From Thursday till Sunday five young, Dutch chess talents each played a 4-game match against an experienced grandmaster of their choice. On ‘top board’, Anish Giri and Nigel Short both won one game, and drew twice. Pictorial report and a video with interviews with all the players.

The Euwe matches took place May 13-16 at the same building, but a few floors above where the Max Euwe Center is located, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Five young, Dutch chess talents were given the opportunity to play four games against one opponent of grandmaster level, whom they could chose themselves. The matches and scores were:

Video report (click image to play)

Click To Play

Game viewer

Game viewer by ChessTempo

The playing hall, three floors above the Max Euwe Center in Amsterdam, with...

...Nigel Short versus...

...Anish Giri

Lubomir Ftacnik versus...

...Robin van Kampen

Yasser Seirawan versus...

...Benjamin Bok

Sebastian Siebrecht versus...

...Lisa Schut

Dennis de Vreugt versus...

...Anne Haast

Commentary was done in the Max Euwe Center itself...

...on Saturday by Genna Sosonko...

...who was joined by Nigel Short, who suggested to show his victory against Giri, and naturally Sosonko agreed. Short: 'He is incredibly optimistic, Anish.' Sosonko: 'Well, I saw you when you were 15...'

Two experienced GMs pointing out the Veresov opening

Short clearly satisfied...

...with a victory of just 23 moves

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Today I played the real Roger Federer in a 5 minute game.  How do I know?  Because his name was RogerFederer and also because of the way the game went!

Aries2 vs Roger Federer  ICC 5 Minute Game  5/1/10

Sicilian Sveshnikov

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Nd5 Nxd5
8. exd5 Nb8 9. c4 Be7 10. Be2 O-O 11. O-O f5 12. c5 a6 13. cxd6 Bxd6 14.
Nxd6 Qxd6 15. Qc2 Nd7 16. Rd1 Nf6 17. Be3 Rd8 18. Rac1 f4 19. Bc5 Qd7 20.
Bb6 Re8 21. d6 e4 22. Qb3+ Qe6 23. Bc4 {Black resigns} 1-0

The defeated foe

Tennis analysis:

I smashed his return into the deep right corner; (12. c5!);  he ran after it and tried a feeble lob (18…f4) which I then smashed cross-court (21. d6) leaving him flailing.

And Over At Chess.Com

A historical brouhaha has broke out.  GM Serper wrote an instructional article on the Veresov (1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Bg5) and up pops “Prestwich” (ostensibly from Spain, or he likes Spanish flags) who writes:

“[...] To call the opening 1 d4 d5 2 Nc3 Nf6 3 Bg5 the Veresov is unhistorical and forms part of the legacy of Soviet intellectual imperialism. Although played earlier, this opening owes its development as part of modern chess to the “Hypermodern” players Breyer, Reti and Tartakower. The latter, a super-GM of his time, in particular deserves to have his name associated with this opening: Megabase has 19 games of his with it, the earliest played in 1922 (when Veresov – born 1912 – was probably still in short trousers) and the last in 1951. Many other strong players have a better (or equal but prior) claim than Veresov to have their name associated with this opening, notably the German IM Kurt Richter (a brilliant attacking player) who popularised the opening in the 1930s; books from that era usually called this Richter’s Opening. Megabase contains 21 of his games with it, the first in 1928. To compare, Veresov has 23 games with it in Megabase, the first in 1938. A further injustice was done to Richter by the Soviets, who named the popular Sicilian line 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 d6 6 Bg5 after their player Rauser, yet much of the early development and testing was done by Richter.”

I don’t know how much of this is correct, but I think it’s easy to dispute the notion that Tartakower was a “super GM of his day”.  I think Tartakower was more of a coffee house player, extremely vulnerable in tournaments, who lost many one-sided games.  And is “unhistorical” a word?  I’ve heard of “Maoist Revisionism”, but this?

Enjoying a small Christmas holiday on December 24, 25 and 26, these days instead of news, reviews or columns the ChessVibes team offers a quiz: the Big ChessVibes Christmas ‘09 Quiz! And yes, you can win prizes!

