(flags rustling) (dramatic music) - Hello everyone and welcome to this year's final episode of "Today in Chess."

I'm your host, Sharon Carpenter.

Wow, it's been year already.

Time truly does fly when you're having fun.

And this was certainly a fun year in the world of chess.

We've had a blast bringing you this program.

A whole team of people have worked hard to put the show together, and today we'll have a rare chance to speak with some of them.

But first, the world saw an action-packed year of chess.

Here's a look back at 2024.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] The year kicked off in the chess capital of the United States, St. Louis, Missouri, for the American Cup where rising star Alice Lee finally bested Irina Krush after coming in second to her in the two years prior.

Traveling around the world on the Grand Chess Tour, players made their way to Poland for the Superbet Rapid and Blitz, Romania for the Superbet Classic and Croatia for the Super United Rapid and Blitz where Fabiano Caruana won two of the three to put himself in the lead in the standings.

Finishing up the GCT back in St. Louis for the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament and the legendary Sinquefield Cup, Alireza Firouzja proved unstoppable in his winning streak.

Winning both tournaments, he jumped Fabiano on the standings and clinched his second Grand Chess Tour win.

Staying in St. Louis, exciting chess flourished in events such as the Women's Premier Chess tournament, the Cairns Cup, the Juniors and Seniors Championship with its players spanning across generations, and Chess 9LX where new and impressive moves were created.

The year came to a close in the chess capital with the US Chess Championships where Carissa Yip made history by winning eight games in a row to claim the US women's title for the second year.

With new rising stars, fierce rivals, and challenging gameplay, next year promises to bring even more excitement to the game of chess.

- I'm here right now with world-renowned chess Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan.

Yasser, always a pleasure to see you- - Pleasure's all mine.

- and thank you so much.

All your help over the past few months, 12 months, has been vital.

- Well, thank you.

- How have you enjoyed the show?

- Tremendously so.

And looking back on it, we've actually done quite a lot.

- So much - Yeah.

One of my favorites?

We were doing a lesson, and the producers wanted me to do a very strict lesson featuring this and that and that, all within a 90-second take, let's go.

And completely unprepared, I just nailed it.

And I was thinking to myself, "In a thousand parallel universes, I couldn't have done it better."

- It was so good.

- You're a one-take Jake.

That's it.

- There you go.

- We had our fireside chats.

- Yes, we did.

- The interviews together, that was very nice for me.

- [Sharon] So much fun.

- Busch Stadium, the first responders, the chess children.

We were playing exhibitions with the kids.

- And you were teaching some of the kids, weren't you, yeah?

- Exactly.

And then one of my favorites was I was introducing the chess clock, how the equipment of the chess clock, measuring the time of each move and how it evolved, including today's digital clocks and what that means for chess.

- Absolutely.

And so important.

Let's take a look at that right now.

- Okay.

(upbeat music) Every sport has its own equipment.

I'd like to talk for a moment about the chess clock.

These clocks were considered the workhorse of the blitz world.

This one came from the Soviet Union.

You'd make your move, you'd hit your plunger, you hit your plunger and so forth and so on.

You could see that the flag mechanism is really going up.

Then when it was ready to fall, boom.

We call that full mast.

And the flag falls, you lose.

There were many different models of clock.

One of my favorite models was this.

This one came from Germany.

Very nice wooden housing.

Notice that in this case, the flag.

actually the flag mechanism was independent of the clock itself.

You just saw the flag fall.

This one was one of my favorite clocks.

It was called the tilt back.

It was tilted back purposefully so that the arbiters from afar could see how much time was left.

Again, the button mechanism.

And when that clock was at full mast, boy, people just held their breath, moved as quickly as possible because when that flag fell, you lost.

And you can imagine that in a blitz game where you're down to just a few seconds, what a pounding these chess clocks would take.

The plastic clocks, they'd last a week or so.

The wooden clocks, they would last about a year.

The heavy, heavy tanks from the Soviet Union.

I don't know what kind of casing they were.

They still function today, decades later.

(whimsical music) - That's okay.

It happens to the best of us.

Keep your chin up.

(whimsical music) (player sighs) - That movie short was how we kicked off this season of "Today in Chess."

