It's up to you, New York, New York

These little town blues are melting away

By Frederic Friedel

Well, this is what it looks like, in many streets and intersections of New York city. And at night they light the whole thing up! Time to beat a hasty retreat and head for the suburbs. A 20 minute busride to the New Jersey side of the Hudson river takes you to friends and more peaceful surroundings.

Sushi in Jersey

This is three-time US women's champion Anjelina Belakovskia in her beautiful appartment, together with her betrothed Laurence Bernstein, preparing the sushi of the century.

The ingredients come from a Japanese and a Korean supermarket, which sell foods that we Europeans can only dream of. This is what a fresh, home-made sushi looks like.

And Anjelina serves it with piping hot sake.

And this is the view in the evening from their appartment building, over the Hudson, looking on Manhatten. If you want to get an impression of the whole panorama click on the picture above (be prepared to scroll quite a bit). Of course you can also simply make friends with Anjelina and Laurence and try to get an invitation to a sushi dinner.

Dawgs in the park

They don't seem to have zoos in New York, or at least I haven't discovered any so far. But they have the next best thing: a dawg run in the park.

This is an eclosed area where our four-legged friends can run an frolic to their heart's content. There are always people standing outside the fence watching the action – just like in a zoo.

Some of the dawgs are too aristocratic to join in the fun.

And yes, that is the correct spelling here in New York, as you can see on the restaurant sign next to the frolicking fields.

PS: Scott Schnee of Rockville Centre, New York informs me that there is an adorable zoo in Central Park, and quite an impressive zoo in the Bronx.

Back to the chess

Here's a nomen-est-omen place right next to the playing hall, where Garry Kasparov battles Deep Junior.

A truly magnificent building which is impossible to photograph in its full splendor.

Looking up the side of the Athletic Club building I can see the communication lines we dropped on the first day. But hey, it's all working fine, all the big web sites are getting the games.

Speaking about communications, the thing you must never, never forget when going to America is the electric socket converter (left in the picture). The entire Internet coverage for millions of people all over the world depend on this little piece of metal and plastic. They cost less than a dollar back home and are almost impossible to get here (plenty of devices to convert the other way). And remember the Americans have 110 volts in their electrical grid, not the 230 volts we kill our utility customers with.

Remember we showed you the Internet coverage corner where the live commentary is generated. Above we see GMs Joel Benjamin and Max Dlugy visiting Mig Greengard and John Fernandez. Well we have other visitors as well.

This is the legendary Lev Aburt, who is always good for a wry comment

This is the Argentinian GM Miguel Quinteros, confidante of Bobby Fischer

Our favourite, US women's champion Anna Hahn, playing around with the X3D shutter glasses.

Even a man who writes live chess commentary for his profession will have his admirers (just look at their faces!). This is our own Mig Greengard thoroughly enjoying himself.

In the press corner one journalist who had come in on a red-eye can take no more of the boring chess thing.

It is of course John now-he's-awake-now-he's-asleep Henderson

And all the time one man is working, working, working. Will Garry Kasparov be able to maintain his energy in this nerve-racking match? We will tell you on Wednesday, when the next game will be played.