The Chess Mind

Once again, I demonstrated my nearly unparalleled skills as a prognosticator. Annoyed by the four quick draws in round 6, I cynically predicted four more draws to conclude the Morelia half of the tournament. That's exaggerating a bit, but I did claim that Leko-Anand would be drawn was "a mortal lock". Leko, a player with a drawish reputation already, had already split the point in his first six games, while Anand almost always draws with his peers when he has Black - generally pretty quickly. So, of course, the game had a decisive finish. Leko came out of the gate with a very nice position, and by the early middlegame was nearly winning. Unfortunately, he missed a great but deep shot on move 25, and then another error on move 26 brought him from slightly better to seriously worse. Leko's resignation was premature, certainly from the amateur's point of view, but winning would have been a routine matter for a player of Anand's caliber.

That brought Anand back into a tie for first with Carlsen, who drew against Svidler. Carlsen accepted an isolated d-pawn in an Accelerated Dragon, but didn't achieve any compensating activity. That gave Svidler the pleasure of playing two-result chess (i.e. the chance to play for a win while "risking" nothing worse than a draw), but a slightly careless 26th move allowed Carlsen to escape right away.

Aronian would have concluded the Morelia half of the event tied for first as well, had he defeated Ivanchuk with the black pieces, but that was never in the offing. Like Carlsen against Svidler, he found himself in an isolated pawn position where the most he could hope for was a draw, but unlike Carlsen, it was he who missed a tactic (on move 31). That cost him the d-pawn for nothing, and things went downhill from there - fast.

Finally, Topalov-Morozevich was a crazy game, as you'd expect from these two, and after a topsy-turvy struggle Topalov came out on top.

The players now have a few days off to get set up in Linares, Spain, and will resume play this Friday (March 2) at 9:30 a.m. EST.

Standings after Round 7:

1-2. Anand, Carlsen 4.5
3. Ivanchuk 4
4-5. Aronian, Svidler 3.5
6-7. Leko, Topalov 3
8. Morozevich 2

Pairings for Round 8: (With thanks to Rob Vlaardingerbroek for tracking them down for me.)

Leko - Ivanchuk
Anand - Topalov
Aronian - Svidler
Morozevich - Carlsen

Games with comments, here.

Although Alekseev is middle-aged (21!) and is "only" 2661, his recent results have been noteworthy, to say the least. This past December he won the Russian Championship (ahead of Svidler and Rublevsky, defeating Jakovenko in a playoff), and a couple of days ago he won clear first in the Aeroflot Open. One of the prizes for winning that event is automatic entry into the Dortmund super-tournament in July; that will give the world a chance to see if he's ready for the big show.

Meanwhile, here's a lively win from Aeroflot.

If a tree of analysis falls in a bookstore and there's no one around to replay it, are its variations sound?

Today's round goes into the super-tournament hall of shame.

First, there was Aronian-Topalov. To be fair, although the game ended quickly (22 moves), the final position looks pretty uninspiring - both sides will lose their queenside pawns (excepting Black's d-pawn, which is an honorary member of the kingside), and then there will be nothing to play for. The game was short, but that's more a matter of bad luck for the spectators than the fault of the players.

The same most certainly cannot be said for the Carlsen-Leko farce, which finished a few seconds later. While the previous game probably represented some nice prep or technique by Topalov in neutralizing White's play, this non-game represented mutual expedience: Carlsen was happy to consolidate his position in first, while Leko wanted to keep his perfect record (6 draws and counting!) intact. The game followed yesterday's battle between Carlsen and Topalov up to and including the moves 15...Bd6-b4 16.Re1-f1. Topalov played 16...Ba3, but Leko retreated and repeated with 16...Bd6, tacitly offering a draw. There followed the spell-binding 17.Rfe1 Bb4 18.Rf1 Bd6, repeating the position for the third time. Drawing so quickly would be embarrassing, though, so they put in a little overtime: 19.Rfe1 Bb4 20.Rf1 Bd6. Exhausted - especially understandable after a day off - the players at long last agreed to the draw.

A little while later, the shortest game of all (in number of moves) finished: that was the marathon 16-move struggle between Morozevich and Svidler (with one new move per player). In this way Morozevich remained in a last-place tie with Topalov while Svidler, like Leko, kept his perfect streak alive.

