Bruce Pandolfini

Bruce Pandolfini (born September 17, 1947) is an American chess author, teacher, and coach. A USCF national master, he is generally considered to be America’s most experienced chess teacher. As a coach and trainer, Pandolfini has possibly conducted more chess sessions than anyone in the world. By the summer of 2015 he had given an estimated 25,000 private and group lessons.

General approach

In his books and columns he has explained his methodology for individual instruction, indicating that it consists of four basic parts.

The latter he achieves by relentlessly posing relevant questions, until the student absorbs the process of determining reasonable options and making logical choices.

Influence on chess presentation

Starting in the 1980s, Pandolfini identified and filled a role producing books especially for novices and intermediate players. His books have been influential and continue to be steady best sellers. While being one of the first chess writers in America to rely on algebraic chess notation, Pandolfini created and/or popularized a few other innovations in instructional chess writing. It had been common for chess authors to list several moves before showing a diagram. Pandolfini realized beginning players struggle with that format. Most of his books display larger diagrams, often with verbalized explanations (instead of a mere series of notated chess moves), so that beginning and casual players can examine chess games with greater ease and comprehension. Another aspect to Pandolfini’s teaching is his reliance on short, pithy, often counterintuitive statements to seize the student’s attention and stimulate imagination.

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Chess is played by millions of people worldwide, both amateurs and professionals.

Each player begins the game with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently. The most powerful piece is the queen and the least powerful piece is the pawn. The objective is to 'checkmate' the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. To this end, a player's pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent's pieces, while supporting their own. In addition to checkmate, the game can be won by voluntary resignation by the opponent, which typically occurs when too much material is lost, or if checkmate appears unavoidable. A game may also result in a draw in several ways.

Chess is believed to have originated in India, some time before the 7th century; the Indian game of chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of xiangqi and shogi. The pieces took on their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century; the rules were finally standardized in the 19th century.

Chess club

A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs often provide for both informal and tournament games and sometimes offer league play.

Organization

Clubs are usually attached to regional chess associations, which are in turn members of their national federation which will be associated with FIDE, the world governing body of chess.

Club facilities

Chess clubs typically provide at least some of the following:

References

Marshall Chess Club

The Marshall Chess Club, in Greenwich Village, New York City, is one of the oldest chess clubs in the United States. The club was formed in 1915 by a group of players led by Frank Marshall. It is a nonprofit organization and a gold affiliate of the United States Chess Federation.

History

The Marshall Chess Club was a long-time rival of the Manhattan Chess Club, which ran from 1877 to 2002. The club had several temporary meeting places until it moved permanently to 23 West Tenth Street in 1931, where it occupies two floors of a townhouse that the club owns. Marshall was the leader of the club until his death in 1944, when his wife Caroline took over its leadership. Frank Brady was elected president in 2007, and as of 2014, the current president is Stuart Chagrin.

Some notable members of the club have been Fabiano Caruana, Arthur Dake, Larry Evans, Reuben Fine, Bobby Fischer, Stanley Kubrick, Edmar Mednis, Hikaru Nakamura, Fred Reinfeld, Anthony Santasiere, Herbert Seidman, James Sherwin, Albert Simonson, Andy Soltis, and Howard Stern. Marcel Duchamp, a modern artist associated with the Dada and Surrealist movements, played for the club after moving to Greenwich Village in the 1940s; his photograph hangs on a wall of the club.

Marshall Chess

Marshall Chess (born 13 March 1942, Chicago, Illinois) is a Jewish American record producer, the son of Leonard Chess who co-founded Chess Records.

Chess Records

Marshall worked for sixteen years with the founders of Chess Records; his father Leonard and his uncle Phil. He did everything from pressing records and loading trucks to producing over 100 Chess Records projects and eventually heading up the label as President after their acquisition by GRT in 1969. In the late 1960s Marshall also ran his own Cadet Concept imprint as a division of Chess Records. He created and produced the Rotary Connection, which became the springboard for Minnie Riperton’s career. He signed John Klemmer and created a new format which was heralded as the first jazz-fusion album, “Blowin’ Gold.” He signed the underground black rock legends Black Merda. His Cadet Concept also imported and released the only American hit, Pictures of Matchstick Men, by the British rock group Status Quo. He also created and produced the controversial psychedelicized blues albums Electric Mud, by Muddy Waters; and, The Howlin' Wolf Album by Howlin' Wolf. He restored his reputation by producing the jam album Fathers & Sons with Waters, Mike Bloomfield, Otis Spann, Paul Butterfield, Duck Dunn, Sam Lay, and Buddy Miles in 1969.