The Chess Mind

What is a zombie chess player? It's not an "undead" chess player escaped from a horror movie, but one who makes moves without really thinking about them. The behavior makes it look like the person is a chess player, but mentally, at the time of the move, there's no one there. Unfortunately, this is all of us - at least some of the time - but there is a cure. (And it won't even need a telethon or a stimulus package.)

To give some idea of what I mean, complete with various examples of zombie chess in the openings and tips for fixing the problem, have a look at this video. (It's free and available on-demand for the next month.) Later installments covering other aspects of the game will appear in subsequent weeks.

In addition to the Grenkeleasing Rapid World Championship, there are some other events taking place in Mainz.

There was a computer event in Chess960 starring Rybka, Deep Shredder, Deep Sjeng and Ikarus. It followed the same format as the human events, but with twice as many games per qualifying day, making the preliminary a quadruple round robin. On day 1, Rybka went 6-0; on day two, 5½-½. Needless to say, it qualified for the final! Deep Shredder finished second and did comparatively well against Rybka in the final, drawing two and losing two. In the third-place contest, Deep Sjeng pulled it out against Ikarus in a tiebreaker.

(The site's report is here, standings here.)

There was also a very strong open tournament in Chess960 (the FiNet Open), and it was won by Grischuk with 9½/11, half a point ahead of Kamsky and Kasimdzhanov. It's an impressive performance by Grischuk, who won this event for the third time, but he was a bit lucky too, in that Kamsky led going into the last round but lost to Kasimdzhanov. The importance of this achievement, other than the prize money, is that it gets Grischuk invited to the four-man final next year.

The other major event there is the Ordix Open, which is basically the FiNet Open for regular rapid chess. That starts tomorrow and finishes Sunday.

Finally, there are other events besides those taking place in Mainz - really! There's the British Championship (Howell and Jones lead with 4½/5), and another noteworthy tournament that just finished was the Dutch Open Championship. Anish Giri raced out to a 5-0 start, but after his round 8 loss he was overhauled and surpassed by Erwin L'Ami, who won with 7½/9. Giri, Jan Timman, and Roi Miedema tied for second, half a point behind.

Could be! Anand lost to both Aronian and then Nepomniachtchi (with White in both games!) the first day before beating Naiditsch in round 3, while his conquerers both defeated Naiditsch as well before drawing against each other in the third round. Just as in the Chess960 competition, the two high scorers after the second day will meet in the final, so Anand has some work to do if he wants to retain his title for the 12th year in a row.

Standings After the First Cycle:
1-2. Aronian, Nepomniachtchi, 2½
3. Anand 1
4. Naiditsch 0

Tournament site here.

And how! Hikaru Nakamura defeated Levon Aronian in the first three games of their four-game match to clinch the title, and even in the last, completely meaningless game, managed to swindle his way out of a (seemingly, normally) dead lost game to pull out a draw. Prior to that game, Nakamura had been on a 7-game winning streak against 2700+ opposition, and this tournament makes at least his fifth major victory of the year. Maybe he's not in any of the "grand slam" events yet, but this should at least get him some points in next year's chess "Oscar" voting.

In the third-place battle, Sergei Movsesian won the first two games against Victor Bologan, lost the fourth, and held out for a draw in the finale. Interestingly, the two draws in the last round were the only draws in the event: it had been 18-0 in decisive vs. drawn games up to that point.

Next up, starting tomorrow and following the identical pattern, is the Grenkeleasing Rapid World Championship, starring 11-time(!!) defending champion Viswanathan Anand and his three challengers Levon Aronian (can he bounce back psychologically?), Ian Nepomniachtchi (another 1990er) and Arkadij Naiditsch.

Tournament site here.

The tournament finished with a whimper, not a bang, but Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is probably ecstatic nonetheless. He drew with consummate ease against Alekseev, and in only 14 moves. Alekseev had White, but in a rare line made an immediate poor reaction, and was already worse by game's end. Indeed, Vachier-Lagrave could and probably should have played it out, objectively, but was happy enough with the bird in the hand.

That meant that either Ivanchuk or Morozevich could catch up to first place, but neither came very close. Morozevich played a very slow line against Caruana's Schlechter Slav/Grünfeld, hoping to build pressure with a queenside minority attack. Unfortunately for him, it gave Black a free hand on the kingside, and Caruana was able to just about force a repetition, and the game only made it to move 18.

Ivanchuk's game managed to make it out of the opening, but he never really came very close with Black against Gelfand. Gelfand had a slightly better and super safe position out of the opening, and although he might have been a little careless at one point, he worked through the mild complications and reached a dead drawn ending.

So the tournament was a great success for the third member of the 1990 club (a group of young players including Carlsen and Karjakin), if a rather strange one. He went undefeated in the tournament but only won two games: the Berlin against Caruana in round 7 and the Najdorf in round 8 against Morozevich. In the first win, he played well but Caruana played terribly, while in the second game he was completely lost but Morozevich missed several wins and then lost the ending. Still, while it wasn't a dominating performance by any means, he managed to do what his more experienced rivals, Morozevich and Ivanchuk, could not: he never self-destructed. Sometimes, that's enough!

Final Standings:
1. Vachier-Lagrave 6 (of 10)
2-3. Morozevich, Ivanchuk 5½
4. Alekseev 5
5-6. Gelfand, Caruana 4

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

Today was just like yesterday, except that Aronian and Nakamura reversed roles. Today Nakamura went 3-0 while everyone else went 1-2, which meant that Nakamura and Aronian finished 4-2 while Bologan and Movsesian went 2-4. Tomorrow's final, therefore, will be between Aronian and Nakamura.

More info is (or will be) accessible through this page.

To take over clear first today, with just one round to go, all Maxime Vachier-Lagrave needed to do was to follow 21 moves of Petroff theory with Boris Gelfand and shake hands.

The reason that sufficed was because Vassily Ivanchuk went a little crazy against Alexander Morozevich. Ivanchuk had a safe slight edge, but went in for a rook sacrifice that was good for a draw at best. Unfortunately, Ivanchuk found a line where he would be better; unfortunately, because that line left him with a lost position. For a change, then, Morozevich was the recipient of an undeserved point rather than its donor, and now he and Ivanchuk share second place, half a point behind Vachier-Lagrave.

Evgeny Alekseev could have joined them in second with a win over Fabiano Caruana, but that wasn't going to happen. With Black, he was forced to defend for a long time, did it well, and achieved a draw. The tournament ends tomorrow; here are the current standings and the last round pairings:

Standings After Round 9:
1. Vachier-Lagrave 5½
2-3. Morozevich, Ivanchuk 5
4. Alekseev 4½
5-6. Gelfand, Caruana 3½

Round 10 Pairings:
Alekseev - Vachier-Lagrave
Gelfand - Ivanchuk
Morozevich - Caruana

If Alekseev wins and Ivanchuk and Morozevich draw their games, we could have a four way tie for first. (It's not quite Lake Wobegon, but having 2/3 of the kids not only above average but even the best is pretty good.)

Tournament site here, games (with brief comments) here.

In a recent poll on the Russian website chesspro.ru they picked their 10 best games of 2008, and the winner was Topalov-Kramnik, from Wijk aan Zee. The game had a bit of everything: a startling opening novelty, sacrifices, brilliant attacking ideas and some errors and missed chances to boot. If you don't know the game, you'll love it; if you do, you'll enjoy a second, closer look.

"What must be done?" - you ask. The answer is simple: tune in to the Playchess server at 9 p.m. Wednesday night (that's ET; in Europe, it's 3 a.m. CET Thursday morning), go to the Broadcast room, find Topalov - Kramnik under the games tab, and you're good to go. (But bring your own popcorn.)

See you then!

It could have been a brilliant win for Morozevich, but it turned out to be a spectacular but flawed win for his opponent, Vachier-Lagrave, instead. Morozevich thus ends up with his third unforced loss of the event, and sends him back down to 50%. Vachier-Lagrave, on the other hand, is now at +2 and in first.

Or rather, tied for first with Ivanchuk, who defeated Caruana in a very nice game. It wasn't as spectacular on the whole as the Morozevich game, but it had the best single move I've seen in a while, 24...g5!! (Even Rybka 3 took a long time to find it.) It didn't win right away, but it created a very dangerous position for Caruana, who was unable to work his way through the complications.

Finally, Alekseev-Gelfand was a fantastic game - if you're an annotator looking for some time off. They drew in 11 moves.

Standings After Round 8 (of 10):
1-2. Vachier-Lagrave, Ivanchuk 5
3-4. Alekseev, Morozevich 4
5-6. Gelfand, Caruana 3

Tournament site here, game with comments here.

Levon Aronian showed once again why he has dominated the Chess960 events in Mainz the past several years, going 3-0 in the first round-robin. Victor Bologan, Sergei Movsesian and Hikaru Nakamura are all 1-2, so tomorrow looks like a three-man battle to see who will face Aronian in the final. More info here, with a PGN link given below the Movsesian-Aronian diagram and discussion and just above the large picture of Aronian.

The players bounced back from the rest day with renewed energy, and there were no quick draws. Only one game was drawn, Ivanchuk - Alekseev, and it went 61 moves. Ivanchuk obtained the bishop pair in a 4.Qc2 Nimzo and enjoyed a slight advantage through most of the game, but Alekseev defended well throughout and finally achieved the draw.

The fastest game to finish - and although it went to move 38, it finished very quickly - was Vachier-Lagrave - Caruana. It was a Berlin ending where everything went wrong for Caruana, who was already close to lost by move 20. The sooner he forgets this game, the better.

Finally, there was Gelfand - Morozevich, and as usual in Morozevich's recent games, the "right" result (the one you'd expect given what transpired in the rest of the game) failed to occur. Gelfand was better throughout, and could have been much better had he played 33.h3. Instead, he prepared an idea that missed a pretty simple tactic (probably thanks to time trouble). After that he was in big trouble, and on move 37 a further mistake left him with a hopeless position.