Fortunately, there was one reasonable fight, between Anand and Ivanchuk. In an English Attack (Najdorf Sicilian), Anand came up with an early novelty, 10.h3, and Ivanchuk went into a deep think, possibly spending more time on this one move than any of the players in the aforementioned draws spent for the entire game. He managed to achieve equality and even gain some advantage later, but an inaccuracy in time trouble allowed Anand to sneak out with a draw, thanks to a neat tactical resource.

I hope the spectators got their money back, and that the organizers took it out of the players' prize money.

Standings after Round 6:

1. Carlsen 4
2-3. Anand, Aronian 3.5
4-6. Ivanchuk, Leko, Svidler 3
7-8. Morozevich, Topalov 2

Tomorrow's Draws:

Leko - Anand (That one's a mortal lock.)
Ivanchuk - Aronian (Decent chances for a real game here.)
Topalov - Morozevich (The likeliest exception.)
Svidler - Carlsen (Don't anticipate a repeat of their Longyearbyen 2006 game.)


Games replayable here - blink and you'll miss them.

If you have some money set aside for chess purchases and it's burning a hole in your pocket, you might want to get a new pocket. But I digress. If you're looking to buy the latest and greatest new thing out there, you might want to consider Garry Kasparov's Modern Chess Series, Part 1: Revolution in the 70s. It won't be available here in the U.S. until March 1, but I think the book has already been released in the U.K., and if any of my readers already has the book, comments concerning its contents and quality would be appreciated.

My suspicion is that many people will buy the book because of the author's name. That's a silly reason to buy anything unless it has some further value, but hey - it's your money! My hope and expectation for the book is that it will give sophisticated players a deep understanding of why we are where we are in contemporary theory, a sense of which theoretical problems have been solved and how the solutions in turn led to the current batch of problems. Of course, this book only covers the 1970s, and (based on the Book Description given at the link, above) maybe only the period from 1972 to 1975, so we won't have the whole story yet. But it's a start!

Can I pick 'em or what? (The correct answer: "or what".)

Carlsen is in clear first, thanks to a heroic effort on his part and a correspondingly huge lapse by Topalov, who resigned in a drawn position. It was an incredible, anti-climactic finish to a game that saw both players fight for the win, especially Carlsen - who missed a win several moves before the end. It's a really terrific game, and I look forward to seeing it properly analyzed by a real player in due course.

The effect was to catapult the youngster into clear first place, thanks to Anand's loss to Aronian. On the White side of a QGA/Slav hybrid favored by Wojtkiewicz, Aronian headed for a line that gave him the bishop pair in exchange for a damaged kingside pawn structure. On this occasion, the bishop pair did the trick, and a neat tactical finish crowned the victory in style.

The other two games were nowhere near as dramatic. Morozevich got nowhere against Ivanchuk's Berlin Defense, while Svidler-Leko was a Marshall Gambit, and (therefore?) a draw.


Standings after Round 5:

1. Carlsen 3.5
2-3. Anand, Aronian 3
4-6. Ivanchuk, Leko, Svidler 2.5
7-8. Morozevich, Topalov 1.5

Pairings for Round 6: (On Saturday; Friday is a rest day.)

Carlsen - Leko
Morozevich - Svidler
Aronian - Topalov
Anand - Ivanchuk

The games, with my comments, are here.

Chess fans everywhere should be grateful to Morozevich for his willingness to buck convention, especially in the opening. Today he demonstrated his unconventionality in a most unusual way; namely, by playing one of the most popular openings of all time! More specifically, he avoided the dreary Marshall Gambit/Marshall Gambit bluff with the straightforward 7...d6, and after 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 he chose the comparatively staid Breyer Variation with 9...Nb8. The Breyer has been under a cloud the last few years, but despite Anand's control of the d5 square Black enjoyed the advantage until move 33. Morozevich's queen swap marked the turning point, and he rapidly went from slightly better to lost - perhaps due to time pressure.

This win kept Anand in clear first, half a point ahead of...Carlsen, who bounced back from his loss to Anand with his second win of the event - and it should have been his third! His victim today was Ivanchuk, though it must be said that Ivanchuk helped the youngster. The Ukranian great was better after an unusual opening, and he maintained that edge up to his 32nd move. His idea was correct, but the implementation was not, and Carlsen very astutely seized a tactical opportunity. After the time control they reached an equal rook and bishop vs. rook and knight ending with equal pawns. The game should have been drawn, but a combination of strong endgame play by Carlsen and self-destruction by Ivanchuk decided the game.

Topalov-Svidler was a "correct" draw. The former FIDE champ had a slight edge out of the opening, but Svidler neutralized it so successfully that Topalov, the biggest fighter in top-class chess, offered the draw on move 29.

