The Chess Mind

Right here (permalink in pdf here). The full games and analysis are presented therein, but you can also find listed the top 30 selections from that issue of the Informant. It doesn't tell you on the list which move was the novelty, but if you look it up in your databases you should be able to find it for yourself. A low tech solution, and not as convenient or, er, informative as having Informant 99 yourself, but definitely better than nothing! The results of that competition, and the previous month's as well, covering the ten best games from that issue, bespeak Kramnik's great results in the first half of this year: his win over Carlsen was the third best game and had the best novelty, while his win over Anand from Wijk aan Zee took second in both contests.

There weren't too many decisive results today - only 5 in 16 games - but most of the draws were hard fought. As for the winners (all with the White pieces), we have the following:

Cheparinov defeated #2 seed Mamedyarov. (Just think, toiletgate fans, we could be headed for a Cheparinov-Topalov showdown!)

Michael Adams always seems to do very well in these k.o. events, and today he collected Zhou Jinchao's scalp. He had nothing to speak of coming out of the opening, but slowly but surely he outplayed his unwary opponent, proving for the umpteenth time that opposite colored bishops do not guarantee a draw.

Kamsky defeated Kiril Georgiev in a very attractive game that looks as if it escaped from a textbook on positional play.

Jakovenko defeated Almasi in 102 moves. He was better throughout, but the decisive error came as late as Black's 98nd move.

Finally, in the battle of the unfortunately paired Chinese compatriots (it has to happen at some point), Wang Yue defeated Bu Xiangzhi.

Interestingly, two of the non-decisive games featured players having a birthday: Magnus Carlsen (b. 1990), who had to sweat a bit before drawing with Lenier Dominguez, and Laurent Fressinet (b. 1981), who drew quickly with Evgeny Alekseev.

Full standings, some photos, and a link to the games in PGN can be seen here.

Here, with varying amounts of comments, are some games I've picked out from the second round of the World Cup.

From day 1, I've picked out the (in)famous Macieja-Radjabov game in the Schliemann (covered in great detail in Wednesday night's ChessBase show, available for your viewing pleasure in the playchess.com archives (directions for watching are here). The next game is Zhang Pengxiang-Karjakin, noteworthy for the latter's excellent defensive technique in a rook ending we've recently seen lost by a strong player. Likewise, our third game, Baramidze-Dominguez shows that the first-named player can make good moves even when he's not down to his last 56 seconds. In this case, he flawlessly defended the unpleasant rook vs. rook and bishop ending for the full fifty moves - but no more! Finally, we wrap our day 1 coverage with Onischuk's lively win over Nikolic, using an exchange sac reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite blitz games from chess history, a brutal Tal win over Karpov.

Moving on to day 2, I present Macieja's second win over Radjabov, both because it's a nice game and to emphasize that the first win wasn't a fluke. Next up: Shirov's crazy win over Shulman in the Poisoned Pawn Winawer. Shirov used a line that worked out well in a recent Svidler-Berg game, but here he was lost until a Shulman blunder allowed him to turn the tables. The next game, presented almost en passant, is a quick draw between Naiditsch and Carlsen. The final position was fascinating, and it's a pity the game didn't continue. Day 2 coverage concludes with an endgame masterpiece by Karjakin against Zhang Pengxiang that deserves close study.

Moving on to the tiebreaks, the first game is Rublevsky-Navara, in which the latter makes an error known to any amateur who has spent some time studying the Vienna. A surprisingly bad loss by a 2700 player, but perhaps the real lesson is just how rich and difficult the game is, even for the best players in the world. The next game is the lively but far from error-free Volokitin-Zhou Jinchan battle, in which White missed a win, then Black was clearly winning up until his last move, when he erred and then White resigned. Good times. Even worse was Motylev-Bu Xiangzhi, where White no sooner scraped back to equality but made a gruesome two-ply blunder in an ostensibly dead drawn position.

Games here.

All four reports are on the ChessBase website, so you might just take the direct link and start browsing. Or, if you want to be selective, the reports are:

1. Kramnik winning the 2006 Chess Oscar (an award given by chess journalists award for the best player of a given year).

2. Kasparov on a hunger strike before getting freed from prison. (Links to and summaries of other related stories, including Karpov's unsuccessfully attempt to visit Kasparov in prison.)

3. Nigel Short, primarily on the loss to Baramidze. (That was the 25-minute (plus increments) game where Baramidze overslept, showed 24 minutes late, and still won.)

4. A photo report from the World Youth Chess Championships, featuring the American squad.

The biggest big guns survived today's rapid tiebreak games, but not everyone escaped the upset bug. The good news for the favorites: Vassily Ivanchuk, Magnus Carlsen, and Ruslan Ponomariov all passed through with ease, and the higher-rated players Wang Yue, Bu Xiangzhi, Vladimir Malakhov, Sergei Rublevsky, Ivan Cheparinov and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu did as well. 2004 FIDE champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov bit the dust, though (to Kiril Georgiev - only a minor upset), as did Vadim Zvjaginsev (to Krishnan Sasikiran - a very mild upset) and Andrei Volokitin (to Jianchao Zhou - a pretty big upset). Here's what we have to look forward to starting tomorrow:

Pairings for Round 3: (Given in bracket order: the winner of the first match plays the winner of the second match; the winner of the first quartet plays the winner of the second quartet, etc.)

Ivanchuk - Nisipeanu
Bacrot - Karjakin
Alekseev - Fressinet
Grischuk - Bareev
Aronian - Inarkiev
Jakovenko - Almasi
Shirov - Onischuk
Akopian - Malakhov
Sasikiran - Macieja
Ponomariov - Tomashevsky
Svidler - Rublevsky
Kamsky - K. Georgiev
Adams - Zhou Jinchao
Carlsen - Dominguez
Bu Xiangzhi - Wang Yue
Mamedyarov - Cheparinov

Commented games to follow later today; the full set of games for the round (without notes) can be found here.

They're not as prestigious as the World Junior Chess Championship (the top title for players under 20 (other than world champion)), but the just-finished World Youth Chess Championships offered real and impressive titles to boys and girls under the ages of 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, and 8. (Thankfully, no neonates are playing...yet.) 1st-3rd place players, plus American results, are given below.

The Dallas team chose their name well! In a rollicking final match that went to the last pairing in a blitz playoff, the Dallas Destiny defeated the Boston Blitz to win the 2007 USCL championship. Here's how it went down:

On board 1, IM Boskovic (Dallas) and GM Christiansen (Boston) drew quickly in a Sveshnikov Sicilian, and some time later Stopa (Dallas) and Shmelov (Boston) drew as well.

In principle this should have favored Boston, as it meant that both of their Black games were drawn, but it turned out they stood worse in their White games. No matter: despite his time trouble Sammour-Hasbun of Boston defeated Kuljasevic, so it all came down to the Williams - Zorigt game. Zorigt had the advantage, but she lost the thread of the game and all her advantage; if anything, she was even worse. Sometimes people don't know what to do with good fortune, however, and almost as soon as Williams gained the upper hand, he overextended, surrendered material, and lost.

We're going to overtime! The USCL had devised an interesting playoff format consisting of a series of blitz (5' + 5") games. The first game sees each team's fourth boards play each other. If one side wins, he (or she) plays the other team's third board and the situation is reiterated. If it's a draw, both players are eliminated and both teams' third boards meet. Only when at least one team is down to its first board does a draw not eliminate; in that case, the players switch colors and do it again.

Here's how the playoffs went:

Williams (B) - Zorigt (D): 1-0 (A very easy win - the only one of the tiebreak.)

Stopa (D) - Williams (B): 1-0 (But only after Williams blew a dead won game resulting from a nice tactical shot. There's no justice in chess, except of course when you're the swindler.)

Shmelov (B) - Stopa (D): 0-1 (Again from a dead lost position!)

Stopa (D) - Sammour-Hasbun (B): 1/2-1/2 (Another incredible game; this time with Sammour-Hasbun making the save most of the way.)

Christiansen (B) - Kuljasevic (D): 1/2-1/2 (Christiansen overextended a bit in the opening, but managed to save the draw. Time to do it again, with reversed colors.)

Kuljasevic (D) - Christiansen (B): 0-1 (Christiansen was better early, but Kuljasevic defended well and found enough counterplay to equalize, maybe even have an advantage at one moment. He missed his chance though, and Christiansen pulled out the endgame.)

Christiansen (B) - Boskovic (D): An equal ending turned into a lost ending when Christiansen made the unfortunate decision to swap rooks on his 35th move. Boskovic made it a little difficult for himself, missing an easy one-move win later on, but still converted the full point.

Congratulations, Dallas!

A couple of comments in closing: First, although the league is fundamentally incomplete until Indiana has a team, it was a very successful season for the USCL. And last but not at all least, big kudos to commissioner Greg Shahade for developing and overseeing the league - we need more people doing this!

The games, which started at 8 p.m. ET (live on ICC), offer a showdown between the Boston Blitz and the Dallas Destiny. Here are the pairings: (D = Dallas Destiny, B = Boston Blitz)

IM Drasko Boskovic (2532, D) - GM Larry Christiansen (2663, B)
Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (2558, B) - IM Davorin Kuljasevic (2489, D)
IM Jacek Stopa (2414, D) - Denys Shmelov (2251, B)
Chris Williams (2175, B) - WFM Bayaraa Zorigt (2196, D)

For lots more info, see the U.S. Chess League website.

[Annoyingly, this is my second report on the second round. "Where's the earlier one?" you ask. That's why it's annoying! The site ate it last night. Grrr. Ok, enough griping - let's get to the chess.]

Round 2 is seeing the matches get closer (unsurprisingly), and in the first game there were only three upsets. The first wasn't even much of an upset, as Evgeny Bareev, until recently a semi-permanent member of the 2700 club, defeated Loek van Wely. (He subsequently held on in a wild second game to advance to round 3.)

