The Chess Mind

According to this report relayed via the ChessBase news site, 15-year-old Gaston Needleman was picked on by a mob of scheming grandmasters.

In brief, this is the story: the American Continental Championships had just ended, with Cuban GM Lazaro Bruzon taking clear first and seven players (6 GMs + Needleman) tied for second, half a point behind. A total of seven players from the tournament would qualify for next year's FIDE World Cup, an important and prestigious event, so the seven second-place finishers needed a playoff for the six remaining spots.

According to the aforementioned report, five of the six GMs struck a deal to agree amongst themselves to quick draws - only Ruben Felgaer, Needleman's Argentinian colleague, demurred - and to devote all their energies to pounding the youngster. And the plan succeeded. (Boo! Hiss!)

I spent the better part of an hour posting on the ethics of this plot. I began with a little intro about the philosophical paradox of the heap, then used it to launch a discussion about pre-arranged draws. (Here's the gist: It doesn't seem (too) bad if two friends or relatives pre-arrange a draw, but in the anti-Needleman case it seems extremely unsporting. What's the principled difference? Where does the line get crossed between harmless (if not ideal) and scandalous?) As it now looks, however, the story was at the very least an exaggeration, at worst a libelous fabrication.

You can read the original account on the link above, which has recently been edited to include a further link to a comment on Mig's Daily Dirt in which Needleman himself seems to refute the story. (Though it's not quite conclusive. Maybe everyone started out playing real games, but as soon as Needleman was in danger of not qualifying, the draw machine began to grind.) In any case, I hope the full truth comes out in a public and completely unambiguous way soon, to clear the wrongly maligned reuptations of those who are innocent.

In this post, I addressed Bill Vallicella's question about the Chigorin's anti-French variation 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2. In my view, it's an acceptable sideline, although it doesn't promise White an advantage against reasonably accurate Black play, and has the drawback of allowing Black a great deal of flexibility in choosing how to meet it.

Ironically, while I hadn't seen a game with that variation in a long time, Vadim Zvjaginsev essayed it against Alexander Morozevich in their round 6 game from the ongoing Ordix Open. As one would expect from two such creative players, their game left the beaten track in a hurry. I'm both too tired and too busy to analyze it (and even if I wasn't, I'm not sure I'd have a clue as to what was really going on!), but it's worth presenting - have a look.

Bill Vallicella comments, in response to my post If I Want to be a Role Model, I'd Better Change My Openings:

Nice post, Dennis. I beat a kid at the U. S. Open last night who responded to my French defense with 2. Qe2. It got me out of the book, but other than that it leaves something to be desired even with the KIng bishop fianchetto. Any thoughts?

Of course! On the assumption that Bill also wants to know what those thoughts are, I'll continue. First, it's actually an old and relatively common sideline. The variation was invented (or discovered, if you prefer) by late 19th-early 20th century Russian great Mikhail Chigorin, who first employed it in his drawn 1893 St. Petersburg match with Siegbert Tarrasch. The idea is to prevent Black's fundamental French idea of ...d5, as 2...d5 3.exd5 forces 3...Qxd5, leaving Black a rather passive structure. Black can prepare an eventual ...d5 by placing a piece on e7, but the most common continuation for each side runs like this:

1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 c5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.g3 g6 5.Bg2 Bg7 6.O-O Nge7 7.c3 O-O 8.d3 d6

8...d5 is also possible, but allows White a good King's Indian Attack position after 9.e5. After 8...d6, Black has a very solid, flexible position, and for this reason 2.Qe2 isn't particularly popular.

But is it junk? Is this the sort of opening, or more precisely, an opening exemplifying the sort of win-on-the-cheap attitude I railed against? Probably not. The Chigorin variation doesn't offer White any easy, trappy winning lines. To win, White will have to play a full-blooded game; if anything, the more popular lines give White more opportunities for a quick win than this variation!

But lines like 2.Qe2 have their virtues; I'll offer three. First, they are labor-saving devices. To properly play the main lines of the French requires a reasonably substantial commitment of time and energy, and takes a while even for those willing to spend the time to do it right. Second, the main lines are more likely to be the opponent's "home turf", so even if one spends a good deal of time on the main lines, it still may not negate the depth of the opponent's preparation and understanding. So a related third point is that if the sideline is fundamentally sound and gives you a position you like, then you may achieve a psychological and a practical edge by playing it. (Check out my post What Do All Those Crazy Symbols Really Mean?)

In sum, while I think there are good reasons to study main lines, there is a place in a responsible player's repertoire for variations that, though somewhat off the beaten track, are fundamentally sound.

