The Chess Mind

Now published at a website near you. Here's the top 20:

1. Topalov 2812
2. Anand 2783
3. Carlsen 2770
4. Kramnik 2759
5. Radjabov 2756
6. Aronian 2754
7. Jakovenko 2753
8. Morozevich 2751
9. Leko 2751
10. Grischuk 2748
11. Movsesian 2747
12. Ivanchuk 2746
13. Shirov 2745
14. Wang Yue 2738
15. Gelfand 2733
16. Gashimov 2730
17. Bacrot 2728
18. Svidler 2726
19. Ponomariov 2726
20. Mamedyarov 2725

A small but strong team event just finished in Kharkov, Ukraine; players included Ponomariov, Miroshnichenko, Beliavsky, Eljanov and Moiseenko. More info here.

HT: Chess Today

ND 59, some other team 67. Wait till next year!

Starts in about 2 hours on ESPN 2. Must-see TV!

Every Monday I download the latest issue of TWIC, and from time to time I check the super-short games to see if there's anything interesting there. This week, as always, there were plenty of games with 15 or fewer moves that ended with a winner. Some weren't really that short - it's very likely that the DGT board malfunctioned or the scoresheet was unreadable or the game wrongly entered. Some of the games involved players with pretty low ratings. And then some of the other games were decided by rather obvious and uninteresting blunders. Yet even after eliminating games in the aforementioned categories, a number of short disasters remained; I've annotated two of them here.

Ich bin [ein] Baden-Badener

The winner of this year's German league competition, as usual, was a team composed of renowned locals like Anand, Svidler, Adams, Movsesian, Harikrishna, Nielsen, Vallejo and Schlosser. (Hey, how did that last guy get in there? He's actually from Germany!) Anyway, while it's not much of a German league, at least not at the top, there's still a lot of great chess being played.

Readers interested in more info, and the games, can have a look here and here.

There will be another round tomorrow, but the final weekend of the 2008/9 Bundesliga season is already underway. More details here (the Bundesliga site, in German) and here (on TWIC). This season hasn't had quite the number of superstar games I'm used to seeing, but Viswanathan Anand has popped back in for this weekend's games, and you can see his win over Daniel Stellwagen (with my light comments) here.

The next "really big shoe" in the chess world comes in a couple of weeks, in Nalchik, Russia. It's the 4th Grand Prix of the 2008/2009 series, and includes the following participants:

Vladimir Akopian (Armenia)
Evgeny Alekseev (Russia)
Levon Aronian (Armenia)
Etienne Bacrot (France)
Pavel Eljanov (Ukraine)
Boris Gelfand (Israel)
Alexander Grischuk (Russia)
Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine)
Gata Kamsky (USA)
Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine)
Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan)
Peter Leko (Hungary)
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan)
Peter Svidler (Russia)

The event runs from the 14th to the 29th (of April), with the 20th and 25th as rest days. There's no website yet (as far as I know).

HT: Chess Today

Topics include tournament preparation, the Accelerated Dragon, the Caro-Kann and a Sicilian ending. Check it out, here.

It was a very good last round, and it would have been even better if Topalov had converted his winning (very winning!) position against Aronian in the blindfold game. Going into the last round, Aronian enjoyed a full point advantage over Anand and Carlsen, and a point and a half over Kramnik.

It would seem that Kramnik would be the least likely winner, but he played some great chess today, beating Leko 2-0. In the blindfold game he used some very serious preparation to win on the white side of the Anti-Moscow Gambit, and in the rapid he won with the black pieces in a Sicilian. (Yes, a Sicilian! Too bad he only avoids the Petroff in must-win situations.)

Anand did almost as well, defeating tailender Wang Yue 1.5-.5. In the blindfold game he may have been winning at some point, and even if he wasn't he was extremely close. In the rapid game, Anand displayed very good technique in a superior knight ending and brought in the full point.

Carlsen's chances for first were lost in the blindfold game. In a pretty dull, even Italian game, Carlsen didn't realize that he had self-trapped his queen. He bailed out at the cost of a knight, but that was too much and Radjabov won easily. He avenged himself in the rapid, but that was only good enough for fourth place overall.

Finally, Aronian. He was really, really lost against Topalov in the blindfold, and although Topalov had plenty of improvements along the way he was still winning by avoiding the repetition. (Thus 46.Kg6 instead of 46.Ke5 should be good enough to win, or minimally to make Aronian suffer terribly.) So Aronian escaped with a draw, and in the rapid game he was very happy to offer a draw on move 17, which Topalov accepted. Topalov may be disappointed by his failure to win the first game, but he might be equally overjoyed that his failure prevented Kramnik and Anand from being part of a tie for first.

In other action, Morozevich beat Kamsky 1.5-.5 and Karjakin beat Ivanchuk 2-0. That was a surprise, as Ivanchuk has traditionally been a very difficult opponent for him. It was also a surprise because Ivanchuk was [apparently] dead won in their rapid game, but even managed to lose it.

Final Blindfold Standings:

1-3. Kramnik, Carlsen, Aronian 7
4-5. Anand, Morozevich 6.5
6-7. Leko, Topalov 5.5
8-9. Ivanchuk, Radjabov 5
10. Karjakin 4.5
11. Wang Yue 3.5
12. Kamsky 3

Final Rapid Standings:

1-3. Anand, Kamsky, Aronian 7
4. Kramnik 6.5
5-6. Karjakin, Carlsen 6
7. Topalov 5
8-10. Morozevich, Leko, Ivanchuk 4.5
11-12. Radjabov, Wang Yue 4

Final Combined Standings:

1. Aronian 14
2-3. Kramnik, Anand 13.5
4. Carlsen 13
5. Morozevich 11
6-7. Topalov, Karjakin 10.5
8-9. Kamsky, Leko 10
10. Ivanchuk 9.5
11. Radjabov 9
12. Wang Yue 7.5

Tournament website here.

Three down, two to go. Next victim: Penn State on Tuesday.

Round 3 action at the NIT: Notre Dame vs. Kentucky, on ESPN2. (I hope they finish in time!) ND fans, forget Fr. Jenkins for a couple of hours and root for the good guys.

Today's round was a lot of fun. There were wins aplenty, amusing blunders, important results for the leaderboard and some very nice games.

In the blindfold action, every single game had a decisive result; there was not a single draw. One leader - Aronian - managed to win his game (against Wang Yue), but life proved more challenging for the other leaders. Carlsen had White against Kramnik, but he was demolished in a amateur vs. master style (see the link at the end of the post). And then there's Anand-Morozevich:



It's White to move, and after 25.Nxd5 cxd5 26.Qxd5 Qc3 27.Bd4 we'd have a very murky position. Anand's move eliminated all murk whatsoever: 25.Qxd5?? cxd5 0-1.

It wasn't of any importance for the leading standings, but Kamsky also managed to slip on a banana peel in his blindfold game with Topalov:



Kamsky (White) would maintain a slight edge after something like 32.Qf1. Instead, he decided it was already time to take on a6 (he thought his queen was on f2 rather than g1): 32.Bxa6? Nxf3 33.gxf3?? Bxf3+ 0-1.

Ironically, all the rapid games were drawn; all except for Topalov-Kamsky, which the American won in brilliant style. I've covered that game too - again, see the link at the end of this post.

Leading Blindfold Standings:

1. Carlsen 7
2. Aronian 6.5
3-4. Anand, Kramnik 6

Leading Rapid Standings:

1-2. Kamsky, Aronian 6.5
3. Anand 6
4. Kramnik 5.5

Leading Combined Standings:

1. Aronian 13
2-3. Anand, Carlsen 12
4. Kramnik 11.5

Crucial Final Round Pairings:

Topalov - Aronian
Wang Yue - Anand
Radjabov - Carlsen
Kramnik - Leko

(The first-named player has White in the blindfold game.)

Tournament site here; Carlsen-Kramnik and Topalov-Kamsky, with my notes, here.

In this post I mentioned that many interesting games were being played in league competitions over the weekend, and invited readers to mention any they found particularly interesting. One reader did, and you can find his choice, with my notes, here.

I imagine that many of my American readers (but fewer of those around the world) will know the name of Larry Evans. He has been a long-time columnist for Chess Life, and is also well-known for his association with Bobby Fischer. (For instance, he wrote the short game introductions in Fischer's classic My 60 Memorable Games.) But it should not be forgotten that during his playing days, Evans was an exceptionally strong player in his own right; a grandmaster at a time when very few such creatures walked the earth. Among his successes are five US Championship titles, eight trips to the Olympiad and numerous other successes, including victory in the very first Lone Pine tournament.

This week, we'll look at one of his earliest successes, achieved when he was just 15 or 16 years old. Born in 1932, Evans won the Marshall Chess Club championship for 1947/8, and this week we'll look at a remarkable game from that event. (Added bonus: it's not in Mega, so you'll have something to add to your collection.) Facing Carl Pilnick, Evans chooses a very sharp and dangerous way of meeting the French, and with players castling on opposite wings a race situation quickly ensued. Objectively, Pilnick was probably ahead in the race, but Evans found some really brilliant and deep ideas that even your computer might not manage to find. (Of course, you should first try to find the idea for yourself, and only later test your software!)

It's a very entertaining game, and one I'm sure you'll all enjoy. Just tune in tonight - Wednesday night - at 9 p.m. ET/Thursday morning at 2 a.m. CET, for free, and see for yourself! (Quick directions: log on to Playchess.com at the right time, go to the Broadcasts room, select the Games tab and double-click Evans-Pilnick.)

In a way...



HT: The Chess Cafe

It was a draw-heavy day today (ok, yesterday), but the few wins there were worked out to allow Aronian and Carlsen to catch Anand for the combined lead.

Let's start with Anand, who was paired against his forthcoming rival in the next world championship match: Topalov. Both games were drawn, but in the very entertaining blindfold contest he might have had good winning chances with 22...Qd5 (instead of 22...Qc5), and after 23.Qxh7 b5 24.Qh8+ Ke7 25.Qh4+ (as in the game) 25...f6 26.exf6+ Kf7. I'm sure Anand would have done that in a classical game without much hesitation, but in a rapid, blindfold game it's natural to prefer safety.

His closest rivals only drew their blindfold games; in fact, all the blindfold games were drawn except for Kramnik-Ivanchuk. That probably should have been drawn as well, but Kramnik's decision to "go active" starting with 31.e5 backfired. By move 40 he was out a pawn with a lost position, and the "old" man of the tournament bagged the point.

In the rapid, there were a grand total of two wins - one for Aronian and one for Carlsen. Aronian had the upper hand most of the way against Morozevich in an incredibly wild, tactical game, but things only became clear when Morozevich got too clever (by half) with 27...fxg3?(?). What he missed was 29.Re2, when the Ra1 was immune (29...Bxa1 30.Qd6+ mates or wins major material).

Carlsen won the opposite sort of game. Some recent failures notwithstanding, he's generally a very good grinder, and he succeeded in slowly snuffing the life out of Karjakin's position. 38.Bxf7 was a nice touch (even if he could have done it on move 37), and with the win he not only entered a tie for first, he also reasserted his supremacy among the 1990ers.

As for Anand, he used the White pieces to draw in 17 moves. This was probably not from a lack of ambition, but because the position was already quite stale - Topalov's prep was just too good.

Leading Blindfold Standings:

1. Carlsen 7
2. Anand 6
3-4. Leko, Aronian 5.5

Leading Rapid Standings:

1. Aronian 6
2-3. Anand, Kamsky 5.5

Leading Combined Standings:

1-3. Aronian, Anand, Carlsen 11.5
4. Kramnik 10

Tournament site here.

Michael Melts, The Scandinavian Defense: The Dynamic 3...Qd6 (Russell Enterprises 2009); $29.95. (Available here.) Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

To be honest, the opening line 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 isn't one I know very well, nor one I have much interest in taking up at this point. What I can say is that the new book on this system by Michael Melts (the second edition of a 2001 book) is insanely detailed. It's packed like an openings encyclopedia with game references and analysis; indeed, one might think that every 3...Qd6 game in history is included.

