The Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit" is arguably the best depiction of the tournament chess scene ever put on film. The series was produced and realised by Scott Frank and Allan Scott, and is based on Walter Tevis' novel of the same name. "The Queen's Gambit" was released in 2020 and is one of the most successful Netflix series ever.

Anya Taylor-Joy did an outstanding job of portraying the main character Beth Harmon, who grew up as an orphan, learned chess at the orphanage and rises to become a world-class player, but also has to struggle with her addiction to pills and alcohol.

The series is set in the 1960s and is scenically perfect down to the smallest detail. This also applies to the background music, which is from the 1960s throughout.

In one scene, the progress of a tournament is told in a fast and original way. On the one hand, the pace is set by the intelligent use of fast-changing frames, a technique that was popular in the 1960s, for example in the famous Steve McQueen film "The Thomas Crown Affair". But it is also the lively background music that sets the pace.

Here's the scene:

In the 1960s film "The Thomas Crown Affair", the use of frames looked like this:

Wait a minute, "The Thomas Crown Affair", isn't that a film in which chess also plays a role? That's right! The film contains a famous scene in which Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway start to play chess as a prelude to a double-edged and passionate love affair.

But back to "The Queen's Gambit". The background music to the tournament scene is the famous piece "Classical Gas" by Mason Williams.

Here is a recording by Williams from 1968.

The demanding piece was later covered by many musicians, and is so famous that it has its own website.

Mason Williams was born in Texas in 1938. He studied music in Oklahoma City and only learned to play the guitar during his studies. During his military service he earned money by composing pieces. One of his compositions was "Cinderella Rockefella", which was later successfully performed by Esther and Abi Ofarim. Petula Clark was also one of Williams' clients.

In 1967, Williams began writing for the TV comedy duo Tom and Dick Smothers. Through the show, Williams got a contract with Warner Brothers and in 1968 he wrote the instrumental piece "Classical Gas", for which he received three Grammy Awards in 1969.

The piece was written one weekend after a long tour with the Smothers Brothers. Williams later said that he was looking forward to playing the guitar and wanted to write a piece that would be a kind of "fuel" for the guitar, hence the name "Classical Gas".

Williams also worked for the "Saturday Night Live", and was a successful writer of non-fiction and a successful composer of film scores.

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Music and chess: Mason Williams' "Classical Gas" in "The Queen's Gambit" - Chessbase News

Not that you need me to tell you, but the Pittsburgh Steelers offense was a mess yesterday. It mightve been the most dysfunction theyve had all season. I know, theres plenty of competition. But Sundays win over the Tennessee Titans was different. Unlike say, the Cincinnati Bengals loss, the Steelers didnt doom themselves with turnovers. Pittsburgh didnt give it away once to Tennessee.

Instead, they didnothing. It was an ugly, messy, fruitless display of moving the football. Theres about a dozen examples of that. In todays video, Im going to actually show one of the less-messy ones from an execution standpoint, but one that illustrates how the Titans stayed one step ahead even when Pittsburgh got their act semi-together.

Two examples from the first half. Two failed down conversions on the same play call, showing how the Titans self-scouted well and made proactive adjustments.

First example. Steelers facing 3rd and 8 on their own 43. Come out in a 31 set and a six-man protection with TE Zach Gentry staying in to block. To the top, Chase Claypool is isolated as the X WR and runs a fade down the right sideline.

To the bottom, slot receiver Pat Freiermuth runs a corner route to the left sideline while Diontae Johnson as the outside, Z receiver, runs a slant route underneath. Heres how it looks.

Tennessee brings pressure on this play. In coverage, its a two-high shell with man underneath by the cornerbacks. Roethlisberger makes a not-great decision to throw a back-shoulder jump ball to Claypool, despite the CB sinking with no other threat in the flat and the safety over the top. As you can see below, Diontae Johnson got open on the slant underneath, winning against the cornerback who had outside leverage. In hindsight, and probably even with foresight, that wouldve been the better option.

