Four Wins At the Russian Championship; Armenia Taking Over the World Juniors

Russian Championship. There was lots of excitement there today, but not a lot of happiness for last year's champ and almost-champ. In 2010 Ian Nepomniachtchi and Sergey Karjakin tied for first and had to go to a playoff (won by the former); this year, it's just past the halfway point and they're both probably out of business. Nepomniachtchi had Black against Vladimir Kramnik and repeated the line Alexander Grischuk had used to drive Kramnik and others crazy against the English: 1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.e3 e5. This time, it didn't work, and Kramnik won a nice game, once again playing in an almost hyper-aggressive, sacrificial style.

As for Karjakin, he lost with White against the aforementioned Grischuk. Rook and bishop are generally better than rook and knight, but this game is a fine demonstration that this isn't always the case. White's fragile queenside pawn structure and largely irrelevant bishop (a status it suffered from early in the game) gave Black the better chances, and he showed good technique to grind out the win.

So much for last year's heroes. This year's likeliest champs seem to be Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich, both of whom won today. Svidler used the Advance Variation against Alexander Galkin's Caro-Kann to quickly bottle up his pieces, and in due course the executioner prepared the final blow. 37.Bxh5 was a nice shot (37...gxh5 38.Rh3), and the accurate 42.e6! fxe6 43.Qe1 finished things, as the threats of 44.Qxe6+ and especially 44.Rh4 (trapping Black's queen) were too much for Black to cope with.

Morozevich's win over Artyom Timofeev had a different character. Morozevich created lots of pawn weaknesses in Black's camp (11.e6, 14.Nc5 + 15.Nxb7) early on, and like a good investment it paid off down the road. The weaknesses all fell in due course, and White won the ending.

2. World Junior Championship. In round 9 (of 13), the second underdog met his match, and it was once again the Armenian GM Robert Hovhannisyan. In round 8 Hovhannisyan knocked off Italian IM Axel Rombaldoni (who lost again in round 9), and this time it was the overachieving Indian FM Koushik Girish who was toppled. Hovhannisyan has 8 points, and while he's now in clear first his round 10 challenger will be another Armenian! Samvel Ter-Sahakyan is in clear second with 7.5. Darius Swiercz and Girish are in the next score group with 7 points apiece, and will play in round 10, and then there are five players with 6.5, including Rombaldoni and American Ray Robson.

As for the FIDE Women's Grand Prix, there's no news: they're enjoying the last rest day of the tournament.

The Daily Update: Russian Championship, Women's Grand Prix, World Juniors (Again)

1. Russian Championship. Now there are three leaders. Three of the four games in round 3 were drawn, leaving only Karjakin - Kramnik. Many of their previous games, when Karjakin had White, were Berlins, and this one was as well. Karjakin pressed hard, and the thematic pawn sac 30.e6! pushed Kramnik to the wall (pun intended). Kramnik defended very well too, but made a surprising error just after the time control. Instead of 41...b5, 41...fxg4 42.hxg4 Nf5+! will most likely draw. White should take (else 43...Nd4), but after 43.gxf5 Bxf5 Black will win the b3 pawn, when with three pawns for the piece - and White having to work with the often woeful knight pair, Karjakin's winning chances would have been pretty slim. Instead, Kramnik failed to eliminate White's kingside passer or get any counterplay, and the resulting technical task was easy for White. As a result, Karjakin joins Morozevich and Svidler in first with 2/3; four rounds remain.

2. FIDE Women's Grand Prix. Hou Yifan didn't win today, for a change, but drawing with her closest rival was a good practical decision. Hou's 7/8 keeps her two points ahead of Tatiana Kosintseva with just three rounds to play, so it's almost a mortal lock.

3. World Junior Championship. Axel Rombaldoni was finally chopped down in round 8, defeated by Robert Hovhannisyan. However, another underdog still hasn't received the memo informing him that non-GMs can fight for first here: Koushik Girish defeated Nils Grandelius, and now Hovhannisyan and Girish are tied for first with 7 points apiece. They will play in round 9, with Girish getting White. Five rounds remain.

Chess Psychology: A Pair of Anecdotes

Late last week I simultaneously received copies of the latest issues of Chess Life (August 2011) and New In Chess (2011/5). Oddly, both had articles discussing chess psychology.

