The Chess Mind

Looking at just one game a week is well and good, but more games are better. Therefore, we'll feature a whole series of games, featuring such greats as Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov and Kramnik. What an array!

We'll start with game 12 of the 1961 Fischer-Reshevsky match, and then we'll move on to game 2 of Fischer's amazing 1972 match with Spassky. (I might even throw in bonus coverage of Fischer's last-round win over Panno from the 1970 Interzonal!)

That's just for starters, though. Next up is game 49 from the first Karpov-Kasparov match. Karpov was just one win away from keeping his title, while Kasparov had won the last two games. What would happen next??

Finally, we'll recap Friday's incredible game five from the Kramnik-Topalov match. This is MUST-SEE chess at its finest.

Afterwards, we'll find something else to do for the remaining 55+ minutes.

(Stay tuned for the real blurb later tonight or early tomorrow.)

Next victim: Stanford.

Note the new Notre Dame category page, as well as the new sidebar links to various sites celebrating (almost) everyone's favorite college football team.

1. FIDE President Kirsan Iljumzhinov has spoken to Kramnik and Danailov (Topalov's manager), but without success as of this report. Iljumzhinov is allegedly neutral, but one bit from the interview suggests otherwise:

Ilyumzhinov: There is only one lever, which I mentioned to both Kramnik and Topalov – millions of chess fans all over the world, who are looking forward to beautiful games and not for legal disputes. This is the most important issue! I told them: break away from your disputes, look around, you are not playing only for yourselves, you are playing for the entire chess world. You are the ones who say that chess is in lack of investors, and now you are doing everything in order to even decrease their number. Yesterday and today I keep receiving telephone calls from the representatives of those companies, which I attract for sponsoring of the chess competitions. They are asking me: “How come, the two most intelligent chess players cannot share a toilet with each other? So no sense for us to interfere, with our millions….” [My emphasis.]

Of course, the bolded passage reflects an anti-Kramnik stance, and reflects a point of view that's in the minority among my readers and the other commentators I've seen around the web. We'll see.

2. GM John Nunn is one of those commentators; you can read his articulate statement of the mainstream view here.

3. I was watching the end of Leno's show to see if Bill O'Reilly's appearance would resemble last year's shootout with Letterman (it didn't), and then stuck around a few more minutes to watch Conan O'Brien's monologue. To my surprise, the world championship came up! The following is my attempt to reconstruct what he said; Conan uberfans who TiVoed the program are welcome to correct any errors.

The world chess championship is underway in Moscow...you're all glued to your sets. [pause] One of the players has filed a complaint. [pause] His opponent once spoke to a girl.

This old chestnut received mild yuks, but I was surprised. Couldn't a comedian of O'Brien's stature (Harvard grad and writer for the Lampoon, one of the top The Simpsons writers in the early 90s, and a top late-night talk show host), to say nothing of his team, come up with a joke based on the actual complaint?

Then I was intrigued. Maybe a bathroom joke would take too long in the setup stage? Would it presuppose too much from his audience? Did he think it would be excessively lowbrow? Would it ruin the overall flow (no pun intended - by which I mean it was a happy accident) of his routine? Would he himself seem too geeky if he seemed to really know the background? Was this an "audible" based on the thought that a bathroom joke wouldn't work for some reason? And perhaps least likely, but interesting: does he care enough about the game to not want to mention the real, incredibly stupid problem? I wonder.

It's Saturday and it's fall, so it's time once more for Notre Dame football! This week's victim is Purdue, and to help get everyone into the mood for the game, have a look at these enjoyable video clips from 1964, 1966, 1977, 1988 and 1994.

(That should be said aloud or heard in the mind's ear with a certain English accent.)

There's no game today, but it's not because Kramnik is sitting this one out as well, but because FIDE President Iljumzhinov has simply decreed it. The next game will take place tomorrow, according to this report; what remains to be seen is whether it's game 5 or game 6.

Stay tuned!

Kramnik manager Carsten Hensel argues that the Topalov protest and the Appeals Committee's decision violated two aspects of the pre-match agreement:

Clause 3.17.1., Schedule 2 of the contract: “All protests must be submitted in writing to the Appeals Committee not more than 2 hours after the relevant playing session.”

Clause 3.18.3., Schedule 2 of the contract: “After the World Chess Championship Committee agrees with the Organizers on the arrangements in respect of the tournament hall, facilities etc. etc. etc……., no objections from the participants shall be acceptable as long as the conditions are in accordance with the rights of the players granted in their agreements.”

Re the first clause, not only was notification not given within the two hour window; it came the next day! As for the second clause, the Appeals Committee simply contravened it in its decision. Accordingly, says Hansel, the decision of the Chief Arbiter (Geurt Gijssen) to forfeit Kramnik should be nullified.

Further, Hensel insists on four points:

1. That the bathrooms adjoining the rest areas be reopened. He (speaking for Kramnik) is willing to allow inspections of the bathrooms before and after each game, and for those rooms to be sealed up to the start of the game and resealed immediately afterwards.

2. That the members of the Appeals Committee (at least two of the three are friends of Topalov's) be exchanged immediately.

3. Only the arbiters are to have access to the video recordings: Kramnik "did not sign a contract for acting in a reality show."

4. An apology from Topalov's manager, Silvio Danailov, in writing, for statements like this: "Veselin Topalov is disturbed by the suspicious behavior of his opponent Mr. Vladimir Kramnik who takes his most significant decisions in the bathroom."

I (DM) have two quick comments; one on #1 and another on #2 (no pun intended!). First, unless there's some simple way info could make it into the bathroom (an easily accessible window or overhead panel), Hansel's suggestion ought to suffice. Second, I wonder about this Appeals Committee. Why didn't Kramnik complain about its composition before?

*****************************************************

On now to Seirawan's proposals. In brief, they are:

Firstly, since separate bathrooms were agreed to by all parties, they should be reinstated with immediate effect.

