The Chess Mind

We'll start catching up on some of the great games from the Olympiad, starting tonight, and we'll begin with Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu's impressive victory against Najdorf specialist Boris Gelfand from round 6. Nisipeanu has had some success with his pet anti-Najdorf plan 6.Be3 e5 7.Nde2!?, and this game confirms that this line is not a one-off experiment. It's also a beautifully thematic good knight vs. bad bishop, good majority vs. bad majority game; have a look, here.

Armenia, thanks to Aronian and especially Akopian (see below), are in first place with 24 points (out of a possible 32). Fully two points back are the Russian and Ukrainian teams, who are in turn just half a point ahead of China, Georgia, the USA and France. Meanwhile, on the women's side, Russia leads with 19 (of 24), half a point ahead of Ukraine with 18.5 and two points ahead of the USA and China.

Meanwhile, with a hat tip to ChessToday, here are the top 10 individual results so far at the Olympiad, by rating:

Karjakin (Ukraine, board 3, 5.5/6) 2927
Navara (Czech Republic, board 1, 6/7) 2916
Kramnik (Russia, board 1, 4/5) 2914
Laznicka (Czech Republic, board 4, 6.5/7) 2894
Akopian (Armenia, board 2, 6/7) 2864
A. Zhigalko (Belarus, board 5, 5.5/6) 2847
Iuldachev (Uzbekistan, board 5, 4.5/5) 2825
Sargissian (Armenia, board 5, 7/8) 2817
Bu Xiangzhi (China, board 1, 5/7) 2806
Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan, board 1, 3.5/5) 2803

Some brief comments. First, I'm not surprised to see Karjakin doing so well, as with only minor setbacks in his career thus far he has been making dazzling progress year after year. It seems like he's been around forever, but he's still only 16 years old. Navara is another talented youngster (21 years old), and while Kramnik's a ripe "old" man of 30, it's nice to see him back and playing well.

The fourth player, Viktor Laznicka, is one I had never even heard of until I saw this list! "Just" one more 17-year old grandmaster, but if he keeps up this sort of performance, he'll emerge into the mainstream soon. I'd also like to call attention to now ex-prodigy Bu Xiangzhi, erstwhile owner of the youngest-ever GM title. While his FIDE rating is an impressive 2645, his progress seems to have been rather slow the last few years, so it's nice to see him making another jump. (His results so far include draws with Kramnik and Anand, and a win over Kamsky.)

I'm referring to the computer world championship, which is the event featuring the strongest chess players on Earth, except that no one's playing. Bracketing the metaphysics for the moment, the current standings after 6 of 11 rounds offer great advertising for ChessBase, as Shredder and Junior are tied for first with 4.5 points. Half a point back are pre-event favorites Rajlich (a version of Rybka) and Zappa (aka Zap!Chess - another ChessBase product), along with Johnny and DIEP.

Full results here.

From reader Michal Rudolf:

I only recently came across your blog and now I am reading archives with utmost interest.

I can fill some missing data, but I wasn't able to post it. Let's start with that: http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1139373395.shtml

If it is of any interest to you, the study is by M. Matous (Czechoslovakia), it was published in Polish chess magazine "Szachy" in 1975.

Michal,

I'm glad you're finding the old blog posts of interest! There's a lot of material there, and it would be disappointing if new readers neglected all that work for no better reason than that it wasn't written within the last day or two. So thank you.

More than that, thank you for filling in the details about this position and the accompanying problem:

It's a neat study, and I'm glad we can give its author his proper due. (I've also made the correction on the original page, too.) Readers new to this blog are invited to work it out for themselves before following the above link's own links to the solution.

then how's 1,000,000? The explanation follows, from reader Ron Fenton:

Dennis, Some of my recent problem compositions are built around the concept of gaining or losing a tempo - a theme not found in the index of any of my books on the subject. This led me to Google 'tempo in chess problems' which led me to this: http://www.combinatorics.org/Volume_11/PDF/v11i2a4.pdf

There's a lot of math to wade through (and I'm not sure how many of your readers would find it of interest) but one can learn a lot from the remaining text and diagrams. Near the bottom of the article (where the term 'tempo' finally shows up) is problem #8 - a composition by Mr. Elkies that can be mathematically shown to have EXACTLY a million solutions. Ron

Tonight, the technical troubles bug struck again, so to compensate those who bailed because of the difficulties, to reward those who stuck around despite them, and as an enticement for those who haven't yet watched the show, I've linked to my show notes, right here. Best of all, this one time only, I've even added a downloadable pgn file, so you can savor the three horrible losses I've included over and over to your delight. (Couldn't I have picked a better week for computer problems?)

Click here.

Have you ever stayed up late at night, wondering how long it might take to win the ending king, queen and knight vs. king, rook, bishop and knight? ("If only you knew!" I hear you saying.) That ending is often a draw, as you might expect, but there is one position, with the krbn side to move, where the kqn side can force a winning "subending" (to use Tim Krabbé's apt term) in 517 moves.

You read correctly: 517 moves.

