My chess moment of 2007

That's the chess year wrapped up - for most people, anyway, save those of you playing at Hastings and those of us playing the first Casino Jaque Open in Huesca.

The year's highlights - for the club - included Streatham and Brixton's fourth place in the London League and the second team's shock promotion: also a shock are the colours in the Surrey League website. In that league, S&B came a very good third: and actually won the Croydon League, which they never did when I was playing in it.

That's my old team: my new team, Casino Jaque, escaped the threat of relegation on the last day of the regular season, a highlight of my year. My only game of real note this year - give or take a nice win over Michael Yeo in the 4NCL - involved knocking over a 2477-graded Bulgarian in Benasque, the strongest opponent by some margin that I've ever beaten. While in rather more consequential international chess news, we finally have an undisputed world champion again for the first time in a decade and a half.

Lowlights would include the almost entire failure of the BBC to cover the world championship tournament - and from my point of view, discovering that an administrative cock-up deprived me of my first ever win over an International Master.

Of perhaps greater consequence was the boneheaded decision of the Aragonese Chess Federation to exclude resident non-Spaniards from their championship: so much for gens una sumus. But of certainly greater consequence was the death of Loki, Streatham chessplayer, decades before his proper time and before we had even met.

So my chess moment of 2007? Had my Bulgarian opponent actually had the IM title he had earned, it would probably have been that game at Benasque. As it is, I have to look elsewhere. I had considered choosing "Mad" Mike Basman's ravings about the infantilism of the population in a recent issue of Chess Monthly, reading, which at least gave me a laugh during an otherwise miserable Metropolitan tournament in October. Or I could select the moment I was told that this blog had been selected as the ECF Website of the Year.

But for sheer entertainment value, the opening paragraph from Nigel Davies' July 2007 column for the Chess Café sticks in the mind:

Back in the 1990s the woman who used to cut my hair invited me for a meal and to play chess against her husband and a family friend. She was slightly taken aback when I asked to be compensated for my time, but I explained that chess is what I did for a living and that this was essentially a chess engagement.

Marvellous. This blog is taking a break until the third of January: may my colleagues and I wish a sociable holiday period and a generous 2008 to all our readers.

LATE NEWS: I think my chess moment of 2007 might actually be "logging on on Xmas day to find out that the Xmas tournament in Huesca has been cancelled". I dunno, barred from one, the next one cancelled at the last minute. A very Merry bloody Xmas to you all.

Old in Chess V

Tis the season to be jolly so what better time for the announcement of the confirmation that next year's Anand - Kramnik World Championship match will go ahead after all. Happily my pessimism of a month ago turned out to be totally misplaced and, according to the press released published on the Chessbase website on the 19th, a twelve game contest will be held in Bonn next October.

I've read in the past that the reason for the tortuous negotiations that invariably seem to accompany chess matches is that to make even the smallest concession to the wishes of one's opponent is to grant him a significant psychological victory and ensure the momentum of the struggle is against you even before the first pawn is pushed. If so, Anand might already be 1-0 down because it seems he's just rolled over and totally become Kramnik's bitch.

Vishy doesn't seem to have got anything at all out of the pre-match skirmishes. He expressed his desire not to play in Germany but has ended up going there anyway and he hasn't got the draw odds a champion would traditionally expect (a blitz play-off on 30th October will decide the title if necessary). He's not even going to get any extra dosh as the world title holder - the prize money will be split equally.

Ah well. Perhaps he just wanted to get the match on or maybe he's just a reasonable human being.


So why is this nugget of contemporary chess news appearing under the Old in Chess banner? Well, it must be confessed that even Speedy Malc got there before us on this one, publishing his announcement all of three days ago.

I'm off to bury my shame under a mountain of mince pies and drained beer bottles.

Merry Christmas all.

Chess is easy, it's the quizzes which are difficult...

My answering machine took a phone call from Geoff last night. I can't tell you exactly what he said, not because it's confidential but because there was so much crackle on the line it sounded like the radio communication in the boat towards the end of Apocalypse Now. In between the static I caught some phrases which - once I'd listened to the recording several times - sounded a bit like this:

.....sorry....column this week.....gone into .....village in the Black Mountains.....mobile coverage....publisher can't get hold of me here.....Coulsdon International....out of the prizes again....after Hastings....see Peter Sowray at Wokefield Park.....

and after that the phone went dead. So either he has had his head cut off or he will, we hope, be back early in the New Year. The meaning of the last reference escapes me.

