The Chess Mind

Here's a fun one:

Word was getting around about Bobby Fischer. From the first rumors of a talented kid from Brooklyn, he was now appearing regularly at the speed tournaments, and getting progressively better scores. At one point, however, I had beaten him four times in a row, and he cried at least once, revealing the depth of his intensity for the game. But one night at the Marshall Chess Club rapids we played a French Defense and a very peculiar thing happened. In the middle of the game Bobby made a strong move and I suddenly had an almost physical sense of the power emanating from it. And Bobby moved again with the same effect; it was as if he was playing with dynamic rays of force that I had a heightened sensitivity to. It happened once more, and my position was busted, as the coffee house players would say. I never won another game from Bobby, and I wonder if any other players have had this experience while opposing him.

Who said (or rather, wrote) it?

Some time ago on this blog, there was a discussion about how lost a position should be before one resigned. One opinion expressed a preference for a delayed resignation, so as to allow amateurs to see how exactly the win ought to be achieved. As a general rule, I'm not sure I agree, but it has to be said that the following example helps my interlocutor's case.



White has just played 81.f6 and Keres resigned. Black is indeed losing, and even if the players weren't more than strong enough to figure out over the board why Black is lost, there had been two adjournments prior to this point. For us, however, it might not be immediately evident. It's a good exercise to work out how White wins this, especially against best defense by Black.

The solution, when you're ready for it, is here.

I was browsing Bobby Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games earlier tonight, and came across this position and comment, from his 1960 game against former world chess champion Max Euwe:



Here Fischer played 15.Rb1, writing “The innovation. Months before this game I had showed this line to Benko and he suggested this innocent-looking move. Upon looking deeper I found that, horrible as White’s Pawn structure may be, Black can’t exploit it because he’ll be unable to develop his K-side normally. It’s the little quirks like this that could make life difficult for a chess machine. (P. 135, emphasis added.)

It was this last comment that intrigued me. Did Fischer insightfully predict a problem for computer chess, or was this a perhaps understandable but mistaken assessment of what would or wouldn’t be possible for chess engines? I think there are two aspects to evaluating Fischer’s claim. First, do the engines find 15.Rb1? Second, do they evaluate the situation properly? On the first question, Fischer’s conjecture is a failure. Both Rybka (2.3.2) and Fritz (11) found it instantly. Rybka fluctuated for a little while between that move and 15.c4, in terms of absolute preference, but it settled on Fischer’s move soon enough. What about the evaluation? Euwe played 15…Rd8, which Fischer awards a question mark. Fischer recommends 15…Qxb5 instead, asserting that White has “an enduring pull” after 16.Rxb5 Kd6! 17.Rb7 f6 18.Ke2 Kc6 19.Rf7 a5 20.Be3. How do the computers fare on this score?

Here, perhaps, there's a little more difference. The engines both agree with Fischer that White has some pull, but neither seems all that impressed - both evaluate the position as (much) closer to equality than anything substantial for White. (Details here.) So maybe there's a bit of difference when it comes to evaluating long-term factors. Fischer sees that White can torture Black for a long time in the ending, while the computer thinks that as long as everything is pretty safe at the moment, Black is fundamentally okay. Of course, another possibility is that the computer is right, but it can be said that engines do sometimes tend to underestimate long-term possibilities. On the other hand, it's not at all surprising that the computer liked 15.Rb1, as it brings a piece while impeding Black's development. Why wouldn't it be attractive?

Rather than making a lot of little posts, I'm going to economize my time and lump everything together.

Finished Event: The Mecking-Greenfeld match wound up a 2-2 tie - all four games were drawn.

Ongoing Event: The first round of the World Cup event in Baku was spectacular. Most of the games were drawn, but all were hard-fought and interesting, and some (e.g. Svidler's draw) were picturesque to boot.

Fischer: On the ChessBase site (link in the right sidebar), there's a link to an article on the wrangling over Fischer's estate. (An aside: I'm curious if the information there about Russell Targ is correct - I read somewhere else that he was not interested in pursuing claims on Fischer's will on behalf of his nieces.)

