The Chess Mind

Nowadays practically every chess fan knows about Alexei Shirov, and rightly so. Not only has Shirov been near the top of world chess for over a decade, but his brilliance in wildly complicated positions has made him a big fan favorite.

In many ways, however, John Nunn offered the chess world something similar. (Past tense: according to his latest memoir, Grandmaster Chess Move by Move, his days as a professional player are over.) Though never quite reaching Shirov's heights in the world's pecking order, Nunn has been an elite grandmaster for over two decades and a truly feared attacking player.

Put the two together and the fireworks fly - and in our game for this week, it's Shirov who gets burned. In their game from the 1995 Donner Memorial in Amsterdam, Shirov meets Nunn's beloved King's Indian with the Classical Variation with 9.Ne1. The traditional White-on-the-queenside vs. Black-on-the-kingside race ensues, and on this occasion Black was faster. Shirov attempts to stall the attack by giving up a knight for three pawns, but it doesn't work. The exchange altered the complexion of the game, but left White with holes a-plenty, leading to a decisive second wave of the attack. With his king on e6, about to be mated, Shirov resigned.

It's an impressive win for Nunn, but hardly out of the ordinary, as the reader can easily verify by looking through collections of his games. I hope this week's show will my encourage my viewers to further investigate his career - one could do far worse in seeking a model attacking player.

As always, directions for watching live shows (free every Monday at 9 pm ET on the playchess.com server) or those in the archives can be found here, while a list of games covered in the nearly two years I've been doing the show can be found here.

Although Aron Nimzowitsch was never the world chess champion, very few players can match his contributions to the game. Not only was Nimzowitsch one of the world's best players in his day, his contributions to opening theory (e.g. the Nimzowitsch Defense [1.e4 Nc6] and especially the Nimzo-Indian [1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4]) and chess theory in general (e.g. his emphasis on prophylaxis and blockade) have ensured his fame for as long as human beings continue to play chess.

This week's show (Monday night at 9 pm ET) will highlight almost all of the above: against Paul Johner, our star plays the Nimzo-Indian, devises a brilliant blockading plan that snuffs out Johner's attacking dreams, and then finally crushes him with a perfectly prepared and efficiently executed attack.

The game is worth seeing on its own merits, but if you face the "Nimzo" or are considering taking it up, this is an especially great show for you to watch! (And it's free.) Curious about how? Simple: click here for directions - and you'll learn how to access past shows as well. (If you're curious about the games I've covered in those past shows, the list is here.)

Savielly Tartakower is rightly remembered as the game's greatest aphorist. Among his witticisms are these old favorites:

"The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made."
"The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."
"A chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope you have the advantage, the second when you believe you have an advantage, and the third...when you know you're going to lose!" [N.B. I'm away from my books, so those quotes are only as accurate as the website from which I drew them.]

But Tartakower was not just an outstanding humorist; he was one of the world's best players for a good chunk of the first half of the 20th century. A real maverick in the opening, Tartakower was willing to essay romantic and especially hypermodern ideas against the strongest of players. (Among his contributions to opening theory are the Orangutan (1.b4) and the extremely important eponymous variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e3 h6 6.Bh4 O-O 7.Nf3 b6.)

Man does not live by opening innovation alone, however, and Tartakower, as befits a world-class player, excelled in all parts of the game. In this week's show, it is his prowess as an attacker that will be on display, as he defeats Hungarian great Geza Maroczy in style in their game from the 1922 Teplitz-Schonau tournament. The game is relatively famous for Tartakower's rook sacrifice, a sac made all the more impressive because the compensation was purely long-term. There was no immediate payoff and no perpetual check in hand, just an enduring but slow-motion attack.

To play in that way requires a great deal of confidence and an excellent feel for assessing compensation, traits Tartakower possessed in spades. We may not have his imagination, but as we can learn from him and this beautiful and instructive game, I hope you will all join me this Monday night at 9 pm ET as we take a closer look.

As always, directions for watching live or archived shows can be found here, while a list of games covered in previous shows is available here.

P.S. This game reminds me a bit of the later games Krogius-Stein, Kiev 1960 and Kharlov-Topalov, Tripoli (W Ch) 2004, and I think studying these three games deeply and serially would benefit the aspiring player.

Under the influence of Jonathan Rowson's new book Chess for Zebras, this week's ChessBase show will feature the truly bizarre game between Luke McShane and Vasilios Kotronias from the 2003 Gibraltar Masters. It probably helps that the game is a Trompowsky, which lends itself to original positions, but McShane goes above and beyond the call to generate something new and peculiar - in a good way!

How peculiar, you ask? On move 20, he has a knight on b5, his king on e2, and his queen, both rooks, a bishop and a knight on their original squares. The center is open, material is equal, Black has four pieces out, and yet, somehow, White is better! Games like this don't make for very good models, but they are great for loosening up our ideas about what we think we know. (And as Rowson points out, such pseudo-knowledge is one of the major impediments to improvement in adults.)

So join me this Monday night at 9 pm ET, watch an amazing game, learn some "Tromp" theory, and loosen up your categories. It'll do you good!

If you haven't seen one of my ChessBase shows before, it's simple and free - just click here for the details. That post also offers directions for watching archived shows, and if you're curious about the contents of those earlier programs, click here.

[Post-script: I originally (mis-)referred to Rowson's latest work as Chess for Tigers, which is instead the title of a well-known book by the late Simon Webb. CFT isn't a bad book, but it is very different from the one Rowson wrote.]

Scouring my old issues of the sadly defunct Inside Chess for Igor Ivanov games, I came across a neat and almost completely unknown gem played by Czech GM Pavel Blatny. As is the case with most games played in American swiss system tournaments - even those involving titled players - this one never made it to the databases.

Fortunately, the loser of this game, IM John Watson, was so taken with Blatny's magnificent combination that he submitted the game to Inside Chess (vol. 12:3 [March 1999], pp. 36-37), and now, if you join me this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET on the playchess server, you'll get to see this modern masterpiece.

It's a great game (and wait until you see the variations, including one where White is down a queen, two rooks, a bishop and a knight but giving mate with his only remaining piece), and if you're not sure how to tune in, just click here for the directions. That link also includes directions on watching archived shows, and if you're curious as to the contents of the archives, click on this link, wherein I list all the games covered in my previous programs.

Update: A reminder for newcomers: watching live shows is free (with the relevant software, which is itself available for a free one-month trial), while archived shows require a nominal fee of approximately 25 cents. Further details are available through the links in the preceding paragraph.