Recently, the editor of the New in Chess Yearbook Series, René Olthof, turned 50. For his birthday he organized a trivia quiz, and came up with 64 questions about chess. Many of them were quite interesting and almost all of them quite difficult! He agreed to share the questions with the ChessVibes audience and so now you also get a chance to answer a selection of them. Leaving out the ones that are going into too much detail about the Dutch chess scene, we’ve selected 30 questions for you to answer.

Today we present the first set of ten questions. Tomorrow ten more will follow, and the day after the last ten. Send your answers before Sunday, December 27th, 23:59 CET to christmas09@chessvibes.com and who knows, you might end up winning one of the following prizes*:

Prizes

First prize: 1-year subscription New in Chess Yearbook	Second prize: 1-year subscription New in Chess Magazine	Third prize: 1-year subscription Internet Chess Club (ICC)

*Participants of the Olthof 50 Quiz are not eligible for prizes.

Big ChessVibes Christmas Trivia Quiz – Part I

1. In this quiz we call Wilhelm Steinitz the first World Champion, and Viswanathan Anand the sixteenth. We don’t count the FIDE World Champions Khalifman, Ponomariov and Kasimdzhanov.
1A Which number has Garry Kasparov?
1B How many World Champions are still alive?
1C True or not true: every deceased World Champion won the last game he played?

2. Of all chess players, Paul Keres beat the most World Champions. How many did he beat?

3. Where were they born?

4. This questions is about five important chess cities: Dortmund, Hastings, Linares, Reggio Emilia and Beverwijk/Wijk aan Zee.
4A The five winners of the first editions of these tournaments are mentioned, but which winner belongs to which tournament? Philip Bakker, Jaan Eslon, Otto Marthaler, Fritz Sämisch, Frederick Yates.
4B Hastings is traditionally held in the winter, but in 1895, 1919, 1922 and 1995 there was a summer edition. Name three of the four winners.

True or not true?
4C Boris Spassky won in Dortmund at least once
4D Boris Spassky won in Hastings at least once
4E Boris Spassky won in Linares at least once
4F Boris Spassky won in Reggio Emilia at least once
4G Boris Spassky won in Beverwijk/Wijk aan Zee at least once

5. Vladimir Kramnik played a total of eight matches in different World Championship cycles.
5A Name his opponents.
5B If we count only the classical games (not rapid or blitz), what would be his score? (How many matches did he win, if only classical games would count, how many did he lose and how many ended in a tie?)

6. Of which Chess Olympiads are the following logos?

6A	6B
6C	6D
6E	6F
6G	6H

7. A question about the FIDE rating list, invented by Hungarian Professor Arpad Elo.
7A Six players have occupied the number one spot. Name them all.
7B Which five players have had, at least once, a published rating of over 2800?
7C Which two Dutch grandmasters were ever in the top 10?

8. What do the following artists have in common?

9A Two of the sixteen World Champions never played at an Olympiad. Name them.
9B Reigning World Champions have lost only 9 games out of a total of 23 games ever played by a reigning World Champion at an Olympiad. Four World Champions lost two – name all four.

.
10A Openings and variations are often named after countries, cities or other geographical terms. One of the following, however, isn’t. Which? Bled, Cheliabinsk, Donau, Kecskemet, Kemeri, Saragossa, Siesta, Steenwijk, Wilkes-Barre.
10B Another favourite source for nomenclature are the names of chess players. Which of the following names is not a chess player? Bogoljubow, Petroff, Kalashnikov, Makogonov, Panov, Smyslov, Sveshnikov, Taimanov, Urusoff, Veresov.
10C Some names are not well known. Which of the following variations or systems is not named after a chess player? Brentano, Canal, Cordel, Cozio, Damiano, Dilworth, Döry, Knorre, Muzio, Pin.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow ten more questions! Feel free to discuss the quiz in the comments, but needless to say, no answers please!

• White develops quickly and avoids any weakening pawn moves.
• It has a certain surprise value and is somewhat underestimated by theory.
• Play is often sharp with opposite castling.
  
