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.

Goring, Goring Arsenal

I am fairly sure that proper chessplayers do not do their opening preparation while watching the football on the box. I, however, do: why not multitask when you have the chance, that's how I see it.

So on Tuesday evening I settled down to watch the second half of the Sevilla-Arsenal game with a cat on my lap, a pocket chess set in my hand and a few useful books (notably Emms and Kaufman) within reach should the cat permit. Now I'm not so foolish to think that this is the ideal environment for studying the main lines, but I saw no reason not to have a look at the Goring Gambit just in case anybody ever thinks it's worth a pop against my 1...e5.

I'm not so good at studying openings using a book: inevitably I get sidetracked, not necessarily by the football but by asking what if? questions. Which is what you're supposed to do, actually, but the trouble is that I start asking them at the first opportunity and then never actually get on to the part where you learn some of the lines you wanted to learn. In truth the normal outcome is that I decide the variation I want to play has a big problem with it and start preferring the line for the other side.

So it was on Tuesday. The players were barely out of the dressing-room and the pieces barely set up: I was looking at the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.c3 dxc3 5.Nxc3 Bb4.


Now I remembered from earlier perusals that White normally plays 6.Bc4 and although 6...d6 is often played, both Emms and Kaufman recommend 6...Bxc3+ 7.bxc3 d6, on the grounds that if 6...d6 7.Qb3 Bxc3+ White can take with the queen instead.

All right, I thought, while registering the fact that Arsenal had had a penalty turned down. Suppose White plays the same game and switches his move-order to try and avoid Black's idea? Suppose the queen comes out first and White plays 6.Qb3.


Now if 6...d6 7.Bc4 and you've got the position Emms and Kaufman wanted Black to avoid. But neither of them mentions this move-order, so is there anything obvious for Black in this position? Nothing I could see, not with one eye on the telly anyway, so I started asking myself if Black had a useful alternative to 6...d6 - what might he gain by White playing the queen out so early? And after a few minutes I came up with the answer: 6...Qe7.


Now of course if White puts his f1 bishop on the desired square 7.Bc4 we have 7...Na5 since if 8.Bxf7+ Kf8 seems to win a piece. Excellent! But let's ask the question again - can White do something different? By now I was really rocking and it wasn't long before I came up with the idea of leaving the f1 bishop where it was and trying 7.Bd2! instead.


Because now if 7...Bxc3+ we can play 8.Bxc3 and then if 8...Qxe4+ 9.Be2 and surely White has compensation for two pawns with the king and queen lined up like that.

So Black probably plays 7...Nf6 and then, get in! White has 8.O-O-O!


and you have a position I'm sure Robin Haldane would love to play. Well, I thought, there's a nice bit of original theoretical work for you, and I put the set aside so that the pussycat and I could relax and watch Sevilla coasting to victory in greater comfort.

In the morning, of course, I took another look and realised that my reputation as a theoretician probably needs to rest on rather stronger foundations than a few minutes' freethinking in the company of a cat and the Champions' League.

I was, after all, supposed to be studying this from the Black point of view, and half the reason I play 1...e5 is that a lot of people like to play stupid gambits in which they give up their centre pawns for practically no compensation, provided the Black player has a bit of experience and knows how to go about exchanging off White's short-term activity.

So, among other objections, 6...Bxc3+ 7.Qxc3 Nf6 looks perfectly adequate (we should get ...d5 in rather than ...d6) or indeed 6....Nf6 with the same idea. And no doubt a short visit to the computer screen would teach me rather more about this deeply unsound variation than I actually learned while watching the television.

Still, it might, as they often write, be good for a blitz game. And it's better than spending 45 minutes watching some football match that I'm not actually all that interested in. God yes. The day when I have absolutely nothing better to do than watch the Champions' League is still some way off.

Staying Power

After my recent post on Short’s … Qb6 against Gurevich during the last round of the 1990 Manila Interzonal, it occurred to me I should look the game up in Dominic Lawson’s “The Inner Game”, an interesting, if often flawed, account of Nosher’s journey to his World Championship match with Kasparov in 1993.

I tracked down the relevant passage on pages 32 and 33,

In the last round Nigel was paired against Mikhail Gurevich of the Soviet Union, then ranked the fourth strongest player in the world. Gurevich had the advantage of the White pieces. He needed only a draw to qualify. Nigel needed to win.

