The Chess Mind

It was close, but on the last two moves of the time control Carlsen squandered a winning position against Wang Yue. A pity, as his play in the late opening through the middlegame had been outstanding, but his opponent deserves credit for posing continual problems from a bad position. Carlsen kept the advantage without fail for a long time, but time trouble finally got him.

Still, Carlsen's draw was good enough to maintain a full point lead, as the rest of the usual pattern held and all the non-Carlsen games were drawn yet again. Both Radjabov (against Jakovenko) and Topalov (against Leko) obtained the advantage with the white pieces, but neither managed to convert it into the full point.

Standings After Round 3:
1. Carlsen 2½
2-4. Wang Yue, Jakovenko, Radjabov 1½
5-6. Leko, Topalov 1

The games, with my comments, are here.

Alexander Morozevich has been exciting chess fans for over a decade now as not only one of the strongest but most imaginative players around. Not only can he defeat anyone, he can do it playing practically anything: the Chigorin, the Albin, 3...Be7 in the French, the King's Gambit, the Evans Gambit...and on occasion he'll play normal openings too. It's not just that he plays unusual openings; his creative play extends to all phases of the game. This, his fighting spirit and streaky results all contribute to making him the fan favorite he is today.

As an example to illustrate what he is capable of, we'll have a look at his impressive win over Vladimir Kramnik in last year's Tal Memorial. Choosing a main line - the 6.Qc2 Anti-Meran with the Shabalov/Shirov Gambit (7.g4), he went right into the heart of Kramnik's preparation and proved himself more than up to the task. Kramnik played very well for a while, and the balance between Morozevich's initiative and Kramnik's extra pawn remained intact for a good while. As it turned out, Kramnik blinked first, and his single inaccurate move was all Morozevich needed to take over - and he did, going on to win with brutal attacking play.

We'll look at this outstanding game tonight - Wednesday night - at 9 p.m. ET (3 a.m. CET Thursday morning for European late-nighters). Just log on to the Playchess server, go to the Broadcasts room and look for Morozevich-Kramnik under the games tab. It's as simple as that, and I look forward to seeing you there.

The tournament can be divided into three groups so far. Group 1: Carlsen. Group 2: Those defeated by Carlsen. Group 3: Those who haven't played Carlsen yet.

OK, I know we're only two rounds in and Carlsen has had White in both games. But they were two very impressive rounds for Carlsen, who managed to crush first Leko and now Topalov. Carlsen-Topalov looked like something out of the old Petrosian handbook on beating the KID (see for example Petrosian-Schweber, Stockholm 1962): First step, suck the dynamism out of the opponent's position with a blockading strategy. Step two is to start infiltrating on the weak light squares, and the last step is to quickly kill the opponent after he lashes out in desperation. Topalov, who earlier this year claimed that Anand was his only competition, was soundly beaten (but until we know how many bathroom trips Carlsen made, we should probably delay the coronation ceremony).

The other two games (Leko-Radjabov and Jakovenko-Wang Yue) were well-played draws. In both cases White enjoyed some prospects, but Black managed to neutralize that edge with fine play.

Standings After Round 2:
1. Carlsen 2
2-4. Wang Yue, Jakovenko, Radjabov 1
5-6. Leko, Topalov ½

Games, with light comments, here.

Part 1:

The category 21 tournament in Nanjing started today, and if one thing looks clear it's that Magnus Carlsen is there to win. Against Peter Leko, he played the Scotch (hmm...), and it worked to perfection. Carlsen sacrificed a pawn for enduring compensation, and Leko never found a way out of the box. Eventually Leko tried a desperation piece sac, hoping for an attack, but all he got was a bad position with a missing piece. It was a very convincing win for Carlsen, and good enough for clear first after round 1.

The other two games were drawn (obviously): Topalov enjoyed a space advantage with White against Jakovenko in a Catalan, but the latter held tight, broke out when he had the chance, and split the point. Wang Yue played his usual boring chess, and while his technical prowess is too much for "ordinary" GMs, he rarely makes much of a dent in his super-GM opponents. So too here: he played a dxe5, Qxd8 line against Teimour Radjabov's KID, and although he obtained a micro-edge it didn't pose serious problems to a player of Radjabov's caliber.

The games are here, and I've offered some (mostly theoretical) notes to Carlsen-Leko.

I hadn't played in a tournament in a while, so it was time to get my feet wet. There was a quad-based tournament a couple of hours away in Wabash, Indiana (near the river of the same name, which has some sort of relationship with the old "Wabash Cannonball" song), so I made the drive and gave it a try.

Round 1: My opponent tried to knock my block off, going full bore for mate. As is usually the case in my first round games (especially when I haven't played in a while), I calculated like a maniac, found "everything" (at least that's what I felt during and right after the game; I'm sure when my silicon friends have a look, they'll snicker), and won a tense, satisfying game.

Round 2: Just the opposite. It was a quiet game and I entered prophylactic mode. That went so well that my opponent sacrificed a clear pawn just to have a little breathing room. I took it, swapped all the pieces, and won the king and pawn ending: 2-0.

Round 3: A draw sufficed to win the event, so when it was clear that trying to win would require playing the longest game of the round for the third straight round, I decided to call it a day.

Overall, it was a satisfactory performance, and my first round game is likely to make an appearance on an upcoming ChessVideos show.

As in 3 a.m. ET (9 a.m. CET). I haven't seen the first-round pairings yet, but the participants are Topalov, Carlsen, Jakovenko, Leko, Radjabov and Wang Yue. The event is a double round-robin.

Tournament website here.