Anyway, this leaves us looking for a space filler for our last Saturday column of the year. And what better item with which to fill the space than the annual Chess Café Holiday Quiz with its traditional lorryload of prizes - none of which I shall be winning, as the number of questions I am sure I know the answer to is precisely two. (One hopes, by the way, that the questions are more accurate than the descriptions of the prizes, or at least the designation of James Rizzitano's Queen's Gambit Declined as a "classic".)

Nevertheless, in a repeat of the exercise that was so spectacularly unsuccessful last year, readers are invited to pool their resources and provide answers in the comments box below. We have about three weeks.

Big Centre

Here's a position from a game I played for the Other Club a month or two ago.

I, as Black, have just played my ninth move. Care to guess the move order that brought us here?

Knight before both bishops

1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 f6 3.e4?! Bxb4 4.Bc4


I remember coming across this unlikely gambit in an old David Levy monograph on the Sokolsky Opening, which I used to play as a teenager. My reaction, at the time, was bafflement: "how did they think that one up?". I was even more surprised to find a player called Fischer on the White side of the gambit, which I therefore assumed to be some other Fischer, of whom I had not heard, until I discovered that it was a simultaneous game played during Bobby's famous US tour of 1963-4. (He played his famous Evans Gambit offhand game against Fine not long before - perhaps that's where he got the idea of trying out this line.)

I still confess myself surprised, though - surprised that Fischer played it, surprised that anybody ever played it. Surprised still more to discover, while writing this piece, that Tartakower turned over both Reti and Colle with the gambit. Nevertheless, I still think it's a load of old bosh, though I've never actually played either side of it: as White I always bottled out with 3.b5, and as Black I normally go 2...Bxb4, if you can talk about "normally" where such a rare opening is concerned.

What's also surprising about the sequence is that it involves the development of both White bishops (indeed, of three bishops in all) before any knights have come out. It's startling, when you think about it, how rarely this is the case, for either side. In fact I can't, even after some thought, think of a totally respectable variation where this is the case.

There are various Modern Defences where the Black bishops go to g7 and g4 - selecting one particular move-order in that opening is impossible, but as White I might very well face a sequence like 1.Nf3 d6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.d4 Bg4


which has been played by rather more grandmasters than the aforementioned Sokolsky gambit.

Other sequences for developing the bishops before the knights include, for Black, in the English Opening, 1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6 3.e4 Bb7 4.Nc3 Bb4:


which is fine for Black, although White has not chosen the best line - and for White, a line in the Nimzowitsch-Larsen,1.b3 c5 2.Bb2 d5 3.e3 Nc6 4.Bb5


which is also fine for the side deploying the bishops, but which may not be the other side's best choice.

Which, if it says anything, perhaps says that there may well have been something in the old chess proverb "knights before bishops": even if it be only that its opposite, "bishops before knights", very rarely applies. One wonders why. Because they're targets, when developed too early in the game? Or because knights both attack and defend, more easily, pawns (and squares) in the middle of the board?

Can Amateur Chess Players Defend? At All?

I'm going to surprise our readership today with not only a serious-minded post, but one about one of the most difficult things in chess - defence. Furthermore, I'll even suggest how we might improve our defensive capabilities. But first...

... place yourself in the black player's seat, in the position to the left with you to move.

It's a serious league game, and you know your team mates are struggling: your result might well prove crucial. As for you- you have twenty minutes left on your clock for the rest of the game. It's been an uncomfortable, uneven affair, your lower-graded opponent smoking out your king at the cost of material for the last ten moves. He's now a rook down - but has a clear and immediate threat of mate in two, beginning 35.Qh5+.

Which move do you choose to play?

Which variations do you analyze & how do you evaluate them?

And how much time on the clock does it cost you?

I'll return to the position at the end of this post, but for now consider the question as to why is defence in chess so difficult. Firstly, I'd like to suggest, there are undoubtedly psychological elements involved. The spectre of defeat looms over our thoughts, there's the embarrassment of potentially being on the receiving end of a brilliancy, there's the sheer instinctive, extreme discomfort that comes of facing someone out to kill us, or so we feel.

