The Dutch Open takes place Tuesday July 27th (Sunday rest day) - Thursday August 6 2010.
9-round Swiss Open with 13 GMs and 12 IMs. Including: 2009 winner Erwin L'Ami, Sipke Ernst, Valentin Iotov, Viacheslav Ikonnikov, Elshan Moradiabadi, Leonid Milov and Valery Neverov.
Official site has live games, downloads, round-to-round reports (in Dutch) and videos by Peter Doggers from ChessVibes.
Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are sharing the lead in Biel with one round to go. The two are on 5/8. After five more draws in round 7, the 8th round saw much more spectacle.
The Young Grandmaster Tournament is part of the Biel Chess Festival in Switzerland, which takes place July 17-30. Anish Giri, David Howell, Fabiano Caruana, Maxim Rodshtein, Parimarjan Negi, Dmitry Andreikin, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son play.
Rounds 7 & 8
After our last, and slightly critical report on Biel, in which we noted the many short draws between these ten young and ambitious players, the games of the 7th round were more interesting. Nonetheless, all of them ended peacefully anyway!
From all the players it seems that Vietnamese GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son came closest to victory thanks to the tactical shot 16…Nxe5! but then he spoilt his advantage.
Wesley So-Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son Biel 2010 16…Nxe5!
Today no less than four games ended in victories. Only Andreikin and Caruana split the point again; the game always looked equal and in the end Black’s activity compensated for the pawn he lost.
In another game with Black, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son now did manage win, against Tomashevsky. And with creative play, we may add. Thanks to a strong pawn phalanx the exchange sac 27…Rxb6! was the obvious way to continue, and soon White had to give back the material, but more power moves (especially 36…d5!) decided the game.
Evgeny Tomashevsky-Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son Biel 2010 36…d5!
Giri defeated So in a pawn ending, after some interesting tactics had appeared in the middlegame. The Philippine might still have drawn the game with 35…Qf6! because in that version, if White takes on f4, he will have a distant passer. But since the ending is quite complicated, we’ll refrain from giving a definite conclusion.
Anish Giri-Wesley So Biel 2010
35…Qf6! instead of 35…Qxh4?
Negi is having a hard time in Biel and after a bad start the Indian is ‘even going for a draw in better positions’, as a Dutch grandmaster said today. He hadn’t seen today’s game yet, but it did look like this. Against Howell’s Alapin, Negi was fine after the opening and could have played for an advantage at some point, but instead he allowed a strong exchange sacrifice and then was outplayed in the subsequent ending.
Vachier-Lagrave played a strong game against Rodshtein but then almost let it slip away. Instead of going for mate, he somehow allowed the Israeli to continue the game, but eventually the rook ending was won anyway for the Frenchman, who thus caught Caruana in the standings.
Tomorrow is the last round with Rodshtein-Tomashevsky, Negi-Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana-Howell, So-Andreikin and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son-Giri. There’s a possible tiebreak on Thursday morning if two players (or more) finish at the 1st place. In that case two rapid games (10 minutes & 10 seconds increment) will be played and if the result is 1-1, two blitz will be played.
Over at chessclub.com (aka ICC), I have been doing some Game of the Days for Chess.FM online broadcasts. I remember way back when Tony Rook started Chess.FM. At some point, I suggested Skype be used. Tony Rook was bought out, new leadership took control of ICC, and … Skype was introduced as a broadcast platform. I did Game of the Day for Rounds 9 and 10 of Dortmund 2010 Sparkassen (Naiditsch-Kramnik and Leko-Naiditsch). I learned from a viewer that Naiditsch is pronounced NIGH-ditch not NAY-ditch.
1) you play a game or observe a game where the opponent plays an inferior opening and you forget what to do (or, if you are observing, the inferior side “gets away with it” illogically) – check later with a computer!
In Lecture 1, I went over 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Qb6? 6. e5! Bc5 7. Ndb5! as an example to see the comprehensive, computer-backed, refutation.
2) you see a high level game giving an inferior opening some rough treatment and you want to meld that into a complete way of dealing with it – check with the computer! In lecture 2, I went over the Blumenfeld Declined (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. d5 b5 5. Bg5!) as an example. Why am I the only person who heard of the Dutch Blumenfeld theme tournament?
Chukcha Jokes
Chukcha (Russian Eskimo) is going to Moscow and his friends ask him to bring back some butter.
They tell him to find it on sale, simply find the longest line.
He found the Lenin’s Tomb line instead.
When asked why he did not bring back any butter, he said “I found the longest line, but when I got closer, I found out the salesman was dead.”
And for Some Dutch Scenery
Mark Ginsburg and Christine Syben in Delft, Holland December 1989 - photo E. Tall
Wesley So won his second game in the third round of the Young Grandmasters Tournament in Biel, grabbing the sole lead in an extremely strong field.
Report and analyses by IM Robert Ris
After a long hard working day yesterday, fellow countrymen Dmitry Andreikin and Evgeny Tomashevsky didn’t really want to hurt each other. The impact of their marathon games was still visible when soon out of the opening, a funny kind of English hybrid, an endgame with opposite coloured bishops was reached. Not much later hands were shaken.
Three rounds into the tournament, at least one thing can be concluded so far: it’s not yet Parimarjan Negi’s week. After two unfortunate losses with Black, the Indian totally lost track against Fabiano Caruana in mishandled Closed Sicilian, which is normally not Negi’s style at all. And indeed, almost everything went wrong for White right from the beginning. Caruana could easily could penetrate on the queenside, whereas White’s forces couldn’t even dream of finding reasonable squares.
Here Negi made a strategical error with 17.Nd5? Better would have been e.g. 17.Nb2 when at least Black can’t immediately force a breakthrough on the queenside.
17…Nxd5 18.exd5 Bxa4 19.bxa4 Rb4 and Black was better already.
“Fortunately” for the Indian, the game ended abruptly after a bad blunder, which may actually make it easier for him to forget the game than if he had been tortured for fifty more moves.
The most dramatic game of the day was the encounter between Maxim Rodshtein and Wesley So. Evidently, both players have studied the recent developments of the topical Grünfeld Indian with 7.Bc4, and it was So’s turn to be the first to deviate from the recently played game Giri-Bok, Dutch Championship 2010, in which after 19 moves the following position was reached:
Bok had played the cautious 19…a6 and indeed, So’s 19…gxf5!? looks very suspicious at first glance -really, who would want to open the residence of his majesty? – but soon Black’s intentions became clear when all his pieces were directed to g2! White’s kingside seemed to be under severe pressure, but the Israeli had everything well protected until move 38.
One move ago, White could have easily transformed the game into an dead equal ending. 38.Qf4 is still possible now, but instead Rodshtein blunders horribly:
38.Qh4?? Bxg2+! 39.Bxg2 Qc1+ and White resigned in view of 40.Kh2 Nf3+ 41.Bxf3 Qg1 mate.
Maxime Vachier Lagrave hasn’t yet reached the level we may expect from a player of his calibre. Against Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, he didn’t get anything with White again, despite Black’s somewhat “modern” opening setup (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 h6!?) and actually White had to be a little careful.
However, Black’s pawn centre was soon stopped by the white rooks. Further on in the endgame, when Black threatened to get his other rook on the second rank (always a sign for extreme caution), the Frenchman correctly gave a pawn away. His activity assured him a liquidation into a rook ending with f against g+h which was once more proven to be an easy affair: draw.
Finally, David Howell decided to test Anish Giri’s memory in a tricky Petroff with 8.Nc3 and 9.Qe1!?, a line many GMs have fallen victim to. Giri passed the test with honour and accepted his opponent’s proposal for a draw on move 27.
The World Open in Philadelphia has been staged annually since the early 1970s, and although it has never quite justified its grandiose title it is still a huge magnet for players from grandmasters to novices. It is a big money event, with high entry fees but first prizes of several thousand dollars even for weaker sections.
Its continued success reflects a ruthless policy by the organisers towards rating cheats, coupled with a highly flexible schedule. The final rounds are on Independence Day, but it is possible to compete anywhere between three and seven days and to re-enter if you start badly.
For GMs in the top section, it can be a vicious battle. They normally get a minimum guarantee, but for real success they have to finish in the top half-dozen. There is often a multiple tie for first, but the 2010 event this month had a runaway winner. The Czech Viktor Laznicka, 22, won his first six games then coasted to 7.5/9 with draws.
There was also a fine UK success, as the England No3, Luke McShane, 26, scored an unbeaten 7/9 to earn $5,000 (£3,200) in joint second with GMs from India and Israel. McShane is now leading in the Canadian Open in Toronto which ends on Sunday.
This World Open game shows how GMs play sharp lines in the final money rounds. The Dutch 1...f5 normally plans e6, d5 and Ne4, but Black chose the more provocative d6 and g6 formation. Missing the best chance for activity (11...Qa5!) Black fell for the well-judged knight sac 14 Ncxd5! with a sustained and decisive attack. At the end if hxg5 25 Rxh8+ Kxh8 26 d7 Rg8 27 Rc8 and White will queen.
From July 5th to July 11th, the 38th Greek Team Championship took place in Athens, Greece. This year’s edition was clouded by the economic crisis which has been keeping the country busy for many months.
Report and photos by IM Georgios Souleidis
Until the end of May, I couldn’t get a clear confirmation if the Team Championship would even be organised this year. In the end it was mostly thanks to the organising club of Peristeri (Athens) and their sponsor that the Greek chess scene didn´t have to suffer a lapse in its major competition.
As a Greek citizen born in Germany – and living there all my life – I’ve always somehow felt trapped between two cultures. Of course, I’m trying to extract only the advantages of both cultures for my own life. I prefer living in Germany: everything is so well organised! For example, you always know how much a taxi driver will charge you, and that he’ll leave you alone when you don’t want to have a chat.
Whenever I’m visiting Greece (basically every summer), I look forward to the friendly people, the multiple hugs and kisses, the nice weather, the “wealthy food”, the “Frapé”… I simply look forward to the mediterranean way of life. But, of course, my “double nationality” – and this is not a real advantage – qualifies me to answer some existential questions which are related to both countries. This year, I had to answer the following question: “What is Merkel doing to us?”
In the light of the financial crisis, Germany and its female chancellor Angela Merkel nowadays are seen as the chief portrayal of the enemy – at least, this was my superficial perception. Greek taxi drivers in particular can be very, very annoying when it comes to politics (but not only that). It’s not at all easy to avoid talking about it.
Though I´m a chessplayer and so should be able to calculate the possible answers in advance, I tried to convince them that Merkel is not the author of some modern-day Greek tragedy. I learned this was a big mistake – never again, dudes, never again… Next time I’ll just respond with: “Yes, Sir you are absolutely right”, and vehemently nod my head for the rest of the ride.
While I´m talking about big mistakes, let me just show you what happened to me in the second round of the Greek Championship:
Georgiadis, Ioannis (2457) – Souleidis, Georgios (2410) 38th Greek Team Championship Olympic Boxing Center, Peristeri (2.1), 06.07.2010
Here is the position after 48.Kf1. Tactics for beginners lesson 10: Move and mate in one and a half!
No, I didn´t play 48…Qd1+ etc. Come on guys, that would have been too easy!
I decided to torture my opponent and myself for one and a half more hours and played 48…Qf5+ …
My position is still won, so what? But in the end I felt so sorry for my opponent that I made a draw after exactly 100 moves. Well, it was my birthday, after all, and people were so nice to me, so I had to give something back… Actually, I just found the perfect moment for one of the most pleasant details of my report: on the same day as me, a Dutch girl named Lisa Schut has her birthday. Lovely Lisa, now 16 years old, joined my team Kydon Chania (Crete) this year, and made sure that we now have ascertained a full point on one of the junior boards.
Lisa Schut scored 6,5 out of 7 and conquered the heart of Kydon Chania
Wait, junior board? Yes, not only Greek taxi drivers are different – the playing system in the Greek league is also unique. We play on twelve boards, as follows:
Board 1-5: Men’s boards
Board 6: Women’s boards
Board 7-12: U18 (Boys and Girls) U16 (Boys and Girls) U14 and U12
Every team has the right to include two foreign players (one EU and one Non-EU player). This year, 22 teams took part in the Championship, but there was nearly no team from Northern Greece. One reason is the financial crisis – at least, everybody says this is the reason – another is that many clubs were “not amused” about the playing conditions/venue etc. In my opinion, the current location was the best playing hall of the past decade: built for the 2004 Olympic Games, it is a modern and airconditioned boxing hall. Perhaps a small disadvantage was the fact that the players were located in a hotel in the centre of Athens and had to be brought to the playing venue by public transport .
Olympic Boxing Center Peristeri
As I mentioned above, Peristeri (Athens) organised this year’s Championship. Apart from this fact, they were also the clear favourites to win the title. On the men’s boards, the team boasted five GMs: a certain Mr. Kotronias played on board 5 (!), and in order not to leave anything to chance, they even “bought” some of the best Greek junior players in their respective categories. Under these circumstances, the wire-to-wire victory came as no surprise. The question whether one of their grandmasters would lose a game was much more exciting. (The answer was no.)
The winning team of Peristeri with Vassily Ivanchuk holding the cup
The teams from Chania (Crete) respectfully followed. Kydon Chania won the silver and S.A. Chania took the bronze medal. Despite the one-sides championship, chess lovers enjoyed watching the first six matches live in the internet – there was some real fighting and first-class chess. This was first of all due to the fact that draws before move 30 were forbidden, and secondly, because the first two boards were mainly occupied by top grandmasters.
The absolute highlight of the championship was the appearance of Vassily Ivanchuk, who played for Peristeri. He scored 6 points out of 7, mainly against grandmasters above 2600. Ivanchuk was by far the best player of the championship. Another player who scored very well was Jon Ludwig Hammer. The young Norwegian achieved 5,5 out of 7 on the first board.
Jon Ludwig Hammer scored 5,5 out of 7
I’ve selected 17 games, mainly played on the top two boards and by top grandmasters. I included some brief annotations. Enjoy!
After so much (Dutch) football subjectivity over the past weeks (yeah yeah, Spain won deservedly), it’s a delight to read something objective again: Lars Schandorff has written an extremely solid and honest book on the Caro-Kann in the Grandmaster Repertoire series from Quality Chess.
I’ve never really liked the Caro-Kann. As White, I find it an extremely tough opening, and as Black, I find it so much less attractive than the Sicilian or even the French. But of course I’m wrong, as Danish GM Lars Schandorff convincingly shows in his monograph The Caro-Kann, which, although it is officially a repertoire book for Black, is highly recommended for serious White players as well. Here’s an example.
Suppose you’re one of those chess players who kind of hates the solidity of the Caro-Kann: you can bet your life that Black players who employ the Caro-Kann often know their theory better than you do, so you’re looking for something funny to get Black to think for himself right from the start.
Suppose you’re considering playing the line 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Nc5!?
This is a rare sideline that, according to my database, has nevertheless been played by giants like Fischer, Shirov, Morozevich and Carlsen. Surely this is an interesting choice for White? Well, Schandorff is not impressed. Instead of the automatic 5…b6, he recommends:
5…e5!? A radical attempt to benefit from White’s extravagance and solve all Black’s problems in one blow.
6.Nxb7 Retreating with 6.Nb3 makes little sense. After 6…Nd7 Black is already somewhat better.
6…Qb6 7.Nc5 exd4 The most natural choice. The other way of regaining the pawn, 7…Bxc5 8.dxc5 Qxc5, might in fact also be playable. On first sight the position after 9.c3 looks slightly better for White due to his bishop pair. Closer inspection reveals that it is maybe not so simple. Consider something like 9…Nf6 10.Be3 Qe7 unclear, as in Riemens-Hoogendoorn, Netherlands 1994. Black’s bishop is very active and his knight can harass the white bishop from d5.
8.Nb3 Bb4+ Basic chess knowledge: Black exchanges the dark-squared bishop before putting his pawns on dark squares.
9.Bd2 Nf6
Black certainly has no development problems, and the far-advanced d-pawn can be protected by c6-c5, so it can hardly be called a weakness. Not surprisingly, White has had difficulties proving any advantage at all. (…)
I think such a fragment is interesting for both sides: Black players will certainly gain confidence that such a sharp variation is theoretically more than OK. Also, Schandorff explains the essentials of the position (however unusual it may look) from an objective point of view, explaining that even seemingly-obvious judgements may not be so obvious after all. And White players may want to look hard for something concrete in this line, otherwise it’s absolutely useless to study. (Actually, my engine suggests the weird but at least consistently-weird 8.Na4!?, which may be worth a try.)
Schandorff’s treatment of the Classical Variation (3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5) is one of the highlights of the book. It’s clear from every page that he thoroughly understands the position, which he explains in a systematic and rigorous manner. Here’s another example where he combines objectiveness with a distinct opinion:
Castling to the wrong side. This is quite complicated and of course playable, but come on – it can’t be better than castling long!
15…Ngf6 16.Rfe1 The most natural. We can have a quick look at a couple of alternatives [16.d5 and 16.Qe2] (…).
16…0-0 17.Nf5
An important tactical idea that is frequently seen in the Caro: rook to the e-file followed by a knight to f5.
17…Bd6! I prefer not to compromise my pawn structure and am therefore reluctant to take on f5, although some strong players have tried it. 17…exf5 18.Rxe7 Qd8 19.Re2 Ne4 seemed pretty solid for Black in Browne-L.B.Hansen, Philadelphia 2006, but I suspect White is more comfortable.
There are other ways to respond to the knight move. We do not need an alternative, but it is useful to understand White’s standard tactical ideas: 17…Rfe8 is always a good option, when 18.Rxe6!? fxe6 19.Nxg7 is spectacular, but after 19…Bf8 20.Nxe8 Rxe8 21.Re1 Bg7 the piece looks more valuable than the pawns, Jonkman-Kroeze, Netherlands 2006. (…)
18.Nxd6 The sacrifice 18.Nxh6+ gxh6 19.Bxh6 Rfe8 should of course be checked, but it doesn’t look so scary (…). White should probably settle for the quiet 20.Qd2 with some compensation after 20…Bf8 21.Bxf8 Rxf8 22.Qh6.
18…Qxd6 19.Qb3 19.Ne5? is an instructive mistake. After 19…Nxe5 20.Rxe5 Ng4 -/+ the king is not at all well placed on g1, Omarsson-Kjartansson, Reykjavik 2007.
19…a5!? with counterplay. Often it makes sense to push the a-pawn. (…)
While this is great stuff, I didn’t find Schandorff’s explanations that clear throughout the entire book. For instance, the chapter on positional lines (4.c3, 4.Be3 and 4.Nd2) in the Advance Variation (3.e5 Bf5) left a lot of questions unanswered in my head.
One of the lines that has become popular in recent years is 4.Be3 followed by Nd2-b3 with the idea of blocking the c5 square. However, after 4…e6 5.Nd2 Nd7 Schandorff lists the alternatives to 6.Nb3 but doesn’t explain the basics of the position very clearly.
For example, after 6.Ngf3, why doesn’t Black instantly ‘punish’ White for not playing 6.Nb3 (which is the main line) by playing 6…c5 himself? I suspect this may seem totally obvious to Schandorff or others players of his calibre, so perhaps it doesn’t need an explanation – but interestingly, according to my database, the move 6…c5 is Black’s second most popular move in the position, even though it has never been played by anyone rated over 2200!
I think this indicates there is a sustantial gap in knowledge between how strong and weak players understand this position – or even the Caro-Kann in general. Schandorff, unfortunately, doesn’t help us out in this case.
Actually, I’ve always found this one of the most intriguing aspects of these position lines of the Advanced Variation: White seems to want to prevent c6-c5 by all means (Be3, Nd2-b3), but then when Black gets the opportunity to play it, he doesn’t do it! In fact, Black often doesn’t play c5 at all, as Schandorff nicely shows:
6.Nb3 Ne7 7.Be2 Nc8!?
Once you see this idea you can’t get it out of your head. It will take a trained psychotherapist to delete it. 7…Bg6 with the idea …Nf5 is standard and of course is also fully playable.
8.f4 Be7 9.Nf3 0-0 Black finishes his development with the minimum of fuss and without compromising his position at all. That’s the beauty of this simple idea. By temporarily putting the knight on the back rank everything is made possible and Black demonstrates that his lack of space isn’t necessarily fatal. There is no practical evidence from this position, but I am sure Black is okay. Well, that’s not the whole truth. Black is okay, don’t worry, but there has been one game, albeit only a blitz game by me. Since there is nothing else, we will look at a few moves of my blitz effort.
10.0-0 a6 11.Rc1 b5! 12.c3 Ncb6
Black is already somewhat better because of my active play on the queenside. (…)
No c5, but b5! Useful though such a fragment may be (it certainly is an eye-opener to chronical dogmatists such as myself), Schandorff doesn’t in the end reveal the true mystery behind this type of play. His final conclusion that “if White tries to play a slow manoeuvring game then Black is well prepared”, immediately raises the question why 4.Be3 and 4.Nd2 are so popular of late. While Schandorff does admit that “where the elite leads, the masses follow”, he forgets to tell us why the elite prefers this road.
But perhaps this is an unjust complaint. After all, the series in which The Caro-Kann was published, is called ‘Grandmaster Repertoire’. It really is a very high-level book, for serious club players and beyond. I think it’s fair to say that it doesn’t have much to offer to amateurs and casual readers. But if you want to incorporate the Caro-Kann Defence into your tournament repertoire, or find out why it’s so bloody difficult to prove anything against it, Lars Schandorff is your man.
After our teaser yesterday we received hundreds of emails and Skype messages, guessing what Magnus might have taken up. Poker professional was the most common theory, then came rock band, politics, marriage. Only one person, a fashion-conscious WIM from Ukraine, got it right. At a press conference in Berlin the Dutch clothing company G-Star also announced a world chess challenge.
Perhaps this is it. Maybe, just maybe, chess could finally be at the cusp of going mainstream.
The world's number one chess player, Magnus Carlsen, has been signed up as a model for Dutch firm G-Star Raw and will be featured in the denim fashion house's Fall/Winter 2010 advertising campaign. You can see sample shots of Magnus over on ChessVibes.
All well and good for chess, what with all this brilliant PR, as well as for Magnus himself whose bank balance must be just a little bit fatter.
But, I got a problem.
While that other fashion house, Armani, made sports star David Beckham the favourite poster boy for women the world over, G-Star appears to have made our man look like a poster boy for...
Meet Magnus Carlsen, Chess Grandmaster Turned Model Justin Fenner 3:50 pm, July 7th, 2010
Our favorite moment of the movie Zoolander is when Fabio wins the “Slashie Award,” which recognizes him as “model-slash-actor, and not the other way around.” In modeling history, there are a lot of slashes — actor-slash-model and model-slash-clothing designer being the most popular among them. And while we’ve seen our fair share of socialies-slash-models and athletes-slash-models and even models-slash-politicians, we’ve got to say, we never expected to see a world’s-youngest-international-chess-champion-slash model.
But that changed today, when Norwegian news agency NRK posted photos and video of Magnus Carlsen, the youngest person ever to top the International Chess Federation’s rankings, shooting a campaign for G-Star Raw with Liv Tyler.
The 19 year old has been making international headlines and causing international headaches since he was a lad of 13, when he “beat former world champion Anatoli Karpov, pushed legendary chess champion Garry Kasparov to a draw and became a chess grandmaster,” Agence-France Presse reports.
Carlsen told NRK he wasn’t big into fashion — at least not before he shot the campaign.
“I think people will be surprised to see me like this. Surely just as surprised as I was when I was picked for this,” he said.
And while we’re surprised to see a chess grandmaster like this, too, we’ve got to admit that he did a pretty good job, perfectly embodying the concerned, angry look we’re used to seeing in ads from the Dutch denim company.
You can see the rest of the photos from the shoot here, and behind the scenes video (with Liv Tyler!) here. For those of you who don’t speak Norwegian just click spill to watch the clip.
Viktor Laznicka won this year’s World Open in Philadelphia. The Czech grandmaster was the only player to finish at 7.5/9, half a point more than Harikrishna, Smirin and McShane, and a point more than Van Wely, Gustafsson, Potkin and Lenderman.
The 38th World Open took place June 29-July 5 at the Valley Forge Convention Plaza of the Radisson Hotel Valley Forge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Many different tournaments over different rating sections were held, each over 9 rounds.
Norms were available in the Open and Under 2400 Sections, but it was also possible to go for a shorter gig, for example a 4-day option, with rounds 1-2 with 75 minutes in total on the clock, or even a 3-day option with rounds 1-5 at just 45 minutes. (This is what Nakamura chose last year, and got him a shared first place.) There was a guaranteed prize fund of US $175,000.
One of the participants was English grandmaster LukeMcShane, who played his first tournament in the United States. An interview with Chess Scoop (Jennifer Shahade and Dim Mak Films):
22-year-old Viktor Laznicka, who played the 5-day schedule, won this year’s World Open. Czech Republic’s second best player (behind David Navara) was leading the field by a point, and had the white pieces against Loek van Wely in the last round. As always, the Dutch GM went for a fight, this time trying the Benoni, but eventually he offered a draw in a worse position. Laznicka proved a true fighter himself by at first declining the draw (which would secure the first prize), but eventually the point was split anyway.
World Open (Philadelphia) 2010 | Round 9 (Final) Standings
He didn’t play an official tournament game for eleven years, but this weekend he returned to the arena in Haarlem, The Netherlands where he won a 6-round weekender: Matthew Sadler. The English grandmaster finished on 5/6, half a point ahead of GMs Kravtsiv and Maxim Turov and IM Chiel van Oosterom.
Perhaps inspired by Dutch GM Paul van der Sterren, who will return to the chess scene in September to play in the Dutch league for chess club Caissa (Amsterdam), this weekend another strong grandmaster made a comeback in The Netherlands. Former British Champion and Olympiad gold medalist Matthew Sadler (2617) played in the annual weekender in Haarlem and duly won the first classical tournament he played in eleven years.
Just how strong Sadler was, before he retired from tournament chess in 1999 to start a professional IT career in The Netherlands, becomes clear from the following facts (borrowed from Wikipedia). He won the British Championship in 1995 at the age of 21 and again in 1997 (jointly with Michael Adams). He represented England at the 1996 Olympiad in Yerevan, Armenia, scoring 10½/13 and winning a gold medal for the best score on board four. Two years later he scored 7½/12 in Elista.
Sadler made 7/9 on board four for England at the European Team Championship in Pula in 1997, the best individual score by the five-man English team. It helped in winning the gold medal in a major senior event for the first (and to date only) time in English chess history. Sadler also proved a good writer, winning the British Chess Federation’s book of the year award for his 2000 book Queen’s Gambit Declined.
Since 1999 Sadler only played in team competitions, but on May 5th this year he returned to the tournament scene. He participated in a rapid tournament in Wageningen, his first in eleven years, and finished clear first with 7/7, ahead of strong grandmasters Jan Timman, Friso Nijboer and Daniel Fridman.
This weekend in Haarlem, Sadler won with 5 out of 6. He beat Bart von Meijenfeldt (2191), IM Chiel van Oosterom (2381) and GM Martyn Kravtsiv, and then drew with GM Robin Swinkels (2485) and GM Erik van den Doel (2576). In the last round he beat GM Zhaoqin Peng (2388) to stay half a point ahead of Kravtsiv, Turov and Van Oosterom. We certainly hope Mr Sadler will play more tournaments, as his chess still looks fresh and original. (What about starting with 1…a6 and 2…h6 with Black against an IM, undoubtly to avoid theory, and winning in 22 moves? All of his games can be found below in the game viewer.)
NOVA Tournament (Haarlem) 2010 | Final Standings (top 20)
Friso Nijboer won the 5th HSG Open in Hilversum, the Netherlands. The Dutch grandmaster finished on 7/9 which was half a point more than GMs Steingrimsson and Landa, and 13-year-old IM Nyzhnyk.
The 5th HSG (Hilversums Schaak Genootschap) Open took place Saturday 26 June – Sunday 4 July in Hotel Lapershoek in Hilversum, The Netherlands. It was a 9-round Swiss devided over two groups: A > 1850 and B < 1900. The rate of play in group A was two hours for 40 moves plus one hour to finish the game. The total prize fund was 7000 Euros.
With 3 GMs and 5 IMs the tournament wasn't as strong as last year, but nonetheless many interesting games were played. A crucial encounter in the tournament was that of Dutch GM Friso Nijboer against Russian GM Konstantin Landa, in the sixth round. It was another example of the saying ‘don’t grab on b2, even if it’s good’. In a sharp Caro-Kann, after Qxb2 Landa’s queen was out of the game for many moves.
Nijboer-Landa Can the queen be trapped? Yes, but after 17.Bc1 Black plays 17…Qxa1 18.Nxa1 Rxd4 and there’s no good way to profit from Black’s rook and bishop in the centre. With a strong bishop pair, his compensation is clear. The computer finds the way to do it: 17.Rd1! Qxa2 18.Ra1 Qb2 19.f3. Nijboer played the strong alternative 17.f3 and after 17…Bd3 (17…Bd5 18.Bc1) 18.Rf2 Qa3 19.Nxc6 he managed to keep his extra pawn.
In the same round the young Ukrainian IM Ilya Nyzhnyk defeated GM Hedinn Steingrimsson from Iceland in fine positional style (see the game viewer).
Where his main rivals Landa and Steingrimsson drew quickly in the final round, Nijboer tried to win his game against our co-editor Yochanan Afek. However, the Israeli IM offered strong resistance, even after he had lost a pawn. Dutch talent Etienne Goudriaan put strong pressure on Nyzhnyk, but after this game ended in a draw, Nijboer could safely offer the same to Afek in a rook ending to claim the 2000 Euro first prize.