But there's always next time. I was rooting for Ray Robson to get the norm and become the youngest GM in U.S. history, but it's hard to believe he won't get it very soon. But congratulations to Danny Rensch, whose draw with Robson gets him the IM title. Good job!

Here's their last round game:

Rensch-Robson, SPICE Cup 2009 (B-tournament):

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 Bd7 7.Qd2 Rc8 8.f4 Nxd4 9.Qxd4 Qa5 10.e5 dxe5 11.fxe5 e6 12.O-O-O Bc6 13.Nb5 Bxb5 14.exf6 Bc6 15.h4 g6 16.Bc4 Rd8 17.Qxd8 Qxd8 18.Rxd8 Kxd8 19.Rd1 Kc8 20.g3 Bc5 21.c3 b5 22.b4 Bf2 23.Bxe6 fxe6 24.f7 Bxg3 25.Bh6 Bf4 26.Bxf4 Rf8 27.Rd6 Bd5 28.Be3 Rxf7 29.Ra6 Rf3 30.Kd2 Rh3 31.a4 Rh2 32.Kd3 Bc4 33.Kd4 Rxh4 34.Ke5 Rh5 35.Kd6 Rd5 36.Kc6 Rd7 37.axb5 Bd5 38.Kc5 h5 39.Bf4 h4 40.c4 Bb7 41.Rxe6 Rf7 42.Be5 g5 43.Rg6 h3 1/2-1/2

Ha, ha, ha!

Big thanks to Purdue's coach, for several monumentally stupid decisions (e.g. twice forgoing reasonable field goal opportunities, and then calling time out on the penultimate play of Notre Dame's final, game-winning drive). We probably couldn't have done it without you.

Notre Dame season record: 3-1
Next victim: Washington (at home, 3:30 ET next Saturday)

And now, time for some celebratory post-game music:

The carnage begins in about 40 minutes on ESPN; pre-game materials are here. For your further pleasure, here's a video with slightly overbearing music commemorating ND's victory over the Boilermakers in 2006:



Go Irish!

If you want to, anyway. It's a great engine and comes with some nice bells and whistles, but of course if you already have 20 other engines that can whup you, me, and Anand too, you might not really feel the urge.* The reason I'm mentioning this is because of its relevance to watching shows like mine on the Playchess server, complete with free access to all the archived materials. Better still, it costs even less than I thought it would: just under 50 euros (which I expected), but only $60.80 in U.S. money.

More Fritz 12 info here, more info about premium Playchess memberships here, and more info about accessing my archived Playchess shows here.

* On the other hand, if you're the sort of person who has 20 other engines, why not make it 21?

Impressively, too. Emil Sutovsky defeated Antoaneta Stefanova in the last round of the InventiChess 2009 tournament in Antwerp and came in first with a fine 7/9 score. Sutovsky's win will push him close to 2700, a figure he has been close to before but never surpassed.

Final Standings:
1. Sutovsky 7
2-3. Bacrot, Sasikiran 5.5
4. B. Socko 5
5-7. A. Muzychuk, Timman, Sargissian 4.5
8. Stefanova 4
9. Michiels 2.5
10. Howell 2 (he defeated Michiels in the last round)

With a draw in the next to last round of the Spice Cup B-Tournament, Ben Finegold has, at long last, achieved his third and final grandmaster norm. As he fulfilled the rating requirement long ago, all that's left is the paperwork and the payment. Congratulations!

As for Ray Robson, he won his game, too, against GM Diamant, and is still in the running for his final GM norm as well. To do it, he'll need to defeat FM Rensch in the final round. And if he does it, he'll be the youngest GM in American history: younger than Fischer, younger than Nakamura, and younger than Caruana (send him back!). Meanwhile, have a look at his brutal win over Diamant:

IM Ray Robson (2527) - GM Andre Diamant (2526)
Spice Cup 2009, Round 8, 9/26/2009

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Qd2 Bb4 8.f3 d5 9.a3 Qa5 10.Nb3 Bxc3 11.bxc3 Qc7 12.c4 dxe4 13.Bc5 exf3 14.gxf3 Ne7 15.O-O-O Nf5 16.Bh3 b6 17.Bb4 a5 18.Bc3 a4 19.Be5 Qe7 20.Bxf5 exf5 21.Bd6 Qd8 22.Qg2 axb3 23.Bb4 Qc7 24.Qxg7 1-0

The match ended today, with Zahar Efimenko's unsuccessful attempt to parlay the white pieces into a serious advantage. The players treated us to an old-fashioned Two Knights sideline, and while there were some minor dangers for Nigel Short to avoid, he managed to do so without breaking much of a sweat. In particular, his accurate 19...Be6! was a complete solution to White's aggression, and in the resulting rook ending Efimenko had no winning chances at all. (You can replay the game, with my notes, here.)

Short thus wins the match by a game, in keeping with the rating differential (his rating was 2706, and his PR for the match was 2711). His resurgence this year thus continues!

As I was informed by a reader earlier tonight, the ChessBase archives are up and running, and my shows are all there, waiting for your viewing pleasure. To find them, log on to the Playchess server, then in the Rooms window select Watch Premium Training Videos - Radio ChessBase - English - Great Games with Dennis Monokroussos.

I don't think the new pricing has gone into effect yet (I assume it won't until Fritz 12 is out), so those of you who don't intend to become premium members should watch now while the price is still a pretty trivial 2 ducats (about 30 U.S. cents) a show.

Thank you for your patience; at last you can dig in!

Last week, I presented an old loss of mine to Adam Lief in a Pirc Defense, and gave the impression that it was a very clear, clean, straightforward win. All that went wrong was my omission of a4, to prevent ...b5, and everything went to heck in a handbasket after that. This was not only my impression, but that of strong analysts like Jack Peters and Robert Byrne.