Secondly, to assuage any suspicions of unfair behavior, the bathrooms should have an attendant at hand during play.

Thirdly, Game Five should be rescheduled and played tomorrow, Saturday, September 30, 2006 at the usual time.

Something for everyone there. If the above seems to favor Kramnik by a 2-1 margin, there's his fourth suggestion, which is that the Appeals Committee members be permitted to remain in place, even if their decision ought to be overturned.

These too are reasonable proposals, and I think that if both parties are operating in good faith, they could be accepted. Given Seirawan's track record as a prime mover to the Prague Agreements in 2002 and his general high status in the chess community at large, it's not surprising that some ChessBase readers are encouraging him to be sent as an envoy to Elista to try to broker a deal. Likewise in purpose, if not in status, FIDE President Kirsan Iljumzhinov is apparently headed there as well (and may have already arrived by now) to the same end. (See the last sentence of this story.)

No pun intended, I'm sure.

For those interested in keeping up with the news reports, Google News is a handy source to check. I entered "Kramnik" in the search field and found a nice array of stories, complete with such amusing headlines as "Accusations swirl around chess champ's toilet breaks," "Grandmaster's lavatory defence just won't wash" and "Chess champ plays 'head' games".

It'll be a long time before we in the chess world can put this story behind us, and it would be nice to ask a media specialist, "What's your analysis of the situation and what should we do?" Yes, I know these puns are bad, but...we need some way of relieving ourselves...of the tragedy this represents for the chess world.

And it's over: Kramnik has forfeited game 5, sitting in his rest area waiting for the organizers to rescind their violation of the pre-match contract and allow him access to the adjoining bathroom. Congratulations to the team of Topalov and Danailov for the success of their fantastic strategy! Also winning today are non-chess playing writers, present and future, who can now earn some of their bread with this newest addition to the treasury of chess scandals.

I don't know what will happen next in this tragicomedy, but for the moment, at least, it looks like Kramnik is faced with a lousy choice: swallow his pride and give in, or forfeit the entire match. Maybe he should give in, but it's terrible that he's even being placed in that position.

More news when I get it.

The clocks for game five started around 23 minutes after the game (though this didn't get broadcast for a while), and it looks like Kramnik is refusing to play (or at least hasn't so far, and his clock has ticked away the past 27 minutes).

Oh dear.

He's clearly taking a principled stand, but is it worth it? Should he stand on his principles, or simply register his complaint and then smack the bully down over the chess board?

Terrible.

But we're not giving up hope yet!

As I mentioned in a recent post, the Topalov team protested Kramnik's seemingly excessive use of his private bathroom, implying that these trips might be about cheating rather than the performance of normal bodily functions.

This accusation strikes me as beyond stupid, given that the players and their areas are searched and that there is extensive scanning to detect wireless transmissions. Further, it's insane to think that if Kramnik were cheating, he'd do it on practically every move! That's just not how things work - there aren't usually more than five key moves in a given game, and if disappearing into the bathroom on the opponent's move is somehow suspicious, then even Topalov's bathroom breaks are problematic.

So either Topalov's team is just perplexed by Kramnik's large number of bathroom breaks and just wants to get to the bottom of things [groan], or this is a bit of psychological warfare: in 1972 they x-rayed the chairs, in 1978 there were disputes over yogurt and parapsychologists, and now we have Pottygate.

Okay, back to the story. Topalov's manager, Silvio Danailov, filed a complaint on behalf of his protege, and the committee has responded by saying that

(a) The Topalov team has exaggerated the frequency of Kramnik's bathroom trips, though they're still numerous.

(b) The bathrooms connected to the rest rooms are now off-limits; a different bathroom will be provided.

(c) The players' access to their own rest rooms will not be revoked. (Against the Topalov complaint.)

(d) The videotapes of Kramnik in his rest room will not be released to the mass media, as that would constitute a violation of the players' privacy.

Now both players are unhappy! (Or at least their managers pretend to be.) Danailov is unhappy that Kramnik may continue using bathrooms whenever he wants to and "without being subject to further control", and says that Topalov will refrain from the pre-game handshake and will no longer take part in joint postgame press conferences (he'll speak to the media separately).

Kramnik's manager, Carsten Hensel, is also unhappy. The committee decision violates the pre-match rules, is unmotivated given the security measures already in place and ignores the reasonable explanations Kramnik has given for the bathroom trips. This, according to Hensel, shows the appeal committee's bias, and now Kramnik is threatening to stop playing until he is permitted to use the bathroom of his rest room whenever he so desires.

Game 5 is scheduled to start within an hour. Will it?

You just can't buy publicity like this...

My post on game four of the Kramnik-Topalov match has been updated; the game and analysis are now available.

The Kramnik-Topalov "WC" match (thanks to GM Golubev for the joke) is dominating the chess headlines, but other events are taking place just the same. Several games from those events have caught my eye the last couple of days, so I'll pass them along to all of you.

The first three games are from the Geller Memorial in Odessa, Ukraine. First up, a battle of grandmasters: Legky vs. Tunik. Well, maybe it's not really a battle - the game only goes seven moves. (How many times the players went to the bathroom is unknown.) Seven-move games aren't that unusual - quick grandmaster draws are familiar to us all. But this wasn't a draw!

Next up: Vovk-Shishkin. White has a promising attacking position, and while he sees the right idea, his 22nd move is a salutary reminder that we need more. The right idea isn't enough if it's executed the wrong way. The player's wrong execution led to the wrong player's execution.

There's always the next round, or the round after that (at least until our personal flag falls), and sure enough, Vovk and his attacking skills found redemption two days later. His opponent, Vysochin, undoubtedly realized his position was a bit worse, but I doubt he knew just how precarious it really was. Vovk won very nicely - and who'd think when he begins his attack with 14.d5! that the threat of Rxh6 mate would decide in a dozen moves?