In response to my post If I Want to be a Role Model, I'd Better Change My Openings, sbb1cpa asks

Do you have any gambits you like? There was an interesting Morra Gambit in the July Chess Life between Lenderman and Mirabile, both over 2200. Is playing gambits a good way to practice tactics and aggressive play, or should a beginner stick to one of the more traditional openings?

I have nothing against gambits per se, just as, to repeat the metaphor in the post, I have nothing against dessert. The problem is with the get-rich-quick mentality that underlies many players' use of gambits.

Of course, gambits can be used "to practice tactics and aggressive play". But gambit play is neither necessary nor sufficient to that end. Many gambits can be safely declined, often with the result that the position becomes rather dull, and quickly. Two examples:

First: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 - hoping for excitement - 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.e3 Nxe5 5.Nh3, when the tactical fun is gone and the struggle revolves around positional elements like White's control over the d5 square.

Second: 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 - hoping for the wild times of the Goring or Danish gambits - 3...d5 4.exd5 Qxd5 5.cxd4 Nc6 6.Nf3 Bg4 7.Be2 Bb4+ 8.Nc3 Bxf3 9.Bxf3 Qc4 offers White only equality in the non-scintillating endings that result from 10.Qb3 or 10.Bxc6+ bxc6 11.Qe2+.

Thus playing a gambit is not sufficient to guarantee a crazy, tactical position. But neither is it necessary: main line Sicilians and King's Indians, to take just two prominent openings from the Fischer and Kasparov repertoires, lead to positions far richer and more complex than anything the mid-19th century swashbucklers ever dreamed of.

To recapitulate: I'm not interested in denigrating gambits per se (except the Latvian, I suppose), nor do I wish to endorse any now. Playing gambits can lead to tactically rich positions, but it doesn't guarantee it, and there are plenty of "normal" lines that will achieve the same goal. But the bottom line, and my main point, really, is that the policy of playing trappy, second-rate openings to win quick games represents a self-stultifying attitude that ought to be eschewed, especially by young, developing players.

Four days ago, in my post What Do All Those Crazy Symbols Really Mean?, I took a couple of potshots at what I take to be the worst opening in chess, the Latvian Gambit. Happily, no one wrote in to sing its praises, but as if on cue, one of my occasional students - a bit bored of the Dragon - asked me on Thursday what I thought of the Latvian.

Closer to the sensible side of things (but not much!), another student and an acquaintance from the local club independently asked to be taught the Schliemann - in both cases under the influence of my wins over Winslow and Yudasin. You might think I'd find that flattering and welcome them to the Schliemann club, but I instead did what I could to scare them away, and for two reasons.

The first reason is that although the Schliemann was a pretty reasonable surprise weapon when I took it up in the early 80s, it's now surprising only to those players who haven't joined the computer revolution in chess. White has at least four good approaches and gets to choose the style of play, too. In short, the value of the Schliemann has been sharply reduced, and is completely unsatisfactory as a main line.

But there's a second reason I've tried to scare them off: I don't want them to have the buy-a-video, get-rich-quick attitude typical of a consumer culture in general and many chess players in particular. It's very easy to learn some junk opening, and there are cranks a-plenty peddling their garbage in print, video and on the internet. One will win a few games with it recycling the same stupid trap over and over, learn nothing, get bored, get tired of losing when opponents avoid the trap, and move on to the next rubbish heap. (There's always a new DVD. In my opinion, they should be treated like ads for diets and email spam: shunned or reported to the relevant authorities, but by no means entertained.)

I don't think the Schliemann is quite as bad as the lines I'm railing against, but it's not good, either; certainly not as a primary weapon. I haven't played it that regularly for a long time (in part because I often play worse!), but even so, it's time for me to throw it and some other bits of my opening repertory overboard - if not for my sake, then for my students! Let me be clear, in case I sound like the Grinch. Silly and offbeat lines are fine. They have their place and even some value. So does dessert. But parents who give their kids cake and ice cream in place of real food are doing them a huge disservice, and likewise with the chess teacher who gives his or her kids the trick of the week in place of a real repertory.

And I need to lead by example.

There are eight basic evaluation symbols used by chess annotators. They are as follows, given with their standard interpretations:

+- White is winning (has a decisive advantage)

+/- White has a clear advantage

+= White has a slight advantage

= The position is equal

=+ Black has a slight advantage

-/+ Black has a clear advantage

-+ Black has a decisive advantage

∞ The position is unclear

We look at a position and we want to know the truth. What's really happening here? What's the objective fact of the matter? That's part of what we expect a good annotator to tell us, and he or she does so by virtue of the symbols/evaluations above.

