An interesting development is taking place at the European Individual Championships in Rijeka, Croatia. Participants in the tournament have shown their aversion to the “zero tolerance” rule which states that a player must be present when the round starts or suffer a forfeit. It was a matter of time before a protest would put an end to the policy. There would be nothing else to do if players held fast to the protest.

This issue became the focal point of a controversy at the 2008 Olympiad where FIDE instituted the rule change without testing it. There were about 20 forfeitures at the Olympiad and inconsistent rulings on the matter. A good percentage of the forfeits involved African and Caribbean teams.

There have been other high profile cases such as the Chinese Championship where Zhou Jianchao forfeited to Ding Liren, the eventual champion. Hou Yifan also forfeited despite being in the hall, but not at the board. Discussion on this issue has not abated since it had been imposed. The other getting a lot of attention was the policy on cell phones ringing. That rule has been widely accepted an automatic infraction and loss of game.

A petition was circulated and 110 players (more than 25% of total) signed in support of a 30-minute grace period. Organizer Damir Vrhovnik had this to say,

The organizers are trying to do their best for the sake of our players. In accordance to that, on the behalf of Organizing committee and myself, I support the participants’ request. However, this question is under the European Chess Union’s jurisdiction and therefore, they are the ones who must make the decision.

What does this mean? It probably means that the organizers will capitulate and make the allowance. FIDE rules do allow for flexibility and leave it to the discretion of the organizers. However, this is the first protest of the rule which is said to be draconian. At the 2008 Olympiad, there was a vote and the players voted overwhelmingly for a grace period.

One of the main problems with imposing this rule in Dresden, Germany was the fact that all federations were not housed in a village. In some cases, teams had to take an hour tram ride while others were within walking distance. Of course, there may be no such exception made at the 2010 Olympiad. However, the following regulation is still in the rulebook,

7.4 Start and finish of the session

Five minutes before play commences, the Tournament Director must announce the approaching start of the session by a double acoustic signal.

The beginning of the playing session shall be announced by a single acoustic signal. Once the signal for the start of the round has been given, the clock of the player with the white pieces shall be started by his opponent. If the player of the black pieces is not present at the appointed time, his clock shall be started by the player with white, but without any move being made by the latter. Then, when the player of the black pieces arrives, he shall start his opponents clock and the latter shall make his first move. If both players are absent, whites clock shall be started by the Match Arbiter. Any player arriving at the chessboard more than one hour late shall forfeit the game. If both players arrive more than one hour late, the game shall be declared lost for both of them.

FIDE: http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=94&view=article
Main Site: http://www.eurorijeka2010.com/home
ChessBase: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6171

Black has taken White's f-pawn, leaving White exposed. Is there a way to deal with it?

Stefansson-Djurhuus, Munkebo 1998. White to play.

RB Over the last few columns we have been looking at the f-pawn as battering ram – an early, bullish advance to break open the enemy king's position with sheer aggression. But here the f-pawn has been exchanged very early – on the seventh move! There is no ram with which to batter, and the rook on f1, the usual beneficiary of any successful f-pawn push, is staring down at a solid phalanx of enemy pawns. Manoeuvring rather than force seems to be called for. But manoeuvre what where?

Looking at White's own setup, there's an obvious target for Black in the e3 pawn. Can I advance it to e4 and, with exchanges, try to rid myself of the weakness? 1 e4 Nxe4 (not 1…fxe4 because of 2 Bg5) 2 Nxe4 – oh, oh, I can already see this is not going to work out well – 2…fxe4 3 Bxe4 and now 3…Rxf1+ 4 Kxf1 (4 Qxf1 loses the knight) Qf6+ and it's horrible for White.

One way to protect the e-pawn would be to plant a knight on e6, the only problem being that e6 is covered by Black's light-squared bishop. This is as far as my thinking goes. I'm in a hole – I'll let the grandmaster dig me out.

DK Black has made an early f-pawn advance but White has it under control: it cannot move on, and that means the bishop on c8 and rook on f8 have limited scope. That's why I would not consider 1 e4 at all – why free those pieces?

As Ronan mentions, the e6 square is weak, and that's where I would focus my thoughts. The knight on d4 is perfectly placed, so why not bring a second knight into play? White can do that with 1 Nce2, threatening to pirouette via f4 into e6, and from there a knight would paralyse Black's entire position. If only Black could retreat his pawn back to f7. Now we are seeing the downside to kick-and-run chess: you leave yourself exposed at the back if the attack peters out. I hope the England football team are taking note.

chess@guardian.co.uk

Having read mostly chess improvement books and opening manuals lately, I was delighted to see a new publication in the best tradition of chess writing: a serious tournament book. Strangely, it’s a tradition that seems rather unpopular these days – a very unfortunate development indeed.

The tournament book tradition has given us many classics, e.g. Bronstein on Zürich 1953, Alekhine on Nottingham 1936 and, more recently, Jan Timman on Curacao 1962. Nowadays, tournament books are a rare guest among the countless opening guides, chess tutorials and personal game collections. Still, a serious tournament report has many advantages over these other genres.

If a single game is like a newspaper column, and a game collection is like a short story, a collection of all games from one tournament is, in my view, like a full-grown novel, with different story-lines and intricate plots, small personal dramas and highlights, seemingly trivial details and an intricate plot leading up to a satisfying or thought-provoking finish. I would like you to see Mihail Marin and Yuri Garrett’s Reggio Emilia 2007/2008, published by Quality Chess, as an intriguing and well-written novel, rather than ‘just another’ chess book on the market.

On of the characteristics of a good tournament book is that all games are seriously analysed. As Garrett, the tournament’s technical director, writes in the introduction, in the current book, 25 out of the total of 45 games are analysed by at least one of the combatants, 3 of them present the views of both players and the remaining 20 have been annotated by GM Mihail Marin.

One of the very nice things is of this is that quick, ‘boring’ draws are also seriously analysed. This is something you don’t see in regular game collections or in New in Chess magazine, but I’ve always found it very instructive to see how the big guys make these draws, especially with such an outstanding explicator as Marin commenting them:

Korchnoi-Almasi
Reggio Emilia (2) 2007

How realistic are White’s chances of retaining even a tiny edge? In the absence of knights, there is no way to take advantage of the relative weakness of the d6-square. Speaking about “ifs”, under certain circumstances a knight jump to f6 would have been devastating. The way it is, I see only one (highly unrealistic) possibility: exchange all the rooks in order to avoid any form of counterplay, install the queen on e4 to dominate both wings, and advance (by some miracle) the b-pawn to b5, in order to put the black pawns placed on dark squares in potential danger. Admittedly, there is no way all this could happen.

16.Bxb7 Maybe Korchnoi’s initial intention was to keep control of the long diagonal with 16.Qf3. However, in this case he would have lost control of another important avenue, the d-file, after 16…Bxe4 17.Qxe4 Rad8 18.Rad1 Rd7! followed by …Rfd8. This would also have led to plain equality.

16…Qxb7 17.Qe2 Rfd8 18.Rad1 Qc6 19.f4 g6 20.Qg2 This is the only way to try to activate his position, but the almost complete simplifications that follow lead to a dead draw.

20…Qxg2+ 21.Kxg2 h5 22.Kf3 Kf8 23.Ke4 Rxd1 24.Rxd1 Rd8 25.Rxd8+ Bxd8 26.h3 Ke8 27.g4 hxg4 28.hxg4 Kd7 When this position was reached, Korchnoi said in a loud voice, “What can I do?” A draw was agreed.

Of course, the tournament not only consisted of solid draws, but also of some very spectacular and beautiful chess. And again, Marin takes us by the hand towards a crystal-clear understanding of the games.

Almasi-Marin
Reggio Emilia (5), 2008

28.e6! White sacrifices his central pawn to clear the e5-square for his knight and make the e-file available for his rook. Black’s contorted piece coordination, which was quite functional in the closed position before Almasi’s breakthrough, will soon lead me to defeat. (…)

28….Qxe6 29.Ne5 c6 To tell the truth, I was still optimistic at this point, especially since, judging from his physical reaction, I knew Almasi had overlooked this defensive resource. My pleasant state of mind was not altered by his next strong move.

30.Bd2!! I would have enjoyed playing one of my favourite type of defensive positions – an exchange down – after 30.Nxg6 hxg6. Then Black has practically no weaknesses and his structure is much better than White’s. Moreover, if the black knight reaches the e4-square, White would be in trouble.

In this fragment, we see Marin at his best. He honestly describes his emotions yet manages to stay objective all the time, enabling him to explain the technical details without ever becoming boring or repetitive. He also shows a constant concern for the reader trying to make assessments of the arising positions. Marin even comes to the rescue in annotations by the other participants, when they have not been explicit enough to Marin’s satisfaction. The very first game of the book is a good example: Zoltan Almasi analyses his victory over Pentala Harikrishna in a solid, but rather clinical fashion, so Marin jumps in at several points in the analysis to add useful comments like “It may seem that Black has regrouped his forces harmoniously and his kingside counterplay is developing without problems. However, White’s space advantage in the centre and on the queenside should not be underestimated.”

Reggio Emilia 2007/2008 (it started on December 29, 2007) was in many ways perfect for a tournament book. Not only were there a number of world-class players such as Vugar Gashimov and David Navara, but also the legendary Viktor Korchnoi was present, as well as two rising stars from Asia (Pentala Harakrishna and Ni Hua), and of course Mihail Marin himself. As is good practice in a literary review, I won’t give away the ending of the ‘novel’, nor any other spoilers. In the end, however, it’s the moves and the games that tell the story of this tournament, not the results.

I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself into this tournament (even though I had never seen a single game from it before), identifying with the players and the problems they were facing during the games, and I suddenly felt it as a real loss that such books are hardly ever written anymore these days. I think a tournament book is the closest a chessplayer can come to identifying with fictional characters, and it’s a true pleasure to be able to enjoy the excitement of chess for once without having to think about improving my own game or updating my opening or endgame knowledge. This is simply top level chess entertainment.

Apart from the tournament itself (the heart of the book) there are numerous interesting extras in Reggio Emilia 2007/2008, such as excellent interviews with the players, a history of the Reggio Emilia tournament (including some memorable games from past editions) and a sympathetic description by Garrett of how this particular tournament was organised. Garrett is a keep observer who not only loves to watch the games but also the players themselves:

It was also interesting to witness the cultural differences between the players, ranging from Almasi’s assertive comments to the hesitant and modest ones by the Chinese warrior, Ni Hua (…). Gashimov whispered his fascinating comments, which were charcterized by a wildly tactical approach (albeit with that raw touch so typical of the young player who has yet to fully exploit his potential).

I hope readers will consider buying this very charming book; perhaps it will energize publishers to publish more serious tournament reports. It’s too beautiful a tradition to be written off already.

Links

• Get yourself a copy of Reggio Emilia 2007/2008
• Read more book reviews

We were surprised to find that the previous Lubbock Chess Club had disbanded several years ago. In our online search we found a newsletter generated by the TTU Knight Raiders that led us to a “chess game night” at Barnes & Noble on a Friday night. There, we met several members of the Knight Raiders and the idea of reviving the Lubbock Chess Club was born.

2. What is the relationship of the Lubbock Chess Club with SPICE and/or the TTU Knight Raider Chess Club?

Once we began playing routinely several nights a week with members of the Knight Raiders, it was brought to Susan Polgar’s attention that we were interested in starting Lubbock Chess Club.

She immediately jumped in and helped us to initially organize our efforts and to locate a weekly meeting place. Combined with the ongoing support and participation of the Knight Raiders, we have had very successful club attendance to date.

3. Who is welcome to come and play with the Lubbock Chess Club? Are novice chess players and kids welcome to play?

All are welcome. Male or female, any age or skill level. Chess is a game for people of all ages and you can learn to play at any time. So come play even if you have never seen a chess board or if you are a highly advanced player.

4. How many players typically come and play at the Lubbock Chess Club, and what is the typical strength of those players?

It varies. We have an average of 18 to 20 regular players. Some nights we have as many as 30 plus players and 12 to 14 on others.

5. Is there a fee to join the Lubbock Chess Club?

At this time there is not a fee to join the club. However, in order to provide for the membership in the future we are in the process of formalizing the club with officers, by-laws, constitution and, of course, fees. Preliminary discussion on fees has been $20 per year for an adult membership, $15 per year for college students, and $10 per year for persons younger than 18.

6. What are some upcoming events that the Lubbock Chess Club is planning?

Since we are still getting off the ground we don’t have any events on the current schedule. We plan on sponsoring tournaments, leagues, chess ladders, and blitz tournaments in the future.

7. Why do you like playing chess?

In my opinion, chess is the ultimate game having a positive effect on a player’s attitude toward learning and cognitive achievement.

Chess play engages the human brain and employs new ways of thinking, imaginative processes, and creativity. Chess also develops your critical and analytical thinking ability and contributes to the increase of intelligence, problem solving skills, memorization and concentration. A little competition is also great for mental alertness, patience, sportsmanship, as well as challenging your sense of accomplishment.

8. How do you like playing chess at Lin’s Buffet on Mondays?

Lin’s provides us with a large, open, comfortable area to meet and play along with a wide variety of delicious food items to choose from. They offer a 10 percent discount to all members and, while we encourage dining, it is completely optional.

8. Where do you see the Lubbock Chess Club six months from now, and one year from now?

The current version of the Lubbock Chess Club is in its infancy. In the future we hope to offer chess instruction for any age and a comprehensive chess library available to all members.

Our primary purpose is to have fun and to promote the popularity of chess. We hope to eventually conduct tournaments and other forms of chess competition.

I feel that our membership will increase with time and advertising. As for the community, we hope to reach out to the school districts in the Lubbock area and promote the subject of chess and hopefully integrate it into their scholastic curriculum.

Source: http://www.lubbockonline.com

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

Chess players love wooden chess sets for their massive, easy-playing pieces, their obvious superiority over cheap plastic stuff and their distinguished classical look. But what about their sustainability?

I got interested in this question after seeing an advertisement for a truly magnificent chess set called the ‘Endangered Parrots of the World Chess Set’. Created by Grant Dawson Collections in the United States, it is “hand made from certified sustainable North American hardwoods (walnut and maple), food safe natural finishes with recycled glass ball feet, and features 32 lead-free pewter playing pieces finished in 24k gold or sterling silver.”

The set is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, but it’s not exactly cheap: if you’re interested, you can buy it here for the nice sum of $5000. It’ll buy you this:

Endangered Parrots of the World Chess Set

That’s much more expensive, for instance, than the slightly less serious Freshwater vs. Saltwater Fish Chess Set or the various Animal Chess Sets that are sold on the internet. (”Endangered species will live on, healthy and free, in your own controlled temperature living room. Beware if you lose a piece or you could be in trouble with the Feds.”)

This is all good fun, of course (in fact, I can’t help mentioning a marvellous – if not really environmentally ‘correct’ – Through the Looking-Glass chess set, with pieces vanishing as soon as they are captured!) – but what about regular, Staunton-style chess sets?

I personally became interested in deforestation and sustainability issues after a visit a few years ago to Easter Island (which was completely deforested by its original people) and after reading Jared Diamond’s influential book Collapse (2005) about the collapse of great civilizations in the past and present, which deals about deforestation in great detail. As Diamond writes:

More than half of the world’s original area of forest has already been converted to other uses, and at present conversion rates one-quarter of the forests that remain will become converted within the next half-century. Those losses of forests represent losses for us humans, especially because forests provide us with timber and other raw materials, and because they provide us with so-called ecosystem services such as protecting our watersheds, protecting soil against erosion, constituting essential steps in the water cycle that generates much of our rainfall, and providing habitat for most terrestial plant and animal species. Deforestation was a or the major factor in all the collapses of past societies described in this book.

I tried searching for the word ’sustainable’ on a couple of well-known chess vendor sites such as The House of Staunton and the online shop of the London Chess Centre, but got a No products matched your search criteria in all cases. (One of the very few hits I got at all on Google was for a recyced chess set on Cool Gadgets.com. Pretty cool indeed, but hardly useful for even the smallest-sized chess tournament.)

I looked for more information online on the type of wood that’s used in chess sets. Again, it’s not easy finding out about this. On one site, I learned that “rosewood is a very popular type of wood used for chess men.” This would be bad news, since rosewood is in fact a tropical hardwood which is hugely overexploited. Still, a quick look at some retailer’s sites show that this is indeed one of the most commonly used wood for chess sets. According to the BBC,

The most reliable way to choose environmentally friendly timber and wooden products is to look out for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo. The FSC is a charity which certifies wood, paper and other tree products that have come from sustainability managed forests. (…) Wood from trees native to Europe, such as pine, oak, beech and birch, pose lower environment risks than those from tropical and subtropical trees such as mahogany, teak, rosewood and ebony.

The widely-used Digital DGT wooden boards are made of rosewood. On the website of the USCF Shop, too, most chess sets (both pieces and boards, and both ‘tournament’ and ‘luxury’ sets) seem to be made from rosewood, ebony or mahogany. And on this site, too, the word ’sustainable’ doesn’t return any pages. (There are ecologically sustainable types of rosewood, such as Santos Palisander, but again it is unclear (at best) whether this palisander type is used for the chess boards advertised on these websites.) In fact, one of the very few websites that explicity features ’sustainable chess sets’ is the English ShopWiki, which links the so-called Negiel Decorative Staunton Wooden Chess Set:

Folding wooden chess set by Negiel, comprising of an ornate stained wooden chess board and traditional Staunton style weighted chess pieces. Quality product made in Europe from carefully selected high quality sustainable wood.

The sustainable Negiel Staunton chess set doesn't look so bad, does it? (Apart from the wrongly placed king and queen, that is.)

It’s also quite cheap (certainly compared to the Endangered Parrots one!): £44.99, and it will be in stock from April this year on. But again, on the above-mentioned online shops, you’ll search in vain for the Negiel chess set, as far as I can tell.

I phoned Joris van Vuure of Chess and Go Shop Het Paard in Amsterdam, one of the largest chess equipment sellers in The Netherlands, to ask him what, if anything, he knew about sustainable chess sets. “Well, to be honest I’ve never thought about it,” Joris van Vuure told me. “Our customers – including the Dutch Chess Federation – simply never ask for it. They are obviously interested in the price and quality of the chess sets, but not their sustainability. Our top-selling chess sets are mostly made of mahogany, palissander or boxwood. Boxwood pieces are usually painted, which you can easily recognize because the black pieces are really black, whereas the others have a natural dark wood colour. I personally thought boxwood is sustainable, but I’m not sure.”