Finally, Leko, uncharacteristically, went for a speculative attack against Aronian, giving up the exchange for unclear chances. Aronian was never in danger, and Leko had make a few accurate moves to achieve a draw in the endgame.


Standings after Round 4:

1. Anand 3
2. Carlsen 2.5
3-6 Aronian, Ivanchuk, Leko, Svidler 2
7 Topalov 1.5
8 Morozevich 1

Pairings for Round 5:

Svidler - Leko
Carlsen - Topalov
Morozevich - Ivanchuk
Aronian - Anand

Games, with comments (except to Topalov-Svidler), here.

Contemporary chess is characterized by concrete, dynamic play. Material is sacrificed, weaknesses are accepted, and pieces move to all sorts of peculiar squares – as long as it works! Nevertheless, we sometimes need to be reminded that (as Freud might say) a weakness is just a weakness.

Our game this week is a perfect illustration of this thesis. In the game Najdorf-Averbakh, from the famous 1953 Neuhausen/Zurich Candidates Tournament, White accepted a doubled c-pawn for a smidgen of space and a dash of activity. The pawns were safe enough – they weren’t under attack, the c-file was closed and they could be easily defended in any case – and so it seemed to White like a reasonable bargain.

In fact, there really wasn’t anything wrong with Najdorf’s choice, but that doesn’t mean his decision to accept doubled pawns was risk-free. He was risking one sort of disadvantage for compensation, and the danger is that the compensation will dry up. That’s what happened here, and Averbakh – more on him below – demonstrated the under-appreciated rule of thumb that doubled pawns are a double weakness. Not only are the pawns themselves weak, but very often the square of the leading pawn is weak as well (c4 in this game, most typical of Nimzo-Indian structures). Black pressured the pawn – and although White was able to save the pawn by playing c5 followed by cxb6, that still didn’t fix the problem of the weak square, and allowed Black to enjoy even more pressure with …cxb6! followed by mayhem on the c-file.

Averbakh, who won this game convincingly, was one of the greatest players of the 1950s. He made it to the 1953 Candidates, won one Soviet Championship (1954) and tied for first in another (1956), and is one of the relatively few players known both for his opening and endgame contributions. On February 8 of this year, he turned 85, so we’ll take this opportunity to celebrate his birthday and commemorate his chess.

See you this Thursday! (9 pm ET; directions for watching can be found here.)

Filming Corus was far more convenient for the crew of ChessVibes, but it looks like they'll have some video coverage of Morelia as well. First, if you ever wondered what it's like to be assaulted by the paparazzi, this clip from the start of round 1 might offer an inkling as to what that miserable experience might be like. More to the point for us as chess fans, the Svidler-Aronian and Ivanchuk-Leko post-mortems from round 1 can be seen here.

Round 3 saw a familiar script, with one decisive game and three hard-fought draws. In that one decisive game, Carlsen played passively with White, and after missing a clear drawing chance on move 27 he went down with a thud. That knocked Carlsen out of first and Anand into it.

Ivanchuk, the other leader after round 2, maintained his co-lead, drawing a long, hard fight against Svidler. That game seems to have been very accurately played, in contrast to Morozevich-Aronian. Morozevich had a completely winning position, but missed opportunities on moves 35, 38 and 39 allowed Aronian to escape a lost position for a second straight round.

Finally, Leko played the main line of the Queen's Indian against Topalov, following Topalov-Anand from San Luis 2005. Topalov varied with 19.Nb3; unfortunately, we didn't get to see what Leko had planned against 19.Nc4.

Standings after Round 3:

1-2. Anand, Ivanchuk 2
3-6. Aronian, Carlsen, Leko, Svidler 1.5
7-8. Morozevich, Topalov 1


Pairings for Round 4: (On Wednesday; Tuesday is a rest day.)

Leko - Aronian
Anand - Morozevich
Ivanchuk - Carlsen
Topalov - Svidler


Games, with comments, here.

As if to punish my continued lack of faith in his prospects for the tournament, Carlsen nearly won again, this time against Aronian, and with Black! Aronian had offered a dubious piece sac, but Carlsen's time shortage led to an error just before he managed to consolidate the material. The result: a draw.

The youngster was caught by Ivanchuk, who was outplaying Topalov before the latter blundered a piece. That's certainly good news for Ivanchuk, who had very little time to prepare for the event and will probably start to suffer from jet lag if he isn't already. And it's not especially bad news for Topalov, who has made a habit of overcoming early-round losses on his way to winning one tournament title after another.

