In Praise of Kieseritzky

Lionel Kieseritzky was a very strong player in the mid-19th century, but sadly he's best known for a loss to Adolf Anderssen - the so-called "Immortal Game". Despite this negative fame, he deserves chess fame for his positive achievements. For instance, the line that's probably best for White in the King's Gambit Accepted (1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5) is attributed to and named for him. He defeated both Horwitz and Harrwitz in matches (but not Horowitz or Gurevich, of course), which was no mean feat. In fact, Jeff Sonas claims that Kieseritzky was the #1 player in the world for most of the period between 1849 and 1851.

(I'm not sure I believe that - I'm inclined to chalk it up to the relative inactivity during that period of people like Pierre St. Amant, Howard Staunton and Anderssen, but still: that one can make such an argument shows that he's no slouch. Before leaving this tangent, I warn those unfamiliar with Sonas's work that his historical ratings should not be taken to correspond too closely with the numbers we're familiar with nowadays. Sonas gives K. a peak rating of 2734, but there's no way in the world that he would score 50% in a tournament like Wijk aan Zee.)

Anyway, my interest in Kieseritzky is as a type, not a token; that is, he's a representative of players who have achieved negative immortality by losing a spectacular game. A contemporary "Kieseritzky" is the Greek GM Ioannis Nikolaidis, whose name should always call to mind his incredible loss to Grigory Serper from the 1993 St. Petersburg Open. Serper sacs all of his pieces, and Nikolaidis puts up resistance all the way to the end, invariably forcing Serper to find one beautiful idea after another to win the game.

Still, while chess fans should know and remember this game, Nikolaidis shouldn't be reduced to this game; he has won some nice games and taken down some big scalps too. In fact, in the ongoing Greek Team Championship, he managed to beat the 2700+ rated David Navara, which is no mean feat. So let's give him and Kieseritzky their due. If you click here, you can see their famous losses, but you'll also get to see a couple of their wins, too. As an added (if unfortunate) bonus, we'll have a look at a second Nikolaidis game from the Greek Team event, an exciting loss to Vassily Ivanchuk*.

Can any of you think of other Kieseritzkies and games they've won that deserve to be better known?

* Speaking of Ivanchuk, he's having a fantastic event so far: 4.5/5. The Live Top List page hasn't been updated for two weeks, but I think he must be back in the top by now.

The U.S. Junior, Women's Championships Start Tomorrow (Saturday)

Here's part of the press release:

Pairings set for 2010 U.S. Women's and Junior Closed Champs 

By Katie Baldetti and Mike Wilmering

The Opening Ceremony for the 2010 U.S. Women’s and Junior Closed Championships is complete, and the pairings have been determined:

2010 U.S. Women’s Championship (Rd. 1)

WIM Iryna Zenyuk vs. WGM Sabina Foisor

WFM Abby Marshall vs. WIM Alisa Melekhina

WIM Beatriz Marinello vs. IM Irina Krush

WFM Tatev Abrahamyan vs. WGM Camilla Baginskaite

IM Anna Zatonskih vs.  WGM Katerina Rohanyan

2010 U.S. Junior Closed Championship (Rd. 1)

NM Eric Rosen vs. GM Ray Robson

FM Steven Zierk vs. FM Darwin Yang

FM Conrad Holt vs. NM Tyler Hughes

NM Parker Zhao vs. IM Sam Shankland

FM Warren Harper vs. FM John Bryant [...]

Round one of both events begins tomorrow, July 10, at 2 p.m. CDT at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. Don’t miss special commentary by GM Hikaru Nakamura and WGM Jennifer Shahade during round one. GM Ben Finegold will accompany Nakamrua during round two, and Finegold and Shahade will take over for the remainder of the live broadcasts.

Follow all of the action live on www.uschesschamps.com. As always, spectators are welcome at the event, which requires only a month membership to attend. Memberships are just $5/month for students or $12/month for adults.

This Week's ChessVideos Show: More Viewer Questions

This month, I answer several questions on the Budapest Gambit, questions about the Tal Gambit and the Caro-Kann, and then offer some advice on dealing with blundering, time trouble, and studying openings.

Have a look here. The show is free (free registration required), and is available on-demand for the next month or so.