The night before the game I spoke to Nigel on the telephone. He seemed strangely tranquil … Gurevich, however, according to one of his co-nationals, arrived at the board ‘with a deep sense of foreboding’.


The comes the interesting bit ...


After four and a half hours’ play, Gurevich extended his hand and offered his congratulations. ‘He behaved like a gent,’ Nigel said immediately afterwards, ‘because it must have hurt like hell.’ Just how much became obvious only later. Since that single game threw him out of the world championship cycle, Gurevich has not won a major tournament, and his world chess ranking over the succeeding three years dropped precipitately. ‘It’s strange’, Nigel mused later as we discussed the fate of Mikhail Gurevich, ‘how one game can destroy a man’s career.’


It seems reports of Guervich's death turned out to be exaggerated. The former Soviet's rating on the current list is not much below Short's (2627 as opposed to 2649). It's true that puts him at equal 100th against Nigel's 59th equal but he made it one round further in the World Cup in Russia this week. Nor was it Nosher playing in the Candidates matches in Elista over the summer. Mind you, Gurevich did end up with a bit of a spank from Leko so whether he appreciated his achievement is another question.

Double Bishop Sacrifice IV

Justin may think he's missing easy tactics, see yesterday's blog, but I've managed to blunder two queens and a rook already so far this week, and that's not counting Monday when the time I waited for my opponent to turn up was less than the actual game lasted.

A tactical exercise is in order.

Those with elephantine memories may recall that a few months ago I started a series of posts (in order one two and three) about Double Bishop Sacrifices.

I thought it was about time I got back to series. Today's game is Kuzmin-Sveshnikov, USSR championship 1973 (which I found in John Nunn’s book, Secrets of Practical Chess).




Firstly, why can White only draw if he plays Bxh7+ straightaway?

As a clue, let me tell you the actual game finished 16. Nb6 Nxb6, 17. Bxh7 Kxh7, 18. Qh5+ Kg8, 19. Bxg7 Kxg7, 20. Qg4+ Kh7, 21. Rf3 1-0

Secondly, calculate how White would have won if after 16. Nb6 Black had tried
16. … Ra7
or
16. … Rb8


This is all far too advanced for those of us who struggle to avoid leaving pieces en prise but I hope the rest of you enjoy it.

Miss Easy Tactics! with Justin III

[Our pedagogical series in which we look at a portion of a game I played the previous weekend in which some obvious tactic is overlooked. Readers are invited to practice their skill by seeing if they can spot what was missed.]


Horton - Abos Rosico, Huesca Provincial Championship 2007. Last round, top board. Having missed a few wins on the way (which would not, as it happens, have affected the final placings) White instigated the following sequence:

1.h5 gxh5 2.g5 a4 3.g6 a3 4.Rf8 a2 5.Ra8 Ra3 6.Rxa3 Kxa3 7.g7 a1=Q 8.g8=Q.

At this point a draw was agreed. But there is something terribly wrong here. What is it?

The game is given below. (Report, in Spanish, with photos).

Deja view all over again

Strange to think that despite being widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history, Capablanca never won a match as World Champion. The Cuban won the title easily, beating

an old and ailing Emmanuel Lasker in 1921, then spent half a decade avoiding a challenge from Alekhine. Time ran out in 1927 of course, whereupon Alekhine returned the compliment and never allowed Capablanca a rematch.

Fast forward eighty years and since the end of Mexico City I, along with most of the rest of the chess world no doubt, have been eagerly awaiting the Anand-Kramnik showdown. Expectations are high, not only because of the inherent interest in such a contest but also due to ongoing doubts around legitimacy of a claim to the crown based on tournament rather than match success.

(Aside: The Red Hot Pawn forum has a lengthy debate/discussion/row about this - though frankly if you can bother your arse to read all twenty pages of it you're a better man than I. Alternatively visit the BCM Blog for a conspiracy theory involving Kramnik, a piece of kitchenware and a real trophy held hostage until Anand wins a head to head challenge.)

Last Wednesday, ChessBase reported an interview with Kramnik from Moscow's Sport-Express Daily. When asked about the forthcoming match, Vlad the former Impaler, said the not entirely reassuring:

"I can say that there are no problems on my side. I have signed the contract and sent it off. I know that Anand is having discussions with FIDE, but I do not know the details. On this subject, you should ask the FIDE leadership and Anand himself."