Finally, Shabalov tries to rehabilitate the old, dangerous but discredited 10.e5 variation against the Poisoned Pawn against fellow 2600 Areshchenko. I'm not sure about all the sidelines, but I think I know what Shabalov was hoping Areshchenko would fall for. Whatever the full backstory, it's an exciting and well-played game that concludes with a perpetual check.

Ready to see the games? Have a look, right here.

I doubt that I'll keep this new color scheme, at least exactly as it is. I do want to fine-tune the blog's appearance, however, and I'm trying this on for size while I figure out how to make the tweaks I'd like. Readers are invited to share their aesthetic preferences via the Contact link.

A more important but less noticeable change is the addition of the Kramnik-Topalov World Championship 2006 page in the Categories list. I've tried to retroactively include all the relevant materials going back to the initial 2005 controversies right after Topalov won in San Luis, but if the diligent researchers amongst you notice an omission, please bring it to my attention so I can fix it.

You may recall the post in which I presented both players' teams, and wondered about the function of several of Topalov's assistants. Well now we know: their job is to count the number of times Kramnik goes to the bathroom!

As is common in such events, the players each have their own rest area offstage, which connects to a private bathroom. And therein lies the cause of the Topalov team's terror. There is video surveillance of the rest area, but not (thankfully!) of the bathroom.

Kramnik apparently makes exceptionally regular trips to the rest area, and therewith to and from the bathroom. What is he doing there? If it's to do the usual things, he has either got the world's smallest bladder or other medical worries, and we haven't heard about them. Ergo, he's probably up to no good. How else to explain Kramnik's being, er, flush with success against a player who so outclasses him?

Topalov's team is serious about this, even threatening to (maybe) quit the match if the situation isn't resolved by tomorrow's game five!

Since surveillance against electronic devices was part of the pre-match agreement, then as long as they search the bathrooms before each game and make sure the players aren't smuggling in pocket sets, then what's the problem? Does Topalov's team think Kramnik's boys have re-engineered the toilet to allow them to send him analysis? Is Kramnik drawing chess pieces on strips of toilet paper and analyzing on the bathroom tiles?

I suppose it's reasonable for them to ask Kramnik to explain his frequent trips, but it is easy to think of normal, innocuous answers: he wants to be off-camera for a few moments for reasons of emotional or physical privacy, or to analyze out loud, to psych himself up, etc.

You can read the Topalov team's complaint and threat-letter here, and decide for yourself if there's anything to this, or if it's the start of a dirty-tricks campaign by one whose reign may be going down the drain.

He's a brick wall, I tells ya!

Topalov produced a nice novelty against Kramnik's Slav and obtained both an initiative and a structural superiority, yet was unable to convert it into something concrete against the latter's outstanding defense.

Update: The game (with my comments) is here.

The players have tomorrow off and resume with game 5 on Friday.

Another exciting game, and for the third time in a row, the player with the advantage failed to bring home the point. For the first time in the match, Kramnik achieved a very nice position in the opening and maintained serious winning chances almost until the very end. Unfortunately for him, he seemed a little too concerned with trying to keep everything under control, and this ultimately allowed Topalov to escape with a well-earned draw.

The next game takes place tomorrow at the customary time; here, with my comments, is today's game.

It's wonderful that the world championship reunification is at last taking place, but what happens next? Well, there were supposed to be a series of Candidates' matches, but are they going to happen? They were supposed to start soon, but it seems clear that it's not going to happen.

This has cost some of the players, including Boris Gelfand, a sizable chunk of change: he refused various invitations and had to compensate those who helped him prepare. Needless to say, Gelfand isn't pleased, and you can read his open letter to Kirsan Iljumzhinov here.

You'll also find a response of sorts there, too: another, alternative proposal. There might be a series of knockout matches, or there might just be a round-robin instead. Either way, it will occur - one hopes - in good ol' Elista in April of 2007.

We'll see, but the sooner there's a stable cycle, the better it will be for chess: both for those within the chess world and those looking in, too. But what about Gelfand's financial losses?

Continuing our “preview” of the now-ongoing world championship reunification match between Classical champion Vladimir Kramnik and FIDE champ Veselin Topalov, this week’s show evens things out. Last week’s show featured a fine win by Topalov achieved in something akin to his opponent’s style; it was a great game indeed. But while Topalov can play like Kramnik, Kramnik can play like Topalov, too!

Want proof? We’ll have a look at Topalov-Kramnik, from Belgrade 1995. Neither player castled, both sent pieces on odd missions on opposite sides of the board (bizarrely, the game features both Nc7xRa8 and …Nf2xRh1), constant complications and Kramnik declining a draw by repetition to continue a promising but speculative attack. The game was wild from start to finish, and although Kramnik didn’t quite play the complications perfectly, he handled them extremely well – and better than his opponent.

It’s a fantastically entertaining game, and a great way to enjoy the day off from the match. Hope to see you all in the Broadcast Room at 9:00 pm ET! (Instructions for watching live (or archived) shows are here, and a list of games covered in previous shows (available in the archives) is here.)

A terrible day for Topalov, who managed to squander a brilliant attack and a completely won position. Once he threw away the first and easiest win, his play deteriorated rapidly. After missing or rejecting two further clear wins and (I think!) several other improvements, he had to scramble for the draw, but further errors cost him the full point.

Kramnik is in charge on the scoreboard, but even so, I still think Topalov isn't in too much trouble. For one thing, Kramnik's presumably specially prepared opening, the Slav, didn't fare especially well in its maiden effort. Topalov enjoyed the initiative from the get-go in his "kind" of position. It's not good when one's surprise weapon misfires from the beginning, so we'll see what happens - the opening of game four should be very interesting.

Further, Topalov's middlegame play has been more successful than his opponent's, and these two long, brutal games are probably taking a bigger physical toll on the less fit Kramnik.