Leko-Morozevich was a McCutcheon French with a new move by Black in a known position. Black's position soon looked precarious, but in truth he was in good shape, and Leko had to sweat a while before achieving the draw.

Anand-Svidler was an Anti-Marshall with a few interesting tactical moments, but at no time was the balance significantly disturbed. Another draw.

Standings After Round 2:

1-2. Carlsen, Ivanchuk 1.5
3-6. Anand, Aronian, Leko, Svidler 1
7-8. Morozevich, Topalov .5

Pairings for Round 3:

Topalov - Leko
Svidler - Ivanchuk
Carlsen - Anand
Morozevich - Aronian

Games, with brief comments, here.

Making predictions is easy, but getting them right is another matter. A few posts ago, I wrote this about the tournament line-up: "Carlsen is still an outsider at this point (to judge from his rating and his performance at Wijk aan Zee), but it looks to be a marvelous tournament". Needless to say, after all of one round, Carlsen stands in clear first place! (I don't expect him to be anywhere near first by the time it's all over, but within a year or two his "underdog" status will be a thing of the past.)

His victory over Morozevich was by far the most interesting game of the round. Carlsen devised an interesting piece sacrifice, and Morozevich couldn't find anything better than returning the material - with interest. Carlsen had the pawn, Morozevich the initiative, but the initiative didn't last. Still, the game was not easily won, and even though Carlsen won a second pawn Black managed to reach an opposite-colored bishop ending. Maybe he could have drawn it, but he didn't, and Carlsen became the sole leader.

Topalov-Anand reprised their game from last month's Wijk aan Zee tournament, but although Topalov won that contest he varied first with 14.Nxe4. Anand replied with 14...b5, and now Topalov deviated from another successful White game, producing the novelty 15.Qe2. Although Topalov has terrified Queen's Indian players the past couple of years, Anand's preparation seemed perfect and he drew with ease.

Svidler-Aronian reprised another of Anand's games from Wijk aan Zee, this time Anand-Aronian. Our game, a Marshall Gambit (zzzzzzz) followed its predecessor through White's 23rd move. Against Anand, Aronian played 23...Bb1 and drew with a neat perpetual check; this time Aronian played 23...Bd3. It allowed White's Ra1 to come into play more quickly, but he still managed to keep White locked up, and this game was also quickly drawn.

Finally, Ivanchuk-Leko was also quickly drawn. Ivanchuk, who is capable of playing practically any opening at any time, essayed a relatively rare line of the Scotch. Leko was well-prepared (as always), and within three moves of Black's novelty White sacrificed a piece for perpetual check.

Pairings for Round 2:

Leko - Morozevich
Aronian - Carlsen
Anand - Svidler
Ivanchuk - Topalov

Games, with my brief comments, here.

The games start tomorrow at 4:30 pm ET, and will be carried live on the major chess servers. Here's what we have to look forward to:

Ivanchuk - Leko
Topalov - Anand
Svidler - Aronian
Carlsen - Morozevich

Readers, predictions? (Either for the round or the tournament as a whole, which is a double-round robin. The first go-round is in Morelia, Mexico, then, after about five days off, the second loop takes place in Linares, Spain.)

John Brown was a fixture of the Las Vegas chess scene, a real character and for many years one of the area's best players. I have many fond memories of him as a player and as a person, as does Alex Herrera, who offers this memoriam:

Chess has many social benefits, in some respects it’s a ready-made way of making friends. You can be new to a region or country, show up at the chess club and instantly be accepted in a sort of fraternity. Because of chess I have met a universe of people to my personal enrichment.

The first time I visited the chess club where I now live, in Arlington Virginia, I was accompanied by my wife and daughter. On the walk from the metro station I was commenting on how chess was a great equalizer, bringing together all sorts of people across all of the divides, and I joked that a homeless man pushing a cart was probably headed to the chess club. Imagine my surprise when this was indeed the case!

These are remembrances of a chess friend, John Brown (born John Davidian.) He lived in Las Vegas, and he died in 2006 at the age of 58. We played each other amazingly frequently, perhaps as many as 200 rated games when we both lived in Las Vegas. John was rated between 2000 and 2200 most of his chess playing years, and he did indeed cross the Rubicon of 2200 once. He was not in possession of a clear mind, yet his chess was very clear and direct. He was the firewall that talented youngsters of successive generations (Dennis Monokroussos, Patrick Hummel, etc.) had to conquer on their journeys of chess improvement.