In Chess Life, it comes in Andy Soltis's Chess to Enjoy column, "Blunders Happen". Soltis claims that most players suffer over past blunders, but masters just accept them as part of life and move on. Masters, however, have their own psychological cross to bear: regret over missed opportunities. After offering several ancedotes purportedly showing how such regret affected great players afterward, he offers an application anecdote:

Regret can have such a psychological effect that it's been turned into a weapon. Bent Larsen recalled the "very good trick" he used when he left a pawn hanging against Oscar Panno at Palma de Mallorca 1969. Panno, in time trouble, didn't take the pawn. Larsen replied very quickly, protecting the pawn. "I make [sic] him think he should have taken it!" he told Overboard magazine in 1974. Panno's position quickly deteriorated and he lost.

A nice story - especially if you don't bother checking the details. You can find the game here, and the key sequence is 28...Bc3 (attacking the b-pawn) 29.Rg3 (sacrificing - or hanging - the pawn) 29...Qf6 (declining the offer) 30.a3 (protecting the pawn). So what's the truth? We'll discuss it in two parts.

First, Black should have taken the pawn - though it's not hugely better to do so and Panno's caution in time trouble is understandable. Larsen was right to protect it next move, and the position was about equal.

Second, there was no quick deterioration. Panno was in time trouble and Larsen was one of the world's absolute best players (top 5 for sure), so it's hardly surprising that Larsen went from equal to slightly better by the end of the time control at move 40. But that's it: slightly better! If Panno played 42...b6, White's edge would have remained a small one. The position was tricky, though, and Panno blundered on moves 42 and 43 to lose. Chalking this up to a psychological trick on moves 29 and 30 seems pretty improbable.

The second example, from New In Chess, shows up in Luke McShane's review of Lessons with a Grandmaster by Boris Gulko and Joel Sneed. It's from the game Taimanov-Gulko, Moscow 1976 (replayable here), and the psychological moment comes with 19...h6, which Gulko awards an exclamation point. Here's the dialog in the book between Joel (the amateur) and Gulko:

Joel: Why did you give this an exclamation point?

Boris: I continue my psychological battle. I am defending against threats that don't exist to give the opponent the impression that he has the advantage.

Joel: But 19...h6 seems very natural. You neutralize the threat of h4-h5.

Boris: But h4-h5 is not a real threat! I could just take the h-pawn if I wanted to. However, I defend against h4-h5 anyway. If Black is on 'defense', White must be on 'attack'. Because o fthis impression, White played an unfortunate 'active' move.

At this point Taimanov plays 20.Re1-e4, and after 20...b5! realizes that the rook does nothing there - there's no attack after all - and rightly brings it back: 21.Re4-e1. A subtle trick by Gulko!

The Daily Update: Russian Championship, Women's Grand Prix, World Juniors

1. Russian Championship. There are now two leaders, as Peter Svidler has been joined in first by Alexander Morozevich. Svidler was successful with the Reti in round 1 against Vladimir Kramnik, but trying it again in round 2 brought him nothing against Sergey Karjakin, and they drew. As for Morozevich, he won against Alexander Grischuk, finishing the game with some nice tactics. Kramnik got back to 50% with a nice win over Artyom Timofeev (who shares last with Grischuk at .5-1.5), and Ian Nepomniachtchi pressed for a long time against Alexander Galkin, but it was finally drawn. They, like Kramnik and Karjakin, are 1-1.

2. FIDE Women's Grand Prix. Hou Yifan keeps on rolling. Today she defeated Ekaterina Kovalevskaya to reach 6.5/7 (TPR 2943!), thereby extending her lead over Kateryna Lahno and Tatiana Kosintseva to two points with four rounds to go.

3. World Junior Championship. Italian IM Axel Romaldoni gave up his first draw, and his 6.5/7 score has him just half a point in front of Indian FM(!) Koushik Girish and Armenian GM Robert Hovhannisyan. (American GM Ray Robson drew his game and has 5 points.) Six rounds remain.

World Championship Matches Set for Moscow, Tirana

It had seemed that Chennai, India had the winning bid for next year's title match between world champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Boris Gelfand, but it was apparently superseded by a bid from Moscow, Russia, offering a prize fund of 2.55 million dollars. (Hopefully by next year that will still be a lot of money.) It's not clear that there's a scandal there, though it does seem that some chess fans are scandalized by this, seeing in it some sort of "fix" against Anand. (Oddly, there didn't seem to be any problem for Gelfand to play in Anand's home country, but for the Belarus-born Israeli citizen Gelfand to play in Russia is apparently a crime against Anand if not all of humanity.) Anyway, that's where things stand, at least until FIDE President Iljumzhinov decides to hold it in Elista, in Siberia, or on a flying saucer.

There's also the women's world championship between champion Hou Yifan and challenger Humpy Koneru, which will take place this November in Tirana, Albania, for a 200 thousand euro prize fund.