What Kramnik is doing well is defending, keeping alert and displaying tremendous resilience and fighting spirit. Still, unless Topalov is going to keep blundering and over-pressing, Kramnik is likely to wear down and get caught if Topalov gets to dictate the play in every game.

The players have Monday off; hostilities resume Tuesday at the usual time - 7 a.m. ET.

Here's the game.

Lee Smolin is a well-known physicist and the author of The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next. The book strongly contrasts with recent efforts by Brian Greene (see 1, 2 and 3) and other advocates of string theory, as Smolin thinks that (a) string theory is, if not a dead end, a far less promising approach than its friends think, and (b) the community of string theorists wield an almost punitive influence over those pursuing alternative approaches to a theory of quantum gravity.

On page 284, Smolin offers a summary list of seven "unusual" aspects of the string community:

1. Tremendous self-confidence, leading to a sense of entitlement and of belonging to an elite community of experts.

2. An unusually monolithic community, with a strong sense of consensus, whether driven by the evidence or not, and an unusual uniformity of views on open questions. These views seem related to the existence of a hierarchical structure in which the ideas of a few leaders dictate the viewpoint, strategy, and direction of the field.

3. In some cases, a sense of identification with the group, akin to identification with a religious faith or political platform.

4. A strong sense of the boundary between the group and other experts.

5. A disregard for and disinterest in the ideas, opinions, and work of experts who are not part of the group, and a preference for talking only with other members of the community.

6. A tendency to interpret evidence optimistically, to believe exaggerated or incorrect statements of results, and to disregard the possibility that the theory might be wrong. This is coupled with a tendency to believe results are true because they are "widely believed," even if one has not checked (or even seen) the proof oneself.

7. A lack of appreciation for the extent to which a research program ought to involve risk.

Not being a physicist, I can't directly assess the accuracy of his claims about string theorists. It does largely square with my understanding of the history of scientific revolutions and, in general, battles between the "in" party in an academic dispute and their rivals. And to tie this in to a recent post, it's also largely descriptive of conspiracy theorists as well.

So practice good intellectual hygiene and beware if you find yourself exemplifying too many of 1-7 on a given issue. Some of these points aren't problematic in themselves: a sense of self-confidence is helpful in doing intellectual work, and it's often useful to be part of a cohesive group working on a shared set of problems - that's often how real progress is made! But when one is part of a group that's wholly immune to outside critique, whose core beliefs rest on assumptions one will not so much as consider, problems of an at least equal magnitude will result.

Ohhhhhhh yes!

One of the great comebacks of all time, and especially sweet considering the opponent.

"He only is a true conquerer, and shall be crowned at the last, who continueth till war's trumpet is blown no more."

--Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (Evening reading for May 27.)

Year to date:

UND 14, Georgia Tech 10
UND 41, Penn State 17
Ted Kaczynski's less prestigious alma mater 47, UND 21
UND 40, Michigan State 37

Next Victim: Purdue.

Have a look here, and have a look at his related posts and the Feser link too, while you're at it.

What accounts for people believing such wild conspiracy claims with such fervor? Is it the almost complete absence of critical thinking skills? A blind hatred of authority in general and Bush in particular? Even Noam Chomsky, as prominent a foe of the Bush administration as can be found in the U.S., has critiqued these theories as completely unrealistic.

Perhaps there will always be purveyors of conspiracy theories, but hopefully most people just need a little fine-tuning for their common sense. To that end, I hope the links above are helpful.

The world chess championship is wonderful and all, but now it's time to get down to what really matters: Notre Dame football! (Okay, I'm overstating things a bit...maybe.) The game starts shortly, but there's still time for the pre-game show, which you can find right here. Enjoy!

Wow!

The match got off to a great start, with both players having their moments to shine. Kramnik came out of the opening with a safe edge and the chance to milk the position seemingly at his leisure. Topalov defended actively, and a lax move by Kramnik allowed him to sac a pawn in exchange for an immediate draw...if he wanted it.

He didn't - rightly - and although the position may still have been objectively drawn, Kramnik had to suffer a lot. Both players were extremely resourceful in their respective roles, until Topalov hallucinated. He sacked a second pawn, thinking he would achieve a winning attack or the win of a piece, but overlooked a rather simple resource and had to resign soon afterwards.

Although his strategy backfired in this game, Topalov was right to press hard: he's in good physical condition and always plays to the end, while Kramnik may still have some rust, has his medical worries and has never had magnificent stamina in any case. So while it's a very good result for Kramnik fans, Topalov fans have no real reason to fret either. Game two tomorrow, at the same start time (7 a.m. ET).

Here's the game with light notes; I may add more later, time permitting.

First, of course, there's the official site. The Topalov fan site I mentioned the other day ought to have some decent materials, and hopefully Kramnik's official site will too, though it hasn't been much for analysis over the years.

Usual suspects ChessBase and TWIC will undoubtedly have lots of special reports, and the former is bound to have excellent live coverage on its playchess.com server.

Two other sites I'll mention for now are Chess Pro (great if you know Russian, and even if you don't you might still find enough to understand in the analysis) and Lubosh Kavalek's weekly chess column in the Washington Post - as far as I'm aware, it's the best newspaper chess column there is in English, period.

An update, thanks to Chess Today:

The following sites are Russian, but some include English as well: e3e5.com (Russian and English), Ruschess.com (Russian and English), 64.ru (just Russian, but with Grischuk doing the analyses it's worth trying to see how much we can figure out!) and the Russian Chess Federation (Russian only).

Click here - I've even included a downloadable pgn file.

It's about time, too!

Ok, I did leave one word out: he's the World Senior Champion. But still: it's a genuine accomplishment, and I can't think of any non-titleist more deserving of a world championship than Mr. Korchnoi. Congratulations!