But there are more intrinsic chess reasons involved too. One defensive slip & we're mated, no matter how many previously perfect moves we've made. But for an attacker, several inaccurate moves in a row may merely lessen their initiative, rather that dissolve it or cost the game. Many unsound attacks win games through the sheer will to get at the opponent's king & the confusion thus caused. So many attempted-defences fail due to one seemingly-random oversight. This is the nature of chess for humans; the scales are tilted in the attacker's favour. (If you're not convinced, consider how many games have you won with sterling defence, compared to those won through attacks, traps, strategical superiority, positional understanding, endgame knowledge, or - just plain luck during complications? How many can you recall seeing won through defence at club level?)

So, what can non-professional, ordinary club players such as myself do about it? Many things no doubt, but I wish to suggest just one right now as most important. Remember that Botvinnik used to play seven hour training games with a radio playing, surrounded by cigars, to get used to the distractions that often accompanied playing conditions back then? Remember that Rowson says in his two books on chess improvement how crucial it is that we practice concentration? I suggest that to improve our defensive capabilities, we simulate over-the-board defending at home.

There are several ways we might do this. Play a risky opening against Fritz, except do it with a proper set and a proper clock, all phones switched to off. And make it the only chess thing you do that day, so you simulate too the bitter taste of defeat that comes with a failed defence. Or set up positions that featured famous defensive victories, such as Petrosian's, & play those out against a strong computer - but again, setting them up on the board with the clock ticking. Or play out such defensive positions against club-mates. Or finally, try out moments such as the above one from practical club play yourself, similar to that which you might encounter at the board, and measure yourself against what actually happened & what should have actually happened.

Speaking of which, how did you get on with the above position? If you played 34... Rg8, then you made the same mistake my 2221 Elo/195 ECF graded opponent made during the game, after which it's a draw: 35. Qh5+ Kg7 36. Rg4+ Kf8 37. Qh6+ Ke7 38. Qf6+ etc. Instead, there is a tightrope walk to a win that starts with 34...Rb1+ 35.Kh2 Qc1. Here I had thought at the board that 36.Rf4 at the least saved me, and as we analyzed in the postmortem it seemed that way too: 36...Qh1+ 37.Kg3 Rg8 37. Rxf7+ Kh8 38.Rf8. The 'we' I mention includes not only my opponent but three other very strong amateur chess players, incidentally, and this we all missed that now after 38... Rb3+ 39.f3 Rxf3+!, it's all over for white. As for other moves at the diagram - 34...Rb4 draws as does 34...Qa1+ with the correct follow up; the others lose.

If you analyzed all of that- congratulations, and you don't need to practice defence, after all! But, if not, well...

Why?

[Edit: Forgot to include this originally ... don't forget tonight's the night of the chess club quiz. Kick-off at 7:45pm at the usual venue in Woodfield Grove. See you there.]

Today's position arose in game twelve of the 1958 Botvinnik - Smyslov match and then again more recently in the somewhat less exalted circumstances of my game for the S&BCC London League 2nd team against Athenaeum earlier this month.

My opponent played 11. ... Re8, to my eyes an eminently sensible move, but Smyslov, and if you weren't already familiar with the game the arrow is a bit of a clue, retreated his Bishop.

I know this is not an uncommon manoeuvre in this line, see the near identical positions below, and (I think) I understand the general point ... the Bishop is a bit exposed on f5, potentially vulnerable to Nf3-d4 or perhaps e2-e4 at some point so tucking it away safely on h7 removes it from danger. What I'm totally unable to grasp is why he needs to do it at this precise moment.

OK, the Reti is hardly the kind of opening where every tempo is crucial but consider Petrosian - Furman, 1975, which after Smyslov's retreat continued,

12. Bc3 Re8, 13. Qb2 Bd6

and now White played 14. Ne5 ("!" - Ray Keene *) blocking the advance of the e-pawn. Had Black not played the Bishop retreat first, of course, White wouldn't have got there in time.

So why 11. ... Bh7? Am I missing something or is Black just fannying around?

Capablanca - Lilienthal, 1936



Nikitin - Goldenov, 1965



Smyslov - Keres, 1951

* BTW: I found all the material for today's post in Ray Keene's Flank Openings - a book unlike a lot of RDK's output in that it's pretty useful.

Quick update

Do you remember the Brixton speed chess player, about whom we wrote last month, claiming to be a Jamaican speed chess champion raising money to go and visit his ailing father?

