The Chess Mind

The chess glut continues without a break, as the second Grand Prix event of 2008 began today (Thursday) in Sochi, Russia. Having had a busy day with Biel and especially real life, I'm not going to even attempt analytical coverage of the first round. I do suggest having a look at the two decisive games of the round, Radjabov - Al-Modiahki and Grischuk - Karjakin, but for analysis you'll have to turn elsewhere. (Sorry!) Mainz (or rather, the featured attraction therein) starts tomorrow and runs through the weekend, so maybe after that we'll take a closer look at the Grand Prix.

Round 1 Results:

Grischuk - Karjakin 1-0
Radjabov - Al-Modiahki 1-0
Cheparinov - Gashimov 1/2-1/2
Gelfand - Jakovenko 1/2-1/2
Navara - Ivanchuk 1/2-1/2
Svidler - Kamsky 1/2-1/2
Wang Yue - Aronian 1/2-1/2

Didn't see that one coming! Though Evgeny Alekseev was tied with Magnus Carlsen for the most of the first half, and then, after falling behind defeated Carlsen in round 7 to close within half a point of the lead, his eighth round loss to Lenier Dominguez seemed to close the deal. How, with two rounds to go and a 1.5 point deficit, could he possibly catch Dominguez? But catch him he did. In round 9 he defeated Onischuk while Dominguez split the point with Carlsen, and that brings us to round 10.

Let's start with the evil fate that befell Dominguez. With Black against Bacrot, he chose a risky line of the Queen's Gambit Accepted. On move 13 he played a novelty, but it was what a friend of mine used to call a TL (instead of a "TN" - a theoretical novelty): a theoretical lemon. With a couple of accurate moves, Bacrot obtained a clear advantage. Maybe from a computer's-eye perspective, Bacrot let the advantage slip a little, but from a practical, human point of view, he was in trouble throughout. A very bad loss for Dominguez, who had been undefeated throughout and dominant in the second half of the tournament. On the other hand, Bacrot deserves tremendous praise, going +4 in the last 6 rounds after a horrible .5-3.5 start.

This meant that Carlsen and Alekseev could catch Dominguez with a win. Since both players had White against the event "bottom-markers", it was a very real possibility. Unfortunately for Carlsen, his effort against Onischuk was a failure. His idea of playing 6.d3 in the Ruy Lopez, avoiding forcing lines, was sensible, but just seven moves later Carlsen offered a TL of his own, initiating a long series of exchanges. From Black's 13th move to White's 22nd, the players swapped off both rooks, both knights, a bishop and two pawns, and all to reach a position where it's Black if anyone who enjoys the marginally better half of the draw. Onischuk held with supreme ease - Carlsen didn't even come close.

On the other hand, Alekseev succeeded where Carlsen failed, though there were some similarities between the two games. Alekseev played an ambitious system against Pelletier's Gruenfeld, but like the less ambitious Carlsen, achieved no advantage with the white pieces. A further similarity is that this game too reached an equal ending with queen, minor piece, and six pawns. Where Onischuk held fast, however, Pelletier faltered. Whether due to time trouble or miscalculation, errors on moves 33 and 34 transformed the game from equal to lost for Black. Alekseev won a pawn and traded queens, and the rest was a short matter of his fine technique.

That meant that like last year, the title of champion would have to be settled in a playoff match. (Last year, Carlsen won the title by finally defeating Onischuk in an Armageddon game.) The first three games were drawn, but in a wild and error-filled fourth game, Alekseev won with Black to claim the title.

Congratulations to Alekseev, and to Dominguez too, who had a great tournament, the last round notwithstanding. It wasn't such a bad tournament for Carlsen, either, as his TPR was only 34 points below his published rating. Still, it must have been at least a little disappointing: he went -1 over the last four rounds, and two of his three wins were against Pelletier. If the culprit for his poor finish - even after the Alekseev loss - was a lack of energy, then he might really get hammered in Mainz. Bacrot can be happy with his performance, too, and Onischuk can feel good about his performance in the first half, prior to the rook and knight vs. rook fiasco in round 6. For Pelletier, the sooner it's forgotten, the better. (From an emotional perspective. Of course he should learn whatever objective lessons he can from the tournament.)

Final standings, with TPRs:

1. Alekseev (by playoff) 6.5 (2792)
2. Dominguez 6.5 (2792) [They started with identical 2708 ratings]
3. Carlsen 6 (2741)
4. Bacrot 5.5 (2722)
5. Onischuk 4 (2618)
6. Pelletier 1.5 (2414)

Tournament site here, last round and tiebreak games (with my comments) here.

More here. The big story in the 13th edition was Aleksander Stamnov, who entered the last round in contention for an IM norm. A win over Robert Akopian would have done the trick, but...it was not to be. (Ah, memories.) Still, it was an impressive performance, and a reminder that one event's punching bag can be the next event's 500 pound gorilla. (Amazing how fickle form can be!)

...and although he has clinched at least a tie for first going into tomorrow's last round, the chase pack is fortunate that there's still an outside chance of catching him. In today's big game against Carlsen and his Dragon, he seems to have let a winning position slip. A win would have put a tremendous exclamation point on the tournament, but his performance is already impressive enough.

Carlsen thus remains a point behind, and he's joined there, in equal second place, by Alekseev, who outplayed the sinking Onischuk on the black side of a Queen's Indian. As for the other game, it really wasn't one: Pelletier and Bacrot played the only obvious non-game of the tournament so far, drawing in 22 moves.

Standings after Round 9:

1. Dominguez 6.5
2-3. Alekseev, Carlsen 5.5
4. Bacrot 4.5
5. Onischuk 3.5
6. Pelletier 1.5

Last round pairings:

Alekseev - Pelletier
Carlsen - Onischuk
Bacrot - Dominguez

This could be very interesting: the leader has Black in the last round, while his closest competitors both have White against the tournament tailenders. Bacrot has been in very good form, too, since the early rounds, but after his hat trick has seemed to lose any further ambition. So my guess is that at least one of the second-place guys will win, but Dominguez will finish with an easy draw and secure clear first. Whatever happens, it has been a great tournament and a huge success for Dominguez.

Carlsen Watch: Current live rating: 2788.5 (9.5 points behind Anand, 3 points behind Ivanchuk, .5 points ahead of Morozevich)

Dominguez Watch: Current live rating: 2724.8 (up 16.8 points for the event)

Tournament site here, games with my comments here.

An exaggeration? Maybe, but if it is, it's not much of one. But first, a little background.