I'll list some pros and cons, but be aware that this is not a detailed review based on my thorough investigation of the book. With that caveat, then, let's continue.

PROS:

1. As mentioned above, the coverage is encyclopedic. As a source book, one would be hard-pressed to top this.

2. It's an economical system, by which I mean that it's pretty well one-stop shopping against 1.e4. If you want to play the Najdorf Sicilian, you first have to worry about 2.a3, 2.b4, 2.c3, 2.d4 and 2.Nc3; then after 2.Nf3 d6 there's 3.Nc3, 3.Bc4 and 3.Bb5+; after 3.d4 cxd4 there's 4.Qxd4; and even after 4.Nxd4 Nf6 there's 5.f3 and even 5.Bc4. After 1.e4 d5, however, there's really just 2.Nc3 and 2.d4 to worry about, and they're not much of a worry.

3. It's probably not such a bad system, either. Tiviakov has been playing it regularly for several years now, with generally good results, and other strong (2600+) GMs like Nisipeanu, Almasi, Dreev and Gashimov have experimented with it as well.

CONS:

1. Almost all of the book comprises variations, whether game citations or original analysis. Once the book gets going, there's almost no hand-holding for the reader, explaining what's going on, what to do next, etc.

Reply: This is mitigated somewhat by a 32 page chapter (or "Part") called "Information for Club Players", which is geared to readers in the 1400-2000 range. Ironically, a fair chunk of this chapter is in the same vein - moves without explanations - but overall it's still useful. The chapter includes examples of "opening catastrophes" for White and "typical mistakes" for Black, and then offers some tidbits on the major structures Black can choose after 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.d4 Nf6. There's a subsection on ...c6 approaches, ...a6 approaches, and ...g6 approaches (the latter is the specialty of GM Bojan Kurajica). Melts rounds out the chapter with recommendations - a commendable inclusion.

All the same, the explanations look awfully superficial to me, and there's much that goes on in the main chapters that isn't conceptually addressed in the info chapter or elsewhere. Here's an example, from Charbonneau-Kamsky, Montreal 2007, which is the first "official" game in the book: 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.d4 Nf6 5.Bc4 c6 6.Nf3 Be6. After two pages discussing Black's 6th move alternatives, Melts writes this: "With 6...Be6 Black plans to exchange light-squared bishops." Well, yes, that's pretty clear, but should he? Is it better here than on f5 or g4, and is there any general strategic reason we can appeal to for understanding? And if it is, does that mean that White should avoid 5.Bc4?

Continuing with the game, White played 7.Bxe6, and after 7...Qxe6+ Melts says that Black has no problems. Here's the note to White's 7th move, in full:

7.Bd3 (7.Bb3!?; for 7.Ne5 see 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 c6 6.Ne5 Be6 7.Bc4, Game 17) 7...Nbd7 (Schallueck, H. - Klawitter, B., Hamburg 2004) 8.0-0+=; 7...Bg4 - Game 13; 7...Na6!? 8.a3 g6.

At the end of the game Melts writes that "White needs to play 7.Bb3, 7.Bd3 or 7.Ne5." Ok, maybe so, but why was White's choice bad? What did he allow in the position that he shouldn't, or what did he fail to pursue that he should have? If 7.Bxe6 Qxe6+ was nothing, then why is 7.Bb3 Bxb3 8.axb3 Qe6+ something? Is Black supposed to castle long here (he doesn't in Charbonneau-Kamsky), but not now thanks to the half-open a-file, or is that file just a generic asset for White, or is the issue that a pawn on b3 supports a knight or other piece on c4? The point isn't that Melts should explain everything, but that almost nothing is explained. Even Boris Avrukh's 1.d4! repertoire book and the Khalifman books, both of which are primarily geared towards professional and near-professional players, offer the reader more help than Melts does.

2. Who is Melts? OTB, there's not much to see: I didn't find a FIDE rating, and he has a 2100 USCF rating based on only three tournaments. On the other hand, he's an IM in correspondence chess, so even if he's not as strong a practical player as the typical openings book author, he clearly has some skill in analysis.

In summary, it is clear that Melts has put a lot of effort into this book, and even if Khalifman or some other elite author could puncture his analysis, I imagine it should hold up pretty well in the rough-and-tumble world most of us inhabit. Whether you want to play this system is up to you, but if you do you will surely want this as a sourcebook. As I've suggested, it's rather thin on explanation (even with the one special chapter taken into account), so my recommendation is that players on the lower end of the 1400-2000 spectrum only consider taking this up if they are already reasonably familiar with the main line Scandinavian, or perhaps the Caro-Kann or the Fort Knox French.

A plea for help from one James Miller:

Hi Dennis, I followed many of your videos since the chess.fm days(2004ish) and also when I was a member of Playchess/Chessbase - I always enjoyed them immensely. I'm happy to find this blog with more of your videos on it as well, I can't wait till I have a bit of spare time to go through some of those now :). Anyway, you were the first person I thought of when thinking of an online chess personality to contact :), and I had a question to ask as you can see in the subject line.

I'm a final year Psychology Student (and a chess player) in the process of doing a thesis on chess training methods and the attainment of expertise. I have created a questionnaire and was hoping to get some rated chess players to help me out by completing one for me. I don't know if you'd be able to complete one for me (it would be great if you could though :) ), but I thought you would be a good person to ask about how I might be able to get some of these filled in online. I have uploaded my chess questionnaire online, so anyone curious can take a look at [link]. I have posted the link up in a couple of forums already, but no doubt you may know of better places to try than I.

I hope it is not too cheeky to e-mail something like this, but I am rather restricted in who I can actually ask to participate in this study. Most students simply ask other students to take part but that obviously can't be done in a specialised area such as chess. Still, I wanted to do a project on something I'm passionate about that would hopefully turn out to be interesting to other chess players.

...it's only 39 questions on a simple 'pick an option' scale and wouldn't take too long. I'm hoping that participants will get something out of it as well, and I can always post up the study at the end if it is of interest to anyone. Thanks very much, Jim

Ok everyone: help a needy student with his project!

Fans of his opening work and readers of Chess Today will be familiar with GM Mikhail Golubev. A recent and fairly extended interview with him can be found starting on this page, but here I'll draw your attention to something he said near the very end:

[Question:] I practically never saw nice websites for those who may wish to learn how to play chess from the complete zero level...

[Golubev's Reply:] Personally, I prefer, for example, to analyse some Fischer Attack game with a novelty around the move 20. I like to annotate games. Also to annotate them in the "Informator style", without any words - in such way I annotated games for Informator and New in Chess in the pre-computer era. With some ideas and, not too often, decent quality. But I am afraid that nowadays it is possible to teach [a] monkey how to push a few buttons inside the Rybka or Fritz interface, and the result will be of [...] better quality than these old notes of mine... I see that explaining computer’s variations becomes a larger and larger part of the annotator’s work. This trend is not new, but it started to really disturb me only recently, right now I am still not sure what to do about that. Nothing dramatic, in any case. [Emphasis added.]

Ah, those darned monkeys! In truth, the monkeys won't replace the GMs. They really just exist online in the form of 1300s berating the grandmasters they're watching for missing some "obvious" move found by their quad-cores running Rybka; those of us who want to learn will read what strong analysts have to say. We might check their analysis with the computer, but whatever we come to understand almost always results from the text, not the printout.

After his win from a worse position against Magnus Carlsen in round 5 of the Amber tournament, Levon Aronian said this:

I’ve said this many times before, there’s nothing sweeter than a win that is not deserved.

I don't think I'm with him on this one, unless it's an especially difficult or annoying opponent. I'd rather win a model game any day. First, there's that sense of aesthetic completeness; second, it shows that everything is working the way it ought to, that I'm firing on all cylinders. Chess isn't about putting the other person down, ideally, but about doing one's best. One can't always do one's best, and I'll take wins any way I (ethically) can, but a lucky win isn't my preference.

What say you, readers?

It looks like practically every major chess league except the Bundesliga is in action this weekend - more about this here. If I find some especially good games from any of these events (and readers who have been following them are invited to point some out to me), I may present them here.

Sure, Anand won (kept) the world championship last year, but Kramnik would win the consolation prize today, right? Wrong. Although Kramnik has generally been the more successful blindfold player, Anand beat him in that discipline and easily held him off in the rapid game. The blindfold game was a Petroff where White's somewhat rare approach worked well. Kramnik was unable to equalize, and his opponent gradually worked up a dangerous initiative. (Petroffphiles [Petrofffiles?] should try 18...Kxf8, when after 19.Qh6+ Kg8 20.h5 it looks like both captures on d4 suffice: 20...Qxd4 21.hxg6 hxg6 22.Bxg6 Qg7 23.Bh7+ Kh8=, or 20...Rxd4 21.hxg6 hxg6 22.Bxg6 Rxd1+ 23.Rxd1 Qg7 24.Qxg7+ Kxg7 25.Be4 Rb8=.) I'm not sure where exactly Kramnik's position became hopeless - maybe with 24...Bf5 - but it was very difficult already.

Aronian kept pace, half a point behind Anand, thanks to his blindfold win against Radjabov. With White in a Fianchetto Grünfeld he sacrificed a couple of pawns for loads of compensation. Radjabov tried to return them in a way that would break Aronian's bind, but he didn't completely succeed. (Perhaps the 20...Be5 + 21...Bxg3 plan wasn't best, as it left his second rank very exposed just a few moves later.) White acquired the blind pigs (i.e. a pair of rooks on the 7th rank) with predictable results.

In other blindfold action, Carlsen defeated Topalov in something of a blunderfest and Ivanchuk survived a persistently worse position until Morozevich lost the thread with 44...Qe7?? After that he was down a piece for nothing, and Ivanchuk got his first win as a 40-year-old.

Finally, Berlin players must examine the Leko-Wang Yue game. It's not beautiful, but it's an important demonstration of how to draw one very typical same-colored bishop ending. Kamsky-Karjakin was also drawn, but it's only important if you're a devoted fan of one or both players.

When we turn to the rapid games, the situation is reversed. Only one game was decisive, and that was Karjakin's win over Kamsky. White enjoyed an edge in a Closed Ruy Lopez, thanks to a good knight vs. mediocre bishop and some extra space, but his advantage only became serious after 39...Bc8, allowing the knight into c6. Black's position fell apart quickly after that. The remaining games were drawn, generally pretty quickly, in what looks a little like the traditional pre-free day blahs.

Leading Blindfold Standings:

1. Carlsen 6.5 (3013 TPR!)
2. Anand 5.5
3-5. Leko, Aronian, Kramnik 5

Leading Rapid Standings:

1-3. Anand, Kamsky, Aronian 5
4-5. Kramnik, Karjakin 4.5

Leading Combined Standings:

1. Anand 10.5
2-3. Aronian, Carlsen 10
4. Kramnik 9.5

Tournament site here.

Here's an interesting email from "Seena":

Hello Dennis,

Just a curiosity about computer programming and chess softwares; there's no expert on either field around here, so I thought it's a good idea to ask you: How does a chess software decide that in a certain position, no furthur calculation is needed, and the evaluation of the position (which is, for a computer, based on materialistic considerations) is satisfactorily precise? Grandmasters do that with their so-called "positional judgement". They can "visualise" the forthcoming position and evaluate it due to some well-known considerations (pawn structure, good/bad bishops, "compensation" for material, and so on). Hence, even though their calculating ability is limited, they can play the game masterfully.

Computers, on the other hand, have tremendous calculating powers but don't have a clue about positional play. So how do they evaluate positions? They can't calculate variations all the way down to the last move, so they have to "cut" the variations at some point. In a game with limited time, how do they decide that they've gone deep enough and the evaluation of the position will not suddenly change , in the very next move to come?

