In his Times column for 8 July 2011, Ray Keene annotated
the game Fischer-Euwe from the Leipzig Olympiad, 1960. The column is below.
This was not the last time he was to annotate that game for the Times since on 4 April 2012 he chose the same game for his column, which you can see below.
At first sight the columns don't have much in common beyond the game itself, though a closer look (try White's twenty-fourth and thirty-second moves) suggests that the later column wasn't written without reference to the earlier one.
Thing is, though, it's not really the relationship between the columns that interests us here. It's the relationship both bear to a third work, from which they are both shamelessly plagiarised.
That volume is the fourth part of Garry Kasparov's My Great Predecessors.
Returning to my review of the rook endings I've played in 2013 thus far, I have to admit that they haven't all been peaches and cream. Not even the ones I played at Golders Green.
One in particular that I didn't close down as I could have done stands out in my memory. It was the last round at the February tournament. I discovered afterwards that if i'd won I'd have shared first place. As it was I finished equal third and out of the money. Close, but not close enough.
I was White in this position, having just swapped queens to get here. My opponent offered me a draw hereabouts, but I was never going to take it. I felt I was on my home ground and not his for a start, but objectively I thought I had a little something to play for.
Although I quickly realised that things might not be as easy as I'd hoped. He activated his rook so I felt I had to retreat mine to protect my second rank.
Still I had a plan: use the Rubinstein Method to protect my pawns, pushing forward on the kingside, create a weakness in the enemy camp. And lo, mucho shuffling later, I got exactly what I was aiming for.
My next idea was to be able to protect f3 and b3 with the rook and push the a-pawn forward to try to create a second target on the queenside. I remember nearly playing Re3 here - which would have been embarrassing - and then realising I'd have to go to c3 instead.
I had two main problems. Firstly, Black didn't let me push my pawn to a5 ...
... and secondly I was nearly out of time. I'm not sure how much I had left on the clock, maybe a minute and a half to my opponent's 10+, but I felt like I'd lost the thread. I'd got a weak pawn to attack on h6 just like I wanted, I just couldn't see how to get at it. So here I accepted my opponents second offer of a draw.
After the game I quickly realised something that simply hadn't occurred to me during it: I can try to put my rook on g6. I'd seen this idea before, it just didn't come to mind while my flag was hanging.
Given another minute, would I have found the right plan? Gone on to win? Maybe, maybe not.
I know that I spent much of the tube ride home kicking myself for missing the opportunity, but on reflection I'm prepared to break the habits of a lifetime and see this as a glass half full situation rather than 50% empty. Yes, I should have done better at the end, but I felt that I'd played pretty well to get to a position where I could screw up. This time last year I simply wouldn't have had the first clue as to what was really going on in this type of ending. At least now I knew that I'd let a chance slip by.
Anyhoo, here - via our regular visitor John Cox's Declining the Queen's Gambit - is somebody playing a very similar ending. With a good deal more competence than I managed, I should say.
In the position at the head of today's blog Black did indeed choose to play ... Rg2-g3 and White didn't swap. There are a few tricks to work your way through in the pawn ending, but if you have a look at it you'll see why White didn't want to go there. Not that his Rf5 saved the game either.
So nicely done for Berkes and a point on the board for him. For me it's halfway there and better luck next time.
After an introduction to Knightmare! (part 1), and a taste of some of its eccentricities (part 2), this episode in our fortnightly series looks back over the passage of time since the late 70s to some of the personalities associated with the magazine. But we do so with a measure of sadness as we will pay tribute to two who are no longer with us (and apologies if we unwittingly refer without proper acknowledgement - here or in other posts - to others who may also have fallen by the wayside).
First we celebrate the contribution of Val Singleton (partner of Mike Singleton) to the Knightmare! enterprise: herder of cats, cracker of whip, custodian of deadlines, mistress of guillotine; all done, as recalled by those who knew her, with unforgettable charm and efficiency.