We can provide you with more recent news. He was spotted the other day - in Cardiff. Last year (see the video in the previous post) he was in Edinburgh - this year, he's been seen in London and Cardiff. I wonder whether he tours the whole of Britain, or just the various capitals? Does he do day-trips to Paris and Brussels?

I wonder, too - how long he has been doing this? Is his father actually ill? How good is he? Somebody, surely, must recognise him. So - who is he really?

Old in Chess IV

Back in the day most chess players were banged out of their nuts on drugs. Look at these two hippies - they're so out of it they haven't even noticed they're playing two games on a single board ... and the one on the left is about to snort a bishop.

Photo from: New In Chess 1993/5

Scorebook Notes V

[English grandmaster Geoff Scorebook writes a regular column for the Streatham and Brixton blog. Geoff is well-known as a hardworking professional and a regular on the European club and tournament circuit.]

Who'd be an author? I have a book coming out soon, or maybe I don't, having had a rather terse meeting at the publishers' office the other day. I should have known something was up when they invited me into the office to "have a chat about your manuscript" instead of just sending me an email like they normally do.

Well, they showed me into the office and we chatted about the weather and the Hertfordshire Congress - I finished just out of the prizes - for about thirty seconds before my editor - I'll call him Ed for the sake of anonymity - mentioned with his head towards my manuscript, which he had in front of him on his desk. "Anyway, Geoff", he said, "your MS. Ah....interesting."

I wasn't sure I liked "interesting" - it's a word grandmasters say about moves they think are bad but not having yet worked out precisely why. "You think so?" I replied, rather than ask him directly what he meant.

"Mmm, yes," he said. "Winning with the Queen's Gambit Declined. Well, I can't say you're not an....ah....optimist. Still, we have to be as professional chessplayers, don't we?"

To the best of my knowledge Ed last played a serious game of chess in the Blackpool Open about four years ago and lost to a local club player, after which he was heard saying, very loudly, in the nearest pub, that that was it for him, as he could make more money watching other people play than he could make playing himself - a reminiscence I thought it best not to discuss at that particular moment. "Yeah", I laughed instead, "if we weren't optimists we might as well give up, mightn't we?"

He gave me an odd look for some reason and then shook his head as if trying to dislodge something he'd misheard. "Ah, yeah. Right. Well....the...er.... book. That is your final draft, isn't it?"

You cheeky bastard, I almost said, but did not. No, I thought I'd send you a half-finished version for a laugh, I almost said, but did not.

"Er....yes", I actually said. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, certain....ah...eccentricities in your....ah...approach", Ed replied. I wished he'd come to the point, but he always did fart around too much when you should have been decisive, that's why he couldn't make his living playing chess.

I inclined my head, inviting him to explain what he meant. "Well....for instance", he continued, flicking through the pages, "specifically, here on page...29. You write this whole variation needs more research".

"Well, so it does", I said. "Most variations need more research when you think about it. That's what I do. I research them."

"Mmmm.....yes," he replied. "But I don't seem to actually...see any of it here. Let me give you another example. Here on page 53, you write: readers will find it rewarding to carry out their own analysis."

"And so they will", I said,. "They'll learn more from getting off their lazy arses and doing some work themselves than they'll ever get just from reading what somebody else has written."

"Yes, I don't...doubt it", said Ed. "But that does...ah...raise the question as to why they should actually bother reading what 'somebody else' - specifically...ah, you - has written. Not that you...ah, have, or not that much, anyway. Besides, sitting on their lazy, mmm, arses, is what they actually want to do. Not to mention what this...ah, company would like them to do. Needs them to do, in fact."

I raised my eyebrows, not too offensively. "Look, Ed", I said. "I'm just starting them off. Pointing them in the right direction. You know, give a man a fish and he eats today, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."

"Yes, I see", Ed said. "Brain food, isn't it, fish? And they're certainly going to have to do a lot of...er...fishing themselves." He flicked through the manuscript again. "Another...ah....thing. We've been compiling the game index for the back. Something very...ah...strange."

"Go on", I said, examining the ceiling.

"Well, it's an....eh...interesting cast of names..."

"Yeah", I said, "I've got Kamsky, Kramnik, Botvinnik, Petrosian, everybody really."

"Well, not quite...ah, everybody. Hamlet, but no prince. Specifically, no Scorebook. The narrator is absent. Like in Proust, ha ha."