John was schizophrenic, but harmless, humorous and generous in many ways. Because of the machinations of his mind he legally changed his name and always wore all brown clothing (with the exception of an all blue outfit that he wore sparingly for a couple of years.) He was a diabetic and had to inject himself with insulin daily, and it befell his father to be vigilant that John would not forget to do so.

John lived for chess. He played anywhere he could, frequently traveling out of state, and always playing in the local Las Vegas events. I’m very glad that I met John and spent many hours across the board from him.

I heartily second Alex's comments. John was extremely good-natured, willing and able to laugh with those who were amused by his quirks, always happy to play anyone, and as free of pretension as anyone I've ever met.

He was also a generous man, as Alex noted, more than once carting me and other juniors of my generation across the desert to play in L.A.-area tournaments. And he was a talented person - in chess, obviously (and this despite suffering the ravages of schizophrenia and medication), but in music, too - I've heard that as a young man (before the disease struck) he was a very able pianist.

I too am grateful to have known him.

Morelia/Linares starts Saturday, but Wijk aan Zee co-champ Teimour Radjabov won't be playing. Last Saturday Radjabov and his father were already in Mexico, getting acclimated, and when they went to dinner his father's room was burgled, the thief or thieves making off with with items significant to both individuals' professional activities. Neither the police nor the local organizers handled the situation as Radjabov felt they should, and so he has withdrawn. Fortunately for chess fans, his replacement is the equally strong and entertaining Vassily Ivanchuk, but of course this is not the way we would have liked to see him invited.

You can read the full text of Radjabov's press release here.

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One is not reading them."

--Joseph Brodsky

From Round 2; it's White to move:



White has only one winning move here, but after this both sides have reasonable options. Nevertheless, see if you can figure out the right move - and why it's the right move - and then check out the rest of the game here. The finish is beautiful.

A few days ago, I offered this slightly odd-looking position



and claimed that it had something to do with the game I covered in this past week's ChessBase show, Short-Ljubojevic. It's Black to move in this diagram; what should he do, and what's the connection to Short-Ljubojevic?

"Roman" (not Dzindzichashvili) writes in to mention a pair of Russian-language sites that might be of interest:

1. Free chess school ChessZone - http://www.chesszone.net.ru. Rare downloadable free e-books, free Chesszone Magazine, training databases, chess software collection and so on. All for free!

2. Live chess CrestBook.com - http://www.crestbook.com Live chess games with GM Shipov annotations, great chess forum and much more.

[The foregoing was lightly edited.] I don't know if Roman works for those sites, but they seem worth checking out.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu just produced an incredible novelty against the Modern Benoni:

1.d4 e6 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 c5 4.d5 g6 5.Nc3 exd5



6.Bg5!!?



The move - a novelty - makes excellent sense, as White would love to embed a permanent knight on the d5 square. As it turns out, it's not only d5, but e4 and d6 that also prove vulnerable.

Nisipeanu quickly proved a durable White edge, but the good news for Modern Benoni fans is that this idea only seems to work against Black's somewhat unusual move order. For more details, have a look here.

The Aeroflot Open - the world's strongest annual Swiss System event - started today, while Morelia/Linares - arguably the world's toughest round-robin tournament, starts this Saturday. Here's the line-up for the latter event:

Veselin Topalov
Viswanathan Anand
Peter Leko
Peter Svidler
Levon Aronian
Teimour Radjabov
Magnus Carlsen
Alexander Morozevich

Vladimir Kramnik is missing from the ranks of the super-elite, and Carlsen is still an outsider at this point (to judge from his rating and his performance at Wijk aan Zee), but it looks to be a marvelous tournament.

Videos of a speed chess tournament they themselves sponsored - start here; you'll see the links starting with "Last series of videos."

Is the Advance Variation against the Caro-Kann (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5) an attacking system? It is on many of its most popular interpretations (e.g. 3…Bf5 4.Nc3 e6 5.g4), but in the early 1990s British GM and 1993 World Championship finalist Nigel Short devised a slower system (4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 followed by O-O, c3 and Be3 in some order). You might expect that since this week’s game, Short-Ljubojevic, Amsterdam 1991, demonstrates that variation in action, the play will be comparatively quiet. And you’d be right…up to a point.

The play starts with relative quiet, as both sides develop in peace, fix the pawn structures and start to build for play on opposite sides of the board. But the fireworks do come, and when they do, the results are impressive! What’s especially unusual about the game is the interplay between unexpected violent moves and even more unexpected quiet moves. The overall effect is powerful, yet despite the virtuoso nature of Short’s performance, I think those of us who play the Advance Caro-Kann, the Advance French, or the King’s Indian Attack can learn a thing or two for our own games.