Claypool nearly makes a remarkable grab but cant finish, and the pass is incomplete. Steelers punt.

The very next drive. Pittsburgh again facing 3rd and long, 3rd and 10 from their 35. What do they do? Call the same play. The only difference here is the personnel, 11 instead of 12. But conceptually, its all the same. James Washington, now the X WR to the top, runs a fade. To the bottom, the slot receiver runs a corner and the outside Z (still Diontae Johnson) runs the slant underneath. Six man protection.

This is done because Matt Canada is anticipating the same man blitz from the Titans he got the series before. Its the same down, similar distance, and spot on the field (Pittsburghs 43 in the first clip, their 35 in this one). But Tennessee is aware of this and can self-scout. So instead of calling the same man blitz, they play Cover 2. Drop out and play zone.

Here, Roethlisberger wants to hit Johnson on the slant, the man he missed before, but its not an effective zone beater like it is against man. There is no pick or rub, and there are underneath zone defenders to prevent Johnson from having a clear path upfield after the catch. Roethlisberger completes the pass to Johnson, but yards short of the sticks, he has nowhere to go.

He tries to run the width of the field before being swarmed, giving up, and going down. Its another Steelers punt.

I can understand why Canada called the same play again. When you see something that wouldve worked earlier, you want to go back to that well. Canada hoped and thought hed get the same coverage, or at least some variation of man. If he did, the play wouldve worked and Johnson probably wouldve moved the sticks.

But you can bet the Titans saw Johnson get open, too. And so they adjusted. Pittsburgh had tons of self-inflicted wounds Sunday, but even schematically, they stayed one step behind Tennessee. Losing pre and post-snap is a recipe for an incredibly lackluster, 168-yard performance.

Here is the original post:
Film Room: Chess Not Checkers - How The Titans Stayed Ahead Of The Steelers' Offense - Steelers Depot

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi

Chinas foreign minister has stressed the need for Taipei to be reunited with Beijing, saying the self-ruled island is "not a chess piece to be used by others."

Wang Yi made the remarks in his opening speech at a ceremony for a symposium in the capital Beijing on the international situation and China's diplomacy in 2021.

"The one-China consensus has been further consolidated in the international community. Taiwan is a wanderer who will eventually go home, not a chess piece that is used by others. China must and will inevitably be reunited," Wang said in his address to the symposium.

The top Chinese diplomat said the root cause of the new round of tensions across the Taiwan Strait lies with the islands authorities that have attempted to solicit US support for "Taiwan independence" and the United States and certain countries that have deliberately used Taipei to contain Beijing.

Stressing that the one-China principle is in danger of being blurred or even hollowed out, Wang said such perverse actions are designed to change the status quo, undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and violate the consensus of the international community as well as the basic norms governing international relations.

Wang also said that China has issued stern warnings and taken powerful countermeasures to deter and deflate the arrogance of the "Taiwan independence" forces.

China has sovereignty over Chinese Taipei, and under the "One China" policy, almost all world countries recognize that sovereignty. The US, too, recognizes Chinese sovereignty over the island but has long courted Taipei in defiance of Beijing.

The United States, which backs Taipei's secessionist president, also continues to sell weapons to the islandin violation of its own stated policy.

The US-China relations have grown increasingly tense in recent years, with the world's two largest economies clashing over a range of issues, including trade, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, military activities in the South China Sea, and the origins of the coronavirus.

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China says Taipei no chess piece to be used by others, will finally come home - Press TV

A 40-year-old South Kitsap man convicted earlier this year of groping one woman and exposing himself to another was charged Tuesday with sexually assaulting a woman in 2017 and for choking his mother during an argument over cleaning his room.

Neil David Chess was also suspected this summer of harassing women who were hiking in Banner Forest Heritage Park, leading to multiple calls to Kitsap County sheriff's deputies.