The year is 1929, the place is Karlsbad, and our protagonists are José Raúl Capablanca, the third and then-recently deposed world chess champion;



and Karel Treybal (1885-1941), a strong Czech master whose resume includes a tournament win over Alexander Alekhine.

Treybal had an affection for Dutch Stonewall type positions (it was with such an opening that he defeated Alekhine), and that's what he used against Capablanca. Although it left him with less space and one of the worst light-squared bishops in recorded human history, the seriously locked pawn structure probably left Treybal relatively optimistic about holding the position. One would expect Capa to look for some way of blasting the position open: in the center, the kingside, the queenside - somewhere.

Instead, the great Cuban kept locking up the board. Early on, he eliminated the realistic possibility of breaking in the center, and then he locked up the whole kingside and almost everything on the queenside. (Almost.) Only the a-file was open, and although White was able to achieve absolute ownership over it, it was far from obvious that he could achieve anything with it. That Capablanca knew that he could break through in due course, despite Black's ability to shift his cramped pieces to the danger zone, shows his legendary ability to think schematically.

It's an impressive game, and one that's extremely picturesque. I first saw the game as a young child, and the strong impression it made on me then has stuck with me to the present day. I think you'll enjoy it too, so please join me tonight - Wednesday night - at 9 p.m. ET (that's Thursday at 3 a.m. CET) on the Playchess.com server. The show is free, and you can find full directions here.

Hope to see you then!

This was the score in an odds match played this past Monday. GM and anti-computer expert Roman Dzindzichashvili started every game with the white pieces and Black's f-pawn, but even so he was unable to defeat Rybka 3.0 in the match or even a single game. Rybka won game 2 and drew the rest, though "Dzindzi" had an overwhelming advantage in game 3. These computer are awfully tough!

There's another article about Rybka on the ChessBase site promoing its features, and it looks really good, too. Shritzarcs is going to have its work cut out for it if it hopes to compete with Rybka.

The Rybka-Dzindzi match games can be replayed here.

Five players had something to be happy about today; not bad, considering that there are only six participants. Pelletier and Onischuk can be happy: Onischuk had lost his last two games, while Pelletier had baked five bagels in a row. With the draw, both stanched the bleeding (at least for the moment). Bacrot and Carlsen could both be happy: Bacrot, for drawing with Carlsen; Carlsen, for drawing with Black without any special difficulty. Last but not least, Dominguez could be very happy: he won his third consecutive game, defeating one of his two main rivals - Alekseev - with Black. This extended his first-place lead to a full point over Carlsen. They'll play tomorrow (or today, depending on your location on the globe), and with Dominguez wielding the white pieces his chances of clinching at least a tie for first are excellent.

Standings after Round 8:

1. Dominguez 6
2. Carlsen 5
3. Alekseev 4.5
4. Bacrot 4
5. Onischuk 3.5
6. Pelletier 1

Round 9 Pairings:

Onischuk - Alekseev
Dominguez - Carlsen
Pelletier - Bacrot

Carlsen Watch: Current live rating: 2789.4 (8.6 points behind Anand, 2.1 points behind Ivanchuk)

Dominguez Watch: Current live rating: 2723.9 (a gain of 15.9 points from this tournament so far)

Tournament site here; games with my comments here.

The youngest GM in both U.S. and Italian history, Fabiano Caruana (current FIDE rating: 2630), turns 16 today (Wednesday). We wish him continued success at the game, and to Italy we repeat our plea: send him back!

There isn't always a fifth Wednesday in a month, and so the Chess Cafe's pickings are ofttimes slim when they have that fifth week. This time is an exception, and the three articles there are worth a look.

First, there's a review of Karsten Müller's The Chess Cafe Puzzle Book II. You'll all be shocked to learn that the Chess Cafe review of a book published by the Chess Cafe, written by one of its columnists, is altogether positive. (What were the odds??) That said, every Müller product I've seen has been excellent, and that includes most of his books and his Chess Cafe columns, so have a look at the review. If the book's content seems interesting to you, then I'd trust the author on the question of quality. (One suggestion: unless you're dying to get the book right away, pre-order it from Amazon. You'll save $4 on the cost of the book, and a further, non-trivial amount on the shipping.)

Second, there's a short story by Soltis in the Skittles Room. Whether "Convergence: A Cautionary Tale" is utopian or dystopian I'll leave you to judge.

Finally, the From the Archives feature reprints Bobby Fischer's famous 1961 article, "A Bust to the King's Gambit". Though contemporary analysts disagree with his claim that the variation he advocates, 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6, is a refutation of the King's Gambit, it remains a viable line to this day.

The tournament took a remarkable twist in round 7, as Carlsen's coronation ceremony came to a screeching halt. Not a game was drawn, though at least one really should have been - but we'll come to that later.

All three games made it to the second time control, and the first one to finish was Dominguez-Pelletier. Pelletier has been having a terrible tournament and has turned into a sort of full-point bye for the players. No matter how well he plays at first, something bad happens at some point and a loss ensues. Against Dominguez, he was fine after 38 moves, but three inaccurate moves later his position was probably lost. That put Dominguez in clear first at that moment, but with Carlsen's game still underway and the youngster in good shape, that seemed likely to change.

However, before Carlsen-Alekseev concluded, Onischuk-Bacrot came to an end and saw the players continue where they left off before the break. In round 6, Alekseev lost the infamous R+N vs. R ending, while Bacrot had won his second straight game. In their game, it seemed evident that Onischuk didn't want to play, as his opening play showed an overt willingness to draw by repetition. Despite having Black, Bacrot would have none of it, and his fighting spirit was rewarded almost immediately. Onischuk's combination starting with move 23 was too optimistic, and Bacrot soon won a pawn. In desperation, Onischuk tried to create a fortress draw, but it was in vain. Onischuk lost his second straight game, while Bacrot has now won three in a row.

And now, Carlsen-Alekseev. Carlsen has done very well in the tournament, but not due to his opening prep. He has come out of the opening in each game with a playable position, and when he has won, it has been because of what happened later on. So it was here, too. He achieved little if anything with his extremely unusual anti-Berlin line, but enjoyed the more comfortable side of the late middlegame. The material was balanced, but the pawn structure was such that as long as queens were on the board, Alekseev needed to be careful, but if the queens were exchanged, then Carlsen would have to hold the balance.