Limber up your mouse finger and have a look here; it's item 316.

For many decades, the Georgian women had a stranglehold on the world championship, and this was only overcome in 1991 – and it wasn’t by a Polgar! Rather, it was a young woman from China, Xie Jun, who inaugurated a new era in women’s chess, defeating then-champion Maya Chiburdanidze 8.5-6.5. She was women’s world champion from 1991 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2001, when she withdrew from world championship play.

This Monday night at our consuetudinary hour (9 p.m. ET) we’ll examine one of this grandmaster’s games, but not from her battles for the title, but from one of the entertaining (but now, sadly, defunct) Veterans vs. Women matches. Her opponent in this 1994 tussle was Danish legend Bent Larsen, a player in the world’s absolute elite in the 1960s and ‘70s. Both Xie Jun and Larsen are very aggressive players, but this game is a gem of positional play. White emerges from the opening, a Pirc, with a slight edge, and manages to maintain and increase her grip through to the attractive finish. The game is interesting and artistic, and Xie Jun’s play is a masterpiece of prophylactic thinking. (Painful bonus: one of my losses will be presented as we review the theory of the line.)

As always, directions for watching live (or archived) shows can be found here, while a list of games covered in those archived shows is available here.

Just as with Karpov's 2.5-1.5 rapid chess victory over Kasparov in 2002, Spassky's victory over Karpov in a 15+5 (15 minutes per side for the game, with 5 second increments after each move) match this past Friday (May 26) in Corsica was objectively meaningless but surely emotionally fulfilling, as the winner in each case obtained a minute quantity of revenge for earlier, far more significant, defeats.

So congratulations to Spassky, whose win (with some comments on the endgame) can be found here. Once upon a time, chess writers wrote about having a queenside majority as if it automatically conferred a significant edge on its possessor. The thinking was that it would generate an outside passed pawn, and while the weaker side was blockading it, the stronger side would head for the opponent's kingside pawns at a timely moment.

Nowadays, the queenside majority mantra has been rejected; if anything, most players prefer the opposing majority - generally 4 on 3 on the kingside with the extra pawn on the e-file. The reason: that majority will sometimes provide its possessor a significant spatial advantage in the center.

In this game, however, the old model held sway with apparent textbook precision, but in truth it took three errors before Black was clearly lost. It's an instructive ending deserving study, and I hope you'll all take advantage of it: if Karpov had something to learn here, surely we do, too!

From the game Stefanova-Zatonskih in round 5; it's Black to make her 34th move:



White's up the exchange, but Black has compensation. The more minor bit of compensation is the hanging d-pawn; the more significant the relatively weak White king. Perhaps the U.S. women's champ was in time pressure, but she was able to find and execute an elegant drawing combination. What was it, and was there anything better?

Click here for the answers.

Lots of fun games in today's round, which left the standings pretty much where they were coming in. Co-leaders Russia and Armenia (15.5 apiece) drew their match, while closest followers Holland (15) and Uzbekistan (14.5) did the same. No team has caught the Uzbeks for fourth, but seven teams (Bulgaria, Ukraine, Spain, Belarus, the U.S., Iran (!!) and Sweden) are just half a point behind (at 14, obviously). (Full standings here.)

On the women's side of the event, Russia leads with 12.5 (for some unobvious reason, the women play three-board matches instead of four, so their point totals are correspondingly lower), Ukraine has 12, Hungary 11.5 and eight teams (including the U.S.) have 11. Surprisingly, traditional powers China and Georgia are part of a tie for 14th-19th places, with just 10 points. (Full results here.)

Now to the games I've chosen to attach. The first is from the Russia-Armenia match, and it shows Kramnik 2.0 continuing to display excellent form, as he dispatched Aronian in convincing style.

Next, an amusing pair of games from the U.S. - Georgia match, in which both Kamsky and Nakamura use the Slav line Kamsky used, unsuccessfully, in the penultimate round of the MTel Masters against Topalov. Kamsky won, Nakamura lost.

After that, I present the game Navara-Kozul, mainly because it features a nice concluding combination - a bit of tactics practice for those in need of a puzzle fix.

Next up: the drawn game Kozlov (2290) against Adams (2720), just to provide a reminder that almost anything is possible in chess.

Finally, two insane games (and then one of my own): Mitkov-Lautier and Sammalvuo-Gausel. In the first game, Mitkov turns an offbeat Sicilian into a goofy sort of King's Gambit, successfully winds his way through the complications against his elite opponent, only to slip up and let Lautier escape the lost ending with a draw.

Even stranger and definitely more amusing was Sammalvuo-Gausel. White plays the stodgy Spanish Four Knights, and against the current antidote 4...Bd6 the Finnish player attempted to blast his opponent off the board with 5.g4!? a6 6.Bc4 Bc5 7.Ng5(?). He was probably hoping for a quick game; if so, he got his wish - though not the desired result. It's a funny game, and see the next game as a sort of "appendix", where I produced a(n almost) new g4 idea that turned out well.

The games are available here.