As most if not all of you know, I both hope and think that Kramnik will win - at least if his health is okay and he's not too rusty (and his recent performances suggest he's in good if not great shape with both). But what do you think? It's a 12-game match (not counting tie-breaks): please comment your guesses before the first game starts, and offer a score too, if you dare!

This is not the most important chess site on the web. (I know, you're all shocked.) Neither is any other chess blog, nor the ChessBase website, nor any fan site. The most important chess site on the web, bar none, in my opinion, is The Week in Chess. Mark Crowther has been at it for more than 12 years, bringing together all the important events and games around the globe, lots that aren't that important, and many links of interest as well. The site is updated on most days, with the essential weekly download appearing Monday afternoons ET. Before Crowther, one had to wait for periodicals to get all but the absolutely most important games; now, thanks to him, just about any game of any significance is available the same day. And free!

Maybe I'll stop a little short of proposing an unofficial holiday for chess players in Crowther's honor, but I think the chess world owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude. That said, the occasion for this post is the first change in the site's format in many years. The link above connects to what is still the main site, but now they're switching to a new look - you can see the beta version here. Have a look, and while you're visiting the site, consider dropping Mark a thank-you note, too!

Three games from the ongoing Spanish Team Championship caught my eye tonight as I went through CT-2140. The first game Valmana-Harikrishna, attracted my attention because of the size of the upset: a 2284 knocked off a 2684!

Game two, Llobel-Ponomariov, wasn't noteworthy for that reason - the winner outrated his opponent by 331 points. The surprise here was the resemblance to Movsesian-Kasparov, Sarajevo 2000 of "no chess culture" fame. That game featured a stock ...Rxc3 sac by Kasparov in an English Attack Najdorf, and in the post-mortem Movsesian offered a long justification of his play based on a series of games in that line against Dutch GM Loek van Wely. Kasparov was dumbfounded, writing in his notes that this showed a lack of chess culture - anyone with a proper chess education just "knows" that ...Rxc3 is very strong in such situations, and sure enough, the great one obliterated his opponent. One might think that those lacking the proper understanding up to that point would have been set straight by that game, which received a great deal of attention at the time, but the White player in the game I've attached clearly missed the memo, allowing the sac in the exact same position. (To be fair, although he's now an IM, he was only 14 or 15 at the time of that game - though nowadays that's not too young at all!)

Finally, game three is a flashy Shirov win against Valmana, the hero of the first game. Black (Valmana) thinks he can solve all his opening problems with tactics - ironically, his main tactical idea is the one that brought him success against Harikrishna - but Shirov is way ahead of him.

Games here.

By way of preview for the Vladimir Kramnik-Veselin Topalov match (coming soon to a chess server near you – the first game takes place September 23), we’ll take the next two shows to revisit some of their classic past battles. (That would be easier than looking at their future battles, after all.) This week’s show will feature Topalov in the winner’s circle, from his first glory year of 1996. The great Bulgarian was an almost unstoppable force that year, winning five major tournaments and skyrocketing from 2670 in July of 1995 to 2750 by the middle of 1996.

The tournament in Novgorod was among those successes, a double round-robin with Topalov outperforming not only Kramnik, but Ivanchuk, Short, Gelfand and J. Polgar as well. In their game from the first cycle, Kramnik pushed Topalov for a while before the latter fought to a draw, but their second game was a completely different story. Topalov seized the advantage from the opening (a Sozin Sicilian), and did a marvelous job of alternating between tactical and strategic themes. Repeatedly we find the following pattern: Topalov poses a concrete tactical threat, eliciting a slight positional concession from Kramnik. Topalov consolidates the positional gain, then builds a new threat, eliciting a further concession – and so on. Eventually – and it doesn’t take all that long – Topalov is able to conclude the game with a quick but lethal kingside attack.

A model game, and an impressive demonstration that although Topalov is renowned for his love of complications, he can defeat a player of the highest caliber by positionally outplaying him, too. For proof and a close look at how he did it, I hope you’ll all join me this week at our usual time – Monday night at 9 pm ET. As usual, directions for watching live (or archived) shows can be found here, while a list of games covered in previous shows is available here.

See you then!

Time to vomit.

Season to date:

ND 14, Georgia Tech 10
ND 41, Penn State 17
Future Unabombers 47, ND 21

Next victim: Michigan State.

It's not really filled out yet (no replayable games or .pgn files, tournament crosstables, etc.), but it's good that there's finally a fan site dedicated to the current FIDE champion. And according to the site administrator, the world championship games will be replayable, downloadable and feature commentary from GM Oswaldo Zambrana. So the site has promise; let's hope it's fulfilled even if (read: after) Kramnik wins the match!

Here's a long clip; this one's shorter. And in an hour and a half, another long series of future ND highlights will commence.

Have a look here. Those familiar with game theory might not find anything new here, but it's worth reflecting on the information as it applies to chess.

One obvious application. John Cassidy notes that if given a 50-50 chance to win $150 at the risk of losing $100, most refuse the gamble. Ceteris paribus, this is clearly irrational, as one's expected value is a $25 profit. The chess equivalent comes in many last rounds, where a quick draw guarantees a nice prize, a loss little to nothing, and a win a very big prize. Rationally, the right decision, assuming one is playing a peer, is to play for the win. Yes, it's a risk, but it's the financially correct decision. If you're among the risk-averse, inclined to avoid the $150/$100 bet or inclined to take the quick draw, a practical strategy is to realize this and to steel yourself ahead of time to fight the full game. (Use self-talk, tell friends so you'll be embarrassed if you change your mind, maintain a self-confident posture - even if it's not a reflection on how you feel, etc.)