We wanted to showcase it one more time.

It was produced and directed by our friend Kevin Duggin and featured his family and another member of our team, Adam Wooley, the bearded gentleman.

Adam is the voice of the Grand Chess Tour and many of the segments you've seen this year.

Okay, well joining me now is the amazing Megan Duffey who works as a producer on our show.

Welcome, Megan.

- Hi, Sharon.

- Good to have you in front of the camera this time.

- I know.

It's not something I'm very used to, but, you know.

For you, I'll do anything.

- You are a natural.

You're a natural.

So tell me about your favorite segment on "Today in Chess."

- I have to go with the American Cup recap we did early in the year.

I think the greatest part of it was American Cup is a relatively new tournament to St. Louis.

And for the past two years, we've seen Alice Lee, this 14-year-old prodigy, get so close with Irina Krush.

She's just a legend in American chess.

- [Sharon] Absolutely.

- And it's like she just came up short, you know, every year- - So close.

- And then finally this year, she was able to jump that hurdle and she beat Irina Krush and finally kind of, you know, was able to kind of get that monkey off her back.

And all of us here, the entire crew were so happy for her.

It's like we've seen her slowly grow up through the years from, you know, a little 10, 11-year-old all the way up to where she is now competing in the US Championships now, being a real contender for these events.

It's an incredible story.

- Amazing to see.

And we should take a look right now, I think.

- Absolutely.

- Let's do it.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] The 2024 American Cup was an event that no one will soon forget.

Two stacked fields competed in a double elimination knockout tournament to see who would become the next American Cup champion.

Fabiano Caruana headlined the open section and started off strong with a convincing win over Grigoriy Oparin, only to fall to Levon Aronian in a blitz playoff in the following match, resulting in being relegated to the elimination bracket.

Looking to be the first player to come back and win it all, he knocked out veteran Leinier Dominguez and moved on to face the number two seed Wesley So, where again in a blitz playoff, would be eliminated from the event.

So went on to defeat Ray Robson for a chance to face off again Champions bracket winner Levan Aronian in the grand final.

After quick draws in the first three games, Levon Aronian found an advantage with the black pieces and never looked back, claiming his first American Cup title.

The women's section was nothing short of upsets and exciting matches where Zoey Tang started off her American Cup with a win over two-time champion and top-seeded Irina Krush only to fall in the next two games to lose the match and be moved to the elimination bracket.

Third seed Alice Lee racked up wins over Tatev Abrahamyan and Begim Tokhirjonova to meet Irina Krush in the champions bracket final for the third year in a row.

Irina would get the best of her yet again, sending Alice to the elimination bracket to fight her way back to the grand final.

Alice Lee did just that with a dominating 3-1 match win over Tokhirjonova for the second time in the event.

After two years of finishing in second place and watching Irina Krush claim the title, Alice Lee shocked everyone and beat Irina Krush to force a rapid grand final match.

It took all four rapid games and a blitz playoff, but Alice Lee finally dethroned the two-time champion, claiming her second major tournament victory.

Champions were crowned and young stars made their mark.

The American Cup is quickly becoming a tournament both players and fans won't wanna miss.

- Joining me now is one of the key members of the "Today in Chess" broadcast team, Sean McCulley, who produces and edits the show.

Welcome, Sean.

Great to have you here.

- Thanks for having me.

- So you have to tell me your favorite segment on "Today in Chess" over the past year.

I know we've had a ton of them, a ton of great ones.

- There's been a lot of great stories.

There's been many stories all over St. Louis about chess.

And one of the ones that really touched me was the "First Responders."

- [Sharon] Oh yes.

- You remember it.

It's when a bunch of inner city kids got together with first responders, policemen, firemen from around the area.

They all came together at Busch Stadium and they all played chess and got to know each other.

- Yeah, a huge success.

Let's take a look back at that segment, "First Responders."

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

Break down for us what's happening here in your role?

- Okay.

It's really, really simple.

We go out, the Saint Louis Chess Club sends 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.

- [Sharon] 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 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 this 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 Busch Stadium, and we're playing chess with the youth, and we're gonna teach them the game of chess.

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

- We're just here to kinda talk to them 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.

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?

- Mm-hm.

