(dramatic music) (horse fluttering) (horse neighing) (tense music) - Welcome to another exciting edition of "Today in Chess."

I'm your host, Sharon Carpenter.

Thanks for being here.

Chess season is in full swing and the competition is strong all over the world.

The candidates for both men and women have just concluded and the tournaments did not disappoint.

- [Narrator] The epicenter of world chess was in the Great White North for the 2024 FIDE candidates in Toronto, Canada.

After a grueling journey, qualifying candidates in both women's and open sections embarked on a quest to become the next challenger to the world chess champion.

In the women's section Tan Zhongyi started off hot and never looked back.

Co-leading briefly before pulling away and claiming the right to challenge her country woman Ju Wenjun for the Women's World Title.

With everyone trading blows, it took a while for the front runners to emerge in the open section.

However, after a slow start, blitz legend Hikaru Nakamura got hot joining the group at the top, including top seated compatriot, Fabiano Caruana, reigning challenger, Ian Nepomniachtchi and 17-year-old Indian superstar Gukesh Dommaraju.

Everything came down to the wire with all four contenders facing off against each other in the final round.

Despite Caruana having chances to force a playoff, he was unable to secure the win, allowing Gukesh Dommaraju to become the youngest challenger in history.

After an exciting event, a new hopeful will face off against reigning title holder Ding Liren, in hopes of becoming the next world chess champion.

- Becoming a grandmaster in chess takes discipline and extreme effort to compete and build a rating that earns you that status.

But the question is, who decides what that rating is and who manages the rating system?

Just like any other major sport has a governing body that handles these important issues.

Each country also has their own governing body, but who are they and how do they work?

(bright music) - Just like in all sports, chess has a governing body.

In fact, we've got a governing body here in America that's US Chess and the international governing body, FIDE.

In addition to that, most countries have their own governing body as well, more than 200 in the world.

One of the reasons for the governing bodies of chess is to ensure that all the rules are the same across all the tournaments worldwide.

The International Chess Federation ensures that the rules are consistent and that everybody has an even playing field.

International competitions typically are played under the FIDE regulations, the FIDE laws of chess as they're known.

National competition such as the US Championship and other events are played under National Chess Federation rules, which may be slightly different than the international regulations.

Chess is a little unique from other sports in that we have a rating system that objectively measures the playing strength of chess players.

There's an official rating system that's controlled by the International Chess Federation.

Players earn points based upon the games they play.

You win some games, you earn some points, you lose some games, you lose some points.

Every player is rated in the same rating system.

So the players that are ranked in the order include American players and Norwegian players and players from all around the world.

So once a player has an established chess rating, they're able to compare themselves globally to all chess players.

The International Chess Federation organizes a series of events that are for the very best chess players, includes the World Cup, the candidates, and the Grand Prix series.

Now these tournaments all qualify into the world championship cycle and ultimately determine who the challenger for the world championship is.

The world championship cycle is a two year process by which players qualify and ultimately one of those challengers will face off against the current world championship every other year.

Tournament directors and tournament organizers receive training from the International Chess Federation and from US Chess on how to organize a tournament.

That includes how to set up prize funds, how to invite players, and how to ensure that the event meets all the requirements that it can be rated by FIDE and US Chess.

I open the FIDE arbiters manual every time I start a chess tournament, regardless of if it's a small club tournament or a major event like the Sinquefield Cup.

It's important to get things right and as an arbiter we pride ourselves in objectively enforcing the rules.

So in order to do that correctly, it's really important to make sure you've got 'em down pat.

A chess arbiter's responsibilities include administering the rules of the tournament, the regulations of the events.

Now there are times where players make an appeal and those decisions go all the way to the governing body of chess, all the way to FIDE.

And FIDE is ultimately responsible for making decisions about etiquette and behavior in tournaments and to penalize players appropriately for any indiscretions that are made.

If you're just starting to play chess, I wouldn't worry too much about all of these rules and regulations.

They'll come in time and they're really only important when players compete in rated chess tournaments.

For the average casual game, it's more about the comradery and the experience.

(upbeat music) (soft music) - [Narrator] Leinier Dominguez is the consummate gentleman, but the pleasantries end as soon as the clock starts.

The 2008 World Blitz champion was born in Havana and is a five time Cuban national chess champion, establishing himself as one of the best players in the country's history.