I'm trying to develop a draghts-playing computer programme, so any information on this issue would be helpful.

Thanks in advance! Seena

I'm not a programming expert either, so I'll leave a fuller discussion to my more learned readers, who are also invited to point Seena to other resources that might prove helpful. One note, though: I wouldn't say they have no clue about positional play (at least if we ignore ontological issues and assume for the sake of discussion that they have a clue about anything). While they lack concepts and the ability to wield them as we do, programmers do build positional ideas into their algorithms. The trick is just to mathematize features like space, mobility, pawn structure, bishops vs. knights vis-a-vis the pawn structure, control of open files, diagonals, king safety, etc. We make the same sorts of judgments in a more informal and intuitive way when we say things like "White is better thanks to the bishop pair", or "Black's superior pawn structure outweighs the opponent's bishop pair." (Very) broadly speaking, the computer makes the same sorts of judgments we do.

It's good to see world champions scoring like world champions!

Let's cover the round as it transpired:

First Blindfold Session:

Topalov-Ivanchuk: A Catalan where Black was always comfortable despite White's bishop pair. There was a cute trick in the game worth pointing out: if White played 28.hxg5??, then after 28...Ra2 it's time to resign - it's impossible for him to keep the queen on c3, the knight on f3 and the pawn on f2 protected. Of course Topalov didn't fall for this, and the result was a draw a few moves later.

Morozevich-Leko: Morozevich is an incredibly creative player, but his opening experiments seem more successful with Black. Right from the opening he was worse against Leko, and he only just managed to reach a drawn rook ending.

Wang Yue-Carlsen: Carlsen has had a terrible time with Wang Yue lately, losing to him in both Wijk aan Zee and Linares this year. Today he got a measure of revenge, beating him twice. In the blindfold game, Wang Yue erred by giving up his dark squared bishop with 23.f3, and then 26.Be4 blundered a pawn. It's likely that he missed Carlsen's little tactical trick: after 26...Rxe5 27.Kd4 Kf6, he could not play 28.Bxc6?? on account of 28...Rd8+ with mate next move. So Carlsen was simply a pawn up, and then two pawns up, and that was good enough to win.

Second Blindfold Session:

Radjabov-Kamsky: Kamsky often does well with his sidelines, and today he trotted out another one, playing a Scandinavian variation with an unimpressive reputation. Radjabov obtained a slight edge but made a misstep which he promptly undid. Rather than undo his own move, testing Radjabov to see if he intended to repeat, Kamsky erred and allowed 17.Nd5! When the smoke cleared White was left with two very powerful bishops, better development and a strong passed, extra pawn on f7. The rest was pretty simple, and Radjabov went on to win.

Kramnik-Aronian: This was a typical Grünfeld where White obtained a passed d-pawn and Black blockaded it with the ideal knight on d6. The result was a balanced game, and the players agreed to a draw on move 35.

Karjakin-Anand: The world champion won a very impressive game. Playing Black in a Caro-Kann (this seems to be a good opening when Black wants to win - not because of the opening's intrinsic merits, but because it doesn't lend itself to positions where everything fizzles out), he somehow managed to perch his light squared bishop on the awesome d5 square (free from pawn or knight attack) and used this asset to outplay Karjakin. Anand concluded with some power chess: 32...Nxe5! was a nice tactical blow that demolished White's defense.

First Rapid Session:

Ivanchuk-Topalov: A fine display of recipe chess. Whether from Marshall Gambit despair or a desire for something comparatively different, Ivanchuk utilized the relatively rare Deferred Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez. He succeeded in avoiding one sort of drawish position, but Topalov had no difficulty constructing another sort. Ivanchuk obtained a nominally better structure, but Black was able to defend his only weakness (b7) and there was nothing else to do. One of White's standard plans against this sort of structure (whether in an Exchange Ruy of some sort or a Rossolimo Sicilian where Black plays ...dxc6) is to go for f4, but apparently Ivanchuk felt it wouldn't lead to anything around moves 13-15. He was ready to play it on move 18, but 17...g5 put an end to it.

Leko-Morozevich: In a very well-known Caro-Kann position, Morozevich found a remarkable novelty (new for the big leagues). The position after 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5 Ngf6 6.Bd3 has occurred thousands of times (3419 times in ChessBase's online database), and the overwhelmingly most common reply is 6...e6. That's too pedestrian for Morozevich, and he unleashed 6...e5!? It's a great move if Black can get away with it, and apparently he can! Leko couldn't find anything better than 7.Bc4 Nd5 8.N1f3 exd4 9.Qxd4 N7f6 10.O-O Be7 11.c3, but after 11...O-O Black had equalized. It didn't stay equal though. Leko continued more successfully, saddling his opponent with an isolated e-pawn that he eventually won. He was still that extra pawn ahead, but not quite winning, when Morozevich blundered with 39...Qxa2 (39...Rd6 keeps hope alive), allowing 40.Ng5+ with forced mate.

Carlsen-Wang Yue: As noted above, Carlsen won this game too. Black played very passively in a Slav, and after 19.g3 Black could hardly move a thing. By move 24 Black already had to sac the exchange with 24...Ng6, as 24...Ra7 25.d5! was even worse. Still, Black never had enough play for the material, and Carlsen finished him off without any trouble.

Second Rapid Session:

Kamsky-Radjabov: I'm impressed by Kamsky's play in this one. Radjabov does well with the Kalashnikov most of the time, the obvious weakness of d5 and other light squares notwithstanding, but this time White gained the strategic advantages without giving up anything in return. Kamsky did let the edge slip a bit, but won it a second time when he suckered Radjabov into the blunder 38...e4? White won the pawn and converted the advantage.

Aronian-Kramnik: Aronian was better most of the way, but his very strange 27th-29th moves left him a very important pawn down for nothing. Further mistakes ensued, but these were "forced errors"; Black's c-pawn would have extracted further concessions no matter what.

Anand-Karjakin:: A long, hard-fought draw. Karjakin came out of the opening in good shape, but I'm not sure about his queen sac. It did liven things up, but it looks like Anand had many places he could have improved along the way. (E.g. 39.Rc2, 40.Rc2, 43.b4 and especially 53.Qd8+! Kc6 54.b5+ Kb7 and only then 55.Qf6 followed by Qxg6.) It's not easy to play positions with lots of imbalances, even for the best players, and Karjakin escaped with a draw.

Leading Blindfold Standings:

1. Carlsen 5.5
2. Kramnik 5
3-4. Leko, Anand 4.5

Leading Rapid Standings:

1. Kamsky 5
2-3. Anand, Aronian 4.5
4. Kramnik 4

Leading Combined Standings:

1-2. Anand, Kramnik 9
3-4. Aronian, Carlsen 8.5

Tournament site here.

I'm not a technophobe, but I hadn't bothered joining social networking sites...until now. My facebook page is nothing to speak of at this point, but I'm on and ready to be recruited! (Any useful tips you may have about how to make my page there worthwhile would be appreciated.)

Overall it was a pretty dry round today, with a high percentage of technical games and draws. The big winners of the round were Aronian, whose 1.5-.5 win over Karjakin put him in clear first (Kramnik drew twice with Kamsky, the first game in 129 moves); and Anand, who bageled Radjabov to tie Kramnik in second place.

In other matches, Carlsen defeated Morozevich 1.5-.5, Leko defeated Topalov by the same margin (Topalov was massacred in the blindfold game), and Ivanchuk's fifth decade continued its rocky path when he lost to Wang Yue by that same 1.5-.5 margin.

Leading Blindfold Standings:

1-2. Carlsen, Kramnik 4.5
3. Leko 4

Leading Rapid Standings:

1. Aronian 4.5
2-3. Anand, Kamsky 4

Leading Combined Standings:

1. Aronian 8
2-3. Anand, Kramnik 7.5

Tournament site here (with videos).

Tatiana Kosintseva defeated Lilit Mkrtchian in a playoff to win the European Women's Championship, and Natalia Pogonina prevailed in the 7 woman playoff needed to determine the bronze medalist.

Plenty of further information, including video reports, can be found on the tournament site.

It had been a while, so I decided to look at the highlights of the latest batch of viewer submissions; you can see the results here. It's free and requires no special software - have a look!

Two down, three to go. Next victim: either Creighton or Kentucky, on March 24 or 25.

Alexander Khalifman, Opening for White according to Anand 1.e4, Vol. 11 (Chess Stars 2009). 444 pp. ($29.99 here.) Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

Former FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman has been writing opening repertoire books throughout this decade, in a number of multi-volume projects. There was "Opening for White According to Kramnik", "Opening for Black According to Karpov", and the most recent series, "Opening for White According to Anand". The players mentioned aren't collaborators in the series, and the games cited and analysis proposed in each book in the series extends beyond what those greats played and wrote. Still, the repertoire Khalifman proposes is well-based on what those champions played (and play), and as such it offers the reader a fundamentally stable repertoire based on main lines tested at the very highest level.

The "Anand" series is up to volume 11 (or XI, to use the numerals used by Chess Stars), and is based on 1.e4. (This was Anand's almost exclusive choice prior to the Kramnik match.) All 444 dense pages of volume XI are devoted to the Dragon and the Accelerated Dragon, and since his treatment of the Accelerated Dragon is based on 5.Nc3 approaches, it's pretty much a pure Dragon book.)

The book came out right at the start of the year, and given Chess Stars' estimable habit of speedy publication, readers can trust the book as expressing the state of the art as of the end of 2008. Likewise, the Khalifman books are consistently detailed, and this volume is no exception. In the opening books by him that I've examined closely, he invariably starts by looking at even poor moves before turning to the meat, and does so without giving short shrift to either the side- or the mainlines. Want proof? You can find the full table of contents (or more accurately, index of variations) here.

I would not consider myself a Dragon specialist for either side (one of the leading Dragon specialists, GM Mikhail Golubev, has reviewed and lauded the book for Chess Today), but there are some lines I have examined for my own use and in annotating games for the blog. One variation I spent a good deal of time on several years ago arises after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 0-0 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.Bb3 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 b5. (This came up for me via an Accelerated Dragon move order: 2...Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 0-0 8.Bb3 d6 9.f3 Bd7 10.Qd2 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 b5.)



White has two main moves here; ironically, they are rook-pawn pushes on opposite sides of the board. White can choose the prophylactic 12.a4 or the sharp and bloodthirsty 12.h4. I prepared the latter move for my intended opponent, found some nice new ideas, and won a nice game (though without getting to use the best part of my preparation). Some time later I saw Bologan successfully use a very similar idea in a game with Moldovan, and I've followed and discussed the path of this variation on the blog off and on the past few years.

Naturally, I was curious to see how well my old analysis held up in Khalifman's eyes, and was surprised to learn that he advocates 12.a4 instead. Even so, Khalifman's consistent thoroughness deserves praise, and he spends over half a page with dense analysis of 12.h4 to justify his rejection of that approach. (Readers should not fear that a large chunk of the book is wasted [from White's point of view] on lines he discards. When Khalifman discusses White alternatives, it's generally to explain why he prefers one major node over another.) His arguments for 12.a4 are plausible: he thinks White gains at least a slight edge with it (generally a clear edge) and that 12.h4 is both objectively good for Black and gives him the easier, more fun position to handle. (I take a look at his suggestions here - see the first game.)

Turning to a more topical variation, he spends a little over eight pages on the almost brand-new "Carlsen Variation": 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 0-0 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.Bb3 Rc8 11.0-0-0 Ne5 12.Kb1 a6



Khalifman's treatment includes discussion of the high-level 2008 games Dominguez Perez-Carlsen from Biel, Topalov-Carlsen from Bilbao, Anand-Carlsen from Mainz and Karjakin-Radajbov from Sochi and a whole lot more besides. Naturally, his coverage is deeper than what I offered on this blog (I'd hope so!), but it's still interesting to compare conclusions. (Which I do here - see the second game.)