We were all wrong! Lief did play a nice game, but things were much more complicated than last week's superficial look would suggest. To see how much more complicated, have a look here. It's worth it not only for truth's sake, but because the truth happens to be very interesting as well, and even useful. See for yourself - it's very entertaining!

(1) The very strong Maotai tournament has just finished, and here are the final standings:

1 Wang Yue 2736 5 2796
2 Wang Hao 2690 4.5 2747
3 Ni Hua 2692 4 2698
4 Ding Liren 2530 3.5 2668
5 Li Chao B 2617 3 2604
6 Zhou Jianchao 2623 3 2605
7 Bu Xiangzhi 2702 2.5 2541
8 Zhang Pengxiang 2616 2.5 2556

There was also a concurrent women's tournament, won by young superstar Hou Yifan with 5.5/7.

More info here, last round games here.


(2) InventiChess 2009: After eight rounds (of nine), Emil Sutovsky leads with 6, half a point ahead of Etienne Bacrot. A couple of oddities in the tournament: David Howell, a middle seed in the event, is in dead last with just one point out of eight and a 2302 TPR. Second, probably for the first time in a round-robin since the 1920s at the latest, there have been six Four Knights. Petroff/Marshall fear has driven people to desperation.


(3) The SPICE Cup. The A group is stronger, but the more interesting event is the B group. The news there is that if Ben Finegold manages a single draw in the last two rounds, he will FINALLY get his last GM norm and have the title. Likewise, Ray Robson is also in the running for his final GM norm, but he needs a 2/2 finish. Here's hoping the US has two new GMs by the end of the weekend!

With one game to go, Nigel Short has finally taken the lead in his match with Ukranian GM Zahar Efimenko. With his last white game of the match, Short slowly but surely outplayed Efimenko. Black's 20...g6 loosened him up on the kingside and the a1-h8 diagonal, and while he was able to swap off the queens and dark-squared bishops, it happened at the cost of a pawn and a losing rook and pawn ending. Short duly brought home the point, and will win the match as long as Efimenko doesn't take his revenge tomorrow.

The game, with light notes, can be replayed here.

To close our coverage of the Valencia match, here is the Europe-Echecs video of the final day.

The match is tied 2-2 after a second straight draw. Efimenko had White, and as in game 2 Short replied with the Open Ruy. On move 10 he varied from 10...g6, but still avoided the main lines with 10...Nxb3. Perhaps there's a problem with this line, but Efimenko didn't find it. White obtained a nominal edge, but by around move 30 the game was a dead draw, even if the players decided to push wood for another 20 moves.

See it for yourself here; game 5 is tomorrow (Friday).

Today's blitz session started well for Karpov, who won with Black to close the overall score to 3-2. After a quick draw in the next game, however, he got steamrolled. Kasparov won 5 games in a row before a draw in the last round to win the blitz 6-2 and the match as a whole by a very convincing 9-3 score.

Neither player looked especially convincing in the match, but Kasparov's play was much better and showed some glimpses of his old quality. The openings were terribly dull - mostly Karpov's fault - and while keeping the games quiet would seem to favor Karpov, Kasparov was more successful in quiet positions too. I'm sure Kasparov will do some more work before their next match, and unless Karpov does something to raise the standard of his play, it's likely that he will lose at least as badly next time. On the other hand, facing Kasparov will hopefully get his competitive juices flowing, and will be better prepared for the next time.

You can replay today's games here, with my very brief comments.

One mystery solved: Kasparov resigned in game 3 rather than losing on time. But now, a new mystery: why didn't the Europe-Echecs team check Karpov's rest area for computer cables?

A nice short essay occasioned by their match, along with a video and a simul game - here.

Karpov managed to get on the scoreboard today in their third game, with a very gritty performance that went down to the wire. Unfortunately for him, Kasparov got revenge in the last game, outplaying his opponent in, well, Karpovian fashion. Unfortunately, like yesterday, Karpov lost this one on time too, and in a position that, although definitely bad, was not yet lost.

That ends the rapid segment of the match, and tomorrow (Thursday) they will play eight (up to eight?) blitz games.

Today's games, with my notes, are here.

Again, from Europe-Echecs. Two things especially caught my attention in the video. First, that Karpov could seem so cheery at the end of the first loss; second, that Kasparov intended to sac the exchange rather than play ...Nxe6 at the point where Karpov lost on time. (See my notes to that game, here.)

With the recent news that Magnus Carlsen is working with Garry Kasparov, it seems like only a matter of time before he reaches the very top of the chess world. Of course, that has been a common opinion for some years anyway, and it's games like the one we'll look at this week that have encouraged such speculation.

Played when he was just 13, his victory over the experienced and strong GM Evgeny Vladimirov was both important and remarkable. Important, because it jump-started him in the tournament on the way to his final grandmaster norm and the title; remarkable, because afterwards Vladimirov - one of Kasparov's former trainers, declared that Carlsen's future in chess was as the number one player!

We've all had some time now to appreciate Carlsen and to see Vladimirov's prediction come closer and closer to fruition, but it's worth having a look at this game in particular, to see what so impressed Carlsen's opponent. Those of you who want to see the game in advance can undoubtedly do so, but for those who want to enjoy the surprises with fresh eyes, I'll keep any possible spoilers out of this blurb.

What I will tell you is that you can watch the show tomorrow night - Wednesday night - on the Playchess server, at 9 p.m. ET. (That's 3 a.m. CET on Thursday, for my European insomniac and early-rising viewers.) To watch, simply log on, go to the Broadcasts Room, find Carlsen-Vladimirov under the Games tab, double-click and you're good to go. See you then!