In his influential monthly chess book column - Checkpoint, Carsten Hansen yesterday reviewed (among others) "A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire" under the heading 'Happy Days for Queen's Pawn Enthusiasts'. Generally his review is favourable and his conclusion is:
'However, the meat of the book is on the Colle and Colle-related set-ups, and in those chapters the book really proves its worth. Overall, it is an easily approachable book; the repertoire is by and large not too difficult to follow, even if some of the surprise value has been eliminated by the original book being on the market for more than ten years. In many ways, this present work is a considerable upgrade over the original, and, even by today's high standards for opening books, it is a very good book. It can be enjoyed by players rated up to around 2000.'
He awards the book with three stars (out of a maximum of four). I obviously would have liked one more star but cannot really complain. According to the Rating Chart three stars is 'good' and four stars 'excellent'. So when Hansen says it is 'very good' I will assume the extra star was within shooting range.
I don't really agree that the chapters on the Colle (Zukertort) are the core of the book. As I see it, the book's starting point is the Barry Attack (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4). With this as a basis it adds other low-theory systems - including some Colle related systems - in order to supply the reader with a complete 1.d4 repertoire. However, this is mainly a question of perspectives and in support of Hansen's view it must be admitted that Colle-related systems take up at least 68 of the book's 192 pages.
I note with interest that Hansen recommends the book for players up to 2000. In his 'Introduction to the First Edition' from 1998, Summerscale writes: 'This book is aimed primarily at club-level players with a playing strength of up to about 2200 Elo (or 200 BCF)'. I briefly considered commenting upon this when writing my 'Updater's Notes' as I had a feeling that today's 2200 players generally prepare a bit deeper than they did a decade ago. When I after all decided not to comment on Summerscale's original estimate, it was because I felt that in general the added material compensated for theory's development.
What I really don't understand is this remark:
'There are even some bizarre recommendations towards the end of the book, such as how White is to meet 1 d4 d6, where the book recommends 2 e4, which allows Black to take the game to a Pirc or Modern Defense or even the Philidor after 2..Nf6 3 Nc3 e5 4 Nf3. I can't see too many club players, who employ the Colle as white, also going for 2 e4, which changes the entire nature of the game.'
This is a bit mysterious as 2.e4 clearly isn't a bizarre move in itself. It leads to a positions of a different nature than the Colle but so do many other of the books proposed lines. Hansen's point must be that allowing a transposition to the Pirc, Modern and Philidor doesn't fit well with the rest of the book's proposed repertoire. This criticism would make sense if there wasn't a full chapter in the book on the 150-Attack against the Pirc and Modern.
Summerscale's original work didn't mention 1...d6, and I must admit that I too originally missed this gap in the repertoire. So when Gambit's editorial staff pointed this out and suggested 2.d4 and a condensed repertoire to cover the non-Pirc lines, I was happy to accept their suggestion. The only sensible alternative seemed to be 2.Nf3, when 2...Bg4!? would require some analysis as well as some prose discussing the strategic points of Black's ...Bxf3 option. In addition there also was 2...f5!? which didn't quite fit into the proposed repertoire against the Dutch.
So in my opinion the only bizarre aspect of 1.d4 d6 2.e4 is the book's attempt to offer a repertoire against the Czech and the New Philidor in half a column. This clearly isn't sufficient to be well prepared in the professional sense of the word. But for the sub-2200 readers it doesn't seem too bad. 1...d6 is after all only Black's 6th most popular move and will normally lead to the Pirc. The Czech (3...c6) seems to be out of fashion (I think there are theoretical problems in the 4.f4 lines) and not that hard to face unprepared anyway. That leaves the Philidor which is an interesting opening where Black has good prospects to outplay a weaker player in the middlegame. However, it's mainly Black that has to be careful in order to survive the first 15 moves.
When re-reading the text on Black's non-Pirc options I notice one unfortunate omission. After 1.d4 d6 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3, Black may try the Antoshin variation 4...exd4 5.Nxd4 Be7, which isn't mentioned at all. However, this too is a very quiet option where White scores well above average, so if a reader should happen to meet it and lose the game, I would expect him to blame his own middlegame play rather than the book.
World Open 2010 - video and information after round 3
The Open section is the main event of the World Open. The seven days section of the event has one player from the 2700 club - GM Vallejo Pons (Spain), and his main competition comes from Anand's second GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly, the Indian GMs Harikrishna and Sandipan Chanda, the British GM Luke McShane, and the Dutch GM Loek Van Wely, a;; with 2,5/3 after 3 rounds.
During my holidays I received a lot of chess books from various publishers. There’s lot to look forward to! One of the most interesting books is the latest volume of John Watson’s ambitious project to explain and analyse all chess openings. But the book became much more than just another opening manual.
Two years ago, I wrote a generally positive review of Mastering the Chess Openings Volume 3 (I also liked the first and second volumes), but in the fourth part of his series (published by Gambit), Watson goes a step further than he had gone before. In fact, he’s returning to some of his favourite chess themes, which were also discussed in his most famous books Secrets of Grandmaster Strategy (1998) and Chess Strategy in Action (2003).
This fourth volume begins conventionally enough, with two very solid chapters on the Réti Opening and an excellent overview of black kingside fianchetto systems such as ‘Tiger’s Modern’ and the Averbakh Variation (although I didn’t know it was called that way) starting with 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.c4, but then Watson switches to a more experimental way of explaining openings. In the chapter called ‘Modern Queenside Fianchetto’, he discusses various (you’ve guessed it) queenside fianchetto systems from the perspective of both Black and White. This means he not only writes about the Owen Defence (1.e4 b6) and the English Defence (1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6), but also about Larsen’s Opening (1.b3).
True to his style, Watson clearly explains the differences between playing the queenside fianchetto with Black and playing it with White. the author thereby takes a look at Ilya Odessky’s recent book on 1.b3 (which I reviewed last year) as well and comes up with some sensible improvements. For instance, in the line 1.b3 e5 2.Bb2 Nc6 3.e3 d5 4.Bb5 Bd6 5.f4 (Watson: “This is certainly the usual continuation in both the Owen and the English Defences: when the f-pawn can’t be captured, it makes sense to use it to break up the opposing centre.”) 5…f6 Odessky gave 6.Nh3
a ‘dubious’ sign (?!) because of the line 6…Nge7 7.fxe5 fxe5 8.0-0 Bf5! after which 9.Qh5+ and 9.Bxc6+ are unconvincing, but following Watson’s suggestion 9.c4 a6 10.Bxc6+ bxc6 11.d4!? with the threat c4-c5, White seems to be on top.
After this chapter, the book steers into even more broad-ranging waters, starting off with a chapter on gambits (in general) in which Watson discusses and explains gambits as diverse as the Göring and Morra Gambit, the Millner-Barry Gambit, various Wing gambits (both with b2-b4 and g2-g4), the famous Evans Gambit and, of course, the Benkö Gambit.
This chapter contains good stuff (although I don’t think serious gambit-players or gambit-busters will find too much shockingly new in it), but I was even more intrigued by the book’s next chapter, called ‘f-Pawns and Reversed Openings’. I’m sure some people would dismiss it as too philosophical for an opening book, but many fragments – however digressive they may appear to the practical player – had me on the edge of my seat:
The study of reversed openings will increase your understanding of what can and cannot be achieved in openings. Many chess players are mathematically oriented, with a facility for logical thinking. So it’s only natural to assume that there must be some way to make use of an extra move. After all, chess moves have value, and you wouldn’t voluntarily give a move away under normal circumstances. However, as we’ve talked about throughout these volumes, the worth of an extra move isn’t a straightforward matter. In reversed positions of the English Opening, for example, it’s remarkable how seldom White can actually claim to have the better game. For one thing, any advantage is limited by the fact that he will usually be playing what are essentially defensive or counterattacking lines. In addition, there’s a paradoxical benefit of not having to move, in that Black gets a better look at what his opponent is up to and is able to react accordingly. (…)
Stepping outside the practical realm, this difficulty (of converting a move into something of value) is also revealing about the nature of chess itself. The paradox of information applies to every move, whether in a reversed position or not. In some sense, however sound and logical a move is, it contains the risk of leaving you worse off! That enormously magnifies the complexity and subtlety of the game. If advantages and disadvantages were additive in some linear fashion, chess would be a minor game at best. But we have geniuses who do little else but study and play chess from the time they are five years old into their forties, and they make multiple mistakes in nearly every game, often quite serious ones! As an exercise, set up a reversed opening and try to find ways to make even modest improvements to your position without destabilizing something elsewhere on the board. You’ll find that the most trivial-seeming change always seems to show up in one or another line of analysis where you’re least expecting it.
Watson then goes on to explain the subtleties of the Dutch Defence and the Bird Opening (1.f4) in lucid fashion, but as said, he also discusses other reversed openings such as the Ponziani (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3) which Watson points out, after 3…f5!? is in fact “a Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4) with reversed colours and as if Black had an extra …c6!” Or what about 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5, which the entire world knows as the Schliemann or Jänisch Defence of the Ruy Lopez, yet is described by Watson as…
[A] Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4) in which White has the extra move Bb5. Strange to say, this would hurt White if he tried the standard remedy to the Vienna position, which is 4.d4 fxe4 5.Nxe5?! (5.Bxc6 dxc6 6.Nxe5 Nf6 is about equal) as 5…Nxe5 6.dxe5 c6 (in the reversed position, White’s bishop is still on f1, so this tempo-gain isn’t possible) 7.Bc4 (having come this far, White normally tried the unclear piece sacrifice 7.Nc3 cxb5 8.Nxe4) 7…Qa5+ followed by 8…Qxe5 wins a pawn. (…)
OK, I can’t resist one more example:
1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Bb4
Now we have a reversed Classical Variation of the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5), with Black a whole tempo down. The Classical can be a pretty active system, so let’s see if White can make good use of the extra tempo.
4.Nf3 (…) 4.f4 has White playing the Schliemann Defence to the Ruy Lopez but with the extra move Bc4. The problem is that this gives Black the tactic 4…Nxe4! Then if White follows the normal Vienna Game strategy of 5.Qh5 (…), Black plays 5…0-0!, a move unavailable in the Vienna Game. (…)
4…Bxc3 5.dxc3 d6
The last reversal: Black has played the Exchange Ruy Lopez, and apparently given White much better development than he gets in the reversed position. But in fact, Black doesn’t generate many powerful attacks in the Exchange Ruy Lopez, and in this reversed position, White has nothing to be particularly excited about.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think I have seen this funny perspective applied in Vienna or Ruy Lopez text books before. Similarly, the chapter ‘Symmetry and its Descendants’ offers a refreshing point of view to infamously ‘boring’ openings such as the Petroff and the Four Knights Game. The chapter on ‘Irregular Openings and Initial Moves’ continues in this vein. What are irregular or ‘unorthodox’ openings anyway? Watson points out that
[t]he Trompowsky Attack 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 has become popular and universally accepted, but one could argue that 2.Bg5 itself is not an ‘orthodox’ move; on the flip side, the form of the Torre Attack with 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bg5 is orthodox by the classical standards of development, but it isn’t very popular any more. In a similar way, classically oriented openings such as the Ponziani Opening (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3) and the Hungarian Defence (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Be7) are orthodox in strategic terms, but rare in master practice; today, they could legitimately be called ‘irregular’.
Apart from this terminology issue, there’s what’s Watson calls ‘the appeal of the irregular’:
You make counterintuitive moves, waste time, or sacrifice pawns, and yet some not-so-obvious factor is working in your favour to give you positive chances. It’s a break from the drudgery of ‘correct’ play and following those tired old principles. Even if you don’t secure the better game, you can at least irritate your opponent and present him with multiple opportunities to go wrong. The most entertaining irregular openings also contain tactical traps into which one innocent victim after another falls.
These are not trivial, run-of-the-mill observations. Many opening book authors and even chess-improvement books fail to mention these human and very recognizable aspects of chess openings, even though keeping them in mind might help avoid some well-known mistakes in practical play. Thus, for instance, the line 1.e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 f5!?
in the Nimzovich Opening, which is played by some fairly strong members of my local chess club and which Watson also mentions in his book, is not just ‘irregular’, ‘ugly’ and ‘bad’, but does contain some ‘not-so-obvious factors’ working in Black’s favour. White should be aware of this or he will get tricked, as I’ve personally seen many times.
Actually, I was particularly interested in what Watson wrote about the Nimzovich Opening because I sometimes play it myself and because I’ve seen lots of crazy analysis over the past years from enthusiastic club members. Crazy analysis which are often not so bad for Black as they look on first sight! And indeed, to his credit, Watson doesn’t dismiss the opening easily at all and calls it “one of the best of the irregular openings versus 1.e4.”
One of the lines Watson analyses is 1.e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e5 Ng4 4.d4 d6 5.h3 Nh6.
His nuanced look at even such an obscure line is characteristic of his approach:
Black has a pretty ugly position that nevertheless has some merits. His decentralized knight is an undoubting disadvantage, but he has prospects of chipping away at White’s centre, after which that piece might be reintroduced by …Nf5. Of course, White can hardly complain about his prospects, but he shouldn’t expect too much from the capture Bxh6, which gives up the bishop-pair. 5…Nh6 introduces a wide a range of eccentric possibilities that are typical of irregular openings.
Watson now analyses no less than four alternatives for White, but in the end concedes that “Black’s position is within playable boundaries”. This is rather more realistic than my own initial opinion (”absolutely horrible for Black”) of this particular variation! (To my defence, I pretty soon realized that things were not so simple once I started studying the line in more detail.) I hope this small digression shows to what lengths Watson is willing to go to illustrate the versatility of various lesser known opening lines.
The book’s penultimate chapter on ‘Choosing and Preparing Openings’ is equally insightful, although some advices may of course sound familiar to readers who’ve bought other recent books on more general aspects of opening play. To my delight, Watson also quotes the great Korchnoi who “bluntly” said that if you want to improve your chess, you should play a new opening. Interestingly, Watson also recommends playing blitz games as a way of practising your opening preparation (”in sensible, non-addictive quantities”).
Watson ends his book with yet another philosophically-inclined chapter on the future of openings. Unavoidably, there are some echoes from his earlier books here, but it’s useful and entertaining all the same. Mastering the Chess Openings vol. 4 is a book any chess lover should have a look at – if not for its openings, then surely for its general awesomeness.
The gap between Magnus Carlsen (2826) and Veselin Topalov (2803) has increased to 23 points on the July 1 FIDE rating list. The Norwegian won 13 points whereas the Bulgarian dropped 9. Third is World Champion Viswanathan Anand, now with 2800 points exactly. Wang Yue dropped from 8th to 28th.
FIDE has published its July 1st rating list and since all the big events were entered in time, there’s no difference between the official top 10 and the “live” top 10 of Hans Arild Runde (which you can also find in the far right column on this website). In fact there aren’t very big changes in the top 10 compared to the previous list either.
Carlsen’s fine victory in Romania last week got him another 13 rating points and because Topalov lost 9 points in his match with Anand, the gap between the world’s number one and two is now 23 points. Those 9 points went to Anand, who thereby surpassed Kramnik to regain the 3rd spot, at a nice 2800 precisely.
At the Kings’ Tournament Gelfand lost twice to Radjabov; the two switched places on the rankings between spots 10 and 13. Malakhov and Navara are in the top 20 on this list – the latter thanks to a stunning 8.5/9 at the Czech Championship.
Vugar Gashimov, who was still 7th in the world on the January 2010 list, dropped further to a 26th spot. The biggest skydive was performed by Wang Yue, who lost 36 points and went down from 8th to 28th. Winning 16 points, Wang Hao surpassed him to become China’s number one at 2724.
After entering the top 100 on the May list, Anish Giri won 30 more points to climb to a 62nd place at 2672, but the highest rated Dutch player is Loek van Wely with five points more. Ivan Cheparinov is back in the top 100 with 2661.
The women’s list is still very stable, with very few changes in the top 10. Judit Polgar again didn’t play, but Humpy Koneru did. The Indian lost 22 points at the 3rd FIDE Grand Prix in Nalchik and so the gap increased from 60 to 82 points. Below you’ll find the new top 100, the top 100 women, the top 20 juniors and the top 20 girls. We give the first two lists including the changes with the previous lists.
FIDE JULY 2010 RATING LIST: TOP 100 PLAYERS
Legend:
black color – player remained on the same position
green color – player moved up in the list
red color – player moved down in the list
blue color – player is new to the current Top list Old represents player’s position in the previous period list
I've just been catching up with some news over at ChessVibes and noticed an item from 2 weeks earlier. Actually, it's thanks to this recent post that I found my way to what I want to talk about.
In a recent encounter, the game Bok - van Wely ended a draw after an amazing 13 move repetition. Yes, you read that right: thirteen moves. And these guys were a FIDE master and a long-established super GM, respectively.
But, let's be serious. Why did these guys play on for so long? Here's ChessVibes quoting van Wely:
I didn’t want the draw, and I didn’t want to give the impression that I was happy with a draw. I wasn’t. Whatever opening you play these days, these youngsters always know the theory. Why didn’t he play something sharp, like against Smeets? Then he dropped a piece. I got very angry when I realized he was going for a draw right from the start. I mean, the organizers give him a wildcard, but then instead of getting some experience here, this idiot just goes for a draw.
One important fact that we should point out immediately is that this encounter was in the recent Dutch Championships. It was no casual, exhibition, simul or any other kind of inconsequential contest. Score tally, FIDE ratings and, of course, money were at stake.
To my mind, the situation was simple. Bok was perfectly entitled to steer the game to whatever direction he saw best fit his interest in the tournament. For the sake of fair play, players must decide for themselves independent of outside pressures. Most of all, players have no business worrying about the prima donna sensibilities of their opponents.
And another thing: as pointed out by some CV readers, if van Wely didn't want a draw, why didn't he simply deviate himself? There a couple of possible answers. Either van Wely judged the alternative variation to be risky or he just didn't know any better. So all in all, he was equally to blame for what happened.
With all that said, van Wely was way out of line in calling his opponent an idiot. I suspect that having been the centre of attention (he was involved in an experiment), van Wely's head expanded just a little bit bigger.
But there is one last thing to be added. These two guys really ought to have been charged by the organisers with bringing the game into disrepute. Such farce in a premiere national tournament is simply unacceptable.
You’ll probably remember the 13-fold repetition in the game Bok-Van Wely at the Dutch Championship, two weeks ago. Afterwards Van Wely was fuming that his young opponent didn’t use the opportunity to get more experience in a real fight. As GM Luke McShane pointed out, something similar happened in a clock simul between Kasparov and the USA in 1988.
What would you do, when you played the world champion in a simul, with the white pieces, and you have the possibility to repeat moves in a theoretical position? Would you go for it, being able to tell your friends that the man couldn’t beat you? Or would you consider it bad ethics, like Kasparov, who argued that the White player should always play for a win?
In his June 10 column for the online version of the Daily / Sunday Express, GM Luke McShane picked up the Bok-Van Wely story, and demonstrated a clear parrallel with the 1988 clock simul between then World Champion Garry Kasparov and the USA, held in New York City. This event was beautifully depicted for TV and can now be found on YouTube in three separate videos (due to YouTube’s 10-minute limit).
The second video shows Kasparov being clearly upset when IM Daniel Edelman goes for the draw in the well-known Sveshnikov sequence 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Qa5+ 10.Nc3 Qd8 11.Nd5.
McShane argues that a simul and a tournament game are quite different situations.
My opinion is that forcing a well known draw (when there are more interesting options available) in an exhibition game like a simul really is spineless. Bok’s decision certainly wasn’t brave, but is harder to judge. Apparently he was aware that he could play on with h2-h4, but wasn’t familiar with the position. I’m sure his opponent was, and that’s a serious handicap against a stronger player.
I’ve occasionally gone into games eager to face my opponent’s lines A, B or C, but accepted that if he chooses D then I’ll be content with a draw. Maybe Bok was tired that day, or judged that his overall tournament would benefit from a draw. Any competitive player can sympathise with those feelings. As for gaining experience, Bok probably learned more about chess psychology from this game than he ever would have normally!
The Monday Questions (14) for GM Sebastian Siebrecht
We formulated ten questions related to Developing Chess Talent and every Monday we’ll ask them to an interesting personality in the chess world.
1. Please introduce yourself (name, age, nationality, etc.)!
Sebastian Siebrecht, 37 years old but still feeling young, from Essen (Germany). Young, dynamic and always radiant with joy. Probably the world’s tallest (2.02 m) grandmaster.
2. What is your role in the chess world?
I love chess, I can become highly enthousiastic about chess and feel like a chess ambassador. My promotional activities include show matches, simuls, blindfold games, training sessions, blitz handicap games and all sorts of commentary. I’m trying to install chess at elementary schools in my home region. At some point I was probably the most active player of the tournament circuit with 220 rated games in one year. Besides my chess activities I run a small event agency.
3. How did you develop your chess talent as a kid?
I watched my dad and my brother playing and was very interested. Then I started playing with my dad. When I entered highschool I was lucky that they had an active chess group. The guy sitting next to me in school was just as enthousiastic about chess as me and we played blindfold chess during mathematic lessons. We pushed eachother forward from age 13 until 15, this was essential for my chess development. Lateron I started reading a lot, books and magazines. And of course I played a lot.
4. Who had a profound influence on your chess development?
Definitely my dad, since he always supported me. School notes were relatively unimportant and even when I graduated from university (law) he was perfectly happy with the fact that I focused on chess from that point on (see question 6).
5. What are your favourite sports besides chess?
I used to be a good basketball player, used to be in the regional (NRW) U17 selection. Lateron I focused more on individual sports because of a lack of time. Recently I took part in my first triathlon, which actually was a fantastic event to be part of.
6. What would be your advice for young people?
Do whatever you enjoy most. For the simple reason that when you enjoy something you will be able to achieve most.
7. What has your main concern in life besides chess?
My family and the people I care for are very important for me. Seven weeks ago I became a father, which was a life-changing experience.
8. What is the best chess game you played?
I find this a very hard question to answer, since I have a lot of respect for my opponents. I am especially happy when I manage to create something new.
9. What’s your connection with ‘Developing Chess Talent’?
I’m playing for the Apeldoorn team in the Dutch League for about six years now. I play in eight different leagues (Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Greece) and the atmosphere is best in Apeldoorn/The Netherlands. I agree with many of the ideas in the book about creating a chess culture (see also next question).
10. What question do you miss and what would be your answer?
What are your goals? How do you see the future? I want to live life very intensively and do as much as possible. Brilliant games are nice and fantastic, but indeed, the most important is, to build something more then a chessgame. I have deep respect for all people who are involved in social matters without selfish reasons. So I guess to make chess more popular and involve everybody in the party should be great. Chess ist a teamsport Yasser Seirawan once said, and I agree completely. Everybody has his role and that is the goal. Let us celebrate it!
While the players may not have taken the Dutch Championship as seriously as they should have (see Peter Doggers article on Chessvibes) I am happy to see that at least one photographer did. I've always enjoyed the visual arts and the set of images by "De Pion" is a good sampling of captures from this sort of event. Check them out for yourself.
HSG Open 2010 - 26th June to 4th July in Hilversum, Netherlands
The HSG Open 2010 is starting today and continues over 9 rounds of Swiss system until 4th July. The playing venue is Hotel Lapershoek in Hilversum, Netherlands. The tournament is organized by Hilversum Chess Club HSG, Dutch Champion in 2008 and 2009, and is split into two rating groups.
By drawing his last round game in four moves (or rather three and a half) Jan Smeets won the 2010 Dutch Championship. Zhaoqin Peng secured her 12th (!) Dutch title already one round before the end. This year’s event will mainly be remembered for its many peculiarities.
The Dutch Championship took place June 11-20 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The rate of play was 40 moves in 90 minutes followed by 30 minutes to end the game, with 30 seconds increment from move 1. Venue was the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, a technology center at the site of the former ‘NatLab’, the Philips Physics Laboratory.
In the women’s section, Zhaoqin Peng won her 12th title, as convincingly as always. In the open section Jan Smeets finished first with a 6.5/9 score, ahead of 2009 champ Anish Giri. With a draw against Van Wely in the last round, Sipke Ernst secured third place.
An important game for Smeets was his victory against friend and colleague Erwin l’Ami in the penultimate round. Smeets also defeated Nijboer, Bok and Reinderman. Six times winner Van Wely finished on plus one, but did play an important role by beating Anish Giri in the eighth round.
Loek van Wely before the tournament: "I'll do my best to stay ahead of Anish as long as possible"
This year’s championship will perhaps mostly be remembered not for the winners, or the games that were played, but for the many peculiarities that had nothing to do with a national championship.
Firstly, there were the different starting times of the rounds. The games started two hours later on the days when the Dutch national football team played a game in South Africa. It might not seem a big thing, but one cannot deny that the federation implies that football is more important than chess. As Hans Ree yesterday pointed out in his Saturday column in the newspaper NRC Handelsblad, ‘many may have this opinion, but not the federation’.
Other examples of peculiar happenings were Loek van Wely being allowed to play a blitz tournament in Germany during the second round, or the experiment to test Van Wely’s stress levels during a game. At first we didn’t think too much of it, but now that the tournament is over, we’re not sure if all this really belongs to a national championship.
The players themselves seemed to have been affected by this frivolous virus. As you already read here, Bok and Van Wely repeated the same position no less than thirteen times. And today, in the last round, Van Kampen and Smeets played the very brief sequence of moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 to finish their game in just two minutes, which secured the title for Smeets.
Van Kampen and Smeets have already reached their final position
We agree with Hans Ree that, adding it all up, it seems like the federation and some of the players didn’t take this year’s national championship as seriously as they should have. One may ask: if they don’t take it seriously, who will? The result is that chess will only be reaching mainstream media when one of these peculiarities takes place.
We’ve seen this with Toiletgate, and in fact this was also the case with this year’s championship. Dutch newspapers didn’t pay much attention to the championship, but suddenly they mentioned the tournament with a few paragraphs of text on Saturday. The reason? Another odd thing had happened in the seventh round on Friday. After he had accidently cut himself with a bottle, Anish Giri had some blood on his hand and one ear (which he had touched) and because of this he almost fainted. Someone with a First Aid Kit helped him, but the reigning champ wasn’t motivated to continue playing. Giri offered a draw to Nijboer, who accepted.
Two weird stories popped up today, one to do with chess, and one to do with something else. I've decided to group them together, simply because I found them both funny. The first involved Loek Van Wely in the Dutch Championship. As an experiment, he had sensors attached to his body to read his stress levels during his round 4 game. However things didn't quite go according to plan, as his opponent FM Benjamin Bok forced a repetition starting on move 13. This didn't amuse Van Wely, as neither player was willing to claim a three-fold repetition until move 37! As for measuring Van Wely's stress levels, the use of equipment may have been unnecessary, as his post game comments where he referred to his opponent as an "idiot" probably provided enough experimental data on its own. Chessvibes has the full story, including the game in question. The second (non-chess) story involved a giant statue of Jesus, located in Ohio,USA. Nicknamed the "Touchdown Jesus" due to the its raised arms (like the signal for a touchdown in American Football), it was completely destroyed by a bolt of lightning during an overnight storm. Apparently the Adult Bookstore located on the other side of the freeway was left untouched. Full story here.
During his game against FM Benjamin Bok at the Dutch Championship in Eindhoven, GM Loek van Wely today was involved in an experiment to measure his stress levels. And indeed, in a game that saw a repetition of the position between moves 14 and 37, clear signs of arousel on the side of Van Wely were measured, but for an unexpected reason…
The Dutch Championship takes place June 11-20 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The rate of play is 40 moves in 90 minutes followed by 30 minutes to end the game, with 30 seconds increment from move 1. Venue is the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, a technology center at the site of the former ‘NatLab’, the Philips Physics Laboratory. For more details see our first report.
An experimental draw
“Wouldn’t it be nice to show the spectators how stressful a chess game is for the players?” This was the question the Dutch Chess Federation asked themselves when they realized that this year’s Dutch Championship was held in the midst of 90 top-notch technological companies that are based at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven.
It was Bert-Jan Woertman, Communications Manager of the Campus and host of this year Dutch Championship, who realized that there was an opportunity to create a synergy between the championship and the collective technological knowledge in Eindhoven. He made sure that the tournament got in touch with Holst Centre, an independent open-innovation R&D partnership between IMEC (Flanders, Belgium) and TNO (The Netherlands).
A technology that was developed for medical applications today was applied for the evaluation of a mental game of chess. Loek van Wely, always ready for a stunt, volunteered and so before the fourth round sensors were attached to his body which were to provide an indication of his stress levels.
Van Wely wore a chest strap that measured his heart rhythm (ECG, electrocardiogram) and respiratory
Specifically, Van Wely wore a chest strap that measured his heart rhythm (ECG, electrocardiogram) and respiratory. Around his wrist, the grandmaster wore a sensor measuring skin resistance. The outcome would be the “arousal” level of the player, and this would be connected to the amount of stress the player would feel during the game. The results were quite unexpected.
Around his wrist, the grandmaster wore a sensor measuring skin resistance
At move 14 already, FM Bok started repeating the moves Be2-d3-e2, and GM Van Wely had nothing better than to go Qg6-h5-g6. This went on until move 37 (!) when finally Bok claimed a draw based on threefold (or rather thirteenfold) repetition. After the game he said: “I knew I could continue with h2-h4, but I didn’t remember the position very well, so I went for a draw.” Bok explained that he offered the draw twice, but Van Wely didn’t accept.