"But I don't play the Queen's Gambit Declined," I said. "I'd rather play almost anything else. I'd rather play the sodding Benoni."

"Mmm, yes, I know" he said again, pressing his fingertips together. "Which makes it all the more...ah...strange that you take the opposite approach in this....manuscript", he said, leaning heavily on the last word, presumably to make it clear that he had deliberately not said book. "We have a collection of...mmmm...lines that you do not play, suggestions that...you do not analyse and games in which you, eh, do not....appear."

"Well," I said, cheerfully, "I wouldn't want to give away all my best ideas, would I?"

"No...mmm...apparently you would not", he said. "Although you do appear to have just, ah...given something away".

And after that he said a few things, not all of them polite, one of which was that his firm were not Everyman and didn't put out just anything provided most of the page numbers were in the right order. And that, ah, specifically, if I wanted to be paid anything on top of my initial advance I would have to, ah, produce something, ah, different, something ah, better, and something ah, soon.

So for the last couple of weeks your correspondent has been sitting at home with his computer and his chess set, trying to whip up winning chances in unplayed lines that are unplayed for good reasons. Still, at least it's original analysis. Very original analysis. If it were any more original I'd be making it up as I went along.

Who'd be a grandmaster?

Geoff

Bridge Too Far?

"Incidentally," wrote ejh in response to an unusual sartorial query aimed our way from chess-blog demigod Edwin Meyer, "are people really discussing smart clothing on a chess site? Is this a first?"

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But the world of Bridge has certainly been discussing what to wear, since players of the game have been told officially to smarten up their act, reports the BBC:

Bridge... is to get a new behaviour policy to clamp down on rowdiness and unsuitable attire.

The English Bridge Union is planning to introduce the national policy in a bid to tidy up players.

Top British and European player Tony Forrester supported the policy, saying that clothing did affect play.

He criticised men of all ages who attended tournaments "in shorts, smelly T-shirts, sandals, no socks".

Does chess need smartening up too?

"The best game I've ever played"

- that's how Streatham & Brixton Chess Club's Alan Hayward described his win on Tuesday night in the Surrey League against Coulsdon's Marcus Osborne. And so here at the blog, we're very happy to present the sacrificial slugfest in question:




Alan also kindly provided some notes, writing of 8...Bxc3+ that Marcus "is Graded 18 points higher than me and when he gave up his fianchettoed bishop, I thought I've got a chance of winning today", and after 14...Nxe5: "There always seems to be a little bit of luck in a lot of games I win and I thought I had a good game sacrificing a Pawn , but after 15 Bf4 nxc4 I did not realise I would be 2 Pawns down"!

Which makes me wonder. What's the best game you've ever played? (And would you like to see it published on the blog?)

A logical explanation

Poets do not go mad; but chess players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers - but creative artists very seldom. I am not attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.

Thus spake GK Chesterton. Was he on to something? It seems to me that there is some strength to what he says, even if it is not logic as such that's to blame, but its applicability to chess and its inadequacy in the face of chess. It's the capacity of chess both to be reducible to logic in principle and to be beyond it in principle: part of the obsessive, addictive quality of chess is in the contrast between the near-infinity of variations, on the one hand, and their simplicity, their closeness, on the other.


Everything is there. Nothing is hidden. The pieces are small in number, and extremely limited in their powers. These are exactly defined and completely understood. Nothing is hidden - potentially, everything can be found. Yet not everything can be calculated, not because it is out of reach but because it is out of human reach.

The more one reaches, the more it is out of reach: and the greater one's reach, the more this is true. The more you know, the closer you get, but the more you know, the more you realise you don't know. A little learning is a dangerous thing, but not, perhaps, quite so dangerous as a lifetime's.

If it were simply about imagination, creativity, the problem wouldn't arise: the boundaries would be non-existent, the possibilities limitless. It's precisely because the chessboard is so small and the pieces so circumscribed, that there is a problem. The logician grasps the problem and the method: and being a logician, they know that a solution, logically, is there. But as they have no way of arriving at it, it's a sequence with a beginning but no end. That's the trap: that's what brings on obsession. And obsession brings on madness.

Do enjoy the festive season.