Worse news followed in yesterday's Guardian when Leonard Barden confirmed:

"Fide's planned Anand v Kramnik championship showdown, scheduled for autumn 2008, has already run into problems. A German sponsor is lined up, but Anand has objected to Germany as a venue on the grounds that Kramnik's manager is German. The Indian also wants draw odds as holder in place of Fide's wish for speed chess tiebreaks if the classical games finish level.

Not too surprising then, given the history of our game at the highest level, but nonetheless depressing.

Hopefully somebody somewhere will bang a couple of heads together and get this match on. Here's hoping we won't be waiting six years for it to happen.

Old In Chess II

Death of a Magician

"We phoned each other quite often and a few days before I was to leave for the Olympiad in Manila, I received a letter from Misha. It went as follows:

Dear Genna,

I am sorry to say that, for the moment, I cannot do the story on the tournament which I promised you - I have been feeling very poorly. Monday I will be treated in Moscow in another of my perennial appointments with the doctors. Probably there will be an operation soon, but I will have plenty of time and facilities for writing. I wish you and your entire, least russified (let's put it this way) team every possible succes.

Warm regards,

Misha


This was the last I heard from Misha. But before he was admitted to hospital he played another blitz tournament in Moscow, beating Kasparov and claiming third place behind Kasparov and Bareev, but ahead of Smyslov, Dolmatov, Vyzhmanavin, and Beliavsky.

Some days later, on June 28, 1992, Mishal Tal died in that Moscow hospital."

Genna Sosonko, New in Chess 1992/5

Scorebook Notes IV

[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.]

Awful weather we've been having, and it seems to be raining more on some of us than on others. Last weekend, while everybody else was in Halifax playing in the British rapidplay, I thought I'd see if there were easy pickings elsewhere so I went to play a weekend congress elsewhere to see if I could trouser a few quid to pay the mortgage. Not exactly ideal tournament conditions, a school classroom, but nobody cares what the tournament hall was like if you're out of there at the end of the day with the winner's cheque in your pocket.

Anyway, I should have known things weren't going to go exactly to plan when I saw there was another GM among the competitors, but never mind, half a loaf is better than no bread and bread is what we were both there for. All weekend it was ratcheting down outside and we felt like we were wading our way through the games too, never really getting into form but against club players it's not so important and come Sunday morning we were both on 3/3 and drawn together for the penultimate round. I had the Black pieces but like a gentleman he went straight into the Exchange Variation and we'd swapped off half the pieces and agreed a draw before most of the players had finished writing their names on their scoresheets.

Well, that left us several hours to go before the fifth round and not much to do, with it raining so hard, but sit in the analysis room and rink tea. When the draw went up for the last round I was downfloated, playing someone on three points, a chap with a Scandinavian name, Danish or Norwegian or something, presumably over here for a holiday or something. "Are you enjoying our English weather?" I asked him, but he just sort of nodded back so I guessed his English wasn't very good. Nor was his rating, so I was looking forward with some optimism to at least a half share in the first prize. It was a bit noisy - because the rain was bouncing off the roof - but I put that out of my mind and after just a few moves I had taken control, my rooks on d1 and e1 and his king still in the centre.

And then, while I was leaning over the board, I thought I felt something drop on my nose. I looked up, but I couldn't see anything, so I took out my handkerchief and wiped my face, then leaned back over the board. And then it happened again. A little splash, on my nose. I wiped myself again and took another look up to the ceiling: and although I couldn't see anything I realised that the roof must be leaking. It was quite an old school and presumably they couldn't afford to make repairs: and the rain, torrential as it was, had found a way through.

Maybe this happened every time it rained heavily and whoever was underneath just had to get out of the way, I thought, so I leaned back in my chair. I looked around to see if anybody else was affected, but as far as I could see nobody else had even noticed: not the other GM, already two pawns up and wandering around the hall waiting for his opponent to resign, not even, apparently, my opponent, who was massaging his skull so hard I thought he was trying to put his fingers through it. He probably wouldn't have noticed if I'd poured a bucket of water over my head, let along a couple of raindrops.

Three, even. I saw another drop. I must have been leaning directly over my queen rook: it fell right into the middle of its turret. Plink. I looked up at the ceiling again and then down at the rook. Up and down again. Up and down. Plink. There it went again. A second drop, oddly adjacent to the first rather than right on top of it. Maybe the wind took it on the way down, I thought.

