the world rankings – called the Lucky Luke of chess at the time of his heyday for the speed with which he calculated the moves, still considered a living god of over a billion Indians. In reality ” Pragg ‘, a teenager with a fragile and shy appearance, is not new to this type of exploit: in 2016, at just 10 years old, he became the youngest International Master in the history of the game. Two years later he was awarded the then-second youngest chess master in the world.

Praggnanandhaa belongs to a generation of young Indians who embody India’s growing influence in the world of chess, a sport that has its origins in a sixth-century Indian board game for two. Three of Praggnanandhaa’s peers are among the most promising players of his generation: Nihal Sarin, 18, fast chess master and 2019 Asian blitz champion, Arjun Erigaisi, 18, who five-time world champion Anand calls one of the “best. hopes “of India, and Dommaraju Gukesh, 15.

India currently has 73 great masters, up from 20 in 2007. Two of them are women, including 34-year-old Koneru Humpy, world champion in rapid chess who won the title in December 2019 after a two-month maternity break. years. Pragg is one of the most ambitious chess players of his generation. He knew that chess would be his life when he was eight.

“He always thinks about chess,” Ramesh, his coach since he was 7, told the BBC. The son of a bank manager and a housewife, ‘Pragg’ particularly enjoys playing cricket and table tennis with his Chennai friends, as well as watching Tamil-language comedies.

Before Covid, the talented teenager spent 15 days a month traveling around the world to participate in tournaments, always accompanied by his mother and a rice cooker to prepare his favorite dishes for him as he does not like other cuisines. His sister, Vaishali, is also in the game as a member of the Indian women’s team. Precisely in Chennai in 2008 Ramesh, former Commonwealth chess champion, opened a training school today attended by a thousand students between 7 and 18 years old, both Indian and coming from the four corners of the planet.

“Indian children are very motivated, diligent and hardworking. The main reason the game is progressing in India is that we have more qualified instructors as the great masters and good players are becoming teachers themselves. There are so many players at this. point there are no teachers “explained his coach. A third of the students get free lessons because he can’t afford them.

India still has a long way to go before it can offer equal opportunities to all its deserving talents and realize its full chess potential. Many of its great masters do not yet have an employer and a sponsor. Oil companies and state railways have hired ranked chess players, but the prize pool in tournaments is usually still below their modest salaries.

In India, the historic home of cricket, “chess fever” has now infected 50,000 Indians officially registered in clubs, but in all at least one million participate in tournaments. In 2022, in addition to hosting 12 international tournaments, Gandhi’s homeland will launch its own chess championship. In the ranking of the 100 best players in the world, the Asian giant is represented by seven champions, while the noble Russia has 23.

Veronique Viriglio’s article – 22 feb. 2022

Art. 11 – 20 March, 2023

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What do they say about us?

The well-known Artificial Intelligence site https://chat.openai.com reports some inaccuracies but also some of our secret projects!! But how will it know? Frankly it is impossible to understand this!

Here’s what it says about us: “… Arona Chess Club is a chess club located in the municipality of Arona, on the island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, Spain. The club was founded in 1987 (????) and offers opportunities to play amateur and professional chess.

Arona Chess Club regularly organizes chess tournaments, both locally and nationally as well as internationally, with the participation of players of different skill levels. The club also promotes chess practice at local schools and runs chess classes for youth and adults interested in learning and improving their game.

The club also has a chess team that participates in regional and national championships, representing the city of Arona. Furthermore, Arona Chess Club has developed an international collaboration with other chess clubs in Europe and Latin America, offering opportunities for cultural exchange and chess practice….”

What do you think about that? Please send us your comments

The Christmas Rapid Tourney Report

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18 december 2022

Just one word! a SUCCESS. Happy everyone and two days of “friendly” chess challenges to celebrate next Christmas together! and with lots of prizes and gifts for everyone, young and old!

And you know how we built this extraordinary event? Here are some facts (not all, believe me!):

Weeks of preparation together with Rita of the Casa Fuerte of Adeje, to get and prepare everything necessary i.e: chairs and tables donated by the South Tenerife Language Center of Adeje, look, etc.

and in addition, the kind support of the Tenerife Chess Federation and the preparation and competence of the referee Franklin Diaz Barrios.

