Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 11:00PM Meaning tomorrow or today, depending on where you live, assuming you read this post shortly after it's completion. It's a very strong 11-round Swiss taking place in Yerevan, Armenia, and the field includes plenty of 2700-rated GMs. For the moment the tournament website seems to be down (or TWIC posted the wrong address), so I'll direct you to TWIC's page for now.
Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 10:51PM So reports TWIC; Festival da Uva tournament website here. It's a strange amalgam of time controls, with everything from g/5 to g/60. Looks like it should be a nice and relaxing event for him, while his potential rivals are doing their last bits of preparation for the Candidates' tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk, starting March 13. (In olden days I would have typed "brrr" or some such thing after listing the place name, but as the Arctic has decided to relocate in the American "Midwest" this winter a trip to Siberia might be just the place for a little warm weather.)
Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 10:45PM Story here. You might recall a few months ago that Garry Kasparov applied for Latvian citizenship, but that fell through. He's still a Russian citizen too, but his aim in acquiring Croatian papers is to help him maintain his freedom to travel. This seems a good move for him, and altogether apart from any ambitions he has for the FIDE presidency. Vladimir Putin seems to have the brass knuckles out these days.
Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 12:19AM In 1953, French masters Georges Renaud & Victor Kahn published The Art of Checkmate, a popular primer demonstrating 23 different mating patterns (with some further sub-types delineated) upon which readers were subsequently quizzed. As with many books of that era, it was written using the now largely defunct descriptive notation. As they have done with a number of other oldies but goodies the past few years, Russell Enterprises has re-released the book in a new edition with algebraic notation.
It's a good book, and while it covers many of the same patterns discussed in the MacEnulty books mentioned in the previous post it does so at a (considerably) higher level of sophistication. This means that it isn't ideal as a first book for inexperienced players - especially young children - but I think it is useful for someone who has been playing a while and has developed their basic tactical vision to the point where they rarely make overt blunders. Players of this sort need the information in the book and are strong enough to start grappling with the material. (My thought is that this applies to players with a USCF rating of around 800-1000.)
This wasn't one of the books I used as a youngster, but maybe some of you used it on your way up and found it helpful. Readers, your thoughts about the book?
Saturday, March 1, 2014 at 9:34PM David MacEnulty, My First Book of Checkmate (Russell Enterprises, 2014),184 pp., $19.95; My First Book of Checkmate Workbook (Russell Enterprises, 2014), 95 pp,. $9.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.
David MacEnulty has been a very successful chess teacher at the scholastic level, leading a number of teams to national championships and quite a few more to the edge of the title. (His early career was commemorated in the cable TV movie Knights of the South Bronx.) He is not a particularly strong player himself - his current rating is 1654 - but when it comes to creating enthusiastic young chess players who get off to a good start he's a master at his craft.
About this: good news and bad news. The good news is that the books under review here show a little of his teaching method and offer a good primer on checkmate for new players. The bad news? I suspect that a good part of his success can be attributed to his interpersonal skills. Kids like him, and he's a good motivator. So getting his books won't be sufficient to replicate his success, but they're useful tools in their own right.
Let's discuss the books then. The first book is a mix of teaching material and puzzles, while the second is nothing but puzzles. Sticking for now to the first book, there are four parts after the useful introductory materials. In part I MacEnulty introduces some very basic mating patterns by material (e.g. queen checkmates, queen and rook checkmates, rook and king checkmates, etc.), and in part II tests the reader by presenting puzzles where the themes are all mixed together. In part III 18 different, famous and standard mating patterns are introduced (e.g. Anastasia's mate, Blackburne's first and second mates, Greco's mate, smothered mate, etc.), and then in part IV a few relatively complex mating attacks from real games are presented, followed by another set of puzzles.
As for the second book, there is a very brief introduction followed by 292 puzzles, a good chunk of which are identical or very similar to those in the first book. There are three parts and six chapters. Part I (180 puzzles) consists solely of mates in one move. As in the main book, they are first divided by themes (chapter 1), and then they are mixed together (in chapter 2). Part II (chapter 3) has 64 mates in two, and part III has mates in three move or more. Chapter four (32 puzzles) is dedicated to mates in three, chapter five (10 puzzles) to mates in four, and chapter six (only six puzzles) to mates in five moves or more. Naturally most of the puzzles are very easy, but near the end of the book they will be quite challenging for the book's intended audience, and will serve as a useful transition to tougher tactical works.
