Hope to see you there!
Swiss #16
Saturday, May 3
4SS, G/60.
EF: $24, $17 to BCF members.
Prizes: Based on entries.
Registration: 9:15 - 9:55am. Rd 1: 10:00, Rd 2: 12:40, rest ASAP.
The Chess Blog of the Boylston Chess Club... The Boylston Chess Club (BCC) is a part of the Boylston Chess Foundation (BCF).
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
BCC chess this Sat. - Swiss #16
This is a late addition to the event calendar, which can always be found at <http://boylstonchessclub.org/Upcoming_BCC_Events.html>.
Hope to see you there!
4SS, G/60.
Hope to see you there!
4SS, G/60.
Tiny Chess Set
From The Times
April 30, 2008
Tiny chess set built between heartbeats 
TYUMEN A microscopic chess set no bigger than a match head could be the smallest board game in the world. The board is 3.5 mm by 2.5 mm and the gold and silver pieces are 0.15 mm and 0.3 mm high.
The set is one of the most remarkable works of the Russian micro-miniaturist Vladimir Aniskin, who has spent a decade perfecting his craft. He uses powerful microscopes and equipment that he designed himself and says that he must work between his heartbeats to create the tiny pieces.
The chess took six months to complete and he has about another 40 works to his name. His first was a grain of rice inscribed with 2,027 letters. “The rice grain took three months, camels in an eye of a needle took two months and camels in a horse hair also took two months,” he said. “Even with these simpler jobs it is still time-consuming.”
Mr Aniskin, 30, works at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science in Tyumen, specialising in developing microphobes for aerodynamic investigations.
April 30, 2008
Tiny chess set built between heartbeats
TYUMEN A microscopic chess set no bigger than a match head could be the smallest board game in the world. The board is 3.5 mm by 2.5 mm and the gold and silver pieces are 0.15 mm and 0.3 mm high.
The set is one of the most remarkable works of the Russian micro-miniaturist Vladimir Aniskin, who has spent a decade perfecting his craft. He uses powerful microscopes and equipment that he designed himself and says that he must work between his heartbeats to create the tiny pieces.
“While working I hold my creation in my fingers,” he said. “Even one’s heartbeat disturbs such minute work, so particularly delicate work has to be done between heartbeats.”
The chess took six months to complete and he has about another 40 works to his name. His first was a grain of rice inscribed with 2,027 letters. “The rice grain took three months, camels in an eye of a needle took two months and camels in a horse hair also took two months,” he said. “Even with these simpler jobs it is still time-consuming.”
Mr Aniskin, 30, works at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science in Tyumen, specialising in developing microphobes for aerodynamic investigations.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The Knight's Tour by Frederic Friedel
Frederic Friedel: The Knight's Tour
If you want to try out this method you can do so on this excellent page by Gunno Törnberg. It contains a Java applet which demonstrates the efficiency of Warnsdorff's rule. When you click a square all legal jumps are displayed and the number of free entrances to each of the squares is displayed. You simply choose the lowest value, or one of them if there are a number of equal choices. Here's a simple applet that will allow you to practice the knight's tour in general. On the same site there is also an applet that will solve the tour from any start square.
The above is a delightful little program (28 KB exe) that you can use to practise the knight's tour.
Addendum
There are two points I would like to add, both of which came up after the above article was published. The first is that a Hamburg programmer, Tim Spitzer, actually taped the "Wetten dass..?" show and replayed it in stop motion. He retraced the closed knight tour that Xaver Neuhäusler had used. Here it is for the record:
from his column in Chessbase online.
In February 2003 a nine-year-old boy cause a minor sensation on German TV. It was on the show "Wetten dass..?", which translates approximately to "Want to bet..?" The format is that a series of candidates propose to be able to do impossible feats, live and in front of the camera. For instance uncork a bottle of wine using a corkscrew attached to the landing gear of a helicopter.
The boy on the show was Xaver Neuhäusler 
from the state of Bavaria, and the bet was that this young lad could complete a "knight's tour" of the chessboard, completely in his head, starting from any square on the board.
A "knight's tour" is a sequence of 64 knight moves executed in such a way that each square of the board is visited exactly once. Xaver was blindfolded and a starting square was called out to him. Without much ad the lad dictated a sequence of 64 squares that comprised a perfect knight tour.
The reaction to this feat in Germany was overwhelming. Newspapers were full of it, people discussed it on trains and busses, in offices and schools, and we received dozens of calls asking us to tell the story on our web site.
Well this is what we are doing. And it leads to a small dilemma. Should we not simply report the story, one that has produced such universal interest for a chess-related subject? Should we join the speculation that we might have encountered a future chess world champion, or at least been witness to an prodigious feat of pure genius? Or should one look deeper? Even if it detracts from a moment of glory for a nine-year-old child? Will anyone cheer if we shoot down a legend that has moved a nation? Our decision can be seen at the end of the article. But first let us take a look at the mechanics of the knight's tour.
Earliest examples
A "Knight's Tour" of the chessboard, as originally proposed, is a sequence of moves by a knight such that each square of the board is visited exactly once. The questions raised were: can the knight indeed make such a tour; and if it can, how many different knight tours are there? A comprehensive history of the knight's tour is to be found on
The first question was answered in a ninth century Arabic manuscript by Abu Zakariya Yahya ben Ibrahim al-Hakim. The author give two tours, one by Ali C. Mani, an otherwise unknown chess player, and the other by al-Adli ar-Rumi, who flourished around 840 and is known to have written a book on Shatranj (the form of chess then popular).
A "closed tour" is one in which the square at the end of a knight's tour is a knight move away from the first square, as in the second example above. The master of Shatranj as-Suli, who based his works on those of al-Adli (which he criticised), published the following two closed tours:
The first example shows perfect axial symmetry on the left halfboard, the second is composed of two quasi-symmetrical half-board tours.
The first comprehensive mathematical analysis of the knight's tour was presented by the eighteenth century mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) to the Academy of Sciences at Berlin in 1759. The Academy had proposed a prize of 4000 francs for the best memoir on the problem, but that the prize was never awarded, probably since Euler was at that time Director of Mathematics at the Berlin Academy and presumably ineligible.
If you want to learn a closed knight's tour by heart pick one of the above by Leonhard Euler. Learning a closed tour had the important advantage of allowing you to start from any square on the board and complete the tour from there.
How many knight's tours are there?
The number of knight's tours that are possible on a normal chessboard is surprisingly big. Actually it is so big that simple counting of tours is out of reach even for the fast computers of today. The problem has to be tackled in other ways. In 1995 Martin Löbbing and Ingo Wegener proclaimed that "the number of knight's tours equals 33,439,123,484,294". They obtained this result by running 20 Sun workstations for four months.
In 1997 Brendan McKay used another method (splitting the board into two halves) and got the result 13,267,364,410,532. To give you an idea of the magnitude of these numbers, a computer searching and finding tours at a speed of one million tours per minute would need more than 25 years to calculate the number of tours given by McKay.
The Magic Knight's Tour
If you really want to show off you should not just learn one of the closed tours given above, you should go for a "magic knight's tour".
In a magic knight's tour the steps, if numbered, make a
magic square. This is an arrangement of the numbers from 1 to n in a matrix, with each number occurring exactly once, and such that the sum of the entries of any row, any column, or any main diagonal is the same.Full magic knight's tours are not possible on n x n boards for odd numbers, and are believed to be impossible for the 8x8 chessboard. The "most magic'' knight tour known on the board is the Semimagic Square illustrated in the above left figure having main diagonal sums of 348 and 168. Combining two half-knights' tours one above the other as in the above right figure does, however, give a full Magic Square, in which the diagonals add up to 260 – but the steps 32 and 33 are not linked by a knight's jump.
All known magic knight's tours of the normal chessboard are listed
here. There are 131 different geometrical forms.Practising the knight's tour
In the 19th century H. C. Warnsdorff presented a practical method of constructing knight's tours ("Des Rösselsprungs einfachste und allgemeinste Lösung", Schmalkalden, 1823). The aim is simply to avoid creating dead ends – squares from which the knight cannot get further without getting to an already visited square. For that reason the possible squares to be chosen next are examined before every move. One counts the number of free new choices – entrances – every one of them has, and then moves to the square with the lowest number of new choices.
If you want to try out this method you can do so on this excellent page by Gunno Törnberg. It contains a Java applet which demonstrates the efficiency of Warnsdorff's rule. When you click a square all legal jumps are displayed and the number of free entrances to each of the squares is displayed. You simply choose the lowest value, or one of them if there are a number of equal choices. Here's a simple applet that will allow you to practice the knight's tour in general. On the same site there is also an applet that will solve the tour from any start square.
The above is a delightful little program (28 KB exe) that you can use to practise the knight's tour.
Another larger
Delphi program (executable 434 KB) allows you to practise and solve the problem, including closed tours. In case you become seriously interested the author has supplied the full source on his knight's tour page.How difficult is the knight's tour?
Let us return to our nine-year-old boy on the TV show. As mentioned in the introduction to this article Xaver Neuhäusler was able to complete a knight's tour blindfolded and from a starting square given to him by the host of the show. Exactly how prodigious was this feat? How deeply must we be impressed?
In order to test the effort involved in learning a knight's tour we asked a guest who was visiting over the weekend of the TV show whether she could do it.
Elizabeth Pähtz is the current women's under 18 world champion, and she was in Hamburg to play in the first German Internet championship. "I used to be able to do the knight's tour when I was a child," Elli told us, "but now I have forgotten how it went."So we asked her to try to learn it again. Using a knight's tour of her choice Elli started learning it by heart. It's not as easy as it looks! With some effort Elli was able to master a tour in 40 minutes. It must be mentioned that the poor thing was in some pain, having had two wisdom teeth extracted a few day previously. So there was some problem with motivation.
How about someone who is not a very strong chess player. Thomas Friedel, 20, gave up competitive chess when he was 14 and is now a full-blood programmer. How would an algorithmic mind fare with the task?
After 12 minutes studying the diagram Tommy announced that he could do it. And indeed, with Elli checking the moves he completed a knight's tour flawlessly on an empty chessboard.
With some effort Tommy was able to dictate the squares without looking at the chessboard. He could only do the tour starting from one starting square, but wagered that with half an hour of practice he could pick it up at any point in the closed circuit. Maybe an hour to do it reliably, dictating the squares with a blindfold covering his eyes.
Sorry, Xaver, for demystifying your great performance. And sorry everybody for being such spoilsports. We can only close by giving you the following advice: pick a knight's tour above, invest an hour or two learning it, use one of the gorgeous little programs to practise it and be prepared for your moment of glory. If you don't make it to a big TV show it at least makes for a great party trick.
Frederic Friedel
Addendum
There are two points I would like to add, both of which came up after the above article was published. The first is that a Hamburg programmer, Tim Spitzer, actually taped the "Wetten dass..?" show and replayed it in stop motion. He retraced the closed knight tour that Xaver Neuhäusler had used. Here it is for the record:
The knight's tours of George Koltanowski 
The second point was brought to my attention by an old friend whom I hadn't seen in years. After reading my article he wrote to me reminding me of the most remarkable knight's tour we – both of us together – had ever witnessed. I shamefully admit that it had completely slipped my mind while I was dealing with the young German TV star.
It happened many years ago, at a US chess club, where a blindfold master was giving a demonstration of his extraordinary abilities. At one stage he asked for a helper from the audience, and I was pushed and poked by my friends to take the stage. There the master gave me block of sticky notes and asked me to write down names, words and numbers dictated at random by the audience. Each was stuck on a big demo chessboard, starting from the square a8 and working sequentially to h1.