The FIDE Press Release and some discussion thereof can be found here.

Events Galore!

There are so many interesting events going on, or that have just ended, that a quick summary is in order.

Completed Events:

1. Politiken Cup. This popular annual Swiss system event takes place every year in Copenhagen, and this year's edition finished with Igor Kurnosov taking clear first with 8.5/10. GMs Radulski, Savchenko, Hess, P.H. Nielsen and Ni Hua finished half a point behind.

2. The U.S. Open. Most of the big American Swisses are played in the same location every year, but the U.S. Open roams all over the country. (It has even been played in Hawaii, though I'm not sure if it has made it to Alaska yet.) This year it took place in Orlando, Florida, and seven players tied for first with 7.5/9: Lenderman, Ramirez, Nakamura, Gelashvili, Gareyev, Kacheishvili and Zapata. The first two players named had the best tiebreaks, so they had a blitz playoff for the champion's title - Alex Lenderman won.

3. Navara-Laznicka Match. In the battle for Czech supremacy, Viktor Laznicka delivered mate (sorry), winning 4.5-1.5 on the strength of consecutive wins in games 3-5.

In Medias Res:

4. FIDE Women's Grand Prix. This high-level ladies' event is taking place in Rostov, Russia, and after 6 of 11 rounds it's a runaway for women's world champion Hou Yifan. She has had some poor results since winning the title last year, but so far in this event she has made up for those failures and then some. She won her first four games, drew in round 5, and won again in round 6, giving her 5.5 points, a huge 2938 TPR and a point and a half lead over Kateryna Lahno and Tatiana Kosintseva.

5. World Junior Championship. Like the U.S. Open, the World Junior Championship moves from place to place each year; this year, it's in Chennai, India. This 13-round Swiss is almost half over, and after 6 rounds the leader is a surprise: Italian IM Axel Rombaldoni leads with a perfect 6/6, a full point ahead of his five closest pursuers. (For U.S. readers: Ray Robson has 4.5 points.)

Just Underway:

6. The Russian Championship. There's a very strong eight-man field here fighting it out in Moscow for the national championship, and after the first round there's already a clear leader: Peter Svidler. He defeated Vladimir Kramnik (who is thus alone in last place), while the games Karjakin-Morozevich, Grischuk-Nepomniachtchi and Galkin-Timofeev were all drawn.

Sergey Shipov On the Draw "Problem"

I'm not a big fan of the topic of the so-called "problem" of draws in chess, primarily because I don't think that it really is a problem. (Perhaps the real problem is that so many fans think it's a problem!) What is a problem, occasionally, is the specter of short, bloodless draws in non-world championship super-tournaments. My preferred solution is simple: organizers and sponsors make it clear that persistent offenders won't be invited back for a year or two, and if the Grand Prix organizers engage in a little solidarity those who like short draws will feel a powerful motive to play some real chess. Draws per se are fine, however, especially as it's almost surely the correct result of a chess game.

Anyway, a large number of solutions to the alleged problem have been proposed, many of them high in quackery. One of the more interesting suggestions has been recently offered by Sergey Shipov, a sort of hybrid of 3-1-0 scoring and Rustam Kasimdzhanov's recent proposal to have drawn games played off in games with increasingly shorter time controls. Shipov suggests the following:

1. In case of a win in the normal game, the winner gets 3 points, the loser none.

2. After a draw in the normal game, there will be a pair of blitz games, and if they don't produce a winner, an Armageddon game. The winner at this point will get 2 points, the loser 1.

It's an improvement on both Kasimdzhanov's proposal and 3-1-0 scoring, and it would certainly be entertaining for chess fans. I for one would like to see it tried as an experiment in an elite event.

Dvoretsky's Tragicomedy in the Endgame: A Brief Review

Mark Dvoretsky, Tragicomedy in the Endgame: Instructive Mistakes of the Masters (Russell Enterprises 2011). 264 pp. $29.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

Those who have Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual (DEM) will probably recall that many sections conclude with a "tragicomedy" or two, examples where the players - often very strong ones - have gone terribly awry, usually in cases where they should have known better. Mark Dvoretsky has now expanded the tragicomedy concept into an entire book, still dedicated to endgames, calling this new book an "introduction" or "supplement" to DEM.

While it may serve that function, the arrangement is different. DEM, like most endgame texts, divided the chapters by material: first pawn endings, then minor pieces, then rooks, etc. While the chess-related subject matter Tragicomedy is the ending (especially rook endings), its thematic focus is on errors, and therefore chapters are divided by the kinds of errors committed. The chapters, followed by a brief description of their contents, are as follows:

1. "Swimming" in Theory: These are errors brought about by a deficient grasp of fundamental endings and/or motifs.