Let's start with the easy part. The 14th World Computer Chess Championship started today (Wednesday) in Torino (Turin), Italy, part of the great big festival featuring the Olympiad. Fritz isn't entered, but the other big guns are: Zappa (aka "Zap!Chess"), Rybka (named "Rajlich" here, after its programmer), Shredder, Junior, freeware favorite Crafty, and others. The event home page is here; results page here.

...at least so far.

First, the overall standings: Russia started with two 4-0 whitewashes, and have continued quite successfully in the meantime, as contenders are already facing each other. Speaking of contenders, Russia's opponent in round 5 will be the very strong Armenian team, starring world number 3 or 4 Levon Aronian and 1999 FIDE k.o. runner-up Vladimir Akopian.

Both teams have 13.5 (out of 16), half a point ahead of the Netherlands and a full point ahead of Uzbekistan (led by Kasimdzhanov). Further back, but not too much further back, are most of the usual suspects, including Ukraine (12), India, China and the US (11.5). Surprising underachievers thus far are France with 10 and England with 9.5, but it's early yet; there are nine rounds to go.

As for the other headline, Kramnik came out with a bang in round 3, easily defeating 2005 Dortmund winner Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany with the White pieces. (Replay the game, with my brief comments, here.) Round 4 wasn't a win, but his hard-fought draw with Black against Bu Xiangzhi of China offered continued hope for a return to form. This next round, with him taking on Aronian, will be a real test of his form and preparation - hopefully there won't be any quick handshakes here.

Yesterday's flurry of posts included an endgame exercise: take the following position (discovered [invented, if you're not a Platonist of any sort] by Brian Karen), with White to move, and prove a win.



White's bishop is much better than Black's knight, but there are various complicating factors. The first is that his a-pawn is in trouble, the second is that he's a pawn down, and the third is the specter of a bishop + wrong-colored rook pawn ending - if the Black king can reach h8 and the knight grab the a-pawn, Black can lose all his guys and still draw.

Try to work it out first, and when you're ready to see the solution, click here.

An FYI for the readers, from Sevan Muradian of the North American Chess Association:

Greetings:

I am Sevan A. Muradian, President of the North American Chess Association (NACA). NACA was founded to help further the interests of scholastic, amateur, and professional chess across the North American continent.

We have recently released our first monthly publication, the North American Chess Review. Currently membership to the organization is free and you can access the publication with a simple registration (www.nachess.org/benefits.aspx). Additionally with registration comes access to the real time chat rooms, threaded discussion forums, and for organizers the ability to post their chess related events, services, and products on the website through an automated system that anyone (member or non-member) can search.

[snip]

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Good Chess to All,

Sevan A. Muradian, President North American Chess Association www.nachess.org

Susan Grumer ("Inky"), a long-time reader of this blog and former FIDE delegate, has written in support of Bessel Kok's candidacy; you can read her letter here.

The full results for the men's section can be found here (women's results are here); I'll just point out some of the shocking team results in this post.

First, Morocco defeated second seed India by an impressive 3-1 margin, despite being significantly outrated on every board.

Second, the USA defeated New Zealand, as expected, given a gap of 240 to 313 points on every board, but only by a 2.5-1.5 margin.

Third and finally, Azerbaijan could only draw with Mongolia, despite having 3 GMs against 2 FMs.

There are others as well, but I'll leave the browsing to you - that's part of the fun of the event.

As expected, Topalov concluded his dramatic comeback with his fourth consecutive win. His defeat of Bacrot left him with a final score of 6.5/10, good enough for a half-point edge over Kamsky, who drew with Svidler. Anand could have caught Kamsky in a second-place tie, had he defeated Ponomariov, but despite having a winning position late in the first time control, he allowed his opponent to escape with a draw. (Shockingly, Anand found himself in time trouble for the second straight round, something which has almost never happened to him in his entire career. I hope this is just an aberration and not the beginning of the end of his career as a peak performer.)

Congratulations to Topalov! One can only wonder what his rating would look like if he'd put two halves of a tournament together (two lousy first halves in MTel the past two years, likewise for the first half of Morelia/Linares this year, and his 7 straight draws in San Luis last year). Even without it, it looks like he'll surpass Kasparov's retirement rating of 2812 on the next list, though he still has a ways to go to catch the all-time mark of 2851.

As for the rest of the players, several are off to Torino to join their nation's olympic teams: Kamsky, Anand, Svidler and Bacrot are playing, while Topalov and Ponomariov are not.

Final Results:

Topalov 6.5 (out of 10)
Kamsky 6
Anand 5.5
Svidler 5
Bacrot, Ponomariov 3.5

It wasn't the most successful tournament for the great Jose Capablanca, but the Moscow 1925 event did feature one of his most complicated and subsequently well-analyzed wins ever, his game with tournament winner Efim Bogoljubow. Desperately trying to catch Emanuel Lasker for second and to inflict defeat on the runaway leader, Capablanca played sharply, sacrificing a piece on move nine for a terrific attack. Despite a crucial error at a key moment, the Cuban legend found resource after resource to keep his winning chances alive, and finally outplayed "Bogo" to collect the full point.