The audience call out a variety of words: names of cities, family members, phone numbers, abstract expressions. It went something like: Dayton, Margaret-Lee Farrow, pride before a fall, 212-783-4529, my dad's dog Skippy. While this was going on the master sat on his chair, listening to the audience, chatting with them. He was completely relaxed and not making any visible effort to memorise the notes.
After all the squares had been covered the master was blindfolded. He then asked someone in the audience to name a square on the chessboard. Starting from that square he started repeating words and numbers, while I removed the corresponding sticky notes from the demo board. The order of the words resulted in a perfect knight's tour. I believe he got one or two words slightly wrong, on the lines of Margaret-Mae Farrow instead of Margaret-Lee. All the numbers were perfect.
Now that is a truly remarkable feat. We were all deeply impressed, not the least because the master was approaching ninety years in age! He was George Koltanowski, one of the greatest mental acrobats the world has ever seen. George Koltanowski, 1903-2000, copyright (C)
George Koltanowski was born in Antwerp on Sept. 17, 1903. He developed his prodigious memory skills by studying memory games while he was very ill as a child and confined to bed for a couple of years. When he was 14 he started playing chess, and at the age of 21 when he played and drew Siegbert Tarrasch at the 1924 Meran tournament. In the early thirties he was the top Belgian player, beating Akiba Rubinstein in Antwerp 1931 and drawing Alekhine at Hastings 1936/37. He was awarded the title of IM in 1950 and in 1988 he was given an honorary GM title by FIDE.
Koltanowsky held a number of records in another area of chess. For centuries, the greatest masters in the world tested their mettle by playing blindfolded. It was long believed that three blindfolded games at once marked the limit of human capacity. Then, in 1933, Alexander Alekhine successfully played 32 simultaneous blindfolded games. Later, other grandmasters left Alekhine's record in the dust. Koltanowski set the current record, playing 56 blindfolded games San Francisco in 1960. He played the games sequentially at 10 seconds a move in 9 hours, scoring +50 =6. He also gave huge simultaneous displays with sight of the board, playing 271 games in 1949 and 110 in 1955.
(Some of this is described in an article entitled "
The Einstein Factor", a very readable article which explains in general terms why everyone should play chess).When the Nazis overran Belgium during World War II, several of his family members perished in the Holocaust. Koltanowski was on a chess tour of Central America and was allowed to immigrate to the United States, mainly because a chess-playing consul in Cuba had been amazed by one of his demonstrations. He started writing a column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He had completed over 19,000 instalments when he died of complications resulting from congestive heart failure in February 2000, at the age of 96.
A full obituary is still available in the archives of the San Francisco Chronicle:
Grandmaster Of Chess, George Koltanowski.Frederic
Chess and Computers: Using Brute Force
In 1975 in my 4th computer programming course at Boston State as a grad student, I learned the new programming language called Basic. Having completed all my projects, the professor threw at me the challenge/assignment to write a program that would perform a knight's tour. I was to figure a way to use arrays and code a virtual knight hopping around the board with the goal of not stepping on the same square twice. Then print out the successful route.
We were no longer using the IBM 8K cpu computer (yes 8K=8000) but allowed to use the State College Ciber 7 system. To use it people had to take a number like in a deli and wait for hours for the privilege to use the incredible Dec writer terminals or less elegant teletype terminals in order to key in their programs. Programming success in those days was due to perseverance, patience, and insensitive butts.
CPU time at the processor level was rationed to 3 minutes CPU time a job due to wise guy students like Mike Griffin who wrote a program that used 3.5 hours to calculate 28 places of Pi, but I digress.
My first approach in writing the tour was to have the program "look ahead" and store potential legal moves until it saw all 64. But that approach was going badly. Then in a flash of inspiration, I resorted to using the random number generator to just have my knight jump in randomly generated virtual legal hops, store the jumps, and reset all over again if unsuccessful: if having landed on a square twice. But if successful, print out the notation and try again until I gave the command to escape. This monkey banging on the typewriter approach was successful a couple of times per my 3 minutes per attempts.
My professor was impressed when I walked in with printouts of my knight's tours. He was tickled at my unexpected approach. Then by brain storming we developed a heuristic weight system; making the center squares more valuable and the biased knight would try hopping away from the center if possible. This really cut down on the unsuccessful attempts.
Use of the brute force of computers to solve problems, instead of relying on elegant programs, has served me well professionally many times. Let the computer do the work, while you avoid the pain of having to think too hard.
For you geeks who like brute force there is a tremendous article at the Chess Cafe by Dadi Jonsson about how GM Helgi Olafsson, demonstrated to Bobby Fischer using a very extensive endgame position filtering methodology and PC/chess software, that Fischer's claim about the 1984 Karpov – Kasparov match in Moscow being fixed was unjustified.
A very interesting story. For you geeks; you can speed read past the chess diagrams just get a hang Fischer's claim.
And for you pure chess-junkies you can speed read past the position filtering details just get a hang of Olafsson's methodology.
But the conclusion is way cool and I bet some of you geek-chess-junkies will put this approach to good use some day in your future.
BTW I feel demonstrations like this prove adjournments should never happen anymore unless we create special ground rules like: U1800 have to use 286's and U3000 have to use 386's.
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/chessok17.pdf
What do you think about banning all adjournments?
Do you have chess computer stories?
Or feelings about the 1984 world championships?
Please comment Mike Griffin 04/29/2008
For more on the knights tour and computers, read the adjacent post of an extremely interesting article by Frederick Friedel.
We were no longer using the IBM 8K cpu computer (yes 8K=8000) but allowed to use the State College Ciber 7 system. To use it people had to take a number like in a deli and wait for hours for the privilege to use the incredible Dec writer terminals or less elegant teletype terminals in order to key in their programs. Programming success in those days was due to perseverance, patience, and insensitive butts.
CPU time at the processor level was rationed to 3 minutes CPU time a job due to wise guy students like Mike Griffin who wrote a program that used 3.5 hours to calculate 28 places of Pi, but I digress.
My first approach in writing the tour was to have the program "look ahead" and store potential legal moves until it saw all 64. But that approach was going badly. Then in a flash of inspiration, I resorted to using the random number generator to just have my knight jump in randomly generated virtual legal hops, store the jumps, and reset all over again if unsuccessful: if having landed on a square twice. But if successful, print out the notation and try again until I gave the command to escape. This monkey banging on the typewriter approach was successful a couple of times per my 3 minutes per attempts.
My professor was impressed when I walked in with printouts of my knight's tours. He was tickled at my unexpected approach. Then by brain storming we developed a heuristic weight system; making the center squares more valuable and the biased knight would try hopping away from the center if possible. This really cut down on the unsuccessful attempts.Use of the brute force of computers to solve problems, instead of relying on elegant programs, has served me well professionally many times. Let the computer do the work, while you avoid the pain of having to think too hard.
For you geeks who like brute force there is a tremendous article at the Chess Cafe by Dadi Jonsson about how GM Helgi Olafsson, demonstrated to Bobby Fischer using a very extensive endgame position filtering methodology and PC/chess software, that Fischer's claim about the 1984 Karpov – Kasparov match in Moscow being fixed was unjustified.
A very interesting story. For you geeks; you can speed read past the chess diagrams just get a hang Fischer's claim.
And for you pure chess-junkies you can speed read past the position filtering details just get a hang of Olafsson's methodology.
But the conclusion is way cool and I bet some of you geek-chess-junkies will put this approach to good use some day in your future.
BTW I feel demonstrations like this prove adjournments should never happen anymore unless we create special ground rules like: U1800 have to use 286's and U3000 have to use 386's.
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/chessok17.pdf
What do you think about banning all adjournments?
Do you have chess computer stories?
Or feelings about the 1984 world championships?
Please comment Mike Griffin 04/29/2008
For more on the knights tour and computers, read the adjacent post of an extremely interesting article by Frederick Friedel.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Recent April Results at the Boylston Chess Club
Thursday Night Swiss
Eric Godin and Jason Rihel split first place with 3.5 out of 4 (although Jason benefited from a full point forfeit win.) In the last round, Eric upended the Boylston's newest expert, Luke Calhoun of New Mexico, after Luke blundered in the middlegame. That left Jason and expert Simon Warfield battling to determine if anyone would catch Eric. Simon offered a pawn in a topical line of the KID bayonet attack and got some reasonable compensation for the pawn. After some unclear is it a draw or not business, Jason converted the subsequent rook and extra pawn endgame to tie for first.
Finishing at 3.0 points were expert Julian Chan and A player Ruben Portugues.
Also, a warm welcome to newcomer Garry Camy, who played in his first event, and Scott Griffin and Ted O'Donnell, who played in their second BCC event.
BCC Spring Open
Chris Chase won the 2-day Spring Open, finishing with 3.5 out of 4, a half point ahead of Julian Chan at 3.0. Chris had a string of two months at the club without a loss OR a draw (16 game winning streak), but that was broken by a third round draw with Julian. Perhaps that is because he also played simultaneously in the Sunday Octad?
BCC Sunday Octad:
Chirs Chase also won the Sunday Octad, going a perfect 3.0 while playing in two events at once. Clearly, Chris has regained his form and is playing well. In Sunday's event, he defeated two expert players, Carey Theil and Luke Calhoun, who finished with 2.0.
Also welcome Darell Rose, who played in his first BCC tournament this weekend.
Eric Godin and Jason Rihel split first place with 3.5 out of 4 (although Jason benefited from a full point forfeit win.) In the last round, Eric upended the Boylston's newest expert, Luke Calhoun of New Mexico, after Luke blundered in the middlegame. That left Jason and expert Simon Warfield battling to determine if anyone would catch Eric. Simon offered a pawn in a topical line of the KID bayonet attack and got some reasonable compensation for the pawn. After some unclear is it a draw or not business, Jason converted the subsequent rook and extra pawn endgame to tie for first.
Finishing at 3.0 points were expert Julian Chan and A player Ruben Portugues.
Also, a warm welcome to newcomer Garry Camy, who played in his first event, and Scott Griffin and Ted O'Donnell, who played in their second BCC event.
BCC Spring Open
Chris Chase won the 2-day Spring Open, finishing with 3.5 out of 4, a half point ahead of Julian Chan at 3.0. Chris had a string of two months at the club without a loss OR a draw (16 game winning streak), but that was broken by a third round draw with Julian. Perhaps that is because he also played simultaneously in the Sunday Octad?
BCC Sunday Octad:
Chirs Chase also won the Sunday Octad, going a perfect 3.0 while playing in two events at once. Clearly, Chris has regained his form and is playing well. In Sunday's event, he defeated two expert players, Carey Theil and Luke Calhoun, who finished with 2.0.
Also welcome Darell Rose, who played in his first BCC tournament this weekend.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Go Vigorito! Boylston Champion, Massachusetts Champion, US State Champion of Champions - onto the US Chess Championship!
WCL Newsletter Vol. II - issue XVII Friday, April 25, 2008 .
USCF Month: only 24 Days to Tulsa for CofC-MAWorld Chess Live - April 20, 2008 -
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The United States Chess Federation and World Chess Live are pleased to announce that, after a close competition, IM David Vigorito, representing Massachusetts, has won the fourth U.S. State Champion of Champions event and will now go forward to the 2008 Frank K. Berry U.S. Chess Championship, 13-21 May, in Tulsa, Oklahoma
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Fifty state champions from Alaska through California to Hawaii, and from Maine through to New York and Florida battled their way through the Eastern and Western Conferences held on WCL (http://www.worldchesslive.com/, the new sister-site of the Internet Chess Club), with the top four contesting the Finals.