In fact, the sustainability of boxwood (or buxus as it says on the chess sets) is questionable. It’s an extremely hard type of wood which makes it very suitable for many things, including chess pieces, but it’s often overexploited and its sustainability really depends on where the plant was cultivated. Even if some boxwood would deserve to get the benefit of the doubt (Het Paard sells a lot of them, which is a good thing!), rosewood, mahogany and other tropical hardwoods wouldn’t.

Van Vuure says their shop would be interested in marketing explicitly sustainable chess sets, possibly even with an FSC logo, but he doubts whether customers would want to pay more for them. “In fact, many of our customers explicitly say they want nice wooden products rather than plastic ones, which obviously look cheap and actually have a bad image environmentally speaking. It’s a complicated issue, but if we could market it in a good way, without confusing customers, why not?”

Exactly how bad is it that we chess players mostly use unsustainable wooden chess sets, and what can be done about it? To quickly answer the first question: I have no idea – but it certainly doesn’t help. As often with these things, it’s clearly better in any case to be part of the solution, instead of the problem. Besides, I’m pretty sure more chess sets are being sold each day than expensive musical instruments made of the same materials, so there’s another clue. Finally, while unsustainble furniture at least looks really nice, I really wouldn’t be able to spot the difference between a maple chess set and a boxwood one. Nor would I much care: as long are the pieces are heavy (which can be achieved in other ways as well) and they don’t look too distracting, it’s all perfectly fine by me.

The second question seems tougher. I can advice you to buy a sustainable chess set next time, and you can tell your chess-playing friends, but even if you’d be willing to follow my advice, when will that be? And how effective will that be in the grand scheme of things anyway? It’ll also look decidedly pedantic to complain with your local club staff about the nice sets they just bought to please their club members: gee, thanks for the support!

This is an example of what marine scientist Jennifer Jacquet, who studies the overfishing problem, calls horizontal agitation:

Horizontal agitation is peer pressure combined with a pejorative element of what is socially or environmentally unacceptable. One friend lambasts me if she sees me with a disposable coffee cup. Another one does when I drive instead of walk. A British colleague in fisheries told me he could no longer bear dinner with his “middle-class friends” because they would pester him about the hypocrisy of his seafood consumption.

Although horizontal agitation can be beneficial, as studies have shown, Jacquet thinks there’s a better way: vertical agitation.

Choosing a MSC-certified fish over another is not going to relieve overfishing — not when one trawler today can remove 60 tonnes of fish from the ocean in a single haul. The way to get big changes quickly and maximize the effect of our scrutiny is with vertical agitation.

Vertical agitation means working higher in the demand chain. Rather than consumers hassling consumers, vertical agitation implies consumers hassle mega-consumers (chefs, managers, retailers, universities) or government. Today’s conservation movement, like the industries it seeks to revolutionize, must make big changes quickly. It can do this best with vertical agitation. (…) [A] colleague, Claire Nouvian, managed to arrange a meeting with President Sarkozy and vertically agitated him into supporting a CITES listing of bluefin tuna.

In terms of chess sets, the problem is obviously not as big as, say, slavery or the extinction of the bluefish tuna. Nor will buying sustainable chess sets alone save the world’s rainforests. But, as Joris van Vuure says, why not give it a try? At least unsustainable chess sets are not subsidized by FIDE! Chess organizers and federations could use nicely made plastic chess sets only (there are nice plastic sets, I’ve seen them myself!) or they could ask retailers about sustainable wooden sets. They might even be subsidized because of it!

Retailers, especially small ones already offering that little ’something extra’ to customers, should in my view seriously consider importing (and marketing) more sustainable wooden chess sets made of, for instance, oak or beech, even if perhaps they don’t always look as posh as some of the tropical of subtropical hardwood products. After all, in no-nonsense tournament chess, nobody ever really looks at the pieces for their beauty, do they? As long as they’re not distracting, surely it’s the chess that matters, not the board and pieces?

Finally, FIDE (Gens una sumus) itself should also be listening closely. Since they seem to have a liking for introducing weird new rules, here’s a suggestion for them: order all FIDE-rated tournaments to play with plastic or sustainable wooden chess sets. And they shouldn’t just do it because they like new rules, either. Like most ’sustainability’ initiatives, it could actually save them real money in the long run. What with all the financial troubles of our dear World Chess Federation, might this not be music to their ears?

Peter Doggers relayed a report from a Russian website that 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov will seek to win the FIDE Presidency. This comment comes after much grumbling about FIDE temperamental policies. “It is necessary to restore order,” said a resolute Karpov. He continued to strengthen his argument, “The problems with the World Championship, the calendar, changes of decisions, changes during a cycle, this didn’t happen before. Besides, the prestige of the World Champion should return to its old level.”

The current President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov ran in 2006 on the platform of unifying the World Championship and providing more visibility for professional chess. While the championship cycle had been mended with the ascendancy of Viswanathan Anand, the process was fraught with a number of midstream changes. Ilyumzhinov and his cabinet are also responsible for a number of unpopular changes including the “no tolerance” rule.

It is not clear what Karpov’s platform will be, but leading up to the 2010 Olympiad in Siberia, he will certainly have one laid out. It is ironic that an interesting interview can be found on the Chess Fidelity site that Ilyumzhinov used for his campaign. Karpov predicted that Ilymuzhinov’s chances were 100%. In this interview Karpov talked about his championship days, Bobby Fischer, his FIDE candidacy in 2005. In that view he made some interesting comments about the FIDE elections.

Source: http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/karpov-candidate-for-fide-president/#more-22636

Interview: http://www.chessfidelity.com/elections.php?txt_id=75

For the year 2010, the Sacramento Chess Club will need to pay $3,432 in rent to the City of Sacramento for the use of the Redwood Room. ... In a recent informal discussion with the staff of the Hart Senior Center, it appears likely that the rental rates for the Redwood Room will increase during the course of the year. This puts the Sacramento Chess Club in an untenable financial position.

During the last several months, an unsuccessful search has been on-going to find a new location for the Club to meet. Although there are still some possibilities being investigated, the outlook appears bleak for staying in the downtown Sacramento area. ... The Sacramento Chess Club has a long, rich chess history in the community and state of California. Your help is vital to the continuation of the Sacramento Chess Club and its place in the community.

Ajedrez y ansiedad

Por la Lic. María Enriqueta Granero – Psicóloga

¿como podríamos hacer para mantener la ansiedad en niveles óptimos?

Nota Previa: En las búsquedas que uno hace por Internet suele encontrarse con muchas cosas. Está en cada uno saber aprovecharlas y distinguir lo importante de lo accesorio.

Para ser breve, encontré el muy buen sitio ajedrezconmaestros.com y en él las magníficas notas sobre “Ajedrez y Psicología" de la Lic. Granero. He pedido permiso para reproducirlas y cortésmente, tanto el MI Fernando Braga como la Lic. Granero han permitido la reproducción de los artículos; así como también nos han ofrecido el espacio para que nuestros lectores ”puedan también integrarse a realizar preguntas que consideren importantes y ella no tendrá problemas en contestarlas.”

My first reaction when I learned about the book Improve Your Chess at any Age was one of sheer jealousy: some club player writing a book about chess improvement?! How unfair! There must be thousands of club players around the world who’d want the exact same thing – including me.

This is the last part of a ‘triptych’ on recent chess improvement books – you can find the other two reviews here. I’ve written before that in my view there are really too much ‘improve your chess’ books on the market; fortunately, some of them are very good and you may be surprised to hear that I like Andres Hortillosa’s Improve Your Chess at any Age as well.

Actually, the book is every patzer’s childhood dream: an entire book (170 pages, beautifully published by Everyman Chess) dedicated to your own games, where you get to write about your thoughts on chess in general and during the games; your favourite style and your ideas on chess development theory! Too good to be true, right? Well, as we say in Dutch, chess publishers may be good, but they’re not crazy, and Hortillosa has a little more up his sleeve than just patzer analyses and ditto philosophies.

Yes, it’s true: Andres D. Hortillosa is a ‘mere’ 2199 FIDE player who just wrote a book on how he improved over the years at a, shall we say, riper age than most of us start to play chess. And yes, most of the games and game fragments are from Hortillosa’s own games. But why is that necessarily a bad thing? On the very first pages of the book, the author presents himself as a modest guy with good intentions, wisely anticipating some of his future critics but not bending over backwards to please them. He also says some pretty sensible, if not terribly spectacular, things about chess improvement targeting an audience of players with a rating below 2000. My first impression after reading the introduction was that perhaps this somewhat oddly-titled (and marketed) book deserved the benefit of the doubt.

This feeling was confirmed by some of the stuff in Chapter One, where Hortillosa paves the way for his theories on chess improvement and shows some of his past games. Again, note that his commentary, though not exactly grandmasterly, is certainly sensible, down-to-earth, and will definitely evoke a pang of recognition with most club players:

Hortillosa-Hartsook
Denver 1994
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5 h6 4.Bxf6 Qxf6 5.e4 Nc6 6.c3 g5
To my mind this move is a little committal, although a number of strong players have used this advance. Karpov played …g6 in one of his games, although that was without …Nc6.

Amateurs including myself tend to make inflexible moves. We tend to forget that pawns do not move backwards. And once they are fixed on a square, they are subject to attack and they tend to leave you with limited options.

This may not be a huge shocker to advanced chess players, but anyone who’s ever trained weaker players knows what it feels like to constantly have to remind your pupils to ‘keep your hands off these pawns already!’ It’s a very good point and one that shows Hortillosa may actually have something to offer club players that truly strong players often don’t: to speak to them in their own languages and with examples from their own level of play. I myself have often been frustrated by how strong players often take stuff like this ‘for granted’. Hortillosa, you can be sure, never does. Here’s another example from the same game after Black has played 13…e5 (and before White played 14.d5):

Amateurs, when confronted with situations like this one, tend to resolve tensions rather hastily. I guess amateur thinking dislikes complexity so there is a strong tendency to simplify at the first opportunity. So, it is either capture on e5 or advance to d5. I can opt to maintain the pawn on d4 with Ndb3, but it will invite Black to harass the knight on b3 with …a6-a5-a4. (…) In general, however, one must learn to play comfortably with contact-tension on the board. Keep the tension as long as tolerable. See if you can force your opponent to waste a tempo in resolving the tension. For example, avoid capturing defenceless pawns right away. Often, a developing or centralizing move is the better choice.

Again, I was impressed by how well Hortillosa points to something weak players often struggle with. I could quote countless examples from my own games where I incorrectly resolved the tension in the game (as well as, fortunately, examples where I successfully put the pressure on by increasing pawn tension!). This is good, useful stuff.

In Chapter Two, Hortillosa elaborates on his ideas on chess improvement and thinking, the sum of which he calls, with a clear undertone of self-mocking (thank God!), ‘The System’. His approach here is more theoretical, but fortunately, he never becomes too vague (or too pretentious) for comfort. Again, what Hortillosa writes won’t sound too novel to people who’ve already read their Rowson, Watson and other chess philosophers, but one of the charms of Improve Your Chess at any Age is that there’s a real sense of personal involvement of the author in much of what he claims:

After this reflection, I concluded that my chess was totally devoid of any semblance of a thinking process. (…) I am passionately drawn to fixing things including those that work to make them even better. It was not hard to see my chess requiring more than just cosmetic repair; it needed total replacement. Disgusted with the status quo, I formulated a chess thinking process inspired by the combined philosophies of Cleanroom Software Engineering and Six-Sigma, which are known for their strong emphasis on error prevention.

To be honest, I didn’t always find Hortillosa’s opinions on thinking processes too convincing. For instance, one of the things he claims is that chess tactics puzzles often miss their mark because they focus on the finding of the solution instead of creating a practical game-situation where a (tactical) resolution can be created (’Anyone can solve a puzzle, but can anyone play the moves leading to the puzzle?’). I think this is only partly true: sure, it’s important to know the ‘context’ of a tactic, but solving puzzles does sharpen the mind and it definitely creates a reservoir of ‘chess tactics knowledge’ in the brain which may be extremely useful in later games, as many chess prodigies have clearly demonstrated.

In a chapter called ‘Are Openings Really Important?’, Hortillosa makes some valid points on studying opening theory (’stronger players are better in confusing us with sidelines than we are at confusing them’) and he gives a couple of great (and often quite hilarious) examples of why having your opponent fall for an opening trap doesn’t always guarantee victory. The main part, however, is explained in ‘The System’, the author’s answer to the question ‘how we prevent these errors from cropping up?’ Hortillosa gives a checklist of eight points you should always be aware of during play. These include things like ‘2. Search for specific threats’ and ‘5. Search for candidate moves’ – good advice, to be sure, but surely Hortillosa doesn’t expect players to answer these eight questions at every move?

Indeed he doesn’t, and here again is the book’s charm: the author shows modesty and self-knowledge by condeding that, of course, ‘the system has some implicit assumptions. One such assumption is knowing when to invoke the system.’ He follows up naming the exceptions, and especially the moments in a game when it does make sense to invoke ‘the system’. (He also gets kudos for questioning ‘the viability of the system’ altogether, ’since evidence is severely lacking’.) The points he makes are useful all the same, and I liked the two examples that illustrate them – but disappointingly, the rest of the book hardly mentions the eight points again explicity and instead focuses on thorough and at times engaging analysis Hortillosa’s tournament games from 2008 and 2009.

The result of this is perhaps the book’s only real problem: it’s overlong; I’d say it’s at least 50 pages too long. Like all chess enthusiasts, Hortillosa just loves to talk about his own games and to describe the thoughts that went through his head during them – and he knows he’s pretty good at it – but it’s just too much. Sometimes the explanation of ten perfectly normal opening moves is spread out over two and a half pages, and we get comments like this:

MacIntyyre-Hortillosa
Pawtucket 2008
Position after 7…Nf6

I normally do not continue with …Nf6, especially when … e6 has been played. Looking at this game one week later, I could not remember what I was afraid of that led me to post the knight on f6 instead of following generally established wisdom, which dictates playing it to e7. I was probably mixing systems here, a known defect in amateur play. When … e6 is played, Black normally should follow through with … Nge7. These two moves are a natural pair.

You’d think this was already more than enough explanation for a very common opening manoeuvre in a game that will last 60 moves in total, but Hortillosa has only just started:

Most strong players including the late world champion Botvinnik would prefer …Ne7 even with the pawn on e5. The advantage of posting it on e7 is that the natural break f7-f5 is ready to go whereas in the position where the knight is on f6, Black has to waste a tempo before he can play …f5. (…) One data point on the board that rules out …Nf6 in favour of …Ne7 is White’s h2-h3…

And this isn’t even the end of it. I’m not saying Hortillosa doesn’t make some valuable observations along the way, but such lenghty commentary does appear a bit self-serving to me. More importantly, the games in this section, while entertaining, don’t very well explain how Hortillosa’s ’system’ got him the results he achieved. My impression is Hortillosa simply had a lot of time on his hand, studied a lot of chess, received professional training (from IMs and GMs) and made very deep analysis of his games. And lo and behold, he made considerable progress. No ’system’ needed at all!

With that in mind, the rest of Hortillosa’s book does ultimately become ‘just’ any amateur’s dream: a great way to show a lot of, at best, fairly interesting tournament games. They’re all very well analysed, they do contain a lot of useful prose, interesting digressions good advice, but in the end they’re still games played by a 2100 player with an interesting message. It’s an interesting experiment in the sense that this (modest) game level may actually be helpful to players of that level (if only because their mistakes are so recognizable). Personally, though, I prefer playing over games by the big guys, but there you go.

That said, Improve Your Chess at any Age may well offer a glimpse at the future of chess publishing 2.0: everyone has a chess engine these days, so why not publish a book with your own chess games? Andres Hortillosa, at least, has written a very sympathetic version of this new concept, and I think lots of club players will enjoy his writings and recognize (and improve upon) many well-known issues in it.
In the end, Hortillosa’s book should not make us jealous, but inspire us to analyse our own games even better and to formulate our thoughts and mental blockades more transparantly. Hortilossa has given us a pretty good example of how it can be done – at any age.

Links

• Get yourself a copy of Improve Your Chess at any Age
• Read more book reviews

Anatoly Karpov will put forward his candidacy to become FIDE President, according to reporters of Russian news agency SarInform. “It is necessary to restore order,” the 12th World Champion reportedly said yesterday.

Sunday night Anatoli Karpov landed at the airport of Saratov, Russia for a simul and a meeting with the local governor. There, according to local news agency SarInform, Karpov announced that he has the ambition to become FIDE President.

“It is necessary to restore order,” Karpov was quoted. “The problems with the World Championship, the calendar, changes of decisions, changes during a cycle, this didn’t happen before. Besides, the prestige of the World Champion should return to its old level.”

The new Presidential elections which will take place during the General Assembly of the FIDE Congress, held during the 39th Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk in September this year. Nominations for the office of President must reach the FIDE Secretariat at least three months before the opening of the General Assembly. To be elected, each candidate must first be nominated by his federation. The Russian Chess Federation hasn’t yet officially nominated Anatoli Karpov as their candidate.

After Bessel Kok’s failed attempt to win the FIDE Presidential elections during the Turin Olympiad in May 2006, Karpov would be another big name fighting against current FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The 12th World Champion never concealed that he’s unhappy with Ilyumzhinov’s policy. During the opening press conference of their rapid and blitz match in Valencia last year, he and his old rival Garry Kasparov took the opportunity to heavily criticize FIDE.

In recent times, Karpov has been occupied mainly as a business man and politician. Since 2005, he has been a member of the Public Chamber of Russia. These days he only plays a few tournaments a year.

Links

• The SarInform article
• FIDE Handbook on Electoral Regulations

Sunday night Anatoli Karpov landed at the airport of Saratov, Russia for a simul and a meeting with the local governor. There, according to local news agency SarInform, Karpov announced that he has the ambition to become FIDE President.

“It is necessary to restore order,” Karpov was quoted. “The problems with the World Championship, the calendar, changes of decisions, changes during a cycle, this didn’t happen before. Besides, the prestige of the World Champion should return to its old level.”

Continuamos con la segunda de las tres entregas de ejercicios tácticos de "Doble de Caballo"

Final Round 10

Alexander Grischuk felt that he was lost for much of his game against Francisco Vallejo Pons and that the best position he had was the last one. The Sicilian Najdorf didn't seem quite as bad as this but white definitely had the intitiative and some extra minutes at the end when he decided to repeat the position. This draw left Grischuk with a superior tie-break (better results against the leading players) but waiting for the result of Topalov's game.