[N.B. I don't think the Premium membership rules are in effect yet - I assume this won't happen until Fritz 12 is out - so if you haven't re-upped yet you're probably still okay. If I learn otherwise, I will update this paragraph.]

The white pieces were more meaningful today than in the first two rounds, but although Short was able to press, Efimenko held the draw with good defense. The match is tied at 1.5-1.5 at the halfway point, and will resume Thursday after tomorrow's rest day.

Game 3 can be replayed here, with my notes.

Anatoly Karpov got off to a bad start today, and his great rival, Garry Kasparov, didn't have much to do to collect the points. In game 1, the game's trend was slightly in Kasparov's favor, but prior to Karpov's last move the game was about equal. Unfortunately for Karpov, who had White, he lost on time making his 24th(!) move.

In the next game, Karpov sped up. After Kasparov's 21st move, Karpov was in a worse but tenable position with a reasonable amount of time. (The time control was 25 minutes for the game, with 5 second increments after every move.) Unfortunately, Karpov spent two minutes thinking about a sound pawn sacrifice which he then played. Why unfortunately? Because although the pawn sac was sound, Kasparov disregarded it and sacrificed a knight instead, leading to an easily decisive mating attack. Karpov clearly missed it, and again lost on time. This time, however, it didn't matter, as he was hopelessly lost on the board as well.

It's horrible seeing Karpov play like this, and it's even worse seeing the idiotic remarks made by online kibitzers - some of them with titles (including, sadly, at least one GM) - ridiculing the man. He hasn't done serious work on the game in years, but it wasn't that long ago that Karpov would have obliterated them without breaking a sweat.

To the callow youth in my audience, who may think these are the purely nostalgic, Abe Simpson-like grumblings of an old fan longing for years gone by, here's some information to consider. In addition to being the clear world champion for 10 years and FIDE champ in the divided era for 6 more years, he was tied for #1 on the rating list as recently as 1996, with Kasparov and Kramnik and ahead of Anand. For almost a quarter of a century he was #1 or #2, and was over 2700 from the early 1970s until some time around 2000. In case 2700 doesn't seem like a big deal to you, there were only four, count 'em, four people in chess history to break that barrier until the early 90s: Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Mikhail Tal (for about 10 seconds) and Garry Kasparov. That's it, and with a couple of one-list drops into the 2690s in the mid-70s, he was there nonstop for a quarter of a century, and almost everyone agrees that ratings have been inflated since then. So yes, what you're seeing in this match and in his play earlier this year has been embarrassing, but this isn't the real Karpov.

It is my desperate hope that unless Karpov really works hard on his chess and conditioning between now and his next matches with Anand and Kasparov, he finds a face-saving way to cancel those "contests". The man is rich as Croesus, so I have no idea why he is so eager to damage his legacy in the eyes of the younger generations. If it's the love of the game, he can arrange training matches with strong GMs easily enough, I'm sure; he doesn't have to engage in these public spectacles.

Anyway, let's hope he produces something better the next two days. As for today's productions, you can replay them, with my notes, here.

Here's the first one (it's worth watching!), and, I suspect, it will update to include subsequent videos as well. If so, I will periodically redate this post for your convenience.

ChessBase's PlayChess server is changing its policies somewhat. The gist is this: if you are a premium member, which seems to require nothing more than buying Fritz 12 (when it comes out) or a separate serial number, you get everything free on the server: my show (live and archived - a pretty good value since there I've done over 200 shows), others' shows, the chance to play in simuls, leagues and everything else. For those with basic memberships, some features are blocked altogether while others are fairly costly. Here are more details, as they've been given to me by ChessBase staff:

Premium members

New on the server are the Premium members. Purchasing Fritz 12 or a separate serial number, Premium Members have access to all offerings of the chess server.

For Basic members, live commentaries and training are still available through Ducat payment (50).

All important tournament will be commented live. Premium members can watch all offered live shows for free. For Basic member, the shows will cost 50 Ducats each.

Our range of training programmes will be extended. Oliver Reeh and André Schulz will broadcast in German every week as usual, just like Dennis Breder. Dennis Monokroussos and Valeri Lilov will broadcast in English every week, and so will Daniel King every month. Leontxo Garcia will broadcast in Spanish every month. In addition, there will be further authors for training. Premium members can watch all offered training programmes for free. Basic members again pay 50 Ducats per programme.

Starting 2010, we will introduce a Single League managed by Martin Fischer. Furthermore, simuls versus title holders will be offered on a regular basis. Only Premium members are admitted there.

Moreover, we offer weekly workshops in English and German showing important and useful programme functions. These will be free for all members.


Training: Premium: Free; Basic: 50 Ducats per programme.
Live Shows: Premium: Free; Basic: 50 Ducats per programme.
Single League: Premium: Free; Basic: No admission [i.e. can't participate].
Simuls: Premium: Free; Basic: No admission.
Archives: Premium: Free; Basic: 50 Ducats per programme.
Workshops: Free for all.

Related Posts (on one page):

1. ChessBase Show: Archives are Up!
2. ChessBase Shows: Important Information

(1) He's only 15, but Anish Giri is already the Dutch champion. He scored 6/8 in the tournament, finishing half a point ahead of Friso Nijboer and a point ahead of Ernst and Reinderman. Granted, players like Loek van Wely, Ivan Sokolov and Sergey Tiviakov weren't playing, but still! It's impressive in any case, and given that he's 15 chances are good that in a few short years he'll be a favorite even if all three absentees are playing.

(2) Inventichess: After four rounds, Bacrot and Sutovsky lead with 3 points apiece, half a point ahead of Sasikiran and A. Muzychuk.