(upbeat music) - I'm very excited to give you this beginner lesson and show you the squares on the chess board here.

Of course, we have 64 squares on the board.

And very important to memorize the squares and to be able to see the good moves on the board.

Now I'm gonna show you how the pieces move on the chessboard here.

So we're gonna start off with the king.

King is the most important piece, and you always have to try to protect your king.

So king can move only one square in any direction here.

So from e1 here you have d1, f1, f2, e2 and d2, so.

Next we're gonna go to the most valuable piece and the strongest piece, which is the queen.

And the reason it's so strong because it can move like a combination of a rook and a bishop.

And it can move any direction, can go the all way straight line, or it can move diagonally as well.

And the value of your queen is nine points.

The next valuable piece is the rook.

It's very simple how the rook moves.

It moves like a straight line.

Can move straight line or can move vertical on the rank.

The next is the bishop.

You have two bishops on a chess board.

So when you start a game, you have a bishop on c1, and you have another bishop on f1 here.

So the bishop on c1 is obviously on a dark square, so it can only move on dark squares.

It can move from c1 all the way here to the h6 square.

You can also move one square at a time.

You can go to b2, again one square, or on a3.

So if you have a dark squared bishop, you can only move this bishop on the dark squares.

So now we're gonna put this bishop to f1 because when you start a game, you're gonna have two bishops.

So now it's on a light square so you can move on the light squares as well.

So all the way to a6, that's on the light squares.

That's your longest move on this diagonal.

The next is the knight.

When you start the game, you have two knights.

You will have one knight on b1 when you're playing with the white pieces, and you will have another knight on g1 here.

Knight moves like a letter L, so basically two squares up, one side.

It's probably the hardest move to learn, but if you just remember letter L. So that's how the knight moves, two squares up, one side, or one square up, two side.

and it can go any direction to the right or to the left.

And it's the only piece actually that can jump over other pieces.

For example, even the queen, the most valuable piece, cannot do that.

So I'm gonna put a pawn now on e2.

See the knight can jump two squares up, one side.

And that's perfectly legal move.

The only piece that can jump over other pieces, two squares up, one on the other side as well.

And now we come down to, the last piece we have is the pawn, actually.

When you start the game, you have eight pawns and these are basically your soldiers.

A lot of times you sacrifice them, you exchange them, but you have eight of them when you start the game.

A pawn can move from the original position only you can move two squares.

Only time you can move two squares, this pawn, is from the original square.

After that, if you play this move, you can only move one square at a time.

But the way the pawn captures is diagonally, moves forward one or two squares, but captures diagonally.

So for example, if there's a piece on d3, you can capture, e2 takes d3.

And every capture you do, it's gonna be on a diagonal.

So this completes how the pieces move on the chess board.

(upbeat music) - Joining me now are two of the content creators on our show.

Malyn Canales and Jordan Hallemann are here.

Thank you for being here, ladies.

You both write scripts and work on all aspects of the show really, don't you?

- Yeah, yeah.

It's a really exciting opportunity to kind of see how chess makes its way throughout St. Louis in small areas and larger areas.

And even for people who don't play chess, it's been really exciting to work on stories like this and kind of see how it makes its development - So eyeopening, right?

And Malyn.

- Yeah, eyeopening indeed.

Because prior to working on these segments that we do for the show, I didn't really, you know, I knew chess existed here.

I knew the hall of fame existed here, but I didn't really, I didn't really understand how embedded chess was within St. Louis itself.

So it was very interesting thing to learn for me.

- What was your favorite part, your favorite segment, one that stood out to you?

- I would have to say for me, one of the most exciting ones was the "Pocket Parks" because it takes the smallness of just one simple table or maybe a couple tables, but it puts it in one of the most popular areas of St. Louis where people that don't play chess or maybe they've been playing all their life, can sit down and play a game within the culture of St. Louis.

- Yeah.

Malyn what did you think of "Pocket Park"?

- Yeah, agreed.

It's very nice to see, you know, a game that is usually deemed for just the prestigious or the elite.

But they're centered around communities and they're accessible to anyone and everyone, children, older people, just regular people like us, just anyone who's involved.

I actually learned that they're putting a, they will eventually be putting a pocket park in Willmore Park, which is close to where I live.