To conclude this review, let me say that this book appears characteristic of the series. The coverage is thorough and the analysis is deep, but with a fair amount of verbal explanation to help the reader. In the past, I've noticed that Khalifman's analysis can sometimes be a little biased for the repertoire side and perhaps under-reliant on computers (even in tactical lines), but I didn't notice any problems this time around. (Granted, I've only checked a very small percentage of the book.) Even so, I'm happy to have the earlier volumes, and this is an obvious must-have for any serious Dragon player. Similarly, it's a must-have for the target audience as well; i.e. for anyone who faces main line Dragons (and Accelerated Dragons without 5.c4 - mention this, and that an earlier book in the Kramnik series covers that approach). I think 1800s and up can benefit from this book; players below that figure but not too far from it might try it as well, at least if they're devoted Dragoneers. Below that, and I think it's probably both a bit too much and a misallocation of resources - there are far more important things to do than learning heavy-duty Dragon theory.

The action resumed after the rest day, and despite a slew of blindfold draws the spectators still got their money's worth in blood once it came to the rapids. Here's a summary of the day's action:

Morozevich-Karjakin: It often happens in Morozevich's praxis that Black scores better than White, and that's what happened here too. In the blindfold game, Morozevich devised an almost unknown exchange sacrifice that worked to perfection. With the help of a subsequent piece sac, he was able to use his central passers to dominate the board and win. (Helped by a final blindfold blunder, it's true.) In the sequel, Morozevich came out of the opening with a nice advantage. His passed c-pawn and bishop looked better than Karjakin's passed a-pawn and knight, and they were, but after some inaccuracies the situation changed. Karjakin achieved a strong blockade, and played what looks like an outstanding ending to win.

In the lovefest between bosom buddies Kramnik and Topalov, the players took turns gaining substantial advantages with White that they failed to convert. Both men were outstanding in defense, and both games were drawn.

The battle between Wang Yue and Radjabov was rather amusing. The first game was 100% dull, as Wang Yue played an incredibly insipid variation against Radjabov's KID. Not only insipid, but ineffective, as he was forced to allow a draw by repetition on move 17. Unfortunately for Radjabov, his attempt to win against Wang Yue's Petroff in the rapid game backfired. By move 20 he was a pawn down in a double-rook ending, and Black's excellent technique resulted in a win.

The Kamsky-Leko match proved the American to be the superior grinder, at least today. Kamsky used the Hippopotamus(!) in the blindfold game, and achieved a draw without any difficulty at all. (In fact, he was better at times.) With White and his eyes open, Kamsky was even more successful. The game is an excellent model of how to torture one's opponent in the Exchange Ruy structure (it was a Delayed Exchange Deferred, but the structure is the same). It took Kamsky 96 moves to win, but I bet he enjoyed almost every one of them, and probably wouldn't have minded if the game went even longer.

Aronian really had to scrap against Carlsen, and his reward was match victory and a tie for first overall with Kramnik. In the blindfold game, with White, he played a pawn sac line that doesn't look very impressive, and by opening's end it was Aronian who had to hold the balance. He succeeded in this task, but with Black in the rapid he was in real trouble. Carlsen completely outplayed him after the opening, and on move 30 the youngster had an extra pawn and the better position. A few moves later Aronian was really lost, but found a way to make things interesting. Aronian allowed Carlsen to win the exchange (Carlsen didn't have to go for it), but to do so in a way that left White's dark-squared bishop incarcerated on b8. White never figured out how to save it, and many moves later Aronian won it for a couple of pawns. Now Carlsen was no longer winning, but objectively the position was still very slightly in his favor. Carlsen managed to outplay him again, but his eternally elusive opponent not only managed to come back a second time, but to outplay and even defeat his opponent in 98 moves.

Finally, Anand did not give Ivanchuk a belated birthday present. Anand drew the first game (the blindfold game) easily with Black, and then won a Poisoned Pawn Winawer French with a very nice breakthrough/promotion combination.

Leading Blindfold Standings:

1. Kramnik 4
2-3. Carlsen, Morozevich 3.5

Leading Rapid Standings:

1-2. Kamsky, Aronian 3.5
3-4. Anand, Karjakin 3

Leading Combined Standings:

1-2. Aronian, Kramnik 6.5
3. Morozevich 6
4-5. Anand, Topalov 5.5

Tournament website here.

The Women's Grand Prix in Istanbul came to an unexpected conclusion; unexpected, that is, in light of what had occurred in the rest of the tournament. Chinese players Zhao Xue and Hou Yifan had led throughout, but it was not to be. Koneru beat Sebag with Black, Zhao Xue lost to Danielan and Hou Yifan could only draw with countrywoman Shen Yang. The final standings among the leaders look like this:

1. Humpy Koneru 8.5/11
2-3. Danielian (second on tiebreaks), Hou Yifan 8
4. Zhao Xue 7.5

A very nice comeback by the winner!

Meanwhile, the European Women's Championship had plenty of drama of its own. With her win in the penultimate round, Ekaterina Kovalevskaya was in clear first, half a point ahead of seven pursuers. Unfortunately for her, she lost to one of them - Tatiana Kosintseva - in the finale. Almost all the other top games were drawn (in each case with a lot of fight), but not all: Mkrtchian beat Romanko. I assume there will be a Kosintseva-Mkrtchian playoff, and when there is, I'll report the results.

Vassily Ivanchuk hits the big 4-0 today.

Anyone who thinks stamina isn't important to tournament chess should look at the comedy of errors that passed for a European Championship playoff. There were blunders everywhere, down to the penultimate move of the deciding game, at a frequency you wouldn't see from these guys in 3-minute chess. After 11 rounds of tournament chess, however, anything can happen, and did.

In the end, Evgeny Tomashevsky became the champion, defeating Vladimir Malakhov 2-1 in the final match. Tomashevsky was worse in the first game, but won when Malakhov blundered, and in the Armageddon game he was completely lost when his opponent donated a rook - moving it to a square it could be captured on, no calculation required - to his opponent's favorite charity.

Thus Tomashevsky wins the top prize, Malakhov came in second, and Baadur Jobava came in third (after defeating Ernesto Inarkiev in a playoff for the bronze).

Moving on to other events, the collars were getting tight at the Women's Grand Prix in Istanbul. Zhao Xue, who had hitherto been leading, undefeated, with a terrific score, lost with the white pieces to Marie Sebag. Hou Yifan wasn't faring much better, as she was in serious trouble against Elina Danielan. Fortunately for her, Danielan blundered the exchange, and then after a further inaccuracy was even clearly worse. Luckily for her, Hou didn't make the most of her chances, and the game finished in a draw. That put the Chinese women in a tie for first with Danielan half a point back in fourth. Not third, but fourth, because Humpy Koneru's win over Antoaneta Stefanova put her into the first-place tie.

With one round to go, these are the standings:

1-3. Zhao Xue, Hou Yifan, Humpy Koneru 7.5 (of 10)
4. Danielan 7
5. Sebag 6

And the relevant last round pairings look like this:

Sebag - Koneru
Danielan - Zhao Xue
Shen Yang - Hou Yifan

Lastly, there's the European Women's Championship. Coming into today's penultimate round, seven players led with 7/9: Kovalevskaya, Hoang Thanh Trang, Rajlich, Mkrtchian, Socko, Lomineishvili and Shadrina. Kovalevskaya won against Hoang Thanh Trang, Rajlich drew Mkrtchian and Socko drew Lomineishvili, while Shadrina lost to a player in a lower score group. That means Kovalevskaya is in clear first going into the last round, with a plethora of pursuers half a point behind.

Here and here.

It's only the NIT, but it's better than nothing! (Barely.) One down, four to go. Next victim: New Mexico on Thursday night.

With all the super-tournaments going on nowadays, it's easy to forget that there are other great players producing work of art. Some of them make their achievements in over the board action, but many more do so in the comfort of their study. I'm referring, of course, to correspondence players. Many of them are accomplished in tournament chess, and when we add comparatively unlimited time and the chance to consult with computer engines, the result is a potent chess playing entity!

Case in point: the ongoing Simon Webb Memorial, an all-star correspondence tournament that started in 2007. Arno Nickel clinched clear first, and the tournament is shot through with beautiful games. We might look at one of his games later, but this week we'll look at Michiel Plomp's victory over former world correspondence champion Grigory Sanakoev.

The opening was an English Attack in the Najdorf/Scheveningen, so if you're expecting a sharp game, you're right. It's not just rock 'em sock 'em robots, though: there's a clear, logical thread that runs throughout the game. If anything, the most confusing moment is the end: why does Black resign? Sure, White's attack looks dangerous, but he's down a rook and a bishop and his only big threat can be easily met.

We'll puzzle it out, along with some of the other subtle points in the game, when we look at it tonight (Wednesday night) at 9 p.m. ET (that's 2 a.m. CET for you Europeans - insomniacs and early risers are welcome). The show is free. Just log on to the Playchess.com server, go to the Broadcasts room and select Plomp-Sanakoev under the Games tab. See you there!

They're here. In a nutshell:

Sokolov, Inarkiev, Naiditsch, Tomashevsky and Navara get byes for the first round. The remaining six players are paired like this:

Match A:
Nyback-Malakhov

Match B:
Grachev-Guseinov

Match C:
Kobalia-Jobava

Then in round 2, we have this:

Sokolov-Winner of C
Inarkiev-Winner of B
Naiditsch-Winner of A
Tomashevsky-Navara

And so on - the remaining details are at the link above. Each match has two 15 + 5 games, followed by a 5 vs. 4 Armageddon game, if necessary.

HT: Susan Grumer

Those of you who have seen the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" will surely remember the competitive climax between "Jonathan Poe"* (Boo! Hiss!) and Josh Waitzkin (Hark! Is that the heavenly host I hear?). Waitzkin wins with a nice combination and becomes the champion. It's rare, I know, that Hollywood takes artistic license with real events and changes them in the interest of a good story, but that's what they've done here. The real-life game between Waitzkin and the "villain", Jeff Sarwer, was drawn, and they became co-champions. That game, along with some of Sarwer's own comments and a bit about his recent life, can be found here - including a remarkable comeback performance in a recent event. Read it, and then you'll know the rest of the story.

HT: Brian Karen

* You can find a picture of their original casting choice here.

The European Men's Championship finished today, and thanks in part to the usual last round drawfest, eleven players tied for first. In unofficial order, they are:

Inarkiev, Naiditsch, Grachev, Tomashevsky, Kobalia, Guseinov, I. Sokolov, Nyback, Malakhov, Navara and Jobava.

I haven't seen any information on the tournament site about tiebreaks or playoffs, but when I have more information I'll pass it along. (And of course if any of you find out first, please post a comment!)

Meanwhile, in the European Women's Championship, the leading group has bloated from three to seven players:

Kovalevskaya, Hoang Thanh Trang, Rajlich, Mkrtchian, Socko, Lomineishvili and Shadrina.

All have 7/9; two rounds remain.

Finally, in the Women's Grand Prix the top three players drew their games, while Danielian won to reach a tie for third. With two rounds to go, the leading standings are

1. Zhao Xue 7.5 (of 9)
2. Hou Yifan 7
3-4. Humpy Koneru, Danielian 6.5

Benefiting not only from his own good form, but Wang Yue's lack of it, Vladimir Kramnik beat his young opponent 2-0 to take over clear first (and to relegate Wang Yue to clear last). Surprisingly enough, all six matches had the same type of result in the second game as they had in the first: Topalov and Morozevich had two decisive games (Morozevich won in blindfold; Topalov in rapid) and so did Radjabov and Karjakin (Radjabov won twice). The Anand-Aronian, Ivanchuk-Kamsky and Carlsen-Leko matches were drawfests, so after four rounds (or round-pairs) the leading results look like this:

Blindfold Leaders:

1. Kramnik 3.5
2. Carlsen 3
3-6. Leko, Morozevich, Aronian, Topalov 2.5

Rapid Leaders:

1-4. Radjabov, Kamsky, Aronian, Morozevich 2.5
5-9. Anand, Topalov, Karjakin, Ivanchuk, Kramnik 2

Overall Leaders:

1. Kramnik 5.5
2-3. Aronian, Morozevich 5
4-6. Radjabov, Carlsen, Topalov 4.5

Tomorrow is a rest day.