Nigel Short, Greatest Hits - Volume 1: A "Short" Review

As many of my readers know, Nigel Short is a very strong grandmaster, currently rated #2 in the U.K. behind Michael Adams, and a former world championship finalist. The list of his career achievements is lengthy, and we can add to it that he's a good writer on the game as well.

Now we can add video presenter to his resume, and he does a good job. Short has been enmeshed in more than his fair share of controversies over the years, but one wouldn't think it from the DVD (with the exception of the infamous no-handshake game with Cheparinov, about which he offers nothing by way of a backstory). He's a good story teller, but there is neither ribaldry nor rancor in his presentation; if anything, he's quite respectful of his opponents. Above all, and to an extent that surprised me, he's extremely generous in his appreciation for Anatoly Karpov's play. This appears to be absolutely genuine, too, and this not a way of patting himself on the back. (It's not "I beat Karpov, so by praising him I prove that I'm REALLY great".)

On this disk, he presents a total of 14 games, played from 1979 to 2009. They're all wins, and the list of victims is extremely impressive - world champions Smyslov, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand, together with FIDE champions Ponomariov (a previously unpublished game from a training match) and Topalov all take their lumps. (FIDE runner-ups Timman [the famous king-march game] and Akopian also show up on the funeral pyre.)

Short's commentary is fairly light on variations, but his verbal comments are useful - especially but not only for the club player - and give a good sense of the relevant plans. It's not a hard-core training disc, but the general commentary, his psychological insights (note especially his comments to the Karpov and Akopian games) and his story-telling all make this DVD a very pleasant purchase for chess fans.

I'll conclude with some quibbles. Short was a little careless with his analysis at a couple of moments - there's an egregious blunder at the end of his note to Black's 25th move in the Timman game, and a less serious but perhaps theoretically significant inaccuracy in the 21...Be4 variation in the Karpov game. In the Smyslov game, something odd happens. At one moment fairly deep into the game the video gets spliced - maybe there was a technical problem, or perhaps Short made an error, said something funny but unsuitable for a general audience or needed a restroom break. Who knows. I don't really mind that; in fact, I think it's better to fix an error than to leave it be. What's odd is that the original game commentary, which has lots of verbal annotation, gets swapped out and replaced by an analysis-only version. It's not a big deal, just odd.

As I said, these are quibbles, and to viewers interested in all but heavy-duty analysis I can warmly recommend the DVD. (Purchasing info here.)

The Daily Update: Laznicka Wins the World Open, Greek Team Ch. Continues

...and the Netherlands beat Uruguay 3-2 in the World Cup semi-finals.

I didn't notice any terribly spectacular games in the Greek Team Championship, but there was a good fight in the last round of the World Open. Unfortunately for Viktor Laznicka, his last round opponent was Loek van Wely, who was not the sort of player who would let him get an easy, first-place clinching draw, despite having Black. Still, although he pushed, Laznicka held and won with his 7.5/9 score. Loek McShane, Pentala Harikrishna and and Ilya Smirin won their last round games to close to within half a point. Unfortunately for them, that half a point was worth almost $12,500 - Laznicka won more than $17.4k, while the others made about $5k each.

It's not easy being a non-Linares GM. Take even someone like Vallejo Pons, who does get to play in super-GM events from time to time. He's over 2700 and played well enough to gain a couple of rating points. His earnings? The princely sum of 118 dollars and 50 cents. Most of the foreign GMs who came over failed to get their plane fare back, while the influx of foreign GMs sucked almost all the money away from the American GMs - only Alex Lenderman managed to win a relatively substantial prize of about $800. Lessons, writing and videos aside, it's a terrible way to make a living if your FIDE rating isn't in the mid-2700s.

If you are in the mid-2700s and up, on the other hand, you can play 30 moves, 25 of which follow pre-existing Petroff, Marshall or Slav theory, shake hands and collect 4-5 digit appearance fees. What rubbish.

Brooklyn Eagle Archives

Here. I'm not sure how their chess column rated in the grand scheme of things, and that paper's most famous connection to chess was when its editor received a letter from Bobby Fischer's mother asking where he could go and play. But those interested in browsing the world of yesteryear might enjoy a look at the scene from over 100 years ago.

