The Chess Mind

Sitting alone, all by itself at the end of this week's issue of TWIC, was a corrected version of a game Epishin (2607) - Schoeneberg (2269) from the Porzellancup rapid about three weeks ago. The game began 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Rg1 (hmm, wonder what he's up to) 3...c5 4.c3 d5 5.g4. While this idea isn't losing for White, Black is probably a little better by this point. Further, White's Rg1 + g4 creates all kinds of possible long-term problems, and when Epishin slipped later his opponent crushed him. Epishin may be a very strong and experienced GM, but when you play junk even the white pieces, 300+ rating points and your opponent's age (Schoeneberg is 63 or 64) may not save you.

Here's the full game.

Right here.

That's the title of an article by Debra Littlejohn Shinder, a computer professional who happens to be the mother of Hikaru Nakamura's second, Kris Littlejohn. It's an interesting read (one factoid that caught my eye was Nakamura memorizing 500-1000 moves of opening prep before each game, which is a lot, although I suspect he already knew at least a fair amount of it), but I do have two quibbles/additions/clarifications.

First, the author mentions that ChessBase 10 runs 349 euros/almost $500 and that ChessBase Lite is free. Both statements are true, but the best deal by far is to download ChessBase 2009 and buy the activation key. Then, for well under $100, you have ChessBase 10, albeit without a database. As there are ways to buy databases for far, far, far less than $400, you still come out way ahead.

Second, she writes that once Nakamura knows the "colors" in the tournament, his second gets busy doing specific prep for the opponents, looking for novelties, etc. I suspect this is a slight misunderstanding on her part, as this information is only known the day before play starts, when the players draw for lots to receive their pairing numbers. Considering how far in advance she reports on their accumulating data on forthcoming opponents, I doubt they'd wait until the night before the first game to start looking for novelties.

Quibbles aside, it's a good read, and you'll get to see what hardware they use in their prep, too.

HT: Nate Criss

This has little to nothing to do with chess, but who cares?

Indy 35-31.

And those four are the talented youngster Le Quang Liem; his coach, the former Candidate Evgeny Bareev; Konstantin Cherynshov and Ernesto Inarkiev. All scored 7/9. (Tournament site here.)

Update on Monday, February 8, 2010 at 10:29AM by Dennis Monokroussos

On tie-breaks, Chernyshov was first, followed by Bareev, Le Quang Liem and Inarkiev.

Seven players finished the Gibtelecom tournament in Gibraltar with 7.5/10, but only the top four by TPR (tournament performance rating) went on to the playoff to determine the official victor. In one semi-final Michael Adams squeaked past Jan Gustafsson, while Paco Vallejo Pons beat Sandipan Chanda in the other. In the final, Adams beat Vallejo and won the title. (Official site here.)

Meanwhile in Moscow, Krishnan Sasikiran is in clear first with 6 out of 7, half a point ahead of Konstantin Chernyshov, Evgeny Bareev, Le Quang Liem, Ernesto Inarkiev, Viktor Bologan and Farrukh Amonatov. There are two rounds to go and the official site is here.

And now for your amusement: I was watching the live games from Moscow earlier today, off and on, and noticed this great moment in pawn grabbing from the women's event:

Tatiana Grabuzova (2345) - Xue Zhao (2504)

1.b3 d5 2.Bb2 Bg4 3.Nf3 Bxf3 4.exf3 e6 5.f4 Nf6 6.Qe2 Bd6 7.Qb5+ Nc6 8.Qxb7 Nb4 9.Bb5+ Ke7 10.Bd3 a6 0-1

The first two events are ongoing and have been mentioned on this blog en passant; the last two are coming up.

Gibraltar (Gibtel) is down to the last round, and after 9 of 10 rounds there's a four-way tie for first between Movsesian, Vallejo Pons, Adams and Gustafsson, each with 7 points. Fourteen(!) players are half a point behind, including Bacrot and Kamsky. (Tournament site here.)

In Moscow 5 (of 9) rounds are over, and Dmitry Andreikin leads this prestigious open with 4½ points, half a point ahead of fourteen players (again 14!) including stars like Motylev, Bologan, Rublevsky, Bu Xiangzhi and Bareev. (Tournament site here [in Russian] or here [in English].)

The Aeroflot Open begins shortly after Moscow concludes, running from February 8 to 19. According to TWIC, the field is scheduled to include such players as Bacrot, Bu Xiangzhi, Cheparinov, Motylev, Khalifman, Naiditsch, Nepomniatchi, Sargissian, Sasikiran, Smirin, Timofeev, Vachier-Lagrave, Van Wely and Zvjaginsev. (Tournament site here.)

Finally, the biggie: Linares. It will run from February 12 to 25 in Linares, Spain (and only there: no halves in Morelia or Dubai), and will feature Topalov, Aronian, Gelfand, Grischuk, Gashimov and local player Vallejo Pons in a double round-robin. (Tournament site here.) Surprisingly, TWIC reports that this is Gashimov's first super-GM event, but this it true only in a very narrow sense. Maybe he hasn't played here or in Dortmund, but the Grand Prix events last year were essentially super-GM tournaments. Here he'll only have players in the upper 2700s (except for Vallejo), but that's not that much of a break from a field with high and low 2700s, so I think he'll do fine. (I doubt he'll win the event, but I don't think he'll do badly or be anywhere near outclassed. He should fit right in.)

Here's something you don't see every day:

This, as a reader was kind enough to inform me, was the final position of the game Sergienko-Vescovi from the ongoing Moscow Open. The game was agreed drawn here as White has perpetual check with Nf6-h7-f6. (That's not true, strictly speaking, because Black can avoid it with ...Kh8 or ...Kd8, but the former allows Rh7# while the second loses a knight to Rd7+. But it is true from a practical standpoint.) However, it's not the result that's especially interesting but Black's knight surplus. Not only has he had the three knights for quite a while (he knighted on move 56; it's White's 65th here), but the underpromotion wasn't a joke.

I searched Mega2009 (didn't check Mega2010 on my other computer), and if I did the search correctly, there were just 10 games with three (or more) knights, and in every case it was a joke: the underpromoter was way ahead in material and having fun against an opponent who didn't seem to understand that resignation is permitted in all of FIDE's member nations.

For problemists it's another story. In my old (2000) edition of van der Heijden's Endgame Study database there are 75 entries (out of 58801) with three or more knights. But it looks as if Vescovi has broken new ground in the realm of tournament chess. Here's the full game.

Update on Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 1:18AM by Dennis Monokroussos

On Tim Krabbé's Chess Curiosities site, he has a page for chess records. In the "Promotion" box you'll see an entry for "Longest 3-Knight sequence", and there's a game between Skrobek and Kornasiewicz played in Wisla 1992 that, alas, tops our game. Still, Sergienko-Vescovi is a great rarity, even if it can't boast of uniqueness.