Chess - The Scotsman 15/04/13

Question: How does White win?

Back in the 1970s, the BBC’s The Master Game – a single game per programme, played first and then voiced over by the players afterwards – introduced chess to our television schedules in much the same way that the single-frame Pot Black programmes introduced snooker.

But the trouble was – apart from the more obvious one chez Henderson, during the pre-video age of it clashing with Coronation Street with a mother and three sisters being diehard fans – that for the viewers it was vaguely easier to understand what was happening in a frame of snooker than the complexities of a chess game.

Now there’s Chess TV, Russia’s first online chess television channel set up by the company Digicast, that’s been on the air in Moscow since last May. It launched by bringing live coverage of last year’s Gelfand-Anand world championship match followed by the Olympiad and a few other major events. English as well as Russian is used to attract a wider audience.

Chess TV began round-the-clock broadcasting last month to coincide with the Candidates tournament in London, and its coverage was expanded to include interviews with players and trainers, historical events, educational programs and news from around the chess world.

Although there is no live coverage from the 20th Russian Team Championships, the Chess TV team in Sochi is providing a nightly one-hour recap of the day’s action and interviews.

F Caruana - B Jobava

20th Russian Team Ch., (3)

King’s Indian Defence

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 d6 3 Nf3 g6 4 Nc3 Bf5 5 d5 Na6 6 Nd4 Bd7 7 e4 Nc5 8 f3 a5 9 Be3 Bg7 10 Qd2 0–0 11 Be2 e5 12 dxe6 fxe6 13 Ndb5 e5 14 0–0–0 Ne6 15 g4 b6 16 h4 Be8 17 Kb1 Kh8 18 Nd5 Nxd5 19 cxd5 Nc5 20 Nc3 a4 21 h5 gxh5 22 gxh5 Bf6 23 Rdg1 Bf7 24 Rg5 Rg8 25 Rf5 Rg2 26 Qe1 Qe7 27 Bf1 Rgg8 28 Bb5 Bg5 29 f4 Bf6 30 Rf1 Raf8 31 Rxf6! Qxf6 32 fxe5 Qxe5 33 Rf5 Qh2 34 Bd4+ Rg7 35 Qc1 Kg8 36 Bxg7 Kxg7 37 Qg5+ Kh8 38 h6 1–0