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The four who battled their way through the Blitz Conference qualifiers to the Finals Weekend were: Western Conference: IM Vinay Bhat (Northern California) and IM Enrico Sevillano (Southern California). Eastern Conference: IM David Vigorito (Massachusetts) and IM-elect Ray Robson (Florida).
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In the semifinals, both Vigoreto and Sevillano scored convincing 2-0 wins, respectively, against Robson and Bhat to set-up the final match-up of Southern California versus Massachusetts. And in that final, it was David Vigorito, 36, from Andover, MA, who snatched the final U.S. Chess Championship qualifying spot by taking the title 1.5-0.5.
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“It’s [The U.S. State Champion of Champions event] tough and demanding, yet at the same time innovative by being played online,” commented David Vigorito after winning the title. “It was nice to be able to go to Tulsa having won through -- and doubly so by representing my home-state of Massachusetts.”
.This unique event demonstrates that online chess and over-the-board chess can indeed be a perfect mix – even for one of the world’s most famous national championships.
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First, each player in the tournament had to prove themselves OTB by winning (or scoring highly in) their relevant state championship to be invited, then they had to play online on WCL (both in an all-play-all Blitz for the conference qualifiers, and then the G\60 knockout finals, with independent proctors officiating at each venue to ensure fairness throughout), with the winner going forward to the U.S. Chess Championship.
First, each player in the tournament had to prove themselves OTB by winning (or scoring highly in) their relevant state championship to be invited, then they had to play online on WCL (both in an all-play-all Blitz for the conference qualifiers, and then the G\60 knockout finals, with independent proctors officiating at each venue to ensure fairness throughout), with the winner going forward to the U.S. Chess Championship.
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The press reported the event such as in the telegram.comUSCF reports of course the results with an interview of IM David Vigorito by WGM Jenny Shahade
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
J'adoube Gambit: Hunting Turkey
Tournament chess of the early 1970's hardened a player to be tolerant of some zaniness that is uncommon today because of Bobby Fischer's demands for perfect conditions.
In those days, you could be playing in let's say an Elk's Club Hall that had a few lights dangling on chains from the ceiling and if you weren't sitting right underneath one of the globes you were in the shadows.
Plus your set could be sitting on top of a rickety card table and your butt in a risky creaky folding chair. In fact I saw a chair separate and a player dumped on the floor, amazingly not being hurt in his journey.
And then there was the poor air quality, cigarette and cigar smoke, and you had the feeling that some opponents were intentionally blowing smoke in your direction. (As an aside to give you and idea of this culture; if you went to a track meet at the Boston Garden, after an evening of having people filling the Garden air for two hours by smoking, management would ceremoniously ask people to refrain from smoking while the 2 mile was in progress?!)
And people would have banquets at the board -: crunchy carrots or chips. At a tournament my opponent consumed the biggest vilest sardine submarine sandwich during our contest.
And one of the first Masters I ever faced who was intimidating enough to my then a young weak class C rating, and he would remark every now and again "well there's a cute move." If you wanted to play chess in those days we all learned not to let anyone or anything to get to you. And so even today I try not to be bothered by my opponents different behavior.
In those days, you could be playing in let's say an Elk's Club Hall that had a few lights dangling on chains from the ceiling and if you weren't sitting right underneath one of the globes you were in the shadows.
Plus your set could be sitting on top of a rickety card table and your butt in a risky creaky folding chair. In fact I saw a chair separate and a player dumped on the floor, amazingly not being hurt in his journey.
And then there was the poor air quality, cigarette and cigar smoke, and you had the feeling that some opponents were intentionally blowing smoke in your direction. (As an aside to give you and idea of this culture; if you went to a track meet at the Boston Garden, after an evening of having people filling the Garden air for two hours by smoking, management would ceremoniously ask people to refrain from smoking while the 2 mile was in progress?!)
And people would have banquets at the board -: crunchy carrots or chips. At a tournament my opponent consumed the biggest vilest sardine submarine sandwich during our contest.
And one of the first Masters I ever faced who was intimidating enough to my then a young weak class C rating, and he would remark every now and again "well there's a cute move." If you wanted to play chess in those days we all learned not to let anyone or anything to get to you. And so even today I try not to be bothered by my opponents different behavior.
It was the 1998 Mass Open where my opponent arrived in full camo uniform, cap, fortunately sans gun or hunting knife. Like a character in the movie Deliverance, this should have been a tip off that our game was about to take us on a journey through the chessic twilight zone.
Move after move my opponent placed his pieces more and more off center until it was a little painful to look at the position. On my move, stating "J'adoube" I went to adjust a pawn of my opponent's color that was nestled in a corner of a square when my opponent stopped the clock and stated that I could not adjust any of his pieces. I could adjust only my own pieces.
His claim was that the 4th edition /1993 section A10 rule in the USCF book was: "Adjustment of the pieces. a player who is on the move and first expresses intention to adjust (e.g. by saying j'aboube or I adjust) may adjust one or more pieces on his or her squares."
I told him that I didn't think that was a correct interpretation of the rule and said I would like a ruling from the TD Steve Frymer. We led a parade of about 1/2 dozen players, who thought this conflict quite entertaining, and we marched into the TD's office.
My opponent cited page and paragraph to argue his point that only he had the right to adjust his pieces. I asked that Steve look at our board and I made the claim that I had the right to adjust the pieces, any piece, that was not in the approximate middle of a square and in fact felt that this consistent eccentric placement of the pieces was a type of harassment.
TD Steve Frymer looked at the position, and then us, and ruled that according to rule 10A I had the right to adjust any piece on my move and that he was going to watch us.
BTW the following Edition 5 says "on their squares" no "his or her". Fortunately I defeated my opponent once the J'adoube Gambit had been dealt with.
Upon telling this to my kids they offered to purchase for me a camo hunting uniform, including a camo mad bomber hat, and camo full rifle bag in order to hold my set and clock. Building 19 apparently was having a sale. I don't think Boston is ready to see me rolling on the Red Line to Davis Square in this getup no matter how stylin' it would be considered at the BCF.
What do you feel the perfect chess uniform should be? Should there be a dress code? Have you experienced some odd behavior at a chess tournament or have a story that you could please make comment about?
Interview with David Vigorito-- the 2008 Champion of Champions!
Check out the nice interview of David Vigorito at the the uschess website:
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8374/446/
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8374/446/
Sunday, April 20, 2008
A Knight's Tale
I lost a difficult knight ending against FM Robby Adamson in round 9 of the Foxwoods Open last month:
Adamson-Cherniack, Foxwoods Open 2008
Round 9 at the Foxwoods Open is always played after the cumulative effect of eight 6-hour games for three successive days; Round 8 began at 10:00 AM, finished at 4:00 PM, and this game began at 4:30 PM.
We were in the second part of the time control (40/2; SD/1), and this game was the last to finish in the entire tournament:
53…Ke5 54.Nb5 Nc6 55.c3 Kd5 56.Na3 Kc5 57. Kc2 Ne5 58. Nb1 Nd7 59.Nd2 Nb6 60. Kb3 Nd5 61. Ne4+ Kc6 62. Kc4 Nc7 63. Ng3 a6 64. Nf5 Kb6 65. Ne7 Nb5 66. Ng6 Kc6 67. Nf4 Kb6 68. Kb3 Nc7 69. Nd3 Nb5 70. c4 Nd4+ 71. Kc3 Nc6 72. Nc1 Kc5 73. Nb3+ Kd6 74. Nd4 Nd8 75. Kb4 Nb7 76. Nb3 Kc6 77. Kc3 Nd6 78. Nd4+ Kc5 79. Ne6+ Kc6 80. Kb4 Nb7 81. Kc3 Kd6 82. Nd4 Nc5 83. Nc2 Kc6 84. Nb4+ Kd6 85. Nd3 Nb7 86. Kb4 Kc6 87. a3 Kd6 88. Nc1 Kc6 89. Nb3 Kd6 90. Kc3 Nd8 91. Na5 Kc5 92. Kd3 Kd6 93. Nb3 Kc6 94. Kd4 Ne6+ 95. Kc3 Nd8 96. Nd2 Kc5 97. Ne4+ Kc6 98.Ng5 Kc5 99. Kd3 Nb7 100. Ne4+ Kc6 101. Kd4 Kb6 102. Kc3 Kc6 103. Kb4
At this point my opponent had 90 seconds left to finish the game, and I had 4 minutes. I claimed a draw before I made my next move, because no pieces or pawns had been exchanged for 50 moves. Dummy that I was, this claim had no validity because pawns had been moved. My opponent, an attorney, tried to counterclaim that I should be forfeited (I’m a chessplayer, not a legalist, and apparently people can be forfeited under USCF rules for making incorrect threefold repetition claims). The TD instead invoked the Continental Chess Association rules, and added two minutes to my opponent’s clock.
It was after 11:00 PM, and I was even more sick of playing on in this position, trying not to think of the subsequent 2 hour drive back to Boston and waking up to work the next day… I blundered in short order.
103…Kb6 104. Nd2 Nc5 105. Nb3 Nb7 106. a4
106… Kc6?? 107. Na5+ (this wouldn’t work with the pawn on a3) Nxa5 108. Kxa5 Kc5 109. Kxa6 Kc6 110. a5 Kc7 111. Kb5 Kb7 112. c5 Kc7 113. c6 Kc8 114. Kc5 Kc7 115. Kd5 1-0
I had promised a long-suffering Natasha Christiansen a ride back to Boston, and we eventually arrived back in Massachusetts at 1:30 AM. Her husband Larry very thoughtfully provided pizza for both of us when we returned; he had been receiving regular phone reports from Natasha throughout the evening, and recommended that Black leave the pawn on a7. After a few hours sleep I slogged through work later that day, and promised myself that I would find a way to hold this ending, if at all possible.
The question I pose to BCC members, and will try to answer, is – can Black draw this ending?
WHAT HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE
Before playing over actual games, I went to the BCC library and looked up what endgame book authors have written.
Rueben Fine, author of the granddaddy of ending books Basic Chess Endings, said that knight and pawn versus knight was usually a draw when the defending king in front of the pawn – the lone knight could usually give itself up for a pawn, or blockade it. That was promising. My king was in front of the pawns, and the extra set of pawns were rook pawns, so this drawing scenario was entirely possible:
Dvoretsky’s take on these kinds of endings (knight and 2 pawns vs. knight and 1 pawn) in Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual is that they can be frequently be saved, although defending them requires great accuracy. He also had an interesting quote from Botvinnik, who said that “knight endings were pawn endings:” the same factors that won pawn endgames (active king, outside passed pawn, zugszwang) directly applied to knights as well.
The most helpful book I found on this subject was David Hooper’s Practical Chess Endgames. He wrote when the pawns were on the same side of the board, knight endings could often be won, even though they were notoriously drawish in endings with bishops, rooks, and queens. The player with the extra pawn could win this ending if the pawns were not so widely spread across the board, and if the defender was unable to attack the blocked pawn.
Hooper gave two examples.
