I've come to the conclusion that the only way to make a living out of chess is to write about it. Any advice on what it takes to become a chess journalist? Should I do a degree in Journalism? Or is that not so importent? Also how important do you think it is to be a really strong player yourself when you write about chess? I've never really tried that hard to improve but I think if I really had a good go I could get myself up to say 2200 level, is that good enough do you think?

short will do ok

I suppose I'm asking if the latter approach can still succeed in modern chess at the very highest level?

mickey was never a very sharp player-more of a karpov-in theory as you get older this type of intuitive strategic chess shd be easier to play-but modern chess is so specific and analysis intensive it may be that the old tenets no longer hold true-

Mickey recently rolled out the QGD and did quite well with it at the European Club Cup; maybe it's also time for David to have a look at the whole QGD/Slav complex - it seems to offer the flexibility of employing solid or risky lines, depending on the occasion.

Historical Stalemate: Chess Book May Have Leonardo Illustrations (or Not)

! BuzzPermalinkBy DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN
Published: April 14, 2008
PHOTO: Pages from ''De Ludo Scachorum,'' a book about chess with illustrations that some say were designed by Leonardo da Vinci.(PHOTOGRAPH BY CORONINI CRONBERG FOUNDATION)

Reported discoveries of lost works by Leonardo da Vinci are almost as common as, well, images of the Mona Lisa.

The latest attribution to be proposed involves the design for the illustrations in a chess book from around 1500. The book, ''De Ludo Scachorum,'' or ''The Game of Chess,'' is by Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and Renaissance mathematician who was a friend and collaborator of Leonardo. One of the earliest chess books, it contains 114 diagrams of chess problems drawn in red and black.

Long thought to be lost or destroyed, it was discovered in 2006 in a 22,000-volume library in northeastern Italy that belonged to Count Guglielmo Coronini, who died in 1990.

The nonprofit Coronini Cronberg Foundation, which oversees the library, enlisted Franco Rocco, an Italian architect and sculptor whose work has puzzlelike qualities, to examine the book and its illustrations. After a year of study he determined that Leonardo created the design on which the illustrations are based, possibly by building a chess set.

''I reached the conclusion that the diagrams are the invention of Leonardo da Vinci,'' he said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Rocco said that he based his report on the quality of the drawings and the friendship between Pacioli and Leonardo. The proportions of the illustrations are based on the golden ratio, he said, like many figures in Leonardo's compositions; he also noted a similarity between the queen and designs for a fountain in Leonardo's ''Atlantic Codex.''

His findings have been widely reported in the international press and have stirred some excitement in chess circles.

In his chess column in The Times of London, <Raymond Keene> wrote that the sophistication of the chess puzzles themselves could have come only from ''a powerful intelligence'' and might also be the work of Leonardo. But Martin Kemp, a prominent Leonardo expert who is an emeritus art history professor at Oxford University, has emphatically dismissed the possibility that Leonardo had any hand in the drawings. ''There is not an earthly chance of them being by Leonardo,'' he said in a telephone interview.

He said that there was no resemblance between the drawings and Leonardo's work. Nor did he find the designs particularly compelling, he said.

The relationship between Pacioli and Leonardo is undisputed and has long fascinated art and mathematics scholars. The two met in Milan in 1496, and Leonardo illustrated Pacioli's 1509 ''Divina Proportione,'' a treatise on mathematics and proportions that dealt at length with the golden ratio. (Two quantities or shapes are in the golden ratio if the ratio of their sum to the larger quantity is the same as the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one; expressed mathematically, the golden ratio is roughly 1.618.)

In 1499 the French invaded Milan, and Leonardo and Pacioli fled to Mantua. While there Leonardo drew a portrait of the marchesa of Mantua, Isabella d'Este, who liked chess. ''De Ludo Scachorum'' was written during this time and dedicated to the marchesa and her husband, Francesco Gonzaga.

Asked whether Leonardo might have designed the actual chess puzzles, Mr. Kemp said he doubted that. While Leonardo was interested in geometrical games, Mr. Kemp said, no information in surviving manuscripts suggests that he played chess.

''It is not improbable of him being interested in it,'' he said, ''but whether he had the patience to sit for hours and play, there is some doubt.''

As for Mr. Rocco's investigation, Mr. Kemp called it ''a nightmare of nonmethod.'' He said the attribution was based on unsubstantiated ideas, which made the theory rickety from a historian's perspective.

''You start with one hypothesis, and you build another hypothesis on top of it and then you build another hypothesis on top of that, and you have this tower of unsupported hypotheses,'' Mr. Kemp said.

<Mind Games>

The third and final day of the World Memory Championship took place in London. As Elizabeth Palmer reports, this mind competition was something never to forget.

(CBS) Today was the third and final day of the world memory championship in London. And no, remembering to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home would not have qualified you for the final, reports CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.

Ben Pridmore from Britain once again has proven he's got the most powerful memory in the world.

The three time international champion faced down stiff competition in events that included matching names to faces and memorizing 4,000 numbers in sequence.

They call themselves mental athletes but most admit - proudly - they're also nerds.

The contestants rely on a combination of unshakeable concentration and sound technique.

"If it's a string of numbers, I see those numbers and I have pictures that correspond to every number," said Ronnie White, a memory competitor from Texas.

White says that long strings of numbers are more memorable if he makes them into mini-stories.

"Today I had Mickey Mouse swinging on a rope into a medical student," White said.

White, an Afghanistan veteran, won the U.S. championship last spring. But in London, suffering from jet lag, he just wasn't a match for his opponents, male or - much rarer - female.

"I'll tell you what. Dorothea from Germany over there - the woman - kicking my butt," White said.

Dorothea, who is only 17 years old, finished in the top ten. But she's got her eye on fierce and growing competition from China which fielded a big team this year - the only ones with matching tracksuits.

"They are, really have a good team. It's kind of intimidating," said one competitor.

Intimidating is also the word for Ben Pridmore who memorized a whole deck of cards in just over half a minute to clinch his win today.

"The standard just keeps getting higher at these competitions," Pridmore said.

But there's constant pressure to improve. Every year the scores get higher and higher. So the on thing these competitors can forget is any thought of slacking off this winter.

However, one of my favourite YouTube clips has to be this not-quite-2-year-old who can barely speak or stand up, yet knows almost every country of the world - some memory for one so young ...