Chess - The Scotsman 19/12/2011

THEY often say that curling can be best described as chess on ice – but now you have the opportunity to combine the best of both worlds with something new on the Christmas naff gift market: the Ice Speed Chess set.

In the Ice Speed Chess Set, the chess pieces are made of ice (honest, I am not making this up), so the challenge is to complete the game before any of your pieces melt. And, I suppose, just like curling, you can opt to slide the pieces to the relevant squares on the board.

Priced at £11.99, the “kit” comprises two sets of silicone ice trays in the shape of the chess pieces – but you get to supply your own chess board, and apparently you make two different colours using juice instead of water.

And such a chess set could come in useful, as the game’s governing body is still lobbying hard to have chess included into the Winter Olympics.

Last week, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov successfully managed to get the proposal to go forward for seriously discussion at the next executive board meeting of the Kyrgyzstan National Olympic Committee. If accepted there, it will then go forward (once again) to the International Olympic Committee.

Curling is on the Olympic roster, and apparently that really piques Ilyumzhinov.

Yet despite his dogged persistence to see chess alongside the famous five rings, if and when the proposal comes before the the IOC, it stands about as much chance of survival there as an Ice Speed Chess Set’s hope in hell.

C Sreeves - P Casaschi

London Classic FIDE Open, (6)

Reti’s Opening

1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 e6 3 g3 Nf6 4 Bg2 Be7 5 0–0 0–0 6 b3 c6 7 Bb2 Nbd7 8 d4 b6 9 Nbd2 Bb7 10 Qc2 Rc8 11 e4 dxe4 12 Nxe4 Nxe4 13 Qxe4 Nf6 14 Qe2 Qc7 15