Chess Cafe Articles

The ChessCafe.com website is worth a look each week, but this week's material was especially good. Just singling out the columns I found particularly interesting, there's

(1) The Endgame Study (#722, for those who read this after it's in the archives only). It's a very simple study with a humorous solution, so even study rookies can solve and appreciate it.

(2) From the Archives... (Efim Geller versus World Champions: A Tribute [Part 1]). Geller - one of a very, very, very few players with a plus score for his career against world champions (and he played dozens of games against them) - was one of the world's absolute best players from the early 1950s through the mid-to-late 70s, and he continued to be an important player and theoretician for years afterwards. Definitely a player whose games chess fans should be acquainted with.

(3) Boxing the Compass: This is a very long, week-by-week, review by Charles Riordan of the New England Nor'easters road to the US Chess League championship.

(4) The Openings Explained: Essentially a review article rehashing material discussed recently in New in Chess Yearbook 96 and on ChessPublishing.com about the 6.Be3 Ng4 Najdorf. (Technically, it's not an English Attack, as properly speaking that only arises after 6.Be3 e6, while 6.Be3 e5 is probably best labeled the Byrne Attack.) Of course, if you don't subscribe to either, then it's not a rehash!

(5) Checkpoint: It's a useful column to check out each month as Carsten Hansen reviews the latest batch of opening books. (Though why he keeps reviewing each issue of the New in Chess Yearbook is a mystery to me - it always gets four stars, and it's always the same sort of product. There is nothing new to say about it each time. [Of course I'm not as mystified as I should be: it's likely that that part of his column isn't really journalism; it's advertising. Still, it would be nice if he would just write "NICY issue X has just come out, and it lives up to its usual high standards. One interesting feature of this issue is {one-two sentence description}. If you're at all interested in keeping up with opening theory, this is as an excellent buy.])

Digression over. The reason this month's "Checkpoint" is noteworthy is that Hansen has discovered a book which makes Bruce Pandolfini's Chess Movies 1: Quick Tricks look like a work by Mark Dvoretsky. About a month and a half ago I referred to the Pandolfini book as possibly "the worst chess book I've ever seen". Well, I haven't seen Andrew Tocher's In Your Face Chess Novelties, but to judge by what Hansen has written and the book excerpts given there, there's a new contender for worst ever, and it would seem to be in a league all its own.

(6) Opening Lanes ("It's a Wonderful Life"): Finally, there's Gary Lane's reader-based openings column. I'm not usually too interested in the variations he covers (generally the readers ask about rather quirky sidelines), but I think the line he discusses this time around is useful. Club players often play rather junky and/or insipid lines, which they justify by expressing a fear or dislike for studying tons of theory. I think the fear is overblown, but the argument is in any case predicated on a false dilemma. There are many perfectly respectable lines that are sound, have a bite, and haven't worked out to move 30.

Case in point: the Motzko Attack against the Open Ruy: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 9.c3 Bc5 and now 10.Qd3. The move is multi-functional: the queen keeps an eye on d5 (which it wouldn't after the main move, 10.Nbd2), makes Be3 possible, hits e4 and b5 (see Nbd2, a4) and may eventually hit h7 (Nbd2, the knights trade, and then Ng5). It clears d1 for a rook (more pressure against d5), and may also be a bit of a high-class waiting move. It's also comparatively unknown, which makes it a useful weapon in club play.

Does it promise an advantage? I don't know, but it's interesting enough that strong GMs like Andrei Sokolov, Leinier Dominguez, Vugar Gashimov, Nigel Short and Alexander Khalifman have tried it (against quality players!), as have "ordinary" GMs and mortals further down the food chain.

London Warmups

The modestly (but probably appropriately) named London Chess Classic gets underway next week, and two of the English players got in a little chess action this past weekend, with varying results. Nigel Short came to the U.S. and played in a very strong open tournament in St. Louis. Four GMs tied for first, and he wasn't one of them! Meanwhile, in , the very small (but strong) Remco Heite chess tournament was won by Luke McShane with 3.5 out of 5, half a point ahead of Anish Giri and Erwin L'Ami, with Bartlomiej Macieja at 2.5 and Loek van Wely and Peter Heine Nielsen in the caboose with 1.5.

