The Chess Mind

What can White achieve from this position?



Solution here.

Here are two positions to solve.


Jakovenko-Zhang Pengxiang, RUS-CHN Match (9) 2007

The lineup of the Bf5 and the Qd3 is pregnant with possibility; what ideas can you give birth to, with Black to move?


R. Martinez-Tiviakov, Conca della Presolana (7) 2007

Trying to mate with a pair of rooks at close range is usually an exercise in clumsiness, but with Black's pieces bearing down on his king White really has no other choice. Can he mate, and if so, how? (HT: Chess Today.)

Solutions here.

In the famous "Opera game" Morphy-Count of Isouard & Duke of Brunswick, Morphy's play is a model of elegance, flawless from beginning to end...with one exception, his eighth move. In this position, after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Bg4?! 4.dxe5 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 dxe5 6.Bc4 Nf6? 7.Qb3 Qe7



Morphy chose 8.Nc3 rather than 8.Qxb7, when Black can trade queens with 8...Qb4+. Morphy's choice is objectively inferior, but a better choice in the circumstances: rather than a slow win in a dull endgame, his overmatched opponents had to hold their own in a lively middlegame. They failed dismally, of course, losing perhaps the most famous game in history after 8.Nc3 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#

Yet as I noted in a post a long, long, long time ago*, 8.Nc3 and 8.Qxb7 do not exhaust the options, and some commentators have suggested 8.Bxf7+, with the point that 8...Qxf7 9.Qxb7 allows White to win significant material.



Sergeant, Lasker, Ward and Kasparov all suggest that this is the most cold-bloodedly effective move, even if some (e.g. Lasker) find it inartistic. Only GM Valeri Beim has noted so much as the possibility that there might be complications down that path, and he's quite right! (My conclusion is that if White finds a long series of best moves, he emerges with a very small advantage - and it's Black who has all the fun along the way.)

Readers: if you haven't yet tried to work this position out for yourselves, I suggest giving it a try. If you're ready to check out my own analysis, click here.

P.S. If you want to look at a somewhat less detailed, more humorous analysis of the whole game when you're finished, click here.

* What are 15 months between friends? Better late than never, at least in this case.

When I last lived in New York, IM Yury Lapshun was, to my mind, the most entertaining player around - at least when I wasn't playing him. He was willing to play crazy openings and sacrifice all sorts of material against players of all abilities, including elite GMs. He had plenty of success playing this way, but as far as I can tell from a distance his play has solidified somewhat. Maybe it's the addition of a few years, or perhaps it's a bit of pragmatism in pursuit of the grandmaster title, but his wild flights of fancy have become increasingly rare.

Still, they do occur every now and then, and his last round victory from the August "First Saturday" tournament demonstrates his facility in irrational positions. Behold and enjoy.

Because of the funny castling rules, downloading and presenting Chess960 games is a challenge. Still, one game from the championship at Mainz was especially worth presenting, so I've linked it below, giving the moves after both sides had castled. It's from the preliminaries, and shows Bacrot experiencing a horrific end against Anand, one that, had it happened in a normal game, might have made the tactics books for the next ten years.

Have a look, and I hope your amusement and amazement is tempered with a touch of pity for the poor victim.

In a post several days ago, I presented the following sequence of moves:

DM-Pocket "Fritz", g/10:

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 Ne7 6.O-O c5 7.c4 Nd7 8.Nc3 dxc4 9.d5 exd5 (novelty) 10.Nxd5 Nxe5 11.Nxe5 Qxd5 12.Bxc4 Qxe5 13.Bb5+ Nc6 14.Re1 Be4 15.f3 Rd8 16.Bxc6+ bxc6 17.Qe2 (eventually 1/2-1/2)

and challenged readers to find improvements for White. During the game I felt sure after 9.d5 that I should have at least a small edge, and I felt happy about my moves when playing them. Despite that, I "awakened" around move 15 or 16 to realize that Black was slightly better, and it was time to earn the draw. (Which I did.)

Here are my findings; readers are encouraged to offer further improvements.

A week or two I was out for a walk and decided to renew my old "friendship" with my Pocket Fritz*. Here's how the opening went in this G/10 encounter:

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 Ne7 6.O-O c5 7.c4 Nd7 8.Nc3 dxc4 9.d5 exd5 (novelty) 10.Nxd5 Nxe5 11.Nxe5 Qxd5 12.Bxc4 Qxe5 13.Bb5+ Nc6 14.Re1 Be4 15.f3 Rd8 16.Bxc6+ bxc6 17.Qe2 etc.

Black is slightly better here, but despite being a pawn down and short of time, I was able to hold the draw without too much trouble. (Black's lousy queenside pawn structure was what I counted on, rightly.) Nevertheless, I was a bit disgusted and certainly confused: I felt after 10.Nxd5 and my clever 12.Bxc4 that I simply must be better! Yet it's not at all obvious where White could have improved, especially without the assistance of a computer.

See what you can find (without using Fritz, Rybka, Shredder, etc.); I'll offer my thoughts in a few days.

*In fact it's a version of the Shredder program, written by Shredder's author, but is called "Fritz" for (presumably) marketing purposes.

A few days ago, I offered this deceptively simple position for your analytical entertainment:



It's White to move, but can he win? It seems obvious that he can, but matters are far from simple. If you haven't worked it out yet, give it a shot. If you have, or just want to see the solution, here's it is.

It's White to move here.



Can he win? I'll supply the answer Monday or Tuesday.