For 30 moves, Carlsen tacked around trying to make progress and set traps, but nothing came of it. Both players were starting to get low on the clock, but Carlsen enjoyed an extra five minutes (15 minutes to 10). So having watched Carlsen spend an hour or more doing nothing as constructively as possible, I assumed he'd keep it up until Alekseev ran out of time. Instead, he spent about nine minutes on his 66th move and then traded queens! Very strange. The result was that the burden was immediately on him to prove the draw, and thanks in part to his deficit on the clock, he was unable to put up his best defense.

So with this, his first loss, Carlsen fell to second place, half a point behind Dominguez, and he's joined there by Alekseev. Add the red-hot Bacrot to the mix, and we're in for a great last three rounds!

Standings after Round 7:

1. Dominguez 5
2-3. Alekseev, Carlsen 4.5
4. Bacrot 3.5
5. Onischuk 3
6. Pelletier .5

Round 8 Pairings:

Alekseev - Dominguez
Bacrot - Carlsen
Pelletier - Onischuk

Carlsen Watch: Current live rating: 2790.6 (7.4 points behind Anand, .9 behind Ivanchuk)

Tournament site here, games with my comments here.

The second Grand Prix event starts this Thursday, July 30, in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi. The list of participants is extremely impressive:

Vassily Ivanchuk 2781
Teimour Radjabov 2744
Peter Svidler 2738
Levon Aronian 2737
Alexander Grischuk 2728
Sergey Karjakin 2727
Gata Kamsky 2723
Boris Gelfand 2720
Vugar Gashimov 2717
Dmitry Jakovenko 2709
Wang Yue 2704
Ivan Cheparinov 2687
David Navara 2646
Mohamad Al Modiahki 2556

There are now too many strong tournaments!

US citizenship, that is - see the previous post for details about being a "real American". This example is a few years old, but unfortunately for IM Gerhard Schroll, Chess Today published his loss to GM Tony Kosten from the 2004 Austrian Team Championships. As far as I can tell, it was a full time control game, but he managed to lose an endgame that IM Jeremy Silman thinks a 1400-1599 player ought to be able to draw. Accordingly, while I invite everyone to click here and have a look, I'd like players 1599 (or the BCF or other federation equivalent) and under to try to find the cleanest, clearest and easiest draw missed by Schroll. (Just don't use your chess engines, and try to do it without a book.)

Three games, three wins! There have only been eight draws in the eighteen games so far, and no games without a fight. As far as I'm aware, there aren't any paternalistic anti-draw measures in place, which just goes to show that what counts is inviting the right players. Why can't all the events be like this one?

On to the games. Pelletier-Carlsen saw the players continue down the same path they've been on, with Carlsen playing well and Pelletier finding some pitfall along the way. Carlsen enjoyed a slight edge from the opening (a Queen's Indian), but hadn't achieved anything with it after his 26th move. At that point, in an approximately equal position, Pelletier forced Carlsen to create to create a powerful pin. White was immediately in trouble, and after a further error on the next move Pelletier was lost.

That ensured at least a tie for first at the end of the round, but when Alekseev lost his first game of the tournament to a suddenly resurgent Bacrot, Carlsen was guaranteed a clear lead. Bacrot's win was very nice; definitely the game of the day, in my book. While he didn't achieve any advantage with his pawn sac in the opening (a Queen's Indian), the combination he initiated on move 33 was really impressive - 35.Qd3!! was an especially subtle point.

Finally, Onischuk's loss to Dominguez was simply astonishing. Onischuk may have achieved a very small advantage on the white side of a Gruenfeld, but they quickly reached a very drawish ending. Dominguez handled it more adeptly, but was only able to reach a rook and knight vs. rook ending. This is a known draw, and much easier for the weak side to hold than rook and bishop vs. rook. Yet despite starting with an almost ideal defensive position (his king was in the center, while Dominguez's king was cut off on the h-file), Onischuk put up practically no resistance. His own king was cut off along the a-file with alarming rapidity, and even then he put up little resistance and then lost without even falling for a subtle trap. A sad loss for Onischuk, who had been playing very well up to this point and had been in the battle for first place.

So what do I mean by the title of this post? Over the years, I've read (and heard) not just once, but many times, that Americans don't play endgames well. Russians (and those from the former USSR) do, but not Americans. Well, since Onischuk comes from Ukraine and received his chess education there, I guess this makes him a "real" American now - he has forgotten (at least this once) how to hold routine draws.

Jokes aside, some different morals should be drawn. First, as I've been mentioning more and more lately, there are far fewer "dead" draws than we might like to believe. Exhaustion, a dimmed sense of danger, and making a series of small concessions can all lead to even very strong players losing "obviously" drawn positions. (And Onischuk certainly qualifies as a very strong player - he's #50 in the world.)

Second, while "real" Americans may not, on average, play endgames as well as they ought to, it's probably true that almost no one else does anymore, either. Assuming the old stereotype was true, there were two reasons why Americans played endgames worse than their Soviet counterparts. First, formal instruction in the USSR gave talented players serious help in that area, while such instruction was almost completely absent here. Second, adjournments were commonplace there and almost non-existent here. There's nothing like the pressure of a tournament situation and the luxury of a day or two to analyze to improve one's understanding of the endgame - especially in the pre-computer era. Nowadays, the USSR has broken up and that sort of widespread instruction is gone. Further, with sped-up time controls, adjournments are a thing of the past. So we're all "real Americans" now!

What should we do about this? Here are some suggestions: correspondence chess, training games against computers and peers from both theoretical and practical endgame positions, and "adjournment" exercises - find some interesting ending, and you and your playing partner take an hour, a day, a week or however long to prepare before playing it out against each other. With the widespread availability of excellent endgame literature and strong playing programs, any dedicated player has what he needs to improve considerably in this aspect of the game. (And to those who say working on the endgame is boring, I say that gaining extra half-points on a regular basis is loads of fun.)

Back to the tournament. Here are the standings after round 6:

1. Carlsen 4.5
2. Dominguez 4
3. Alekseev 3.5
4. Onischuk 3
5. Bacrot 2.5
6. Pelletier .5

Pairings for Round 7: (On Monday; Sunday is a rest day.)

Carlsen - Alekseev
Dominguez - Pelletier (looks like a new tie for first is coming up)
Onischuk - Bacrot

Carlsen Watch: Current live rating: 2796.5 (1.5 behind Anand)

Tournament site here, games with my comments here.

Here's the problem from a couple of days ago, from the game Ljubojevic-Durao, Orense 1974; it's White to move and win:



The solution is here.