Hope to see you there – same time as always, Thursday night at 9 pm ET. (If you've never seen the show before, you can find directions for watching it - free - here.)

Here's a funny position:



Peculiar as it is, it has some relevance to this week's ChessBase show (coming this Thursday to a chess server - playchess.com - near you). I'll explain the relevance during the show; for now, see if you can figure out what Black (to move) should play.

P.S. If you know, don't say - leave the task for those who come after you!

The game I presented yesterday showed the idea in a different setting, but of course this wasn't the first neat combination involving an ingenious opening of the h-file. Many of you are familiar with the games Anderssen-Lange and Polgar-Berkes, but if not, you're in for a treat.

Have a look, here.

at least on this one occasion.

We start from this position, which is favorable for White no matter how you slice it:



White has an abundance of good moves, including the prophylactic 15.a3 and the very direct 15.Bg5. Both moves give White a clear edge, but White had a deep idea in mind. The game continued 15.Nxd6+ (Obvious, but the complication comes on move 16.) 15...Rxd6 16.Qxd6 b4 (The point: the knight is trapped.)



Strong players should try to figure out White's idea from this point. Those wanting a further hint should continue to the next diagram.

Grandmaster, former Soviet champion and Candidate, and well-known endgame theoretician Yuri Averbakh is 85 years old today. (He's also the inventor, at least the chief founding father of the eponymous Averbakh Variation against the King's Indian Defense: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 O-O 6.Bg5.)

You can read more about him in this ChessBase article, and you can check out his role in what Tim Krabbé calls the most fantastic move of all time here. As that game doesn't exactly show him in his finest hour, here's a more successful example of the grandmaster at his best - click here.

1.e4 players, are you tired of facing the stodgy Caro-Kann? And more generally, chess fans, are you tired of GM computer preparation? To both groups I say, fear not: the game Baadur Jobava – Evgeny Bareev from the 2003 European Club Cup is for you. In the Classical Main Line of the Caro-Kann, the players reached this position after move 14:



It’s a typically dry, technical position (not that anything is wrong with technical positions, but we’ll return to them another week), and you can run your chess software until you turn deep blue in the face, but all you’ll get are moves like 15.c4 and 15.dxc5. Jobava, a talented youngster from Georgia, had a different idea: 15.d5!!? Don’t get the point? Don’t worry, Bareev didn’t either (or more likely he did, but underestimated the strength of White’s attack), and lost an inspired game. First Jobava played for mate with queens on, then found a brilliant way to play for mate with the queens off, and then tiptoed through some landmines to escape Bareev’s desperate counterattack.

It’s a beautiful, complete game, and one I’m sure you’ll enjoy when you tune in this Thursday night at 9 pm ET on the playchess server. Hope to see you then!

(If you're unfamiliar with the playchess server, you can find directions for watching the show, here.)

As noted sometime last year on this blog, Bundesliga games are often overlooked by most chess fans, and that's a pity. Many of the world's very best players are part of this yearly league competition in Germany, including Kramnik (most years), Anand, Shirov, Aronian and so on.

Rather than any sort of full report on the most recent Bundesliga weekend, however, I'll just offer up a couple of games that caught my eye: Fedorchuk-Tregubov and Luther-Ftacnik. The games feature very different openings, but there is a commonality: both losses remind us that grandmasters are made of the same stuff we are, and suffer all the same shortcomings.

In the first game, Fedorchuk introduced an interesting gambit, which Tregubov bravely accepted. A few moves later, however, it was clear that White had more than enough compensation, and Tregubov tried to bail out by returning the material. That's a good general strategy (indeed, it's that basic policy that put widespread gambit play out of business by the early 1900s), but Black missed a nifty tactic an average club player might have found. That sort of thing happens to all of us, but it's still surprising when it happens to a strong grandmaster, especially in a slow game and not in time trouble.

Even more interesting is the same game. Ftacnik, a strong GM long known as an outstanding theoretician, produced a novelty on move 21 of a Poisoned Pawn Najdorf, attempting to improve on the very recent game Anand-van Wely, from last month's tournament in Wijk aan Zee. White's 22nd move was fairly obvious, and then Ftacnik immediately blundered! It would be a little surprising if Ftacnik had missed this in the pre-computer era, but to miss it nowadays is remarkable (and not in a good way). Maybe he didn't set his computer to analyze that position, or perhaps he misremembered something. Whatever the case, he again looked all too human.