How to Analyze: There's a great article by Alex Cherniack ("A Knight's Tale") on the Boylston Chess Club website, in which he analyzes a knight ending he recently lost in great detail. At some later point, I hope to look at his analysis carefully, but the greatest value of the piece is seeing what he did and using it as a model for one's own games. It's a lot of work, sure, but think of the payoff! Not only that, it becomes fun once one gets used to doing it. Best chess article I've seen so far this year.

Endgame guru Karsten Müller's new column on the Chess Cafe website (permalink here) revisits Bobby Fischer's endgame play, honing in on his 6th game victory in the final Candidates match against Tigran Petrosian in 1971. (But see also the exercises at the end of the article, as well as this earlier Müller column.)

The tournament in Buenos Aires ended this past week, and was won by IM Valerga and Flores Rios with 5.5/9 scores. GM Oscar Panno, the only player in the event from the Fischer era (and who in fact played Fischer), was part of a tie for third, half a point back. Kudos to the organizers for recognizing Fischer (as a chessplayer); hopefully the USCF will follow suit in the not too distant future.

HT: Chess Today

It's time for another installment of our popular new feature, "Quotation Time". Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to identify the writer and discuss the quote:

I took with me several hundred of Fischer's games and set off to the Black Sea for two weeks to prepare for the match. Fischer's games did not provide any surprises with their strategic ideas. These were known to any experienced player from old games (even before Fischer). But the American grandmaster's tactical resourcefulness, his energy in carrying out his plans, and his striving for activity at the very first opportunity were staggering.

To commemorate what would have been Bobby Fischer's 65th birthday, his adopted country of Iceland dedicated the Reykjavik Chess Festival to his memory and arranged a side event starring four of his contemporaries (Pal Benko, Vlastimil Hort, Lajos Portisch and Fridrik Olafsson, with Boris Spassky as the referee and William Lombardy as commentator) to boot. (Portisch and Hort shared first with 4/6, according to Chess Today.) Kudos to Iceland!

Not to be outdone, the United States Chess Federation dedicates 11 pages in the current issue of Chess Life to Fischer. Is that unbelievably awesome or what? Meanwhile, Europe Echecs, a French-language chess magazine, has dedicated all of their current issue to Fischer. This is understandable, given that he never lived nor won any events in France.

Maybe the USCF thinks it's being patriotic or making a stand against Fischer's anti-Judaism; I don't know. I myself am completely repulsed by Fischer's anti-American and anti-Jewish remarks, and I'm not inclined, as many are, to blame this on some sort of mental illness. All the same, to practically disregard one of the greatest players of all time, clearly the greatest American player of all time, and possibly the main reason why the USCF has any financial assets whatsoever, does not speak well on its behalf. Spend a few pages excoriating his vile comments and noting his character flaws and eccentricities - that's appropriate. But give his legacy the attention it deserves, not just a short article by Larry Evans and a few pages of quotations presented in a space-wasting format. Present a special, perhaps extra issue of the magazine dedicated to him. Rename an event for him. Have an invitational event for American players he competed with, like Evans, Pal Benko, Robert Byrne, Arthur Bisguier, et al. In short, pretend Fischer (really) mattered, both to the chess world at large and to the United States in particular...because he did.

...would have been today.

With several tips of the hat to Chess Today, here are some more articles on Fischer you might want to check out:

GM Jonathan Speelman (Guardian)
GM Matanovic for the Chess Informant

Also, there's a Fischer Memorial. Needless to say, it's not in the United States. Lest you think this has to do with (understandable) scruples about Fischer's vile anti-American and anti-Jewish rants, let me remind you that we haven't had any memorial events for Morphy or Fine, either, on the national level. (There have been a couple of fairly big events commemorating Reshevsky, though I don't know the degree to which the USCF was involved.) No, the event will take place in Villa Martelli, Argentina from March 11-19. I suspect that most of the players in the tournament were born after Fischer won the world championship in 1972, but there is one participant who not only lived in Fischer's era, he played in it, too. In fact, he played Fischer himself three times.

