Chess Match

When Jose E. "Pepe" Herrera left Cuba in 1955, he thought he might never have a reason to go back.Last week, he found one: a chess tournament.As part of Baltimore's contact with residents of the island, the Ellicott City resident and five top-ranked area chess players traveled to Havana for four days to compete with Cuban players.A mostly teen-age crew of Cubans soundly defeated the Americans. But, for both sides, the visit was an exhilarating reminder that, despite still-strained official relations between their countries, Cubans and Americans have much in common.

Even before his 171-pound bout with Hammond's Scott Wallace began, Chris Currence realized only one result would help South Carroll win."I knew that I had to go out there and pin the kid," said Currence, a senior who is the top-ranked wrestler in the West region in his weight class. "I knew that I had to put him in some kind of pinning move for us to win."Currence didn't disappoint himself or his teammates as his pin in 1: 52 clinched a 47-22 Cavaliers victory over the visiting Bears in a tri-meet in Winfield last night.

In yesterday's Today sections, one of the moves in the chess match between Garry Kasparov and the IBM computer Deep Blue was listed incorrectly. Mr. Kasparov's 40th move should have been recorded as Ra7.The Sun regrets the errors.

Garry Kasparov, human genius, is locked in a death struggle (OK, a chess match; same thing) with a computer. The six-game series is tied, with two to play. And should K-- am I wrong here? -- a machine.You know what they always said. They always said that a computer may be able to do three trillion calculations a second, but it could never paint like van Gogh or, even if it had ears, chop either of them off.There's no mystery to a computer, they said. It's just a fancy machine.In fact, within the scientific community, there is something called the James Brown Theorem, which holds that computers may be clever but they have no soul.

NEW YORK: The thing to remember about chess is that it's not professional wrestling.I try to keep this in mind as I'm sitting 107 stories above God's green earth, or at least above New York City, on the observation deck of the World Trade Center, watching bad-boy Garry Kasparov hunch over chess pieces. He is defending his world championship against Viswanathan Anand, known in the chess world as "Vishy."The first thing that strikes me is that I'm at a world-class sporting event and nobody is tuning up with "We will, we will rock you."

It was like a chess match played with nothing but pawns.Two Phils, Regan and Garner, played the game-within-a-game in the eighth inning of the Orioles' 2-0 win over Milwaukee on Monday night. The diamond became a chessboard as the two matched wits -- and pawns.The Phil in the black cap emerged as the clear winner. He did so despite a dangerous play that led to the toppling of Milwaukee Phil, the riverboat gambler whose big move cost him his king of swat without a swing being taken.You have to follow this one closely, then try to rationalize the sequence of events.

His head in his hands, Shonari Warren ponders his next move. He's lost his queen, a rook, a knight and several pawns, and the chess match -- his second of the day -- looks hopeless for him."Man, I made all the wrong moves," he moans. He toys with two white pawns and a bishop he won from his opponent. The game ends with five moves.Shonari, 16, is an eighth-grader at the Baltimore Alternative Middle School. He was one of 75 students who competed yesterday in the third annual city public school chess tournament.

Bobby Fischer has been gone from public view for 20 years -- but among avid local chess players he has hardly been forgotten.For two decades, they have read the former world champion's books; studied the moves of his most famous games; swapped stories about his private life -- and wondered whether he would ever return to international play.Now they are eagerly, if somewhat skeptically, awaiting a $5 million exhibition match between the reclusive Mr. Fischer and Boris Spassky, scheduled to begin today on an island off the coast of what was once Yugoslavia.

The 27th game in the chess match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky is scheduled to be played today in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Results will be published in Section A of The Sunday Sun.

CHESS STORY opened in September 1990, when Damon Norko rented the building on the corner of Park and Mulberry streets where the late Abe Sherman used to rule irascibly.The bookshelves of Sherman's Out of Town News remain, but now books on chess strategy and tactics have replaced paperbacks and foreign press publications. Handcrafted chess boards, sculpted pieces and framed newspaper clippings about chess tournaments fill the large storefront window.Night after night, players compete from 6 p.m. until midnight.