Botvinnik-Lisitsyn, Moscow 1935 (analysis)
In this position White draws:
1.Ne1 Kd4 2.Ng2 (tying the King to the defense of the f pawn) Ke5 3.Kb3 Nf5 (3…Nb5 4.Kb4) 4.Kb4 Ne3 5.Nh4 (or 5.Nxf4=) Nd5 6.Kb5 Kd4 7.Ng2 Kd3 8.Nf4+=
Chernikov-Chehover, Leningrad 1938
However in this position White loses:
1.Nd2 Nf5+ 2.Ke2 e3 3.Nf3+ Kf4 4.Ne1 Ke4 5.Kf1 Nd4 6.Kg2 Ne2 7.Nf3 Kd3 8.Ne5+ Kd4 9.Nf3+ Kc3 10.Ne5 Nf4+ 11.Kf3e2 12.Kf2 Nd3+ -+
Perturbed, I then started playing over actual games. I was perturbed because in my game the pawns were even closer together than the above example (bishop pawn and rook pawn), and because the loser in this example was named Chernikov!
WHAT HAS BEEN PLAYED BEFORE
Surprisingly, I couldn’t find any games of knight, bishop pawn, and rook pawn versus knight and rook pawn in the endgame books. I could only find examples in the Informant Encyclopedia of Chess Endings that covered minor piece endgames (N B 2d), and only after mentally calculating transitions from games of knight and 3 pawns vs. knight and 2 pawns.
Haag-Kluger Pecs 1976
This game quickly made me see how foolhardy it was to let the King get out ahead of the passed pawn.
1.Kf7! Nxg4 2.Nf8+ Kh8 3.Ne6 Nf2 (3…Nf6 4. Nxg7 Nd5 5.f5 Nf4 6.f6 Kh7 7.Kf8+-) 4.Nxg7 Nd3 5.Ne6 Kh7 6.Nf8 Kh8 7.Ng6+ Kh7 8.f5 Nf2 9.f6 Ne4 10.Ke7 Ng5 11.Ne5! (11.f7? Nxf7=) 1-0
Prandstetter-Donchev Prague (zt) 1985
This game made me realize how risky it was to advance the a pawn too far up the board.
1.c4 bxc4 2.bxc4 Kc6 3.a3 Nf6 4.Ne5+ Kb6 5.a4 Ka6 6.c5 Nh5 7.Nd3 Ng3 8.Nf4 Kb7 9.Kb5 Nc3+ 10.Kxa5 +- Kc6 11.Nd3 Kd5 12.Kb4 Ne2 13.a5 Nd4 14.a6 Kc6 15.Kc4 Ne6 16.Nb4+ Kc7 17.Kd5 Nf4+ 18.Ke5 Ng6+ 19.Ke4 Kb8 20.Kd5 1-0
Fine-Naidorf New York (m/3) 1949
Although not strictly a bishop pawn and rook pawn vs. rook pawn, this knight ending showed how crucial the decision was for the defender to move the rook pawn, or to leave it in the starting position.
1.h3? Ne3+ 2.Kh2 Nc2 3.Kg2 Ne1+ 4.Kf2 Kxh3! 5.Kxe1 Kg2 6.Ke2 h5 7.Ng5 h4 8.Ne6 g5! 0-1 (9.Nxg5 h3 10.Nxh3 Kxh3 11.Kd3 Kg2-+).
Keeping the pawn on h2 held the draw: 1.Nf2 Ne3+ 2.Kg1 Nc2 3.Nd3 g5 4.Kf2 Kh3 5.Kg1 h5 (5…Nd4 6.Nf2+ Kh4 7.Kg2) 6. Nf2+ Kh4 7.Nd3 =. Even the author of Basic Chess Endings can screw this up!
And yet in the following position the rook pawn was moved up a square, and the defender held.
Gligorich-Ivkov Yugoslavia 1971
1.Nf4 Kf7 2.Kf2 Kf6 3.g4 Ne5 4.Kg3 Kf7 5.Nd5 g6 6.Kf4 Nd3+ 7.Ke3 Nc5 8.Ke4 Nd7 9.Nf4 Nf6+ 10.Ke5 gxf5 11.gxf5 Nd7+ 12. Kd6 Nb6 (12…Kf6 13.Kd7 Kxf5 14.Ne2 Ke4 15.Ke6 Kf3 16.Kf5+-) 13.Nh5 Nc4 14.Kd5 Nb6+ 15.Ke6 Nd7+ 16.Kf4 Nc5 17.Ng3 Nd3+ 18.Ke3 Ne5 19.Ne4+ Kg7 20.Nf2 Kf6 21.Kf4 Nf7 22.Ne4+ Kg7 23.h4(?) Nd8 24.h5(?) Kf7 25.Nf2 Ke7! 26.Ng4 Nf7 27.Ke4 Nd6+ 28.Ke5 Nf7+ 29.Kd5 Ng5! 30.f6+ (30.Nxh6 Kf6 31.Kd4 Nh7 and 32…Kg5) Kf7 31.Ke5 Nf3+ 32.Ke4 Nh4! 33.Kd5 Nf3 1/2-1/2 (34.Ke4 Nh4 35.Ke5 Nf3+ 36.Kf4 Nd4=). However, I suspect Ivkov drew this game only because Gligorich advanced his h pawn to the fifth rank.
So what had I learned so far?
• Great accuracy was required
• Do not allow the opposing king to get out in front of the pawn
• Moving my sole remaining pawn may or may not draw – if it moves too far up the board it can easily be captured
• Keeping my sole remaining pawn on its original square may or may not draw
I went forth to try and hold this position against Fritz.
THE FRITZ SESSIONS
I initially had wanted to run this ending through the Nalimov tablebases, but they only cover endings with 6 or less pieces; this ending had 7. To receive a definitive answer, I went toe to toe against Fritz 10 – the time control was 4 minutes for each side, with a 2 second increment.
Fritz repeatedly clobbered me in this position, no matter where I placed the a pawn. Its assessment in all the training games was initially +0.85, but White’s favorable evaluation dramatically increased the farther the c pawn advanced up the board. Typical games went like this:
Fritz-Cherniack:
Pawn on a5
1…Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kd5 5.Nd8 Kc5 6.c4 a5 7.Ne6+ Kd6 8.Nd4 Kc5 9.Kc3 Nc8 10.Nb3+ Kb6 11.a4 Na7 12.c5+ Ka6 13.Kd4 Nc6+ 14.Kd5 Kb7 15.Kd6 +-
Pawn on a6
1…Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kb6 5.c4 Nc6 6.c5+ Kb7 7.Kc4 Ne7 8.Nd4 a6 9.Nc2 Ka7 10.Nb4 Kb7 11.Kd4 Nc8 12.Kd5 Na7 13.a4 Nc8 14.a5 Na7 15.c6+ +-
Pawn on a7
1…Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kb5 5.c4+ Ka5 6.c5 Kb5 7.a4+ Kc6 8.Kc4 Nc8 9. Nd4+ Kc7 10.Kb4 Kb7 11.c6+ Kb6 12.a5+ Kc7 13.Kc5 Kb8 14.Ne6 Ka8 15.a6 Kb8 16.c7+ Ka8 17.Nf4 Ne7 18.Nd5 Nc8 19.Kc6 Ne7+ 20.Kd6 Nc8+ 21.Kd7 +-
So I turned the tables, and gave Fritz Black.
Cherniack-Fritz:
Try 1
1...Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Nc2 Nc6 5.Ne3 Na5+ 6.Ka4 Nc4 =
Try 2
1...Ke5 2.Kc3 Nd5+ 3.Kc4 Nb6+ 4.Kd3 Kd5 5.Nb5 a5 6.Na3 a4 7.c4+ Kc5 8.Kc3 Nd7 9.Nc2 Nf6 10.Ne3 Ne4+ 11.Kd3 Nf2+ =
Try 3
1...Ke5 2.Nb5 Kd5 3.a4 Kc4 4.c3 Nd5 5.Na3+ Kd3 6.c4 Nb4 7.Kb3 a5 8.Nb5 Na6 =
Try 4
1...Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kd5 5.Nd8 Kc5 6.c4 Ng6 7.Nb7+ Kb6 8.Nd6 Kc5 9.Ne4+ Kd4 10.Nc3 a5 11.Na4 Ne5 =
The difference between Fritz and me was that my silicon partner was using a full court press, not allowing my c pawn to advance beyond the 4th rank. In Fritz’s positions with White, I was able to win most of the time after I had switched colors on move 7.
My impression from these practice games is that White wins if the c pawn reaches the 5th rank (no matter where Black places the a pawn), while keeping back the other pawn no farther than a3. Then White has less distance to defend the squares around the advanced c pawn and attack Black’s a pawn simultaneously, and can use the threat of knight forks to ram the extra pawn down to the last rank.
If, however, Black can keep the c pawn on the 4th rank (which is MUCH easier said than done), then White will eventually be forced to advance his a pawn farther and farther up the board to avoid three-fold repetition claims. Then you’ll reach an ending like Gligorich-Ivkov, where White’s pawns were so close together that both could be attacked at once (see the note to move 30). As confirmation, I turned Mr. Smarty-Pants on itself:
Fritz-Fritz
1...Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kd5 5.Nd8 Kd6 6.c4 Ng6 7.Nb7+ Kc6 8.Na5+ Kc5 9.Kc3 Nf4 10.Nb3+ Kc6 11.Nc1 Ne6 12.Nd3 Kb6 13.Kb4 Kc6 14.a4 Kd6 15.Kb5 Nc7+ 16.Ka5 Kc6 17.Kb4 Ne6 18.Ne5+ Kd6 19.Nf3 Kc6 20.a5 a6 21.Nd2 Nd4 22.Kc3 Ne6 23.Nf3 Nd8 24.Nd4+ Kc5 25.Nb3+ Kd6 26.Kc2 Nc6 27.Kb2 Ne5 28.Kc3 Nc6 29.Kd3 Ne5+ 30.Kd4 Nc6+ 31.Ke4 Nb4 32.c5+ Kc6 33.Ke5 Kb5 34.Kd4 Nc6+ 35.Kd5 Nb4+ 36.Kd6 Nc6 37.Kd7 Nxa5 38.Nxa5 Kxc5 =
To conclude, I will attempt to annotate the moves of this endgame, along with position evaluations from Fritz, and will not attach any question marks until my stinkers at the end. I can’t speak for my opponent, but I was exhausted!
Adamson-Cherniack, Foxwoods Open 2008
53…Ke5 (.88) 54.Nb5 (.73)
More promising is 53.c3 and 54.Kb3, as the computer invariably played.
53…Nc6 (.74) 55.c3 (.64) Kd5 (.65 ) 56.Na3 (.56) Kc5 (.64) 57. Kc2 (.59) Ne5 (.65) 58. Nb1 (.46) Nd7 (.66 ) 59.Nd2 (.66 ) Nb6 (.90)
59…Ne5 60.Kb3 a6 makes it harder for White to advance the c pawn.
60. Kb3 (.87) Nd5 (.95) 61. Ne4+ (.91) Kc6 (.92) 62. Kc4 (.92) Nc7 (.94) 63. Ng3 (.92) a6 (.95) 64. Nf5 (.96) Kb6 (.99) 65. Ne7 (.93) Nb5 (.93) 66. Ng6 (.72)
After 66.Nd5+ Kc6 67.Ne3 Nd6+ 68.Kb4 Ne4 69.Nf5 Nc5 70.Kc4 White’s king is securely in front of the passed pawn, has plenty of a pawn tempi moves in reserve, and has excellent chances to advance farther.