Yesterday's Chess Today listed the players' teams for the upcoming World Championship match. They are:

Kramnik's Team

1. Carsten Hensel, Germany, manager
2. Miguel Illescas, Spain, coach
3. Alexander Motylev, Russia, coach
4. Sergei Rublevsky, Russia, coach
5. Valeri Krylov, Russia, physiotherapist
6. Victor Bobylev, Russia, cook

Topalov's Team

1. Silvio Danailov, Bulgaria, manager
2. Ivan Cheparinov, Bulgaria, coach
3. Alexander Onischuk, USA, coach
4. Francisco Vallejo Pons, Spain, coach
5. Vladimir Haralampiev Rapondzhiev, Bulgaria, team member
6. Raicho Ivanov Gospodinov, Bulgaria, team member
7. Dragomir Georgiev, Bulgaria, team member
8. Zhivko Ginchev, Bulgaria, team member
9. Dancho Djongov, Bulgaria, team member

Some comments. First, I'm curious about these team members in Topalov's group with undescribed functions. Are they computer specialists, physical trainers, cooks - what? If anyone knows, please pass along the information.

Second, I'm surprised that Kramnik didn't attempt to reconstitute his team from the 2000 match against Kasparov, consisting of Bareev, Lautier, Illescas and Illescas' father as cook. Motylev and Rublevsky are outstanding players, but this seems to me a downgrade relative to Bareev and Lautier.

Third, Rublevsky seems an odd choice for yet another reason: his repertoire, especially with White, is rather idiosyncratic and has little in common with Kramnik's even with Black. Against 1.d4, Rublevsky plays the QGA; against 1.e4, 1...c5 followed by 2...e6. He's a terrific player who has enjoyed a great year (except during the Olympiad), but I don't understand why he, rather than Bareev, Svidler or Gelfand (all friends of Kramnik who have helped him in the past) is on the team.

From Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam, cited in an AP report:

Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence.

HT: WSJ's Opinion Journal's Best of the Day

[Note for the hard of thinking: picking on the above quote doesn't imply that I believe that only Muslims are violent, that all Muslims are violent, or that I wholly agree (or disagree) with Pope Benedict's comments.]

This was the position after 59.Rf1+ in the "Armageddon" game Alexander Grischuk-Peter Svidler from the World Blitz Championship:



A few days ago I asked what Black should do here. 59...Kg2 is the natural, unsophisticated approach: go pawn grabbing! Those of us with more experience, however, are aware of the important concept of "shouldering", a technique where a player uses his king to keep the opponent's king at bay.

Svidler has plenty of experience and a refined sense of the game we can all only dream about...but here it probably cost him the game. Naively going for the pawns drew; shouldering lost. Have a look, here.

The former is of interest to me, as many of you will probably guess, because of Korchnoi's participation. The latter, broken up in to an A group (which finished a couple of days ago) and a B group (which started yesterday) includes quite a few very strong GMs, including superstars like Aronian, Ivanchuk, Svidler, Ponomariov and more.

The website for the Senior World Championship is here, while the Spanish Team Championship website is here.

See here. It has been a while since I've had that particular sort of experience, but as viewers of my Monday night show are well aware, my encounters with technology haven't all been unqualified successes.

HT: Brian Karen

Every so often, books about chess attract a few fleeting moments of interest our game from the "civilian" world, and David Shenk's The Immortal Game (TIG) looks like the newest entry into the field. In addition to receiving relatively thorough coverage in the current (September 2006) issue of Chess Life, Shenk and TIG have been featured in the New York Times, NPR and other significant media outlets.

Though the excerpts I've seen haven't exactly wowed me, I do plan to read or at least pretty thoroughly browse the book soon. My hope is that even if the book isn't interesting to chess players, non-chess players will read it and be attracted to the game - as opposed to just having their cocktail party repertoire expanded. If any readers (excluding those with a conflict of interest) have read the book, please write in with your reactions about the book from the perspective of the player and non-player alike.

Cheating in chess has been an occasional subject for this blog, but the focus has generally been on the dangers present in Swiss system events.

Tennis star Lindsay Davenport, however, has expressed concerns concerning the Association of Tennis Professionals' plan to introduce round-robin events in the 2007 men's season.

Perhaps it's worth visiting the question on here: should professional chess revert to the knockout system, at least for most events? That would take care of all the BAP business, if nothing else! (No more BAP comments, please.) Four arguments in favor of the round-robin come to mind, which I'll present and respond to - not equally persuasively in each case.

(1) I imagine that one historical consideration was the worry that the two best players might face in an early round, causing someone who might easily have come in second or at least a high place to finish near the bottom.

Reply: With the rating system, it's easy enough to create a seeding system that will render such a result unlikely.

(2) There's an argument from the fan's perspective: it's a lot more interesting to watch many games than just a few at the end of the event - especially if the leading fan favorites have been eliminated.

Reply: One nice way of avoiding this problem is to use the system employed earlier this year at the World Cup (and elsewhere), which is to keep all the players, or all the players after a certain number of rounds in the event, playing further knockout matches for their particular placement. Thus in a 16-player event, the 8 first-round losers will have their own knockout sub-event competing for 9th-16th places, those in lose in the second round as well compete for 13th-16th, etc. As many players as the organizers want will continue to play!

(3) The round-robin system allows one to overcome an "accident". Mikhail Tal was famous for his first-round losses, including most notably the USSR Championship that got him into his first, and ultimately successful, world championship cycle; and in the Candidates' Tournament that was the final stepping stone on the way to playing Mikhail Botvinnik for the title.

Reply: First, the seeding system makes it unlikely, though not impossible, that such an upset will take place. Second, there will be color equalization, so if a Tal loses to an unknown, he'll have a second chance, and that will give him a reasonable opportunity to overcome the "accident".

(4) The knockout system doesn't correlate as well as a double-round robin when it comes to matching up the winner with highest rated player. In other words, if the goal of an event is to reward the best player, and the best player is most likely the player with the highest rating, then the best system is the one that is most likely to see the highest-rated player win.