But something's strange here. If annotators are giving us the objective truth of the matter, then since there are only three possible results (not counting oddities like double forfeits), it seems we have five symbols too many! Objectively speaking, every position is either drawn and thus equal, winning for White, or winning for Black. Period.

How then should we understand slight and clear advantages and the unclear symbol? I think there are several, not mutually exclusive possibilities:

+=/=+ admits of at least three interpretation:

SA1. White/Black has a psychologically more comfortable position.

SA2. White/Black is more inaccuracies away from a loss than the opponent.

SA3. White/Black can expect to score about (say) 6 points out of 10 from this position when playing a true peer.

Both SA1 and SA3 are person-relative rather than objective. Re SA1, an omniscient chess player would presumably feel equally comfortable on either side of a position he, she or it can infallibly prove drawn. And re SA3, if the position is drawn giving omniscient peers, then there are no slight (dis)advantages for such players - which is what we'd expect. Finally, SA2 offers a semi-objective definition, in that it tries to find an in-principle, mind-independent feature underlying the advantage.

I think together, the three definitions offer a helpful way of understanding the notion of a slight advantage. Further, SA1 in particular is useful when deciding upon an opening repertoire. Maybe a grandmaster feels more comfortable on the White side of opening line X, but at the amateur level Black is more comfy. (Perhaps because Black has an initiative of a sort GMs know how to neutralize, but amateurs don't.)

Further reflection on these definitions and on situations where they might conflict could be of value, but let's move on to the notion of a clear advantage. An initial difficulty is that it's not clear (no pun intended) if it refers to an objectively winning position that's relatively likely to be drawn, or an objectively drawn position that's likely to be won. So we'll have a further bifurcation:

+/- and -/+ can be understood in at least the following ways:

CA1. White/Black is winning, but technical precision, a high degree of accuracy, or some inaccuracies from the opponent, must be present before the advantage is best classified as decisive.

CA2. The position is drawn, but Black/White is only a small error away from a losing position.

CA3. White/Black is likely to score about (say) 8 out of 10 against a peer.

For those of us used to checking with our analytical engines, we're used to seeing a numerical range affixed to the clear advantage sign, and there's a pretty substantial range between a slight and a decisive advantage. Perhaps, then, we might think of some "clear advantages" as draws that can become wins, and others as wins that can become draws. Thus CA1 reflects what we could call a "large clear advantage" and CA2 a "slight clear advantage". Maybe the best way to capture the essence of the term, then, is the following:

CA4. White/Black has an advantage such that (1) the opponent's position is distinctly undesirable, but (2) not yet obviously lost. (If I may be permitted a semi-joke, it's roughly like Black's position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5?)

On now to "unclear". This fine term is the most polysemous of all:

U1. The annotator has no idea what the heck is going on.

U2. The annotator is too lazy to figure out what's going on.

U3. The annotator may know what's going on, but sure isn't going to tell you. (This is a common trick in opening annotations.)

U4. The annotator knows that one side or the other is in trouble, but since the weaker side has a vaporous initiative and the annotator is promoting a book/article/video/CD/DVD supporting the crappy opening played by the weaker side, he inserts the unclear symbol before the true evaluation is obvious. ((Mildly) exaggerated examples: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5?∞; 1.e4 e6 2.c4 d5 3.cxd5 exd5 4.Qb3?!/? dxe4 5.Bc4∞)

U5. The annotator thinks the position can be evaluated in one of the other ways listed, but the position is too volatile for him to have a high degree of confidence in that alternative evaluation.

U6. "Unclear" generally connotes the annotator's inability to express a honest preference for one side or the other, but occasionally it is used as a modifier of another evaluative term. (For example: "After Kasparov's move the win is obvious, while the showy 36.Be6 Nxe6 37.dxe6 Rxf2 was unclear." The annotator might mean that the evaluation is totally up in the air, but he might also mean that it's only unclear that Kasparov is still winning in the sideline.)

To summarize and apply our discussion of this last term, when you see "unclear" in a regular opening book, beware and do your own analysis. In an opening book advocating some "underrated" (read: garbage) opening, assume the author is, shall we say, optimistic, and assume the line is bad in the absence of your own analysis to the contrary.

In short, beware.

P.S. My digs at the Latvian Gambit were not intended as critiques of any particular author or book.

P.P.S. A future post may examine the even wackier world of exclams and question marks; there too, distinctions can be made between orthodox textbook definitions and the various ways they are used in the real world.