Chess in Art Postscript: Possibly...Definitely...

This post has possibly got something to do with chess. It has also definitely got something to do with chess. In art criticism, that is:

The practice of his art involved a lot of staring at individual things within the landscape, or in London, or in his rooms.......The things are separated from their place, yet linked to them. They sit in his pictures like chessmen on a board, where they need each other to make sense, yet are distinct.

Or so it says in an essay here:

Paul Nash (1889-1946)

(part of) Landscape of the Vernal Equinox (1943),

as cover design for "Paul Nash; The Elements."

which is the catalogue for an exhibition in Dulwich. It has this captioned comment, by the same author presumably:

The things are separated from their place, yet linked to them. They sit in his pictures like chessmen on a board, where they need each other to make sense. They become protagonists in a visual drama, and Nash learnt to notice objects that would be useful to him when made to perform a role.

And you'll find that here:

Totes Meer (Dead Sea) (1940-41), as the exhibition's poster.

Hmmm......what's he on about?

This picture, also in the exhibition, might be a good place to start:

Event on the Downs (1934)

Nash has placed some "individual things" so as to sit uncomfortably in a familiar landscape: downland above cliffs (actually Ballard's Head, Dorset; but it could be any number of places on the south coast). The torso-like tree trunk is odd. It isn't rooted in the ground, and yet hasn't toppled over; but otherwise it is plausible, if unusual. An out-of-scale tennis ball has just burst on the scene, as if erupting from a Rift in the Space-Time Continuum, and it places itself with precision, its seam rhyming with the receding track. The two objects confront each other and, like ourselves, scratch their heads and try to make sense of their situation (and gnash, in frustration?). That cloud seems to have something to say, as well.

This unlikely conjunction only bears meaning, if meaning it does, because they are all there together. Take away the ball, for example, and you have black pieces without the white. It is the juxtaposition that creates the tension, asks the questions, and demands answers. Remove all the bits and the scene would be just empty, barren, inert; a non-event; like a board without pieces. As to their significance? Possibly all or any of the following: dynamism versus stasis, play and decay, Eros/Thanatos, life/death. The cloud is the departing spirit, as some commentators, and Nash, have suggested. All played out on the rolling chalk.

So, seaside Surrealism (as Nash's biographers have put it) meets rural Romanticism, up on the downs. Strange, but no more strange, perhaps, than the game of chess itself. Possibly. And if you were wondering why this could be a Postscript, please could you come back for the next instalment. No, definitely.

Acknowledgements, etc.:
The Exhibition is at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

The author of the chess analogy is David Fraser Jenkins in his essay, with the same title, in Paul Nash: The Elements (2010) Scala Publishers Ltd.

Chess in Art Index

The Great Chessboxing Swindle goes to Upper Holloway

Chessbase has been running April Fools and stories that look like April Fools, but aren't. Bad habit to get into, for the reader anyway: you start thinking other stories are are made up, even when they're not. So it was when I read their 5 April story on the latest round (ho ho) in the Great Chessboxing Swindle. I just couldn't believe what I was reading.

It transpires that the fastest-growing sport in the world has been on the road. It may not be going to the Olympics, but it has at least, like the Olympics, gone to North London. N19 in fact. I am surprised that I hadn't been aware of this before I read it on Chessbase, since apparently

this latest event achieved global media coverage on countless national TV networks

but I suppose I must be in one of the few parts of the globe which missed out. Tsk.

Well, I suppose chess has a low public profile, despite Tim Woolgar's sterling efforts to change all that:

since establishing chessboxing in London two years ago, Tim Woolgar has arguably done more for the profile of UK chess than anyone since Nigel Short challenged Garry Kasparov in London for the 1993 world title!

Funny, I thought that distinction belonged to Ray Keene - at least, according to Ray Keene - and in truth the whole story has more than a touch of Ray about it, most obviously in the tenuousness of the connection between reality and how that reality is being presented.

But we were talking of chess and promotion, and it seems that Tim Woolgar has risen to the heights of "English heavyweight champion". That must have been a long, hard road, with many difficult fights between Tim and the coveted belt, and I look forward to seeing the biopic. I also look forward to seeing what is meant by the claim

Woolgar's Elo has doubled from 800 to 1600 in the past two years, and is still on an upwards trajectory

since this is what you get if you search for his FIDE rating and he does not seem to appear on the ECF grading page either. Perhaps it is a chessboxing grade instead. In which case I have just decided that I am the Aragonese Light-Heavyweight Slav Exchange Analysing Champion and that in that discipline, I have a grade of 2950.

The second bout was a closely-matched affair between the Spaniard Daniel Lizarraga and the German Sebastian Bauersfeld - extremely closely-matched since both happen to possess ratings of 1650. Though not according to FIDE, whose site suggests that they share a rating of 0. (Nor does Lizarraga's rating appear on the list of his native Navarra.)