So keep this in mind when you play stronger opponents, even if they are GMs. If you spring a novelty on them, they might go astray if it's a tactical position, especially if you have the initiative. (Most players are much better as attackers than defenders.) And even if they spring the novelty on you, their analysis might not be as clever as they thought.

There is one more thing to keep in mind though: you're human, too...but let's focus on the optimistic angle for now, and have a look at the games, here.

I don't know why it took the PowerBlogs people as long as it did to fix the problem I had with the replayable boards, but they are fixed and I am grateful.

Thanks to those who suggested alternatives over the past few weeks - to Reyk Schaefer, Harris Nizel and ESPECIALLY Michael Goeller of Kenilworthian fame, who did his best to help set me up with Palview. He does a nice job with it on his websites, so it looks like a nice product - once it's properly set up, but my own experience with the set-up process was exasperating.

At any rate, the boards are working, so normal blogging will now resume.

Soon after reopening the blog, I listed the games I planned to cover for the next few ChessBase shows. One of the games was J. Polgar-Mamedyarov, Bled (ol) 2002. Polgar won quickly in a sharp line of the Open Ruy, and since Mamedyarov himself (now the world's fourth-highest rated player) called this the best chess game he ever saw (New in Chess 2006/8, page 106, it seemed like an excellent choice for the show.

I planned to cover the game this week, but when I did a little research my opinion changed dramatically. It's a nice game, sure, and Polgar can be moderately proud of the TWO MOVES she contributed to it.

The game began like this: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Nxe4 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 9.Nbd2 Nc5 10.c3 d4 11.Ng5

A Zaitsev idea, sometimes misattributed to Tal, which was first played by Karpov against Korchnoi in their 1978 World Championship match.

11...Bd5?

Another move to avoid is 11...dxc3?!, as played in the spectacular 10th game of the Kasparov-Anand match (but see Naiditsch-Mamedyarov, Pamplona 2004), but 11...Qxg5 is considered best, I believe, leading to a complex ending after 12.Qf3 O-O-O 13.Bxe6+ fxe6 14.Qxc6 Qxe5 15.b4 Qd5 16.Qxd5 exd5 17.bxc5 dxc3 18.Nb3 d4 19.Ba3.

12.Nxf7! Kxf7 13.Qf3+ Ke6 14.Qg4+ Kf7

14...Ke7 was played in Svidler-Anand, Dos Hermanas 1999. White obtained a big advantage (or at least an initiative so dangerous Anand couldn't handle it and no one has repeated the line with Black) with 15.e6! Bxe6 16.Re1 Qd7 17.Bxe6 Nxe6 18.Nf3 Re8 19.Ng5 Ncd8 20.Bd2. Svidler secured a winning position, maintained it after some inaccuracies, and...offered a draw when a study-like win was available.

Back to our main game. 14...Kf7 was Mamedyarov's attempt to improve on Anand's play, but it didn't work:

15.Qf5+!

Technically a novelty, but only because 14...Kf7 had been played in a 2000 between a pair of amateurs. White played 15.e6+ in that game (and won: Coelho (2164) - Januario Pereira (2093), 1-0, 27).

15...Ke7 16.e6! Bxe6 17.Re1! Qd6 18.Bxe6 Nxe6 19.Ne4 Qe5 20.Bg5+ Kd7 21.Nc5+ Bxc5 22.Qf7+ Kd6 23.Be7+ 1-0

Black suffers massive material losses after 23...Kd7 24.Bxc5+, or checkmate after 23...Nxe7 24.Rxe5 Kxe5 25.Re1+ Kd5 26.Qxe6# or 23...Kd5 24.Qf3+ Kc4 25.b3#.

It's all very pretty, so what am I grousing about? Just this: in GM V. Mikhalevski's notes to the Svidler-Anand game, produced and published all the way back in 1999, the whole line that became Polgar-Mamedyarov is given through Black's 21st move, when Mikhalevski gives the less incisive but still completely winning 22.Rxe5 Nxe5 23.Qxe5+-. Polgar's 22nd move is a definite improvement, but we're gilding the lily here: Black is dead in either case.

A very strange game - was Mamedyarov just bluffing? He was already strong enough to have analyzed 14...Kf7 to a loss - Mikhalevski had done so three years before, and White's moves, while nice, are not that difficult to find. (The far lower-rated Coelho found the crucial e6 idea, but missed the preliminary finesse 15.Qf5+.)