Veselin Topalov rather bravely took on Boris Gelfand's super-solid Petroff Defence. Topalov managed to present Gelfand with some new problems but it seemed for a while that black was doing fine. However Gelfand then chose to give up the exchange in the hope that Topalov couldn't break through. Although the position was rather difficult to break down it seems like Topalov should be much better and he chose to exploit this by returning the exchange in a position where he had the advantages of 4 vs 3 pawns on the queenside and black's king was cut off. With best play this probably would have been drawn but getting there was fiendishly complicated. Gelfand got a long way towards securing the draw but then started to go wrong. 48....a2 49. Rd7+ Ke6 was probably drawn a little easier than his 48...Ke8 which took 15 minutes of thought. His 49...a2 seems to be losing (49... Ke7 50. Rh7+ Ke6 51. c4 Ke5 52. Rd7 Rc3 53. Rd5+ Ke4 seems to be the correct drawing idea). Topalov then brought home the full point and secured his first Linares win (he lost out on tie-break to Kasparov in 2005).

Levon Aronian said that after 9 draws in a row (a record for him) he was definitely going to look for a win today and this he mananged. He played a very complicated Modern Benoni against Vugar Gashimov. There were still plenty of pieces on the board at first time control on move 40 and although Aronian had something of an advantage Gashimov's position probably shouldn't have collapsed as fast as it did.

Round 10 Results

Vallejo 1/2 Grischuk
Topalov 1-0 Gelfand
Aronian 1-0 Gashimov

Final Standings: Topalov 6.5, Grischuk 6, Aronian 5.5, Gelfand 4, Gashimov 4, Vallejo 4

The results of the final of the Winton Capital British Chess Solving Championship, 2009-2010 are now available. I hope to post the problems used, and their solutions, in the next day or so.

Topalov es Topalov. Tras la victoria de Grischuk sobre Veselin en la penúltima Ronda la Final se puso caliente e incierta. Topalov ganó a Gelfand y Grischuk salvó la ropa ante Paco Vallejo. Conclusión: Veselin Topalov Campeón de Linares en solitario. Recupera puntos en el Ranking y estaría a 1 punto de Carlsen en el próximo listado.

Tras el duro golpe que el Campeón ruso Alexander Grischuk sobre Veselin Topalov, en la 9na Ronda, alcanzándolo en la punta del torneo, la 10ma y última Ronda prometía un final de suspenso y emoción.

Vallejo Pons, Francisco-Grischuk, Alexander: ½-½ (32). Siciliana Najdorf. Alexander venía de dos victorias y tenía mejor sistema de desempate en caso de compartir la punta con Topalov. Esto le daba buena chance de consagrarse ganador del Linares. Hasta 10. … Ce5 se repetía Anand-Grischuk, Match, Mainz CCM5, Rapid, 2005 (½ en 24). Paco jugó bien –no por nada es un Top 2700-, quedó con iniciativa y da la impresión que tuvo algunas opciones. Grischuk ofreció el peón b7 para movilizar sus piezas y montar contrafuego, pero lógicamente no fue aceptado. No pareció buena 20. … Tab8 y el Blanco quedó con la pareja de Alfiles y un peón en c6 que podía generar algún problema al Negro. Queda por ver si era suficiente. Paco eligió cambiar piezas y tras una repetición de movidas se acordó el empate. Grischuk a la espera de lo que pudiera hacer el duro Gelfand. Un empate sería buena noticia para él.

Topalov, Veselin-Gelfand, Boris: 1-0 (62). Defensa Petroff. Ya sabemos que Gelfand conoce bien y practica mucho la Petroff y que no es fácil ganarle. Se siguió Caruana-Kramnik, Corus 2010 (½ en 31), que ya publicamos en Zona de Ajedrez. Veselin trató de presentar problemas nuevos a Boris y mantener la partida viva y en tensión. Claro que habrá jugadas técnicamente mejores, pero hay que resolver en el tablero. Tras 24.fxe3 Topalov había quedado con calidad e iniciativa. Gelfand debería trabajar bastante para sostener la posición. Imprevistamente 32.Txf6 (32.Td1 +/-) devuelve calidad y todo pareció equilibrarse. Quedo un final de Torre y cuatro peones contra Torre y tres peones, que aunque complicado no se veía con muchas chances de desnivel. 49. … a2?? (49 ... Re7 50. Th7+ Re6 51. C4 Re5 52. Td7 Tc3 53. Td5+ Re4 parece ser el camino correcto hacia el empate) y Topalov aprovechó. Un nuevo error 51. … Tb2?? Y el final ya era inmodificable. No obstante Topalov es Topalov y es muy linda la definición con 61.Txa2!!.

Aronian, Levon-Gashimov, Vugar: 1-0 (58). Benoni. Ya hablamos varias veces de Gashimov y la Benoni. Una posición con varios antecedentes recientes. No parece buena idea 13. … h6. Una partida bastante compleja, con altibajos, pero interesante. Se llegó al control de tiempo con bastantes piezas en el tablero e iniciativa para Aronian. Gashimov no tardó en derrumbarse, 50. … Cxd6?, 51. … Df5? y Levon demostró que las Blancas ganaban, así que Vugar se resignó poco después. Para Aronian el único triunfo tras 9 empates. Para Gashimov una actuación que lo dejó en el último puesto y con Gelfand los que más puntos perderán por sus actuaciones.

Acompañamos las posiciones finales, un detalle de todas las Rondas y las partidas para ver y descargar.

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En un primer acercamiento al tablero hay una percepción física y una atracción por la disposición y los movimientos de las piezas, también por la relación sutil entre éstos y las casillas. Este arte visual impacta en el "ojo de la mente" y allí, la imaginación creativa los toma y transforma. Todo este proceso es arte porque es creación. Y es dinámico porque transforma la posición en una nueva, que a su vez genera un nuevo proceso y una nueva obra de arte visual. La maravilla del ajedrez es que este arte es obra de cualquier simple jugador y tan válido como el de Carlsen. Simplemente porque genera satisfacción al creador. Cada uno en su nivel podrá disfrutarlo.

El problema creo que refleja plenamente esto y es una gran combinación de arte visual e imaginación. Su autor, Lev Ilich Loshinsky, fue presentado en nuestro anterior: "La Belleza de este Problema".

El Blanco debe desalojar la casilla d4, pero para ello necesita antes una sutil jugada que permita controlar dos casillas blancas imprescindibles para que el Rey Negro no escape. Recuerden que es sutil y que el procedimiento permitirá crear siempre una doble amenaza sin respuesta. No es fácil, creo, pero es cuestión de ponerle empeño y ganas.

In the 6th round of the Linares super-tournament, Veselin Topalov was in trouble against Francisco Vallejo until the Spaniard suddenly blundered a full rook. By then Gashimov and Gelfand had already drawn in a very theoretical Petroff. The last game to finish was Grischuk-Aronian, which also ended in a draw. Thanks to his win, Topalov is the world’s number one player in the live ratings again.

The 27th Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez “Ciudad de Linares” takes place February 12-25 in Linares, Andalucia, Spain. As a result of the financial crisis, the event went back to the (nowadays almost universal) formula of six players, double round-robin.

This year Veselin Topalov (2805), Levon Aronian (2781), Boris Gelfand (2761), Vugar Gashimov (2759), Alexander Grischuk (2736) and Francisco Vallejo Pons (2705) play. The rounds start at 16:00 CET; rest days are on the 17th and the 22nd. The rate of play is 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20, then 20 minutes for the rest of the game, wit 30 seconds increment starting from move 61. The Sofia rules for offering a draw apply in Linares for the first time.

Round 6 report by Rick Goetzee

Ljubomir Ljubojevic

Ljubojevic met his wife-to-be at the 1981 tournament. He then decided to settle in Linares, also because there was quite a bit of chess activity in the region, apart from the yearly grandmaster tournament. In those years there were plans to bring chess to schools, but unfortunately they didn’t materialise. According to Ljubojevic this is a great pity, as he was often approached by parents telling him that their children would love to learn chess and he visited schools to talk about the game.

The press room, at the first floor of the Teatro Cervantes

Recently a second attempt has been launched. Only two cities in Andalusia have plans to integrate chess in the school curriculum: Sevilla and Linares. Ljubojevic says that it is a pity that it took almost thirty years before a second attempt was made but ‘better late than never’.

Ljubo doesn’t like the Sofia rules: ‘they are funny’. In his view top chess players are artists and artists have good days and bad days and this should be accepted as part of the game. Also he thinks it’s hard to enforce the rule, because if strong players want to make a draw they will find a way through a perpetual check or move repetition. “It is done because organisers think it will favour chess. What they should do is invite the right people, then they won’t have to worry about short draws.”

There was some confusion at the start of today’s round at the board of Topalov-Vallejo. A guest made the first move and started the clock but Vallejo’s clock started to run. The arbiter had to intervene to reset the clock.

Topalov and Vallejo pointing out the error to arbiter Faik Gasanov

Then Vallejo took three minutes to reply to Topalov’s 1.c4. After an English opening the game became very sharp as Vallejo setup an attack against Topalov’s king. It was hard, even for Ljubo, to give a correct evaluation of the position although it seemed that Vallejo was better. His main problem was the clock, having only one minute left for the last twelve moves. He played well for a long time till he hung a full rook on the 38th move and overstepped the time limit on move 40.

According to GM Larry Christiansen on ICC’s Chess.FM, Gashimov proved to have done a lot of good homework against Gelfand’s Petroff. He achieved a promising position from the opening without counterplay for Black. However, Gelfand defended accurately and a draw was agreed in a knight endgame.

Grischuk decided to burn the midnight oil against Aronian, trying to win a rook vs knight endgame with an extra pawn for Black. In an empty pressroom there was still the voice of Leontxo Garcia continuing his commentary for the tournament website. Finally, at move 101, the players decided to call it a day.

Before we’ll leave you, we’d like to point out that GM Anish Giri, reigning Dutch champion and winner of the Corus B group this year, is doing wonderful commentary for Chessbase each round. This round he did Topalov-Vallejo, over here.

Games round 6 with brief annotations

Game viewer by ChessTempo

The town hall of Linares which proudly shows...

...the tournament poster - something the Spanish are really good at

Andalusian palm trees in sunny Linares

The entrance of the venue; the Teatro Cervantes

Photos © Rick Goetzee

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Theophilus Thompson is recognized by most as the first Black player of note in the U.S. Born in 1855 in Frederick, Maryland, Thompson took to chess after seeing two gentlemen playing. He learned the moves from observing and was soon kibitzing in the games. It was interesting to note this interaction was possible when slavery was still practiced.

After noticing Thompson’s interest John Hanshew, the publisher of The Maryland Chess Review, loaned the 17-year old Thompson a board and several chess problems to solve. Thompson duly solved these and then made some of his own for good measure!

Thompson played in a few tournaments and has several interesting games, notably his dashing win over C.H. Blood. In a June 1986 article in U.S. Chess Life, Larry Parr reported that Thompson played correspondence chess and scored 7-2 in one tournament. Neil Brennan also wrote a very comprehensive essay on Thompson. Thompson is famously known for his book on chess problems called “Chess Problems: Either to Play and Mate”. Below is a link to this historic document!

The Dutch quarterly Matten provides a mixture of interviews, stories and anecdotes with a literary flavour, interweaved with drawings, cartoons and photos. We bring a review of the 7th edition in the Dutch language, together with a review of De Pion, the first book of a new series on chess pieces by endgame composer (and ChessVibes contributor) Yochanan Afek and the Dutch ‘Mr. Chess’ Hans Böhm.

Mijn recensie van het vorige Matten-nummer begon ik met de constatering dat er sinds de opheffing van Schaaknieuws niet veel meer te beleven was op Nederlandstalig schaakgebied. Dat is niet meer helemaal juist. Niet alleen is er de nieuwe website schaaksite.nl, een initiatief van Kees Schrijvers met columns, verslagen en analyses, maar ook schrijft Richard Vedder sinds enige tijd zeer lezenswaardige schaakboekrecensies op schakers.info en zijn niemand minder dan Yochanan Afek en Hans Böhm een nieuwe, laagdrempelige serie over de schaakstukken begonnen. Het eerste deel, De Pion – De Ziel Van Het Schaakspel, werd onlangs gepresenteerd. Hoog tijd dus voor weer eens een Nederlandse (dubbel)recensie.

Matten 7: Eindelijk op topniveau!

Matten 7, uitgegeven door New in Chess, staat dit keer helemaal in het teken van schaken en vrouwen, en de introductie van dit enkele thema voor (bijna) alle artikelen is een gouden greep van de redacteuren, want dit nummer is zonder twijfel de leukste Mattten sinds haar oprichting in 2006.

Ik wil beginnen met het interview dat Karel van der Weide had met de schaaktweeling Marlies en Laura Bensdorp. Hebben we in het verleden Van der Weide als schaakliterator regelmatig kritisch gevolgd, de rol van interviewer vertolkt hij met verve. Het interview, met de goed gekozen titel Zelfstandig en Weerbaar, is vlot geschreven, scherp en tegelijk bedachtzaam van toon en levert veel interessante en soms onthullende antwoorden van de schaakzusjes op. Sterk is vooral dat Van der Weide in dit interview nu eens niet zijn eigen (inmiddels overbekende) opvattingen over een onderwerp als het vrouwenschaak herhaalt, maar de zusjes alle ruimte geeft hun punt te maken:

Het aansnijden van het onderwerp [vrouwenschaak] leidt bij Marlies tot enige verontwaarding. Hoe de KNSB met damesschaak omgaat, valt volgens haar zeker nog te verbeteren. De ‘publiciteit’ rond het afgelopen NK in Haaskbergen sterkte haar in die opvatting. De persdienst had toch op z’n minst een paar foto’s op internet kunnen zetten?! Laura vult aan dat vrouwen sowieso op een heel andere manier naar schaakverslaggeving kijken. Reportages op ChessBase en New in Chess worden eerst beoordeeld op de kwaliteit van de foto’s, anders beginnen de zussen niet eens aan de tekst! Marlies vervolgt dat ze zich vreselijk ergerde aan een uitspraak van Hans Böhm tijdens datzelfde NK. Hij zei dat hij hoopte ‘geen damespartij te hoeven bespreken’. Marlies: ‘We zijn minder goed dan de mannen, maar het is altijd zo negatief’.

In zo’n fragment toont Van der Weide dat hij wel degelijk kan schrijven: hij observeert, verwoordt en interpreteert goed, durft op te schrijven wat hij hoort en mixt alles met pittige soundbites van de dames zelf. Ook prima: het interview is ideaal van lengte, lang genoeg om de diepte in te gaan en toch kernachtig genoeg om niet te gaan vervelen.

Langer van stof is een ander vermaard interviewer, Dirk-Jan ten Geuzendam, in een sympathiek vraaggesprek met Corry Vreeken – het interview is langer, maar de 82-jarige Damesgrootmeester honoris causa heeft logischerwijs ook meer te vertellen dan de nog geen dertigjarige dames Bensdorp. Ook Ten Geuzendam slaagt erin de geïnterviewde opmerkelijke uitspraken te ontlokken – curieus vond ik bijvoorbeeld dat Vreeken aan het eind van het gesprek, dat veel gaat over ouderdom en nog meer over herinneringen aan het verleden, bekent nog wel degelijk te schaken: op internet. Relevant en stijlvol is ook Ten Geuzendam’s inleiding over schaken en sanatoria in de literatuur, die mij herinnerde aan een andere beruchtste schaakroman die zich afspeelt in een sanatorium: Murphy van Samuel Beckett.

Beckett had trouwens misschien beter gepast in het stuk van Peter Boel over die andere grande dame van het Nederlandse schaak: de in 2007 overleden tienvoudig Nederlands dameskampioene Fenny Heemskerk. Eigenlijk vond ik Boels stuk nog boeiender, waarschijnlijk omdat het persoonlijker, soberder en diepgravender van toon is: waar Corry Vreeken vooral smakelijke anekdotes vertelt, beschrijft Heemskerks dochter, die zelf ook behoorlijk schaakte, openhartig de manische depressies van haar moeder en de moeilijkheden die dat opleverde voor het gezin én Heemskerks schaakprestaties. Het resultaat is een betrokken en aangrijpend portret van een Nederlandse schaaklegende.

Diepgang wordt zeker ook niet vermeden in John Kuipers’ stuk De ziel tussen duister en licht over Erika Sziva en Johan van Mil, een relaas dat in zijn eerlijkheid en onopgeschmukte tragiek soms bijna pijnlijk om te lezen is. Iets luchtiger, maar eveneens zeer onderhoudend, is het interview dat Danielle Pinedo hield met Peng Zhao Qin. Pinedo stelt goede vragen die getuigen van mensenkennis (’je aanpassingsvermogen is je redding geweest’, ‘ben je nooit bang geweest dat je familie de dupe zou worden van je vlucht?’) en Peng geeft open en uitgebreid antwoord op de vragen.

Sterk is ook het opzettelijk wat raadselachtig gelaten stuk van Jan Timman over zijn trainingservaringen met Judit Polgar, en Matten’s huisfilosoof Dirk Poldauf houdt een genuanceerd en goed beargumenteerd ‘enerzijds-anderzijds’ betoog over het vrouwenschaak als speciale discipline, waar ikzelf mij in elk geval uitstekend in kon vinden:

“Op korte termijn zou het afschaffen van toernooien voor alleen maar vrouwen een traumatisch effect kunnen hebben en ertoe kunnen leiden dat sommige meisjes zich bij het ontbreken van de kans op snelle lauweren van het schaken afwenden. Op de langere termijn zou het waarschijnlijk echter tot een normalisering in de verhoudingen in het toernooischaak leiden (…).”

De korte rubrieken Het Notatieformulier (Rob van Vuure) en De Foto (Allard Hoogland) zijn ook nu weer leuk om te lezen, en ook Het Gedicht dat Paul van den Hout schreef voor Frans Naerebout (’Verliezen doet hij immers nog maar zelden,/ want juist zijn stille kracht wordt onderschat’) is mooi en toepasselijk, op zijn minst voor wie Naerebout gekend heeft.