The other two upsets were more interesting, however. For the second straight round, former FIDE champ Ruslan Ponomariov managed to get upset, this time by Wang Hao, one of six Chinese GMs to make it to the second round. And once again, as in round 1, he came back to win the second game and force the match to tiebreaks.

The last upset was a real lulu, as Teimour Radjabov trotted out the Schliemann Defense against Bartlomiej Macieja. He had played it several times earlier this year, but I assumed that was just a throwaway line for rapid games, not something he'd use when it mattered. Maybe he hoped to catch Macieja by surprise, or thought he could hold with Black against him using almost anything, preferring to save his good stuff for the later rounds, or maybe he actually believed in the Schliemann. (Crazy - as we'll see in tonight's ChessBase show) Whatever the case, Macieja played the theoretically beleaguered but quite practical 4.d3, got a large positional advantage without doing anything special, and won easily. And then today he won again, sending the number 3 seed packing, 2-0!

Some top seeds are going to the tiebreaks tomorrow (notably Ivanchuk, Carlsen and Ponomariov), but aside from Radjabov, no other player in the top 23 boards has been eliminated in this round. In fact, the only other favored player to lose so far was van Wely, as mentioned above, and he only outrated Bareev by 26 points. Still, with 12 matches going into "overtime", more upsets are possible. Stay tuned until tomorrow, when we report on the tiebreaks and take a look at some of the best (and maybe worst) of round 2's action.

More details on the round so far, plus a link to the games in PGN, here.

The Schliemann Defense to the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5!?) is one of the friskier ways to meet the Spanish torture. It's a club favorite, but even super-grandmasters like Korchnoi, Topalov, Aronian and - as recently as yesterday - Radjabov have trotted it out against elite competition. According to mainstream theory, Black should expect nothing worse than a slight disadvantage if White knows everything, while Black gets lively play and a puncher's chance if White slips up.

On paper, that sounds pretty good. But is that really how things stand? We'll take a closer look tomorrow night, and see if that's really true. I have a fair amount of experience with this opening, and I'll do my best to show you where the dead bodies are. Maybe I can't guarantee an outright refutation, but if your Schliemann-wielding opponents don't watch this video, you can start licking your chops. If they do, they'd better come up with something good! (And if they do, please let me know!)

Hope that whets your appetite. If so, I'll see you tonight - Wednesday night - at 9 p.m. ET. Remember, the shows can be watched live for free, and in the archives for a minimal cost (20-25 cents). Complete directions for watching (either way) can be found here.

Here's what you'll find. From day 1, I've picked out three games that (a) reached tablebase positions, but (b) failed to conclude as they ought to. In Zhao Zong Yuan-Carlsen, White failed to hold a rook and pawn vs. rook and pawn ending, though it must be said that the drawing ideas were subtle. The game Inarkiev-Peralta was staggering: Black needed only give mate with bishop and knight against king - a task the average club player can cope with - but he "lost" (drew) on time, despite a 30-second increment! The third game, Galkin-Bartel, saw Galkin win with bishop and pawn against bishop when Black failed to hold a known theoretical ending. Chess is tough.

From day 2, we return to more positive chess. Three games with nice tactical sequences are featured: Ponomariov-El Gindy, Pridorzhini-Wang Yue, and Tkachiev-Balogh.

Day 3, on the other hand, returns to the bad - or perhaps more accurately, the bizarre. (Or the ugly, for those who like movie titles.) First up is the Short-Baramidze game, where Short lost despite starting the game with a time advantage of 25 minutes to 56 seconds. Ouch. We conclude with the second weirdest game of the tournament (I don't think Inarkiev-Peralta will be topped), Tomashevsky-Mamedov. In this game, Mamedov hung his queen in the most obvious way. It's probably not a blunder in the traditional sense, but some sort of psychological malfunction: maybe he thought he had played the moves in the opposite order, or a priori rejected his opponent's capture of the queen on the grounds that he had a zwischenzug gaining a rook. The only problem is that for something to count as an in-between move, there must be something both before and after relevant to the combination. The problem, as you'll see, is that the "after" part didn't exist!

Link.

With the weekend and round 1 of the World Cup over, it's time to resume blogging.

As we left things after the first game of round 1, there were a few upsets, most notably of Evgeny Alekseev and especially former FIDE champ Ruslan Ponomariov. Both recovered to win the second game, and after the two normal games only 19th seed Pavel Eljanov and 25th seed Konstantin Landa of the top 25 had been excused (to Enamul Hossain and Vladislav Nevednichy, respectively).

Twenty matches went to tiebreaks, which took place earlier today. Alekseev and Ponomariov completed their comebacks successfully, and most of the other favorites escaped the playoffs intact, too. Two exceptions were former FIDE champion Alexander Khalifman, who lost to Vladimir Belov 1.5-.5 in the extra games, and Nigel Short, who lost to David Baramidze by the same margin. The latter match was really extraordinary, according to "Andrey", a regular reader of and commentator on this blog, who sent me this email:

Just something I didn't see mentioned on English sites:
Chessbase has a report on how Short was eliminated by Baramidze, but what they don't mention is that Baramidze overslept the tiebreaks and came when only 56 seconds were left on his clock, against Short's 25 minutes! And he won that game!

Of course, the players were using increments, but that's still pretty amazing! (But not unheard of: Short isn't the first person to crack up in the opponent's time trouble, and won't be the last. This story also reminds me of an impressive performance by Varuzhan Akobian two or three years ago in the North American Open against Lev Milman. The players were using a five second time delay, but no increments, and around move 20 Akobian had ONE second to make his last 30 moves. It was a reasonably complex position, but he nevertheless not only made the time control but won the game to boot.)

Before moving along to the second round pairings, here are the results of the American players:

Kamsky defeated (current world junior champ) Adly 1.5-.5.
Onischuk defeated (last year's world junior champ) Andrisian 2.5-1.5.

Unfortunately, at this point we ran out of world junior champions and things went downhill (with one exception).

Kudrin lost to Vallejo Pons 1.5-.5.
A. Ivanov lost to Navara 1.5-.5.
Becerra was blanked by Bareev 2-0.
Akobian lost in the tiebreaks, after the Armageddon game, to Roiz, 4-3.
Kaidanov lost to M. Gurevich 2.5-1.5.
Shabalov lost to Pavasovic 1.5-.5.
Shulman defeated Leitao 3-1 - and Leitao wasn't even a world junior champion!

Pairings for Round 2: (Note: these are not given in rating order but bracket order: the winner of the first match plays the winner of the second match; the winner of that quartet will play the winner of the next quartet, and so on.)

Ivanchuk – Galkin
Zhao Jun – Nisipeanu
Bacrot – Roiz
Karjakin – Gagunashvili
Alekseev – Sakaev
Navednichy – Fressinet
Grischuk – Najer
Van Wely – Bareev
Aronian – Gustafsson
Inarkiev – Vallejo Pons
Jakovenko – Belov
Almasi – Socko
Shirov – Shulman
Onischuk – Nikolic
Akopian – Ghaem Maghami
Malakhov – Volkov
Radjabov – Macieja
Zvjaginsev – Sasikiran
Ponomariov – Wang Hao
Hossain – Tomashevsky
Svidler – Pavasovic
Rublevsky – Navara
Kamsky – Avrukh
Kasimdzhanov – K. Georgiev
Adams – Gurevich
Volokitin – Zhou Jianchao
Carlsen – Naiditsch
Dominguez – Baramidze
Wang Yue – Tiviakov
Bu Xiangzhi – Motylev
Cheparinov – Tkachiev
Mamedyarov – Kozul

A selection of games will follow later tonight or early tomorrow.

From my emailbox to your eyeballs:

Hallo, I gave a look at the endgames section of the Chess Mind site. The studies of Korolkov are really beautiful, he was certainly one of the greatest composers. I tried to solve one of them, but I admit I could not find the solution. I made for wikipedia a list of endgame composers (on the page "endgame study") with short biographical and other data of about 80 composers. Maybe be you will be interested to see it, and perhaps a link to that page could be useful to the readers of your site. For wikipedia I also made the article on Leonid Kubbel, who is my favourite composer. Best regards, Giuseppe Gabelli

Was there ever any doubt? Not exactly the greatest year in ND history, but generally speaking things got better as the season went on. On now to bigger and better things next year.

Can be found here. With 64 games, starting from the largest mismatches to the closest battles (the pairing system has the top seed play #128, #2 vs. #127, ..., #64 vs. #65), I'll note only the upsets, and of those only those on the top 25 boards (the higher-rated player's color is given in parentheses):

Board 7: Michael Adams (White) was nicked for a draw against Igor Zugic.
Board 8: Anuar Ismagambetov beat Evgeny Alekseev (Black).
Board 11: Gata Kamsky (White) was held to a draw by freshly minted World Junior champ Ahmed Adly.
Board 12: Anton Filippov drew Vladimir Akopian (Black).
Board 14: The Egyptians strike again (cf. board 11): Essam El Gindy beat former FIDE champ Ruslan Ponomariov (Black).
Board 15: Wang Yue (White) drew Aleksei Pridorozhni.
Board 16: Darwin Laylo drew Etienne Bacrot (Black).
Board 19: Pavel Eljanov (White) drew Enamul Hossain.
Board 22: G.N. Gopal held Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Black and another former FIDE champ) to a draw.
Board 24: Ngoc Truong Son Nguyen drew Loek van Wely (Black).
Board 25: Konstantin Landa (White) lost to Vladislav Nevednichy.

For the U.S. audience: we've got a pretty fair number of entries (but no Nakamura, unfortunately), and so far we're keeping up with our unfortunate tradition of doing poorly in similar events (e.g. the FIDE K.O. championships):

Kamsky - Adly 1/2-1/2
Andriasian - Onischuk 1/2-1/2
Kudrin - Vallejo Pons 0-1
A. Ivanov - Navara 1/2-1/2
Bareev - Becerra 1-0
Roiz - Akobian 1/2-1/2
Kaidanov - M. Gurevich 1/2-1/2
Shabalov - Pavasovic 0-1
Leitao - Shulman 1/2-1/2

Hopefully this will only be a nuisance, as it was the last time the government arrested him after one of his "Other Russia" rallies. We'll see; for now, you can read and watch various news reports on the event, starting here.