66…Kc6 (1.02)
66…Nd6+ 67.Kb4 a5+ 68.Kb3 leaves White back at “square 1” – see Cherniack-Fritz, try 2.
67. Nf4 (.93) Kb6 (.99) 68. Kb3 (.72) Nc7 (1.14)
Better was 68…Nd6. Now 69. c4 is possible, since Black can’t play 69…Kc5 and attack the pawn twice.
69. Nd3 (.94) Nb5 (.94) 70. c4 (.94) Nd4+ (.94) 71. Kc3 (.94) Nc6 (1.14)
71…Ne2+ 72.Kd2 Ng3 forces White’s King back.
72. Nc1 (1.03) Kc5 (1.00) 73. Nb3+ (.97)
73. a3 forces zugwang, as 73...a5 74.Nb3+ Kd6 75.Kd3 Kd6 (75…Kb6 76.c4 Ka6 77.c5 wins) 76.Kd3 a4 77.Nc1 Kc5 78.Kc3 Kb6 79.Nb3 forces more zugwangs.
73…Kd6 (.97) 74. Nd4 (.97) Nd8 (1.01) 75. Kb4 (1.01) Nb7 (1.05) 76. Nb3 (1.05) Kc6 (1.55) 77. Kc3 (1.00) Nd6 (1.04) 78. Nd4+ (1.04) Kc5 (1.04) 79. Ne6+ (1.04) Kc6 (1.04) 80. Kb4 (.97) Nb7 (2.47)
During the game I thought the pawn on a6 and the knight on b7 made a good barrier to stop White’s king from penetrating the 5th rank. However Fritz REALLY hates the knight on this square (see the notes to moves 99 and 105). Is there such a thing as a long side and a short side in knight endings? 80...Ne4 81.Ka5 Nc5 holds the fort.
81. Kc3 (0.00)
White’s caution is understandable in a sudden death time control, but with the knight on b7 he could have pulled the trigger much sooner. 81.c5+ and 82.Kc4 wins easily (81…Kd5 82.Nc7+ Kc6 83.Nxa6).
81…Kd6 (1.02)
Fritz for some reason considers the position dead equal (0.00) after 81…Nd6. I don’t know why – I don’t see any threefold repetition, and after 82.Kd3 the evaluation reverts to 1.10.
82. Nd4 (0.00) Nc5 (.97)
Same weird 0.00 evaluation here after 82…Nd8. 83.Nf3, and it’s back to .83.
83. Nc2 (.90) Kc6 (1.13) 84. Nb4+ (1.13) Kd6 (1.13) 85. Nd3 (1.13) Nb7 (1.47) 86. Kb4 (.97) Kc6 (.96) 87. a3 (.93) Kd6 (1.04) 88. Nc1 (.96) Kc6 (1.18)
88…Nd8 89.a4 Nc6+ 90.Ka3 Ne7 is more stubborn.
89. Nb3 (1.16) Kd6 (1.64) 90. Kc3 (.97) Nd8 (1.04) 91. Na5 (.94) Kc5 (.94) 92. Kd3 (.94) Kd6 (.94) 93. Nb3 (.94) Kc6 (.97) 94. Kd4 (.94) Ne6+ (.94) 95. Kc3 (.94) Nd8 (.97) 96. Nd2 (.93) Kc5 (.96) 97. Ne4+ (.94) Kc6 (.94) 98.Ng5 (.92) Kc5 (.92) 99. Kd3 (.93) Nb7 (1.41)
99…Kb6 100.Kd4 Nc6+ forces the king back to c3 (101.Kd5 Ne7+ 102.Ke4 Kc5).
100. Ne4+ (1.28) Kc6 (1.18) 101. Kd4 (1.18) Kb6 (1.30) 102. Kc3 (.94)
102.Kd5 Na5 103.c5+ (or 103.Nc5 Nc6 104.Ne6 Ne7 105.Kd5 Nc8 106.Kd7 Na7 107.c5+ +-) Kc7 104.Ng5 Nc6 105.Ne6+ Kd7 106.Nd4 was more conclusive.
102…Kc6 (.97) 103. Kb4 (.97) Kb6 (.97) 104. Nd2 (.97) Nc5 (.97) 105. Nb3 (1.04) Nb7? (2.29)
The same mined square, and this time it’s the fatal, losing move. 105...Nd3+ 106.Kc3 Nf4 107.Kd4 Ne2+ 108.Kd3 Ng3 holds the king back, as in the note to move 71.
106. a4 (2.27 ) Kc6?? (7.46)
The game can no longer be held, even with best moves. Both 106…Kc7 107.c5 Kc6 108.Kc4 Kd7 109.Nd4 and 106…a5+ 107.Kc3 Kc6 108.Kd4 Kd6 109.c5+ Kc6 110.Kc4 lead to zugzwang.
107. Na5+ (White is winning ) Nxa5 108. Kxa5 Kc5 109. Kxa6 Kc6 110. a5 Kc7 111. Kb5 Kb7 112. c5 Kc7 113. c6 Kc8 114. Kc5 Kc7 115. Kd5 1-0
I could speculate further on this ending, but I’m afraid that I’d be talking out of my butt. Knights are slippery, unpredictable buggers that hit you sideways. With perfect moves I had good chances to hold, but with perfect moves from my opponent, the game could have dragged out to to move 200 and beyond.
Adamson-Cherniack, Foxwoods Open 2008
Round 9 at the Foxwoods Open is always played after the cumulative effect of eight 6-hour games for three successive days; Round 8 began at 10:00 AM, finished at 4:00 PM, and this game began at 4:30 PM.
We were in the second part of the time control (40/2; SD/1), and this game was the last to finish in the entire tournament:
53…Ke5 54.Nb5 Nc6 55.c3 Kd5 56.Na3 Kc5 57. Kc2 Ne5 58. Nb1 Nd7 59.Nd2 Nb6 60. Kb3 Nd5 61. Ne4+ Kc6 62. Kc4 Nc7 63. Ng3 a6 64. Nf5 Kb6 65. Ne7 Nb5 66. Ng6 Kc6 67. Nf4 Kb6 68. Kb3 Nc7 69. Nd3 Nb5 70. c4 Nd4+ 71. Kc3 Nc6 72. Nc1 Kc5 73. Nb3+ Kd6 74. Nd4 Nd8 75. Kb4 Nb7 76. Nb3 Kc6 77. Kc3 Nd6 78. Nd4+ Kc5 79. Ne6+ Kc6 80. Kb4 Nb7 81. Kc3 Kd6 82. Nd4 Nc5 83. Nc2 Kc6 84. Nb4+ Kd6 85. Nd3 Nb7 86. Kb4 Kc6 87. a3 Kd6 88. Nc1 Kc6 89. Nb3 Kd6 90. Kc3 Nd8 91. Na5 Kc5 92. Kd3 Kd6 93. Nb3 Kc6 94. Kd4 Ne6+ 95. Kc3 Nd8 96. Nd2 Kc5 97. Ne4+ Kc6 98.Ng5 Kc5 99. Kd3 Nb7 100. Ne4+ Kc6 101. Kd4 Kb6 102. Kc3 Kc6 103. Kb4
At this point my opponent had 90 seconds left to finish the game, and I had 4 minutes. I claimed a draw before I made my next move, because no pieces or pawns had been exchanged for 50 moves. Dummy that I was, this claim had no validity because pawns had been moved. My opponent, an attorney, tried to counterclaim that I should be forfeited (I’m a chessplayer, not a legalist, and apparently people can be forfeited under USCF rules for making incorrect threefold repetition claims). The TD instead invoked the Continental Chess Association rules, and added two minutes to my opponent’s clock.
It was after 11:00 PM, and I was even more sick of playing on in this position, trying not to think of the subsequent 2 hour drive back to Boston and waking up to work the next day… I blundered in short order.
103…Kb6 104. Nd2 Nc5 105. Nb3 Nb7 106. a4
106… Kc6?? 107. Na5+ (this wouldn’t work with the pawn on a3) Nxa5 108. Kxa5 Kc5 109. Kxa6 Kc6 110. a5 Kc7 111. Kb5 Kb7 112. c5 Kc7 113. c6 Kc8 114. Kc5 Kc7 115. Kd5 1-0
I had promised a long-suffering Natasha Christiansen a ride back to Boston, and we eventually arrived back in Massachusetts at 1:30 AM. Her husband Larry very thoughtfully provided pizza for both of us when we returned; he had been receiving regular phone reports from Natasha throughout the evening, and recommended that Black leave the pawn on a7. After a few hours sleep I slogged through work later that day, and promised myself that I would find a way to hold this ending, if at all possible.
The question I pose to BCC members, and will try to answer, is – can Black draw this ending?
WHAT HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE
Before playing over actual games, I went to the BCC library and looked up what endgame book authors have written.
Rueben Fine, author of the granddaddy of ending books Basic Chess Endings, said that knight and pawn versus knight was usually a draw when the defending king in front of the pawn – the lone knight could usually give itself up for a pawn, or blockade it. That was promising. My king was in front of the pawns, and the extra set of pawns were rook pawns, so this drawing scenario was entirely possible:
Dvoretsky’s take on these kinds of endings (knight and 2 pawns vs. knight and 1 pawn) in Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual is that they can be frequently be saved, although defending them requires great accuracy. He also had an interesting quote from Botvinnik, who said that “knight endings were pawn endings:” the same factors that won pawn endgames (active king, outside passed pawn, zugszwang) directly applied to knights as well.
The most helpful book I found on this subject was David Hooper’s Practical Chess Endgames. He wrote when the pawns were on the same side of the board, knight endings could often be won, even though they were notoriously drawish in endings with bishops, rooks, and queens. The player with the extra pawn could win this ending if the pawns were not so widely spread across the board, and if the defender was unable to attack the blocked pawn.
Hooper gave two examples.
Botvinnik-Lisitsyn, Moscow 1935 (analysis)
In this position White draws:
1.Ne1 Kd4 2.Ng2 (tying the King to the defense of the f pawn) Ke5 3.Kb3 Nf5 (3…Nb5 4.Kb4) 4.Kb4 Ne3 5.Nh4 (or 5.Nxf4=) Nd5 6.Kb5 Kd4 7.Ng2 Kd3 8.Nf4+=
Chernikov-Chehover, Leningrad 1938
However in this position White loses:
1.Nd2 Nf5+ 2.Ke2 e3 3.Nf3+ Kf4 4.Ne1 Ke4 5.Kf1 Nd4 6.Kg2 Ne2 7.Nf3 Kd3 8.Ne5+ Kd4 9.Nf3+ Kc3 10.Ne5 Nf4+ 11.Kf3e2 12.Kf2 Nd3+ -+
Perturbed, I then started playing over actual games. I was perturbed because in my game the pawns were even closer together than the above example (bishop pawn and rook pawn), and because the loser in this example was named Chernikov!
WHAT HAS BEEN PLAYED BEFORE
Surprisingly, I couldn’t find any games of knight, bishop pawn, and rook pawn versus knight and rook pawn in the endgame books. I could only find examples in the Informant Encyclopedia of Chess Endings that covered minor piece endgames (N B 2d), and only after mentally calculating transitions from games of knight and 3 pawns vs. knight and 2 pawns.
Haag-Kluger Pecs 1976
This game quickly made me see how foolhardy it was to let the King get out ahead of the passed pawn.
