Seattle won the trade to a ridiculous degree and their fans are happy to let everyone know it.
During an NFL offseason there are always surprises. Some teams who were expected to be bad go on unexpected runs, while others with lofty goals sometimes fall flat on their faces in dramatic fashion. The 2022 season was no different. There were plenty of surprises throughout the league, but none was more shocking than how the Russell Wilson trade affected the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks.
Many expected the Seahawks to have a poor year, while Denver would potentially compete for a Super Bowl. Instead, the Seahawks finished with a winning record and made the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Broncos cratered to 5-12 and Russell Wilson as a bottom-five quarterback.
Seattle won the trade to a ridiculous degree and their fans are happy to let everyone know it. The 12th Man is in a “take no prisoners” mentality, and that includes even going after a tweet from Chess.com regarding the Russell Wilson trade.
After reviewing the trade details we can confirm that the Seahawks are playing checkers and the Broncos are playing chess.
Unlike other players from his generation, Doncic said he doesn’t spend too much time on social media (bless his heart). When asked why, he said that if he is on his phone, it’s actually just because he is playing chess.
A reporter asked Luka Doncic if he’d been paying attention to any of the changes on Twitter.
I love picturing Doncic, who has called mathematics his favorite subject in school, dismantling his opponents in chess the way that he does in the NBA.
Obviously, people pretend to be someone that they’re not online all the time.
But there is at least a small possibility that this profile on Chess.com, with the username Luka Doncic, belongs to the Dallas superstar.
If so, Doncic (or whoever runs this account) might be pretty good! This player, who is possibly Doncic, has 948 wins as well as 119 draws and 633 losses.
There is an awesome photo of Doncic playing chess by the pool during the NBA’s bubble season in Orlando in 2020:
A wild chess cheating controversy has taken a turn.
Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Have you seen talk on social media or elsewhere about a controversy in chess that might involve something … er, X-rated? We’re here to help.
Hikaru Nakamura is off the platform for three days.
Hikaru Nakamura, a famous chess streamer and Grandmaster, thought rebroadcasting Guy “DrDisrespect” Beahm’s chess match against DrLupo would be fine and dandy. It turns out that’s still a no-no.
While DrDisrespect recently settled the lawsuit with Twitch, the streamer is still banned from the platform, including rebroadcasts. Nakamura didn’t know that and caught a three-day ban for doing so on Tuesday.
“The Doc tweeted that things are settled with Twitch, guess he was wrong, Nakamura said on Twitter. “See everyone in three days.”
Being a five-time US Champion and youngest American ever to become Grandmaster in chess, it’s understandable why Nakamura would want to observe and offer insight on a match between two big gaming influencers. Nakamura doesn’t sound upset about his ban since it’s only temporary.
“This is not permanent in any way, shape, or form,” Nakamura said on YouTube. “And while it’s unfortunate, it has happened. Again, I’m looking forward to returning to Twitch as soon as possible.”
Since the ban happened Tuesday, Nakamura should be back on Twitch before the weekend.
The first-round LB models his play after the most dangerous piece in chess and is patiently prepping for a mistake-free match in Tampa. | From @ToddBrock24f7
The notion of a do-it-all player is largely a cliche and usually a myth. But rookie linebacker Micah Parsons was the first-round pick of the Cowboys thanks to his extreme versatility. Stuffing the run, chasing down the passer, blitzing off the edge, dropping back into coverage, north-and-south speed, sideline-to-sideline range. He’s still a month away from his NFL regular season debut, but Parsons is already proving that doing his job means doing a whole bunch of jobs.
And the idea that opposing offenses will never know what’s coming from Parsons makes him a dangerous weapon in waiting.
“You got to be able to do more than one way to win,” Parsons told reporters Monday. “You can’t just run the ball all game to win. You got to learn to pass. So, being a versatile player makes it a challenge for anybody to stop it, for anybody to scheme up. You want to be kind of like a queen on the [chess] board. You don’t ever want to be a rook, where you can only go straight, or you can only go sideways. You want to be able to go diagonal, and I think that’s what makes the queen so strong. And I just kind of want to be the queen of linebackers… but a king, in a way.”
Veteran wideout Amari Cooper has long been a chess aficionado and perhaps the team’s unofficial grandmaster since coming over from the Raiders in 2018. It didn’t take long this spring for the 22-year-old to find a seat across from Cooper at the board.
Dallas Cowboys rookie @MicahhParsons11 called out veteran Amari Cooper to a chess match.
The two played. Amari won. And he enjoyed putting Micah in checkmate.
Parsons may not necessarily want “The Queen of Linebackers” to become a nickname that sticks, but there are lot of similarities between Parsons’s preferred style of gridiron play and his favorite chess piece.