Asked why, the six times Dutch Champion said: “I didn’t want the draw, and I didn’t want to give the impression that I was happy with a draw. I wasn’t. Whatever opening you play these days, these youngsters always know the theory. Why didn’t he play something sharp, like against Smeets? Then he dropped a piece. I got very angry when I realized he was going for a draw right from the start. I mean, the organizers give him a wildcard, but then instead of getting some experience here, this idiot just goes for a draw.”
So much for the experiment, you might think. But the results of the test did show something interesting. Van Wely clearly wasn’t exaggerating when he said he was angry during the game. According to Holst Centre the diagram with the test results showed a clear sign of arousel at the point when Bok first repeated moves.
Today the Dutch Championship started at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. In the first round Nijboer beat Van Kampen and Bok upset Reinderman.
The Dutch Championship takes place June 11-20 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The rate of play is 40 moves in 90 minutes followed by 30 minutes to end the game, with 30 seconds increment from move 1.
Venue is the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, a technology center at the site of the former ‘NatLab’, the Philips Physics Laboratory. Eindhoven is the home town of the world famous Dutch company Philips, and soccer club PSV, of which the ‘P’ stands for Philips as well, the club’s life-long sponsor. The Campus houses a wide variety of high tech companies that collaborate in the development of new technologies, focusing on key technology areas such as microsystems, semiconductor products, Embedded Systems, signal processing and nanotechnology.
High Tech Campus Eindhoven | Photo HHahn, GNU Free Documentation Licence
This year’s The Dutch Championship sees the strongest field ever, which includes reigning champion Anish Giri, but also six-times champion Loek van Wely and one-time champion Jan Smeets. In addition, as many as five of the ten participants have an Elo rating of over 2600. The average rating is 2581. In the women section Zhaoqin Peng defends her Dutch title, and tries to win her 12th (!) championship.
Loek van Wely, Anish Giri and Robin van Kampen at the opening ceremony
Zhaoqin Peng, Bianca Muhren, Caroline Slingerland, Anne Haast and Marieke Dirksen
The games start each day at 13.30 CET, except for round 8 on Saturday, June 19th. Then it starts two hours later, to give the players the opportunity to watch the World Cup soccer match Netherlands-Japan, which starts at 13.30! Holland is a football minded country, and so the organization decided to avoid any complications and simply let the participants watch the games.
Therefore the rest day is already after three rounds, on Monday, because… indeed, the national team also plays on that date. The women, who don’t have a rest day at all, start their games on Monday at 15.30 as well.
Loek van Wely has a completely different schedule altogether. He was allowed to play in a different tournament on Saturday, and will play his second round game on Monday, also at 15.30, against Robin van Kampen.
Chalons en Champagne, led by Loek van Wely and Anish Giri, Sunday won the French league. The team finished just ahead of Evry Grand Roque, who played with Eljanov, Gashimov, Svidler and Vachier-Lagrave.
The last four playing days (rounds 8-11) of the French League Top 16 were held in the stadium of the French soccer club En Anan in Guingamp, a commune in the Côtes-d’Armor department in Brittany in north-western France. The time control was 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the games with 30 seconds per move from move one.
The last round saw the clash between the two leading teams, Chalons en Champagne and favourite Evry Grand Roque, which had four players rated above 2700. Peter Svidler did his job and defeated Anish Giri with Black in a sharp Grünfeld. Giri had scored 2/3 in rounds 8-10 against Bauer, Bacrot and Housiaux. The game showed remarkable resemblance with the recent computer game Stockfish-Rybka, which we included for comparison. (All details will be explained in this week’s ChessVibes Openings by guest commentator GM Sipke Ernst!)
Loek van Wely, the other Dutchman in the Chalons en Champagne team (mainly for ‘playing Giri’s chauffeur’, as he joked last week) did well by beating Vugar Gashimov with the black pieces. Marie Sebag then managed to hold Pavel Eljanov to a draw, and Sebastien Cossin did the same against Arnaud Hauchard. This way Chalons ended first on tiebreak and became French Team Champions for the first time.
French Team Championship Top 16 2010 | Final Standings
Poikovsky: Jakovenko & Riazantsev lead on rest day
Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexander Riazantsev lead the Karpov tournament in Poikovsky with 4/6. In a tournament where 24 of the 35 games ended peacefully, Ivan Sokolov is not joining the feast of draws but instead plays uncompromising chess.
The 11th edition of the tournament named after 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov takes place June 2-13 in Poikovsky, Russia. For the first time the tournament has not 10, but 12 players. Today is the only rest day of the tournament. See our first report for more info.
Rounds 3-6
So far the tournament in Poikovsky has mainly been exciting for what happened in the fifth round, when both tournament leaders Jakovenko and Karjakin lost. This way the whole pack of players stayed together within one point reach. However, it also has to be pointed out that the tournament has seen a big number of draws – after six rounds the drawing percentage is as high 70% – and more importantly, no fewer than seven games lasted 18 moves or less.
In the first half the most adventurous player has been Ivan Sokolov, who drew just twice. In our previous report we already saw him going for one of his specialities, the Classical (3…Bc5) Ruy Lopez, twice with Black. It’s one of the lines he discusses in his recent book.
In round 4 Sokolov tried a very bold sacrifice against top seed Karjakin.
Karjakin-I.Sokolov after 25.Be3 Black played the stunning 25…Nxg2!? 26.Kxg2 Rxa5!? but after the simple 27.bxa5 Qxh3+ 28.Kh1 Nh4 29.f3 Nxf3 30.Rc1! there was no real follow-up.
A day later it went much better for the Bosnian/Dutch grandmaster, against Jakovenko. In the topical
4.e3 O-O 5.Nge2 line of the Nimzo he got an advantage at an early stage, and he could finish the game nicely:
Yesterday Sokolov met an equally adventurous Riazantsev:
Riazantsev-I.Sokolov after 13.Bxg6 hxg6 White sacrificed a pawn with 14.b4! Bxb4 14…Bc7 15.cxd5 cxd5 16.a4! is good for White) 15.Nxd5 cxd5 16.Bxb4 dxc4 17.e4 and soon Black had to give up an exchange for White’s strong bishop, but didn’t get enough compensation.
Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexander Riazantsev are sharing the lead on the first rest day. Both grandmasters have 4 out of 6 and are followed by Emil Sutovsky and Sergei Karjakin who have 3.5 points.
Karpov Tournament (Poikovsky) 2010 | Round 6 Standings Please note that Onischuk-Bologan (round 6) was postponed.
. . . When Osama Bin Laden managed to trick some people to fly airplanes into the WTC for him, he had a certain goal in mind, of course. To accomplish his goal he has set out a cheap trap for the western society.
Yesterday we had elections in the Netherlands. Dutch politicians are obviously no chessplayers.
Alexei Shirov will play in the Crown Group in Hoogeveen this year. At the annual Univé Tournament, the world’s number 10 will meet Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri and Sergei Tiviakov. This was confirmed in a press release by the organization today.
Alexei Shirov (Spain) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) will be making their debut in the traditional 4-player round-robin, the international Univé Chess Tournament in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. The tournament will be held from 22 to 30 October in the town hall of Hoogeveen.
Two Dutch participants of 2009 will play again in the Crown Group this year: (by then 16-year-old) Anish Giri and Sergey Tiviakov. Giri will defend his national title in Eindhoven from 10 to 20 June, and Tiviakov is currently the highest rated Dutchman and the winner of the Univé Crown Group in 2009.
With an average rating of 2682 the Crown Group is even stronger than in 2009, when Giri and “Tivi” played with Ivanchuk and Polgar. Currently the world’s number 10, Alexei Shirov should be considered favourite to win this year.
No rest day
The opening ceremony of the Crown Group will take place Sunday, October 24. The first round follows a day later and the traditional rest day halfway the tournament, on Wednesday, October 27, has been canceled. This way the participation of Shirov and youth World Champion Vachier-Lagrave is possible, as both have commitments for their clubs in the European Club Cup in Bulgaria through Saturday, October 23. This means the participants of the Crown Group will play six days in succession. The organization of the Univé tournament considered the participation of two world class players of great importance and so this move in the tournament schedule was made.
Open tournament
Besides the Crown Group, again there will be the Univé Open with a strong international field of ninety players from different countries. This will include a large number of GMs and IMs. There will also be two amateur tournaments, each with more than eighty participants. Both open tournaments begin on Friday, October 22 and end on Saturday, October 30, and will be played over nine rounds.
Loek van Wely wins Chicago Open (UPDATE: Interview)
Loek van Wely won the Chicago Open tournament in Wheeling, Illinois. In the 9-round Swiss, the Dutch GM was the only player to score 7.5 points. Adams, Najer, Mikhalevski and Stocek ended shared second with 7 points. Interview with Van Wely added.
Loek van Wely in Chicago | Photo: Rose Homa
The 19th annual Chicago Open was held May 27-31 and organized by the Continental Chess Association. This year the organizers added two more rounds to their traditional 7-rounder, making norms possible.
The tournament was traditionally held during the Memorial Weekend. The rate of play in the Open Section was 2 hours for 40 moves plus another hour to finish the game.
For the different sections (besides the Open there was an Under 1000, Under Under 1300, Under 1500, Under 1700, Under 1900 and Under 2100) there was a US $100,000 unconditionally guaranteed prize fund.
The venue was the Westin Chicago North Shore Hotel in Wheeling, Illinois
Like in previous years, the tournament attracted several very strong grandmasters from the US and abroad. Besides US Championship participants Ben Finegold, Varuzhan Akobian, Aleksandr Lenderman, Melikset Khachiyan, Alex Yermolinsky, Samuel Shankland, Alexander Shabalov, Dmitry Gurevich and Jaan Ehlvest (who defended his title in Chicago), the tournament had for instance Michael Adams (England), Evgeny Najer (Russia), Victor Mikhalevski (Israel) and Jiri Stocek (Czech Republic) from abroad. One name we didn’t mention yet is that of Dutch GM Loek van Wely, who won the tournament with 7.5 points.
GM Loek van Wely (a pic from last year in Chicago) | Photo Chris Bird
Van Wely won after beating IM Sam Shankland in the final round, while Akobian, who went into the round tied with Van Wely and Shankland, lost to Adams.
Van Wely-Shankland From the moment the move c4-c5 was possible tactically on move 15, the bishop on a7 had been out of the game. Now Van Wely decided the endgame with 28.Bxa6! bxa6 29.Nd4 Bd7 30.Bd6 and White was basically a piece up.
Adams-Akobian Can you see how White won a pawn (and later the game)? Answer below in the game viewer.
We talked with Loek van Wely through Skype on Tuesday night (Dutch time; afternoon in the US), while he was at Chicago airport, on his way back to The Netherlands. He told us that he played Chicago together with his girlfriend Lorena Zepeda from El Salvador, who didn’t do bad either (5/9). Before Van Wely will play the Dutch Championship (June 10-20 in Eindhoven), he will first compete in the French team championship and travel to France together with Anish Giri (’I'm in the same team so I can be his driver!’), that other Dutchman who won a tournament this week.
When was your last victory at a big open?
“That must have been Foxwoods, in 2006. In the U.S. I won the World Open in Philadelphia in 1994, and the New York Open in 1996. The funny thing was that Mickey Adams played his last tournament in the States in New York in 1996, the one I also won. He said to me he was bringing me luck.”
That last round looked quite easy, but what were the more difficult moments in this tournament?
“Against Mulyar in round 3 was tough. We got this very sharp line from the Slav, from the Anand-Kramnik match, and at some point I deviated from what I intended to play. I won a piece, but then I saw that I had to simplify the position as quickly as possible. And the games against Yermo and Dmitry Gurevich were both very tricky.”
Does this mean you were also lucky, or do you feel you did play the best chess in Chicago?
“Well, in those games against Yermolinsky and Gurevich I was the one who was pushing. Against Yermo, for instance, I declined a draw offer and played an ending a pawn down. You always take some risks, you know. Against Gurevich it was very sharp, and I deliberately went for complications, based on some calculations. This means it can go well, or bad.”
“What’s the main difference between tournaments in the US and Europe, for you?
In Europe, with all these strong Russians, and with just one round a day, openings are much more important than over here. In the States it comes down to stamina, tactics, those kind of things. In Europe preparation plays a much bigger role.”
Does such a tournament, with 9 rounds in 5 days, suit you better?
“Well, I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind to play one game a day here, but for some players over here it’s a bigger problem. My physical condition is not bad, I would like to do a bit more sports, but I can’t complain. But for some players that’s different.”
And what about bringing your own chess set and clock, I cannot imagine that big names like you, or Mickey Adams, walk into the playing hall with a chess set under their arm?
“Well, you think wrong, mate! We do. Some people don’t, and hope that the opponent will bring material, but this means you might get into the situation that your opponent isn’t there yet, and you cannot press his clock.”
Does a victory like this make you want to play more often?
“Well, one victory doesn’t suddenly change the world, you know. And in fact I play more than you might think. After this I play the French team championship, then the Dutch championship, then a tournament in Norway, then Amsterdam, then the Spanish league and then the Olympiad.”
Yes, that’s a pretty tough schedule. What about the Olympiad team? I presume Anish will play, and…?
“Yes, Anish is in team, Jan Smeets is, and I am, for the moment. The other two spots will be clear after the Dutch Championship. But it comes down to the following, I believe: if Dimitri Reinderman doesn’t win, it will be Erwin l’Ami and Daniel Stellwagen by rating.”
On Facebook Anish teased you, that staying ahead of him was an extra motivation for you to win in Chicago. Is it still important to you to be the number one on the Dutch rating list?
“Let’s say it’s always good to keep Anish down as long as possible. ”
Last week Dmitry Jakovenko defeated Ernesto Inarkiev at the ACP World Rapid Cup, using the devastating 12.Ncb5!! – a theoretical novelty that won on the spot. Inarkiev could have prevented this disaster as the move was mentioned the day before the game in ChessVibes Openings #73!
Last Saturday GM Jan Timman visited my local chess club, Caissa Amsterdam, for a master class with a few members of Caissa’s first team. The club celebrated the Dutch Chess Federation’s prize they won last year, for welcoming the highest number of new club members in one season.
After the master class, Timman finished with a few endgame studies, and by showing a recent game. It turned out to be last week’s Jakovenko-Inarkiev, which he had seen on ChessVibes, and which featured an old love of his for White: the Ruy Lopez Exchange. In case you missed it, here’s that game once more:
Jakovenko-Inarkiev ACP World Rapid Cup (Odessa) 2010
At Caissa’s club house, Timman told that when he saw this game, he immediately remembered the move. “I had found the same idea, when I prepared for my game against Stefanova, at the Aventus tournament in Antwerp last year. Unfortunately she played differently, and I couldn’t execute this nice idea.”
The novelty was just waiting to be played by someone, somewhere, and Jakovenko was the lucky one to find a strong opponent who didn’t know it yet. But Inarkiev could have known it, if he had read ChessVibes Openings #73, which was in fact published on May 26th, the day before his game against Jakovenko!
Dennis Monokroussos was the first to point this out on his blog:
Fast forward to later that day, to the rapid game Jakovenko – Inarkiev from the first round of their mini-match at the ACP World Rapid Cup. Had Inarkiev seen CVO, he would have known to avoid it; instead, he fell for it hook, line and sinker! He tried the second move given above, 11…cxb5, and after 12.Qc3 varied with 12…Bc6. That avoided an immediate mate, but his position was thoroughly lost after 13.Nxc6 bxc6 14.Qxc6 Bd6 15.Rad1. He kicked on to move 44, but as Mikhail Golubev commented in his annotations for Chess Today, “Black’s resistance [after move 19 made no] sense”.
Of course, it’s impossible for all of us to keep up with everything – time, money, and the limits of our memory all have their say. But for theory fans, this example makes a case for keeping CVO in mind when choosing what resources to follow.
ChessVibes Openings editor IM Merijn van Delft discovered the move while he was helping FM Stefan Kuipers at the Dutch Youth Championship last month. “I hesitated to mention the idea in CVO, but then I thought: everyone who checked the recent Radjabov-Mamedyarov game with an engine running on the background, will see the computer pointing out the move immediately. The novelty was just waiting to be played, so it made no sense to not write about it. It was funny to see it played litteraly the next day.”
This week’s issue: #73, May 26, 2010
ChessVibes Openings #73
The latest opening developments of the fourth week of May, covering the FIDE Grand Prix in Astrakha, the U.S. Championship and the Chinese Championship All about the Kalashnikov Sicilian which was analysed in our Game of the Week Akopian-Radjabov, Astrakhan 2010.
Rybka this weekend won the 10th edition of the International Computer Chess Tournament (ICT10) in Leiden, The Netherlands.
By Eric van Reem
In the 10th edition of the International Computer Chess Tournament (ICT10) the latest Rybka version by Vasik Rajlich scored 8 points out of 9 games. Rybka lost only one game, against number 2 Deep Sjeng by Gian-Carlo Pascutto. The Belgian program played a fine tournament and scored 7 points.
Two programs shared the last spot on the winner’s podium: Hiarcs by Mark Uniacke and Shredder by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen. Both programs scored 6 points. Rybka won the “Theo van der Storm” trophy, named after the late CSVN secretary and organizer Theo van der Storm.
On the table below you can see the final results. Remarkable: only 13 of 63 games ended in a draw!
ICT 2010 | Final Standings
An international tournament it was: we had participants from nine countries: Holland, Germany, UK, Hungary, Brazil, USA, Poland, Belgium and Israel.
Computer chess still attracts many (new) programmers. Last year only eight programs came to play the ICT, but this year no less than 14 (!) professionals and amateurs came to Leiden, not only to play the games, but also to discuss chess in general and chess programming in particular. These lively discussions often inspire programmers to improve their engines.
It was also nice to some new faces in Leiden, like special guest Don Dailey. He is an American computer games and chess researcher and programmer. Dailey is author of various computer chess programs starting in the 80s. He played in Leiden with his latest program Komodo.
Special guest Don Dailey
A newbie in Leiden was the Brazilian with the remarkable name Ben-Hur Carlos Vieira Langoni Junior. He debuted with his program RedQueen. He started working on his chess program just one year ago and promised to come back again! Hopefully he will score more than 0,5 point next time.
Ben-Hur Carlos Vieira Langoni Junior
The next major computer chess tournament will be the ICGA 18th world computer chess championship in Kanazawa, Japan from September 24th till October 2nd. You can find more info on www.icga.org.
In November the Dutch Computer Chess Federation (CSVN) will celebrate its 30th anniversary of the Dutch Open Championship. The exact dates will be announced soon. Please check www.csvn.nl for information about the Dutch Open and the other activities of the CSVN. On the website you can also see many pictures of the ICT 10 tournament and you can download all the games (go to downloads-games-CSVN International Computerchess tournament).
On Saturday a side-event was played for owners of dedicated chess computers. Ruud Martin won this tournament with a Revelation Rebel 5.
We would like to take the opportunity to thank tournament director/webmaster Jan Krabbenbos and arbiter Rienk Doetjes for organizing another trouble-free tournament.
The winners, L-R: Gian-Carlo Pascutto (programmer DeepSjeng), Hans van der Zijden (operator Rybka), Harvey Williamson (operator Hiarcs) and Ernst Walet (operator Shredder)
Hans van der Zijden (operator Rybka) with the first prize
Anish Giri today defeated co-leader Jon Ludvig Hammer in a direct encounter to win the 18th Sigeman & Co tournament with a score of 4.5/5 (and a 2920 performance rating). Hammer finished clear second with a point less.
The 18th Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament took place at the classical Hipp Theater in central Malmo from May 26 till 30. The event was organized by the Limhamn Chess Club and just like last year, when Nigel Short won, six players face each other in a single round-robin. The time control was 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game.
Round 4
On Saturday both the tournament leader and the tailender scored their first draw of the tournament. After three losses, Pia Cramling split the point with Nils Grandelius, but not before a short, but very sharp fight. The natural 14.Bc4 should be tried by White players next time, as it might give some chances.
After three victories Anish Giri drew with Johnny Hector, who preferred an unambitious variation of the Four Knights over the Petroff. It came down to checking whether Giri had done his homework, and the answer was yes. The two followed Wittmann-Greenfeld, Thessaloniki OL 1984 till the very end.
This allowed Jon Ludvig Hammer to catch Giri in the standings, as he also reached a 3.5/4 score by beating Tiger Hillarp Persson. That 7.Qe2 move of Hammer is quite interesting, and had been tried just once before. Hillarp Persson was probably doing OK until 18…Qc8?! after which White could develop a decisive initiative.
Round 5
And so even with just five rounds in total, the tournament today had a nice apotheosis with the two tournament leaders fighting each other for first prize. And indeed they fought for it – especially Giri, who had the white pieces. The young Dutchman repeated moves in a well-known Catalan variation, but luckily only once (where games such as Harikrishna-Jakovenko, Eljanov-Jakovenko and Mazé-Onischuk indeed ended in a draw).
On move 19 Giri deviated from last year’s Wang Yue-Carlsen; we noticed before that Hammer has a similar black repertoire as Norway’s/the world’s number one, and we don’t think it’s a coincidence. On move 21 Hammer took a principled decision.
Giri-Hammer, after 21.Nd3
Instead of playing against a white bind, he exchanged his light-squared bishop for the white knight on b3, giving White a doubled pawn and making the break c7-c5 possible. This has only one disadvantage, and Giri went for it: the weak pawn on a6.
He had correctly judged that White could untangle his bishop, before Black would have time to
create serious counterplay. Still, Hammer might have been able to hold it somewhere – especially at move 38. Black’s last, slim chance was to flee into a rook ending on move 41; after that it was just waiting for the moment when Giri would sac the exchange and run with the pawns.
Giri-Hammer, after 21.Nd3 54.Rxe7! was a nice way to win the tournament.
Grandelius beat Hector in a very difficult ending, and Hillarp Persson inflicted a fourth loss upon Cramling, using a very nice, postional exchange sacrifice. Both of these games are recommended for replay too.
Of the fifteen games in total, only four ended in draws. Hopefully for next year it will be possible to collect a bigger budget again, because Mr Johan Sigeman surely knows how to create a good (fighting) atmosphere in Malmo.
Anish Giri added his name to the list of Sigeman & Co winners: Hellers, I.Sokolov, Korchnoi, Lautier, Gelfand, Polgar, Gulko, Short, Ivanchuk, Nielsen, Sasikiran, Timman, Cheparinov, Hillarp Persson and Short
Loek Van Wely stifled Sam Shankland’s quest for GM norm (and title) while Varuzhan Akobian fell to England’s Michael Adams. Photo by Daaim Shabazz.
Loek Van Wely has been spending a lot of time in the states in past years including the 1994 World Open and 1996 New York Open. He also played in Maurice Ashley’s HB Global Chess Challenge and several open tournaments including last year’s Chicago Open. Thus, he has certainly found a hospitable climate here.
Having to win against a norm-hungry Samuel Shankland, Loek was able to take advantage of a couple of endgame mistakes and snare the full point. He got help from Michael Adams who vanquished Varuzhan Akobian in a smooth victory. The Dutchman took him clear first and $10,200.00. Adams, Evgeny Najer, Victor Mikhalevski, Jiri Stocek all shared second with 7/9 for $2425.00.
Nigel Short, the former world title challenger, has created a niche in coaching and playing matches against young talents. Though Short, 45 next month, is a decade or two past his best he is still a formidable grandmaster, a match player of vast experience and with an individual style which poses novel problems to the rising generation.
So for many chess fans Short's match last week with the 15-year-old Dutch champion Anish Giri was an inspired pairing, and the four-game series did not disappoint. Giri, son of a Nepalese father and Russian mother, fluent in English and a Dutch citizen, made a big impression as a player at Corus B in February and as a writer by deep annotations of the world championship games.
Short's pragmatic approach to the match was to avoid mainline theory and the teenager's computer preparation. He started with the King's Gambit, followed up as Black with the Benoni which he had not used for 20 years, then unleashed the offbeat bomb below. White's 8 Bxf6 improved on the previous slow 8 Kb1, his knight sac at move 12 provoked a defensive blunder (14...Rc7!) and after some more heavy punches Giri resigned hopelessly behind on material.
Sadly in game four Short got a passive position, missed a chance for good counterplay and went down in a pawn endgame for a 2-2 final scoreline.
Carlsen, Giri, Kasparov and Kramnik all helped Anand
Besides his team of seconds in Sofia, Viswanathan Anand was helped by some big names before or during his World Championship match against Veselin Topalov. Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik all contributed to Anand’s victory in Sofia. The World Champion Monday revealed this in an interview on Playchess.
Right after the end of the World Championship match, Viswanathan Anand revealed his team of seconds. As it turned out, the same names as two years ago in Bonn worked for the Indian: GMs Surya Ganguly, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Peter Heine Nielsen and Radoslaw Wojtaszek. However, this week Anand revealed another, quite interesting list of helpers: Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik.
In a remarkable interview with Frederic Friedel and GM Jan Gustafsson, held last Monday on Playchess, Anand first tells about his cooperation with world’s number one Magnus Carlsen, who worked with Anand before.
Basically I had him as a sparring partner. We did check some openings together, but the basic idea was that I would get to play a lot with him. Very few people can simulate a real tournament situation like Magnus can. We played a lot of blitz, and I felt good, because I was able to test a lot of areas I was unfamiliar with before. With Magnus you can test almost any position, because he can play almost any position, and play it reasonably well. In that sense his practical skills are very helpful.
Carlsen worked with the retired, 13th World Champion Garry Kasparov last year and in fact Kasparov also offered his help to Anand himself. The Indian said about him:
Garry got in touch and said he wanted to help a little bit. I sent him some details about what we were planning to play… (…) I sent him some questions and he said he would check them against his own notes and let me know if it was okay.
Frederic Friedel, one of the founders of Chessbase and the editor of the English news page, then reveals that he put Anand in touch with Vladimir Kramnik, his opponent in the previous World Championship match. Anand about Kramnik’s assistance:
He actually started participating actively. He was also very understanding – he knew I would go to sleep once in a while, so he was happily speaking to the other team members as well, especially Rustam. They started getting in touch with each other and he gave us quite a few heavy-duty ideas, so that was nice. Actually he got in touch consistently over the next few days, and I cannot think of anyone who was more relieved than him when I stopped playing the Elista ending. He said “it’s an awful ending, why do you keep defending it every day?”
The fourth name on Anand’s ‘remote seconds list’ is the Dutch super-talent GM Anish Giri:
Anish also did a couple of days of training with me. It was very similar to what I was doing with Magnus – I got to test a lot of things. There were a lot of areas I had no practical experience with, like the Catalan which I was playing almost the first time, the Elista ending and so on. Anish also sat and went through that.
We recommend reading one of the most remarkable and revealing interviews we’ve ever seen on Chessbase. Part 1 is here, and part 2 here. In the interview several times “Topalov’s computer cluster” is mentioned, and in fact today we received a brief interview with Topalov, from the World Championship organizers, in which this is explained:
1. Grandmaster Topalov, regardless of the outcome, during the match between you and Viswanathan Anand we watched your dominance in the openings when you played with the white pieces. What caused this fact?
- During my preparation for the match, me and my manager Silvio Danailov, we decided to approach something non-standard and to seek additional resources to increase the advantage over my opponent.It turned out that there is such a possibility, we found that in Bulgaria is installed and running one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world – Blue Gene / P of IBM. And because the computers and the chess software are a necessary component of the preparation of the modern grandmasters, we decided to use the vast computational power of this machine. The IBM’s Blue Gene/P has 8192 processors and you can imagine for how huge possibilities we are talking about.
IBM Blue Gene P supercomputer | Photo Argonne National Laboratory, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
The problem was the fact that in the world currently there is not any chess software whose source code is written to work with such a multiprocessor platform. However, me and Silvio, we did not gave up and he managed to gather an international team of leading experts who have created a project for a chess program that can use the computing power of this extraordinary supercomputer. And now is the time to express my great thanks to the General Manager of IBM Bulgaria Mr. Alexander Rakov and the IT architect of the company Mr. Yovko Lambrev for the access to the resources of Blue Gene / P they provided to us and that they have made enormous efforts that our idea become a reality. I want to thank to the Prime Minister of Bulgaria Mr. Boyko Borisov too, who allowed us the access to the supercomputer, which as you know is state owned.
So ultimately, even though I lost the match, I managed to achieve a dominance over Anand in the openings in all games, in which I played with the white pieces. This advantage was demonstrated very clear especially in the first game, when I won fast and with decisive priority.
What’s next for gm Veselin Topalov from now on?
- Short break and chess again. In my closest plans, however, it’s included an initiative to increase young people’s interest in relation of the high technologies and the artificial intelligence, which will be held under my patronage in cooperation with IBM Bulgaria.
I will do it because of my direct experience I know how important are and will be the computers and high technologies for our future and the career development of the young people.
In a few days we will announce an essay contest among high school students from Sofia concerning a topic in the field of high technologies. First five best students will form a representative team which will play a mini chess tournament / three games / against the IBM’s supercomputer Blue Gene / P.
After each of the games I’m going to comment the game and will give my advices to the young players. IBM Bulgaria will arrange for the finalists meetings with its leading experts to get them acquainted with the vast world of high technologies.
If all goes as we imagined it, the initiative will become annual.
We formulated ten questions related to Developing Chess Talent and every Monday we’ll ask them to an interesting personality in the chess world.
1. Please introduce yourself (name, age, nationality, etc.)!
My name is Sipke Ernst, 31 years old and living in Groningen, the Netherlands.
2. What is your role in the chess world?
I play in the Dutch and German league. Besides that about seven tournaments a year. Also I am involved in chess coaching.
3. How did you develop your chess talent as a kid?
By reading lots of books. I was especially fond of all the Dvoretsky stuff.
