Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
Very well rated show. I happen to be studying chess in addition to the piano. Wouldn't you know it, in the first few minutes of episode 2, Elizabeth's adoption mother breaks out some Satie, Gnossiennes!
Yes, I read it, pianoloverus; it's getting a lot of press. In the second episode, the mother played two Satie pieces. I guess the author / screenwriter was a fan! In these episodes, you really can't see the chess moves well, so from an enthusiast standpoint, I can't yet ascertain the accuracy, but it's a good drama so far.
Incidentally, the author seems to have made a common mistake of non-chess players, by confusing 'match' with 'game'.
They are not synonymous.
I've played thousands of games (in tournaments and otherwise) in my 'career', but I've only ever played three matches.
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."
I watched it and it was kind of OK. Not great, not terrible (if you know what I mean) đŸ˜‰
I'm not very deep into chess but I always thought at high ranking tournaments the contenders played multiple games against each other to determine the winner. In the show it always seemed like just a single game would determine the winner.
I'm not very deep into chess but I always thought at high ranking tournaments the contenders played multiple games against each other to determine the winner. In the show it always seemed like just a single game would determine the winner.
In most tournaments, each player plays one game against every other player, and the one with the most points is the winner (win = 1, draw = 1/2, loss = 0).
In the Swiss system (used when there are too many players for everyone to play everyone else), players with the same number of points at each stage play each other, but they can only play the same person once. You normally only play one game per day, unless it's speed chess, where a game can be over in less than ten minutes.
In matches, players play multiple games against the same opponent. The one with an unassailable lead becomes the winner. Matches are used for the world championship etc. Bobby Fischer is still the only chess player who has defeated the world's best with 6-0 scores (one of which was against the piano virtuoso & concert pianist Mark Taimanov).
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."
Another chess lover here, though not as active as I used to be. Really enjoying the show. I'm a 1.d4 fella myself, and a big fan of the Slav from the Black side.
Decent upright bassist; aspiring decent pianist Present: Roland DP-603, Roland FP-30, Yamaha MX61, Casio CDP-130 Past: Casio PX-830, Casio PX-160 Etc.: PianoTeq Stage 7 (Bechstein, Bluethner, U4), Roland KC-80
I'm a 1.d4 fella myself, and a big fan of the Slav from the Black side.
I always favored 1 e4, following in the footsteps of my hero Bobby F. , whose My 60 Memorable Games was my chess bible as a kid. I learnt chess almost totally from chess books, as my only decent opponent (before I left home for the UK) when I was a kid was my uncle, who gifted me with all his old chess book collections - J.R.Capablanca, A.Alekhine, D.Bronstein, P.Keres, A.Rubinstein (no, not Artur or Anton) etc, plus several volumes of Chess Informant (a Yugoslavian publication which contains all the most important recent games, all annotated by GMs) - when I beat him for the first time.
1 e4 (does nobody use "P-K4" descriptive notation anymore?) also tends to lead to quicker wins and to slasher type sacrificial games like The Immortal Game and The Evergreen Game . All my best sacrifices have been with 1 e4, especially when my opponent replied with the Sicilian........
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."
1 e4 (does nobody use "P-K4" descriptive notation anymore?)
Correct: no one uses descriptive notation anymore ...
I think a number of aggressive players, including Kasparov, showed that 1.d4 games are just as tactically interesting as 1.e4, it's just that they take their time gearing up for the conflict, as it were. If you're a fan of Bobby, then you know this from him playing the black side of the King's Indian Defense!
Last edited by TheophilusCarter; 11/09/2005:10 PM.
Decent upright bassist; aspiring decent pianist Present: Roland DP-603, Roland FP-30, Yamaha MX61, Casio CDP-130 Past: Casio PX-830, Casio PX-160 Etc.: PianoTeq Stage 7 (Bechstein, Bluethner, U4), Roland KC-80
I'm not very deep into chess but I always thought at high ranking tournaments the contenders played multiple games against each other to determine the winner. In the show it always seemed like just a single game would determine the winner.
In most tournaments, each player plays one game against every other player, and the one with the most points is the winner (win = 1, draw = 1/2, loss = 0).
In the Swiss system (used when there are too many players for everyone to play everyone else), players with the same number of points at each stage play each other, but they can only play the same person once. You normally only play one game per day, unless it's speed chess, where a game can be over in less than ten minutes.
In matches, players play multiple games against the same opponent. The one with an unassailable lead becomes the winner. Matches are used for the world championship etc. Bobby Fischer is still the only chess player who has defeated the world's best with 6-0 scores (one of which was against the piano virtuoso & concert pianist Mark Taimanov).