1.Kf7! Nxg4 2.Nf8+ Kh8 3.Ne6 Nf2 (3…Nf6 4. Nxg7 Nd5 5.f5 Nf4 6.f6 Kh7 7.Kf8+-) 4.Nxg7 Nd3 5.Ne6 Kh7 6.Nf8 Kh8 7.Ng6+ Kh7 8.f5 Nf2 9.f6 Ne4 10.Ke7 Ng5 11.Ne5! (11.f7? Nxf7=) 1-0
Prandstetter-Donchev Prague (zt) 1985
This game made me realize how risky it was to advance the a pawn too far up the board.
1.c4 bxc4 2.bxc4 Kc6 3.a3 Nf6 4.Ne5+ Kb6 5.a4 Ka6 6.c5 Nh5 7.Nd3 Ng3 8.Nf4 Kb7 9.Kb5 Nc3+ 10.Kxa5 +- Kc6 11.Nd3 Kd5 12.Kb4 Ne2 13.a5 Nd4 14.a6 Kc6 15.Kc4 Ne6 16.Nb4+ Kc7 17.Kd5 Nf4+ 18.Ke5 Ng6+ 19.Ke4 Kb8 20.Kd5 1-0
Fine-Naidorf New York (m/3) 1949
Although not strictly a bishop pawn and rook pawn vs. rook pawn, this knight ending showed how crucial the decision was for the defender to move the rook pawn, or to leave it in the starting position.
1.h3? Ne3+ 2.Kh2 Nc2 3.Kg2 Ne1+ 4.Kf2 Kxh3! 5.Kxe1 Kg2 6.Ke2 h5 7.Ng5 h4 8.Ne6 g5! 0-1 (9.Nxg5 h3 10.Nxh3 Kxh3 11.Kd3 Kg2-+).
Keeping the pawn on h2 held the draw: 1.Nf2 Ne3+ 2.Kg1 Nc2 3.Nd3 g5 4.Kf2 Kh3 5.Kg1 h5 (5…Nd4 6.Nf2+ Kh4 7.Kg2) 6. Nf2+ Kh4 7.Nd3 =. Even the author of Basic Chess Endings can screw this up!
And yet in the following position the rook pawn was moved up a square, and the defender held.
Gligorich-Ivkov Yugoslavia 1971
1.Nf4 Kf7 2.Kf2 Kf6 3.g4 Ne5 4.Kg3 Kf7 5.Nd5 g6 6.Kf4 Nd3+ 7.Ke3 Nc5 8.Ke4 Nd7 9.Nf4 Nf6+ 10.Ke5 gxf5 11.gxf5 Nd7+ 12. Kd6 Nb6 (12…Kf6 13.Kd7 Kxf5 14.Ne2 Ke4 15.Ke6 Kf3 16.Kf5+-) 13.Nh5 Nc4 14.Kd5 Nb6+ 15.Ke6 Nd7+ 16.Kf4 Nc5 17.Ng3 Nd3+ 18.Ke3 Ne5 19.Ne4+ Kg7 20.Nf2 Kf6 21.Kf4 Nf7 22.Ne4+ Kg7 23.h4(?) Nd8 24.h5(?) Kf7 25.Nf2 Ke7! 26.Ng4 Nf7 27.Ke4 Nd6+ 28.Ke5 Nf7+ 29.Kd5 Ng5! 30.f6+ (30.Nxh6 Kf6 31.Kd4 Nh7 and 32…Kg5) Kf7 31.Ke5 Nf3+ 32.Ke4 Nh4! 33.Kd5 Nf3 1/2-1/2 (34.Ke4 Nh4 35.Ke5 Nf3+ 36.Kf4 Nd4=). However, I suspect Ivkov drew this game only because Gligorich advanced his h pawn to the fifth rank.
So what had I learned so far?
• Great accuracy was required
• Do not allow the opposing king to get out in front of the pawn
• Moving my sole remaining pawn may or may not draw – if it moves too far up the board it can easily be captured
• Keeping my sole remaining pawn on its original square may or may not draw
I went forth to try and hold this position against Fritz.
THE FRITZ SESSIONS
I initially had wanted to run this ending through the Nalimov tablebases, but they only cover endings with 6 or less pieces; this ending had 7. To receive a definitive answer, I went toe to toe against Fritz 10 – the time control was 4 minutes for each side, with a 2 second increment.
Fritz repeatedly clobbered me in this position, no matter where I placed the a pawn. Its assessment in all the training games was initially +0.85, but White’s favorable evaluation dramatically increased the farther the c pawn advanced up the board. Typical games went like this:
Fritz-Cherniack:
Pawn on a5
1…Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kd5 5.Nd8 Kc5 6.c4 a5 7.Ne6+ Kd6 8.Nd4 Kc5 9.Kc3 Nc8 10.Nb3+ Kb6 11.a4 Na7 12.c5+ Ka6 13.Kd4 Nc6+ 14.Kd5 Kb7 15.Kd6 +-
Pawn on a6
1…Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kb6 5.c4 Nc6 6.c5+ Kb7 7.Kc4 Ne7 8.Nd4 a6 9.Nc2 Ka7 10.Nb4 Kb7 11.Kd4 Nc8 12.Kd5 Na7 13.a4 Nc8 14.a5 Na7 15.c6+ +-
Pawn on a7
1…Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kb5 5.c4+ Ka5 6.c5 Kb5 7.a4+ Kc6 8.Kc4 Nc8 9. Nd4+ Kc7 10.Kb4 Kb7 11.c6+ Kb6 12.a5+ Kc7 13.Kc5 Kb8 14.Ne6 Ka8 15.a6 Kb8 16.c7+ Ka8 17.Nf4 Ne7 18.Nd5 Nc8 19.Kc6 Ne7+ 20.Kd6 Nc8+ 21.Kd7 +-
So I turned the tables, and gave Fritz Black.
Cherniack-Fritz:
Try 1
1...Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Nc2 Nc6 5.Ne3 Na5+ 6.Ka4 Nc4 =
Try 2
1...Ke5 2.Kc3 Nd5+ 3.Kc4 Nb6+ 4.Kd3 Kd5 5.Nb5 a5 6.Na3 a4 7.c4+ Kc5 8.Kc3 Nd7 9.Nc2 Nf6 10.Ne3 Ne4+ 11.Kd3 Nf2+ =
Try 3
1...Ke5 2.Nb5 Kd5 3.a4 Kc4 4.c3 Nd5 5.Na3+ Kd3 6.c4 Nb4 7.Kb3 a5 8.Nb5 Na6 =
Try 4
1...Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kd5 5.Nd8 Kc5 6.c4 Ng6 7.Nb7+ Kb6 8.Nd6 Kc5 9.Ne4+ Kd4 10.Nc3 a5 11.Na4 Ne5 =
The difference between Fritz and me was that my silicon partner was using a full court press, not allowing my c pawn to advance beyond the 4th rank. In Fritz’s positions with White, I was able to win most of the time after I had switched colors on move 7.
My impression from these practice games is that White wins if the c pawn reaches the 5th rank (no matter where Black places the a pawn), while keeping back the other pawn no farther than a3. Then White has less distance to defend the squares around the advanced c pawn and attack Black’s a pawn simultaneously, and can use the threat of knight forks to ram the extra pawn down to the last rank.
If, however, Black can keep the c pawn on the 4th rank (which is MUCH easier said than done), then White will eventually be forced to advance his a pawn farther and farther up the board to avoid three-fold repetition claims. Then you’ll reach an ending like Gligorich-Ivkov, where White’s pawns were so close together that both could be attacked at once (see the note to move 30). As confirmation, I turned Mr. Smarty-Pants on itself:
Fritz-Fritz
1...Ke5 2.c3 Kd5 3.Kb3 Kc5 4.Ne6+ Kd5 5.Nd8 Kd6 6.c4 Ng6 7.Nb7+ Kc6 8.Na5+ Kc5 9.Kc3 Nf4 10.Nb3+ Kc6 11.Nc1 Ne6 12.Nd3 Kb6 13.Kb4 Kc6 14.a4 Kd6 15.Kb5 Nc7+ 16.Ka5 Kc6 17.Kb4 Ne6 18.Ne5+ Kd6 19.Nf3 Kc6 20.a5 a6 21.Nd2 Nd4 22.Kc3 Ne6 23.Nf3 Nd8 24.Nd4+ Kc5 25.Nb3+ Kd6 26.Kc2 Nc6 27.Kb2 Ne5 28.Kc3 Nc6 29.Kd3 Ne5+ 30.Kd4 Nc6+ 31.Ke4 Nb4 32.c5+ Kc6 33.Ke5 Kb5 34.Kd4 Nc6+ 35.Kd5 Nb4+ 36.Kd6 Nc6 37.Kd7 Nxa5 38.Nxa5 Kxc5 =
To conclude, I will attempt to annotate the moves of this endgame, along with position evaluations from Fritz, and will not attach any question marks until my stinkers at the end. I can’t speak for my opponent, but I was exhausted!
Adamson-Cherniack, Foxwoods Open 2008
53…Ke5 (.88) 54.Nb5 (.73)
More promising is 53.c3 and 54.Kb3, as the computer invariably played.
53…Nc6 (.74) 55.c3 (.64) Kd5 (.65 ) 56.Na3 (.56) Kc5 (.64) 57. Kc2 (.59) Ne5 (.65) 58. Nb1 (.46) Nd7 (.66 ) 59.Nd2 (.66 ) Nb6 (.90)
59…Ne5 60.Kb3 a6 makes it harder for White to advance the c pawn.
60. Kb3 (.87) Nd5 (.95) 61. Ne4+ (.91) Kc6 (.92) 62. Kc4 (.92) Nc7 (.94) 63. Ng3 (.92) a6 (.95) 64. Nf5 (.96) Kb6 (.99) 65. Ne7 (.93) Nb5 (.93) 66. Ng6 (.72)
After 66.Nd5+ Kc6 67.Ne3 Nd6+ 68.Kb4 Ne4 69.Nf5 Nc5 70.Kc4 White’s king is securely in front of the passed pawn, has plenty of a pawn tempi moves in reserve, and has excellent chances to advance farther.
66…Kc6 (1.02)
66…Nd6+ 67.Kb4 a5+ 68.Kb3 leaves White back at “square 1” – see Cherniack-Fritz, try 2.
67. Nf4 (.93) Kb6 (.99) 68. Kb3 (.72) Nc7 (1.14)
Better was 68…Nd6. Now 69. c4 is possible, since Black can’t play 69…Kc5 and attack the pawn twice.
69. Nd3 (.94) Nb5 (.94) 70. c4 (.94) Nd4+ (.94) 71. Kc3 (.94) Nc6 (1.14)
71…Ne2+ 72.Kd2 Ng3 forces White’s King back.
72. Nc1 (1.03) Kc5 (1.00) 73. Nb3+ (.97)
73. a3 forces zugwang, as 73...a5 74.Nb3+ Kd6 75.Kd3 Kd6 (75…Kb6 76.c4 Ka6 77.c5 wins) 76.Kd3 a4 77.Nc1 Kc5 78.Kc3 Kb6 79.Nb3 forces more zugwangs.
73…Kd6 (.97) 74. Nd4 (.97) Nd8 (1.01) 75. Kb4 (1.01) Nb7 (1.05) 76. Nb3 (1.05) Kc6 (1.55) 77. Kc3 (1.00) Nd6 (1.04) 78. Nd4+ (1.04) Kc5 (1.04) 79. Ne6+ (1.04) Kc6 (1.04) 80. Kb4 (.97) Nb7 (2.47)
During the game I thought the pawn on a6 and the knight on b7 made a good barrier to stop White’s king from penetrating the 5th rank. However Fritz REALLY hates the knight on this square (see the notes to moves 99 and 105). Is there such a thing as a long side and a short side in knight endings? 80...Ne4 81.Ka5 Nc5 holds the fort.