Is het dan alleen maar hosanna voor de nieuwe Matten? Niet helemaal. Lex Jongsma schreef een wisselvallig en wat rommelig stuk (met de al even rommelige titel ‘Mag ik u mijn Dame aanbieden? Het Dameoffer en het Paard in de Zak’) dat aanvankelijk over De Groene-hoofdredacteur Martin van Amerongen lijkt te gaan, maar opeens overspringt op Reuben Fine, dameoffers en iets ‘uit eigen werk’. Jongsma’s aanstekelijke manier van vertellen komt op papier een stuk minder tot zijn recht. Ik kon mijn aandacht er in dit artikel niet bijhouden: te veel van de hak op de tak, te veel onuitgewerkte invallen, overbodige uitwijdingen en te stellig geformuleerde opinies (’Nu was Freud een genie, en Fine een schaker van wereldkampioenstatuur, en een zeer geacht en goed verdienend psychiater, die weliswaar nooit meer toernooien speelde, maar het schaken allerminst verleerd had: bij een enkele malen herhaald bezoek aan het Amsterdamse koffiehuis/schaakcafe op het Leidseplein eind jaren zestig, in de pauzes van een …’ Enfin, enzovoorts.)

Vergeleken met deze woordenbrei zijn de twee bondige stukken over Jan Timman, van Hans Böhm (‘Madame Chaudé de Silans’ over hun reizen naar Frankrijk) en van Franka van der Loo (over de fascinatie van Laurie Langenbach) een lust voor het lezend oog. Pikant is de foto van Langenbach voor Timman waarop ze in ‘een decolleté tot haar navel’ staat afgebeeld met op de achterkant de woorden ‘Op de overwinnning!’.

Ach ja, en dan is er nog Guus Luijters, als altijd kwistig strooiend met boek- en filmtitels en Grote Namen uit de Kunst en Literatuur. Luijters weet niets van schaken, is niet geïnteresseerd in schaken, schrijft niet over schaken. Dit keer roept hij wat over Graham Greene en de onlangs verschenen laatste roman van Nabokov (The Original of Laura), ‘koortsig proza, waarin zowaar een keer geschaakt wordt’, zonder ooit iets diepzinnigs of verrassends ter tafel te brengen. Raadsel waarom Luijters iedere keer weer gevraagd wordt voor een bijdrage aan Matten; ik begin inmiddels te vermoeden dat de redacteurs het zelf ook niet weten.

Tot slot: een fascinerend portret van de Pools-Nederlandse schaker Salo Landau door Adri Plomp – het enige artikel dat niet over vrouwen gaat. Choquerend zijn iedere keer weer de antisemitische stukken die Aljechin, wiens secondant Landau was in 1935, in de Tweede Wereldorlog schreef; maar de door Plomp beschreven gebeurtenissen rond de dood van Landau in de oorlog, zijn nauwelijks met droge ogen te lezen. Het is volkomen terecht dat de Matten-redactie er ondanks het themanummer toch voor gekozen heeft dit boeiende artikel nu op te nemen.

Met Matten 7 is het tijdschrift eindelijk helemaal op het niveau dat past bij de al tijdens de oprichting uitgesproken ambities van de redactie. Proficiat!

Wij presenteren … De pion – De Ziel van het Schaakspel

Er is een nieuw project van Hans Böhm en Yochanan Afek: een serie boeken over alle stukken van het schaakspel, uitgegeven door Trion Sport. Het eerste deel heet De Pion. Uit Böhms voorwoord:

Elk stuk van het eeuwenoude schaakspel verdient het om apart gepresenteerd te worden. Dit boek is het het eerste in een serie van zes – en we beginnen met de pion. Nog nooit zijn van dit kleine stuk zoveel speelfacetten, aanvallend en verdedigend, bij elkaar gebracht. Per thema – zestig in totaal – geven we vier voorbeelden. Door de presentatie, vier diagrammen op de linkerpagina en uitleg op de rechterpagina, is dit boek een ode aan de pion maar ook een leerboek.

Uit de inleiding wordt overigens niet helemaal duidelijk voor wie de serie nu precies bedoeld is. Voor mensen die ’slechts’ geïnteresseerd zijn in schaken? Of ook voor schakers die het leuk vinden problemen en schaakpuzzels op te lossen? Gezien het niveau van de stellingen denk ik eerder het laatste – en dat is goed nieuws voor gevorderde schakers!
Böhm schrijft dat hij te rade is gegaan bij schaakhistoricus Leo Diepstraten om een beeld te krijgen van de ontstaansgeschiedenis van de pion als schaakstuk. Afek heeft voor zijn selectie van fragmenten en composities inspiratie opgedaan uit vele verschillende bronnen. Kortom, dit is een degelijk project geschreven door twee schakers die weten hoe ze hun passie over het voetlicht moeten brengen, en dat is te merken.

De historische inleiding is een pakkend en levendig geschreven stuk met relevante citaten en interessante feiten over de evolutie van de moderne schaakpion, die over het algemeen ook nog eens accuraat beschreven is. Ik kwam één foutje tegen: het zogenaamde Göttingen manuscript stamt volgens de laatste wetenschappelijke opvattingen niet uit 1471, maar uit de vroege 16de eeuw, zoals ik vorig jaar leerde op een symposium in Valencia over de oorsprong van het moderne schaak. (Zie J.A. Garzón, The Return of Francesch Vicent, 2005, p. 399 e.v.) Ook in de bijbehorende beschrijving van de ontwikkeling van de rokade kan wellicht de nodige nuance worden aangebracht, maar ik wil geen muggenzifter zijn. Het historische gedeelte van het boek is leuk en informatief, en daar gaat het om.

Het leeuwendeel van het boek bestaat uit de al genoemde fragmenten en composities, ingedeeld in relevante thema’s. Het eerste thema is ‘De vertraagde pion’ en het eerste voorbeeld is meteen al behoorlijk pittig:

Remise. De eindspelkenner herkent direct een overeenkomst met de beroemde studie van Réti over het ‘kwadraat’, en inderdaad is deze studie van T.Gorgiev uit 1930 daarop gebaseerd, al noemen Afek en Böhm dit niet. De oplossing:

1.c6! (niet 1.a4 h6! ‘en zwart wint het tempospel’ of 1.a3 h5!) 1…h6 2.a3! h5 3.a4 h4 4.a5 h3 5.a6 h2 6.a7 h1D pat. Of 1…Kc7 3.a4 [sic, bedoeld is 2.a4] 3…Kxc6 4.a5 Kb5 5.Kb7 Kxa5 6.Kc6 h5 7.Kd5 ‘en de witte koning zit in het kwadraat (h1-h5-d5-d1) en dus remise’.

Oef! Hoe fraai en subtiel de studie ook is, voor een eerste voorbeeld in het boek vond ik dit tamelijk zware kost, vooral omdat de bijbehorende uitleg nogal summier en weinig specifiek is. Mensen die dit boek kochten omdat ze ’schaken een leuk spelletje vinden’ zullen zich toch misschien wel even op hun achterhoofd krabben wat nu precies de definitie van een ‘kwadraat’ is (is dat altijd h1-h5-d5-d1 of alleen in dit geval?). Schakers die Afeks werk kennen weten dat zijn niveau hoog is, maar geldt dat ook voor argeloze kopers?

De voorbeelden zijn trouwens niet allemaal zo pittig, al zijn ze ook nooit echt makkelijk. Uit het hoofdstukje ‘De kamikazepion’:

Wit aan zet.

Dit is een fragment uit de partij Tal-Zdravko Milev, München 1958. De eerste zet is fraai en in het kader van het thema niet al te moeilijk te vinden, maar daarna wordt het toch lastiger:

1.d5!! exd5 2.Tfe1! Kd8 3.Db3 c5 4.Pxc5! en wit won in enkele zetten (al schrijven Böhm en Afek dat de partij hier ‘abrupt eindigde’).

Afek en Böhm geven als alternatieven voor zwart op de tweede zet 2…dxe4 3.Dxe4+ De7 4.Dg4 en vervolgens – zonder nadere toelichting! – de tamelijk complexe variant 2…Le7 3.Pf6+! Kd8 4.Db3 Kc8 5.Lf4! Dxf4 6.Txe7 Tb8 7.Dh3+ en wit wint. Hier sta ik toch wel even van te kijken. Ten eerste wil ik na het spectaculaire 3.Pf6+ toch ook wel even weten wat er volgt op gxf6 gevolgd door rochade, dus ik zocht de partij op in mijn database en kwam toen pas te weten dat zwart helemaal niet meer mag rocheren aangezien de koning op zet 14 een stuk op d7 geslagen heeft en daarna weer teruggegaan is naar e8. Dat hadden de auteurs er toch wel even bij mogen zetten! (Dat wit toch wint als zwart had mogen rocheren, doet daar niets aan af.) Daarnaast is pas 19…c5? de beslissende fout en kan zwart nog aardig partij geven na 19…Kc8, al blijft wit ook dan goed staan.

Uit deze twee voorbeelden blijkt dat de auteurs hun taak op een tamelijk rigoureuze manier hebben opgevat: het gaat ze puur om de ideëen die door de thema’s worden geïllustreerd: het visuele aspect. Ze lijken minder geïnteresseerd in de uitleg van het waarom, en dat is jammer, want gaat het daar uiteindelijk niet om? Misschien is dit een knieval naar het ‘grote publiek’, dat mogelijkerwijs niet zit te wachten op een diepgaande uitleg, maar op zoek is naar ’snel vermaak’. Zou het zo zijn? Zou een oppervlakkige lezer wel geraakt worden door de schoonheid van Gorgievs studie, maar niet geïnteresseerd zijn in de precieze uitwerking?

Toch valt niet te ontkennen dat Hans Böhm en Yochanan Afek met De Pion een zeer vermakelijk en aanstekelijk boekje hebben geschreven, dat zich zowel goed leent voor ‘in bed’ als voor diepere (zelf)studie. Welk stuk volgt? Het Paard? Ook dat belooft wat.

• Koop Matten 7
• Koop De Pion
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On ChessCafe, an English translation of three sonnets on chess by Vladimir Nabokov has been published. According to John Roycroft, it is ‘the first English verse translation of the trio of linked chess sonnets that Vladimir Nabokov published in the Russian émigré journal Rul’ in Berlin in November 1924.’

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov, most famous to chess players for his 1930 novel The Defense, held a lifelong fascination for chess, publishing problems and writing about the subject on various occasions. (Though it is very unclear how strong he really was as a chess player.) Of chess problems, he wrote that they are ‘the poetry of chess’:

They demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, harmony, conciseness, complexity, and splendid insincerity.

His three early sonnets, including the original Russian text, linking, according to Roycroft, “chess, chess problems, chess history and sex”, can be read here. Underneath the article, there’s an interesting comment by professional Russian translator Sarah Hurst on some translational issues. It struck us that in the first sonnet, Philidor’s opponent is called ‘Dyuser’, which Roycroft translates as ‘Légal’. We have not been able to find the reason for this, since the full name of Légal (he of the mate) was Legall de Kermeur. Perhaps one of our readers knows more about this mysterious (to us) ‘Dyuser’?

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, gaining international fame with his novel Lolita (1955) as well as his strong and highly-esteemed opinions on literature and art. His poems, however, are generally regarded as being of lesser importance. His last unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, was recently published posthumously.

(Update: Apparently ‘Dyuser’ stands for ‘Du Sire’ or ‘Dusserre’, which could in fact refer to ‘Sire de Legal’, although this is questioned by other scholars.)

Nous vous offrons tout d'abord ce bon café de notre ami photographe Charly Founes, histoire de bien commencer la journée avec Chess & Strategy.

Ensuite, prenez le temps de lire le nouvel article sur les échecs du journal Paris-Normandie, un surprenant voyage dans le monde des cases blanches et noires, raconté avec passion chaque semaine sur notre site échiquéen par Samir Adyel.

Au sommaire de cette chronique échecs très éclectique : un mat en deux coups signé de D. J. Shire, tiré du Problem Observer de 1989, l’arroseur arrosé illustré par la partie entre Ivanov et Cheparinov à Séville en 2004, une devinette, l'agenda normand, une finale 100% british entre Miles (2565) et Short (2485) à Manchester en 1982, une citation du 2ème champion du monde d'échecs Emanuel Lasker et un piège d'ouverture dans le début Larsen à l'Open Féminin Moscou 2010. Merci Samir.

2007-2010 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés

Stanislas Gounant a écrit:
Salut Nicola,

Il semble que "Terry" ait des problèmes avec les prénoms, il m'appelle Stalinas (l'homme de fer en russe ?).

Lucie, 10 ans, licenciée au Stade Français JEEN, fait découvrir depuis le 6 février et jusqu'au 7 mars sa passion pour les échecs dans l'émission Trop la pêche !

Dans ce programme court, proposé par l'ANIA (Association Nationale des Industries Alimentaires), Lucie et 9 autres enfants font comprendre, chacun à leur façon, que pour donner le meilleur de soi-même, quelques règles simples peuvent aider. Le reportage sur Lucie a été réalisé dans les locaux du Stade Français JEEN - organisateur du récent Top 12 féminin - avec sa famille et le MI et problémiste Abdelaziz Onkoud.

2007-2010 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés

On January 28th we published a review of Viktor Moskalenko’s latest book Revolutionize Your Chess, and it wasn’t a positive one. Now we have received a reaction by Mr Moskalenko, which we’re happy to publish as an open letter here at ChessVibes.

In his review of Revolutionize Your Chess our reviewer Arne Moll wrote that he didn’t like the book. He used strong words, like ‘amazingly silly’, ‘rather confusing’, ‘extremely simplistic’ and ‘hopelessly flawed’. Here’s GM Moskalenko’s reaction:

On January 28 ChessVibes posted a singularly negative review, written by Arne Moll, of my new book Revolutionize Your Chess. The way Mr Moll approached my book, the tone of his review, the many (in my view) unjustified points he makes, and the subsequent vitriolic reactions by quite a few ChessVibes readers (some of whom confessed they didn’t know my book at all) did shock me.

My initial reaction was quite emotional. I really could not understand what I did to deserve Mr Moll’s bashing. On a Spanish website I did question Mr Moll’s motives, an unjustified action for which I have apologized. Now, after I have had some time to reflect, I am very grateful that ChessVibes has allowed me to post this more considered reaction.

Mr Moll hits his review off by venting his irritation that there are appearing many “improve your chess” books on the market. He confesses that he is not really interested in those books, because improving is only of secondary interest to him. Could it be that this negative attitude towards this type of works has coloured what he writes on my book?

Because the sole purpose of Revolutionize Your Chess is indeed this: to give to aspiring club players a set of tools with which they can improve their chess. I cannot help that Mr Moll dislikes the genre, and I cannot help that there are other books that make the same claim. But I think my book deserves to be judged for what it is. Mr Moll does not do this. In his incredibly fierce attack on my book he uses hyperbole, sarcasm and condescension in an apparent effort to humiliate me. He calls a part of my book ‘amazingly silly’, ‘extremely simplistic’ and ‘hopelessly flawed’. He says somewhere that when I write about the basic concepts of chess I ‘didn’t have a clue’, and he calls me ‘a show-off’. But, strangely, he fails to do one important thing: he does not contend that my system isn’t working! He has not tested, or even probed, if a chess player who does what I recommend in my book and who uses the tools I hand to him, becomes a better player or not. I will explain, later on, why I maintain that my system works.

Mr Moll heavily focuses on the foreword and the first two chapters of my books, in which I describe the structure of my system. Indeed 70% of his review is on less than 10% of my book. Briefly: in this part I offer a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the game: Chess Skills, Personal Skills, as well as my 5 so called “Touchstones”: tools to use for a dynamic understanding of all positions on the board. I also propose a test, which I jokingly call the Moskalenko Test, which my students use to rate their performance in a game. Obviously, Mr Moll does not like what he sees.

One of Mr Moll’s big problems is that I say my system is ‘revolutionary’, while he recognizes various elements in my system that other writers have mentioned before me. He seems to think that finding elements in my book that also feature in other chess writers’ books somehow falsifies my claim that my system could lead to a revolution. I think that the comprehensiveness of my system (Personal Skills, Chess Skills, Touchstones and Test) is indeed new, and that most club players who follow my advice will truly revolutionize their chess, and become a better player.

In the Foreword of my book I tried to find the reason why most chess players, once they have reached a certain level, fail to make real progress (of course a central problem in chess teaching). I made Mr Moll almost choke with anger by writing: “The answer is quite simple: the general rules of the game have not been discovered yet.” This is what Mr Moll calls ‘amazingly silly’. And why? Because there are, writes Mr Moll, ‘thousands of grandmasters and tens of thousands of IM’s’ (incidentally, Mr Moll is more than 500% wrong here about the actual numbers) who are pretty strong players. He suggests, no doubt sarcastically, that I think that strong players have still not grasped the right system.

What a strange thing to say! Maybe Mr Moll does not know that I am a strong player myself? Please allow me to explain: I am a Grandmaster and a former champion of Ukraine. I have won dozens of international tournaments, and I am still an active player. I have coached quite a few strong players, Vassily Ivanchuk is one of them. I think I am well qualified to judge what top-players know and how they think. I am not an idiot, of course I know that I don’t need to explain to them the basics of how they must think about chess. Obviously, my book is meant for club players. About elite players I explain that the reason they are almost invincible for any amateur is that they are so good in applying the Touchstones. Being aware of the process in their head is another matter; often top-players are thinking intuitively. This is also in the book.

My statement about the general rules that have not been discovered yet, is of course meant to provoke my readers. That is my style of writing, I always look for ways to keep them awake.

“I like to see myself as a philosopher” writes Arne Moll somewhere in his review. I think therein may lie one of the basic problems with his article. My concepts are not philosophical at all, they are very practical. Mr Moll looks for philosophical trouble behind many statements I make. He says concepts like ‘time’ and ‘material’ (which I use as ‘Touchstones’ to evaluate a position on the board) are ‘tricky philosophical ideas in the first place’. But in my book they are not tricky, and they are not philosophical. They are practical tools which every chess player can use to become better. And in my book I explain how they can do so.

I am not a philosopher. Apart from my own career as a player, I have been a chess trainer for many years. I have taught hundreds of club players. My classes have been recorded by the Catalan Chess Federation and are available online for thousands of players. I have written two successful books (which Mr Moll to my amazement says he liked) which sold thousands of copies all over the world. I get good feedback, literally daily, from my pupils, my viewers and my readers. I think I know quite well what beginning and more advanced chess players know and how they think. And what they should do to become better players.

