CHESS ANIME?

Take my advice - don't start watching them or you'll be stucked.

I have just finished watching 'Ace of Diamond', an anime about baseball. Initially, I wasn't planning on watching any cartoon and wasting my precious time away from my tasks, but one day, I accidentally watched it when my brother switched it on television and I ended up finishing all the 126 episodes! 

I also found out that he has a lot of other animes too, most of them about sports. Among others are:

Baby Steps - an anime about tennis.

Haikyu - an anime about volleyball.

Slam Dunk - an anime about basketball. 

This makes me wonder, if Japan has a lot of animes on sports, does it have an anime on chess? Apparently not. Maybe chess is not a popular sport among Japanese people. However, they do have board games, and one of the animes is Hikaru no Go, an anime about the game Go. 

IM YEOH LI TIAN vs GM VISWANATHAN ANAND TBILISI 2017

FIDE World Cup had my attention this year. It is held in Tbilisi, Georgia and it featured one of the best current Malaysian player, IM Yeoh Li Tian. 

I was on holidays but I still found some time to watch the games.

It only lasted two games, but our own IM made them very eventful. I don't have anything but praise for the way IM Yeoh Li Tian took GM Anand in the games. In fact, many of his moves surprised me as they were really energetic. Going for the Queen sacrifice in Round 1 and taking the initiative with the Black pieces in Round 2 gave me goosebumps. It was clear that the ex-World Champion was going for the draw by choosing the exchange variation so Yeoh was forced to play aggressively. In the end, he went down fighting. 

Congratulations. 

The games

Round 1

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1884627

Round 2

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1884695

Some video coverage on the games from Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHOEMp5dhQA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SEXiMc9dI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFs-2TpUM_4