Neither side played perfectly, but the game was fascinating despite the mutual errors. Indeed, the errors contributed to the richness of the game - all sorts of crazy positions arose that wouldn't have, had the players executed their moves with mathematical precision.

It is, or at least was, one of the most famous games in Capablanca's career, and as such is worth knowing for historical reasons. Yet even more important is what we can learn from the game: there are lessons regarding opening theory, on how to attack (even in the absence of queens) and defend, and on the psychological failings that affected Capablanca at this stage of his career, and that might affect many of us as well. The game is an instructional gold mine!

I therefore hope to see all of you this Monday night at 9 pm ET on ChessBase's playchess server; remember, it's free! If you need directions on how to watch (whether live or archived shows), click here; if you'd like to see a list of games covered in previous shows (and available in the archives), click here.

Here's a position created by Brian Karen as an exercise for his students: White to move and win.



It's not particularly artistic, so if you try to solve it like a study, searching for some brilliant idea, you'll frustrate yourself. It is a reasonably challenging exercise, however; in fact, while Brian intended it to be relatively easy, he found to his surprise that it was rather difficult - even for him!

Solution to be given later.

Incredibly, Veselin Topalov has yet again come back from a poor start to wind up in first, crushing round 8 leader Gata Kamsky with the Black pieces. It was a rather strange game: Kamsky played 6.Bg5 vs. the Najdorf, Topalov replied with the Poisoned Pawn, and Kamsky kept the pawn with 7.Nb3. This retreat is widely considered innocuous, as White's attacking prospects are dramatically decreased without the knight on d4, yet Kamsky has played this line repeatedly in the last six months. The decision to play 7.Nb3 instead of 7.Qd2 and heading for one of the many drawing lines was also an impractical decision, as such an approach would keep his full-point lead over Topalov and guarantee him at least a tie for first. (I'm generally not a fan of quick draws in such events, but when they guarantee first place my hostility towards them goes out the window - the goal is to win the tournament.)

At any rate, Kamsky apparently forgot his intended move order when he played 13.Qh3 rather than 13.Kb1, and although his move wasn't a blunder, his position disintegrated rapidly. (The game can be replayed here, with some brief notes.) That leaves Topalov and Kamsky tied for first, half a point ahead of Anand. Anand could have caught them with a win over Svidler, but in the event he had slightly the more nervous half of their draw. Finally, tailenders Bacrot and Ponomariov split the point.

Standings after Round 9:

Topalov, Kamsky 5.5
Anand 5
Svidler 4.5
Bacrot 3.5
Ponomariov 3

Pairings for Round 10 (the final round):

Topalov-Bacrot
Ponomariov-Anand
Svidler-Kamsky

It's possible for the tournament to conclude with a four-way tie for first, but objectively speaking, the pairings clearly give Topalov good chances for clear first.

A few weeks ago I offered the endgame of Fedorchuk-Simonenko as an exercise to my readers. White won, but the position was drawn for a long time before Black finally went astray. The task, for those who chose to accept it, was to figure out where Black lost the game, and - after an overly long, if understandable delay - the details can be found here.

[Congrats to Chris Falter, who not only solved the puzzle but also found an elegant defensive idea for Black a few moves earlier that would have made the draw even simpler.]

It's a 13-round event starting today and continuing through June 4, and it's should be a great event! The top seed is Russia (of course), and their listed board order is as follows:

Kramnik(!)
Svidler
Grischuk
Morozevich
Bareev
Rublevsky

The second seeded team is India (Anand will play), third is Armenia (Aronian, Akopian, etc.), fourth is Ukraine (Ivanchuk, Volokitin, Karjakin, etc., but no Ponomariov), fifth is France, sixth Israel and seventh the United States (Kamsky, Onischuk, Nakamura, etc.).

There are 149 men's teams, 108 women's teams, and perhaps the most important competition in the chess world: the Ilyumzhinov-Kok election.

Website here.

Some readers may disagree with me, but I find the recent trend in chess books to "revise" original works without the author's consent a disturbing one. John Nunn did this with Irving Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move, Nunn and the Batsford team did so infamously with Bobby Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games, and now, as reported by Edward Winter here, Random House has done it in spades with Nick de Firmian's bowdlerized version of Jose Raoul Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals. Nine of Capablanca's self-annotated games were omitted in the interest of making room for newer games. My view is that if the publisher wants to update the book, he or she can add an appendix, but to make such drastic revisions to the text strikes me as utterly disrespectful to the author and the notion of authorship in general. (There are exceptions such as Modern Chess Openings, but this isn't a problem for my thesis: the original author himself repeatedly updated the work - its whole point was to offer up-to-date opening information.)

Readers who are similarly bothered might want to write the company (respectfully!):

Random House Puzzles & Games
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

I will.