This is a big event - a very big event - and in three ways. First, it's a big event in terms of prestige, with 15 players over 2700 and 26 more over 2650, to throw some impressive figures out there. Second, as you've probably surmised from the foregoing, it's a big event in terms of numbers: 128 players are entered, the overwhelming majority of whom are over 2500. And third, it's a huge event in terms of its importance in the chess world: the winner plays Topalov in 2008 for the right to face the winner of the Anand-Kramnik match in 2009, for the world championship.

The event works pretty much the same way as the FIDE K.O. world championships used to. It's a 7 round knockout, with at least the initial rounds consisting of two-game mini-matches. (If the match is tied after the two games, further two-game pairs at increasingly faster time limits will be used.) As with the 2005 World Cup, this is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk and continues through December 17 or 18. (Unfortunately for my fellow Americans, the games start at 5 a.m. ET. Oh well.)

First round pairings here.

Predictions, readers?

Viswanathan Anand made a great run at it, coming back from two points down to tie Vassily Ivanchuk going into the last round. Better still, the two were paired in the last round, and Anand even had the white pieces. Ivanchuk came out of the opening and early middlegame in fine shape, but then the wheels started to come off, and Anand was better. In fact, he was clearly winning at one moment, but didn't find the best move, after which the trend reversed itself and the Ukranian GM won. Congratulations, Vassily Ivanchuk!

Leading Standings:

1. Ivanchuk 25.5 (out of 38)
2. Anand 24.5
3-4. Grischuk, Kamsky 23.5
5-7. Kramnik, Leko, Rublevsky 21.5
...(19 players)

This is the link for the official site, and clicking here will take you to eight of the games, with my brief comments.

With the holidays approaching, what better gift can you give to the chess lovers in your life than lessons with a world-class player? Unfortunately, they don't give lessons and if they did, they'd charge an awful lot for their services. Your humble blogger, however, is both available and a lot more affordable! I am available for lessons*, analyzing your games, playing training games, consulting and helping prepare your opening repertoire. If you're interested, please drop me a note here, and I'll be glad to help however I can.

* I give lessons on Playchess.com, ICC, and in the South Bend (Indiana) area.

This is must-see TV! If you haven't seen part 1 yet, check that out first, and then see the conclusion of my wildest, nuttiest, most preposterous tournament game ever! Here are the links:

Part 1
Part 2

It's free and available on-demand, but Americans especially shouldn't wait. Now that it's Thanksgiving, and what better way is there to feel grateful for the amazing game of chess than by looking at exciting and ridiculous battles like the one in the video?

Aside from being chess players, not much! Ernst Grünfeld (1893-1962) was famous for his encyclopedic chess knowledge. Salo Flohr (1908-1983) wasn't especially well-known for his opening play - or his middlegame play, for that matter, but he was an incredible endgame virtuoso. Kamran Shirazi (1952-) is known for his opening and middlegame play, but not primarily for his skill there (not that he's bad, of course) but for the incredible liberties he'll take in pursuit of complications. And Evgeny Bareev (1966-) is a top grandmaster (despite a poor 2007) known in part for his technical prowess.

Four players, four styles. What they have in common is a birthday: November 21. I don't think birthdays have any special, deeper meaning, but it was amusing to see such different players listed together.

Here.

I'm sure Vassily Ivanchuk would prefer to have had this success in the Tal Memorial, but it must be nice to lead the World Blitz Championship at the halfway point, after 19 of 38 games. His score of 13.5 points gives him a half point lead over last year's winner, Grischuk. The five participating world champions aren't doing as well: current champ Anand is two points back, in fifth place, with 11.5; Kramnik is tied for sixth with 10.5, Kasimdzhanov is 14th (of 20) with 8.5, Ponomariov in 16th with 7.5, and Anatoly Karpov is dead last with a meager 5.5. This is a brutally strong event!

Full results and access to a PGN file here, and a ChessBase report, with videos from Europe Echecs, is here.

A few days ago I presented the following studies by the outstanding Russian composer Vladimir Korolkov (all four are White to play and win):


Korolkov 1937


Korolkov 1938


Korolkov 1976


Korolkov & Mitrofanov 1983

I noted that each of the studies displays some humorous twist - that was a characteristic quality of the great composer's work. If you haven't solved them yet, give it another try (and look for a humorous element - it's a clue that you've found the right idea). If you have, or just want to see the solutions, direct your mouse to the end of this sentence and click.

Aaron Nimzowitsch (1886-1935) was never world champion, but as a writer and teacher his influence on chess history is almost without peer. In his masterwork My System, and to a lesser extent Chess Praxis and The Blockade, he set the precepts of positional chess for generations to come. In addition to discussing classical topics like the importance of the center and development, the power of rooks on open files and the 7th and 8th ranks, passed pawns and so on, he introduced his readers to hypermodern ideas like overprotection and the blockade. Or, to put it in Reuben Fine’s great slogan, restrict, blockade, destroy.

This tripartite Nimzowitsch strategy is one he demonstrated repeatedly in his games, turning it into an art form. One such demonstration was his 1922 win against the Swedish player Arthur Hakansson (1889-1947), a beautiful game not in Mega2007 – you’ll have something to add to your databases! It started with Nimzo’s pet line against the French (3.e5 c5 4.Qg4!? cxd4 5.Nf3), and as was his wont he steadfastly refused to recapture the d-pawn, creating and then overprotecting his strong point on e5. Black very quickly found himself in a position without active possibilities (restrict!), and White locked up the board (blockade!) everywhere his opponent could conceivably pursue counterplay. Finally, it was time to put poor Hakansson out of his misery (destroy!), and Nimzo did it with a flair.

It was a one-sided affair, but replaying and studying such games can be extremely valuable. The point is that we get to see the winner’s strategic idea in its purest form, often in an unforgettable setting. I think you’ll find the game an attractive and memorable one, and French Defense-haters should tune in as well, to add another weapon to their arsenal. Remember, the shows are now on Wednesday nights, but still begin at 9 p.m. ET. Hope to see you tomorrow!

Directions for watching the shows, live and free, can be found here.

I haven't covered the USCL very much (understatement!), but that's in good part because it already receives loads of coverage elsewhere. However, since the event is down to the final two, I'll at least give it a mention.

In last week's semi-final, the Boston Blitz defeated the higher-rated New York Knights 2.5-1.5:

Nakamura (NY) - Christiansen (B) 1/2-1/2
Sammour-Hasbun (B) - Charbonneau (NY) 1-0
Bonin (NY) - Shmelov (B) 1-0
Williams (B) - Zenyuk (NY) 1-0

Then, earlier this week, the Miami Sharks were devoured by the Dallas Destiny, 3.5-.5:

Becerra (M) - Boskovic (D) 0-1
Kuljasevic (D) - Lugo (M) 1-0
Martinez (M) - Stopa (D) 1/2-1/2
Guadalupe (D) - Barredo (M) 1-0

The finals are next week, on Wednesday the 28th, starting at 8 p.m. ET, and can be viewed live on ICC (members only) or seen soon afterwards on the USCL website, which contains so much information about the league you can get lost there for days.

According to a rumor in Chess Today from "competent sources", Kramnik's success in the Tal Memorial will propel him to the top of the FIDE rating list in January. Very interesting, and very good for chess to see Anand and Kramnik flip-flopping atop the list as their big, long-awaited showdown finally takes place next year. If it's true that Kramnik is really in first, it won't be by much, and Anand is pretty likely to pass him in Wijk aan Zee in January. (And then Kramnik will probably regain the ground in his favorite tournament, Dortmund, later in the year.) With Topalov returning to the radar screen, it looks as if all three of the four known participants in next year's world championship events will be ranked in the top three and in good form. Again, it's very good for chess - at least as long as no toiletgate-style shenanigans occur this time around.

This will take place in Moscow, and the two-day event will be a double-round robin starring the 10 players of the Tal Memorial, the 2006 champion (Grischuk) and the runner-up (Svidler), wildcards Anand and Karpov, and six qualifiers from a preliminary event that took place yesterday and today.

Update #1: There are two alterations to this list. Apparently Jakovenko and Alekseev, both Tal Memorial participants, are not playing. In their stead, we'll see Rublevsky (the 7th place finisher in the qualifier) and Morozevich (a third wildcard).

Update #2: Another substitution: Peter Svidler, last year's runner-up, is ill and has withdrawn. He is being replaced by the qualifier's 8th place finisher, Alexey Korotylev. (HT: Andrey)

Here's the full list:

Alexander Grischuk (defending champ)
Vladimir Kramnik (Tal Memorial participant)
Alexei Shirov (")
Boris Gelfand (")
Magnus Carlsen (")
Peter Leko (")
Vassily Ivanchuk (")
Gata Kamsky (")
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (")
Rustam Kasimdzhanov (winner of the qualifying event)
Etienne Bacrot (= 2nd-4th in the qualifier, second on tiebreaks)
Michael Adams (3rd on TBs)
Boris Savchenko (4th on TBs)
Ruslan Ponomariov (=5th-8th in the qualifer, 5th on tiebreaks)
Alexey Dreev (6th on tiebreaks)
Sergei Rublevsky (7th on tiebreaks)
Alexey Korotylev (8th on tiebreaks)
Viswanathan Anand (wildcard)
Anatoly Karpov (wildcard)
Alexander Morozevich (wildcard)
It's a very strong event, but it's also a shame that there weren't more qualifying opportunities available. Players like Tigran L. Petrosian and Hikaru Nakamura, for instance, surely belong in this field, but making the long trip to Moscow in hopes of qualifying is a pretty expensive proposition.