“I like to go after the quarterback. I like to make big plays. But at the same time, I like to be in coverage because you could get a big payoff: a pick or you could strip the wide receiver. You can always find a way to disrupt the game, no matter which one it is. So I kind of like doing it all.”
Parsons enjoyed an auspicious preseason debut last week in Canton. On his very first series at the pro level, the rookie recovered a Steelers fumble. It was a thrilling return to full-speed action for Parsons, who hadn’t played in an actual football game since the 2019 Cotton Bowl.
That initial rush of success made it even more difficult for Parsons to have to leave the field with the other starters on limited snap counts.
“Yeah, it was hard, but they always remind me it’s a long way to go,” Parsons explained. “I was like, ‘I just got my feet wet.’ I said, ‘Can I get, like, one more?’ They’re like, ‘Nah, it’s over.'”
The former Nittany Lion is showing an insatiable hunger to be around the ball, even in practice sessions. A preview clip from the debut episode of Hard Knocks: The Dallas Cowboys shows that… and the impression it’s already making on teammates like Dak Prescott.
A new clip from NFL Films and “Hard Knocks,” this one of Cowboys rookie LB Micah Parsons impressing Dak Prescott early in training camp. pic.twitter.com/yPduzbFG4u
Cowboys fans are no doubt eager to get the season-long chess match underway, to turn Parsons loose and have the results count. But the rookie knows patience is a strategic gambit, too, and he says he wouldn’t trade the extra time to prep for Tampa. He knows the month between now and the season opener will only help him study his opponent and refine his attack.
Just like a lion in the jungle. Or a queen on the chessboard.
“You could go out there right now, make some mistakes, and learn. But why, when you’ve got this great opportunity to get better every day, and you’ve got this great opportunity to go out there in these preseason games and make those mistakes now? Because you got the Super Bowl champs Week 1. That’s the game where I’d like to make no mistakes.”
Former Alabama wide receiver Amari Cooper may be a star on the football field, but he’s also a master at chess. He recently took on Micah…
Former Alabama wide receiver Amari Cooper has found himself a nice home in Dallas with the Cowboys organization after starting his first few seasons with the then Oakland Raiders.
The Cowboys selected Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons in the first round of the 2021 NFL draft.
Recently, it came to light that Parsons challenged Cooper to a chess match. Cooper won and left Parsons speechless, as can be seen in the video below.
Cooper first started playing chess in high school as part of an after school program, he told ESPN in 2020.
“I’m a real competitive person, so I’ll compete with you at just about anything, at just about any game,” Cooper said.
Being such a competitive athlete, Cooper took on Parsons challenge and ended up winning. He posted the final move to his Instagram story, where viewers could see Parsons’ disbelief.
#Cowboys rookie LB Micah Parsons called out Amari Cooper to a chess match.
They played today. Cooper won. Parsons was left speechless.
The Queen’s Gambit fails to be something more than a typical sports movie.
Warning: Spoilers. (Kinda.)
For a show about chess — a game that depends upon your ability to do something your opponent does not anticipate — The Queen’s Gambit sure telegraphed its ending.
The seventh and final episode of Netflix’s limited series ends exactly as anyone would have expected: Elizabeth Harmon gets a little help from her friends, and in doing so she manages to stave off her various addictions and elevate her game to beat her arch-rival, Borgov.
It’s cutesy and saccharine and entirely predictable but also it’s TV that people want right now: According to the streaming service, The Queen’s Gambit was watched by 62 million households in its first 28 days, the most ever for a scripted limited series on Netflix.
That’s understandable: The show is irresistibly charming, thanks largely to the performance of Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role.
But like so many Netflix productions, it plays largely on human emotion without connecting in any significant way to the human struggle. The triumph ultimately feels empty because of it.
One of the show’s most glaring flaws has already been pointed out elsewhere: It’s utter fantasy to believe a woman would have been allowed to make it in chess the way Beth Harmon does in the 1950s and 60. More than that, The Queen’s Gambit insidiously beckons us to imagine a world in which there had been young women good and smart and determined enough to make it in chess. Ah, what a time it would have been! If only women had mustered the sass and courage!
Yet here we are, more than half a century later and just now getting around to electing a woman as vice president.
PHIL BRAY/NETFLIX
There’s another part of The Queen’s Gambit that doesn’t feel even faintly realistic. Critics seemed to adore this series because it attempts to offer serious consideration of difficult issues. It’s not just another sports movie. But it only faints at reconciling the long tail of mental illness, childhood trauma and addiction — then wallpapers over them when it’s time for a happy ending.