Still, these mysterious 1650s were an improvement on the 800s on display in the final bout. Presumably though, these patzers made up for their weakness on the chessboard with strength in the boxing field? Not, unhappily, so: one

is political editor of London's Metro newspaper

which, to anyone who knows that periodical, is about as impressive a credential as being English heavyweight chessboxing champion. As it turns out, he has a play about to open, which presumably could do with some publicity:

Higginson has also written a satirical play, Stiffed! which will run in London's Tabard Theatre from 14 April 2010, in the run-up to the general election

the subject of the play being

the UK's political Expenses Scandal.

Whether the work will be in favour of, or opposed to, dubious claims made in the pursuit of money, remains to be seen. The playwright's opponent, meanwhile, turns out to have been

making a programme on his chessboxing adventure.

Which is a bit like making a documentary about making a documentary: an event taking place so that the person taking part can make a programme about taking part in the event. Very contemporary. Very postmodern. Very much an example of hype creating hype.

Woolgar's appearance in the ring was as a substitute for a fighter (if that be the word) who had withdrawn, and one wonders how the world of boxing would view an event in which the bill was headed, for want of alternatives, by the promoter. I think they might consider it a freak show. They might also take the same view of a bout, like the third, whose protagonists were no more skilled or experienced in boxing than they were in chess. I think they'd consider it a joke, and probably one at their expense.

Actually I know what it reminds me of: the old fairground attraction, where punters would be invited to roll up and try their luck in the boxing ring against the "champ". Except without the champ. In this show, everybody's trying their luck. Some are getting away with it more than others.

So much for the fastest growing-sport: a joke indeed. But who, exactly, is laughing at who? That's the question chessboxing raises. The answer isn't so much Wu-Tang Clan as Public Enemy.

Before the Frost

She followed him into a room full of shabby, ill-matched furniture. A torn Che Guevara poster hung on one wall, a tapestry embroidered with some words about the joys of home on another. Zacharias sat at a table with a chess set. Linda sat as far away from him as she could get.

“What do you study?” she said.

“I don’t. I play chess.”

“And you make a living from that?”

“I don’t know. I just know I can’t live any other way.”

“I don’t even know how the pieces move.”

“I can show you, if you like.”

Not a chance, Linda thought. I’m getting out of here as soon as I can.

Before the Frost
Henning Mankell

Your game here?

Last year blog reader and Streatham & Brixton Chess Clubber Robin Haldane sent me two games from the Snodland Rapidplay. Not just any two games, but spectacular wins over International Masters each graded over fifty points higher than Robin.

Here for your perusal is a position from the first game, Robin's win in round two over Augustin Madan with the black pieces. White has just played 18.Bxg7, and whilst the automatic 18...Rg8 is certainly a very good answer, you must also remember the prevailing ethos of Robin's play, which he summarizes as: "you have a moral duty to sacrifice as much material as you can."

Black to play and shed material

And here's Robin's crushing win from round five over Jovanka Houska, presented purely for your pleasure:

Only a rook that time.

I don't know about you, but all that excitement's got me in the mood for some more readers' games. If you've played a good one recently - or been on the receiving end of a fine effort - feel free to email me for possible inclusion here on the blog.

Chess in Art Postscript: ITMA

Once upon a time the T.V. was in black and white, and the Light Programme, on the wireless, played Educating Archie, Hancock's Half Hour, and Round The Horne. In that nigh on lost world of blue remembered Hills (Benny was one - best forgotten) one could relish the bitter sweet of Two Way Family Favourites, the mystery of BFPO, and the wonder of Hattie Jacques; oh, Hattie, Hattie Jacques.

Whacko!

These flickering reminiscences of diverted childhood innocence recently sprang to mind one Saturday afternoon in the nouveau riche opulence of Polesdon Lacey, a National Trust property in Surrey, once owned and glamed up by a certain Mrs. Ronald Greville, Edwardian "society hostess", daughter (in unorthodox circumstances) and heiress of brewing magnate William McEwan. Not that dodgy parentage deterred Royalty from accepting her invitations to party. After all, illegitimacy runs in The Family, don't y'know.

There, in a dimly lit corridor haunted by the shades of scurrying servants, ladies-in-waiting and ladies-who-could-wait-no-more, I felt the force: ITMA. It's That Man Again. That Cornelis de Man. You must remember him, the Dutchman, from ejh's Chess in Art IX; he who painted de geezer losing to de lady at chess. This one:

Cornelis de Man (1621-1701)

The Game of Chess (1670) [Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest]

It seemed just possible that C.de M. had repeated himself. And what gave him away? How was it possible to ID the artist in lighting so feeble that servants not seeing might cannon into ladies not waiting? And the picture's label so murky? A certain lady spoke to me, that's how:

Cornelis de Man (1621-1701)

The Game of Cards (nd) [National Trust (Polesden Lacey)]

De Man had been at it again, this time with cards, because it's that woman again, in reverse. She had somehow found her way to Polesdon, not twenty miles from Streatham, practically on our doorstep.