Val was not a chess player but nonetheless threw herself into Knightmare!, and even found time to put pen to paper to bring a bit of poetry to the party, which she did with telling modesty preferring to write in Knightmare No. 3 under the nom de plume of "a Village Person". Now, let's be honest: Streatham in the London Borough of Lambeth would have struggled, even in the late 70's, to pass itself off as a rural idyll, a corner of Olde Englande, a village;and the current building of a megastore adjacent to its only bit of green space has definitively punctured any lingering pretensions. So what could Val have meant?
All becomes clear when you clock that one of Streatham's regular opponents was the London Central Y.M.C.A., permitting a riff on a song that went like this (popular at the time and apparently still so, even today) :
And now that you have the metre for her ditty, give or take a skip here and there, declaim ye this...
It's fun to play at the... by a Village Person
We went to the Y.M.C.A. On an August Thursday For we'd arranged then to play A team from the Y.M.C.A.
It was a twenty board match And we took a determined batch From the S & B patch And some spectators to watch (we'll...it's spelt the same!)
Streatham - don't you dare arrive late I say Streatham - our friendly rivals can't wait And oh Streatham - you must all get checkmate Ready, Go...now they've started.
Streatham - what's this...Povah has lost?! I say Streatham - and six more to our cost Ah, but Streatham's lower boards are the MOST And we might - could - yes - HAVE - won it!
So it's thanks to the Y.M.C.A. For arranging this friendly affray It was so nearly your day But we won at the Y.M.C.A.!!
"Strea'tum" subbing for "young man"...genius! So a big thanks to Val; the Village People will never be the same again.
And was that a twenty board club match? Those were the days. The score card read thus - and British chessers will recognise many names on both sides.
Another unassuming lady-behind-the-scenes, signing herself "a Chess Widow", who also endeavoured to raise the cultural tone of Knightmare! was Jan Kent (partner of Martyn Kent, on board 18 above). She contributed "A Knight at the Opera" to issue No 3, enumerating chess operas, of course, a chess themed dessert (served in 1528 by Cardinal Wolsey to the French Ambassador), and an Agatha Christie whodunnit "A Big Four", in Chapter 11 of which ("A Chess Problem") a murder most foul is committed as the victim played 3. Bb5 in the Spanish: a crucial chess detail, and a clue not lost on Hercule Poirot lui-même. Hastings and Inspector Japp, on the other hand, couldn't tell a Ruy Lopez from a rice pudding.
As for some of the many characters who, to a greater or lesser degree, played for Streatham and contributed to Knightmare! here is a sample of them today as mature specimens...
A. B. C. D. E. F.
...which provides the opportunity for a little challenge: match them to their younger selves as they were in their Knightmare! years in the strip below. Award yourself bonus points if you can name them, and double if you can pair the two cousins.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
As for a clue: all but one (D) played in the match against the YMCA, and the brilliant portrait sketches were knocked-off by Chris Jones, who says that the talent was in the genes handed down by his father, also an artist. Chris went to Camberwell School of Art and has spent many years since Knightmare! in graphic design. The drawings were each done in about half an hour from photos taken at club nights. The answers will be found in the Appendix, with the full set of sketches and photographs, after the jump.
On board 16 in the YMCA match (played in 1979) was 15 year old Daniel Feinstein, to whom we pay the second posthumous tribute in this post. He was an active and enthusiastic junior, already playing in that same year in the Surrey County U-15 and U-18 teams. His vigorous style provided the case studies for an article by Simon Gillam "The Perils of Passive Play" in Knightmare! No 3; but the following example of his enterprise comes from Round 1 of the 1979 club championship, reported also by Simon, which was played over two Sundays-plus-Monday-evenings in June. This was memorable not only for Julian Hodgson's ultimate victory (he was already a 204 Junior), but for Round 4, and its "early start on Sunday [which] proved too much for Nigel Povah, who lost by default when he slept in." An ungodly 9.00 am start, and a proper Knightmare! for Nigel; but he stirred himself and eventually finished second, one point behind the winner, pocketing a handsome £10 as runner-up.
Here is the game, where, as White, Daniel was happy to hack away in the Open Sicilian (the notes below appear to be by Simon Gillam) ...
...and he favoured the dynamic Modern Benoni as Black, not flinching at Taimanov's still feared 8. Bb5+ as in this exciting game where the opponents combine defence and attack, at the same time and the same place. Daniel plays a nice Queen sacrifice, bringing hope and succour to eternally optimistic Benoni warriors everywhere.