2018 was a big year for Dominguez as he served as one of Fabiano Caruana's seconds during his world championship run.

But he also transferred to the US Chess Federation.

Since playing for the US, Leinier has immediately made his presence felt at elite events, placing second and third in back-to-back US championships, as well as taking second place as a wild card against an illustrious field in the 2023 Sinquefield Cup.

In a short time, Dominguez has established himself as a stalwart at the top of American chess for years to come.

- Leinier, it is great to have you here.

We're in 2024 now.

Are you excited about the year ahead?

- Yes, very much so.

And it's great to be here with you.

Yeah, it's going to be another year of chess.

I'm really looking forward to it.

- [Sharon] You are from Cuba, of course, and that's where you discovered your love of chess.

How old were you at the time and when did you realize, okay, this is not just a game, like this is something I want to dedicate my entire life to?

- It was pretty early in my life.

I learned when I was seven, my dad taught me the rules of the game and we started playing against each other and then around the same time in my hometown, the chess coach, the main chess coach, he would go to the schools and introduce the game of chess.

So kind of both things came together more or less at the same time.

And I just loved the game from the start.

I would just go from the school to the chess academy to the chess club and then would play for two or three hours.

And then in the evenings I would tell my dad to take me to the coach house.

He had a huge chess library and he was willing to help all the kids.

And I fell in love with the game from the start and I would study on my own.

And at some point, I think I was around maybe 10 or 11 where I started to have good results in youth events and I became the under 12 champion of my province.

And then I was doing well nationally as well.

I realized that this is what I wanna do.

- [Sharon] So what you loved about it as a youngster, is that the same thing?

Do you still have that same feeling when you play today or is it something else that drives that passion?

- Well, the game has changed so much, because of the influence of computers obviously has been huge and it's a very different game, the way you study the game, the way you prepare.

But essentially, yes, I would say there is this passion for the game and it's so difficult, which makes it interesting because you always have something new to learn.

And even when you reach the top, you still can learn so much and develop your game in so many ways that it keeps you motivated.

At least that's my case and I still find it interesting.

I work a lot on chess, not just because I have to, but because I want to, yeah.

- [Sharon] You want to.

- So that's what keeps me going.

- Chess is a game of strategy that can be played by anyone.

Recently at Bush Stadium home of the St. Louis Cardinals, we hosted an event called First Responders Chess, it's an exceptional opportunity for frontline workers to play chess with local youth and build a bond across the board.

We're here at Bush Stadium for a unique event, First Responders Chess, where local youth and frontline workers get to bond through chess.

(warm music) Break down for us what's happening here and your role?

- Okay.

It's really, really simple.

We go out the St. Louis Chess Club send coaches into the public schools, we teach the kids chess, but the kids also get an opportunity to play against other kids and more importantly, play against first responders, first responders, police and firemen.

So we invite all the police over, we invite the firemen to come down and like the firemen and the police are as scared as the kids, like they're afraid the kids are gonna beat them in all the games and the kids are like, "oh, these are adults.

They're gonna beat us."

So it's a chance for the community to come together, just have fun and chill out.

- I think that it's just a good way 'cause it's another way for people to play new people, but the police officer that drove us here, he was bragging about how good he is.

So now I kinda wanna beat him.

- Oh.

So why are you excited to go up against the firefighters?

Why are you looking forward to that?

- Because they like are savers and like they save a lot of people.

- Well, the whole point is, is that the community needs to feel like they're part of a community.

So the ideas are that the police and the firemen are really there to protect us, end of story.

But that message doesn't often resonate within an urban community.

So if the children get the sense that the police, the firemen are actually their friends, that has a ripple effect, not for today and tomorrow, but for your life.

And so that's one of the many messages we hope gets across.

- Yeah, today we're at Bus stadium and we're playing chess with the youth and we get to teach them the game of chess.

And it's very important because they get to get to know us as not just as a police officer or a police sergeant, but as me, Brandon McCreary.

- But we're just here to kind of talk to 'em about what we do and play a fun game of chess because a lot of the kids don't really understand what we do.

You hear a lot of negative things.

And so we're just here to help promote a positive image of what we do as well as the police officers and other first responders.

- We've been with chess cops for five years now, so I'm the supervisor of community outreach and this program is very important to us.

Chess Club expanding to first responders is important because we want these kids to also know all trusted adults including firefighters, EMS.