Tournament site here.

In the European Men's Championship, the leading troika has morphed into a nine-way tie for first with one round to go. The leaders, with 7.5/10, are: Tomashevsky, Fedorchuk, I. Sokolov, Naiditsch, Inarkiev, Grachev, Kobalia, Guseinov and Nyback; 14 players are half a point back.

In the European Women's Championship, there's a three-way tie for first with three rounds left: Melia, Hoang Thanh Trang and Rajlich (Rybka's "mother-in-law") have 6.5/8; 11 players have 6.

Finally, in the Women's Grand Prix, I of course managed to jinx Hou Yifan (assuming, as I don't, that there are such things), who lost a favorable position to Zhao Xue. The latter leads with 7/8, Hou has 6.5, and there are three rounds to go.

Interesting games du jour:

In the blindfold, Wang Yue-Topalov had some attraction on the merits, but the most noteworthy moment came when Wang Yue chucked the queen in a reasonably healthy position. A far superior game was Leko-Ivanchuk, which I've annotated. Next, Aronian-Kamsky was a great example of desperation defense. In a lousy position and down a pawn, Aronian managed to make wild things happen on the board, and Kamsky lost the thread and the game. (Yes, he "officially" lost thanks to a blunder, but the game had already spun out of control by that point.) Finally, Carlsen impressively crushed Anand with Black, outplaying him positionally and then knocking him out tactically.

In the rapid, both Ivanchuk and Kamsky got their revenge, but neither game was especially memorable.

Leading Blindfold Standings:

1-3. Kramnik, Carlsen, Topalov 2.5
4-5. Leko, Aronian 2

Leading Rapid Standings:

1. Morozevich 2.5
2-4. Kamsky, Aronian, Karjakin 2

Leading Overall Standings:

1-2. Aronian, Morozevich 4
3-5. Kramnik, Carlsen, Topalov 3.5

Tournament site here; blindfold games Leko-Ivanchuk and Anand-Carlsen here.

In the European Men's Championship, round 8 saw solo leader Volokitin lose with White to Jobava, who took over the lead along with Inarkiev. They drew in round 9, and were caught by Ivan Sokolov, who defeated Meier. With two rounds to go, then, Jobava, Inarkiev and Sokolov lead with 7/9; 17 players are half a point back.

Meanwhile, in the European Women's Championship, Hoang Thanh Trang leads with 6/7 (there are four rounds to go); 12 players are half a point back.

In Constantinople Istanbul, the Chinese are dominating, practically destroying the field in this women's grand prix event. Xue Zhao has a great score of 6/7 with a 2744 TPR - and she's only in second! Hou Yifan has won six in a row (Humpy Koneru was her most recent victim), and with 6.5/7 and a 2882 TPR she's the star of the show. At 14, a GM and sporting a 2571 rating coming into the event, it seems safe to say that she's not just another teenage GM (as if that's not impressive enough); she looks like a threat to join the world's elite. Back to the tournament: there are four rounds to go, and in the next round the leaders meet.

Here's a quick summary, one group at a time:

First Blindfold Group:

Kamsky-Anand was an Anti-Marshall with 8.d4. Many contemporary Marshall Gambits wind up with White up a pawn in a dark-squared bishop and knight vs. two bishop ending; ironically, though the route there was as different as could be, they wound up in the very same kind of ending! Anand was able to swap his dark-squared bishop for the knight and drew the resulting opposite-colored bishop ending with ease.

Leko-Aronian saw someone finally use the main line approach against the Schliemann (albeit not against Mr. Schliemann, aka Radjabov). Aronian wound up a pawn down with no compensation after Leko's 17th move, and then he simply blundered the queen and resigned.

Ivanchuk-Carlsen was a QGD with 5.Bf4. Ivanchuk had an edge most of the way, but Carlsen played well enough to equalize and draw.

Second Blindfold Group:

Morozevich-Wang Yue was a Petroff, but it wasn't drawish. Morozevich was clearly better almost throughout, thanks primarily to his protected, passed e-pawn. 38.b6 was a mistake (38.Bf3 kept a clear advantage), but he managed to win the game a second time.

Kramnik-Radjabov was a line of the Sicilian whose name I don't know (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 d6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 e5!?). Whatever it was, it didn't work out very well, and Kramnik won an easy game.

Topalov-Karjakin was a Classical Ruy. Karjakin may have equalized in theory, but in practice Topalov's knight outweighed Black's bishop and better-looking pawn structure. Topalov won a pawn on move 37, and ground out the full point 40 moves later. Karjakin put up tremendous resistance, so Topalov had to demonstrate excellent technique, especially for a rapid blindfold game.

First Rapid Group:

Anand-Kamsky was a second Ruy Lopez, but this time Marshall's sinister gambit had nothing to do with it. Kamsky played the Breyer, but seemed too eager to break on the queenside with 23...bxa4 followed by 24...c5. Not for the first time in their history, the structure morphed into one more typical of the Modern Benoni. The structure favored White, and even more to Anand's advantage was the crippled Black bishop on a8. The world champion went on to win convincingly.

Aronian got his revenge against Leko in the rematch. Aronian played a trendy pawn sac line against the Queen's Indian and enjoyed compensation, but not more, until Leko's 20...Re8?(?) (20...Qe8 would have been equal). After 21.Rxg6+! Leko was abused like a crash test dummy, and Aronian won in just nine more moves.

Ivanchuk outplayed Carlsen with Black in a Nimzo-Indian-turned-Bogo-Indian, but not enough to win. Drawn in 45 moves.

Second Rapid Group:

Wang Yue-Morozevich showed who the real king of technical chess is: Morozevich. Wang Yue played a rather lame anti-Grünfeld/English, and Black was already a little better by move 10. Still, it wasn't anywhere near winning, but Morozevich showed a very firm hand and crushed his opponent.

Against Kramnik's Petroff, Radjabov tried a line (15.Bf4) that had been used by the "let them eat cake" classes, but with a new twist (16.h4 with the idea of 18.Ng5+). It gave him a big lead on the clock, but when Kramnik solved his problems by reaching a drawish opposite-colored bishops ending, Radjabov offered a draw, which was accepted.

Finally, Karjakin avenged his earlier loss to Topalov, hacking him to death (starting with 31.e6) in a 3.d4 Petroff. That said, he could have won a lot faster, as after 24...Ra8?? 25.Ng5 forced an immediate mate.

Leading Standings:

Blindfold:

1. Kramnik 2
2-4. Anand, Carlsen, Topalov 1.5

Rapid:

1-2. Aronian, Morozevich 2
3. Karjakin 1.5

Combined:

1-2. Morozevich, Aronian 3
3-4. Kramnik, Anand 2.5

Event website here.

Play was spirited today, as it usually is in the Amber Rapid & Blindfold tournaments; whether it also exhibited a high standard is another matter. There were some fine games: Kramnik won nicely against Morozevich in the blindfold game, and Morozevich returned the favor in the rapid; also, Anand finished a crushing blindfold win against Leko with a simple but nice and famous combination:



It's White to move, and in case you don't see it right away, Petrosian-Spassky, game 10 of their 1966 match is a hint. The answer is given at the end of this post.

Those were some of the highlights (I'd add, ironically, Leko's rematch victory in the rapid). But there were some real lowlights, and at least today they overshadowed the highs. We start our horror show with this position from Carlsen-Kamsky (blindfold):



Here Kamsky uncorked 15...Bb3??, losing the bishop, and while he achieved a little play with his a-pawn it wasn't nearly enough. This was one of those distinctively blindfold errors, which occur when a player loses sight (metaphorically speaking) of one or more of the pieces, but our next example featured pure chess errors.

Or rather, a pair of example, by the same player in the same game. Here's Ivanchuk first big error, from his blindfold game with Aronian:



Ivanchuk just played 30...Qe6-e4 (playable, but inferior to the simple 30...Rxf4-+) and Aronian replied 31.f3. Now, instead of the simple 31...Qxf4 with a big advantage, he chose 31...Rxa4?. It's a strange decision, giving up both material and his positional trumps (e.g. superior development). The game remained interesting, and then a few moves later (after 32.fxe4 Rxa1 33.exf5 Rxc1+ 34.Kf2 Rb1 35.Nc4 a4?! [35...gxf5-/+] 36.fxg6), this happened:



36...Rxb2?? After 37.Nxb2 a3 White doesn't move the knight, of course (...a2 would then win) but plays 38.Bc4. The pawn is stopped whether it takes the knight or not, and the rest is easy. Black resigned a few moves later.

Nothing quite this bad happened in the rapid games - there were mistakes, of course, but nothing that compares to the worst blindfold errors. What was interesting is that almost every result from the blindfold was repeated in the rapid: if the first game was drawn, so was the second; if White won the first, he (White, that is; not the player who had White) won the second as well. That took place in five of the six matches; only Ivanchuk contrived to lose both games, selfishly preventing the other 11 players from joining him in last place. The overall standings after the first round-pair, then, look like this:

1. Aronian 2
2-11. Anand, Carlsen, Kamsky, Karjakin, Kramnik, Leko, Morozevich, Radjabov, Topalov, Wang Yue 1
12. Ivanchuk 0

Answer to the Anand-Leko puzzle: 35.Bxf7+ Rxf7 36.Qh8+! 1-0.

On this week's show, I take a look at a pair of endings in two distinct, but linked, shows. The question under discussion is given in the subject line, above, but I'm hesitant to say more - it's more interesting for viewers to solve the problems without having the answer foreshadowed. What I will say is that the show also highlights the common battle in chess between the general and the concrete, between rules of thumb and the specific features of a given position. Both are needed in human chess; the art is balancing them.

Enough background! The first, main video is here, and there's a bonus video here. To my great surprise, the day after I recorded the first video I came across a remarkably similar example played the day before, so I had to present it as well. Enjoy!

Here's a question (by email) from Brett Thomas-DeJongh:

For example, when I listen to chess.fm live broadcasts I sometimes hear things like, "Well, we'll leave that up to the theoreticians." I always thought that the people who make the theory are the Super-GMs trotting out the novelties in top tournaments. We hear about Bobby Fischer being a theoretician of the King's Indian, Geller revolutionizing it, etc. Also, when we hear that Topalov played Nxf7 in the Moscow variation against Kramnik, Cheparinov had analyzed this sacrifice to move 40.

Are there other theoreticians besides the top OTB players? Are top correspondence players the real theoreticians? And last, are there any theoreticians who are not above a certain ELO, say 2600?

We should distinguish between theory and theoreticians. Theory is the product of all chess players' work. It's not only the games of super- or even regular GMs that count, but those of any competent players (both OTB and correspondence) whose games reach the databases, that define a certain position as "theory". That's probably the most general sense. In a more specialized sense, "theory" is what gets written about by "theoreticians", and in this case it's generally NOT the super-GMs who count. Who are the theoreticians? Here's the answer. Do you have an opening book? Look at the front cover. If you see a name on it, then congratulations: you've just identified one!

That's really all there is to it. If someone writes an opening book, then presto! - he or she is a theoretician. Likewise if someone writes an article on an opening in a magazine or journal, or discusses an opening in an online source (even in a blog, for instance). There's really nothing more mysterious than that. In fact, it's generally not GMs who are considered "theoreticians", even if it's their games that are most prominent in pushing theory along. It's generally the scribblers a few notches lower, whose main claim to fame is their writing on openings, who get that moniker. (Examples: Richard Palliser, a 2406 FIDE player who seems to publish a new opening book every week; and in the avant-garde department, Stefan Bücker, a German FM known for his development and advocacy of some mighty peculiar-looking ideas and his editorship of Kaissiber.)