(3) Short-Efimenko. Short bounced back from yesterday's loss, winning with Black to even the match at a game apiece. Short played a line of the Open Ruy once thought dubious but since rehabilitated. Efimenko had a slight advantage and some prospects for a kingside attack, but good defense and a timely pawn sac on the queenside balanced the chances. It stayed equal for a good while, but in mutual time trouble Efimenko went astray. Black regained his material, collected interest, and then crashed through against White's king. (You can replay the game, with my comments, here.)

(4) Kasparov-Karpov: Starts at 1 p.m. ET, if I'm not mistaken (6 p.m. London time)!

That Bobby Fischer's father was not Gerhardt Fischer but Paul Nemenyi has been known for some time now. What is news, however, is that Fischer knew this - apparently from an early age.

More here.

HT: Brian Karen

Nigel Short was the ratings favorite and enjoyed the White pieces for game one; so what? Zahar Efimenko clearly wasn't too impressed by either, and won in good style. After feinting from Short, the opening resolved into a Sozin Sicilian. Short played the relatively rare 8.a3 and the novel 10.Re1, apparently aiming to achieve a quick e5. Efimenko's 13...e5! put a stop to that, and while it was a pawn sac in the short term, the move more or less forced White to sac the exchange. The burden was on Short to prove and maintain compensation, and at least today he was unable to do it.

An impressive game for Efimenko, and you can replay it (with my notes) here.

It wasn't easy, and for quite a while it looked like a replay of last week's game - right down to the dishonest/incompetent referees taking away an obvious ND touchdown. Fortunately, the Michigan State QB choked on two consecutive plays and Notre Dame escaped. (That's possibly a mixed blessing. On the one hand, ND won, and that's good. On the other hand, a loss would have guaranteed that Charlie Weis's unemployment, and in the long run that might be even better for the team.)

Dessert: USC had its yearly choke to an inferior team, somehow contriving to lose to UW 16-13.

ND record: 2-1.
Next victim: Purdon't.

Lots of pre-game goodies here. Enjoy them, then tune in to NBC at 3:42 p.m. ET to watch the Fighting Irish demolish the Michigan State Spartans.

Go Irish!

As mentioned in the previous post, Etienne Bacrot won a spectacular game in round 1 of the InventiChess 2009 tournament, and you can replay it (with my brief comments) here.

I've already mentioned some (but not all) of these events, but it seemed like a good moment to mention all of them together, in one convenient place.

Ongoing:

1. Maotai Prince Cup National Chess King Championship: This is a very strong Chinese event, with three (at least erstwhile) 2700s and the 16-year old champ Ding Liren.

2. The Dutch Championship. Prodigy Anish Giri leads with 4.5/6.

3. InventiChess 2009 in Antwerp, Belgium. This strong event started yesterday and headlines Bacrot, Sutovsky, Sasikiran, Sargissian, Howell and Timman. Bacrot won a spectacular first round game (stay tuned for a later post), and special mention goes to the two female participants - Stefanova and A. Muzychuk - who both beat their higher-rated opponents.

Upcoming:

1. Short-Efimenko. This 6-game match starts tomorrow. The first round begins at 1:30 p.m. local time (that's in Mukachevo, Ukraine), with subsequent rounds starting at 3:30. 9/23 is the free day. Live coverage here (and no doubt, via instant relay, on all the major chess servers as well).

2. Kasparov-Karpov in Valencia. The "event" starts Monday, but the part of the event we care about - them playing each other - doesn't seem to start until Tuesday, as far as I can tell. As I understand it, they play rapid games on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by blitz games on Thursday.

3. 2nd Nanjing Pearl Spring. This ultra-heavy duty event goes from September 27 through October 9 in Nanjing, China, and is a double round-robin with the following stars:

Topalov 2813
Carlsen 2772
Leko 2762
Radjabov 2757
Jakovenko 2742
Wang Yue 2736

It's the first time Topalov has played in a while, and it will be even more interesting to see what turbo-Carlsen, fortified with Vitamin K(asparov), will be able to do.

Sources: Chess Today and TWIC.

I'm not sure about the name of the program*, but it's an hour-long interview show. It would have been great if the full hour was devoted to them, but we do get ten minutes of the dynamic duo. The show can be seen here, and the host starts to introduce them just after the 43 minute mark (which you can scroll to). (Don't worry, non-Norwegians, they are interviewed in English.)

* Minor Update: The name of the program is "Skavland".

Apposite the previous post, here's an old profile article on Adam Lief, dug up by Brian Karen. (Unfortunately, my loss to him gets mentioned there too. A correction, though; I was 18 at the time of the game, not 19.) I note with a little amusement his suggestion that he might become world champion in 1991, but then what young player - myself included - didn't harbor such daydreams when rating points fell to us like leaves on an autumn day?

This week's show is based on an old loss of mine in a Classical Pirc. I omitted one little move, and had to pay the price for it. (And worse still, seemingly the whole world got to see it!) On the other hand, my opponent - the then-talented, now retired Adam Lief - won a very nice game.

So have a look here - the show is free and available on-demand for the next month or so - for an attractive and instructive game. And stay tuned for next week's show, when we'll see that the game is even more interesting and instructive than we might have imagined!

This tournament, which takes place each November in Moscow, seems to get stronger and stronger. The 2009 edition (which runs from November 5-14) will be ridiculously strong, with 8 of the world's top 10:

Viswanathan Anand 2788
Levon Aronian 2773
Magnus Carlsen 2772
Vladimir Kramnik 2772
Peter Leko 2762
Vassily Ivanchuk 2756
Boris Gelfand 2756
Alexander Morozevich 2750
Peter Svidler 2741
Ruslan Ponomariov 2741

The tournament website is here.

