The Chess Mind

The late Lev Polugaevsky (1934-1995) was one of the greatest players of his era, three times winning the Soviet championship and making it to the Candidates matches no less than four times. Additionally, he was an adept in the art of opening preparation (most famously in the eponymous Polugaevsky Variation of the Najdorf Sicilian), and to add to this he was the author of one of the greatest chess books of all time, Grandmaster Achievement.



While I heartily recommend that work, our focus for the show is his chess, and the game I've found this week is not only instructive, entertaining, and meriting the usual pile of adjectives; it's also quirky! Polugaevsky presents his win over Estonian great Paul Keres (from Tallinn 1973) in his book Grandmaster Performance in the chapter "The Touchstone of Mastery." Here he culls games in which he managed to successfully carry out "a complete strategic plan", writing of past greats that "[t]heir games are notable for the steadfast carrying out of a plan, and their play never gives the impression of being jerky."

You would imagine from this that the win over Keres exhibits very direct, very straightforward play. This is the aim, and to achieve it this piece goes here, that one goes there, a third one finds its place and the opponent collapses. There is some of that, yes. But it's remarkable how many times something slightly different takes place. Polugaevsky repeatedly wants to move a piece to square x, but first moves it to square y, chasing or luring Keres to move a piece to an inferior location, and only then does he move to square x. The effect of these little half- and false-steps is to keep wrong-footing the opponent, and it works to perfection. Poor Keres never manages to untangle his forces, and Polugaevsky wins convincingly.

There is much to appreciate in the game - you'll see - but it's worth tuning in to add the stutter step approach to your repertoire of tricks. Just tune in at 9 p.m. ET tonight (Wednesday night; it's 3 a.m. CET Thursday morning for the European viewers) on the Playchess server to watch. (Once you log on, go to the Broadcast room and find Polugaevsky-Keres under the "Games" tab.) Hope to see you then.

During the knockout event that was the 1999 FIDE World Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada, there were upsets a-plenty. Nisipeanu knocked out Ivanchuk and Shirov; Fedorov defeated Timman (after Timman had beaten a very young Aronian); Movsesian beat Leko; Georgiev beat Svidler; Adams beat Kramnik; Akopian beat Adams; Khalifman beat Kamsky, Gelfand and Polgar - and on and on it went. Around the time of the semi-finals, when only Adams, Akopian, Nisipeanu and Khalifman were left, Garry Kasparov - then still in possession of the other world championship title - infamously and dismissively dubbed most of the participants in the FIDE event "tourists".

Needless to say, few of the participants were amused by this remark, which was supposed to mean that (with few exceptions) the players were hoping to get lucky but weren't really contenders - just there to see the sights. Both of the finalists, Alexander Khalifman (who won) and Vladimir Akopian, reacted in their own way. Khalifman criticized Kasparov and the super-tournament system, arguing that it served to protect participants' ratings while excluding a large group of players who could also compete successfully at that level, given the chance. As for Akopian, his response came over the board.



Akopian (born in December of 1971) didn't win that FIDE k.o. event, but he won the world u-16 and u-18 championships (and early, too, when he was 14 and 16, respectively), has enjoyed a 2700+ rating on many occasions, and has to his credit wins over many of the world's elite, including Kramnik (when the latter was world champion) and Kasparov himself.

The year was 2002, and the event was a Russia vs. the Rest of the World team event in Moscow. This was their first tournament meeting in several years, and Akopian undoubtedly came to the board with something to prove. And prove something, he did, demolishing the world's #1 and probably greatest-ever player in just 25 moves. They played again some time later that year, in the Olympiad, and Kasparov didn't beat him that time either; in fact, Kasparov's career score against Akopian in tournament games was a dim +0 -1 =3.*(He did beat him 5-0 in some internet blitz games in 1998, and in a clock simul in 1986 when Kasparov was world champ and Akopian probably 14.)

We'll discuss the game, and the purely chess lessons to be drawn from it, tonight at 9 p.m. ET (Thursday 3 a.m. CET). To watch, log on, enter the Broadcasts room and then either look for Kasparov-Akopian under the games tab or double-click on my handle (Initiative). It's simple and it's free. As for the psychological lessons, at least one should be obvious: don't insult your future opponents!

Hope to see you there tonight.

* (Kasparov did beat him 5-0 in some internet blitz games in 1998, and in a clock simul in 1986 when Kasparov was world champ and Akopian probably 14. But when they played as adults, when it counted, Kasparov got nowhere; in fact, he was very close to losing a second game to Akopian back in 1995.)

Uzbek GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov may not be a regular in the Linares-type events (though he is playing in the FIDE Grand Prix in Nalchik, starting today), but he is a player whose games deserve to be better known by the chess public. He's a sometime-2700 (currently 2695) who won the FIDE k.o. event in Tripoli 2004. To do so, he had to go through an insane gauntlet that included Vassily Ivanchuk, Alexander Grischuk, Veselin Topalov and Michael Adams. Such a feat by itself is enough to establish someone as a great player, and while he hasn't replicated that performance, he could do so at any time. He is also one of the world's strongest rapid players, is still young (29), and has a very lively, tactically-oriented style.