You can see more about the qualifier (which was technically part of the championship, which means that in a sense it started on Monday) here; official site here.

Back to objective reporting. The Tal Memorial concluded yesterday with five draws - some interesting, some not - which left the standings unchanged from the previous round. Kramnik had already clinched first place, so all that was left to play for was pride. (Or if that wasn't a motivation, to take a day off and get ready for the big blitz event.)

Final Standings:

1. Kramnik 6.5 (of 9), 2901 TPR
2. Shirov 5, 2779
3-6. Gelfand (2741), Carlsen (2743), Jakovenko (2744), Leko (2740) 4.5
7-9. Ivanchuk (2697), Kamsky (2706), Mamedyarov (2701) 4
10. Alekseev 3.5, 2666

All five games were drawn today at the Tal Memorial, and so we can now report the final standings.

First place goes to Bor-is Gelfand, with ten draws in ten games. Nice going! This is a chess player in a league of his own. The speed with which he generally draws his games puts his knowledge and graciousness on manifest display. Can he help it if he knows, after the opening, that there's no possible way either he or his opponent can win the game? Rather than insult his opponent by playing such stale positions to a conclusion, he does the only honorable thing and terminates the game as quickly as he can. His waterthirsty play is an inspiration to us all.

Hot - or rather, warm - on his heels with Ivanchuk, with nine draws. An impressive performance, though marred not only by a loss, but by 59- and 93-move draws.

In a big tie for third place, Leko, Alekseev, Jakovenko and Carlsen drew eight games apiece. Carlsen's performance was especially impressive, as most younger players show an unfortunate tendency toward fighting chess. Sometimes they overpress and lose, other times they overwhelm their opponents with their energy; either way, their games are often decisive. Thankfully, Carlsen seems well on the way to overcoming the unhealthy exuberance of youth.

In 7th-8th place, Mamedyarov and Kamsky each drew seven games. Work harder, guys! (By this I mean they should work less hard - it's all those effort-filled games that gave rise to those three accidents.)

Coming in next to last was the former world champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Drawing a paltry sixty percent of his games, he would normally be subject to much abuse for his rash behavior. Given that he's probably out of sorts over the loss of his title and that he did use the Petroff whenever possible, we'll give him a pass this time.

Besides, one player did even worse: Alexei Shirov. Having the gall to draw only half his games, Shirov made a mockery of the peaceful lovefest that was supposed to honor the memory of Mikhail Tal, immortalized for his many short, perfunctory draws. There's no possible way the organizers will be inviting Shirov back.

Admittedly, some readers might disagree with this assessment of the tournament. Isn't the point of a chess game to win, to checkmate the other guy's king? Not at all! To you I say, if you want to have decisive results, play blitz. Allow me to kindly respond to your "arguments" with the overwhelmingly crushing force of logic.

First, as almost everyone agrees, the proper result of a perfectly played game is a draw. So rather than rejecting draws, we should embrace them. Decisive games necessarily include mistakes. Aren't there enough errors in life already?

Second, playing for wins is exhausting and bad for you. Think about the old guys at your club. They generally play super solid openings and love draws. They're still alive. World chess champions, on the other hand, fall apart. Morphy and Steinitz went crazy, while Capablanca and Alekhine, Tal and Petrosian died in their mid-50s. On the other hand, Botvinnik quit playing chess and lived an extra quarter of a century. Spassky started drawing games in 10-20 moves in the late 1970s, and he's still with us today. And on and on it goes. Under the pressure of their endless and insanely stressful world championships matches, Kasparov went gray in his mid-30s while Karpov went from weighing less than an anorexic supermodel - at the age of 34 - to mildly obese a decade or so later.

Third, think of what I call the "parenting test." Would you want your kids to be raised by members of the win-at-all-costs team, or by those with a much more relaxed approach to the game? Here are some photos to help you decide, starting with the MUST-WIN group:

At least Kramnik and Shirov are trying! Leko-Carlsen was drawn in 30 moves, Kamsky-Ivanchuk in 34, and Alekseev-Jakovenko was an inspiring 18 move contest. Shirov tussled with Gelfand for 43 moves, to no avail, but it was good enough to keep him in clear second.

First place, however, is out of reach for anyone not named Kramnik. By defeating Mamedyarov in an interesting but imperfectly played game (imperfectly played by both players, that is), Kramnik clinched clear first in the tournament with a round to play.

Standings after 8 (of 9) rounds:

1. Kramnik 6 (2922 TPR!)
2. Shirov 4.5
3-6. Carlsen, Gelfand, Jakovenko, Leko 4
7-9. Mamedyarov, Kamsky, Ivanchuk 3.5
10. Alekseev 3

Number of decisive games in the tournament: 12
Number of decisive games not involving Kramnik or Shirov: 4
Number of draws: 28

Kramnik-Mamedyarov, with my comments, is here.

Having posted a lot of material the past two days, I'll slow up for a day or two to let everyone catch up on the material that's there - especially since some even more intense posts are planned for this week. Happy solving, analyzing and watching.

The following problem and story came to mind because I thought it might have been by Korolkov, but it wasn't. Its author was one Dorogov, possibly Y. (or "J", for "Jurij") Dorogov, a FIDE Master of chess composition. At any rate, I came across the following amusing anti-problem (Soltis's term, used to refer to a problem that violates some standard convention) many years ago when I read it in Andy Soltis's book (not the Chess Life column) Chess to Enjoy. Here, from memory, is an approximate retelling of the story:

A man (Dorogov himself, I think) is visited by an extra-terrestrial, and after teaching him the rules they sit down to a game. Eventually the following position is reached



White - the human - plays 1.Kc2 and prepares to give checkmate next move. All's well, until Black plays 1...h1 = K!! The man tries to tell the E.T. that this is against the rules, but his opponent remonstrates: "You said I could promote to whatever I want when my pawn reaches the end of the board!"

In light of his careless statement of the rules for pawn promotion, the man decides not to further protest the E.T.'s move. He realizes to his horror that if he plays 2.Bd4, it mates the first king but stalemates the second, while 2.Bb7 checkmates king #2 but stalemates #1. What to do? The honor of the earth is at stake: it would be terrible if he as an experienced human player failed to defeat an opponent who had never before seen the game.

At last, inspiration struck him. White played a fantastic move (can you guess it?):

The program, an interview by Leon Aron of Garry Kasparov about his new book How Life Imitates Chess, already aired on Saturday night. But fear not: it will also air today (Sunday) at 6 pm and 9 pm and tomorrow (Monday) at midnight and again at 3 am. (In short, 4 times, at intervals of three hours.) The program lasts an hour, according to my HT source Brian Karen, and even if you don't get C-SPAN2 you're still not out of luck: the show can be viewed online at the scheduled times, here.

In the wake of our discussion of the 2006 "Study of the Year", it's an auspicious time to see some great and (or?) entertaining studies of the past and present.

We start with some studies of the Russian great Vladimir Korolkov. I presented a number of his works two and a half years ago (post here, solutions here - they're very much worth (re-)visiting), and now I offer some more of his works. This is especially appropriate, as this month marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Korolkov's compositions displayed many virtues, but the one that strikes me most clearly is humor. Each of the following studies has some amusing aspect, as you'll see. It's White to move and win in every case.


Korolkov 1937


Korolkov 1938


Korolkov 1976


Korolkov & Mitrofanov (another legend!) 1983
[This study might not be completely sound, but the basic idea still represents best play for White and the humorous aspect may help you solve it.]

Solutions will be given in a few days. Enjoy!

Russian GM Vadim Zvjaginsev is one of those players one should always keep an eye out for. Not only is he a very strong grandmaster (current rating: 2674, peak of 2680), he's also one of the most creative, experimentally-minded players of our age. His most famous experiment is his anti-Sicilian line 1.e4 c5 2.Na3!?*, but for Zvjaginsev, the road less traveled is a way of life.

His latest abominations against routine come from the just-completed Russian Cup, where he lost in the finals 1.5-.5 to Artyom Timofeev. In the semi-finals, against Tomashevsky, he trotted out the hoary old King's Gambit, while against Timofeev in the finals it was time for the Schliemann. Of course neither of those choices is as rare as his patented 2.Na3, but they're still both extremely rare at elite levels.

Have a look.


* Those interested in checking out the 2.Na3!? Anti-Sicilian can have a look at these posts and the game links therein: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Woohoo! Two down, one to go. Next victim: Stanford.

There were three draws today at the Tal Memorial, two of which could be reasonably predicted: Kramnik with the black pieces against Jakovenko (his Petroff left him a pawn up but without winning chances) and, Gelfand against Carlsen (like Kramnik, with the black pieces). Those games saw some fight, but Ivanchuk-Leko rushed to the split point. In the absolute main line QID with 4.g3 Ba6, Ivanchuk opted for 16.cxb6 rather than the almost automatic 16.c6. Maybe he hoped to lure Leko into some tricky business starting with 16...cxb3, but Leko played 16...Nxb6 instead, and they were done five moves later.

That leaves the two decisive games. Mamedyarov entered the round in second place, Kamsky in last, and Mamedyarov had White. The result? Kamsky won, of course. The game was very complicated for a long time, but from moves 36 to 40 Mamedyarov lost the thread of the game, probably in time trouble, and suffered a painful defeat. This dropped him into a huge tie for third. It would have been an even bigger tie for second, had Alekseev managed to draw with White against Shirov. (In that case the standings would have been comical: Kramnik at +3, 6 players with an even score in second, and three players at -1.) Instead, Shirov won his second straight game and trails only Kramnik, who beat him two rounds ago.

Standings after Round 7:

1. Kramnik 5
2. Shirov 4
3-7. Carlsen, Jakovenko, Mamedyarov, Gelfand, Leko 3.5
8-9. Kamsky, Ivanchuk 3
10. Alekseev 2.5

Games, with comments, here.