In round 5, Topalov sacked the exchange (rook for a bishop) against Kamsky and won; in round 7, Topalov outplayed Anand with rook against bishop and knight; while in round 8 he again gave up a rook for a bishop against Ponomariov and won. This led to the following brilliant kibitz after Topalov's round 8 game, to which I have nothing to add:

[1] elastase(FM) kibitzes: TOPA-UNITS are magic in chess: bishop>rook, but bishop+knight [is less than a] rook ?????

Here he comes again! After doing his level best for 6 rounds to secure a place in the bottom half and to play Santa Claus with his rating points, Topalov has come come back into contention, defeating Anand in round 7 and Ponomariov in round 8. Against Anand, he never had a concrete advantage until near the end, but his sustained initiative kept the pressure on until his great opponent cracked. As for the Ponomariov game, he went a bit overboard in search of kingside attacking chances, but Ponomariov missed a nice shot and his won game turned into a loss.

As for the leader, Kamsky drew in both rounds - in round 8 with Anand - and thus maintains a one-point lead over Topalov and Anand. And that sets up a terrific round 9:

Pairings for Round 9:

Kamsky-Topalov
Anand-Svidler
Bacrot-Ponomariov

Standings after Round 8:

Kamsky 5.5
Anand, Topalov 4.5
Svidler 4
Bacrot 3
Ponomariov 2.5

The Topalov-Ponomariov game can be replayed here, along with two predecessor versions of his winning idea.

News flash: they're all terribly strong! The mightiest of the lot is...well, it depends on your machine. IF you have a quad processor machine, then Zap!Chess [sic] is the top dog with a 2995 rating.

If you're like me, however, and have a lowly single-processor machine, then Rybka is the boss, only one point below Zap!Chess at 2994. Pretty remarkable: just as strong as ZC, yet with only one-fourth the processing power.

The gap between these two engines (in various versions) and the rest of the field is pretty substantial, with Deep Shredder 9 (on a dual-processor machine) and Fritz 9 enjoying ratings in the 2850s. (Go here for the details.) The good news for Shredder fans like me is that Shredder 10 and its Deep (i.e. multiprocessor) version will be sold by ChessBase next week (on the 24th), and the product blurb promises an 80 point increase on all previous versions. That would place it around 2930-2940, not too far behind Zap! and Rybka.

So what should the customer do? That depends on several factors. If you don't have any ChessBase software, then if you have a single processor machine, I'd recommend waiting a few days for Shredder. That way you get their excellent interface, two one-year accounts on their Playchess server (where I do my Monday night shows), a database, and some nifty programming allowing much faster tablebase access than usual for chess engines.

If you have ChessBase software and a multiprocessor machine, then Zap!Chess might well be the best choice, as its programmer specially designed the engine for that very purpose.

If you're already set up with ChessBase and, like me, are still in the stone ages (i.e. using a single processor machine), then while Shredder will give it a run for the money if the promise comes true, Rybka is the king of the hill, at least for the moment. Further, when you purchase Rybka, you're purchasing a subscription, and thus as new mini-releases come available (as they have with some frequency thus far), you get them right away.

As I wrote at the end of my previous post, however, tools are our servants, not our masters. And while chess engines and other chess software make wonderful tools, when we let them do our work for us, we've gone off the rails. If you want to improve, then the correct order is minds first and second, computers third, and minds again in fourth. (Decoded, I mean this: first, play; second, analyze your games; third, check your moves and analysis (interactively!) with the computer; fourth, extract lessons from the computer analysis. Rinse and repeat.)

The story of round five was the completion of an ourobouros cycle: in round two, Anand beat Topalov; in round three, Kamsky beat Anand; finally, in round five, Topalov notched his first win, giving Kamsky his first loss. Anand drew with Svidler, and that put him in a tie for first at the end of the round.

Round six commenced the event's second cycle, repeating the pairings of round one, but with colors reversed. In last year's MTel Masters, Topalov made a great comeback in the second half from another slow start, but despite history and the psychological boost from the previous round, Topalov lost, with White, to Svidler. Conversely, Kamsky shook off whatever negative effects he suffered the previous round, defeating Ponomariov, while Anand's draw with Bacrot dropped him half a point behind.

Standings after Round 6:

Kamsky 4.5
Anand 4
Svidler 3.5
Topalov 2.5
Bacrot 2
Ponomariov 1.5

Pairings for Round 7:

Bacrot-Kamsky
Anand-Topalov
Ponomariov-Svidler

The Topalov-Kamsky game was exceptionally interesting, and GM Marin's annotations only scratch the surface of its depth. On the other hand, I'm not even going to scratch its surface, but I'll make up for it by showing an oldie but goodie featuring the Rxe6 sac. (Granted, the resemblance isn't that great, but it's such a fun game you probably won't care.) Have a look.

Al Steiner writes in to ask about this position:

Dennis,

Bishops of opposite color, 1 extra pawn for black, white to move and….. draw? A few of us at chessbase tried to work this out, and cannot find a win for white OR a draw. Black always seems to get the black bishop and then the win. What do you think?