I was amazed to see Mr Moll stating that “Moskalenko really didn’t have a clue when he wrote about these concepts”. This statement is, among other things, quite strange for someone who professes he liked my other books. How does Mr Moll think a Grandmaster who has written some good chess books (that’s me) reaches that level? By not having a clue? My friends have advised me not to use the word I will use now, but I strongly feel I have to do it: here I think Mr Moll is being disrespectful.

Somewhere at the end of his review Mr Moll calls me ‘a show-off’ because I use my own games or fragments of my games to illustrate specific chess instruction topics. I have thought about the merits of his reproach for quite a while. Let me just say that I think it is a strange thing to blame me for. An illustration of an instructional theme is either on or off the mark, at least that is my opinion. The show-off reproach, again, fits in the general condescending tone of his review. Strangely, Mr Moll says he likes my other books (The Fabulous Budapest Gambit, and The Flexible French) a lot; but in these books I use my own games as examples just as much as I did here! Does Mr Moll think that Nimzowitsch is a show-off because he uses his own games in his books? Besides, I use games from dozens of other players as well.

From my 340 pages book with hundreds of games, fragments, exercises and examples, Mr Moll cites just one practical example. In this position:

I discuss two possible moves for White: the good move Be3 and the dynamic move d5. I recommend d5. Mr Moll claims that I fail to give ‘any reasons’ why I think d5 is more dynamic. But he is simply wrong! I do explain that after Be3 Black plays …e6, blocking the position and giving White some trouble to exploit his lead in development. On the move d5 I explain that I choose this advance ‘in order to fight for space, hindering the development of the black kingside at the same time’. I think the example is not a bad illustration of the theme: there is a good, solid positional move available. And yet I recommend another move, a dynamic move. Without the solid move my example would be less valuable, I think.

After treating this one example wrongly, Mr Moll says that ALL the examples I give in the book (and there are many hundreds of them) are deficient. ALL examples suffer in that I ‘focus on the Touchstones for the sake of the Touchstones only’. Again, I find this a puzzling swipe. Mr Moll may not like the concept, but does he really think I employ the Touchstones just for their own sake? That I select my examples just to prove my system? Doesn’t he think my pupils would have left me many years ago if I would be doing just that?

I am not claiming originality in every point I make in the book. It is a strange thing to ask from an author, even from an author who claims to aim for a revolution. My book is a real revolution in that it brings everything together. Naming other books or authors who have written about some elements of my system does not mean my approach would somehow not be fresh.

And judging from the many positive reactions I get from readers, I may very well have succeeded. Obviously, not with Mr Moll. Maybe he is too strong a player (and too much of a philosopher) to find my concepts good tools. It may be that Mr Moll dislikes my enthusiasm. But I am a passionate believer in my system, because I know, from experience, that it works. It works for players of 1600 ELO, as well as for players with 2200 ELO, and even higher.

Maybe next time a chess improvement book comes up for review at ChessVibes, it would a good idea to ask someone to review it who does not dislike the genre, who does not see himself primarily as a philosopher, and who is more interested in the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Once more I would like to thank for the opportunity to publish this reaction.

Sincerely,

GM Viktor Moskalenko
Barcelona, 12 February, 2010

Update 14:40 CET: meanwhile Arne Moll has responded in the comments – we’ll give it here as well:

As it is a true honour for me to have such a respected Grandmaster and author respond to my reviews, let me just mention a few general points that Mr. Moskalenko seems to have misunderstood in my initial review, rather than addressing every single sentence of his letter point by point.

Mr. Moskalenko starts off his letter with the complaint that I am supposedly not interested in ‘Improve your chess’ books and am therefore biased against his book Revolutionize Your Chess (and hence unqualified to review it objectively). To me, this merely shows Moskalenko doesn’t read my reviews on a regular basis (and indeed I couldn’t possibly expect him to), for then he would have known that the very review before the one I wrote on Moskalenko’s book, is a highly positive and enthusiastic review of Lars Bo Hansen’s book called (ironically, if anything) Improve Your Chess.

In fact, I was also very positive about Herman Grooten’s Chess Strategy for Club Players, the book that recently beat Revolutionize Your Chess in the ChessCafe Book of the Year competition, and numerous other books that intend to improve the reader’s chess skills. My remark ‘What’s with all these improve your chess books recently’ was just a ‘by the way’, trying to make the related (but admittedly not terribly relevant) general point that lately, a lot of books focus on chess improvement while surely trying to make the reader enjoy chess is at least as important as that.

In any case, as I had already written in the comments underneath my review, a reviewer’s personal taste is not relevant as long as he’s ‘not prejudiced, focuses on the book and not his own taste, and he knows his literature.’ I would think my liking Moskalenko’s previous book sort of proves I’m not prejudiced against him, and apart from this one ‘by the way’ paragraph, I focus my entire review on the contents of the book itself. As for ‘knowing my literature’, I think I’ve shown this already sufficiently in the review itself.

I could mention several other points in Mr. Moskalenko’s letter where he misinterprets my intentions and words. For instance, he makes much of my sarcasm and hyperbole, but then without blinking an eye declares that he himself means to ‘provoke his readers’ and that this is simply his ‘style of writing, I always look for ways to keep them awake’. Well, Mr. Moskalenko, it seems we agree on something after all! Perhaps we should just drop this point?

Another small thing to note is that Mr. Moskalenko altogether ignores the positive things I have mentioned about his book in my review, instead claiming it is ‘singularly negative’. This is also why it’s simply untrue that the one example I picked from the book to illustrate a point is used by me to imply that ‘ALL the examples I give in the book (and there are many hundreds of them) are deficient.’

But here’s what I actually wrote in my review: ‘To be sure, there are better examples in the book, but they all suffer from the same illness.’ I also wrote, ‘The book does contains good stuff, but I liked the Viktor Moskalenko of The Flexible French much, much better.’ Forgive me for thinking this small nuance is probably worth pointing out.

I suppose I should also say I’m surprised by Mr. Moskalenko’s statement that his concepts ‘aren’t philosophical at all’ and that he himself, unlike me, ‘isn’t a philosopher’. Well, fair enough, but Moskalenko himself claims that while authors like Suba and Beim discuss many interesting aspects of dynamic chess, they offer ‘no theoretical framework’ – surely implying Revolutionize Your Chess is different in this respect! A few sentences later, he even explicitly states that ‘in the present book, we will make an attempt to systematize this dynamic approach to our game’.

And in Chapter 2, just to take one example, Moskalenko writes that the factor Time ‘has thus far been neglected in theoretical works. This dynamic factor should be included in any chess system if we want to call it conclusive’.
To me all this sounds distinctly philosophical. In fact, capitalizing the t in Time is, if anything else, the generally acknowledged way of indicating a ‘Platonization’ of the object at hand. But perhaps I’m again being too, well, philosophical here.

There is, however, one point in Mr. Moskalenko’s reply that I would like to elaborate upon a bit in more detail. This is when he writes that I do not contend that the system described in Revolutionize Your Chess ‘isn’t working’: ‘He has not tested, or even probed, if a chess player who does what I recommend in my book and who uses the tools I hand to him, becomes a better player or not.’

Indeed I must confess that I haven’t fully tested the system (although Mr. Moskalenko couldn’t possibly know this himself), for the inexcusable reason that I am, apart from being a father and a full-time employee, just a reviewer whose task it is to read the book and write his conclusions down as accurately and conscientiously as possible. (I imagine Mr. Moskalenko also doesn’t accept positive reviews when the reviewer hasn’t fully tested the system?)

But suppose I would like to test Mr. Moskalenko’s system before writing anything at all about it. How would I do it? Surely applying the ‘Touchstone Tools’ in my own games is not nearly enough: a sample of just 1 player can’t possible say anything meaningful about a method, can it? I’d have to ask perhaps my entire chess team to study the book and apply it in their own games to the best of their ability.

But then there would still be the (in my view very likely) possibility that our game improved not because of the Touchstone Tools, but by us being suddenly occupied with chess for much more than we currently are. You see, this is what statisticians call the correlation is not causation maxim: the fact that we’re reading Moskalenko’s book and actively trying to apply the Touchstones doesn’t prove Moskalenko’s method works – not at all.

For all we know the very fact that we’re in an experiment might make us more conscious of our play during games, and we might improve our game even without studying anything at all. This is a variation of the well-known placebo effect. To avoid such confusion, we’d at least need some sort of control group with a bunch of players of the same average level who would also engage in active chess study, but specifically without using Moskalenko’s Touchstones – say, by studying Mark Dvoretsky’s books.

After some time – say, a year – we’d probably be able to say something about whether Moskalenko’s method works or not (calibrating for random rating fluctuations and such, of course), and whether it works any better than other current chess-improvement methods.

Now, this would be an extremely interesting experiment, and I would be more than willing to try it myself if given enough time and money, but what I’m really wondering is whether Mr. Moskalenko himself has ever done such an experiment.

After all, he accuses me of not having tested his method and very firmly claims that his method does work. My question is very simple: has Mr. Moskalenko systematically tested his method, and can we see the results? And perhaps I should mention another statisticians’ maxim, which is that the plural of anecdote is not data. It’s great to have many testimonies from players who are happy their money was well spent and they improved their chess by receiving chess training, but this doesn’t, of course, prove the training method itself works: it just proves they improved their game.

And this may have happened for numerous reasons – the most important one being what I also wrote in my initial review, which is that ‘improving one’s chess can be achieved by studying any chess book seriously.’ (Mr. Moskalenko seems to have overlooked this remark.)

Let me finish by what strikes me as an extremely important point, made by one of the commenters to this post. It’s this: ‘Maybe [Moskalenko] is right in saying so, but he fails to address how his students got better using his advice.’

This is precisely my whole problem with the book. It’s not the Touchstone tools, it’s not the provocative language, not the lack of philosophical depth, not even the annoying -T1 and -T4 notation: it’s the lack of specificity; the lack of explaining how the touchstones work (and why), how students improve their game and how dynamic chess works; and how revolutionary Moskalenko’s book is, precisely.

Perhaps these questions are typical philosophical questions, but so be it. I’m just a an ordinary chess player trying to improve and be inspired by chess. Mr. Moskalenko claims he knows ‘quite well what beginning and more advanced chess players know and how they think.’ In other words, he knows exactly how I think. I can only hope he will some day understand my point of view in this matter after all.

Links

• Revolutionize Your Chess
• ChessVibes review of Revolutionize Your Chess
• More book reviews

The Linares tournament started peacefully today, with draws on all three boards. Topalov surprised Vallejo with a Breyer against the Spaniard’s Ruy Lopez and easily equalized. Grischuk needed a lot of time on the clock, but was also doing fine with Black against Aronian in a 4.f3 Nimzo ending. Gelfand had some advantage against Gashimov’s Benoni but just before the first time control a drawn ending was reached.

The 27th Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez “Ciudad de Linares” takes place February 12-25 in Linares, Andalucia, Spain. As a result of the financial crisis, the event went back to the (nowadays almost universal) formula of six players, double round-robin.

This year Veselin Topalov (2805), Levon Aronian (2781), Boris Gelfand (2761), Vugar Gashimov (2759), Alexander Grischuk (2736) and Francisco Vallejo Pons (2705) play. The rounds start at 16:00 CET; rest days are on the 17th and the 22nd. The rate of play is 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20, then 20 minutes for the rest of the game, wit 30 seconds increment starting from move 61. The Sofia rules for offering a draw apply in Linares for the first time.

Round 1 report by Rick Goetzee

The famous Linares tournament is on its way again. It is true that the event has lost some of its aura and some say that Corus has taken over as the Wimbledon of chess, but it is still one of the greatest tournaments around. And not only because of its history. It’s quite remarkable how the organisers have kept the event alive through great adversity and without corporate sponsorship. In the last year they had to deal with the economic recession and voices in the local government challenging the decision to invest in a chess tournament. Also the plan to host the first half of the tournament in Dubai fell through. Despite all this, the Linares organizers have secured this famous event for another year.

The field once consisted of 14 players, but since 2006 (after Kasparov retired) there have been eight players, competing in a double round robin. This year, because of financial constraints, it went down to six. While this is a pity it puts it on par with the Grand Slam tournaments in Sofia and Nanjing. Only Corus still has 14 players in their A-group.

One of the consequences of a relatively small field is that the tournament is very strong. In Wijk aan Zee there were a few players (predominantly the local ones) who acted as the rabbits in the field, as GM Joel Benjamin referred to them on ICC’s Chess.FM. In Linares the only local player is Vallejo Pons but with a rating of 2705 he can hardly be called a rabbit.

Although he has always been a top player, it’s been already 13 years since Boris Gelfand has last played in Linares. In the polls before the start of the tournament Aronian was the favourite, undoubtedly because Topalov will have the upcoming world championship match in the back of his mind.

The opening ceremony on Friday was short but entertaining with flamenco dancers and Spanish traditional music. The first round started on Saturday at 4pm which is quite late compared to other tournaments. It must have to do with the great Spanish tradition of ‘la siesta’.

All games were drawn in the first round. Vallejo-Topalov lasted 41 moves after a Ruy Lopez opening, Breyer variation. This solid system isn’t something Topalov regularly plays, and Vallejo was probably not well prepared for it. The Spaniard chose an old system but got nothing, and after many exchanges Topalov couldn’t play for a win either.

Aronian-Grischuk was a Nimzo-Indian with 4.f3, the system popularized by Fritz Sämisch. White’s move 8.Qd2 led the game into a position that was popular in the 50s (!) and Grischuk used a lot of time in the opening, but he was able to solve all his problems. In fact if anyone was better it was Black, who could have tried 19…N7e5 if he’d had more time. After 26 moves the players shook hands. Aronian only used 40 minutes for the whole game.

The most interesting game of the day was Gelfand-Gashimov. The Azerbaijan GM went for his favourite Benoni, an opening we don’t see very often in the elite tournaments. According to GM Benjamin this is a sign of the new philosophy of modern top players. Chess is becoming more of a sport than a science. A fight over the board is preferred over home preparation.

Well, in any case Gelfand was, as so often, very well prepared. The World Cup winner went for the 7.Bf4 line, and knew all ins and outs of Gashimov’s pawn sacrifice on move 9. Gashimov always seemed to have compensation, but was it enough? White’s bishops looked very strong. Eventually Black won his pawn back and the game ended after 54 moves with a repetition of moves in a knight and bishop ending.

Photos © María José Sánchez Rivera

The pairings for the 2nd round on Sunday are Topalov-Gashimov, Grischuk-Gelfand and Vallejo-Aronian.

Games round 1 with brief annotations

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Black History Month… a month that is to represent the triumph of a people over adversity and to pay hommage to their achievements. When Carter G. Woodson dubbed “Negro History Week” in 1926, his intent was bring exposure to the unique history and plight of the Black people. He founded the Negro World where he chronicled the condition of the Blacks and later wrote the seminal book, The Mis-Education of the Negro. He earned a Master’s a University of Chicago in 1908 and a Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1912 and became one of the foremost pioneers in the field of contemporary history.

Is Black History Relevant?

Woodson had a difficult time convincing others that there was a need for a commemoration dedicated to championing the “so-called American Negro.” He was told that Black history was no different from American history and there should not be any distinction. However, it is well-known that the way history is painted depends on who has the brush. Woodson opined that Black history and the accomplishments of Black men and women were often overlooked, blotted out of history or trivialized. Negro History Week became “Black History Month” and is recognized nationally.

One of the problems with Black History Month is that the same figures are honored each year: Dr. Martin Luther King, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman and George Washington Carver. These are staple of classroom lessons on Black history, but the perhaps they have become have lost their novelty. There is an increasing concern that the history is not being taught properly or by instructors who are very selective on which figures they cover.

Of course Black history, extends far beyond what “African-Americans” have done. Black pioneers in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Europe had made tremendous accomplishments. Haiti has been in the news of late and of course many are hearing the name Toussaint L’Ouverture, the military leader who lead the Haitians to a stunning victory over France in quest of slave independence.

There are many other legendary leaders around the world who led independence and resistance movements such as Jean-Jacques Dessalines (Haiti), Paul Bogle (Jamaica), Marcus Garvey (Jamaica), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Amilcar Cabral (Guinea-Bissau), Samora Machel (Angola), Zumbi dos Palmares (Brazil) to name a few.

There are also a long list of scientists (Imhotep), athletes (Jesse Owens), politicians (Patrice Lumumba), historians (Cheikh Anta Diop), scholars (Sir Arthur Lewis) that could easily fill up a large encyclopedia. One would ask, “why it is important to have this history?” The best way to explain this is to reflect on the purpose of this very website.

The Black Renaissance in Chess

Many years ago as a rising young player in Chicago, I knew only a few Black Masters. In the midst of a conversation with a Caucasian player, he asked me about the number of Black masters and I could only name the few I knew. The problem was that no one had taken time to archive the history of the players and they certainly didn’t appear regularly in chess magazines. Thus, there became a need to show the contributions of a forgotten segment. There are now thousands of pages of documented history on Blacks’ contributions to chess at “The Chess Drum“.

Looking back on chess history there are many landmarks for Blacks. There is 19th century chess problemist Theophilus Thompson who was the first Black player of note. In the U.S., Walter Harris, Frank Street and Kenneth Clayton and Leroy (Jackson) Muhammad led the 60s era along with Charles Covington and Charles Lawton of the 70s. Then came the effect of the “Fischer Boom”.

The 80s saw a mass wave of Black Masters rise and throughout the world there were players making their presence felt. The 80s saw a teen sensations named Baraka Shabazz and K.K. Karanja. African and Caribbean nations began dotting the Olympiad landscape and taking their rightful place among the cadre of chess nations. African International Masters Watu Kobese (South Africa), Odion Aikhoje (Nigeria), Robert Gwaze (Zimbabwe) have produced shining moments for “Mother Africa”. WIM Oleiny Linares-Napoles made Cuba proud by winning a silver medal in the 2008 Olympiad with 9/10.

A landmark event occurred when Maurice Ashley became the first Black Grandmaster in 1993. This became the benchmark for Black excellence and was followed by Pontus Carlsson (Sweden) and Amon Simutowe (Zambia). Of course, Emory Tate will go down in the annals of Black history as one of the most celebrated players, a reputation coming from his dashing victories. The historic Wilbert Paige Memorial was a tournament for the ages. The idea that there is such a history will provide the upcoming talents with examples of paths once trodden.

History in the Making

Currently, age records are being smashed with young stars around the world becoming living legends. It is also true that in the African Diaspora, there are a number of young boys and girls beginning to make progressive strides. In America, the players making a mark are getting younger and younger. Kassa Korley has broken the age record for U.S. National Master at 15 years 2 months. His record is endangered by players like Justus Williams and Josh Colas who are only 12 years old and already 2100 strength. These young boys have a history they can draw upon.