Right here. The last time these teams played was in the great year of 1966, when Notre Dame won one of their national championships, the Informant first game out, Petrosian defeated Spassky to maintain the world championship, Star Trek began, and probably some other good things happened then too. Anyway, getting back to football, ND thrashed Duck* 64-0 back in 1966. (Quick highlights here and here.) An exact repeat is perhaps a tad unlikely, but Notre Dame should use this game, and next week's win over Stanford, to prepare for the 2008 season. Finally, no pre-game show is really complete without a pep talk, and here's one from former ND head coach Lou Holtz.

The game starts shortly - go Irish!

* Go here, and look for the second "Duck".

Failure becomes Kramnik! With his title out "on loan" (Kramnik's expression, not mine) to Anand, his general return to form since the Torino Olympiad in 2006 is now wedded to what looks like increased motivation. That, or his opponents just can't figure out how to meet the Catalan. Either way, his opponents at the Tal Memorial are feeling the pain, and in round 6 it was Evgeny Alekseev who was mauled in just 31 moves.

A second winner was Alexei Shirov, who combined a Topalovian exchange sacrifice with a bit of fire on board to wipe out Magnus Carlsen in an attractive game. The third decisive game was Kamsky-Jakovenko, where Kamsky started better before gradually finding himself in an inferior ending. Kamsky had a rook, two knights and three pawns against his opponent's two rooks, bishop and two pawns, and that's how things continued for almost 30 moves. It didn't look like Jakovenko was making any progress, but then Kamsky - sitzfleisch specialist - seemed to get impatient, unnecessarily pushing pawns and in the process losing a piece.

The other two games - Gelfand-Ivanchuk and Leko-Mamedyarov - were drawn.

Standings after Round 6:

1. Kramnik 4.5 (of 6)
2. Mamedyarov 3.5
3-7. Carlsen, Gelfand, Leko, Shirov, Jakovenko 3
8-9. Ivanchuk, Alekseev 2.5
10. Kamsky 2

The decisive games, with my comments, are here.

Final Standings:

1. GM Perelshteyn 6.5 (of 9)
2. GM Hernandez 6
3-4. GM Miton, GM Becerra 5.5
5. GM Hera 5
6. IM Krush 4
7. GM(-elect) Hoyos 3.5
8-10. IM Lugo, GM Gulko, IM D. Schneider

More info here and here.

As mentioned in this post, Topalov's strong finish let him win the "Tournament of Champions" going away. The 1.5 point margin was misleading, though, as Ponomariov led by half a point going into the penultimate round. He played Topalov in that round and lost, and then lost again in the last round while Topalov won that one too. At any rate, it was the round 9 (of 10) game that was critical, and you can replay it here, with my (light) comments.

As promised, or at least threatened, in this post, I've taken a look at some of the more interesting games from round 5 of the Tal Memorial. You can replay the games (and my comments) here.

If you've already got a strong chess engine, there's no need to get another unless you're a really serious player. (What difference does it make if we get whupped by a 2950 or a 3040?) If you don't have one, or if you feel like you have good reasons to keep up with the Joneses, then Fritz 11 looks like a product worth considering. In addition to a very strong engine and a reasonably large database, you receive a free 1-year membership to the Playchess.com server (where I do my Wednesday night shows), video clips by Kasparov, Kramnik, Korchnoi, Kasimdzhanov and (K)Shirov. There are also some cool new bells & whistles, the most interesting of which is the Calculation Training feature. More info here and especially here (see e.g. the videos on the second page).

For those interested in the unending debate about what (if anything) to do about (short) draws (by professional players in high-profile events), you might want to check out this new article on the ChessBase website and this older article by Dvoretsky (I might have mentioned it before, but here it is again - HT to Brian Karen).

It's a point I've made many times on this blog, but it's always nice to receive confirmation from my betters. Have a look. (For those accessing this post after November of 2007, use the permalink, here.)

For those who haven't seen any of the shows yet, they're free audio-visual presentations on ChessVideos.tv, and this week I've recorded my fifth such show for that site. In the show, very appropriately entitled "My Craziest Game Ever", I present the first part of my completely insane 1999 game against Lou Barcarola from the U.S. Amateur Team Championship. It's must-see TV, to coin a phrase, as is my ChessBase show tonight (which I keep plugging not to overhype the program, but to make sure those who plan to watch realize that it's now on a new day).

The ChessVideos presentations are free, require no special software and can be accessed on demand, and you can see all my shows on this page. (Mine are the "Master Lessons".)

UPDATE: I gave just about every link above, except the one that was relevant. The new ChessVideo presentation is here.

(Speaking of updates, I hope to update or supplement this post later with a game or two. I'm still prepping for tonight's ChessBase show, so for now only the standings and a very brief recap is forthcoming.)

After all the fighting chess in round 3 of the Tal Memorial, some of the players took a day off in round 4. Not all, though all the games were drawn, but some. Round 5 was better, with only one short draw, but even in this round only one game saw a decisive result. That game was Kramnik-Shirov, another mighty Catalan. To be fair, White didn't get too much from the opening, but Kramnik played the endgame beautifully to put himself in clear first.

The other notable game was Ivanchuk-Carlsen. The Ukranian gradually outplayed the youngster, reaching a completely won queen and bishop ending with two extra pawns. Sadly, he swapped the bishops in a way that allowed Black to draw, and Carlsen grabbed his chance. The standings haven't changed too much since our last post on this tournament, but in case you don't remember them (shocking!), here's how things stand at the moment:

Standings after Round 5:

1. Kramnik 3.5
2-3. Carlsen, Mamedyarov 3
4-6. Gelfand, Alekseev, Leko 2.5
7-10. Kamsky, Jakovenko, Ivanchuk, Shirov 2

I'm sorry to be right about this, but here's something I wrote in my wrap-up on the Mexico City world championship: "For Gelfand, this should get him a fresh round of invites to the big tournaments (at least until he short draws his way onto their "don't call us, we'll call you" list)." And in this event? So far, all five of his games have been drawn, and in 29, 31, 24, 44 and 29 moves. Think he'll be invited back next year?

As mentioned in this earlier post, this Texas tournament is designed as a GM norm event. Unfortunately, it looks like the norm aspirants (Irina Krush, Dmitry Schneider, and Blas Lugo) will be leaving empty-handed.

Standings after Round 6:

1. Perelshteyn 4.5
2-5. Becerra, Hernandez, Hera, Miton 3.5
6. Hoyos 3 (out of 7)
7-8. Krush, D. Schneider 2.5
9. Lugo 2.5 (out of 7)
10. Gulko 2 (very strange - I think he's the top seed!)

More info here and here.

His results over the past year or so have been indifferent at best, but former FIDE champion Veselin Topalov bounced back and overcame a mediocre start in the Tournament of Champions to win the event going away. He trailed Ruslan Ponomariov for eight of the ten rounds, but wins in the last three games (including especially a win against Ponomariov in the penultimate round) let him win in a walk.

Final Standings:

1. Topalov 7 (of 10)
2. Ponomariov 5.5 (He led through round 8, but lost in rounds 9 and 10.)
3-4. Nisipeanu, Polgar 5
5. Kasimdzhanov 4.5 (His start was terrible, but he won his last two games.)
6. Karpov 3 (Ugh.)

You know him as the driving force behind the Prague Agreement, which eventually led to the reunification of the world championship title(s), and before that, he was a leading member of the very important GMA. He has written some excellent chess books, founded and wrote for the sadly missed Inside Chess, and serves as a regular commentator for ChessBase during big events like Wijk aan Zee. But did you know that he has actually WON the tournament? Yasser Seirawan has been an elite grandmaster for almost 30 years, and in the 80s, in his heyday, he was one of the very few players who was thought to have a chance to challenge the Karpov/Kasparov dynasty.

As mentioned above, one of Seirawan’s great successes was his win in the prestigious Wijk aan Zee tournament. In 1980, while still just 19 years old, he tied for first with Walter Browne. Scoring an outstanding 10/13, he finished ahead of superstars like Korchnoi and Timman, and thereby showed the world that a new star had appeared in the firmament. To get an idea of his play, we’ll take a look at one of his wins from that event, against then-Yugoslav GM Vlatko Kovacevic (who once defeated Bobby Fischer in 30 moves). Seirawan used the Pirc, as he often did, and Kovacevic played the “Spike”, a very aggressive line with a quick g4. Such an attacking scheme can scare many players, and with good reason. GM Donner had lost to a then-unknown Chinese player in just 20 moves a couple of years prior to our game (Liu Wenzhe, now best known as the author of The Chinese School of Chess), and Kovacevic probably hoped for an equally brutal finish.

They say be careful what you wish for, as you might get it. And Kovacevic got it, alright, as Seirawan found a brilliant and unexpected way of taking over the initiative. At one point, around move 10, White had a lead in development, space, and apparently the attacking prospects as well. Five moves later, the momentum had shifted, and Seirawan kept increasing his control until White’s position was simply pitiful. It’s a beautiful, instructive, and most unusual game, and I invite you to join me later today – Wednesday! – as we examine it.

Note again: the show will be at the usual time, 9 p.m. ET, but not the usual day. We’re moving to Wednesdays, so re-set your weekly chess calendars for our great games series. Hope to see you tonight!

Directions for watching the show can be found here.

In round 1 of the Tal Memorial, Leko defeated Shirov and took the clear lead, as all the other games were drawn. He maintained that lead through round 2, when all five games were drawn (but they were interesting games), but everything changed in round 3. Four of the five games were decisive, with Kramnik defeating Leko, Ivanchuk continuing his recent slide with a loss to Mamedyarov, Shirov rebounding from his round 1 loss by defeating Kamsky, and Carlsen winning over Jakovenko.