81. Kc3 (0.00)
White’s caution is understandable in a sudden death time control, but with the knight on b7 he could have pulled the trigger much sooner. 81.c5+ and 82.Kc4 wins easily (81…Kd5 82.Nc7+ Kc6 83.Nxa6).
81…Kd6 (1.02)
Fritz for some reason considers the position dead equal (0.00) after 81…Nd6. I don’t know why – I don’t see any threefold repetition, and after 82.Kd3 the evaluation reverts to 1.10.
82. Nd4 (0.00) Nc5 (.97)
Same weird 0.00 evaluation here after 82…Nd8. 83.Nf3, and it’s back to .83.
83. Nc2 (.90) Kc6 (1.13) 84. Nb4+ (1.13) Kd6 (1.13) 85. Nd3 (1.13) Nb7 (1.47) 86. Kb4 (.97) Kc6 (.96) 87. a3 (.93) Kd6 (1.04) 88. Nc1 (.96) Kc6 (1.18)
88…Nd8 89.a4 Nc6+ 90.Ka3 Ne7 is more stubborn.
89. Nb3 (1.16) Kd6 (1.64) 90. Kc3 (.97) Nd8 (1.04) 91. Na5 (.94) Kc5 (.94) 92. Kd3 (.94) Kd6 (.94) 93. Nb3 (.94) Kc6 (.97) 94. Kd4 (.94) Ne6+ (.94) 95. Kc3 (.94) Nd8 (.97) 96. Nd2 (.93) Kc5 (.96) 97. Ne4+ (.94) Kc6 (.94) 98.Ng5 (.92) Kc5 (.92) 99. Kd3 (.93) Nb7 (1.41)
99…Kb6 100.Kd4 Nc6+ forces the king back to c3 (101.Kd5 Ne7+ 102.Ke4 Kc5).
100. Ne4+ (1.28) Kc6 (1.18) 101. Kd4 (1.18) Kb6 (1.30) 102. Kc3 (.94)
102.Kd5 Na5 103.c5+ (or 103.Nc5 Nc6 104.Ne6 Ne7 105.Kd5 Nc8 106.Kd7 Na7 107.c5+ +-) Kc7 104.Ng5 Nc6 105.Ne6+ Kd7 106.Nd4 was more conclusive.
102…Kc6 (.97) 103. Kb4 (.97) Kb6 (.97) 104. Nd2 (.97) Nc5 (.97) 105. Nb3 (1.04) Nb7? (2.29)
The same mined square, and this time it’s the fatal, losing move. 105...Nd3+ 106.Kc3 Nf4 107.Kd4 Ne2+ 108.Kd3 Ng3 holds the king back, as in the note to move 71.
106. a4 (2.27 ) Kc6?? (7.46)
The game can no longer be held, even with best moves. Both 106…Kc7 107.c5 Kc6 108.Kc4 Kd7 109.Nd4 and 106…a5+ 107.Kc3 Kc6 108.Kd4 Kd6 109.c5+ Kc6 110.Kc4 lead to zugzwang.
107. Na5+ (White is winning ) Nxa5 108. Kxa5 Kc5 109. Kxa6 Kc6 110. a5 Kc7 111. Kb5 Kb7 112. c5 Kc7 113. c6 Kc8 114. Kc5 Kc7 115. Kd5 1-0
I could speculate further on this ending, but I’m afraid that I’d be talking out of my butt. Knights are slippery, unpredictable buggers that hit you sideways. With perfect moves I had good chances to hold, but with perfect moves from my opponent, the game could have dragged out to to move 200 and beyond.
Gender Stereotypes and Style in Chess
from the Boston Globe April 20, 2008
Uncommon Knowledge: Surprising insights from the social sciences
CHESS IS A man's game. Not only do men vastly outnumber women in competition, but the perception that men are better seems to make women play worse.
After confirming that there is a widely held stereotype - shared by men and women - that men are better at chess, researchers set up a chess tournament on the Internet to match comparably ranked men and women against each other.
When the players were unaware of their opponent's gender, women played just as well as men. When the women were told that they would be playing a man and "that recent studies had shown that men earn clearly superior scores than women in chess games," their performance was cut in half.
Their performance did not suffer if they were told they were playing against another woman, even if they were actually playing a man. The researchers found the women's performance drop was caused by a change in their style of play: they became less confident and aggressive, and more defensive.
Maass, A. et al., "Checkmate? The Role of Gender Stereotypes in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport," European Journal of Social Psychology (March/April 2008).
Uncommon Knowledge: Surprising insights from the social sciences
CHESS IS A man's game. Not only do men vastly outnumber women in competition, but the perception that men are better seems to make women play worse.
After confirming that there is a widely held stereotype - shared by men and women - that men are better at chess, researchers set up a chess tournament on the Internet to match comparably ranked men and women against each other.
When the players were unaware of their opponent's gender, women played just as well as men. When the women were told that they would be playing a man and "that recent studies had shown that men earn clearly superior scores than women in chess games," their performance was cut in half.
Their performance did not suffer if they were told they were playing against another woman, even if they were actually playing a man. The researchers found the women's performance drop was caused by a change in their style of play: they became less confident and aggressive, and more defensive.
Maass, A. et al., "Checkmate? The Role of Gender Stereotypes in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport," European Journal of Social Psychology (March/April 2008).
Thursday, April 17, 2008
ChrissyBear Turns Tail
Update on the Thursday Night Swiss, currently running.
Paired against sometime expert Jason Rihel, Shabalov-killer Chris Williams was mortally wounded when Jason uncorked the stunning 1. e4! After struggling to a draw in the previous round, Chris was already reeling in this event before this loss. Although Jason had slightly exposed his king by moving its pawn cover, ChrissyBear turned tail and fled, forfeiting the game and incurring the Boylston Chess Club forfeiting penalty.
After Eric Godin and Simon Warfield played to a draw, Jason's defeat of the frightened ChrissyBear put him into a tie for first place going into the final round.
Update update: (Translation: Jason played e4.! and started Chris's clock. Chris never showed up, and he forfeited. Jason assumes Chris was scared off by his bold play.)
Update #2. 4/21 11:30PM Paul informs me that they missed a phone message saying that Chris couldn't come because he was sick. Naturally, I take everything back now. Maybe I should change the post to be directed at the TDs and this mystical invention called the answering machine. But I am out of steam-- after all, I had to kill my forfeited hour somehow, and the blog post was a way to burn some of the thumb twiddling time.
Paired against sometime expert Jason Rihel, Shabalov-killer Chris Williams was mortally wounded when Jason uncorked the stunning 1. e4! After struggling to a draw in the previous round, Chris was already reeling in this event before this loss. Although Jason had slightly exposed his king by moving its pawn cover, ChrissyBear turned tail and fled, forfeiting the game and incurring the Boylston Chess Club forfeiting penalty.
After Eric Godin and Simon Warfield played to a draw, Jason's defeat of the frightened ChrissyBear put him into a tie for first place going into the final round.
Update update: (Translation: Jason played e4.! and started Chris's clock. Chris never showed up, and he forfeited. Jason assumes Chris was scared off by his bold play.)
Update #2. 4/21 11:30PM Paul informs me that they missed a phone message saying that Chris couldn't come because he was sick. Naturally, I take everything back now. Maybe I should change the post to be directed at the TDs and this mystical invention called the answering machine. But I am out of steam-- after all, I had to kill my forfeited hour somehow, and the blog post was a way to burn some of the thumb twiddling time.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Cheating chess player loses mobile phone gambit
Cheating chess player loses mobile phone gambit |
By K.R. Nayar, Senior Reporter |
Dubai: A chess player from Iran, who cheated using his mobile phone to try and win a game, was chucked out of the Dubai Open Chess tournament. M. Sadatnajafi, with an Elo rating of 2301, while playing against Chinese Grandmaster Li Chao, made his moves based on the text messages he received on his mobile phone. Chief arbiter Casto Abundo, confirming the incident, said: "As per the International Chess Federation (FIDE) laws, no player is supposed to use the mobile phone while playing. The matter is still being investigated and a report is being forwarded to the FIDE for further action," said Abundo. Sadatnajafi is alleged to have followed instructions from some top player in Iran while playing against Chao. This match was relayed live on the internet and his friend, closely following his moves on the web, guided Sadatnajafi accordingly. Sadatnajafi had made only 10 moves when he was caught looking into his mobile handset. When confronted, he immediately dropped his cellphone. On examining the handset, it was found that he had received SMS instructions in Farsi. The identity of the friend who had sent the text messages is still to be known. Losing the title Chao went on to tie for the top position, but lost the title owing to Wesley So's better technical count. In December 2006, Indian chess player Umakant Sharma was banned for 10 years by the All Indian Chess Federation for using a bluetooth headset sewn into a cap to get help from a computer. Sharma's friends relayed moves made by a computer programme to him through the bluetooth set. Sadatnajafi may also face a ban or may even lose his rating. |
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Chess Style
Chess style Some players seem to be consistently aggressive, some positional, some play in a classical way, others are more hypermodern, some are scientific. These characteristics are classified as a chess player's style. Player's obtain these tendencies based on personality, experience, and coaching.
says that style accounts for 5% to 10% of a differentiator between one individual and another because in order to be a good chess player tactics and positional understanding must be mastered and those two elements constitute most of a person's chess knowledge.
I think given Jacob's personal experience, having originated in the Soviet Union, he would be correct for the Soviet playing population and his argument on style would also encompass formally trained US chess players of the last 15 years, especially all very young US players who are also teaching themselves by rubbing elbows with Botvinnik's progeny.
Interestingly I think that US players that became strong BEFORE the soviet émigré influx, by basically teaching themselves, have styles/approaches to chess that are more individualistic and unique than players that came after the 1980's. Examples like Bobby Fischer,
Larry Christiansen and Nick de Firmian, 
Jackie Peters, Arthur Bisguier, 
Reubin Fine all had to figure much of chess out on their own and have distinct non-Russian approaches to the game. While US coach Jack Collins
did train several good players like: Robert Byrne, Bobby Fischer 
and William Lombardy, 
these players had unique styles before they got coaching. And while it was common for strong US players to be mentored by someone, the approach was unorganized. In my team chess college days of the early 1970's Boston had a reputation of being the center of wildly aggressive players having Harry Lyman 
as a key instructor. In addition being the home of Weaver Adams, 
Harlow Daly,
and Harry Nelson Pillsbury 
who all were initiative junkies. Then the swashbuckling / coffeehouse style was tempered by improved defensive technique plus humans training on computers (that never make a tactical error) causing intimidation.
In the former Soviet Union the Botvinnik 
chess school had a very effective way of educating players that was unsurpassed anywhere else in the world. The distribution of grandmasters in each country 20 years ago had the Soviet Union leading with 100'ds of GM's. As players started to leave the Soviet Union, many coming to the USA, they spread their good chess coaching techniques to other parts of the world. The reason why there are so many good very very young players in the US today relates in most part to these émigrés’ great coaching. Germany has the most chessplayers in the world but only 1/3 of the grandmasters that Russia has.