Apologies, though, for the quality of the pic. The NT will only let you download for free the lo res image above, or a water-marked version, below. If you want a decent job you will have to pay bucks, big bucks, even if you are a casual not for profit blogger, burdened by a harmless obsession with Chess-in-Art, on a sometime award winning chess, yes chess, blog site. Sucks, big sucks. Not amused.

The Game of Cards, with subtle NT water mark.

So, it's that look again: the one over the shoulder. She is going to trump her partner, and is a trifle disapproving of us peeping at her cards (she caught us in the mirror). She'd be even more miffed if she realised that the artist, with the same device, has given us a cheeky peek at her décolletage. Rather Benny Hill. What a Carry On.

Unlike the chess picture there is no feline presence to encourage us to observe the action.


Instead, a table-high boy to the right points to the game, and thus throwing down a gauntlet to the cat lovers of Amsterdam (and beyond), de Man proposed that a child was capable of doing with one small finger what otherwise would take the whole of an entire moggie. He was a brave, or foolhardy, chap, who would have attracted the indignation of many, including perhaps that understated giant of the chess board, seeker after harmony, and admirer of cats, Vasily Smyslov (24.iii.1921 - 26.iii.2010), to whom this blogger adds his tribute.

With The Game of Cards Cornelis seems to want to stake his claim to recognition, what with that mirror effect and the glimpse through the window above, and much else besides. He says he can Verymeerly do what Johannes can do, and Pieter de Hooch and all those other Dutch genre guys as well: he can play with light and reflections, set off interior against exterior, and move red around the field like de Man United. He can create a discreet domestic drama from a turn of the head, just like the rest of them. The man has a case, and a sly sense of humour. Either that or I'm a Dutchman.

Acknowledgement and more pics.

The Game of Cards photo credit: Derrick E. Witty, taken in December 1992.

Chess-blessed National Trusters, and the general public, can see some actual Chess-in-Art works at other NT properties, as follows:

At Clandon House, Surrey: Group of men playing chess (nd) panel above the fire place in the Hunting Room, painted by Daniel Gardner (1750-1805). Photo by John Hammond. Interesting detail: a black servant.

At Ickworth House, Suffolk: Chess table top, white squares depicting Roman ruins after Piranesi(nd), in the Drawing Room. Photo by John Hammond.


At Saltram House, Devon: Chess Players (nd) by Henry Edridge (1768-1821). Photo by Rob Matheson:

Chess in Art Index

My favourite moves XI

Nimzowitsch-Rubinstein

Dresden 1926

18.Nh1!!

There are moments from your childhood which, if you follow me, although you remember that they happened, you cannot quite remember them actually happening. I know I was shown Nimzowitsch-Rubinstein, by, I assume, my father, though I can't directly recall him doing so. But though I have no recollection of the event as such, I will always remember Nh1.

The knight goes to the corner, the opposite to where it should. In contradiction, direct contradiction, to all the rules about development and piece-placing that I had only recently learned. This was shocking, and exciting, to me, as a child learning chess in the Seventies - as indeed it must have been to the world of chess in 1926. I can only remember Fischer's 11...Ng6 having anything like a similar effect on me.

One can scarcely talk about Nimzowitsch without speaking of Ray, who, in his Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal, writes of the knight move:

A wonderful idea. White has in mind the manoeuvre Nh1-f2-h3-g5, in conjunction with Qh5, as a method of assaulting the position of Black's king.

This is true, of course, but it's not really the point, at least in so far as the impact of the move, as opposed to its purpose, is concerned. It's not where the knight's going, it's where it's just gone. It's N-R1, the knight in the corner, the knight to the only part of the board where it possesses, even on an empty board, just two possible moves. That's the shock. That's what we care about, and never mind its destination.

Ray continues:

When I first read My System I was so impressed by this game that I deliberately created situations in my next few games where the move Ng3-h1 was possible, in the belief that this mystical retreat would somehow result in a miraculous increase of energy in my position, irrespective of whatever else may have been happening on the board at the time.

Quite so. Indeed, shortly after reading Reappraisal a dozen years ago I found myself deliberately trying to engineer cramped positions, overprotection, pawn chains and knight retreats:

Tebbs-Horton, Hertfordshire v Oxfordshire 1998

7...Nc6 (cramped position) 8.O-O a6 9.c3 e5 (pawn chain) 10.Bh2 Nd7 (overprotection) 11.d5?! Ncb8 (knight retreat).

I rather like playing like this, and am suspicious of the fact that I like it: while you're being all clever and Nimzowitschian, the opponent is liable to be playing sensibly and winning the game. A shame, mind you, that the knight didn't quite make it to the rook's square, though returning to its original square is feat enough: I managed it again the following year in the BCF congress at Scarborough.

Horton-Rosen, Harry Baines 1999

6.Nf3 e4 7.Ng1!

Ho ho very paradoxical. Though in truth, I was doing reasonably well in both games as a result of the would-be Nimzowitschian manoeuvres.