Daniel was still actively involved in the late 80s when he was the main man organising the Club's Open Quick Play Tournament in 1986, sponsored by the local paper, which attracted 100 or so entries. Its one and only edition was won by GM Murray Chandler.
Alas, Daniel's public chess activity seemed to have declined - maybe he played on-line? - and in the 2000s we saw him just once a year, but without fail, at the club AGM where he was free with suggestions, helpful and sometimes otherwise, as to how the club might do better. By then his real interests must have lain elsewhere - although it was difficult to know for sure as, in his evident wish for privacy, he withheld even his phone number.
Daniel Feinstein in 2008.
It was a sad shock for us in S&BCC to discover in 2010 that he had died back in 2009, aged only 45. It was even more shocking to discover that Daniel had another life, unknown to us, and that this apparently had been his overriding passion and preoccupation for some years. It was as the legendary "Mr Knowledge" - as he was known at Arsenal F.C. - where he was an obsessive supporter and walking encyclopedia of Arsenalania. He was, we learnt, a familiar sight on the terraces at Highbury, as a respectful thread on the supporters' blog shows. It reveals also bemusement at his mild eccentricity and self-abnegating privacy in a mirror-image of our perspective. There was no mention of his once all-consuming chess, nor was there in a valedictory piece in the Islington Tribune of 4 September 2009, nor in the notice with which he was honoured in the Arsenal programme for their match v Portsmouth on 22 August 2009.
Daniel seemed to have lived his life in watertight compartments, and its a shame for the club that the one marked "Chess - OTB" fell into disuse.
Which prompts a rumination on the social strangeness of our game: you lock mental horns with some other person for maybe several hours in an over-crowded personal space, mess with their ego (and they with yours) - and you learn absolutely nothing else about them, and possibly (and regrettably) care even less.
In the next episode, in a couple of weeks, Jonathan B will revisit a Knightmare! ending.
For this episode, thanks go especially to Chris Jones, Roger Emerson, Angus French, Richard Tillett, and as ever Mike Singleton.
On 15 April of this year, Ray Keene's chess column in the Times annotated the 21st game in the 1927 match for the World Championship between Capablanca and Alekhine. Here's the column, below.
On 19 May last year, Ray Keene's chess column in the Spectator, entitled Filately, annotated the 21st game in the 1927 match for the World Championship between Capablanca and Alekhine. Here's the column, below.
They bear, you may feel, certain similarities. Certain close similarities.
But relax! On this occasion the Times piece is not directly plagiarised from the Spectator piece. Come to that, the Spectator piece is not plagiarised from the Times.
Dear me no. They're both plagiarised from somewhere else.
Four weeks ago today - 5 June 2013 - Ray's Times column annotated the game Alekhine-Bogoljubow, the fifth game in their 1929 world championship match. Here's the column.
If you were just looking idly at the column you might notice the small curiosity that the player of the Black pieces has his name spelled one way in the introduction
and another way in the notes.
Can you think why this might be?
Course you can.
It's because only the introduction is original. The notes are plagiarised from a very familiar source.
"Due to the breakdown of communications between the organiser of Richmond Rapidplay and Hampton on Thames Community Association the Trustees are left with no option but to cancel the 108th event planned for Sunday 7th July 2013 and all future events. The Trustees have attempted to solve the difficulties that have arisen regarding this event but, as a registered charity which receives no central or local government funding, they are unable to continue to host this event in its present form."
I would be grateful if you could publicize this fact via your website. The Trustees Hampton on Thames Community Association The White House 45 The Avenue Hampton TW12 3RN
We mentioned this last week - see comments here - but with the date approaching it's worth repeating. If only because the event wasn't removed from the ECF tournament calendar until yesterday and up to Sunday evening it had been advertised as going ahead on the London Academy of Chess and Education website (which, incidentally, seems to have gone down at some point in the last 24 hours).
Helping in the attempt to make sure that nobody wastes a journey this weekend isn't the end of the story, though. There's also the question of why the venue doesn't want the tournament back. The answer, as it happens, is because the Hampton on Thames Community Association is owed money for rent dating back to March of this year.