Here's an amusing article to get you started. (The topic is sad, but the pontificating about blindfold chess is amusing.)

HT: Brian Karen

The Daily Update: Sadler's Comeback, the World Open, the Women's Grand Prix and a Look Ahead

One of my favorite opening book authors has come back - or has at least dipped his toe back into the pool. British GM Matthew Sadler played in and won a fairly strong Swiss event in the Netherlands. His 5/6 score was good enough for clear first, and included a couple of wins over GMs. He also won one game with Black against a poor IM, in just 22 moves, with 1.e4 a6 2.d4 h6. (Actually, unless there's a back story, that seems a little bit cheap, like it's rubbing the poor guy's nose in it. Sadler was nearly 2700 at his best, over a decade ago, and much stronger than Chiel van Oosterom. He would have excellent winning chances with any opening, so there was no need for this. But maybe something more is afoot. If Chiel is Joop's son or grandson, and Sadler has something against the latter, maybe there was a bit of vengeance going on. Maybe one of our Dutch readers can help out here?) In any case, White was in decent shape until 19.a4? Ng3! 20.fxg3?? Qxg2, after which he was dead lost. More on the event, along with Sadler's (and others') games, here.

2. The World Open: There's still a round to go, but Viktor Laznicka has just about sewn things up. All the top players drew in round 8, which leaves Laznicka one up with a round to go, and with the white pieces. Maybe someone will feel very ambitious against him, but more often than not everyone rushes to draw to collect their guaranteed piece of the pie. We'll see.

3. The Women's Grand Prix: Nana Dzagnidze drew once more to finish out her tournament. Her exceptional score of 9/11 gave her a TPR of 2748 - not as stratospheric as it was after round 8, but nothing to sneeze at either.

4. An event that seems to have started today is the Greek Team Championship, which probably wasn't financed by their government. (If so, don't throw the check on the floor - it might bounce up and poke your eye out.) Some very strong "Barbarians" (i.e. non-Greeks) are playing, including Vassily Ivanchuk, who dismembered Negi in just 21 moves in round 1.

5. Biel is coming up in a couple of weeks. It's very strong and extremely young: the oldest player, Tomashevsky, is 23. Rodshtein is 21, Andreikin and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son are 20, and the remaining players (Vachier-Lagrave, Howell, Caruana, Negi, So and Giri) range in age from 19 to 16. I guess the sponsors will serve milk and cookies during the opening and closing ceremonies.

6. Dortmund starts a little sooner, on the 15th. It's a 6-player double round-robin, with Kramnik, Mamedyarov, Ponomariov, Leko, Naiditsch and Le Quang Liem.

7. If you really want to look ahead, the Mainz Chess Open starts in early August, but it has been badly stripped down this year. Hopefully when the economy rebounds, so will the tournament.

And now you're up to date - I think - on all the big events.

Want a New Chess Set? It'll Cost You

...at least if you want this set. No price is given, but it might cost more than many of us will make in our entire lifetimes.

HT: Brian Karen.

Happy Birthday, x 2

First of all, Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans. Sorry, England; but thanks to John Locke for laying the intellectual foundations of the new republic.

Second, happy birthday to Mr. Fire (or fireworks?) on Board, Alexei Shirov. Nice timing by Shirov and his parents!

Ongoing Events: The Women's Grand Prix, and the World Open

Taking a break from discussing the metaphysics of personal identity and the status of the U.S. soccer team relative to the world's top teams to return to whatever it is we normally do on this blog - chess, right? - we can point out that Nana Dzagnidze's spectacular run has slowed. She won in round 8 to reach a 2948 TPR, but with draws in rounds 9 and 10 her performance rating is "only" 2771. Her score of 8.5/10 gives her a one point lead over Tatiana Kosintseva with one round to go in the Women's Grand Prix in Jermuk. (It's a good tournament site, worth a visit.)

Here in the U.S., our biggest annual swiss is underway, the World Open in Philadelphia. (Or rather, near Philly in Valley Forge.) The leader, by at least a point after this morning's round, is Viktor Laznicka with 6/6. Games, both live and for replaying, are here.)