It was still my turn to move and I couldn't think about what was going on on the board at all, except for the square d1 and the rook that stood on it. I looked up and down again. I couldn't really be hearing a plink, it couldn't be that loud. Don't let yourself get distracted, you'll start to imagine things and then you'll start missing things on the board. I clutched my hands to the side of my head to try and keep it in place. It's all right, I thought. You're better, don't let it bother you, just play a move and get up and have a coffee. So I just reached out played my pawn to h3, hit the clock, wrote the moves down, and I was just going to get up when another one came down. Plink. And as I got up out of my chair I thought I saw another.

"You all right?" asked my grandmaster colleague, who came up beside me at the refreshments table. "You look like you've got St Vitus' Dance or something. Your head's going up and down like Andy Pandy."

"No, I'm fine", I said. I should have told him about the drip, but I didn't want to look like I was making excuses, what with him winning easily and my game still to be won. Wait until we're done and then talk about it, that's the professional way. "Just a crick in my neck", I lied. "Looked like more than a crick", he said. "Looked like somebody was putting an electric charge through it. Which would be bloody dangerous outside, in the wet and everything", he laughed. I shrugged and muttered something about it being my move, though both of us could see it wasn't. But I went back to my board and sat down. There was now a thin covering of water across the top of the rook and the next time a drop fell I definitely heard a plink.

I had to do something about it, but when I looked around, the tournament controller was nowhere to be seen. So I spoke to my opponent and said, "could we move the table, do you think?" and pointed to the flooded rook. But he just shook his head and said "please, to no talking please" while waving his hands in front of his face in a gesture indicating that I should stop. Plink. Another drop in the top of the rook.

I could have tried moving the rook to another square, but then it would just have dripped on the board instead. Never mind. It was my opponent's turn to move and his position was uncomfortable and he looked more uncomfortable still. This wasn't just because of his position, though: he suddenly tutted very loudly, got up and reached into his pocket, took out some tissues and a biro - which, I could see, had leaked. He had ink all over his hands.

I got out of my chair to offer him some assistance, but, automatically moving towards him, I went too close to the board and my hand flicked into the rook and it toppled over, falling leftwards and jettisoning its load on to the b1 square. He tutted again, much more loudly this time, and before I could replace the rook, he'd picked it up and put it back on the d1 square and wiped the water off b1 - with the dirty tissues into which the pen had leaked. Which left a nasty, dark smudge all over the previously pristine white square. He tutted again, looked at me, shook his hands about a bit more, made a move, pressed his clock, and hurried away to the toilets to go and clean himself up.

That was my chance: the top board game had finished now, so I moved that table away and shifted ours so that the drop fell somewhere to my right, not on the pieces, not on the board and not on me. When the chap returned there was more tutting and gesturing, but he had to sit down and got on with the game: both clocks were running short of time and in his hurry he made a couple of very poor moves, exposing his king to a run of checks which brought it out into the open on the queenside. He was getting agitated, smudging his scoresheet with his still-inky fingers and starting to take the same interest in the drip to my right that I had taken when it was happening right in front of me.

I was short of time as well, having spent most of what I had left calculating another series of checks and seeing if there was a mate at the end of it - and there was. Bishop takes pawn on a5, check, the king takes it, now queen c7 check, king to b5. Queen b7 check, king to a4 and now the rook goes to a1 check, and when the king comes to b3, hiding behind his b4 pawn, there's queen d5 check and mate in a couple of moves. Six moves to go before the time control, and a large crowd round the board. Here we go, I thought, give them some entertainment. So I sacrificed the bishop, allowing myself a little flourish of the wrist for the spectators. He took it, queen check, king move, queen check, king to a4 as I'd expected and I slid the rook along the first rank, reached out to press the clock and......

......it had got stuck. I'd not moved it to a1 at all. The ink smudge had trapped it. It had got as far as b1 and then stopped: the felt had got caught up with the ink and only my hand had travelled the last inch or so. The rook was still on b1. It wasn't check at all. It wasn't check. I still hadn't pressed my clock and my flag was about to fall. I started to wonder whether I should try to adjust the rook to a1 anyway - but he didn't wait, either for the adjustment or the clock, but his queen came over from g6 and took the vulnerable rook, with check. I was a rook and piece down for nothing. I was out of time. My king had a flight square on h2. I wondered whether to bother moving it.