Today's round was very short, but not because of any "grandmaster" draws. First to finish was Carlsen-Dominguez, a 6.h3 Najdorf with a Nd5 sacrifice. Anything could have happened, but Carlsen allowed, and Dominguez found, a way to return some of the material to force a draw by repetition. Alekseev-Onischuk lasted longer but was less dramatic. Alekseev enjoyed a slight and enduring advantage in a Giuoco Piano, but Onischuk defended calmly. After most of the pieces were exchanged, this game too concluded peacefully with a draw by repetition. Finally, in the game I thought most likely to end with a quick handshake, Bacrot decided instead to end his own misery and add to Pelletier's. Pelletier made the amusing decision to play the Philidor against Bacrot (one of the modern pioneers of this opening), and while he didn't come out of the opening in bad shape, a few bad decisions starting around move 25 allowed Bacrot to notch his first victory of the tournament.

Standings after Round 5:

1-2. Alekseev, Carlsen 3.5
3-4. Dominguez, Onischuk 3
5. Bacrot 1.5
6. Pelletier .5

Round 6 Pairings:

Onischuk - Dominguez
Pelletier - Carlsen
Bacrot - Alekseev

Carlsen Watch: Current live rating: 2794.1 (3.9 behind Anand)

Tournament site here; annotated games here.

Magnus Carlsen continued the win-with-White, draw-with-Black pattern, easily holding in an old-fashioned Slav against Alexander Onischuk. This draw allowed Evgeny Alekseev to reclaim a share of the lead, thanks to a surprisingly easy win over Yannick Pelletier on the black side of a Ragozin Defense. Black obtained a queenside majority from the opening, and White, tied down in the attempt to blockade it, allowed things to get out of hand elsewhere and lost without much of a fight. In a way, that's not too surprising, as Pelletier and Etienne Bacrot, his companion in last place, have been getting kicked around pretty badly in this tournament. Today Bacrot lost on the black side of a Ruy Lopez Anti-Marshall, when after fighting back to equality, a series of errors before and after the time control sent him to defeat against Lenier Dominguez.

Standings after Round 4:

1-2. Carlsen, Alekseev 3
3-4. Dominguez, Onischuk 2.5
5-6. Bacrot, Pelletier .5

The only difference so far between the three pointers and the two and a halfs is what they've done against the tail-enders. The leaders managed to beat both of them, while the chasers only managed a single win each. The tournament won't really get going, for me, until the leaders start abusing each other, too. (To be fair, they're trying!)

Pairings for Round 5:

Alekseev - Onischuk
Carlsen - Dominguez
Bacrot - Pelletier (if they draw quickly, they should be forgiven)

Tournament site here; round 4 games (with my comments) here.

Tom Chivers has a post on the Streatham & Brixton Chess Club blog that usefully restates advice given by such authors as Mark Dvoretsky and Jonathan Rowson (as well as, on a humbler level, yours truly): the best training is game simulation (e.g. training games and analysis exercises). It's not online blitz, or even, says Chivers, solving problems online or from a book. Rather, there's value in using genuine physical equipment in one's training, if only because that's how the real games are played. More info at the link above, along with some positions he recommends for training purposes.

HT: Brian Karen

For your clicking convenience (mine too), I've added links to the Live Top List (this gives to-the-day updates on all players rated over 2700) and the Indiana State Chess Association website (self-explanatory).

For a quick list, with links, of events (other than Biel) that are going on now, click here. And for a pretty full survey of what there is to look forward to starting July 28, here's a nice preview of the Mainz Chess Festival. Its main event starts August 1, and includes Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Alexander Morozevich (#s 1, 2 and 4 in the real world ratings) and Judit Polgar.

Last week's ChessVideos show (still available this week, and probably for as long as that enterprise remains in business) was part one of a two-part series exploring the interesting anti-French line 1.e4 e6 2.c4 d5 3.cxd5 exd5 4.Qb3. I tried in that presentation to make the line look as attractive as possible, and that wasn't hard to do. In practice, especially in quick games, Black often falls apart quickly, and not necessarily due to any overt blunder. Sometimes Black makes the most natural moves, only to discover it's time to throw in the towel by move 20.

Still, that's far from the end of the story. If it was, then everyone would play this against the French, all of you would have already known about it, and the French would be considered a dubious opening. So as a matter of principle, there simply must be a solution - and there is. Or rather, are: Black has many ways to achieve a good game, but they require some mental and psychological agility. It's not a bad exercise to try to come up with some replies on your own before watching this week's show or switching on your computer. Once you're ready to compare answers, you can have a look at my presentation for this week (free, available on-demand, and requiring no special software). And if you've found some promising ideas I haven't mentioned there, for either side, please comment it here and/or there.

White to move and win: can you solve it? (The answer will be given in a day or two; please don't post solutions to the comments.)

With world champion Viswanathan Anand set to defend his title against Vladimir Kramnik, and Gata Kamsky to do battle with Veselin Topalov for the right to play for the title next year, it's conceivable that 2009 will see an Anand-Kamsky championship match. If so, it will be their third tilt, with their two previous contests taking place in candidates matches in the mid-1990s.

In the first, an eight-game match in Sanghi Nagar, Anand led by two games with three to go. All would seem to be well, but he lost games 6 and 7, and after a draw in round 8, continued his collapse in the rapid tiebreak, losing both games (the last in just 17 moves). That was the semi-final match in the FIDE cycle. Kamsky ultimately made it to the world championship match against Karpov in 1996, where he was defeated; he retired shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, they met again in a 12-game match, the final of the PCA Candidates, and here too they were tied after eight games. While Anand had generally enjoyed the better positions in their games, Kamsky had shown himself the better pressure player - up to this point. But now, in game 9, Anand rose to the occasion and played a beautiful game, winning convincingly and destroying Kamsky's main black opening for the match. Game 10 was drawn, and Kamsky's backup opening was beaten soundly in the finale. This gave Anand the right to face Kasparov the next year, and like Kamsky against Karpov, Anand too was ultimately unsuccessful in his first shot at the title.

Still, the match was a big success for Anand, as he overcame a difficult opponent and proved that he could handle a big pressure situation - and with style. In our show this week, we'll look at his majestic win in game 9 of the 1995 match. The game demonstrated practically everything: a nice, new opening idea, a sustained attack that involved play on all three parts of the board in beautiful harmony, nice variations, the interplay of strategic goals and tactical play, a few ingenious maneuvers - this game had it all, aside from an endgame.

Now that I've whetted your appetite, all you need to do is tune in to the playchess.com server tonight - Wednesday night - at 9 p.m. ET. Log on to the server, go into the broadcast room, and double-click on my nickname there (Initiative) and you're good to go. (Further directions here, especially for those who would like to watch archived shows.) Hope to see you there!