...If it is truly an odd position, where opposite color bishops don’t draw, then I thought you might be able to use it on “The Chess Mind”. If not, then just chuck it in the recycle bin. Yes, it is my game. I couldn’t find a draw with fritz, and neither could a friend with rybka. Then again, I’m no fritz expert.

We played with it for a while, and it seems the h pawn keeps white’s king on the kingside, and therefore white cannot prevent the outside passed pawn with out giving up his bishop.

Thanks for writing, Al: your letter affords the opportunity to remind the readers of at least three very important points. First, nowhere near all opposite-colored bishop endings are drawn; second, a handy rule of thumb for evaluating whether an ending is a win or a draw is the so-called principle of two weaknesses; third, beware of the glib generalizations of beginners' books. We'll take each point in turn, but first let me offer the bottom line about this position: It's a straightforward win for Black, as the passed h-pawn and pending passed a-pawn stretch White's defenses beyond what they can bear.

(1) Opposite-colored bishop endings

Opposite-colored bishop endings do have a higher drawing ratio than other endings, for two reasons. First, it's often possible for the weaker side to arrange the pawns so they're immune to attack. If the strong side has a light-squared bishop and all the pawns are on dark squares, protected by (a) other pawns, (b) the bishop, and/or (c) the king, then that's the end of that, unless the strong side also has a passed pawn to bother the opponent. Second, when there is a passed pawn, the weaker side can often blockade it on a square whose color is the same as its bishop and opposite that of the opponent's.

(2) The principle of two weaknesses

That's the good news for the defender. The bad news is that there are plenty of exceptions, and the position above is one of them. And here we can combine our first and second main points: not all opposite-colored bishops are drawn, and we can identify that this is likely one of those exceptions on account of White's two "weaknesses".

Let's parse this statement - what does it mean? All of White's pawns are defended and will be safe practically forever, so where are the weaknesses? The answer is that "weakness" is used in an extended sense; here it refers, roughly, to anything a player needs to defend or defend against: a pawn, a square, the king, a queening threat, etc. And White has to defend against two big threats: the h-pawn and the a-pawn. If it was only one or the other, then White could draw in his sleep, but the two together leave him in a hopeless situation. (For some analytical confirmation, click here.)

(3) Rules of thumb

I close with a reminder. Basic books offering rules of thumb are quite useful to beginners, helping reduce the buzzing blooming confusion of the chess board to something more manageable. The sober truth, however, is that the game is very concrete, and exceptions abound. Opposite-colored bishop endings can be won and lost, and in the middle game they often favor the attacking side. It's often fine to move pieces more than once in the opening (think of White's Ng1-f3xd4-b5-a3-c2-e3 in the Sveshnikov Sicilian), to bring the queen out early, to grab "poisoned" pawns, and so on.

These rules of thumb are only tools, not immutable laws. As such, they are our servants, not our masters, and if a tool doesn't help for the job at hand, we should change tools, not jobs!

While I'm pleased and honored to count GM Mikhail Golubev among the readers of my blog, it would be too much to expect him to watch my ChessBase show as well. Therefore, since he was kind enough to cite my blog analysis in his thorough Chess Today notes to the game Christiansen-Wojtkiewicz, I'll reciprocate by posting some of my additions (and perhaps improvements?) to his analysis at the key moments of the game.

Those who are interested - a group hopefully including the aforementioned grandmaster - are invited to click here.

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, Ljubomir Ljubojevic was one of the world's strongest GMs. He has been essentially retired from the game for some years now, and as far as I can tell, only plays competitively in the Dutch Team Championships. My databases reveal two "Ljubo" games from that event in 2004, two more games in 2005, and now, in 2006, still two more. The nostalgic are invited to replay them, here.

GM Vladimir Malakhov has again taken up the banner of Zvjaginsev's 2.Na3 anti-Sicilian, this time against Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran. Sasikiran, as befits a grandmaster of his status, has devised a new, clever reply to the Na3 variation: 2...a6. This is a sensible idea: it prevents Bb5 lines, while allowing Black great flexibility in responding to whatever setup White chooses. Is this the cure? It's probably too soon to say with complete certainty, but it looks promising, both on general principles and in the workings of this game in particular.

There was a rare invitational event in Indianapolis this past weekend, graciously arranged and funded by Drew Hollinberger of the Circle City Chess Club. It featured a strong mix of Indiana and out-of-state players, and was won by IMs Calvin Blocker and Jan van de Mortel with 3.5/5.

The game that most caught my eye from this event, however, was played by Indiana masters John Cole and James Mills. Let's start here:



(Position after 28...Nbc4)

Though the game was an Advance Caro-Kann, it has all the earmarks of the King's Indian Attack. White has commenced the traditional kingside pile-up, while Black is ready to break through on the queenside and gobble up the a-pawn. It's White to move; what should he do? Work it out, and when you're ready to see what happened and to take a look at the game in its entirety, click here.

One of the peculiarities of the current world championship "system" is the new policy of allowing anyone over 2700 FIDE to challenge the champion if he (or she) can acquire a sponsor willing to pony up the dough. Apparently that's at least part of the justification for the (presumably) forthcoming Kramnik-Topalov match, and now the report is that Topalov will play Radjabov in 2007, assuming the former gets past Kramnik this year (an assumption I'm unwilling to grant, assuming the latter is in good health).

