Informant 118: A Short Review

Chess Informant 118 (May-September 2013), reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

The Chess Informant franchise moves on, and the changes keep on coming. For many years the format was fixed: if you have one issue, you knew what the next 10 or 20 would be like. This has changed pretty radically over the past few years, and now the "incidentals" have taken over. The traditional heart of each issue was a collection of hundreds of games annotated in their distinctive language-less symbol set. For decades there were approximately 700 such games, frequently analyzed by one of the players (including many of the world's greatest players) and making up around 80-90% of the volume. In the present issue there are 202 games - most annotated by staffers rather than members of the world's elite, and they take up only 135 of the book's 335 pages.

Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, and in any case the old model was probably unsustainable. There were always some minor features - sections on combinations and endings, most notably - but for a few years now there has been an ever-expanding collection of sections and articles featuring genuine prose, in English. Here's a summary of what's in this issue, along with a word about whether it's new or not.

1. The Best Game of the Preceding Volume: This has been around for ages, but I'll reiterate my disappointment from my review of the previous issue) that only the winning game is given without the voting list for the other 19 games. The explanation is presumably that there isn't a list any longer; it is given as the "editor's pick". Fine: even in this case it would be nice to have a list of the other games they thought were in the running.

2. The Most Important Theoretical Novelty of the Preceding Volume: The same general points apply.

3. Garry's Choice: This is one of the relatively recent innovations made by the Informant people, and it's a good one. Generally Garry Kasparov discusses openings that are "near and dear" to his heart, but this time he examines what must be his least favorite openings in all of chess: the Berlin Defense. His focus is Caruana-Adams from Dortmund this year.

4. Mihail Marin's "Old Wines In New Bottles": Another one of the recent excellent Informant innovations. This installment, like Kasparov's, is a bit upside down, as his examination of positional queen sacrifices (Kramnik-Andreikin from the World Cup is his lead game) fails to find a real predecessor in the distant past.

5. Adrian Mikhalchishin, "Stand Up and Fight": This is his second appearance, and he examines two games in the line 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bc4, which he is willing to attribute to Schlechter or Fischer, but not Sozin.

6. Alexander Moiseenko, "My Way": The "My Way" column already existed, but had a different author last time. Moiseenko won the European Championship, and presents three of his games from the first four rounds of the tournament.

7. Sarunas Sulskis, "Interception": Second installment. He offers round-by-round highlights from the World Cup, won by Vladimir Kramnik.

8. Rafael Leitao, "Bossa Nova": Second installment. The Brazilian GM looks at important opening ideas from the aforementioned World Cup.

9. Alexander Ipatov, "Have No Fear": Second installment. Ipatov writes about a tournament he won in Cape Town, South Africa, featuring games played by him and runner-up Sergei Tiviakov.

10. John Bartholomew, "Inspiring Moments": Also a repeat. Bartholomew writes about Wesley So's visit to Minneapolis, where he gave a simul and won a local tournament. A brief interview with So ensues.

11. Emanuel Berg, "En Route". New. Berg recounts a series of tournaments he played in over the summer.

12. Suat Atalik, "Uncensored". This new column, which fortunately doesn't seem to have had any need for censorship, takes an in-depth look at the European Women's Championship (with a brief article within an article by tournament winner Hoang Thanh Trang).

13. CI Labs. "CI Labs" is their label for their theory sections, and there are three articles. Viktor Erdos looks at the 3.f3 d5 Gruenfeld, Danilo Milanovic has a look at the suddenly trendy Gruenfeld with 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.h4, and then Ivan Ivanisevic and Milos Perunovic team up for a general theoretical report on the three Grand Prix tournaments this year, from Zug, Thessaloniki and Beijing.

After the games come the sections on combinations, endings, problems and studies - the latter two commemorating the passing of greats who passed in the way in the last year. (Problems: Milan Velimirovic, Oscar Bonivento, Sergei Shedei, Tony Lewis and Christopher Reeves; Studies: Mario Matous.) Finally, there's the listing of (significant) FIDE events occurring during the period covered by the issue - this too is a mainstay of the periodical going back to its earliest days.

