The Chess Mind

Grandmaster Igor Ivanov passed away about a week ago, and while he will not soon be forgotten by the people who knew him, I fear his chess may not enjoy the same fate. There are so many great players that it's impossible to study them all, but Ivanov's active positional style produced model games worthy of especially the amateur's attention.

In this week's show, we'll look at a game that started as one of those model efforts, before taking a sharp turn to the realm of fantasy. Facing IM Vitaly Zaltsman's Tarrasch Defense, Ivanov rapidly built up a large positional advantage. Rather than cash it in by normal means, however, Ivanov produced a fantastic sacrificial idea. Sacrificing a pair of exchanges and then a queen for a rook, Ivanov's compensation came in the form of three pawns picked up along the way - deadly, rapacious, and connected passed pawns. Despite the heavy material disadvantage (bishop, knight and seven pawns as material compensation for a queen, rook and four pawns) and some (mutually) inaccurate play (thanks to time trouble, I'm sure), Ivanov was able to reel in the full point.

If I have succeeded in whetting your appetite, I hope you'll join me this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET as we pay tribute to this outstanding figure in American chess. As always, directions for watching the show (or for watching older shows in the archives) can be found here, while a list of games covered by past shows (shows you can watch in those same archives) is available here.

This week, I'll take a look at a game William Ewart Napier described as the best game of his career - and he lost it! To feel that way about a loss, the game would probably have to be a remarkable battle with a special opponent, and it was.

Emanuel Lasker was one of the all-time greats, holding the World Championship title for 27 years, and even afterwards maintaining a world-class level into his late 60s. Perhaps part of the secret of his mental fecundity was its diversity: not only was he skilled in other games (like bridge), he was also an accomplished mathematician who dabbled in philosophy and even wrote a play.

But back to chess. In this game, from the 1904 tournament in Cambridge Springs, Lasker met Napier's Dragon Sicilian with an aggressive attacking plan involving the advance of his kingside pawns. We're used to this nowadays, of course, in the context of the Yugoslav Attack, where White castles queenside and the players attack on opposite wings. In this game, however, Lasker's king remained uncastled, and Napier initiated the melee by blowing open the center.

It is a tactical feast indeed, and although it is a well-known game discussed by generations of commentators, secrets remain. So join me this Monday night at 9 p.m. as we delve, and take the results as the basis for further sleuthing on your own part - what better way to combine enjoyment with the possibility of improvement?

As always, directions for watching the show can be found here, and a list of past show's games is available here.

Nowadays, there's a tendency to think that any chess player over 30 is about to start his downhill slide, if he's not already skiing down the slope to senility. So if you match up a 67-year-old on the one hand and a 19-year-old genius on the other, the result will be perfectly clear: a rout.

And so it was in the game we'll cover this week, but it was the wizened elder administering the punishment, just as he had to several previous generations of whippersnappers. Vassily Ivanchuk was a great talent who has become one of the world's strongest and most creative players, but his opponent, Vasily Smyslov, was no less strong or creative in his own day. Further - and in this respect only Korchnoi and Lasker can compare - Smyslov's prime and near-prime extended for an absolutely insane 40-50 year period! Smyslov was among the world's very best players from the early 1940s, became World Champion in 1957, and remained among the elite through at least the mid 1980s, even making it to the finals of the Candidates' cycle in 1984 before losing to Kasparov.

In this week's game, Smyslov demonstrates the harmoniousness his play is known for. Early in the middlegame, Ivanchuk thinks he has reached a safe, solid position where his queenside play and the opposite-colored bishops will allow him to draw without difficulty, but he is mistaken. Brick by brick, Smyslov builds his position, keeping his opponent from penetrating while slowly improving his own attacking prospects, until a powerful exchange sacrifice allows him to reach a winning endgame.

It's a masterpiece by the former Champion, and, as with almost all his best games, extremely instructive. I hope, therefore, that the combination of aesthetic and educational benefits will encourage you to join me this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET - I think you'll be glad you did!

As always, directions for watching live and archived shows can be found here, while a list of games covered in previous shows (and thus available in the archives) can be found here.

I fear that last week's show might have given my viewers the wrong impression. Contrary to what you might think, it is not necessary to be a grandmaster or even a world champion in order to blunder - even mere masters are capable of the most horrific mistakes, and this week, I'll prove it.

Even though I've never played in a world championship match or a candidates cycle; never played in Wijk aan Zee, Linares or Dortmund; in fact, despite the absence of so much as a single GM norm, I have demonstrated a persistent ability to produce moves even Kasparov would be ashamed to call his very own. Normally, lest my pride get the best of me, I keep these gems under lock and key, far away from the eyes of the chess world at large. I have decided, however, to make an exception just this once, in order to defend my credentials as a presenter. (Not that anyone was challenging them, but one can't be too careful.) As a result, if anyone asks you why you're bothering to watch my show each week, you can point to my games, and in so doing help them make their case.

Accordingly, skeptics and those delighting in others' misery are enjoined to show up this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET. Entertainment is likely and instructional value, unappealing though it may be, is bound to emerge as well. Those eager to delight in my shame, but not sure how to watch the carnage, are invited to read this post (c'mon, watching is free - and what better occasion to try it out?), while those of you who want to know what I present when I'm not demonstrating my own gaffes are invited to have a look here.

Good news, chess fans: my last six ChessBase shows are now both archived and available for your replaying pleasure. Thus, if you missed any of these shows

Morozevich-Svidler
Khalifman-Polgar
Short-Kasparov
Shirov-Gelfand
Gelfand-Dreev
Halloween 2005

and wanted to see them in the archives, now you can.

As always, directions for watching archived shows (as well as live ones) can be found here.

Enjoy!