4. Who had a profound influence on your chess development?
Hard to pick one, but Yge Visser was a good chess trainer.
5. What are your favourite sports besides chess?
At the moment I do a lot of fitness and swimming. It´s good to be in shape when you play tough tournaments like the Dutch Championship, which starts the 10th of June.
6. What would be your advice for young people?
Stay away from a professional chess career
7. What has your main concern in life besides chess?
At the moment finishing my MA in Dutch Language and Culture. I have an extensive music collection. Also I am interested in almost every sport so following all sport results is another time-consuming hobby of mine.
8. What is the best chess game you played?
Don´t know. Maybe Nijboer-Ernst, Wijk aan Zee 2005
9. What’s your connection with ‘Developing Chess Talent’?
I have a copy of the book and I like it very much! I´m often a guest at Karel´s house and before the book was published we discussed many subjects that are in the book.
10. What question do you miss and what would be your answer?
It´s all there!
From Thursday till Sunday five young, Dutch chess talents each played a 4-game match against an experienced grandmaster of their choice. On ‘top board’, Anish Giri and Nigel Short both won one game, and drew twice. Pictorial report and a video with interviews with all the players.
The Euwe matches took place May 13-16 at the same building, but a few floors above where the Max Euwe Center is located, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Five young, Dutch chess talents were given the opportunity to play four games against one opponent of grandmaster level, whom they could chose themselves. The matches and scores were:
The playing hall, three floors above the Max Euwe Center in Amsterdam, with...
...Nigel Short versus...
...Anish Giri
Lubomir Ftacnik versus...
...Robin van Kampen
Yasser Seirawan versus...
...Benjamin Bok
Sebastian Siebrecht versus...
...Lisa Schut
Dennis de Vreugt versus...
...Anne Haast
Commentary was done in the Max Euwe Center itself...
...on Saturday by Genna Sosonko...
...who was joined by Nigel Short, who suggested to show his victory against Giri, and naturally Sosonko agreed. Short: 'He is incredibly optimistic, Anish.' Sosonko: 'Well, I saw you when you were 15...'
Two experienced GMs pointing out the Veresov opening
After Vassily Smyslov and Florencio Campomanes, the chess world says goodbye to another big name. The world’s oldest living grandmaster, Andor Lilienthal, died today of serious illness, three days after his 99th birthday.
In his long career, Lilienthal played against ten male and female world champions. He beat Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, Botvinnik and Smyslov, as well as players like Bronstein, Larsen, Geller, Najdorf, Taimanov and Tartakower. Only three days ago he turned 99 years old. Today he passed away.
Lilienthal was the oldest living grandmaster, and the last one from the original group of grandmasters awarded the title by FIDE in 1950: Botvinnik, Boleslavsky, Bondarevsky, Bronstein, Euwe, Fine, Flohr, Keres, Kotov, Lilienthal, Najdorf, Reshevsky, Smyslov, Ståhlberg, Szabó, Bernstein, Duras, Grünfeld, Kostic, Levenfish, Maróczy, Mieses, Ragozin, Rubinstein, Sämisch, Tartakower and Vidmar.
Andor Arnoldovich Lilienthal was born May 5, 1911 in Moscow to Hungarian Jewish parents. He moved to Hungary at the age two. He learned playing chess quite late: when he was 16 years old. He quickly fell in love with the game and dreamt about playing with professional chess players. In Budapest he tried to play for money in cafes, as he told the magazine 64. One day he travelled to Vienna, where he played with Grünfeld. He would soon also meet Lasker, and Alekhine:
In Paris in café “Regence” in Rue de Rivoli the portrait of Alekhine hung on the wall, and there was a table at which Napoleon played. Alekhine also was a customer of that café. One day they told him about me. They said that there was a boy who perfectly played simple games. The “Doctor” (that’s how they called Alekhine in “Regence”) offered me to play four games, of course with no stake.
To spectators’ surprise he only managed to defeat me in the 4th game, whereas the three first games were won by me. Alekhine demanded revenge but I refused flatly: “Doctor I want to save this result for the rest of my life”, I said. Though Alekhine was a nervous and quick-tempered person, this time he saw my point and burst out laughing. Source: ChessCafe Skittles 172
Indeed it was the time when chess was still largely played in coffee houses, and Lilienthal played at many of them and made his living this way. It was also where he first met with José Raoul Capablanca, who gave a simul in Vienna in 1929.
“Finally I was the last, who was still playing against Capablanca. In the middlegame [...] I got an advantage. However the renowned grandmaster looked at me in such a way that all my courage disappeared and, with a trembling voice, I offered him a draw. Capablanca accepted it so quickly that when I wanted to ask him rather awkwardly for an autograph, he was already gone accompanied by a pretty lady.” Source: ChessCafe Skittles 172
Lilienthal soon became strong enough to play in international chess tournaments. His career started in 1930, and his first opponent was 65-year-old Jacques Mieses, born in 1865.
Lilienthal: “Already at the start I was to play with old Mieses,who crushed me in a way like perhaps nobody was able to later. I was so ashamed that could only keep resisting until the 16th move.” Source: ChessCafe Skittles 172
Andor Lilienthal played for Hungary in three Chess Olympiads: Folkestone 1933 (scoring +7 =6 -0 as the reserve, the fifth player on the team), Warsaw 1935 (scoring +11 =8 -0 on second board), and Stockholm 1937 (scoring +9 =6 -2 on first board, leading his team to the silver medal). He won the individual gold medal for his board (reserve and second board, respectively) at the 1933 and 1935 Olympiads, and had the fourth-best result on first board in 1937. His total score in the Olympiads was a remarkable 75.51%.
One game will always be connected with the name of Lilienthal. His evergreen was his win over Capablanca, played on January 1st, 1935 in Hastings.
Chessbase added the following paragraph to this game:
Lilienthal used to relate: “Wherever I went on an exhibition tour, both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, chess players and fans always asked me to show them how I sacrificed the queen against the great Cuban. When Bobby Fischer noticed Lilienthal in the audience at his 1992 return match against Boris Spassky, Fischer greeted him with the remark “Pawn e5 takes f6!
Emigrating to the Soviet Union in 1935, Lilienthal became a Soviet citizen in 1939. He played in the USSR Chess Championship eight times. His best result came in the 1940 championship, when he tied for first with Igor Bondarevsky, ahead of Vasily Smyslov, Paul Keres, Isaac Boleslavsky, Mikhail Botvinnik and fourteen other players. He qualified for the Candidates Tournament once, in 1948.
From 1951 until 1960 he was Tigran Petrosian’s trainer. Lilienthal was a good friend of the recently deceased Vasily Smyslov, and was Smyslov’s second in his World Championship matches against Botvinnik.
Lilienthal retired from tournament play in 1965 and returned to Hungary in 1976. His last tournament was Zamárdi 1980, where he finished sixth in the B group, scoring +3 =11 -1. His last game in the database is a draw against Emil Ungureanu. Lilienthal was 69, and rated 2385.
Lilienthal was also a close friend of another World Champion he survived: Bobby Fischer. As Slobodan Adzic wrote five years ago for Chessbase:
Their friendship began in 1992 in Sveti Stefan. Lilienthal and his wife Olga was there for the rematch Fischer vs Spassky. In 1993 Fischer lived in Budapest for over a year. One month was spent in Andor Lilienthal’s apartment. “He was always talking about his invention of random chess, but I told him that it was meaningless, and compared to classical chess it seems to be quite boring. Bobby didn’t like what I said and tried to convince me that the future of chess lies in change.” Lilienthal believes that Fischer is absolutely the best chess player of all times. He says that the proof for this is that the lone autodidact Fischer overcame the entire Russian chess imperium.
As Dutch GM and author J. H. Donner noted, Lilienthal had the unique ending of two knights versus pawn not once, but twice in his career (Norman-Lilienthal, Hastings 1934 and Smyslov-Lilienthal, URS ch 1941): “The great natural talent Lilienthal had the endgame on the board twice in his life and on both occasions he failed to convert a winning position. Apparently, it was too difficult even for his very refined chess sensitivity.”
Lilienthal was the last famous player of the pre-World War II era. From this period Lasker, Alekhine, Euwe, Capablanca, Rubinstein, Tarrasch and Nimzowitsch are still remembed, but not many more. The games we give below, prove how strong he really was – well into the 21st century, his strength is unjustly forgotten and underestimated. Kasparov only mentions Lilienthal once in his Great Predecessors series, when he includes Capablanca-Lilienthal, Moscow 1936. A classic, also according to Kasparov, so we’ve included it in the game viewer below.
A few months ago Arne and I were talking about travelling from Amsterdam to Budapest, to interview Mr Lilienthal. He was clearly the only chess player in the world for whom we’d consider doing such a thing. Unfortunately we were too late.
Andor Lilienthal at the Turin Olympiad in May 2006. It was the first international chess event I visited, before this had turned into a serious website. On June 5, 2006 I wrote: 'A photo I'm proud of. This is the last living player of the pre World War II era and the oldest grandmaster in the world. He beat Marshall, Tartakower, Alekhine and Capablanca. Everyone had to wear a badge in Turin; the players had access '1' (Olympic Village)', '2' (Residential Area) and '3' (Oval Access). We had the luxury to enter '4' (Parterre) and '5' (Media Area) as well. The fact that this gentleman had 1,2,3,4,5,6 on his badge, suggested that he had to be Lilienthal. And he was. And he didn't mind posing for a photo.'
We received a few complaints at ChessVibes headquarters for reporting in a biased way about the upcoming FIDE presidential elections. We were accused of favouring Anatoly Karpov and ridiculing Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. A news item that appeared yesterday on the BCC website shows we should have taken our current president more seriously indeed.
Okay, we admit it: we went too far. While shamelesslypromoting Karpov’s campaign, we entirely neglected to report on Karpov’s own dubious role during the 1984/1985 World Championship match and his recent curious statement about FIDE knock-out tournaments, in which Karpov said he was never a supporter of this particular formula, while profiting from it himself to beat Anand back in 1998.
What’s worse, although we didn’t write about Ilyumzhinov’s friendship with the late dictator Saddam Hussein and about his remarkable encounter with aliens as reported in various interviews (among others on Dutch television), we did have a good laugh at Mig Greengard’s suggestion that “we’d do well to go for just about anyone with a pulse and no personal stories of alien abduction at this point.” We secretly cracked jokes about Stephen Hawking’s warning that any contact with extraterrestial aliens might result in total collapse for mankind – and how Ilyumzhinov managed to avoid this – even though Hawking’s statement was received critically in the scientific world.
We were wrong, so wrong. We should have given our President – and he is our President, let’s not forget – more credit, just like the Russian parliament. According to the BBC, “a Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate claims by a regional president that he has met aliens on board a spaceship.”
MP Andre Lebedev is not just asking whether Mr Ilyumzhinov is fit to govern. He is also concerned that, if he was abducted, he may have revealed details about his job and state secrets.
The MP has written a letter to Mr Medvedev raising a list of his concerns. In his letter he says that – assuming the whole thing was not just a bad joke – it was an historic event and should have been reported to the Kremlin.
He also asks if there are official guidelines for what government officials should do if contacted by aliens, especially if those officials have access to state secrets.
Ilyumzhinov told television host Vladimir Pozner on Channel One on April 26 that he had spent several hours in the company of aliens after they visited his apartment in downtown Moscow on Sept. 18, 1997.
He said he was falling asleep when he heard someone calling him from the balcony. When he went there, Ilyumzhinov said, he saw a “semi-transparent half tube” that he entered to meet human-like creatures in yellow spacesuits.
“I am often asked which language I used to talk to them. Perhaps, it was on a level of the exchange of the ideas,” Ilyumzhinov said, speaking solemnly.
He said the aliens gave him a tour of their spaceship. When he asked them why they had not gone on television to reveal themselves to humans, they replied that they are not yet ready, Ilyumzhinov said.
He said the aliens returned him to his home in the morning — just as his driver and two associates were about to initiate a citywide search for him after not finding him in the locked apartment.
We stand corrected. Such a uniquely detailed account and its follow-up in the Russian Duma proves there’s more to this than just a good laugh. It’s all very serious, which is also indicated by the fact Ilyumzhinov states all this again just after having been nominated by the Russian Chess Federation as the candidate for the elections in Khanty Mansiysk: in other words, the story is a conscious part of his campaign to win votes in September and to attract positive media attention to promote chess. Apparently, the President didn’t trust Vishy Anand and Veselin Topalov to do it the way only he can.
We think deputy Lebedev raises important questions, but in our opinion he doesn’t go quite far enough. The real question, of course, is why Ilyumzhinov, when he was shown this super-advanced alien technology, didn’t ask the yellow men which is the best opening move, 1.e4 or 1.d4? Which variation is better: the Najdorf or the Sveshnikov? Why did Ilyumzhinov just ‘exchange ideas’ instead of asking what is the ultimate result of chess as we know it – a draw, or perhaps a win for Black? And who really was the best player of all time? Not only the Russian parliament but the entire chess community of planet earth eagerly awaits these answers!
Surely Mr. President, as head of all chess lovers in the world, a bit more chess curiosity wouldn’t have been too much to ask for?
Elburg reviews "A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire"
Only this Monday afternoon I got hold of some copies of the revised "A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire". Since then I have been very busy and haven't really had the time to examine the book closely. My first impression is that most (possibly all) of my late corrections/additions made it to the final varsion.
Today I found the first review of the book at John Elburg's chess reviews. As expected he is quite positive. My guess is that Gambit on their info page will only quote his concluding line: Conclusion:Impressive update!
Elburg points out that there is no bibliography and thinks this would have been useful for the reader. Well, he may be right. However, as a matter of fact I originally wrote a quite extensive bibliography but eventually decided to skip it as it would either have been somewhat misleading or would have needed a lot of comments. For instance it would have been somewhat misleading to list the large number of books that I consulted only to find out that they had nothing new to offer.
Elburg also mentions my analysis on Trygstad’s 1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.e4 Rh7!? which may be the part where I did the most analytical work (or more precisely: where I had Rybka slaving for the longest time).
As a matter of fact only a tiny fraction of my analysis was actually included in the book. Initially I spent a lot of time trying to find a way to a clear advantages in the semi endgames resulting from Williams' mainlines in Dangerous Weapons: The Dutch. However, although I succeeded finding some quite promising paths, the positions remained difficult and there was a very real risk that Black would be better prepared for these positions. There were also space issues to be taken into consideration (the book's 192 A5 pages have been utilized more fully than I have ever seen in a chess opening manual). So in the end - just before the final proofs had to be sent - I retraced a few steps, searched for moves that Williams had ignored, and was happy to find a quite promising option that could be covered within the space available. Now I look forward to analytical feedback from Dutch players.
It's just a few pages - the Table of Contents and two games featuring the Barry Attack. The first game is Hebden - Nunn, Hastings 1996/7, which gave White's opening system a lot of publicity and then it's Brousek - Rivest, corr. 2003 which is a more recent attempt to keep White's initiative alive.
Table of Contents
Symbols 4 Introduction to the First Edition 5 Updater’s Notes 6 1 Barry Attack 9 2 150 Attack 43 3 Colle-Zukertort System 68 4 1 d4 d5 2 Nf3: Beating the Anti-Colle Systems 92 5 Classical Queen’s Indian 121 6 Anti-Benoni 137 7 Anti-Dutch 2 Bg5 167 8 Odds and Ends 186 Index of Variations 191
We formulated ten questions related to Developing Chess Talent and every Monday we’ll ask them to an interesting personality in the chess world.
1. Please introduce yourself (name, age, nationality, etc.)!
Hello, good evening! I am Jan Smeets, 25, Dutch, and have blue eyes.
2. What is your role in the chess world?
I am currently ranked in the lower parts of the top 100. Really enjoyed playing playing Corus A and the Amber tournament this year even though I made an impressive minus score. Besides playing I have never done a lot of coaching, writing etc although right now I am in Sofia as one of Topalov’s seconds.
3. How did you develop your chess talent as a kid?
By playing a lot and reading books. And attending lectures/lessons. It may sound strange to the juniors these days but as a kid I never used a computer for anything related to chess.
4. Who had a profound influence on your chess development?
Never really had any chess idols although I always used to be more of a Kasparov then a Karpov fan. Must have been the first two professional trainers I had, Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden.
5. What are your favourite sports besides chess?
Uf! Let me start by confessing that I don´t spend enough time on sport. Used to play a lot of tabletennis but that’s a thing from the past. I also like soccer but play it very rarely.
6. What would be your advice for young people?
Play chess only if you really enjoy it. If not, join a soccer club.
7. What has your main concern in life besides chess?
University, finding a good place to live, girlfriend.
8. What is the best chess game you played?
Mamedyarov-Smeets, Corus B 2005. During the game I was extremely focused and calculated a lot of lines (correctly). I should add that after about 15 moves I was more or less lost.
9. What’s your connection with ‘Developing Chess Talent’?
Merijn sort of forced me into buying the book
10. What question do you miss and what would be your answer?
Not so much a question as a small piece of advice. Don’t stare at computer evaluations all the time but keep using your own mind!
According to Russian sources, the Russian Chess Federation has officially nominated Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as candidate for the upcoming FIDE presidential elections during the Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad in September. His rival candidate, Anatoly Karpov, was already nominated by the German Federation last week.
According to RIA Novosti, chairman of the supervisory board of the RCF, Arkady Dvorkovich, has announced that the letter with the official nomination is on its way to FIDE. Curiously, one of the reasons for nominating Ilyumzhinov was “that the RCF is hoping for a representative from Russia as head of FIDE.” As far as we could find out, Anatoly Karpov is also a Russian citizen.
Chessdom adds that “Dvorkovich expressed the wish that Anatoly Karpov will continue working with the Russian Chess Federation, despite the fact that Ilyumzhinov was the endorsed candidate for FIDE President.” Dvorkovich further said that
We looked at the chances of a number of candidates, and have consulted various federations, which showed the majority of federations is ready to support the candidacy of Ilyumzhinov.
Various commentators have pointed out that a nomination of the Russian Chess Federation is of major importance in deciding the ultimate winner of the elections. Mark Crowther has an interesting analysis up on The Week in Chess, in which he also refers to a more elabore article (in Russian) by Yuri Vasiliev, who quotes Dvorkovich saying the Russian Chess Federation respects Ilyumzhinov’s work and the progress he’s made to popularize chess.
Karpov has so far received the support of the USCF and some major European chess federations. Ilyumzhinov’s candidacy is supported by the Turkish Chess Federation and now, crucially, the Russian Chess Federation as well. The big question remains, however, what all the less well-known countries will vote for. You can read more about the upcoming presidential elections and the candidates’ support here.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is also the president of the Republic of Kalmykia, has been president of FIDE since 1995. During the last FIDE presidential elections in Turin 2006, he beat businessman Bessel Kok in an election race which former president of the Dutch Chess Federation Herman Hamers described as “having little to do with democracy.” In Khanty-Mansiysk, he will run against former World Champion Anatoly Karpov, whose campaign team just released its own website this week.
Five countries, 2000 kilometres, about a million potholes, an unexpected ferry and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. A member of the Anand team wrote a report of a crazy roadtrip through Europe.
The following report describes the travelling of the Anand team from Frankfurt to Sofia, from Sunday to Tuesday. It was written by a member of the team, and was also published at Chessbase and the All India Chess Federation. The author allowed us to reproduce the following, remarkable story.
Months of careful planning for the chess world championship in Sofia by the Anand team were disrupted by a volcano in Iceland, located under Eyjafjallajökull, one of the smaller glaciers of the North Atlantic island. Tens of thousands of people were stranded on airports in Europe. One of them was Viswanathan Anand, who had travelled with his wife and manager Aruna from Madrid to Frankfurt on Thursday April 15th. They planned to continue their journey to Sofia on Friday April 16, together with three other travellers. Two more seconds were to fly from other airports in Europe to the Bulgarian capital on Friday to join the team there.
On Thursday April 15, Hans-Walter Schmitt and another helper of the Anand team flew to Sofia to prepare the arrival of the team Friday. The plan was good and well thought through. But then, on Friday, the bad news was that the ash cloud from Iceland had reached Frankfurt Airport and the airport had to be closed at 09.00 a.m. This meant that the planned flight to Sofia, LH3484, which was scheduled to depart at 10.05 a.m., was cancelled, just like hundreds of other flights. It was quite unclear how long the airport would remain closed, therefore Aruna Anand and the team decided to rebook for the evening flight, LH3488, which was scheduled for 19.45 p.m.
Anand’s baggage was checked through to Sofia. Since it was not clear, however, if the evening flight would depart on time, or depart at all, Aruna thought that it wise to collect the checked-through baggage from Madrid, just to have everything under control in case of another cancellation. She was in close contact with Lufthansa, who were very cooperative, and picked up the baggage herself on Friday afternoon. You should know that finding four pieces of luggage in a major airport like Frankfurt is not an easy task, especially when there are heavy disruptions. Only in case of an emergency, e.g. if somebody has life-saving medicine in his suitcase, an airline is willing to make baggage available for the passenger.
After solving this problem, it soon became clear that the evening flight to Sofia would not depart as well, since Frankfurt airport would be closed until Saturday morning at 02:00 a.m. Once again the tickets were rebooked, and despite a long waiting list, Anand and his team were accepted and even got boarding passes for the first flight on Saturday, April 17, LH3484, at 10.05 a.m. However, on Friday, when it became clear that the situation at all major airport was becoming more and more critical, Aruna Anand and her team had already started searching for alternatives. Plans were made to travel to Vienna, which had one of the airports that was still open at that time, to get a flight from there. However, Vienna also closed down on Friday evening.
Aruna began to study other train schedules in detail, but it soon became clear that everything was booked out and it was absolutely impossible to get a ticket. Team Anand also had to bear in mind, that travelling to Sofia by a land route was also problematic, since not every country on the way would accept transit travellers from India without a valid visa! The shortest route is via Serbia, for that Anand and his wife would need a visa, which was impossible to at such a short notice.
There were some very generous offers from Anand supporters, who wanted to help get the world champion and his team to Sofia as quickly as possible. Wolfgang Grenke, one of the main sponsors of the Chess Classic, and sponsor of the Bundesliga team Baden Baden, in which Anand plays, offered Anand the use of his private jet. However, German authorities could not give him permission to fly, since the airspace in Germany was now completely blocked. Even German chancellor Angela Merkel had to take an overland route when she arrived from San Francisco on Friday and was not allowed to enter German airspace.
On Saturday, after another cancellation of all flights from Frankfurt and other airports in Germany, including all flights to Sofia, it became obvious that there was only one final possibility to reach Sofia: by car. However, most car rentals, taxi companies and other VIP services simply had no cars and staff available, while companies that did simply refused to drive all the way to Bulgaria. Finally, after many hours of trying, team Anand managed to find a VIP service by Taxi Lagerberg, located in Amstelveen, The Netherlands. They contacted two of their best drivers, Paul Oostheim and Peer Reintjes, on Saturday, and asked them to stop their shift immediately, in order to be able to drive to Bad Soden on Sunday. This is 500 kilometres from Amstelveen, a five hour drive.
In the meantime, two more seconds of Anand arrived, very late on Saturday, in Bad Soden to join the team. They had originally intended to fly to Sofia on Friday, but after the closure of the airspace, they had redirected to Bad Soden. To do so they had to travel more than twelve hours by train on Saturday, coming from different countries. But they made it somehow – what other choice did they have?
On Sunday morning, at 11:00 a.m., the Mercedes Sprinter, equipped with all kinds of amenities like a fridge, two TV screens and a DVD player, arrived in Bad Soden and after picking up the team in the hotel, the journey started at 11.28h. The drivers had prepared the route for Sunday: we would cross the Germany border in Passau, drive through Austria and continue to Budapest, to spend the night there. That was a 1000 kilometre trip, and after a smooth drive with a lot of sunshine the team arrived in Budapest at 22.30 p.m. Bear in mind that the drivers had started their trip in Amstelveen at 06.00 a.m.
On Monday, the journey continued at 08.00 a.m. with a morning traffic jam in Budapest. But the drivers managed to get the team out of the city pretty fast, and the drive to Szeged was easy, despite the heavy rain. The Rumanian border was reached at 13.30 p.m. The team had to transfer to Bulgaria via Rumania, because this country will accept Indian passports without a visa. The border was crossed near Arad, the federal border police recognised Anand. After crossing the border we started to watch the first film of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the extended version to be precise.
We had to drive 480 km through Rumania to the city of Vidin at the Bulgarian border. If you use Google Maps you may find it a bit strange that we had to reckon with 9-10 hours for this fairly short distance. But when you actually have to drive this route you understand why it takes so long: there are numerous construction zones, about every ten kilometres, dead dogs and cats on the road have to be avoided, and there are about a million potholes. To make the situation even more difficult for the drivers it was raining continuously – a miracle that the car survived these extremely bad road conditions. Even the two very experienced drivers had never seen such bad roads.
In the car however, the atmosphere was very good, there was food and drink, and the second “Lord of the Rings” film, “The Two Towers”, helped us pass the time. After more than twelve hours driving through Romania, at 22.35h, we finally reached Calafat in Romania to cross the border to Bulgaria. That was when we saw a long queue and a ferry, and it dawned upon the passengers that there is no bridge across the river “Romania” and we would have to use the ferry. That meant waiting until enough cars had arrived for the ferry to cross the river. After over an hour, just before midnight, the ferry started, and twenty minutes later, on 20 April at 12:05 a.m., Anand finally reached Bulgarian territory. One of the Bulgarian border officers checked the passports in the bus. When he read “Anand” aloud he realized that he was checking the passport of the chess world champion and started laughing: “Ah, Anand!“ Without any further checks we were allowed to pass.
Only 250 km left to Sofia, with about four more hours to go, but the story is not completely over. In the meantime, the last part of the Ring-trilogy, “The Return of the King”, was running in our Sprinter DVD, and we were confident that we would reach Sofia at about 04.00 a.m. that night. And, dear readers, when the streets are empty, when you have driven 36 hours and your destination is within reach, you want to get there as quickly as possible. With only 100 km to go, at 02.15 a.m. on Tuesday morning, April 20, the Bulgarian police noticed a dark Mercedes Sprinter with a Dutch license plate, driving a just a little too fast. You guessed right: we had to stop and the driver had to explain why he was speeding (74 km instead of the allowed 50) – and what he was doing in Bulgaria. However, when the driver told the very friendly police officer that Vishy Anand and his team were on board, the officer smiled and said: “Ok, take him to Sofia, but not too fast, ok?!“
Without a fine we continued the last leg of the journey to Sofia, although we were stopped again by the police, this time just for a routine traffic check. Finally, at 05.30 a.m. after travelling for more than 40 hours, we arrived at our destination – just in time to have an early breakfast. There was only one problem: we arrived at the Hilton Sofia still a little too early and had missed the last hour of “The Return of the King“. We will have to watch that on our way home…
FIDE elections: meaningful and meaningless support
We haven’t given much attention to the upcoming FIDE presidential elections in Khanty-Mansiysk yet, but the recent news that the United States Chess Federation and the German Chess Federation have given their support to Anatoly Karpov, there’s no escaping the facts: the campaigns have started, and the political games have begun.
In this article, we want to give some background information regarding the various aspects of the upcoming FIDE presidential elections in Khanty-Mansiysk this fall. First, we’ll discuss the letters of support for the two candidates (Karpov and Ilyumzhinov), who wrote them and why. Next, we’ll cover some of the practical and theoretical implications of these endorsements. Finally, we compare the current situation to Turin 2006, when Ilyumzhinov managed to beat his opponent Bessel Kok.
Support for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
A few weeks ago, ChessBase reported in two separate news items about supporting letters for current President Ilyumzhinov. First, Turkish Chess Federation President Ali Nihat Yazici (a FIDE Vice-President and candidate himself for the upcoming presidential elections of the European Chess Union) expressed his support for Ilyumzhinov in a lengthy letter. Just two days later, four letters from FIDE continental presidents (Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe) were published, also supporting the current FIDE President in often strikingly silimar prose. The second paragraph of Boris Kutin (ECU) and Dabilani Buthali (African Continental President) are in fact identical, suggesting the letters have been mutually composed.
Some of these letters are difficult to read without feeling embarrassed by their subservient tone. A closer look at, for instance, Mr. Yazici’s arguments for supporting Ilyumzhinov reveals some of the utter superficiality of these letters of support.
Ali Nihat Yazici
“Mr. President has spent more than 50 million USD from his personal pocket for FIDE during his presidency of over 15 years. I believe that this should be respected.”
There are several things to note here. First of all, if all the money was spent out of the President’s ‘personal pocket’, what happened to his promise to attract more corportate sponsors, one of the main goals of Global Chess? (A company which, by the way, recently ceased to exist.)
Even more conspicuously, why didn’t the President spend some of this money on the rather miserable situation in his own country, Kalmykia, which is one of the least developed former Soviet states? It’s a thousand-times repeated complaint that Ilyumzhinov likes chess more than his own people, but to actually use it as an argument for chess, as Mr. Yazici does, is really a totally unheard-of approach.
“The situation of World chess today is in a fantastic condition compared to 15 years ago. Kirsan has united the World Championship title.”
In fact uniting the World Championship could also be described as one of the biggest failures of Mr. Ilyumzhinov (we’ll just continue addressing him formally) as a President. He only succeeded after more than ten years of hopeless debates, arguments and all sorts of bad publicity for chess, and this is even generously ignoring the often-heard suggestion that he might actually have been the cause of some of the major disputes over this issue as well.