That player is GM Oscar Panno, who was for a time in the 1950s (and during a nice run in 1978) one of the best players in the world. Born in 1935, he won the World Junior championship in 1953, became a GM in 1955 and a Candidate a year later. He played three games, as noted above, with Fischer, and each is noteworthy in its own way.

The first, a draw in the 1958 Portoroz Interzonal, is noteworthy in part because of the event, and in part because he drew!

The second game, from Buenos Aires 1970, is noteworthy - and famous - because of Fischer's beautiful concluding combination in a King's Indian Attack.

Finally, the third game is noteworthy for its startling brevity. Played in the last round of the 1970 Interzonal in Palma de Mallorca, Panno became Fischer's 7th consecutive victim (Fischer went on to win thirteen more games in a row!) in a game that went 1.c4 Resigns. Black did not forfeit; he resigned. (Panno refused to play in protest for Fischer's various reschedulings, but rather than let his flag fall he actually resigned the game 52 minutes in.)

You can replay all three games here.

A brief remembrance, here.

This blog post (dated February 8, 2008) includes a partial video of Fischer's 1972 appearance on Cavett's talk show. (HT: Maverick Philosopher)

And so we come to the end of our three-part series commemorating the chess of Bobby Fischer (though it's my intent to revisit more of his games in the future). We started with a look at his early career, looking at his brilliant 1956 win over Donald Byrne. Last week we continued with a game from his middle period, a nice victory of Lajos Portisch in 1966. And now we conclude with a game from the culminating event of his career, his 1972 World Championship match against the defending champion, Boris Spassky.

Fischer started off down 2-0, losing the first game on a blunder and the second game with an intentional forfeit. It seemed the match might not continue, but after much cajoling from others and tremendous sportsmanship from Spassky game three finally occurred, and it was a Fischer win. After a narrow escape in game 4, Fischer won again in game 5 to tie the scores. And now we come to game 6, the subject of our show this week.

The game was notable for several reasons. First, the opening. While Fischer had occasionally dabbled with non-1.e4 openings with White, those outings were rare and hadn't occurred even once in his three Candidates matches. When Fischer opened this game with 1.c4, it came as a palpable shock to most observers, and Spassky, as I'll explain during the show, didn't react as he should have during the game. The second noteworthy aspect is the game's quality: this is widely thought to be one of Fischer's two strongest creative achievements in the match. And third, this game him the lead for the first time in the match, a lead he never relinquished.

It is therefore a game not only of aesthetic and instructional value, but of historical significance to boot. All told, a fine reason to join me tonight - Wednesday night - at 9 p.m. ET on ChessBase's playchess.com server. The show is free, and you can find directions for tuning in here. Hope to see you there!

You can find the links, which are mostly depressing, here.

Q: What do these three have in common?

A: They're all still alive. Reeeeeally. Or at least maybe - see here. [HT: Boylston Chess Club blog]

We continue to commemorate the career of Bobby Fischer, the late world chess champion, with a look at a win from the middle period of his career. By 1966 he was clearly near the top, but there was a strong case to be made for players like Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, and (by decade’s end) Bent Larsen, too. What was clear is that he was an extremely powerful player on the rise, and that power was seen in a mighty way in the Second Piatigorsky Cup in Santa Monica, California. The event was a double round-robin starring many of the best players of the day, and after the first cycle Fischer’s score was a dismal 3½-5½, leaving him 9th out of 10 players.

At this point, Fischer demonstrated his greatness as a player and turned everything around. In the next 7 rounds, Fischer scored 6½ points to pull into a tie for first with Spassky. They drew each other in the next round, but then Spassky won his last round game while Fischer could only draw against Petrosian. Thus Spassky won first place in the tournament, but Fischer’s fantastic comeback left no doubts about the threat he posed to Soviet hegemony. It took him six more years before he could break through against Spassky and win the title, but performances like this one showed that his time was coming.