Scholastic All-Americans: Justus Williams and Josh Colas

There is something clearly important about seeing images of successful people with whom you have something in common. For those who have never had problems finding role models, it may be hard to understand the significance. For those who have to look far and wide for examples, the Black Master playing against the world’s best can make a huge difference in the confidence of impressionable minds. One thing is for sure… the “Wall of Fame” will only get bigger as long as we preserve the immediate history. Mimicking Carter G. Woodson, we should be compelled to present historic examples that are often overlooked. There are many beautiful stories yet to be told!

Hikaru Nakamura has quite a story to tell. Born in Osaka, Japan and arriving in the U.S. at the age of two, Nakamura has been gracing the pages of chess magazines since he began breaking many of Bobby Fischer’s records. One of the first indicators of chess talent is the age record for National Master.

There have been many talented players to come through the scholastic ranks, but many either quit playing after high school, or shortly after reaching National Master. When Nakamura entered Dickinson College, there were fears that America would lose yet another promising talent along the likes of Grandmasters Michael Wilder and Patrick Wolff.

Under the early tutelage of his stepfather FM Sunil Weeramantry and the mentorship of older brother Asuka Nakamura, young Hikaru shattered the record reaching the mark in 10 years, 79 days. In 2008, his record was later lowered to 9 years, 11 months by Nicholas Nip, a player who is no longer active. Five years later, he broke Bobby Fischer’s long-standing record by earning Grandmaster status in 15 years, 79 days.

Media comparisons to Fischer immediately heightened when he won the U.S. Championship at age 16. However, Nakamura reminded everyone, “I’m not Bobby Fischer.” He was intimating the point that Fischer was an unbalanced individual who only thought of chess. Of course, this was only half the story with Fischer, but certainly he was one who could not operate comfortably outside of the chess realm.

When you talk to Nakamura, he is comfortable talking about a wide range of topics including his beloved Vancouver Canucks hockey team. He also has a variety of interests including music, finance, sports and politics. Many of the existing stereotypes of Nakamura are based on history from his teen years and commentary from online chess servers.

Chief Organizer Erik Anderson (left) stands next to GM Hikaru Nakamura and WGM Rusudan Goletiani after both were crowned the 2004 U.S. Champions.

Nakamura’s talent was hardly questioned on the U.S. scene as he had put together an impressive résumé of wins. At the closing ceremonies of the 2003 U.S. Championship, winner Alexander Shabalov singled out a young Nakamura and stated that he had a bright future in chess. In American tournaments, Nakamura’s brash style has become a breath of fresh air in a sport that had become stagnant with the same players competing every year in the U.S. Championships and the open tournaments. His victory the next year was definitely good for chess.

Once Nakamura joined the elite class in the U.S., he carried a reputation as being an isolationist and distrustful of his colleagues. He rankled many when he made comments about collusion among the U.S. elite. “That’s actually why I still work alone. It’s very hard to trust anybody.” However, as Nakamura begin to ascend to a world-class level, he enlisted some help. After the 2009 U.S. Championship, he mentioned that he had been working with National Master Kris Littlejohn. This choice of a second puzzled many, but has paid dividends.

Viktor Mikalevski ponders Gata Kamsky’s next move while Nakamura-Najer reaches the climatic stage of the 2009 World Open. Photo by Daaim Shabazz.

In U.S. chess, there had been too many “friendships” between top players which resulted in many quick draws and dispirited play. Nakamura was dismissive of these tactics and forced the issue with his ‘play-to-win’ attitude. His determination affords him psychological capital when an opponent understands that they have to fight when they are already content on drawing. This fighting spirit came into great effect when he won his first U.S. Championship at age 16. However, in an important interview in Salon magazine, there were still had doubters.

“The finish is very good but few purists will rank his play in the same league as Fischer’s — it lacks elegance,” wrote chess scribe Alan Goldsmith. Another chess writer, Bobby Ang, wondered, “When Nakamura reaches the higher echelons of the chess elite, will his style work?” Citing a benchmark of great contemporary players, Ang asked of Nakamura, “Can his brilliance overcome the tactical mastery of Alexei Shirov? Will his will-to-win be sufficient to breach the solid fortifications of Vladimir Kramnik, or Peter Leko? Is his much-touted resourcefulness of a high enough standard to battle with Rustam Kasimdzhanov? I doubt it very much.” (see link)

Nakamura’s sales pitch to Europe was more difficult, but he was beginning to pick up momentum. Tournament organizers were attracted to his brash, no-nonsense style. He has since broken through in a number of strong tournaments and is now comfortably ensconced in the top 20. Many detractors rail at the notion that Nakamura has not gotten the opportunities to face the elite level. They cite his skipping Corus “B” in 2008 for the Gibraltar Masters as a snub. Nakamura cited inadequate conditions, but made good on his trip by winning Gibraltar.

He added a few more accolades including the 2009 U.S. Championship, 960 World Championship and the Cap d’Agde Rapid Tournament (over Anatoly Karpov and Vassily Ivanchuk). There were still doubters who stated that he couldn’t win in a strong classical tournament. After playing poorly in the London Classic, Nakamura finally got his coveted invite to Corus “A” and made a strong showing with 7.5/13 (4th place). Magnus Carlsen, the winner of the tournament, identified Nakamura as a new rival.

On various chess blogs, the conversation of Nakamura ascendancy is a popular topic. Naysayers continue to claim Nakamura is not worthy of “elite” status for very specific reasons. After he refutes these reasons, another set will be created and standards increased. At this point, pundits state that Nakamura has to make top 10 to be considered seriously as a World Championship. Last year, it was top 20.

Of course, the candidacy of players such as Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin or Teimour Radjabov was recognized almost immediately. What is the difference? The theory was that the European stars were “battle-tested” and Nakamura had not faced tough competition. Many top chess journals, websites and blogs take liberties to print negative portrayals of the young American star. Even his head-to-head blitz victory over Carlsen in Norway was trivialized.

So the question…”Is Nakamura the ‘Real Deal’?” Does he have World Championship potential? When Vladimir Kramnik was asked this question, he seems to believe that Nakamura is a legitimate talent, but stopped short of giving a full endorsement. Most of the fans and journalists believe that Carlsen is the heir apparent to Viswanathan Anand or Veselin Topalov, but it is not certain if Carlsen will maintain his level. The performance of Anish Giri turned some heads and the Chinese and Indians deserve attention. If one looks at Nakamura, he has many things going for him.

GM Hikaru Nakamura at 2010 Corus in Wijk aan Zee.
Photo by Fred Lucas.

Will these factors mean that he has enough to win a World Championship? Time will tell. One thing that is true is that if Nakamura has his goal set and resources are not an issue, he will have more than an adequate shot at winning the World Championship. He is only 22 years old and he will continue to get better. The downside is does not have a sponsor and gets limited help from his federation which means that he does not have the luxury of focusing purely on chess development.

In a 2005 interview with the New York Times, Nakamura summed up his chances.

”If I am able to get up there and play for the actual title of the world championship, then once again, everyone will be excited,” Mr. Nakamura said, noting how chess gained wide appeal when Mr. Fischer toppled Boris Spassky, the Soviet world champion, in 1972. ”There have been plenty of great players since Fischer but none have been American players.” (see link)

Nakamura has the tenacity, the nerves and still has some areas of improvement in his game. Given Carlsen’s breach of 2800, there will be a new cadre of players to vie for the world crown. With the right combination of training, sponsorship and tournament invitations, Nakamura hopes to be one in that number.

Bruno Fitoussi a écrit:
J'ai toutefois la nette impression que beaucoup (ou la plupart ?) ont largement beneficié de l'apport incontestable de la technologie de Fruit !  Le problème étant évidemment, pour les programmes commerciaux, le GPL associé ...

Thierry Hugues a écrit:

sur le fond de la reflexionde don dailey , quelques reflexions :

- Si dans une position meme "tranquille " il y a un bon coup à jouer , tous les bons moteurs le joueront qu'ils s'appellent Kasparov , Karpov ou Fischer.

- Avant de chercher à demasquer "des clowns", il faut utiliser l'outil sur des "familles " de logiciels à la genealogie " réputée" ( comme dans la bible ..sourire) :

ainsi les nombreuses versions de Fritz, de Junior, de Shredder, de Hiarcs .... devraient etre soumises au test .....

 et si l'on decouvre alors que Fritz 8 est un clone de Junior 8 .... et Shredder 8 un clone de Hiarcs 7 ,

et que Fritz 9 n'a rien à voir avec Fritz 8 .....mais plutot avec zapchess.... 

on pourra commencer passer au detecteur Rybka 3 , le noyer, le bruler, le desintegrer, le maudire, l'excommunier...

Patrick Buchmann a écrit:
Salut,

Autre lien intéressant: https://webspace.utexas.edu/zzw57/rtc/eval/eval.html

Cordialement,
Patrick

Bon ... si je comprends bien : Rajlich considère que le programme Strelka est  un clone de Rybka1.0b. Mais l'analyse réalisée sur le code source de Strelka montre qu'il serait fortement inspiré de Fruit donc Rybka serait aussi un dérivé de Fruit ... CQFD (?)

Bref tout cela ressemble à un panier de Crabe   J'ai toutefois la nette impression que beaucoup (ou la plupart ?) ont largement beneficié de l'apport incontestable de la technologie de Fruit !  Le problème étant évidemment, pour les programmes commerciaux, le GPL associé ...

Cordialement,
Bruno

Message: http://lefounumerique.xooit.com/t744-Robbolito-Ivanhoe-Firebire-Rybka-il-en-manque-un-hypocrito.htm?p=2101

Nicola Gotti a écrit:

Je veux te demandé Patrick pourquoi Chessbase ne réagis pas pour Rybka car au moins pour la version 3 elle est également commercialisé chez eu ?
De plus Fritz est un native-engine comme les CometB.. et les Crafty qui sont aussi des Winboard, peut-on pas dire que chessbase fait des adaptations de moteur Winboard.
De plus pourquoi un clonage devrait se faire au même format ?
De plus je pense que si sa serait autant "simple" tu n'aurais pas demandé notre avis et tu aurais supprimer Rybka de la liste et on aurais pas entendu parler de Robblito. Je me trompe

Sackgasse (Foto von Asif Akbar)

In einer Partie wird eine Mattstellung erreicht. Doch beide Spieler machen noch einen weiteren Zug. Erst dann stellen sie das Matt fest und beenden die Partie. In einer Turnierpartie zwischen Großmeistern wäre dies schon sehr seltsam, oder. Vergleichbares geschieht aber regelmäßig in bestimmten Remisstellungen. Und kein Schiedsrichter greift ein. Nach den Regeln ist die Partie beendet. Trotzdem wird ein weiterer Zug gespielt, aufgeschrieben und alles auch noch veröffentlich. So geschehen gerade wieder in der Partie Arndt Lauber gegen Konstantin Landa am letzten Bundesligawochenende.

Regelwerk

Die aktuelle Version der FIDE-Schachregeln (siehe hier) wurde im November 2008 beschlossen, vom DSB übersetzt (siehe hier), und gilt seit dem 1. Juli 2009. Im Artikel 1.3 heißt es: “Ist eine Stellung erreicht, in der keinem der beiden Spieler das Mattsetzen mehr möglich ist, ist das Spiel “remis” (unentschieden).” Daraus folgt: Lässt sich für eine Stellung zeigen, dass ein Matt nicht mehr möglich ist, ist die Partie sofort beendet.

In einigen anderen Artikeln wird der Inhalt von 1.3 aufgenommen und ausführlicher formuiert. Ich zitiere Artikel 5.2 b): “Die Partie ist remis, sobald eine Stellung entstanden ist, in welcher keiner der Spieler den gegnerischen König mit irgendeiner Folge von regelgemäßen Zügen mattsetzen kann. Eine solche Stellung heißt “tote Stellung”. Damit ist die Partie sofort beendet, vorausgesetzt, dass der Zug, der die Stellung herbeigeführt hat, regelgemäß war (siehe Artikel 9.6).” und Artikel 9.6: “Die Partie ist remis, sobald eine Stellung entstanden ist, aus welcher ein Matt durch keine erdenkliche Folge von regelgemäßen Zügen erreichbar ist. Damit ist die Partie sofort beendet, vorausgesetzt, der Zug, der diese Stellung herbeiführte, war regelgemäß.”

Der Artikel 5.2 gibt der Sache einen Namen. So können wir kurz und knapp sagen: Eine “tote Stellung” (”dead position”) ist immer und sofort remis. Weder eine Zeitüberschreitung noch ein dritter regelwidriger Zug ändern daran etwas. Weitere Wiederholungen, inhaltlich aber nichts Neues, bieten übrigens noch die Artikel 6.9 und 7.4 b. Es gibt dazu auch einen kleinen Wikipedia-Artikel “Tote Stellung”.

Interessant ist die Geschichte des Artikels 1.3. (Im Folgenden stütze ich mich übrigens auf die Sammlung älterer FIDE-Schachregeln von Otto Janko (siehe hier). Eine kommentierte Geschichte der Regeländerungen wäre hilfreich. Ich konnte aber keine finden und freue mich über jeden Hinweis.) Er taucht zum ersten Mal in den FIDE-Schachregeln von 1996/97 auf (siehe hier: “If the position is such that neither player can possibly checkmate, the game is drawn.”) Die weiteren oben angeführten Ergänzungen wurden dann in späteren Fassungen hinzugefügt (siehe z. B. hier).

In den FIDE-Schachregeln von 1992/93 (siehe hier) gab es noch keine allgemeine Formulierung, sondern in dem damaligen Artikel 10.4 nur eine Aufzählung besonderer Stellungen, König gegen König, König und Leichtfigur gegen König, und König und Läufer gegen König und Läufer bei Läufern auf gleicher Farbe:  “The game is drawn when one of the following endings arises: (a) king against king; (b) king against king with only bishop or knight; (c) king and bishop against king and bishop, with both bishops on diagonals of the same colour. This immediately ends the game.” Artikel 10.5 stellte dann noch klar, dass ein bloßer König nicht gewinnen kann.

Gegenüber 1992/93 gab es also 1996/97 eine sinnvolle Erweiterung. In der Version der FIDE-Schachregeln von 1977 (siehe hier) fehlte noch jeder Hinweis auf später so genannte “tote Stellungen”. Groben Unfug wie eine Spielen auf Zeit mit König und Springer gegen König hätten die Regeln damals noch zugelassen. Hier hätte der Schiedsrichter eingreifen müssen.

Schachkomposition

Die Komponisten von Schachproblemen haben einen besonderen Sinn für die offiziellen Schachregeln. Ich verweise nur auf den schönen Artikel “In the Twilight Zone of Chess Rules” von Jens Kristiansen. Berühmt ist die so genannte “Pam-Krabbé-Rochade” (siehe hier und hier), die zu einer Präzisierung der Rochade-Regeln führte.

Im Problem von Tim Krabbé (siehe Diagramm) setzt der Anziehende den schwarzen König im dritten Zug matt: a) nach 1.e7 gxf3 2.e8D+ Kd3 durch die lange Rochade 3.0-0-0# , b) nach 1.e7 Kxf3 2.e8T d4 durch die kurze Rochade 3.0-0#, und c) nach 1.e7 Kxf3 2.e8T Kg2 durch die Pam-Krabbé-Rochade 0-0-0-0# mit weißem König auf e3 und weißem Turm auf e2. (Vgl. Tim Krabbé: Schach-Besonderheiten, Bd 1, Düsseldorf (Econ) 1987, S.19f.)

Zum Zeitpunkt der Komposition entsprach die Pam-Krabbé-Rochade vollkommen den Regeln. Weder König noch Turm hatten gezogen. Und nur der Turm übersprang ein vom Schwarzen bedrohtes Feld. Durch die Einführung der weiteren Bedingung, dass nämlich König und Turm auf einer Reihe stehen müssen, wurde die vertikale Rochade dann aber bald ausgeschlossen.

Nach der Aufnahme des Artikels 1.3 in die FIDE-Schachregeln 1996/97 durfte man rückblickend fast erwarten, dass Schachkomponisten sich der neuen Regel annehmen würden. Wenige Jahre später war es dann soweit. Andrew G. Buchanan beschreibt seine Entdeckung in seiner FAQ for Dead Reckoning so:

“A weird thing happened. I stumbled across a chess rule that no one knew about before. No, really. The International Chess Federation updates the Laws of Chess every few years. Obviously, they don’t change the key stuff: like how a bishop moves. But they do fiddle around at the margins, and in 1997 they introduced a rule which has little impact on the real game, but does have consequences for chess problems. It wasn’t until late 2000 that anyone noticed these consequences. It happened to be me.”

Um welche Regel es sich handelt, wissen wir ja schon. Jedenfalls machte sich Buchanan ans Werk und komponierte eine ganze Reihe von wunderbaren Aufgaben. Auf der Website Some Novel Chess Problems hat er eine ganze Sammlung zusammen mit einführenden und erklärenden Texten veröffentlicht. Hier zwei Beispiele, die zeigen wie solche Probleme funktionieren.

Bei nur zwei Königen auf dem Brett zu fragen, wer zuletzt gezogen hat, mag auf den ersten Blick ganz sinnlos erscheinen. Aufgrund der “Tote-Stellung-Regel” lässt sich das Problem von Buchanan (siehe Diagramm) aber leicht lösen. Nehmen wir an Schwarz hat zuletzt gezogen. Dann ging der König von b8 oder a7 nach a8. War das Feld frei, war die Partie mit nur den Königen vorher schon beendet, und die Diagrammstellung konnte gar nicht mehr entstehen. Diesen Schluss nennt Buchanan “Dead Reckoning”, was ich ein bisschen holprig mit “Tote-Stellung-Überlegung” übersetze.

Weiter: Der schwarze König muss auf a8 eine weiße Figur geschlagen haben. Bei einer Leichtfigur wäre die Partie vorher schon mangels Mattpotential beendet gewesen. Und bei einer Schwerfigur war der schwarze König gezwungen zu schlagen. Damit wäre die Partie ebenfalls bereits beendet gewesen. Wieder eine “Tote-Stellung-Überlegung”.  Eine Bauernumwandlung auf a8 führt zu einer der beiden schon behandelten Fälle. Daher kann der schwarze König nicht zuletzt gezogen haben. Für den weißen König lässt sich dies dagegen zeigen. Er könnte z. B. auf c6 einen Turm oder Bauern geschlagen haben (Buchanans Erläuterung hier).