After a long period of sobriety following the death of her mother due to alcohol, Beth falls into a bender at the end of episode 6. It happens seemingly out of nowhere; she’s working on studying old matches and discovers her fridge void of food. She takes herself out to dinner where the waiter offers her a drink. At first, she declines. Then she says yes, and the final 15 minutes of the episode have her at the bottom of a bottle, completely broken.
It can happen that way. Anyone who’s been around an addict will relate to that sudden turn. It’s what happens next that feels like a lie: Beth’s best friend from the orphanage shows up unannounced. Seeing the messy house and empty bottles, she confronts Beth. Together they mourn the death of the janitor who taught Beth chess. They excavate some of her past life. Then, after a game of squash, The Magical Black Orphan Friend tells Beth that she’s not there to save her; she’s there because in this life people need to lean on each other.
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
That evidently is enough. Beth travels to Russia, turning down a nip out of a flask on the plane. She glides past hotel workers delivering champagne bottles to other rooms. Says “nyet” to an offer of vodka. And ultimately flushes the tranquilizer pills she’s been addicted to for half her life, ever since they were used to tame her and the other children at the orphanage.
She admits to D.L. Townes, her Magical Gay Friend Who Surprised Her By Making The Trip, that she’d gone to inquire about finding more drugs, but ultimately didn’t. Serious and clear-eyed, she wins the event by beating Borgov and then breaks free from her State Department chaperone and walks through a park in Moscow, where the chess players fete her and ask her to play — a harkening back to those humble childhood games in the basement.
“Every time we finished that sequence, I would just burst into tears, because I was so happy for her,” Taylor-Joy told Refinery29. “She has found this sense of contentment. Where she wasn’t in pain or fighting something so intensely.”
That’s trim and tidy and wholly unrealistic. My guess is that the people who’ve struggled with addiction or seen loved ones ruined by it will find the whole thing rather flippant. Addicts so rarely get those moments — and when they do they’re earned through diligent work, not because the reassuring words of an old pal helped them draw on previously untapped reserves of willpower. Addicts don’t simply lack friends to rely on, or have some inability to understand how to let themselves be propped up by those who love them. It’s never that clean.
Addicts — and those who stand by them — would also never believe the fight could end or the contentment could last. It never does.
Beyond that, the physical toll of addiction is completely absent. Hungover Beth, we know, struggles to get it together. But there’s not even passing attention to what it would mean for her body to go through full withdrawal from those pills.
In the end, it feels like a lost opportunity. Beth is to that point a convincing addict; the pain in the eyes of her trainer-turned-lover Harry Beltik when he leaves and tells her to be careful feels all too real. He later confides in her that his own father was an alcoholic, though not the raging, messy kind. Rather he sank into himself each night. That’s powerful nuance — a raw look at how the disease can settle in like rot.
Instead of digging into this in any way, the show simply lets it all flit away. It’s one thing to not know what it was, exactly, that killed all those people in Bird Box; the death plague was just a plot device meant to set up a situation that would reveal something about the characters. There was no need to reckon with it. But simply smoothing over Beth’s addictions and childhood trauma is a disservice to the quality of the acting and possibilities the story presented.
It’s a perfectly American thing to re-write history we are ultimately ashamed of, and to obscure the reality of things we’d rather not face. Maybe once we’d ricocheted into a realm where an exceptional woman was allowed to excel it only made sense to detach the rest of the story from the grimy truth, too. Avoiding that temptation, though, might have allowed The Queen’s Gambit to resonate beyond a few of the darkest weeks in a pandemic, when imagining all the resounding ways that simple solutions might actually work was the exact comfort we sought.
While the NBA’s Orlando Bubble is about to begin, Klay Thompson is focused on a game of chess against his dog Rocco.
While 22 teams are preparing to restart the stretch run of the NBA season in the Orlando Bubble, the Golden State Warriors have officially flipped the switch to offseason.
As the Warriors are set to begin an extended offseason outside the bubble, players are busy going through workouts at Chase Center, golfing and mending injuries from an up and down regular season. For Klay Thompson, the five-time All-Star is spending time with his best friend.
On Monday, the Golden State wing shared a photo of himself locked into a game of chess with his dog Rocco. According to Thompson, the sharpshooter has a strategy when it comes to playing chess against his dog.
When Thompson isn’t squaring off against his bulldog in chess, Rocco has served as a motivational workout partner for his human. During a recent box jump workout, Rocco was on hand for Thompson’s moral support.
Before he makes his much-anticipated return to Steve Kerr’s rotation, Thompson will get more one-on-one time with Rocco during Golden State’s lengthy offseason.