I'm not sure, as it happens, that I've ever managed to get my knight to rook one. At least, though I may have done so in an ending now and then, I don't think I've ever managed it as part of a deliberate middlegame plan. Or even a touch earlier:

Hjartarson-Korchnoi, Amsterdam 1991

11...Nh8!

I almost took up the Black side of the French just so that I could put the knight where Korchnoi put it.

But as it is, my knights seem to head for their own square rather than the corner, which might lead one to conclude that my real inspiration wasn't Nimzowitsch but Karpov, whose N-N1 was played when I was eight:

Karpov-Spassky, Candidates' Semi-Final 1974, game 9.

24.Nb1!

But it wasn't. And looking at where Karpov's knight then went, towards the g5 square, though it never actually arrived - I wonder whether it was Nimzowitsch that he was thinking of, too. Perhaps the knight move was an ineradicable part of his own childhood. As it was part of mine.



(Thanks to Sean Terry for his help with this piece.)

[Favourite moves index]

Ghost Stories

I don't understand ... I don't see why Bg5 is a threat if the knight moves. What would be wrong with Qxg5? And anyway, what if the knight moves to d2?

Tom was emailing me about this position

which appeared in Swiss Cheese a couple of weeks ago. I'd written of suddenly (well, after several minutes thought actually) deciding to play h2-h4 to stop Black's 'threat' of kicking my knight away then playing ... Bg5 to skewer my queen and rook. What I hadn't explained clearly at the time was that there is no threat; the dangers of Black moving a bishop to my king's knight five square are completely imaginary as aside from anything else Qxg5 would be perfectly legal in reply. I was just seeing ghosts.

Last week I included the trailer for Ghost Stories in my post. Today I've got an interview with writers Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman for you. Nyman, by the way, is not only the creative force behind the Derren Brown show - including the in(?)famous chess simul - but also the man who came up with the moniker "Cynical Tom" for my friend and fellow blogger T.C.

(ignore the stupid voice-over from 0:40 to 1:05)

For those who don't have the time and/or inclination to watch the whole 10 minutes, the important bit for our purposes today comes right at the end (8:50ish onwards) when Jeremy Dyson discusses Dr. Richard Wiseman's theory concerning the evolutionary advantage of "seeing things where there are no things".

I'm certainly no expert but I can grasp the possible benefits for an evolving species to be able to create imaginary dangers out of the shadows. I'm just not entirely sure that it's particularly helpful for a chess player, that's all.

Grandmasters of the cats II

Belka

with his grandmaster, the late Vasily Smyslov, who died last Saturday.

I'm sad to hear of his passing: of all the world champions he was probably my favourite.

[Photo: Dagobert Kohlmeyer, Chessbase]

Caption Competition

I

II

PS:
My friend and fellow blogger Morgan Daniels assures me that his gentleman's appendage has not made an appearance in his photograph.

Dodgy diagram II

David Vigorito, Play the Semi-Slav, Quality Chess, 2008. Page 86.

[Dodgy diagram I]

Richmond etc

Three videos for your viewing pleasure today.

First up we have another video from Peter Lalic showing a selection of his photos from last Sunday's Richmond Rapidplay. Thanks to Peter once again for his contribution; his GCSEs' loss is the S&BC Blog's gain.

Next we have one from the file marked 'WTF?'...

... and finally there's this promo video for Ghost Stories which is on at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, until 17th April. It's a marvelous play, I urge anybody who might enjoy being genuinely scared to go see it, but its releveance to a chess blog? For that, my friends, you will have to wait until next Wednesday.

Enjoy.

Go ahead, punk . . .

We're all familiar with the Favourite Moves series: moves we just love to play, or moves from other games that will always be in our affections.

But there's another type of favourite move: moves we love to face. Moves we sit there hoping our opponent will be tempted to play, moves that suit us down to the ground. Many of these can pass by in the course of a single game. If we leave traps, tempting undefended b-pawns, that kind of thing, we might be whispering to ourselves virtually every move, Go ahead, make my day. And then there are certain openings or variations we just love to be faced with.

In this sense, then, these are a few of my favourite moves . . .







. . . which is to say, after 1.e4 c5

2. Not-Nf3

are collectively some of my favourite moves to face as black.

And for more than one reason, too. It's not just that these positions are equal at worst for black, something anyway I feel is also true of many mainline Sicilians. It's not just that I'm suddenly much less likely to be on the receiving end of a miniature than after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4. It's not just that the theory runs out so much sooner, that individual moves are so much less critical, that the positions are less susceptible to tactical surprises.

It's also what these moves say about my opponent. Relief spreads through my mind: aha! I think, my opponent is not up for fighting on the sharpest opening battlefield, is not theoried up to the eyeballs, will duck the critical continuations in the hope of a psychological surprise, prefers the easy life. You just made my day. Indeed I positively start to relax and enjoy chess after such moves.

Which is probably why the only game I have lost this season with black began 1. e4 c5 2. c3.

Definitely Got Something To Do With Chess III

Why not let your personality shine through with a theme wedding?

Or so they ask here.