(By fair means, of course. This would rule out a pairing system that puts the top seed into the final, where he awaits the winner of, for example, a very long knockout tournament, and forces that player to change locations for the final match. It goes without saying that this could never happen, especially not for a world championship event in the late 1990s. Perish the thought.)

Reply: Hmm...one possibility is just not to worry about it, on the grounds that the other advantages of the knockout system outweigh this problem. A supplementary suggestion is to avoid knockouts for really major events, like national and world championship contests. Another possibility is to use a double-elimination system, but I leave it up to the statisticians to say just how effective that is.

At any rate, I'll finish here and open the floor to discussion. Should we listen to Davenport, or is the ATP properly following the chess world?

The tournament, recall, was a qualifier for the Russian SuperFinal - the big championship won by Kasparov in 2004 and Rublevsky last year. Those already seeded for the main event will be joined by the top seven finishers from the High League event, who are:

1 Inarkiev (6.5/9)
2-8 Khismatullin, Tomashevsky, Nepomniatchtchi, Grigoriants, Alekseev, Vitiugov and - the odd man out - Najer.

For those of you without ChessBase or even Fritz, but who would like to publish chess games on the web, a new free option comes from DGT Projects - ChessTheatre.

Max Euwe is sometimes considered an "accidental" world champion by casual fans, but unfairly. His results when he won the title in 1935 were excellent, and his lost rematch to Alekhine two years later was quite close until very late in the match. While he didn't rank head-and-shoulders above his contemporaries, they didn't evince any clear superiority over him, either.

Thus his games and career are very much worthy of attention, and on this week's show we'll take a look at one of his best and most significant games. Dubbed "the pearl of Zandvoort" by Tartakower, it was this victory that practically assured his overall success in his first world championship match with Alekhine. Enjoying a one-point lead - his first lead of the match - with five games to go, one might expect the challenger to feel some nerves. If he did, he didn't show them. Euwe boldly sacked a piece for three pawns, and then threw in the exchange as well. Alekhine put up significant resistance, but the challenger's outstanding play in the middlegame and the subsequent ending carried the day. A great game, rich in creativity from both players.

This is a game that's worthy of the chess fan's time! Should you agree (and why shouldn't you?), I hope you'll join me this Monday night at 9 pm ET on ChessBase's playchess.com server. (It's free, after all!) Directions for watching live (or archived) shows are here, while a list of games covered in previous shows is available here.

Here's the position, with Black to move (obviously, since he's in check):



What should Black do? There are two competing ideas: the unsophisticated pursuit of a pawn dinner with ...Kg2, and the more refined ...Ke2, attempting to "shoulder off" the White king. (Bear in mind that sophistication isn't always all it's cracked up to be!)

In trying to answer the question, I suggest you do so in two steps. First, without calculating any lines, quickly determine your "instinctive" feeling about the position. Having done so, proceed to step two and try to quickly calculate which move is best.

I'll give the solution and the back story in a day or two.

His position in the opening was fine, but in the unusual position his opponent, Dmitry Bocharov generated, Vadim Zvjaginsev was impressively outplayed. It is almost always silly to draw big conclusions from single game, so consider the following as a hunch, an impression, but not a "law".

What strikes me about Zvjaginsev's 2.Na3 variation is that its original strength has now become a weakness, and that in this respect it is like any interesting sideline that starts to receive sustained attention. At first the sideline works almost entirely to the benefit of its advocates. Even though the line might have its problems, they're not easily found and even when they are, its advocates have an experience advantage that goes a long way towards neutralizing its theoretical defects. (This was my long-time experience when playing the Schliemann against the Ruy Lopez.)

In time, however, it works the other way: the responses to one's pet line increase, and then the advocate's work load goes up while the opponent, specializing in one particular response, tends to enjoy a psychological and, ironically, an experience edge to boot. (Returning to my Schliemann experience, I faced plenty of main-liners who essayed 4.Nc3 (but even therein variety is possibility), but there were 4.d3 and 4.d4 specialists as well. Though I still held my own, it was clear that the opening was no longer practically effective, so it was time to move on.)

This is what I think is happening with Zvjaginsev's 2.Na3. There are plenty of good responses, and while its primary exponent had the knowledge and experience advantage at first, I think the variety of lines - many leading to radically different sorts of positions - now largely eliminates its value as a practical weapon for Zvjaginsev and others.

We shall see. Meanwhile, here's Zvjaginsev-Bocharev.

Crosstable here.

Related post (from my previous blog): see here.

Next victim: Michigan.

Click here.

Yesterday I presented this position from the game Najer-Kornev, from the ongoing Russian High League tournament:



White to move played 20.Rb1, and asked if this natural move in fact missed anything. The answer is...available here.

As reported last night, Alexander Grischuk won the World Blitz Championship over fellow Russian Peter Svidler in an "Armageddon" playoff game; here are the full results from that event, which took place in Rishon Lezion, Israel, on September 7.

1 Grischuk 10.5 (out of 15)
2 Svidler 10.5
3-4 Anand, Radjabov 10
5-6 Gelfand, J. Polgar 9.5
7 Bacrot 8 (a noticeable gap!)
8 Carlsen 7.5
9-11 Erenburg, Gagunashvili, Sutovsky 7
12 Roiz 6.5
13 Smirin 6
14 D. Gurevich 4 (another sizable gap)
15 Zoler 3.5
16 Livshitz 3.5

[Hat tip: Chess Today]

Ah, but which Kasparov and Karpov (see the fourth-to-last name in the list of players)? To adapt a phrase from Orwell, all Kasparovs and Karpovs are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Though the tournament would make an exceedingly strong national championship just about anywhere else, the Russian High League is only a qualifier for the real Russian Championship (aka the "Super-Final"). Even players like former FIDE world champion Alexander Khalifman, Alexey Dreev, Vadim Zvjaginsev and Vladimir Malakhov have to compete with many "ordinary" strong GMs for the few available spots in the final.

