Drama at the World Blitz Chess Championships
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FIDE held their annual World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships at the end of the year in New York City, and the event was surprisingly controversial. The championships took place over a week, with the Rapid championships (where players have fifteen minutes on their clocks) at the beginning of the week, and the Blitz championships (where players have three minutes on their clocks) at the end. The controversy started on day two, stemming from an argument about… jeans?
Chess grandmaster and multiple-time world champion Magnus Carlsen was fined $200 for wearing jeans to the Rapid Chess Championship, whose rules indicate that the event has a dress code “determined by GSC [FIDE Global Strategy Commission] based on the recommendations of the FIDE Athletes’ Commission.” Carlsen refused to change out of his jeans, quit the Rapid tournament, and withdrew his registration from the upcoming Blitz tournament. After a minor frenzy (news outlets even reported on the resignation), A few days later, FIDE president Arkadi Dvorkovitch announced a change to the dress code permitting jeans, and Carlsen returned for the Blitz championship.
The news didn’t end there, though. Carlsen was a dominant player through the Blitz championship, and made it to the finals, a series of four games against fellow grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi. Carlsen won the first two games, but Nepomniachtchi mounted a comeback, winning the next two. Since the score was 2-2 after the allotted four games, the tournament went to a sudden-death match. The sudden-death match ended in a draw, as did the match afterwards. After a third draw, Carlsen proposed to NepomniachtchiI that they share the title of champion, rather than keep playing indefinitely until one player wins. After deliberation among tournament officials, they accepted the offer to recognize co-champions for the first time ever, making tournament history. This was met with controversy in the chess community, with many saying they would have preferred a single winner, and others pointing out their distaste at the idea of changing the rules of the tournament in the middle of the match.
Not everyone joined the angry reaction, though. Former World Chess Championship Garry Kasparov jokingly tweeted, “I thought the first FIDE tiebreak was pants.”
?? Pinpoint: The Thursday, December 26 associated with Hanukkah puzzle (“Applesauce,” “chocolate coins,” “latke,” “dreidel,” “menorah”) was a nice celebration of the holiday season. I got a lot of comments about which spellings of Hanukkah were and weren’t accepted. This was something we saw coming, as Hanukkah has so many variant spellings (since English spellings of Hanukkah are transliterations from Hebrew). We made a point to allow as many variant spellings as we could find, then to add possible typos that could arise from typing all of those spellings (missing by a letter, accidentally duplicating a letter, skipping a letter, etc.)
I’ve attached a partial list of spellings we anticipated, as well as possible typos of those spellings:
All in all, the number of expected spellings/typos was over 750, by far the most for a single word in Pinpoint. If we still missed the spelling you wanted — just know we tried to be as comprehensive as possible!
To continue the holiday spirit, we celebrated the New Year on Wednesday, January 1 with a puzzle consisting of words that come after “new” (“Moon,” “age,” “Guinea,” “Zealand,” “Year’s Day (that’s today!)”).?
?? Crossclimb: The Wednesday, January 1 puzzle also celebrated the new year, with the end rungs being two units of time (WEEK/YEAR). Lots of comments were reflecting on the new year and the passage of time, with the one below being my favorite:
However you spend your time in the new year, I hope you find it rewarding!
?? Queens: The Queens grids for Tuesday, December 31 and Wednesday, January 1 had more overt new-year theming. On the slim chance you need a hint, the titles for these puzzles were “2024” and “2025,” respectively.
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Both of the grids were bigger than normal, at a whopping 11x11, and it showed in the average solve times (3 minutes 48 seconds for Tuesday, and 6 minutes 31 seconds for Wednesday). Hopefully, those of you who were on break for the new year were able to use the free time to relax with these puzzles.?
?? Tango: Not to be left out, Tango puzzles changed up their emojis for the holidays. The sun and moon became a tree and snowman for the Wednesday, December 25 puzzle:
The following week, they became a firework and party hat for the Tuesday, December 31 puzzle, just in time to ring in the new year.
The nods to the holidays didn’t end there, though. If you look at the Wednesday, January 1 puzzle (titled “Happy New Year”), you’ll see the prefilled squares are in the shape of a 1. In addition, the squares connected by the =’s and x’s are also in the shape of a 1 (this is easier to see if you shade in all the squares that touch a = or an x). All this comes together to make a nice visual shoutout to 1/1!
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This week’s topic: Puzzly New Year’s resolutions for 2025
It’s a new year, which means it’s time to make some resolutions. For me, some of those resolutions involve puzzles. My main puzzle-related resolution is to solve more British cryptic crosswords — I’ve been enjoying them as a way to slow down while solving, and think carefully about the puzzles I solve. Getting to learn the British conventions and abbreviations is a challenge, but an enjoyable one; it’s always fun to wonder, e.g., why “student” is being used to indicate the letter L, then to look it up and learn about the practice of student drivers having cars with L-plates. If you’re interested in adopting a puzzle-related resolution or two, here are a few more ideas:
What’s your puzzle resolution for the new year?
Share your thoughts in the comments below??
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1 个月I love how LinkedIn Games keeps things interesting every week! The holiday celebrations sound like they were a lot of fun. I haven’t played yet this year, but I’ll definitely check out the latest games soon. Thanks for the update, Paolo Pasco LinkedIn News #Gametime #LinkedInGames
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