On 1 October 2006, Spassky suffered a minor stroke during a chess lecture in San Francisco. On 23 September 2010, ChessBase reported that Spassky had suffered a more serious stroke that had left him paralyzed on his left side. After that he returned to France for a long rehabilitation programme.
On 16 August 2012, Spassky left France to return to Russia under disputed circumstances. He now lives in an apartment in Moscow.
Spassky is the oldest living former world champion.
Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey (born Mark Bailey 13 January 1965, Bath, Somerset) is an English stand-up comedian, musician and actor. He often plays music in his comedy shows. Bailey is well known for being on television programmes like "Bill Bailey's Birdwatching Bonanza", "Have I Got News for You", "Never Mind the Buzzcocks", "QI" and "Black Books".
In 2003, a newspaper called "The Observer" said that Bailey was "one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy". In 2007 he was voted number seven on Channel 4's "Hundred Greatest Stand-ups".
<br>
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Kramnik, born 25 June 1975, is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007.
In October 2000, he defeated Garry Kasparov in a match played in London, and became the Classical World Chess Champion. In late 2004, Kramnik successfully defended his title against challenger Peter Leko in a drawn match played in Brissago, Switzerland.
In October 2006, Kramnik, the Classical World Champion, defeated reigning FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov in a unification match. As a result, Kramnik became the first undisputed World Champion, since Garry Kasparov split from FIDE in 1993.
In 2007, Kramnik lost the title to Viswanathan Anand, who won the World Chess Championship tournament (not a classical match between the two players) ahead of Kramnik. He played Anand at the World Chess Championship match 2008, but lost.
Kramnik has been diagnosed with an uncommon form of arthritis, called ankylosing spondylitis. It causes him great physical discomfort while playing. In January 2006, Kramnik announced that he would skip the Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee to seek out treatment for his arthritis. He returned from treatment in June 2006, playing in the 37th Chess Olympiad. He scored a +4 result, earning the highest performance rating (2847) of the 1307 participating players.
On 30 December 2006 he married French journalist Marie-Laure Germon. He has a daughter named Daria who was born 28 December 2008.
Leah Clark
Leah Clark (born December 20, 1979 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is an American actress. She has provided many voices for Japanese anime series and video games. The roles she is most famous for are Coby in "One Piece", Blair in "Soul Eater", and Fuyuki in "Sgt. Frog"
Veselin Topalov
Veselin Topalov (Веселин Топалов, born 15 March 1975), is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former 'FIDE world chess champion'. This was a knock-out tournament of lower status than the classical world championship.
Topalov became the FIDE champion in 2005. He lost his title in a classical match against Vladimir Kramnik, the purpose of which was to unify the titles. During the match, his manager accused his opponent of cheating. The match ended the division between world titles, which had arisen in 1993. Next, Topalov defeated Gata Kamsky in February 2009 in Sofia, Bulgaria to earn the right to be the challenger for the World Chess Championship in 2010. Topalov lost the World Championship match with Anand 5½–6½ in May 2010.
Topalov won the 2005 Chess Oscar. He was ranked #1 in the world from April 2006 to January 2007, and then had the second highest Elo rating of all time (2813). He regained the world #1 ranking again in October 2008, and officially remained #1 until January 2010, when he fell to #2 behind Magnus Carlsen.
He has been ranked number one a total of 27 months in his career, the fourth longest, behind only Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, and Bobby Fischer.
Magnus Carlsen
Magnus Carlsen (born Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen, 30 November 1990) is the World Chess Champion. He became World Champion on 22 November 2013, by defeating Viswanathan Anand by 6½ to 3½. Carlsen also won the return match in 2014 by 6½4½.
A Norwegian chess grandmaster and chess prodigy, Carlsen is the highest rated player in the world, and the highest rated player in the history of chess. His peak rating of 2881 is higher than even Kasparov achieved. Kasparov's highest rating was 2851.
On 26 April 2004, Carlsen became a grandmaster at the age of 13 years, 148 days. This made him the third youngest grandmaster in history. He played at the Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament in September–October 2009. This lifted him to an Elo rating of 2801. This made him second in the world. He is the fifth player to have a rating over 2800. He was 18 years old when he got this rating. This made him the youngest person to have a rating above 2800.
On 1 January 2010, the new FIDE rating list was published. He was 19 years and 32 days old when he became the youngest chess player in history to be ranked world number one. He broke the previous record held by Vladimir Kramnik.
In London, March 2013, Carlsen won the 2013 Candidates tournament and qualified to challenge Anand for the World Chess Championship.
When Carlsen became the fourth best player in the world he reached an agreement with a public relations (PR) expert in early 2009. This arrangement has borne fruit. Carlsen now has two sponsors, each of which provides 100,000 Euros a year. One is a stockbroker, the other a law firm. With this money, Carlsen is able to travel, and spend time on training. His coach is Garry Kasparov, a former World chess champion.
In return for the sponsorship, Carlsen wears the names of the sponsors on his jackets. This is called 'logo exposure'. He attends meetings, and gives talks. His image helps the companies to hire 'high achievers' to their staff. Put simply, companies of that type are keen to hire intelligent people. Carlsen's overall business manager is his father, Henrik.
Norway held the 2014 Chess Olympiad, and the Norwegian Government has pledged (promised) 70 million kroner (~8.5 million euros) in support of the event.
Study
Study can mean:
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an Anglo-American atheist, writer and debater. He wrote for various magazines including "The Nation", "Free Inquiry", "Slate", and others. He was a supporter of the philosophical movement humanism.
Hitchens was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. After graduation in 1970, he became a magazine writer. In 1982, he moved to Washington, D.C. In 1988, he learned from his grandmother that his mother was Jewish, but had kept her religion a secret. Hitchens remained an atheist and did not adopt any religious faith. He did not write about his religious views until his 2007 book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."
Hitchens tried to write from first-hand experience. To write his essays, he braved gunfire in Sarajevo, he was jailed in Czechoslovakia, and in 2008, he was brutally beaten in Beirut, Lebanon. In 2009, Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded. He wrote in "Vanity Fair" magazine, "If waterboarding does not constitute torture then there is no such thing as torture".
Hitchens died of oesophageal cancer.
Sam Harris
Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author. He is a philosopher, neuroscientist, atheist and humanist . He is the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason.
Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett are commonly known as the "Four Horsemen of Atheism".
Shepherd Express