So that's exciting.

- So you'll be down there.

- I'll be down there.

(people laughing) - Well, let's take a look back at that segment, refresh everyone's memories.

Let's do it.

(gentle music) - [Jordan] Located in the heart of St. Louis, Missouri, the Hill passionately represents a unique side of Italian history where you can find a special place to enjoy a game of chess.

Established in the late 19th century, the Hill's vibrant community is not just a neighborhood, but a living tribute to the value of family, culinary tradition, and culture.

The Hill, once a lively realm for Italian immigrants creating a life in St. Louis, retains much of its original allure and rapport.

Once home to prominent figures, such as baseball legends Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola, the Hill proudly reflects a vital piece of the history of St. Louis.

More than just a historical landmark, the Hill is a living legacy.

It's where grandparents passed down cherished recipes in authentic restaurants, where communal tradition is revered and where children play in the same parks that their ancestors once did.

Within the central hub of the Hill lies Piazza Imo or Imo Square.

This Italian-inspired square aims to bring the people of St. Louis together.

The park welcomes all St. Louis residents to enjoy the environment, which includes a hand-sculpted marble fountain imported from Italy, decorative landscaping surrounded by wooden benches and classic Italian wall fountains.

Near the center of the vibrant space is a chess pocket park, which has become an integral part of the piazza's identity and an essential gathering spot for visitors to the square.

These boards offer a place for people of all ages and skill levels to come together and engage in the strategic game of chess.

(upbeat music) Surrounded by the gelato shop, Gelato Di Riso, the local bakery, Vitale's, and authentic Italian restaurants, such as Dominic's and Zia's On the Hill, the Piazza IMO's chess boards provide visitors with entertainment while actively immersing St. Louis chess players in the heart of the Hill's rich cultural cuisine.

(gentle music) Fostering an environment that prioritizes community, the pocket parks chess boards serve as a focal point for people to gather, interact, and come together.

The Piazza Imo invites everyone, from tourists to chess enthusiasts, to come and appreciate a small piece of Italian history within this remarkable neighborhood in St. Louis.

- What a time we've had.

Chess fans across the world have enjoyed some thrilling games.

It's been an exciting year for us here at the show too.

We've gotten to meet some extraordinary people.

I had a chance to sit down with some exceptional players and experts and learn more about the game firsthand.

(upbeat music) How do you make sure to look after your mental health and your physical health as you're going through this process gearing up these big tournaments.

Sleep, obviously, very important.

But do you have a special diet, a workout routine?

I saw on Instagram you've taken to boxing or is that something you've been doing for a while?

- I started boxing not because I was super interested in boxing, but because I was working with someone, a trainer, and he said, "Maybe this would help with your conditioning."

- With experience, you learn that most important is to always keep working, keep trying to improve your game and eventually will show up in your results.

- I like challenges.

I like overcoming in chess.

It's something that you have to improve every day and you can be better and better.

And I'm far from, even like, decent in my opinion.

- So far from decent, you said.

Are you kidding me?

- So it's just like you gotta improve and you gotta show up every day and try again and try to win again, achieve something.

It's just, like, it's endless, basically.

That's why we can play 20 years, 40 years.

- Historically, the Soviet Union dominated chess.

So the Soviets invested heavily in three areas.

They are ballet.

The Soviets loved the Bolshoi Ballet.

They loved ballet.

Poetry.

The Soviets loved poetry and chess.

So they invested heavily, and literally for the 70 years of the Cold War, the Soviets were really the dominant power.

Bobby Fischer shocked the whole chess world by upending Soviets.

- Thank you so much for your insight.

- Thank you so much.

Thank you.

- Thanks, Yasser.

- Thank you, Sharon.

- It's been a wonderful year, and we are honored to have brought you this program about the world of chess.

We hope you've enjoyed the show and learned a little about what makes chess a global phenomenon and why it's growing so rapidly here in America.

From all of us at "Today in Chess," please accept our appreciation for your support and our best wishes for a prosperous new year.

I'm Sharon Carpenter, and we'll see you next time on "Today in Chess."

(dramatic music) - [Announcer] This has been a presentation of the Saint Louis Chess Club.

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