The Chess Mind

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A few days ago, in commemoration of former world chess champion Vassily Smyslov's 85th birthday, I presented the first and last of his studies as given in StudyDatabase2000.

Here's the first:



(Smyslov 1936) White to move and win.


And here is the second:



(Smyslov 2000) White to move and draw.


Were they easy? Challenging but solvable? Or, as they say in New York and New Joisey, fuggedaboutit? Whatever else they are, they've been tamed here.

In the latest issue of New in Chess (2006/2), Magnus Carlsen annotates his victory over Alexander Beliavsky from the Corus (Wijk aan Zee) B-group tournament. Young though Carlsen is, he's exceptionally strong, and I'm sure he's a fine analyst as well. Nevertheless, the variation in his game is, by his own admission, "[t]he point of a nice bit of computer chess." Have a look here - the game itself isn't bad either!

We've all seen positions where, say, White sacs a piece for Black's h- and g-pawns, in return having at least a perpetual with queen checks on the h- and g-files. (Thus the Qg6+, Qh6+ in the title. Of course, the checks might be on other squares; what's key is that the Black king can't escape to the f-file.) There are various ways White might try for more, and one common approach is to bring a rook to the g-file. Naturally, if she can do this right away, she wins, no finesse necessary. But if Black has the option of ...f7-f6, then there seems to be a problem: when White plays Qh6+ Kg8 Rg-any+ the king can crawl out via f7.

The solution? Qh5+ (instead of Qh6+)! Before Black played ...f6, that would have allowed the Black king to escape via that very square after the rook check on the g-file. Now, however, f6 is blocked and the f7 square is covered.

Granted, this is all very simple, but it's useful to have this idea in one's consciousness beforehand. Sometimes a combination is easy to calculate, but there's a relevant idea that doesn't enter our minds and so we cut off our calculation too soon. It seems to me that's the sort of thing that can happen to those who don't know this trick - but not any longer, I hope!

Click here to see the idea in practice, from a game given in tonight's issue of Chess Today.

"Everyone" knows the game Paul Morphy vs. the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard (aka the "opera game", aka "Morphy vs. Two Bums" (Fischer's sobriquet)) - or at least they should! The game highlights so many tactical elements in the space of just 17 moves, and does it with such a graceful flow, that it's probably the most famous game in all of chess history.

And yet, there is one moment in the game where Morphy's play has been called into question - though for the sake of what comes later, it's a good thing he played as he did! The key moment comes after the moves

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Bg4? 4.dxe5 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 dxe5 6.Bc4 Nf6? 7.Qb3 Qe7



Here Morphy played 8.Nc3 and went on to win brilliantly after 8...c6 9.Bg5 b5 10.Nxb5 cxb5 11.Bxb5+ Nbd7 12.O-O-O Rd8 13.Rxd7 Rxd7 14.Rd1 Qe6 15.Bxd7+ Nxd7 16.Qb8+ Nxb8 17.Rd8#.

The point of 8.Nc3 was to prevent 8...Qb4, which is what would follow had White played 8.Qxb7, when 8...Qb4+ forces the trade of queens and reduces the game to the technical stage. But what about the move 8.Bxf7+, with the point that after 8...Qxf7 the Black queen has been displaced, allowing White to win significant material with 9.Qxb7?



Here my sources - at least those that mention the idea - all suggest that it's unproblematic and winning. They might object on aesthetic grounds - Emanuel Lasker refers to it as "a butcher's method, not an artist's" (cited in Philip W. Sergeant, ed., Morphy's Games of Chess (New York: Dover, 1957), p. 149) - but they all approve: Sergeant, Lasker, Chris Ward and even THE MAN - Garry Kasparov.

However...I suggest the reader take a look at 9...Bc5. White can choose which rook he wants to capture (via 10.Qxa8 or 10.Qc8+ Ke7 11.Qxh8), but Black will enjoy a lead in development and pressure against f2 in return. Perhaps White can consolidate his extra material, but it's Black who will have all the fun. Readers are invited to work on this position for a while; I'll probably offer some analysis of my own in a few days. Happy analyzing!

It was a pivotal game in their semi-final Candidates Match: the score was 1-1 (with 3 draws) with everything up in the air. Karpov was an incredible young talent, but Spassky had been the world champion and looked resurgent after his loss to Fischer in 1972.

Game six had been balanced most of the way, but towards the end of the first time control Karpov had seized the upper hand, and in this position, achieved early in the second session was a crucial one:



It's White to move; in the game, Spassky played 42.Bd4 and went on to lose. Instead, many commentators, including Botvinnik, argued that Spassky could have held with 42.Rc3, as 42...Rxc3+ 43.Bxc3 Kxd6 44.b4



leads to a draw after 44...axb4 45.Bxb4+ Kd5 46.a5 b5 47.a6 Kc6 48.Ba5! Nc5! 49.Kf3 Nxa6 50.Bc3 b4 51.Bxf6 b3 52.Ke2 Nc5 53.Kd1 Ne4 54.Bd8 Kd7 55.Ba5 (Botvinnik, cited in Kasparov's new and excellent volume five in his My Great Predecessors series, devoted to Korchnoi and Karpov (p. 261)).

Is this correct? (Don't put your answer and/or analysis in the comments, please.) The answer will be posted in a few days, and for those of you who'd like to replay the above analysis online, click here.

Here's a typical tactical 19th century slugfest you won't find in your databases. [Hat tip: Brian Karen] In addition to being flashy, it's not too badly played. Nevertheless, the mistakes are there, waiting to be found, and I think working through this game would make an excellent analytical exercise for my industrious and/or ambitious readers.

Have fun!

[Update: M. Nieuweboer writes in to correct the game's header information:

The Danish Gambit is an old love of mine, so I recognized the game Nielsen-Van der Linde immediately.
The game was not a casual game, but a corr. game between the brothers G&W Nielsen and the Dutch player Van der Linde.
So I hope you will correct the headings.

I originally received the game data from this location, which identifies the game as both a casual and a correspondence game, and gives White as the singular "V Nielsen" and the date as 1875.

Upon receiving Nieuweboer's email, I looked up the game in my correspondence chess database, and there White is Gunnar Nielsen, with no second person given and a game date of 1973(!). I'm sure that date is wrong, but I don't know if the true date is 1873 or 1875. (Maybe both - the game could have spanned those years; again, I don't know.) Until a good argument arrives to trust one source rather than another, I won't change the game headers; when it does come, I will.]

Click here.