Lawrence Cooper had contacted me after the original John Lewis ... article, so I got back in touch and asked him about the rent issue. This, word for word, was his response:-
Sabrina has my full support and I'll continue to organise events with her. People should stop kicking her when she's down and circling around her events and students like vultures.
Fair enough. No doubt it expresses sentiments others would share.
Still it seems to me, regardless of what else might be going on, the venue not being paid is an issue. I'm not convinced that avoiding the reality of the situation helps anybody.
Black to go from the middlegame directly into a rook ending
Well here we are, July already. Six months and thirty posts in. Even with one or two guest blogs, I'm still comfortably ahead of schedule to reach my target of 52 rook and pawn posts in 2013.
Not a bad time, then, to take stock. Consider my goal for the year and ask myself the Morrissey question.
Let's start with my rapidplay games. 51 of them January to June, ten of which boiled down to kings, rooks and pawns. That's not an unhealthy percentage, but actually if my experience proves anything it's that Golders Green is the place to go to if that's the sort of thing you're after.
Nine of my 36 games at Adam Raoof's monthly tournament - precisely one in four - turned into rook endgames. It could have been more, too. I'd have made it into double figures had one opponent not resigned instead of accepting a forced queen exchange which would have left him with rook plus five pawns against my rook and seven. Very annoying.
Anyhoo, my score from those ten games, sadly not counting the rook ending that never quite happened, was +4 =4 -2 at an ECF performance rating of 171 or thereabouts. That's considerably higher the 155 with which I started the year and a few points more than the figure - I think it will be somewhere in the upper160s - that will appear under my name in the summer grading list.
So, with all due respect to Mozzer's grumpy 'it makes none' conclusion, my feeling is that writing about rook endings has both led me to play many more of them than otherwise would have been the case and maybe it's even improved my results a little too. That wasn't the intention, but I'll take grading points anywhere I can get them.
No (more) apologies, then. I'll head merrily into the second half of my rook endgame year, starting with my favourite transition to a rook ending from 2013 so far.
Black to play
T. Joslin v JMGB
Golders Green, April 2013 (2)
The position in the diagram is just a move and a half out of established theory. Theory that was well known to me, although fortunately not to my opponent. In the circumstances it was an exceptional effort from White to find his way to move 18 all on his own, but it left him 15-20 minutes down on the clock.
Anyhoo, with the benefit of a comfortable time advantage I settled down for a bit of a think. Here's pretty much how it went (imagine this as a Master Game voiceover if it pleases you).
What to do? Fork the rooks which forces chop, chop, chop, recapture? ... can he back rank me here? ... no take on b2, take, take, take and I have ... g6. What then? I'm attacking a knight and a pawn ... so push, take, take, I can win a pawn ... no then I do get mated ... instead move the knight then - it's going to a good square - he has to move his, attack the pawn, he does something - no idea what but it doesn't seem to matter - and now I can take twice on d4 and I'm a protected passed pawn up in a rook ending. That'll do me.
I very rarely calculate a line that long let alone see it actually materialise on the board when I do. It's just that this time that's exactly what happened ... and when I got to the end realised I was winning a second pawn too.
Happy days. Here's hoping for another six months of them.
A couple of years before he wrote the article Great Alexander for the Spectator, which plagiarised wholesale Garry Kasparov's My Great Predecessors, Ray Keene wrote a piece for the same magazine, called Harry's Game, which appeared in the issue for March 12, 2011. In the article, Ray annotated the game Reti-Capablanca, New York 1924.
The Harry referred to in Ray's title is the late Harry Golombek who, as Ray observes, produced noteworthy game collections honouring both those players.
I happen to possess copies of both books: the game from New York was annotated by Golombek in the one devoted to Reti. Here's the front cover of my copy, complete with the author's name misspelled on the front cover.
Ray goes on to say that his annotations to Reti-Capablanca are based on Golombek's.
With notes based on Golombek's. But they're not. Patently, they are not based on Golombek's.
How can we can say that with confidence? Because they are, in fact, not "based on" anything, but plagiarised - and not from Golombek but a different place entirely.
