Thessaloniki Grand Prix, Round 2

Aside from a 19-move draw between Dominguez and Ponomariov, the action in round 2 of the FIDE Grand Prix event in Thessaloniki was plentiful once more. The other two draws had more life: Bacrot-Kasimdzhanov tested the suddenly resurgent Exchange Gruenfeld with 8.Rb1, while Topalov-Kamsky was a more offbeat Gruenfeld that saw Kamsky do most of the pressing.

In none of those three games was anyone really close to winning, but that obviously can't be said about the other three contests. Morozevich-Svidler was a startling blowout, won by White in just 22 moves. Morozevich played the Spanish Four Knights, and Svidler played Rubinstein's well-known pawn sacrifice. Morozevich returned the pawn for queenside play, and it seems that Svidler was a bit too interested in making something happen on the kingside rather than neutralizing his opponent's queenside play. The plan with 16...e4 and 17...Rh6 was a bit too optimistic, and 18...Nh4 was far too optimistic. Moro calculated and captured his way to what was by the end an overwhelming victory.

The second decisive game went considerably longer, with Caruana grinding down Ivanchuk on the white side of a Ruy Lopez, Steinitz Variation. In fact Black's position was tenable for a long time, but 44...Kf6 was a mistake that let White's queenside passers decide the game. Black probably should have played 44...Ra6, and on 45.Rd5 Rba7, freezing White's a- and b-pawns for the time being. Failing to do so, he was quickly overrun.

Finally, the third game was still longer - it went 121 moves! Nakamura was again the victim, as he was in round 1, of an impressive technical endgame won by his opponent. Grischuk grabbed a couple of pawns on the white side of a Neo-Archangelsk Ruy, and although his pawn structure was pretty ugly he managed to keep his material advantage into an endgame. After White's 52nd move both sides had a rook and a dark-squared bishop, while White had doubled f-pawns and a d-pawn against Black's lone f-pawn. No pawns were exchanged for the rest of the game, but the rooks came off at move 90. White eventually won by combining threats to Black's f-pawn with the power of his passed d-pawn (the "principle of two weaknesses" in action). Not a pleasant start for Nakamura: two blacks, 190 moves, and zero points. At least he's warmed up.

Round 3 Pairings (Scores in parentheses):

• Kamsky (1.5) - Grischuk (1.5)
• Ponomariov (1) - Topalov (1)
• Ivanchuk (.5) - Dominguez (.5)
• Svidler (1) - Caruana (1.5)
• Kasimdzhanov (1.5) - Morozevich (1.5)
• Nakamura (0) - Bacrot (.5)

USCF Rating Changes

United States Chess Federation members with ratings below 2355 may be interested to know that their "K-factor" has changed. Now their ratings will be more volatile, which is good news if their ratings are going up; not so good if they're taking a plunge. At least you're forewarned!

HT: Allen Becker & Brian Karen.

Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations, 4th Ed.: A Short Review

Chess Informant (CI) - the publisher - doesn't just publish the Informant - the book. Case in point: the fourth edition of the Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations. This is an old-style CI book: there's no English (or any other natural language) in the body of the text; all you'll find are diagrams, chess notation, and their standard symbols. (One exception: at the top of the page the theme covered on that page is given in English; non-English readers are likely to find the equivalent in their language in the table of contents.)

Tactics books are a dime a dozen (metaphorically; the literal price is considerably greater), so what's different about this one; what do you get for your $44-51? For starters, you get a lot of puzzles: 3001, to be precise. In general, the positions are challenging. Often knowing the theme will give you a good idea about the first move (you won't be shocked to know that in most cases the first move in the puzzles from the chapter "Demolition of Pawn Structure" will involve sacrificing a piece for a pawn in the general vicinity of the victim's king), but that's almost never enough to fully and properly solve the puzzle. Until you're around 1900 or so, you're probably better off working on other tactics book (or software, or tactics websites).