... to do with chess Index

The Shadow of the Wind

‘My name is Julian,’ he said, stretching out his hand. ‘My friends and I were about to go and play chess in the pine grove, and I wondered whether you’d like to join us.’

‘I don’t know how to play chess.’

‘Nor did I, until two weeks ago. But Miquel is a good teacher ….’

The boy looked at him suspiciously, expecting the prank, the hidden attack, at any moment.

‘I don’t know whether your friends will want me there.’

‘It was their idea. What do you say?’

From that day on, Javier would sometimes join them after finishing the jobs he had been assigned. He didn’t usually say anything but would listen and watch the others. Aldaya was slightly fearful of him. Fernando, who had himself experienced the rejection of others because of his humble origins, would go out of his way to be kind to the strange boy. Miquel Moliner, who taught him the rudiments of chess and watched him with a careful eye, was the most sceptical of all.

‘That boy is a nutter. He catches cats and pigeons and tortures them for hours with his knife. Then he buries them in the pine grove. Delightful.’

‘Who says so?’

‘He told me so himself the other day, while I was explaining the knight’s move to him.’

The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Also:
The latest Richmond Rapidplay is this Sunday, 21st March: see the website for details. I was hoping to be playing myself but instead I'll be making balloon animals at a party for three-year-olds. Really.

Swiss Cheese II

If, like me, you're prone to blundering material at the drop of a hat it might be useful to have a think about how to best to play when you've got a lost position. Time for Peter Lalic to step forward once again ...

All that glitters

Back in the days when I was still improving my chess, I was always on the look out for messy, interesting positions to stretch my mind with. I'd sit down at my board, put in my earplugs, start the clock, and treat the position as if it was OTB as far as possible. This position, from Stone-Tiruchirapalli, Watford Club Championship, 2010, would have been ideal one to perform such practice with:

Put yourself in the position of the black player. White has just played 1. Rg2, a move which contains an aesthetically-pleasing tactical threat. But how serious is the threat? Does black not have a concrete threat of his own to execute? Is there an outright refutation?

Black didn't play the strongest move at the board, whilst I didn't even consider it when Andrew Stone kindly sent me the position to mull over. See if you can do better, and tell us what you come up with in the comments.

The Fiver

Every day around 5pm, The Guardian publishes an email dedicated to that day's football related doings which they call 'The Fiver'. Here's last Thursday's edition. If you don't fancy reading all the sporty stuff just scroll down to the end. The bit we're interested in is just above the copyright blurb and just after the 'Sign up to the Fiver' notice.

Lyon Kings, and Lille Bit Too Good?

Want the Fiver delivered direct to your inbox every weekday at 5pm(ish)? Then sign up today and forward it to your friends

Paul Doyle and Rob Smyth
Thursday March 11 2010
guardian.co.uk


http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr23


LYON BEST

Florentino Pérez could have bought a mummified walrus whanger [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr24, and had plenty of change. Or dozens of Balearic villas with ocean views and diamond-encrusted balustrades. Or something totally out there, such as several well-equipped public hospitals in any of the planet's least developed countries. Instead Florentino Pérez bought a football team that goes out of Europe before Fulham. Well done Florentino Pérez, you're a flippin' hero!

"You don't buy titles, you win them," sniffed the El País columnist José Samano following Real Madrid's richly deserved Big Cup elimination at the hands of Lyon. "The catastrophe suffered by this pharaonic Madrid team is as if an earthquake had destroyed the Valley of the Kings," warbled Orfeo Suárez in El Mundo. "Watching the competition to which they owe their legend from the sidelines will be their penitence and torment." So will enduring taunts from France.

"Who are the Galacticos?" nananananahed L'Equipe today before omnipotent Lyon overlord Jean-Michel Aulas stomped back to hold forth at great length, as usual. "It's mad, this is the most beautiful performance for me with Lyon [the club he's controlled for the last 23 years]," exulted Aulas before proving that the green-and-yellow scarf-clutching David Beckham is not the only person who can keep his mind focused firmly on his own image at all times.

"I shouldn't tell you this but I wept a little tear from the bottom of my heart - maybe that will make me more likeable, since people who cry seem to be popular," confided Aulas knowingly before adding: "Now our heads are full of wild dreams, notably coming back to the Bernabéu for the final." Manager Claude Puel, by contrast, kept his emotions in check as easily as his team nullified Kaká. Asked what he felt when the final whistle sounded, he droned: "Nothing special". Which is also a fair description of the most expensively-assembled team in the history of football.


QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The tit for tat between me and Rafa will probably go on until one of us is no longer a Premier League manager" - Big Sam predicts that his row with Liverpool's manager will be over in three months.


LILLE HOPE

With Jiggered Cup now such a bloated fiasco that the only excitement to be gleaned from a 4-0 win over Milan's geriatricos involved a man wearing a scarf to keep his neck-tattoo warm, the real excitement in the nearly-dead-now golden goose that is European football comes in the knockout stages of the Europa League, where most teams want to win the thing out of boyish enthusiasm rather than presuming it to be their entitlement.