"Un pueblo abierto"

Last week saw Zaragoza play host to the individual championship of Aragón, and what I'd like to do is present you with some kind of report. I shall, however, not be doing so, since, in a mean-spirited action which still has me spitting blood several months after I first heard of it, the Aragonese Chess Federation decided to change its rules this year - and, in an act of official discrimination just about as blatant as can be imagined, excluded non-Spaniards from taking part in the competition.

Hence, although I live and work in Aragón, although I am a member of the Federation and pay no less for the privilege than anybody else, I am not permitted to play in its championship. I live here, but I do not belong here. I am an outsider. I am persona non grata.

This is not, as I have said, some ancient tradition, understandable but sadly in need of modernisation in the 21st century. This is new. This is a rule change made this year. Somebody had to think it up, to pass it at a meeting and to write it down, to ask what impact it would have and decide that if anybody was affected by it, if anybody was unhappy about it, it didn't matter. Somebody had to decide that it was all right to discriminate.

Note that this is not a national championship, but a regional one. It is not the championship of Spain, but the championship of Aragón. There might be a case for restricting entry to Aragonese players, for sure, though even then one might wonder if it would be more civilised, more inclusive, to include those who had been resident in Aragón for a certain period. I could understand that. But that is not the case. You can be Galician, Cantabrian, Extremeduran, Andalusian, Catalonian or what you will. You do not have to live in Aragón, which I do. That's OK. But live here and be a foreigner - and no matter what contribution you make to Aragonese life, the door is barred. And you're supposed to be all right with that.

What's the reason? Ostensibly, the reason is that the competition is a qualifier for the Spanish championship, which does have the sort of entry restrictions I mention above. Uh-huh. Except that, as everybody knows, in those circumstances all you have to do is restrict the qualifying places to people who are qualified. As happens in all sorts of competitions, in chess and other sports. You don't have to restrict entry to the whole qualifying competition. You only do that if you want to.

Why am I so angry about this? Well, perhaps you have to have been on the wrong end of discrimination to understand it, but basically, as I say, I live here. I am not transient. I moved here and I moved here in order to stay here. This is supposed to be my home. But home is a place where you belong. It is not a place where the doors are slammed against you. If they are, then you can never belong and it can never be home. And I am angry about that. I'm angry about the sheer needlessness of it and the sheer bloody stupidity involved. Why on earth should it be hard, why should it be a struggle, just to play chess?

Because chess is everyday life. It's not a difficult social issue involving housing shortages or health services or political rights. It's everyday life. You cannot bar people from everyday life. You cannot say that people may not come into this or that bar or that they cannot enter this or that shop or that they may not enter your chess tournament. And if you do any of those things, they are going to be angry about it and they are going to have an opinion about the people who do it. You exclude, you discriminate, when you absolutely have to. And not otherwise.

When I first heard about this rule change I wrote to the secretary of the Federation to say how upset I was. We then had a short exchange of emails, which, whatever its intention, made me angrier than before. It wasn't just being told that it wasn't "personal" (nor was it "personal" when the State of Alabama decreed that people should rink at separate water fountains). It was being told the following:

puedo decirle que Aragón es un pueblo abierto y hospitalario y los ajedrecistas aragoneses tambien

"I can tell you that Aragon is an open and hospitable place and Aragonese chessplayers are the same".

Now, in the circumstances, I don't know quite what to make of that. But I do know that there are words for people who discriminate and there are also words for people who say one thing while they are doing the opposite. And if this rule-change is not reversed, I am inclined, very soon, to start using them.

Chess, The Theatre, A Hospital - and, Photographs.

Remember this - The Chess Players, a chess-based theatre performance in St George's Hospital, Tooting, that ran early November? And that also featured games between Streatham and Brixton Chess Club members and the staff, patients and visitors of the hospital? Well, we not only have our First Team Captain's rather amusing account of his loss (!) to a passerby at the event, but some intriguing photographs that I'm sure will make every reader wish they'd been there to see the real thing.

First, the photographs:































And here's what happened to Captain Martin Smith:

"A random passer-by was inveigled in to playing my good self. After we had sat down he began explaining that he was writing a book on how to generate and solve Sudoku puzzles that would have unique solutions. He'd written his own computer programme and wondered how he could get a publisher. I pinched myself and mentally checked whether St.George's had a psychiatric wing. He then explained he was also planning to write a chess programme based on control of squares, ignoring tactical considerations completely (more pinching and reality check). He'd stopped active playing five or so years ago when he was with Hayes chess club graded 135 or so. He then wheeled out a pretty decent Scheveningen Sicilian a la Kasparov and out played me positionally before finishing off with some pretty back rank tactics. Smith 0 – 1 Random Passer-by."

