Archive for February, 2010

It was a very complicated game, and with Veselin Topalov pressing hard and Francisco Vallejo in terrible time trouble the Spaniard, who had had winning chances, blundered a full rook. This third victory put the Bulgarian GM a point and a half ahead of the field – and two points ahead of Magnus Carlsen in the live world rankings. Game with commentary by GM Anish Giri.

It was a very complicated game, and with Veselin Topalov pressing hard and Francisco Vallejo in terrible time trouble the Spaniard, who had had winning chances, blundered a full rook. This third victory put the Bulgarian GM a point and a half ahead of the field – and two points ahead of Magnus Carlsen in the live world rankings. Game with commentary by GM Anish Giri.

In GSCL action on Thursday, the Kenilworth Karpovs lost to previously winless Staten Island 3-1.

For more details, visit my Garden State League blog.

• starts Sunday, March 7th, 2010
• non-rated
• 5-SS
• Rounds : March 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th & April 4th… all starting at 9:00 p.m.
• Time Control : G/45+0 or G/40 + 5 second delay. Black gets to choose.
• A player may request a 0.45 point bye for any round but the request must reach the TD 4 hours before the round.
• No entry fee or prizes
• To register, send an e-mail to Tournament Director Bob Sherry by March 6th.

… was the scenario in this game from the Austrian Bundesliga, where White had just played
28.Bf4-c1, giving his rooks free view to the black king. How would you assess the situation now?

A) White wins due to the threat 29.Rf1+;
B) the game should end in a perpetual check
C) Black wins.
The solution is here,
but first ponder over it with a  larger version of the diagram.

All three games were full of fight: Aronian came close to defeating Gelfand but drew; Vallejo even closer to defeating Gashimov but lost; and Alexander Grischuk had clear winning chances against Veselin Topalov but was outplayed by the Bulgarian in the end. We bring you extensive and deeply insightful commentary on this exciting struggle, provided by GM Anish Giri. Miss it at your own peril.

Every so often a player has a run for the ages, and this incredible series inevitably ushers in a new name to be reckoned with at the highest echelons of chess. 19-year-old Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem has just had such a run, passing through the fiercest trial by fire the chess world has to offer, coming first or equal first in two super-strong Russian tournaments. Albert Silver reports.

The first pocket PCs all had very similar designs, with standard button and key arrangements. With the improvement of touch screens and the incorporation of mobile phone features, the design has changed, as have the number and functions of the keys in each device. So we need to allow every user to configure our program according to his/her preferences and needs. Here’s how it is done.

In the analysis of Short-Kramnik (”the wrong choice of ending”) we saw a knight that had everything under its
control triumph over the bishop. But having the superior minor piece
does not always guarantee the full point, as can be seen in the game McShane-Sebag.
White has an extra pawn and the last black pawn is fixed on the same colour
square as the bishop. Black should be able to save the game here, because
the winning potential in the position is just too
slight. However, the reason for 134….Kd7? being the wrong move and how
Black could have held the draw can be seen in Karsten Müller’s analysis for  ChessBase Magazine Online.

This young Vietnamese grandmaster is having an incredible run: after finishing joint first in the very strong Moscow Open, and without a single day’s rest, he played in the Aeroflot and clinched sole first with a fine win over Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final round. Second was Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov. Final results, games and pictures from Moscow.

The wait is over, the multi-processor version of our flagship program is now available and shipping. The parallel algorithms have been further optimised and now support up to 16 cores. The new dynamic scaling will also work well with the next generations of multi-core processors. All this make it one of the strongest chess engines around. Here’s an interview with the author Frans Morsch.

Ah, the trouble a chess player will go through for a woman who has read Art of Attack….

• Reassembler
• USCL News & Gossip
• Jim West
• Adventures of Rabin
• Castling Queenside

29…Kd8?? (29…Rf5! =+) 30. fxe5 Nxe5 31. Rxe5 dxe5 32. Qxe5 Qd7 33. Qg5+ 1-0

Yesterday

I dispatched a fellow 1800 in 17 moves & drew U.S. Correspondence Champion Paul Fielding!!