- I just like how we get to meet up and play with different people and like everyone can like just make new friends and like everything like that.

- The thing I like about chess is it doesn't matter if you win or lose.

- [Sharon] Exactly, it's good for everyone, isn't it?

- Mh-hm.

(guitar music) - This lesson is your first introduction into chess mastery.

Every grandmaster in the world has to know how to win king and queen versus king.

The method I like to use, we call the shadow and coffin.

What we're gonna do is push the inferior side to the first rank, the eighth rank or to the sides of the board.

You have to get the black king out of the center to the sides of the board.

So what I like to do is the shadow and here I'll demonstrate what I need.

We're gonna use the queen and we're gonna give a check to the black king.

It doesn't matter where the black king moves it only has three squares.

Let's imagine that the black king goes to the E5 square.

Now what we're gonna do is shadow the black king.

Our queen moves just one square closer and says to the black king, "make a move."

Black moves to D5.

We shadow, we keep shadowing the black king until eventually the black king steps backward where we wanna push it to the edge of the board.

Queen F5, again, keep shadowing the black king.

And again, we're pushing the king to the background.

Mission accomplished, but we also have come to a very, very important moment in this ending.

The white queen is so powerful that it covers a lot of the squares.

C7, B6, A7, C8, that the black king can move to.

In fact, at this moment the black king can only go between B8 and A8.

You must, let me repeat myself.

You must allow black to make a legal move.

This move will be a terrible move because that is a stalemate.

Blacks king cannot move and black is not allowed to put his king in check.

We have driven the king to the coffin with our shadow method.

The king is in the corner and now we bring our king up the board and the king and queen work together in harmony to checkmate blacks king.

In fact, there are five different checkmates in one exactly at this point.

The one I chose is Queen D8 checkmate.

Notice the king cannot move to either A7 or B7 because of the white king's presence.

There are other checkmates.

See if you can find them all.

If you can master this ending, you can master chess.

- Earlier in the program we detailed for you how the governing bodies work to build and monitor the game and the players.

A question we're often asked is, are there referees at these tournaments?

The answer is yes.

And they're called arbiters.

(gentle music) - What is an arbiter?

An arbiter is a chess referee, also known here in the United States as a tournament director.

When you play chess casually at home with friends or family, you don't need an arbiter to do that.

When you move into the world of competitive chess, there are some more complicated rules and that's where a chess referee or an arbiter comes in much more useful.

There's various tasks that an arbiter has to do for a competitive chess tournament to run successfully.

First of all, we need to know the rules and the regulations of the tournament that's going on.

The rules of chess are what an arbiter is there to oversee.

We also have fair play and anti-cheating regulations that we put into place for all competitive events.

Also, most tournaments that you're aware of in the regular sports world would be either a knockout or round robin format.

In the chess world, we commonly use a Swiss pairing tournament where we pair together players on the same number of points and we try to give them an equal number of white pieces and black pieces throughout the whole tournament.

So we take care of who plays who in each round of a tournament.

Once the games begin, we then monitor the games to ensure everybody is following the rules.

And we monitor also for disturbances in the room if anybody is talking, if there are any noises going on.

And then once a tournament has finished, we're responsible for making sure the results are correct, the correct prizes get paid and that the games get submitted for rating to the various rating services.

Have I ever caught anybody cheating?

Unfortunately the answer to that is yes.

I have caught players using cell phones in the bathrooms away from the tables.

I've caught players discussing their games away from the boards and I've caught players actually cheating during the games by moving pieces when they shouldn't have.

When you're working at tournaments, the days are sometimes long.

Chess can take a lot of time for the players to finish their games.

The day goes by fairly quickly as long as you keep yourself busy and do the work.

I don't think I would be in this profession if I didn't enjoy it.

As an international arbiter, I do get to travel to international tournaments.

I get to go around the world and work at big international events as well as the top level events here in the United States.

- Hi everyone.

In this lesson we are gonna learn how to checkmate with the queen and pawn.

In this position, we are gonna take rook A6, checking the king, black king.

If king goes to B8, of course they can capture and will come back to it.

If king goes to B8, then we are gonna check on A8 and king cannot escape to C7.

So they're forced to take the rook on A8 and we are gonna check on A3.

And king has only one square, B8 to escape.

And we're gonna check mate on A7.