Standings after Round 3:

1-3. Kramnik, Mamedyarov, Carlsen 2
4-7. Leko, Shirov, Gelfand, Alekseev 1.5
8-10. Ivanchuk, Kamsky, Jakovenko

The four decisive games from round 3 can be replayed here, with my comments.

GM Susan Polgar has been working at Texas Tech University, and has helped arrange a norm event down there, called the SPICE Cup. ("SPICE" probably stands for something, but my quick tour of her website came up empty.) At any rate, it's a strong event, and you can find the games on Monroi (once you get there, select the appropriate event from the list on the right) and articles galore on Polgar's blog.

Participating GMs: Gulko, Hera, Hernandez, Perelshteyn, Hoyos*
IMs (i.e. GM norm aspirants): Krush, D. Schneider, Lugo


* He's a GM-elect; hopefully that won't end up causing the norm aspirants any problems with FIDE later on.

Ay ay ay. Next stop: PDuke.

Since our last update of the Tournament of Champions, two rounds have transpired. Four of the six games were drawn, and both of the decisive games have featured Judit Polgar. In round 6, she lost badly to Ruslan Ponomariov, and in round 7 she was losing badly to Anatoly Karpov, too. Then he self-destructed: a reminder that it's almost never too late to blow a won game, and a sad reminder that age and rust can diminish even the greatest talent.

Games here.

Standings after Round 7:

1. Ponomariov 5
2-4. Nisipeanu, Polgar, Topalov 4
5-6. Karpov, Kasimdzhanov 2

In day two of the battle of now-non-existent countries, USSR and Yugoslavia split their games 5-5 (most of the games were quick draws), leading to a final overall result of 11-9 for the "Soviet" team. Nostalgia fans can find more info on the tournament site.

The title gives the results, but a brief summary of the games is in order. Kramnik-Carlsen was the banner match of the day, and it lived up to the billing. Kramnik essayed his favorite, the Catalan, and Carlsen replied dynamically, offering a pawn for play. The game was equal or nearly equal all the way through, but it was very lively. The last third of the game was especially exciting, with the players creating a gigantic mutual combination resulting in a clearly drawn rook ending.

Leko-Shirov was a power chess performance by the Hungarian super-GM. On move 15 he produced what looks like a very strong novelty on the White side of the Neo-Archangelsk Ruy Lopez. He returned his doubled extra pawn, but in return received a more or less permanent space advantage and kept Black's Bb6 hopelessly out of play. A very good example of positional home prep.

Kamsky-Gelfand was an English with 1...e5 that left theory in a hurry. Kamsky left the opening with an advantage, then a pawn. He was well on the way to a win, but due to time pressure, perhaps, or just a moment of carelessness or a blind spot, he blundered his extra pawn in a completely winning position. A lucky draw for Gelfand.

Alekseev seemed to have some advantage against Ivanchuk from start to finish, but by the end Ivanchuk had achieved an adequate defensive formation.

Finally, Jakovenko had a meaningful advantage against Mamedyarov, but after missing his best chance his opponent escaped to a balanced ending that quickly resulted in a draw by repetition.

Games, with brief comments, here.

This week, the Notre Dame football team takes on the U.S. Air Force. The game starts in 25 minutes or so, but you can still catch some pre-game material here and especially here.

I'm sure that despite the few minor glitches the Fighting Irish have suffered this year, they'll find a way to win this game. What could possibly go worng?

...and it's incredibly strong. Here's the lineup for this tournament, which runs from November 9-19 in Moscow, Russia (and not in Tal's hometown of Riga, Latvia):

Vassily Ivanchuk 2787 (but going down, down, down)
Vladimir Kramnik 2785
Peter Leko 2755
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2752
Alexei Shirov 2739
Boris Gelfand 2736
Gata Kamsky 2724
Evgeny Alekseev 2716
Magnus Carlsen 2714
Dmitry Jakovenko 2710

I'm predicting a Kramnik win here. Despite coming in second to Anand in Mexico City, his performances over the past year and a half have been unfailingly positive, and now with the loss of the title he should be more motivated than ever. Regardless of who wins, though, it should be a great tournament: strong, and with a balance of styles and ages.

Tournament website here. Unfortunately, the English page for the tournament seems to be a blank (lots of info on the blitz event scheduled for after the tournament, though), but if someone finds something useful please post the link in the comments.

Today was a rest day at the Tournament of Champions - but not for Kasimdzhanov and Nisipeanu, who made up their delayed first round game. We last reported after round 4, and the only news to draw to your attention is that in all four games (three from round 5, plus the make-up game) the point was split. Here, then, are the standings:

Standings after Round 5:

1. Ponomariov 3.5
2-3. Polgar, Topalov 3
4. Nisipeanu 2.5
5-6. Karpov, Kasimdzhanov 1.5

Meanwhile, a nostalgia event got underway earlier today and concludes tomorrow (Friday): the so-called USSR vs. Yugoslavia match. Neither country exists any more, but whatever their other problems they were monsters in the chess world. Happily, many of the old names are in this event: Victor Kortchnoi, Mark Taimanov, Yuri Averbah, Yuri
Balashov, Evgeny Vasiukov, Igor Zaitsev, and Elena Fatalibekova are among those playing for the "Soviet" team, while Aleksandar Matanovic, Borislav Ivkov, Dragoliub
Velimirovich, Svetozar Gligoric and Milunka Lazarevic defend Yugoslavia's honor.

Many of the games, unsurprisingly, were of the "hi, great to see you, let's get out of here and socialize" variety, but four of the ten games were decisive and a fifth, though cut short, had been quite lively up until the draw. Overall, the "USSR" leads 6-4.

Decisive games:

Gligoric (Yug) - Korchnoi (USSR) 0-1
Balashov (USSR) - Velimirovic (Yug) 0-1
Lazarevic (Yug) - Fatalibekova (USSR) 0-1
Zaitseva (USSR) - Blagojevic (Yug) 1-0

Many chess players are vexed by draws, and for several reasons. One: there's a general aesthetic preference for decisive results. Two: some grandmaster draws are "grandmaster draws" - i.e. quick, bloodless, often pre-arranged games - most notoriously in the last round of a tournament. Third, the drawing haven motivates many players to prefer risk-averse chess.

What's to be done? One suggestion that gets bandied about from time to time is for chess to imitate soccer (strangely called "football" by non-Americans) and adopt a 3-1-0 scoring system. (Three points for a win, one for a tie/draw, zero [or "nil", for the soccer fans] for a loss.) That proposal was presented and critiqued a week or so ago in this article by Ron Dorfman, and his critique is critiqued in turn by lots of ChessBase readers over here.

Very briefly: Dorfman suggests that the clamor for a 3-1-0 system (generally labeled the "Bilbao draw" or "Bilbao scoring system" in both articles) is misguided and impractical. It's misguided because it penalizes draws when the real problem is the short, bloodless draw; hard-fought games that turn out drawn should be welcomed by chess fans. And it's impractical because it will encourage cheating: rather than pre-arranging draws, players - especially in a double round-robin - will arrange to swap victories. That works out as well as pre-arranging a pair of draws, but with the added advantage of giving themselves an extra point over a pair who only draw their games.

In reply, many offered a double critique. First, the victory swap plan requires a great deal of trust - especially from a player who is already violating the rules - in a situation where betrayal is reasonably likely with enough financial incentive. Second, soccer has used this system for years, and without any problem. We've seen it work, so we should trust it.

I'll offer a counter-response on Dorfman's behalf, though this doesn't mean I agree with him about the Bilbao system. (Or that I disagree, for that matter.) First, if pre-arranged victory swaps were to become common, as the discussants seem to allow, then someone who violated such an agreement would quickly become a pariah and lose out on any possible future benefits. He might gain one time by breaking the agreement, but the long-term repercussions would almost surely outweigh the one-time gain.

Second, the analogy with soccer isn't a very good one. To execute such a secure pre-arranged win swap there would require the collusion and confidentiality of a great many players. Maybe not all 22 starters, but a lot of them. Further, those players would have little to gain and tons to lose. They are salaried and receive endorsements; winning a higher team prize in a competition is nice, but only a small part of their earnings package. Chess players, on the other hand, with very, very few exceptions, receive little to no up-front money and no endorsements at all. So their level of temptation will be much higher and their level of risk far lower.

There may well be other problems with Dorfman's critique, but so far, his critics haven't made a compelling case.

Some people find the typical household chore of taking out the garbage annoying, but in chess it’s a real pleasure facing and taking out the opponent’s garbage openings. There’s a saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and it’s true in chess as well. Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov were virtuosi with the King’s Indian Defense (treasure), but Tigran Petrosian often joked that he fed his family with the proceeds from the King’s Indian. (Petrosian also said that if your opponent threatens to play the Dutch Defense, let him.) We’re not going to cast any aspersions on the King’s Indian or even the Dutch, however. No, we’re headed straight for the bottom of the barrel: our target for this week’s show is possibly the worst opening in chess, the Latvian Gambit.

Some might protest that it’s not really that bad, and especially that it’s a “practical” choice. (This is code for “if my opponent has never spent five to ten minutes studying it or fallen for its two or three basic traps before, I might have a chance.) The statistics do NOT bear this out. Even though many Latvian players are specialists, while their White opponents see it at most every five to ten years, PowerBook 2007 shows White with a gargantuan 67.8% score after 2…f5? – and that figure goes up to 71.9% when White plays 3.Nxe5. (In the Correspondence 2006 database it’s a bit more balanced, but once it’s filtered to include only games where both players are over 2000 – a pretty modest requirement – White’s score goes to 69%. If both players are over 2200, it soars to 74%.)

Why, then, do people trot this opening out from time to time? More importantly, what should you do when you see such an opening? And how should you respond to writers advocating offbeat variations like these? We’ll discuss all these questions and more during our show, and along the way we’ll look at David Bronstein’s brilliant dispatching of Vladas Mikenas from the Semi-Finals of the 1941 USSR Championship. Mikenas was a strong master at the time, while Bronstein, a few years away from becoming one of the world’s best players, was just 17 years old at the time. Even so, and despite facing this unusual opening, he introduced a very interesting novelty on move 6, was winning by move 8, and won in 24 moves (with mate in one pending). In short, it was a complete success for Bronstein, and as we reflect on the game, we’ll know how to succeed as well, when it’s time to take out the trash.