Here's a quick tour of what's going on in the chess world these days.

First, a finished event: Ukranian GM Yuri Vovk won the strong annual open tournament at Capelle la Grande with 7.5/9, leaving scores of GMs in his wake.

Next, some ongoing events. The strongest event going is the super-strong European Individual Chess Championship in Montenegro, featuring two 2700s and lots of players over 2650. After 7 rounds (of 11), Andrei Volokitin leads with 6 points, half a point ahead of nine fellow GMs: Inarkiev, Sjugirov, Meier, Bocharov, I. Sokolov, Navara, Jobava, Grachev and Papaioannou.

The European Women's Championship is also ongoing, but in St. Petersburg rather than alongside the men's event. After five rounds, GM Hoang and IMs Mkrtchian and Melia leads with 4.5/5.

Another elite women's event is running concurrently, a Grand Prix tournament in Istanbul. GM-elect Hou Yifan is leading with 4.5/5 (and a garish 2805 TPR), half a point ahead of GMs Humpy Koneru and Zhao Xue. Other participants include Maia Chiburdanidze and Pia Cramling, so it's an impressive field.

Finally, a reminder that the incredibly strong Amber tournament starts on Saturday. It's not classical chess, but a rapid & blindfold combo, but even so, it's possibly the strongest tournament in history, by rating.

It's often interesting to read about strong GMs who aren't quite in the Linares tier - in part because they receive comparatively little attention in the chess press. Here, then, is an interview with Alexander Moiseenko, who tied for first in Aeroflot with Etienne Bacrot (but lost the big Dortmund prize on tiebreaks). Read up, for if his results keep going the way they have been, he just might get that shot at the super-GM circle in the not-too-distant future.

The Linares tournament is coming to a close, and with it the fourth anniversary of Garry Kasparov's retirement from active tournament play. The greatest chess player to date is out of the game, and the greatest female player ever - Judit Polgar - hasn't been very active the last few years either. So this week we'll commemorate them both by looking at one of the many interesting games in their fascinating (if rather one-sided) rivalry.* **

Our game for this week's show took place in what was one of the great annual events, the now-defunct Tilburg super-tournament. 1997 was a banner year for Tilburg, with Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, and (in a breakout performance) Peter Svidler tying for first with 8 out of 11. Despite the photo-finish, Kasparov was the early leader, jumping out with 5.5/6, including an impressive round 2 win against Polgar. The game starred Kasparov showing off in all phases of the game: powerful and systematic opening play, dynamic attacking chess in the middlegame, and tremendous tactical skill in converting his opportunities.

In addition to the game's value as a demonstration of Kasparov's skill, I believe it's also of value to you, the viewers, for some of the opening and early middlegame concepts seen in the game. Kasparov hinted at a pawn roller approach against Polgar's Nimzo-Indian, a la the famous Botvinnik-Capablanca game, and Polgar nipped the usual buildup in the bud by playing ...c4 before White could bring the bishop to d3 and prepare e4. What could White do now?

The answer is...to be revealed tonight, during the show. So tune in at 9 p.m. ET (that's Wednesday night; Thursday morning at 3 a.m. CET) and find out! To watch, log on the the Playchess server (aka the "Fritz" or "ChessBase" server) at the right time, go to the Broadcast room and look up Kasparov-Polgar under the Games tab. The show is free, so I hope to see you then!

* Their head-to-head score was +12 -1 =4 in favor of Kasparov, whose only loss came in a rapid game where he got confused, thought he was Kramnik, and tried the Berlin.

** It's possible that I'll dedicate a couple more weeks to their games - stay tuned.

As you may all remember, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov lost, and quickly, to Igor Kurnosov in a late round of the recently finished Aeroflot Open in Moscow. After the game - at the end of it, really - Mamedyarov, bothered by the conjunction of Kurnosov's leaving the board after practically every move and his coming back to make crushing moves. Mamedyarov resigned after Kurnosov's 21st move, filed a protest over his opponent's behavior, and then withdrew from the tournament.

As I argued here (and others, including Kurnosov (here), have similarly argued), Mamedyarov's case for his opponent's cheating isn't very impressive on the face of it. (That doesn't mean that Kurnosov's behavior couldn't have aroused suspicion, only that his performance in the game (a) fell short of a Rybka standard and (b) didn't require Rybka either, but was well within the competence of a 2600-level grandmaster.) Ideally, that would be the end of the cheating allegation, and then discussion can move on to appropriate measures that allow players to roam around and smoke their lungs out while ensuring that they can't readily cheat.

Unfortunately, this was not the end, and Mamedyarov has released another open letter. You can check the link just given, but here's the gist:

In round 2 vs. Onischuk, Kurnosov responded to a novelty by making 15 Rybka moves, winning beautifully.

In round 4, vs. Moiseenko, he again responds strongly to a novelty with 14 Rybka moves, but this time the opponent's position was too solid and the game was drawn.

In round 6, we have the Mamedyarov game, again featuring Kurnosov playing Rybka's moves.

In round 8, now under heavy scrutiny thanks to Mamedyarov's allegations, he played poorly and got crushed.

The conclusion of his argument is that "this is [a] clear indication that Kurnosov used a computer program, leaving the tournament hall practically after every move".

Well, no, this doesn't follow at all. As already mentioned, his argument concerning his own game is very poor, and the inference he drew about round 8 is really preposterous. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that Kurnosov is innocent. His name has been dragged through the mud in a very public way, and now he's supposed to play at full strength, with confidence and complete concentration? Not very likely. Not only will he be emotionally affected, but now he can't even engage in his usual smoking routine because now it will continue to raise the suspicion. So what does he do? If he goes to smoke, he has to worry what others will think, and if he doesn't, his mind won't work the way he expects it to. If anything, his lousy round eight performance might be counter-evidence: if Kurnosov was such a brazen cheater (cheating every single move in all [but only?] his Black games, then even if he couldn't use Rybka, he'd at least be strongly motivated to play well to keep up appearances. And he is a 2600, for goodness' sake!

I'm not impressed by the round 6 or round 8 parts of his case, but how about rounds 2 and 4? (And why not rounds 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9?) First of all, Mamedyarov's claim that Kurnosov always went with Rybka's first choice is simply wrong, or at least I wasn't able to reproduce Mamedyarov's results. Further, many of the moves in question were fairly obvious. Some were components of a straightforward plan, some moves were obvious (e.g. recaptures) and some were elements in a tactical sequence. Out of the 29 post-novelty moves in the two games, only one - 21...Qf5 in the round 2 game - strikes me as even a candidate.

I can understand Mamedyarov's frustration in the situation, and I also get the tendency to dig in and retrench when criticized, as has happened since his initial salvo. But I don't find his argument any more plausible this time around, and I hope he'll drop the accusations (at least in the absence of far more impressive evidence than he has offered so far) as soon as possible.

I've already given and annotated Mamedyarov-Kurnosov; here are the three further games Mamedyarov refers to.

HT: Harris Nizel

Right here.

It is becoming increasingly clear that people aren't interested in following my comments policy. This gives me three choices, broadly speaking. First, change my policy to allow a free for all. Second, do nothing. Third, start blocking comments. The second, with occasional pleas, has been a failure, and I'm not interested in turning this blog into other blogs. So it's time for door #3, unfortunately. From here on out, all comments need to be approved first. More work for me, more wait for you. C'est la vie.

That's the question GM Genna Sosonko raises in the newest New In Chess Yearbook (#90). What does he mean, and what is his conclusion?

He doesn't offer a definition, but from his examples one gets a clear enough picture of what he has in mind. Theorem-chess, we might say, is a way of approaching the problems in a game as a series of formulae to solve: by playing this or that opening (for Black) and exchanging pieces x, y and z, even at the cost of a pawn, I achieve such-and-such an ending (e.g. with opposite-colored bishops), force the White pawns on the right squares, and draw in my sleep. It's an approach I sometimes call "recipe chess", and it's one I've used at certain times, and have seen in some of Kramnik's and Anand's draws with Black (examples: Kramnik's 6th game vs. Topalov in their match and Anand's draw with Gelfand in the second cycle of Mexico City).

There's something very seductive about this approach. Much of theory - in junk openings especially, but in serious openings too - attempts to structure series of moves into wholes - recipes (or formulas, or "theorems") - allowing Black to achieve a technically drawn or White a technically won position. And given many of Sosonko's examples (very good ones, at that) you might think he's advocating it as well. At the end of the day, though, he's not - or at least not without very heavy reservations. Here are the final paragraphs of his essay (p. 26):

I am not without sin in this respect. [DM: Playing lines where Black is worse and has to suffer a bit trying to hold one of these formula draws.] For a very long time I considered the position after 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 c5 to be almost equal and I analysed it time and again, trying to keep slightly inferior endgames upright. In my results I alternated a string of draws with the occasional defeat.

I quit playing the line when I read a comment by the great Aaron Nimzowitsch. In a complex position he was trying to find the best move, calculating several lines over and over again until he said to himself: 'Quit! A chess game is a struggle, not a theorem'.

This looks like a repudiation of especially the modern theoretical approach, but Sosonko takes a step back in his final comment.

Although the ever-present computer has made certain corrections to this definition, I strongly believe these words should not be forgotten, even in our days.

I believe this strikes the right balance. Qua chess players, we should know as much as possible, but we must know that there are things we don't (and maybe can't) know, too. Chess is a struggle!

Linares is over and the Amber tournament won't begin till Saturday, but there are other events going on now. For a good summary of what's happening, along with interesting news about a new super-tournament planned for London this December, have a look at this week's issue of TWIC, here.

With Topalov-Kamsky and Linares 2009 now past, I thought it would be interesting to have a quick look at the Live Top List's top ten. Since the 11th player tied for first in Linares, I thought it would be worthwhile including him, too. So here are the current top 11 players in the world:

1. Topalov 2812.2
2. Anand 2783.2
3. Carlsen 2764.6
4. Kramnik 2759
5. Radjabov 2756.3
6. Aronian 2754.4
7. Jakovenko 2752.9
8. Leko 2751
9. Morozevich 2750.7
10. Grischuk 2748
11. Ivanchuk 2746

The Amber tournament isn't rated, so this is probably how things will stand, more or less, until M-Tel in May. Will anyone be able to catch Topalov by year's end?

The games from round 14 have been uploaded - see the previous post.

All four games were drawn today, and the only player to have a little difficulty was Grischuk. A little, but not too much, and when Aronian rushed in Grischuk's time pressure, he almost (but not quite) got himself in a little hot water. Their game was the last to finish; the other co-leader, Ivanchuk, drew comfortably on the black side of an Anti-Marshall; while the other game with possible first-implications, Anand-Carlsen, finished before the position seemed played out. Radjabov-Wang Yue was also a short draw in terms of the number of moves, but in terms of the position it was deep into a clearly drawn ending.

So while Grischuk had his difficulties in the second half of the tournament (no wins in the second cycle, and some difficulties in the last four games) and generally struggled with at least comparatively poor opening preparation throughout, his excellent play in the first half and gritty defense in the second gave him the first place on tiebreaks over Ivanchuk. I believe this is his first ever win in a super-tournament, and I hope it gets him to play more professionally and spend a little less time on poker.

Final Results:

1-2. Grischuk, Ivanchuk 8 out of 14; Grischuk wins on tiebreak (more wins)
3. Carlsen 7.5
4. Anand 7
5-7. Wang Yue, Radjabov, Aronian 6.5
8. Dominguez 6

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

And a very strong correspondence tournament it was, too. Or rather, is: a few games remain outstanding, but Nickel has clinched clear first. You can find the crosstable and a link to the PGN file here; fans of the English Attack (especially the line 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.f3 Be7 9.Qd2 0-0 10.0-0-0 Nbd7 11.g4 b5 12.g5 b4 13.Ne2 Ne8 14.f4 a5 15.f5 a4) and the Zaitsev Ruy will be especially enthusiastic. Those two lines, and a few others, were played so often it almost seemed like a theme tournament at times.