The columns are generally good, though of the non-theoretical material I think only Kasparov's and Marin's contributions are nearly irreplaceable. It's not a bad deal for the money, either - and it's available on disc too, which would be my choice if I had to choose one way or the other.

The one thing that I don't really understand though is what the Informant is currently "about". In the past it was a sort of yearbook, focusing on the games of the biggest players, with a strong secondary emphasis on theory. But I don't understand what it's up to now. Berg and Ipatov are strong players, but there are 100-200 other players around their strength who could be included. Why them? Bartholomew is a very good player and a fine writer, but he is considerably less prominent in the chess world than Berg and Ipatov. Atalik wrote a very good article on the European Women's Championship, but there were many tournaments featuring stronger players. Why this event? I must confess to disliking this "postmodern" format, and hope that it can find a focus that is successful and sustainable soon.

Has The World Fallen Out Of Love With Chess?

That's the question - answered affirmatively - in this article in the Guardian. (HT: Marc B.) I have my doubts about this, as there are so many more serious players around the world than there were back in the alleged salad days of the Fischer-Spassky and several Karpov-Korchnoi matches. Maybe there is less newspaper coverage, but various alternative explanations for that phenomenon come to mind. To take three: the Cold War angle is gone, newspapers are dying and their space is at more of a premium, and interested players get all the info they want from the web - the bird cage liner is no longer needed.

It would be nice to have more newspaper coverage than we do, to recruit more "civilians" to the game, but its absence doesn't seem to me an indication that the broader world has lost interest in chess. Another indication that this is false is the plethora of popular books that came out about Bobby Fischer from the time of his move to Iceland through his death in 2008; also, there have been a spate of recent chess movies having nothing to do with Fischer over the past five years.

I do think the author is right that Deep(er) Blue's win over Kasparov in 1997 and the strength of computers in general has had an effect, insofar as it has demystified the aura of super-intelligence traditionally (and somewhat wrongly) associated with chess. But only partially, and again, this seems to me at most a story about traditional media coverage rather than the worldwide popularity of the game.

Agreed?

A NY Times Profile of Andrew Paulson

Andrew Paulson is one of the recent crop of organizers of major chess events, and is profiled rather skeptically in the NY Times. (HT: Marc B.) Any comments from those among you better positioned to have an opinion about him than I (or the NY Times)?

Komodo Wins TCEC Final Against Stockfish, 25-23

The winner of the current Thoresen Computer Chess Engines Competition (TCEC) is Komodo, which drew games 45-47 against Stockfish and won the finale to take the match by a close 25-23 score. Komodo gets bragging rights, while Stockfish, which can be downloaded for free, comes out looking great too.

Stanford 27, Notre Dame 20

Close...but that doesn't count. Back for whatever minor bowl game we get.

TCEC Competition Winding Down

Martin Thoresen has been running computer-computer events for some years now, and the super-final of the eponymous Thoresen Chess Engines Competition (TCEC) is nearly at an end. After four elimination stages the programs Komodo and Stockfish (not Houdini!) made the final, and after 44 of 48 games Komodo leads 22.5-21.5. Game 45 is nearly over now and headed for a certain draw, leaving Stockfish just three games to catch up.

There is a bit of a "human interest" aspect to the story. (Granted, that's an incredibly stupid phrase, as all stories are presumably of some interest to humans - why else report them?) Komodo's main programmer, Don Dailey, passed away from leukemia on November 22*, early in the super-final. While programming surely wasn't his highest priority at the very end of his life, it still must have afforded him some satisfaction to have reached the final, ahead of Houdini, the previously recognized top program.

* This November 22 marked the 50th anniversary of the deaths of not only John F. Kennedy, but authors Aldous Huxley (best known for Brave New World) and C. S. Lewis (the Narnia books, Mere Christianity) as well.

World Team Championship: Ukraine Leads After 5 of 9 Rounds

The World Team Championship has just passed its halfway point going into tomorrow's (Sunday's) rest day, and Ukraine leads with a perfect 10 team points, meaning they have won all of their matches. Except for the 3-1 victory over Germany in round 4 they've been ekeing out 2.5-1.5 wins, but if one wins them all it doesn't matter if it's by a nose or a mile. The Russians have bounced back from their loss to the U.S. in round 2 with wins over China, Azerbaijan and Germany, and now they're in clear second with 7 match points. After that there's a three-way tie for third with the Netherlands, Armenia and China all with 6 match points.