Liverpool have already had good news in Europe this week, with Real Madrid's defeat increasing the chances of them sacking Manuel Pellegrini and replacing him with Rafael Benítez, and tonight they face Lille, with Steven Gerrard taking his Respect Tour to France; though sixth in Ligue Thesoundyoumakewhenyou'rewrestlingwithconstipation, Lille are a lively bunch, the top scorers in France.

No wonder Benítez is demanding Liverpool are more positive tonight than they were against Wigan on Respect Monday. "Pepe Reina was blaming the defenders for something that was wrong and the defenders were blaming the keeper," said Benítez, suggesting that it's fine to flash two fingers at the referee so long as you don't point one at your team-mates.

"I don't like it. If you are showing your disappointment with that sort of body language it is sending out the wrong message," added Benítez, a man whose body language in recent months has emitted all the positivity of someone who has accidentally run over both family pets, been sacked, burnt the roast, been given a vasectomy when all he went in for was an ingrowing toenail, failed to put the winning numbers on a lottery ticket, forgotten to set the Sky+ for Masterchef, and found his wife in the sack with Ian Rush, John Aldridge and Peter Beardsley.

In other news, Fulham are in Turin, where they have to make an Old Lady tremble in a manner not seen since Weird Uncle Fiver turned asexual after a cheese-fuelled epiphany. Fulham are without the suspended Danny Murphy but, given that Juventus are three places and 11 points below the septuagenarian shower that called themselves Milan last night, they have a decent chance. "I think given our position when I came to the club, I don't think many people would have given any credence to the fact we could be this far forward in our development now," said Roy Hodgson, a man whose decency, class and dignity shames almost everybody else in his sorry profession. A bit like the Fiver, really.

Follow Lille 2-1 Liverpool with Rob Smyth from 5.30pm [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr25] and Juventus 0-0 Fulham with Paul Doyle from 7.30pm [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr26]


FIVER LETTERS

"Summer of '68 berets off to Lyon for humbling Real Madrid last night. Anyone else hoping Bayern, Bordeaux and Sevilla eventually join them in the semis so we don't have to hear Sky cheerlead on about how great the Premier League is for the 1,000,057th time? Please God, please" - Rufus Drayton.

"It was great to see Leonardo and Rafael reunited last night at Old Trafford. I wonder what the rest of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are up to? By the way, that's the worst Milan I've seen since Milan Baros!" - Alan Gernon.

"Thought you'd be interested to know that since your STOP FOOTBALL campaign er... stopped, the good work has been diligently continued by regional groups across the UK. Can I suggest a new Fiver feature with updates on the STOP FOOTBALL campaign, beginning with some very exciting news we've recently received from our brothers in Chester and Portsmouth" - Keith Withers.

"Re: John Gilfillan (yesterday's Fiver): Can I be the first of 1057 sad, Fiver pedants (now that's tautology) to point out that, no, Donald Smith is innocent. I give you exhibit A [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr27] - Martin Dickson.

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk [mailto:the.boss@guardian.co.uk]. And if you've nothing better to do you can also Tweet the Fiver [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr28] now.


BITS AND BOBS

The first gig of the Owen Hargreaves Comeback Tour in Altrincham tonight has been cancelled.

David Beckham has proved that you can have your cake and eat it, by wearing a green-and-gold scarf and then saying he didn't understand it was a protest against the Glazers.

The Inexplicable and Sad Decline of Forever Young Joey Cole will gather pace when he leaves Stamford Bridge in the summer.

Cesc Fàbregas has a 0.5% chance of playing at Hull on Saturday, according to his manager Arsène Wenger. And Arsène Wenger is an honourable man.

Derby and Nottingham Forest have each been fined £45,000 for their rumble at Pride Park in January.

And Internacional midfielder Sandro is busy learning England in his spare time, reportedly so that he can a) join Spurs for £6m in the summer and b) wring every last drop of F.U.N. out of those Mr Bean DVDs.


STILL WANT MORE?

Turn off Deal or No Deal, dim the lights, lie back and think of a strangely compelling bald man: it's time for Football Weekly Extra [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr29.

In her piece on the England dressing-room being bugged, page 10 stunnah Marina Hyde quotes Peter Andre and Phil Neal, and uses the word 'panted'. What are you waiting for? [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr30]

David Beckham says he was unaware of the green-and-gold scarf he wore at Old Trafford last night. Pull the other one [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr31, says Owen Gibson. It's got bells on!

And this week's Classic YouTube [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr32] round-up puts the emphasis on classic, including as it does a women's football video from 1921, a clip of Jock Stein's sensational Celtic side of 1970, and – best of all – a sensational goal from Phil Clarkson.


SIGN UP TO THE FIVER

Want your very own copy of our free tea-timely(ish) email sent direct to your inbox? Click here to sign up for the Fiver today [http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBLmRiuAY30QpAe9jDFAcNjabWz/fvr33. And also, heaven forfend, if you want to unsubscribe.


1.D4, F5 2. G4?! or G4?!