Curious? If so, join me at 9 p.m. ET today (Thursday) – Latvian fans are welcome! (Note: for those who haven't watched my ChessBase shows before - they're free - you can find directions for doing so here.)

Best of all, it features every chess fan's favorite opening: the Berlin Defense. 37 minutes of fun for the whole family, and since it's completely free you'll get double your money back if you're not satisfied.

Here it is. Self-deprecating jokes (based on the opening) aside, I think it's worth seeing, but all of you will have to be the judge of that.

After four rounds of the Tournament of Champions, Topalov has suffered his first loss (to Polgar, making a not very deep blunder in a clearly better position), Ponomariov continues to impress, and the K's - Karpov and Kasimdzhanov - languish in the cellar. Here are the standings:

1. Ponomariov 3 (of 4)
2-3. Polgar, Topalov 2.5/4
4. Nisipeanu 1.5/3*
5. Karpov 1/4
6. Kasimdzhanov .5/3*

* Nisipeanu and Kasimdzhanov will make up their postponed game from round 1 during the second rest day.

For your entertainment, here is Karpov's round 3 loss to Ponomariov. Normally he demonstrates a terrific sense of danger, but not in this game!

As usual on Tuesday nights, I go to the Chess Cafe website to check out the week's offerings. Part of the tour includes a visit to the week's Endgame Study (#563, for those who end up looking for this in the CC archives), which on this occasion featured a 1935 offering by V. Kivi. Here's the position; it's White to move and draw:



After several minutes of staring at the monitor, I decided I had solved it, but after scrolling down it turned out that the "official" answer differed from my own. After thinking some more to figure out why my solution failed, and not coming up with a satisfactory answer, I checked my endgame study database (no help there) and then switched on Fritz...and it agreed with me. (Mine is more logical, but there's no artistry involved; the composer's is more attractive by a mile.)

So there are at least two solutions to this puzzle, and you can find them both here.

Normally such a result would be as unusual as a politician kissing babies during a campaign, but the last few years have seen Russian teams struggle. This time, however, buoyed by the performance of their top two boards, Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich, the Russian men's team won going away. Those two had the top TPRs in the event (2989(!!) and 2855, respectively), so it's hardly a surprise that they had clinched clear first prior to the last round. Their women's team wasn't as convincing, but they still won by a healthy two point margin (2 points per round for a team win, 1 point for a draw).

The leading teams will be listed below, but here are some more noteworthy individual performances from the men's event:

Michael Roiz: 2855 TPR
Michael Adams: 2800
Shakriyar Mamedyarov: 2798
Veselin Topalov: 2797 (gaining some points back in his warmup for the Chess Champions League)
[Skipping some players]
Evgeny Alekseev: 2760
Sergey Karjakin: 2758
Magnus Carlsen: 2757
[Skipping many, many players]
Vassily Ivanchuk: 2623 (not a bad rating for most of us, but dreadful for him - he went 3/7 in the event, losing three games)

Men's Leading Final Standings:

1. Russia 17 (+8 =1 -0)
2. Armenia 14 (+6 =2 -1)
3. Azerbaijan 13 (+6 =1 -2)

Women's Leading Final Standings:

1. Russia 15 (+6 =3 -0)
2. Poland 13 (+5 =3 -1) (Remarkably, the Polish men were 4th - where did this come from?)
3. Armenia 13 (+5 =3 -1)

Tournament site here.

Once again, we start with this position:


Wotawa 1960; White to move and win

The first move, as we saw in the previous post, is 1.f8Q, and after 1...Rxf8 2.gxh5+ Kf7 3.Rh8!! leads to mate or a decisive material advantage. Unfortunately, Black has an alternative on move 1 that makes things messier: 1...Rf7+!



This is very annoying. I've looked at it some, and so has reader Steven Dowd (he's also an occasional study composer - readers with access to Chess Life might take a look at this month's "Benko's Bafflers" column). Our main line against this starts in the same way, and then diverges. Still, I think, but can't say with 100% certainty, that we've found wins for White. White's proximate goal is to reach an ending with two rooks against two knights (with no pawns); should he do so in a normal position (i.e. one where there's no fork regaining an exchange or miracle perpetual check, for example), the game will be over.

It's unfortunate that there's this somewhat ungainly sideline whose result is slightly unclear, so a reader with a taste and a talent for composing should try to create a better introduction to the punchline on move 3 (3.Rh8!!). Still, the study does appear to be sound, and readers interested in replaying the analysis of the previous post, as well as exploring my work (and Dowd's) on 1...Rf7+, should have a look here.

This tournament concluded Saturday night in the "second city" - Chicago - and thanks to Ray Robson's round 8 upset of Dave Vigorito (or was it an upset?) he leapfrogged past him into first place. Even more importantly, he achieved his first IM norm - congratulations!

Vigorito had an excellent tournament as well, and it could have been better, as he missed some opportunities against Mokriak in round 1 and settled for a known theoretical draw, with White, against IM Young in the last round. Even so, he added a healthy number of points to his FIDE rating, played well, and took second by a clear point. So congratulations to him as well.

FM Mehmed Pasalic finished strongly, defeating IM Muhammad in round 8 and FM Chow in the final round. His score of 5.5/9 wasn't enough for a norm, but it was a nice performance overall, good enough for clear third ahead of two IMs.

Before presenting the full list of results, a special mention should go to WIM Ludmila Mokriak. She started the tournament strongly, with draws against IMs Vigorito and Young. Having faced down most of her (ostensibly) toughest opposition, she proceeded to lose six games in a row! Naturally, then, one would expect her to be mincemeat in the final round for Robson, unless they agreed to a quick draw to end the tournament. Nothing of the sort, however: Mokriak had Robson on the ropes and was winning the rook ending outright. Unfortunately, her 58th move allowed him to draw, but even so: she drew with three of the top 5 (according to rating) players! Some players are like that: they rise - or sink - to the level of their opposition. Maybe if she does a better job of handling the more ordinary opponents next time, she'll end the event with a norm. Special mention to Dale Haessel too, who scored 4/9 despite having the lowest rating.

Final Standings:

1. Robson 7 (out of 9)
2. Vigorito 6.5
3. Pasalic 5.5
4. Andrews 5
5-8. Muhammad, Young, Tsyganov, Haessel 4
9. Chow 3.5
10. Mokriak 1.5

Website here.

Let's start, as usual, by re-presenting our starting position:


Bazlov 2006; White to move and win

I'll have some comments, below, but first I present the solution and comments as distributed by the PCCC, with a doff of the hat to both Steven Dowd and Chess Today:



Study of the Year 2006

The Study of the Year award for 2006 has been granted by the PCCC (Permanent Commission of Fide for Chess Composition) to the following masterpiece from the special composing tourney held in memory of the British composer C.M.Bent. Yuri Bazlov (born 1947) has been a prominent Russian composer for the last four decades. It is for him the second time in a row to win this award. Please help us to promote it among chess enthusiasts in your own country by reprinting it in chess columns, magazines and websites. Thank you for your kind effort.

Yochanan Afek, spokesman of the studies sub-committee of the PCCC



1.Be4+ (1.Qe4+ Kc5 2.Bxc4 Bf4+ 3.Kg6 Rxc4 4.Qa8 Re7=) 1…Ke6 2.Qc5! (2.Qb3? Rf4 3.Qxa4 Rxe4 =) 2…Bf4+ (2…Rfa7 3.Bd5+ Kf5 4.Qf8+ Kg4 5.Qf3+ Kh4 6.Be6 mating) 3.Kg6 Ne5+ 4.Kh5 Rxe4 (4…Rd7 5.Bd5+ Rxd5 6.Nc7+ Kd7 (Kf5) 7.Nxd5 wins; 4…Rfa7 5.Bd5+ Kd7 6.Nf6+ Kd8 7.Be6 R4a5 8.Qb6+ Ke7 9.Ng8+ Kf8 10.Qd8+ Kg7 11.Qf6+ Kh7 12.Ne7 wins) 5.Qd6+ Kf5 6.Qf6+!! Rxf6 7. Ng7 mate!

“An outstanding and aristocratic example of the familiar maximal selfblock mate, this study has an excellent quiet second move permitting black counterplay. All pieces move into their final position” (David Friedgood and Timothy Whitworth, Judges in the C.M. Bent MT 2006-07).

Midboard ideal mate with the last piece following four active self-blocks. All units move in the course of the main line of play and the only two captures are of white pieces (John Roycroft, chairman of the award committee).


FIDE announcement over; we now return to your regularly scheduled blogramming. So, dear reader, what do you think about this study? The final position is wonderful - no doubt about it.



But what about the improbable starting position (when was the last time you saw a game with nine units and no pawns?) and all the prosaic, unattractive sidelines? Where's the beautiful (or at least logical) try that just fails? I have to admit that this study has grown on me, and it's an admirable idea, but I find the Wotawa study (for example) far more interesting and beautiful. (No doubt it was also much easier to compose, as the realization of its main idea is much simpler. Does that make the study objectively inferior?)

Maybe the problem that my taste isn't sophisticated (or "aristocratic", whatever that means in this context) enough (this is possible), or is it that almost all the comparatively simple, elegant, game-like ideas already been exhausted?

Here's a second gripe. In the good old days, studies were such that OTB players had a pretty good chance of solving them, a chance more or less commensurate with their playing strength. Yes, the players of those times probably needed to be familiar with a few special themes, but not too many. Now, though, I look at many contemporary studies - some composed with the partial assistance of chess engines and tablebases - and I wonder if it's possible for a non-specialist of my ability to solve them.