Ivanchuk thus has company at +1, as both of today's winners have joined him. With three rounds to go, here are the standings:

1-3. Ivanchuk, Vachier-Lagrave, Morozevich 4 (of 7)
4. Alekseev 3½
5. Caruana 3
6. Gelfand 2½

Tournament site here, games (with light comments) here.

Biel: That's an easy one - they had a rest day.

Politiken Cup: Watching super-GM tournaments, one gets the idea that grandmasters are only capable of beating each other in special circumstances. Either there's some mega-novelty they have analyzed to move 30, or the other player self-destructs, or the winner produces a work of art. Thankfully, this tournament was completely different. Despite the presence of many outstanding players, some of whom are or have been in the 2700 club, it was clear that grandmasters beating up on each other on a regular basis requires only the will to fight. The last round was a fine example of this. Here were the pairings of the games relevant to overall tournament victory:

Avrukh (7½) - Malakhov (8)
Negi (7½) - Berg (7½)
Nielsen (7) - Sethuraman (7½)

On board three the Indian IM hoped to put a cap on a great tournament, and while he wasn't yet winning against Nielsen he had survived some early dangers and was close to pretty well ending his opponent's attacking ideas. Unfortunately, he lost his nerve - perhaps in time pressure - and came up with an idea that was doubly bad: bad because it involved a blunder and bad even if it didn't.

On board two, Negi destroyed Berg in attractive style in an open Sicilian. That guaranteed the youngster either clear second or a tie for first, plus a heaping of rating points that will push him well past 2600.

Finally, Avrukh won a beautiful game against Malakhov, dumping the latter into a third place tie. Malakhov had been leading all tournament, but probably made a strategic mistake in the penultimate round by taking a quick draw - with White - against Negi. (The "prevent" offense strikes again.) This always drives me crazy when I see it. If you're playing up, or it's the last round and you're clinching, or you're feeling indisposed, then fine. But if you're trying to run out the clock and it's not the last round, it's crazy to throw away the white pieces. Your opponents aren't going to return the favor when they have White, so all you're doing is giving your rivals a free day with Black, missing out on an opportunity, and possibly getting yourself out of the mental zone for competition. It serves Malakhov right (again, unless he was ill or there was some other special reason why he'd give a player more than 100 points lower rated than him an immediate draw with Black).

Because Negi had better tiebreaks, he was the official first-place victor over Avrukh; Malakhov was third on tiebreaks, half a point behind.

Villarobledo: Arkadij Naiditsch won this very strong rapid open with 7½/9, half a point ahead of Grischuk, Moiseenko, Shirov, Ni Hua, Milov and Fridman.

Naiditsch was 5-0 after the first day, and defeated Shirov - with Black in a Berlin - in round 6. Guess what he did in round 7? He took a quick draw with White against Grischuk. You'll never guess what happened to him in round 8. You guessed? Right: he lost to Milov. Thanks to his great start, he was still in a three-way tie for first, and his co-leaders Ni Hua and Milov decided to be risk averse and took a quick draw (Symmetrical Exchange Slav and a handshake in 12 moves). That didn't prove a wise decision, as Naiditsch capitalized on a Ponomariov error (16...Qxa2 would have been very messy; after 16...Bb4+ Black was lost) and took first all to himself.

I've annotated the aforementioned last round games from the Politiken Cup, here. While the Nielsen-Sethuraman game was fatally flawed on account of the concluding blunder, I think the other two games were both more deserving of the tournament's best game prize than Hillarp Persson - Dreev, though that was an entertaining contest as well. Perhaps the prize-givers felt that Negi and Avrukh were already sufficiently rewarded by tying for first?

I may not be covering them, but there are other very interesting events going on besides Biel.

The Politiken Cup is finishing, and with one round to go Vladimir Malakhov leads with 8/9, half a point ahead of Parimarjan Negi, Emanuel Berg, Boris Avrukh and S.P. Sethuraman.

The Dutch Open Championship is in media res; and after four rounds Anish Giri leads with a perfect score. Jan Timman, Friso Nijboer and Roi Miedema are half a point behind.

The British Championship starts Monday, but with no one currently registered with a rating > 2550 it's a disappointing looking field at the moment.

Also starting on Monday is one of the great events on the yearly chess calendar - the Chess Classic Mainz. There are major open tournaments in rapid chess and Chess960, along with four-player world championships in both disciplines.

Finally, there's a very strong rapid event taking place in Villarobledo today and tomorrow. After today's five rounds, Arkadij Naiditsch leads with a perfect 5/5, half a point ahead of Alexei Shirov. 17 players have 4 points, including luminaries like Ponomariov, Grischuk, Bacrot and Ni Hua.

Enough chess for you?

Round 6 was most entertaining, with lively fights in all three games.

Ivanchuk - Vachier-Lagrave was an Averbakh Modern that saw some peculiar piece shuffling in the early middlegame, and when the players finally figured out where everything went White was better. How much better, I don't know, but the advantage instantly disappeared when Ivanchuk allowed his opponent to execute the only active idea he had the entire game. Perhaps Ivanchuk was in time trouble, or maybe he couldn't believe it would work, but it did, and the game soon ended in a draw.

Caruana - Gelfand saw the young Italian (send him back!) unload an interesting sacrificial idea against his opponent's Petroff. The possibilities were fascinating, but Gelfand was able to negotiate his way through the complications and hold the draw.

Finally, Alekseev-Morozevich turned out sadly for the latter's fans, and was oddly reminiscent of his round 4 disaster against Caruana. After a provocative opening idea that worked out perfectly, Morozevich enjoyed a persistent advantage. He had a couple of opportunities to win a pawn but preferred to keep milking the position, and there probably wasn't anything wrong with that decision. Unfortunately, he chose about the worst possible moment to force the issue, apparently missing a simple tactic, and immediately went from clearly better to clearly worse. A few moves later he blundered again, and Alekseev won the game.

The result is that Morozevich has gone from clear first to a big tie for second at 50%. Ivanchuk is the sole leader, on +1, while Gelfand is alone in last place with a -1 score. (Here's hoping for a six-way tie, just to see it happen at least once in my lifetime.) Four rounds remain.

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

I'm getting regular email from readers of this blog asking what happened to my archived shows on the Playchess server. So in the hopes of forestalling further mail on the subject, and more importantly, to ease others' frustrations, let me give a brief summary of the problem and of where matters stand regarding a solution.

First of all, the shows are still there, don't worry.

Second, the problem is that for whatever reason, the name of the directory on the Playchess server has been renamed. The correct directory name is Audio/Video Training on Demand - Radio ChessBase - English - Great Games with Dennis Monokroussos. Unfortunately, I know not why, the last subdirectory on the server was renamed "Great Games with Dennis monokroussos", and I'm pretty sure it was the lower-casing that created the problem. The shows are all still in the ...Monokroussos directory; unfortunately, there's no way to access them through the server.

So what is being done about it? I don't know where it stands on their to-do list. It might be that they are fixing some of the shows up, changing the pricing structure, or simply have bigger fish to fry at the moment. I have told them about the problem and reminded them, too, and several others that I know of have written in as well. So please be patient, and if nothing new happens the next week or so it might be worth sending a new reminder note. Conversely, if I get some good news, I'll post about it, and if you see the good news first please let me know.

The following position is offered as a little puzzle on the ChessBase news site.



It's Black to move in the game Litwak-Savchenko, played a couple of weeks ago in an under-tournament at Dortmund, and after 53...Kc5 54.Kf2 Kd6 the players agreed to a draw. Was anything better available to either player? You'll find the answer here, by endgame maven GM Karsten Müller.

We'd normally expect a very exciting game between players like Alexander Morozevich and Vassily Ivanchuk, especially when they're battling for the top spot in a prestigious tournament. Sorry! Their game was agreed drawn after 12 moves in a variation that has "We're going to shake hands quickly" written all over it. Maybe Morozevich didn't feel up to a fight after his thoroughly unnecessary loss yesterday, and Ivanchuk had no real reason to complain about an easy draw with the black pieces, so the result was a rare disappointment from these two.

On to the other games, which were also drawn. Gelfand - Vachier-Lagrave was not exactly showy, but I found the game interesting for some subtle reasons. Vachier-Lagrave's 23rd move, 23...e5, caught my attention, as Black voluntarily accepted an isolated e-pawn, complete with the easily blockaded e4 square White's knight quickly utilized. As it turned out, this was no problem whatsoever. Black was able to swap off White's Ne4, and the e-pawn was no problem at all; in fact, it gave Black his fair share of the center and a potentially useful f-file. As for the end of the game, if you're wondering why White accepted the draw with his extra pawn, the point is that he must either return it immediately or play 42.Kh3. If he plays the latter, then after 42...h5 he must either return the pawn (e.g. with 43.g4 hxg4+) or play without the use of his king for the foreseeable future.

Alekseev - Caruana was a Dragon Sicilian that followed known theory past move 20. According to GM Golubev (in Chess Today), citing an old analysis by GM Alterman, Black should have preferred 23...Ra1+ 24.Kb2 Rxd1 25.Rxd1, which would transpose to a Fedorchuk-Timofeev game played earlier this year. After Timofeev's 25...Qf2 he enjoyed sufficient counterplay and the game was quickly drawn. After Caruana's less accurate 23...Rc5 (?! - Golubev), White enjoyed a fairly serious advantage. There are at least two possible improvements to note, and they come on moves 32 and 37.

(1) Instead of 32.Rd1, both Golubev and GM Yermolinsky suggest 32.Qxb4, though they differ in the follow-up. After 32...axb4, Golubev suggests 33.Kc1 followed by Kd2, while Yermolinsky's preference (as communicated to me by Olim) was for the initial 33.c3. The latter plan is pleasingly direct, but with very accurate play Black seems to hold: 33.c3 bxc3 34.Kxc3 Rc8+ and now:

(a) 35.Kd3 (to keep the Black rook from penetrating) 35...Rb8 36.Rb1 Kg7 37.Kd4 Rb5 and White is stymied, or 37.b4 Rb5 38.Kc3 Kf6 39.Ra1 Rb6 and here too Black seems OK.