They don't have to search for Bobby Fischer any longer. The American chess master died Thursday in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he won the most famous match in the history of his game, beating Boris Spassky in the summer of 1972. He was 64. As with most competitions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the significance of the game was magnified beyond all reason by the real or imagined implications. These contests - chess, basketball, it didn't matter - were seen as morality plays, pitting ideologies of good and evil against each other.

A few weeks ago, Dan Marino cried out to defensive coordinators on national television to blitz Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning more often. Consider the wish granted. As Manning pursues Marino's single-season touchdown record, the Ravens will initiate a hunt of their own Sunday night, chasing down the NFL's most dangerous quarterback any way possible. Whether it's sending an extra linebacker, safety or cornerback - or simply giving the appearance of a rush - the game plan is to attack the pocket passer rather than react.

Even before his 171-pound bout with Hammond's Scott Wallace began, Chris Currence realized only one result would help South Carroll win."I knew that I had to go out there and pin the kid," said Currence, a senior who is the top-ranked wrestler in the West region in his weight class. "I knew that I had to put him in some kind of pinning move for us to win."Currence didn't disappoint himself or his teammates as his pin in 1: 52 clinched a 47-22 Cavaliers victory over the visiting Bears in a tri-meet in Winfield last night.

When Jose E. "Pepe" Herrera left Cuba in 1955, he thought he might never have a reason to go back.Last week, he found one: a chess tournament.As part of Baltimore's contact with residents of the island, the Ellicott City resident and five top-ranked area chess players traveled to Havana for four days to compete with Cuban players.A mostly teen-age crew of Cubans soundly defeated the Americans. But, for both sides, the visit was an exhilarating reminder that, despite still-strained official relations between their countries, Cubans and Americans have much in common.

In yesterday's Today sections, one of the moves in the chess match between Garry Kasparov and the IBM computer Deep Blue was listed incorrectly. Mr. Kasparov's 40th move should have been recorded as Ra7.The Sun regrets the errors.

Garry Kasparov, human genius, is locked in a death struggle (OK, a chess match; same thing) with a computer. The six-game series is tied, with two to play. And should K-- am I wrong here? -- a machine.You know what they always said. They always said that a computer may be able to do three trillion calculations a second, but it could never paint like van Gogh or, even if it had ears, chop either of them off.There's no mystery to a computer, they said. It's just a fancy machine.In fact, within the scientific community, there is something called the James Brown Theorem, which holds that computers may be clever but they have no soul.

NEW YORK: The thing to remember about chess is that it's not professional wrestling.I try to keep this in mind as I'm sitting 107 stories above God's green earth, or at least above New York City, on the observation deck of the World Trade Center, watching bad-boy Garry Kasparov hunch over chess pieces. He is defending his world championship against Viswanathan Anand, known in the chess world as "Vishy."The first thing that strikes me is that I'm at a world-class sporting event and nobody is tuning up with "We will, we will rock you."

It was like a chess match played with nothing but pawns.Two Phils, Regan and Garner, played the game-within-a-game in the eighth inning of the Orioles' 2-0 win over Milwaukee on Monday night. The diamond became a chessboard as the two matched wits -- and pawns.The Phil in the black cap emerged as the clear winner. He did so despite a dangerous play that led to the toppling of Milwaukee Phil, the riverboat gambler whose big move cost him his king of swat without a swing being taken.You have to follow this one closely, then try to rationalize the sequence of events.

His head in his hands, Shonari Warren ponders his next move. He's lost his queen, a rook, a knight and several pawns, and the chess match -- his second of the day -- looks hopeless for him."Man, I made all the wrong moves," he moans. He toys with two white pawns and a bishop he won from his opponent. The game ends with five moves.Shonari, 16, is an eighth-grader at the Baltimore Alternative Middle School. He was one of 75 students who competed yesterday in the third annual city public school chess tournament.

The 27th game in the chess match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky is scheduled to be played today in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Results will be published in Section A of The Sunday Sun.