That said, although I've highlighted these stars of the game, this post will feature the game between two comparative sleepers, Evgeniy Najer and Alexei Kornev. After Black's 19th move, the following position arose:



Black's position looks precarious, but he is threatening the rook on a1. White played the natural 20.Rb1, saving the rook and counter-attacking the Black queen. Natural, yes, but is it good? Is he missing something?

The answer will come later today or tomorrow.

Some time around late July, the so-called World University Chess Championship took place in Nigeria. While four grandmasters and a few other titled players showed up, the overall turnout was tiny: 27 men and 16 women. Even stranger: each section was run as a three(!?) round Swiss, with national or university affiliation playing no obvious role.

I hadn't heard about this, and according to Michael Bagalman, who passed it along, neither did any of the other "usual suspects" reporting on the world's chess scene. But the event is worth reporting on for at least one reasons: namely, to allow interested parties to plan to attend next year's tournament. The location will presumably rotate each year - assuming the event survives - so this might give potential sponsors the idea of hosting the 2007 edition. (Academics, are you reading this?)

...took place earlier today in Israel, and the winner, after a playoff game against Peter Svidler, was Alexander Grischuk. More later, perhaps including some games and/or game fragments.

That's the name of the most entertaining publication in the chess world. Those of you who haven't seen Kingpin are strongly encouraged to check out its website, which has some nice samples of its content.

It's well-known for its satire. Over the years (and on the website) you'll find many potshots at Kirsan Ilyumzhinov ("Ill-Lunatic"), Ray Keene ("Raymundo") and many others, and their most famous dig came at the expense of Eric Schiller's Unorthodox Chess Openings - have a look at Tony Miles' two-word review. Nevertheless, it's not all satire. There are stories, analyses, practical psychological insights and a good deal more. (And no, I'm not in their employ!)

There is one downside to subscribing, and it's that they are slightly irregular about publishing issues. The current issue, #38, came out some time earlier this year, while #37 has a cover date of 2003/2004. (You can't have everything, I suppose.)

Anyhow, it's worth a look!

And so the Karpov-Leko rapid match ends with a score of 4.5-3.5, Leko, thanks to a single Leko victory (after a lousy Karpov novelty) and seven draws. It's not a match that will go down in the annals of chess history, but there are at least three good things that resulted from this event:

1. Leko managed to win an event without a last/late round collapse. Hopefully this will give his confidence a boost and he'll be right back in the thick of things at the top of the pile.

2. It wasn't a bad result by Karpov either, and it looks like he did some genuine opening research for the match. Hopefully this marks the beginning of a small rebirth of his career - it would be nice to see him contend with 2700s again instead of playing exhibitions with IMs and down.

3. The match offered a clinic on how to defend slightly worse positions. That won't draw the fans in like a Shirov-Polgar match, but speaking practically studying games like these is quite useful. And today's games continue that clinic: both players had excellent winning chances in their White games, but dogged defense (and probably some inaccuracies from White) held the draw in each case.

The games are here, unannotated, thereby affording you the chance to work things out for yourself. I hope you'll take that opportunity!

Garry Kasparov is arguably the greatest player in the history of the game, and since he was kind enough to pay the chess world a brief visit a couple of weeks ago, the least we can do in return is to examine one of the seemingly countless outstanding games from his career. In particular, our spotlight this Monday will shine on his win over the prematurely retired Dutch grandmaster Jeroen Piket, from the 1997 edition of the (also prematurely retired) annual event in Tilburg.

The game was a sharp Queen’s Gambit Accepted, with Kasparov giving up a pawn early on for a wedge on e5 and – and what? There doesn’t seem to be any concrete compensation nor a one-size-fits-all attacking plan, so one might well be forgiven for not understanding what Kasparov was up to. What he was up to, and how he managed to win so suddenly and decisively, is what we’ll figure out this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET. It’s an impressive game, and it only gets more impressive the more closely it’s examined. Hope to see you then!

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

I wasn't aware of the event beforehand, but stumbled upon it while watching the Karpov-Leko match. It's a small chess festival in the Norwegian mining town of Longyearbyen City, and the main competition is a four player knockout featuring Peter Svidler, Magnus Carlsen, Simen Agdestein and Nick De Firmian.

Day 1 - Saturday - saw the Svidler-Carlsen two game mini-match, and Svidler came out on top with a brilliant win in the second game. On Sunday Agdestein takes on De Firmian, with the winner meeting Svidler on Monday.

Tournament website here; the Svidler-Carlsen games here. You'll want to have a look, especially at Svidler's win!

The games weren't excited, but they seemed to be well-played. In both games, White came out of the opening with some edge, but Black held the draw with accurate, active defensive play. Barn-burners, no; instructive, yes - have a look here.

The event finishes today (Sunday).

It's a cute, award-winning short film by Pixar Studios - have a look on YouTube, here.

Hat tip: Michael Bagalman.

Georgia Tech played well and Notre Dame made an awful lot of mistakes, but overall, it was clearly the right result - their domination in the second half was complete. The win was a narrow one, but with Weis at the helm you sense that although the team was occasionally ragged, they believed in themselves; under Willingham that was not always the case - and so they typically lost games of this sort.

Bottom line: one win down, twelve wins to go (including the bowl game).

Next victim: Penn State (@ND, 9/9 at 3:30 ET)

Leko took the lead in his rapid match with Karpov by winning game three. In a line that long had a reputation as drawish, but has recently seen a little new life for White, Karpov, with Black, produced a novelty on move 20. Unfortunately, this led straightforwardly to a large, long-lasting advantage for Leko, and although both sides played inaccurately, Karpov eventually buckled in time trouble and lost.

In game four, Karpov managed a niggling edge with White, but Leko neutralized it with accurate play - the game was drawn. The players had Friday off, and resume their match later today (Saturday).

Games here.