We got players from 14 different countries and of all ages; and more than 12,000 visits on our webpage and social networks worldwide!

International Rapid Tournament: sport and tourism!

In addition to what above:

  • the generous sponsorship of the natural reserve of Barranco del Infierno;
  • 200 bananas offered to everyone present by Fast, one of our sponsors;
  • a lunch or a dinner for two at Otelo restaurant of Adeje;
  • free entries to Aqualand and Junglepark for the first 6 children and their families
  • the “super” candies for children, and not only for them! offered by Casa Ricardo
  • the wonderful tournament t-shirts with the exclusive design of the creative graphic Argelia Bello Hernandez;
  • a painting with chess subject offered by the painter Cande Alonso Hernandez;
  • a pack of very nice handmade soaps made here in Tenerife by Las Jalapeñas

Moreover, hundreds of free bottles of water offered at a very good prize by Fuentealta and decades of homemade cookies of Casa Fuerte in the shape of chess pieces, as well as many Casa Fuerte Christmas gadgets and gifts for everyone present.

The book of the IM Aldo Haïk, signed and with his dedication, raffled among all those present

another book on chess strategy to the best player of ARONA CHESS CLUB

the magnificent trophies and the engraved medals for the winners

And the blouses could not be missing, yes!, the wonderful tournament t-shirts with the exclusive design of the creative graphics Argelia Bello Hernandez Do you want to buy one? Please contact usand in few days you will get yours.

You know? we also organized to have a lemonade and a coffee service on the stage of the entrance square.

And last but not least! the very welcome presence and speech of GM Miodrag_Todorcevic, who enchanted everyone about the four factors described to become a GM.

Finally, let us see you again next year for the 2nd Christmas Rapid Tourney at Casa Fuerte of Adeje

Thank you very much to all Happy Christmas

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Sergio Alessandro – President of Arona Chess Club

Art. 8 – 7 sept. 2022

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New ideas and special offers

All Fridays from 5 to 7 p.m. you can play and there are no classes. The monthly price is 20,00 € and there are novelties: awards and discounts!

a 3-month bonus for only 50,00€ and a 4-month bonus for only 60,00€

Classes will be every Tuesdays and Thursdays. From 5-6 p.m. for intermediate level players. And from 6 to 7 p.m. for beginners. The price of the classes is 20,00€/month for year 2022.

If someone wants individual private lessons the price is only 10,00 euros/hour.

Art. 6 – May 6th, 2022

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You can tell a good day from the morning!

Playing at ARONA CHESS CLUB

How nice to see the game room already full of players after only three days of opening! and even before the official opening !! We thank the Hotel Andorra for the kind hospitality and of course all those present (arrived from Cabo Blanco, Costa del Silencio, Arona, Los Cristianos, Adeje, S. Miguel de Abona, etc …)

And we are sure that there will also be many at the “simul” on May 27th!

Go on like this!!

Art. 4 – 22 April 2022

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Arona Chess Club gets a good start!

” We use our loaf “, and we know that Rome was not built in a day.

Arona Chess Club, however, gets a good start! Infact, on the second day of opening, at Hotel Andorra, has already seen present the first chess players: adults, seniors but also a woman and a child who, we are sure, will grow a lot in learning.

We therefore decided on two important things:
1- all our activities will be free and open to everyone until next May 30th. Club registrations will start in June, with very low prices (only 20 euros per month).
2- Fridays, opening day, will be reserved for games (1 hour) and chess lessons (1 hour).

Not bad is it? So we can’t wait to see even more of you next Friday!

Art. 5 – May 2nd, 2022

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Adhara, the young Queen of Chess

“Come on girls! Time to show who you are!” was the title of our recent article n°3. And therefore we are very happy to introduce you to a promising girl who is showing who she is!

A few days ago she turned 18, but she is already an international chess champion. And not only from Tenerife (Spain) where she lives with her mother (her greater fan and supporter) and her brother, a very good chess player too.