This is the way tournaments are supposed to be, with lots of wins and a fight in every game. Only one game of the three was drawn, and that happened only when it was obvious that a draw would result. That game was Dominguez-Alekseev, a Berlin Defense where Black successfully minimized White's initiative while solving the traditional problem of Black's uncoordinated rooks.

Onischuk-Pelletier should have been a draw as well, but Pelletier's decision on move 26 to take on a potentially weak, isolated d-pawn, and the paradoxical, panicky-looking decision on move 29 to try to liquidate it, resulted in the loss of the pawn and then the game.

Finally, Carlsen-Bacrot was lively but a little strange. Bacrot outplayed Carlsen, despite the Black pieces and the quiet opening (an Exchange Queen's Gambit Declined), but Carlsen complicated the game and Bacrot lost the thread quickly, going from clearly better on move 25 to clearly worse two moves later and dead lost just two moves after that. (Time pressure?) The bottom line is that Carlsen is in clear first, even though he isn't getting anything from his openings, and I'm guessing (but don't know for sure) that if the tournament were to stop right now and get rated, he'd have passed Anand for the #1 position in the world rankings. There are seven rounds to go, however, and here are the pairings for round 4:

Round 4 Pairings: (On Thursday; Wednesday is a rest day)

Pelletier - Alekseev
Onischuk - Carlsen
Dominguez - Bacrot

Standings after Round 3:

1. Carlsen 2.5
2-3. Alekseev, Onischuk 2
4. Dominguez 1.5
5-6. Bacrot, Pelletier

Tournament site here; games, with my comments, here.

Here are some articles on the Chess Cafe and the ChessBase sites that might be of interest:

"The Cream of the Crop" (permalink here). This reviews a new product, Best of the Best - 1000 by the Chess Informant people, a compilation of the 10 best games in the first 100 issues of that publication. The value of this link isn't the review itself, but in the links in and after said review.

This month's "Dutch Treat" (permalink here) revisits Anand's recent article in Time Magazine, in which he claims that chess was invented in India many centuries B.C. Relatively few people deny the first part of that claim, but the latter is another story. As Hans Ree notes, it's ironic that both Kasparov and Anand both dispute the traditional historical view that chess originated in India around 600 A.D.; Anand, because he seems to think it goes back at least another 1000 years or so, and Kasparov too, as his view is that historical writings only date from 1100 A.D. (No word on what Kramnik thinks.)

A few days ago the ChessBase server had some serious troubles, but now things are up and running. You might have noticed the entry about this on the front page but not clicked on the story (what's to click? It was down, now it's up again). If so, you should! After a few brief comments on the history of computer bugs, there's a little trip to the way back machine, a nostalgic look at the history of the ChessBase web site.

The ChessBase site is also offering coverage of the Biel event. While their analytical commentary of the rounds isn't as detailed as what you'll find here, there is one advantage there: videos. Europe Echecs is making videos, which can be accessed on ChessBase. Try here, for example - scroll almost all the way down the page.

Today's round at Biel was less dramatic than yesterday's opener, but it wasn't for want of effort. Bacrot had a slight pull against Onischuk in a Closed Ruy, but when they reached a position where neither player could make progress without serious risk, they agreed to a draw. Pelletier obtained a genuine advantage against Dominguez, but the path he chose was refuted (as a winning try) by the latter's outstanding 22nd move. Ten essentially forced moves later, the players reached an opposite colored bishop ending. Pelletier had two extra pawns, but despite losing such an ending yesterday with a one-pawn deficit, he was unable to win today with an even bigger material advantage. (This wasn't his fault; today's ending was a forced draw with accurate play.) Finally, Alekseev-Carlsen, the battle of the leaders, was also drawn. Carlsen tried really hard to create winning chances with his bishop pair, but Alekseev kept cool. Appropriately, the draw was offered when Carlsen forced...opposite-colored bishops.

Games here.

Standings after Round 2:

1-2. Alekseev, Carlsen 1.5
3-4. Dominguez, Onischuk 1
5-6. Bacrot, Pelletier .5

Round 3 Pairings:

Dominguez - Alekseev
Carlsen - Bacrot
Onischuk - Pelletier

Here's the problem, first mentioned on my blog a few days ago. I discovered it on Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary (entry 382), but I don't want to send you there for the solution just yet, as you might find it difficult to see the problem (if you're coming to this anew, or still hope to solve it) without seeing the solution in the P.S. So here's the position; it's White to move (and not necessarily win, but to at least find some way of coping with his many hanging pieces).



When you're ready for the solution, you can traipse over to Krabbé's site, and/or click here.

And they'rrrrre off! It was an excellent first round in the grandmaster group of the Biel Chess Festival, with two wins in the three interesting games.

Round 1 Results:

Lenier Dominguez Perez - Alexander Onischuk 1/2-1/2
Magnus Carlsen - Yannick Pelletier 1-0
Evgeny Alekseev - Etienne Bacrot 1-0

The Dominguez-Onischuk game was a lively battle in the American's pet line of the Ruy Lopez. Both sides played well, and a tactical battle concluded in perpetual check.

The next game to finish was Alekseev-Bacrot, a Chebanenko Slav with 5.c5. White wound up with an extra pawn on the queenside, Black with an extra on the kingside, but only White managed to make something of his majority. It was a convincing win by the young Russian.

Finally, Carlsen-Pelletier looked on the face of it the most likely win of the tournament, featuring the (by far) highest-rated player taking White against the (by far) lowest-rated player. Yet Pelletier was well-prepared and managed to reach a drawish ending. At one point in my life, in the not-too-distant past, I'd have considered the position after Black's 34th move



so hopelessly drawn that if I were to lose it against a peer, it would be time to joke grimly about slashing my wrists. That a strong grandmaster could lose it would have seemed inconceivable. (Excepting, in both cases, losing by means of a simple blunder.)

Over time, though, I've grown a little smarter and more aware of the possibilities of good (and bad!) technique. While I'm pretty sure that the position ought to have been drawn, it's also true that White could still pose genuine problems, and he did. And then Pelletier panicked, or missed something, or overestimated the drawing tendencies of opposite colored bishops. In this position



Pelletier played 42...Ng4?, after which he's losing by force, I believe. I spent a lot of time today analyzing this game (me, not Deep Frybkarcs), and I think you'll enjoy the results - the early middlegame was extremely complex and entertaining, while the endgame was (you guessed it) instructive. Have a look here (the other games are annotated too, but in less detail).