The Armenians could have been tied for second if Levon Aronian won today against Rauf Mamedov. That game was long headed for a draw, and when it reached the ending of rook and bishop (for Aronian) vs. rook it remained theoretically drawn. Aronian achieved nothing for a long time, but as often happens the defender tires or gets confused and the strong side makes progress. Eventually Aronian achieved a winning position and was a handful of moves away from mating or winning the rook...but the 50 move rule intervened: draw.

Aronian's tournament has otherwise been very good, and there is now some space between him and Vladimir Kramnik on the live rating list. Or make that between him and Hikaru Nakamura, who is currently #3 in the world. Nakamura has been going up, and despite losing to Aronian in round 3 his highlights include wins over Kramnik in round 2 and Li Chao today. (Despite Nakamura's success, the U.S. team has only 4 match points: wins over Russian and Egypt but losses to Ukraine, Armenia and China.) Kramnik, on the other hand, is winless so far (-1 =3, took round 5 off) but the remaining Russians are playing well.

Happy Birthday, Magnus Carlsen

The new world champion turns the ripe old age of 23 today.

Notre Dame To Pluck The Cardinal Tonight

Granted, it'll be a challenge, but it's doable for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to finish the regular season with a victory over the Stanford Cardinal [sic]. The proceedings will be televised at 7 p.m. on Fox.

A Quick Review of Ivan Sokolov's Sacrifice And Initiative In Chess

Ivan Sokolov, Sacrifice and Initiative in Chess: Seize the Moment to Get the Advantage (New in Chess 2013). 255 pp. $29.95/€24.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

Ivan Sokolov may be the strongest active player writing books on middlegame theory, and the quality shows. Speaking of which, the compliment is an ambiguous one, and it works both ways: he is active in the sense that his professional career, unlike, say, Garry Kasparov's, is still underway, but he's also active in the sense of being an aggressive player. Sokolov is known for being a fine attacking player with a fine sense of the initiative, and that certainly comes out in this book. There are 92 games in this book, 21 of which (by my quick count) are his, and his mastery shows. Further, he writes and analyses with great enthusiasm and expertise, and the attentive reader will not just be entertained by the great games, he'll be educated as well.

There are two parts, each corresponding to the concepts highlighted in the title. Part 1, Initiative, comprises the first seven chapters; part 2, sacrifice, the remaining nine. Each chapter ends with a number of "tips" that generally emerge from that chapter's games. Sometimes they are a bit superficial and overly general, but they can be illuminating as well. Generally there are some implicit tips given in the chapter intros, so be on the lookout for those. As an example of what you might find in the tips section, here's one of the better sets, from chapter 9 (p. 141), on attacking the castled king:

1. In the ratio of attackers versus defenders, the king counts as a defender.

2. It is often clever to keep your defending pawns on their original squares.

3. If you cannot compromise the enemy's defences with pawn breaks, a rook lift may do the job.

4. In an attack on Black's kingside in Sicilian positions, the Bf8 is mostly a useless defender. The light-squared bishop, however, is often an important defender of the a2-g8 diagonal.

5. The defender may balance an attack on his kingside with a counterattack on the queenside.

6. The pawn push ...f7-f5 is often a good way for Black to stop White's attack against h7.

7. With a black pawn on g6, a white knight sacrifice on f5 may be a dangerous way to eliminate Black's pawn defences on the kingside.

Not too many club players will find tips 2 and 5 shocking and new, but the rest will be new to most club players and some of these points (e.g. #4) might be new even to masters.

The game selection is excellent, featuring a nice blend of older and contemporary games, mostly featuring top players. (Carlsen, Kasparov, Fischer, Spassky, Tal, etc.) the analysis is illuminating without being overwhelming, and there is plenty of explanatory prose; indeed, there is more of the latter than the former.

For me the book works both as a game collection and as a catalog of techniques, and as a book that can be read for pleasure and for training. Recommended to mid-level club players and up.