It probably also assumes an Ilyumzhinov win in the upcoming FIDE elections; hopefully a Bessel Kok presidency will disallow a return to the bad old days when the champion was bigger than the title. So while it would be an entertaining match, it's one I hope doesn't happen.

Larry Christiansen didn’t win the U.S. Chess Championship this year, but he did win its most memorable game. His opponent, Aleksander Wojtkiewicz, is a real Najdorf specialist, but on this occasion it was Christiansen who was ready with some fantastic preparation in Fischer’s 6.Bc4 variation. It is often the case in the Najdorf that the long term factors favor Black, but first he has to survive the middlegame – and so it was here. In return for a piece, White achieved two major gains: serious attacking chances and incredible complexity. (The complexity affects both players, but at least part of that complexity Christiansen had worked at home. Unsurprisingly, Wojtkiewicz went astray and his opponent went on to win a brilliant miniature.)

Those factors, plus the game’s theoretical significance, make this a great game to study and analyze – and sure enough, strong players have been lining up to publish their thoughts on this game. We’ll take a look at what’s been said so far, as well as what we’re able to find in our analysis. All together it should make for a splendid Monday evening (9 p.m. ET) – I hope to see you then!

[Directions for watching the show (or for watching older, archived shows) are available here, while a list of games covered in previous shows can be accessed here.

In round 2, Anand beat Topalov (giving him a +1 score in their career head-to-head record) and he won in round 4 as well. Unfortunately for him, he lost in round 3 to Kamsky, who also won in rounds 2 and 4. Surprisingly, Kamsky has won his last three games against Anand, the last two coming this year, despite his long hiatus from the game.

The chess has been interesting if not especially good (just quoting Anand here!), and those interested in seeing the games, with commentary, should visit the following links:

Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4 (No annotations yet.)

Standings after Round 4:

Kamsky 3.5 (with a 3086 TPR!)
Anand 3
Svidler 2
Topalov 1.5 (with no wins)
Bacrot, Ponomariov 1

Pairings for Round 5:

Topalov-Kamsky
Svidler-Anand
Ponomariov-Bacrot

Two notes: first, the games are starting at 7:30 a.m. ET, not 8:30 as previously reported. Second, a reminder, there's a rest day after tomorrow's (Monday's) round, on Tuesday.

My weekend has been delightful, with a good chunk of it spent reformatting my computer. Everything still isn't wholly back to normal, but I'll get some posts up soon.

As soon as I realized that 2.Na3 was in part a waiting move - waiting for 2...Nc6, which would be met by some combination of Bb5, c3 and f4 (before committing to Nf3), hoping for a favorable Rossolimo, I wondered why Black didn't respond with 2...d6. For those of you wondering the same thing, take a look at Malakhov-Nisipeanu, a high-level game played yesterday in the 36th Bosnia GM tournament.

Ironically, while 2...d6 has been rare and the game enters new territory on move six, it turns out that these trailblazers wind back up in familiar territory eight moves later...in a Modern Benoni!

Three long games, one win. In the battle of the grinders Ponomariov gave Kamsky a workout, but the American GM held for the draw. Meanwhile, Topalov outplayed Svidler with the Black pieces, but was unable to maintain his advantage and Svidler held the rook + opposite colored bishops ending without too much trouble. The decisive game was Bacrot-Anand, won by the Indian player. A sharp sequence in the early middlegame led to an exchange of White's queen for two rooks, and after some inaccuracies, the Black queen proved more dangerous in the open board than the rooks.

It's a good start to the event, and it should get even better in the morning: take a look at the pairings and you'll see why.

Results for Round 1:

Ponomariov-Kamsky 1/2-1/2
Svidler-Topalov 1/2-1/2
Bacrot-Anand 0-1

Pairings for Round 2:

Topalov-Anand
Svidler-Ponomariov
Kamsky-Bacrot

The games can be replayed here, on the ChessBase site.

GM Yasser Seirawan has been an important figure in the chess world for over two decades: first as a great talent and a world-class grandmaster, as an author and publisher of the unfortunately now-defunct Inside Chess, and - of greatest relevance to this post - as one of the more positive forces in world chess politics.

He is perhaps best known, politically, for his work as a prime mover behind the important Prague Agreement, but his contributions did not end in 2002. Lately he has been involved with Bessel Kok's The Right Move campaign for the FIDE Presidency, and has written a characteristically well-informed, insightful and incisive Open Letter to all national chess federations.

Among the many points of interest in this Letter, one especially caught my eye: FIDE's funding of chess in schools went from $19,469 (per country?) in 2000 to - get this - $512 in 2004. In light of figures like this, it's hard to take seriously Karpov's criticism that Kok (presumably unlike Ilyumzhinov - otherwise why make the comment?) is too focused on professional chess. Riiiiiight.