“All FIDE tournaments are today organized in excellent conditions(…)”
Perhaps, although one would think differently looking at some of the protests and debates over recently introduced rules and conditions. Also, proper scheduling of tournaments has been something of a problem recently, for instance with the Women’s Grand Prix and the Women’s European Championship being held at the same time. Also, one wonders why, if everything is going so smoothly, big FIDE tournaments have been mainly organized in the same Causasus region for years, where conditions are often mediocre, and even dangerous at times.
“FIDE is able to find prizes, sponsors and venues, far in excess of the events we had in the 80s or 90s.”
That may be so, but interestingly, by far the biggest media events since the 80s and 90s were the recent exhibition match between the two stars of the 80s and 90s, Kasparov and Karpov, in Valencia, and the Kasparov-Deep Blue matches in 1996 and 1997. Ilyumzhinov had nothing to do with these events.
An what about the badinternationalmediaattention the current FIDE President has generated? What about the sense of estrangement among ordinary chess players? In our opinion, these questions need to be answered by Ilyumzhinov’s supporters if they want to make themselves credibile at all.
Support for Anatoly Karpov
Not surprisingly, then, on the websites of the German and French federations, letters of support for the other candidate, Karpov, were published. This came after former World Champion Garry Kasparov had expressed his support for his former rival after his candidacy. To Russian press agency Interfax, Kasparov said:
Currently it’s quite obvious that the FIDE administration is on the sidelines and any attempt to bring chess back to its former status must be linked to the name of someone who has a serious prestige and knows everything. In my view, Karpov might try to essentially change the situation, and I hope that he does have such a chance.
And now, the USCF has joined these European federations with a published statement of support. They haven’t elaborated on it yet,
Update: the full USCF statement has now been published over here.
…but some of the European federations have. In a press release from last week (now also published on Chessbase), the President of the German Chess Federation, Robert von Weizsäcker, stated that Karpov will be nominated as Germany’s candidate. The FIDE statutes allow this, since Karpov has been a member of the German chess club 1930 Hockenheim for sixteen years, and therefore he’s also an official member of the German Federation.
Meanwhile, support from Karpov has come from various other angles, such as a Facebook page and support from columnists. It’s likely his campaign will gain even more momentum, possibly from some of the world’s chess playing elite as well, as the elections approach.
Questions about federal support
Following this news, there was a lot we couldn’t quite figure out here at ChessVibes headquarters. First of all, why were these letters of support published so long before the actual elections, and especially before all possible candidates were known? Why didn’t all these federations hold their horses until they really knew who they could vote for? Secondly, why have some federations express support while others have not? And thirdly, how could the President of the European Chess Federation express support for one candidate, and some of the biggest and most influential individual European federations support the other? This seemed contradictory and at best highly confusing.
Perhaps most importantly, all this seemed to suggest that the decisions by the national federations (at least the ones publishing those letters) were already made without consulting their individual members – the actual chess enthusiasts themselves! What had been the democratic process within the federations resulting in support for one or the other? Were actual chess players consulted in this decision? Did these nation’s leading grandmasters have a say in all this?
Predictably, such questions aren’t answered on the FIDE website. In fact, the one article referring to the upcoming elections in September hyperlinks only to the letters of support for Ilyumzhinov, while only noting that “Mr Karpov has stated that he has the support of France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.”
We decided to ask our Dutch Chess Federation (KNSB) for some clarification regarding these questions. IM Jeroen Bosch, technical director of the KNSB, was quick in his reply and offered some interesting background information on the matter. First of all, Bosch said individual chess players (who are member of the federation) can, in theory, appeal to their delegates in the federation’s council to vote for a particular candidate. This would indirectly infuence the voting decision of the national federation.
Bosch also said the Dutch Federation hasn’t discussed its preferred presidential candidacy yet, since Russia hasn’t decided its official candidate yet: this could be either Karpov or Ilyumzhinov or even a third, hitherto unknown, person.
To Bosch’s knowledge, the national federations have not discussed this matter between them either. Bosch did note that in the past, the KNSB has often spoken critically to Ilyumzhinov about specific policies, and has in the past supported opposing candidates (Bessel Kok and Sunye Neto).
Robert von Weiszäcker confirmed to us that the German Chess Federation is “convinced the majority of our members support the nomination of Anatoly Karpov” and that “also, during the 2006 elections in Turin, the DSB positioned itself firmly behind Bessel Kok. Likewise, our current discussion is carried broadly by our DSB-board.”
ECU’s bewildering letter of support
Regarding Boris Kutin’s letter of support on behalf of the European Chess Council, Jeroen Bosch said that the KNSB wasn’t consulted in this beforehand and that they might object to the letter during the next ECU meeting. All this suggests to us that probably not a single individual European country was consulted in the writing of this letter of support. The fact that four other federations clearly support Karpov is another indication of this. Remarkably, from comparing the letters published in the ChessBase article, the ECU did consult the African Union beforehand. Apparently, consulting its own members was of less importance.
All this is rather bewildering- until you realize, as Bosch pointed out to us, that the ECU does not, in fact, have a vote in the presidential elections at all. Come again? That’s right, none of the continental or zonal unions do. It’s the individual countries (or rather their federations) that vote for the President – meaning Boris Kutin’s letter of support must have actually been just a personal and hence formally meaningless initiative. As Bosch says, “Several zonal Presidents have expressed support for Ilyumzhinov, but this doesn’t mean much.”
The president of the German Chess Federation confirms this point of view:
When ECU president Boris Kutin expresses his support for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, this is his personal opinion and not the viewpoint of all of Europe. The 54 federations of our continent will surely not be influenced by this, and will only make their decision after careful consideration. The DSB has openly accounced its candidacy of the former World champion to make a point. We are convinced his points of view on the things to be done within FIDE are right, and we will support them.
Knowing this, it’s understandable Kutin’s letter of support starts with the informal ‘Dear Kirsan’ instead of the normal ‘Dear Mr. President’ – after all, Kutin is not only the ECU’s President but also, just like Ali Nihat Yazici, a member of the Presidential board of FIDE.
Meaningful support?
The USCF’s official endorsement of Karpov, on the other hand, seems very meaningful. Together with Germany, France and Spain, the USCF is one the world’s largest and most active chess federations. Even if Russia or some other country were to nominate Ilyumzhinov (some country definitely will, we can be sure of that), even then the support for Karpov will be big and stable. However, as history has shown, this doesn’t necessarily have to mean much. A vote from a country like Gabon counts as strongly as the vote from the USA, so the big question is what all other countries will do at the FIDE congress?
What can we expect? Dutch Grandmaster Hans Ree wrote about the previous presidential elections during the 2006 Chess Olympiad in Turin a report for ChessCafe:
Yvette Nagel (the wife of Yasser Seirawan, who was a member of Bessel Kok’s team): “Truly fascinating what happened, this was unreal. At a certain moment, even before the actual voting, pamphlets were distributed saying that Ilyumzhinov had won 87 votes! A woman from Kok’s team wanted to distribute something also, but was removed from the hall by Azmaiparashvili’s wife, who literally kicked her. Some delegates were only flown in to Turin, they signed and took the same plane back home, it was really scandalous.”
Jan Timman: “Intimidation and bribery went much farther then we had expected. People have actually seen banknotes changing hands, but how to prove what the money was for? Bessel Kok will drop out after this adventure, this is sure.”
Herman Hamers (former President of the Dutch Chess Federation): “Incredible what happened there. It has little to do with democracy.”
Of course, such stuff is not exclusive to FIDE Presidential elections. With a nice word it’s called lobbying, and it’s the same thing that happened, for instance, at the recent CITES conference for endangered species. It’s true that we don’t know what will happen during this fall’s presidential elections, so we probably shouldn’t draw overhasty conclusions.
The campaign will be tough, no doubt. In an article in The New Yorker from 2006, Karpov is quoted saying that “even a dickhead would do a better job than Ilyumzhinov. The situation cannot become worse.” Still, if the voting proceedings during the previous FIDE congress are indicative of what we can expect in Khanty-Mansiysk, Karpov – and his supporters – may yet again return empty-handed.
Greetings to everyone around the world. Fortunately, it is sunny outside and most of us in the United States have recovered from SUPER SUNDAY! I know most people here probably would prefer chess to football (including Dave the webmaster, who is a Colts fan!) but I found the game to be extremely exciting. Having grown up in New York, I always was impressed by Sean Payton's ability as the defensive coordinator for the Giants. Overall, I felt that New Orleans won due to the many interesting and simply brilliant decisions including the onside kick to start the second half. Although I was pulling for Peyton Manning and the Colts due to the people I know in Indy, New Orleans was simply the better team last night. Alas, another football season has come and gone, but there's always next year for my Titans! Now back to chess...
Round 6: Ivanchuk-Nakamura
In the sixth round, I kept facing strong players as I was Black against GM Vasily Ivanchuk from Ukraine. Of the modern day players, I think my style most resembles his in that we are the two players who play just about any opening depending on which side of the bed we wake up on! At the same time, he is also one of the few players who can beat anyone which makes him dangerous. Having beaten Vasily in the rapid finals of Cap D'Agde in 2008, I knew that he'd be angling for revenge this time around. Therefore, I decided to play the Slav against his 1.d4 (a minor surprise!).
This was really the first surprise of the game as I have played the fairly obscure 12...0-0-0. In other top encounters, 12...Be6 was preferred. During the game, I was feeling fairly confident as I had reached this position in my analysis prior to the game. At the board, though, I began thinking to myself what if he plays 13.a5? My suspicions were confirmed shortly afterwards when he played it! Fortunately, it was not hard for me to come up with the right plan as there aren't a whole lot of logical moves. As such, I was able to force a repitition after 13...Nc5 14.Qe1 Nb3 15.Ra4 Nc5 16.Ra1 Nb3 leading to a draw. During the tournament, there were many people who asked how could I take a quick draw as it runs contrary to my style. The answer is quite simple in that if either Vasily or I chose to play on, we'd be worse. Sometimes, being practical and taking quick draws makes sense. Obviously, I had the foresight to do that here, but not against Karjakin when it mattered, D'oh!
Round 7: Nakamura-Shirov
After the draw with Ivanchuk, I was on a very respectable 4/6 while Shirov was blazing on 5.5/6 and in the clear lead by a half point. Although neither Kris nor I came into the tournament with expectations of me winning, we decided that I should definitely go all out for glory in this game. Since I went into the game with this mindset I decided to play 1.e4 as I felt Shirov would create complications no matter which opening I chose. Despite the fact I felt Alexei made a mistake in choosing the sicilian against me, I still must respect his decision to stay true to his style despite the tournament situation. The opening was very much a seesaw battle as I felt after 15 moves I was simply better. To his credit, it was around this time that Alexei used a lot of time and came up with the right idea of exchanging his dark square bishop. Over the course of the next few moves I got careless giving away any advantage I had. The key point occurred in the following position after 19.Bf3.
In this position, I was not quite sure about the evaluation. However, I correctly judged that Alexei would go for a tactical solution in the position. In chess, there are certain positions where intuitively you feel like there has to be a way to win material. As it turns out, Black is probably better after the simple 19...Rd8, but Alexei like myself spent most of his time trying to come up with something tactical which was incorrect. After 19...Nh3 20.Kh1 Nxf2 21.Rxf2 Qxe3 22.Bxb7 I think Alexei overlooked 22...Qxf2 23.Qxd6 with a crushing threat of Bc6 mate. Once this key opportunity was missed, the position became difficult to play for Black. Although any computer program would probably draw (beat us weak humans) it without too much trouble, it was still incredibly unpleasant to play. This coupled with Alexei's impending time pressure proved to be too much as in the time pressure, he cracked and I won! Although it was not fate to win the tournament, I knew that after this win that this event was a success regardless of how I ended.
Round 8: Kramnik-Nakamura
In the eighth round, I got Black against the 14th World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Coming off such a high following the previous round, I knew this would be an extremely difficult task. However, as a good friend said once before, you play the games since the underdog can come out ahead. Thanks to a certain girl, I took the French Canadien phrase, "C'est de la biere" (It's a beer which basically means it's a piece of cake) and simply tried to relax and enjoy the game. There are some days when we all just play badly. This day proved to be one of these as it got off to a bad start when I switched my opening choice at the last minute and decided to play the Dutch. In the game, we went into the Leningrad and Vladimir played the interesting 8.Rb1 line. Pretty much immediately I went off the beaten path as I started pushing pawns like a total patzer. Eventually we reached the first of two key positions after 19.Bxe3.
In this position, I calculated 19...Qe7 and thought it made the most sense only to have a finger fehler and play 19...Nxd4. In reality, the move I played was correct but it screwed with my mind. Normally this is not a problem, but almost immediately after I played Nxd4, I started thinking, "hmm, wait, why did I not go Qe7??" After 20.Qc1 White would had a big advantage, but when you have lingering doubts during a game, it can affect you adversely. After a series of more or less forced moves we reached the second and final chance I had to save the game.
In this position, Vladimir had just played 23.Rxd5. During the game, I only considered playing either 23....Bf5 or 23...Be6. As it turns out, our silicon friend thinks I am probably fine if I trade on g3 and then follow it up with Be6. However, during the game I fully intended to play Bf5 only to then start considering Be6. For some bizarre reason, I calculated 23...Be6 24.Rxd4 Qxd4 25.Nxf4 as a variation. Then, once I played 23...Be6 I immediately spotted the obvious 24.Nxf4. After this secondary blunder, the game was beyond hope and I duly lost.
This certainly was not a positive development as far as the tournament was concerned. On the positive side, it was only after the second blunder that I was losing. Nevertheless, I played badly and got punished. Alas, I only join the likes of people such as Kasparov who have gotten crushed by Kramnik. Being in such good company cannot be something to complain about!
Round 9: Nakamura-Karjakin
In the ninth round, I had White against former child prodigy, Sergey Karjakin formerly of Ukraine and now playing for Russia.Sergey and I are certainly no strangers as we have played several times in the past. Before I discuss the game, I would just like to point out that despite my sometimes controversial style and comments in the past, I have not intentionally insulted someone in public. In many ways, I found Sergey's comments on chesspro to be incredibly disgusting and insulting. One can only hope that people grow up much like I have since my younger days.
In this game, I chose to play 1.d4 as I was coming off a brutal loss and wanted to play a bit safer. Sergey surprised me almost from the start by choosing the Nimzo Indian over his preferred Slav. The opening was a bit unusual in that I had two doubled pawns on the c file. However, the diagonals certainly made up for it.
In this important position, we had repeated with 17.Ba7 Ra8 18.Be3 Rb8. Much like in my game against Ivanchuk, I had a serious decision to make here. Should I take a relatively quick draw and get ready for the following round or try to press on. Here, I thought for some time and decided to play despite the messy position and not having a lot of time. Although this was objectively fine since the position was not any worse for me, from a general standpoint it was simply wrong. The rest of the game, I did not play particularly inspiringly, and I eventually overpressed in time pressure making a horrible blunder. There really was not much positive news from this game as I once again just did not play very accurately. However, with four rounds still left, I felt that it would be possible to put up a solid plus score if i returned to form. The one big drawback at this point was that during this game, I started feeling a bit tired and hallucinating during this and the subsequent games. Alas, when you play two major tournaments back to back eventually all the energy being spent will catch up.
Stay tuned for the third and final installment from north of the border!
Hello once again to everyone out there in the blogosphere. Before I dive right into talking about Wijk, I would like to clear up a certain rumour from the online world. I am not playing in Aeroflot, nor did I ever seriously consider it. Any suggestions to the contrary are simply not true. Now that this is out of the way, onto the tournament recap!
Round 1: Smeets-Nakamura
In the first round, I had Black against Dutch GM Jan Smeets. Like quite a few other European GMs, I have seen him at several tournaments over the past few years but not had the opportunity to play. Overall, Jan seems to be a very solid player with a pretty good general knowledge of openings. In our game, he surprised me by playing the 6.Bg5 variation against the Najdorf. As fate would have it, the tournament seemed to be a referendum on whether the Bg5 variation is good for White or not. I picked a mild sideline which surprised Jan, and he played a tame variation.
The following was the position after 14.Nd5. Oddly enough, our silicon friends seem to think 14...Nxd5 was simply better for me, but I thought White had a solid positional advantage after 15.exd5 followed by eventually putting a knight on e4. When I chose to avoid this variation, the position eventually fizzled out and it was a fairly standard draw. Overall, I felt that coming off of the tournament in Turkey this was a great start to the tournament with a solid draw as Black. Onto round 2!
Round 2: Nakamura-van Wely
In the second round I had White against another Dutch man albeit it, one who is a bit older and stronger! Shockingly Loek was playing in Wijk for a 19th! straight year. The last time we played in Amsterdam, I was White in a Najdorf, but blundered in a completely winning position and he was able to escape with a draw. This time around, we played another Najdorf although I decided to play the 6.Bg5 variation against him. Unfortunately for Loek, I was very well prepared and he walked right into my preparation.
This is the position after 15.Nd5. Unlike the game against Smeets, the knight on d5 is actually an intentional piece sacrifice. Prior to the game, I had prepared this variation with Kris and we concluded that the position might be holdable for Black, but it would be extremely unpleasant for a human to play. As it turned out, our assessment was correct since Loek went wrong almost immediately and simply got blown off the board. It was after this second round game that I realized I would at least have a chance of putting together a good showing in the tournament.
Round 3: Short-Nakamura
In the third round, I faced another familiar opponent in Nigel Short. Having faced Nigel only the month before in the London Chess Classic, I had become fairly familiar with his style. During the tournament in London, Kris and I both lamented having White against Nigel and not Black as we felt Nigel was significantly more solid with Black than White. This time around, I decided to surprise everyone by playing the Classical Sicilian. Having played it in Turkey during the World Team Championship, I felt like giving it a whirl! Nigel deviated from prep very early on by choosing to play the Boleslavskij variation. At which point the following critical position arose.
This critical position occurred after 13...Bg4. Strangely enough, this was the third straight game of mine featuring a knight on d5, and it certainly wasn't the last either! Here, Nigel went badly astray with 14.c4. This move isn't necessarily awful, but after 14...Nxd5 15.exd5 Nb8, I had absolutely no problems as well as having an easier position to play. After the game, Nigel seemed to think 14.Nxe7 Qxe7 15.c4 gave White an advantage, but subsequent analysis shows that there is no advantage at all after 15...Nd7 due to Nc5-e6-d4 ideas later on. Although Nigel probably could have maintained the equilibrium and drawn, a few minor errors in a row doomed his position and I pounced on them to win my second game in a row. More than the great start, I was pleased by my calculation and accuracy in playing the best moves. From the first three games, I very rarely deviated from the Rybka suggestions in any given position.
Round 4: Anand-Nakamura
In the fourth round, I faced my first major test as I had Black against the current World Champion, Viswanathan Anand. Many people have asked me if I felt nervous before the game. Having played against Carlsen and Kramnik in London certainly helped me as this felt like just another game. I think that once you play against anyone who is top five, you inevitably realize that it is just a name and they are still "only human." As such, I did not feel nervous at all and enjoyed the moment instead! Regardless of what happens, I can certainly tell my children in the future that I played a World Champion! That in itself, is more than enough!
The game itself started off as a Leningrad Dutch. Recently, I have started playing the Dutch frequently as it is an opening which is unbalanced and gives both sides chances. I also felt that as Vishy is not a native d4 player, something off the beaten path would yield me better chances. The opening was fairly tame, as I avoided several chances to go for serious complications. Eventually we reached the moment of truth.
In this position, the obvious trump for White is the better pawn structure with only one potential weakness in the pawn on a3. During the game, I actually felt mildly nervous as I had overlooked 19.Rac1 Nb5 20.Rxc6! after which White is close to winning. However, during the game I noticed the nice safety moves 19...Nf7 contending for and eventually preparing to play e5. Vishy chose a much less testing continuation in the more natural 19.Ne5 after 19...Bxe5 20.dxe5 I had the nice tactical shot in 20...Qa5! after which the position is almost completely dead equal. This led to a draw shortly there afterwards. Once again, I went in there with a goal and held my own with Black.
Round 5: Nakamura-Carlsen
In the fifth round I was White against another opponent who has become a bit too familiar. Having played Magnus so many times recently, (Norway,London) I have become extremely familiar with his style. This time around, I decided to deviate early and play the exchange Ruy Lopez. I felt this was simply a practical choice as I avoided any deep analysis by Magnus or Garry. In many ways, when I play against people such as Magnus, I try to play simple chess and just outplay them instead of playing a different game called memorization.
In the game itself, my plan worked out nearly perfectly as Magnus lashed out with the dubious 10..b5 which was a novelty. After this error I certainly had some initiative although, much to his credit, Magnus was able to alleviate the pressure and simplify into an ending where he had three pawns for a piece. During the game, I felt I did not miss any clear wins, although the following position is where many people thought I had winning chances.
In this position, I chose to play 47.Ne6. Many people seemed to be of the impression that 47.h4 was winning, but upon further analysis 47...b2 48.Nf5! g5! 49.Rxf6 Ke8 50.Rb6 gxh4 51.Kxh4 Kd7 followed by b1 leads to a simplification and a draw. After the game, I was rather disappointed that I could not win but sometimes chess is simply a draw.
Stay tuned for Part II shortly! Have a great Superbowl weekend, everyone!
14th Int. Neckar-Open - GM Pablo Lafuente, Markus Lammers and IM David Miedema share first place
A record number of 397 people attended the competition in the main A-Open. In the surprising finish, Argentinian GM Pablo Lafuente, German untitled player Markus Lammers and Dutch IM David Miedema shared the first place with 7.5 points each. Pablo Lafuente was declared winner on best tiebreak score, which is another fantastic success for Argentina following GM Fernando Peralta's victory at the 2009 Neckar-Open.
Whenever there are holidays, there’s chess. The Easter weekend is always good for a few strong opens, and in this report we’re looking at three of them. Li Chao won the Doeberl Cup in Canberra (Australia), Pablo Lafuente was the strongest at the Neckar Open in Deizisau (Germany) and Gata Kamsky won a lot of money in Philadelphia (USA).
Doeberl Cup
The Doeberl Cup was held April 1-5 at the Olympus Room of the Hellenic Club of Canberra, Australia. It was a tought 9-rounder, with on the first four days two games a day and one on the last day, with the following time control: 40 moves in 90 minutes plus 30 minutes + 30 seconds per move from move 1. Besides the Premier tournament there were 7-rounders, an under 1200 section and a blitz tournament.
GM Li Chao became the first Chinese winner in the long history of the Doeberl Cup; he was the only one to score 7.5 out of 9. Local hero IM George Xie finished sole second with 7/9 while David Smerdon, who played “home” as he’s working for the Australian government these days, finished shared 3rd-6th together with Malaniuk (Russia) and Indians Panchanathan and Roy Chowdhury.
Doeberl Cup 2010 | Final Standings
During the tournament retired GM and journalist Ian Rogers gave commentary, which was recorded and posted on YouTube. Here’s the playlist; below you’ll find some games in the game viewer.
Neckar Open
The 14th Neckar Open was held April 1-5 at the Public Hall and the Gymnasium of Deizisau (Stuttgart Region), Germany. Like in Canberra, the players had to play two games a day, but in Deizisau they started with one game on Friday and ended with two on Monday. The rate of play was 2 hours for 40 moves plus half an hour to finish the game, so no increment. The tournament was devided into three rating groups (>1800, <2000 and <1400).
Argentinian GM Pablo Lafuente won the tournament on tiebreak after finishing shared first with German player Markus Lammers (who scored an IM-norm) and Dutchman David Miedema (who scored a GM-norm).
Pablo Lafuente | Photo: Georgios Souleidis
Neckar Open 2010 | Final Standings (top 30)
Philadelphia Open
The Philadelphia Open was held March 31-April 4 at the Sheraton City Center Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA). As with all American tournaments, the set-up was much more complicated than, well, Doeberl and Deizisau together! The open section was a 9-round Swiss with 40 moves for 2 hours plus an hour to finish the game. So far, so good. But there were many different rating sections: Under 2100, Under 1900, Under 1700, Under 1500, Under 1300 and Under 1000. And then there were the options to play either two days, three, four or five.
The big Swiss was won by its top favourite, Gata Kamsky, who had the better tiebreak over GMs Ray Robson, Alex Stripunsky and Sergey Kudrin.
The Monday Questions (4) for GM Dimitri Reinderman
We formulated ten questions related to Developing Chess Talent and every Monday we’ll ask them to an interesting personality in the chess world.
1. Please introduce yourself (name, age, nationality, etc.)!
Dimitri Reinderman, 37, Dutch, and hopefully 2600+ in the May rating list
2. What is your role in the chess world?
Player, trainer, writer, and still resistant to the poker hype.
3. How did you develop your chess talent as a kid?
I read every chess book I could get my hands on…
4. Who had a profound influence on your chess development?
Without the game between readers of KRO teletext and Pieter Baltus, I probably wouldn’t have started playing the Sveshnikov variation, which is still part of my repertoire.
5. What are your favourite sports besides chess?
To watch football, cycling and skating, to do football and table tennis.
6. What would be your advice for young people?
If you didn’t watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail yet, download it or check Youtube.
7. What has your main concern in life besides chess? Jareth and Mirri
8. What is the best chess game you played?
Against Frank Kroeze in a team match, 2008
9. What’s your connection with ‘Developing Chess Talent’?
Karel and I studied psychology together at the University of Amsterdam. Or at least, he studied part time, I studied full time, but we took the course sport psychology together and sometimes discussed the implications for chess over a cup of tea.
10. What question do you miss and what would be your answer?
What book would you like to write? The worst games/moves of chess. Is fun I think
In this week’s The New Yorker, James Surowiecki calls Apple’s launch, next week, of the expensive iPad ‘a fundamental gamble, namely that people will pay for quality’. In today’s world, free (digital) stuff is indeed so easy to get that it’s increasingly difficult for companies to make money with new technology. Think downloading movies and music; think installing a cracked version of Office or Windows 7. But what if something of equal or better quality can be obtained legally and for free? Like… a chess engine?
Rybka
Like almost all serious chess lovers, here at ChessVibes headquarters we’re big fans of the Rybka software, which is relatively cheap and will for sure be your strongest chess coach ever. Recently, however, a chess engine was released on the internet which is claimed to be even stronger than Rybka’s latest release… and it’s totally free. Welcome to the world of open source software, and its many complicated discussions and controversies.
Firebird
Firebird is an open source chess engine developed by a team of anonymous Russian programmers who call themselves the Decembrists, after the well-known uprising in Russia in 1825. It’s part of a whole family of chess engines called IPPOLIT. It was released in October 2009 with its source code. In other words, the guys who made the program didn’t care if others found out how they did it – they share their ‘code’ with the whole world.
Firebird is slowly but steadily gaining in popularity, not only with hardcore chess computer fans but also with strong chess professionals. The reason? Not only is it completely free, but it’s also allegedly stronger than Rybka. Various comparisons on the internet between Rybka and Firebird have suggested that Firebird may be some kind of improved Rybka, although nothing is very clear here, either. (According to a small survey among the ChessVibes editors, we found that Firebird does seem to reach deep ply levels a bit faster.)
At the recent Amber tournament in Nice, ChessVibes asked two leading Dutch grandmasters, Jan Smeets and Erwin L’Ami (who happen to be on Veselin Topalov’s team), whether they knew about the Rybka/Firebird developments, and what they thought of it. Here’s how they see it:
Smeets: I read on some forums that such a clone existed, I think this was in October last year. I think I read it at the Rybka Forum. However, there it wasn’t allowed to mention the name, but if you Googled it it was easy to find. At that point it was Ippolit. First it was Ippolit, then Robbolito, then Igorit. Robbolito was a one-core engine, but quite a strong one-core engine, so you could run it simultaneously with other engines. Igorit was the first multi-processor engine but I think that one was a failure. And then came Firebird, which was a combination of Robbolito and Igorit, and this one was good. I use many engines, because it’s good to vary.
L’Ami: One day I entered his hotel room, during the Corus tournament, and I saw all these strange, crazy names I had never heard of. But now I know that currently everybody uses them.
Smeets: Yes, many, many players use them. It’s also a popular subject on the ICC for example. But it doesn’t make a big difference, you know. These programs are so strong these days. I think they’re all playing at 3300, 3400 level so fifty points weaker or stronger doesn’t really matter.
Controversy
So what’s the deal with all these new engines? Is one really stronger than the other, and how does it matter? Well, here’s where the controversy begins. Right afer Firebird was released, a statement appeared on the Rybka forum site (Smeets also refers to it) in which Rybka’s creator, Vasik Rajlich, officially declared:
There was an open-”source” (using the term loosely) clone of Rybka 3 released in the spring. Unlike the last time, there was no real attempt to hide the cloning – the hackers were even kind enough to keep me updated via email.
Rajlich alludes to a previous confrontation with Russian open source progammers – or ‘pirates’ as Rajlich calls them – back in 2007, when the open source engine Strelka was released, which was, according to the Rybka team, suspiciously similar to many features of the Rybka 1.0 engine. Here’s the relevant background from the Wikipedia-article on Rybka:
There were allegations that Strelka was a clone of Rybka 1.0 beta, in the sense that it was a reverse-engineered and slightly modified version of Rybka. Several players found Strelka to yield identical analysis to Rybka in a variety of different situations, even having the same bugs and weaknesses in some cases.
Osipov, however, stated repeatedly on discussion boards that Strelka was based on Fruit, not Rybka, and that any similarities was either because Rybka also was based on Fruit, or because he had tuned the evaluation function to be as close to Rybka as possible. With the release of Strelka 2.0 beta, source code was included. Rajlich stated that the source made it “obvious” that Strelka 2.0 beta was indeed a Rybka 1.0 beta clone, although not without some improvements in certain areas.