HTs: TWIC, Chess Today

According to this news item, Anatoly Karpov is going to play a rapid (15' + 3") match against the champ, Viswanathan Anand, in Bastia and Ajaccio, France, on October 31 and November 2 of this year. Rumor has it that Karpov is also planning a match with the deity, and intends to offer Him pawn and move.

HT: Brian Karen (except for that last part).

The NH Tournament in Amsterdam, which finished a couple of weeks ago, wasn't a great event for Hikaru Nakamura. Some heavy travel the past few weeks may have helped get the flu (or something flu-like), and the result was his worst performance of the year. He only won one game, but the good news is that it was a great one.

The victim was the legendary Alexander Beliavsky, a former World Junior Champion, Candidate and a 4-time Soviet Champion. He's 55, but with a rating of 2662 he remains a member of the elite, if no longer a member of the Grand Slam scene. Best of all, he continues to work very hard at the game, and is renowned for his uncompromising chess (that's the title of his chess autobiography).

In their second game in the event, Beliavsky took his revenge, but in the game we'll look at in this week's ChessBase show, he was the victim. Playing White in a Classical King's Indian, he followed the script and went for the queenside while Nakamura went king-hunting on the other flank. It looked like Beliavsky had the better of it - that was certainly the opinion of the online commentators I saw - but Nakamura's extremely energetic attacking play, replete with sacrifices, led to a successful conclusion.

More than this I will not say, so that if you haven't seen the game, you won't have any of the surprises taken away in advance. So here's what you do: tune in tomorrow night (9 p.m. Wednesday in the Eastern Time Zone; 3 a.m. Thursday morning CET) on the Playchess server. Just log on, go to the Broadcast room and find Beliavsky-Nakamura under the Games tab. Double-click, watch, and enjoy - that's it! Hope to see you then.

Monday saw the start of the third week of the 2009 United States Chess League season, and saw the 2007 and 2008 finalists playing. Dallas beat Boston the last two years to win the championship, but this year their fortunes had gone in the opposite direction. Boston was 2-0 going into this regular season meeting, while Dallas was 0-2. In a cocky mood, the Boston assistant team manager predicted a sweep, and he was right: Dallas destroyed them 4-0. Oops.

Since I'm not involved with a team myself, I'm more interested in the games than in who did what to whom. One game that caught my eye was Charbonneau-D. Schneider from the New York vs. New York Queens match, which I've commented on here. Two Knights fans and foes, take note!

Is this a drawn position?



In the last round of the Women's World Team Championship, in the match between Vietnam (in last place) and China (who wound up winning the event, on tiebreaks, ahead of Russia), White (the Vietnamese player) went 37.Bc5 and offered a draw. The position is not only won, it's easily won and - even better - cannot be honestly lost by anyone not massively intoxicated. White could play on for hundreds of moves without the slightest risk, even though it shouldn't take very long to win the game outright.

But no, the game was drawn, the Chinese drew the match, and won the title. Nice. Perhaps White thought, or will claim to have thought, that the opposite colored bishops guaranteed a draw after something like 37...Bb7 38.Rxa8 Bxa8. In fact White should avoid the rook swap, but even with it, and even with the assumption that Black can draw, it's hard to see why White didn't even try.

To make sure I hadn't lost my mind, I decided to play the position after 38...Bxa8 against Rybka. No takebacks, no looking at its suggestions, just mano-a-computer. Here's the result:

39.Ke3 Kf5 40.Bd6 Bd5 41.a3 Bc6 42.Kd4 Bb5 43.Bb8 (This is a loss of time - I come up with a better plan next move. But the key point here is that it doesn't matter at all. Black can't do anything, White has no risk, and can switch from one plan to another until a successful one is found.) 43...Ke6 44.Be5 Kf5 45.Bc7 (This is the right square, at least for what I have in mind. I'm going to put the bishop on g5 and play h4 so I don't have to worry about the kingside pawns, then bring my king towards the a-pawn. He can take my d-pawn if he wants to, but my pending passed b-pawn will decide matters. Black will not be able to cope with the combined strength b- and f-pawns. Crucially, even if he* can get rid of both at the cost of his bishop, I still have the h-pawn and the right colored bishop.) 45...Ke6 46.Bd8 Kf5 47.Bg5 Ke6 48.h4 Kf5 49.Kc5 Ba4

(This came as a surprise, but 49...Bxd3 50.a4 followed by 51.b5 is hopeless as well. For instance: 49...Bxd3 50.a4 Ke6 51.b5 axb5 52.axb5 Kd7 53.b6 Be4 and now we switch to the kingside: 54.Kd4 Bf3 55.Ke5 Be2 56.f5 Bc4 57.Be3 Ba6 58.Kf6 Bd3 59.Kg5 Be4 60.f6 Ke8 61.Kxh5 followed by pushing the h-pawn, with an inevitable overload of Black's bishop. Or, alternatively, bringing the king back to the queenside. Everything wins. Back now to the main line.)

50.d4 Ke6 51.d5+ Kd7 52.f5 Bb5 53.f6 Ke8 54.d6 Kf7 55.Kb6 Kf8 56.Kc7 Ke8 57.d7+ Bxd7 58.f7+ Kxf7 59.Kxd7 and now White's win is so easy, even a caveman could do it. So if I can beat Rybka, a player only about 150 points weaker than I am should have excellent chances against someone 500 points weaker than Rybka.**

More on this here - and note that this was not the only controversial game in the match!

* The generic pronoun; I haven't changed my opinion about computers!

** I realize that such a scale doesn't always apply, for various reasons. But I think the general point does apply in this case.