Round 2 Pairings:

Alekseev - Carlsen
Pelletier - Dominguez
Bacrot - Onischuk

Kramnik has been in the habit of devaluing the Mexico City tournament as a world championship event, more or less declaring that the only way to conduct a "real" world championship is in a match. At the very least, this is an ungracious thing for Kramnik to say, but at least he was saying it before the tournament actually started. At worst, it's rather condescending to Anand. Kramnik seems to be saying something like this: "Anand isn't really the champ yet, even though (friendly pet on the head), Anand did a nice job in Mexico and since everyone is calling it a world championship, well, shucks, I guess I'll call it one too. (Aren't I nice?)"

You can (re-)read Kramnik's comments here, and you can read Anand's slightly testy but mostly restrained comments in this interview (HT: Brian Karen). The interviewer tries really, really hard to get Anand to lash out (something I've noticed more than once when the Indian press interviews him), but he mostly declines the bait - to his credit.

Is there something poisonous about becoming the world chess champion? Topalov turned into a trash-talking jerk with respect to Kramnik after the former won the (FIDE) title in 2005, and now Kramnik seems to be following suit (though of course he's not the champion anymore). Since no one not in his cell phone's speed dial is likely to care about Kramnik's rationalizations (in fact, I've gone from rooting for Kramnik to rooting for Anand this fall), one might wonder why he's doing it.

Here's a hypothesis. As Kramnik rightly noted, Anand did terribly against Kasparov. Why? In part because Kasparov was the better player, no doubt, but he wasn't that much better. One possibility is that he was simply intimidated by Kasparov - not only (or not so much) by his chess but by his manner, by his intensity. Likewise, he has struggled with Kamsky over the years, even when he seemed the significantly stronger player over the board. Kamsky, or rather his father, tended to generate an edgy atmosphere wherever Gata played. Anand seems to play at his best when everything is calm and normal, and when he's confident he's able to build on his successes. When things are a bit tense off the board and he's not playing his best, he plays well below his best. My suspicion then is that this is more strategy on Kramnik's part than anything else. He wants to generate as much agitation and aggravation in Anand as he can, in the hopes of throwing the champion off his game.

Will it work? I hope it backfires, but based on Anand's track record it's probably a good strategy. Is it admirable? I say no, at least not if he's doing it deliberately.

Since voting has leveled off and the page takes so long to load up, it's time to eliminate the polls, at least for now. Here are the results.

Anand or Kramnik:

Who will win the world chess championship this fall?

300 votes came in, and the final tallies were:

Anand: 62% (186 votes)
Kramnik: 38% (114 votes)


Truth in ratings?

I (meaning you, the reader), based on my current FIDE or national rating (no online ratings, please), am:

Based on 200 votes, the results were

Underrated: 38.61% (77 votes)
Rated about where I should be: 47.52% (95 votes)
Overrated: 13.86% (28 votes)


I'll offer some thoughts about these results later (readers are welcome to do so now), but first things first: time to get the polls off the website before all my frustrated readers leave!

I've updated the latest ChessVideos post (to provide a link to a working version of my newest show) and the Rybka post. Since some readers won't notice the updates because they subscribe, I thought it would be useful to draw their attention to the revisions.

It's a line I've covered on the blog and its predecessor, but that was long, long ago. The variation, invented, as far as I know, by German FM Stefan Bücker, begins 1.e4 e6 2.c4 d5 3.cxd5 exd5 4.Qb3. That was all I knew about it when I learned of its existence, and over the years I worked out some interesting ideas that proved quite dangerous, at least in games with short time controls. Objectively, it's dubious in the extreme, but practically speaking, it can be a rather nasty weapon. To see how it works and what makes it as effective as it is, tune in here and see for yourself. (Next week will be part 2.) The show is free, available on-demand, and requires no special software; the main requirement is an alert mind. Enjoy the show and give the line a try!

Anand-Kramnik poll:

Anand: 61%
Kramnik: 39%

Truth in ratings poll:

Underrated: 39%
Rated about where I should be: 48%
Overrated: 13%

Frankly, this is a good thing, and it makes sense for both sides. Rybka has been dominating computer chess the past couple of years, while ChessBase has the biggest name and distribution network. I'd pass along a link, but something seems wrong with the ChessBase site for the moment. Anyway, Rybka 3.0 (a significantly new version) is scheduled to get mailed out August 1, and they're taking pre-orders for it now.

Update:

(1) The link is good now - here it is.

(2) The ad is worth checking out, as the new Rybka has some interesting bells and whistles that make it interesting for reasons other than its strength as a playing/analysis partner.

For those who have enjoyed this blog and my online shows on ChessVideos.tv and on ChessBase, you're invited to consider having your humble blogger as your coach. I have room for several new students in my schedule - weekdays during from late morning to early evening (ET) are preferred, but other days and times can be considered. Interested parties should contact me via this link; hurry before the slots are taken!

(Email lessons, game analysis and other arrangements are also possible. If you're interested, write and we'll try to work something out.)

In this post, celebrating Hungarian-American GM Pal Benko's 80th birthday, I presented two of his problems and one of his studies. Here once again are the positions and their associated tasks:


White to move and mate in three.


White to move and mate in three.


White to move and win.

Before offering the solution, let me express my slight regret at presenting this puzzle, as it's a modification of a 1981 study by D. Gurgenidze and L. Mitrofanov, both colossal figures in the world of chess studies. (I don't mean that Benko's modification is valueless; not at all. But it would be better to present the original first.)

All three solutions, together with the Gurgenidze & Mitrofanov original, can be replayed here.

Here are two positions I've presented in recent posts (here and here):


Position 1: White to move


Position 2: Black to move

Notice anything suspicious here? Since it's White to move in the first position and Black to move in the second, the two positions are essentially one. A player on the black side of position one and his counterpart on the white side of position two differ only by the paint on their pieces and left-right inversion. Objectively, there is no difference.

Subjectively, however, there is a difference. Most players think White is better in both positions, which is obviously impossible as an objective evaluation of the position. The reason for this is, I think, clear: we start with a default assumption that White is equal or better, and so it's very easy to go from there, see White's bishop pair and Black's isolani, and confirm our pre-White bias. (Even a solid master like Jon Jacobs, who did end up concluding that Black was better in position 1, admitted starting with the opposite evaluation as his default. I doubt, though of course I don't know, that he had any similar doubts about White's standing in position 2 - assuming he didn't immediately recognize it as position 1.) I even suspect that White would win a 10-board match not only from position 2 but position 1 as well - not at the GM level, but probably for the majority of club players. (And maybe even a bit higher?)