In der Aufgabe von Elkies (siehe Diagramm) steht auf a6 ein Bauer, markiert durch das Kreuz. Ob dieser weiß oder schwarz ist, weiß man nicht. Es lässt sich aber erkennen, dass die Stellung ganz unabhängig von der Farbe des Bauern bereits remis ist. Die Pattsetzung des schwarzen Königs ist nicht zu vermeiden, sowohl nach 1.axb7 oder 1.Dxb7 oder auch 1.Dg2 Lxg2+ 2.Txg2. Die Partie ist also in der Diagrammstellung beendet.

Im letzten Zug muss der schwarze Läufer nach b7 gezogen sein, entweder von a8 oder c8. Falls er auf b7 eine weiße Figur geschlagen hat, hatte Schwarz keine andere Zugmöglichkeit und die Partie war schon vorher beendet. Wieder eine “Tote-Stellung-Überlegung”. Ebenso, falls auf a6 ein schwarzer Bauer steht und der Läufer von c8 kam. Auch dann hatte Schwarz nur den Läuferzug nach b7.

Die einzige Konstellation, in der Schwarz bei seinem letzten Zug eine Wahl hatte, ist die mit dem schwarzen Läufer auf c8 und einem weißen Bauern auf a6. Nur dann hatte Schwarz eine Wahl zwischen Läufer schlägt Bauer a6 und dem Schachgebot auf b7. Nur dann war die Partie nicht bereits vor dem schwarzen Zug beendet (Buchanans Erläuterung hier).

Turnierpraxis

Im Unterschied zu den Komponisten kümmern sich die Spieler nur wenig um die Schachregeln. Turnierordnungen geht es da im Übrigen nicht besser. Schiedsrichter können ein Lied davon singen. Über Unsicherheiten bezüglich der Rochaderegeln sogar bei Großmeistern gibt es einige Anekdoten (siehe hier). Wobei die Gründe in diesen Fällen eher in Aufregung oder Anspannung als in Unkenntnis zu suchen sein dürften.

Im Falle der “toten Stellungen” fehlt es nicht allein an Regelkenntnis. Nach meinen Beobachtungen gibt es einen ausgesprochenen  Widerwillen gegen die Vorstellung, dass nach dem Wegnehmen der letzten eigenen Figur die Partie bendet ist, ohne dass man seinerseits noch den letzten Stein des Gegners vom Brett nehmen dürfte.

Nun aber endlich zur eingangs erwähnten Bundesligapartie Lauber – Landa (siehe Diagramm). Mit 95.-Tf3-f1+ stellte Landa seine Gewinnversuche ein und tauschte alles ab. Zwar war nun 96.Ta1xf1 erzwungen, aber die Partie deswegen noch nicht beendet, da Schwarz anschließend nicht auf f1 schlagen musste und sozusagen noch den Verlust wählen konnte. Nach 96.-gxf1L aber war die Partie sofort remis. Der weiße Zug 97.Kg1xf1 daher nur noch eine Zugabe nach Partieende.

Bemerkenswert ist, dass die Stellung nach 96.-gxf1L schon nach den Regeln von 1992/93 beendet war. Allerdings wäre dies nicht der Fall gewesen, hätte Landa mit 96.-gxf1D+ oder 96.-gxf1T+ in eine Schwerfigur umgewandelt. Danach wäre die Partie erst nach den Regeln von 1996/97 beendet gewesen. Dieser Unterschied ist insofern bedeutsam, als Weiß im Falle einer Zeitüberschreitung früher verloren hätte, später nicht (siehe hier und hier).

Kleine Regelfrage zwischendurch: Wie ist die Partie zu werten, wenn Schwarz während der Ausführung seines 96. Zuges die Zeit überschreitet? a) Schwarz schafft es noch, seinen Bauern nach f1 zu setzen und den weißen Turm vom Brett zu nehmen, schafft es aber nicht, eine neue Figur auf das Brett zu stellen. b) Schwarz schafft es nur noch, seinen Bauern g2 anzuheben, aber nicht mehr, den weißen Turm f1 vom Brett zu nehmen.

Im Fall b) liegt eindeutig eine Zeitüberschreitung vor. Im Fall a) scheint mir die Sache kniffliger zu sein. In Betracht kommen die Artikel 4.6 und 6.9 (siehe hier). Nur was wiegt schwerer: Dass der Zug nicht vollständig ausgeführt ist oder dass die Stellung bei jeder Umwandlung, also schon mit dem Bauern auf f1, remis und somit die Partie schon vor der Zeitüberschreitung beendet ist? Ich würde auf Remis entscheiden. Natürlich ohne Gewähr.

Schluss

Aus der Schlussstellung nach dem 97. Zug von Weiß in der Partie Lauber gegen Landa lässt sich übrigens leicht eine kleine Retro-Aufgabe formulieren (siehe Diagramm).

Angenommen, den letzten Zug hat Weiß gemacht. Auf welchem der drei Felder e1, e2, g1 kann der weiße König vorher nicht gestanden haben? – Mit wenigen “Tote-Stellung-Überlegungen” (”Dead Reckoning”) kommen Sie schnell zu einem eindeutigen Ergebnis. – Schon witzig, oder.

In der Praxis halten die Turnierspieler offensichtlich an einer alten “Gewohnheit” fest und spielen fröhlich nach Partieende weiter (hier ein extremes Beispiel aus Schweden). Die Schiedsrichter lassen die Spieler gewähren und schweigen dazu. Aber was würde eigentlich passieren, wenn ein Spieler wirklich einmal in Mattstellung weiterspielt und noch einen Zug macht und aufschreibt? Ein bisschen neugierig bin ich schon…

Mausefalle (Foto von Kriss Szkurlatowski)

Keine Angst! Hier wird keiner Maus ein Haar gekrümmt. Und es geht auch nicht um fiese Webseiten, die ihre Besucher mittels “Mousetrapping”  am Verlassen der Seite hindern, z. B. durch endlose Popups. Wer sich dafür interessiert (und sich traut), kann auf der Seite von Richard Stern, “Mousetrapping and Pagejacking” vorbeischauen.  Nein, hier geht es um ein wenig bekanntes taktisches Motiv, das ich “Mousetrapper-Motiv” nenne, weil ich es zum ersten Mal auf dem Schach-Blog “Mousetrapper’s Chess Log” gesehen habe.  Es hat mir so gut gefallen, dass ich es im Training beim SC Kreuzberg gezeigt habe. Was aber noch nicht das Ende der Geschichte ist.

Die Mousetrapper-Stellung

Doch der Reihe nach. Im Mai 2008 veröffentlichte Mousetrapper den Schluss einer Trainingspartie mit Deep Shredder 11 auf seinem Blog, siehe den Eintrag “Brilliant endgame tactics of Deep Shredder”. Das taktische Motiv ist nicht wirklich kompliziert, aber meines Erachtens selten und wenig bekannt. Ich finde es wunderbar und nenne es nach dem Blog “Mousetrapper-Motiv” und die thematische Stellung entsprechend eine “Mousetrapper-Stellung”.

Gefunden hatte ich das Beispiel Mitte Oktober. Und weil mir der überraschende Angriff über die siebte Reihe so gut gefiel, habe ich es am 17. Oktober im Schachclub Kreuzberg bei unserem gemeinsamen Jugendtraining Atila Gajo Figura gezeigt und am 22. Oktober auch noch in meinem Fortgeschrittenen-Training vorgeführt.  Soweit, so gut.

Die (Mause-)Falle schnappt zu

Groß war meine Überraschung, als Atila wenige Tage später, am 24. Oktober, das Motiv selbst anwenden konnte. Bei der 9. Deutschen Betriebsschach Mannschaftsmeisterschaft erreichte er als Nachziehender nach dem 25. Zug von Weiß die folgende Position. Die ganze Partie ist auf der Turnierwebsite online nachspielbar, siehe hier. In der Diagrammstellung hat Atila gerade Remis abgelehnt und strebt nun eine “Mousetrapper-Stellung” an: a) Turm-Bauer vorrücken, b) Turm auf die g-Linie und c) Dame nach e6.

Wie in den Kommentaren bereits angedeutet, hat Atila hier nicht nur einen taktischen Trick angewandt, sondern die “Mousetrapper-Stellung” planvoll angestrebt und dies technisch ausgezeichnet umgesetzt. So zeigt die Partie, dass in der scheinbar harmlosen Dame-plus-Turm-Stellung mit Bauern auf einem Flügel die weißen Schwächen doch noch einiges Spiel zulassen. Falls, wie in der Partie, dem Verteidiger das “Mousetrapper-Motiv” nicht bekannt ist, kann die Partie trotz ganz “normaler” Züge verloren gehen. Bei Kenntnis des Motivs sind die Probleme aber gut lösbar. Offene Fragen bleiben aber: Wie ist z. B. die Stellung mit einem schwarzen Bauern auf h3 einzuschätzen?

Nachzutragen bleibt noch, dass bei dem Turnier Matthias Möller, der 1. Vorsitzende des SC Kreuzberg, als Schiedsrichter wirkte. Er war auch beim Jugendtraining eine Woche vorher dabei. Außerdem gab es noch einen Zuschauer aus meinem Kreuzberg-Training, so dass bei der Partie live gleich mehrere Beobachter zugegen waren, die gespannt den Verlauf der Partie verfolgten – und nicht enttäuscht wurden. Gewissermaßen ein “Mousetrapper” mit Ansage. Ich selbst habe erst am nächsten Tag per E-Mail davon erfahren. Auch noch schön genug.

Ein “halber” Vorgänger

Sowohl Atila als auch ich machten uns auf die Suche nach Vorgängern, die es doch geben sollte. Tatsächlich fanden wir aber nur einen, Krasenkow – Cvitan, Pula 19997. Nach dem 43. Zug von Schwarz war in der Partie die folgende Stellung entstanden. Der schwarze Freibauer spielt kaum eine Rolle. Weiß greift mit Dame, Turm und h-Bauer den schwarzen König an.

Da am Ende der schwarze Turm mit Schach fällt, bleibt das eigentliche “Mousetrapper-Motiv” ein bisschen unter der Oberfläche. Insofern nur ein “halber” Vorläufer.

Es ist doch sehr erstaunlich, dass so ein ebenso elegantes wie einfaches taktisches Motiv kaum vorgekommen sein soll. Vielleicht findet ja der eine oder andere Leser mehr Beispiele. Ich würde mich über Hinweise jedenfalls freuen.

Nachtrag (26. November 2009)

Thomas Binder (SF Siemensstadt und Herder-Gymnasium in Berlin) hat das “Mousetrapper-Motiv” ebenfalls seinen vorzüglichen Trainingsmaterialien hinzugefügt und sehr schön kommentiert. Ein thematischer Index erleichtert im Übrigen das Zurechtfinden in der Fülle seiner Materialien.

Autor: luigiferri

Es un ejercicio en este caso y una realidad necesaria frente al tablero para cualquier posicion. No es muy dificil ver que Ce6 seria mate sino estuvieran el Ac4, el peon f7 y la propia T. Si uno no mira panoramicamente se da cuenta que la Db8 ...

Seconda parte

6) Tempi duri

What do all the green squares in the image below represent?

Seasoned Aquarium users will immediately recognize that this is a screen-shot of the Aquarium status bar (split into two lines) where each square represents one chess engine (Rybka in this case). What is unusual here is the huge number of chess engines: thirty-four instances of Rybka, all analyzing at the same time, running on a network of computers! It is an amazing experience to have so much analysis power at your fingertips.

It is becoming more common that players have access to more than one computer on their home network. With Aquarium 2010 it is possible to run chess analysis on a network of computers, either on a local network or over the Internet. The image above is taken from one such analysis session.

In the following, a “local engine” is used to describe an engine running on the same computer as Aquarium, but a “remote engine” runs on a different computer.

The Benefit of Analysis on Networked Computers

A single chess engine can only use the CPUs of the computer on which it is running. At least this applies to currently available chess engines. Using Aquarium as a central point for managing multiple chess engines running on a network of computers gives you additional computing power, which can be used in various ways to speed up and improve your analysis.

More computing power can be used to get faster results, which is important if you have limited time or if you simply want to use more time for other things. You can analyze deeper, or examine more positions and games in the same amount of time.

The additional computer(s) allow you to run more chess engines at the same time; e.g., to get a “second opinion” of a position. You can view the position from various angles by letting a few engines (Rybka, Shredder, etc.) analyze in single variation mode while others use multi-variation analysis and perhaps one engine analyzes the opponent’s threats at the same time. The new IDeA (Interactive Deep Analysis) version in Aquarium 2010 was also designed to take advantage of a network of computers for its analysis.

Practically anyone who has access to two or more computers can take advantage of chess analysis on networked computers with Aquarium 2010, even if the computers are in different countries!

In general, the players that will benefit most from the additional analysis power of networked computers are the more serious top-level players, correspondence players, opening analysts, etc.

Few users have access to the computing power required to run as many engines as shown above, but as soon as you have one additional computer hooked up to your Aquarium, new opportunities for analysis arise.

Even if you never use more than one chess engine at the same time for your analysis, you may still want to consider using a remote engine. It gives you more flexibility and allows you to use the engine from different computers. You can, for instance, run the engine on your most powerful computer and use it from Aquarium running on your laptop, whenever that suits you. With a little computer network knowledge you can even access it via the Internet.

The more advanced your analysis techniques are and the more computers you have, the more Aquarium’s networked engine approach has to offer. If you use IDeA, either alone or in combination with infinite analysis, the networked approach is a very attractive option.

Of course the basic requirement is that you actually have access to networked computers to take advantage of the analysis features that are the subject of this column. If you do have access to networked computers, the addition of remote engines never limits your existing analysis options, but adds new ones. Therefore, the only question is how much you will benefit from the addition of remote engines. The simpler your analysis methods are the less you will gain. As an example, a user who never uses analysis presets, always analyzes with a single engine, and doesn’t use IDeA will gain much less than someone who uses multiple engines, analysis presets, and IDeA.

If you own two computers, but they are not connected on a network, you can still use them both for analysis (although you can’t use remote engines), as you are allowed to install Aquarium on computers that you own. For some types of analysis, it is a question of working habits and whether you prefer the networked engine approach or separate instances of Aquarium running on different computers.

The Types of Analysis on Networked Computers

Remote engines can be used for any type of analysis in Aquarium:

• Infinite analysis. Any combination of local and networked engines can be used for infinite analysis. As you may remember from previous columns on Infinite Analysis with Rybka Aquarium, you can analyze simultaneously with many engines, even positions from different games. In Analysis Presets in Rybka Aquarium, I described how you can create a quickly accessible “analysis preset” that can be used for analyzing any position simultaneously with different engines and different analysis settings (normal infinite analysis, multi-variation analysis, threats, etc.). Both local and networked engines can be used in the same analysis preset.
• IDeA (Interactive Deep Analysis). The new IDeA version in Aquarium 2010 is designed with analysis on a network of computers in mind. To my knowledge, the largest number of engines that has been used simultaneously for analysis in IDeA is forty-four.
• Game Analysis and Find Blunders. The analysis engine used here can either be a local engine or a remote engine. Note that you can’t analyze multiple games simultaneously using these analysis methods, although you can automatically analyze a list of games sequentially.

Remote engines can also be used in matches and tournaments, except for Randomizer matches.

How to Use a Remote Engine in Aquarium

I assume that you have already installed Aquarium 2010. We will call the computer where Aquarium is running the “master computer.” Now you want to set up a remote engine on another computer (a “slave computer”) and then use it from Aquarium. The following steps are required:

1. Install the engine and engine server software on the slave computer.
2. Configure the engine server on the slave computer.
3. Install the remote engine in Aquarium on the master computer.

These three steps are described below. After you have completed them, you can use the remote engine for analysis in Aquarium.

Installing a Remote Engine Server

Besides the engine itself, you need to install the RTHomeServer (which is available as a free download) on the slave computer. For simplicity, I will install both components into the same directory.

1a) Create a directory and copy the engine you want to use into the new directory.

1b) Download the RTHomeServer and save the downloaded file into the new directory.

1c) Extract RTHomeServer.rar (with WinRar or WinZip). After that you should see several files in the new directory, including RTSingleServer.exe, which is the remote engine server.

Now, all the required software is available and the next step is to configure the remote engine server.

Configuring the Remote Engine Server

One of the files contained in the new directory is RTSingleServer.ini, which contains the engine server configuration. At this stage, the goal is to get the server up and running, so I will only change the essential parameters.

2a) Open RTSingleServer.ini with a text editor, such as Notepad.

2b) Note the second line in the file: port=7788. The port number specified here (7788) is needed later on for the remote engine setup within Aquarium as described below.

2c) The third line in the file is engine=rybka.exe. Change rybka.exe to the name of the engine you are going to use (the one you copied to the new directory in step 1a above). An example is engine=Rybka 3 1-cpu w32.exe. Here I use the single-core version of Rybka 3 32-bit. Save the changes you have made and exit Notepad.

Finally, you need to find the IP address of the computer running the engine server. If you don’t know what an IP address is or how to find it, see the next two sections. You need the IP address when setting up the remote engine in Aquarium.

The IP Address

Every computer on a network has a unique identifying number, called an IP address. A typical IP address on your local network might look like this:

192.168.1.127

IP addresses are normally expressed as a “dotted decimal number” like the one above.

If a program needs to communicate with another computer on a network, it must to know its IP address. As an example, when Aquarium wants to use a remote engine it needs to know the IP address of the slave computer where the engine server is running.

Finding the IP Address of the Slave Computer

The following describes how you can find the IP address of a computer running Windows 7, Vista, XP, or 2000.

1. Click Start and then select All Programs (Windows 7, Vista, and XP) or Programs (2000).
2. Click Accessories and then Command Prompt.
3. At the command prompt, enter: ipconfig

The output from the command will display the IP address (or IPv4 address if you are using Windows 7 or Vista). The example shown in the image below comes from Windows XP. The IP address is highlighted.

Adding a Remote Engine to Aquarium 2010

At this point you should have completed the configuration of the remote engine server and have the following information handy:

1. The IP address of the remote engine server
2. The port number specified in the server’s configuration file

Start Aquarium on the master computer and switch to Engines view by clicking the Engines button in the sidebar. Click the Add button to install the remote engine. The “New engine properties” dialog box will be brought up.