2. The King in the Endgame: A grab bag of concepts are covered, from activating one's king and preventing the opponent from doing likewise, to motifs like "shouldering" and cutting off the enemy king.

3. The Strength of the Pawns: The focus is on passed pawns: using them, stopping them, creating them and so on.

4. Zugzwang: Self-explanatory.

5. In Search of Salvation: Players (both on the strong side and the weak side) often overlook last ditch saves involving fortresses, stalemate, and different sorts of perpetual attack.

6. Tactics: A relatively short, grab-bag chapter helpfully reminding us that the relative quiet of the endgame doesn't mean that middlegame-style tactics can't arise.

7. Piece Play: The focus here is on maneuvers and exchanges, concepts more commonly associated with technique than with fundamental endgames. Which brings us to...

8. Technique: Here the topics include prophylaxis, gaining/losing a tempo, move order and - turning to a more psychological theme - carelessness. Again, this offers a segue to...

9. Premature End to the Struggle. Here we have examples where players resigned in a drawn position or agreed to a draw in a won position. (Ouch.)

There's also a conclusion, offering some final tragicomedies from the ranks of world champions and near-champions (though there are plenty of other champions' gaffes earlier in the book as well).

It isn't casual reading, but it's a good book that can help us reduce the number of fundamental errors we make in the endgame - if we put some in time and elbow grease. Here's one way of defining progress: if you first look at the book and think he's too hard on the players whose games he's examining, and then finish it and wonder how such greats could play so poorly, the book will have been a success.

One critical remark: the book's editing isn't always as good as it should be - maybe it's not tragicomic, but it should be better, especially for a marquee author like Dvoretsky. Nevertheless, it's a book worth having and using if you're near 2000 (and up), and somewhat lower-rated players with a sturdy work ethic can benefit from it as well.

Adams British Champion After Successful Playoff with Short

The match (and playoff) was shorter and the stakes a little lower, but as in 1997 Michael Adams pulled out a victory in "extra time" against Nigel Short to win the 2011 British Championship. The first game of their two-game rapid playoff was a draw, and in game two Adams parlayed the white pieces into a win. Short essayed the semi-dodgy Bronstein-Larsen variation of the Caro-Kann and achieved a decent position with it. He did need to find an accurate 14th move, and had he played 14...Kb8, he'd have been okay.

The point may not be what you thought - at least it's not what I thought! After 15.dxe6, Black doesn't play 15...Rde8, though it's playable (then the idea of 14...Kb8 is clear - 16.exd7 isn't check), but 15...fxe6. After 16.Qxe6 (not forced, but White has no advantage with other moves either) 16...Rhe8 17.Qf7 (or 17.Qf5 Nb6, regaining the pawn thanks to the dual threats of ...Nxc4 and ...Bh2+ followed by ...Rxd1; here we see that the king needed to be on b8, or 17...Nb6 would have been illegal) 17...Ne5 18.Qxc7+ Bxc7 19.Rxd8+ Rxd8 with equality. Black regains the c-pawn, unless White wants to get mated with ...Rd1. Note that greedy moves like 18.Qxh5 and 18.Qxf6 are both bad: 18.Qxh5? Rh8 19.Bh6 Rdg8 is quite bad for White, and 18.Qxf6?? loses to 18...Be7 19.Rxd8+ Rxd8 20.Qf4 Bg5! 21.Qg3 (21.Qxg5 Rd1+ 22.Kh2 Nf3#) 21...Rd1+ 22.Kh2 Bxh4 23.Qxh4 Nf3#.

After 14...Rde8 15.Be3 Adams was better, and while this or that move from either side might not always have been the absolutely best choice, Adams never gave away the advantage and his sustained queenside attack broke through. In the final position, Short resigned because after 34...Rxd8 35.Qxd8+ Ka7 36.Qd7+ Kb8 37.Qb7 is mate while 35...Qb8 loses to 36.c7. (You can replay the game, with these notes, here.)

Congratulations to Michael Adams, and to Jovanka Houska as well, for winning the Women's title.

Grand Slam Masters Final: Participants, Dates and More

There had been some discussion on this blog about Sergey Karjakin's non-participation in the Grand Slam Finals; understandably, as he had been invited earlier and it would seem that this is a tournament offer no one could refuse. As it turns out, not only Karjakin but Vladimir Kramnik took a pass on it too. Here's who will be playing:

Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Vassily Ivanchuk, Hikaru Nakamura and Francisco Vallejo Pons.

More info here.