(b) 35.Kd4! Rc2 and now a further branching:

(b1) 36.Rg1 (far too passive) 36...Rb2 37.Kc3 Re2 38.b4 Kf8 39.b5 Ke7 and Black is fine.

(b2) 36.g4 Rxh2 37.Rb1 h5 38.b4 hxg4 39.fxg4 Kf8 40.b5 Ke7 41.b6 Rh8 42.b7 Rb8 43.Kc5! f5 44.g5! should win. However, Black can improve too: 37...Rd2+! 38.Kc5 Kf8 39.b4 Ke7! 40.b5 Ke6 and it looks like Black is in time to hold the ending.

(b3) 36.Rb1 (This looks like it must be the right move. 36.b4 would also be plausible, were it not for 36...Rc4+) 36...Kf8! 37.b4 Ke7 38.b5 Kd8 39.b6 Kc8 40.b7+ Kb8 and whether White plays g3 or g4, it seems that Black can hold the ending.

Conclusion: The queen swap might be the right idea, but if it is then perhaps Golubev's more patient approach gives White the best chances, objectively speaking.

(2) On move 37, Golubev suggests that 37.Qe5 was better than 37.b4, and he seems to be right. After his variation 37...h5 38.Rd2! Qh1 39.Rh2 Qxf3 40.Rxh5 gxh5 41.Qg5+ Kh7 42.Qxh5+ Kg7 43.Qg5+ Kh7 44.Qxd8 White has excellent winning chances in the queen ending.

Missing these opportunities, Caruana escaped with a draw, and so the standings at the halfway point, with one round-robin down and one to go, look like this:

1-2. Ivanchuk, Morozevich 3
3-4. Caruana, Vachier-Lagrave 2½
5-6. Gelfand, Alekseev 2

Tournament site here, games (without any comments, but at least there's the above) here.

And not just any opposite-colored bishop ending, but the one I presented as an analysis project on the blog about a month ago. There are undoubtedly many ways for White to proceed, but the key is to grasp the right methods and principles. Once one understands them, the job becomes a lot easier, so I've structured my presentation along those lines. It is my hope that once you've finished watching this video, you'll have a good grasp of several key elements of opposite-colored bishop endings, which you will be able to successfully apply in your own games.

Have a look, here, and let me know what you conclude. The video is free (free registration is required), and will be available to you on-demand for about the next month or so.

The tournament followed its now-standard script with one won game and two that were drawn. First, the draws:

Vachier-Lagrave vs. Alekseev was quick and easy for Black, a Berlin "Declined" where Alekseev achieved all the healthy moves at the slight cost of the bishop pair. As Black was able to keep the position blocked, the result was a short draw.

Ivanchuk - Gelfand was a livelier game. In an English that looked like a Semi-Slav without d4, Ivanchuk enjoyed a long-term initiative thanks to his monster bishop on b2. Gelfand had no way to directly combat the bishop, but he was always able, with accurate play, to resist White's threats, and once 27...Qd3 occurred his problems were over.

That leaves the decisive game, Caruana - Morozevich. Caruana faced the Grünfeld for the second time in the tournament, but Morozevich was the first to vary on the round 2 game between Caruana and Vachier-Lagrave. In this game Caruana missed an early chance to cause some trouble, and after that Morozevich had the slightly better chances. This state persisted for a very long time, but unless Morozevich made a pawn break somewhere he could achieve nothing. Finally, on move 44, he played ...h5, and while it was playable it was extremely risky. After 45.gxh5 f5 46.exf5 gxf5 47.Qb1! the burden was on Black to prove equality, and he immediate failed to do so. The proud pawn duo on e5 and f5 proved weak, and Caruana quickly overwhelmed his opponent.

With that, the standings look rather different than they did after round 3:

1-2. Ivanchuk, Morozevich 2½ (out of 4)
3-4. Caruana, Vachier-Lagrave 2
5-6. Gelfand, Alekseev 1½

Tournament site here, games with my comments here.

N.B. In the round 1 game Gelfand-Caruana, the game did not finish 33...Bf7(?!) 34.hxg7 Qe5(?) 1/2-1/2(??), but 33...Bd7 1/2-1/2, as pointed out by Caruana in this ChessBase report. The corrections have been made.

Judit Polgar burst on the scene in the late 80s and early 90s as a great attacking player and tactician, and she is still best known for those attributes today. That sort of game does appear to be her milieu, but no one can became a super-GM, as she has been for many years, without reaching a very high level at all aspects of the game. When necessary, she can maneuver and utilize the strategic advantages in a position against even the very best players, and our game for this week is a beautiful illustration.

Playing current world champion Viswanathan Anand in Wijk aan Zee 1998, Polgar used a somewhat underappreciated anti-Najdorf variation with success. Its aim (6.Be3 e5 7.Nf3) is to slowly but surely conquer the d5 square, and Polgar successfully worked her way to a great knight vs. mediocre-to-poor dark squared bishop ending with queens and rooks. How she achieved that is itself worthy of note, but the sequel is at least as important. It's very easy to coast from such a position, thinking it will win itself, but against a good defender it won't. What makes the game especially worthwhile is the way Polgar managed to widen the board while keeping control. It took 56 moves for her to reel in the point (and with a nice little combination, too), but although it took quite a while Anand never escaped her grip. By creating threats all over the board, Polgar stretched her illustrious opponent's defenses too thin, and eventually broke through.

It's a great game and real model of how to play the variation and how to utilize this kind of knight vs. bishop middlegame, and I highly recommend that you tune in tonight. The show begins at 9 p.m. Wednesday night ET/3 a.m. Thursday morning CET, and it's free. All you have to do is log on to the Playchess server at the appropriate time, go to the Broadcast room and find Polgar-Anand under the games tab.

See you then!

It's the usual formula so far, but this time it was Vassily Ivanchuk (rather than Alexander Morozevich) who was the day's winner at the main event in Biel.

Vachier-Lagrave - Morozevich: In a Najdorf with 6.Be3 e5 7.Nf3, Morozevich chose the unusual 7...Nc6 and didn't seem any the worse for it. 13...d5 seemed a little hasty (after 13...0-0 he can still play ...d5, but without the concession in the game), allowing White to reach a slightly better ending thanks to Black's doubled, isolated e-pawns. Morozevich was more successful in defense than his opponent was on offense, and after the time control (at move 40) the players agreed to a draw.

Gelfand - Alekseev was a Ragozin System that saw Alekseev improve on his game with Akopian from the Nalchik Grand Prix earlier this year. There he played 12...Re4, eventually achieving a draw, but his novelty 12...a5 led to immediate equality through forcing play. When the draw was agreed on move 27, it was Alekseev who enjoyed the slightly more comfortable position. Good prep!

Ivanchuk - Caruana saw an opening that probably deserves to be seen more often; to wit, the Spanish Four Knights. It avoids the Petroff and the Marshall, and although there aren't as many branches at this point, its rarity will generally give those using it an edge in their preparation. Caruana chose the gambit line 4...Nd4 5.Ba4 c6 and the players followed a 1994 contest between Spraggett and David through 13.Rg1. Caruana varied with 13...Nd5 (intentionally? I don't know), but it was soon apparent that White was clearly better. After White's 26th move the players reached a rook and opposite colored bishop ending with an extra pawn for Ivanchuk. I don't know if it was ending that White objectively ought to win, but Ivanchuk did so.

Morozevich still leads with 2½/3, but Ivanchuk has closed to within half a point at 2/3. Vachier-Lagrave has 1½, and the other three players are tied for last with 1.

The games - without comments today - are here.

If even the über-maverick Stefan Bücker argues that the Latvian is bad (permalink here) - almost a forced loss - there might be a lesson for the rest of us. Of course, if you want to play the Latvian, no one is stopping you. Chess is supposed to be fun. If you find it more fun to win from time to time, though, it might be appropriate to consider a change.

Just like yesterday, there were two draws and a Morozevich win.

First the draws. Caruana tried a very rare anti-Grünfeld line against Vachier-Lagrave. Maybe he enjoyed a slight advantage, but when he let his opponent wriggle out with 26...Rc8 and 27...Rc7, it was time to call it a day. Alekseev - Ivanchuk was rather disappointing, as White chose a pretty insipid line against the Winawer. Ivanchuk was up to the task and was even a little better when the draw was agreed on move 22.

Now for the win in the game Morozevich - Gelfand. Morozevich played 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4, probably motivated to avoid the Petroff, and chose a sub-variation Tiviakov has been using with recent success. Gelfand reached an ending where he was very slightly worse, but unfortunately chose a seriously mistaken plan. He brought a rook to the kingside, hoping to achieve some counterplay against White's fractured pawns over there, but it didn't work out. After Morozevich's 30.Rd4, Gelfand's 30...Rd6 hoped for something like 31.Rxb7 Rg6+ with counterplay, but 31.Rxe4 and 1-0 was a rude awakening. Given that there was nothing to be done on the kingside, however, the whole plan was an error, and White's position was at least nearly winning even without the blunder.

So after two rounds, Morozevich leads with a 2-0 score; Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana and Ivanchuk are 1-1 (two draws apiece), and Morozevich's victims, Gelfand and Alekseev, have half a point apiece.

Tournament site here; games with my comments here.

Not exactly the finish I expected, but Shirov and Adams were held by Perelshteyn and Krush, respectively. Porper, though "just" an IM, upset GM Ganguly; while Bluvshtein put an end to FM Hommeles' dream tournament, defeating him with the Black pieces. FM Tayar could have tied for first, but he was only able to draw with GM Zhao Xue (from the next score group).

So Bluvshtein and Porper tied for first with 7.5/9, and while I don't know if Edward Porper played enough of the right sorts of opponents to get a GM norm, he deserves one for drawing Shirov and Adams while beating Mikhalevski and Ganguly. (Not bad for a guy born in 1963, which was a pretty good year for chess players.)

Tournament site here.

Very much unlike Dortmund, the main event in Biel looks like a collection of chessplaying troublemakers. Only one of the three games had a winner, but every game was exciting.