If in this position after rook A6, they're gonna take the rook, B takes A6, then we are gonna take queen A6 check and king goes back to B8 and we are gonna play queen A7 checkmate.

I hope you enjoyed the lesson.

See you next time.

(soft music) - [Narrator] One of the most dynamic and impactful missions of the St. Louis Chess Club is the Scholastic program.

Simply said, the chess club has taken on the challenge of teaching chess to thousands of school aged children K through 12.

And it's a crusade with proven rewards.

- Chess has helped me in school by teaching me how to approach different problems like in math or science.

- It's a science, it's mathematic, it's an art.

So I think that is one of the reasons chess should be in schools.

It covers a wide range of interests for children or at least with my students, they become very real like people and the science of life and the way that they move their weaknesses and their strengths and they become those pieces and they practice those moves in the game and in their lives sometimes if they can really get that takeaway, which is a goal for me - [Narrator] No less than an army of coaches and instructors as well as the digital classroom experience has turned thousands of area students into chess players and the results have been rewarding.

- My students come back to me and they're relating chess to life and explaining to me their choices in a particular situation in their life where they used their problem solving skills to gain the result that they wanted.

And they related that to chess and that to me is a huge fulfillment.

You know, for me, even teaching the game.

- [Narrator] Critical thinking, decision making, sportsmanship and respect are all positive results of these classroom experiences.

- Chess is more than just a game and it offers so much to their social emotional development, especially if we get them very young.

So I think just doing that in schools adds a great support to students and parents.

So they need it.

- [Narrator] The St. Louis Chess Club teaching young minds the game of chess and so much more.

(uplifting music) - [Narrator] Carissa Yip has been beating Grandmaster since before most people learned the rules of the game, becoming the youngest woman ever to beat a GM in competition at only 10 years old.

Carissa quickly established herself as one of the preeminent young chess talents.

In 2018, she began the most impressive run of her career.

At one point, becoming the highest rated woman in the country, winning back-to-back US junior girls championships before becoming a two time US woman's champion in 2021 and 2023, both times conquering fields including four previous US women's champions.

She's been a staple in US chess for so long.

It's easy to forget she's only 20 years old and starting her collegiate career at Stanford.

As she focuses on her studies, we await to see where her pursuits take her.

But chess fans hope she always has time for the game.

(tense music) - Hi everyone.

In this lesson I'm gonna show you a new opening Ruy Lopez.

This is one of the most popular and oldest opening in chess.

So in this opening, white starts out with the move, E4 Black will respond with the move E5, very logical response because both players are trying to control the center.

Next white plays the move knight G1 to F3, immediately attacking the pawn on A5.

And now again, very logical response from black, Knight C6, developing the knight and protecting the pawn on A5.

Next, white develops the bishop, bishop B5.

When the bishop arrives on B5, this is the Ruy Lopez.

If you put the bishop on C4, that will be the Italian game.

But in this lesson we're looking at the Ruy Lopez.

So bishop B5 and black plays the move A6 attacking the bishop.

Here you have two options, you can take on C6.

Bishop takes C6, but the most popular move here is Bishop to A4.

Next move is knight F6.

Another very logical move for black.

Developing the knight and also attacking the pawn on A4.

And here, white, just simply castles.

We know from the previous lessons that the safety of the king and castling is very important and we see how quickly white castles and now black plays the move B7, B5, attacking the bishop.

Bishop doesn't have any squares except to go to B3 and now bishop to E7.

Black also is trying to develop his pieces so he can castle as well.

And here white can play the move E1.

There are several different options here, but E1 is one of the more popular moves, let's say castles.

And here you can play H3.

This is a very useful move to control the G4 square.

And as we learn from the background checkmates, this will give you the escape square for the king later on in the game.

And now black plays bishop B7.

He can play the move knight to C3, say B6.

And after the three, we have a, you know, very, very solid position for both players.

And next move, black will try to develop his bishop on G5.

And we have a balance position here and both players played very solid and they both have good control of the center.

And this will be a perfect play to play in the opening for both players.

Thank you everyone for watching, and I hope you enjoyed this lesson and we'll see you next time.

- Well, that's it for this month's episode of "Today in Chess."

We're proud to bring you all the biggest news and views from all over the chess world.

From everyone here, thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Today in Chess."

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This has been a presentation of the St. Louis Chess Club.

Any reproduction or distribution of this content without the expressed written consent of the St. Louis Chess Club is prohibited.