27. Rxc3 Rxc3 28. Rd8+ Kg7 29. Qb4!! Rc8 30. Qf8+ Kf6 31. Qh8+ Ke7 32. Qf8+ Kf6 33. Qh8+ Ke7 34. Rxc8 Nxc8 35. Qxh7 Nd6 36. Qh4+ Ke8 37. Qh8+ Ke7 38. Qh4+ Ke8 39. Qh8+ (+-) 1/2-1/2

Of course, the Q+B & 5 should overcome Q, N & 4 but I didn’t feel like grinding for another 2 hours.

The Williams & Fielding games will likely be re-visited at a future date but, for now, here is the complete set of 6, with light notes, in java-replay & zipped PGN.

 

In Round 5 of the US Amateur Teams East, our Kenilworth team made it to Board One with a perfect record. I was able to win my game (see “Board One Blunder-Fest” for details) and I thought at the time it was rather well-played. The rest of the team drew, so we won the match and they will play for the championship in the final round (the only team at 5-0, with Bob Rose on Board Four this time). Though I’m still happy with the result, I’m none too happy with the game, which looks like a blunder-fest under the harsh glare of the computer. But that’s what late round games can be like. 

I had to go teach a class (can you believe Rutgers has classes on Presidents Day?), so I wasn’t able to find out what happened in the last round.  If anyone knows results, please post them in comments.

The Hedgehog is a system against the English Opening that’s easy to underestimate.
In 1982 Lubomir Ftacnik, today part of the ChessBase team, produced a remarkable
brilliancy with it against Lev Polugaevsky, one of the world’s very strongest
players at the time. It is the subject of this week’s Playchess
presentation by Dennis Monokroussos. See you on the server!

Our GM analyst Anish Giri sent us the following message: “Topalov: novelty, draw; Aronian: ending, technical, still draw; Grischuk: strange prep, maybe even worse, draw.” That may be the shortest round wrap-up ever. Indeed after some very exciting games the three draws in round four were fairly uneventful. Draw ratio so far: 83%. Games, results, pictures.

In addition to
reports on top tournaments and games analysed by world class players,
every issue of ChessBase Magazine contains,
lots of training designed to help ambitious club players. There is, for
example, the column “Move by Move” by the English grandmaster
Daniel King. We
have put together some screenshots to show you how it works in practical
terms.

This is what happens when you travel half-way around the globe, accept more and more opponents in a strong simul, agree to play with white and black pieces, and start at 1 a.m. body time. You blunder a game against a 12-year-old and make it into the Canadian press. Alexei Shirov showed great sporting spirit in this Ottawa simul. Gordon Ritchie reports.

Five players lead with 5.0/7 points in the A groupe of this prestigious Moscow open tournament – two Vietnamese and three Russians. Eleven GMs from various nations following half a point behind. The female players start at place 48. There are a lot of very nice but uncaptioned pictures on the official tournament site. Thanks for the help in identifying them – there are still a few names missing.

In today’s round all games were drawn, but all of them were very interesting! Gashimov continued his opening discussion with Grischuk in the Qd3 line of the Poisoned Pawn Variation; Gelfand-Vallejo was a Slav sideline which led to very dangerous play; and Aronian-Topalov saw both sides miss opportunities to improve their chances. Commentary by GM Anish Giri.

After the third round of play at the US Amateur Teams East in Parsippany, the “Kenilworth A” team was 3-0 and sitting behind the rope in contention for the title.  I’ll find out shortly how we did in Round 4 and if we are playing up or down in Round 5 today.  Meanwhile, I have a little gem of a game that NM Scott Massey played in Round 2 (PGN here) on Saturday that is sure to amuse you, featuring the Moeller Attack of the Italian Game or Giuoco Piano.  Scott, who was 3-0 himself after three rounds, says he figured all of this out at the board, having only the vaguest recollection of theory.  However, he did miss the quickest win in the second diagram: can you find it?

It was one of the most controversial decisions in chess history: on February 15, 1985, the President of FIDE Florencio Campomanes terminated the World Championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov after 48 games. Twenty years later “Campo” spoke about the reasons for the step he took. A new book published in Russia contradicts his version. Video and book extract.

You know him well, American GM Yasser Seirawan, the man with the smooth voice,
dapper suit and winning smile. If you don’t, you can at least listen to his live
Playchess commentary on today’s round
in Linares (from 5 p.m. onwards). Or you can get Seirawan’s My Best Games from
ChessBase. Michael Jeffreys writes: “If there is a better
chess DVD on the market, I have yet to see it.” Review.