HT: Chess Today

Here, courtesy of Chess Today, are the top 20:

1.Francisco Vallejo Pons ESP 2702
2.Vladimir Akopian ARM 2700
3.Arkadij Naiditsch GER 2693
4.Vladimir Malakhov RUS 2692
5.Alexey Dreev RUS 2688
6.Viktor Bologan MDA 2687
7.Nikita Vitiugov RUS 2687
8.Sergei Tiviakov NED 2685
9.Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2679
10. Alexander Motylev RUS 2676
11. Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu ROU 2675
12. Alexander Areshchenko UKR 2673
13. Artyom Timofeev RUS 2671
14. Andrei Volokitin UKR 2671
15. Baadur Jobava GEO 2669
16. Laurent Fressinet FRA 2666
17. Evgeny Tomashevsky RUS 2664
18. Gadir Guseinov AZE 2661
19. Ivan Sokolov NED 2657
20. Ernesto Inarkiev RUS 2656

There have already been some upsets. Of the top 20, Vallejo Pons, Malakhov, Fressinet and Guseinov were all held to draws by 2400s, while Areshchenko and 21st seed Grachev were defeated. Chess is a tough game!

Tournament website here.

It's money time, and today no one in the running for first really had the goods. It was a fantastic round, with exciting games in which excellent play alternated with blunders.

The big winner today was Ivanchuk, whose victory over Aronian propelled him into a tie for first place. Yet it wasn't so much Ivanchuk's excellence as Aronian's shaky play that led to the final result. In a tense, interesting position, Aronian played a thematic type of pawn sac that was simply a blunder on this occasion. After this Aronian kept on blundering, and although Ivanchuk failed to capitalize the first two times, the third time was the charm.

Grischuk-Anand was almost tragically sad. When Grischuk played 6.Bg5 against Anand's Najdorf, I strongly suspected that he wanted to bail out with a draw, and when he played 10.f5 against the Poisoned Pawn I was sure of it. Wrongly! Grischuk had prepared a new move in a very well-known position, 20.Bd3, and after 20...f5 21.Qh6 Anand erred (very understandably) with 21...Kh8? Unfortunately, it seemed that this move had escaped Grischuk's prep, and now he was on his own too. It looks like both sides played perfectly after this through move 27 (in fact, Anand played perfectly to the end of the game), and even through move 29 Grischuk had a clear advantage. Unfortunately, the time Grischuk spent acting (he used 20 minutes to reach the position with his novelty) together with the time he spent after 21...Kh8 brought him into his usual time trouble, and he squandered the advantage. At the end he was almost worse and in desperate time trouble, but the opposite colored bishops were his salvation. It's a pity for Grischuk that his mega-novelty was wasted, but Anand deserves tremendous credit for fighting through it, even after his error.

If Grischuk is ruing his missed opportunity, Carlsen must be despondent. After outplaying Radjabov to reach a very won ending, he switched to auto-pilot and blundered with loads of time on the clock, allowing Radjabov to save a draw. It was a nice cheapo by Radjabov, but nothing Carlsen wouldn't have worked out had he but taken the time. The win would have put him into a tie for first with Ivanchuk and Grischuk going into the last round, but now he's on the outside looking in.

Finally, even the one game with no bearing on the race for first was pretty interesting. Wang Yue-Dominguez was a typical Grünfeld battle between Black's queenside majority and White's passed d-pawn. Black eventually sacrificed the exchange for the d-pawn, and in the sequel White achieved a firm blockade of Black's majority, and a draw was agreed.

Standings after Round 13:

1-2. Ivanchuk, Grischuk 7.5
3. Carlsen 7
4. Anand 6.5
5-7. Wang Yue, Radjabov, Aronian 6
8. Dominguez Perez 5.5

Last Round Pairings:

Radjabov - Wang Yue
Dominguez - Ivanchuk
Aronian - Grischuk
Anand - Carlsen

A three-way tie for first is possible, and on one scenario three more players could be half a point behind (the leaders lose, Anand wins or Carlsen draws, and either Radjabov or Wang Yue win). Given that the two leaders both have Black, it seems unlikely that there will be a clear winner, but Ivanchuk probably has the best chances of anyone. Whatever happens, it should be a great last round.

The tournament site is here, and the games (with my comments) are here.

Alexander Grischuk still leads with two rounds to go, but now it's getting interesting. Magnus Carlsen beat him in a Scheveningen Sicilian, rounding it off with a neat breakthrough combination in the ending. That brought Magnus within half a point of first, tied for second with Vassily Ivanchuk. Ivanchuk drew with Black in a Berlin against Viswanathan Anand. Anand, in turn, is another half a point back, tied at 50% with Levon Aronian. Aronian also drew, but had some pressure against Wang Yue on the White side of a Panov/Botvinnik Caro-Kann. Finally, Teimour Radjabov pushed hard against Lenier Dominguez Perez, but was unable to bring home the full point.

Standings after Round 12:

1. Grischuk 7
2-3. Ivanchuk, Carlsen 6.5
4-5. Anand, Aronian 6
6-7. Wang Yue, Radjabov 5.5
8. Dominguez Perez 5

Round 13 Pairings:

Carlsen - Radjabov
Grischuk - Anand
Ivanchuk - Aronian
Wang Yue - Dominguez

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

Here it is, ready for your viewing pleasure. Topics covered include the Closed Sicilian, a gambit line against the French Defense, the English Attack against the Najdorf and the Paulsen/Taimanov, and even some chess psychology.

The show is free and available on-demand (for about five weeks), and doesn't require any special software.

This position appeared in a recent issue of Chess Today:



It's Black to move and win, from the game Baklan-Hammer, Cappelle la Grande 2009; click below for the solution.

Here in the WSJ. It's a topic he has covered many times before, but the twist this time is that he believes the Putin regime is crumbling. Wishful thinking, or perhaps an attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy? We'll have to wait and see whether his suggestion passes the test of time.

A couple of weeks ago, as you may recall, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov accused Igor Kurnosov of cheating in their game from the Aeroflot Open. As I and the overwhelming percentage of other commentators noted, the evidence in favor of Mamedyarov's contention is extremely weak (see here), and now the accused party adds his voice argumentation as well - have a look.

That's the title of this article (minus the question mark) on the USCF website. The article does not deliver on the title, but it's not a bad read.

Due to technical difficulties. The problem should have been taken care of by now, but for reasons out of my control they weren't. I'm hoping everything will be solved tomorrow, and that subsequent shows will go off without a hitch. My apologies, and I look forward to resuming normal service next week. (Please pass the news along to friends and fellow viewers.)

IM Tibor Karolyi and Nick Aplin have already written a valuable pair of books on Garry Kasparov's career (Kasparov's Fighting Chess: 1993-1998 and Kasparov's Fighting Chess: 1999-2005); now they have written a third and much lighter work on the 13th world champion. Originally conceived as an article for the satirical chess magazine Kingpin, Kasparov: How His Predecessors Misled Him About Chess (I'll subsequently abbreviate this as MMP, for "My Misleading Predecessors") is something like My Great Predecessors meets How to Beat Bobby Fischer meets The Screwtape Letters.

The basic structure of MMP is a first-person narrative wherein "Kasparov" (i.e. them speaking as Kasparov) blames his predecessors for his losses. In each chapter, going in reverse chronological order, "Kasparov" presents games where his predecessors succeeded with a given idea or motif, one which he used in his own games and then lost. It's a clever concept, and beneath the humor there's the salutary reminder that ideas and "rules" are not absolutes: a motif that's strong or useful in one position may not be in another.

As I mentioned, the authors originally intended this concept for magazine publication, but as the material kept accumulating they decided to turn it into a full book. I'm a fan of their work (in addition to the works mentioned above, they've also written an excellent work on Karpov's endgames) and appreciate their concept, but I'm not sure this idea merits 271 pages. The problem is twofold, and the problems are somewhat interrelated. The first is that the humorous aspect wears off after a while; the second is that the instructional element is sometimes subsumed for the sake of the joke. The first problem requires no further explanation, but the second does.

What I mean is this: sometimes, the relationship between the predecessors' games and Kasparov's is pretty close. In those cases, the book's premise works and the instructional value is greater. On other occasions, however, the connection between the predecessors' successes and Kasparov's failures is tenuous at best. This can occur in three ways:

(1) The resemblance between the idea in the earlier games and Kasparov's is relatively negligible. (Of course there must be some disanalogy, given that the predecessors win and Kasparov loses, but the degree of disanalogy varies.)

(2) The resemblance is reasonably close, but there was nothing wrong with Kasparov's use of the idea.

(3) The resemblance is reasonably close, but there was nothing special about the predecessors' use of the idea.

To be clear, I'm not claiming that all of the examples are like this - not at all. The need to keep the blame-the-predecessor theme going through the book does force the authors to stretch the parallels, however, on a relatively regular basis. On the other hand, the games - both Kasparov's and his predecessors' - are all you'd expect from world champions, and the Karolyi/Aplin notes are instructive (though generally (much) lighter than what you'd expect from their previous books, referred to above).

So I must offer a mixed verdict. I can't quite recommend it, but I certainly wouldn't recommend against it either. There is much that's worthwhile in the book, and I think fans of How to Beat Bobby Fischer may be similarly fascinated by a book with a lot of great chess and many, maybe most of Kasparov's losses.

There were two short games and two longer ones, but all four were drawn. Of the quickies, Ivanchuk-Carlsen was a complete dud, while Wang Yue-Anand started interesting but quickly locked up. Turning to the longer games, Grischuk-Radjabov was a King's Indian with 20 moves of theory, 10 moves of play resulting in a very drawn ending, and 14 moves which served to make it obvious to even the least experienced members of the audience. Finally, Dominguez-Aronian was a good fight, and Aronian had a genuine advantage. Allowing White to play 32.b3 let him off the hook, and a long exchanging sequence with a pawn sac allowed Dominguez to reach an easily drawn rook ending.

The upshot of today's round is that the relative standings remain unchanged, and that's great news for Grischuk, who remains a pawn up with three rounds to play.

Standings after Round 11:

1. Grischuk 7
2. Ivanchuk 6
3-5. Carlsen, Anand, Aronian 5.5
6-7. Radjabov, Wang Yue 5
8. Dominguez Perez 4.5

Tomorrow is the last rest day, and then Thursday the pairings look like this:

Radjabov - Dominguez
Aronian - Wang Yue
Anand - Ivanchuk
Carlsen - Grischuk

The tournament site is here, and the round 11 games (with my notes) are here.

Right here.

This is not a reference to the not-so-secret "training" methods of the Soviet School of chess, but to the fact that two of the three tail-enders won in round 10. Radjabov played an opening with no name (at least none I'm familiar with, and the ECO codes in ChessBase don't help either), but it worked like a charm against Aronian. By move 20 Aronian was in terrible shape and had to give up a pawn, and Radjabov had no trouble with the technical task. It was a nice game for Radjabov, though he had things pretty easy.

The real game of the day was Wang Yue's win with Black against Carlsen. Carlsen, who is becoming a regular customer for the Chinese GM, quickly obtained the bishop pair on the White side of a Chebanenko Slav while saddling his opponent with an isolated d-pawn. But "saddling" deserves scare quotes, as Wang Yue left his usual hyper-technical play behind, seized the initiative, sacrificed the exchange and went head-hunting. Carlsen erred, and his king went on a long walk that should have been fatal. Wang Yue missed a beautiful way to finish the game (one which rescued Carlsen from having to see the game anthologized in the next 100 tactics and greatest games books), but he managed to grind out the win in due course.