To whet your appetite for the forthcoming massacre match in Valencia, you can check out the event website (the Spanish version is here). The translations aren't very good, but there are some fun bits of information (e.g. Karpov is seconded by Bologan). The carnage starts next Monday, the 21st.

Here's the press release from Universal Event Promotion GmbH:

Chess Match 20 – 26 September 2009 Mukachevo (Ukraine)

Among the series of first-class matches organized by Universal Event Promotion we can now count a match between Nigel Short and Zahar Efimenko. These two world class chess players meet each other in the West-Ukrainian town for a classical format match of six games.

The 44-year-old Nigel Short belongs to the greatest of his craft. He caused a stir with numerous successes in his early years and was considered a prodigy. In the World Junior Championship 1980 he won the silver medal behind Garry Kasparov and very soon he became a chess grandmaster at the age of 19, the youngest in the world at that time. After winning several tournaments and his victory against Jan Timman in the Candidates final 1993 he got the opportunity to fight for the highest chess crown. In the match against Garry Kasparov, which took place detached from the World Chess Federation under the aegis of the Professional Chess Association (PCA) and can be considered as the climax in his career, he lost against the mighty Russian 12,5 – 7,5.

Although Short temporarily disappeared from the scene after this defeat he still plays at the highest level to this day and is always a most welcome guest especially because of his dynamic and aggressive play. His current Elo is 2706 whereby he captures the 29th rank in the world.

The 24-year-old Zahar Efimenko belongs to a group of young and talented Ukrainian players. As a youngster, his biggest success was a victory in the World Junior Chess Championship U-14 in Oropesa del Mar. In spite of some strong rivals he plays in the national team and won the Ukrainian championship in 2006. In Germany he is known for his engagement with the Bundesliga team of Werder Bremen. The young Ukrainian, like Short, is known for his constant search for the initiative and for the fact that he has no fear of big names. He is supported by the president of the Universal Event Promotion, Josef Resch, and lives in Mukachevo. His current Elo is 2654 whereby he captures the 83rd rank in the world.

The match between Short and Efimenko promises six high class and exciting games with a totally open result. You can follow the games at the official website of Universal Event Promotion. Will experience prevail against youth in this case? All the games will be covered live and commented on by the experienced Grandmasters Mikhail Golubev and Klaus Bischoff.

Media Contact: Mikhail Golubev, gmi@europe.com (UEP Press Release 13th of September 2009)

Some of the worst zebras I've seen in my life - if they weren't bribed, then they either need seeing eye dogs or to go back to Pop Warner. The other guys' QB deserves lots of credit, though.

Season record: 1-1.
Next victim: Michigan State.

Both Karjakin-Aronian and Shirov-Grischuk were drawn (though Shirov had excellent winning chances before the time control), so the relative standings remain as they were before the round. Aronian, of course, won the tournament, but he had already clinched first prize before the round started.

Final Standings:
1. Aronian 13 (+4 -1 =1)
2. Grischuk 8 (+2 -2 =2)
3. Karjakin 7 (+1 -1 =4)
4. Shirov 3 (-3 =3)

It's another fine result for Levon Aronian, confirming that he, along with players like Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin and Hikaru Nakamura, is a leading young candidate for the world championship. The Anand-Topalov-Kramnik cohort (including Ivanchuk and Gelfand) is still very strong, but they are supplanted Aronian is likely to lead the charge.

U.S. fans of the greatest college football team in history ought to turn on ABC now, to watch Notre Dame dismember Michigan. Post-game gloating will begin in approximately three hours; meanwhile, here's a little music to get into the right mood:

With his fourth win in a row, Levon Aronian has clinched clear first place in the Grand Slam Final with a round to spare. Facing Alexei Shirov, Aronian used the English Opening with success, perhaps with an eye to avoiding any concrete preparation from his opponent. After 18 moves, the players reached a position with opposite-colored bishops (with queens and both pairs of rooks) and opposing pawn majorities. The key factor, it seems to me, was the persistent superiority of Aronian's bishop; he was able to maintain central control and create tactical possibilities based on the weakness of Black's kingside, while Shirov's bishop was largely a spectator. Shirov first lost one pawn, and in the final position he is going to lose at least one more.

If he had won against Karjakin, Grischuk would have kept a slight chance of tying for first, but he was unable to do so. For a while, he enjoyed an initiative on the white side of a Zaitsev Ruy Lopez, but at a certain point his prospects dissipated and Karjakin's bishops became very powerful. Ultimately, they reached a rook and bishop vs. rook ending - Karjakin enjoyed the extra piece - but with competent and confident use of the "second rank defense", Grischuk held without much difficulty.

Here are the standings entering the final round (starting soon):

1. Aronian 12 (+4 -1)
2. Grischuk 7 (+2 -2 =1)
3. Karjakin 6 (+1 -1 =3)
4. Shirov 2 (-3 =2)

After a rest day, the players began their second three-round cycle with a repetition of round 1's pairings (with colors reversed). Once again Shirov and Karjakin drew (the only two draws of the tournament!). Their game was a Zaitsev Ruy that ended in a perpetual check that could well have been worked out at home before the game started. The other game, Aronian-Grischuk, was a battle of the leaders. Grischuk won their game in round 1, but this time Aronian was successful. Aronian attacked the Chebanenko Slav with a very direct sacrifice/exchange of a piece for three pawns, and it looked like a promising decision. Grischuk returned the piece for those same three pawns a while later, but the resulting rook and bishop ending favored Aronian (better pawn structure for his bishop, plus Black's king was cut off). I don't know when exactly White's advantage became a winning one, but Grischuk, in his perpetual time trouble (he had 2-3 minutes left to reach move 40 by his 22nd move), was unable to cause Aronian many problems.