The strangest thing of all, however, is Mamedyarov's lack of research. Over the last year or so, I've come to notice, with some regularity, just how uninterested many strong GMs are in others' commentaries. Up to a point I think that's right: one should ideally try to figure things out for oneself and to form one's own opinions about a position. And it's often true that these strong GMs have a better understanding of what's going on than the IMs and weaker GMs before them.

Although that's sensible, it's not the whole story. Having done one's own work, why not compare it with what's already there? It is possible one has missed something! Further, even if A is stronger than B, B might have spent more time on the position than A, or be especially insightful in that sort of position, or have information from other, stronger players, etc. It's impossible (and undesirable) to check every source, but if I were a chess professional I can't imagine not checking my repertoire ideas with ChessBase Magazine/Mega2xxx. (In case you think this whole post is intended as an ad for ChessBase, I'd include New in Chess Yearbooks, Informants, and perhaps Chesspublishing.com in the essentials list as well.)

As I tell the "geniuses" who boast that they don't read chess literature, they're welcome to waste their time. I prefer to learn from other people's mistakes, when possible.

To continue our celebration of Spassky's 70th birthday...

It was early 1956, and the Soviet Championship had finished inconclusively: Mark Taimanov, Yuri Averbakh and the just-turned-19 Boris Spassky were tied for first, and a playoff was needed. The players commenced a double-round robin, and it started poorly for Spassky. The first game was a 115-move draw between Taimanov and Averbakh, and the second game was a Spassky loss, with White, against Taimanov. To have a chance at first, Spassky would probably need to win with Black against Averbakh, but after the moves

1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.e4 d6 4.d4 Bg7 5.Be2 O-O 6.Bg5 [The Averbakh Variation. Coincidence?] 6...c5 [I hope all my readers know not to play 6...e5?? here: 7.dxe5 dxe5 8.Qxd8 Rxd8 9.Nd5+-, though Black can limit the damage to a lost pawn and a worse position with 9...Nbd7 10.Rd1 Rf8 11.Nxc7 Rb8 12.Be3 b6 13.f3 etc. If Black wants to play an ...e5 system against the Averbakh, he should play 6...Na6 and only then ...e5.] 7.d5 Qa5 8.Bd2 a6 9.a4 e5 10.g4 Ne8 11.h4 f5 12.h5 f4 13.g5 Qd8 14.Bg4 Nc7 15.Bxc8 Qxc8 16.Nf3



Black's position is beyond bad; it's horrible. He has no space, no counterplay, and nothing to do but wait for White to finish him off. What would you do here? Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not the move Spassky played: 16...Nc6!!??



What???

Well, yes, it is crazy, and Black is still completely lost. But at least it's a different kind of lost! Black has a little more room for his pieces, the b-file, a potentially mobile pawn center (especially after ...Nd4, should White exchange that knight), and perhaps a short-term psychological advantage as White lifts his jaw from the floor.

As the game continued, Averbakh was clearly winning, and maintained that advantage for a long time, but eventually the tables turned. The position became more fluid, and when White couldn't figure out how to win on the kingside, Black's queenside initiative ended up giving him a won game! Unfortunately, Spassky refturned the favor, and Averbakh snuck out with what was, by the end, a very fortunate half a point.

Is this the most fantastic move ever? Tim Krabbé thinks so, and while I'm not sure I agree, no other move comes to mind in its stead.

Remarkable.

[N.B. You can replay the whole game, and see Spassky's own comments to the move, via the Krabbé link given above.]

Former world champion Boris Spassky celebrated his 70th birthday on Tuesday, and we'll take this occasion to celebrate his chess. Although he had a reputation as a "universal" player, I think it's fair to say that his most natural skill was in attack.

Accordingly, we'll take a look at two such outstanding efforts from late in his career. First, we'll examine a 1977 match win against Dutch great Jan Timman. Timman played the Gruenfeld, and the traditional race occurred between White's attacking prospects based on central control and Black's efforts to explode that center. On this occasion, of course, it was Black's position that did the exploding.

Likewise, our second game featured Yasser Seirawan punting another counter-attacking opening, the Pirc, in their game from Zurich 1984. Once again, the guerilla warfare approach failed, and Spassky won with a fine kingside attack that gives the impression of having been primarily intuitive.

So if you want a few tips on attacking, want to improve your knowledge of one of the game’s greatest players, or simply want to see a pair of exciting, entertaining games, I hope you’ll join me tonight, Thursday night, at 9 pm ET. See you then! (Directions for watching the show can be found here.)