Rybka & Fruit
An important aspect of the whole argument is yet another accusation, this time from the Russians, namely that the first release of Rybka was itself largely based on the open source engine Fruit, which was released in 2006 and is now a so-called freeware program (not to be confused with open source software!). In a lengthy, very interesting video interview Rajlich gave to Nelson Hernandez last year, he didn’t really answer the question as to which open source programs initially influenced the development of Rybka the most:
Hernandez: What chess engines in public domain, when you got started, had the biggest influence on the earliest versions of Rybka?
Rajlich: Well, actually I started in a kind of strange way. I printed out just about every single paper there was to print out about computer chess; all these academic papers. A lot of them are interesting, a lot of them are just really relevant, actually. (…) So I kind of started to work through that, that was how I started. Probably it’s not the most efficient way to do it. Probably the most efficient way is to take an open source program – at that point it would have been Crafty – and just kind of go through that. And I gradually worked around through that. (…)
Those interested in the gory details of the allegations might also want to read the IPPOLIT Wikipage, which includes statements such as:
Rybka’s piece square tables are generated from the same code as Fruit’s.
Rybka’s pawn evaluation is virtually identical to Fruit
Rybka’s “pattern” evaluation is virtually identical to Fruit’s
These are, well, interesting claims, which suggest deep code-researching, but unfortunately, the website contains mostly stuff like:
In the this the prominence of the Revolution versus unto the Capitalists obliges with the stroboscopic clarity unto the final victory. For the Revolution: anonymous for with the philosophics. For the Capitalists: anonymous or plus known (too), in with the conveniencings.
Such incoherent nonsense makes it considerably more problematic to take the claims from the IPPOLIT team serious, and it’s probably one of the reasons why Rajlich is so fed up with these guys. Anyway, the net result of all this is that the IPPOLIT-article on Wikipedia has now been deleted and accusations of censure and even some far-fetched global conspiracy theories are suddenly all over the internet. On the Rybka forum and even on other chess computer sites, all discussion of IPPOLIT software are deleted or banned, causing even more anger with the ‘Decembrists’ and their supporters. And they seem to have a point, as this aborted discussion on Talkchess.com shows.
Evidence
One thing that’s clearly lacking is concrete evidence from the Rybka team that Firebird is, in fact, a true clone of Rybka – something that is, of course, required in the case of any serious accusation. But so far, the evidence has not been presented in a coherent way. In an intriguing and generally polite discussion on the forum of Chess.com, one defender of IPPOLIT react as follows:
[Rajlich] claims that the authors were in correspondence with him the whole time they were doing this. Show us the correspondence and maybe I will believe. BUT, (and thats a big but) reverse engineering is not illegal. For years there have been forums that have been trying to figure out how Rybka works by its playing style. That is also reverse engineering. All [Rajlich] is saying is that [IPPOLIT] uses ideas similar to Rybka. He can’t or won’t prove that these ideas are even in Rybka. And even if they are, Rybka is a five year old program.
The Rybka team itself apparently doesn’t want to spend much time about it. In a brief reaction, Rajlich wrote to me: “These are all just decompiled Rybka 3 clones. It’s pretty obvious from the Ippolit sources, any programmer will tell you the same thing.”
As a programmer myself, I must say I find his point of view understandable, because I know how hard it is to make good code, and how proud a well-written script can make one. Rajlich is also, obviously, tied to a highly successful commercial product with links to other companies and sellers. (You’ve guessed it – here’s where the conspirary theories start to unfold.)
On the other hand, it would enormously help resolve the controversy if some real evidence was presented by the Rybka team. This could be ‘code snippets’ (relevant fragments of code), or other striking silimarities in design, or even, as the above commenter suggested, quotes from correspondence with the IPPOLIT programmers. The problem, I assume, is that Rybka’s code is not open source, and showing it as part of evidence against pirates may in turn compromise its integrity – and this time, it wouldn’t be stealing. This puts Rybka in an unpleasant Catch-22 situation, which was no doubt gleefully foreseen by the Decembrists.
But even apart from any technical discussions – what if Rajlich is right and Firebird is simply a Rybka clone – a product of piracy, that is – only stronger? Should we all stop downloading it just because it wasn’t manufactured in an entirely ‘fair’ way? As another commenter on the Chess.com forum muses:
If they absolutely ripped off Rybka, then I would be happy to remove Firebird from my computer and purchase Rybka 3. No big deal. I’ve got the money and want to support software developers, as I have always done in the past in the field of music. Music software is far more expensive. Several of my music programs cost between $250.00 to $500.00. One product requires a $100.00 upgrade fee each year to stay current. I don’t use cracked software.
Not worth it
That sounds very noble, but how realistic is it? Perhaps hardcore computer programmers have some sense of professional ethics, but what about pro chess players like Jan Smeets and Erwin L’Ami? Can they expected to be that honest as well? Aren’t they right to be just interested in the best available chess engine and compare them, use them all to their own advantage? Here at ChessVibes headquarters, we’re in serious doubt. We’re very sympathetic of Rybka’s cause, simply because it’s such an outstanding and cheap product. Rajlich wrote to me he very strongly believes in having a positive message:
Rybka 3 doesn’t even have normal copy protection. Future versions of Rybka will be available over the internet – users will log into PlayChess or ChessPlanet [or ICC or FICS - ed.], and their analysis will run on remote machines, like with cloud computing. This has a lot of nice properties – continually updated Rybka versions, possibilities for shared analysis, hardware power available from traveling devices like Pocket PCs, iPhones, flexible hardware availability, etc. It also has the side effect that it stops all software piracy – these now-ancient problems from two years ago won’t be repeated.
That’s great news (and the idea of online engines is controversial in its own right) but it doesn’t answer the moral dillemma whether we should use potential clones or not. We’d really like to give Rybka the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time we think that as long as Rybka’s accusations are not based on concrete evidence, using Firebird as an interesting alternative isn’t morally wrong necessarily. After all, as Surowiecki writes in the same New Yorker article, information (or, in our case, evidence) is also an aspect of quality – increasingly so, especially in our modern digital world.
Perhaps most importantly, Jan Smeets makes an excellent point when he says it really doesn’t make that much difference, unless you’re going to hold matches between the two programs just for academic purposes. In practice, who cares if a 3300 rated engine or an 3350 one is assisting you in analysing your games? Such a trivial difference is simply not worth it to award potential pirates and mistreat the original programmer. We hope the whole matter will be resolved soon.
7th World Chess Champion Vasily Smyslov died on Saturday of heart failure, Russian television reported. Smyslov, who turned 89 on Wednesday, was taken to a Moscow hospital earlier in the week after complaining of heart problems. He died on Saturday morning.
Vasily Vassilievich Smyslov (Moscow, March 24, 1921) learned the game in 1927, from his father, who himself had received chess lessons from the great Mikhail Chigorin. In 1938, at the age of 17, he won the Junior Championship of the Soviet Union, and three years later, in 1940, he scored a great result by finishing 3rd in the overall Soviet Championship, ahead of Mikhail Botvinnik. Chess was of secondary importance during the war, although Smyslov managed to play actively, winning the Moscow Championship in 1944-1945.
After the war, Smylsov didn’t score so well in a few tournaments, but his third place at the legendary Groningen 1946 tournament (which was won by Botvinnik) was a sign of what was destined to come. There followed some tremedous results, most importantly his 2nd place in the The Hague/Moscow World Championship tournament of 1948 (again finishing behind Botvinnik) and his victory in the Candidates tournament, Zürich 1953, possibly the greatest tournament ever held.
By this time, it was clear Smyslov and Botvinnik were the two strongest players in the world, and they were to play three matches for the World title in the following years. The first match, held in Moscow, 1954, ended in a 12-12 tie, which allowed Botvinnik to keep his title. After winning the Amsterdam Candidates Tournament in 1956, 1,5 point ahead of Paul Keres, he went on to play his second match against Botvinnik, held in 1957 in Moscow, and this time his play was so strong that he beat his rival with a 3 points difference: 12,5-9,5, thus gaining the title of seventh World Champion. However, Botvinnik had the right to a revanch match and regained the title just a year later, in 1958, beating Smyslov (who claimed to be ill during the match) 12,5-10,5.
After this defeat, Smyslov’s star declined somewhat, which no doubt was also due to the arrival on the scene of another great star: Mikhail Tal. In the 60s and 70s, Smyslov still played at the highest level, but he never again succeeded in seriously competing for the world title, until 1983, when to the amazement of the entire world he qualified for the World Championship Candidate final against Garry Kasparov, a match (played in 1984) which he lost only after some very interesting chess.
Garry Kasparov wrote about Smyslov in his My Great Predecessors, part II:
Because of the apparent simplicity of his style, Smyslov is rarely mentioned among the players who have made the greatest contributions to the development of the ancient game. However, his victories at the peak of his career are amazing for the lack of a clear defence for his opponents, and a careful study reveals that no one in the world could withstand Smyslov’s very fine technique. His credo was as follows: ‘I will make 40 good moves and if you are able to do the same, the game will end in a draw.’ But it was precisely this ‘doing the same’ that was the most difficult: Smyslov’s technique was ahead of his time. (…)
I think that it is this innate sense of harmony which has helped Smyslov to break all records for chess longevity. (…) This phenomenon was wittily explained by Spassky: ‘Vasily Vassilievich has an incredible intuition, and I would call it his “hand” – that is, his hand knows on which square to place every piece, and he does not need to calculate anything with his head.’
The great Dutch writer/grandmaster J.H. Donner liked to philosophize about Smyslov’s magic touch:
Smyslov is the great magician who masters all problems, but in the way of an elegant animal. His play has something incomprehsibly superficial, opportunistic. And this is typical for the talent: it is only interested in the surface of things, for all deep problems are human, and talent is in fact ’super’-human. Therefore we must admire players like Smyslov, but it is always admiration mixed with a touch of jealousy. It is admiration for something we do not have, and cannot have.
Smyslov’s played his last tournament in Amsterdam, 2001, in the so-called ‘Klompendans’ tournament. In the 6th round, I watched him play Alisa Galliamova. Smyslov was already almost completely blind at the time. He exchanged queens on move 7 and went to win the endgame in impressive, typical Smyslovian style. Smsylov made an even bigger impression on me in 1994, when I was a board boy at the Donner Memorial tournament, also in Amsterdam. During the first round, I happened to be sitting next to Smyslov’s board for the entire game. Against Svetozar Gligoric, he played a quiet line of the French Winawer and manoeuvred his way to victory in immaculate fashion. I realized that this was indeed chess from another world, and in retrospect I think Donner was absolutely right in his assessment of Smyslov.
Vasily Smyslov loved music and was a gifted baritone singer, auditioning for the famous Bolshoi Opera in 1950. He was a fine endgame composer and various chess opening variations bear his name, among others, in the King’s Indian 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 followed by Bc1-g5 and, of course, in the Grünfeld Indian, 3…d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qb3 dxc4 6.Qxc4 0-0 7.e4 Bg4, which he first played in 1945 (against Kotov, a game that he lost) and which was also played by Bobby Fischer in his famous game against Botvinnik at the 1962 Varna Olympiad.
With Smyslov’s death, the chess world has lost one of its greatest living legends.
The 7th World Chess Champion Vasily Smyslov died on Friday night, just three days after his 89th birthday. He will be remembered for a stellar career among the top chess players of the world that spanned four decades. His stint as champion was rather short; he won the title from Mikhail Botvinnik in 1957, but lost the automatic return match to the same player a year later. He came close to earning another shot at the title more than 20 years later, but faltered in the 1982 Candidates Final to a certain Garry Kasparov.
"Smyslov was always known for his positional style and his extraordinary endgame abilities. He was also a great combinational player, and in his games we find many spectacular tactical shots. In the opening he made important contributions to the English, Grünfeld, Ruy Lopez and Sicilian." --Chessbase website
"He is truth in chess! Smyslov plays correctly, truthfully and has a natural style. ... But I am fond of his style. I would recommend a study of Smyslov's games to children who want to know how to play chess because he plays the game how it should be played: his style is the closest to some sort of 'virtual truth' in chess. He always tried to make the strongest move in each position." --Vladimir Kramnik (photo at right from ChessNinja blog)
The following sample games from ChessGames.com offer a glimpse into the style of the 7th World Champion.
Smyslov also excelled away from the chessboard. He studied aviation science in the 40s and was an accomplished baritone singer. In fact, he often sang at tournaments (photo at top right), accompanied by the famous pianist and chess rival Mark Taimanov.
Magnus Carlsen today reclaimed first place in the overall standings of the Amber tournament with a 2-0 win over Ruslan Ponomariov. With one round to go the Norwegian grandmaster is half a point ahead of Vasily Ivanchuk, who drew twice with Vladimir Kramnik.
The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.
The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).
Carlsen back on top with one round to go
In round 10 of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Magnus Carlsen reclaimed first place in the overall standings with a 2-0 win over Ruslan Ponomariov. With one round and two games to go, the Norwegian grandmaster is half a point ahead of Vasily Ivanchuk and one and a half points ahead of Vladimir Kramnik. Ivanchuk and Kramnik drew their mini-match today after two hard-fought games. Tomorrow in the last round Carlsen (13½) plays Grischuk (11½). Ivanchuk (13) is paired against Gelfand (11), while Kramnik (12) faces Karjakin (11). Round 11 starts two hours earlier than normal: at 12.30 hrs.
The blindfold game between Levon Aronian and Alexander Grischuk saw a sad end when the Russian champion lost on time in a level position, because he had briefly forgotten about the position of his queen. In the final position, believing his queen was on d5, he tried to play 38…Rc5, a move that obviously was not possible with the queen on c6. Grischuk still had 14 seconds on his clock when he made his first attempt. Realizing there was something wrong he tried to exchange queens, but the move 38…Qd5xb5 was not possible either. He didn’t get a third chance to find out the position of his pieces as his time expired. An unfortunate turn of events for the leader in the blindfold rankings, as up that point he had played well. Very well, even, in the eyes of Aronian, who was duly impressed by Grischuk’s clever 29…Ba7 giving the pawn on d5, a material deficit that he quickly corrected after 31…Nf6. Grischuk admitted that it had indeed been a clever ploy, but he was also honest enough to reveal that in actual fact he had really blundered the pawn and that he was just lucky to recover it so easily. But that luck soon ran out.
The rapid game was an interesting Catalan that seemed to give White good play. A critical moment appeared on move 27, when Grischuk could have pushed 27.d5 obtaining a potentially dangerous passed pawn. When he let that opportunity go by, Aronian equalized quite comfortably.
In the fight for the last place Jan Smeets seemed to be doing very well in the blindfold game when Leinier Dominguez ‘didn’t know what he was doing in the opening’. Dominguez got a clearly worse position in which he was two pawns down. The only chance he saw was to play fast and hope that Smeets would once again end up in time-trouble. Indeed the Dutch grandmaster took his time for his moves and Dominguez saw his hopes to stay in the game come true. After 63 moves of mainly defending he saved the draw. A heroic role was played by Black’s knight on d6 that set up an impressive blockade.
In the rapid game Smeets did win and one might say that he was rewarded for brave play. In an Open Ruy he chose an aggressive approach with 12…g5 and even more audacious was his castling queenside. As might be expected White tried to break open the queenside and aim for the black king, but the black queenside front was firm and strong and actually more menacing than its white counterparts. As Dominguez discovered when his position collapsed after Black’s 40th move.
Magnus Carlsen scored a relatively uncomplicated win against Ruslan Ponomariov in their blindfold game. The Ukrainian more or less dug his own grave when he opened his kingside position with 21…g4. With White’s bishop pair and most of his pieces ready to jump at the Black’s king this was indeed a poorly judged advance. Or, as Carlsen out it: ‘Once the position opens you can immediately see who is mating who.’ White’s attack grew almost by itself and on move 41 Ponomariov had seen enough.
The rapid game was quite a different affair. ‘It pays off to play on’, said with a grin, when he walked into the hospitality lounge after he had ground down Ponomariov in 102 moves. In a Grünfeld Defence he had been slightly worse for a long time, but he kept looking for chances. These finally came in the endgame, a rook ending with both players having four pawns on the kingside. Carlsen explained that he had some practice with exactly this ending as he had played it four years ago in Norway. At that time he had to work out the principles himself, now he already had some essential knowledge. His first step forward he made when he managed to isolate White’s e-pawn. But it was still a far way from a win and much more manoeuvring was required. Carlsen kept plodding on, and bit by bit he achieved what he was looking for. Of course he should be praised for his perseverance, but it also must be said that Ponomariov put up feeble resistance.
The longest game of the day was the blindfold encounter between Vasily Ivanchuk and Vladimir Kramnik, a key game between the tournament leader and one of his main rivals. The game lasted 112 moves and more than two hours (and thus seriously delayed the start of the first rapid session). At first Kramnik had no problems at all in his favourite Petroff Defence, but a couple of inaccuracies on the Russian’s part combined with Ivanchuk’s fighting spirit led to a big advantage for the Ukrainian phenomenon. White’s passed pawns forced Kramnik to give up a piece for two pawns and now the question was whether this ending was won for Ivanchuk. After the game Kramnik exchanged views with a host of grandmasters in the hospitality lounge and opined that to his mind it was an ‘absolute draw, but unpleasant to defend’. Not everyone was convinced, but definite conclusions were not reached. Ivanchuk stated that he had thrown away his winning chances with 49.h4, ‘a terrible move’. Of course he was right, but frustrated by this missed chance he kept playing on and only accepted a draw in a rook and knight versus rook endgame more than sixty moves later.
The rapid game was also a gritty fight and this time it was Kramnik who got the winning chances. At least that was his opponent’s conviction after he had managed to escape with a draw. Ivanchuk indicated 18…bxc5 as a critical moment where he had to calculate a lot. He gave up an exchange for a pawn and from that moment onwards he had to work hard to earn a precious half point. Which he managed after 46 moves, leaving him the only player in the tournament who has not yet lost a single game.
Peter Svidler was ‘reasonably satisfied’ after his blindfold encounter with Boris Gelfand, as he felt he had played an interesting game (even if the ultimate result was only a draw). And he held a promising position for most of the game. Gelfand was critical of his move 13…Nf8 as with 14.c5 White scored an important triumph in the fight for the f4-square. But there were various dangers looming (such as 13…dxc4 14.0-0-0 b5, trying to hold on to the pawn and Black will not survive long after 15.Bh5). Svidler was optimistic and believed that the sacrifice 24.Rxg6+ would lead to a winning attack, but in fact Black could stay afoot with careful play. The ending also looked very promising for him, but he had missed 40…f3 and now White’s pawns are too fragmented to offer real winning chances.
In the rapid game Svidler got the opportunity to play his umpteenth Grünfeld Defence and as it is his specialty he obviously had no objections. Certainly after Gelfand missed 20…Bh6 which effectively cost him a pawn. And in case you wonder if White could have prevented losing this pawn with 24.axb5 then the following line will show you that this was not the case: 24…axb5 25.Rxa8+ Bxa8 26.Kf2 Nd5 and the pawn goes anyway (27.Nf1 Rxe2+). A pawn down Gelfand kept trying to save the game, but Svidler didn’t falter and gained the full point after 75 moves.
Sergey Karjakin and Vugar Gashimov showed a good sense of Amber history in their blindfold when they repeated the queen sacrifice with which Vasily Ivanchuk baffled the spectators two years ago. Of course, at the time ‘Mr Amber’ also baffled his opponent, who happened to be … Karjakin. Well, actually Karjakin hadn’t specifically prepared it for his occasion (and neither had Gashimov), but stumbled into it as he hadn’t expected his opponent to play the Najdorf. In the past two years the knowledge about this variation has grown rapidly and the general consensus is that Black should be fine. That assessment was confirmed by this further example, as the game ended in a draw by repetition on move 25.
The rapid game also saw a theoretical discussion, with Karjakin taking on the role of Grischuk who recently has played three games in this line of the Najdorf Poisoned Pawn with 8.Qd3 against Gashimov. The new move was played by Gashimov, who tried 18.0-0, where he played 18.Rf1 against Grischuk. Karjakin reacted correctly with 18…d5 and after a series of exchanges the game ended in a draw by perpetual check.
Greetings to everyone around the world. Fortunately, it is sunny outside and most of us in the United States have recovered from SUPER SUNDAY! I know most people here probably would prefer chess to football (including Dave the webmaster, who is a Colts fan!) but I found the game to be extremely exciting. Having grown up in New York, I always was impressed by Sean Payton's ability as the defensive coordinator for the Giants. Overall, I felt that New Orleans won due to the many interesting and simply brilliant decisions including the onside kick to start the second half. Although I was pulling for Peyton Manning and the Colts due to the people I know in Indy, New Orleans was simply the better team last night. Alas, another football season has come and gone, but there's always next year for my Titans! Now back to chess...
Round 6: Ivanchuk-Nakamura
In the sixth round, I kept facing strong players as I was Black against GM Vasily Ivanchuk from Ukraine. Of the modern day players, I think my style most resembles his in that we are the two players who play just about any opening depending on which side of the bed we wake up on! At the same time, he is also one of the few players who can beat anyone which makes him dangerous. Having beaten Vasily in the rapid finals of Cap D'Agde in 2008, I knew that he'd be angling for revenge this time around. Therefore, I decided to play the Slav against his 1.d4 (a minor surprise!).
This was really the first surprise of the game as I have played the fairly obscure 12...0-0-0. In other top encounters, 12...Be6 was preferred. During the game, I was feeling fairly confident as I had reached this position in my analysis prior to the game. At the board, though, I began thinking to myself what if he plays 13.a5? My suspicions were confirmed shortly afterwards when he played it! Fortunately, it was not hard for me to come up with the right plan as there aren't a whole lot of logical moves. As such, I was able to force a repitition after 13...Nc5 14.Qe1 Nb3 15.Ra4 Nc5 16.Ra1 Nb3 leading to a draw. During the tournament, there were many people who asked how could I take a quick draw as it runs contrary to my style. The answer is quite simple in that if either Vasily or I chose to play on, we'd be worse. Sometimes, being practical and taking quick draws makes sense. Obviously, I had the foresight to do that here, but not against Karjakin when it mattered, D'oh!
Round 7: Nakamura-Shirov
After the draw with Ivanchuk, I was on a very respectable 4/6 while Shirov was blazing on 5.5/6 and in the clear lead by a half point. Although neither Kris nor I came into the tournament with expectations of me winning, we decided that I should definitely go all out for glory in this game. Since I went into the game with this mindset I decided to play 1.e4 as I felt Shirov would create complications no matter which opening I chose. Despite the fact I felt Alexei made a mistake in choosing the sicilian against me, I still must respect his decision to stay true to his style despite the tournament situation. The opening was very much a seesaw battle as I felt after 15 moves I was simply better. To his credit, it was around this time that Alexei used a lot of time and came up with the right idea of exchanging his dark square bishop. Over the course of the next few moves I got careless giving away any advantage I had. The key point occurred in the following position after 19.Bf3.
In this position, I was not quite sure about the evaluation. However, I correctly judged that Alexei would go for a tactical solution in the position. In chess, there are certain positions where intuitively you feel like there has to be a way to win material. As it turns out, Black is probably better after the simple 19...Rd8, but Alexei like myself spent most of his time trying to come up with something tactical which was incorrect. After 19...Nh3 20.Kh1 Nxf2 21.Rxf2 Qxe3 22.Bxb7 I think Alexei overlooked 22...Qxf2 23.Qxd6 with a crushing threat of Bc6 mate. Once this key opportunity was missed, the position became difficult to play for Black. Although any computer program would probably draw (beat us weak humans) it without too much trouble, it was still incredibly unpleasant to play. This coupled with Alexei's impending time pressure proved to be too much as in the time pressure, he cracked and I won! Although it was not fate to win the tournament, I knew that after this win that this event was a success regardless of how I ended.
Round 8: Kramnik-Nakamura
In the eighth round, I got Black against the 14th World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Coming off such a high following the previous round, I knew this would be an extremely difficult task. However, as a good friend said once before, you play the games since the underdog can come out ahead. Thanks to a certain girl, I took the French Canadien phrase, "C'est de la biere" (It's a beer which basically means it's a piece of cake) and simply tried to relax and enjoy the game. There are some days when we all just play badly. This day proved to be one of these as it got off to a bad start when I switched my opening choice at the last minute and decided to play the Dutch. In the game, we went into the Leningrad and Vladimir played the interesting 8.Rb1 line. Pretty much immediately I went off the beaten path as I started pushing pawns like a total patzer. Eventually we reached the first of two key positions after 19.Bxe3.
In this position, I calculated 19...Qe7 and thought it made the most sense only to have a finger fehler and play 19...Nxd4. In reality, the move I played was correct but it screwed with my mind. Normally this is not a problem, but almost immediately after I played Nxd4, I started thinking, "hmm, wait, why did I not go Qe7??" After 20.Qc1 White would had a big advantage, but when you have lingering doubts during a game, it can affect you adversely. After a series of more or less forced moves we reached the second and final chance I had to save the game.
In this position, Vladimir had just played 23.Rxd5. During the game, I only considered playing either 23....Bf5 or 23...Be6. As it turns out, our silicon friend thinks I am probably fine if I trade on g3 and then follow it up with Be6. However, during the game I fully intended to play Bf5 only to then start considering Be6. For some bizarre reason, I calculated 23...Be6 24.Rxd4 Qxd4 25.Nxf4 as a variation. Then, once I played 23...Be6 I immediately spotted the obvious 24.Nxf4. After this secondary blunder, the game was beyond hope and I duly lost.
This certainly was not a positive development as far as the tournament was concerned. On the positive side, it was only after the second blunder that I was losing. Nevertheless, I played badly and got punished. Alas, I only join the likes of people such as Kasparov who have gotten crushed by Kramnik. Being in such good company cannot be something to complain about!
Round 9: Nakamura-Karjakin
In the ninth round, I had White against former child prodigy, Sergey Karjakin formerly of Ukraine and now playing for Russia.Sergey and I are certainly no strangers as we have played several times in the past. Before I discuss the game, I would just like to point out that despite my sometimes controversial style and comments in the past, I have not intentionally insulted someone in public. In many ways, I found Sergey's comments on chesspro to be incredibly disgusting and insulting. One can only hope that people grow up much like I have since my younger days.
In this game, I chose to play 1.d4 as I was coming off a brutal loss and wanted to play a bit safer. Sergey surprised me almost from the start by choosing the Nimzo Indian over his preferred Slav. The opening was a bit unusual in that I had two doubled pawns on the c file. However, the diagonals certainly made up for it.
In this important position, we had repeated with 17.Ba7 Ra8 18.Be3 Rb8. Much like in my game against Ivanchuk, I had a serious decision to make here. Should I take a relatively quick draw and get ready for the following round or try to press on. Here, I thought for some time and decided to play despite the messy position and not having a lot of time. Although this was objectively fine since the position was not any worse for me, from a general standpoint it was simply wrong. The rest of the game, I did not play particularly inspiringly, and I eventually overpressed in time pressure making a horrible blunder. There really was not much positive news from this game as I once again just did not play very accurately. However, with four rounds still left, I felt that it would be possible to put up a solid plus score if i returned to form. The one big drawback at this point was that during this game, I started feeling a bit tired and hallucinating during this and the subsequent games. Alas, when you play two major tournaments back to back eventually all the energy being spent will catch up.
Stay tuned for the third and final installment from north of the border!
Hello once again to everyone out there in the blogosphere. Before I dive right into talking about Wijk, I would like to clear up a certain rumour from the online world. I am not playing in Aeroflot, nor did I ever seriously consider it. Any suggestions to the contrary are simply not true. Now that this is out of the way, onto the tournament recap!
Round 1: Smeets-Nakamura
In the first round, I had Black against Dutch GM Jan Smeets. Like quite a few other European GMs, I have seen him at several tournaments over the past few years but not had the opportunity to play. Overall, Jan seems to be a very solid player with a pretty good general knowledge of openings. In our game, he surprised me by playing the 6.Bg5 variation against the Najdorf. As fate would have it, the tournament seemed to be a referendum on whether the Bg5 variation is good for White or not. I picked a mild sideline which surprised Jan, and he played a tame variation.
The following was the position after 14.Nd5. Oddly enough, our silicon friends seem to think 14...Nxd5 was simply better for me, but I thought White had a solid positional advantage after 15.exd5 followed by eventually putting a knight on e4. When I chose to avoid this variation, the position eventually fizzled out and it was a fairly standard draw. Overall, I felt that coming off of the tournament in Turkey this was a great start to the tournament with a solid draw as Black. Onto round 2!
Round 2: Nakamura-van Wely
In the second round I had White against another Dutch man albeit it, one who is a bit older and stronger! Shockingly Loek was playing in Wijk for a 19th! straight year. The last time we played in Amsterdam, I was White in a Najdorf, but blundered in a completely winning position and he was able to escape with a draw. This time around, we played another Najdorf although I decided to play the 6.Bg5 variation against him. Unfortunately for Loek, I was very well prepared and he walked right into my preparation.
This is the position after 15.Nd5. Unlike the game against Smeets, the knight on d5 is actually an intentional piece sacrifice. Prior to the game, I had prepared this variation with Kris and we concluded that the position might be holdable for Black, but it would be extremely unpleasant for a human to play. As it turned out, our assessment was correct since Loek went wrong almost immediately and simply got blown off the board. It was after this second round game that I realized I would at least have a chance of putting together a good showing in the tournament.