One émigré and coach, Master Jacob Rasin,
says that style accounts for 5% to 10% of a differentiator between one individual and another because in order to be a good chess player tactics and positional understanding must be mastered and those two elements constitute most of a person's chess knowledge.I think given Jacob's personal experience, having originated in the Soviet Union, he would be correct for the Soviet playing population and his argument on style would also encompass formally trained US chess players of the last 15 years, especially all very young US players who are also teaching themselves by rubbing elbows with Botvinnik's progeny.
Interestingly I think that US players that became strong BEFORE the soviet émigré influx, by basically teaching themselves, have styles/approaches to chess that are more individualistic and unique than players that came after the 1980's. Examples like Bobby Fischer,
Larry Christiansen and Nick de Firmian, Jackie Peters, Arthur Bisguier, Reubin Fine all had to figure much of chess out on their own and have distinct non-Russian approaches to the game. While US coach Jack Collins did train several good players like: Robert Byrne, Bobby Fischer and William Lombardy, these players had unique styles before they got coaching. And while it was common for strong US players to be mentored by someone, the approach was unorganized. In my team chess college days of the early 1970's Boston had a reputation of being the center of wildly aggressive players having Harry Lyman as a key instructor. In addition being the home of Weaver Adams, Harlow Daly, and Harry Nelson Pillsbury who all were initiative junkies. Then the swashbuckling / coffeehouse style was tempered by improved defensive technique plus humans training on computers (that never make a tactical error) causing intimidation.John Curdo 
is the person whose career was probably hurt the most by émigrés.The young players of today are so much better trained in fundamentals and have learned so much at earlier stages in their cognitive development obtaining an understanding, consistency, and potential that was rare 25 years ago but common today.
is the person whose career was probably hurt the most by émigrés.The young players of today are so much better trained in fundamentals and have learned so much at earlier stages in their cognitive development obtaining an understanding, consistency, and potential that was rare 25 years ago but common today. The real question remains will these young lions continue to participate in OTB as adults? Do you think chess style is a minor component when compared with strategy and tactics? Do you think pre 1980 us players had more unique styles than today's players?
Please Comment. Mike Griffin 04/15/2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
DaVinci and chess-- A mystery
Check out this article in the New York Times about an old chess book, an old friendship, and speculation that DaVinci drew some chess diagrams. Or at least some people are fancifully imagining that he did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/arts/design/14leon.html
I don't know. Compare these pictures to The Last Supper or the Mona Lisa. The lines aren't even straight!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/arts/design/14leon.html
I don't know. Compare these pictures to The Last Supper or the Mona Lisa. The lines aren't even straight!
Boylston School Break Chess Camp
The Boylston Chess Foundation presents the
Boylston School Break Chess Camp
Over the course of the 2007-2008 school year, the Boylston Chess Foundation is planning to hold a series of chess camps December, February, and April school recesses, as well as one just as school gets out in June.
December recess: 26th, 27th, 28th 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. each day
February recess: 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. each day
April recess: 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 25th 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. each day
June (school’s out): 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. each day
These chess camps invite young chess players who already have a complete understanding of the rules of chess to come and develop their abilities. With a combination of lecture, question/answer, and hands-on techniques, the instructor(s) will cover:
Tactics Strategy Openings Middlegames Endgames Problems
Students will develop their memory, critical thinking skills, sense of fairness, attention span, and have fun in the process.
| Instructor: The head instructor will be Chess Master Jacob Rasin, an experienced coach who has been the coach of many of New England’s best young players and has inspired them to many championships. |
| ||
 | J. Rasin | ||
Who can join?:
School-age children, K to 12, interested in getting better at chess from motivated beginner to intermediate.
How much does it cost?:
Each camp is $60 for Boylston Chess Club members. Non-members who have never been members before will need to pay to join the club for one year in which case the camp fee is waived. (Parents with more than one child in the camp can get a discount—only $35 per child.)
| BCC Junior Membership - $100 | BCC Family Membership - $125 |
Reserve your place in one or more camps by contacting Paul MacIntyre, President of the Boylston Chess Foundation at (781) 322-7936 or boylstonchess@aol.com
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Go Vigorito!
USCF Home Chess Life Online 2008 April
Vigorito, Bhat, Robson and Sevillano Move to Semis
By Jennifer Shahade
April 13, 2008
In the 2008 U.S. State champion of champions tournament , held on World Chess Live on April 12 and 18-19 , IM David Vigorito of Massachusettes [and of the Boylston Chess Club ...rjo] and IM Vinay Bhat of Northern California won the Eastern and Western divisions. IM-elect Ray Robson and IM Enrico Sevillano came in second in their respective divisions, so they also advance to the semifinals. Bhat will face Sevillano while Robson takes on Vigorito.
The format for the qualifier was a blitz (five minutes+ one second incremement) double-round robin. Standings Western Conference, 14 games total 12.5 CofC-NorthCalif -- IM Vinay Bhat10.5 CofC-SoCal -- IM Enrico Sevillano 9.0 CofC-Arizona -- IM Levon Altounian 8.5 CofC-SDakota -- IM Sandor Kustar 8.5 CofC-Hawaii - NM Cornelius RubsammenEastern Conference, 18 games17.0 CofC-MA -- IM David Vigorito13.5 CofC-Florida -- IM-elect Ray Robson13.0 CofC-Georgia -- FM Kazim Gulamali11.0 CofC-PA -- IM Bryan Smith10.5 CofC-Virginia -- NM Edward Lu10.0 CofC-NCarolina -- NM Chris Mabe
IM David Vigorito with his books, including the new title Play the Semi-Slav. Photo Elizabeth Vicary.
To watch the semi-finals on April 18, Saturday and finals on April 19, Sunday, download the Dasher interface for World Chess Live. Dasher also has an interface for ICC, and your existing ICC handle will work, but you still have to download Dasher for WCL. Then "observe" the World Chess Live handles of the final four, "Cofc-MA" Vigorito, "Cofc-NorthCalif" for Vinay Bhat, "Cofc-Florida" for Robson and "Cofc-Socal" for Sevillano. Be sure to download the software in advance so you can watch the thrilling showdown for one of two final U.S. Championship spots. Also, look for updates here on CLO.
Vigorito, Bhat, Robson and Sevillano Move to Semis
By Jennifer Shahade
April 13, 2008
In the 2008 U.S. State champion of champions tournament , held on World Chess Live on April 12 and 18-19 , IM David Vigorito of Massachusettes [and of the Boylston Chess Club ...rjo] and IM Vinay Bhat of Northern California won the Eastern and Western divisions. IM-elect Ray Robson and IM Enrico Sevillano came in second in their respective divisions, so they also advance to the semifinals. Bhat will face Sevillano while Robson takes on Vigorito.
The format for the qualifier was a blitz (five minutes+ one second incremement) double-round robin. Standings Western Conference, 14 games total 12.5 CofC-NorthCalif -- IM Vinay Bhat10.5 CofC-SoCal -- IM Enrico Sevillano 9.0 CofC-Arizona -- IM Levon Altounian 8.5 CofC-SDakota -- IM Sandor Kustar 8.5 CofC-Hawaii - NM Cornelius RubsammenEastern Conference, 18 games17.0 CofC-MA -- IM David Vigorito13.5 CofC-Florida -- IM-elect Ray Robson13.0 CofC-Georgia -- FM Kazim Gulamali11.0 CofC-PA -- IM Bryan Smith10.5 CofC-Virginia -- NM Edward Lu10.0 CofC-NCarolina -- NM Chris Mabe
IM David Vigorito with his books, including the new title Play the Semi-Slav. Photo Elizabeth Vicary.
To watch the semi-finals on April 18, Saturday and finals on April 19, Sunday, download the Dasher interface for World Chess Live. Dasher also has an interface for ICC, and your existing ICC handle will work, but you still have to download Dasher for WCL. Then "observe" the World Chess Live handles of the final four, "Cofc-MA" Vigorito, "Cofc-NorthCalif" for Vinay Bhat, "Cofc-Florida" for Robson and "Cofc-Socal" for Sevillano. Be sure to download the software in advance so you can watch the thrilling showdown for one of two final U.S. Championship spots. Also, look for updates here on CLO.
RI STATE CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
Just a reminder:
2008
RHODE ISLAND STATE
CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
THIS WEEKEND SAT.- SUN.
APRIL 19-20
See details at: ttp://www.rhodeislandchess.org/
Frank DelBonis
Rhode Island Chess Association
P.O.Box 15444 Riverside, RI 02915 (401) 212-1335
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Chess and Bigotry
Many very bright and seemingly reasonable people may be called "complex" because they are prejudiced against a given group of people. Many times ethnocentrism is heralded as a good thing by some "defending the culture", as in the case of legislating English in lieu of Spanish. By 2050 the US will be 29% Latino having 82% of the increase in population growth from immigrants and their descendants. Will the US approach this situation like France, Canada, or find another approach? Any situation of them vs us, especially when a stressed majority perceives a threat, can turn out to have very dangerous results. Nefarious leaders play on these fears fostering outrage in order to grow their own power. Ironically the prosecution or bondage of a minority in turn enslaves the oppressing majority because of the side effects: sanctions that stifle liberty of some eventually smother the liberties of everyone. That is why we have a Bill of Rights that protects everyone, especially minorities. Today in Tibet the Dali Lama is trying to navigate a non violent, different path of co-acceptance.
In 2005 Boris Spassky, my chess hero,
signed an anti semitic petition in Russia trying to restrict Jewish people in participating in Russian politics. Spassky has also made some pretty bad remarks about Jewish people, too awful to repeat here. I can't comprehend how anyone who plays chess can have any type of prejudice if they take a good look at who plays and who is gifted at chess.David Bronstein, another chess hero of mine, 
had taken on the whole Soviet chess establishment that was biased against Jewish players in the 1950's. Opportunity denied by prejudice reduces the potential of all.
had taken on the whole Soviet chess establishment that was biased against Jewish players in the 1950's. Opportunity denied by prejudice reduces the potential of all. On any given tournament at the BCF you will see an amazing field of players of various race, religion, ethnicity, age, political background, and occupation. And any chess player who can state that any of the above mentioned characteristics can predict who is a better chess player, or better human being, is just plain wrong.
For example at today's tournament all of the following players could arrive:
Harold Dondis,
Lawyer Times, 
Gabe Frieden,
Natasha Christiansen, 
Charlie Mays, 
Jesse Nicholas,
, Lior Rozhansky, 
Melvin Zhang, 
John Pina, 
Eric Godin, 
Michelle Chen, 
Dave Glickman, 
Alan Price,
George Mirijanian, 
Satyajit Gupta, 
Ken Ho, 
Chris Chase and Satea Husari,
Bernardo Iglesias, 
Yogesh Raghunthan,
Ed Foye, 
Scott Didham, 
Chikwere Onyekwere,Mikhail Derazhne, 
Tony Scali and Rachel Dillon, 
Dave Vigorito and Greg Kaden, 
Kent Leung, 
Tony Cortizas,
Stuart Finney, 
Katherine Gasser, 
Alexander Ivanov, 
Ruben Portugues, 
Griffin Price, 
Mike Griffin, 
Bob Oresick, 
Vikas Shiva, 
not to mention the powerhouse Lung 
and Wang families.
Looks like a good time having a terrific amount of talent heaped with intelligence.
Boris you blew this one(???).
Is there any way US chess should prepare for the future change in demographics? Do you have any stories or comments about bigotry in chess? Please Comment.
Mike Griffin 04/08/2008
Pew Hispanic Center
http://pewhispanic.org/reports
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