Adhara is the name of a star in the Canis Major constellation and she certainly shines for her beauty, but above all, for her rare kindness and education. However, here we will mainly talk about her abilities and her great sporting potential in the world of chess.

The young Queen of chess has already won many titles and who knows how many others she will win! The list of her achievements is long and perhaps not complete. But they are worth rattling off to make sense of this great chess promise:

  • since 2011, the year of her first competition, she has continuously been Champion of Tenerife in all age categories. As well as of the Canary Islands since 2012 till now;
  • in 2019 she finished second in the Women’s Semi-Rapid Chess World Championship;
  • several times second in Spain and third in categories even higher than hers, as well as Spain Under 16 Champion in 2020;
  • 4th in the WGM Masters Tournament held in Fuerteventura in 2019, obtaining the title of FIDE Master;
  • first Spaniard in her ELO age category for several years, including 2018, 2019 and 2020; she is in the absolute Spanish Top Ten women ranking in the same years;
  • Promise of Sports Award at the Gala Santa Cruz Deporte (Tenerife 2020);
  • she has the title of high-level athlete from the Spanish Federation and the Higher Sports Council of the Spanish government;
  • in 2020 she qualifies for the Under 16 World Championship Online entering the top 10 women in Europe in her category;
  • in 2021 she is the first in the initial classification of the European Under 16 Hybrid Championship.
Adhara awarded at the Gala Deporte

She is currently 3th in Spain Absolute Women 18 and younger. She also bronze in the Spanish mixed pairs championship, together with GM Miguel Santos.

The secret of her success lies mainly in her rapid learning and analytical skills. She started to get passionate about chess when she was a child and, as she tells us in our exclusive interview: “…..I was drawn to those pieces my mother tried to teach my brother Ethan chess with, to the point that she gave me bigger ones to entertain me. But instead I took hers and put them in my mouth. It must have been at that moment that chess began to “live in me”..”
Since then she also had many other passions such as dance, music, skating, piano and flute, singing, painting or basketball; but in the end “….you have to choose, and I chose chess”.

She remembers that her mother Eva decided to enroll her brother in a club and that she also wanted to join. “…Since I had known how to read and write for a long time, they left me and there I began to attend lessons with Tony López, at the Fundación CajaCanarias Club (in Santa Cruz de Tenerife), which continues to be my Club to this day…”. She was only 5 years old and soon started playing championships, becaming the Champion of Tenerife U10 almost at the beginning, when she was 6 years old.

And tell us, anyone trained you?
“ Yes, in fact shortly after, I went to Technification classes with IM Adalberto Villavicencio, in addition to GM Reynaldo Vera. Later with GM Oleg Korneev and later on with my usual coach and chess club director, GM José Luis Fernández.
In recent years I have made great progress in the hands of IM Julio Alonso Bouza.“

How many hours do you study and play a day?
“The truth is that is not easy to determine it, because it is difficult to combine with my studies, right now with 2nd year of Baccalaureate that requires many hours; as well as with the championships. In addition, I also participate in many tournaments outside the island. So, I try to train 1 hour a day or watch some chess at least every day; and when I’m in a tournament I can easily spend between 8-9 hours a day in front of a chessboard.”

We’ve all had idols as kids and so we ask her too. Her response, as always, appears much more mature than her age:
“I have not much of an idol, which does not mean that I do not admire certain players.
To give an example, at this moment I could highlight the Spanish GM Jaime Santos Latasa, who is in constant progression”.

Our last question is about her future and her dream! Where do you see yourself in 5 years? She is smiling and says: “I would like to continue enjoying and progressing in chess, in addition to studying Law. I see myself studying and advancing. The truth is that I would like to become Grand Master. And I hope to get it between now and then.”

Good Adhara! Arona Chess Club thanks you for your time and, in the next future, for the kind availability at managing the “simul” at our inauguration day, on next May 27th.

And we are sure that Adhara’s star will shine and fly higher so, we wish her all the best…. “VAMOS MUCHACHA!“

Article and interview by Sergio Alessandro, with the kind collaboration of Eva Redondo Terrón – Limited reproduction