But what do you think, readers? I'd especially like to hear from those who are actively engaged in composing and solving contemporary endgame studies. In fact, if a study specialist is interested in writing a guest post or two, with the aim of making contemporary studies more accessible to the rest of us, I'd be very happy to consider such an arrangement.

Meanwhile, you can replay the solution to Bazlov's study here.

Not sure how to best use your king's prawn? Let Nigel Short be your guide.

Link.

HT: ChessVibes

It wasn't that long ago, but between the car search (satisfactorily completed, I hope) and the number of posts I've written in the past week, it feels like ancient history when I offered the following position for your solving pleasure:


Wotawa 1960; White to play and win

Because the threat of 1...Kxf7 is so strong, the first two moves are fairly obvious: 1.f8Q Rxf8 2.gxh5+ Kf7.




As 3.Rf1+?? allows 3...Kxg8, the obvious move is 3.Rxf8+, and after 3...Kxf8 4.Rf1+ Kg8 one senses that Black's king is in a mating net. The first try is 5.Ke7, threatening 6.Rf8#, but after 5...h6 White might have perpetual (e.g. 6.Rf8+ Kh7 7.Rf7 b2 8.Kf8 b1Q 9.Rxg7+ Kh8 10.Rg8+ etc.) but nothing more.

Here one might have a brainstorm. If Black is saved by playing 5...h6, maybe the solution is to prevent it by playing it first: 5.h6! 5...g6 is no answer - 6.Ke7 mates next move - and 5...b2 6.Ke7 gxh6 7.Rg1+ Kh8 8.Kf7 b1Q 9.Rg8# isn't any help either.

Problem solved? Not quite. Black can play 5...gxh6!, and after 6.Ke7 h5! 7.Rg1+ Kh8 8.Kf7 h6 White has no way to win. He's close, but the chief fly in the ointment is that a queen on b1 checks a king on g6. For example, if 9.Rg8+ Kh7 10.Rg7+ Kh8 11.Kg6 b2 and White doesn't have time for 12.Rc7? because 12...b1Q is check. Another try is 10.Rb8, winning the b-pawn, but Black draws after 10...Nc4 11.Rxb3 Ne5+ (11...Nd6+ and 11...h4 also draw).

Now it's time for the second brainstorm. Black almost ran out of space, but once his king got to the h-file he had just enough time to play ...h5 and ...h6. It was a close call, but it was enough. Let's come back to the position after Black's second move, and have another look here:



The solution is logical, in light of the above, but even so it's very hard to even consider the right move. If you haven't figured it out yet, here's another opportunity.

Ready?

3.Rh8!!

Great, isn't it? White threatens 4.Rf1, which happens to be mate. Even if it wasn't mate, however, it would still win the rook and the game, so the only move worth considering is 3...Rxh8. But now the ideas we had above work: 4.Rf1+ Kg8 5.h6! and it's mate in two. White continues 6.Ke7 and mates with either 7.Rf8 or 7.Rg1, depending on what Black does with his g-pawn.

So that's it...or is it? Stay tuned for the next post.

The hits just keep on coming! Anyway, it's hard to begrudge them the win, both because it's a service academy and because after 43 years of misery, they deserve a break.

Besides, we'll beat them by 30 in a year or two!

Given the incredible talent participating in the European Team Championship, it's not surprising that there have been many great games so far. The only problem is that there have been too many excellent games, so many I can't even manage to see all of them, let alone write them up for this blog. Still, it would be wrong to ignore the event, so I've annotated a few of the games from the first six rounds (see the link below).

Before getting to the games, here are the leading standings (after 6 of 9 rounds), given in tiebreak order:

1. Russia 12 (a team gets 2 points for a match win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss; team matches take place on four boards, as in the chess olympiads)
2. Slovenia 10
3. Ukraine 9
4. France 9
5. Armenia 9

Now for the games. First is the game Stefansson-Carlsen from round 3, which saw the young super-grandmaster handle his very strong opponent with shocking ease. The first step was a good novelty, giving him at least an instant edge. Stefansson's best way of handling the novelty would have left him on the defensive, and he chose instead an aggressive sacrificial path. It may have looked promising at the time, but Carlsen found a convincing refutation.

Next up was the round 5 game Cheparinov-Navara. In this game too Black came out of the opening without any problems, and in this case too (a) the White player overcompensated in pursuit of a kingside attack, and (b) received retribution by means of a queen sacrifice. The game wasn't as clean as the Stefansson-Carlsen contest, but what it lacked in accuracy it made up for in complexity.

Our third game offers yet another Black win. The round 5 battle between Ivanchuk and Bacrot saw the world's hottest player finally get cooled off a bit, suffering a loss due to overpressing.

The fourth game took place earlier in the event, and finally shows White winning a game. This is Svidler-Berg, round 1, and it caught my eye because White's rare 13th move and new 14th move worked so perfectly that anti-Winawer players should take note.

Game five of the series, Vallejo-Naiditsch from round 4, will give ammunition to those who, quoting Nigel Short, take the view that the Two Knights is risky for Black on account of 4.Ng5, winning a pawn. Yes, Black gets activity, but a pawn is a pawn, and it's not clear that Black can sustain his counterplay. In this game, the situation was even more dramatic, as Naiditsch employed a really rare line in the already unusual Ulvestad Variation, giving up a whole piece for the attack. Naiditsch's position always looked threatening, but Vallejo's accurate defense proved that there was nothing. When the smoke cleared, White was four(!) pawns up in a double-rook ending, and Black resigned.

Finally, our last game was from the top board of the top match of today's round: Svidler (RUS) - Sutovsky (ISR). The preceding games were long on complications, so we'll cool down with an elegant endgame.

Here are the games.

This looks like a worthwhile site, whose author is Italian FM Dario Mione. He's doing a nice job of keeping up with recent events and presenting noteworthy games, and that makes the site attractive. Have a look!

HT: Brian Karen

Round 2 of this noteworthy event finished a little while ago, and here are the results du jour:

Topalov - Kasimdzhanov 1-0
Ponomariov - Nisipeanu 1/2-1/2
Polgar - Karpov 1/2-1/2

Standings after Round 2:

1. Topalov 2
2. Ponomariov 1.5
3. Nisipeanu .5 (of 1)
4-5. Karpov, Polgar .5
6. Kasimdzhanov 0 (of 1)

Something I didn't mention in my first post on the tournament is that all the proceeds from the event, which include a fashion show (with the clothes auctioned off afterwards), a concert by the Moscow Orchestra and even Topalov selling his 1989 World Junior Championship medal, go to charity.

Reports here and here.

Detailed report here. Several of the positions from the competition are posted in the article, so you have a partial chance to test your skills against the competitors'. (And if you enjoy it, see the previous post)!

A couple of sites I thought I had added to my blogroll a long time ago, but hadn't because of a goof-up on my part, are now properly posted. The first is Alex Herrera's Correspondence Chess page, where you can find a mix of his ICCF games (both "normal" and thematic; ongoing and completed) along with various correspondence games by other players. The second is the site of the British Chess Problem Society. Many practical players view problems (as opposed to studies) the way most little kids view their veggies, but it is a branch of the game with its own history, theory and beauty. So for those who are interested in problems, you'll really enjoy this site; for the rest of you, give it a try. You might like it!

Notre Dame's 2007 campaign probably hasn't been its greatest ever, though I suspect its results have brought great joy to many fans around the country (excluding UCLA fans). Still, there's always Navy, a team ND has managed to defeat 43 times in a row. Can ND start boosting their confidence for next year against their perennial victims from Annapolis? Can they finally get some offensive production against one of the worst defenses in the country?

Of course they can! So, Irish Nation, here are some pregame videos to watch. First, for in-depth coverage there's the ND.com practice report; next, for a wistful look back at last year's highlights, there's this video. (Ah, to have an offense again! We'll be back...)

The game starts at 2:30 p.m. ET.

This is the main event of the Chess Champions League (also called the Jesus de Lafuente Memorial), which started yesterday in Vitoria Gasteiz and continues through November 15. The ToC is a six player, double round-robin event that was supposed to include only world champions; as it turns out, there are one and a half exceptions. The first was intended: Judit Polgar has never been a world champion (not counting junior titles), but as the strongest female player in history - by far - she counts unofficially. That exception was intentional, of course, but the second was not. Alexander Khalifman was supposed to play, but has apparently suffered some sort of illness that required immediately surgical attention. (No word yet on the nature of the illness or how he's doing, post-surgery.) His replacement in the tournament is the suitably strong but non (ex-) world champion Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (who, ironically, Khalifman beat in the semi-finals on the way to the FIDE title in 1999).

Round 1 is in the books - mostly - here are the results:

Polgar - Ponomariov 0-1
Karpov - Topalov 0-1
Kasimdzhanov - Nisipeanu postponed to the rest day

This won FIDE's Study of the Year award; the second straight such award won by its composer, Yuri Bazlov.



It's White to move and win; the solution will be given soon.

HT: Steven Dowd, Chess Today

From oldest to most recent, we have Morozevich, Gelfand, and Kramnik. Happy reading.

I briefly mentioned this Chicago-based, IM norm event in this earlier post, but you can read a much longer report - with pictures and a couple of games - on the ChessBase site. It's worth a look...but maybe I'm biased.

Standings after Round 6:

1. Vigorito 5
2. Robson 4.5
3-4. Pasalic, Young 3.5
5-6. Andrews, Tsyganov 3
7. Chow 2.5
8-9. Haessel, Muhammad 2
10. Mokriak 1

We had some annoying technical problems with the show, so it probably won't be feasible to upload it for viewing in the archives. For those who'd like to see what they missed, even if not they're not getting the full experience, I've linked to the games, here. Note that you can actually see video footage of two of the games online: the Karpov-Kasparov game is here (could have done without the strange looping and the sound track, though) and Anand-Kasparov (a real classic!) is here.