As you probably guessed, we’ll take a look at one of Fischer’s games from this tournament. In round 11, he faced the “little Botvinnik”, Hungarian grandmaster and many-time Candidate Lajos Portisch. Portisch, like Fischer, was always very well-prepared in his openings, but wasn’t as good at improvisation. That cost him, as the non-standard position that arose from Fischer’s Nimzo-Indian led to a situation where Portisch followed the “rules” and got into trouble. Generally speaking, two rooks are stronger than a queen, and that’s the material balance Portisch eagerly pursued straight out of the opening. What counts, however, is how well one can coordinate one’s forces, and Fischer’s assessment proved superior, and he went on to win a strategic masterpiece.

If a player of Portisch’s exceptional caliber can seriously misassess such a position, we can too! It’s therefore in our interest to take a careful look at this game. Material imbalances like this one come up from time to time, and it’s rare that we study them in advance. So this is a wonderful opportunity to learn something new, while simultaneously taking an appreciative look at one of Fischer’s many beautiful contributions to our game. I hope, therefore, that you’ll join me tonight – Wednesday night – at 9 p.m. ET – see you then!

(Directions for watching the show live (for free) can be found here.)

Between Corus coverage, chaperoning on Saturday and playing on Sunday, it has been a tiring weekend! But now it's time to resume blogging, and we begin with the latest Fischer remembrance to come to my attention. Frank Brady, author of the well-known Fischer biography Profile of a Prodigy, is interviewed on NPR about the late world champion.

HT: John Duffy

(Note for parents/teachers of young children: the interview has a very brief off-color moment.)

Both are on the Chess Cafe website. The first, by Hans Ree, is especially interesting: At the Kibbutz with Bobby. Ree offers a reminiscence of his time with Fischer at the 1968 tournament in Netanya, Israel. [HT: Brian Karen.] Less colorful, but still perhaps worth your time if you're relatively new to Fischer's games and career, is Tim Harding's Bobby Fischer, 25 Years On. This article offers a brief overview of his results in world championship cycles, followed by light coverage of three of his games.

That's the title of a nice article in Drexel's "The Smart Set", about an Icelandic bookstore Fischer frequented during his last years. Worth reading.

HT: Brian Karen

Here's a brief video interview with former world champion Anatoly Karpov, taken by ChessVibes at the Corus tournament. It's fairly short, but he has some brief comments about Carlsen and the Corus tournament, Fischer's passing, and "handshakegate". (If I recall correctly, he too has had some non-handshake games, but the interviewer didn't bring that up. It might have proved entertaining had he done so, but he was right to refrain. I don't believe he and Kasparov ever abstained from shaking hands, but I think he did abstain on several occasions involving Korchnoi and other Soviet defectors.)

With the passing of the 11th World Chess Champion, the legendary Robert James Fischer, it's appropriate to spend some time commemorating his great career and contributions to the game. We'll start this week with the game that launched him on the world stage, his win as a 13-year-old over the very strong master Donald Byrne, from the 1956 Rosenwald tournament.

Though it was a prestigious event, Fischer's participation was not "on the merits", as it were (his rating in 1956 was a not exactly whopping 1726!), but because he had won the U.S. Junior Championship earlier in the year. So although he was clearly on the rise, I'm sure he was still looked upon as an outside in the de facto U.S. Championship. He didn't win the event, but he finished with a very respectable -2 performance. And then there's the game with Donald Byrne...

To say that the game was brilliant is to understate things, though Hans Kmoch's label "Game of the Century" may go a bit too far. He's right in spirit, though: this was a stunning debut by the youngster. Not only was it a great game, but it was a promise of much more to come, a promise that was fulfilled - at least in chess - over the years to come. So I think this is an appropriate way to begin our tribute to Fischer's career, and I hope you'll join me tonight (Wednesday) night at 9 p.m. ET on the playchess.com server as we examine this game.

(The shows are free, and you can find more information about watching here.)