The Letter is worth reading, especially if you have the ear of chess politicians. Also, if you're curious about the Kok/Seirawan solution to the world championship mess (and it is a mess, even if the Kramnik-Topalov match goes off without a hitch), you can see their proposed solution here.

At 8:30 ET, to be precise. It's a six player, double-round robin event starting Thursday, May 11 and continuing through Sunday, May 21 in Sofia, Bulgaria. After round 5, the players will have a rest day (May 16) and all the rounds start at the same time, except for the last round, which begins an hour earlier. The players are:

Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) 2804
Viswanathan Anand (India) 2803
Peter Svidler (Russia) 2743
Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine) 2738
Etienne Bacrot (France) 2708
Gata Kamsky (USA) 2671

Pairings for Round 1:

Svidler-Topalov
Ponomariov-Kamsky
Bacrot-Anand

Click here for the tournament website.

If you want to create chess diagrams and don't have a program like Fritz or ChessBase, then there are a number of free programs on the web you might want to consider. Most of the ones I've seen offer only boring black and white, but ChessUp.net generates diagrams with a ChessBase-like color scheme. If your price range is from $0 to $0, then have a look!

Writers like Garry Kasparov and John Watson, among others, have often emphasized the concreteness of contemporary play, in distinction from chess in the good old days, when positional judgments tended to rest on rules of thumb ("a knight on the rim is dim", "don't move pieces twice in the opening", "don't grab poisoned pawns", etc.). Here's a representative quotation:

Chess is not for timid souls. It demands a whole man, who does not stick slavishly to what has been handed down, but attempts independently to prove the depths of the game. It is true that I am hard to please and critical, but shouldn't one become critical if one so often has to hear superficial opinions about positions which can only be clarified by a thorough investigation[?] Shouldn't one worry if one sees how antiquated methods are clung to in a dependent way merely to avoid having one's comfort disturbed[?] Yes, chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection; only diligent investigation can satisfy. Only ruthless criticism can lead to the goal. But no one will ever draw me away from the road to truth.

The writer?

The first official world champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, doesn’t receive the honor he’s due as a great player and a trailblazer, but this week, we’ll do what we can to rectify this. We’ll focus on his win over world champion Emanuel Lasker from the 1895/96 St. Petersburg tournament, a remarkably energetic game won by Steinitz – at age 59 – over his 27-year-old rival. The opening should be of great interest to club players, as Steinitz successfully uses a plan that has long disappeared from professional play but which still gives amateurs fits. We’ll discuss the proper solution here and in another, analogous and relevant case. Steinitz’s play in this game is a model: the opening succeeds, the middlegame finds him increasing his advantage by positional means, and then, once Lasker tries desperately to sharpen things up, Steinitz finishes him off with a sac and an attack.

It’s a game worth seeing and studying, so please join me this Monday night at 9 pm ET – hope to see you then!

(Directions for watching the show (and archived shows, too) can be found here, while a list of games covered in previous shows is available here.)

Sorry about the recent trickle of posts - it's a busy time at the end of the semester, and to compound things I've had various computer annoyances to deal with as well. Things will be back to normal soon, fear not! (Then again, you get what you pay for...)

An Indian film, now available on DVD. Click here for more details. [HT: Boylston Chess Club Blog.]

Have a look here, and check out entries 4343 and especially 4342. (Topic: The origin of the exclamation point in chess.)

Understandably, Shirov is not a happy camper: first the Shirov Kramnik-Kasparov match, now this.

It didn't affect the result of the game, but in this position from the Dubai Open, GM Tigran Petrosian (not that Tigran Petrosian!) missed something. It's Black to move: can you find it?



I assume you've succeeded; to see the whole game, click here.

The game Fedorchuk-Simonenko from the Dubai Open saw Black suffer a long, long time in a drawn ending before finally going astray and losing. But where did he go wrong? Start on move 77 and go forward (or start from the end and work your backward) and see what you can find. (But don't use your chess engines - they'll give you the right answer immediately!) It's good practice, a bit of a challenge (otherwise Simonenko wouldn't have gone astray), but not too difficult for a player with some background knowledge to figure out.

The game is here. The solution will be given in a few days; please do not comment your answers.

The Sveshnikov Sicilian is dynamic variation featuring prominently in the opening repertoires of such contemporary greats as Kramnik, Leko and Radjabov, and has been played occasionally by Kasparov, Topalov and Shirov. And yet, even in the Sveshnikov, there are ways to take the air out of the ball. Check out these two vastly different games, both played this past week.

From the first paragraph of the Introduction to Mikhail Golubev's Understanding the King's Indian (Gambit Publications, 2006, p. 5):

The author has used this opening with Black for more than 25 years. How I got started was slightly unusual. When I was 8 or 9, I played a training game with a friend from my chess club, Dima Novokhatko. After 1 c4 I noticed a certain weakening of the a1-h8 diagonal, and answered with 1...g6.

What?!

Most of us as experienced adults won't notice any such weakening, and he did as a youngster. Impressive! I wonder how many other GMs can tell similarly precocious stories.