Vachier-Lagrave vs. Ivanchuk saw a rare line of the French Tarrasch, and while it could have reached a "normal" sort of position Ivanchuk's refusal to castle spiced things up. White eventually sacrificed a pawn to keep Black's king in the center for good, but then Ivanchuk counter-sacrificed (/exchanged) his queen for a rook and a minor piece (plus the original sacrificed pawn). In the end, the game was drawn: White could not let Black's passed d-pawn advance, and Ivanchuk had no way of making progress without pushing it, and the result was a repetition of moves.

Morozevich - Alekseev was a 4.Qc2 Nimzo, where Black played the trendy 4...0-0 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3 d5 line. (How trendy? It happened in Gelfand-Caruana as well.) Alekseev sacrificed a pawn on move 9, but this may have been an error. The problem wasn't that he didn't get enough play, but that Morozevich was able to return the pawn in a way that gave him too much space and activity. Morozevich may have missed some chances in the late middlegame/early ending, though, and Alekseev probably achieved an objectively equal position. The view from the armchair is one thing, that from the playing hall another, and in a dangerous position Alekseev's errors on moves 27 and 29 proved fatal, allowing Morozevich to finish the game with a powerful mating attack.

Gelfand - Caruana was absolutely crazy. It looked like White was going to squeeze his opponent like a zit until he popped*, so Caruana pushed the "randomize" button with 18...Qd8 followed by 19...b6 and 21...c5. At the cost of a pawn (three games, three pawn sacs!), and later an entire piece, all the nice, calm positional factors Gelfand hoped to utilize had become irrelevant. Everything was tactics, and of course this sank Gelfand into serious time trouble. Caruana's last move was an error, but it came with a draw offer that Gelfand, with little time left, accepted. As I was able to find the winning line without using a computer, I have no doubt that Gelfand would have found and played it with more time on his clock - but again, see the comment above about the armchair and the playing hall.

If all the rounds are like this, it will be a great tournament!

Website here, games (with my comments) here.

* Feel free to request that I never use this metaphor again.

First, the news from Biel is that there is no news. As is often the case, the announced dates for the tournament went beyond the playing days to include the day for the opening ceremony. It thus starts tomorrow (today for many of you), i.e. Sunday, with these first round pairings:

Alexander Morozevich (RUS, 2751) - Evgeny Alekseev (RUS, 2714)
Boris Gelfand (ISR, 2755) - Fabiano Caruana (ITA, 2670)
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA, 2703) - Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR, 2703)

(Strangely, the official site gives "RUS" for Ivanchuk; I hope for the sake of Ukranian chess that this was ignorance on the part of the web administrator!)

As for the Canadian Open, it concludes tomorrow (Sunday). After 8 of 9 rounds, there is a nine-way tie for first: GM Mark Bluvshtein CAN, GM Alexei Shirov ESP, IM Edward Porper CAN, GM Michael Adams ENG, GM Surya Ganguly IND, GM Eugene Perelshteyn USA, IM Irina Krush USA, FM Jonathan Tayar CAN & FM Theo Hommeles NED all have 6½ points.

Here's a goofy position I came across the other day:



Have you ever seen anything like this, outside, perhaps, of a scholastic contest? I'm pretty sure I haven't, but this could very easily have occurred in a game between two very respectable players (Libiszewski, rated 2505, and Vehi Bach, rated 2395). For my source, go here; for the game itself (and the variation that gets to the diagrammed position), have a look here.

One of the most common imbalances in chess is that of bishop vs. knight. In the abstract, the pieces are of approximately equal value, but when we look at real positions it's often the case that one piece or the other confers a real advantage to its owner. It's probably true that bishops are more often advantageous, but again, specifics rule here. As all of you have surely noticed, there are many times when the knight is the better piece, and in this week's ChessVideos show you'll see two such cases.

In both, there's a situation where the side with the bishop has all its pawns on the same color square as the bishop, and gets dominated on the opposite color complex. The knight has all the fun there, but turning it into a win often takes some doing. The value of this week's presentation is that it will help us figure out how to win such positions, and there's the further benefit that once one grasps some of the main ideas, they will work in a great many cases. So invest a little time (but no money) now, and enjoy the dividends later!

The show is here, free (but registration is required), and available on demand for about the next month or so.

Going into the last round of the U.S. Junior Championship, Ray Robson led by a point over his closest pursuer. The bad news was that he was facing him - Salvijus Bercys - in the last round; the good news (for him) is that he had White. The good news proved more important, as he was able to steer the position into a draw very quickly, and as a result the U-20 championship of the U.S. has been won by a 14-year-old.

Final Standings:
1. Robson 6
2. Bercys 5
3. Lenderman 4
4-5. Shankland, Lee 3½
6. Banawa 3
7. Liu 2½
8. Coleman ½

Running out the clock didn't quite work - Nakamura drew his last-round game, but Ponomariov surged into a tie by defeating Vallejo Pons. Interestingly, they required a blitz playoff to decide a winner, and in this form of the game Nakamura is in his element. He won the playoff 2-0, putting a cap on an amazingly successful (and lucrative) two weeks.

Last Round Results:
Ponomariov - Vallejo Pons 1-0
Kasimdzhanov - Nakamura, Movsesian - Vachier-Lagrange, Granda Zuniga - Svidler and San Segundo - Karpov: all drawn in 23 moves or fewer.

Final Standings:
1. Nakamura 6½ (win blitz playoff 2-0)
2. Ponomariov 6½
3. Svidler 5½
4-5. Kasimdzhanov, Vallejo Pons 5
6-7. Movsesian, Vachier-Lagrange 4½
8. Granda Zuniga 3½
9. San Segundo 2½
10. Karpov 1½

Tournament site here.

With one round to go, Ray Robson leads the U.S. Junior Championship by a point with a very impressive score of 5½/6. The crucial game was played tonight, when he faced IM Alex Lenderman. Lenderman had White, and with a win he'd have created a three-way tie for first between the two of them, together with fellow IM Salvius Bercys. It was a wild game, but while Lenderman had the draw in hand at one point he pressed for the win, which ultimately backfired. With one round to go, here are the standings:

1. Robson 5½
2. Bercys 4½
3. Lenderman 3½
4-5. Shankland, Banawa 3
6. Lee 2½
7. Liu 2
8. Coleman 0

Fortunately for the tournament's drama, #1 plays #2 in the last round, so even though Robson has White anything is possible.

Meanwhile, again for your entertainment, here's an exciting game from round 4 noted by local correspondent Allen Becker:

[Event "U.S. Junior Ch"]
[Site "Milwaukee, WI"]
[Date "2009.07.14"]
[Round "4"]
[White "*IM_Shankland"]
[Black "*FM_Lee"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2564"]
[BlackElo "2384"]
[Opening "King's Indian: Orthodox, Aronin-Taimanov, 9.Ne1"] [ECO "E98"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Ne1 Nd7 10. Be3 f5 11. f3 f4 12. Bf2 g5 13. Rc1 Kh8 14. Nd3 Rg8 15. c5 Nf6 16. cxd6 cxd6 17. Nb5 g4 18. Nc7 g3 19. Nxa8 Nh5 20. Kh1 Bh6 21. Be1 Nc6 22. Nf2 Qh4 23. h3 gxf2 24. Rxf2 Bxh3 25. gxh3 Qg3 0-1

It has been years since I played the King's Indian in tournaments, but I always love to see the kitchen sink attack win in the Mar Del Plata Variation. Black's position might be fundamentally unsound, but it just takes a momentary lapse and White gets mated. (As far as I can tell, it only took the one error, 21.Be1, and White was dead.) A very nice game by Lee!

More tournament info here.

Trying to run out the clock is a dubious strategy in many sporting events (as well as quasi-sports like chess), but so far Hikaru Nakamura is getting away with it. (Barely.) Today he once again took a quick draw with White, this time against Sergei Movsesian, but that was enough to keep his lead. Ruslan Ponomariov could have caught him, with a win with Black against Peter Svidler, but that's a tall order and it didn't happen; they drew fairly quickly as well.

The other games were of no importance in the fight for first, but in terms of intrinsic interest they knocked the socks off of the games discussed above. Vachier-Lagrave - Granda Zuniga was also drawn, but it wasn't anything like the other ones. This game went 65 moves and, I suspect, Granda missed a win in the endgame for the second straight round. The other two games finished with winners and losers. Vallejo Pons beat San Segundo Carrillo in a razor sharp sacrifice variation of the Sveshnikov Sicilian, while - you know what's coming, don't you? - Karpov lost to Kasimdzhanov.

Here are the standings going into the last round:

1. Nakamura 6
2. Ponomariov 5½
3-4. Svidler, Vallejo Pons 5
5. Kasimdzhanov 4½
6-7. Movsesian, Vachier-Lagrange 4
8. Granda Zuniga 3
9. San Segundo 2
10. Karpov 1 (2378 TPR)

And here are the final round pairings:

San Segundo - Karpov
Ponomariov - Vallejo Pons
Granda Zuniga - Svidler
Movsesian - Vachier-Lagrave
Kasimdzhanov - Nakamura

Tomorrow, we'll see if Nakamura's "prevent" defense works, or if it has the usual result in football*; i.e. preventing the team with the lead from winning.

Tournament site here.

* By "football" I mean football, of course, not soccer.** (But it probably holds true a fair percentage of the time in soccer, too.)
** The humor impaired are invited to comment...elsewhere.

There is nothing (too) wrong with Philidor's Defense, and its notable advocates include stars like Nisipeanu, Beliavsky, Azmaiparashvili and - at least in the 2009 World Open - Joel Benjamin. It seemed to go pretty well for him, at least until round 7, against Polish IM Jacek Stopa.

Benjamin went for one of the very sharpest lines in the Philidor, a remarkable gambit idea of Romanian GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, and the players followed the beaten track through move 10. Stopa's 11th move was very rare, having been played just once before. That game was a 2008 contest in which Black achieved a pretty easy draw, but on move 13 Stopa introduced a novelty.