Here you must set Type to “Remote UCI” and give the engine a name (I have selected “Remote Rybka 1″ in this example). Next, click the Setup button in the lower left corner.

Server is the IP address of the slave computer where the remote engine server runs.

Port is the port number that is specified in the configuration file of the remote engine server.

User is not used in the current version of the remote engine server. Set it to anything you like. “MyUsername” is used in the example shown in the image.

Pass is your password, but it’s not used in the current version of the remote engine server. Set it to anything you like. “MyPassword” is used in this example.

Reconnect can be left as it is.

After specifying the parameters, click OK, and then OK again, and the remote engine has been configured within Aquarium.

Determining if the Remote Engine was Successfully Installed

Go to the computer where you installed the remote engine server (the slave computer) and start it by double-clicking the RTSingleServer application. The small window shown below should be opened.

The engine server is ready for use. Now you can go to the master computer where you run Aquarium 2010. Start Aquarium and switch to the Sandbox. Select the Analysis tab on the ribbon and click Start Custom.

Here you will see the newly installed remote engine (”Remote Rybka 1″ in this example) listed among other installed engines. After selecting the engine, click OK and if everything works as expected, the remote engine will start analyzing the current position.

Look at the computer where the engine server is running to see if a connection is established and the username you selected when installing the engine in Aquarium is listed in the “Users” list.

Running Multiple Remote Engines on the Same Computer

If your slave computer has more than one core, you can use it to run multiple remote engines simultaneously. It is quite common, for instance, that IDeA users analyze with multiple single-core Rybkas on the same computer. When running the engines, you must of course make sure that they don’t use more cores than the computer has.

Each additional remote engine requires its own engine server software and must be installed into a separate directory. Otherwise, the process for installation and configuration is the same as described above, except that each server must use a unique port number. When we installed the engine server above, we left the port number unchanged in the configuration file (7788). For the next engine server on the same computer, you could use port number 7789, 7790 for the third one, etc. You also need to use these port numbers when you install each remote engine in Aquarium. If all the engine servers are running on the same slave computer, the IP address would be the same, of course.

Let’s say that you want to install four single-core Rybkas on a quad computer. You would start by creating four directories and copy the engine and the engine server software into all of them. After that you would edit the configuration file in each directory and change the engine and the port number as explained above. Finally, you would go to the master computer, start Aquarium, and install the four remote engines. They would all use the same IP address (since they are located on the same computer), but different port numbers.

Using Remote Engines on Two Different Computers

There is no hard limit on the number of slave computers that Aquarium can control. Simply install the engine and engine server on each slave computer as explained above. Note that it is OK to use the same port numbers on different computers. If you have two dual core computers and wish to run two single-core engines on both of them, you can use port numbers 7788 and 7789 on both computers.

It is best to test each remote engine in Aquarium after it has been installed, so you discover any problems as early as possible.

Connecting to Remote Engines Across the Internet

You can run engines on the master computer where Aquarium is running, computers on your local area network, and computers connected over the Internet all at the same time. It doesn’t matter where in the world the slave computers are located as long as you can connect to them.

Changing the Hash Size of a Remote Engine

By default, the hash size of remote engines is 32MB, regardless of your settings in Aquarium. You can either edit the configuration file and set the hash size to a different value or modify it so that the value specified in Aquarium overrides the default value in the engine server.

Open the configuration file (RTSingleServer.ini) with Notepad and look for the following lines:

[engine]
Hash=32

Here you can change the default hash size to a different value. Just remember, that the more remote engines you are going to run on a computer the lower the value must be.

The reason why the server doesn’t allow you to change the hash size from Aquarium can be found in the [client] section of the configuration file:

[client]
Hash=
Max CPUs=

By default, the options listed in the [client] section can’t be changed from Aquarium. If you remove the first line in the section (Hash=), the hash size specified in Aquarium will be used for the remote engine.

Also note that by default Max CPUs cannot be changed from Aquarium unless you also remove the third line shown above, “Max CPUs=.”

Advanced users should be able to understand most of the options in the configuration file by reading the comments and by having a look at the read-me file.

Conclusion

Analysis on networked computers gives you more flexibility and additional analysis power. In this column I have explained how to install and configure remote engines. After that you can use them just like any other engine in Aquarium. When used for infinite analysis, remote engines are a perfect match for Aquarium’s analysis presets, which have good support for multi-engine analysis. Remote engines are also ideal for IDeA analysis as many Aquarium 2010 users have already discovered.

?Prima parte

Questo è un racconto davvero singolare. Il commissario Marco Tanzini di Siena ha novant?anni con un ?piede e tre quarti nella tomba?. Prima di tirare il calzino vuole raccontare una storia di casi raccapriccianti che gli sono capitati nella sua lunga carriera di piedipiatti. Una serie di morti assassinati nella sua città e dintorni che non sembrano collegati da nessun filo logico. Hanno, però, due aspetti in comune: tutti in qualche modo se ne sono volati via dalla terra per colpa di qualche pianta velenosa dal nome piuttosto eccentrico ed hanno stretti in una mano, sinistra e destra alternate, alcuni pezzi degli scacchi: un pedone nero, uno bianco, un Cavallo, un Alfiere e così via. Un mistero che verrà scoperto con una di quelle felici intuizioni che capitano ogni tanto nella vita. Il vecchietto, tuttavia, non si limita solo a raccontare (con un certo sforzo e lacune temporali) la sua storia, ma svela anche qualche aspetto peculiare della nostra società e della vita di tutti i giorni. Un lungo racconto ironico, spero divertente, che non manca di prendere in giro anche la realtà politica ed i suoi principali rappresentanti.
P.S. Ho scritto questo ?particolare? gialletto molto tempo fa per cui la situazione politica oggi è cambiata.

Chess players, perhaps insisting on their world-wide status as ’smart people’, have always seemed to me more formalistic and pedantic than your average customer at the grocery’s. But sometimes being ‘wrong’ is much more fun.

How do you spell ‘Korchnoi’? The questions rears its ugly head from time to time on chess forums and blogs. At first, it seems a very straightforward matter: you just transcribe the letters from the cyrillic alphabet into latin letters and there you are. But of course the problems only start there, because the Russian sounds are written down differently in different languages. For instance, the ‘ch’ in Korchnoi is written ‘tsch’ in German and ‘tch’ in French. In English, it’s either ‘tch’ or ‘ch’ (depending on, if nothing else, taste) and in Dutch, it’s ‘tsj’. And this is just the ‘ch’ sound: similiar discussions can be held about the final ‘i’.

On top of that, Korchnoi hasn’t been a Russian citizen for quite some time now, so there’s actually no need to spell his name with cyrillic letters at all anymore. Perhaps we should always spell it the ‘Swiss’ way? But Switzerland itself has many official languages, so which one should we choose? Or should we write it the way Korchnoi himself prefers to do it? These are all tricky questions, but with the rise of internet, the English version seems to have gained preference in most cases where the cyrillic alphabet is involved.

Even so, problems remain. Even if we could agree on how to spell foreign names, we’re often unsure how to pronounce them. Korchnoi, again, is an interesting case in point. A Russian would probably pronounce his name as sounding, to us, something like ‘Kahrchnoi’, with the emphasis on the last syllabe and the kah in the first pronounced a bit like the English word ‘car’. The ‘o’ in Korchnoi’s name, not being pronounced with emphasis in Russian, sounds much more like what Western-Europeans would call ‘a’. (This in turn raises the question why we don’t write ‘Karchnoi’, too. The answer is, I’m afraid, quite unfair: convention.). Thus, a true formalist should probably insist on pronouncing ‘Kahrchnoi’. The reason, I suppose, for why almost nobody does this (except, of course, Russians) is that it sounds so obviously pedantic. And, of course, even if people could approximate the Russian sounds with any certainty, the fact would still remain that most Russians would immediately hear, from their intonation and other clues, that the speaker is in fact not Russian at all.

Sure enough, problems occur in the other direction as well. A famous example is that Russians don’t know how to pronounce nor spell the name of the Dutch World Champion ‘Euwe’. Usually, having no good way to represent the typically Dutch diphtong sound ‘eu’ in their own system, they write it like ‘Eyve’ – and I can’t even begin to imagine how that sounds. Nor should it matter. It’s impossible to do it right, so why bother? (Of course, there are several scientific methods of dealing with spelling and phonetics, but it’s unlikely this will catch on with the general public.)

Still, as said, with chess players you never know. The most recent issue in what Language Log linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum has called prescriptivist poppycock, is the question of how to pronounce ‘Wijk aan Zee’, the name of the Dutch village where the current Corus chess tournament is being held. Over on ChessBase, they’ve already written quite a bit about it. Is ‘wijk’ pronounced like the English ‘wake’ or ‘wike’ (like bike)? Well, as any Dutch native speaker will tell you: neither!

(Their explanation that ‘wijk’ is derived from the Dutch word for ‘area’, by the way, is incorrect as well. There is indeed a word ‘wijk’ meaning ‘area’, but ‘wijk’ in ‘Wijk aan Zee’ – and, for that matter, several other coastal towns such as Beverwijk – is derived from another word: the old Dutch word ‘wîk’, meaning a name for water or a bend in a river or coastline. Dutch speakers will recognize the root of the verb ‘wijken’, ‘de wijk nemen’.)

Both wake and wike, then, are at best approximations (and rather poor ones at that), for the fact is that the English sound system just doesn’t have a good way of interpreting the Dutch sound for ‘ij’, exactly like the Russians don’t have a way of interpreting ‘eu’ in Euwe. Any attempt to do so will inevitably lead to problems. Wijk is wijk and English speakers will just have to deal with it – or learn Dutch the hard way. In fact, I always find it rather sympathetic when foreigners don’t always know how to pronounce words: I think it’s cute when people pronounce foreign words in their own way – I once met a girl from Granada, Spain, who had such an irresistible way of pronouncing words in English that I couldn’t help falling in love with her. I loved how she was ‘ wrong’ all the time!

I think people who don’t bother with trifles such as spelling and pronounciation are much nicer than those who strain themselves beyond end just to make an impression and please native speakers. (Offering me a coffee works much better to please me!) I guess chess players don’t like to be cute. They’d rather be smart.

Comenzamos la primera de las tres entregas de ejercicios tácticos de "Doble de Caballo"

Un adiós al Gran Francisco Benko (24-06-1910/12-01-2010)

Autor: luigiferri

Como millones de inmigrantes que llegaron a la Argentina entre mediados del Siglo XIX y mediados del XX, en 1936 arribó al país Franz Benkö, desde Alemania.

A una tierra en crecimiento y que sería el Granero del Mundo, en busca de la Esperanza. Escapando de múltiples dolores, hambre, Guerras Mundiales, Guerras Civiles, persecuciones políticas y religiosas. Y Argentina los acogió en un crisol de razas. Sin xenofobias, sin persecuciones, sin exclusiones, sin expulsiones ni deportaciones. Claro que siempre hay miserables, pero la mayoría los asimiló e integró como a uno más. Aún la Argentina fue generosa enviando alimentos a pueblos devastados por la Guerra Civil o la Guerra Mundial.

Francisco (Franz) Benkö nació en Berlín el 24 de junio de 1910^[1]. De padre húngaro y madre austríaca.

“Cuando empezó la Primera Guerra Mundial yo tenía sólo cuatro años. Mi padre había fallecido cuando yo tenía un año y medio, y mi madre murió cuando había cumplido 16 años. Sufrí hambre y frío; la falta de calcio me provocaba serios problemas en las uñas y los dientes, que se rompían fácilmente. Antes que estallara la Segunda Guerra Mundial, en 1936 decidí emigrar, teniendo en consideración la difícil situación en que se encontraban los judíos en Alemania en ese momento. Ya en Berlín jugaba al ajedrez en primera categoría. (…)” Entrevista de Juan S. Morgado, 1984, Ajedrez de Estilo / ChessBase.

"Un día estaba tan desesperado que no aguanté más, entré al aula del colegio y me bebí un frasco de tinta" dijo al periodista del Diario La Nación alguna vez (La Nación, enero 12 de 2010)

Esta historia es común a muchos de nuestros antepasados; bisabuelos, abuelos y padres que nos contaron cosas muy parecidas.

En aquella Alemania nazi, donde el régimen de Hitler perseguía a los judíos, sin un peso en el bolsillo, se embarcó con su hermana hacia Buenos Aires.^[2]

Como tantos inmigrantes hizo todo lo posible para rescatar gente que había quedado en Alemania y así consiguió traer a 9 familias en el último barco que zarpó antes del estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Simplemente les salvó la vida.

Por sobre todas las cosas un amante de la vida. No sólo fue buen jugador de ajedrez (aparte de gran coleccionista y compositor de problemas), sino que amaba la música clásica y aún hizo una profunda investigación sobre si Shakespeare era o no el testaferro de Roger Manners.^[3]

Otra historia pintoresca es la “historia del abanico”, también referida en el reportaje de Morgado: “Cuando mi madre tenía 17 años le regalaron un abanico. A través del tiempo fueron firmándolo diversas personalidades. Mi mamá era una apasionada de la música y consiguió la firma de Johann Strauss, quien personalmente dibujó un pentagrama con las primeras notas del vals Voces de Primavera, como homenaje a mi madre. Otra de las firmas es de Katharina Schratt, que fuera la amante del Emperador Francisco José por muchos años. Yo seguí la tradición, y al reverso de las firmas de músicos, empecé a coleccionar las de grandes ajedrecistas: Alekhine, Capablanca, Kasparov, Karpov, Tal, Petrosian, Judit Polgar, Smyslov, Vera Menchik, Tartakower, y también de músicos como Friedrich Gulda.”

Ha sido testigo y partícipe de gran parte de la historia del ajedrez argentino, así que podría haber escrito libros y libros. No importa si era, con 99 años el ajedrecista activo más viejo del planeta y con 98 años y 2044 de ELO, jugaba el fuerte ProAm de Villa Martelli o unos meses antes el tradicional Abierto de Mar del Plata. No se trata de records ni tampoco de hacer un prolijo inventario de su historial ajedrecístico.

Como él decía, refiriéndose a su longevidad ajedrecística: “Creo que he batido un record mundial: ¡debo ser el ajedrecista que perdió más partidas!”

En 1928 y 1929 entabló dos partidas con Alekhine en sesión de simultáneas. Dijo, rememorando el Torneo de las Naciones de 1939^[4]: “Concurrí todos los días. Hablé varias veces con Alekhine, que se mostró muy amable. Nunca encontré en él el más mínimo vestigio antisemita. No creo que los artículos que se le atribuyen sean de él. Alekhine era demasiado inteligente para ser antisemita.”^[5]

Jugó 17 veces el Campeonato Argentino de ajedrez. En 1949 jugó por primera vez el tradicional Torneo de Mar del Plata y desde entonces fue un asiduo participante, siendo su última participación en 2008 (con 97 años!). En esa oportunidad, consultado respecto del por qué de su participación, declaró: "Lo hago en agradecimiento al ajedrez en mi larga vida, y como propaganda para todo el mundo del excelente beneficio de su práctica como antídoto contra el mal de Alzheimer".^[6]

Así relataba su encuentro en el Club Argentino de Ajedrez con Bobby Fischer: "(había) muy poca gente. Pero en eso apareció nada menos que Robert 'Bobby' Fischer. Como no había adversarios más calificados a la vista me invitó a jugar blitz. Y en la primera, sorpresivamente, lo vencí. Claro que después se puso serio y me ganó tres seguidas".^[7]

Lo había visto en el Abierto Internacional de Morón de 1981 y recuerdo que le ganó a un fuerte jugador de primera categoría de mi club.^[8]

Lo volví a ver en el 2002, en el 8vo CONGRESO NACIONAL DE PROFESORES DE AJEDREZ Y 1ero. INTERNACIONAL, donde conjuntamente con los GM’s Panno y Rossetto y el MI Foguelman, contaron parte de su historia que es gran parte de la del Ajedrez Argentino. Un juvenil Benkö (92 años entonces), refirió muchas de las cosas que acá se cuentan. Vienen a mi memoria dos comentarios que se hicieron:

“-Al viejo Benkö hubo que convencerlo que no venga manejando.-“ (impresionante).

Un importante profesor, que utiliza cuentos para acompañar problemas o ejercicios tácticos y facilitar el aprendizaje de los niños, comentaba que tenía una buena historia, pero que no le satisfacía el ejemplo ajedrecístico que había utilizado. Otro profesor le dijo: -No te preocupes, cuando venga el viejo Benkö mostraselo y el encontrará en su impresionante colección de problemas el indicado. (lo que da idea de por qué se decía que tenía la más importante recopilación de problemas de ajedrez y su amor por ellos).

Allí hizo referencia a otra peculiar historia, cómo conoció a su segunda esposa: “(Torneo de las Naciones 1939) Concurrí todos los días. (…) Simultáneamente se jugaba el Campeonato Mundial Femenino, que fue ganado por Vera Menchik. En una de las rondas me paré junto a mi esposa para ver la partida que jugaba María Angélica Berea, más tarde coronada como la primera Maestra Internacional argentina, y le comenté: ¨Mirá qué linda mujer¨. María Angélica se casó luego con el Sr. Montero, y se fue a vivir al interior. Veinticinco años después me casaba con ella, yo viudo, ella divorciada.”^[9]

Para que conozcan un poco su juego, acompaño las dos partidas con Alekhine, las que le ganó a Arturo Pomar y a Edward Lasker en 1949, una partida que le ganó a el MI Jorge Szmetan en 1993 en el Abierto Najdorf, un empate en el Continental de 2005^[10] contra el conocido jugador colombiano Juan Minaya (varias veces representante olímpico de su país) y su victoria frente al fuerte jugador Avalos Parra en el Pro-Am de Villa Martelli de 2008 (con 98 años!!!!).

Muchas veces dijo: "Este juego me salvó la vida.” Seguramente es la pura verdad en su acepción literal y en muchos otros sentidos.

Querido viejo Benkö, que me traes recuerdos de mi padre (n.1906), de mi tío (n.1909), del bisabuelo de mis hijos (n.1912) -también Franz, como vos- y de tanta gente que me enriqueció con sus historias y enseñanzas de vida; mereces un lugar en la historia, no sólo del ajedrez.

Sólo intento acercarte al conocimiento y corazón de todos los que leen esta humilde nota, que habla de una historia de vida y mucho más.

Ahora uno de tus tantos problemas, el que le costase resolver al Gran Misha Tal. Veremos si lo resuelven los lectores. Un simple Mate en 3 jugadas.