If you are 1900 and up though, it's worth considering because the puzzles are sorted by themes, which is relatively rare for advanced tactics books. In my view both kinds of tactics books are valuable: those where the puzzles are divided up by themes and those where one has no advance idea of what to look for. There are 10 themes in the book, each further subdivided into three sub-sections: "combinations with attack on the king", "combinations to achieve equality", and "other combinations". The 10 themes, with my occasional explanations and/or comments in parentheses, are:

• Annihilation of Defense [Typically removing a piece that guards another piece or a key square.]
• Blockade [Blocking a line, an escape square, etc. Not to be confused with Nimzowitsch's idea.]
• Clearance [Freeing a square or line for the benefit of another piece.]
• Deflection [Drawing a defender away from another defensive responsibility.]
• Discovered Attack [Not necessarily a discovered check.]
• Pinning
• Demolition of Pawn Structure
• Decoy [Not to be confused with deflection. The idea here is to draw the target piece to a bad square.]
• Interference [A move that forces the defender to block a crucial defensive line.]
• Double Attack

If you're a strong player and already have an impressive collection of (unused) tactics books, I wouldn't claim that this is the book for you, the one that will finally make everything fall into place. If you don't have a lot of advanced tactics books though, and especially if you don't have any that are sorted by theme, then it's worth considering - especially since $44-51 for 3001 puzzles is a good ratio. It's not worth getting if it's your 15th tactics book (meaning an advanced book for an advanced player), but if it's your first or maybe even your fifth, it might be.

Ordering info from the publisher.

Ordering info for U.S. buyers.

Informants 113-115 On DVD

As I've already reviewed Informants 113, 114 and 115 when they come out in book form, I won't repeat here what I said though you can find the reviews of each by clicking on the links above. My conclusion about those volumes, and with the Informant in general, now that the publishers have revitalized this venerable series, is positive. They aren't for everyone, but for strong club players - around 1800-1900 and up - the volumes can be both instructive and entertaining.

If it sounds interesting and you haven't already purchased those volumes, this is an excellent way to do it. The price for buying the three-pack on disc is considerably less than the cost for getting each Informant one volume at a time. The books run about $38 a pop, while this three-pack goes for about $64 from the publisher's site. Add to the savings the convenience of being able to examine the games (and all the other sections too) using ChessBase, Chess Assistant a PGN viewer or even the proprietary Informant format and it's an all-around good deal.

So if you're interested in the Informant and don't yet have these issues, it's definitely worth considering - especially for U.S. buyers, who can get it here for $57 (plus shipping). Highly recommended (for stronger/more ambitious club players, and up).

Thessaloniki Grand Prix, Round 1

The Grand Prix tournament in Thessaloniki got off to a good and lively start today, with three decisive games out of six and only one draw that so much as remotely resembled a non-event.

In fact, the quickest game was Peter Svidler's 27-move win over last-second sub Etienne Bacrot. Bacrot was only a little worse until 21...Ba3, and he could still fight until his 23rd move, ...Bc8?, which allowed Svidler to maintain the "blind pigs" on the 7th rank. Then it was just over.

The other two decisive games featured the participants from the U.S.A. Gata Kamsky had an advantage against Leinier Dominguez all game long, but putting his opponent away was another story. Had Dominguez played 44...Kd7 he would have kept chances to survive; instead, he committed a gross blunder with 44...Rxh4??, losing a piece to the simple tactic 45.Rxd6+ (45...exd6 46.Bf6+ and 47.Bxh4). My view is that if you're in Dominguez' situation, you just laugh, acknowledge your fallibility and forget about it.

The other U.S. participant, Hikaru Nakamura, lost what looks like a textbook-ready endgame to Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Kasimdzhanov won a pawn and reached a good knight vs. relatively ineffectual bishop ending after 43 moves, and skillfully used all his assets to break in with the knight. Black could have played on quite a while longer, but with the h-pawn dropping White's win is routine.

The other three games - Ponomariov-Caruana, Ivanchuk-Morozevich, and Topalov-Grischuk - were all drawn.

Round 2 Pairings:

• Grischuk - Nakamura
• Bacrot - Kasimdzhanov
• Morozevich - Svidler
• Caruana - Ivanchuk
• Dominguez - Ponomariov
• Topalov - Kamsky

Lothar Schmid: 1928-2013

Lothar Schmid is largely unknown to contemporary chess fans, and indeed was never among the world's elite. Nevertheless, he was a notable figure in the game, as in addition to achieving the grandmaster title in over-the-board play, he achieved it in correspondence chess as well. He was also a prominent arbiter, most notably overseeing the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match. Finally, he was also an incredible collector, owning more than 50,000 chess books.