With two rounds to go, here are the standings (3-1-0 scoring first, with the results given in parentheses):

1. Aronian 9 (+3 -1)
2. Grischuk 6 (+2 -2)
3. Karjakin 5 (+1 -1 =2) (He and Grischuk are 2-2, but how you get to 2-2 matters here.)
4. Shirov 2 (-2 =2)

OK, I'm back from my long vacation, and will resume normal, full-scale blogging pretty soon. First, I have to catch up on life and recover from jet-lag (I was in Greece), but hopefully that won't take too long.

We continue our look at some highlights from the career of the late great David Bronstein (1924-2006). Last week, we looked at some quick, clean tactical kills, but this time our examples are deeper and rely more on judgment and intuition than calculation. They are not any less entertaining for this, and in fact they offer more scope for investigation - and there are several places in our presentation this week where that would be appropriate. (Indeed, there is one moment where I explicitly recommend it.)

So have a look (links should be available here and/or here); the show is free and will be available on-demand for the next month or so.

Between the Sofia rules and the 3-1-0 scoring, drawing is neither easy nor especially desirable in Bilbao. Whether this accounts for the fact that only one game has been drawn so far is unclear, but it might be part of the story.

Tonight, both games finished with a decisive result, and fairly quickly. Shirov lost on the White side of an old main line Marshall. To judge by the time used, Shirov was surprised by Aronian's 20th move, and resigned after only 29 moves. Maybe his position was already uncomfortable, but the combination of 25.Re2 with 27.Ree1 makes an unhappy impression. In the final position, Black threatens to win the queen with the sadistic 30...Bg4 31.Qg2 h3, and White doesn't have any way to stop it without allowing the complete disintegration of his kingside.

Karjakin - Grischuk saw the end of the latter's perfect score. Karjakin went for a kingside buildup in a closed Zaitsev Ruy, and although Grischuk achieved the thematic ...d5 break it wasn't enough to equalize. Karjakin was able to keep building, and finished with fireworks, starting with the strong and flashy 31.Ng4. A nice game by the youngster, who also took advantage of Grischuk's time pressure. (As did Aronian with Shirov's zeitnot in the other game.)

After 3 rounds, the scores look like this (the official 3-1-0 scores are given first, the normal scores in parentheses):

1-2. Aronian, Grischuk 6 (2-1)
3. Karjakin 4 (1.5-1.5)
4. Shirov 1 (.5-2.5)

It's for a good cause (fund-raising for medical research and UNICEF), but perhaps Karpov should have waited to see how he does against Kasparov in a couple of weeks before agreeing to a second rapid & blitz match in December.

More details here. Meanwhile, between training Carlsen and now agreeing to two informal matches against Karpov, I'm starting to wonder if Kasparov is oozing his way back into real chess.

Grischuk won again, showing good endgame technique to defeat Shirov, while Aronian bounced back from his first round loss to defeat Karjakin. So after two rounds, the standings look like this:

1. Grischuk 6 (remember, it's the 3-1-0 scoring system; he's 2-0 on the standard method)
2. Aronian 3 (1-1)
3-4. Karjakin, Shirov 1 (.5-1.5)

To wit, Garry Kasparov is working with Magnus Carlsen. Really. (More here.) This is not good news for Topalov, Anand, Kramnik, Aronian, Radjabov, Karjakin, Nakamura or anyone else with realistic world championship ambitions for the future, but it makes for a very exciting prospect for chess fans.

Just the results, ma'am (and sir):

Grischuk - Aronian 1-0
Karjakin - Shirov 1/2-1/2

Round 2 is underway, and both games are still in theory. Grischuk - Shirov is a Wade Variation Meran Semi-Slav, while Aronian - Karjakin is a 4.e3 Nimzo-Indian (the Bronstein Variation of the Gligoric System, the server's ECO command informs me).

The participants are Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk, Alexei Shirov and Sergey Karjakin; play begins at 5 p.m. CET/11 a.m. ET.

The event uses the 3-1-0 scoring system, so it's not clear to me if this is really chess or not. (Yes, I'm serious...mostly. I definitely think such events should not be rated.) Still, it's close enough that I'll watch, and with four very interesting players it ought be an entertaining tournament.

Official site here.

One down, eleven to go.

Next victim: Michigan.

Go Irish!

At one point a ChessVideos viewer expressed an interest in a David Bronstein "Best-Of" show, and that seemed like a good idea. So good an idea, in fact, that we'll have two: one this week and one next week. Bronstein was one of the greatest and most creative players in the middle third of the 20th century, and every generation of chess players ought to rediscover this legend of the game for themselves.

To help in that regards, I've compiled a number of his tactical "greatest hits", iconic combinations which will impress themselves in your memory for the rest of your chess career. I think you'll be begging for more after the show, but don't take my word for it - see for yourself! (Links to the show should be available here or here.)

can be found here. Here's the top 10, followed by the number of games they played in the last rating period:

1. Topalov 2813, 0
2. Anand 2788, 0
3. Aronian 2773, 13
4. Carlsen 2772, 10
5. Kramnik 2772, 10
6. Leko 2762, 23
7. Radjabov 2757, 10
8. Ivanchuk 2756, 42
9. Gelfand 2756, 33
10. Morozevich 2750, 18

Two other notes: First, Nakamura is at #16 on the list (2735, 17), but that's not counting the blow-up at the NH Tournament, which will cost him 22 points. Second, Karpov is off the list for the first time in a long time, possibly since the lists started in or around 1970.

Back now to vacation, really. I won't go on to mention that the USCL's new season started yesterday...or will I? Too late.