Like many contemporary GMs, he is outstanding in the field of opening preparation - so much so in his case that he was invited to be one of world champion Viswanathan Anand's seconds for his match with Vladimir Kramnik. Since he was the driving force behind the powerful idea in the Semi-Slav that practically won Anand the match, we can say that the world champion made an excellent decision in bringing him aboard.

With this brief resume behind us, let's turn to the game we'll cover in today's show. Taking on Bosnian GM Borki Predojevic in the 2007/8 Bundesliga, we get to see the conjunction of Kasimdzhanov's great skill in preparation, together with his considerable ability as an attacker. Predojevic essayed Morozevich's sharp 11...g5 line in the Slav, leading some moves later to a complicated position with opposite-side castling and mutual attacking chances. Prior games, including one by Predojevic himself, seemed to indicate that Black had reasonable chances, but Kasimdzhanov very convincingly showed that this was not the case. He found a great idea in his preparation, but that wasn't enough to finish the game; he needed to find some brilliant moves at the board to deliver the knockout punch. And he did.

It's a beautiful game and theoretically significant, too. Kasimdzhanov's attack is also instructive, highlighting a number of general themes we can all use in our own play. I think you'll enjoy the game, so please join me tonight (Wednesday night) at 9 p.m. ET (that's 3 a.m. CET Thursday morning) for our presentation. It's free to watch, as always: just log on to the Playchess.com server at the start time, go to the Broadcasts room, click on the Games tab and select Kasimdzhanov-Predojevic.

I hope and expect to see everyone there - except perhaps the CPAs.

Talking trash in chess didn't start with Bobby Fischer or Garry Kasparov. For better or worse, it's an old tradition, and we have a perfect example of it in our game for this week.

Ukranian-German grandmaster Efim Bogoljubow (1889-1952) was one of the strongest players in the world from the mid-20s through at least the early 30s, twice playing Alexander Alekhine for the world championship. He was unsuccessful on both occasions, but the fact that he twice contended says something about his strength. He won the major tournament in Moscow 1925 ahead of Emanuel Lasker and the then-world champion, Jose Raul Capablanca, and won many other tournaments as well.

As I said, he defeated Capablanca (1888-1942) in that tournament,

and in the tournament book for Moscow 1925 wrote the following:

"Further, it is apparent that Capablanca finds it very difficult to separate himself from his dry style of play. His technique, on the other hand, has been at least equalled by Bogoljubow and is not especially feared by the other masters."

Pretty cocky fellow, that Bogoljubow. Yes, he had won a prestigious event, but Capablanca was the world champion and lauded as an all-time great. Further, Capablanca had beaten "Bogo" in their individual game in the tournament, so a bit more humility might have been in order. At any rate, I imagine that everyone reading this knows what happened in their next game.

It took a while to occur, as tournaments were rarer in those days, but they next met in Bad Kissingen 1928. Capablanca had lost his crown to Alekhine the year before, and Bogoljubow's star was still on the rise - he would play his first match with Alekhine a year later. In fact, to Bogoljubow's credit, he won the tournament. In round 9, though, his game with Capablanca went exactly according to the script. They very quickly reached an endgame, one that started with Bogoljubow enjoying at least equality, and from that point on he was completely and brutally outplayed. On move 20, he was equal or possibly a touch better; by move 32, he was simply lost, and without having made any outright blunders.

It's a good story, but it's also an instructive game. Capablanca's endgame technique was almost always at an extremely high level, and there is much we can learn from him. Further, this particular ending is useful because of the pawn structure - it's one that arises fairly often in games of every level. And finally, the finish is very nice; a beautiful way of finishing the humiliation Bogo should have felt in light of his earlier comments. There's a lesson to be learned, and it's not just a chess lesson.

To see the details in all their glory, it's simple. Log on to the Playchess.com server at 9 p.m. ET/3 a.m. CET tonight (Wednesday night/Thursday early morning), go to the Broadcast Room and select Bogoljubow-Capablanca from the Games tab. That's all there is to it, and the show is free. Hope to see you then.

It's well known that Albert Einstein was a friend of former world chess champion (and mathematician) Emanuel Lasker. It's also known that Einstein could play chess, though he reportedly disliked the competitive aspect. That said, he was a great player, even though he never really pursued the game.



The physics world's gain was our loss; as you'll see tonight, his abilities were remarkable. Just tune in tonight at 9 p.m. ET (that's 3 a.m. Thursday morning, CET) and see for yourself! The show is free; all you have to do is log on to the Playchess.com server, go to the Broadcasts room, look under the Games tab for Einstein, double-click, sit back and enjoy. (It takes longer to read the directions than to follow them.)

See you then.