So Who's The Leading Teenager Now?

Magnus Carlsen turned 20 today, so I guess that leaves teendom in the very impressive hands of Fabiano Caruana. (Send him back!)

Incidentally, about Magnus Carlsen, I guess it's popular in Russian circles to call him "the kid", on account of some Swedish stories that have been translated and turned into a cartoon serial in Russian. This seems to me much ado about extremely little, as neither the nickname, the stories nor the cartoon have featured in any of the English language chess material I've seen on the young Norwegian, but it may have a strong resonance for some of you, especially Scandinavians and Russian-speakers. If so, or if you want to while away a few minutes watching cartoons, have a look here.

260-Core Rybka Wins Dutch Computer Event

Alas, most of us only get to use two or four cores - and not only we civilians, but some of the participants in the 30th Open Dutch Computer Chess Championship as well. On the other hand, the program Jonny got to run on a stupendous 800 cores, and despite this only managed a 50% score. (Does it fall for Scholar's Mate on one core? I know, it doesn't scale that radically, but it's still a shockingly bad result given the monster hardware.)

There's a report on the event with a couple of games to boot, here.

Notre Dame 20 - USC 16

The despised, loathed, cheating USC team has been vanquished.* Good riddance.

ND's final regular season record: 7-5. Next stop, a bowl to be determined later.

It's definitely time for the celebratory tune:

* The loathing etc. is only from a sports rivalry perspective, of course.

Notre Dame to Defeat USC Tonight

I would normally make some cracks about some of USC's notorious alums here, but with a bit of controversy around an unnamed ND player this week I think I'll pass. Hopefully the guy is innocent, but if not, and if the university is covering for him, I hope that the program suffers the strongest possible sanctions.

The game will be aired on ABC starting at 8 p.m. ET. Pregame reading material here.

Nakamura Wins BNBank Blitz

The BNBank Blitz: This one day event in Oslo, Norway, was a repeat triumph for Hikaru Nakamura. Last year he defeated Magnus Carlsen in the final by a 2.5-1.5 score; this year, neither M.C. nor (Jon Ludvig) Hammer played (can't touch this [tournament]), so it looked as if Nakamura would have a comparatively easy time of things. Sure enough, he blew through the prelims 10-0 and drubbed Leif Johannessen 3-0 in the semis, but he had a very tough time against Simen Agdestein in the finals. Agdestein won game 1, Nakamura games 2 and 3, and then Agdestein won the final game to send it to Armaggedon. Here Nakamura pulled it out and won, and in the 3rd-4th match Kateryna Lahno "won" her match against Johannessen by drawing her Armaggedon game with Black. (Games are on TWIC and ChessBomb.)

This Week's ChessVideos Show: An Evans Brilliancy

American GM Larry Evans died at the start of the week, and to commemorate this long-retired GM's skill over the board our ChessVideos show this week takes a look at one of his early games. His opening play was a bit dubious, but once the middlegame was in full bloom Evans found some spectacular combinative ideas. It's a very entertaining game, and serves as a great training exercise too.

So have a look: the video is free (free registration is required) and will be available on-demand for the next month or so.

Dvoretsky Interview, Part 2

Here. Topics include trainers and computers, endgame play, and chess self-improvement.

Turkey News on Thanksgiving

This is not about all the turkeys who will be gobbled up today in the U.S., but about the country, or rather its chess federation. An audit of that federation purports to show that it spent about 178 thousand Turkish lira (about $120 thousand US) paying delegates in exchange for their votes to grant Turkey the 2012 Chess Olympics.

As this article suggests, allegations of bribery in FIDE are nothing new; in fact, they're taken entirely for granted. What is new is the Turkish Federation's own acknowledgement of this financial malfeasance. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

HT: Esteban