For more on his life and career, try here and here.

Malcolm Pein on Cheating

A good, short essay here.

The Fourth Grand Prix Event of the 2012-13 Series Begins Today in Thessaloniki, Greece

Greece in the spring - sure beats Khanty-Mansyisk in the winter! The happy Grand Prix participants begin their super-strong tournament in Thessaloniki today, and here are the round 1 pairings:

• Veselin Topalov - Alexander Grischuk
• Gata Kamsky - Leinier Dominguez
• Ruslan Ponomariov - Fabiano Caruana
• Vassily Ivanchuk - Alexander Morozevich
• Peter Svidler - Etienne Bacrot (Bacrot was a late substitute for Teimour Radjabov, who withdrew due to undisclosed personal reasons)
• Rustam Kasimdzhanov - Hikaru Nakamura

Informant 116: A Short Review

It looks like the recent flurry of changes to the Informant have stopped for now, as the general structure of Informant 116 is essentially the same as that of Informant 115, which in turn followed the model from Informant 114. Following the links (just given) to my reviews of those periodicals may give a fuller picture of what these volumes contain; here I'll just offer some specifics about this particular volume and reiterate my usual conclusion.

The current issue covers a five month period, from September 2012 through January of this year, and its essential core consists of 203 high-level, deeply annotated games (or game fragments - but partial games are comparatively few) from that time frame. The games are annotated using their rich symbol set, but without language. One of the major changes the past few years is that a large section of every Informant includes a considerable amount of content (in this case, roughly 120 pages) with English-language commentary and annotation. I'll elaborate on that in what follows.

First, this issue sees the fourth installment of "Garry's Choice", in which he deeply annotates a game of his choosing in the Informant's time frame. Here he chooses an English Attack Najdorf, not only taking a careful look at the main game but also making reference to some of his games in that line and with relevantly similar motifs. As the games to which he makes reference are also included after the main game, with their original (languageless) annotations, it makes for a nice all-around lesson.

Next up is Mihail Marin's "Old Wine in New Bottles", in which he considers exchange sacrifices to remove outposts. An obvious concept, you might say, and in many cases you'd be right. That it's not always quite as simple as following the textbook recipe is seen in the final game of his article, in which Marin himself failed to defeat a "World Champion" (his term!) - Ponomariov - by forsaking such an opportunity. Twice! His closing words are instructive: "I come to the conclusion that sometimes knowing the classic examples is not enough: you have to remember them at the right moment, even in the most severe time trouble". Very true, but as it's not given to us to know before the start of a chess game what we need to remember (aside from opening preparation), it's worthwhile every now and then to review even those themes we think we've mastered, so that we'll have access to them when it really matters.

After this come annotated games by Dmitry Jakovenko, Sergei Rublevsky and Ernesto Inarkiev. All three have been over 2700, and all three are currently over or near that lofty mark.

Fourth is "One Country", which includes a game apiece from four players from the same country - Greece, in this case.

The fifth section, "CI Labs", has eight theoretical articles, covering the following opening lines: the Sveshnikov Sicilian (the 5...e5 one, not 2.c3), the Fianchetto Variation vs. the Taimanov Sicilian, the line 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.h3 vs. the Najdorf Sicilian, the Scotch Four Knights, the Steinitz Deferred (Ruy Lopez), Morozevich's 11...g5 in the Slav with 6...Nbd7, the Petrosian Variation against the Queen's Indian and the Classical Nimzo-Indian line 4.Qc2 0-0 5.Nf3 c5 6.dxc5 Na6.

"Rising Stars" showcases Dariusz Swiercz, who has the odd and impressive distinction of having first won the main World Junior Championship in 2011 (open to players under 20 years of age) and then coming back in 2012 to win the Under-18 championship! First he is profiled, and then he annotates two of his games.

Finally, in what I assume is primarily an advertising arrangement, a column from the British Chess Magazine is also included. This issue's installment sees David Howell annotating Kramnik-Jones from London 2012.

The other usual sections are included (combinations, excellent moves, endgames, studies, etc.), and the star of this issue's "mini-Informant" is Etienne Bacrot.

That's what's there, and as usual I'm happy to recommend the volume. Even with the increasingly large sections including English text, it remains a periodical aimed at and most useful for stronger players - at least 1800-1900, in my opinion. If you're a reasonably ambitious player at or above that rating, it may not be an absolute must, but it is a good buy and worth your time - if you're not already swamped by all the other fine chess periodicals out there!