Now then, do any captions for the photographs suggest themselves to our readers? And finally - thanks to Sarah of Lightning Ensemble for the photographs.

Anyone for 20 Seconds Chess? How about £2,000?

What do we want from a chess tournament in London? Big prizes, exciting format, proper sponsorship, an attractive venue, media-savvy website - all the kinds of things that might excite players & intrigue outsiders?

Well then, how about Twenty Seconds Chess: a one-day speed event with a first prize of two thousands pounds, consisting of group stages followed by a knockout, sponsored by Lexmark, held at Bush Hall - an ornate venue better known for hosting rock concerts?

What else should you know? Perhaps that the event was conjured up in association with the English Chess Federation - an organisation sometimes maligned for not pursuing such dynamic ventures? That more events appear to be planned, according to the website? That the 2 points for a win, half for a draw scoring system might have learnt a lesson or two from football? (As with the "FA Cup Style" pairings, one supposes.) That the event is held on Saturday 19th January 2008? That there are 300 places available to players? That in the knockout stage, four "very special guest players" join the competition?

So, how do you fancy your chances?

The Interesting French Exchange II

Geoff Scorebook is away.

I'm happy to dispel rumours that,
(a) his canoe has been found floating in the Thames;
(b) we at S&BCC Blog have cashed in his life insurance policy and are preparing to head off to a new life in Panama.

Fear not. Mr. Scorebook will be back next week.

In the meantime, back to the French Exchange.

Often when books talk about Black being able to win against 3. exd5 it's in the context of some kind of long ... slow ... grind, exploiting every small advantage that comes along. Gurevich-Short, Manilla 1990, as mentioned on the blog a few weeks ago, is a good example of this kind of approach.

However, as Andrew mentioned in the comments to the initial post, the variation can often degenerate into a opposite sides castling and a mutual hack against the enemy king.

For example:-

Now where did I leave that Spanish phrasebook?

Knight to the rescue - the answer

Wednesday's position was taken from a correspondence game Horton-Townsend, IECG 2007, concluded earlier this week.


The answer was that the move 1...Ng5+ - 41...Ng5+, in the actual game - does not, in fact, save Black. My opponent thought it might: so did I, at first, which is why I had intended 40.Qe3 (which also wins) rather than 40.Qd6 as played.

The remarkable reason (which may or may not have been given in Wednesday's comments box by now - I'm on holiday in the Basque Country and prepared this posting in advance) occurs in the position after 40...Nf7 41.Qe7 Ng5+ 42.Kg4 Nxe6 43.fxe6! Rxf4+


Now, although any capture leads to a draw by perpetual check (beginning 44.Kxf4 Qd4+ or 44.gxf4 Qg2+) 44.Kh3!!! is an extraordinary winning move: see the game below or, better, work out the variations yourself first.

(I was particularly pleased with the win: I've now gone ten games without defeat in competitive email play and may be close to winning a tournament outright for the very first time. After something like eight years of trying.)

The Interesting French Exchange

The Most Boring S&BCC Blog Post Ever?

Three short draws in the Exchange French ...

Hort-Petrosian, Hastings 1977/78
1. e4 e6, 2. d4 d5, 3. exd5 exd5, 4. Bd3 Bd6, 5. c3 c6, 6. Ne2 Ne7, 7. Bf4 O-O, 8. O-O Bf5, 9. Bxd6 Qxd6, 10. Ng3 Bxd3, 11. Qxd3 Nd7, 12. Nd2 1/2 - 1/2



Seidman - R. Byrne, USA Ch. 1959
1. e4 e6, 2. d4 d5, 3. exd5 exd5, 4. Bd3 Nc6, 5. c3 Bd6, 6. Ne2 Qh4, 7. Na3 a6, 8. Qd2 Nge7, 9. Nc2 Bf5, 10. Bxf5 Nxf5, 11. Qg5 1/2-1/2



V. Malisauskas (2530) - Gausel. E (2485), Norway 1992
1. e4 e6, 2. d4 d5, 3. exd5 exd5, 4. Nf3 Bg4, 5. Be2 Bd6, 6. c3 c6, 7. O-O Ne7, 8. Re1 O-O, 9. Ne5 Bxe2, 10. Qxe2 Ng6, 11. Nxg6 hxg6, 12. Nd2 Nd7, 13. Nf3 Re8, 14. Qxe8+ Qxe8, 15. Rxe8+ Rxe8, 16. Bd2 Nf6, 17. Re1 Rxe1+, 18. Nxe1 1/2-1/2



You can play through these games below if you think you can stand the excitement.

