Posted in My own endeavours, On-line journal, Personal Interest & Experience on May 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
If I were up for it, I would play in this.
But I am not up for it, Mentally I am not strong enough and I am awaiting results from blood tests. I cannot play chess. I cannot do anything. I just sit and wait and hope for a brighter future.
Mark. J. McCready 10.57pm, Monday May 1st,
Purgatory, Bangkok
Posted in Chess on May 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The world championship is over, Magnus has been dethroned. Liren has emerged victorious and here is the press conference after the match has ended. If you’ve been a FIDE member for some time, or an active chess player over the years, or perhaps are a journalist even, then you will know that FIDE is far from the professional organization it tries to present itself as. The number of reasons are so great, I simply cannot go into them here or I will be up all night long! Regarding the press conference linked below, you ought to know that FIDE no longer requests that the questions are vetted beforehand. Questions have been raised over this but they have been left unanswered. If you go to the 11.54 minute mark you will hear Ding Liren being asked a question by Maria from chess.com: it is the question he is currently being quoted on answering the most across the various social media platforms most commonly used. The question pertains to the meaning of life itself, making it philosophical in nature. Firstly, you could question that the point in asking a chess player what the meaning of life is per se extremely dubious, but secondly, Liren’s answer isn’t articulate; partly because English isn’t his first language and partly because Philosophy isn’t his background. However, it is mine and his answer constitutes an alignment with Nietzsche’s assertion that you should live by your passions. Liren makes it clear chess has always remained central in his life and when time goes by and he is not playing in tournaments, he doesn’t feel ‘so happy’, as he put it. I’ve linked the interview below, but as you might expect, it’s a bit of a strain because the questions haven’t been vetted there’s clearly much room for improvement with some questions being rather poor indeed and others so vague the players struggle to answer them. ‘How’s the organizing things here for you?‘ Would you like to answer that? Anyway, here it is:
McCreadyandChess 