Was it prepared at home or over the board improvisation? My guess is the latter, for reasons that will become clear as we examine the game more closely, but this will serve as a launching pad to discuss the role of computers and human ingenuity in preparation. At this point, at least, computers haven't manage to solve chess, so the question of how the two fit remains a pressing one.

As for the game, Stopa went on to win, quickly, with an attractive concluding combination. Whether he should have won in that way is something we'll discuss during the show. When? It will be at the usual time: Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET, which is equivalent to 3 a.m. CET early Thursday morning. But whatever time it is where you are, I very much hope to see you there. To watch, log on to the Playchess server at the appropriate time, go to the Broadcast room, and select Stopa-Benjamin from the Games menu. The show runs for about an hour and is free as air.

Impressively, too, with 3½/4, a point ahead of fellow IMs Sam Shankland, Salvijus Bercys, Alex Lenderman and FM Michael Lee. A few more details and some pictures can be found here; as for the games, it looks like the easiest place to find them is on ICC (type "liblist USJunior09" for the games, without the quotes).

On-scene correspondent Allen Becker was there for round 2 (maybe round 4 as well - he'll have to write in to let us know!) and highlighted two games as especially noteworthy: Shankland-Banawa and Liu-Lee. Here are the PGNs for each:

[Event "US Junior Ch 90 30"]
[Site "Milwaukee, WI"]
[Date "2009.07.13"]
[Round "2"]
[White "*IM_Shankland"]
[Black "*FM_Banawa"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2546"]
[BlackElo "2392"]
[Opening "QGD Semi-Slav: Stoltz variation"]
[ECO "D45"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 Bb4 8. Bd2 Qe7 9. Rg1 b6 10. O-O-O Bb7 11. g5 Bxc3 12. Bxc3 Ne4 13. Bd3 Nxc3 14. Qxc3 dxc4 15. Bxc4 O-O 16. Ne5 Nxe5 17. dxe5 Rfd8 18. f4 Rxd1+ 19. Rxd1 Rd8 20. Rd3 g6 21. h4 Rxd3 22. Bxd3 Qd7 23. Qd4 Qxd4 24. exd4 Kf8 25. Be4 Ke7 26. Kc2 Kd7 27. Kc3 Bc8 28. Bf3 Kc7 29. h5 Bd7 30. h6 Be8 31. Kc4 Bd7 32. b4 Bc8 33. a4 Bb7 34. Kc3 a6 35. Kd3 b5 36. axb5 axb5 37. f5 exf5 38. e6 Kd6 39. exf7 Ke7 40. Ke3 Kxf7 41. Kf4 Ke8 42. Ke5 Ke7 43. Bh5 Kf7 44. Bd1 Ke7 45. Be2 Bc8 46. d5 cxd5 47. Bxb5 Bb7 48. Bd3 Kf7 49. b5 Ba8 50. Bb1 Kf8 51. b6 Kf7 52. Bd3 Bb7 53. Kd6 d4 54. Ke5 Ke7 55. Kxd4 Ke6 56. Bc4+ Kd6 57. Bf7 1-0

[Event "US Junior Ch 90 30"]
[Site "Milwaukee, WI"]
[Date "2009.07.13"]
[Round "-"]
[White "*FM_Liu"]
[Black "*FM_Lee"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2405"]
[BlackElo "2384"]
[Opening "King's Indian: Orthodox, Aronin-Taimanov, 9.Ne1"]
[ECO "E98"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Ne1 Nd7 10. Nd3 f5 11. Bd2 Nf6 12. f3 f4 13. Rc1 g5 14. c5 Ng6 15. Nb5 Rf7 16. Ba5 b6 17. cxd6 cxd6 18. Bb4 Bf8 19. Rc6 Ne8 20. a4 h5 21. Nf2 Bd7 22. Qb3 Bxc6 23. dxc6 Kg7 24. Bc4 Rf6 25. Rd1 Nc7 26. Qa3 Nxb5 27. axb5 Qc7 28. Qa6 Qc8 29. Ra1 Qxa6 30. Rxa6 Ne7 31. Nd1 Nc8 32. Bd5 Rf7 33. Nc3 Rc7 34. Be6 Be7 35. Nd5 Bd8 36. Nxc7 Bxc7 37. Bxc8 Rxc8 38. Rxa7 Kf6 39. Rb7 Ke6 40. Be1 d5 41. exd5+ Kxd5 42. Bf2 Ra8 43. Bxb6 Ra1+ 44. Kf2 Bd6 45. Rd7 Ke6 46. Rd8 Rc1 47. Ke2 Rc2+ 48. Kd3 Rxb2 49. c7 Bxc7 50. Bxc7 Rxb5 51. Rg8 Rd5+ 52. Kc4 Rd2 53. Re8+ Kf7 54. Rxe5 Kf6 55. Rc5 Rxg2 56. Bd8+ Kg6 57. Kd3 g4 58. Rc2 gxf3 59. Rxg2+ fxg2 60. Bb6 Kf5 61. Ke2 Kg4 62. Bg1 h4 63. Kf2 Kh3 64. Ke2 Kg4 65. Kf2 Kh3 66. Kf3 1/2-1/2

Mr. Becker was also kind enough to send a number of photos; here's one of them:



On the left side facing right, going from near to far, we have FM Michael Lee, IM Sam Shankland, IM Salvijus Bercys and IM Ray Robson. On the right facing left, from near to far, it's FM Elliott Liu, FM Joel Banawa, IM Alex Lenderman and Maxx Coleman.

Hikaru Nakamura still leads the Donostia tournament in San Sebastian, but just barely. First, his closest pursuer, Ruslan Ponomariov, defeated Maxim Vachier-Lagrave. Second, Nakamura was in all kinds of trouble against Julio Granda Zuniga. Playing the Dutch is bad enough, some might say, and he managed to get into loads of trouble on top of it. He managed to reach a rook ending, and although it was lost too, Tarrasch's maxim came into effect and he pulled out the draw. (For those having a look at the game, one place to start looking for improvements was move 35: one shouldn't play a7 in such positions unless all other options have been eliminated and/or one is sure that it wins.)

Two other games (Movsesian-Kasimdzhanov and San Segundo-Svidler) were quickly drawn, and Karpov took some more lumps, this time against Vallejo Pons. I'm sure Karpov loves the game, but I wish he'd love it enough to work at it. Not even a legend can compete with elite opponents when he doesn't really work at the game for a decade or more, especially when approaching 60. When it comes to embarrassment, we haven't yet reached Rocky V or Jar-Jar Binks levels, but it's getting there.

Leaders After Round 7 (of 9):
1. Nakamura 5½
2. Ponomariov 5
3. Svidler 4½
4. Vallejo Pons 4

Round 8 Pairings:
Karpov - Kasimdzhanov
Nakamura - Movsesian
Vachier-Lagrave - Granda Zuniga
Svidler - Ponomariov
Vallejo Pons - San Segundo

There are doubtless going to be other events of interest the rest of this month and August, but here are details on the three highest level events I've noticed.

1. Biel: This, as usual, is an entire chess festival, but the main group runs from July 18-31 and is a double round-robin with the following stars:

Boris Gelfand (2764)
Alexander Morozevich (2751)
Vassily Ivanchuk (2725)
Evgeny Alekseev (2714)
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2705)
Fabiano Caruana (2670)

2. The Mainz Chess Classic: This is the probably the grandest and most entertaining chess festival every year, with massive, super-strong swisses in rapid chess and Chess960, together with invitation-only world championships in those same two disciplines. Anand has won the rapid event every year since 1865 (or so it seems), while Aronian has done the same since the end of the second World War in Chess960. The festivities run from July 27 to August 2.

3. The NH Tournament (Rising Stars vs. Experience) takes place from August 20-31, and it looks like the organizers have learned from last year's massacre. The old guys' team still includes two real veterans, but only one is no longer really in the trenches (Ljubomir Ljubojevic). The other, Alexander Beliavsky, still plays frequently and successfully (he's 2640), but the real change is that the other veterans still enjoy full heads of hair experiencing their original color: Loek van Wely, Peter Heine Nielsen, and Peter Svidler. The youngster team is composed of Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Jan Smeets, Daniel Stellwagen and Hou Yifan.

Dortmund is over, but the chess world remains abuzz with activity.

(1) Donostia: A boring day at the top, as the games featuring the leaders were very quickly drawn. (Nakamura-Ponomariov in 14 moves, Svidler-Vallejo Pons in 12.) The other games were all more interesting: Vachier-Lagrange took the opportunity to move into clear fourth with a win over San Segundo, Kasimdzhanov pulled back to 50% with a win over Grand Zuniga, and Movsesian did the same by defeating Karpov. Karpov is at 1-5, which was predictable but quite depressing nevertheless for those of us who remember the real Karpov.

(2) The Live Top List (Live Ratings): Hans Arild Runde has been taking weekends off lately, so we had to wait until today for the results from Dortmund. Kramnik's results really helped him, and now he's within a single rating point of Carlsen (2771.6 to 2772.4). Carlsen, Jakovenko and Leko also gained points (just not as many), so the tournament was a ratings loser only for Bacrot and Naiditsch.

As for Nakamura, he has been skyrocketing, having gained 21.1 points over the past week and a half (almost all from Donostia). He is currently at #17 with a rating of 2731.1 (not counting his game today against Ponomariov, who is next up with 2731.7), but if he can gain 4.2 or more points in the remainder of the event he will vault to #13.

(3) The Canadian Open: Elite players don't always reserve their appearances to super-GM events. Case in point: The Canadian Open, which has secured the participation of Alexei Shirov, Ni Hua and Michael Adams, and each has a 2-0 score so far. I probably won't follow this event too closely, but those who do are invited to keep us informed about any interesting games or results there.

(4) The U.S. Junior Championship: This event started today, with a bang, as pre-tournament favorite and GM-elect Alex Lenderman was upset (with White) by Elliott Liu in a sharp King's Indian. After two rounds, Liu and IM Ray Robson are tied for first with 1.5/2.

Almost forgot about it, but my commentary to round 5 of Dortmund is now up.