This perceptual puzzle, as I mentioned in the position 1 post, came from an issue of Chess Today, wherein GM Baburin revealed that his former trainer, GM (then IM) Oleg Chernikov, had sprung it on him and asked for his reaction. Baburin fell for it hook, line, and sinker (alas, he didn't say how strong he was at the time), but neither he nor Chernikov supply the cure for our color-bias. Is there a cure?

I doubt it, but there are some things we can do to mitigate the "disease". Here are some offhand suggestions: (1) Read Adorjan's "Black is OK" materials daily, until you believe it. (Mostly kidding.) (2) Replay games from Black's perspective on a regular basis. (3) Replay games with Black as White. (Thus a game that starts 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 will be replayed like this: 1...e5 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4.) You'll probably find it jarring, but for that reason it might prove the most effective technique. (4) Experiment with reversed openings. (5) Not care at all - just play chess!

It's a neat story and a beautiful move indeed - have a look here and see for yourself (it's item 382). It took me a few minutes to find it even knowing that something had to be there; hopefully you'll do better. Whether you find it almost immediately or after a long think doesn't really matter. Either way, you'll get a jolt and a sense of satisfaction once you've worked it out.

The event was mostly hard fought, but not today. All five games were drawn, three of them quickly (replayable here), and so yesterday's relative standings carry over to today. Here are the final standings, with TPRs in parentheses:

1-4. Rublevsky (2770), Jakovenko (2769), Gashimov (2768), Shirov (2765) 5.5
5. Wang Hao (2734) 5
6. Bologan (2649) 4
7-10. Sutovsky (2615), Inarkiev (2613), Onischuk (2613), Volokitin (2613) 3.5

Next big event: Biel (starting the 20th). (Incidentally, Onischuk is playing there, too. Somehow he has managed to get invited to Foros, Poikovsky and Biel - other non-2700s should hire his manager or find out how he does it. Actually, his repeat appearance at Biel isn't so surprising, as he tied for first with Carlsen last year, only losing the tiebreak in an Armaggeddon game.)

As of this writing, here are the poll figures:

Truth in Ratings?

Underrated: 38%
Rated about where I should be: 45%
Overrated: 15%

Anand or Kramnik?

Anand: 63%
Kramnik: 37%

And now the plea. I know it's fun to keep running tabs, but multiple voting wrecks the poll, especially if a lot of people are doing it. Please have a little patience (we are chess players, after all; it's in the job description). The alternatives are for me to pay to block multiple votes from an IP address, which isn't financially worth it, or to put the results up all the time, which is also known to skew voting. There's no ideal solution that I'm aware of, so I ask all of you to be kind to each other and to me and to wait a little while for me to report on the data.

I'll leave the Anand-Kramnik poll for a little while longer, though the trend is pretty decidedly in Anand's favor, but meanwhile a new and entertaining question has taken top billing on the right sidebar. Do you think your slow chess rating (just FIDE and/or national ratings, please, not Playchess, ICC or some other server) accurately represents your real, true, honest to goodness strength? (Not your talent or "understanding" of the game, but your strength.) I know what answer I expect to see come out on top, but I'd love to be proved wrong.

As mentioned here, GM Alexander Baburin tied for first in the Irish championship with Israeli GM Alon Greenfeld, but since he's an Irish citizen, he won the title. One of his wins can be replayed here (with an abbreviated version of his notes [which I've supplemented with some additional game references] from Chess Today, issue 2804), but I'd like to draw your attention here to the opening of that game:

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bg5 O-O 6.e3 h6 7.Bxf6 Bxf6 8.Rc1 c6 9.Bd3 Nd7 10.O-O dxc4 11.Bxc4 e5 12.h3 exd4 13.exd4 Nb6 14.Bb3



This was the starting point for a variation that was hot in the mid-1980s. Kasparov himself won one of the most important games of his career with it, defeating Karpov in the crucial 22nd game of their 1986 match. I used it myself back then, but thought it was put out of business by the game Olafsson-van der Sterren. As far as I can tell, nothing has really changed except that people have had time to forget how to face it, but sometimes that's reason enough. (Connoisseurs of this variation are welcome to correct me.)

Enjoy the game, and who knows - maybe a careful look at the diagram will reveal something.

After leaping into clear first place with three consecutive wins, Shirov rejoined the pack after a loss to Gashimov. More often than not, the Marshall Gambit gives Black sufficient activity for a draw, but this time around Gashimov was able to neutralize the activity and win the pawn-up ending. With the win, Gashimov caught up to Shirov, and Rublevsky (who drew with Volokitin) and Jakovenko (who split the point with Inarkiev) are tied with them as well in first place. Wang Hao drew with Bologan, and lurks half a point back; only the Sutovsky-Onischuk draw had no relevance to the race for first. One round to go!

Standings after Round 8:

1-4. Rublevsky, Jakovenko, Gashimov, Shirov 5
5. Wang Hao 4.5
6. Bologan 3.5
7-10. Sutovsky, Inarkiev, Onischuk, Volokitin 3

(It's a pity Wang Hao isn't playing Bologan in the last round - it would then be possible to have a five way tie for first and a five way tie for last.)

Games here.

Speaking of Shirov, Karsten Müller's Endgame Corner column on the Chess Cafe website has featured Shirov the past two months. Last month, it was Shirov's excellence in rook endings that was highlighted; this time around, it's Shirov's achievements in endgames with queens (or rather, one particular endgame, against Gelfand from Pivdenny 2007) that come under the spotlight.

Recommended, as always with Müller's columns.

Another good round, even if only two games ended with a winner. One game, Inarkiev-Sutovsky (won by White), didn't affect the leaderboard, but the other, Volokitin-Shirov, did. With his win, Shirov took a half-point lead over Jakovenko and Rublevsky with two rounds to go, and seems poised to make a run at the upper 2700s. His rating coming into the event was 2741, and his TPR is now 2837. Very impressive, even if he was the favorite coming in to the event.

Standings after Round 7:

1. Shirov 5
2-3. Jakovenko, Rublevsky 4.5
4-5 Wang Hao, Gashimov 4
6. Bologan 3
7-10. Sutovsky, Onischuk, Inarkiev, Volokitin 2.5

The games can be replayed here.

With the Hungarian/American grandmaster Pal Benko turning 80 earlier this week, it seems like a good time to celebrate his chess with a look at his best-known contribution to the chess world, the eponymous Benko Gambit. Benko, a two-time world championship Candidate, did not invent the gambit (known as the "Volga Gambit" in some parts of the world), but he was the first strong grandmaster to use it on a regular basis. It's because of his efforts, starting in the late 60s, that the opening became a popular weapon among professionals and amateurs alike.