As I was wondering, my flag fell. Everybody started clapping and congratulating the Scandinavian. My grandmaster colleague shook his had and said "well played, Peter". "Thanks very much", my opponent replied. "I always thought I was in with a chance." I signed the scoresheet and sloped off. I saw no reason to hang about: I'd finished just out of the prizes. So I made my way straight to my car: getting absolutely drenched as I did so.

Who'd be a grandmaster?

Geoff

Fast one

In the two and a half enjoyable years I lived in Brixton (which is why I always insist on saying the club's full name rather than abbreviating it) I was offered many, many things for sale just outside the Tube station. Some of which were actually legal. But not once was I ever offered chess.

I'm a very long way from South London now. But reading the Brixton forum of the Urban75 website yesterday, I saw the following posting, made on Wednesday night:

There's a man outside the tube challenging people to games of speed chess. He says he's raising money to go and see his sick dad in Jamaica. He also says he's Jamaica's number one speed chess champion, even if it's all a load of cobblers - the chess is good

On further investigation he turns out to be the bloke in the film below, seen in Edinburgh during the Festival in 2006.



So - have any of our readers seen him? Is he still there? Has he raised enough money to go home and see his ailing dad?

Intuition

Believing in the interconnectedness of all things as we do here on the S&BCC Blog, today's post is directly linked to two recent articles.

This position is taken from Kasparov - Anand, Reggio Emilia 1991, the tournament discussed last Sunday. Gazza has just played 24. Rh4 , "A nice move that tickles my queen from its ideal position" as Anand puts it.


Anand then goes on to say of his reply 24. ... f4,

"I simply played this instantly. I did not calculate anything, but felt that 24. ... Qf6 should be losing. In fact, it is very close to it. After 25. Qe3 White had an incredible attack. The point is that without my queen hanging around in the centre I get no chances to counterattack his king. For example with Rac8, Rc2 followed by Rc8 and perpetual. All these lines I miss if I withdraw my queen. 24. ... f4 is simple and natural."


It seems to me this is a pretty good example of John Nunn's concept of DAUT in action(Don't Analyse Unnecessary Tactics - as you may remember from this post).

Anand reasons he needs his queen in the centre of the board to facilitate a potential counter-attack against White's king. Why bother, then, to calculate any variations when her majesty retreats? Sure the might hold on but by following Nunn's advice you avoid two unpleasant scenarios:-

(a) losing time analysing a move that doesn't work so you have to play the alternative anyway
or worse,
(b) over looking a tactic so you end up playing a move that turns out to be trash.

Still, you have to have a lot of faith in your intuition to play this way, especially when you're playing the World Champion and he's got a pair of rooks thundering up the h-file.

Nice one Vishy.

What did I miss?

On Saturday, for whatever reason, the Scotland v Italy match was live on terrestrial television in Spain, kicking off at six o'clock our time. This posed a problem for those of us who, while desirous of watching the match, were playing in the eighth round of the individual championship of Huesca Province. Which kicked off at four. (It's not a new experience for me: this game took place on the same day as the World Cup Final and extended sufficiently far into the first half of that game for me to miss both of the goals.)

How to play properly while nevertheless keeping one eye on the clock? I solved the problem, as you might imagine, by playing not very properly at all. Ineptly, to be honest, which ineptitude started with a passive fourth move - game at foot of article - which, had it been replaced with 4....c5, might have led to a quick win for Black. (The line features in John Cox's book on d4 deviations, which I really ought to have remembered, since I reviewed that book for Kingpin.) Anyway, at about the time the match started my opponent had let slip a promising early middlegame. By half-time, I was a couple of safe pawns up and hoping for a resignation and home for the second half.

As it was, my game limped on for almost another hour, and after it was over I rushed to a bar, just in time to catch the last couple of minutes, and the couple of thoroughly dubious refereeing decisions which led to Italy's winner and Scotland's elimination. Dubious, but not, perhaps, quite as dubious as my play - and attitude - over the preceding dozen or so moves. Since, in between his resignation and my departure, my opponent had time to show me a move he thought would have drawn the endgame, even though he was two pawns down.

But would it? I'm not so sure, but I've not been able to find a clear winning line. Can you do better? The diagram at the top of the column shows Faro Perella-Horton, Huesca 2007, if White had played 37.Rd2-b2 rather than 37.Rd2-h2. The question is as simple as the answer is not: is the position a draw?