Aside from a draw in round 3, Hikaru Nakamura has been unstoppable for the first five rounds of the Donostia tournament in San Sebastian. Today's victim was Pablo San Segundo, and with the win his lead over the field extends to a full point and his TPR to 3035. Not bad! Tomorrow, he takes on Ruslan Ponomariov, who, along with Svidler, is tied for second with 3½ points.

Tournament site here.

Going into the last round, Vladimir Kramnik enjoyed a slim half-point lead over three pursuers: Magnus Carlsen, Dmitrij Jakovenko, and Peter Leko. In a tournament with so many draws, one might have expected Kramnik to play something safe and boring against Arkadij Naiditsch, ensuring at least an easy draw in the expectation that none of his rivals would catch him. As it turned out, that strategy might have worked: Leko was unable to dent Jakovenko's Marshall Gambit (but he tried hard and came close), while Carlsen was unable to parlay his bishop pair into a win against Etienne Bacrot.

Instead, Kramnik played sharply against Naiditsch's Vienna Variation, first sacrificing a pawn and then the exchange for real but speculative attacking chances. There were several places along the way where he could have bailed out and taken the draw, and it wouldn't have been unjustified as the position really was equal. Naiditsch defended very well for a long time, but under the sustained pressure he finally cracked, giving Kramnik both the game and the tournament.

Final Standings:
1. Kramnik 6½ (with a 2851 TPR)
2-4. Leko, Carlsen, Jakovenko 5½
5. Bacrot 4
6. Naiditsch 3

Is Kramnik "back"? A student of mine jokingly called him "unrecognizable" in this tournament, and I can understand that: he's playing comparatively sharp chess and pushed pretty hard the last few rounds. On the other hand, he still had five short draws, and I suspect that at least some of his success can be chalked up to leftover preparation from the Anand match. If this is the start of a new Kramnik, however, or a return to the old one, it will be very good for chess and for Kramnik himself.

Tournament site here; games with my comments here.

For your amusement, here's an online blitz game between Alexey Dreev and Hikaru Nakamura, played yesterday. It doesn't hold up to analysis (not surprising, given the complications and the fact that it is, after all, a blitz game), but it's great entertainment.

HT: Brian Karen.

With still another win, this time over Francisco Vallejo Pons, Hikaru Nakamura continues to lead the main event in the Donostia Chess Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. Despite his impressive 3½/4, however, he's only half a point ahead of former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov, who defeated Sergei Movsesian. The day's other winner was Peter Svidler, who won when Maxime Vachier-Lagrave simply forgot the theory on the white side of a Marshall Gambit. He's only 18 or 19, but even teenaged 2700s have fallible memories! As a result of the win, Svidler is in clear third with 2½/4.

As usual, the only game of sustained interest was Jakovenko's. Here are some statistics:

Total Moves:

Jakovenko: 426 (47.33 moves per game)
Kramnik (the tournament leader): 274 (30.44 mpg)
Carlsen (the youngest player): 334 (37.11 mpg)
Leko: 230 (25.55 mpg)

Maybe the heat wave is still going on. Whatever the story, it's not a pretty picture, and two of today's three games were pretty short draws. One, Bacrot-Leko, was far too short - a 17-move draw agreed to when Leko probably stood better. As Bacrot was the only player he has managed to beat so far, it's suprising that he let him off the hook so easily. Naiditsch-Carlsen was also a fairly short draw (32 moves), but here it was an apt conclusion. Carlsen equalized out of the opening, and in the end it was a dead draw with two minor pieces and even material (after Black recaptures) with all the pawns on one side of the board.

Jakovenko-Kramnik was another matter. Jakovenko reprised the sharp anti-Petroff line used by Bacrot against Kramnik two rounds ago, and the play remained complicated for a long time. Kramnik enjoyed an extra exchange, but in return he faced heavy pressure against his kingside. In the end, Jakovenko had to work to hold the draw, but there was a double lapse on move 33. Jakovenko made a very natural move, but it allowed a remarkable tactical shot that would have won outright for Kramnik, but he missed it too.

Even so, he continues to lead going into tomorrow's last round. He has White against Naditisch, Carlsen has White against Bacrot, and Leko has White against Jakovenko.

Standings after Round 9:
1. Kramnik 5½
2-4. Carlsen, Leko, Jakovenko 5
5. Bacrot 3½
6. Naiditsch 3

Tournament site here; games with my comments here.

Here I look at an interesting fragment from a recent game. The long-term advantages are mine, but in the meanwhile my opponent has some dangerous attacking possibilities. If I survive I'll have excellent winning chances, but there are some hurdles to clear along the way. Have a look for yourself and see how you would have fared.

It's a rare chess player who doesn't know the Fried Liver Attack in the Two Knights (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.Nxf7!?), but how does one Fried Liver the opponent in a Slav? Robert Kempinski has apparently found the answer - have a look.

Donostia: Rest day today. Nakamura leads with 2½/3.

Greek Team Championship: Some games, through round 8, are available here. Ivanchuk has won his last two games there, and he's (not so) slowly but surely making his way back up the rating list once again.

Though he has spent much of the tournament making quick draws, ex-World champ Vladimir Kramnik has two wins, and the second one put him into clear first with two rounds to go. Best of all, from his point of view, his victim in today's round was none other the previous tournament leader, Magnus Carlsen. Believe it or not, Kramnik played very sharply, and Carlsen didn't react very well. A nice win by Kramnik, but Carlsen was not himself today.

If Leko had won his game, he'd have joined Kramnik in first. Since he had White against tailender Naiditsch, his prospects looked good, but despite introducing the game's first novelty he achieved nothing from the opening, and the game was drawn in 27 moves.

Finally, there was the game Jakovenko-Bacrot. Jakovenko has played the most fighting chess in the tournament and today was no different. Bacrot played the Marshall, and White went to work grinding away in an ending with opposite colored bishops and White enjoying an extra pawn. Both sides made mistakes, but Bacrot made the last one and lost in 81 moves. Now Jakovenko is part of a three-way tie for second place, and with White against Kramnik tomorrow first place is not out of the question.

Standings after Round 8:
1. Kramnik 5
2-4. Carlsen, Leko, Jakovenko 4½
5. Bacrot 3
6. Naiditsch 2½

Pairings for Rounds 9 and 10:

Round 9:
Jakovenko - Kramnik
Bacrot - Leko
Naiditsch - Carlsen

Round 10:
Kramnik - Naiditsch
Carlsen - Bacrot
Leko - Jakovenko

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

But, as usual, it's worth adding that not all draws are created equal.

Carlsen-Leko was the sort of draw we all like, especially when we want to get on to the next game. To be fair, Leko improved on a game Aronian lost earlier this year to Karjakin, so he does get credit for doing his homework. Carlsen was quickly satisfied by Leko's idea, and the game was drawn in 22 moves.

Bacrot-Kramnik seemed longer, but not as long as you might think. The opening was sharp but well and long known, and the players followed earlier games well past move 20. The novelty came on move 25, and every Black move was forced through move 32. At that point the position was equal, and the draw was agreed six moves later.

Then there was Naiditsch-Jakovenko, and this was completely different. Here we had the Accelerated/"Normal" Dragon variation we've discussed quite a few times on this blog, and it led to very sharp play. In fact, the game never really cooled off, remaining exciting for all 70 moves. Black came out of the opening fine, even with an advantage, but after an inaccuracy on move 21 White took over the initiative. More fluctuations occurred, but they were mostly in White's favor. A big Jakovenko error on move 50 gave Naiditsch the chance to get his first win, but several moves later he missed a clear-cut crusher; Jakovenko escaped by the skin of his teeth.

Standings after Round 7:
1. Carlsen 4½
2-3. Leko, Kramnik 4
4. Jakovenko 3½
5. Bacrot 3
6. Naiditsch 2

Tournament site here, game with my (brief) comments here.

The results were garbled for a while (possibly due to arbiter errors with the DGT boards), but here's what happened in round 3:

Vallejo Pons - Kasimdzhanov ½-½
Ponomariov - Granda Zuniga 1-0
Vachier-Lagrave - Karpov 1-0
Svidler - Nakamura ½-½
San Segundo - Movsesian ½-½

The first and last games were very fast draws, but Svidler-Nakamura was much richer. Interestingly, the IMs watching tended to think Svidler had anything from a slight to a big advantage, while at least some GMs thought that it was Nakamura, if anyone, who stood better at the end. One way or another, it was drawn and Nakamura kept the lead.

Also of interest was Vachier-Lagrave's win over Karpov. Whether because he found it interesting or because he wanted to avoid getting outprepared, Karpov came up with a very unusual line of the Petroff: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Be7 7.0-0 and now instead of the usually automatic 7...Nc6, Karpov chose 7...Nd6. The plus - other than avoiding theory - is that Black's main problem in the Petroff is immediately eliminated. White's hopes for an advantage rest in the earliest stages on play emphasizing the vulnerability of the knight on e4; with its retreat, White must use other approaches to achieve anything. Another potential plus for Black is the opportunity to swap his semi-bad bishop with ...Bf5. However, none of this comes free of charge: the knight's retreat consumes time and cedes space. In the game, Vachier-Lagrave enjoyed a persistent initiative, and while Karpov might have been OK at one point (or nearly so), the time and energy he had to spend getting there cost him later on.

Standings after Round 3:
1. Nakamura 2½
2-4. Vallejo Pons, Ponomariov, Vachier-Lagrave 2
5-6. Svidler, Movsesian 1½
7-9. Kasimdzhanov, San Segundo, Granda Zuniga ½
10. Karpov ½

A note on Nakamura's rating: with his first two wins in the event, he jumped a bunch of places on the Live Top List and is now #18 (unchanged after today's draw) with a rating of 2723(.2). There's a long way to go in this tournament, but he's putting himself in great shape for "Grand Slam" invites in 2010.

Tournament site here.