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An invitation to Benasque 2010

How would you like to play in the beautiful surroundings of the Aragonese Pyrenees, in the top international open in Spain? The annual Benasque tournament, which has been awarded that status, will celebrate its thirtieth edition this July. It's a ten round tournament (this being one fewer - mercifully - than in 2009) the first round taking place on Thursday 8 July, the last on the morning of Saturday 17.

You can print yourself out a copy of the entry form from here: the Benasque tourist office is here. You'd be very welcome. If you come, you may not wish to play a very long ending in the fourth round: it's the day of the World Cup Final.

Pop quiz: in the middle photo, name the players with White on board one and Black on board two. (If you can name any of the others, so much the better: but with one exception, maybe two, your quizmaster can't.)

Images: Chessbase, Luis Pita.

[Benasque reports 2009: 1 2 3 4]

Swiss Cheese

“Did you deliberately drop the pawn?”

So asked my friend and fellow Morgan Daniels after our recent match for United Hospitals in the London Banks’ League*. I tried to pretend otherwise but pretty soon I had to admit the grizzly truth was that I’d just blundered it away. Having spent most of the thirteen moves that led up to this position

Black to play

looking out for tactics based on … Nfe4 I’d contrived to overlook the fact that after Black swaps bishops my e-pawn is going to fall.

After I’d fessed up Morgan told me that the way I played my next few moves made it seem like I’d done it on purpose. Funnily enough that was exactly what Peter Lalic had said after our game in the Surrey League played, without music, exactly a week earlier. I'd aimed for this position

and quickly played my intended Ng1-f3. In case you were wondering, yes I really did miss Black’s threat.

The truth is probably that I’m able to remain** calm after committing such hideous errors because I get so much practice at it. About a fortnight before the Lalic game I managed to do this




and this




in games played three days apart. In the first I’d seen a couple of moves before that f2-f3 was impossible but then when the time came I rejected my intended cxd5 and Qd3 thinking that I could bust the centre open by kicking his knight with my f-pawn and then advancing my e-pawn. In the second I thought was gaining a tempo to swap the dark-squared bishops but after Black’s reply I was reminded that I’d spent much of the evening before the game lecturing a beginner on Red Hot Pawn all about the weak-point at KB2 and how he tended to leave this square undefended.

Think I’m making this up for a blog post? If only that were true; and it’s not just that I’ve been blundering material away either. Sandwiched between my Banks’ League game and my encounter with Peter I got this position in a match at London Deaf Chess Club:-





After four(!) minutes' thought I played h2-h4 to prevent Black hitting the knight then bringin his bishop to g5 skewering my queen and rook. Quite a bit of my thinking time, incidentally, was spent wondering how I’d failed to see this threat before.

I have plenty of other examples I could have chosen. These are just the ones from games I’ve played since the beginning of February. When I blundered a central pawn away at the Torquay u-170 last November

recognise this pattern?

I dismissed it as a one-off abberation but now these one-time things are happening almost every single game.

Given that I'm able to drop material or invent phantom threats at any time it's amazing I've been able to score any points at all but incredible as it might seem I actually ended up with a positive score (+3 =1 -2) from the games I've mentioned today. I've been helped by large dollops of luck later on and the fact that some of the time my position after the lost material hasn't been so bad. You may want to amuse yourselves by having a guess at which result goes with which game. In the meantime I’m going to try to work out how to plug the holes in a brain that has suddenly turned into swiss cheese.









* What’s a team called United Hospitals doing playing in the London Banks League? What’s a team made up of three S&BC Bloggers and a biologist doing playing under the name of United Hospitals? Your guess is as good as mine.

** Well, appear calm anyway. Inwardly I’m experiencing an inner dialogue on the quality of my play that consists of a torrent of words beginning with S, F and C.

Star Wars Chess

If your bishop could speak, do you think it would ramble on apologetically like C3PO? When you swap pawns, ever imagine it's like trading an R2 for a storm trooper? It's the endgame and the kings square off against each other - does your mind turn to Luke Skywalker's confrontation with the Emperor?

If so, these violent and hilarious videos are the ones for you.

Yes, that's right. It's the brilliant death scenes from "Star Wars Chess", a PC and Sega game from 1994.

And there's more:

(Via Topless Robot.)

Definitely Got Something To Do With Chess II

Deep Blue
In '97 I voted for you
As Sports Personality of the Year
I thought at least
You’d get the Overseas

Or so they say here ...

Bonus item: the bloke down the front proving that
if you've got a bald patch you're too old to mosh

... to do with chess Index

Ben Clissit leaves the Guardian

I didn't realise until the other day - when my copy of Private Eye arrived - that Ben Clissit, sports editor of the Guardian for a number of years, had left the paper. I know Ben very, very slightly: we were at the same Hertfordshire comprehensive, Ben a year or two below me, though the only time we've come into direct contact since then was in the late Nineties, when he was assistant sports editor and I spoke to him when trying to interest his paper in a story.