Norway Chess Finale: Karjakin Wins; Carlsen and Nakamura Tie for Second

There was some drama in the last round of the Norway Chess supertournament, but it was a little surprising that it mostly came from the victor, Sergey Karjakin, rather than his main rivals. Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand were half a point behind, and with Karjakin having the white pieces against Veselin Topalov it seemed they needed to win to have a chance.

Carlsen had Black against Levon Aronian, and never came close to getting anything. He equalized with no problem in a Queen's Gambit Declined, but the opening is so solid that even once Carlsen obtained a token edge Aronian didn't have much difficulty steering the ship to the drawing harbor after trading almost all the pieces.

Anand, by contrast, not only didn't come close to winning; he even lost against the resurgent Wang Hao. Like Carlsen, Anand came out of the opening (an unusual Symmetrical English) in fine shape with the black pieces. That was the good news, but from 17 on it was all bad news. If Anand had traded queens he would have kept equality; instead, 14...Bxa2? 15.Qa4! got him in trouble, and then 16...Rfd8 sealed his fate. Perhaps Anand missed Wang Hao's 16th and 17th moves, or maybe the oversight had to do with something that happened later in the sharp tactical sequence that followed. Whatever the case, Wang Hao finished with a material advantage, and in the end Black had no hopes of a fortress against White's powerful queen.

Radjabov-Svidler was a short draw, preventing Svidler from catching up to Carlsen, but Hikaru Nakamura did catch Carlsen by defeating Jon Ludwig Hammer. Hammer has gone after his opponents in this tournament, not just trying to draw or even win but to win by landing haymakers - knockout shots. So it was here too, as Hammer went all-out on the white side of a Noteboom, shoving pawns in the center and going for a kingside attack as his queenside collapsed. It looked a little scary and made for a great show for the spectators, but Nakamura had everything well-calculated. Had Hammer not resigned when he did, on move 34, he would soon have found himself down a queen and a rook and getting mated. Sometimes when you go for broke, you wind up broke!

That left Karjakin-Topalov. Karjakin was surprised not by the Najdorf, but by Topalov's choosing 7...Qc7 (after 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4) for the first time in his career. He handled things a bit unsurely, and after 16.Nd5 (16.Na5 was better) Black enjoyed an edge. There were no big swings through the time control, with neither player being more than slightly better, and the position was so difficult to play that inaccuracies were easy to make. I don't know if Karjakin was playing for a win or just to hang on, but it's clear that Topalov was pushing, whether or not he was objectively better. Topalov's 45...Rbb5? changed that, however, as 46.Qc2 left White clearly better. (Topalov may have missed that on 46...Rb3 47.Nd2 Rcxc3 White has 48.Rc4+, winning. Even if he throws in 47...Bxd2 48.Rxd2 and only then plays 48...Rcxc3, 49.Rc4+ is very strong here as well.) In the end Karjakin repeated moves from a position of strength, preferring guaranteed tournament victory to the chance for a few more rating points. (It would have pushed him to #4 in the world, but he can pursue an additional 3.8 rating points another day.)

Congratulations to the victor, Sergey Karjakin! I'm reminded that showcase events don't always turn out as the organizers planned. 100 years ago a double round-robin tournament was organized in Havana, Cuba, but hometown hero Jose Raul Capablanca finished second, half a point behind Frank Marshall - thanks in good part to losing a game to him in the second cycle. 50 years ago the First Piatigorsky Cup was organized in part for Bobby Fischer's benefit; he didn't show up. Three years later he did play in the Second Piatigorsky Cup, only to finish half a point behind Boris Spassky, who beat him in their game from the first cycle. And so it was here: Norway had their first super-tournament, and Magnus Carlsen finished half a point behind. (A consolation: his "great predecessors" went on to become world champions.) Here are the full standings:

1. Karjakin 6 (out of 9)
2-3. Carlsen, Nakamura 5.5
4-6. Svidler, Aronian, Anand 5
7. Wang Hao 4.5
8. Topalov 4 (one loss and eight draws!)
9. Radjabov 3 (losing 12 more rating points - he has dropped 60 points since the start of the Candidates!)
10. Hammer 1.5