• The move-orders 1...Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 and 1...d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 are equally valid - making it an almost universal system.

• Thanks to ChessBase all my opponents started spending their evening before the game preparing for the Veresov and most of the surprise value was lost.

• I started facing theoretical problems in several lines simultaneously and had no time to do the necessary repair between tournaments.

• There were no top players employing the opening regularly, so the supply of high-level ideas were too small.
• The good literature on the opening started to date and the new works were of low quality.

 4° T: Caruana batte anche Brunello

Il quarto turno del CIA 2008 registra meno emozioni rispetto a ieri, ma fondamentali per la classifica. Caruana riprende, inesorabile, la sua marcia battendo Brunello, uno dei pochi che poteva sperare di contrastarlo. Ma ecco Rombaldoni, che batte Contin e rimane a mezzo punto dal capolista, mantenedo viva la lotta per il primato.

Piscopo - Genocchio 1/2 E' una inusuale difesa Nimzovitch, nella quale entrambi cercano di sorprendere l'avversario. Genocchio arrocca lungo e gioca aggressivamente, aprendo le colonne sul Re avversario. Ma Piscopo riesce ad organizzare un efficace controgioco sul Cc6 avversario. A quel punto Genocchio, che ha già sacrificato due pedoni, si rifugia in uno scacco perpetuo che chiude la contesa.

Bruno - Garcia Palermo 1/2 Una partita di Donna nella quale, dopo una breve schermaglia posizionale, ci sono diversi cambi di pezzi che inaridiscono rapidamente il gioco, ragione per la quale viene concordata la patta. 

Caruana - Brunello 1-0 In una Ovest-indiana, Brunello accetta di giocare con i pedoni "sospesi" c-d pur di prendere l'iniziativa. Poi, di conseguenza, decide di sacrificare la qualità, ottenendo in cambio un bel pedone passato. Ma la posizione è molto delicata, Caruana non sbaglia nulla ed è sufficiente un'imprecisione del nero (probabilmente teneva 29..Cxd3!?) per far pendere la bilancia dalla parte del bianco. Brunello tenta di resistere, ma Caruana è implacabile. 

Rombaldoni - Contin 1-0 Rapida vittoria di Rombaldoni, che imposta un tranquillo "Colle" contro il quale Contin pareggia rapidamente il gioco. Ma inspiegabilmente Contin decide di sacrificare un pezzo per tre pedoni, senza avere alcuna attività pedonale o contro il Re avversario, rimanendo con il proprio al centro. Rombaldoni ringrazia e con poche, efficaci manovre costringe l'avversario all'abbandono dopo sole 23 mosse.

Shytaj - Valsecchi 1/2 Shytaj cerca di sorprendere il giovane avversario impostando una partita Veresov, ma Valsecchi dimostra di non avere timori riverenziali, prende la coppia degli Alfieri e organizza una difesa attiva. Shytaj riesce ad incunearsi nella difesa avversaria sfruttando la debolezza delle case chiare, ma Valsecchi non se ne preoccupa minimamente e pareggia la partita con uno scacco perpetuo.

Godena - Dvirnyy 1/2  Dvirnyy gioca una difesa Caro-Kann, cede la coppia degli Alfieri ma organizza un ottimo blocco di Cavalli e pedoni. Godena prova ad aprire il gioco ma Dvirnyy  ne frena efficacemente le velleità, costringendolo a cambiare i pezzi pesanti e, di conseguenza, a siglare la patta.

Denis Rombaldoni, unico inseguitore che mantiene la scia di Caruana (Foto di Gigi Troso)

Classifica dopo il quarto turno:

Caruana 3,5
Rombaldoni 3
Shytaj 2,5
Brunello, Godena, Piscopo, Dvirnyy, Bruno e Valsecchi 2
Genocchio 1,5
Garcia Palermo 1
Contin 0,5

Domani alle 15 quinto turno:

Garcia Palermo - Piscopo
Dvirnyy - Bruno 
Brunello - Godena
Contin - Caruana
Valsecchi - Rombaldoni
Genocchio - Shytaj