Round 3: Short-Nakamura
In the third round, I faced another familiar opponent in Nigel Short. Having faced Nigel only the month before in the London Chess Classic, I had become fairly familiar with his style. During the tournament in London, Kris and I both lamented having White against Nigel and not Black as we felt Nigel was significantly more solid with Black than White. This time around, I decided to surprise everyone by playing the Classical Sicilian. Having played it in Turkey during the World Team Championship, I felt like giving it a whirl! Nigel deviated from prep very early on by choosing to play the Boleslavskij variation. At which point the following critical position arose.
This critical position occurred after 13...Bg4. Strangely enough, this was the third straight game of mine featuring a knight on d5, and it certainly wasn't the last either! Here, Nigel went badly astray with 14.c4. This move isn't necessarily awful, but after 14...Nxd5 15.exd5 Nb8, I had absolutely no problems as well as having an easier position to play. After the game, Nigel seemed to think 14.Nxe7 Qxe7 15.c4 gave White an advantage, but subsequent analysis shows that there is no advantage at all after 15...Nd7 due to Nc5-e6-d4 ideas later on. Although Nigel probably could have maintained the equilibrium and drawn, a few minor errors in a row doomed his position and I pounced on them to win my second game in a row. More than the great start, I was pleased by my calculation and accuracy in playing the best moves. From the first three games, I very rarely deviated from the Rybka suggestions in any given position.
Round 4: Anand-Nakamura
In the fourth round, I faced my first major test as I had Black against the current World Champion, Viswanathan Anand. Many people have asked me if I felt nervous before the game. Having played against Carlsen and Kramnik in London certainly helped me as this felt like just another game. I think that once you play against anyone who is top five, you inevitably realize that it is just a name and they are still "only human." As such, I did not feel nervous at all and enjoyed the moment instead! Regardless of what happens, I can certainly tell my children in the future that I played a World Champion! That in itself, is more than enough!
The game itself started off as a Leningrad Dutch. Recently, I have started playing the Dutch frequently as it is an opening which is unbalanced and gives both sides chances. I also felt that as Vishy is not a native d4 player, something off the beaten path would yield me better chances. The opening was fairly tame, as I avoided several chances to go for serious complications. Eventually we reached the moment of truth.
In this position, the obvious trump for White is the better pawn structure with only one potential weakness in the pawn on a3. During the game, I actually felt mildly nervous as I had overlooked 19.Rac1 Nb5 20.Rxc6! after which White is close to winning. However, during the game I noticed the nice safety moves 19...Nf7 contending for and eventually preparing to play e5. Vishy chose a much less testing continuation in the more natural 19.Ne5 after 19...Bxe5 20.dxe5 I had the nice tactical shot in 20...Qa5! after which the position is almost completely dead equal. This led to a draw shortly there afterwards. Once again, I went in there with a goal and held my own with Black.
Round 5: Nakamura-Carlsen
In the fifth round I was White against another opponent who has become a bit too familiar. Having played Magnus so many times recently, (Norway,London) I have become extremely familiar with his style. This time around, I decided to deviate early and play the exchange Ruy Lopez. I felt this was simply a practical choice as I avoided any deep analysis by Magnus or Garry. In many ways, when I play against people such as Magnus, I try to play simple chess and just outplay them instead of playing a different game called memorization.
In the game itself, my plan worked out nearly perfectly as Magnus lashed out with the dubious 10..b5 which was a novelty. After this error I certainly had some initiative although, much to his credit, Magnus was able to alleviate the pressure and simplify into an ending where he had three pawns for a piece. During the game, I felt I did not miss any clear wins, although the following position is where many people thought I had winning chances.
In this position, I chose to play 47.Ne6. Many people seemed to be of the impression that 47.h4 was winning, but upon further analysis 47...b2 48.Nf5! g5! 49.Rxf6 Ke8 50.Rb6 gxh4 51.Kxh4 Kd7 followed by b1 leads to a simplification and a draw. After the game, I was rather disappointed that I could not win but sometimes chess is simply a draw.
Stay tuned for Part II shortly! Have a great Superbowl weekend, everyone!
This popular blitz tournament was held in the National Mindsport Centre in Dutch town of Utrecht for the eleventh time this year. The event was won by the top seed Vladimir Baklan of Ukraine, who beat all GMs, drew four games and lost two – against talented Dutch youngsters. The most colorful figure was GM Vladimir Epishin, who played in coat and cap.
Big pictorial report by Fred Lucas.
Amber R8: Kramnik beats Carlsen 1.5-0.5, Ivanchuk increases lead
In the 8th round of the Amber tournament in Nice, Vladimir Kramnik defeated Magnus Carlsen 1.5-0.5, which should have been 2-0. Vasily Ivanchuk was held to two draws by Dominguez; the Ukrainian did increase his lead in the combined standings to a full point.
The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.
The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).
Ivanchuk retains lead, Kramnik defeats Carlsen 1½-½
In round 8 of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Vasily Ivanchuk retained first place in the overall standings. The tournament leader drew both his games with Leinier Dominguez and increased his lead over runner-up Magnus Carlsen to one point. Carlsen had a rough day. He lost the key encounter with Vladimir Kramnik ½-1½, and actually couldn’t complain that he didn’t lose both games. Kramnik moved up to joint third place with Boris Gelfand, only half a point behind Carlsen. Monday is a free day. Play is resumed coming Tuesday, March 23, at 14.30 hrs.
‘A decent game that I can be happy with’, Peter Svidler called the blindfold game he won against Ruslan Ponomariov. Once again the Russian grandmaster played 1.d4 (‘I keep playing this, hoping for openings that never happen’), but didn’t achieve anything tangible from the opening. He only became optimistic after 21.h3, one reason being his bishop on h6, which really was a ‘pest’. Black’s plan with Bb5 and building up pressure on c4 would have been good, had it not been for the little tactic 25.g4, which prevented Black from taking on c4. Svidler criticized 25…Rd8 and offered the following alternative (that he had seen staring at the blank screen in front of him): 25…e6 26.Nd6 Rxc1 27.Bxc1 Rc3 28.Bxd5 Be2 29.Re1 Nxd5 30.Bd2 Rc6 31.Nxb7 Bf3 32.Nc5 Nc7, with drawing chances (after 32…h5 33.Kh2 hxg4 White has 34.Kg3). After the move in the game White has various trumps; the bishop pair, the c-file and a big space advantage. Black blundered with 31…e6, as after White’s reply the black knight cannot withdraw to d7 because of 33.Nc4 and an entire rook drops off. The game was essentially over after 34.Rc7 which led to a quick collapse of the black position.
The rapid game was a wondrous affair. In a Grünfeld Defence, with Svidler once again behind the black pieces, Ponomariov got ‘everything I wanted’, as he put it himself. The Ukrainian grandmaster was very pleased with his 12.e5!, but the situation he was talking about was the position after his 18th move. Apparently Svidler agreed, as not seeing a normal way out anymore he decided to sacrifice a piece for two pawns. And after 28.f3 he sacrificed a further piece, again for another two pawns. Of course, White was totally winning, but the game was far from over. Ponomariov didn’t use all his chances and Svidler fought back creatively, the dead certain outcome wasn’t that dead certain anymore. In the end Ponomariov won anyway, but only after Svidler had missed a draw on move 54 with 54…f1Q 55.Bxf1 c4 and there is no win.
Easily the longest game of the first blindfold session was the encounter between Sergey Karjakin and Alexander Grischuk, lasting one hour and forty minutes (for 82 moves) and even delaying the start of the second session. Karjakin played 6.f3 against Grischuk’s Najdorf, but derived little pleasure from his choice when the Russian champion energetically took over the initiative. Karjakin worked hard to neutralize the black initiative and once he managed to make progress on the kingside the advantage switched to White again and Black was as good as lost. But then it was Grischuk’s turn again to show his ambitions and get the better play. White made the decisive mistake on move 65 when he could have made a draw (see this week’s endgame study). Now Karjakin had to defend a King and Queen ending against a King and Rook ending, and as we all know this is an ungrateful challenge.
The course of the rapid game was determined when Grischuk sacrificed his bishop on h6 as early as move 17. After the game the players analyzed a long time to understand the secrets of the position. Grischuk summed up their findings with his typical irony: ‘We discovered that we both played badly.’ According to him the sacrifice would have been unsound if Black had gone 23…Rad8 instead of 23…Tfd8. And Black would have been better if he had gone 26…Kh8 instead of 26…Kf8. And instead of the repetition of moves at the end his conclusion was that White should have played on with 30.Rxh7 Qxh7 31.Nxg5 Qf5 32.Qe3. To balance all this self-criticism we may add that the computer does not entirely share these findings. So, perhaps they didn’t play that badly after all.
The opening of the blindfold game between Vasily Ivanchuk and Leinier Dominguez was a Sicilian Najdorf, which could hardly be called a surprise after White had played 1.e4. The Cuban grandmaster obviously chose his pet Najdorf and once again went for the ultra-sharp line starting with 7…Nc6, an approach that he himself also called ‘dangerous’, especially after the approach with 14.Bg3 chosen by Ivanchuk. Still, once he managed to exchange queens and push f5, Dominguez got a good game. He even felt that he was better, but in the ensuing phase he failed to prove anything concrete and after 57 moves a draw was agreed on.
In the rapid game Ivanchuk came well-prepared for the Sicilian line that Dominguez had already played on various occasions. The Cuban grandmaster sat thinking hard to remember his work on this line and possible ways to get an advantage. After the game he was satisfied with the plan with 18.h4 and 20.Rh3 that he came up with. Still, he couldn’t solve all his problems and already in quite serious time-trouble he fled into a rook endgame in which he had to fight for survival. That task he acquitted himself of well and after 54 moves he saved the draw.
The blindfold game between Jan Smeets and Vugar Gashimov saw a rare line of the Sicilian Rauzer in which the struggle quickly came to a head when Black sacrificed an exchange with 10…Rxc3. With the strong 12…d5, Black more or less forced his opponent to give back the exchange as otherwise the black initiative would take on dangerous proportions. Smeets wasn’t unhappy with the way the game developed, especially after he was allowed to march his a-pawn to a5 (which Black might have stopped by 18…Ba3). He was also happy with the next pawn he offered with 27.c5, as he got a promising pair of passed pawns. White looked to be in clover, but in the next phase he didn’t proceed accurately enough, he felt. For instance, he believed the immediate 35.c6 would have been stronger. When Black’s counterplay got on his nerves, he decided to bury his aspirations and went for the draw.
In the rapid game Gashimov surprised Smeets with a dangerous idea in a popular line of the Petroff. With 13.d6 and 14.Nb5 he sacrificed a pawn, but got excellent compensation thanks to the compromised position of the black king. After the game the Dutchman wasn’t sure if the white pawn sacrifice had been entirely correct, but he readily admitted that finding black answers to all the white questions at the board was perhaps more than you could expect from a human in a rapid game. As it went, he was steamrollered by White’s attack on the kingside and the game was over on move 33.
In the blindfold game between Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik a fashionable gambit line of the Vienna Game appeared on the board. The Norwegian had aggressive intentions, but according to his opponent his aggression was half-hearted. At a point where he should have gone all out for the attack Carlsen seemed to have second thoughts and tried to regain the pawn with 14.Ba3, a move that Kramnik criticized. When White started working on his kingside attack, Black was prepared (and two full pawns up) and Kramnik had no doubt that he was winning if he didn’t blunder anything. In fact he did make things more difficult for himself than necessary, when he omitted the simple 35…Kf8, which would soon have decided the issue and two moves later Carlsen even got a golden chance to save his skin with 37.hxg7. The engines immediately indicate this possibility as a draw, but Kramnik begged to differ. According to him there may be drawing chances for White, but he believed that Black is winning after the amazing line: 37.hxg7 Qf3+ 38.Kh2 Qxg2+ (38…Qf4+ 39.Kh3) 39.Qxg2 e2 40.Qh3 Kxg7 41.Qg3+ Kf8 42.Qe1 b5 43.Kg3 Re5 and White will have to sweat to make a draw. After Carlsen missed this chance the game was soon over.
The rapid game was even more spectacular. Carlsen showed that he was ready for an open fight by playing the King’s Indian, but again his play was too risky and with the ‘piece sacrifice’ 27.Bxe5 Kramnik obtained a winning position. No one doubted that the Russian was cruising to his second victory, except for Carlsen perhaps. With great determination he kept trying to pose problems and much to the amazement of the watching grandmasters he indeed managed to confuse his opponent. Or maybe Kramnik was confusing himself. In any case, watched by fascinated spectators and various colleagues Carlsen saved a draw (after 90 moves!) that might turn out to be important if four days from now when the prizes are distributed.
Levon Aronian got a good game in the blindfold encounter with Boris Gelfand, when a skirmish on the c-file looked to end to his advantage. His initiative evaporated after 20.Nfd4, where it seems he could have cemented it with 20.Nfe5, when after 20…Na4 21.Rd7, Black surprisingly cannot play 21…Bxe5 because of 22.Ne7+. After this missed chance there soon followed a mass liquidation that led to a draw on move 34.
In the rapid game Gelfand obtained a fine game, when Aronian freely surrendered the d-file. Black’s position looked cramped, but Aronian gradually solved his problems and was rewarded for his efforts when on move 37 his opponent offered a draw.
Vasily Ivanchuk is back in the lead at the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Nice. The Ukrainian defeated Alexander Grischuk 1.5-0.5 today, while Magnus Carlsen lost with the same score to Vugar Gashimov.
The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.
The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).
Vasily ‘Mr Amber’ Ivanchuk once again back in the sole lead
In round 7 of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Vasily Ivanchuk once again moved into the sole lead. The Ukrainian grandmaster had luck on his side in his mini-match against Russian champion Alexander Grischuk. Thanks to this 1½-½ win Ivanchuk replaced Magnus Carlsen as leader in the overall standings. The Norwegian top-seed had an off-day. He was obviously disappointed by his ½-1½ loss against Vugar Gashimov, but he was even more worried by the play he had shown. Sergey Karjakin moved up to shared third place thanks to a 2-0 win over his former compatriot Ruslan Ponomariov.
Vladimir Kramnik won a nice game against Levon Aronian in their blindfold encounter. In a Tarrasch Defence Black got into problems when he pushed 20…d4. Better would have been 20…Qc5+ 21.Kh2 and only now 21…d4. After 21.f5 White’s attack became very dangerous. If for instance Black had played 21…Bd5 instead of 21…Bc4, White pushes 22.f6 and he is in time to mate the black king. The game got a sudden end when Black blundered with 22…Qxa2, allowing White the crushing 23.Rb2 (”I had forgotten about that one,” Aronian said) and 24.f6.
Aronian levelled the score in the rapid game, but this was a far from flawless performance from both players. As Aronian summed it up when he entered the hospitality lounge after the game: ‘First I was winning, then I was losing and then I was winning again.’ No one argued with that, not even the various engines present. The first time the tables were turned when Aronian blundered with 26.Rxe3 (after the wrong 25…Nxb2? where 25…Ree8 was necessary) and found himself in a lost position after Black’s answer, while he could have gotten a great position with 26.Qg2 Re7 27.Rxe7 Kxe7 28.Qg7+. Kramnik returned the favour with 32…Kf8, which gave away most of his advantage, whereas 32…Kf6 33.Re4 Rg8 would still have had him winning comfortably. After this missed opportunity the game seemed to be steering for a draw, but another mistake by Kramnik cost him the game. With 49…Kh7 he would have kept the draw. After 49…c3 he must have been shocked by White’s unnerving reply and one move later he had to resign.
After he had drawn the blindfold game against Boris Gelfand, Jan Smeets admitted that this was the first time in his Amber debut that he had felt comfortable ‘watching’ his position. Which didn’t mean that he hadn’t realized that the opening hadn’t entirely gone his way. What he meant to say was that he was just feeling comfortable. Without hesitation he sacrificed a pawn to get some play and, as if this was the most natural cause the game could take, he regained it relatively effortlessly some ten moves later. The ensuing endgame was level and no longer contained problems for Black that could rob him of a well-deserved draw.
The rapid game was less pleasant for the Dutchman. Between moves 15 and 20 he misplayed the position that had arisen from a popular line of the Petroff and ended up in trouble. He decided to give a pawn, but this concession did little to alleviate the pain. By a forced sequence the players ended up in a rook endgame in which Black had an extra pawn and good winning chances. That was the way Gelfand described it and he proved his point on the board.
Vugar Gashimov was confronted by a Berlin Wall in his blindfold game against Magnus Carlsen. In the endgame that duly appeared on the board within a few moves, White is supposed to be only slightly better, but Gashimov’s life was made easy by Carlsen’s 14…b6 (the white player suggested 14…Ne7 as an improvement). After 13.Ng5 and 14.c4 White had two imposing knights in the centre and Black’s position was not to be envied. Gashimov was proud of his move 18.Rac1 and felt that in general he had played a good game. He also kept a cool head when Carlsen came up with his last trick, 29…c6, and converted his advantage with a steady hand.
In the rapid game Carlsen seemed to get good chances to level the score in this mini-match, when Gashimov played too riskily in the opening. With 20.Rd1 Qa5 21.Ne4 the Norwegian could have gotten a considerable advantage, but thinking 20.Nf5 was also promising he spurned this opportunity. Carlsen had missed 24…Rfe8 and now suddenly he was in trouble. The ending should have been winning for Gashimov (one improvement Carlsen indicated was 34…Rb3 instead of 34…Rxf3), but as always it’s not over till it’s over and with tenacious play White managed to save the draw; on 58 there were only two kings left on the board. Carlsen was obviously disappointed about the chance he had missed and when he was asked whether he minded that he had drawn his first game he replied negatively but added that he did worry about his play today.
After the blindfold encounter between Alexander Grischuk and Vasily Ivanchuk had ended in a draw, the Ukrainian runner-up described the course of the game as ‘complicated’, his favourite word when for whatever reason he doesn’t want to go into too much detail. What he did want to say was that he had the feeling that he had had winning chances after 25…Rc3. He certainly got good chances after that move, but how close he came he will probably explore in his private analysis later today.
The rapid game featured another Najdorf Poisoned Pawn. Grischuk got a good game as Black, but at the point that Ivanchuk could bail out with a draw with 29.Qxd4, he spurned this opportunity and played the risky 29.Qe1. ‘I was feeling that I was in danger, but I wanted to try this’, he explained after the game. ‘Probably I was losing, but I was lucky’, he spoke frankly. If he was really lost was not that clear, but he certainly was lucky when Grischuk blundered 39…Qb7, where he could have made a draw with 39…Qf4. After White’s answer 40.Qb3+ Black was indeed lost.
Leinier Dominguez came very close to his first Amber win in his blindfold game against Peter Svidler. Unfortunately for the luckless Cuban it wasn’t to be. Having played strong and pointed chess in a classical Ruy Lopez, Dominguez reached a wonderful position. In fact, the win was there to be harvested, but at this point his play lost punch and he missed various wins, perhaps the most obvious being 39.Nxg7 Kxg7 40.Qg4+, when the defences around Black’s king are in ruins. His last inaccuracy was 42.Nd6 and two moves later he offered a draw. The Cuban tried not to be too upset about the missed chances and admitted that playing blindfold has proven more difficult than he had expected.
In the rapid game Dominguez surprised Svidler with his opening choice, but didn’t manage to fully equalize. After the game Svidler suggested various improvements for his opponent, such as 11…Qe4+ or 13…Nd5 14.Bxd5 0-0-0! Or 16…Rxf3 17.Re4 Nd4 18.Rxg4 Nxe2 19.Bxe2. But the real mistake of Dominguez was that he had missed 31.g6+ which was followed by a sequence that Svidler had foreseen and left to a winning position after 40.Rxb7. Dominguez kept fighting on, but twenty moves further on he had to resign.
The longest game of the blindfold sessions between Ruslan Ponomariov and Sergey Karjakin lasted 71 moves and 90 minutes and ended in a victory for the latter. Karjakin was reluctant to give an assessment of the opening (‘that has to be analyzed’), but pointed out that the game turned around when White played 28.Nd6, a move ‘that looks nice, but after my simple answer White’s position is unpleasant’. After 34…Bf8 Black felt very comfortable and once the white f-pawn had inevitably dropped off, Karjakin was simply a pawn up and his main concern was not to forget the position of his pawns and pieces. This he managed well (although there was a moment when he played some rook moves to find out the position of the white king that he had briefly forgotten about!) and after a long session the point was his.
The rapid game was a walkover for Karjakin, as Ponomariov put up feeble resistance. In the opening Karjakin deviated from the game Ivanchuk played against the same opponent here with 7.Nxg4 (Ivanchuk went 7.a4). Black’s first inaccuracy was 9…Bb7, as at this point he had been better advised to complete his development. White got a great game and when Black took another risky decision with 14…d5 Black was soon with his back against the wall. Karjakin was proud about his move 16.Nc3 (and in general he thought that this was his best game in this year’s Amber so far) which greatly boosted his initiative. Things very quickly went totally wrong for Black and when Ponomariov resigned on move 23 he was only three moves away from mate.
After six rounds Magnus Carlsen is in sole lead at the Amber tournament. The Norwegian scored yet another 2-0 victory, today against Boris Gelfand, while Vasily Ivanchuk drew twice with compatriot Ruslan Ponomariov. Jan Smeets scored his first victory and played 1-1 against Vladimir Kramnik.
The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.
The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).
Fourth 2-0 knock-out brings Magnus Carlsen back on top again
In Round 6 of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Magnus Carlsen regained the lead in the overall standings. In a gripping clash, the Norwegian defeated Boris Gelfand 2-0 and overtook former leader Vasily Ivanchuk from Ukraine, who had to settle for two draws against his compatriot Ruslan Ponomariov. The gap between the front-runners is widening. Third place is shared by Boris Gelfand, Alexander Grischuk en Vladimir Kramnik, two full points behind Carlsen and one and a half points behind Ivanchuk. After 12 games Carlsen has not yet drawn a single game, winning 9 and losing 3.
Ruslan Ponomariov explained that his blindfold game against Vasily Ivanchuk reminded him of their final match in the 2002 FIDE World Championship in Moscow, where stubborn defence in suspect positions contributed to his ultimate success. Once again a Ruy Lopez with an early g6 appeared on the board, one of the most popular openings in this Amber, and this time it was Ivanchuk who improved on Dominguez’s play against Ponomariov with 5.d4. Ivanchuk’s idea (combined with 7.a4) worked out fine and if you’re wondering why Black didn’t take the exchange on offer on move 10, the following line may give you an idea: 10…Bxd4 11.Qxd4 Qf6 12.e5 Qb6 13.Qf4. The critical moment came on move 15, where Ponomariov felt he should have played 15…Bxb3 16.Qxb3 Kh7 followed by Kh7. After 15…Qb8 his position was just unpleasant and Ivanchuk could start to realize all his plans at his leisure. But Ponomariov didn’t just wait to be finished off, and tried to create some counterplay by playing his bishop to f4 and bringing his queen to the kingside via d8. And it worked. Afterwards various improvements were suggested for White, such as 47.h4, which would have allowed him to put his king on h2, but as it went the game ended in a repetition of moves on move 68.
In the rapid game Ponomariov wanted to discuss a line in the Catalan, but was bit clumsy when that opportunity really appeared. Instead of playing the critical move, 13.Ne4, he mixed up moves and went 13.Bf4. And soon found himself two pawns down and wondering what his compensation consisted of. Luckily for him he found 16.Ng5, an aggressive assault that allowed him to bail out with a draw by repetition. Ponomariov wasn’t too happy with his missed chance to play the opening he had aimed for (‘I would have liked to see what Ivanchuk had prepared’) and only found some consolation in the thought that ‘maybe Carlsen will not complain about my result’.
The blindfold game between Peter Svidler and Alexander Grischuk was a wonderful achievement by the Russian champion (the current champion Grischuk we mean, not five-times former champion Svidler). At least, that’s what we thought when we saw Black’s queen sacrifice and the way he next obtained more than enough compensation. But Grischuk, although he had a contented smile on his face, wasn’t too impressed: ‘It looks impressive, but in fact it is quite easy. If you look at the way my pieces coordinate and the threats I have it is not that difficult.’ Of course not, particularly not in blindfold. According to Grischuk, White’s 14.Qh5 was a ‘stupid move’ based on a miscalculation and after this Black would also have been better without the queen sacrifice. The key move of the combination was 20…Bd3, a quiet move that highlights White’s problems with his queen. In fact, Grischuk had hoped that Svidler would resign at that point, not because it would have made the picture prettier, but for the simple reason that it would have prevented him from making any possible moves. Obviously, Grischuk was referring to his recurring time-trouble problems, but this time such worries were unwarranted as he converted his advantage without any glitches.
‘Not a very exciting game, but a correct one’, Svidler commented after the rapid game had ended in a draw. In a Grünfeld Defence Grischuk tried a new move (in this position), 9.Qa4. Black’s 14…Qa5 was a precise move, as he has to stop his opponent from steamrolling him on the kingside and White cannot really avoid the exchange. Perhaps in the following phase 15.g4 would have been more critical, as now Black was doing fine after 16…f5. And once some pieces were exchanged the draw was not far off.
Sergey Karjakin and Leineir Dominguez discussed the merits of a Be3-Najdorf with Black playing an early h5 in their blindfold game. This discussion will no doubt continue in future games, but once the principled fight between Black’s queenside ambitions and White’s kingside ambitions came to a head, the pawn on h5 was more of a liability than an asset. The game turned sour for Black when he played 29…Nxc6? Which soon had him in insurmountable problems. Instead, he might have fought on with 29…Nxg4 30.Qxg4 f5 31.Re2 fxg4 32.Rxg2.
The rapid game saw an Exchange Slav in which Karjakin tried to stir up complications. His attempts bore fruit when Dominguez erred with19.h3, allowing the strong 19…Bb5. The Cuban took the wisest decision and sacrificed the exchange, leaving Black with a slightly better position, but no tangible advantage. But the game was far from over and in mutual time-trouble Karjakin kept looking for his chances. In the end he was successful when Dominguez let himself be tricked and dropped a piece.
Levon Aronian arrived for his blindfold game against Vugar Gashimov in an impeccable white suit, white shoes, and black shirt to match the white jacket and black shirt of his opponent. After the game he admitted jokingly that this had been part of his strategy: ‘That’s why I only put it on briefly before the game. I didn’t want him to see my novelty.’ As expected Gashimov defended himself with his pet Benoni, but apparently he wasn’t very familiar with the old sideline that Aronian played. ‘And it’s a big disadvantage in rapid and blindfold if you’re not familiar with a line and your opponent is’, the Armenian explained. According to him his opponent’s 12…fxg4 was imprecise and that 12…Nf6 was theory. But his real error was 14…Bg7, where he should have played 14…Be7. ‘Later in the game I was mainly trying not to do what I was doing in previous rounds’, Aronian continued. He did so convincingly and after 38 moves Gashimov threw the towel.
In the rapid game Aronian defended with the Berlin Defence, which these days is more often called the Berlin Wall. The opening served him well, as Aronian, who lives in Berlin, was better throughout the game. In the end it was not enough when Gashimov forced a draw by a repetition of moves.
A beaming Jan Smeets walked into the hospitality lounge after had won the blindfold game against Vladimir Kramnik. Not only had he beaten the former world champion in an excellent game, he had also won his first game in his Amber debut. As in their game in Wijk aan Zee, Kramnik relied on the Pirc Defence. That game he won, but this time things went different. Smeets had chosen a sharp line, and although he admitted that he didn’t remember all the ins and outs he felt at ease. Kramnik tried to invade the white position with an avalanche of pieces, but he couldn’t avoid that his knights became unstuck. As a result White won a piece against a couple of pawns, but this compensation was not enough for Black. Smeets’ main concern was that he would end up in this traditional time-trouble and blunder something. The time-trouble he couldn’t avoid entirely, but for the rest he kept a clear head, picked up a pawn here and there and forced Kramnik’s surrender on move 41.
Kramnik hit back in the rapid game, but only after a gritty fight from both sides. The opening put Black under pressure, although Smeets didn’t worry too much. Looking for a speedy kill Kramnik sacrificed a piece with 32.Bxh6, but it was questionable if he objectively made much progress with this investment. He did when Smeets steered for an endgame with 34…Qe8, wrongly assessing the following developments. The Dutch grandmaster had assumed that his a-pawn would be a strong trump, but whereas his a-pawn didn’t move that fast, his opponent’s pawns became truly menacing.
Magnus Carlsen was pleased with the way he had played the blindfold game against Boris Gelfand. He obtained nothing from the opening, but that had not worried him. Instead he had enjoyed he had worked to create something from nothing. The ‘something’ was in the air when he finally could play 37.Ne5 and when that same knight struck on g6 one move later it was clear that White was on to something. The game was essentially decided when Carlsen played 41.g4, after which he assessed the position as ‘very bad to lost for Black’. Ten moves later he concluded the game with mate and notched up his first point after his winning streak was interrupted in yesterday’s rapid game. ‘Six more to go’, he grinned.
The rapid game also ended in a win for Carlsen, but what a fight it was. In a King’s Indian he ended up with a worse position and could only breathe again when Gelfand made a mistake with 24.Nxc5, giving Black a nice outpost for his knight on d6. The remainder of the game was a demonstration of Carlsen’s magnificent fighting spirit. Many a player would have been tempted to go for a draw when it was there for the taking, but he rather played for a win skirting the precipice. Gelfand certainly missed various ways to draw, but Carlsen’s courage prevailed when under great pressure he managed to deal the decisive blow.
Apparently nothing can stop the world's highest-ranked player. In round six of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament Magnus Carlsen dispatched Boris Gelfand, who had won his four previous games, with a 2-0 score. Carlsen is now alone in the lead. Dutch GM Jan Smeets won his first game in Nice – against Vladimir Kramnik in blindfold. Round six report with video interviews.