The Gambit is a remarkable weapon. Black gives up a pawn on move 3, and in return gains neither time, attacking chances against White's king or even any initiative to speak of. Stranger still, Black is often delighted to exchange piece after piece - just the opposite of what we'd expect from a gambit. What he does enjoy is very long term pressure against White's queenside along the a- and b-files (at least in classic lines where White accepts the gambit), the kind of pressure that can pay off 15, 20, even 30 or more moves down the road. It's an excellent fighting weapon, especially against those players who use 1.d4 in hopes of reaching a safe, quiet position where only two results (a White win or a draw) are possible, as there is no way for White to dry the game up, even if he's well-prepared.

Now that I've whetted your appetite, I hope you'll join me tonight - Wednesday night - at 9 p.m. ET, as we see how the master and founding father of this system handled it in his own games. We'll see some of his ideas about the opening per se, but more importantly, we'll see how the Benko Gambit plays itself out in the middlegame and ending. This will give us a template, enabling us to see some of the thematic ideas we can use to win our own games. Pure practicality!

(If your only reservation is cost, then fear not: it's free. Not sure how to watch? Again, it's no problem: click here to read full directions. See you then!)

American GM Pal Benko (we've borrowed him from Hungary) turned 80 years old two days ago (thus Wikipedia) or yesterday (so says Chess Today). While he hasn't been a terror on the world scene for a long time, he's still a player to be celebrated, especially in the United States. He was a two-time candidate, a former Hungarian champion, a star for the U.S. in several Olympics, a player without whom Bobby Fischer couldn't have played in the 1970-1972 world championship cycle, a main popularizer (though not the inventor) of the Benko Gambit, a fine endgame study composer and problemist, and the author of a very long-running endgame column in Chess Life.

He also seems a pretty decent guy. When I was living in New York in the 1990s, he was at the Marshall Chess Club from time to time, and on more than one occasion I had the chance to analyze with him. There was no need for me to show credentials or to receive an introduction from someone else (at least not that I recall!); the analysis started spontaneously and, as far as its conduct was concerned, it took place between peers. (I don't mean that I'm his equal, obviously. My point is that there was no pulling rank, either explicitly or implicitly.) All that mattered was what happened on the board.

So we celebrate his birthday, and to do so, here are a couple of his letter problems and a study (from his excellent autobiographical work My Life, Games and Compositions). We start with the letter problems, one for each of his initials.






In both cases, it's White to move and mate in three.

Next, one of his best-known studies:


Special Prize, Magyar Sakkelet 1990. White to move and win.

The solutions will be given in a day or two. (So please don't comment the answers.)

In a bit over a day, 162 votes have come in (hopefully from about 160 different people), and the results are surprisingly clear: Anand has won, and by a convincing 64%-36% margin (105 to 57 in votes). Yikes!

I'll put up a second poll a little later, and after that we'll reevaluate, as the current applet makes the page load more slowly than it ought.

The players came back from the rest day the right way: full of fight. No less (but no more) than four of the five games saw a winner, and even the draw was interesting.

Wang Hao essayed the McCutcheon French against Emil Sutovsky, and it worked perfectly. They reached an endgame with equal material and opposite colored bishops (but with other pieces, too), but with all of White's pawns isolated and weak, Black was able to win.

Alexei Shirov's win over Alexander Onischuk was a salutary reminder that the Marshall Gambit does not guarantee Black a draw; occasionally, an extra pawn really means something.

Perhaps the most exciting game of the day was Vugar Gashimov's win over Andrei Volokitin, a 6.Bg5 Najdorf which saw Gashimov start by sacrificing and conclude by collecting. An impressively savage performance by the Azeri GM.

The one draw was a Rossolimo Sicilian between Sergei Rublevsky and Ernesto Inarkiev. The play was "correct" throughout, and Black did a nice job of gradually neutralizing White's possibilities.

Finally, Dmitrij Jakovenko's played well against Viorel Bologan (26.f4 was ingenious), but Bologan's 29...Re8 (instead of 29...Rd7) and especially 31...h5 (instead of 31...Bc8 followed by 32...Bf5) cost him the game.

Standings after Round 6:

1-3. Rublevsky, Jakovenko, Shirov 4
4-5. Gashimov, Wang Hao 3.5
6-8. Sutovsky, Bologan, Volokitin 2.5
9. Onischuk 2
10. Inarkiev 1.5

Games can be replayed here.

Two postscripts: (1) Do check out the "best-of" post from the first five rounds of the Poikovsky event - the games are very entertaining. (2) Please vote in the poll!

Yesterday was the rest day at the Karpov Poikovsky tournament, so I spent some time then (and today) selecting and annotating a few of the best games from the first five rounds. There were quite a few excellent games, and I've picked out seven I think you'll enjoy. Have a look.

The experiment begins! We'll start with something simple: pick the winner of this fall's Anand-Kramnik world championship match - the poll is on the upper right sidebar of the blog. (Obvious now, but maybe less obvious once this post starts scrolling down the page.)

Confused? You won't be, after the next episode of...oh, never mind; that show hasn't been on the air for 27 years. So let's clear up the mystery now. The championship of Ireland allowed foreigners to compete (to create norm possibilities, I presume), so although Alon Greenfeld of Israel (but born in the U.S.A., which I didn't know until a moment ago) tied with Irishman (by way of Russia) Alex Baburin for first in the tournament with 8/9, he was not in the running for the championship title. The runner-up in that category was Stephen Jessel, who finished fourth overall with 6/9. (English GM Mark Hebden came in third with 6.5 points.)

While Baburin had already clinched the national championship with a round to spare, the last round pairings were intriguing. Greenfeld's task was to play with the white pieces against a 2188 player (John Redmond), while Baburin had Black against GM Stuart Conquest. Greenfeld fulfilled his task with too much ease, winning in just nine moves, but Baburin won too, despite the triple disadvantage of a strong opponent, the black pieces, and his persistent use of the Alekhine Defense. (Ok, Carlsen uses it too from time to time, so maybe it's not that bad.) You can replay both games here.

So congrats to GM Baburin, Chess Today's El Jefe! Interested readers can find much more information on the tournament here and here.

Here's an interesting position from Chess Today issue 2804. It's White to move; how would you evaluate the position? Feel free to comment, as long as you haven't seen that issue, looked up the position or run it by your engine, etc.; in short, as long as the evaluation is based on you alone, left to your own mental resources.