I think the books are useful primers on checkmate for beginners and near-beginners, and I feel able to recommend them to those looking for books for that purpose. However: Russell Enterprises ought to produce a corrected second printing as soon as it can, as there are quite a few errors in both books. He probably trusted himself a bit too much, but errare humanum est applies to all of us. Here are some of the errors I found going through the puzzles myself. The following isn't a complete list (I may have missed some other errors, and there were a couple of places where I didn't bother to mention alternative solutions), but it's enough to get the editors working.
Errors in My First Book of Checkmate (given by diagram number):
Missed a second solution on #301.
The solution to diagram 343, demonstrating Damiano's Mate, is a little silly, as after 1.Rh8+ Kxh8 White can play 2.Qh5+ and 3.Qh7#; there's no need to sac the second rook. (There should be a unit on e2, f3 or g4 to eliminate that solution.)
Typo on page 159: It should be "Lombardy".
Diagram 374 is given as mate in five, but after 1...Qxb4+ the (otherwise pointless) interposition 2.Bc3 will run the total to six moves.
Diagram 379: There's a typo - it should read 2.Qc1xe3.
Diagram 384 should not be labeled as a mate in four, as Black can avoid an immediate mate with 1...Kf8. (He will be completely lost, but the point is only that it isn't an immediate forced mate.)
Diagram 386: The solution is completely wrong, as 1...Be4 is refuted by 2.Qxe4. White is a rook ahead and winning more material. (But see the comment to diagram 264 in the second book. The White queen apparently ought to be placed on d1 rather than b1.)
Diagram 388: Another mislabeling. It's not a forced mate in four, as Black need not cooperate on move 1 with the rest of the combination. (1...h5 would be hopeless, but mate would be a ways off.)
Diagram 403: It's not mate in two, as Black can meet 1.Ng5 with 1...Be5, adding another move to the total.
Diagram 421: It's not mate in two, as 1.Nf6 allows Black to start checking, beginning with either 1...Nf3+ or 1...Nd3+.
Diagram 432: After 1.Qh5 Black can avoid mate in three with 1...Qh6.
Errors in My First Book of Checkmate Workbook:
Diagram 221: White can delay the mate with 2.Nf6+.
Diagram 222: Not a mistake, but it should be noted that Black can also try 1...Kd4, which is dispatched by 2.Qf4#.
Diagram 229: After 1.Ne8 the spite check 1...Bh4+ avoids the mate in two.
Diagram 239: After 1...Rg6 White has 2.f3, meeting 2...Bxf1+ with 3.Qh2.
Diagram 245: Black can meet 1.Qd8+ Kg7 2.Qf6+ with 2...Kg8 (3.Rd8+ Bf8) - no immediate mate.
Diagram 246: White can delay mate by a move with a spite interposition on move 3 (3.Rd1).
Diagram 264 is a fixed version of the previous book's diagram 386. White's queen is now on d1 rather than b1, so that 1...Be4 can't be met by 2.Qxe4.
Diagram 289: There's no mate in 5 if Black plays 1...Qg6 (rather than taking the queen).
Diagram 290: After 1...Qe8+ 2.Bxe8 Rxe8+ White has 3.Qe3, when he's not only not getting mated but in good shape. Also, after 3.Kd1 Be2+ 4.Ke1 Bg4+ White again has the interposition: 5.Qe3.
Dave MacEnulty in Book Reviews Wednesday, February 26, 2014 at 11:19PM In club level play anything is possible. Most amateurs play for fun and don't study basic endings, and even if they knew them at one point they may have forgotten them. Add to it that they generally work normal jobs and are exhausted when they play in tournaments, and all sorts of mayhem is possible in club games. But it's more startling when masters fail to hold elementary endings, the sorts of endings that are taught on the very first pages of textbooks devoted to that phase of the game.
Still, it happens, and to my surprise I found two games where quite reasonably-rated defenders in rook and pawn vs. rook endings managed to pull off a sort of trifecta of endgame carelessness: first they fail to hold Philidor's defense, then they fail to hold using the Karstedt Maneuver, and for dessert give away their final chance to hold by means of the last-rank defense. Behold two tales of woe, and learn.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014 at 11:17PM Played by the newest member of the ex-world champions' club, here. What especially struck me were the fascinating stalemate motifs, which I had never come across in contexts where the weaker side had a pawn.
HT: Jaideep Unudurti
Friday, February 21, 2014 at 1:48PM Here - but please don't use them in tournaments.
Thursday, February 20, 2014 at 1:22PM It has been a while since there has been a major Chess960 event - at least I can't recall any since the Mainz Festival stopped running them. There will be one in Moscow tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday, and while there aren't any 2700s involved there will be some 2600s in action. Those who enjoy this form of the game might want to check it out.
HT: Ross Hytnen
Chess960