On his 41st birthday Vasily Ivanchuk defeated Jan Smeets 1.5-0.5 at the Amber tournament in Nice. Because Magnus Carlsen won one and lost one against Sergey Karjakin, Ivanchuk is now half a point ahead of Carlsen and Gelfand, who beat Aronian 2-0.
The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.
The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).
Vasily Ivanchuk grabs lead on 41st birthday
In round 5 of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Vasily Ivanchuk, who celebrated his 41st birthday today, grabbed the sole lead in the overall standings with a 1½-½ win over Jan Smeets. Magnus Carlsen saw a winning streak of seven consecutive wins interrupted by Sergey Karjakin. The Norwegian top-seed is now in second place together with Boris Gelfand, who defeated Leinier Dominguez 2-0 (scoring his fourth consecutive win in the process).
Yesterday the participants of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament enjoyed a free day. Some of them stayed at the hotel to recharge their batteries, others joined an excursion to Gourdon, an age-old mountain village perched on a rock 780 meters above sea-level with a splendid view of the surrounding natural scenery and of Nice at a distance of some 10 kilometres (the ride there was obviously longer and lasted about an hour). The excursion included a visit to the local museum and a relaxed lunch on the outside terrace of Le Nid d’Aigle.
At the end of the afternoon the players who took part in the excursion returned to the Palais de la Méditerranée, where in the evening they were joined by their colleagues at a Quiz evening. The theme of the evening was Movies (with questions about chess interspersed) and we can reveal that Ruslan Ponomariov, who was on the winning team, astounded all and sundry with his passionate rendition of We Are the Champions. And then today, at 14.30 it was back to chess again with the games of the fifth round.
After he had won the blindfold game against Leinier Dominguez, Boris Gelfand was full of praise for his opponent’s opening play. Without going into any detail (he preferred the telling stock phrase ‘future games will have to shed more light on this variation’) Gelfand explained that the complications had been big and that he was suffering a pawn down at the ‘end’ of the opening. But Dominguez’ problem was to find a way to convert his material and this proved not so easy. And searching for a plan he got confused by the sudden advance of Black’s e-pawn that started marching down the board. Things were still fine for White, but the Cuban panicked and before he knew it he was lost.
The opening in the rapid game again was highly complicated and although in various instances the computer prefers Black, Gelfand had full confidence in the white side. To his mind his opponent went astray with 24…Rd8, where he could have stayed in the game with the ‘beautiful idea’ (Gelfand’s words) 24…Rd3 25.Nf2 Rxf3 26.gxf3 f5. Now things went rapidly downhill for Black and after 30.Qa4 Gelfand believed that he was close to winning. The game lasted another 36 moves, but indeed the result was never in any doubt and Gelfand scored his fourth consecutive win.
Vugar Gashimov and Alexander Grischuk conducted a tense battle in the Poisoned Pawn Variation of the Najdorf, with White going for the less usual 8.Qd3. White seemed to have a promising initiative and Gashimov’s hopes were rising, when Grischuk found the beautiful defending move 28…Kh7, that essentially saved the draw.
In the rapid game they also repeated the opening they had played in Linares last month and with Gashimov behind the black pieces it’s no big surprise that we saw another Benoni. The novelty came on move 12, when instead of 12…Nh5, the Azeri grandmaster now played 12…b5, an improvement he was most pleased with. Black got a fine game, but White remained ambitious and in the end it was the Russian’s wish to keep on playing on that did him in. After he had repeated moves several times (in different positions) Grischuk finally fell for the trap that Gashimov had spied many moves ago and when White proceeded 43.Bb5, Black’s answer 43…Rxc7 came very quickly.
Vladimir Kramnik scored a convincing win against Ruslan Ponomariov in their blindfold game, although he wasn’t too impressed by his achievement. To his mind Ponomariov had simply forgotten to play 6…d6 (as Ponomariov was happy to explain he had already played this exact variation without …d6, way back in 1997 against Volkov amongst others; ‘it used to be one of my specialties at the time’), which gave White a considerable space advantage. He also was critical of Black’s 10…dxe5 and believed that Black’s best chance on move 15 was 15…Bxc3+ 16.Qxc3 Qxb5, as after 15…Kg7? 16.0-0 he felt that White was almost winning. What Black probably missed was that 16…Nf6 would have been answered by 17.Bh6+ Kxh6 18.Qe3+. The remainder of the game Kramnik played with a steady hand and Ponomariov never got a chance to turn the tide again.
After the blindfold game Ponomariov mused that he should not have played so adventurously and that it was wiser to strive for a healthy position, solidly developing your pieces and all that. But once he sat down for the rapid game he had already forgotten about most of this wisdom and went for wild adventures again with 12.Be5 and 13.Bd3. Further on 20.Qa1 was not fortunate choice and 21.Rb1 was a blunder that practically immediately cost him the game.
Perhaps the question most people were asking themselves at the start of the blindfold game between Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen was whether the Norwegian would continue his winning streak or that the Ukrainian would slow him down. And indeed, despite the fact that he had the black pieces Carlsen managed to win his seventh consecutive game. In a first reaction he called it ‘a good game’ and it was certainly impressive how he first solved his opening problems and next started to look for more. By the time he had played 23…Nxe3 followed by 24…Bf2, he felt he got a grip on the position. He was even more pleased when Karjakin let himself be tempted to play 34.Bxg6, as he had sharply calculated the consequences of his move. Still, it wasn’t clear if Black’s advantage was winning, but with Karjakin in severe time-trouble and the pressure building up on him he faced an arduous task. Carlsen wasn’t entirely sure if he had played the queen endgame perfectly, but the way he played it was enough to score another point.
Carlsen’s winning streak ended in the rapid game. Dithering opening play didn’t bring him anything and when Karjakin stepped up his counterplay, dark clouds gathered over the white position. Carlsen tried his best to muddy the waters but in fact his fate was sealed well before the end of the game.
Levon Aronian and Peter Svidler played a blindfold game that the latter called ‘wildly exciting’ and who would argue with that? In a sharp anti-Grünfeld system Black was reluctant to go for the endgame that would have arisen after 11…Qxd1+ even if a brief look afterwards convinced him that there was nothing wrong with it for him. When he played 11…Qe7+ he had missed White’s 12.Bb5+ and wild (indeed) complications began. Initially Black’s position looked under threat but with 21…Qe4 Black took over the initiative. But White crawled back into the game and a manoeuvring phase ended in a drawish position. At this point, however, Aronian had little time left and lost control. First he spurned a repetition of moves and next he put his queen en prise.
After he’d also won the rapid game, Svidler suppressed his happiness with the words ‘Today Levon had one of those days that I normally have’. Aronian’s opening turned out badly when he played 12…Re8, where moves like 12…Be6 or 12…Bd7 were called for, and was punished by 13.Nb5. Still, Svidler didn’t continue in the most powerful manner. To his mind, if he had gone 15.Qd2 Bf5 16.Rfe1, the game ‘wouldn’t have lasted twenty moves’. Now Aronian could fight back and with 18…Be4 19.Rf2 Rxf2 20.Kxf2 Qh4+ 21.Kg1 Qg4 22.Qg3 Qxg3 he would have had the worst behind him. Now White was soon in the driver’s seat again and hauled in the point without too many problems.
Jan Smeets and Vasily Ivanchuk went down a long line of Caro-Kann theory in their blindfold game. Today was Ivanchuk’s birthday (he turned 41), but Smeets had obviously no wish to present any gifts and although Black was slightly better in the endgame that appeared on the board, the Dutchman confidently secured the draw. At the very end of the game he even came close to a win on time when Ivanchuk had lost track of his bishop, but after a series of tentative mouse clicks the Ukrainian managed to trace it (if the players made an ‘impossible’ move the note ‘illegal move’ appears on their screen; there are no sanctions, however, so they can keep searching for a piece or pawn as long as you want, provided you have enough time).
In the rapid game, a Four Knights’ Opening, Smeets at first didn’t have any real problems either. But an ill-advised queen excursion on the queenside, while White was advancing menacingly on the kingside cost him dearly. His kingside proved much more vulnerable than it had appeared at first sight and within a few moves he had to resign.
Perhaps it was because I’m currently reading The Age of Empathy – Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society, Frans de Waal’s latest book on how and why humans (and other primates) are capable of showing empathy and solving moral problems – that I found myself shocked by the recent Europe Echecs interview with Topalov’s manager Silvio Danailov. Topalov’s match against Anand hasn’t even started yet, but the first provocations are already in the air again.
Frans de Waal is one of the world’s leading primatologists and has written an impressive body of work about the similarities between apes and humans. In his latest work, he hands us a toolkit on how to improve our society by looking at (human) nature. Empathy and morality are not only human affairs, but also play an very important role in other species, such as chimpansees and dolphins. De Waal argues that the election of president Obama is a clear sign that the ‘nightmare’ days of Reagan and Thatcher are over and that perhaps it is time to transform society into a more empathic place. Well, I think it’s time to end the ‘nightmare’ of Toiletgate and start a new era where chess professionals actually show some empathy and respect for each other instead of constantly trying to provoke the opponent.
In the video of the interview, Danailov talks about whether the ‘Sofia rules’ apply in the upcoming Topalov-Anand match, to be held in Sofia next month. They will not be applied – at least not officially. But that’s no problem for Danailov:
If one player doesn’t offer or accept draws they will apply. Vishy [Anand] doesn’t agree but he will be forced, because Topalov will not offer him a draw and he will not speak to him. So, what to do? He will be forced. This is the best. This is the best, otherwise… I don’t know, there’s people who are absolutely conservative, they are against these rules, but this is the future of chess. This is for sure. Everybody now understands this. Of course, I understand there are some players, old players, who don’t want to work… they like short draws and whatever. They like to offer them, but this is finished. Chess … we need a professional sport, and in professional sport, we cannot do this.
It’s a remarkable statement: Anand – forced against his will to comply to rules that are not official; this is the future of chess, no matter what ‘old’ chess players say – their opinion clearly is unimportant and shouldn’t be respected. But the most remarkable is that Danailov says that Topalov will not only refuse to offer any draws but also will ignore his opponent altogether: “He will not speak to him.” In other words, he will drop all courtesy and normal etiquette and create a ‘non-speaking terms’ atmosphere in a match in his home country, against one of the most relaxed and friendly chess players in the professional chess scene.
And why? Because of ‘professionalism’, that vacuous word all too often misused by people who refuse to acknowledge that most if not all work requires empathy and social skills – in other words, people who haven’t the slightest idea what ‘professionalism’ really means. (Here’s how one competency library actually defines ‘professionalism’: “Thinking carefully about the likely effects on others of one’s words, actions, appearance, and mode of behavior.”) To exclude all social elements from a profession is in fact the ultimate un-professional thing imaginable.
It’s a fallacy Frans de Waal convincingly demolishes in his book, showing how cooperation and social interaction are absolutely crucial to succeed in any job and society, and are in fact measures by which we judge people and choose them as colleagues, friends or mates. Not so for the Bulgarians, who’ve created their own rules and apparently don’t mind to be social isolates in the chess world, as long as the results speak for themselves. What an utterly unprofessional attitude!
In a similar vein, we’ve argued before on this site that shaking hands before and after a game shouldn’t actually be incorporated in the rules of chess, but instead should be respected even though they’re not in the rules – because, as De Waal shows, that’s how empathy and social skills work: intuitively, without explicit rules, automatically. And that’s why apes and other animals are capable of displaying them, too, without being able to read lawbooks or guides on ethical behaviour. It’s a thing of nature. It’s in our genes.
The sad thing is that we’ve seen this all before, four years ago in Elista. There, the Bulgarian team made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of world by accusing Vladimir Kramnik – without a shred of hard evidence – of cheating. They even published a childish book on it – still lacking any solid evidence – to prove their point, which I reviewed back in 2007. Perhaps it’s worth recalling how Topalov accused Kramnik of unfairly using his ‘home advantage’ up till the Kremlin in order to “keep the title at any cost” and that he (Kramnik) “will not balk at violating ethical principles.”
In his book, Topalov wrote that it was naive of him to agree to the match against Kramnik being played on Russian (well, kind of) ground, because such a match obviously couldn’t be fair. Well, it’s four years later and look who’s playing on home ground this time. Will Topalov and Danailov return the compliment and agree if Anand claimed a match in Bulgaria couldn’t ever be fair because of some kind of home advantage? Frans de Waal devotes an entire chapter on the ‘walking in other man’s ’shoes’ concept, but looking at the interview of Europe Echecs, I have my doubts if Danailov has read it. Note how he laughs during the entire interview, routinely dismissing dissenting views and announcing how the reigning World Champion will be ‘forced’ to do this and that. Does that sound like someone showing any kind of empathy or ‘ethical principles’ at all?
Silvio Danailov has recently announced his candidacy for president of the European Chess Union. Heaven forbid someone who doesn’t understand the first thing about ‘professionalism’, baselessly accuses some world class players of unethical behaviour and laughingly tells others what to do, ever gets to play such an important role in European chess, even if he did show some good initiatives like the exciting M-Tel tournament and his passion for more fighting chess. This kind of destructive madness really can’t be tolerated in our beautiful chess world. Frans de Waal ends his book The Age of Empathy (I am quoting from the Dutch version) with the following words:
We must rely on our intellect to figure out how to balance individual and collective interests. One instrument we have and which enriches our thinking enormously, has been selected over ages, meaning its survival value has been proven time and again. It is our capacity to show a sense of oneness with others, to understand them, and to place ourselves in their situation.
We can only hope this message will reach the Bulgarian team before the Topalov-Anand match starts.
Carlsen wins 2-0 again, joins Ivanchuk in the lead
After winning 2-0 one more time, today against Smeets, Carlsen joined Vasily Ivanchuk in the lead in Nice. The Ukrainian on his turn defeated Aronian 1.5-0.5, while Kramnik went down 2-0 against Gelfand.
The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.
The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).
Magnus Carlsen catches up with Vasily Ivanchuk after third 2-0 wipe-out
After four rounds of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Magnus Carlsen and Vasily Ivanchuk are tied for first in the overall standings with 6 points from 8 games. The Ukrainian grandmaster defeated last year’s winner Levon Aronian 1½-½. Magnus Carlsen continued his remarkable comeback after he lost 2-0 to Ivanchuk in Round 1. The world’s number one defeated Jan Smeets 2-0, raising his number of consecutive wins to six. Manifold Amber winner Vladimir Kramnik suffered a highly atypical 2-0 defeat at the hands of Boris Gelfand. Perhaps typical for the fighting spirit of the round was the fact that 5 out the 6 rapid games were won by black.
Tomorrow, March 17, is a rest day. Play is resumed Thursday March 18 with Round 5.
Magnus Carlsen was understandably ambitious to continue his winning streak in his blindfold game against bottom-seed Jan Smeets. Despite a modest opening set-up (that started with 1.g3) he indeed got an edge, but there was no reason for Black to despair yet. Afterwards Carlsen commented that had Smeets just stayed put, instead of becoming active with 31…Rc3, he didn’t see how he could have made progress. Smeets’ action was based on a miscalculation. After 32…Rxc4 the only reply he had counted on was 33.Rd6+, but instead Carlsen dealt a killer blow with 33.Bg5. Three moves later Black resigned, raising Carlsen’s winning streak to five.
In the rapid game the Norwegian also scored his sixth consecutive win, but this time he really had to squeeze water from a stone. After the opening he was slightly worse, but he kept looking for his chances, collecting one minimal asset after the other. On move 33 there was a minuscule victory when he exchanged his knight for a bishop and with 38…g5 he made a brave winning attempt, as he let the white c-pawn on the board. Objectively speaking all his tries would have been in vain had Smeets kept his cool, but low and time and feeling the pressure the Dutchman finally succumbed. As late as move 54 he still could have made a draw with 54.Nh2 as this saves an essential tempo compared to the move he played, 54.Nf2.
The blindfold game between tournament leader Vasily Ivanchuk and defending champion Levon Aronian suddenly ended when the board was still full of pawns and pieces when on move 25 White offered a draw. In a slightly unorthodox Ruy Lopez it seemed that Black had obtained a good game, but Aronian wasn’t so sure. When he was asked why he had accepted the draw, he simply replied: ‘Because I am worse.’ And he elaborated that his pieces might look nice and active, but that White can slowly continue h3, Rd1 and c4, and on top of that he didn’t like the g5-h4 pawn-structure on the kingside either.
In the rapid game Ivanchuk maintained the (shared) lead with a fine win with the black pieces. A speculative piece sacrifice by Aronian (19.Nxe6) for three pawns and the initiative failed to impress and although the game remained complicated Ivanchuk hauled in the point with determined and precise play.
In the blindfold game between Peter Svidler and Sergey Karjakin a tense Sicilian with chances for both sides saw an untimely and unfortunate end when on move 42, White put a knight en prise. Following his resignation yesterday against Carlsen when there was still everything to play for, this was a new blow for the Russian grandmaster.
Svidler found some consolation in a well-played rapid game that finally brought him a win again. In his beloved Grünfeld Defence he believed that his 12…Rd8 was a safe road to equality, but it required accurate play. Instead of 17…g5 he could also have played 17…c4, but he felt more attracted to the push of the g-pawn. Karjakin felt optimistic about his chances when he won a pawn, but in fact this materialistic decision spelled disaster, as very soon the black pieces assembled for a strong attack. One nice line that didn’t appear on the board was 24.Bf2 (in the game 24.Bd7 was played) 24…Nxf3 25.Bg3 Qxg3! 26.hxg3 Rh6+ 27.Kg2 Rh2 mate. The end of the game was less drastic, but nevertheless there was no escaping for White.
Boris Gelfand didn’t hide his contentment after he had won his blindfold game against Vladimir Kramnik. ‘It’s always nice to win against such a great player’, he almost humbly commented. The Israeli grandmaster more or less blamed Black’s defeat on the opening system he had chosen, the Bg4-system that is mainly popular among some Azeri players. One of the ideas of the black approach is the exchange sacrifice on e3 that also happened in this game. Gelfand wasn’t convinced of its correctness and suggested Black should have looked for something else at that point. He pointed out the sad offside position of the black knight on c7 in particular and quoted Tarrasch who said that if one piece doesn’t take part in the play there’s something wrong with the entire position. Gelfand was satisfied with his plan Bd1 and Ne2 which allowed him to cement his advantage and slowly but surely win the game.
In the rapid game Kramnik was perhaps too cautious in his approach, certainly if he had clear plans to level the score, and this seriously backfired. Playing actively Gelfand freely advanced his pawns and directed his pieces to active positions. Objectively speaking, White was not yet in trouble, but Black’s position was much more pleasant and easy to play. Gradually the black pressure built up and following a blunder, 31.Rc2, Kramnik soon had to throw in the towel. An impressive achievement by Gelfand.
Ruslan Ponomariov seemed determined to blow up Vugar Gashimov’s Benoni Defence in their blindfold game and judging by the comments of the kibitzing grandmasters in the hospitality lounge he was soon on his way to realize that objective. But then the Benoni is a resilient customer and although his position looked highly suspect, Gashimov seemed to have no wish to su
In his influential monthly chess book column - Checkpoint, Carsten Hansen yesterday reviewed (among others) "A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire" under the heading 'Happy Days for Queen's Pawn Enthusiasts'. Generally his review is favourable and his conclusion is: 
This is a bit mysterious as 2.e4 clearly isn't a bizarre move in itself. It leads to a positions of a different nature than the Colle but so do many other of the books proposed lines. Hansen's point must be that allowing a transposition to the Pirc, Modern and Philidor doesn't fit well with the rest of the book's proposed repertoire. This criticism would make sense if there wasn't a full chapter in the book on the 150-Attack against the Pirc and Modern. 
Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are sharing the lead in Biel with one round to go. The two are on 5/8. After five more draws in round 7, the 8th round saw much more spectacle.
I did Game of the Day for Rounds 9 and 10 of Dortmund 2010 Sparkassen (Naiditsch-Kramnik and Leko-Naiditsch). I learned from a viewer that Naiditsch is pronounced NIGH-ditch not NAY-ditch.
Wesley So won his second game in the third round of the Young Grandmasters Tournament in Biel, grabbing the sole lead in an extremely strong field.
After so much (Dutch) football subjectivity over the past weeks (yeah yeah, Spain won deservedly), it’s a delight to read something objective again: Lars Schandorff has written an extremely solid and honest book on the Caro-Kann in the Grandmaster Repertoire series from Quality Chess.
Viktor Laznicka won this year’s World Open in Philadelphia. The Czech grandmaster was the only player to finish at 7.5/9, half a point more than Harikrishna, Smirin and McShane, and a point more than Van Wely, Gustafsson, Potkin and Lenderman.
He didn’t play an official tournament game for eleven years, but this weekend he returned to the arena in Haarlem, The Netherlands where he won a 6-round weekender: Matthew Sadler. The English grandmaster finished on 5/6, half a point ahead of GMs Kravtsiv and Maxim Turov and IM Chiel van Oosterom.
Friso Nijboer won the 5th HSG Open in Hilversum, the Netherlands. The Dutch grandmaster finished on 7/9 which was half a point more than GMs Steingrimsson and Landa, and 13-year-old IM Nyzhnyk.
During my holidays I received a lot of chess books from various publishers. There’s lot to look forward to! One of the most interesting books is the latest volume of John Watson’s ambitious project to explain and analyse all chess openings. But the book became much more than just another opening manual.
The gap between Magnus Carlsen (2826) and Veselin Topalov (2803) has increased to 23 points on the July 1 FIDE rating list. The Norwegian won 13 points whereas the Bulgarian dropped 9. Third is World Champion Viswanathan Anand, now with 2800 points exactly. Wang Yue dropped from 8th to 28th.
Carlsen’s fine victory in Romania last week got him another 13 rating points and because Topalov lost 9 points in his match with Anand, the gap between the world’s number one and two is now 23 points. Those 9 points went to Anand, who thereby surpassed Kramnik to regain the 3rd spot, at a nice 2800 precisely.
You’ll probably remember the 13-fold repetition in the game Bok-Van Wely at the Dutch Championship, two weeks ago. Afterwards Van Wely was fuming that his young opponent didn’t use the opportunity to get more experience in a real fight. As GM Luke McShane pointed out, something similar happened in a clock simul between Kasparov and the USA in 1988.
We formulated ten questions related to Developing Chess Talent and every Monday we’ll ask them to an interesting personality in the chess world.
By drawing his last round game in four moves (or rather three and a half) Jan Smeets won the 2010 Dutch Championship. Zhaoqin Peng secured her 12th (!) Dutch title already one round before the end. This year’s event will mainly be remembered for its many peculiarities.
During his game against FM Benjamin Bok at the Dutch Championship in Eindhoven, GM Loek van Wely today was involved in an experiment to measure his stress levels. And indeed, in a game that saw a repetition of the position between moves 14 and 37, clear signs of arousel on the side of Van Wely were measured, but for an unexpected reason…
Today the Dutch Championship started at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. In the first round Nijboer beat Van Kampen and Bok upset Reinderman.
Chalons en Champagne, led by Loek van Wely and Anish Giri, Sunday won the French league. The team finished just ahead of Evry Grand Roque, who played with Eljanov, Gashimov, Svidler and Vachier-Lagrave. 
Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexander Riazantsev lead the Karpov tournament in Poikovsky with 4/6. In a tournament where 24 of the 35 games ended peacefully, Ivan Sokolov is not joining the feast of draws but instead plays uncompromising chess.
Alexei Shirov will play in the Crown Group in Hoogeveen this year. At the annual Univé Tournament, the world’s number 10 will meet Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri and Sergei Tiviakov. This was confirmed in a press release by the organization today.
Loek van Wely won the Chicago Open tournament in Wheeling, Illinois. In the 9-round Swiss, the Dutch GM was the only player to score 7.5 points. Adams, Najer, Mikhalevski and Stocek ended shared second with 7 points. Interview with Van Wely added.
Last week Dmitry Jakovenko defeated Ernesto Inarkiev at the ACP World Rapid Cup, using the devastating 12.Ncb5!! – a theoretical novelty that won on the spot. Inarkiev could have prevented this disaster as the move was mentioned the day before the game in ChessVibes Openings #73!
Last Saturday GM Jan Timman visited my local chess club, Caissa Amsterdam, for a master class with a few members of Caissa’s first team. The club celebrated the Dutch Chess Federation’s prize they won last year, for welcoming the highest number of new club members in one season.
Rybka this weekend won the 10th edition of the International Computer Chess Tournament (ICT10) in Leiden, The Netherlands.
Anish Giri today defeated co-leader Jon Ludvig Hammer in a direct encounter to win the 18th Sigeman & Co tournament with a score of 4.5/5 (and a 2920 performance rating). Hammer finished clear second with a point less.
Besides his team of seconds in Sofia, Viswanathan Anand was helped by some big names before or during his World Championship match against Veselin Topalov. Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik all contributed to Anand’s victory in Sofia. The World Champion Monday revealed this in an interview on Playchess.
From Thursday till Sunday five young, Dutch chess talents each played a 4-game match against an experienced grandmaster of their choice. On ‘top board’, Anish Giri and Nigel Short both won one game, and drew twice. Pictorial report and a video with interviews with all the players.
After Vassily Smyslov and Florencio Campomanes, the chess world says goodbye to another big name. The world’s oldest living grandmaster, Andor Lilienthal, died today of serious illness, three days after his 99th birthday.
We received a few complaints at ChessVibes headquarters for reporting in a biased way about the upcoming FIDE presidential elections. We were accused of favouring Anatoly Karpov and ridiculing Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. A news item that appeared yesterday on the BCC website shows we should have taken our current president more seriously indeed.
We formulated ten questions related to Developing Chess Talent and every Monday we’ll ask them to an interesting personality in the chess world. 
According to Russian sources, the Russian Chess Federation has officially nominated Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as candidate for the upcoming FIDE presidential elections during the Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad in September. His rival candidate, Anatoly Karpov, was already nominated by the German Federation last week.
Five countries, 2000 kilometres, about a million potholes, an unexpected ferry and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. A member of the Anand team wrote a report of a crazy roadtrip through Europe.
Whenever there are holidays, there’s chess. The Easter weekend is always good for a few strong opens, and in this report we’re looking at three of them. Li Chao won the Doeberl Cup in Canberra (Australia), Pablo Lafuente was the strongest at the Neckar Open in Deizisau (Germany) and Gata Kamsky won a lot of money in Philadelphia (USA).
We formulated ten questions related to Developing Chess Talent and every Monday we’ll ask them to an interesting personality in the chess world.
In this week’s The New Yorker, James Surowiecki 
7th World Chess Champion Vasily Smyslov died on Saturday of heart failure, Russian television reported. Smyslov, who turned 89 on Wednesday, was taken to a Moscow hospital earlier in the week after complaining of heart problems. He died on Saturday morning.
Magnus Carlsen today reclaimed first place in the overall standings of the Amber tournament with a 2-0 win over Ruslan Ponomariov. With one round to go the Norwegian grandmaster is half a point ahead of Vasily Ivanchuk, who drew twice with Vladimir Kramnik.
In the 8th round of the Amber tournament in Nice, Vladimir Kramnik defeated Magnus Carlsen 1.5-0.5, which should have been 2-0. Vasily Ivanchuk was held to two draws by Dominguez; the Ukrainian did increase his lead in the combined standings to a full point.
Vasily Ivanchuk is back in the lead at the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Nice. The Ukrainian defeated Alexander Grischuk 1.5-0.5 today, while Magnus Carlsen lost with the same score to Vugar Gashimov.
After six rounds Magnus Carlsen is in sole lead at the Amber tournament. The Norwegian scored yet another 2-0 victory, today against Boris Gelfand, while Vasily Ivanchuk drew twice with compatriot Ruslan Ponomariov. Jan Smeets scored his first victory and played 1-1 against Vladimir Kramnik.
On his 41st birthday Vasily Ivanchuk defeated Jan Smeets 1.5-0.5 at the Amber tournament in Nice. Because Magnus Carlsen won one and lost one against Sergey Karjakin, Ivanchuk is now half a point ahead of Carlsen and Gelfand, who beat Aronian 2-0.
Perhaps it was because I’m currently reading The Age of Empathy – Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society, Frans de Waal’s latest book on how and why humans (and other primates) are capable of showing empathy and solving moral problems – that I found myself shocked by the recent Europe Echecs interview with Topalov’s manager Silvio Danailov. Topalov’s match against Anand hasn’t even started yet, but the first provocations are already in the air again.
Frans de Waal is one of the world’s leading primatologists and has written an impressive body of work about the similarities between apes and humans. In his latest work, he hands us a toolkit on how to improve our society by looking at (human) nature. Empathy and morality are not only human affairs, but also play an very important role in other species, such as chimpansees and dolphins. De Waal argues that the election of president Obama is a clear sign that the ‘nightmare’ days of Reagan and Thatcher are over and that perhaps it is time to transform society into a more empathic place. Well, I think it’s time to end the ‘nightmare’ of Toiletgate and start a new era where chess professionals actually show some empathy and respect for each other instead of constantly trying to provoke the opponent. 
The sad thing is that we’ve seen this all before, four years ago in Elista. There, the Bulgarian team made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of world by accusing Vladimir Kramnik – without a shred of hard evidence – of cheating. They even published a childish book on it – still lacking any solid evidence – to prove their point, which I 
After winning 2-0 one more time, today against Smeets, Carlsen joined Vasily Ivanchuk in the lead in Nice. The Ukrainian on his turn defeated Aronian 1.5-0.5, while Kramnik went down 2-0 against Gelfand.