The reason for this small reminiscence is, in part, that Ben's elder brother Phillip actually started a chess club at our school: and while I don't recall Ben playing for our school side (one of the country's best, in our day, outside the fee-paying sector) I'm pretty sure I'm right in thinking that he shared, and shares, his brother's interest in the game. Which would make his departure from the paper a small, but not insignificant, item of bad news for chess. (Most news in chess is small but not insignificant. And most of it is bad.)

Anyway, a colleague thinks that the Linares scores may not have been in the paper, not the day he looked anyway. Might be something, maybe nothing. Might be connected to Ben's departure, maybe not. One small item of news, maybe one small item of not-news-any-more.

The Interesting French Exchange XII

A rose by any other name?

Forgive me for I have sinned; it’s been six months since my last TIFE. This post is long overdue and given that the series has now reached its twelfth post, and has just acquired its own Index, it’s also probably about time I got around to having a look at the thorny question of what a French Exchange actually is.

Which positions are lucky enough to be classified as an IFE and which must be considered to come from less thrilling openings? It might seem obvious that we should be looking for games that start 1 e4 e6, 2 d4 d5, 3 exd5 exd5 but Short – Heine Nielsen (TIFE VII) didn’t begin this way and that game certainly makes the cut. For much the same reasons that being born in a barn doesn’t necessarily make one a horse, we're going to have to move beyond the superficial cataloguing of opening move sequences if we really want to discover what counts as a French Exchange.

At last Saturday’s Essex v Surrey u-180 match for example I played a game as Black that kicked-off with 1 e4 c5, 2 c3 e6, 3 d4 d5, 4 exd5 and now 4 … exd5 and boomshanka




we’ve got ourselves an IFE haven’t we? Via the classical move order, I admit, it’s not immediately obvious why White would play 4 c3 but nevertheless to my eyes this is a position that can most definitely be thought of as a French Exchange.

Opening classification, for the Exchange French as elsewhere, can be surprisingly tricky. Consider the first game of the Alekhine-Capablanca World Championship match.







Is this an Exchange, a Winawer, an Exchange-Winawer or perhaps a Winawer-Exchange? Opinion seems to be divided with Uhlmann including the similar Evil Uncle Ernie - Uhlmann (see TIFE V) in the chapter of his book dedicated to the Exchange whilst John Watson treats such positions as Winawers. Whatever the precise technical classification though I suspect that most people, in the unlikely event that they gave a rat's arse in the first place, would consider this position




to be either a genuine French Exchange or at least close enough to be considered as one.

So why not this then?

1 e4 e6, 2 d4 d5, 3 Nd2 c5, 4 exd5 exd5 ?

I suspect that most people would argue that this is not an Exchange because an existing variation, the Tarrasch, has a prior claim and yet thematically speaking it seems to be very similar to an IFE. Obviously there’s the balanced pawn structure, the open e-file and the potential for an IQP (see Kasparov-Korchnoi and Tatai-Korchnoi in TIFEs IX and IV respectively) but there’s also the conventional wisdom that such positions are dull for Black and offer few winning chances. True, 4 Nd2 is even less likely than 4 c3 after 1 e4 e6, 2 d4 d5, 3 exd5 exd5 but does that really matter?

I’m not sure I’m going to convince the rest of the world that these lines should be C01s rather than C09s but they make sense as a variation of the Exchange to me. Curiously, just like the Exchange, once I stopped worrying about what I’d read about the IQP Tarasch and started to actually to play it I found that I rather liked the positions that arose. The ‘conventional wisdom’, for club players anyway, seems highly questionable to me.

Here’s an email game I played about a year ago. It ends prematurely and is not the most accurate encounter ever to grace a chessboard but I enjoyed sacrificing the pawn for a general lead in development rather than for specific attacking chances and I also liked my opponent’s pithy post-game conclusion: “Your activity was annoying”.







So, Blue or Red Pill moment … is this game an IFE or not? I say a most definite “Yes” and when I finally come to write my definitive tome on the variation - coming to a vanity publisher near you some day soon - I’ll be sure to include a chapter on the Exchange (Tarrasch). I'm sure there's plenty of people who'll say I'm wrong but perhaps the French Exchange, like all other forms of beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.




The Interesting French Exchange Index

Curiouser and Curiouser . . .

Last week you were presented with the following position as a puzzle, with black to play and win. As revealed in the comments, the winning move was the rather lovely 16...Bd1!, intending 17.Re3 Bg4 winning the exchange.

I had never before seen a position where one player managed to get a piece to his opponent's back rank, without a single piece having been removed from the board.

Wondering if this was indeed a unique occurrence, I emailed intrigue-expert Tim Krabbé to find out. Joyfully, Tim replied with this lovely second example, presented here for your amusement:

The aficionado of the chess curiosity will also be pleased to note that black resigned without a piece having been taken, and that after 11.Bh8! white had every single one of his pieces on the edge of the board.

Let's just savour that moment again . . .

(PS. You know, there really should be a name for this kind of thing. Any suggestions?)