The new sexual assault case against Chess, attempted second-degree rape, follows repeated testing by the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab of DNA recovered from a woman who in 2017 told police a man unknown to her had sexually assaulted her beneath the Warren Avenue bridge in Bremerton.

Though the lab was unable to match the DNA recovered in the investigation when it occurred, court records said lab technicianskept retesting the sample until they found a match in March, leading a Bremerton police detectiveto obtain a sample from Chess while he was lodged in the Kitsap County Jail.

In September the crime lab reported that it found very strong support that the sample taken from Chessmatched the DNA evidence recovered from the sexual assault on the woman.

Chess had been booked into the jail in Januaryafter he was accused in two separate cases of climbing into a UPS truck and touching the driver, a woman, and going to a house to ask for a drink of water. He then went inside the house and exposed himself to the woman who had answered the door.

In June he pleaded guilty to a count of residential burglary and fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation and was sentenced to nine months in the Kitsap County Jail.

As part of the resolution of the case, Chess was not required to register as a sex offender.

However, he had been accused by two separate women of raping them in 2019, but prosecutors dismissed the charges saying they did not believe they could prove the case in court.

Over the summer, after Chess release from jail, women who hiked and jogged in Banner Forest began reporting disturbing interactions with a man who many of them believed was Chess.

At that time, the Kitsap Sun requested records of complaints about the man harassing women in the park and found deputies had not written any reports.

However, call logs obtained through the state Public Record Act showed that users of the park believed it was Chess and told deputies they repeatedly told the man to leave them alone.

On Aug.3, a log from the sheriffs office indicates a deputy may have identified Chess and told him to stop harassing women at the park.

In a case separate from the attempted second-degree rape, but also charged Tuesday in Kitsap County Superior Court, Chess mother called 911 on Monday from her residence on the 4700 block of Westway Drive SE to say her son had choked her.

There is no-contact order prohibiting Chess from having contact with his mother, but she said Chess was living with her and she was concerned about him. She described Chess as being a paranoid schizophrenic and said that he had choked her and punched her in the face.

This morning she was cleaning up his room and he just became enraged when she asked him to help clean up, a deputy wrote. His rage turned against her.

Deputies located Chess near the Southworth Ferry Terminal and arrested him. While being driven to the Kitsap County Jail, Chess admitted to choking his mother but denied punching her, according to court documents.

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DNA recovered in 2017 from attempted rape matched to South Kitsap man repeatedly accused of sexual assaults - Kitsap Sun

This was the Dogwalk today. A highly requested topic after we did Ukraine-Russia potential war last week.

Well flying under the radar and below the fold in the paper is this fucking maniac named Lucaschenko. The only remaining true dictator in Europe (besides Putin of course).

Bad man with a great mustache. Allegedly that man has stolen every single election since 1994 when Belarus became an independent nation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Then this past time in 2020 the people of Belarus decided to protest in the streets. He saw their protest and raised them a baton to the skull, tear gas to the lungs, and set 27,000 people directly to jail.

The EU and the UN didn't like that so they imposed 4 separate rounds of sanctions. Lukaschenko didn't like that either so he started flying people from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and other war-torn places of the Middle East and told them that he would drive them to the Polish and other EU borders for them to get into Europe. Then after Poland wouldn't let the migrants in, Lukaschenko invalidated the tourist visas that HE issued to them. So now you have thousands of migrants just trapped in a literal no-man's-land in between Poland and Belarus. They're stuck on the border between two different countries and two different groups of guys with guns telling them to go two different directions. It is fucking INSANE. An all-time maniacal and evil chess move by Lukaschenko. One of the biggest Putin guys on the planet. He loves him. He loves causing trouble for the West. He is a true instrument of chaos. This is a move that The Joker would do if he were in charge of an Eastern European country under the Putin sphere of influence. Those poor fucking people sold a bill of goods and now they're trapped basically in Siberia as winter is rapidly approaching. So fucked up.

See more here:
The Last Dictator Of Europe Is Just Out Here Playing Chess With Literal Human Beings - Barstool Sports