Another round, another win for Hikaru Nakamura, who is now alone in first place with a 2-0 score. This time the victim was fellow 2700 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Nakamura showed his ambidextrousness by opening with 1.e4 this time. While the opening was sharper than yesterday's against Karpov, both games made their way into endings where the young American proved his mettle.

Yesterday's other winner, Francisco Vallejo Pons, drew comfortably today and is alone in second place. Today's only other winner was Julio Granda Zuniga, who successfully employed 1.b3 against Pablo San Segundo.

Round 2 Results:
Nakamura - Vachier-Lagrave 1-0
Movsesian - Vallejo Pons ½-½
Grand Zuniga - San Segundo 1-0
Karpov - Ponomariov ½-½
Kasimdzhanov - Svidler ½-½

Standings after Round 2:
1. Nakamura 2
2. Vallejo Pons 1½
3-7. Movsesian, Svidler, Granda Zuniga, Ponomariov, Vachier-Lagrave 1
8-10. Karpov, Kasimdzhanov, San Segundo ½

Round 6 saw three more draws. Jakovenko-Carlsen was in fact a nice game, a Sveshnikov Sicilian with a true battle of ideas. Jakovenko kept trying to find ways to parlay his control of the light squares into something tangible, while Carlsen worked to fight against this while attempting to create some counterplay of his own. It wasn't a classic for the ages, but a 45-move draw of this sort should be acceptable to chess fans everywhere.

Kramnik-Leko was both shorter (25 moves) and less interesting, due in part to the symmetrical pawn structure. But even this game has its moments, if one stops to look at it carefully. Superficially, it looks as if the players are racing to swap off the pieces, but there are just as many moves where they avoid trades. That's a good lesson for club players, who are often indiscriminate about exchanges, so it's worth going through this game asking why a player sought this exchange but avoided that one.

Bacrot-Naiditsch, on the other hand, really does look like a big swapfest. Both players lost the previous round, so I guess they were happy to have half a loaf and move on to the next game.

Standings After Round 6:
1. Carlsen 4
2-3. Leko, Kramnik 3½
4. Jakovenko 3
5. Bacrot 2½
6. Naiditsch 1½

Tournament site here; games later.

UPDATE: Games here.

Because of its rather abstract nature and, most obviously, the amount of space it concedes to the opponent, the Hedgehog System (or systems) tend to be relatively unpopular at the club level. As I hope to show, this is not the way things ought to be. While it takes some study, as with any other opening (and indeed, as with anything in life that's worthwhile), many of the basic strategic and tactical ideas have been worked out and can be quickly grasped by the enthusiastic amateur. Once this has been done, players wielding the white pieces had better look out!

Case in point for this week: the game Robert Byrne - Ulf Andersson, from the 1979 IBM tournament in Amsterdam. The Hedgehog was still in its relatively early days back then, but it had been known through the 70s. Fischer famously used it - with White - to defeat Andersson in an exhibition game, and Andersson had taken it up with Black in the years since then. His opponent, Byrne, was no slouch - a Candidate in 1973 and nearly one again in 1979, but despite this he went down against Andersson, and he went down hard. The moral for us, of course, is that if a player of Byrne's stature could be defeated rather easily by typical Hedgehog techniques, it's reasonable to think that our fellow amateurs are not going to have an easy time of it either.

But see for yourself. The show is at 9 p.m. ET tonight - Wednesday night (that's 3 a.m. CET for the European insomniacs in my audience). It's free, so all you have to do is show up at the right time, go to the Broadcast Room and select Byrne-Andersson under the Games tab. Hope to see you then!

This would have been more exciting back in 1996 or 1997, but it's at least a little intriguing now. Unless Chessdom is making a "July Fools' Day" joke, former world champions Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov are going to play a 12-game match in Valencia, Spain. Going from the 21st to the 24th of September (this year), there will be four rapid games (or "semi-rapid", according to the announcement, whatever exactly that means) and then eight blitz games.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but why are they, or rather, why is Kasparov doing this? Is it an indication that he's going to ooze his way back into real chess? Or is this simply unfinished business, motivated by his loss to Karpov in the meaningless 2002 X3D match and his only tying with him in the post-retirement blitz tournament with Judit Polgar and Viktor Korchnoi? If so, let's root for Karpov so that Kasparov is forced to come back another time. (I'd much rather see him try to avenge his last-round loss to Topalov from Linares 2005, but that's a much bigger mountain to climb.)

Anyway, while it's not the event it once was, it will be nice to see Kasparov in action again, even in blitz against a semi-retired, 58-year-old Karpov.

For about the last six months, the popular website ChessVibes has been putting out a weekly newsletter on openings. The issues are co-authored by IMs Merijn van Delft and Robert Riis and cover a pretty wide swath of material. Each issue comes with a PDF article and a PGN file with overlapping but non-identical content.

There's a main game in each issue, covering what the authors take to be the most theoretically significant contest of the past week, along with several other (less) annotated games. They profile an "openings expert", and there are also some brief statistical features as well. (More about the contents, along with a free issue, here.)

Is it worth it? The price is 25 Euros a year (at the moment I'm writing this, that's equal to $34.82 in American money), which is roughly the cost of a slightly above average chess book. By that standard, it does very well. I'd say it compares favorably with ChessPublishing.com too, if you only buy a few sections there, but if you're interested in enough theory to go whole hog with ChessPub that's probably the best bargain, especially with their archives. Still, this looks like a pretty good deal, and an advantage it has over ChessPub is its immediacy: you've got at least one opening analyzed in some depth within a week.

Another comparison ought to be made with Chess Today. (Disclosure: I write the occasional book review for CT, so one could expect me to have an ulterior motive here.) I'm inclined to think CT is an even bigger bargain, but they're both quite good. As long as the two publications don't have too much overlap in the games they cover, they're both worth having if you can afford it. (By the way, if you sign up for either, please let them know it was from my blog. I don't get any kickbacks or anything, but maybe if enough traffic comes from here to there, we can arrange some special offers for my readers.)

Of course the best deal of all is my blog, especially since it's free. (Donations won't be turned down, of course.) But have a look at CVO and check out the free issue - you might find it worthwhile.

Nakamura defeated Karpov, and it wasn't thanks to superior preparation or tactics; he outplayed him positionally. There was a slightly surprising tactical lapse from both players, however. On move 46, and again on move 47, White had a stock mating pattern: 46.Qc8+ Kh7 47.Nf8+ Kg8 48.Ng6+ Kh7 (48...Kf7 is less "stock", but it gets there as well: 49.Qxf5+ Ke8 50.Bxb5+ and 51.Qd7#. Note that in the move 47 version the bishop is pinned, but it doesn't matter because after Ng6+ Kf7, White mates in two with Nh8+ Ke6 Qd6#) 50.Ne7 and now, spite moves aside, all that's left is 50...h5 51.Qg8+ Kh6 52.Qh8+ Kg5 53.Qxg7+ Kh4 54.Nf5#. After that point too Nakamura made further errors, after which the position became almost equal, before Karpov returned the favor and lost. This suggests (and indeed, I just confirmed it) that they were using the now standard FIDE time control of G/90' + 30". Too bad. I think that's a good time control for FIDE events with two games a day, but not for one-a-day tournaments - especially for elite players.

Vallejo Pons-Granda Zuniga was a funny game. Early on, it looked like Vallejo had to be better, thanks to his space advantage, but he really wasn't. The game was pretty equal for a long time, and after Black's 32nd move he stood better. 35.c5? blundered the knight, because after 35...Qg7 the attempt to save it with 36.Nc6 runs into 36...Qd7, when losing the knight is the least of White's worries - 37...Qd5 followed by ...Qa2+ is game over. So White played 36.Rxh5 and hoped for the best, but objectively he was lost. Giving the king a little more air with 39...a6 or a5 would have maintained that decisive advantage, and after further inaccuracies from both sides 41...bxc5 or 41...Rd1+ would have maintained the winning edge. Unfortunately, the sudden death time control again did its dirty work, and 41...Qd7?? brought Black from quite won to 100% lost after 42.c6+! Qxc6 43.Rb8+.

Vachier-Lagrave vs. Kasimdzhanov was a lively Dragon won by White. The play wasn't perfect, but as far as I can tell there weren't the same sorts of dramatic missteps as in the preceding games.

Finally, there were two draws: Svidler-Movsesian and San Segundo-Ponomariov. The first was quick and needs no further comment, but the latter game was much more exciting. San Segundo had the advantage from the start against his higher-rated, more famous opponent, but couldn't quite close the deal. (One possible improvement was 38.f4, keeping White's healthy e-pawn alive.) It was a very close shave for the former world champion.

Tournament site here.

The wins-to-draw ratio is improving, as for the first time we had a round with more than one win. Kramnik-Jakovenko was a stump of a draw, but the other two games went to a proper finish.

The first game to end was Leko-Bacrot, a very smooth-looking performance by the Hungarian grandmaster. Bacrot produced a novelty that looked far from convincing to me and that quickly led to an inferior position, but the oracle insists on its worthiness. Anyway, while Bacrot had a chance or two to survive, the general trend was against him, and Leko finished him off with a nice tactical blow.

Next was Carlsen-Naiditsch. Everyone has their ups and downs, and in this event the young German, who won this event in 2005, has been ordained the official punching bag. Carlsen played very effectively in the early middlegame (endgame?) against Naiditsch's Berlin Wall, but let the advantage slip. Unfortunately for the young German, he made the time control on move 40 and only then - in an equal position - blundered the game away on move 41. A real pity for him, but just like Shirov and Ivanchuk earlier this year, he'll bounce back soon.

That brings the first cycle to a close. Tomorrow (now today) is a rest day, and they'll resume on Wednesday. Here are the standings at the halfway point:

1. Carlsen 3½
2-3. Leko, Kramnik 3
4. Jakovenko 2½
5. Bacrot 2
6. Naiditsch 1

Tournament site here; games with my comments are here.

From his coverage on TWIC:

I've always found the World Open a bit odd. Multiple schedules, re-entries allowed and so forth. So what to make of Hikaru Nakamura's tournament? Turns up one day plays 5 g/45 minute games to get in contention, plays two proper games the following day (quick draw and a win), then takes two half point byes in the final two rounds to share first place and is already flying to Donostia before the tournament ends. I guess my main reaction is "What kind of tournament is this?"