I used to be a tournament chess-player too, even becoming a life member of the US Chess Federation (USCF -- possibly named-changed to simply "US Chess"?). I gave up chess completely, decades ago, and even told the USCF to stop sending me the monthly magazine, because it would go straight into the trash unread. Well, lo and behold, a few days ago out of the blue, for the first time in many years, I get a hardcopy of their magazine in my mailbox....and it has a cover story and extensive article about this new chess TV show on Netflix. So I guess that the USCF powers-that-be decided that by providing extra exposure for this new TV show (including by sending people magazines that they asked not to be bothered by), they might rekindle some interest in the game for people like me who gave it up?
I was always a P-K4 person. And King's Gambit after that. In fact, when I played my 2. P-KB4 in a simul against Bent Larsen (the Danish grandmaster who, like Taimanov, was another top-level player who was trounced 0-6 by Bobby Fischer on Fischer's way to the world championship), he brightened up and said something like "oh, very good!" Nobody else had the temerity to do something like that against him!
I just watched a 10-minute segment on Breakfast TV (BBC 1) here in the UK this morning, about the Netflix show - probably the first time chess has featured on British TV in decades. (The last time was in 1993 when the British champion Nigel Short played Garry Kasparov live on TV.) The Queen's Gambit was reviewed favorably by two GMs, one of them a woman. And Chess.com apparently had 100,000 new players per day - all because of the show, compared to their daily average of 20,000 per day last year.
Hopefully, many of them were women and girls. (I just remembered that I did once play a girl in a serious tournament game, and felt bad about beating her........but I had to win that game to become county junior champion. )
As the GMs commented, chess teaches kids (and adults ) about preparation, planning for the future (near & distant, i.e. middle- and endgame), strategy & tactics, giving up something for the greater good (e.g. sacrificing your Queen for eventual checkmate )........and how to lose gracefully - with the obligatory handshake, of course, and even applause, as Spassky did for Fischer after their amazing 6th match game in 1972 (when the latter played the Queen's Gambit for the first time in a serious game.)
Come to think of it, chess and piano, along with mountaineering , maketh the man or woman. They complement each other: like chess, piano & mountaineering teaches one that the more you keep practicing, over years and years, the better you get, and there is no limit. And you have to work on your weaknesses to improve, but then you play/perform to your strengths. And you look forward to your long-term goal, but also enjoy every part of the journey, bearing in mind that there will always be setbacks along the way. If you lose, you pick yourself up again to win next time. If you fail (to climb Everest, or the Eiger Norwand) you also pick yourself up, prepare again - more thoroughly - and try again. And again. Same for piano: if Gaspard defeated you this time, try again in a few years, when you are better trained & prepared.
And of course, you have to keep yourself fit & healthy - including for chess, which burns up a lot of mental & nervous energy (- GMs are known to lose a lot of weight during long matches). Fischer was well-known for training like an athlete during his chess career - no wonder even his best opponents often wilted under his continuous onslaught, losing their concentration and making tiny errors that eventually cost them the game (as Fischer was a master at accumulating small advantages before unleashing his coup de grĂ¢ce), even when they had promising positions after the opening.
Er.......apologies, folks, for getting carried away with my home-spun philosophy on Life.......
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."
Come to think of it, chess and piano, along with mountaineering , maketh the man or woman. /
OH, I thought it was manners...
Last edited by trooplewis; 11/17/2012:56 PM.
Casio PX-S3000 Nope, no issues with it at all. Took lessons from 1960 to 1969, stopped at age 16. Started again in July 2020 at age 67. Lots more fun now!
The most beautiful (and true) thing it teaches is, in my opinion, the importance of team work and collaboration. Even if you are a brilliant person, there are limits about the things you can achieve on your own. And the only way to go beyond those limits is working in collaboration with other people. And how rivals can become friends, and be helpful in the future, yeah, that's beautiful also. Try to beat your rivals, but not to destroy them.
, whose 
. All my best sacrifices have been with 1 e4, especially when my opponent replied with the Sicilian........
) about preparation, planning for the future (near & distant, i.e. middle- and endgame), strategy & tactics, giving up something for the greater good (e.g. sacrificing your Queen for eventual checkmate 
)........and how to lose gracefully - with the obligatory handshake, of course, and even applause, as Spassky did for Fischer after their amazing 6th match game in 1972 (when the latter played the Queen's Gambit for the first time in a serious game.)