The other games were drawn, but they were sharp as well. Grischuk actually managed to get in trouble with White against Ivanchuk's Petroff Defense (getting a little jittery with the lead?), but he managed to hold on and save the draw. Meanwhile, Anand's 1.d4 regime continued, and he achieved some pull against Dominguez' Grünfeld. Some, but not enough.

Standings after Round 10:

1. Grischuk 6.5
2. Ivanchuk 5.5
3-5. Carlsen, Anand, Aronian 5
6-7. Wang Yue, Radjabov 4.5
8. Dominguez 4

Round 11 Pairings:

Grischuk - Radjabov
Ivanchuk - Carlsen
Wang Yue - Anand
Dominguez - Aronian

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

The famous annual rapid & blind tournament (formerly in Monaco, now in Nice, France) sees the 2009 edition start March 14 with a stupendously strong field. It's just insane, even by contemporary standards:

We have the world championship final four:

Viswanathan Anand
Veselin Topalov
Vladimir Kramnik
Gata Kamsky

The other recent contenders for the #1 spot on the rating list:

Magnus Carlsen
Vassily Ivanchuk
Alexander Morozevich

Also near the top:

Teimour Radjabov
Levon Aronian
Peter Leko
Sergey Karjakin
Wang Yue

No local mascots, honorary old-timers or other piñatas; just the best of the best. This should be great!

Tournament site here.

The games took place this past weekend; more here and here on the TWIC page (scroll down).

In this report on the Corus Study Day and this report on the British Solving Championship, some beautiful problems and studies are presented, and you can find the solutions here. It's good exercise, and even if you don't feel like a workout they're a pleasure in their own right.

Returning to the world of "normal" over the board chess, Gata Kamsky gives an audio interview discussing his match with Veselin Topalov. It's not a "must-listen", but that's of course for you to decide.

Let me start by noting that I'm no expert in the beginner-book genre, much less in the sub-genre intended for young children. That said, I think Igor Sukhin's Gary's Adventures in Chess Country (Mongoose Press, 2009; $23.95) is a book that can be profitably used for and by youngsters to teach them the game and to get them on their way to developing some important but non-traditional skills.

It's a colorful book with oversized pages and lots of illustrations, and as the title suggests it tells a story. (It's at least reminiscent of the Fritz & Chesster disc, though each has its own strengths.) Gary is a youngster who opens the door one day to find Cassie and her magical six-seat tricycle ready to spirit him away to Chess Country. (Don't worry, it's not Kalmykia.) While there he meets Riddles (his primary teacher), Zug (the [redeemable] villain, with whom he has a final showdown), the mysterious FRD and various chess pieces.

One chapter at a time, we see him learn how each piece moves followed by a discussion of checkmate and stalemate. Each step of the way there are review questions, some of which require thinking beyond the bare information presented, and then there are position puzzles. These are excellent, and I think they are valuable for non-beginners of all ages as a way to improve one's board vision.

By way of example, let's take the chapter on the knight. After the verbal questions, we have a series of exercise sets, each with six positions. called "To take or not to take?" In each case a knight is involved - though it's not always the piece to be moved - and while the side to move can capture a piece in each puzzle, there are cases where it can be recaptured. (In those cases, the answer to the question is "no".)

Next up: six "Army of One" positions, where the white knight gobbles up all Black's pieces seriatim. It's not challenging, but what it does do is help the student "see" what the knight can do, and to see it more quickly. Along the same lines, but moving up a level of abstraction, there's "Capture the Flag", in which the goal is to maneuver the knight from its current square to another square with a red flag.

The next exercise ratchets up the difficulty a couple of notches. Labeled "Amazing Maze", the positions again feature a knight and a square with a red flag, but the maneuvering is made much more difficult by the presence of minesweeper-like mines on many of the squares. Getting from point A to point B is far more difficult here, and working through these exercises offers a nice challenge for the youngster's maneuvering ability and thinking skills.

After this, it's time for a bit of a break, challenge-wise, with a set of puzzles called "Attack the Enemy". As you might expect, the aim is to attack the enemy piece with the knight, and in each case this is achieved in one move. Sukhin then, once again, builds on what has gone before with "Double Attack". This is a series of one-movers where two pieces are attacked. Usefully, the knight does the attacking sometimes, but in other positions it's the victim. This helps the beginner remember the other pieces and how they move, and further memory assistance comes in the next section, in which the goal is to capture the only black piece that is not protected.

Then it's time for another concept, "Defense", when White must find the only move that avoids losing a piece. Conversely, the next set is "Win a Piece", wherein the goal is just what it sounds like. There are five more sections after this, some of which are among his best ideas, but you'll have to get the book to find them. (Or find someone else who will blab.) I think it will be clear that a child or other beginning student who works through all the exercises in this book will have a huge advantage, tactically, over someone who learns the game by more conventional means.

The book doesn't teach the newbie everything he or she needs to know - the center is discussed, but only very briefly, and principles like rapid development and the value of castling early, etc. are not discussed. That's not a flaw in the book, of course; I bring it up only so the buyer has a sense of what is and isn't included. And for what it is, I like it a lot, but I'd like to hear back from anyone who has field-tested it, too.

I do have a couple of complaints; the first quite minor, the second a little more serious. First, a mild formatting complaint: The style of the white king should be changed - you can only tell that it's white's piece when contrasting it with its counterpart. It doesn't have the same shading as the rest of its army, and stylistically it doesn't fit in either (it's oversized).

A more important complaint, one that could easily frustrate a child or beginner using the book without a teacher's help: In the earlier chapters with "Get to the Base" puzzles, an important condition is missing from the instructions. The goal is to get a particular piece to a target square in a given number of moves, overcoming enemy resistance. There are several examples where the opponent can make the task take more moves than permitted by giving away the piece, but that "spite resistance" is not allowed is not mentioned until the chapter on knights. It's also not mentioned in the earlier chapters that the goal is to reach the "base" safely.

Two examples to illustrate. First, the "spite defense" problem: White queen on f3, Black queen on b4, flag on h8, mines on g7 and h7. The goal is for White to reached the flag in two moves, and the solution is supposed to be 1.Qa8 followed by 2.Qh8. The problem, of course, with making it a two-move puzzle with no restrictions on Black is that Black can play 1...Qb8 or 1...Qf8, making it take three moves rather than two.

Second, about the failure to specify that White must reach the base safely, take this example: white queen on h1, black bishop on b8, flag on d4. White can get to d4 in two moves very easily, via a1, d1, d5, e4, g1, h4 and h8. It's only via a1 that White can prevent Black's bishop from guarding d4; or rather, from safely guarding it. So we have a sort of conjoined problem, because Black can meet 1.Qa1 with 1...Ba7 or 1...Be5. If White goes to d4 on his second move, he achieves the stated goal but loses the queen, and in that case 1.Qa1 is no better than any of the other moves. On the other hand, if White takes the bishop on a7 or e5, then it's a three move job. So the instructions need to include something about hanging pieces to be complete.

Finally, I noticed an interesting ontological claim in the chapter on pawns. Here's a bit of dialog:

"Right, Gary, very good!" the big Pawn said. "How about this one: can a pawn visit all the squares of the chessboard?"

"No!" all the other children replied in unison.

Gary smiled. He realized why it was such a tricky question. "Yes, it can. It can get to the last rank, turn into a queen, for example, and walk to any square it wants!"

"Perfect!" the big Pawn said, smiling again at Gary.

Do we really have the same piece before and after promotion? If so, what is the ground of its "personal" identity through time? I wouldn't bet the house on it, but I'm more inclined to agree with the (other) children against Gary and the big Pawn - especially since queens can't capture en passant!

Anyway, it's a nice book for teaching beginners, and - with the repeated proviso that I'm not a specialist in this genre - I recommend it.

There were three short draws today - two of which were exceedingly dull - and one win. Aronian-Anand was an Open Catalan where Black achieved his thematic ...c5 break without any problem: draw. Wang Yue-Grischuk was a QGA sideline where Black needed to play his thematic ...c5 break to achieve equality (hmm, that sounds familiar), and he did: draw. Ivanchuk-Radjabov had more life to it. Radjabov dredged up the Schliemann again, and while Ivanchuk managed to gain an edge, Black was able to arrange his forces in a way that made further activity practically impossible for White. The good news is that there was no thematic ...c5 break this time, but it was a draw all the same. That left only Dominguez-Carlsen, a Chinese Dragon where Carlsen completely outplayed his opponent. After starting the tournament with give draws, Carlsen is bringing some life to the party, and now he's back in a tie for second.

Standings after Round 9:

1. Grischuk 6
2-4. Ivanchuk, Aronian, Carlsen 5
5. Anand 4.5
6-8. Dominguez Perez, Wang Yue, Radjabov 3.5

Round 10 Pairings:

Radjabov - Aronian
Anand - Dominguez
Carlsen - Wang Yue
Grischuk - Ivanchuk

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

Alexander Alekhine, New York 1924, 21st Century Edition (Milford, CT: Russell Enterprises, 2008). $29.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos

Nowadays there’s a super-grandmaster tournament almost every other week, but it wasn’t always so. (Ah, 2007, the good old days.) In fact, there was a time when there were years rather than just days, weeks or months between tournaments. How remarkable, then, that in early 1924 the organizers were able to round up a field with the then-current world champion and his predecessor, not to mention the man who would win the championship three years later. Three more participants contested world championship matches without winning the title (two past, one a few years later), and the remaining players were strong as well. Only one player could really be called an outsider, and while he finished near the bottom, he had the best score by a non-prize winner against the prize-winners!

Let’s elaborate. In a few months, the organizers were able to get the then-current champion, Jose Capablanca; his predecessor, Emanuel Lasker; and his successor, Alexander Alekhine. Frank Marshall and Dawid Janowski, who had lost world championship matches to Lasker, both played, as did later two-time championship match loser Efim Bogoljubow. Richard Reti was in good form, and Geza Maroczy and Savielly Tartakower were also leading players. Frederick Yates wasn’t of their caliber, but he was a strong player with wins over many of the world’s best players, and finally Emanuel Lasker’s distant cousing Edward Lasker filled out the field.

These 11 players went at it in a double round-robin. That’s right, 20 games, a distance which might cause contemporary players to die of exhaustion. The first half was a real horse race. Lasker led, but Reti, Alekhine and Capablanca were all fighting it out for first place. Capablanca had started very slowly, with four draws and a loss to Reti, his first loss in many years. After that he kicked into it gear, and with a win over Emanuel Lasker in the second cycle made the race interesting. Unfortunately for him, Lasker’s form stayed (exceptionally) strong, and the 55-year-old ex-champion won with an impressive 16-4 score, a point and a half ahead of Capablanca and further two and a half points ahead of Alekhine.

The tournament was very hard fought with only 38 draws in 110 games. Many of the games remain famous today (Reti-Bogoljubow, Marshall-Bogoljubow, Capablanca-Lasker, Reti-Capablanca, the Capablanca-Tartakower rook ending, the Em. Lasker-Ed. Lasker ending with knight against rook and pawn all come immediately to mind), and there are many more games of interest that aren’t as well known (for example, the Janowski-Ed. Lasker game I presented in a recent ChessBase show). Of course the games are all available in any worthwhile database, but part of what makes the tournament book valuable is that all the games are thoroughly annotated by Alekhine. Alekhine’s notes aren’t perfect (proof here; further, on the subject of errata, Edward Winter notes a game score error here - item 6009), but he was a fine analyst and communicator.

The last issue to discuss is the new edition, from Russell Enterprises. While some side features of the original were eliminated – and I don’t know why – the improvements in the layout (clearer, whiter pages; much crisper diagrams; notes incorporated into the games rather than given at the end in a series of footnotes) and the conversion from descriptive to algebraic notation make this edition a worthy buy for chess fans with any interest in the history of the game.

Highly recommended to all but the most utilitarian of chess fans.