It's not difficult to see why the French Exchange has a reputation for extreme dullness when it's so easy to find examples like these (I got them from MCO XIV, an Andy Martin tape from Basman's Audio Chess series, and a quick search of ChessBase respectively).

Still, over the next little while I'm going to have a go at saving the variation's honour. I've started with these games just to show I'm not totally deranged and I do understand that games in this line can easily have little content - if that's what both players want.

CJS Purdy once wrote,

"Many French Defence players fear the Exchange Variant because it has the reputation of being terribly drawish. I need not waste space on that idea, and you'll see why later on."

Well, I think idea is worth spending some time on. Unfortunately, the interesting bit starts next time.

Knight to the rescue?

White to play: Black's last move was a knight retreat from e5 to f7, attacking the queen.

If White plays 1.Qe7 can Black save the day with 1...Ng5+, e.g. 2.Kg4 Nxe6 3.fxe6 Rxf4+?

The Way To Do It...

It's Streatham and Brixton Chess Club first teamer John Carlin who is white to play in the diagram position today, pitted against Peter Taylor in our recent London League Division 1 clash against Cavendish Firsts.

See if you can find the spectacular move that effectively won the game for white, and thus helped us achieve the slimmest of victories on the night, the match finishing 6½-5½ to us. You can also play through the whole of this thumping miniature, and thus find the solution to this puzzle, at the bottom of this post.

Rope-a-dope

I was nosing through Edward Winter's marvelous Kings, Commoners and Knaves the other day when I came across this rather wonderful game.




Small reward available for anybody willing to play this opening against Wood Green on Wednesday.

Old in Chess III

Short-Kramnik, Amsterdam 1993

"... in the middle of the night Short suddenly woke up and started to wonder why on earth Kramnik had resigned in the final position. His nocturnal brain-racking did not yield any clues. Kramnik's explanation the next morning was a little more helpful: 'Because I was stupid'. More amazed than amused Short kept searching for a waterproof winning method. Whether he found it, as he suggested several times, or not, as others claimed several times is only partly relevant."

Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam

"I was somewhat surprised by Kramnik's decision to throw in the towel, but I was too embarrassed to reveal my ignorance at not having seen the path to victory."

Nigel Short

New in Chess 1993/5

Pawn squares

Although I don't have the exact quote to hand, Viktor Korchnoi once explained why he didn't play the King's Indian with reference to Soviet military tactics in the battle of Stalingrad - or possibly the siege of Leningrad, which he lived through as a boy. He compared the rush of Black's kingside pawns to the way in which soldiers of the Red Army would rush across no man's land in the face of unremitting fire, hoping that the survivors would overwhelm the enemy guns.

I was reminded of this recently when playing through a game Sengupta-Safin, Sangli 2000, while looking at certain lines in the Exchange Spanish in connection with a current correspondence game. On move 22 Black moved a pawn from c7 to c6 and thereby managed to create an unusual pawn formation: the pawn square.


If Korchnoi was reminded of the Second World War, I'm put in mind of all those squares of soldiers at the battle of Waterloo: or maybe of the defensive formation of Roman legionnaries, the testudo (tortoise) which proved so successful against everybody except Asterix. I'm also reminded a little of the famous knight square from the thirteenth Kasparov-Short game in 1993. But maybe what works with the infantry isn't what works with the cavalry.

It looks potentially very effective to me: the pawns mutually defended and lots of squares attacked. Are there any other examples of the pawn square from recent (or other) grandmaster practice? Might it come to vie with the Irish Pawn Centre in the popular imagination?

Geoffrey Scorebook Is Unwell

Unfortunately we will not have any Scorebook Notes this weekend: Geoff informs us that he went down with a nasty cold a couple of days after being caught in the rain and cannot do anything except sit in bed and watch old Foxy Openings videos. Next week, if he recovers, he is off for a short holiday in the sun (or so he says) but we hope to have him back with us in a fortnight.