In one of my favorite countries, they're holding a strong league competition. As usual, I have no interest in or special knowledge of the teams, but will follow the event on account of the individuals playing. There are many strong Greek players, but impressive outside talent has been imported as well including Ivanchuk, Miroshnichenko, Bologan, Tomashevsky, Navara, Tiviakov. The event started July 3 and continues through the 11th.

Event websites here and here; HT: TWIC.

I've mentioned this tournament twice today (here and here), on account of Hikaru Nakamura's participation (which led him to take a couple of byes at the World Open). Now it's time for a few more details.

First, the where and when: it runs from July 7 (Tuesday) through the 16th, in San Sebastian, Spain (a city best known to chess fans for Jose Capablanca's legendary debut in international competition back in 1911). Next, the line-up:

Peter Svidler (2739)
Ruslan Ponomariov (2727)
Sergei Movsesian (2716)
Hikaru Nakamura (2710)
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2703)
Francisco Vallejo Pons (2693)
Rustam Kasimdzhanov (2672)
Julio Granda Zuniga (2647)
Anatoly Karpov (2644)
Pablo San Segundo Carrillo (2570)

It should be an interesting tournament. The players are diverse in age, rating, style, repertoire and location; all of which generally encourages a bigger fight. It's nice to see Karpov playing against strong opposition, but unless he has been working with a trainer or has started to seriously use computers, I'm not too optimistic. (One can hope, though.)

Finally, the tournament website is here.

Entering the last round, five people could catch Hikaru Nakamura for first place at the World Open, and here were their pairings:

Akobian (6) - Smirin (6)
Ehlvest (6) - Najer (6)
Stocek (5.5) - Mikhalevski (6)

Akobian and Smirin opted out, preferring the comparatively small bird in the hand to two very large ones in the bush. They drew quickly, but the others fought on. Unfortunately for Mikhalevski, his game was interesting in the wrong way, and he lost. Of the players in the chase pack, only Evgeny Najer managed to win - with Black, no less - and he thus pulled into a tie with Nakamura. As Nakamura had left (as mentioned earlier, he's playing in Spain starting Tuesday), so Najer won the playoff by default, taking a little extra money and the championship title - for the second straight year.

Congrats to all the lottery winners in Philly.

Yesterday's round in Dortmund was extremely disappointing, and generally speaking the tournament has been marred by an excess of short draws. It turns out there's at least a partial reason for this:

The city of Dortmund has been struck by a heatwave. Problem is you do not have much air-conditioning – in Germany you need it for just a couple of weeks per year. All of the players in the Sparkassen GM tournament seemed fazed by the temperature and all three games ended in more or less rapid draws. (From this ChessBase report.)

Let's hope for cooler weather!

As he's off to play in the Donostia Chess Festival in San Sebastian, starting Tuesday, Hikaru Nakamura took byes for rounds 8 and 9 of the World Open. He entered the round tied for first with Viktor Mikhalevski, a point ahead of their closest pursuers, so he was guaranteed at the absolute worst a tie for second. So far, it has worked out brilliantly, as Mikhalevski lost to Smirin in round 8. That guarantees Nakamura at least a tie for first, and there are five players who will have a chance to tie him, if they win their last game: Mikhalevski, Smirin, Najer, Ehlvest and Akobian.

There was only one decisive result today, but it was a good one. Kramnik played the Petroff against Naiditsch, which normally isn't a prescription for excitement, but he chose the comparatively sharp 6...Bd6 variation. Naiditsch didn't seem especially well-prepared, and Kramnik attacked him with the kitchen sink. Offering a bishop, a knight and both rooks to headhunt the enemy king, Naiditsch resigned rather than get mated after taking a rook and a queen. Very entertaining and well-played, though Kramnik could have finished slightly more efficiently.

Bacrot-Carlsen was exciting for the spectators, at least for those unfamiliar with the 1996 Ivanchuk-Shirov game where 21.Qg7 made its debut. Since then, it is widely considered that Black is absolutely fine, and this game confirmed it. After a forcing sequence that ended with 32...c3, it was clear that the only winning chances belonged to Black, but thanks to the possibility of a fortress those chances were exceedingly slim. Black tried for a little while, but the draw was unavoidable.

Jakovenko-Leko was a (needlessly?) short draw in a Nimzo-Indian, and so after four rounds, Carlsen and Kramnik lead, Naiditsch is -2, and the rest (Jakovenko, Leko and Bacrot) are on 50%. The tournament site is here, and the games (with my comments) are here.

In the comments to this post, someone asked if there were a book of Wotawa's studies anywhere. In reply, a reader offered this helpful link, and I heartily recommend checking it out. It's far from a book on Wotawa, but it does say a little about his life and offers a number of his studies. One can also find a pretty healthy number of his studies in these two Dvoretsky articles, here and here.

There's not much positive to be said about Dortmund so far, but that's okay: there are lots of great and exciting games being played at the World Open. You can find them at the Monroi site (the coverage so far has been pretty decent).

The standings going into the final day see Hikaru Nakamura and Victor Mikhalevski leading with 6/7.

To my fellow Americans, I wish you a happy and safe Independence Day. To my readers in the UK, no hard feelings. To everyone else, best wishes for your own country's Independence Day, whenever it may be.

It's just what it sounds like. ChessVideos viewers submit games here, and every so often I pick a number of games to cover in a video. The latest batch can be found here.

The show is free (registration is required), requires no special software, and is available on-demand, at least for the next month or so.

I have nothing against draws and am even tolerant of the occasional short draw, but these guys are really pushing it. (Unfortunately, I predicted this would happen.) Here's what happened today:

Carlsen - Kramnik: A 19-move perpetual check already known to theory.
Bacrot - Jakovenko: A Berlin Defense drawn in 22 moves, having reached a dead drawn pure opposite-colored bishop ending.
Naiditsch - Leko: A 29-move marathon, though it could easily have finished sooner. (It was nice of them to continue for the sake of the casual fan.) The key was Leko's 13th move - a novelty, though I don't know if it was prepared in advance; it led to massive exchanges and an easy draw.

So far, the tournament has been pretty lame, but there's still time for someone to get ambitious. If not, I hope the organizer wipes the slate clean for 2010 and invites a new batch of players.

Standings after Round 3:
1. Carlsen 2
2-5. Kramnik, Leko, Bacrot, Jakovenko 1½
6. Naiditsch 1

Tournament site here, games with my comments here.

Round 2 looked an awful lot like round 1. Two games were drawn - quickly - while Jakovenko's game resulted in a fairly long and interesting White win. The big difference: Jakovenko had White this time, and so Naiditsch fell into last place. Carlsen, who drew with Leko, remains in first.

Round 2 Results:
Leko - Carlsen ½-½
Kramnik - Bacrot ½-½
Jakovenko - Naiditsch 1-0

Standings after Round 2:
1. Carlsen 1½
2-5. Leko, Kramnik, Bacrot, Jakovenko 1
6. Naiditsch ½

Tournament site here, games with my comments here.

There weren't any fireworks in round 1 of the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting, but the one decisive game, Carlsen-Jakovenko, was very much worth watching. The other games - Leko-Kramnik and Naiditsch-Bacrot - were of primarily theoretical interest. Kramnik equalized very easily in a Catalan and the game was a (dead) draw in 24 moves, while Bacrot demonstrated Black's thematic drawing resources in a trendy line of the Marshall Gambit.

By contrast, the Carlsen-Jakovenko did not peter out into a routine draw. The players headed into the Berlin Wall variation, and although nothing new happened for the first 25 moves or so the ending that resulted after 30 moves was fascinating. At a glance, it didn't seem as if Black should have any problems, but within 10 moves Jakovenko - the world's #5 player and a fine technician - was completely lost. I've done my best to puzzle out what went wrong, and you can see my analysis of all three games here.

Despite W. C. Fields' trenchant commentary, chessplayers flock to Philadelphia each 4th of July weekend to play in the World Open. (Bill Goichberg thanks you.) Those interested in following this mega-swiss from afar can do so, here.

Remember that they're generally a month behind, but although the Live Top List is fun, the only list that ultimately counts is the one put out by FIDE four times a year. Here's the current top 10:

1. Topalov 2813
2. Anand 2788
3. Carlsen 2772
4. Aronian 2768
5. Jakovenko 2760
6. Kramnik 2759
7. Leko 2756
8. Radjabov 2756
9. Gelfand 2755
10. Morozevich 2751

More information here.

Few things in chess are more satisfying than winning a model game. The opening prep goes smoothly, one gains an advantage of some sort of another, and a series of fine moves leads to the inexorable conclusion: we win!

And then there's the other 90% of the time.

Sometimes the success story takes place before our very eyes, but usually something else happens. Maybe the game is settled by a blunder, ends in a draw, or - worse still - we lose. Alternatively, the result is satisfactory but the path is a wild one. First one side has the advantage, then the other side fights back, and at the end of the slugfest an unpredictable conclusion appears. When that happens, then although we may not have the deep satisfaction of winning a model game, the resulting feeling might be even better: the feeling of having experienced and survived an adventure.

It's just such a game we'll look at in our ChessBase show this week, played in the FIDE World Championship in San Luis 2005. Peter Svidler had White against then-champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov, and the game took an incredible course. Kasimdzhanov introduced a novelty, but Svidler reacted well and obtained an edge. The position was incredibly sharp though, and when he erred Kasimdzhanov found a brilliant resource that gave him a big advantage. Then he too erred...but these are the sorts of errors that are far easier to spot in analysis than over the board. Besides, without the errors along the way, we would have been deprived of a truly amazing conclusion.

What happened? Join us and see! The show is free, after all - just log on to the Playchess.com server at 9 p.m. ET tonight (Wednesday night; that's 3 a.m. CET Thursday morning), go to the Broadcast room and select Svidler-Kasimdzhanov in the Games list. Hope to see you there!